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Eddie leaves and Buck doesn’t spiral. He’s fine. He stands in the rain until there’s no sign of Eddie’s truck anymore. He goes inside and he is fine.
Eddie had been in a hurry to get out of LA as soon as he had made up his mind about moving back to Texas. He'd found a partly furnished rental place, so he hadn’t taken absolutely everything he owns with him, just most of it. He had given Buck the keys to 4995 South Bedford Street. Buck would be the unofficial owner until Eddie would make up his mind about what he would do with the house.
The place isn’t important to Eddie anymore – everything important is waiting for him in El Paso.
Buck enters the somewhat empty house. There’s half-eaten breakfast they had shared on the dining table. Everything in Eddie’s bedroom is gone, except for the bedside tables he had never really cared for. The living room is stripped of everything but the couch.
Buck sits down and he doesn’t let himself think of anything. He is fine. He takes out his laptop to distract himself, you know, from being so incredibly fine and well-adjusted to this life change. He opens YouTube and clicks on the first video to fill the silence, that doesn’t actually bother him – he is fine.
It takes five minutes for him to focus on the video he is watching. It’s some British dudes playing the Sims 4. He watches for a moment, but they don’t really seem to know what they are doing. There are some other Sims videos suggested, so he clicks on them instead.
Buck is not really a gamer, he mostly enjoys video games when he is playing with Christopher. But Christopher isn’t here anymore and he won't be coming back. Buck has three full days of nothing and no one as his company except for the ghosts of Eddie’s house.
He downloads the game.
“Huh”, he says as the create a Sim part of the game opens and the dude it suggests kind of looks like him. “That could be fun”, he mutters to himself as he starts trying to match the Sim’s curl pattern to his own. There isn’t a way to get an accurate birthmark or match his tattoos, but it’s fine. He can make do. The clothes are much faster to pick – he doesn’t think he has that complicated of a style.
He looks at his creation and clicks on the top corner. He picks the Big Happy Family Aspiration for himself – it’s the one that resonates with him the most. His family, not the biological one but the one he made, is the most important thing to him. So it shall be the most important thing to the virtual version of him as well.
He hesitates at his name for a moment before writing Buck Buckley. He does want this pixel version of him to have his true name, not the want he doesn’t think represents him anymore.
He is ready, he thinks, until he sees the option of creating another Sim. It would be simple, just to make sure the fake-Buck wouldn’t be so alone. He doesn’t want this version of him to be alone, too.
He clicks on it and doesn’t think about it as he creates a copy of Eddie.
It doesn’t look the exact same – getting the muscles right doesn’t seem to work and the game doesn’t even come close to Eddie’s eyes, but Buck tries. He gives Eddie those nighttime slippers he loves. He thinks about giving him a moustache but forgoes that, no matter how much he had personally liked that on Eddie’s face. He gives Eddie the Super Parent aspiration, because that’s what he deserves. Eddie is a great dad, and even though he has fucked up, he wants to be the best possible dad to Christopher. Buck's sure that Eddie would want the same in the game.
He can’t make an Eddie without having a Christopher. Eddie has already been separated from his kid too long – Buck doesn’t want that to be true in the Sims as well.
He curses the game for not having crutches for the kid, feeling like he’s erasing a part of Christopher, even though he’s just working with the limitations of the game. He does find almost an exact match to Christopher’s favourite T-shirt, which makes him smile. He knows for a fact that the real one is so well worn that there are holes that Buck had fixed with his incredibly amateur sewing skills.
He does pause after making Eddie Christopher’s father. There it is, just a click away; he could make himself Christopher’s father, too. No one would know. The game wouldn’t ask him any questions, it would just accept it as a fact. Buck could finally be a dad.
Buck shakes his head and continues the game.
Next on the list is a place to live, but every option in the game looks wrong; doesn’t look like home. Buck wants the Diaz house. So, after a brief googling on how to get money on the Sims as fast possible, he starts with an empty lot.
Buck has a tendency to take stuff, that doesn't really need to be taken seriously, very seriously. Which is why he is going around the house with a pen and paper to get the proportions right. He takes note of every empty space, imagining what should be there.
