Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“You need to move out.”

“Wh—what?”

Buck's voice cracks, He doesn’t look hurt. No, something worse. It’s confusion, betrayal, disbelief, all brushed across his face Like Eddie just tore the ground out from under him, and now he’s standing in air, waiting to fall.

He feels it deep in his bones, that quiet shattering. The fragile semblance of safety buckling beneath them, replaced by something cold. And still, beneath the frost creeping into his ribs, there’s a hot, sick ache blooming in his chest.

guilt, anger.

“Why would you do this?” he chokes out, voice breaking, “Buck… why would you…”

He can’t hold still. Pacing, hunted by his own thoughts, he rubs at his face, as if he could scrape off the emotions clinging to him like ash.

Buck steps back.

As if Eddie would hurt him. Like Eddie’s touch might burn now. Like he doesn’t trust him to stay gentle.

there's a voice inside him screaming don’t go, and another hissing you did this. Fury coils with guilt like twin serpents in his gut. He wants to shout, to beg, to grab Buck and say please don’t make me choose between sanity and you. But all that escapes him is silence.

He looks at Buck, this person who has held him, held his son, held every piece of his crumbling life together, and all he feels is the unbearable weight of a feeling too dangerous to name.

The words rot on his tongue as he looks at Buck, the wreckage of the man still standing, barely, in front of him. A statue carved from grief and disbelief. He looks past him, at the ruin they once called home, now hollowed by silence.

He can see it, see the light flicker out from Buck’s eyes like someone snuffed out the sun. The warmth slipping from him, replaced by a cold detachment. he can see the walls rise.

The same ones Eddie had spent years coaxing down, patient hands and soft promises, building safety out of scraps and hope. You’re safe with me. That had been his vow. I’m not like the rest. I won’t leave, I won’t hurt you.

And yet.

Here they are.

Two men, two ghosts, standing in the ruins of something that once felt invincible. staring across a distance that didn’t exist yesterday. Something breaking, quietly and completely.

“Buck, please—wait—”

Eddie’s voice comes out broken,

Buck only nods. slow, quiet.

“It’s okay, Eddie.” His voice is hollow, “My fault. I shouldn’t have—”

He cuts himself off, shakes his head like he can scatter the thoughts.

“C’mon, that’s not—”

“I’ll stay at Maddie’s tonight,” Buck says quietly. He doesn’t quite meet Eddie’s eyes. “Tell Chris I lo—” His voice catches. He swallows. Tries again.

“Tell him goodnight for me.”

Eddie steps forward, helpless. Drowning.

“Buck, please… can we talk about this?”

“I’m pretty sure you said everything I needed to hear.”

And then the door clicks shut behind him.

Eddie stands there, in the bones of what was supposed to be a normal night. The air has changed, colder now, like the house itself is holding its breath. The walls seem closer, the corners darker. Plates still sit on the table, untouched. Steamless now. The wine untouched, the food gone cold. A pair of candles, burned halfway down, drip wax like tears. Carefully picked flowers in the vase.

His hand reaches out, almost without thinking, and his fingers brush gently against the petals, soft, already beginning to curl at the edges.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers.

He doesn’t bother with cleaning. Doesn’t touch the plates or the flickering candles or the chair Buck used to sink into like it was made for him.

He just moves, slow, hollow, through the hallway, dragging his empty vessel of a body behind him like it weighs too much.

The night wraps around him soft and suffocating. A velvet tomb.

This is penance. This is what remains when love is exiled from the body. When the hands that once held warmth become monuments to all the things they failed to protect.

He lies in the bed, Sheets cold. Pillows untouched.

he stares at his phone, the screen black, lifeless in his palm. It reflects him—just barely. A ghost of a man. Hollow-eyed, jaw tight, grief carved deep into the lines of his face.

He wants to call. Wants to text. Wants to take it all back.

But what would he say?

Come home? I didn’t mean it? Stay so I can hurt you again?

He can’t even trust his own hands anymore, can’t trust that his love doesn’t come with collateral damage.

How do you protect someone from yourself?

He thought he could keep Buck safe. He swore he could. Swore it with every kiss pressed into knuckles, with every morning coffee, with every promise that wasn’t spoken but understood.

somewhere beneath the ache, under the guilt slithering around his ribs, something bitter flickers.

He hates himself for it.

But part of him is angry.

Angry at buck for doing this to them.

Didn’t he know what it would do?

Didn’t he see Eddie crumble the second the words hit the air?

Why give him something so sacred, only to leave him to rot in the silence after?

He closes his eyes, presses the phone against his forehead like it might anchor him, like he can pray through it.

He thinks of Buck.

The sun, he thinks. Light in the shape of a man. Warmth wrapped in skin.

He thinks of his curls, wild, golden, never quite stayed where they were meant to. Like Buck himself. Untamed. Unapologetic. Free.

He thinks of his eyes, impossible shades of blue, not found in oceans or skies but in places only the heavens have seen.

