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Upon Eddie’s return to L.A., Buck, as well as the rest of the 118, insist they throw some sort of get-together at Eddie’s to celebrate. He was reluctant at first, but Eddie was a weak, weak man with Buck blinking his pleading eyes his way.
With recent revelations, following unusual circumstances including a Catholic priest and meddling little sisters, Eddie has found it increasingly difficult to say anything apart from yes, yes, yes to his best friend. His bright blue eyes, his soft brown curls, his birthmark that coincides with the red-pink tint of his lips.
Eddie has always known that Buck was attractive — tall and buff and contrastingly kind — but he’d never really noticed. Never let himself notice. But now that he’s accepting that he’s worthy of want, worthy of joy, he’s struggling with thinking about anything but.
Now, with Buck’s toned arms wrapped carefully around his niece, his blue eyes soft with adoration for her, it’s surreal to Eddie that he’s spent even a moment of their friendship not appreciating his looks, let alone seven years.
“You having fun, Jee?” he asks, his baby-voice peaking through the words despite how old she is now. Jee-Yun nods, her little fingers fiddling with a toy train Chris gave her to play with. “Yeah? You miss Uncle Eddie?” Buck says, turning his attention to Eddie who’s spent more than a platonically acceptable amount of time admiring from a distance. “Say ‘hi, Uncle Eddie.’”
“Hi, U’cle Eddie,” she says quietly, offering Eddie her toy.
“Awh, thanks, Jee,” he grins, taking the train into his hands.
“Too-too,” she points, trying to imitate the sound of a train.
“Choo-choo!” Buck exclaims, bouncing her a little in his arms, making her giggle into his neck.
Buck heads back into the living room, the sound of Jee-Yun’s muffled laughter fading into the background as Eddie retreats into the kitchen.
With the cheerful sounds of his family echoing into the other room, Eddie starts packing up the leftover food. He smiles fondly at the sound of Chim singing an old pop song obnoxiously, the few drinks he’s had clearly getting to him, and at Hen and her answering “oh, stop it!”
He shoves what he can into his fridge, leaving the rest out with the intention of forcing Buck and Karen to take the rest home.
“Hey, what are you doing in here?” Buck asks, peeking into the room, his smiling face paired with a worried furrow of the eyes. “I told you I’d clean up when everyone left,” he frowns, noticing the Tupperware Eddie has in hand.
“You cooked half of this, Buck. You don’t need to clean, too,” Eddie contests, leaning against the sink and wiping his sweaty hands along his admittedly very tight jeans.
“It’s your coming home party, Eddie,” he contradicts, moving further into the room and pouting down at the food. “You shouldn’t have to clean.”
“First of all, it’s not a party. Second, how about we just clean together?” Eddie proposes, pushing himself away from the counter. He grabs Buck’s shoulder. “But later. Let’s go back out there.”
Buck nods, and Eddie wonders if he’s imagining the flush spreading across his face.
“Yeah, ok,” he agrees, submitting to Eddie’s shepherding hand. He secretly takes pride in the way Buck melts under his touch and lets him guide him into the living room.
Chris is sitting on the floor, his tired body propped against the armchair where Denny has passed out from exhaustion and smiling softly at Jee-Yun smashing two toy trains into each other. Karen and Maddie are talking vibrantly on the couch, Karen’s glass of wine threatening to spill each time she accentuates a word with her hands. Chim and Hen are glaring playfully across the coffee table, each holding a respective hand of cards. Athena and Bobby left half an hour ago with the explanation of Athena having an early shift.
Buck joins Maddie and Karen on the couch, plopping himself right in between them. Eddie watches as Maddie smacks him on the shoulder, smiles adorning all three of their faces.
“Oh, you’re such a cheater!” Chim claims, hitting the table in half-hearted outrage. Maddie grins down at her husband and presses a sock-clad foot into his thigh, because Eddie absolutely does not tolerate shoes past his front door. Chim looks up at her sweetly, his anger fading completely away from his face. “You ok?” he asks, gently caressing her leg. She nods and Chim goes back to his and Hen’s game.
Eddie’s heart squeezes painfully at the sight of them all in their own little worlds.
While he has improved a lot in the “I deserve good things” department, he's not entirely sure he’ll ever feel deserving of this family he’s made for himself.
The thought recedes a bit when Buck lulls his head onto the back of the couch simply to smile at him. The magnetism Eddie has always felt around Buck draws him in. His feet are moving him forward before he can even think about it.
