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Buck and Eddie had years ago fallen into a perfect rhythm. They spent their days working side by side and their nights at each other's houses, enjoying that safe and caring company, even as Chris’ absence felt like a shared weight they were still carrying. The conversations would flow, everlasting, ever-present. Now, the sun was setting outside Bucks's apartment, where they had been spending their afternoon.
As Buck rambled on about some little fact he had read - of irrelevant source - he placed ingredients for a cake on the table and then turned to wash his hands before he began mixing them.
“Well.” Eddie said when the chat seemed to take a pause, while gently bumping his knuckles on the table. “I’m feeling all sweaty. If it’s all the same to you, I’m gonna take a shower.” He got up and, as he walked up the stairs, he took off his shirt in an attempt to make it under the water faster.
“Go ahead” Buck perked his head up to look at Eddie, although unfaced by the fact that he was getting undressed as he walked. He was even a little pleased that they had gotten so comfortable around each other. “Oh. There might not be any soap on the shelf, take a new one out of the drawer under the sink.”
“Drawer under the sink, got it.” Eddie was trying to remove his shoe while still on the last steps of the stairs, which made him have to hop a little bit. Buck shook his head as he continued with his task, giggling at him.
A few minutes went by in a peaceful kind of quiet, the only sounds were the low jazz coming out of the speaker, Buck humming to the music (more like singing a few notes that had pretty much nothing to do with the others) and the water pouring from the shower up on the second floor.
The silence was disturbed by the bell ringing.
Buck quickly washed his hands full of flour and opened the door to his loft. He was very much surprised to see who was on the other side.
“Tommy.” He wasn’t sure how to feel about seeing him. He was mostly just confused.
“Hey Evan.” He seemed a little nervous, which was a weird sight to see, as he was usually the collected and experienced one during their relationship. “Can we talk?’
“Yeah, of course.” He moved to the side of the doorframe to subtly show him he could come in.
They stood for a few seconds in front of each other in the space between the kitchen and the stairs, as Buck waited for him to gather his thoughts. However, he was pretty sure he knew where this conversation was going.
“I’ve been thinking… maybe I made a mistake by, you know, breaking things off”
And just as Buck had thought, it was THAT kind of talk. He couldn’t believe what he was about to do, a month ago Buck would probably yell at him. Thank god time machines are still a technical problem with no answer.
“Oh, Tommy.” He tried to find the right words, non-hurtful words. “I’m sorry. I really am. A- a few weeks ago I would’ve been thrilled to hear that but-”
“Wait. Please. Let me explain.”
And how could he deny him that. He nodded for him to go on.
“I had this… fear. That you would realise something too deep into our relationship and I would be heartbroken. But lately I’ve been going over it and maybe I had it wrong, maybe you are seeing something that I’m not and, to be honest-”
“Buck” It was Eddie calling from the second floor, the smoke and shampoo smell from the bathroom flooding the bedroom. Freshly showered, he walked until he reached the end of the room and start of the stairs… naked. “I couldn't find towels in there, can you give me one?”
All three of them shifted to watch the opposite party, an expression of panic on Eddie's face, a pure stunned one on Tommys and Buck was… having trouble hiding his shock and his laughter at the same time. The whole situation was kind of ridiculous.
“Oh god. H-hey, Tommy” He covered himself as best he could with his hands. “How you doing man?” He thought about disappearing into the room or… forever, but he didn’t want Tommy to think he was willing to be naked in front of Buck and not him, that would just make it worse. Eddie really didn’t want to sabotage whatever was going on, if Buck wanted to get back together with him, he needed to support that (even if he kind of hated it).
Tommy focused on some unimportant spot in the living room. “I’m… alright Eddie, how are you?”
“I'm great” He flashed a somewhat exaggerated bright smile. “Buck?”
The blue eyes that had been stucked to the floor in a tremendous attempt not to find this hilarious, looked up at his best friend. “Yeap?”
“Towel.”
“Oh, right.” He kind of danced around a little until he remembered where those were. “They’re up stairs.” he said to Tommy as he climbed the steps to Eddie.
“Of course they are.” Was Tommy's resigned answer.
Eddie smiled too politely once more and vanished alongside Buck into the furthest corner of the bedroom, where the side table was. He watched as he opened one of the drawers, grabbed a gray towel and then proceeded to hit him with it. “Why are you naked!?” He whispered/screamed so he wouldn't be heard from the kitchen. Still, there was a little grin threatening to take over his face.
“I didn’t know he was here.” He imitated his tone. Then he was hit on the chest by a towel flying his way.
“Go. Get in there. Go." He waved him off in the direction of the bathroom.
“OK, OK, I’m going.”
When the door was closed, Buck went back to the guest.
“Sorry about that.”
“No, not at all. I should be sorry. If I had known I wouldn’t have come.” Tommy sounded truly sincere, which confused him once more.
“If you had known what? That Eddie was showering? Yeah, he does that sometimes, he says it keeps him clean or whatever.” He put all the sarcasm he had into that, trying to ease the situation with humour. He even made air quotes and everything.
“No, I mean, if I had known that you too were together.”
And. What?
“Me and Eddie?”
“Yeah”
“We are not together.” And that should have cleared it, right? Yet Tommy remained sure.
“Oh, it’s a casual thing then. That's OK.” How understanding of him… and how wrong.