He thinks of his smile.

Not the polite kind. Not the half-hearted grin, The one that broke like dawn across his face, carving a dimple into his cheek like the universe needed a place to pour its joy.

that birthmark, Like a mark left by something holy. An angel’s kiss, he’d thought once,

God, he is beautiful.

His chest aches with it.

It hurts. Loving him this much. Missing him like this. Wanting to be angry and having nowhere to place it without breaking further.

As a child, he never understood how love could hurt. It was simple then, love was the soft things. The warmth of a hand held in his, the comfort of a smile. He loved what made him laugh, hated what made him cry.

as he grew, and the years carved their lessons into him, he began to understand. The adults who had whispered those somber truths, the ones who had said nothing could hurt like love were right.

Nothing hurt like love.

He’d seen it, in his time in the army, how men bled for each other, how they fought beside each other, and how the bonds forged in blood and smoke could turn to ashes in the blink of an eye. He had held brothers in his arms, watched them die with words of love and regret still on their lips.

Love wasn’t a battle fought on a battlefield. It wasn’t a duty fulfilled or a life lost for something greater. It was a private war, fought in the space between two hearts, and sometimes, the cost of that war was so much heavier than any enemy he’d ever faced.

It was the quiet ache that settled into the bones, a reminder that no matter how hard you tried to protect, there were always certain things you couldn’t save.

Sleep never comes.

The night bleeds into the morning, each hour indistinguishable from the last, cold seeping deeper into his bones, refusing to be shrugged off. The sun doesn’t reach him. It shines brightly through the blinds, but its warmth doesn’t touch him. He feels it there, just beyond the window, mocking him with the knowledge that there was a time he could’ve basked in it. That there was a time when Buck had been his warmth.

A dull ache, a constant thrum of something he cannot quiet, lingers behind his ribs. It sits heavy, uninvited, refusing to be ignored.

This is for the best, he tells himself. It’s a lie. But it’s the only one that offers some semblance of peace.

Maybe one day, they’ll learn to move past this.

Maybe one day, they’ll find their way back to each other,

Maybe one day, he’ll learn how to let him go.

Maybe in another lifetime he doesn't have to.

He drags himself out of bed, Each step feels heavier than the last, his body moving on instinct, 

The drive to the station blurs by in grayscale. Familiar streets pass in flashes, but they might as well be foreign. Nothing looks the same.

The firehouse stands steady in the morning light, a monument of routine and resilience. Inside, it’s warm, buzzing with the slow, sleepy rhythm of early hours.

In the locker room, he changes in silence.

Upstairs, the sound of quiet conversation floats through the air, Chim’s voice animated as he shows Hen a photo on his phone, something about a place he’s planning to take Maddie. Bobby’s bent over paperwork, brow furrowed but calm.

There, in the far corner of the loft, where the light doesn’t quite reach—

Buck.

Slumped on the couch, curled beneath his turnout, head tipped back, mouth parted slightly in sleep.

His skin is pale, almost grey in the dim light. Dark circles hollow out his eyes, so deep and bruised they seem painted on. He looks smaller like this. Folded in on himself. Not the sun-bright force of nature Eddie’s used to, but some dulled version of him, dimmed, extinguished.

A wave of nausea rolls over him,

This is what pushing him away looks like.

He can feel it in his body, the guilt coiling in his gut like barbed wire. His mouth goes dry, his heartbeat thudding so loud he swears Bobby will hear it from across the room. Every cell in him screams to go to Buck, to kneel beside that couch and take it all back.

Buck stirs under the weight of his gaze.

His lashes flutter, once, twice, slow. His eyes open heavy, unfocused,

For the briefest of moments, his gaze catches Eddie’s.

And there it is.

A flicker, soft, familiar, unbearably tender.

Then it’s gone.

Snuffed out like a candle in the wind.

Buck pushes himself upright, slow and stiff, as though his limbs have forgotten how to move. The turnout coat slips from his shoulders, pooling around him like shed armor. He doesn’t meet Eddie’s eyes again. Just walks past him, toward the bunks, his footsteps barely more than a whisper, shoulders hunched.

Eddie watches him go, every step tearing something loose inside his chest.

He wants to speak, wants to cry out,

Wait. Stop. Come back.

the words are caught in his throat, thick with guilt, choked by the truth he’s been trying to outrun.

Because what right does he have?

He was the one who told him to leave.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

Chim finds him in the kitchen, standing far too still for someone just poured a cup of coffee.

“Hey, man.” His voice is light, easy. Too easy. “Everything good?”

Eddie doesn’t look up. Just nods, a little too fast, a little too practiced. “Yeah. Fine.”

Chim raises a brow, leans a hip against the counter. “Right. That’s why you’re staring into your mug like it insulted your mom.”

Eddie huffs a laugh, the sound brittle.

“Seriously though,” Chim continues, voice softer now, “you and Buck… you guys good?”

Eddie swallows. “Yeah. We’re just… figuring some stuff out.”

