Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Buck knew he was going to be desperate for company after Eddie left, but this was definitely not what he’d had in mind.

He was sitting in an airy café in Brentwood—the kind where the chairs were so spindly, he worried about resting his full weight on them when he sat down, and most of the dishes were served in bowls, and every few minutes a waitress dressed in white came out to check on him.

At this point, he’d told her he was fine six times. He felt a little bad, but he wasn’t going to start ordering on the off chance that his mother was actually standing him up and he wouldn’t have to stay.

She was fifteen minutes late. Buck figured that in five more minutes he’d text to check on her, and if she still hadn’t shown up after a half hour, then he couldn’t be blamed for leaving. He pulled out his phone to see if she’d messaged him, but instead he found a text from Eddie.

Chris won his chess tournament today! It said, and it was accompanied by a picture that did things to Buck’s insides: Chris, holding a trophy, smiling next to Eddie.

It was everything Eddie had wanted when he left for Texas—the chance to be a part of his son’s life again. To be there for all of Chris’s milestones, to support him. To be the kind of father that neither of them had had.

Buck was really really happy for them.

He was just also really fucking pathetic, too.

Eddie had been texting way more than he ever had before, now that he was three states away. Buck knew Eddie’s guilt complex was wreaking havoc on him these days. For as happy he was to be reunited with Chris, Eddie still felt bad—for himself, being back to Texas; for the team, since he’d left LA only a few days after everything had gone down with Maddie; and for Buck.

Because everyone knew how Buck felt about Eddie.

Well. Everyone thought they did. Until Buck had some painful realizations.

“There you are.” He looked up from where he’d been staring at the photo of Chris and Eddie to see his mom finally settling into the chair across from him. He clicked his phone off and straightened up in his chair, hoping he was imagining the chair groaning underneath him.

“I don’t know how you live out here,” she said, placing her purse on the floor and picking up a menu. “I left an hour ago but this godawful traffic took forever.”

“Ah, yeah, sorry about that,” he said, even though she’d been the one to pick the spot.

“I know everyone likes it out here for the sunshine, but there’s more to consider when you’re picking a place to live,” she went on.

Yeah, like where your son lives, his mind volunteered unhelpfully. It was just that everything reminded him of Eddie. He just hmmed in response.

“This menu looks good,” she continued musing, not needing any input from Buck. “I could go for a salad—it feels like Maddie and Howard have been ordering takeout every night of the week.”

Buck felt his hackles rise in defense; his mom had flown out to California to ‘check on Maddie’ after the whole kidnapping thing. Apparently, his mom thought she was a good addition to the stressful situation—the opposite of what Buck had learned very early in life—and came to watch Jee-Yun, make sure Maddie relaxed, and nitpick everything about both of their lives.

It was going great.

The best part was that it was almost over. Today was Thursday, and her flight back to Pennsylvania was Saturday morning; Buck had contemplated offering her a ride to LAX just so he could confirm she got on the plane. He opted not to, because it wouldn’t be worth the extra alone time with her—but then she’d gone ahead and invited him out to lunch, anyway.

Which is why Buck was sitting in this stupid café, staring intensely at the Build-Your-Own-Bowl section of the menu as though it might provide instructions for avoiding this conversation.

“I know Maddie doesn’t want to hear it, but I think she should be watching her sodium intake while she’s pregnant, it can’t be good for the baby.”

“Well, getting kidnapped while in utero probably wasn’t very good for the baby either,” Buck said. He would like it known that he made it a full minute before sniping at his mother.

The waitress, who’d just swung back for a seventh check-in, was giving him a look like, maybe that wasn’t such an impressive accomplishment.

“Uhm, hi,” she said, her voice strengthening as she slipped into professional mode. “Can I take your drink orders?”

His mom ignored Buck and ordered an iced tea. Buck stuck with water.

Once the waitress left, he went back to studying the menu. The faster they ordered food, the faster he could leave; but once the waitress took their menus, there would be nothing left for them to look at.

After a few minutes of blissful silence, his mom looked up from her menu and said, “so, Evan, I wanted to talk to you about something.”

Buck guessed this might be coming. What, he didn’t know—but he’d suspected there was an ulterior motive when his mom asked if they could get lunch, just the two of them.

Before he could reply, the waitress came back with their drinks and got their orders, callously taking the menus with her when she left, and then Buck was left staring at his mother’s probing blue eyes. Whatever this was going to be, he could already tell he was going to hate it.

“I wanted to talk to you,” she repeated, ominously. “Obviously, I wanted to come out here to check on Maddie after, you know—” she trailed off.

“She was kidnapped?”

“Yes, that,” she sniffed, like he was insensitive for saying it out loud. “But there’s another reason I wanted to come out here. And it’s the same reason why it’s just me and not—not your father.”

“Is everything okay?”

“Not really,” she said, straightening the silverware on the table in front of her. “The thing is, your father—well, we’ve learned he has something called polycystic kidney disease.”

Well, shit.

“How—what—what does that mean?” His fingers twitched towards his pocket; the urge to call Hen was strong. Or even Chimney. Or—wait, why did she feel the need to meet with him alone to tell him this? He was Maddie’s dad, too.

“He’s okay for now. He has a new diet and is trying to manage the symptoms. They’ve only started showing up now that it’s progressed, but he’s had it for a while. It’s genetic.”

“Oh,” said Buck. That was fine, he could do genetic testing. Maybe that’s why she didn’t want to tell Maddie yet, with the baby and everything.

“How’s he doing?”

“He’s hanging in there,” she said. “You know your father.”

Buck thought about that, as the waitress came back with their bowl meals in hand. The thing was—he didn’t. Buck didn’t know his father’s taste in music, let alone how he would be in the wake of a kidney disease diagnosis. If he had to guess, he’d say stoic, probably. Something that involved pushing down his feelings and pretending like his kidneys didn’t exist.

He hmmed again, stabbing a piece of salmon with his fork. After a moment, he realized his mom was still staring at him, her bowl untouched.

“I’m sorry,” he added. “That must be really hard.” She was still staring, fork in hand. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

She used her fork to poke around her bowl, which looked about 90% arugula, and then she put it back down without eating anything.

“Well, Evan, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Your father needs a kidney.”

“He—what?”

“He needs a kidney transplant, Evan. From a donor.”

“And—you—you’re telling me this, because . . .”

“Because you’re a genetic match.”

“Everything okay here?” The waitress appeared in front of their table with a water pitcher and a cheery smile and Buck felt his mind slipping into disassociation territory. It felt like his brain wanted to hop on a bus and get out of town. Actually, his whole body wanted to hop on a bus and get out of town.

To El Paso, specifically.

God, what would Eddie make of this fucking conversation? Buck wished he was here, so badly he ached with it. But for that to have happened, Eddie would need to be in LA. And he would probably need to also be in love with Buck, so Buck could have said, yes I’ll meet you for lunch and I’m bringing my partner, which was socially acceptable, unlike saying yes I’ll meet for lunch and I’m going to have my long distance best friend on FaceTime, which is what he’d wanted to say when his mom invited him out.

He really should have said that.

His mom was saying something to the waitress; she was nodding and smiling, so he was guessing it wasn’t I just asked my son for an organ.

“I’m gonna—I have to go to the bathroom,” Buck said, and he stood up so abruptly that he knocked over the stupid flimsy chair. “Sorry, I—sorry,” he stuttered, righting it and then turning away before he could accidentally meet his mom’s eyes. He made three wrong turns on the way to the bathroom, but once he finally found the right door, he pushed through and locked it behind him.

A kidney. A kidney.

With shaky hands, he pulled his phone out of his pocket. When he opened it, the screen was still showing the text from Eddie, so he clicked on his icon and called him.

Pick up, he thought, desperately. Pick up pick up pick up pick up.

“You’ve reached Eddie Diaz, leave a message.”

Buck hung up.

Breathe, he had to breathe. He’d researched box breathing when Eddie started having panic attacks and this might not be one, but it also might be one? He wasn’t clear. In-2-3-4, hold-2-3-4, out-2-3-4, hold-2-3-4.

A text from Eddie came through while he was holding his outbreath and it didn’t help the feeling that his stomach was dropping, that he was choking.

Sorry, it said. We’re grabbing celebratory lunch after the tournament. Talk later?

Buck breathed in, deep, disregarding the counts. He wanted to breathe in so deep that oxygen reached every corner of his brain and it made him smart enough to figure out how to handle this fucking situation. Or he could pass out. That could work, too.

Course, he typed back on shaky fingers, knowing Eddie might worry if he didn’t answer. Have fun

After it sent, he realized he should have added an exclamation point. What kind of dick said have fun and didn’t even acknowledge the news of Chris’s chess win? He wanted to write more—I’m so proud of him and you both deserve to celebrate and actually can you please fucking call me back right now—but his hands were shaking a little; nothing crazy, just enough to make typing difficult, so he put his phone back in his pocket and tried the breathing thing again.

In-2-3—it was just, a kidney?  

That was a weird thing to ask someone for, right? Even without any of the context of, you know, Buck’s existence.

It’s what you were made for, whispered a voice in the back of his head. And wasn’t it true? He’d been custom-built with all the right pieces, a patchwork of parts other people might want, need, deserve more—the only downside was that he came with a brain and feelings.

It wasn’t so different from how Conner and Kameron had asked him to be a sperm donor, if he thought about it. Sure, that time didn’t require surgery, but it’d be a lot easier to part with a kidney than it was to part with a kid that was 50% him. But they’d still done this—invited Buck out to lunch and sprung the ask on him over entrees.

He should probably stop accepting lunch invitations from people he hadn’t seen in years.

It was kind of funny, actually, if you didn’t think too hard about the way bits of his body were in such high demand, even though no one seemed particularly excited about the whole assembled package. Sometimes it felt like when his parents designed him, they must have selected some ‘don’t-get-attached’ gene, to make things easier on everyone.

It would explain a lot.

But either way, his parents had designed him for this. They’d rolled the ultimate dice that he’d be a miracle, and he failed. Didn’t he have an obligation to step up, this time? Do what he couldn’t manage before, and keep a member of his family alive?

His phone buzzed in his pocket. Eddie had typed back, everything okay? Buck felt the intrusive urge to snap his phone in two pieces. In-2-3-4, hold-2-3-4.

Yeah, he wrote back, his hands barely shaking this time. Sry just drving

Don’t text and drive! Eddie’s answer came quick. I’ll call later, followed it. Buck thumbs-upped both texts and finally looked at himself in the mirror. Shockingly, his reflection looked the same as always. It felt like something had changed.

He washed his hands, for something to do, and headed back to the table. Across the restaurant he could see his mom, people-watching out the window. On the table, both of their lunches had been boxed up in to-go containers next to a signed receipt.

“Evan,” she said, her tone unreadable. “You were gone a while.”

He opened his mouth to say sorry but it didn’t come out. “Can I think about it?” he said, instead. Embarrassingly, it came out like a genuine question. Like he wanted permission.

Her face softened. “Of course, Evan. It’s a big deal, we know that. Your father didn’t even want to ask you, but I said—I knew you were the kind of man who would be happy to do it. Not that—” she broke off, coloring a little when she realized what she had implied. “You know, of course, you have to think on it. It’s a big thing, is all I meant.”

“Right,” said Buck. “And is there—how much—when do you need to know by?”

“Oh,” she said, pulling a packet out of her purse. “Here, I brought all of the information for you from the nephrologist. He’s managing his symptoms now, but, you know. The sooner the better.”

“Right,” said Buck, his voice gravely. He coughed and tried again. “Right, I’ll look this over.”

“Thanks, Evan,” she said, earnestly. She reached her hand out, like she was going to cover his, but then moved past it and gave his wrist a quick squeeze. “Your father and I really appreciate that you’re thinking about it at all.”

He nodded, not sure what else to say. She stood up, picking up her purse and her to-go container. “I better get going,” she said. “I told Maddie I’d be home in time for her to go for a haircut. Will you come over for dinner before I leave? I’m going to tell Maddie about your father tomorrow, I’m sure she’ll appreciate having you there when she finds out.”

He was saying something—probably a yes—and then he was parting ways with his mom on the sidewalk and going to his car. And then he was getting in his car, and navigating to a very specific house. And then he was ringing the doorbell.

And when Hen answered it, he said, “do you want to get drunk?”

Two hours later, Buck and Hen were in the same place they’d been three years ago—slumped over Hen’s dining table, trading shots of tequila and wondering why people kept thinking it was okay to ask Buck to hand over bits of himself.

“The thing I don’t understand—” Hen started, tapping the purple folder full of papers from the nephrologist, which they hadn’t gotten around to looking at yet, “is why they keep asking you over lunch.”

That was such a good question. “Maybe coffee feels like, too cheap,” he wondered. “Like, I’m going to ask for your kidney, you might as well get a meal out of it.” He laughed.

“Right, sure,” agreed Hen. “A coffee would be stupid, but a twenty-five dollar lunch makes total sense. Damn, Buckley,” she went on, pouring him another shot. “I knew you were a cheap date, but even you have to see the problem with that.”

“The problem,” Buck said, downing the shot without even waiting to cheers Hen. “Is that it’s the wrong person. Who wants the wrong thing.”

“Philosophical,” said Hen, pointing at him with a lime before sucking it between her teeth, so it looked like she had a green smile.

“No,” disagreed Buck. She didn’t get it—he was making a joke. “It’s always Buck, your dad wants your kidney and never Buck, Eddie wants your dick.”

Hen spit out the lime, coughing so hard Buck reached out and slapped her on the back. He really didn’t want to have to do the Heimlich while drunk.

“Buck—did you just—say what I think you said?”

“What?” 

“About Eddie—?”

Oh. He did, didn’t he? That was his hilarious joke. Fitting, because his whole obsession with Eddie was a joke.

“Oh, yeah,” he said, taking the bottle and pouring two more shots. Most of the liquid went in the glass. Hen might as well know; she was so smart. And she was really good at being a lesbian. Not like Buck was. Well, not that he was a lesbian, but he wasn’t shaping up to be a great bisexual. He missed all the years of clues, and then was so bad at having a boyfriend he got dumped for it, and then he’d tanked his entire love life by making the most stereotypical mistake possible: being in love with his straight best friend.

“Did you know I was in love with Eddie?” He was curious to know if Hen had picked up on it; in hindsight, it seemed like he’d been a bit obvious. “I didn’t. I thought we were just bffs. How was I supposed to know? I didn’t have best friends growing up. That shit required having parents who would take you to playdates and parties and let you have people over.”

Buck scanned the room, seeing evidence of Denny and Mara’s lively adolescences. Thank god they were out with Karen. “I bet Denny and Mara have best friends,” he said. “You guys are great parents. I bet they’ll grow up knowing what best friends are and that way they won’t be total fucking idiots when they fall in love with someone.”

“Thank you,” said Hen, but it came out like a question. “I think?”

“You’re welcome,” said Buck. “I said your kids wouldn’t be total fucking idiots.”

“Cheers to that,” said Hen, holding up her glass and then downing half of it. She slammed it down on the table, half full, and Buck lamented that he wouldn’t be able to pour them both another shot until she finished hers. “Wait,” she said, letting go of the glass and pointing up at Buck. “You’re not an idiot. You’re in love with Eddie!”

“Yeah, don’t rub it in.”

“Buck,” said Hen, shaking him on the shoulder. “This is a good thing!”

“In what world is this a good thing? He just moved 800 miles away, and he’s straight.”

“Oh, fuck,” said Hen.

“Yeah, fuck,” repeated Buck. And then, like he’d sensed them talking about him, Eddie called.

They both stared at Buck’s phone as it buzzed, face-up on the table, showing a picture of Eddie in his beekeeper suit.

“Don’t answer it!” Hen warned, but like . . . it was Eddie.

“It’s okay,” said Buck, reaching out to put the call on speaker. “Shh—be cool.”

“Buck?”

“Hello, Eddie.” There—kept his voice very even. Hen gave him a thumbs up from across the table.

“Hey—what’s up?”

Oh, shit. Buck didn’t think that far ahead. He couldn’t tell Eddie what was actually up—that would be insane.

“The—uh, the sky,” he said, stupidly. Hen burst out laughing.

“Is that Hen?”

Hen leaned close to the phone and yelled into the speaker, “hey Eddie!”

