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At first, Eddie didn’t realize that the app was still on his phone. The first few days, he was so busy moving into his new house and fighting with his parents and reuniting with his son that his phone was always dead—but even if it hadn’t been, there were no notifications on his lock screen from his doorbell camera. That could only mean that Buck hadn’t been home in days, even though all his furniture was there and he no longer had the keys to the loft. If Eddie had noticed this before, he might have called Buck, had an honest discussion about it, and then deleted the app from his phone to give Buck the privacy he deserved. He didn’t need Eddie stalking him from El Paso, not when Eddie had been the one to leave him, albeit very much against his will.
Incidentally, Eddie hadn’t noticed, and thus he had not deleted the app.
This wouldn’t be the end of the world—in fact, it would even be nice to be able to check in on Buck after a long shift and make sure he was buying groceries and eating well and if Eddie was having a bad day then maybe he could even watch Buck tend to the little flower garden they planted together in the front yard—except for the fact that, one sweltering hot night in El Paso while Eddie was in bed, mindlessly scrolling through his photos app and reminiscing about how quickly his son had grown up, a notification popped up on Eddie’s phone informing him that someone was at his front door.
Eddie hadn’t meant to press the notification. It was instinct—whatever the opposite of survival would be—that made his fingers tap the screen. Whatever he hadn’t expected, what he was met with was so much worse. His whole body froze up as he watched the scene play out on his phone, a live broadcast of a horrible nightmare. He knew he should close the app and shut off his phone and maybe even chuck it out the window for the coyotes to deal with, but he was paralyzed, unable to move, unable to save himself.
Hence why Eddie Diaz is currently lying in bed, watching his best friend make out with his ex-boyfriend against the front door of Eddie’s house.
Okay, it’s not really his house anymore. That doesn’t mean it’s okay for Buck to slam Tommy up against it and kiss fiercely into his mouth. Actually, that’s not okay for Buck to do anywhere. Because… Well, because Tommy hurt him, and Eddie was the one who had to pick up the pieces, just like he always does, and he doesn’t really mind picking up the pieces except for the fact that it means Buck is broken in the first place. Buck always ends up broken, because he always picks the wrong people, and Eddie wishes he could just be happy for once, but he also thinks he prefers it when Buck isn’t dating anyone else for reasons unbeknownst to him.
… Not else. Eddie didn’t mean anyone else. He just meant anyone.
There’s still a car in Eddie’s—Buck’s—driveway with an Uber decal in the window. Eddie momentarily wonders who ordered the Uber, because he’s split enough rides with Tommy to know that the guy does not tip enough to justify traumatizing the poor driver like this. The car slowly backs away as Buck fumbles to pull his keys out of his back pocket. It must be hard for him to do when Tommy is groping him the way he is, like he’s a tiger and Buck is a piece of meat hanging off a stick, and Buck has to pull away from the kiss to concentrate on the task at hand. Eddie wishes he could be reborn as a wizard from that series that Christopher likes just so he could make those damn keys disappear and Buck would have to tell Tommy to get the hell away from Eddie’s house and never return.
The key doesn’t fit in the door. Buck frowns as he tries to fit it in, and Tommy is mouthing at his neck in a way that makes bile rise up Eddie’s throat, and Buck makes little noises that Eddie can’t tell whether they are from frustration or pleasure. At the third failed attempt to open the door, Tommy rips the keychain from Buck’s hands—the penguin keychain that Christopher gifted Buck after he found out that some penguins take it upon themselves to care for chicks who have lost a parent. It looks weird in Tommy’s rough hands. “You’re using the wrong key, Evan,” he hears Tommy grumble with an air of mocking, like Buck is a stupid child who always does things wrong. Eddie wants to throttle him for it, because that’s the way Tommy’s always spoken to Buck, when Buck is actually the smartest person that Eddie knows.
“Sorry, that’s the one for Maddie’s house,” Buck responds, his voice sounding wrecked and more than a little drunk. “I’ve been sleeping at her place.” Eddie feels a pang of guilt in his chest—clearly, Buck is uncomfortable in the house he’d only moved into as a favour to Eddie. Maybe he feels weird sleeping in Eddie’s bedroom instead of on his couch. Maybe the house is too big for just him. Maybe a ghost has taken up residence in its walls since Eddie left.
If Eddie was there, he would ask Buck why he hasn’t been sleeping in his new house. He would spend hours combing through every dysfunctional thought in the man’s mind, would carefully unravel the narratives he tells himself and replace them with reassurance and belonging, the way he has for the last seven years. He would make Buck feel listened to, heard, respected.
Instead, Tommy shuts him up with another kiss, and Buck must have had tequila shots tonight, because he responds with fervour. He kisses Tommy the way he kisses all the women he’s been with. Eddie always thought it would be different to kiss a man—that one of them would have to give up control and let themselves be led—but Tommy gives as good as he gets, and they crash through the door together, disappearing out of view of the camera with a loud slam. Whatever happens next is not for Eddie’s eyes, but he can guess well enough.