Chim watches him for a moment, eyes kind but sharp. “You know, ‘figuring stuff out’ is the universal code for ‘things are on fire but I don’t wanna talk about it.’”

Eddie finally looks at him..

Chim’s voice gentles again. “I’m not trying to pry. Just… if you ever wanna talk, you know I’m around.”

Eddie nods, the gratitude there in his silence.

“Alright,” Chim says, backing off with a small, knowing smile.

He knows better than to push.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

He’s still in the kitchen when Hen walks in, the silence thick between the hum of the fridge and the faint clatter of someone laughing downstairs.

She doesn’t say anything at first. Just moves beside him, grabs a mug, pours herself some coffee Then, finally, softly:

“You know… coming back from Texas and adjusting to all that again, it’s a lot. It makes sense if things feel… heavy.”

He doesn’t answer. Doesn’t nod. Doesn’t blink. Just stares into his cup like maybe if he looks long enough, it’ll tell him what to do.

Hen sips. Doesn’t press. Then, quieter still:

“You two’ve been through worse. You’ll get through this too.”

Eddie’s jaw flexes, the only sign he’s even listening.

Hen glances at him sideways, voice dipping into something gentler, more tentative. “Living with someone, it’s never easy. Even when you love them.” She doesn’t emphasize the word. Doesn’t need to.

And here’s the thing—

That’s what hurts the most.

Living with Buck had never been hard.

It had been the easiest thing Eddie had ever done.

They moved around each other in the kitchen like it was choreographed. Buck knew how Eddie liked his eggs; Eddie knew Buck always left his coffee spoon in the sink. Buck folded laundry while Eddie vacuumed. Eddie took the trash out, Buck swept the floors. They didn’t divide tasks, they just did them. Like they’d always done it. Like they always would.

There were Saturday mornings filled with sunlight and music playing too loud. Buck in the living room, dancing like an idiot with Chris while Eddie made pancakes. There were nights spent washing dishes together, shoulders bumping, soft laughter, hands brushing by accident and neither of them moving away.

There was rhythm. Warmth. Home.

“Give it time,” she murmurs. “Don’t let one hard day erase all the good ones.”

Then she walks away, leaving Eddie alone again.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

The bell shrieks through the firehouse—

He moves on instinct, the practiced rhythm of muscle memory snapping into place. Mug down. Boots on. Jacket grabbed. The world narrows to purpose.

He doesn’t look at Buck.

Doesn’t need to.

He can feel him, across the loft, down the stairs, each footstep like a memory pressing into concrete. They fall into formation with the rest of the team, like always, like they haven’t been slowly unraveling thread by thread.

The locker room is a blur of motion, zippers, Velcro, the muted thud of helmets against lockers. Chatter hums low between the others, routine banter muffled under adrenaline.

Silence.

Tangible. Tense.

a cord pulled too tight between two bodies pretending not to break.

Buck moves past him to grab his gloves. Doesn't speak. Doesn't glance his way. But Eddie sees the tremor in his hand when he tugs the turnout coat into place.

Eddie swallows hard and shoves his own helmet on, the familiar weight grounding and suffocating all at once.

They climb into the engine. Chim slides into the driver’s seat, Hen beside him. Eddie takes his usual spot. Buck does the same.

For a heartbeat, they’re shoulder to shoulder.

And still—nothing.

Not a word. Not even a breath shared.

The siren wails, lights blaze red across Buck’s pale profile, and Eddie wonders how the hell they’re supposed to save anyone today when they can’t even look at each other without falling apart.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

Eddie stares out the window, his reflection a blurred echo against the city rushing past. Buck sits beside him, staring at his own hands like maybe if he keeps them still enough, they won’t tremble.

When they arrive, it’s chaos.

The SUV is on its side, steam hissing from the radiator. A woman is trapped inside, blood smeared across her temple. Another car is parked several feet ahead—crumpled, empty, the driver already pulled out by a bystander.

Hen calls for the jaws.

Chim’s already assessing the second victim.

Eddie and Buck approach the overturned SUV. They work together in eerie silence, Buck stabilizes the frame, Eddie slips in through the shattered back window. It should be fluid. It should be easy. They’ve done this dance a hundred times.

But they keep bumping elbows. Their movements out of sync. Buck passes tools without looking. Eddie gives updates clipped and too sharp.

The woman moans, dazed and bloody. Eddie tries to soothe her, voice low, but his throat is raw. Everything in him feels wrong.

Eventually, they get her out. A neck brace, a backboard, a count to three. Hen takes her vitals while Buck steps aside, hands on his hips, breathing hard like the wind’s been knocked out of him.

Eddie watches him. Feels that same hollow ache clawing back up his throat.

He walks over slowly, like Buck’s a wounded animal that might bolt.

“Buck.”

Buck doesn’t look up. “Not now. We’re working.”

“I know. But—when?”

Eddie’s voice cracks before he can cage it.