He watches several tutorials, since he wants to be well-prepared for when he does it himself. Eddie’s house deserves to be built with love and care.
For the next undefined amount of hours Buck builds the house in a way it should be, the way it was. He even leaves Eddie’s room to be the way it was, too bare in comparison to the exuberance that shined from Christopher’s room. He tries to remember every photo frame and knickknack and half-dead plant. He makes sure the virtual version of the house looks the way the real version of it should.
Buck is trying to decide on the right shade of blue for the couch, when his phone rings.
“Hey”, he says into the phone.
“Hi, Buck, are you alright? You didn’t answer any of my texts”, Eddie says and Buck ignores the way his eyes start to tear up. He has probably just stared at the screen too long. It has nothing to do with the fact that he already misses Eddie like he has never missed another person, even though it hasn’t even been a full day since they saw each other last.
“Oh, sorry, I didn’t notice.” Buck opens his phone and sees three messages indicating Eddie had stopped to take a break in three different places in the span of–
“Wait, it’s been thirteen hours?” Buck stares at his laptop in mild horror. He hasn’t eaten or even gone to the bathroom during this time and he still isn’t finished with the house.
“Yes… I’m at the apartment now”, Eddie says, a clear concern in his voice.
“Oh! Oh, well that’s just great. Great! That’s good. That you are there and I am here and everything’s fine!”
“Buck?” the concern in Eddie’s voice only increases.
“Anyway, you must be tired. And, you know, you have to sleep before surprising Chris tomorrow and facing your parents and stuff. So, you do that.”
“Buck, ar–”
“Good night, Eddie”, Buck says. He can’t do this right now.
“Good night, Buck”, Eddie sighs but doesn’t end the call. Buck lets himself listen to Eddie’s breathing for five seconds before he shuts off his phone and practically shoves it in between the cushions.
He’s not thinking about Eddie all alone in El Paso, ready to start the next chapter of his life. He’s not thinking about how there’ll be a new fire station, a new team, a new best friend for him there.
Buck is fine as he puts a frozen pizza in the oven, all while holding his laptop and putting on the finishing touches on the house. He puts on a timer, because he refuses to be interrupted by a fire right now - he has more important work. Buck finds warm beer in one of the cabinets and chucks the first one as soon as the liquid hits his tongue – turns out he hasn’t drunk anything in the time Eddie’s been away, either.
When he sits down on the couch with slightly burned pizza and his overheating laptop, he is ready to begin the actual gameplay part. Only then does he realize that he could control all three of them, but he decides to only play as himself. It feels more… morally correct that way.
“Why is there no firefighters?” he mumbles as he looks over the job options.
For the first hour of playing he does it in a normal way that doesn’t incite any deep revelations about himself. He makes the pixel-Buck go to all the places, museums and gyms and such, just to look at the Sims world. He knows he’s avoiding Eddie and Chris in the game, but he doesn’t really want to look into that. He makes the game version of him talk to a bunch of people, to flirt with random dudes at a bar now that he knows he can do that too. He makes himself run on a treadmill until he faints. He starts a fight with someone and declares them his enemy. It’s all fine and fun for a while, but it doesn’t really scratch the itch that’s deep under his skin.
He eventually feels like he knows the game enough and makes his Sim go home – to Eddie’s house.
Eddie is for some reason sleeping in Christopher’s bed while Chris is watching TV at 4 a.m.
“You guys really can’t function without me”, Buck shakes his head and controls the other two, even though he said he wouldn’t. He only has the game to blame, because they can’t apparently function like normal human beings without supervision.
For some time he plays the game as close to their real life as possible.
He makes himself an astronaut, because that’s the only one as cool as a firefighter. He makes Eddie a tech guru because the technophobe Diaz would hate that. Christopher goes to school and after remembering to do his homework, he becomes one of the best students in the school.
One morning Buck makes himself make breakfast but apparently he’s a really bad cook since the kitchen is now on fire. He’s also a really bad firefighter, because he just panics and doesn’t even move away from the flames. Luckily, Eddie doesn’t seem to be as incompetent as he puts it out and is very confident after that, while Buck is roasted and has to shower his shame away.