Buck’s having sex with Tommy. In Eddie’s house. Right now.
Eddie’s heart beats in his ears. He feels faint. His stomach turns. With just enough warning to reach out and grab a trash can, he throws up his dinner with a series of violent retches. It’s not like he’s never seen Buck kiss anyone before, even Tommy, but the image of him pressing that awful man up against Eddie’s front door, the noises he made as their teeth clashed together, are seared forever into his mind. His thoughts replay the scene over and over again, vehemently and against his will, and it lives on in his phone, recorded forever in the camera logs unless Eddie deletes it himself. He knows he won’t, because he would have to click on it to do that, and he’s not sure he can handle that without throwing up his lunch, too.
He knows it’s not fair. He knows the house is technically Buck’s now, legally and otherwise, and that Buck has every right to bring people home, even people who uncannily resemble the scum of the earth. He knows Buck is an adult who can make his own decisions, even if he is tequila drunk and sad, even if they’re objectively not good decisions. He knows Buck can handle the consequences.
(He vaguely recalls that he used to be quite good friends with said scum, but that was long over when he saw how shittily the scum treated his best friend. Besides, it’s part of the prophecy for Eddie to hate Buck’s exes. Exhibit A: Taylor Kelly.)
Still, as he wipes the bile from his lips, Eddie can’t find it in himself to feel bad about how he’s reacted. Because he knows too that Buck is his, in every way that matters, and he knows that everyone else knows it, too. He knows from the way Bobby says the words Buck and Eddie, like they’re inexplicably intertwined, like they’re one being. He knows from the way women—and now Tommy—come in and out of their lives momentarily, but the two of them never waver, even time zones apart. He knows from the way they fit into one another’s lives so perfectly, how Eddie hates pickles but Buck loves them, how Eddie sprays and Buck wipes even though cleaning the glass is a one person job.
So, Eddie decides, it’s okay if he feels a little jealous. Because even if the house is no longer his, Buck always will be. So, it’s okay if the sight of Buck smashed up into someone else’s body, the way Buck held him close when they hugged goodbye, makes Eddie sick to his stomach.
He thinks he might do anything to wake up tomorrow with amnesia and scrub it clean from his memory.
***
“Hey, stranger,” Buck greets as he picks up the video call. His hair is messed up, sticking haphazardly in every direction. It annoys Eddie endlessly even though he’s not one to be a stickler about neatness—that has to be why he wants to run his hands through it to fix it up.
“Hey, Buck,” Eddie responds, because he can’t bring himself to call Buck a stranger, not when they’re so far apart and it’s his own fault. He takes a sip of his coffee. “Where are you?”
“Home. I was just about to check on the marigolds,” Buck answers, propping the phone up so he can tighten the shoelaces of his work boots without removing Eddie from his sight. Eddie remembers planting those marigolds with him shortly after Christopher left, how Buck had chosen them at the greenhouse, insisting they represent resilience and joy. Taking care of them would tide the two of them over until Christopher was home, and then the three of them could enjoy their beauty together. Plus, Eddie, they’re drought resistant. Perfect for L.A.
Eddie clears his throat, pushing away the knot that forms when he realizes that Buck is the only one left to appreciate them, when he realizes that Buck is still tenderly caring for the flowers even though he thinks that Eddie and Chris are never coming back. “How are they looking?”
“Bright and cheery,” Buck declares happily, with a hint of pride in his voice. He should be proud—he’s very good at taking care of things. And people. “I wish you could see them in person.”
Eddie knows that, if he got the choice, he would choose the marigolds and his son. “Well, I guess I’ll have to settle for seeing them over video call, for now.”
Buck grins despite the situation as he pulls open the front door and steps outside. “Yeah, well, that’s better than—” On Eddie’s side, a loud chime sounds from his phone, echoing in the empty kitchen, definitely audible over the line. Buck stops in his tracks, brows furrowed in confusion. “What was that sound?”
Suddenly, Eddie’s mouth is as dry as the desert he did two tours in. He meant to delete the app after the incident with he-who-shall-not-be-named, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Not when both of them were running into fires every day, but now they were 800 miles apart and Eddie couldn’t have his back. Not when he wouldn’t know if Buck came home every night if not for the little notifications popping up on his phone, reassuring him that Buck was still alive. Still, he knows it’s not fair, knows it’s too much, knows it’s too far to explain away.
“Nothing, just got a text.”
“That wasn’t a text notification.”
“It was…” Eddie trails off, trying to come up with a believable lie, and finds himself trapped by the realization that Buck knows him too well to believe anything he could say right now. He knows he’s already given himself up. Falteringly, he clears his throat and admits, “It was my doorbell camera. I think you set it off when you stepped onto the porch.”
