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Eddie drags a hand up to smush his face, trying to force some feeling back into the skin. It’s cold. And the IV tugs on the back of his hand. And he’s cold. And he hates it here.
“Buck’s waiting,” Bobby offers lightly.
Eddie freezes mid-smush. He peeks through his fingers to peer at Bobby, who sits in the chair on Eddie’s left. Bobby’s hands are folded in his lap, his expression is open and curious, chin tilted down, eyebrows popped up.
Eddie frowns. “Outside?”
Bobby tips his head faintly in the direction of the waiting room. “Hunched in a chair. He’s been there for hours.”
The image lights like a flash-bang grenade in Eddie’s mind: a body draped in navy, elbows on knees, vacant expression pointed at the floor. Tense in every line of him. Probably a restless tap of the heel is getting on the nerves of everyone in a twenty-foot radius. The movement threatens to spill what remains of the tired, cold coffee pooled like mud in a soggy paper cup between Buck’s shaking hands. But it just barely stays inside. The anxiety just manages to stay contained.
Eddie tries to blink away the mental image. It’s so real, but it can’t be. Eddie can’t see Buck from here. Eddie’s hospital room door is closed. And still the picture of Buck remains, real. How is it so real?
It feels bad. Eddie doesn’t like it. Feels bad.
Plus there’s an empty chair on the other side of Eddie’s bed. Eddie tilts his head obviously toward it. If Buck’s waiting anywhere, why isn’t he here? If Buck needed to be here, he would be here. Right here. But he’s not. And Eddie doesn’t like that either. Feels bad.
Bobby huffs fondly, shakes his head, and pushes himself to standing. “I don’t know what to tell you.”
And Buck should be sitting right here, is the thing. Why isn’t Buck sitting right here? Was Buck sitting here before? Did something make Buck leave? Is something wrong that made Buck not want to sit right here? It’s not like anyone else should be sitting right here. Who else would anyone expect to take the second chair with Chris in El Paso and the other half of Eddie’s heart tapping an incessant heel against the linoleum, body draped in navy threatening to shake apart at the seams if somebody doesn’t nail his feet to the floor this second?
Bobby reaches out to pat Eddie’s closest ankle under the blanket. “I’ll send him in.”
Eddie nods distractedly.
The—
Wait.
The other half of Eddie’s heart?
Eddie’s stomach drops fast, like it got heavy enough to fall clear through the hospital bed, through the floor—maybe doesn’t stop until it hits the boiler room in the basement—in the blink of an eye.
Feels bad.
At the door, Bobby looks back one more time, expression sobering. “We’re glad you’re okay, Eddie.”
Eddie startles a little, locking eyes with Bobby. Eddie clears his throat before replying, “Thanks, Cap.”
Eddie doesn’t watch Bobby slip out of the room; just stares at the chair on his right, the one waiting to be occupied by Buck, the one that was always waiting for Buck, the one that Buck should have been crumpled in since the second Eddie got rolled into recovery.
Because who else but Eddie was going to wait in the hospital room when Buck’s shoulder got popped into place? Who else but Eddie was going to show up at Buck’s apartment to drop off a kid in crutches who knew how to make Buck smile again? Who else but Eddie was going to bring back Buck’s pulse after a lightning strike decided to take it all away?
It’s only fair, then, if Buck returns the favor. It would only be even if Buck were here.
So Buck should be here. Because nobody needs Buck the way Buck needs to be needed, except Eddie.
Eddie glares at the offending, unoccupied chair. It offers no answers. Doesn’t even apologize for being empty.
Eddie flops back against his pillows, suddenly flushed with mortification. At his own obliviousness, at his own feelings. At the longing in his chest to pad softly out of this room, find the figure folded in half over cold coffee, and slide gentle hands over tense shoulders to find the source of heat under the skin that feels like home.
Eddie doesn’t like the rush in his cheeks. Feels bad.
Eddie groans, slapping both hands over his eyes, squeezing pressure against his skull. He thinks about diving out the closest window, but he’s pretty sure it’s locked, and the feelings are inside him, anyway. There’s no escaping them now.
Anxious tapping lights on the outside of Eddie’s closed door. Eddie drops his hands from his face just in time to see the door swing open on its creaking hinges. Buck’s face peeks through the doorway before the rest of him shuffles past the threshold. As Buck crosses the room, he smiles a little sideways, offers his palms up in a quick shrugging gesture at the bed—“Hey, he lives!”—then slips his hands into his navy pants pockets.
Buck pauses at the foot of Eddie’s bed, standing.
Eddie frowns. Feels bad. Considers one more time busting out of the closest window. Remembers again that it’s probably locked. Eddie’s frown deepens.
Buck seems to falter. “How you feeling?”
Eddie glares at Buck.
Buck inhales, eyebrows crinkled, all concern, about to say something fragile, Eddie’s sure—
“Get in your chair,” Eddie orders.
Buck cocks his head. “I— what?”
“Sit down.” Eddie lifts a deadly serious finger to point at the chair on his right. “In the chair.”
Buck withdraws a little bit in surprise.
“Now.”
Buck mutely does as he’s told, gaze locked on Eddie. When Buck lowers himself to the seat, Eddie shuffles against his pillow. Eddie leans back, sighs, closes his eyes.
Feels right.
“How— uh, how you feeling?” Buck eventually repeats.
“Pretty fine.”
“Oh… That’s, that’s good. So. The meds are doing their job?”
“Feel fine.”
Several seconds pass in silence.
“Eddie.”
“Yeah, Buck.”
“Um,” Buck starts, then chuckles awkwardly.
Eddie pops open his eyes to scrutinize Buck’s bashful expression. Eddie must be scowling because Buck tries to disguise his laugh with a cough.
“You seem a little out of it, is all,” Buck hurries to explain. “With the— um… Nothing. Forget I said anything.”
“I’m not out of it.”
Buck nods obligingly, shifting back on the seat, posture opening into something unburdened. His lips tug into a grin, sly and loose, when he teases, “Then why’d you call it my chair?"
“Who else’s is it?” Eddie retorts, slurring halfway through the question.
Maybe he is a little out of it, Eddie thinks, internally cringing. Or maybe that’s just a lot of “s” sounds to make all at once. Whatever. Eddie’s not embarrassed. Because Buck’s here. Feels right.
Buck’s eyebrows crinkle a little in the middle. His smile drops fast, like it got heavy in the blink of an eye. Something falls down, clear through the floor, all the way to the boiler room. Eddie doesn’t know what, but he knows the feeling.
Feels bad. Eddie stares at the end of his bed, at his feet, acutely aware of the burning in his cheeks. Feels bad.
Eddie can’t bear the scrutiny of Buck’s crinkled eyebrows but he can’t bear the thought of sending Buck away either. Eddie wants to be invisible but he wants to be the only thing Buck can see for miles and miles. Eddie needs to be seen, more than anything, and he’s absolutely terrified of how long Buck’s been looking straight at him.
“Nobody’s,” Buck affirms quietly, easily.
The word brings Eddie instant relief. The syllables roll like water soothing the rocks that line a riverbed. The burn dissipates from Eddie’s cheeks, retreats gently back down his throat, curls softly behind his heart like a little flame in the hearth of a home.
But Eddie still can’t move. Won’t risk breaking whatever’s taking shape here now.
Then he feels the glide of hesitant fingers on the inside of his wrist, the practiced seeking of a pulse, then pushing past the bones and the veins to rest on the inside of Eddie’s hand, pressing heat to the center of Eddie’s palm. They’re not holding hands exactly but taking up each other’s space. Buck’s here, steady and patient, right here. Where he always should be.
Feels right. Feels good.