So, Buck plays. He sleeps at some point, he thinks. He and Eddie declare themselves each other’s best friends and Buck wonders. Has he ever said those words to Eddie himself? Because that’s what they are, have been for years. Each other's ride-or-dies. He also wonders how are they supposed to have each other’s backs with 700 miles between them?
But it’s okay, because pixel-Eddie and pixel-Buck are there right next to each other. They go to parks with Christopher and make food together and watch whatever shows you can in the Sims universe.
At some point Buck is making his Sim talk to Eddie and he pauses looking at the “flirt” option. That would be crazy, right? Or maybe it wouldn’t.
Buck clicks the button. And Eddie clearly likes it, based on the way the pink bar representing romantic relationships appears immediately.
Buck gets up.
“Oh, this is fucked up”, he says to himself as he wonders around the house. But it doesn’t mean anything. I mean, if he flirted with Eddie in real life, Eddie wouldn’t like it, right? It would be weird and awkward.
But what if… What if he did like it? What if he did reciprocate? If he flashed that smile Buck remembers from their very first conversation, the one that infuriated him back then? If he leaned in and…
“Oh no”, Buck says to the empty house.
Sure, Eddie is a good-looking guy, has always been. Buck is not blind. He has stared at Eddie’s ass once in a while, but that’s just friendliness – to appreciate your friend’s physique. And sure, if Eddie was into dudes and wanted to do something with Buck, he would say yes in a heartbeat. That’s just… advanced friendliness. And like, sure, if Eddie wanted to marry Buck and have babies together, Buck would undoubtedly say yes. He’s just on another level of being a being the bestest of all the best friends.
Or… He might be slightly in love with his best friend.
Maybe more than slightly. Maybe he is in love in a way he has never been. He has said he is in love with two other people before, Abby and Taylor, but what he is feeling inside him doesn’t feel remotely close to what he felt about those two other people. With Eddie, it’s different.
Eddie is different. He can’t be compared to anyone else.
And… He has a new life in Texas, so it wouldn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. He’s got a chance for a nice, hetero, Buckless life there, and Buck is not going to ruin it with something like confessing his just-a-second-ago-realized-mind-blowing-yet-the-most-obvious feelings to him.
Which leaves him with the fake, pixel versions of them that he can live vicariously through.
He considers googling “Is it unethical to make a carbon copy of yourself and your straight best friend in the Sims and make them fall in love because you can’t have that in real life?” but he decides not to. He doesn’t really want to know the answer to that question.
Sure, his hands shake as he makes the fake version of him continue flirting with Eddie. Give him a rose, sure. Kiss his hands, uh-huh. Then, after a while, there’s the first kiss option.
Buck’s not going to pick that one. He’s not going to do that, it would be like some level of breaking Eddie’s trust. It also wouldn’t help the emotional turmoil inside him.
He presses the button.
And he watches the wrong versions of Buck and Eddie kiss and he doesn’t even try to stop the tears that are fighting their way out of his eyes. If this is all he can get out of Eddie, an imaginary version of them, he’ll take it.
So… he watches. He watches as he and Eddie have their first kiss. How they have thankfully censored sex. How they go on a date in a bar. How one night Buck pulls a ring out of his pocket in the middle of dinner.
Buck mourns and he lets go. He mourns how beautiful they could’ve been. He lets go of the idea of the two of them.
He wishes there was a possibility of a life like this, of them raising Christopher together, the three of them being their own happy family.
He misses Christopher so much. It’s the same kind of ache he got used to in his life, when he was missing Maddie. It’s like he is missing a limb, something that makes him whole. Sure, there are other kids in Buck’s life, mainly Jee-Yun, but the bond between him and Christopher is something he can’t replicate with anyone else. He’s not naive enough to think that he sees himself as Christopher’s other father, but how he wishes there was even the slightest possibility of that happening some day, even though he knows there isn't.
All of the feelings of bitterness – about the circumstance and this unrequited love and being left behind once again – he puts in the game.
They have a good life there. Christopher has a birthday and turns from a child to a teenager. Buck buys an extension pack so they can get a dog. It’s a nice, beautiful life.