Over the grainy screen, he can see Buck’s eyes widen in shock and panic as his own realization sets in. “You still have that on your phone?”
Immediately, Eddie begins to apologize. “I meant to delete it when I left. I’m sorry, Buck. I didn’t mean to…”
“Mean to what?” There’s a hysteria to Buck’s tone, a wildness that belies that he’s well aware of what Eddie didn’t mean to do, and yet he can’t accept it, can’t say it out loud.
Eddie can’t say it, either. “You know what.”
A dark red blush spreads across Buck’s cheeks, and he looks like he’s on the verge of tears. “Oh my god, Eddie.”
“I’m sorry!” Eddie erupts, burying his face in his free hand. “If it’s any consolation, it was pretty dark.”
Buck flushes deeper. “That is not helpful.”
“Yeah, well, it was helpful for me,” Eddie mutters, which he absolutely does not mean to say, yet he wholeheartedly means. He already had to see it—he didn’t need to see it in high definition.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Eddie could just brush it off, probably should brush it off, but Buck sounds almost offended, like the remark could ever have been about Buck’s… performance. “I just mean I was hoping I’d seen the last of Tommy when I blocked his number from my phone, so I wasn’t really thrilled to see you sucking his face on my front porch.”
Buck’s expression shifts from hurt to angry, fast. “You have no right to tell me who I can sleep with or where I can do it.” If he notices that Buck never denies the house being Eddie’s, he keeps it to himself, not wanting to add fuel to the fire of Buck’s sudden-onset rage. “And, by the way, if you hated seeing that so much, you could have deleted the stupid app, Eddie.”
Eddie feels his own anger rising in his chest, even if it is woefully misplaced. “Seriously though, did you have to pick Tommy? He’s a dick. What on this earth could have convinced you to go down that path again?”
“I missed you, asshole!” Buck erupts. The way the words slide past his lips tell Eddie that he doesn’t mean to say it, but he doesn’t take it back, either. The words just sit in the space between them, filling it up, engulfing them, tying them together like a long, invisible string between L.A. and El Paso.
Eddie feels the fight leave his body in an instant. “I miss you, too.” He doesn’t add that he didn't hook up with a random woman because of it—that seems unnecessary. And truthfully, he has absolutely no desire to do that, so it feels cheap, too. Until the memory comes up again—Buck pressing Tommy into the front door—dark enough in his mind that he can almost mistake Tommy for someone else, and Eddie’s palms begin to sweat.
Well-practiced, he swallows hard and pushes it away.
Buck lets out a sigh that sounds like the fight leaving him, too. “I’m not mad.”
“Okay,” Eddie breathes, glad. A beat passes between the two of them where Eddie can only hear, from Buck’s end of the call, birds chirping in the far distance. “Can I see the marigolds?”
“Yeah.”
Buck was right. Bright orange and yellow, the joyful flowers really light up the entrance of the house. If Eddie squints really hard, they almost look like a path home.
***
Christopher was still upset with him back when he first arrived in El Paso. In fact, Christopher seemed more upset when he saw Eddie at the front door of his grandparents’ house than he did over the phone. The next several weeks were spent arguing with his parents and yelling at them and worrying about his blood pressure. They were spent pointing fingers and passing blame and cursing a higher power. Somehow, the screaming gave way to confessions, and eventually, Eddie realized his parents had truly done a number on him, and that he refused to do the same to Christopher. So, he sat down with the kid and had an honest-to-goodness conversation about what had gone wrong and why he was so upset. When he heard why, Eddie wanted to smash his head against the wall repeatedly for several hours.
Christopher had been angry. He had needed space to process his anger, but he had never intended to stay in El Paso forever. In fact, he had appreciated that Eddie was still waiting for him to come home, fighting for him to come home. Finding out that Eddie had bought a house here had felt like his dad was giving up on him and their relationship.
It was nothing short of heartbreak when Eddie realized what he’d done wrong. It was even worse when he realized that he had left Buck behind in order to make that mistake. His only solace was knowing that Buck was the one living in his house instead of a stranger, that while the furniture was different, the bones and heart and soul were the same as they always had been.
When Christopher finally asked to go home, Eddie cried. It was the first time in almost three years that he’d cried so properly, since he’d lost control and smashed holes in his bedroom wall that Buck had painstakingly filled in with him. When he and Buck had gone to pick out a new shade of paint, Eddie had gravitated towards a baby blue that reminded him of the eyes that pulled him back from the darkness. This time, the eyes that pulled him back were his son’s, and Eddie noticed for the first time that they were the same shade of blue. So much of Christopher was Buck, and it was finally time to go home to him.
Eddie didn’t just cry because they were going home—he cried because he couldn’t deny any longer that home was incomplete without Buck. Just like seeing Christopher again slotted a piece of his heart back into place, Eddie knew that the displaced feeling in his chest would persist until the three of them were together again.