Buck scoffs “Can we not?”

“What?”

“This.” Buck gestures vaguely between them, eyes glassy. “Just don’t. I said my part, you said yours. There’s nothing left to talk about.”

Eddie flinches like he’s been slapped. “I don’t want us to—”

Buck’s eyes snap to him, full of something Eddie can’t bear to name. “Don’t you get it? There is no us, Eddie. Not anymore. We can’t just go back and pretend that I—”

“Buck, I can’t—”

“You don’t—” Buck cuts himself off, tears welling. He shakes his head, swallowing something jagged.

Eddie wants to reach out. Wrap his arms around him. Gather every fractured piece and hold them together.

Buck takes a step back.

“I just can’t,” he whispers. And then he’s gone. Back to the rig. Shoulders tight, spine stiff, like if he stops moving he’ll fall apart.

Eddie stands there in the noise and blood and sirens, chest heaving, heart splintering beneath the weight of the words left unsaid.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

The rig hadn’t even cooled before the radio crackles again.

“Engine 118, Ladder 118, respond to possible GSW. LAPD already on scene. One victim, female, early 30s. Location: 84th and Raymond.”

Chim curses under his breath. Eddie just nods, the motion automatic, his body still running on fumes and adrenaline and the sick churn of everything left unsaid.

They don't go back to the station. Just turn back into the city’s underbelly. Sirens slicing through air like a blade. Buck sits across from him again, staring at the floor. His fingers twitch once, then still. Eddie clenches his jaw so tight his molars ache.

The sun is low now, hazy gold bleeding into grey. The dusk feels suspended in time, too quiet, too expectant.

They arrive to flashing red and blue.

The scene is cordoned off. A cluster of LAPD officers hover near a sagging alleyway fence. Yellow tape flutters in the wind like a warning. The woman is lying on the concrete just beyond them, slumped but breathing—barely.

She’s mid-thirties, maybe. Pale skin made paler by the blood that darkens her blouse. Brown hair matted to her forehead. A single hand clutches her stomach. Her lips are moving, but no sound comes out.

They move forward together, instinct taking over. They step under the tape. It snaps against his shoulder.

Every footfall feels louder than it should. Closer.

A heartbeat, then another.

Then Eddie sees her eyes. Sees how wide they are. How they aren’t looking at him but past him.

“Something’s wrong,” he says.

The shot rips through the air.

His body reacts before his brain does, before memory, before thought. That old muscle-deep instinct, etched into bone from a war he never truly came back from.

Gunfire.

Pain.

Blood.

Time folds.

The alley tilts.

His heart pounds so loud he can’t hear Buck’s voice, he must be shouting, but all he registers is white noise and the cold bite of dread curling down his spine.

Another shot. Closer this time.

His vision narrows to a tunnel. Hands. Boots.

Sirens that sound too far away.

His breathing is shallow.

Too fast.

He can’t get enough air.
The smell of copper and gunpowder floods his nose.
His fingers twitch for a weapon he doesn’t carry anymore.
He sees the war in bursts behind his eyes, dust and shrapnel and the echo of men screaming.
For a second, he's not in L.A.
He’s twenty again.
And then—
A force slams into him.
Or maybe it’s the air. Maybe it's the grief already reaching for him.
his knees buckle.
And all he registers—
is his back hitting the asphalt.

Chapter Text

He has always known how to listen.  

He grew up learning to navigate sound like a second language. The soft scuff of his sister’s footsteps when they were sneaking into his room. The creak in the hallway that meant his mother was just around the corner. The sudden silence after a slammed door,

And then came the army, where that awareness was honed into a blade.  

Where every footstep might mean death.  

Where the whistle in the wind might mean a mortar shell.  

Where you learned not just to anticipate violence, but to walk into it with your heart caged behind your ribs and your nerves on a razor’s edge.

The first time he was shot, he was twenty-one.  

And the thing is, he knew. Knew before it happened.  

The moment before it hit was a breath held too long, a note stretched until it snapped.  

And when it did, when the bullet tore through his side, it was less surprise and more confirmation.  

his body had already braced for it.  

part of him had been waiting.

The second time, he didn’t see it.  

Didn’t hear it. But it wasn't really a surprise.

There were too many other sounds: the roar of the engine, the slap of rotor blades, the barked commands, the fear in the air like sweat.  

A mission gone sideways, and the helicopter falling fast—  

Everything on fire.  

He doesn’t remember the bullet, not exactly.  

He remembers the heat, the white flash of pain, the way his breath wouldn’t come.  

But mostly he remembers the silence after.  

That empty kind of silence you only get when your ears are still ringing and your body doesn’t know if it’s alive or not.  

The third time, he didn't even feel the shift in the air. Didn’t taste the fear in his throat.  

He was standing beside Buck. Listening to him talk, watching the way the light played in his curls, how the sun caught on his jaw.  

He was thinking about dinner. About home. About Christopher’s stupid science project and buck helping him.