Buck lives an entire life he can never have, and he is fine. He ignores the ache of heartbreak that threatens to overpower him, but he shoves it deep down.
He is fine until a key turns in the front door and unbridled panic sets in.
“Buck?” Eddie’s voice calls him and Buck shuts his laptop frantically.
This can’t be happening. Maybe he is dreaming. Or hallucinating.
“Yeah?” he calls back, wincing at how guilty he sounds.
“Buck!” a very enthusiastic Christopher calls from the doorway and basically tackles Buck into the couch. It’s the kind of hug Christopher used to give when he was a kid, not like the ones he gives as a broody teenager. Buck melts into it.
“Chris?” Buck says as he wraps his arms around Christopher. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to come home”, Chris says as Eddie watches the two of them.
“That’s good. I missed you, so much”, Buck says to Chris.
“I missed you too, Buck.”
Buck looks at Eddie, trying to ask questions with his eyes. Eddie just shakes his head, in a I’ll tell you later .
“You guys hungry?” Buck asks, just to stop himself from bursting into tears.
It doesn't take long for Buck to make dinner but he spends most of that time glancing at Eddie and Christopher, who sit at the kitchen table. There's still tension between the two Diaz boys, but they still chat with Buck easily enough.
The three of them eat pasta while Christopher gossips about his Texan peers and Buck talks about what has happened with the 118. Eddie spends most of the meal smiling and looking so fond Buck has to avert his eyes.
Eventually Christopher says he’s tired and goes to bed. He pauses before giving them both hugs and fleeing immediately after, as if he's embarrassed by his actions.
Now it's just Buck and Eddie alone in the kitchen.
“You know, I called you like four times”, Eddie says after staring at Buck like just his appearance could give him answers.
“Oh. Sorry”, Buck says.
“Buck, are you okay?”
And sure, Buck had promised himself he’d keep it all to himself, suffer in silence. But the way Eddie is looking at him with those big brown eyes of his, he breaks:
“Okay, I wasn’t actually planning on doing anything, I was just distracting myself, you know. So, I downloaded the Sims and I was supposed to just make like a version of me, but then I did you – Christopher too. A–and, I didn’t mean anything by it, but I guess being in a virtual copy of this house with virtual versions of you guys… It just made me… I’m sorry.”
“Buck, what are you sorry for?” Eddie asks, looking like he's not understanding any of Buck's words.
“I made us kiss.”
“What?”
“I made a game version of you and me kiss and get engaged and get married and I was just thinking about getting us another kid but then you came home and you kind of interrupted me, so I didn’t get around to doing that. I know it’s fucked up, you’re straight and all and I know you care about me, but I guess at some point I accidentally fell in love with you and I didn’t realize it until you had left? And I don’t know how ethical it was of me to make our Sims fuck each other, because you wouldn’t want that, I know, but–”
“Buck.”
“And like I know that’s fucked up. Who does that to someone they love? I mean, me, I guess, but I’m so sorry. For violating your trust and– is this like some form of like sexual assault? Oh, oh my God, Edd–”
“Buck!" Eddie interrupts him. "Are you done?”
“Yes?” Buck is breathing heavily as he tries not to spiral any more than he already is.
“You’re an idiot. A dumb, lovable idiot. You know, I had a lot to think about during the drive and I came to the same conclusion; I love you”, Eddie smiles at him.
“What?”
“And I’m so going to tell this story at our wedding”, Eddie says and steps closer until they’re breathing the same air.
“At our what?”
“Stop freaking out and kiss me”, Eddie says. Buck obeys.
Kissing Eddie is the easiest thing Buck has ever done. They have worked together seamlessly for years – this doesn’t seem to be any different. Eddie tastes like home, his lips fit on Buck’s like they belong there.
“So, are you going to show me this game that got you so messed up?” Eddie asks as he pulls himself away, just an inch.
“No, and we’re never speaking of this whole thing, ever again.”
Eddie laughs as he slots their fingers together, just as they’re supposed to be, and pulls Buck towards the bedroom.
Now, Buck might actually be fine.