“There’s nothing, no type of anything going on between me and Eddie.” The thought of Tommy thinking that made him a little anxious or, maybe a little exposed.
He now seemed even more confused than Buck.
“There’s nothing- OK. Yeah, I’m leaving.” He turned to go, decided.
Buck made a move to stop him before he slipped away with no explanations. “Wait. What- what does that mean?”
“What does it mean? Buck, this is exactly what I was getting at before.” Apart from the rigid, exasperated tone he was using, he was speaking really low in case Eddie decided to make an appearance. “When I said I was your first and not your last, it’s because I knew who. your. last. was. going. to. be.” He pointed multiple times towards the space the bathroom would be if it could be seen.
And, yeah, Buck was very much… not liking this conversation, that’s for sure. “What?”
“I was afraid you would do something impulsive about the way you actually feel about each other and I would be too far gone to walk away without a hole in my heart. But then these days I thought that, maybe, you’d come to the realisation a long time ago that he would never want you in that way and you were just… moving on, which is absolutely understandable. But now… “ He let out a sort of puff of air or a disbelieving laugh. “Now it’s evident that that man is going through it.”
“What are you talking about?” Something similar to hope settled in him at those words, yet he didn’t miss the guilt that came with them.
“Buck, you two have been in love with each other for eight. years. and I just- I can't. I can’t get in the middle of this. It’s too complicated… Sorry I showed up without calling.”
Buck wasn’t sure what to say to him. He couldn't help but feel bad. It seems like every relationship he has causes him to end up in the same lonely place provided by that drowning emotion of loving someone he just can’t have.
Tommy had made his way to the door by the time Eddie came out of the bathroom once more.
“I’m all dressed up now.” He hopped down the stairs and stood beside his best friend. “Sorry about that again.”
“Don’t worry. Truly.” He dismissed him with a small smile. “It was nice seeing you guys.”
And what could Buck say but: “Goodbye Tommy.”
Eddie waved as the door was closed. Then they both sighed, mentally out of breath.
“I am so so sorry, Buck.”
“Nah don’t worry. I was gonna say no to him anyway.” he made his way around the kitchen counter, back to the bowl with a half-made cake.
Eddie mirrored him on the other side, surprised. “You were? A couple of weeks ago you couldn’t wait for him to call you.”
“Yeah, I know, but then I realised it’s not him I missed but the idea of a relationship.” He mixed and mixed the already homogeneous dough of ingredients . “You know, the feeling of being cared for. But if i’m being honest, what we had is not what I want for my… it relationship. For the relationship.”
“OK… So what is?” Eddie was honestly curious, they didn’t normally talk about this kind of things. They comment about their relationships, sure, but not usually about what they want. It was weirdly simple to Eddie how those two things appeared to be separate matters in his mind.
Buck left the bowl alone to stand resting on the edge of the sink. “I don’t know. I just… I want more than just a relationship. I want a partner. I want… I don't know, I guess I want the kind of comfort and peace I feel at the 118. Just that sort of infinite trust.” He could disguise those words as finding ‘something similar to the reassuring type of feeling the firehouse gave him’ but deep down he knew that spinning wheel could only stop on one name. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m delusional.”
“Not at all.” Eddie stood up and walked up to him, their closeness not feeling enough to comfort him about this. “I get it, You want more than just a lover.”
“Right.”
“You want someone who is there for you.”
“Yes.”
“In all kinds of aspects.” He stopped right in front of him, close but not enough to touch.
“Yes.” Yes, Eddie. The word ‘friend’ is right there. It was hanging from the tip of Buck’s tongue.
“Someone who understands you.” He took a step forward and lightly tapped his chest with his hand before dropping it.
“...Right. Yes.”
Eddie raised his shoulders along with that pout of his and smiled so lovingly it was intoxicating. “Then bye bye Tommy. You’ll find it.”
He walked back to his place on the other side of the counter. Ouch.
“Buck, by the way.” He pointed upwards to his room. “We should check for something to replace the piece of floor before the steps, cause the water I was dripping kinda made it come off a little bit.”
…
'Excuse me?!?' He didn’t say it but he’s sure whatever expression he made helped the message reach Eddie's eyes no problem. He was about to kill him when his face suddenly merged into a smirk.
“I’m messing with you.”
And of course Buck picked a small part of dough and threw it his way. “Oh, you’re dead.” He threw another one while Eddie laughed his ass off. “There better not be any water when I get up there.”
Eddie was offended by that. “Who do you take me for? I cleaned it as soon as I got out.”
Buck didn’t care. He picked a little bit of flour this time and sent it flying.
“No! I just took a shower” His grin was wider than the loft.
“Well, maybe you deserve it, for walking around naked in front of my ex-boyfriend!” More flour filled the air. To Eddie’s relief, he managed to dodge it.
“I didn’t know he was here!”
“Oh, please. You are a show off.”
Eddie’s jaw dropped in playful disbelief, then turned around towards the stairs to get his discarded clothes from the bathroom. “Well, buckle up, Buckaroo. Next time he shows up, I’m doing a strip tease.” He let his jacket slowly fall off his shoulders as he walked before pulling it back up.
Buck couldn’t help but laugh at that. “You are an idiot, Edmundo.”
Which of course, had to result in: “You love it, Evan.” Then he was gone.
And, yeah. Fuck. He did.
Buck was left with nothing but the reality of that statement and a spacefull mind to overthink it for the rest of his time on earth.