Home

Safe

And then—  

A bullet

The pavement rose up to meet him

He hit the ground with a grunt, breath fleeing his lungs

And even as blood bloomed bright and fast beneath him, his first thought—

Where is Buck?

His arm moved reaching—  

through pain, through panic, through the haze descending fast.  

And when Buck’s face came into view, wide-eyed and shaking, painted in terror—  

Eddie thought, Thank God.

Because at least buck was safe.

So, after being shot three times, Eddie knows his body well, knows the way pain blooms, sharp, the way breath catches in the aftermath of a bullet's kiss. 

this isn't that.

his mind is fogged, his limbs slow to respond, cold clinging to him 

A sound cuts through it—

“Eddie!”

Eddie blinks, disoriented, finds Buck above him, wild-eyed, hands roving frantically across his body,

Something in the back of his mind won't stop screaming the word human shield.

Athena’s voice cuts through the chaos, a sharp command, the clatter of handcuffs, the static of a radio.

Somewhere, someone’s still yelling.

But here, in the center of it, it’s just Buck.

Buck, who pulls back just enough to hover, knees braced on either side of Eddie’s waist, hands frantically skimming his body like he’s trying to piece him back together by touch alone.

“I’ve got you,” Buck mutters, over and over. “You’re okay, you’re gonna be okay, I’ve got you, I’ve got you—”

“Buck.”

He Doesn’t hear him.

Hands press against Eddie’s ribs, his stomach, his sides, searching for a wound that isn’t there.

“Buck. Buck, look at me.”

Still nothing.

“Buck!” Eddie snaps, voice sharp now, trying to cut through the fog behind those panic-stricken eyes.

“I’m okay. It didn’t hit me.”

Buck freezes.

“...What?”

“I said it didn’t hit me. I’m fine. I swear.”

There’s a beat of silence.

he breathes slowly

Oh.

Soft. Dazed. 

then Eddie sees it.

The blood on Buck’s hands.

And then his shirt, sticking to him in soaked streaks, the stain spreading like ink in water, blooming from his side.

Buck blinks, as if noticing it for the first time.

Looks down at his palms, at the red smeared across his fingers.

His mouth opens, but no sound comes out.

And then he slumps, like something’s been unhooked inside him.

His weight shifts off of Eddie, body listing sideways until he lands hard on the pavement beside him, knees folding awkwardly, breath ragged.

“Hen!”

Eddie’s shout is torn from his throat, tight with fear, already wet with the panic drowning him "Buck—" he breathes, the name half a prayer, half a scream. 

"Hey, hey, stay with me. Look at me."

Buck blinks slowly, lashes fluttering like they’re too heavy to lift. His skin is pale, lips cracked. 

"Sorry..."

Eddie leans in closer, heart in his throat. “What?”

“I ruined this... I ruined us...”

His eyes find Eddie’s, wide and wet, terror threading through every syllable. “But I never... never regretted—”A violent cough cuts him off and Eddie watches in horror as it trickles down his chin, “never regretted loving you.”

His head lolls slightly, breath coming in shallow gasps, and Eddie grabs his face, thumb smearing the blood from his cheek like it might erase the damage. “Stay with me,” he begs, voice breaking. “You don’t get to say that and leave, Buck—”

"Vitals are dropping—he’s crashing! Eddie, we need to move!"

Hands pull buck away.

Eddie doesn’t feel the medics brush past him. Doesn’t hear the shouts or the beeping or the chaos rising behind him. He sees only Buck. Pale. Still reaching for him, fingers twitching once before they fall away.

The ambulance doors slam shut.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

He can’t remember getting up.

One moment he was on the pavement, Buck’s blood on his hands, 

And then he was in a car.

He doesn’t know who helped him. Doesn’t remember moving. Doesn’t feel his body.

The world outside the window moves, but he’s not sure he’s really in it. Everything’s blurry, edges smudged like a painting left out in the rain. Sirens wail in the distance, the radio crackles low, someone says his name.

“Eddie.”

It’s Bobby. Or maybe Chimney. The voice is familiar but far away, like it’s coming through layers of glass.

He looks down.

His hands are red. Not just stained, soaked. The blood’s drying, crusting in the lines of his palms. It flakes when he moves, and the smell of it is everywhere. 

A breath catches in his throat—

A hospital hallway.

Too bright. Too white.

A doctor saying her name.

Shannon.

His chest tightens.

He remembers how cold the chair was beneath him.

How his hands shook.

How he couldn’t stop looking at them.

He sees her smile—soft and sad—and hears her voice, like a ghost curling around his spine:

“I didn’t come back to stay.”

“I never regretted loving you.”

The words echo.

Overlap.

Is this what I do? 

Love people just long enough to watch them leave?

Except, it’s not like that, is it?

Shannon didn’t leave him.

He left her.

Over and over again.  

He tries to forget that part. Tries to make her the ghost who disappeared.  

But the truth clings to his ribs like tar.

"I needed someone to have my back."