Eddie steps over Chimney to sit on the floor next to him, the spot right between Buck’s spread legs. He tries failingly to ignore the implications here — Chim leaning against Maddie’s knees, Eddie sat between Buck’s. Not because it embarrasses him, the idea that he and Buck could be anything more than best friends, but because he wants. He wants and wants and wants. He thinks that Buck wants too, that he looks at Eddie with the same adoration, that, sometime in his absence, he came to his own sort of revelation.
They’ve been dancing around each other since the night Buck showed up on his porch, his eyes sad but complicated, beer in hand. He didn’t even flinch at Eddie’s interesting clothing choices or the sweat building along his hairline.
Even then, coming down from that high of unbridled bliss, it had felt like a sign that he was told to seek joy and Buck coincidentally knocked on his front door.
He leans into Buck’s inner thigh, reveling in the warmth he finds there. He wishes desperately that Buck would run his fingers through his overgrown hair. He knows he won’t, not with his sister sitting thigh-to-thigh with him, but Eddie thinks he would take anything Buck had to give him, damn his audience.
“I think the kids are all tuckered out,” Maddie says, pointing to the armchair where now all three kids have passed out — Denny curled into himself in the actual seat, Chris leaning into the arm, his glasses askew, and Jee-Yun laying her head in his lap, a gentle hand on her shoulder.
“Yeah,” Karen says, laughing softly at the sight. “We should probably head home, huh?” She looks over at Hen who immediately meets her eyes, her eyes flickering to the way Eddie is leaning into Buck for a split moment.
Maddie sits her non-alcoholic drink down on the closest coaster and tries to stand. Eddie wonders if Chimney intentionally sat in the way of her legs when he shoots up to his feet immediately to help her stand.
“I’m pregnant, not incapable,” she says, rolling her eyes, using his arms for support anyway.
“I know,” he says simply.
Chimney gathers any trash they’ve left behind and discards it in the trash bag Buck set by the door.
Eddie’s eyes fall shut somewhere between Chim insisting he take Maddie’s bag and Karen getting up to jostle Denny awake.
He finds himself in a space between consciousness and unconsciousness, subconsciously taking in the sounds of his friends splitting leftovers and sharing goodbyes. Buck’s refusal to move his thigh from where Eddie lays brings a small smile to his face, even in this state.
“Can you wake Chris for me?” Eddie tunes in just enough to hear Buck whisper. “Eddie hasn’t been sleeping great. I don’t want to wake him.”
Eddie pushes impossibly closer, his movements languid enough to convince them he’s truly sleeping. His nose rubs against the seam of his dark wash jeans. He brings a hand to the cuff of his pants, rubs absentmindedly at the fabric there.
The door shuts behind their guests, and Chris retreats sleepily to his bedroom. Eddie allows himself a few more moments of this comfort before he pretends to shuffle awake.
He lays his hands atop one of Buck’s knees and uses them to prop up his head.
“Hey,” Buck says while Eddie’s tired eyes try to focus.
“Hey,” he grumbles back.
“I’ll clean up. You go to bed,” Buck tells him, and Eddie frowns.
He worries this moment is too delicate to touch, but he’s not sure he can take it any longer, keeping this love under his rib cage while it beats and beats and beats.
“Wait,” he says, pulling himself onto the couch next to him. “I— I want to talk to you.”
“Okay,” Buck says, his voice full of hesitance.
“So, I talked to that priest, and my sisters’ had few choice words about, well, my whole life. And I did a lot of reflecting while I was in Texas, and, um, first, I’m gay,” he pauses, looking into Buck’s eyes for any semblance of comfort to keep going. “And, also, I’m in love with you. I don’t expect you to reciprocate or anything. I just need you to know, for my sake, mostly, but also because I need you to know that you are good, that you are worth staying for, that—”
“You love me?” he asks quietly, his voice weak.
Eddie almost laughs. “Of course I do, Buck. I’ve never trusted anyone the way I trust you— not only with Christopher but with myself, too.”
“You… love me?” he asks, this time slower.
“Are you having a stroke?” Eddie laughs. “Yes, Buck, I love you.”
“I didn’t think…”
“You didn’t think what?”
“I just—” he tries and fails again. “Are you sure? ‘Cause if you’re not sure…”
“I’m sure, Buck,” Eddie assures him. “Like I said, I-I’m not expecting anything from you in return. I just needed you to—” Buck’s lips are on his before he can finish his sentence, his warm hands pressed gently against either side of his face.
It’s a chaste kiss, dry and short-lived, but Eddie preens with it anyway. Buck pulls away, his eyes flickering down to Eddie’s lip for a moment before he finds his eyes. Eddie hates how stupidly charming he finds the blush high on his cheeks.
“Yeah?” Eddie whispers between them, his breath mingling with Buck’s.
“Yeah.”