“Are you two drunk?”

They both erupted in snickers. Eddie had this stern dad tone going on, and if Buck didn’t laugh at it, he was going to start drooling over it instead.

“No,” he said, still laughing. “Why would we—who does that?”

“Yeah, that’s—that’s totally what we’re doing,” said Hen.

“What’s going on?” Eddie asked, his tone suspicious. “The last time you two did this, Buck got asked for his—to donate—”

“My sperm?” Buck guessed, when Eddie seemed incapable of finishing the sentence. “Why?” He felt his lips curve around the question. It wasn’t his fault he had a visceral reaction to the idea of Eddie thinking about his dick. “Are you—” but then Buck got cut off as Hen smushed both of her hands over his mouth.

“How’s Texas, Eddie?” she yelled over whatever else Buck might’ve said.

“Well, I was going to complain, but you two are day-drinking so I guess it’s not as bad as whatever’s going on there.” 

“Nothing’s going on here,” said Buck, elbowing Hen.

“That is clearly a lie,” Eddie countered.

Eddie knew him so well. Maybe Eddie knew Buck was in love with him. Maybe that’s why he’d left.

No, wait. That was Christopher.

For one wild second, Buck imagined Eddie asking Christopher for a kidney. Eddie would probably rather try his luck with no kidneys than take something vital from his son.

Buck would give Eddie a kidney, though. He wouldn’t even have to ask.

Honestly there was something kind of appealing about it; a piece of Buck inside Eddie, forever. What if he gave his dad his kidney and then one day Eddie needed one and Buck no longer had a spare? That was a very real concern here.

“Hello?” Eddie said. “Hen, tell me what’s going on.”

“Nothing,” said Hen, like a bro. But then she caved under the weight of Eddie’s silence and added, “Buck had lunch with his mom.”

“Traitor,” hissed Buck. He reached for the tequila bottle, even though Hen never finished her last shot. If she was going to betray him like that, he wasn’t waiting for her.

“Your mom is in town? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Uh, just for a few days,” answered Buck, distracted by how carefully he had to pour his shot. It was taking a weirdly long time. “She mostly came to see Maddie.”

“But you got lunch with her?”

“Not really,” said Buck, finally leveling off the shot. “She got our meals to go while I was in the bathroom,” he said, and then put the bottle down as he started laughing. It was just such a funny concept: his mom asking him to drive all the way to Brentwood for lunch and then flagging down the staff for the check the second he left the table.

“Buck,” said Eddie, a pained note in his voice. Was Eddie in pain?

 “Are you okay, Eddie?”

“What? Yes, of course.” Buck smiled at the answer and then threw back his shot. “Are you?”

“Am I what?”

“Okay?”

“Uh, yeah. Why wouldn’t I be okay?” Buck asked, sharing confused glances with Hen. He reached out to grab the bottle again, but this time Hen snatched it out of his grasp. He’d almost forgotten—she was a traitor.

“Maybe let’s cool it with the tequila, if you want to stay okay, Buckaroo,” she said.

“How much has he had?” Eddie asked. What was he, Buck’s babysitter?

He kind of was, if Buck thought about it. Buck was like one of those sad kids who got too attached to their babysitter because their parents didn’t pay enough attention to them, and no one ever told them that high schoolers leave for college.

“Well, there’s still some in the bottle,” said Hen.

“Yeah, but she won’t give it to me,” whined Buck.

“Hen, don’t let him have any more.” Eddie was so bossy.

“You’re so bossy,” Buck told him. “You can’t tell me what to do.”

“Watch me,” said Eddie, and his dad tone was back. It made Buck want to do what he said. But even more, it made Buck want to keep goading and pushing him until he provoked Eddie into saying something else in that voice.

“Sorry, I can’t see you,” said Buck in a singsong voice, holding his hand over both eyes to show how much he couldn’t see Eddie. “You’re in Texas.”

“Buck—”

“Hey, hey, Hen,” he nudged Hen’s shoulder until she paid attention to him. “Do you think in like six years Eddie will call me out of the blue and—and—invite me to lunch—” He could barely get the words out, he was laughing so hard. The idea was too ridiculous. What would Eddie want from him? It was already his. Hen had started to look a little too sober, but at the mention of lunch she cracked and joined him.

“What do you think—” she started, before the cackles overtook her, so she just gestured to Buck’s body.

“Just like, a full arm—” Buck theorized, near hysterics. “I’d be like, here you go!”

“You totally would.”

“What the fuck are you two talking about?”

“It’s an inside joke, Eddie,” said Buck, making his voice sound bratty. “For people who live in LA.”

“Am I going to have to call Chimney to go over and check on you two?”

“Ooh, good idea,” said Hen.

“Nooooo,” said Buck, really dragging it out, even though, to be honest, Chimney would be a fun addition to this party. He really understood the way tequila was required to deal with the Buckley parents. “If Chimney finds out, then Maddie will know.”

“Finds out what?”

Shit. He hadn’t meant to say that. It was just that sometimes Eddie scrambled his brain. And also, the tequila. Buck looked at Hen in a panic.

“Uh,” she said, tapping the table as she searched for a cover story. “Uh . . . oh, hey, the kids are home!” she lied. “Gotta go. Bye, Eddie!”

Buck let out a bark of laughter before Hen had the chance to end the call, and it definitely wasn’t his finest moment. But Hen’s excuse was barely more convincing than a ‘we’re going through a tunnel’ routine, and he really appreciated the way she committed to the bit in order to save his ass.

Though, unfortunately, now that meant Eddie was no longer on the phone.

“I miss Eddie,” he said.

Hen just scoffed at him. “Come on, sad boy,” she said, pulling him up and herding him towards their living room. “Get your ass on the couch. We’re watching Great British Bake Off.”

“Fine,” said Buck, reluctantly, as he sat down, winced, wrenched a plastic dinosaur out from between the cushions, and then settled back in. “But we’re skipping bread week.”

Hen yessed him and then put on an episode at random, and they settled in to watch. Within the first three minutes, the hosts announced it was bread week, but by then Buck was already invested. And it wasn’t so bad—even though they never had enough time to prove their dough and Paul Hollywood got all superior and it reminded him of his furious post-breakup bread-baking phase—because Hen was there, and she was happy to talk shit about the useless half-recipes and the tent conditions and his ex-boyfriend.

Right before the hosts called time for the showstoppers, Hen’s doorbell rang. She and Buck exchanged a confused look, and when Hen got up to answer the door, Buck followed. Had Eddie really called Chim on them?

But the person there wasn’t Chimney—it was a delivery guy, holding two full bags of Taco Bell that Buck could smell the minute the door was open. Holy shit he was hungry.

“Uh, delivery for Evan Buckley?” he said, reading something off his phone. “Delivery instructions say I’m supposed to, uh, say,” he paused, putting on a deadpan voice, “‘sober up and call me back, you idiot,’ but that feels kinda mean so, uh, I guess just, here you go.” He pushed a bag into each Hen and Buck’s arms and waved as he turned to exit the porch.

He met Hen’s eyes over the tantalizing scent of queso and ground beef, and he felt so much at once: irritated and heartsick and hungry and drunk. And also head over heels, or whatever it was people said about hopeless cases. “I literally never stood a chance,” he griped.

Hen just shook her head and offered him a burrito.

Chapter Text

It had started out by accident.

A week or so after Eddie left for El Paso, he’d texted Buck near the end of his shift to complain about the latest fire house he’d worked at. He was bouncing around as a floater for now, until a good position opened up—Buck was dreading the day—and each new station in El Paso seemed to be worse than the last.

They didn’t even have a kitchen, Buck, Eddie sent. I know we’re spoiled by Bobby but firefighters still need to eat???

Buck smiled at his phone and then put it back on his locker shelf as he changed into his clothes. It wasn’t very emotionally mature of him, but he felt giddy every time something in El Paso pissed Eddie off. A childish part of him kept hoping that the inconveniences and muggy heat and unsatisfactory stations would all add up until Eddie gave up and came home. Back. Whatever.

By the time he had laced up his sneakers, Eddie had sent him three more texts.

I would kill for one of Bobby’s burgers right now

Instead I am getting a big mac

It’s no in n out but it’ll do

The nearest In-N-Out to Eddie was in Dallas, nearly ten hours from Eddie, which Buck knew, because he’d googled it. Sometimes when they got off shift late and it was the only thing open, they’d swing by for double-doubles, animal style—something he didn’t realize had become a tradition until his third shift without Eddie, when he didn’t get out until past midnight and decided to hit the drive-through by himself.

He ended up not being able to stomach the meal. Mostly he tried not to cry into his vanilla milkshake on the way home, and when he got there, he looked it up, to see if Eddie would be able to get a double-double without him. He wouldn’t—not without a very long road trip. Another strike against El Paso.

Not me, he wrote back to Eddie. started keto today

It was stupid, honestly. He couldn’t muster up the enthusiasm he usually felt when he went on one of his health kicks; he just figured it was something to do. And it would at least remind him to eat meals regularly, so, there was that.

It looked like Eddie was typing a long response, but he still hadn’t sent anything by the time Buck got to his car, so he just plugged his phone in and turned on a sad indie playlist while he drove to the house. He wasn’t really looking forward to this 36 off—he didn’t have plans, or any motivation to make plans, which meant he’d probably be sitting in Eddie’s house wishing Eddie was there and trying to sound upbeat when Maddie called to check in.

And meal-prepping for his new diet, because it was a lot easier to talk about keto when everyone asked him how he was doing.

But when he pulled up out front of the Bedford house, there was a delivery bag sitting by the front door. Inside was a big mac, fries, and a vanilla milkshake.

He snapped a photo and sent it to Eddie: u forgot to change ur address in doordash

Oops, he sent back ten minutes later, followed by a picture of a similar bag on the passenger seat of Eddie’s truck. He must have had to go to a drive-through after accidentally sending his dinner to Buck. Facetime in ten? You can catch me up on the 118 over dinner.

And suddenly, his night off didn’t look so bleak. He could always start keto tomorrow.

The next time it happened, it couldn’t have been an accident, because he was positive their favorite Thai place didn’t have locations in Texas. When he answered the door to the delivery woman, it took him a full minute of wondering why Eddie was doing this to him before he realized it was supposed to be a nice gesture.

So he wasn’t surprised by the appearance of Taco Bell—nor the fact that it was delivered correctly to Hen’s house, since they shared their locations. And honestly, he was a grateful, because he never got to eat the salmon bowl he’d ordered at the restaurant and by now it had been sitting out in his car for several hours. Keto would have to wait another day.

He snapped a photo of his nachos and half-eaten burrito and went to send it to Eddie, but he got distracted by another text waiting for him: Thanks again for meeting with me to talk about the donation, Evan. Your father and I really appreciate it. Does tomorrow at 6 work for you to join us at Maddie’s?

Yeah, see you there, he responded. He was working tomorrow, but it was just for a couple of hours in the afternoon, since someone on B shift needed coverage, and Buck had asked Bobby to put him on the schedule more. 

He and Hen made their way through the burritos and crunch wraps and chips during bread week, pastry week, and cake week, and then Buck called himself a ride home. He could worry about picking up his car tomorrow, along with everything else.

When he got back to the house, he realized he never replied to Eddie. But technically he didn’t feel very sober at the moment, so he just wrote thanks for dinner. Just got in and am beat—talk tomorrow?

The screen showed Eddie’s typing bubbles appear and then disappear. Buck watched the screen, unblinking, until his message finally came through. I’ll hold you to that.

He meant to call Eddie the next day, he really did. It was just that it was one of those really sunny LA days with a nice breeze that was basically perfect for a run, so after breakfast, he laced up his sneakers and went out to explore the neighborhoods around Eddie’s house, which he normally only drove past. He got a little turned around, so by the time he made it back he needed to shower and leave quickly to get his car and make it to the station in time.

And then, maybe they had some downtime in the afternoon, but there were a lot of station chores that needed to be done.

And then a half hour before he was due to clock out, they got called to an incident at an indoor rock-climbing gym, where a climber’s auto-belay had jammed and left her suspended from the ceiling, thirty feet in the air. Buck was selected to put on his harness—checked only twice, since Eddie wasn’t there, Buck’s brain felt the need to point out—and when he’d finally gotten to her, she was in such a state of panic that she managed to knee him in the stomach and throw up on him.

By the time he got back to the station and showered, he already knew he was going to be at least an hour late to Maddie’s. He finally checked his phone when he got in his car at seven and saw he had several messages—Maddie had sent hi! what’s your eta? And from his mom, the more direct: I thought you could be here by 6, Evan. And another from Chimney that said since you’re already going to be late you should probably stop for tequila.

Then four from Eddie, that had come in over the course of the day—first: hey, when are you free today? And then an hour later: the station I’m at today has a dalmatian, you would love it followed shortly by update, not actually a huge fan of dalmatians, and then finally, Buck. call me.

His finger hovered over Eddie’s contact button, hesitating. He switched to his maps app and saw that it would take over a half hour to get to Maddie and Chim’s house; so he’d be an hour and a half late, and his legs were aching from his long run and his arms were aching from the rock-climbing and his head was still aching from his hangover, and he’d been thrown up on, and he had no idea what his mom was telling Maddie about his dad’s kidney, and he really didn’t think he’d be good company for Eddie right now.

Instead, he put on a podcast about designing airports and pulled out of the station parking lot. But he barely made it onto the street before his phone was ringing.

He sighed and answered the call through his car.

“Hey, Eddie. Sorry, just got off a long shift.” He didn’t even know why he said that—his shift had only been five hours. It just felt interminable, he guessed. It felt like he should have more of a reason for being this tired.

“I know,” said Eddie, sounding light in a way that Buck wished he could match. He didn’t want to ruin Eddie’s mood with whatever mess was going on in his brain right now.

“I’m actually on the way to Maddie’s—I’m already late. I can call you later?”

“Hm,” said Eddie, like he was thinking about it. “You’re leaving the station now and it’s seven, so it’s going to take at least a half hour to get there. We can just catch up while you drive.”

“Yeah, I just—” Buck hated being like this, morose and gloomy. Couldn’t Eddie just leave him to sulk in peace? “I’m not really going to be great company right now.”

“Because of the shift or because of your mom?”

He tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “The shift was fine, just long. I’m just—tired.”

“Oh, so you’re in a bad mood.”

Buck felt free to roll his eyes, since Eddie couldn’t see him. Why did he have to make it sound like Buck was a child on the verge of a tantrum? He just wanted to be left alone. Wasn’t knowing your own limits something mature people went to therapy for?

“Sure, you could say that.”

“Well, I’m sure that will be improved by sitting quietly in LA traffic and then seeing your mother.”

Buck couldn’t help it—he snorted. God, he missed Eddie.

“I’m just trying to not be a downer,” he tried. “I’m off tomorrow. I can call you then.”

“No,” said Eddie.

“Are you working tomorrow?”

“No, you can call me tomorrow. But you can’t hang up now,” Eddie ordered. “I know you’re avoiding whatever drove you to drink yesterday.”

Buck was silent, trying to think of a way out of this. The idea of simply hanging up the phone regardless of permission didn’t cross his mind. Finally, Eddie continued, “I’ll let it go for now. Because you have to hear about this fucking dog from the station.”

At Eddie’s words, Buck felt something loosen in his chest. He didn’t have to get into it right now. He didn’t have to flay open his insides and examine what this organ donation meant about him and his parents and his relationship with them. He could just shoot the shit with his best friend.

“You can’t hate a dog, Eddie. That like, automatically makes you a bad person.”

“You haven’t met this demon dog!” Eddie griped. Buck tried to imagine what Eddie was doing on his end of the phone—was he sitting on his couch with a beer? If Buck closed his eyes, he could imagine Eddie was in the passenger seat next to him. But he couldn’t do that, because he was driving.

“You know fire stations originally had dalmatians because they kept the horses calm?”

“I don’t believe that. I bet the horses used to just stand still and hope the dalmatians didn’t notice them.”

“Okay, okay,” said Buck, feeling himself smile for the first time that day. “Tell me what the mean dog did to you.”

