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After a minute or two, the song blasting over Eddie’s speakers ends, and the house is catapulted into complete silence for a couple of minutes. It’s a comfortable silence, and now that Eddie’s caught his breath and taken in Buck’s state, he can tell something is wrong.
Buck clears his throat, eyes darting momentarily down to Eddie’s bare thighs and immediately away again.
Right.
That.
Eddie can tell Buck wants to ask what’s going on with his whole look right now, and conversely, Eddie wants to know why Buck looks so… it’s not quite sad. Maybe confused, or angry.
“I’ll tell you what. You share why you look like someone… killed a puppy in front of you and I’ll fess up as to why I’m not wearing pants.”
Buck’s brow furrows with concern. “Killed a puppy? Eddie, what the—“
“Nevermind that. So, I was dancing. Letting myself feel joy and all that. Y’know, Risky Business?”
“Risky… what?”
It's disappointing but not surprising.
It’s always fascinating how Buck knows so much about so many things but somehow missed multiple generations worth of culture-defining media.
“Tom Cruise? Famously dances around in his tighty whities?”
Eddie catches Buck glancing down again for just a second before nodding and humming in acceptance. It doesn’t seem like he has much else to say, so Eddie prompts him once he can tell that Buck will be receptive.
“Your turn.” Eddie takes a sip of his beer and waits patiently for the man at the other end of the couch to fess up.
Buck closely watches his fingers tapping against his almost-empty beer bottle. “Um. Well. Tommy and I broke up.”
That captures Eddie’s attention enough that he has to set his beer down on the coffee table and turn to properly face him. He tilts his head slightly, minor surprise likely visible on his face, and contemplates what to say to that.
Buck’s staring blankly ahead, still looking upset but not exactly sad.
“I’m so sorry,” is all he can think to say.
And he finds himself meaning it, despite everything. The ‘everything’ in question being the not-so-great vibes between Buck and Tommy that Eddie caught on to over time. Tommy wouldn’t take Buck seriously, didn’t listen to him, made fun of him. It was all light-hearted, sure, but it just felt wrong. Like while Eddie laughs with Buck because he sees him as a lovable person who he values and who brings joy into his life, Tommy laughs at him because he sees him as immature or unserious. Like he didn’t realize that the unserious parts of Buck bring life-changing happiness regardless, but they’re also balanced out by him being a committed, caring, deeply intelligent person.
But who knows, it’s not like Eddie could read Tommy’s mind.
He can tell that Buck wants to talk about it, but Eddie wants to let him guide the conversation.
“Are you okay? Do you wanna… talk about what happened?”
Buck sighs so hard that Eddie can almost feel it even though there’s easily half a couch cushion worth of space between them. “Yeah, just. I need to sit with it for a little bit longer.”
Eddie doesn’t point out the fact that they already sat in silence for easily five minutes before. Because even 300 seconds feels like a lot when your best friend is sitting next to you looking cryptically sad after showing up at your house with a six-pack and ignoring the fact that you’re pantsless, sweaty, and out of breath.
“Can you talk first? Maybe about the Tom Cruise thing?”
He laughs. “Tom Cruise wasn’t the point, really. I was just enjoying some loud music and freedom.” Not that he’s not free to dance around like that when his son is in the house, he just would probably dress differently, do it quieter, or if he cared about being made fun of, then not do it at all.
“That’s… healthy?”
“Well, of all things, it’s all thanks to a priest.”
Eddie recounts, fairly briefly, and winding down from his previous manic energy, his recent journey from confession to the juice bar.
“And when he pointed it all out I finally realized… I’m tired. Not sleep-deprived, more, um, worn-out. It’s like I’ve been trying to outrun something for— I don’t even know how long? Just going through the motions, trying to stay upright and at a steady speed. But… over time the ground I’m running on has turned into like, I don’t know, hot coals or something so it’s burning my feet the harder I run, like a punishment.”
“Okay, respectfully, the whole Catholic thing really fucked y—“
“Respectfully, Buck, if you— if you just listen to the rest of what I’m saying, it’ll make sense. I think.”
Buck shuts his mouth and makes a zipping gesture in front of it to signal he’s shutting up, and a moment (or two or three) later, Eddie’s gaze is still stuck enough on Buck’s lips to notice that he technically opens them right back up again to finish his beer anyway.
He looks away from Buck because he’s now licking his lips and stretching out his unnecessarily thick arm muscles to set the bottle down and wrapping his big hand around a second one because clearly the man has no decency.
“So I was running through hot coals or, like, fire, yeah?” Eddie says to the couch, “I was running through fire faster and faster. And now, for the first time, I— I have the time to slow down and breathe for a sec. And I’m finally realizing that just letting it—whatever’s chasing me or whatever I’ve been running from, I guess—letting it catch up to me as long as I’m standing in one spot, and breathing, isn’t as energy-draining as running away. And maybe I’ll have the energy to… be joyful, then.”
And damn, that last part would’ve made at least one of the therapists he’d briefly seen and ghosted over the years proud. In addition to the abnormally attractive ‘priest’ (the coincidence mixed with the looks and the flirtiness still seem a little suspect to him but whatever).