"I always had your back."

"No—you were in Afghanistan."

Old wounds, still bleeding.

They echo off the back of his skull, overlapping, folding in on each other until they blur—

"You can have my back any day."

"Or, you know… you could have mine."

He didn’t.  

Not then.

Not when he left Shannon the first time, chasing the idea of war like it would quiet the noise in his chest.  

Not the second time, either.  

Not after Christopher was born.  

Not when it mattered.  

He left.  

Left Shannon alone with a newborn and a breaking heart.  

Left without even trying to offer a second chance.  

He told himself he was doing the right thing. That duty came first.  

But all it did was take everything else last.  

And then—  

She was gone.  

And he never got to fix it.

He wasn’t there for Shannon.  

He wasn’t there for Buck.  

He was there when the fire truck crushed his leg, he was there when the metal screamed and Buck screamed louder.  

he remembers the sound. he still hears it sometimes, echoing through his chest. He held Buck’s hand through it.  

Even when Buck's nails dug into his skin, even when his voice broke apart   

He could stay.

And he did, he stayed through the spiral that came after.  

Watched Buck unravel thread by thread, too proud to ask for help, too angry to accept it.  

Saw the way the tsunami left salt in his lungs and ghosts in his eyes.  

Saw the lawsuit.  

Saw the rage.  

Saw the quiet desperation bleeding through the cracks in his smile.

And when it got hard, when Buck was broken and sharp-edged and barely holding it together—

Eddie left.

Retreated. 

Like he always did. 

Because Buck was hurting and he didn’t know how to help.  

Didn’t know if he could.  

And that terrified him more than anything.  

So he did what he always did when he was scared

He ran.

Not even two months later, Buck let him back in.  

No questions.  

No conditions.  

Like nothing had ever fractured between them.  

Like Eddie hadn’t walked away from the wreckage of Buck’s pain and come back when it was cleaned up.  

And then he was shot.  

And everything blurred.

The memories of that day come in fragments, waterlogged at the edges

But he remembers Buck.

Buck, standing there, painted in red.  

Buck, screaming his name.  

Buck, crawling under the same fire truck that had once broken him, dragging himself across blood-slick pavement, desperate just to reach Eddie’s hand.

And then later, weeks later, when the wounds had stitched themselves closed, when Eddie could walk and breathe—

Buck stayed.

He remembers the shape of him on the couch, too long for it, limbs tangled in a blanket that barely covered him.  

Remembers the way Buck would feign sleep, facing the cushions, but Eddie could hear it.  

The muffled gasps, the shuddering breath, the way he swallowed his sobs.

And Eddie would lie in his bed, fists clenched in the dark, heart splitting down the middle wondering—

Which trauma was he dreaming about?  

The fire truck?  

The tsunami?  

The sniper?

Or was it something else entirely, something Eddie couldn’t see, couldn’t reach?

he didn’t ask.  

Didn’t press.  

Didn’t offer to shoulder it.

And then, he left.  

Again 

Buck let him back in.  

Again.

No questions.  

No punishment.  

Just home, waiting, like it never stopped being his.

Like Buck didn’t know how not to love him.

He doesn’t remember Shannon’s last breath.

He was too late.

He is too late.

He presses his forehead to the window, eyes burning.

A low sound slips from his throat, half-sob, 

“Pull over,” he says, voice cracking.

Bobby—because yes, it is Bobby now, looks at him in the rearview.

“Eddie—”

“Pull over. I can’t— I need—” His voice fractures.

The car slows.

He’s out of the car before it fully stops, door swinging wide as his boots hit the pavement hard. The cold air stings his face, but he barely feels it.  

He makes it two steps before he’s on his knees, bracing himself with one hand on the curb, the other pressed tight to his stomach like that’ll stop the shaking.  

And then he’s throwing up.  

It comes out in choking waves—acid, air, grief.

his body trying to get rid of the panic still clawing at his insides. His throat burns. His eyes sting. His whole body aches with it.  

When it’s over, he stays there, hunched and shaking, the taste of bile sharp in his mouth. 

Bobby’s behind him, quiet. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t reach for him—just waits.  

Eddie breathes through it. In. Out. In again.  

he looks down at his hands. Still sticky. Still red.  

Buck’s blood.  

His chest tightens all over again.  

“I can’t—” His voice breaks. 

Bobby crouches down beside him slowly, like the weight in his own chest might keep him from standing back up again.

He doesn’t speak right away, just rests a hand on Eddie’s shoulder. 

Not words. Not comfort. Just that quiet grief in Bobby’s touch. The way his thumb presses, The way his silence says me too.

Because bobby knows what it's like to loose your family. And now they’re both sitting here on the side of the road, blood drying on Eddie’s hands, fear stitched into the space between them.

A prayer, maybe. A plea. A memory.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

Two hours later, and they’re back at the same hospital they spent so many nights at—  

wrapped in the sterile hush of too-white walls and too-bright lights.  