The drive passed quickly, despite the traffic, and Buck relaxed as Eddie complained that as the new guy he was assigned the job of exercising the dog, “—it nearly pulled my arm off, I bet that’s why they needed me to fill in for someone, they were probably getting their limb reattached—” and how the dog tried to play tug-of-war with the hose, “—I was in the middle of rolling it up and this demon is just yanking on it from the other end, I mean, how have they not trained it not to do that—” and the dog’s final insult, “—it shit in my shoe, Buck! It had to aim to do that! It was a targeted attack!”

He was actually laughing by the time he pulled up in front of Maddie’s house, which he hadn’t thought was possible a few hours ago. But as he rolled to a stop and spotted his mom’s rental car in their driveway, the reality of the situation came back.

“—you have to admit that, right?” Eddie was saying. Buck had missed some of the sentence on account of the way dread was pooling in his stomach. “Buck?”

“Sorry, Eddie—I just got to Maddie’s. I gotta go.”

The line went quiet for a beat, and then Eddie said, “maybe you should just keep me on the phone.”

Buck huffed out a laugh at the idea. “Oh sure,” he said, like it was silly. Like he hadn’t thought the same exact thing the day before. “I’ll just carry you around on speakerphone all night so you don’t feel left out.”

Eddie didn’t laugh. After a moment, he said, “I hate that I’m not there to have your back.”

Buck thought about pointing out that even if Eddie were in LA, there would be no reason for him to join a Buckley family dinner. “Eddie, it’s just dinner with Maddie, Chimney, and my mom. It’ll be fine.”

“It’s not fine. I know your mom is up to something—I don’t trust her.”

“You don’t trust my mom?” Buck meant to make it a joke, to point out how absurd Eddie sounded, but instead the words got a little strangled in his throat.

“No,” said Eddie, firmly.

“Eddie—”

“Just—just call me on the way home, okay?” Eddie asked, imploring. “I’m just sitting here watching the Astros game. I’ll be around.”

Buck wanted to scoff at the overbearingness of it all, but he couldn’t, because he actually really, really wanted to know that he could call Eddie after this. That Eddie wanted him to.

“Fine,” he said, like he was doing Eddie a favor.

“And—just—” Eddie sighed.

“Just what?”

“Just remember that—okay I’m trying to figure out how to say this without insulting your mom.”

Buck felt warmth pool in his stomach. Was he a bad person, that Eddie badmouthing his mother was a source of comfort?

“Just say it,” he offered.

“She doesn’t know you,” Eddie said, the words pouring out like he’d been waiting for permission. “They’ve never taken the time to get to know you. And they don’t get any credit for how you turned out.”

“Okay, well, I don’t think they’re clamoring for credit for all this,” said Buck, gesturing to himself, even though Eddie wouldn’t see.

“Stop that,” Eddie snapped, his voice sounding sharper and more agitated than when he was talking about the dalmatian. “I’m going to start making you say affirmations.”

“Affirmations? What do you know about affirmations?”

“Sophia’s really into them right now,” Eddie admitted. “She keeps talking about them and like, manifestos—”

“Probably manifesting.”

“The point is, I don’t like the way they make you feel.”

“It’s not their fault—”

“It literally is,” Eddie interrupted. “Isn’t that like, therapy 101?”

“I think therapy 102 is taking responsibility for your own feelings.”

Eddie let out a sound of frustration. “They don’t treat you well, Buck. You deserve more than that.”

Buck opened his mouth and felt it all about to pour out—the awkward lunch with his mom, the ask for the kidney, the way it made him feel like an organ farm all over again—but he spotted movement in the window of Maddie’s house. Jee had seen his car out front and was getting tangled in the curtain, waving madly at him.

His three-year-old niece was excited to see him, and he was hiding outside in his car.

“Jee spotted me,” he told Eddie, ignoring the last thing he said. “I have to go inside. I—I’ll call you later.”

“Fine,” said Eddie, sounding annoyed. “But remember what I said.”

“My parents don’t love me—got it,” said Buck, only half-joking. “Bye, Eddie.”

And then he hung up before Eddie could say anything besides, “Buck—”

He climbed out of his car and made his way up the driveway, waving his whole arm back at Jee, as if she were a hundred yards away and couldn’t see him otherwise. She giggled and he felt some of the calm from his drive return.

As he stepped up to their front door, his phone buzzed—Eddie had sent him a link to a website that said affirmations for beginners—but Jee pulled the door open before he had time to reply.

“Uncle Buck!” she cheered.

“Jee!” he yelled back, tucking his phone in his back pocket and leaning down to scoop her up.

He was still swinging her around when his mom appeared. “Oh, Jee, honey, you know you’re not supposed to open the door,” she said, her smile tight. She gave Buck an imploring look, as if he could have stopped her from opening the door from the outside. 

“It’s Uncle Buck!” Jee repeated.

“Yes, I know, sweetie, but,” she looked back up at Buck. “Given everything—”

“Buck!” Chimney appeared around the corner, voice booming loud enough to cut off his mom. “You made it!”

“Yeah, I, uh—sorry about that,” said Buck, feeling wrong-footed. “We got caught up on a call.” Jee squirmed out of his arms and he set her down, trying not to feel like his buffer was abandoning him. He stepped inside and closed the door behind him.

“They really shouldn’t send you out if your shift is about to end,” tsked Margaret. It wasn’t actually a criticism of him, really, but it felt like he was supposed to have an answer.

“Yeah,” said Buck, peeling off his jacket and trying to figure out what response she was looking for. “I don’t think they thought it was going to take that long. Plus, there were some bodily fluids involved, so I ended up needing to shower afterwards.”

“And we’re so grateful you did,” said Chimney, grabbing a hanger from the coat closet and taking Buck’s jacket from him.

“We just thought you were going to be here at six,” his mom continued. Chim met his eyes from where he was behind her and gave Buck the wide-eyed look that he usually had when his parents were being particularly judgmental, like he was saying, can you believe this? And Buck didn’t know what expression he usually made back but it probably conveyed yes, I very much can. “I just think that if you say you’re going to do something, you should do it.”

And—oh. This wasn’t about his arrival time. But he didn’t—it hadn’t even been 24 hours yet. She’d said he had time! He hadn’t even started researching. Why was she already convinced he wasn’t taking it seriously?

“Don’t worry, Margaret,” intervened Chimney, who had either gotten a lot smoother recently or had no idea what she was talking about. “In this house, we know what happens when first responders make plans. We’re just glad you made it,” he said, ushering Buck in towards the kitchen. He was always extra nice to Buck when his parents were around, in a way that was a little unsettling, if he was being honest. It was unnatural.

Buck let himself be led into the kitchen where Maddie was dabbling her eyes with a tissue. She looked up and he saw her red-rimmed eyes and her wobbly bottom lip—so his mom had told her, then.

“Buck!” She threw her arms around the back of his neck and pulled him down for a hug. “Mom said she already told you.”

“Yeah, Maddie,” he said, rubbing her back gently. It wasn’t the most charitable thought he’d ever had about his parents, but he couldn’t help wishing they held off on telling her until after the baby was born. He and Chim had come to the very firm consensus that the rest of her pregnancy was going to be as stress-free as humanly possible.

But then again, he couldn’t help but think that he had the power to take her worry away—all for the low, low price of one small organ.

“It’s going to be okay,” he promised.

“I know,” she sniffed. “I know he will be. I’ve just been a weepy mess all week anyway and now this.” 

“At least you have pregnancy for an excuse,” he said, sniffling, and that got her to laugh. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his mother watching them, but he couldn’t make out their expression. Finally, when Maddie loosened her grip, he pulled back.

“Should we eat?” asked Chimney, a tinge of desperation in his voice.

“Yes, yes,” said Margaret, leaving Jee playing by her doll house and joining them at the table. “I’m starving. I’m going to turn in after this, since my flight is so early.”

Buck couldn’t help hearing the barb about his delaying dinner, and it grated on him. If she really needed to eat, she could have eaten. God knew she never worried about his feelings before.

That wasn’t true, he reminded himself. She had tried to buy him a new couch, hadn’t she?

Of course, she had no idea what kind of furniture he preferred, but still, the thought had been there.

She doesn’t know you, Eddie had said.

He palmed his phone under the table and navigated to his messages. Eddie had sent him two more—the score has been 4-4 for six innings now and then if you don’t call me on your way home I’ll die of boredom—but he scrolled up and looked at the stupid link he’d sent. His thumb slipped and the link opened a browser on the phone, loading the words I am strong and capable. I am enough. I am worthy of love before he had the chance to close out of it.

“Buck?”

He snapped his head up, like a kid caught texting under his desk at school. His mom must have just asked him a question, because she was watching him closely; meanwhile Maddie and Chimney were making a whole show of dishing up their plates.

“Sorry—what was that?”

“I won’t bore you with it if you can’t be bothered to pay attention, Evan,” she said. He started to reply, but she cut him off and continued. “Who are you talking to? Is it that man of yours?”

“My—” Buck paused, mouth open as he recovered from the whiplash. Why would she call Eddie that? “My—man?”

“Yes,” she said, shrugging and cutting into her chicken. “You know, the man you announced your relationship with in the middle of Maddie and Chimney’s wedding?”

Oh. Tommy. Buck had—he’d honestly kind of forgotten about him, with everything. But still, she didn’t need to make it sound like he had made Maddie and Chim’s wedding day about him. Chimney had derailed the entire day with his medical emergency first, anyway. 

“No one even noticed that,” said Maddie, defensively.

“Yeah,” agreed Chimney, giving Maddie that besotted smile he had when they were being gross. “Who could have paid attention to anything besides Maddie in her wedding dress?”

Buck mimed gagging until he noticed his mother’s disapproving glance. “She did look very beautiful,” she agreed. “But it was a little distracting,” she continued. “You know, usually people come out to their family, they don’t just show up to an event with a soot-stained face and a man in his work uniform, so they have to figure it out for themselves.”

“Well,” Chimney jumped in. “Like I said, first responders can’t make plans. That’s what we always say!” He rose from the table with his glass of water, which was still full. “Anyone need a refill?”

“Was it?” Margaret asked Buck, ignoring Chimney.

“What?” Buck asked, wishing he could ask to be excused from the table. Jee’s dollhouse looked very calm and tranquil compared to the dinner table right now.

“Your Thomas—is that who you were texting?”

“Oh, uh,” Buck started, avoiding Maddie eyes. “No. We broke up.”

“You broke up?” she repeated, her voice incredulous. “But—you brought him to your sister’s wedding. I assumed the relationship was more serious.”

“Join the club,” Buck murmured under his breath. He looked up and realized she was still waiting for a reply—but what, he had no idea. Sorry my boyfriend dumped me?

“I actually knew Tommy,” Chimney jumped in, returning to the table with his drink. It looked like he had less water than he’d had when he left; but Buck didn’t begrudge him the momentary escape. He was earning a lot of brother-in-law credit tonight, that was for sure. “I worked with him at the 118 before Buck started, so I probably would have invited him, anyway.” Chimney was a terrible liar, but fortunately, the only thing worse than his skills of deception were Margaret’s powers of observation. 

“Hm,” she said, and he thought she was finally going to let the topic rest, but then she said, “who was it, then?”

“Who?”

“The person you’re texting. Do you have new boyfriend already?”

“Oh, uh, no,” said Buck, drinking half his glass and wishing he had brought tequila after all, hangover be damned. “It was Eddie.”

“Eddie?”

“Eddie, he, uh, worked with us at the 118,” Chimney explained. “He’s in Texas right now. You might have met him last time you were here.”

“You did meet him,” said Buck; even Chimney’s use of the words right now couldn’t undo the fact that his blood was simmering in his veins at her confusion. “At the wedding. And at the hospital, when I was in a coma.”

And he doesn’t trust you, he wanted to add. He doesn’t like the way you treat me.

It was the first time in his life anyone had ever said that—that Buck deserved more. There had been the empty words of assurance that always came after a break-up, you can do better and he didn’t deserve you and she doesn’t know what she’s missing. But those all came after the damage was done, when he’d already been left behind.

But Eddie was worried about how Buck’s mom was treating him right now. Eddie didn’t want Buck to interact with her without Eddie there to have his back.

And his mom couldn’t even bother to remember Eddie’s name?

He prodded the chicken on his plate for something to do. He wasn’t very hungry; his stomach was doing a lot of unpleasant flips and there wasn’t much room for anything else. 

Maddie jumped in with a story about Jee’s daycare, kindly moving the topic away from Buck. He felt his phone buzz in his pocket a few times over the course of dinner, and he didn’t look at it, but he took comfort in the thought of Eddie on his couch in front of the game, sending Buck updates. Thinking of him, all the way from Texas.

Eventually he’d have to stop using Eddie like this, like he was a security blanket Buck was allowed to carry around. Eventually he’d have to come to terms with the fact that they lived 800 miles away from each other, and that that was the kind of distance that would spur normal adults on to do things like make new friends and talk to each other less.

But for tonight, with his mom’s eyes on him across the table, looking like she wanted to frog-march him to the hospital for elective surgery, he let himself enjoy the buzzing of his phone. The knowledge that Eddie was waiting to hear from him.

He only had to suffer through twenty more minutes of dinner before Maddie announced it was Jee’s bedtime and Buck volunteered to do it, which had the benefit of getting him away from the table faster. He’d feel guilty about stealing Maddie’s escape, but she had Chim—and anyway, they’d both given him knowing looks when he offered, which he didn’t love, but would deal with if it meant he could leave before his mom found something else about him to pick apart.

The escape wasn’t entirely self-serving—he loved doing Jee’s bedtime, and he usually offered if he was over their house at the right time, anyway. It had been so long since he’d helped with Chris’s bedtime, and he found the ritual comforting. He and Jee had their own routine now, where he would make silly fire truck noises while she brushed her teeth, and then she’d ask him to make up a bedtime story.

But tonight, she had other questions for him. “Uncle Buck,” said Jee, from where she was tucked under his arm on her bed. “Why is Mama sad?”

Ah, he should have seen this coming. He loved kids’ natural curiosity, and he always tried to give Jee answers she could understand—especially since he’d grown up being discouraged from bothering people with too many questions. This was what he got for telling her she could always ask him anything. 

“Grandpa Buckley isn’t feeling well,” he said, gently. “And sometimes when the people we love feel bad, it makes us sad.”

“Do you love Grandpa Buckley?”

 God, kids were so brutal.

“Yeah, Jee, of course,” he assured, not even sure if he was telling a lie.

“Why didn’t you cry?”

“Oh,” his mind danced over the idea of explaining pregnancy hormones and family dynamics and he realized he didn’t want to open either can of worms on himself. “Uh, grandma told me yesterday.”

“Oh,” said Jee, accepting that without question. “Will you tell me a story?”

After 10 minutes of a kid-friendly, slightly dramatized version of the time they rescued a sky-diver from the back of a plane, followed by ten minutes of trying to bore her to sleep with various vegetable cutting techniques Bobby had taught him, he emerged from her room to find the rest of the house dark and quiet. 

Maddie was on the couch with a glass of the zero-proof wine that he’d bought her a case of after she’d been discharged from the hospital, post-kidnapping.

“Mom went to bed,” she said, neutrally. And—oh. He had kind of hoped for this when he volunteered to take Jee, since his mom said she was going to turn in after dinner. But still, he’d thought she would… he didn’t know. Wait for him? Say goodbye?

Maybe she was expecting to see him soon. Scrubbing in for surgery in Pennsylvania.

“Hm,” he said, noncommittally, and sunk into the couch at the opposite end from Maddie. 

“Was I picking up on weird energy between you two?” Maddie probed. She grabbed the second glass on the coffee table and filled it with wine before handing it to him, and even though he kind of wished it was something stronger, he appreciated the gesture. He raised his eyebrows at her, as if to say, as opposed to what? 

“Why did she tell you yesterday and not tonight?”

“I don’t know,” he lied, hoping she’d let it drop. He leaned forward and had a sip of the wine. It was actually pretty good.

“Something is off. You’re being weird,” Maddie pushed.

“You’ve been saying that since Eddie left,” Buck reminded her. “Also, something is off. Dad needs a new kidney.”

He wanted to ask her then, wanted to let everything spill out. It built up behind his teeth, the way it had in his car before he hung up on Eddie. She’d trained as a nurse, she’d be able to answer all his questions. She’d be able to tell him what to do, like she always did. 