“So what is it?” Buck asks softly.
“Hmm?”
“The thing that’s chasing you, that you’re giving in to. What is it? Surely not the fire—“
“No, no, ignore the fire part. I’m just… trying to not punish myself anymore. I need to take care of myself instead, because— because if I don’t, then I can’t take care of anyone else.”
Buck rolls his eyes but it’s not with any malice, but rather with… endearment? “As if I haven’t been saying that exact thing to you for years, Diaz.”
It’s Eddie’s turn to roll his eyes a bit. “Yeah, is that so, Buckley?” He stresses the second syllable jokingly as he leans a little closer towards him. “Well then, you should be happier than anyone that I’ve decided to listen.”
“Only took a hot priest saying it,” Buck mumbles.
“Hey! I never said he was hot.” Eddie grins.
“You said he looked like a combination of me and that one British actor. But with a beard. That’s, like, objectively hot.”
And look.
Eddie is by no means an authority on attractiveness in men. That being said, he sees what Buck is getting at. The right kind of beard on the right kind of jawline is admittedly nice to look at. Like when Buck grows out his stubble when they have a few days off. It suits Buck well, but Buck’s just… objectively hot, Eddie realizes, like Buck said about Father Brian.
“Yeah, yeah, alright. Don’t get your hopes up though. He said he was celibate when he was shooting me down.”
“Sorry, he was what?”
Oh, right. “That… was out of context. When he approached me at the juice bar, he looked at me this certain way and asked if I ‘come here often’ so I assumed he was flirting with me? But then he just said he was celibate.”
Being on the receiving end of a blank stare from Buck, neither of them knowing what to say next, is always unsettling.
Then Buck says, “But you… had flirted back?”
“Oh! No, um…” This situation feels different than it did with a near-stranger.
Eddie knows all about Buck’s recent journey and realizations, and how Buck had thought he was straight until a few months ago, so he doesn’t wanna jump right to that immediate automatic defense. It feels insensitive.
“No, I just thought he was. Like dude, he called my mustache handsome.”
Buck shrugs. “It was.” He says it so matter-of-fact, like an instinct. “Not that you’re not still just really handsome without it.”
“Thanks. Um.” Eddie wants to be done talking about himself now. “Do you wanna— what have you been… up to?” Eddie hopes that’s not too close to outright asking ‘hey why did you and your boyfriend who you seemed so happy with but who you deserve better than break up?’ and luckily it is.
Buck takes a deep breath then explains point by point, starting with how casually Tommy dropped that romantic history tidbit, through some metaphor about Glee that Eddie will have to think harder about later, up to showing up at Eddie’s front door.
First of all, and Eddie doesn’t say this part out loud, it’s absolutely a blessing in disguise that Tommy didn’t for some reason agree to move in with Buck. That would have made for an even messier end inevitably.
Because while Tommy could have put it more eloquently to avoid making Buck’s eyes all sad like this, it does make sense that they weren’t meant to last. Whoever Buck’s person is will know him in and out, and they won’t feel like they’re putting in an effort to do so. They’ll fit together naturally, like breathing.
Something Eddie needs to make sure he’s properly doing as he closely watches Buck talk.
And then there’s the Abby of it all!? He hasn’t heard that name in years.
That was nice while it lasted.
It really is like they’re both stuck in their own hamster wheels, Eddie realizes. Haunted by their pasts, going around and around in circles with it, never actually getting anywhere new.
“I mean… what are the chances, right!?” Buck exclaims. “Like sure, maybe I guess he was right about some of it, like obviously we wouldn’t last if he wasn’t as in as I was, and I still shouldn’t have asked him to move in yet and scared him away, but… why now, why him… and why Abby?”
“Did you even know she had been engaged?”
“No, I didn’t. I knew she had a serious relationship just before meeting me, and that it messed her up a bit. But that makes sense now, I mean, she almost married a gay guy.”
“He didn’t lead her on on purpose though, right?”
Buck sighs with his whole body and turns to face Eddie, practically sitting cross-legged with his back to the armrest. He almost looks smaller, which is a bitterly familiar variation of Buck he’s seen glimpses of only a handful of times, most recently when they’d hang out with Tommy.
Without meaning to, Eddie finds himself mirroring Buck’s body language.
“I’m sure he didn’t, but. I mean— can you imagine it? Being with someone for years, to the level of marriage, only for them to end up not even having been capable of feeling for you what you felt for them?”
Huh. “I don’t know if it’s that simple, Buck—”
“I know, I know, the pre-Glee world was less accepting.”
Eddie’s pretty sure that based on quick mental math, this Tommy-Abby thing would have happened in a very much post-Glee world, but that’s not the point. “No, that’s not— It’s just— Sure, maybe he knew about himself that whole time, but it wasn’t on purpose, like you said, right? Even if part of him was, subconsciously, keeping it up because fitting in and doing what everyone thought was right was the path of least resistance… I’m saying, what if he really thought, that whole time, that he could change? Make himself have feelings for her?”
“Eddie, you know that’s not—”
“No, I know. I know. But what if, even though he knew, he was trying anyway? For her, or— or for them?”