Time folds strangely here. He doesn’t know how long it’s been.  

Minutes? Hours? Days? It doesn’t matter.  

Everything is too quiet, too still.  

The cold clings to his skin, persistent, like it’s seeped into his bones.  

He doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink.  

The smell of antiseptic is thick in the air, sharp and clean in a way that feels cruel. Like the room’s trying to erase what happened, scrub the blood out of memory.  

His throat still burns, raw, scratchy from throwing up on the side of the road. It itches every time he swallows, but he doesn’t try to fix it. He doesn’t ask for water. Doesn’t even speak.  

The chair under him is too hard, the air too cold, the silence too loud.  

A monitor beeps somewhere down the hall, steady and indifferent.  

Eddie flinches every time it pauses.  

He can’t remember the last time someone walked into the room with an update.  

He can’t remember the last time he breathed.

Something twists in his stomach.  

One more chance, he begs, to god, to universe, to anything that's listening to his prayers.

He got his second chance.  

And a third.  

And a fourth.  

God, he got so many.  

And he ruined every one of them.  

He left Shannon. He left Buck.  

He keeps walking away from people like love is something breakable he doesn’t know how to hold.  

He gets chances, and he wastes them.  

He could’ve fixed it.  

Should’ve.  

So many moments 

and he let them pass.  

When they came back from Texas, and Buck had dropped to his knees and held Chris like the world had ended and started over in his arms.  

Held him so tight none of them could breathe.  

Eddie had stood frozen, heart aching in his chest, watching the two people he loved most cling to each other like they were afraid to let go again.  

That should’ve been it.  

That was the moment.  

He should’ve fixed it on a Sunday afternoon, the house golden with late sunlight, and Buck in the kitchen, sleeves rolled up and face flushed from the oven heat, trying to recreate Bobby’s pasta recipe from memory.  

Flour smudged his cheek like a fingerprint of heaven.  

His curls were a little damp, stuck to his forehead, eyes squinting in concentration, tongue poking out at the corner of his mouth as he grated too much cheese and laughed at himself.  

God, he was beautiful.  

the way light moves through trees, or music you only catch when you’re listening hard enough.  

He was warmth, and joy, and the kind of love that filled every crack without even trying.  

Eddie should’ve walked over, taken his face in his hands, and told him.  

He should’ve sat Chris down, heart in his throat, and said the words he was afraid of, the ones he thought might break something between them.  

That loving Buck didn’t mean losing him.  

That it wasn’t new—it had always been there.  

That it wouldn’t change them, not in the ways that mattered.  

He should’ve said:  

There is no world where I would leave Buck behind.  

Not for anything.  

Not for anyone.  

He should’ve fixed it.  

Should’ve taken Buck’s hand and shown him how easy he is to love.  

Instead, he stood there.  

Beside the dinner table, food laid out with care, every dish touched by Buck’s thoughtfulness. The napkins folded in that clumsy way Buck always did when he was trying too hard. Flowers from the farmer’s market Eddie had once casually said were his favorite, arranged in a chipped vase with so much intention it hurt.  

And across from him, Buck.  

Looking at him like he hung the stars.  

As if Eddie hadn’t already broken him a hundred quiet ways.

Buck, with the audacity of someone who loves too deeply to pretend otherwise.  

Voice shaking, soft in that way it gets when he’s terrified but still steps forward.  

“I love you,” he said, words barely more than breath. “I don’t know when it happened, or how, maybe somewhere between a shared bottle of Gatorade and you handing me your kid, I just… I do. I love you, Eddie.”

There was a beat.  

A heartbeat, stuttering.  

And Eddie—he couldn’t breathe.  

Couldn’t think.  

Because this was everything.  

Everything he ever wanted.  

Everything he could never have.  

“Stop,” he thinks he said.  

Barely a whisper, barely air.  

His voice caught on the jagged edge of his throat, “Please… stop.”

To be loved by someone like Buck—  

Someone who is light. Who wears his heart in his smile and his hope in the way he never stops showing up.  

Someone ethereal, almost otherworldly, but real enough to ruin you with a single look.  

And to let that go—  

To rip your own soul in two.  

To sacrifice one half for the other.  

Because the choice was never really a choice.  

He couldn’t lose Christopher.  

Not again.  

He wants to laugh.

He wants to cry.

He wants to scream back at the universe.

He lost them both anyway.  

I love you too. He thinks 

But it’s already too late. 

Chapter Text

He can’t tell where his limbs end and where the cold plastic of the hospital chair begins. The chair beneath him is hard and narrow, digging into the meat of his back. He can't remember when he sat down. Maybe he never did. Maybe he was born into this chair, stitched together by the humming of machines and the weary sighs of passing nurses، Maybe he doesn’t have a body anymore. 

The world blurs at the edges. The walls breathe in and out, the cracked linoleum floor groans like a wounded animal. Somewhere, a monitor beeps, a steady, indifferent heartbeat that doesn't match the frantic thundering in his own chest.