And while Eddie Diaz is very, very good at shoving his emotions aside, he knows as he stands on the front porch of his own home with his son by his side and his fist about to knock on the door, that he can no longer ignore the way he feels for Buck. That he no longer has to.
The door opens, and Buck is standing at the threshold in a denim apron that brings out his eyes. His gaze falls to Christopher, first—and that makes Eddie fall for him even more. Buck’s jaw hangs as he stares at the kid in utter disbelief. “Chris?”
“Hey, Buck,” Christopher says casually, the way he has a million times. He smiles and wraps his arms around him for just a moment before he glances between the two men and hurries inside the house. “We can talk later. I’m going to my room.”
Eddie knows the room is exactly how he left it, so he doesn’t stop him.
“Hey, Buck,” Eddie repeats his son’s words without any of the nonchalance. He can hear the waver in his voice, the heaviness, the pain that is slowly healing with every passing moment in Buck’s presence. He remembers—as if he’d ever forgotten—why he was always at Buck’s side. It felt like freedom from the things that chained him down for so long. “Miss me?”
Instead of stepping aside to let him in, Buck steps out onto the porch and shuts the door behind him. A soft breeze rustles between them, making Buck’s apron flutter. The sun beats down on them, typical of California, and makes Buck squint as he looks at Eddie. Buck looks so soft—his hair a fluffy mess on his head, his torso engulfed by a large hoodie, his jaw decorated with a five-o-clock shadow.
“Of course I missed you,” Buck says quietly. He still seems to be in disbelief, his gaze flitting across Eddie’s face and down his body and back up. He swallows hard, Adam’s apple bobbing helplessly. “You’re visiting?”
Eddie tilts his head towards the street. A U-Haul truck is parked just past the driveway. It’s full of everything Eddie owns, except the things that matter most. “I told you. You matter to me.”
At that, Buck’s eyes absolutely light up. It’s like he’s been on autopilot since Eddie left and is only now coming back to life. Wordlessly, he tugs Eddie into his arms and hugs him tighter than he’s ever been hugged. He can feel Buck’s pulse beat against his own skin, like their hearts are officially one. He never wants to let go.
He doesn’t feel jealous anymore. He knows that no one can be closer to Buck than this.
When they pull back, Buck looks even softer than before. He looks like his body has melted like ice cream, and Eddie knows Buck wants to kiss him. He also knows that Buck never will kiss him, not when he thinks Eddie is straight, and maybe not even if he knew Eddie was gay. He knows Buck is afraid of people leaving and doesn’t think he’s enough to make them stay. He knows there’s only one way to fix that.
His hand cups Buck’s cheek, and it’s warm. So warm he would worry that Buck has a fever if he didn’t already know the exact cause. He smiles and moves closer and thanks the universe for sending him to Texas so he could come back as someone capable of loving Buck the way he deserves. And then he kisses him.
There’s no explosion. There’s no frantic grasping at one another or shoving against doors. The kiss is slow, exploratory. The kiss is gentle, edifying. The kiss is a promise that they’ll have time for all that later, because time is no longer an issue. The kiss is a declaration that the last seven years have not been wasted because they spent them together, but the future will be brighter still.
The final piece of Eddie’s heart slots into place, and the pain of the past is a distant memory.
He smiles at his Buck and tugs on the apron. “Are you making cookies?”
***
A year later, they put rings on each other’s fingers and promise to love one another forever. It may be a little redundant, but they grin like idiots either way. Maddie makes a speech that makes Buck cry—and Eddie cries a little, too, if he’s being honest—and she finishes with a pointed gibe towards Buck’s exes that makes everyone laugh. Eddie doesn’t even mind the reminder, because he knows there was never any competition for Buck’s heart. Buck has always been his, after all, and no one even needed the ring on his finger to know it.
After the speeches are done, the lights dim and a video starts playing on the projector that was previously displaying the phrase Buckley-Diaz Wedding in a twirly font. It’s a grainy video, a recording from Buck and Eddie’s doorbell camera that Chimney must have conned his way into a copy of. On the screen, Eddie sees himself knock on the front door, sees Christopher hug his step-dad before rushing inside the house—Christopher snorts at that and makes a loud comment about avoiding the gross part—and finally sees him and his husband share their very first kiss. Warmth spreads through his body at the memory, and Buck squeezes his hand and turns a pair of liquid eyes onto him, and Eddie has never been quite so happy in his entire life.
They had many, many more kisses after that one. Passionate kisses, slow kisses, tired kisses, even angry kisses. Each one felt like something new for Eddie, who had never quite realized what he was supposed to feel when someone kissed him until he knew what it was to kiss Buck. And the absolute best part of it all?
Buck would never kiss anyone else, because Eddie was his last.
***