Buck frowns. “I’m not sure he liked her very much at all. He called her ‘nuts’ for ‘taking up with a himbo half her age’ after he broke up with her.”
Oh. Eddie winces. “Huh.”
“I dunno, though. I can’t imagine knowing that about myself and… yeah. Not really. Even in retrospect, I can’t think of any instances of me knowing I liked guys, not until I kissed one. But then, at the same time I guess how is anyone expected to know for sure they’re straight until they test it?”
“I’m sorry, what?”
Buck holds up a finger while he quickly downs the last of his second beer.
“Buck—”
“Hear me out, okay?” He says, only a fraction as manic as Eddie had felt earlier but enough to seem relatively revved up. He sets his bottle aside with a slight wobble as he shifts back onto the couch, noticeably closer to Eddie. “At the restaurant, Tommy said he was a ‘Kinsey six,’ do you know what that is?”
Eddie barely shakes his head before Buck continues.
“I didn’t either! So I googled it, and long story short—” Eddie knows that’s code for Buck absorbed easily an hour’s worth of knowledge that he’d probably be happy to share if prompted, “—it turns out there’s a whole spectrum that everyone exists on, even if it shouldn’t be quantified how it used to be and doesn’t make sense to be put on such a binary like that— Anyways, not the point. I just feel like, if people have to come out as gay, or bisexual, why shouldn’t they also have to come out as straight? Why is there a ‘default’? And how are people supposed to know they’re not that ‘default’ without trying out all their options? Like when I did, I wished I had done it earlier but it just never occurred to me as a possibility. But it is, Eddie, it is.”
Eddie’s breath skips as he breathes in and blinks quickly to try to focus. He had been generally admiring Buck’s idealism for society from afar until that last part which felt pretty directed. “What are you saying?”
Suddenly, Buck’s probably-beer-fueled passion dials down and he sits up straight; Eddie hadn’t even realized they had both been slouching inwards to the point that there was only maybe a foot between them. At a more appropriate volume for how late it probably is by now, Buck says, “I don’t know. Sorry.”
Wherever god is and whatever god’s deal is, all Eddie can do is pray that they understand (and forgive, if necessary) his thought process in this moment, even though he hasn’t even consciously examined it himself. Because if he would take a second to think, really think through the potential outcomes of his decisions, he likely wouldn’t do what he does next.
So he doesn’t actually know how he ends up kissing his best friend. He doesn’t remember deciding to lean in or who closed the last tiny bit of distance. All he knows is the second their lips touch, he feels chills across his entire body. Tension he had never noticed in his shoulders and neck starts to dissolve, and he becomes completely fluid like he’s left his body, when Buck presses in closer, pushes deeper, and lands his hands on Eddie’s jaw like they’re falling into place where they’ve always belonged. And Buck kisses him back, really kisses him.
Deep in the pit of Eddie’s stomach, he knows the fire he had been running through is finally gone. Or… it’s a different kind of fire. One that feels life-sustaining, ground-breaking, and beautiful all at the same time.
The scary, unknown thing he had been running from has caught up to him and engulfed him in light.
It’s never felt this natural to him before, and he never knew that all along it could feel this good. He’s drawn Buck’s tongue into his mouth and his oxygen supply is likely almost entirely gone when all of a sudden, Buck pulls away just a bit and everything shatters.
With what feels like more strength than he’s ever needed when deadlifting, he forces his eyelids open and makes eye contact with his best friend.
“Eddie,” Buck rasps out, in a tone that physically rips Eddie’s heart out of his chest.
Looking into Buck’s eyes, feeling his shaky breath brush across Eddie’s own lips, and terrified of what Buck might say next, Eddie fights half his instincts telling him to run and the other half telling him to get on his knees and beg for forgiveness.
“We can’t— you can’t— Eddie. I—” he gasps slightly, “I can’t be your first.”
What?
“Eddie, please don’t make me be your first. Because… what if I’m not your last?”
“Oh. Buck .”
It’s like whiplash, in just a minute going from so oblivious, to suddenly seeing the world a whole new way because he’s hot for his best friend, to confused and scared and so unsure how to voice what he’s thinking.
He swallows down the balloon of fear lodged in his windpipe.
“This isn’t coming out of nowhere for me, and I think— I think it’s not for you either. But that’s not what this is to me. You’re already the most important person in my life, in my son’s life, you know how much we love you. You’re not something to aimlessly experiment with, Buck, you’re it .”
Buck isn’t crying, but it’s a near thing for a moment before he blinks and his eyes look less excessively wet.
“And… I really want to keep kissing you so I can confirm this but… I’m pretty damn sure you’re not only my last, but you’re my only. I’ve never—”
“Oh, fuck this ‘first’ shit,” Buck exclaims. “That’s a much better word for it— only.”
Before Eddie can catch his breath and come up with some witty way of asking for it again, Buck leans back in.
And Eddie was right, there’s nothing else in the world like being wanted back by the person who he can’t hide from, who knows him so well that even though they’ve never done this before, he knows exactly what makes Eddie feel good.
Because it’s Buck.