But he couldn’t put that on her. Maddie loved their dad—really loved him, unlike whatever complicated mess Buck felt—and he knew his sister well enough to know that she wouldn’t be happy at the thought of him giving up a kidney. But she also wouldn’t want their dad to die from kidney failure. He couldn’t ask her to make that choice for him. 

“I guess you’re right,” she said, settling back onto the couch. “It just doesn’t feel real. I guess it won’t, for a while.” 

He hummed again, and then asked, “are you going to do the genetic testing?”

“I already did,” she said. “Chim and I did it when we were having Jee, to see what the risks were. I’m in the clear.”

Well, that was one relief. One less person who might need his kidney, that he’d actually want to give it up for.

“Are you?”

“Oh, uh, I guess. Probably,” he hedged. He was thinking about the other testing he’d need to do, the ones that ensure you’re a viable donation candidate.

But Maddie thought he was thinking about something else.

“Hey, Evan,” she said, softly. “Just because it doesn’t seem likely right now, there’s still plenty of time for you to have kids.” He shot her a look—aiming for dismissive, probably landing somewhere around distressed.

“When I was your age, I was desperate not to have kids,” she continued. “And look at me now.”

Look at her now—mother of the cutest little girl in the world, a second on the way. A partner who loved her and a house she felt safe in, and everything he’d ever wanted for her.

She wanted the same for him, he knew that. But he was never going to catch up to her white picket fence life, and genetic testing was the least of his hurdles—he had other concerns, like a fourteen-year-old who was farther away from him than ever before, and the biological struggles that two men had to contend with if they wanted more kids, and also the fact that the love of his life was four states away and exclusively attracted to women.

“How’s Eddie?” she asked, in the least subtle segue possible.

“Smooth,” he commented, taking another big drink of his wine. If his glass was empty, he’d have an excuse to leave.

“I was changing the subject!” Maddie insisted.

“Were you?”

“Why? Is there something you want to talk to me about that has to do with having kids and Eddie?” She called his bluff. But he couldn’t—not tonight. Not with the way his mom’s digs had left him feeling bruised and needy. He was pathetic enough without dragging out his whole sad, one-sided love story for Maddie to dissect.

“I think that’s my cue,” he said instead, knocking back the remaining nonalcoholic wine in his glass and standing up from the couch.

“No, Buck, wait,” said Maddie, standing up too, which he felt a little bad about because it was getting harder for her as her second trimester progressed. “I didn’t mean to push, okay? Stay—we can just watch tv, no heart-to-hearts,” she offered.

“It’s fine,” he assured her. “It’s not that, I just—I had a really long day before I got here. I got barfed on,” he pulled out his ace in the whole. No one ever insisted you stay after you told them someone puked on you—it was a trade secret amongst first responders. “I showered at the station but I just want to shower again and go to bed.”

Her eyes roved over him, looking for traces of vomit or cracks in his façade, and he hoped she wouldn’t find either. “Fine,” she said, after a minute. “But only because you got thrown up on today.”

“Thank you,” he said, giving her his best I’m-totally-fine smile. She narrowed her eyes at him, but she still took his glass and gestured for him to lead the way to the door.

He grabbed his coat from the closet and pulled it on, and he said, “hey—I’m sorry about dad.”

She cocked her head at him. “Sorry for what? He’s your dad too, Buck.”

“Yeah, but, you know,” he shrugged. “It’s different for me.”

She opened her mouth to reply, but then closed it and gave him a look. He was making her sad, which was the opposite of what he was trying to do.

“Let’s do something fun this week,” he offered. “After mom’s gone. A beach day, maybe. Get our mind off stuff.”

She perked up at the idea, the worry slipping out of her expression. “Yeah,” she said, letting out a breath and smiling at him for real. “That sounds perfect.”

“It’s a plan,” he said. “Tell Chim I said bye. We can text tomorrow to figure it out.”

She watched him until he got into his car, and when she closed the door, he pulled out his phone. He had nine messages from Eddie.

How’s dinner going?

Chris and I got bbq for dinner, it was great

You’d think all bbq in el paso would be great because it’s texas

But no, they only manage to have like 2 bbq places that aren’t shit

Chris agreed that your pulled pork tacos are better

The Astros just pulled ahead by one

And now the game is over

Is your mom behaving?

Don’t forget to call me when you leave

He grinned at his phone, like a teenager hearing from their crush. It was just . . . it was a good string of messages, that was all. Eddie and Chris had been hanging out. And talking about him. And complaining about El Paso.

Buck called Eddie as he pulled away from Maddie’s curb, and he picked up the phone after the first ring.

“Well, well, well,” drawled Eddie, “look who it is.”

“It’s like, nine pm, Eddie,” said Buck.

“Which means it’s ten for me,” complained Eddie.

“Oh sorry, old man, I forgot you had a long day of getting bullied by a dog.”

“I didn’t get bullied,” Eddie maintained. “I was . . . hazed. It’s much more serious.”

“No good barbecue and the dogs are mean,” said Buck, before he could stop himself. “Two more strikes against El Paso.”

“Two more?” Eddie asked, and shit, Buck didn’t mean to say that out loud. He couldn’t tell what was in Eddie’s tone when he said, “what were the first ones?”

“Oh, uh,” he said, trying to buy himself time to think. “The humidity, obviously.”

“Obviously,” Eddie agreed.

“No ocean, that’s a big one.”

“I do miss the beach.”

He wracked his brains, trying to think of more safe answers even though it’s 800 miles away from me was flashing in his mind like a news ticker.

“No In-N-Out,” he remembered. “Or Bobby’s cooking. Can’t get that in El Paso.”

“Is it bad that most of these are food-related?”

“You tell me, you’re the one stuck in El Paso with no good food.” Right after he said it, he remembered that three days ago Eddie had texted him pictures of abuela’s tamales, and a week before that he’d been at hers for chile con carne that he said was so good he wished he could send Buck a bowl.

But Eddie only said, “fair enough. Anything else?”

He wanted to ask how many do you need? If he listed enough, would Eddie see reason and bring Chris back to LA?

But he tamped the question down; it wasn’t fair to Eddie to ask. And anyway, it would probably be better in the long run; Buck was never going to stop being in love with Eddie if he saw him every day, worked with him side by side. He was never going to stop loving Eddie regardless, but still—it was the story he needed to tell himself. That it wouldn’t always feel like this.

“So far,” he said instead. “I’ll let you know if I come up with anything else.”

Eddie was silent for a beat. Buck was parked at a stoplight and could hear a man yelling somewhere on the street. On the sidewalk, the wind carried bits of trash towards his car; no moon was out. He was so tired, and nothing felt right.

“Are you going to tell me what your mom said?” The question landed flat in his truck; he felt like he was physically clamming up even though Eddie couldn’t see him, his shoulders pulling in, his chest tight.

“She didn’t say anything,” he said, reflexively. It was so engrained to deflect, but at this point he didn’t even know why. Who was he trying to protect?

“Buck,” Eddie said, like his name was a full sentence.

“She didn’t,” he said, and he could hear his voice go up, like it did when he lied. “Just the usual stuff, you know—why did I make a whole big deal of coming out at Maddie’s wedding if I was just going to get dumped anyway. Kind of fair.”

“That is the opposite of fair, actually.”

“I didn’t even mean to—I didn’t know I had soot on my face, you know?”

“Buck—”

“It was stupid of me to invite him, anyway,” he said, the ramble pouring out of him like word vomit. He had so much bouncing around his head and so little that he could let out; it felt like he was trying to push a lid down but it wouldn’t seal—a big, kidney-shaped obstruction that was in the way—so all the ugly, extraneous bits were seeping out instead, against his will.

“I couldn’t even get him to stay through our first date, I don’t know why I thought he’d stick around in the long run. I think there’s something wrong with me, that I can’t—make anyone stay,” he said, and he made a noise that was supposed to be a laugh. “Even my mom she just—she went to bed without saying goodbye, while I was putting Jee to sleep. Like, what is it about me? I think there’s some sort of defect or—or something I do, or, or don’t do—it’s like, what’s wrong with me that no one wants me, they just want—”

“Buck! Buck—”

Oh, fuck. He hadn’t met to say any of that, least of all to Eddie. Eddie, who left him, too. Eddie, who made the right choice and went after his son instead. It wasn’t Eddie’s fault that Buck had a bruised heart and a secret, shameful desire to—just once—be someone’s first choice.

He didn’t even want Eddie to . . . he knew Christopher came first, always. He understood it, because he felt that way, too. So what was he expecting? What was the point of rehashing it over and over again except to hurt both of their feelings? Eventually, Eddie would get tired of hearing him whine about this.

Which was—it was—yeah. 

Eddie had interrupted his nonsensical rant but then had stayed quiet. Even though he couldn’t see him, Buck knew this habit of Eddie’s; sometimes, he just needed a minute to work up to what he was going to say. Usually, it was something honest.

Buck couldn’t really handle any more honesty tonight.

“Sorry, Eddie, I—I didn’t mean to. It’s been a long day. A long shift. I’m almost back to the house, I’m just gonna go to bed. I’ll, uh, talk to you later.” And then he reached out and hung up before Eddie could say anything else. Like a coward.

Chapter Text

Within a few seconds, his phone was ringing again. But he just ignored it and wiped his cheeks dry on his sleeves. No way was he picking that up again right now.

His phone kept buzzing, so he turned it face down on the passenger seat and kept driving. But as he got closer and closer to Bedford Street, the idea of pulling into Eddie’s driveway and going into Eddie’s house, lights off, no one home . . . it was unbearable. He paused at a stop sign for a full minute, his phone still sporadically buzzing next to him, and then he turned left.

It was easy to find the bar he’d passed on his run that morning, with its neon marquis out front. Inside, the walls were dark green and covered in movie posters; it was a step above the dive bar he was hoping for, but it would do.

He sank into a barstool and stared at the sign advertising their beers on tap. He couldn’t do hard liquor again after last night, but he could use something to take the edge off.

The bartender looked young—a kid in his early twenties, probably—and gave him a skittish smile as he made a cocktail slowly and methodically, referring to a book at every step. Buck watched him pouring and mixing, for something to do; he’d left his phone in the car, anyway.

By the time the kid had finished what looked like a pretty decent negroni, Buck felt . . . not calmer, maybe, but distracted, at least.

“What can I get you?” said the kid, wiping his hands on his apron and giving Buck a strained smile.

“I’ll take the Angel City on tap.”

“Oh, thank god,” he said, putting a pint glass flat on the counter drain and letting the beer splash in. Buck winced at the sight.

“Busy night?” he asked.

“First night,” admitted the kid. “I’m supposed to be training but the manager got the flu and—sorry, I don’t think bartenders are supposed to complain to their patrons,” he said, taking the beer and sliding it forward towards Buck in a way that he’d probably seen on tv, but in real life only served to splash the foam onto the counter.

The badly poured beer tasted bittersweet. It reminded him of his first ever gig bartending, when he was so happy to be out of Hershey. And so, so alone.

Look how far he hadn’t come.

“Usually, the bartenders are the ones hearing the complaints,” Buck agreed. “Better tips that way. Want some advice?”

“Oh god, yes please,” he said, twisting the rag in his hands.

“Tilt the pint glass when you pour,” Buck took a big sip of his beer and then tilted the glass to demonstrate. “Never scoop ice with the glass. And invest in good shoes.”

“Good shoes,” he repeated. “Shit,” he said, catching sight of someone flagging him down at the other end of the bar. He gave Buck a stressed look and hustled away.

For a second, he entertained the idea of hopping over the bar and helping out. There was a reason he’d fallen back on the job so many times—he was good at it, and he liked it. The way you had to keep moving all night, the patrons who always wanted to talk, the drink recipes that kept your mind occupied. The hours flew by, and he found it easy to keep that friendly smile up for the customers.

What if he did it again? Just picked up, and left? He could bartend again, and he could go anywhere. Europe, maybe, he’d never made it to Europe. He pictured Barcelona, or an island in Greece, somewhere he could work nights and spend days on the beach.

It was the kind of thing he used to act on, years ago. The kind of thought that felt like adventure, that tasted like freedom. Now, the idea of it just seemed lonely and sad. He’d never give up firefighting until he was forced to; he’d stay at the 118 forever, if he could.

After all, Buck was never the one who left.

“Oh, uh . . . I’m uh . . . not sure . . .”

Buck looked up from his beer to see the bartender on the landline attached to the wall, looking concerned. “Sir, I don’t think I can do that.”

The kid shot a harassed look at Buck. “No, I just—” another glance at Buck and then back towards the kitchen. “No, I don’t want any trouble with the police—yeah. Uh, maybe I can . . . ask?”

Buck was about to see if he needed help when he stepped towards him, the long, coiled phone cord reaching down the length of the bar.

“Uh,” he said, cheeks red. “Is your name Buck?”

“Yes?”

“I—uh—it’s for you,” he said, holding out the phone. Confused, Buck reached out and took the phone.

“Hello?”

“Jesus fucking Christ, Buck.”

“Eddie? What the—what are you doing?”

“What am I doing? What are you doing? You can’t just say all that shit and then hang up. Then you just stop responding? And then I see that you went to a bar instead of going home?”

Buck closed his eyes and felt a sigh slip out. The stupid fucking location sharing app. How was he ever supposed to get over Eddie if Eddie kept doing shit like this?

“I was worried sick, Buck,” Eddie continued, in that voice he saved for lecturing Chris. Buck hadn’t heard that voice in so, so long. “I told that bartender to cut you off, after yesterday, you can’t make a habit of this, and—”

Buck closed his eyes and let Eddie’s words wash over him, feeling melancholy and heartsick. Eddie, caring enough to stalk his location and find the number of the bar and threaten the bartender away from him; Eddie, having to do it all by phone because he wasn’t there. He should appreciate it. It should make him feel warm and fuzzy inside. But instead, he just felt scraped raw.

“Eddie,” he interrupted what might have been a rant about the kinds of people who would take advantage of Buck in his current state—what state Eddie thought that was, Buck had no idea. Silence fell on the other side of the line. “I’m fine, Eddie. I had half a beer, okay? I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine,” Eddie insisted. “And you won’t talk to me. You won’t tell me what’s wrong, and I know—I know it seems like I left you, too, but I didn’t, Buck. I didn’t.”

Embarrassingly, for the second time that night, Buck felt tears well up in his eyes. They both sat in silence on either side of the line, trying to let the lie stand.

Because Eddie did leave him. And of all the times he’d been left before, this was by far the worst.  

Buck looked up and realized the bartender was watching him with wary eyes. His bartending career was off to a rough start.

“Look Eddie—”

“Buck, please,” he said. And he hadn’t heard Eddie so desperate since he begged Buck to help get Chris to open his door. “I won’t be able to sleep tonight.”

Fucking same, Buck wanted to say. Did Eddie imagine Buck had been sleeping like a baby in Eddie’s room, in Eddie’s empty house? He was lucky if he got four hours at a time.

The bartender was still glancing up at him in between helping the other customers.

“I’ll call you on my cell,” he said finally, defeated.

“You better,” said Eddie. “Or I’ll call Athena for a wellness check.”

Buck didn’t bother replying. He met the bartender’s eye and flagged him over. “Sorry about that,” he said to the kid, handing the phone back. Buck wondered what he made of the interaction; maybe he thought Buck was an alcoholic who’d fallen off the wagon, and Eddie was a very dedicated sponsor. Buck pulled out a twenty-dollar bill, left it on the counter, and slipped out before he could ask any questions.

In the car, Buck picked his phone up and looked at it. Eddie had tried to call him three times, FaceTime him twice, and had sent him several increasingly demanding text messages. 

He waited until he got back to the house—until he was standing in the middle of the darkened living room that used to be his favorite place in the world and now just made him feel like shit—before he pressed on Eddie’s contact.

The call picked up before the first ring ended. “I’m having an off night, Eddie, I’m not a fucking suicide risk,” he bit out, before Eddie had a chance to talk. “I’m a grown adult, you know. I can go have a beer at a bar! This isn’t—you’re not being fair. I mean, Jesus—you’re tracking my location, you’re threatening to call the cops on me? I just wanted to have a drink in peace.”

