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“What are these?”
It’s been raining all week, the sky stretched grey and endless, and Eddie knows it’s just a matter of time before it starts to again. But right now—right now it’s not.
It’s not raining when Eddie takes the baggie of homemade cookies from Buck and turns it over in his hands and so if the universe is giving him this small moment of peace before the storm, he’s going to take it.
“Chocolate chip peanut butter Snickerdoodles,” Buck tells him proudly before turning a little sheepish when Eddie gives him a look and then adds: “Jee came up with the recipe a few weeks ago. It’s actually not that bad. Surprisingly.”
And that’s just—well. It can’t be bad, can it?
“Thank you.”
“Yeah, of course,” Buck shrugs effortlessly and shoves his hands deeper into his pockets. “Try not to devour them on the way, though. Save some for Chris. And—and text. When you get there.”
Eddie inhales sharply through his nose, frozen in it for a moment too long, so he might as well take it to make sure his early breakfast doesn’t spill out onto the asphalt when he eventually parts his lips and lets out a choked, “Yeah. I will. Thank you.”
“You said that already,” Buck’s brow furrows slightly and Eddie suddenly has the very real and very terrifying urge to let it anyway.
Because it’s impossible to look at him. At the bright blue of his best friend’s eyes that are daring to bore a hole in Eddie’s soul even on the greyest of days like this one.
“No, I mean—” he swallows instead, fingers tightening around the bag as he lets something else out: “Thank you. For everything. Honestly, I don’t know where I’d be right now without you. This move probably would’ve happened before I even finished my probie year.”
He laughs and it’s a self deprecating thing but it’s also the only kind he has right now.
“Yeah, same.” It’s quiet when Buck says it, not as self deprecating as Eddie was expecting but maybe just as honest. “I mean, not with the move but um…”
He looks down, shifting on his feet, and Eddie is caught in this quiet moment before the storm, unable to do anything but watch it come closer and see the way Buck licks his lips, turning the words over in this overthinker brain of his before he lets out: “Can I say something? Since we’re here and… Can I say something and can you promise not to make it a big deal?”
Eddie shrugs. He doesn’t know he’s in the eye of it. “Sure.”
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
“No—I mean. I love you,” Buck repeats but the words have an entire different meaning now. “I am currently in love with with you, and I know that’s weird for you to hear but I wanted you to… hear it. Probably not the best timing though, but y’know.”
And that’s not fair. Because How can Eddie not make a big deal out of it when he’s long since lost hope that Buck would ever love him the same way he does Buck? How can he not when he’s long since convinced himself that Buck would never be a part of that joy he’s learning to allow himself to want and to have, not in the way he wants him to be. But how can he let that confession out, when he’s the one leaving?
And when Buck shrugs, looks at the ground, rocking on his hills, Eddie doesn’t have the time to think of a better response than the one that inevitably leaves his lips and he knows he’ll regret it later when the one that finds its way out is:
“Buck I gotta go…”
“I know,” Buck nods. “You should uh—you should go. I just needed to say it to your face while you’re still here and—y’know, not over the phone.”
Eddie gets that. He wishes he was brave enough to do it himself. He thinks maybe if it was any other time he would find it in him eventually, but he does need to get going if he wants to be in El Paso before night comes.
So Eddie stays quiet, and then Buck’s shaking his head frantically but still doesn’t meet his eyes, and he must think Eddie is breaking his promise and he probably is but Buck doesn’t need to know that so when Buck says—
“No, hey. You gotta go. And you promised.”
—it breaks Eddie’s heart to just leave it at that.
It’s the coward’s move, but it’s better than Buck knowing the truth and watching Eddie leave him anyway. Because this thing Eddie is feeling—this thing he’s been carrying inside for longer than he cares to admit—it’s not the kind of feeling Eddie would walk out on. And it’s not the kind of feeling he wants Buck to think it is when he does.
It’s not raining but the air is thick and wet and cold so it’s a near thing, and when Eddie pulls Buck into a hug, forces his head up to rest over his shoulder, grips him tight and breathes him in for what he’d never want to be the last time—there’s dampness on his cheeks when he pulls away.
He chooses to blame it on the air and not the stinging of his eyes.
It’s not raining when he closes the truck door behind him after another promise to call when you get there, Eddie, but the cold doesn’t bite the same way anymore, and his cheeks are still wet, and his eyes still sting, and so he can’t blame it on the air anymore.
It’s not raining, but there’s this heavy cloud around him that refuses to let the sunlight in. The one that he left standing on the curb and knows would blind him if he was brave enough to send a glance at its direction in the rearview mirror.
It’s not raining when he leaves his quiet suburban neighborhood.
But it is when he makes a U-turn a few blocks later.
It’s raining hard when he slams the door closed and runs up the walkway back to his own front door and it’s raining hard when Buck opens it with wide eyes and a confused look on his face.
“Eddie—what—?”
Eddie still isn’t sure about a lot of things. About this move or about how he’s going to fix everything with his kid and get him to come home, wherever that might be, as much as Eddie wants it to be LA. He doesn’t know a lot of things but he does know one thing and right now it’s the only one that matters and it’s this:
“I’m in love with you too,” he tells him on a shaky exhale. “I think I’ve always been in love with you. And—and I’m coming back, I promise, and we’ll have all the time in the world to figure it all out, but I needed to say it to your face before—”
It’s still raining when Buck crosses the threshold, stepping into the pouring rain with him and it’s still raining when he grabs Eddie by the collar of his shirt, drags him closer like a promise of his own, and kisses him.
It’s still raining when Eddie feels Buck’s hands shaking against the nape of his neck and the warmth of Buck’s cheeks against the palms of his own. Feels the shape of plump pink lips curling into a smile against his.
And it’s still raining.
But Eddie’s not as cold anymore.
Not with the sun shining through his closed eyelids, wrapping him in it’s arms.