Silence rang on the other end of the phone. It occurred to Buck that this was the first time he’d ever yelled at Eddie, the first time he’d ever actually felt frustrated with him in a way that tasted like anger. Eddie had gotten pissed at him before, but prior to tonight, the closest he’d gotten to this feeling was right before he left for Texas, when it felt like he was packing up his life in LA and leaving like it was nothing.

It’s not nothing, Eddie had said. 

“I just—I don’t want you to be alone,” said Eddie, softly, like an admission.

Join the fucking club, Buck thought. It was funny, but none of his laughs were coming out right tonight. “I am alone, Eddie.”

“Buck, I—”

“She wants my kidney.” There it went; Buck never could keep anything inside. Could never keep the feelings contained, could never stop them from spilling out over the people nearest him. “That’s what fucking happened, okay? My dad needs a kidney donor and they remembered why they bothered having me in the first place. Is that what you wanted to hear? That my parents finally found a use for me after all these years?”

A ringtone sounded in his ear, and he looked down and saw that Eddie was FaceTiming him. He gritted his teeth and accepted the call.

“You can’t give it to them,” said Eddie. Buck took a minute to appreciate the sight of him. They hadn’t video called in a while, and Eddie’s five o’clock shadow was coming in, and his hair was a mess, the way it got when he raked his hands through it too much. Buck could see the darkened living room in the background; it looked like he was standing still in the middle of it. Light from another room was coming in and making Eddie’s eyes look shiny. Buck missed him like a physical ache, like a phantom limb.

“You can’t. That’s your kidney. You need that.”

For a second, Buck had blissfully forgotten what they were talking about. 

His own face in the corner of his call looked pathetic—he could see the bags under his eyes, the downward slope of his shoulders. The last two days had been a million years long. 

“You only need one, actually,” he said, because really, what else was there to say? “That’s how kidney donations work.”

“No,” insisted Eddie, growing visibly more agitated by the minute. “You need that. That’s part of you. They can’t take that.”

“They’re not going to take it. I’m not going to wake up in a bathtub full of ice,” he said, unclear why he was arguing his parents’ side right now. “They just asked if I’d consider it.”

“Oh they just asked,” echoed Eddie, sarcastically. “What happens if you need one someday? Or what if you get injured? Then what?”

“I don’t know, Eddie,” Buck said, tiredly. “She only asked me yesterday, I haven’t had time to do the research.”

“You don’t have to do the research. Say no.”

“Eddie—”

The doorbell rang, cutting him off. It was nearing ten pm—did Eddie actually call Athena on him?

He narrowed his eyes at Eddie, but Eddie’s distressed expression didn’t change, so Buck just dropped his phone to the side while he walked to answer the door, not bothering to keep Eddie upright. If the view made him nauseous, then he could just hang up.  

When he opened the front door, a pizza delivery man stood on the other side with a box from their favorite pizza place. “Delivery for Evan Buckley?”

Eddie stayed silent on the other end of the phone as Buck thanked the man and carried the box into the kitchen, flicking the lights on as he went. Once he put it down on the table, he held his phone back up to look at Eddie. 

“What?” Eddie said, defensively.

“I didn’t order a pizza.”

“Yeah, but you need to eat.”

“I had dinner at Maddie’s,” Buck reminded him.

“Your mom makes you stressed, and you’d just gotten thrown up on,” Eddie pointed out, calling him out. “If you ate an actual full meal there, I’ll call the pizza place and have them come pick it back up.”

Buck’s eyes roved over Eddie’s pinched face on his phone screen, over the box he knew held a thin crust pizza with extra cheese, sitting on the kitchen table where he and Eddie had had so many conversations like this before; times where they didn’t let each other’s crap slide, times where they knew the other wasn’t facing up to what was really going on.

This is what you get to have, he thought. It’s more than you ever expected. Enjoy it while it lasts. He’d gotten greedy, over the last seven years. Before Eddie came, he had felt like this all the time: a gnawing hunger in his belly and a sense of vertigo in his spine, like he was moving without a net or a crash pad or a partner holding his line. He’d gotten spoiled and complacent, too used to Eddie having his back.

But he had this. Eddie at the other end of a video call. Eddie, ordering him a pizza. Buck knew he wasn’t doing it on purpose, but if he’d been trying to torture Buck, this would be downright diabolical. It was tantalizing to the point of madness, all of ways he seemed to care. All of ways he was out of reach.

Buck had been silent for so long that Eddie had shifted, and now he was sitting on his couch, with the light from the TV flickering off his face. He was so beautiful in the blue light; for a wild moment, Buck considered blurting it out—I love you. Eddie would either reciprocate or he would finally hang up, and right now either option was more appealing than this painful middle ground.

“Come on, grab a slice,” Eddie said, after a minute. “Speed just came on TV. We can just watch and . . . it’s late. We can deal with the rest tomorrow, okay?”

Tomorrow when he woke up, Eddie would still be in Texas, his dad would still need a kidney, and the aching pit in his stomach would still be there. But he was hungry. And he loved Speed. And he was always going to do whatever Eddie asked of him, no matter what he told himself otherwise.

“What channel?”

Buck grabbed the cooler of snacks he packed and his beach chair out of the back of his car and staked out a spot near the water. The good thing about being first responders with weird schedules was that he, Maddie, and Chimney could enjoy a mostly empty beach day on a random Tuesday.

While he waited for them to arrive with Jee, he pulled out his phone to snap a picture of the waves to send to Eddie, but he already had two messages waiting for him. Pop quiz, asshole, came the first one. What do these three things have in common: chronic pain, blood clots, death?

He squinted against the sun glare while he typed his reply: things listed in my medical history?

Within a minute, Eddie thumbs-downed his reply and sent through shit. A flurry of texts followed: okay yeah, followed by but also they’re possible complications for kidney donors, and then you don’t want to deal with those AGAIN.

This was just the latest in Eddie’s onslaught of anti-organ donor campaigning. The morning after they watched Speed, Buck woke up on the couch with his cheek plastered to the pillow and his phone dead, lost in the couch cushions. He must have drifted off sometime around when the speeding bus switched to a speeding subway car; it figured that the best night’s sleep he’d gotten in Eddie’s house so far was on his couch.

After he plugged his phone in to charge, he saw that Eddie had sent him a barrage of links to pages with headlines like Donating a kidney ruined my life and The ugly side of organ transplants and Kidney donation poses increased risks for those with physically demanding jobs.

And that wasn’t all Eddie had been sending him. Eddie ordered him a delivery of waffles that weekend, and when he got out of his midweek shift at 5 pm, he found his usual order from In-N-Out sitting on the doormat. Buck complained about running out of detergent when he needed to do laundry, and two hours later a task rabbit showed up at the door with the fancy organic brand Buck liked. He felt a sore throat coming on after being out in the rain for four hours during a rescue, and that night he’d gotten a grocery delivery of chicken noodle soup and orange juice.

Eddie seemed to have discovered the wonders of ground shipping, too. In the past week and a half, he’d sent Buck a bottle of barbecue sauce from one of the two good places in El Paso; a jar of fire roasted hatch green chile salsa, that he apparently drove over the border into New Mexico to get; and a small cactus that he and Chris saw at the botanical gardens, that Eddie had found and shipped from one of those online plant stores.

He didn’t know what to make of it. He didn’t even know Eddie knew how to use any online delivery service, let alone coordinating long-distance Doordash drop-offs and shipping plants across state lines. Whenever Buck tried to call him out on it, he just said he was being a good landlord.  

0/10 on death, would not recommend, Buck texted back.

High blood pressure, too, came Eddie’s next message.

For me or for you? Buck asked, and then sent through the picture he took of the waves. Look at the relaxing waves, Eddie, take deep breaths.

After a few minutes, Eddie sent wish I was there, and Buck let himself pretend for a minute that Eddie meant with him and not on the beach. Eddie loved the ocean the same way he did; he imagined it was from growing up in a landlocked place you wanted to escape—the coast became the ultimate destination of freedom, the farthest place you could go.

He typed out me too, and then deleted it and retyped sucks to suck and hit send.

“Uncle Buck!”

He turned to see Jee sprinting down the beach towards him, both her parents following, moving much slower as they were bogged down with what looked like enough supplies to fill a beach house.

“Jee!” He ran to meet her halfway, picking her up so she was sitting in his arms. Together, they watched Maddie and Chim struggle down the sand.

“Is that a blow-up pool?” Buck asked. “You know they already have water here, right?”

“Very funny, Buckaroo,” said Chim, unloading two coolers, two beach bags, and four umbrellas. “It takes a lot of supplies to entertain a toddler on the beach.”

“Come on, no it doesn’t,” he insisted, shifting Jee in his arms so he could toss her up and down. She squealed in delight, and the sound warmed his insides. “We can swim, we can build sandcastles—”

“Let’s race, Uncle Buck!” She suggested when he finally put her down.

“Correction,” Chimney called, as Buck took off after Jee. “It does if you want to sit down and enjoy it!”

Buck let Jee win for a bit, but then she started pulling ahead for real—god, how were toddlers so fast?—so he put on a burst of speed and yanked her back up into his arms. She broke out into giggles and bragged about her victory as Buck toted her back towards their beach blanket in a fireman’s carry.

“This is how I enjoy the beach,” Buck replied to Chimney, dropping Jee onto the blanket.

“That’s because you’re young and full of energy,” said Chimney, reaching into his beach bag to grab a book. He looked to Maddie, who was already relaxing under one of the four umbrellas with a book of her own, and then back at Buck. “Have we mentioned what a good uncle you are?” Jee sprinted off the blanket again like she heard a race starting gun, and Chimney averted his eyes down to his book. “Really, you’re doing great.”

After an hour of Buck chasing Jee around the sand and then another hour of them splashing in the shallows, Chimney put a bookmark in his beach read and offered to take Jee on a walk to look for seashells. Exhausted, Buck collapsed on the sand-covered beach towel and thought about how he should probably put on another coat of sunscreen.

Eddie always reminded him to put on sunscreen. Because he was such a dad. Which reminded him—he pulled out his phone to see if Eddie texted him since they arrived. He’d only sent a frowning emoji; Buck couldn’t help picturing the expression on Eddie’s face. And then he was picturing Eddie on the beach next to him. Maybe the two of them on a beach blanket, in some deserted cove. The sun going down, and—

“Is that Eddie?”

Buck looked up and glanced around wildly, as if Eddie might appear on the beach. “What?”

Maddie nodded towards his phone. “Are you texting Eddie?”

“Oh,” he said, his heartrate dropping back down to its normal rhythm. “Yeah.”

“How is he doing?” she asked, her voice suspiciously light.

“It sounds like things are going well with Chris,” he offered, because no way in hell he was telling her what all their recent conversations had been about. But there was one other revelation he actually should get his sister’s input on.

“Since he’s been gone, I’ve been . . .” he pulled himself into a seated position, scooting under the shade thrown by one of their many umbrellas. Maddie stowed her book in her beach bag, keeping her watchful eyes on him. “Like I knew it was going to be hard without him. But the way it hurts. It . . . it feels like when Abby left.”

He chanced a glance up at his sister and could only take her expression—half excited, half sad—for a moment. “Like Abby?” She prodded.

“Like Abby, except worse.”

“Oh, Buck,” she said, and at the softness in his voice he sniffed and turned to watch the waves. He tried to match his breathing to their receding and crashing, to keep himself steady. Maddie reached out and ran her fingers through his hair, the way she used to when they were little.

He had a flashback of being on the beach with her when they were kids. Their parents had driven them to the Jersey shore one summer, and Buck spent the entire long weekend teaching himself how to use a skimboard he found in the garage of the rental house. Their mom and dad didn’t seem to like the beach very much—probably why they never went back—but they’d let Buck stay as long as Maddie promised to keep an eye on him.

In his memory, those four days loomed large; just him and his sister and the hot sand and the cold Atlantic ocean. Every day, they stayed until sunset—so much different than the Pacific sunsets he was used to now—but he remembered liking the evenings most, when the sky turned pink and purple and the moon rose over the water, and if they were there long enough, it felt like he and Maddie were the only people in the world.

You have this, he reminded himself.

“I guess you already figured it out,” he said, once he could trust his voice to come out evenly. He didn’t bother looking to see her nod. “I just . . . what am I supposed to do with this, Maddie?”

Her fingers scraped his scalp, her thumb sweeping the curls back from where they’d fallen onto his forehead. He felt like a cat in the sun; the way they craved being touched one second and then found it unbearable the next.

“I don’t know,” Maddie said, after a moment. “To be honest, I’d always assumed we’d have this conversation when Eddie was . . . here.”

“Even if he was here, we’d still have a few other issues,” Buck laughed, and he used it as an excuse to duck his head out from under her touch. “Not sure how familiar with Eddie’s dating history you are, but there’s one pretty big common denominator.”

“You’re one to talk,” countered Maddie. “And from what I’ve heard, none of those relationships have been big successes.”

“Don’t,” he said, shaking his head once, sharply. “I can’t—I can’t start thinking like that. It’s not fair.”

“But Buck, what if it is—”

“Stop,” he begged. “Please. I just can’t go there, okay?”

“Okay,” she surrendered. “Okay. Buck,” she said, and waited until he met her eyes to continue. “You know you’ve got me, right?”

She held out her pinky, and he wrapped it in his own.

And that’s when Buck was tackled. He hadn’t been bracing at all, so when Jee’s tiny body flew at him from the side, she completely succeeded in knocking him flat. She followed it up with a violent wrestling move that wouldn’t be out of place in those fights Eddie liked to watch. Buck winced as her sharp little elbow landed between his ribs. “Uncle, uncle!” he cried, trying to worm his way out from under her. How did such a small kid have so many sharp limbs?

“You’re the uncle!” Jee shouted at him as she continued her adorable and surprisingly painful assault. With the ways her knees were digging into his side, she might beat his father to being the first family member responsible for him losing an organ.

“He means you’ve beaten him,” Chimney explained. “And you should take pity on him and let him live.”

Jee giggled and rolled off him in a somersault move that would put any adult in a neck brace. When she started prodding Maddie for snacks, Buck looked back at his phone to see Eddie had texted him again.

Got any more beach pictures? Buck turned back to the waves to record a video of the surf, and while he was filming, another text came through. Just had a whole thing with my parents.

Buck ended the video and looked down at the screen, tilting it towards the shade so he could see better. Shit, he replied. A whole thing?

Eddie’s texting bubble appeared, and Buck watched the dots loading. After a moment, the texts came through, rapid fire.

Yeah, they overheard me talking with Adriana and made this big deal out of it

And I didn’t want to get into it, especially with them, but they just wouldn’t let up

And then none of us realized Chris had gotten dropped off, so he heard us yelling from the porch

Which is the whole reason I left Texas in the first place, so he wouldn’t have to deal with that

The one good thing is Chris took my side

He left with me and he’s staying here tonight, at least

But I never wanted him to have to see that side of them

I’m going to have to talk to him about it

Them, too, probably

Once we all have time to cool off

Fuck

I wish you were here

Buck watched the messages come through, each making his chest ache more than the last. Want me to call? He sent back, hoping Eddie would say yes. He wanted to hear his voice right now, to gauge for himself how upset Eddie was.

No, Eddie’s response came. This house is too small, and then Chris is in the other room getting changed before we go get dinner. I really have to talk to him first.

Okay, well, if Eddie and Chris were still going out for dinner, that was a good sign. He wondered what the blow-up had been about. Shannon? Kim? Thinking about it made him feel cold, even on the beach—the idea of Eddie, backed into a corner by his parents. Of him, having to watch while everything he never wanted for his son played out in front of him.

Had Eddie been anxious, the way he got when he felt wrong-footed, when he ducked his head and twisted his hands? Or had he lashed out, the way he does when he’s pushed hard enough? He hoped he had. Eddie always knew how to hit where it hurt when he snapped; and if his parents had been pushing that much—enough that Christopher left because of it—then they deserved that.

I’m sorry, man he sent, feeling useless. He chewed on the inside of his cheek, wondering if he should say what he was really thinking. But he guessed Eddie was the one who moved them into it’s-okay-to-insult-your-parents territory, so he might as well.

I know u never wanted Chris to see them like that, but maybe its a good thing, he typed and pressed send before he could overthink it. They act like theyre whats best for chris but theyre not. you are, he added. And then, and if chris left with you then hes sees that too

Eddie didn’t reply, didn’t even start typing. Buck couldn’t stop himself from adding more:

Sorry

u asked for beach pics, not advice

I just think u shouldnt underestimate chris

hes 14. I remember being 14

kids pick up on way more than adults give them credit for

he knows theres stuff between you guys but hes probably only heard their side

bc ur good about not shittalking them

he deserves to hear your side

you deserve to tell him

Most of the time, Buck felt . . . neutral about Eddie’s parents. He knew Eddie didn’t like to acknowledge the ways his parents had messed up; he knew his dad had been trying, after their fight at his retirement party. But he also knew that they’d tried to take Chris before. He knew that, at one point, Eddie had distrusted them so much that he’d written Buck into his will instead. He knew that Eddie’s mom had once told him not to drag Chris down with him, and for that, Buck would never forgive them.

Eddie still didn’t reply, so Buck sent through the short clip of ocean waves. While he was watching the video send, Jee toddled over and plopped onto his lap, so he navigated to his phone camera and took a selfie of the two of them—himself, squinting in the evening sun, and Jee reaching her sticky hands up to either side of his face. Before he could think better of it, he sent it to Eddie, too.

The next morning, he woke up to a series of texts that Eddie must have sent around 2 am, his time.

Thanks Buck

We had a really good talk, actually

He wants to stay with me

I should probably talk to my parents. To be honest, they weren’t as awful as I thought they were going to be

I think they were just caught off guard

They’ve both already texted to apologize

Well my dad apologized

My mom asked us to come over for breakfast lol

But I said not tomorrow

Or I guess, today

Today I’m going to show Chris around El Paso

Take him to the places Shannon and I used to go

I think it’ll be good

Buck’s breath got caught in his throat; it felt a little like he was choking. He couldn’t even appreciate the fact that Eddie hearted the picture he’d sent of himself and Jee, because his brain had started glitching when he read he wants to stay with me.

He wants to stay.

Stay.

Even though Eddie had been gone for weeks and weeks, and Buck had personally replaced most of Eddie’s furniture—he realized he had still been harboring a hope that when Eddie and Chris reconciled, it meant they would both come home.

But if Chris wanted to stay, and if his parents were trying, then maybe that was off the table. He was taking Chris to his and Shannon’s favorite places, a trip down memory lane they never could have had in LA. Everything that matters is in Texas, Eddie had said. He’d told Buck he mattered, too—but not in the way Eddie and Chris mattered to Buck. Not in the way that felt like his heart had been ripped out and shipped across state lines.

thats great eddie, he sent. im really happy for you both

And then he dragged himself out of bed and got ready for his shift.

Despite his hopes, being at the 118 did nothing to improve his mood. Probably because he was working a 48 with the C shift. The C shift wasn’t his favorite on a good day, but right now they had a few floaters filling in because of a maternity leave, a paternity leave, and a stomach bug making its way through the ranks, so everyone felt out of sync, and no one bothered sitting down for family meals.

Then they got called to a fire at a house with a yard that backed up to the palisades, so they needed all hands on deck to make sure it didn’t spark a wildfire, and his 48-hour shift turned into a 56-hour shift. By the time he was finally clocking out, he didn’t even know what meal he’d missed last.

He looked at his phone as he left the locker room, feeling dead on his feet. He had a message from Maddie asking if he could make more zucchini bread for Jee – I swear it’s the only way I can get her to eat a vegetable – and one from his mom – Hi Evan, will you call me when you see this? – and four from Eddie:

call me when you’re off shift

damn that’s a long call you guys are on

you’re on C shift today?

let me know when you’re out

He tucked his phone into his pocket and ignored all of the messages while he drove. If he called Eddie while he was leaving the station, odds were that he’d order some sort of delivery to be waiting for Buck when he got back to the house, and he really had to stop doing that.

He wondered if he should call his mom first, and save calling Eddie for after he survived that. But he was so wiped out from the shift, he didn’t know if he’d be able to handle a conversation with his parents right now—especially when he knew what they wanted to talk about.

When he got to the house, he kicked off his shoes and made his way into the kitchen, looking for something simple he could throw together. He dialed Eddie and started pulling out the ingredients for a peanut butter & jelly sandwich.

“Hey,” Eddie picked up right before his voicemail did. He sounded out of breath. “Buck. Hey.”

“Hey,” said Buck back. He could hear the weariness in his own voice.

“Long shift?”

“Yeah,” Buck said, putting Eddie on speaker so he could spread peanut butter across a slice of the sourdough he’d made last week. “C shift is a mess. And there was a fire near the palisades, so that took forever. I was supposed to be done at 8 this morning.”

“Oh,” said Eddie, and his voice sounded a little off; Buck wanted to ask about it, but also, he kind of really needed sleep. “You must be exhausted, then.”

“Yeah,” Buck agreed, and he felt a little bad about it. But he’d been trying to be extra chipper when he talked to Eddie recently, given how worried Eddie had gotten about him, and how much Eddie had on his own plate, and he didn’t really have the energy to keep up the front right now. Better to put Eddie off while he was in this headspace, and call back later after he’d had food and a nap. “I don’t even know the last time I ate. I’m going to have a sandwich and then pass out.”

“That’s—yeah, that’s a good idea, sure,” said Eddie. “I just, I wanted to tell you—”

Buck’s phone buzzed on the counter, and he looked down to see a message from Hen. Buckaroo—can you call me when you see this?

He furrowed his brow, looking at it in confusion. He’d never gotten a text like that from her before.

“Hey, Eddie,” he interrupted. “I’m sorry—Hen just asked me to call her. Do you mind if I just see what that’s about?”

“Oh—oh, yeah,” Eddie said, his voice still doing that weird thing that Buck couldn’t parse in his current state. “Yeah just—you’ll call me right back?”

“Yeah,” promised Buck, and then he hung up and clicked over to Hen’s contact.

She answered after two rings. “Hey, Buck.”

“Hey Hen, everything alright?”

“Sort of,” she said. “I just wanted to talk to you about something—is now a good time?”

He paused, abandoning his spoon in the jelly jar so he could take her off speaker. It wasn’t, of course, he felt dead on his feet, but he wasn’t going to be able to rest until he knew what this was about, now.

“Yeah, what’s up?”

“This might not be any of my business, but you left that file here—the one your mom gave you, about your dad’s kidneys? It got buried under the kids’ homework but I just found it and I was glancing through it, and—”

She trailed off, and Buck felt a swoop in his stomach, like the second before you knew you were going to miss a step going down the stairs. Like the moment you see a picture of a kid that looks like you, but isn’t.

“And what?”

“When she told you your dad needed a new kidney, did she say when?”

“When?”

“Yeah,” said Hen, not elaborating. Her tone was gentle in a way that put Buck on edge.

“Just—as soon as possible, I guess. Why?”

“Your dad is a long way off from kidney failure,” Hen said. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, he’ll probably need one. But going off his current records, that would be like, five years away. At least. Unless there’s something I’m missing, I have no idea why she’d ask you for it now.”

“I don’t—I don’t know,” Buck said. “You’re sure?”

“Pretty sure, yeah,” said Hen in a voice that meant she was positive.

“Could he—could he still get one, now? Like, maybe they were confused. Can you even get a kidney transplant if it’s not urgent?”

“You can if there’s a personal donor,” Hen said. “Maybe they have records that say otherwise but—I just thought you should know. Before you make any decisions.”

“Right,” he said, his brain feeling fuzzy. “I’m gonna—thanks, Hen,” he said.

“Sure, hun,” she said, and she had so much concern in her voice that he could register it even in his rattled state. “If you need anything . . .”

“Yeah,” he said, distractedly, and then he hung up on her, too.

He abandoned the sandwich on the counter and found his mom’s number in his contacts, and called her next.

“Evan?”

“Hey, mom,” he said, his throat feeling dry.

“Hi dear,” she said, with an unfamiliar warmth. “I just wanted to see what you were thinking about your father’s kidney.” He wondered if she meant his father’s not-yet-failing kidney, or the one inside him that she was already counting on. He was just—he was so confused.

“About that,” he said, pacing down the hallway. His eyes snagged on the picture of him, Eddie, and Chris on Chris’s accessible skateboard, and it caused a pang of actual pain in his stomach. “My friend looked over the file, and she said dad wouldn’t need a transplant for a few years?”

There was a beat of silence on the other end, and Buck turned away from the picture, because it hurt to look at them when he felt like this. Finally, she said, “Well, Evan, it just seemed prudent.”

“Prudent?” he repeated.

“You have such a dangerous job,” she said, her voice bordering on disapproval. “I know they don’t call it reckless behavior, now that you’re trained for it. But given the number of accidents and injuries you’ve had, it just seemed like a good idea to do it now. Practical, to handle it while you’re, you know—while everything is calm.”

Buck’s vision was spotting out. Something was coursing through his veins—it would be rage, except he was too tired, too defeated for that. He hadn’t thought his parents still had the ability to hurt him like this; he hadn’t thought they could rub it in anymore, that they could make him feel any lower. He used to hate it when they looked right through him; but feeling invisible would be a relief compared to this—this feeling that he was a junkyard of a son, totally unwanted, out of sight and out of mind until there was something they needed from him.

“Evan?”

“I—I gotta go,” he said. He pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at it. He didn’t know what he was expecting, but his mom didn’t call him back. His lock screen was a picture of the pier, from one of the many times he’d gone back with Eddie and Chris. Even before he realized how he felt, he’d had enough awareness to know it wasn’t normal to make your best friend and his son your phone background, so he’d settled for this—a picture he’d taken with them, instead of one of them.

Now it just made him feel even worse; proof of all the ways he was on the outside, the ways he had to make do with consolations and scraps from other peoples’ families, the ways he never got to have anything for himself. Not Eddie. Not Chris. Not even his own body.

His dimmed phone screen lit up with a new message from Eddie. Everything alright with Hen?

And he couldn’t—he just. He couldn’t. He couldn’t deal with Eddie trying to hold him together from afar again; it hurt worse than falling apart. He clicked through his settings until he found the location sharing option and toggled it off, and it felt like a bad kind of victory, like slamming a door too hard and flinching at the noise.

He didn’t remember slipping on his shoes or grabbing his keys; the next thing he knew, he was in the car driving—but where? He couldn’t go to Maddie and Chim’s. He’d already made Hen drink her afternoon away with him. Eddie was in Texas. Bobby—Bobby would know what to do. Bobby would know what to say.

But maybe he should drive around first, cool off. Not that he felt hot; he felt cold, actually, and he might even be shivering. Dimly, he registered that he wasn’t really in the best condition to be driving.

He pulled to a stop light and checked his phone. Eddie had sent more messages:

Buck?

Buck, you’re freaking me out

Call me, please

I just talked to Hen. Are you okay?

Did you turn your location off?

Buck, tell me where you are

He should have just left his phone at home. He wished Eddie would stop working himself into such a panic over him; he’d be fine, eventually. He always was. But it was exhausting to have to pretend he was fine for Eddie now. He should—he should text him back, maybe.

He started driving when the light turned green, but after a minute he put on his hazards and pulled off to the shoulder. If he could just tell Eddie he was fine, then he could take a minute and go to Bobby’s and—

Eddie was calling him. He didn’t want to answer, but his fingers were shaking too much to text and maybe it would just be faster this way.

“Buck? Where are you? Are you okay?”

He opened his mouth to say—yes, of course he was fine, why would Eddie think otherwise? But it wouldn’t come out.

“Buck?”

“She—” his voice croaked on the first word. He cleared his throat and tried again, while Eddie waited quietly on the line. “She said it was practical.”

“I’m gonna need you to give me a little more than that, buddy.” Eddie sounded like was trying to coax a shelter dog out of its cage. He’d actually heard Eddie use that voice in that exact situation before. “Is this about what Hen said?”

“Practical,” Buck repeated. He laughed, an ugly, jagged sound. “With my luck. She wants to make sure he gets my kidney before I fuck up and get myself killed.”

“Buck,” Eddie was saying. He could barely hear him, his mind was echoing with his mom’s voice saying, while you’re—you know.

“She doesn’t have high hopes for me making it past thirty-five, I guess.”

“Buck, where are you right now?”

Where was he? Oh—he was still in his car. He was going somewhere . . . Bobby’s. Bobby’s wasn’t too far, just fifteen or so minutes. He really shouldn’t be driving like this, but there was no one here to drive him. No one to tell him not to.

Except Eddie, he guessed. But Eddie didn’t know his location anymore.

“I’m fine,” he answered instead, feeling less fine than he’d felt in a long, long time.

“You’re not fine,” Eddie pleaded on the other end of the line. He’d said that before, hadn’t he? Why was Eddie so obsessed with whether or not Buck was fine? Didn’t he get the memo about Buck being more trouble than he was worth? If not, he was definitely learning that lesson now.

“Don’t worry,” he tried. The words came out almost slurred, though he wasn’t sure why. He wasn’t drunk. He was just exhausted, and there was a lump in his throat that he was having trouble getting words out past.

“Buck,” Eddie repeated, like he was trying to keep him awake. Buck was awake though; he knew he was, because being unconscious sounded blissful right about now. “Buck, talk to me. Where are you? I am going to kill your parents,” Eddie growled into the phone.

It almost made Buck smile, but none of his facial muscles were cooperating. “Okay, you do that,” he said. “I’m gonna go.”

“Do not hang up on me,” Eddie demanded. “Buck, come on. You’re not in any state to drive right now. Tell me where you are. Or I’ll put Chris on the phone.”

Don’t threaten him with a good time, Buck wanted to joke. But he couldn’t talk to Chris like this—he felt out of his mind. “Tell Chris I said hi,” he said instead. “Tell him I love him, okay? I’m gonna go, I’ll be fine.”

“Buck, please,” Eddie tried again. But he didn’t have to keep trying; Buck was going to be fine. Bobby would know what to do. He just needed Bobby’s advice and a nap; and Eddie was panicking about everything because he was so far away. “It’s me. You don’t have to pretend with me.”

He thought about the time Eddie had left the 118, and Buck had said something similar to him in his kitchen. He understood now, why Eddie had brushed him off the way he did. Some wounds were too deep to let others go poking around in.

“Let it go, Eddie,” he said, hoping that would work.  

“No,” argued Eddie. “I’m going to call Athena or, or Bobby, or—”

“Don’t,” he protested. “don’t bother, I’m going—”

But he couldn’t finish what he was saying, because there was a huge crunch of metal, and everything went black.

Chapter Text

A few things registered in his brain—a siren; red and blue lights, so bright he wanted to scrunch his eyes closed; hands on his body.

Fuck. Someone had hit his car, hadn’t they?

When Buck came to, he was in a hospital room. He blinked his eyes open as the room came into focus, but even before he could see the room, the scratchy sheets and beeping monitor clued him in. The blue walls and the ugly curtains meant he was at Presbyterian; and the angry woman sitting next to him meant that he was probably a dead man.

“Hey—hey, Maddie,” he said, clearing his throat and shooting for casual. “How’s it going?”

Maddie let out a breath so long it felt like she was sighing for a full minute. Finally, she reached out and put her hand over where his was lying by his side. It reminded him to do a cursory scan of the rest of his body—he didn’t see any casts, no missing limbs. A few bruises and scrapes were visible on his arms, but otherwise he might have actually gotten off lucky for a change.

“How’s it going?” She squeezed his hand so hard he couldn’t tell if she was trying to comfort or hurt him. “How it’s going is that you gave us all heart attacks.”

“It wasn’t my fault!” he cried, but the effort it took pulled uncomfortably at his neck and shoulders. Whiplash, probably. He didn’t know how long he’d been out, but his last memory was sitting on the side of the road with his hazards on while Eddie yelled at him through the Bluetooth. Even if Eddie had been right about him not being fit to drive, he hadn’t actually been driving when he got hit.

“It may not be your fault that some idiot was texting while driving and didn’t see you,” Maddie conceded. “But it is your fault that you were out in your condition, and that you turned your location sharing off. We could have gotten to you a lot quicker if you hadn’t.”

Buck did another scan down his body. “Seems like—seems like I’m okay? Or did the doctors say otherwise?”

“You have two bruised ribs, and you look like you lost a fight with a heavyweight champ. Probably a concussion, too—they want to do a CT scan to make sure there’s no internal bleeding, but they wanted to wait until you were awake.”

“How long have I been out?”

“Only a few hours,” she said, and he breathed a sigh of relief. He watched her for a moment—she had shadows under her eyes, and was resting her left hand on her belly. He was doing a terrible job at making sure she had a stress-free pregnancy.

“I’m sorry,” he said. At her look, he added, “even though it wasn’t my fault.”

“What happened, Buck?” She leaned forward and rested her elbows on his bedside, giving him that big sister look he always caved at. “I got a call from Eddie, he was so frantic—he said you were upset and you wouldn’t tell him where you were. He heard the crash, he was terrified.”

Oh, fuck. After the number of times he told Eddie he’d be fine, he had to go and get hit by a car. Eddie was going to be insufferable about this.

“Is Eddie—” he trailed off, not knowing what to ask. Okay? Pissed? Tired of Buck’s shit?

“We’ve been keeping him up to date,” Maddie said, vaguely. “Unlike you. Tell me what’s been going on,” she demanded.

“I—I didn’t tell you something,” he admitted. It was past time to come clean. “When mom told me about dad’s kidneys the day before she told you, she—she asked me. If I’d give him one of mine.”

“Oh, Buck,” she said, her face crumpling in understanding. She knew immediately what it meant to him, because of course she did. Her thumb stroked the back of his hand, and after a moment her brow scrunched. “But that’s years away. Why would she—?”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t know that,” Buck admitted. “She kind of left that detail out when she asked. And then Hen told me, when she looked over the paperwork, so I asked mom and she said . . .” he trailed off.

“She said what?” Maddie asked, her voice sharp.

“She basically implied that she didn’t think I’d still be around in a few years, when it was, you know, go time. Or at least, that I wouldn’t still have two functioning kidneys. I don’t know, I guess since I’m currently in the hospital and slated to get a CT scan, she kind of has a point.”

“Motherfu—”

“Hello, Mr. Buckley, glad to see you awake,” said a nurse from the doorway. Buck hadn’t felt much like laughing, but it was a little funny to see Maddie try to school her face at the interruption.

At the nurse’s instruction, Maddie moved back to one of the farther chairs and sat there, texting nonstop and visibly seething, while Buck went through the checklist of symptoms. He tried to get her to go home when they wheeled him away for the CT scan, but she was still there when he got back, near midnight.

She should definitely be home, relaxing in bed. But she didn’t even look annoyed; she just gave him a soft smile he didn’t deserve and took the chair by his bedside again.

“No internal bleeding,” he bragged. “Both kidneys intact, and everything.”

She propped her head up on her hand and fixed him with a look “Why didn’t you tell me?”

There was no point pretending he didn’t know what she was talking about. “I just—” He tried to shrug but his torso was too sore; instead he picked at a piece of lint on the think hospital blanket. “I didn’t know what to say. And I didn’t want you to feel like you had to choose.”

“Buck, there’s no choice. I’m on your side. Always.”

“Yeah but, dad—”

“But nothing. Buckley siblings against the world, remember?”

“That doesn’t mean I should let our dad die—”

“Dad’s not going to die, stop being dramatic,” Maddie scoffed. And she kind of had a point—why hadn’t he told her? She was always the smarter sibling. The one who made everything feel manageable. “He’s got at least five years left at his current level of functionality. And then there’s dialysis. And the donor registry. And me.”

“Maddie, no—you can’t—”

“Can’t what?” She cut him off, her eyes sparking dangerously. “Can’t donate a kidney to my dad? Why not?”

“I—”

“I’m a match, too, you know,” she said. “I’m not at any increased risk because of my job. And you said it yourself: it’s different for us.”

“I didn’t mean it like that. I’m not trying to—”

“I know you’re not,” she wouldn’t let him finish a sentence. “But come on. Don’t try to pull that shit with me.”

“I’m not pulling—mom asked me,” he said. He didn’t want to think about Maddie undergoing surgery because he was too much of a baby to do it himself. But he also couldn’t help feeling that the world had been righted back to its usual axis, now. Now that Maddie knew everything, and she could tell him all the answers.

“Yes,” she agreed, annoyance seeping into her tone. “Because she is physically incapable of making good parenting decisions.” He felt his lips pull up into a smile; it wasn’t often he heard Maddie talk about their parents like this, and it felt indulgent. He’d be fully grinning by this point, if his face didn’t ache so much. Maddie’s expression lightened when she looked at him, but she still shook her head and said, “I swear, Evan, I don’t think you should be allowed to be alone with them. It’s only trouble.”

“No complaints here,” he said, and then he winced as a yawn made parts of his neck ache that he’d never felt before. “Well,” he said, rubbing the area under his ear, “some complaints.”

She snorted. “I bet.” Then she stood up from her chair and leaned against the side of his bed. “Okay. I love you more than life itself but I am not sleeping in one of these awful hospital chairs. You gonna be okay for the night if I head out?”

“Go on, scram,” he said. “Say hi to Chim and Jee for me, okay?”

“I will,” she said, leaning down to kiss him on the forehead. “We’ll all come by in the morning. Keep all your organs where they are, okay?”

Buck saluted, and for some reason, the sight of his sister walking away from him actually made him feel better, for once.

After she left, he realized he should really call Eddie. But he had no idea where his phone was, and he was really, really tired.

The next time Buck opened his eyes, Eddie was there.

When he was a kid, he’d learned a pretty fucked up lesson about the attention and care and treats he would get if he was injured. This was not that. He knew that. He should not be happy about this. He should not feel like he was being rewarded for a car accident with Eddie.

But maybe he was allowed to be happy that he’d survived a car accident and that Eddie was there?

Either way—he wasn’t going to look a gift-horse in the face. Or a best friend-horse.

Maddie might have been right about that concussion, he thought, right before Eddie turned from where he was looking out the window and realized Buck was awake, and everything else fled his mind.

“Hi,” he said, stupidly.

Eddie’s face raced through a hundred different expressions before landing on one that looked . . . fond. Maybe. If Buck was being cautiously optimistic, that’s how he would describe it.

“Hi,” Eddie said back. “I hate you, you know that, right?”

Buck made a face. “Terrible bedside manner,” he commented. “Though I guess this is good because now I know I’m not concussed and hallucinating.”

“Hallucinating?” Eddie asked, forehead scrunching and oh, Buck had missed the sight. Eddie was here. Eddie was close enough to touch. He was going to need someone to disconnect him from the heartrate monitor asap if he was going to survive this encounter.

“Yeah,” said Buck. “What—what are you doing here?”

Eddie gave him a look, like he was saying are you kidding me but Buck stood by that it was a good question. “I know,” he ceded, gesturing to the hospital room around him, that looked nearly cheerful in the morning sunlight. Or maybe that was just the shine cast onto anything in Eddie’s vicinity. “But like—I’m sure someone told you I was fine, right?”

“Oh, you mean after I had to hear you get in a car accident over the phone?” Eddie’s fond look was gone, and he was in full angry dad mode, crossing his arms. Buck wished he didn’t find it so hot. “And I had to call 9-1-1 to report it but I couldn’t tell them where you were because you turned your location off?”

Buck winced, feeling genuinely guilty. Even though he had tried to get Eddie to hang up before the crash. Still, he couldn’t even imagine how he would react if he’d had to hear that happen, knowing it was Eddie on the other end of the line.

And Eddie had enough trauma from car accidents.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean for you to go through that.”

“For me to—?” Eddie plopped down in the chair Maddie had sat in the night before, like a puppet with cut strings. “You’re impossible.”

“I’m impossible and you hate me,” Buck tallied, trying not to smile at Eddie’s sour expression. “Now I’m really confused about why you’re here.”

“I was going to tell you,” he said. “Yesterday. Before you hung up on me and then tried to get yourself killed.”

“I didn’t try to get myself killed,” he defended. “I was fully parked! I had the flashers on!”

Eddie narrowed his eyes, not looking comforted at all by the details. “If you had just listened to me—” he started, but he paused when Buck held up his hands in surrender. He pressed his lips together in a thin line, like he was physically holding in more scolding. “Fine,” he said, after a moment. “I was calling to tell you that—we’re coming back. We—I’m back, technically, and Christopher will be in a few days. We’re moving back to LA.”

Immediately, the heart rate monitor ratted him out; the beeping ticking faster and faster in the silence following Eddie’s words. They both looked at it, and then at each other, and Buck could feel his face turning pink.

“I—”

Eddie was grinning at him, now. “Excited?” he asked.  

“Shut up,” Buck said, ducking his head. “I am,” he admitted. “I’m—are you serious? You and Chris? You’re both back, for good? I’m really not hallucinating?”

Eddie smiled at him in a way that didn’t make him feel confident about the answer to his last question.

“We’re back, for good,” he confirmed. “I told you, we had a good conversation.”

“Yeah, and you said he wanted to stay,” Buck pointed out. Eddie scrunched his eyebrows and tilted his head. “In your text,” Buck clarified. “You said he wants to stay with me.”

“Yeah like, with me,” Eddie clarified. “Not in El Paso.”

“Well, how was I supposed to know that?”

Eddie crossed his arms in front of his chest. “You didn’t think I’d ask him to come back to LA?”

“You were showing him around El Paso!” Buck pointed out. “All of your and Shannon’s old haunts. Everything that matters is in Texas,” he reminded Eddie. Even though Eddie just told him he was coming home, and Buck had no reason to antagonize him over this—he just—he wanted to be sure.

“Oh my god,” Eddie griped, “Those words are going to haunt me forever. I was talking about Chris! I was just talking out of my ass to get a renter.” He ran his hand through his hair, in a way that flexed his bicep, and Buck had to breathe deeply to skate under the radar of the heart rate monitor. “Which reminds me,” Eddie said, pulling a face. “How would you feel about roommates?”

Buck could literally feel himself smiling—because of all the bruising—and his heart felt lighter than it had in months. Eddie and Chris, back in LA. Eddie and Chris, back in the house on Bedford Street.

“Key still works,” he offered. “I’ll start looking for a new place.”

Eddie frowned at that. But Buck couldn’t care less—he’d move back into that awful apartment he shared with four roommates if it meant the Diazes were back home where they belonged.

“I don’t know,” Eddie said. “You might need some help around the house,” he gestured to Buck’s hospital bed.

“I have two bruised ribs, Eddie, I’ll be fine.”

“You’ll need some help,” Eddie said, talking over him. “And after that . . .” he shrugged.

Buck stared at him. “After that—what?”

“Come on, Buck. We’ve missed you. You’ve missed us . . . what’s the rush?”

“The rush to—I’m confused.”

Eddie uncrossed his arms and leaned forward, putting him in the direct line of the sunlight pouring in through the window. The orange-tinted early morning light cast Eddie in a fairly ridiculous glow; he was already good-looking enough without all that.  

“I guess I should tell you . . . the whole thing I had with my parents was about—” he paused, but only for a second, “me, being gay.”

“You’re—what?” Buck was pretty sure his heart rate was ticking back up, but he had tunnel vision on Eddie now and couldn’t really focus on anything else. “You want to date—men?”

“Well, one,” said Eddie, so casually Buck wasn’t sure he heard him right. “Adriana might have caught on to how much I was looking at your location. And then, she, uh, saw my email.” Buck couldn’t comprehend the fact that Eddie was blushing right now. “I had a lot of delivery confirmations,” he confessed.

Buck thought of all of the food that had been left on the doorstep, all of the packages in the mail. It wasn’t pity, then.

“She might have pointed it out that it wasn’t the straightest thing I’ve ever done.”

As a very fit person, Buck’s resting heart rate was around 55 beats per minute. But according to the snitch electrocardiogram, it was ticking up, passing 80 and still going.

“Is that good?” Eddie asked, pointing at the increasing numbers.

“Yeah,” said Buck, in a shaky voice. But then he glanced over at it and saw how high the numbers were getting and felt his face heating up. “This is not fair,” Buck protested.

Eddie’s face was unbearably smug.  

“I think it’s very fair,” he said, his voice dropping. 82, 83. Eddie’s eyes darted over to the machine and then he stood up, stepping closer to Buck’s bed. 87, 88. “After what you put me through.”

“I—”

Buck used to be smooth, he was pretty sure of that. He used to be good at this. But faced with the full force of Eddie Diaz’s attention, he couldn’t remember how he was supposed to form any words at all, let alone ones that qualified as flirting.  

“Let me tell you something,” Eddie said, leaning closer, directly to Buck’s ear. 93, 94. “Nothing’s happening while you’re in the hospital.”

“So—after—?”

Eddie leaned back with a smile that shot through Buck’s abdomen. “I guess we’ll just have to figure that out when we get there,” he said. 98, 99, 100.

“Mr. Buckley, are you feeling alright?” The same nurse that had interrupted Maddie the day before was back, and she was looking at his electrocardiogram in alarm. “Your heart rate and your blood pressure just increased exponentially. I’m worried you’re having a reaction to the pain medications—”

“Oh, uh,” Buck said, coughing. Eddie turned away from him to face the window, and Buck suspected the traitor was laughing. “No, that’s okay, I, uh, know the cause,” he said, nodding towards Eddie’s back.

“I see,” the nurse nodded. “Sir, if you’re going to disturb the patient, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“No, no!” Buck said, while the beeps continued tattling on him. This was so embarrassing. “No, please—he can stay. I won’t—be disturbed.”

“Tall order,” murmured Eddie. Buck shot an accusing glare at him and then tried to smile innocently at the nurse.

She gave them a suspicious look and took Buck’s vitals, anyway. When she was satisfied that Buck wasn’t having a cardiac incident, she unhooked Buck from the electrocardiogram—thank god—and told them a doctor would be by soon to talk about his discharge.

And then it was just him and Eddie alone in the room. There was no heart rate monitor to out him, but he was sure his face was giving him away.

“Is this really happening? Are we really doing this?”

Eddie walked back over and perched on the side of Buck’s bed. He picked up Buck’s hand and started tracing his fingers over the cuts he’d gotten from the accident. “The other day, when you said there was something wrong with you because no one would stay—it made me feel . . .”

He trailed off, and Buck was forced to relive his melodramatic breakdown. “Depressed?” he suggested. “Concerned?”  

Eddie grimaced at him and admitted, “happy?”

“Happy?” Buck asked, incredulously. “One of the most pathetic moments of my life and you were happy?”

Eddie laughed at him, soft and low. “I know,” he ducked his head. “Not my best moment. Not about your parents, obviously. I just thought about how all your exes hadn’t stuck around and I thought—good. They don’t belong with you. Because I’m your partner.” He squeezed Buck’s hand, and Buck was pretty sure that if the hospital was on fire behind Eddie, he wouldn’t notice.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” Buck said. He couldn’t believe any of it, really—not yet—because the universe didn’t give him things like this, like his wildest dreams, served up on a platter.

“You’re worth coming back for,” Eddie said, chasing Buck’s eye contact and reaching one hand out to clasp Buck’s shoulder. His thumb rubbed the skin over Buck’s pulse, and he knew that if Eddie was counting, he’d be breaking 100 bpm right now.

“Excuse me, Mr. Buckley?” The nurse was back, carrying a cordless landline phone pressed to her chest. Eddie stood up from the bed when she walked in, but still left a grounding hand on Buck’s shoulder. “Margaret and Phillip Buckley are on the line—they say they’re your parents? Apparently, they’ve heard about the accident but haven’t been able to get through to your sister, so they called the hospital for an update. They aren’t listed on your medical file—how do you want to handle this? You can speak to them, or we can disclose any information you approve of.”

God. After years and years of I can’t do hospitals, after years of radio silence during other ER visits and admittances, this is the time they chose to check in?

“Uh—”

“I’ll take it,” said Eddie, squeezing Buck’s shoulder before he stepped towards the nurse. He held out his hand for the phone and said, “I’m his medical proxy, I can handle it.” The nurse looked to Buck for confirmation, and he nodded, without thinking. It was the same feeling he’d had the night before, with Maddie—the feeling that someone else wanted to take care of things for him. Wanted to take care of him.

It felt really, really good.

The nurse handed over the phone, and Eddie nodded at her in thanks and then closed the hospital room door behind her. Buck was too busy leering at him to be panicked about how this conversation was going to go down.

“Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Buckley,” Eddie said into the phone. “It’s Eddie Diaz, I’m Buck’s partner. He’s resting now, but the hospital said you had questions?”

A pause. “I can’t imagine why Maddie wouldn’t be taking your calls,” he said, neutrally, and Buck smirked from the bed. He felt like he was watching the best show he’d ever seen—Eddie, pacing at the end of his hospital bed, handling his parents for him. Calling himself Buck’s partner, even though neither of them were in uniform. “You’ll be happy to know that Buck is doing well. I’m going to take good care of him.”

Eddie winked at Buck while he listened to whatever his parents were saying on the other side of the phone. Buck had never actually felt like he was going to swoon before; it was lucky he was already laying down.

“Yeah,” Eddie went on, pacing leisurely around the room. “He wasn’t at fault for the accident,” he assured them, though he shot Buck a dubious look when he said it. “But he was pretty shaken up before it happened. Not sure if you know anything about that.”

Buck didn’t have it in him to be mortified by this—shamelessly, his primary emotion seemed to be delight.

“Yeah, he mentioned that. Yep,” Eddie said, his tone now noticeably clipped.

“Mhm, a few abrasions and he got a little banged up, internally.” Buck watched as Eddie’s expression morphed into some cobbled mix of outrage and satisfaction. “Oh, you want to know if he has any internal organ damage?” Eddie stopped pacing and said, “are you fucking kidding me?”

Buck heard something alarmingly like a giggle coming out of his mouth.

“Excuse what?” Eddie continued, gesturing with his free arm. “The fact that you called the hospital after your son was in an accident and your main concern is whether his kidneys are transplant-ready? Were you hoping to hear he was braindead, so you could help yourself to all his other organs? Do you want us to just wheel him over to the O.R. now, since he’s already in a hospital gown?”

If he and Eddie were going to be together forever—and they were, if Buck had anything to say about it—then there was the slight concern that this conversation was going to make Buckley family affairs pretty awkward, going forward. But Buck couldn’t bring himself to care in the slightest.

All of the hurts and disappointments and disapproval he’d gotten from his parents, every instance of them telling him he was stupid or in the way or too much trouble, every version of Buck that he’d ever been, who’d tried to make them see him, who’d felt so alone at the other end of his parents’ uncaring stares—all of it was getting bandaged over by this. Eddie was there, applying pressure to the hurt; protecting him from the source of the trauma. His partner was there, and he had his back.

“Yeah, no shit this is a bad time for me, my boyfriend is in the hospital,” Eddie snapped. Buck had literally never heard a better phone conversation in his life. “He’s not a piece of meat, you know. Why don’t you call back when you get a fucking clue,” he ended on, and then he hung up and slammed the phone down onto the end of Buck’s bed, breathing heavily.

“I’m so turned on right now,” Buck told him.

Eddie snapped his head up at that, then huffed out a shaky laugh. He ran his hands through his hair again, and then glared at where the phone sat, innocuously. He pointed at it and said, “I’m not sorry for that.”

“Me either,” agreed Buck.

“I told you I didn’t trust your parents.”

“With good reason,” said Buck. Laughter bubbled up from his gut. “You told my parents to get a clue.”

Eddie snorted and moved to sit down in the chair again. “Well, after everything with my family, I’m running out of ways to tell parents to shove it.”

“You’re on a roll, huh?”

“I hope I didn’t—I just, if you wanted to—sorry if I took that from you. If you wanted to, you know. Be the one to yell at them.”

Buck’s laughter trailed off, and he couldn’t see his own expression but he was betting it was something unbearably sappy and fond. “No, that’s okay,” he said, cocking his head at Eddie. Maybe if he turned his face at the right angle, Eddie would break his no-hospital-PDA rule and kiss him. “I’ve yelled at them enough in my life. No one’s ever yelled at them for me.”

Eddie’s face was one big satisfied smirk. Buck was so obsessed with his boyfriend.

“Well, to be fair, Maddie has,” he corrected.

“Fine,” said Eddie.

“But besides her,” Buck continued. “Might make the kids’ birthday parties awkward, but I think it’s worth it.”

Eddie balked at the mention. “Who says they’re invited?”

“Uh, Maddie?”

“Oh, you meant their kids.”

“Yes, I—what did you mean?”

Eddie raised his shoulders and made that stupid upside-down smile face like, who, me? I don’t know anything.

A knock interrupted them, and then the door opened and a doctor peeked her head in. “Mr. Buckley, you ready to get discharged?”

“Never been more ready for anything in my life,” said Buck. And he didn’t mean to, but his eyes kept flicking to Eddie when he said it.

Apparently, Eddie’s commitment to nothing happening in the hospital extended to the parking lot, which Buck found egregious. And then Eddie was driving him home, and Buck was under strict no-funny-business orders, on account of the fact that he just got in a car accident and he was absolutely not allowed to distract the driver.

So it really wasn’t his fault that he basically mauled Eddie when he pulled up in front of the house. Their house, he thought, insanely. The moment Eddie put the car in park, Buck grabbed his shirt and pulled him in for a kiss.

It was a chaste kiss, lips barely open. But it lit up Buck’s brain like he was inhaling oxygen for the first time; like he could feel the dopamine flooding in. He could barely feel his bruised ribs at the angle he was twisting at to kiss Eddie; and who cared about a few ribs, anyway?

Eddie did, unfortunately. After a moment, he pulled back, sparing a moment to study Buck’s face before he pointed a finger at Buck. “Stop that.”

Buck’s mouth dropped open in outrage. “Stop that? Our first kiss and you say stop that?”

“Yes, if you’re going to insist on twisting your damaged ribcage to do it,” said Eddie, climbing out of the car. “Keep it in your pants, Buckley. We’ve got plenty of time.”

Buck followed him up the front steps, whining. “I just almost died, Eddie,” he said, crowding into his personal space. “Life is too short. You have to kiss me.”

“Can you just wait until we get inside?”  

Eddie pulled out his keys, fumbling with them as Buck latched his lips onto his neck. “Come on, Eds,” he said, breathless from the fact that he could do this, and also from the pain in his abdomen. “You said you were going to take care of me,” he teased, part whisper, part heckle. “I need someone to kiss it better—”

Eddie moved to put his key back in his pocket, and Buck saw his opportunity to swoop in, placing himself between Eddie and the door and—it worked. Eddie finally gave in, and met Buck’s lips from where they’d been working their way up his neck. Breathing was overrated—it hurt, anyway—and the way Eddie was meeting his lips with equal fervor was the only thing he needed to survive.

He let out a noise, pained for multiple reasons, and Eddie stepped forward, backing him into the door. Only, the door was unlocked now, so it opened, and—

“Surprise!”

“Surprise!”

“Welcome ho—oh my god!”

Buck whipped his head around. Maddie, Chimney, Hen, Karen, Ravi, Bobby, and Athena were all standing inside the living room, which had been decorated with festive streamers, a few welcome home signs, and a brunch spread that meant Bobby had probably been cooking since dawn.

Hen was the first to say something; or rather, not say words, but react: she started cackling, doubled over with laughter.

“Eddie, we told you we’d be here!” Chimney cried, scandalized.

“He’s very distracting!” Eddie defended. His face was flushed, but he didn’t look embarrassed or regretful or like he wanted to put any space between himself and Buck. In fact, he was kind of giving Buck eyes like maybe he wished everyone else would give them space, and leave them alone with an otherwise empty house.

Buck looked away from Eddie, then, because if he kept eye contact for much longer, he was going to do something he and all of his loved ones would regret. He found Maddie beaming, her eyes watery, and Buck honestly felt like joining in with Hen and Karen, who were still dissolved in peals of laughter. It was just—what could be better?

The only thing missing was Chris, and he would be back in a few days.  

“Come on boys,” said Bobby, a knowing look on his face that Buck wasn’t going to think too hard about. “Let’s have brunch, and then we’ll leave you be.”

Buck loved his family—his real family, the extended 118—but he had never been happier to see the back of them as he was when Eddie finally shooed them out of the house.

They had had a lively brunch, during which Buck and Eddie had been bullied into giving an explanation of their relationship, even though they had barely had that conversation between themselves. That spurred on a discussion over the betting pool that had apparently been growing over the last seven years, and who the rightful winner was.

Chimney claimed he called it, for predicting that they finally got together because of a life-threatening injury.

“You put money on one of us having a fatal injury?” Eddie asked, disbelief in his voice.  

“Not fatal,” said Chimney. “Near-fatal.”

“Well, it doesn’t count because I’m barely injured,” said Buck, ignoring Eddie’s raised eyebrows. Buck personally thought he and Eddie deserved to win the pot, for all their suffering.  

“Eddie thought you were fatally injured,” Chimney pointed out. “That’s always what does it. Back me up, Karen.”

Karen fixed him with an unimpressed look. “I honestly have still not forgiven you for that.”

“And anyway,” continued Eddie, “I was already planning to come back and ask Buck out. Don’t give his injury credit for that, you’ll just feed into his complex.”

Buck should probably be offended, but he just grinned into his waffles instead.

“What was it, then?” Hen asked Eddie. “That made you realize? We already know this one was a goner for you,” she added, gesturing at Buck with her fork before digging back into her quiche.

“A goner?” asked Eddie.

“Totally pathetic,” echoed Ravi.

“Hey!” Buck cried. “Eddie was pathetic about me, too. Ask him how often he tracked my location.”

Athena raised her eyebrows at the two of them, and Bobby said, “Eddie? Mr. Technophobe?”

“Yeah, well,” said Eddie, pointedly not looking at Buck. “Some technology is useful, I guess.”

As everyone was finishing up their meals, Eddie started openly suggesting everyone take their breakfast pastries for the road. “Buck needs to lay down,” he announced, moving to clear the table. “He’s been sitting upright for too long.”

“Could you be less subtle about getting him into bed?” Chimney heckled.

“Ew, that’s my brother,” Maddie complained, but her eyes were sparkling when she said it.

“Yeah, yeah,” said Eddie, shepherding everyone to the door. “We love you guys, thanks for breakfast, don’t expect to hear from us for a few days.”

“Gross,” said Ravi, the first one to open the door and slip out. Everyone else stayed for hugs, until it was just Eddie, Buck, and Maddie.

“I’m going to put the food away,” Eddie said, giving Maddie a side-hug and disappearing back into the kitchen.

Buck looked down at his sister, who was watching him with mischievous eyes. “I think he likes you,” she whispered.

Buck glanced back towards the kitchen and then whispered back, “I think he does, too.”

“Told ya,” said Maddie, poking him in the shoulder.

“He yelled at mom and dad for me,” Buck confessed.

Maddie raised her eyebrows, impressed. “Brownie points for him.”

“Yeah,” agreed Buck. “Can’t wait to thank him properly,” he said, waggling his eyebrows.

“Okay, well, I don’t need to hear about that,” said Maddie, wrinkling her nose at him as she turned to leave. “Just don’t reinjure yourself, please?”

“No promises!” he called, waving her out the door.

Eddie reappeared in the doorway, wiping his hands on a dishcloth. “No promises to what?”

Buck turned around and leaned back against the door, which he was doing strategically, to be sexy, and only a little bit to take the pressure off his ribs. “She thinks I should have some self-restraint around you,” he said, rolling his eyes at how absurd the thought was. “Crazy talk.”

Eddie pointed at him with the dishtowel, and Buck felt weak at the knees. “She’s right. Get your ass to bed.”

“You coming?”

Eddie bit his lip, looking between Buck and the dish-laden table, full of food that needed to be cleared and responsibly packed away. He tossed the towel on the table and nodded his head towards the bedroom. “Lead the way.”

Buck absolutely did not sprint down the hallway, though he did walk faster than usual. Inside the bedroom that used to be Eddie’s and then was his and now was theirs, he toppled down onto the right side of the bed, feeling relief at the pressure off his ribs and the knowledge that Eddie was about to be on top of him.

But Eddie took his time, closing the bedroom door behind him and looking around at what Buck had changed. It wasn’t much—a new bed, new art, new curtains. Buck had liked it all well enough, but he couldn’t help thinking about how nice it would be for them to pick out new furniture together. Maybe some framed photos of the two of them, and Chris. He had a few he really liked—ones that he had never been able to make the background of his phone’s lock screen, but now he could.

Well, as soon as he got a new phone, at least.

Eddie stared down at him from next to the bed, something soft in his eyes. If Buck was dreaming, he never wanted to wake up.

“Bad news,” he said, giving Buck a look.

“You changed your mind?” Buck asked, mouth twitching up at the side. He wriggled a little on the bed, trying to redirect Eddie’s attention to where his sweatpants were dipping low on his hips. It worked, which was good, because he had to hide a wince right around the time Eddie’s eyes dropped.

He slowly scanned back up Buck’s body, and Buck felt like all of his nerve endings were alight. And Eddie was just standing next to him, fully clothed. This was going to be a real problem at work.

After a moment, Eddie blinked a few times, like he was shaking himself out of a stupor. He sighed and gestured at where Buck was laid out. “I have way too much medical training to think this is a good idea.”

This, Buck thought. This, this, this.

“Alternatively,” said Buck. “You could say that you’re actually uniquely qualified to do this,” he gestured at himself, “in the safest way possible.”

Eddie tilted his head and gave Buck a skeptical look, the kind he gives Chris when he tries to bargain for extra dessert or screen time. It was kind of driving Buck wild, to have it directed at him.

“Come onnnnn,” he goaded. He was definitely not too proud to beg. “Don’t you want my body?” He waggled his eyebrows, giving Eddie his filthiest smile. “Everyone else does.”

“Is that a fucking kidney joke?”

Buck laughed, but then stopped, because of the way moving his stomach caused a sharp pain. Unfortunately, Eddie caught the look on his face this time. But maybe the pity route was working, because he kicked off his jeans and climbed onto the bed.

He straddled Buck’s thighs and put his arms on either side of Buck’s head, holding himself up so he was hovering inches from anywhere Buck wanted him to be touching.

“I’m tired,” he whispered, and then leaned down to brush a kiss, petal-soft, on Buck’s lips. “You’re injured,” he said, followed by another kiss. “We have all the time in the world,” he promised, and then he trailed gentle kisses down Buck’s neck.

After a moment, he shifted down so that he was hovering over Buck’s belly, and used one hand to slowly pull the hem of Buck’s shirt upwards. When his stomach was uncovered, he ran his fingers over Buck’s ribcage, his feather-light touches leaving a trail of goosebumps across his skin. “I want your body,” Eddie started, ducking to kiss one of his ribs. “I want it healed up,” a kiss on another rib, “I want it, not to be in pain.”

He dipped lower, then, at the bottom of Buck’s ribcage, where, under a few other organs and viscera, his kidneys sat. “I want it whole,” he said, keeping his eyes on Buck’s while he dropped another kiss, “and healthy. All its organs intact, everything where it belongs.” Another kiss, this one nipping the skin, before he moved up back up Buck’s body. “You hear me?”

Eddie’s eyes were fixed on him, seeing every bit of Buck. He’d never felt so breathless before. He’d never been so achingly hard while also feeling like he wanted to cry, in a good way. He felt like his heart was going to claw its way out of his chest, and like, if it did, Eddie would be there to gently tuck it back in.

After a moment, Buck realized Eddie was actually waiting for a response. “Ye-yeah,” he said, shakily. “Yeah, I hear you.”

That earned him a kiss; a slow, tender one, like in the car—mouths barely open, a kiss for a kiss’s sake, not as a lead up to anything. And even though hunger for Eddie, for more, burned low in Buck’s gut, something about this . . . this gentle existing together, soothed Buck in a way he hadn’t known was possible.

“Let’s get some sleep,” said Eddie, collapsing on the bed next to him, his head on Buck’s shoulder, his arm draped across Buck’s chest. “You can take more pain meds in two hours.” He sounded half asleep already. Buck loved him so, so much.

“Love you,” he said, because he was pretty sure they were long past that by now.

“Love you, Buck,” Eddie murmured back, like it was the most normal thing in the world.

He got to have this, now. No time limits, no parameters, no consolation prizes—just him and Eddie and forever. And that was the last thing that crossed his mind before he slipped into unconscious, his partner at his side. You get to have this.