He watches the door across from him like it might open and swallow him whole. Or save him. The handle glints dully under the twitching light.

On. Off. On.

Darkness spills in with each flicker, pools in the hollows under his eyes.

In the dimness, he thinks he sees him, a flash of blue scrubs, a curve of a familiar smile, but when he blinks, there's only the blank wall, staring back at him.

Maybe he was the one who died. Maybe this is all the afterlife is, bad coffee, brittle hope, and a waiting room with no clocks.

Night falls.  

Or morning does.  

The sky outside the narrow window is a smear of ash, weightless and formless, neither light nor dark, a suspended breath the city forgot to exhale. Beyond the glass, life thrums onward, distant and indifferent, the low wail of a siren, the restless sigh of traffic, a world turning without them.

Eddie’s phone vibrates once against his thigh. He doesn’t move.

Christopher is safe.  

He knows it.

But the knowing is thin and frayed, and the guilt is a small, sharp animal curled beneath his ribs, chewing him hollow from the inside out.

A light flickers down the hall.

On.

Off.

On again.

He prays, with the shattered remnants of whatever faith he has left, for it to stay on.

It doesn’t.

Maddie arrives, her face pale, her hands shaking as she's clutching Chimney’s sleeve.

"Sorry," he thinks, though the word clots in his throat, thick with shame and grief.

It should’ve been me.

He was protecting me.

Time unspools in thin, brittle threads. He doesn't know how long he's been here, minutes, hours, whole lifetimes, stitched together by the hum of the vents and the uneven flicker of the lights.

At some point, Athena’s voice cuts through 

"I can bring Chris, if you want."

The words land like stones in his lap. He shakes his head before she finishes speaking. He can't. He can't drag Christopher into this place, into this failure carved into bone.

He can't look into his son’s eyes and say I couldn’t save him.

He can't see the disappointment and grief on his face.

Not again.

Later, Ravi appears, awkward, holding out a cup of coffee and an energy bar.

Eddie stares at them, hollow. The smell of the coffee turns his stomach. The crinkle of the wrapper sounds too loud in the brittle air. He doesn't take them. He can’t.

The sun must’ve risen again, he thinks distantly.

That feels wrong.

The sun shouldn't rise.

The sun was bleeding under his hands,

The sun was drowning in blood.

Blood.

Blood.

Blood.

It echoes in his skull, a drumbeat he can’t silence.

Nausea claws up his throat.

He folds forward, elbows on his knees, breathing,

A doctor appears, carving a shape against the too-bright hallway.

Bobby moves first, pulled by gravity or prayer, Eddie can't tell.

Maddie’s fingers tighten around a paper cup gone cold, gone limp in her hands.

Chimney catches her when her knees wobble, gathering her against his chest. 

Hen stands still. A statue in mourning.

Eddie hears the doctor speak but the words fall sideways, slipping through the cracks in the air.

He won't leave us—he won't leave me—

He is not sure if he says it aloud, or if it’s just another sound stitched into his ribs.

He tries to rise.

His body refuses.

The taste of iron floods his mouth, thick and metallic, dragging him under.

The floor leaps up to meet him,

Darkness folds over him

Maybe, he thinks as the world dissolves into velvet black —

maybe Buck is waiting for him there.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

The world comes back in pieces.

A hum first, low and steady, like it’s vibrating beneath his skin. Then light, too sharp even behind closed lids, bleeding through the cracks. The smell of antiseptic drags him further toward consciousness, His throat aches. His tongue is dry. Everything else feels...heavy.

“Eddie?”

Hen’s voice pulls him the rest of the way. Gentle, steady, familiar.

He blinks, vision swimming before the room settles into focus. White walls. A thin blanket pulled too tight across his legs. Machines quiet at his side. Hen sitting in a chair next to the bed, eyes tired but soft, hands clasped together in her lap.

“You scared the hell out of us.” Her smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

His mouth feels wrong when he tries to speak. “What…?”

“You passed out.” She shifts closer, her voice careful, filling in the blanks he can’t quite reach. “Shock, dehydration, probably not eating enough.” She raises a brow, that familiar Hen look.

"You haven't been exactly easy on yourself," she says, voice gentling around the edges. "They suggested you stay here for the night."

"No," Eddie rasps, shaking his head before the thought can take root. The movement makes the world tilt, but he presses forward anyway. "No, I just need to—need to go home."

Home.

The word tastes foreign in his mouth, hollowed out by all it’s supposed to hold.

Hen watches him for a long moment, searching his face like she’s looking for fractures. She must find enough to worry her, but she only nods, slow and steady, like a promise not to fight him on this.

"I'll go find Athena," she says softly. "She’ll drive you."

She squeezes his hand once, grounding him with that small, fierce kindness only Hen could carry in a place like this, before rising from the chair.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

The drive home is carved out of silence.

Athena, usually a steady river of voice and presence, grips the wheel with both hands so tightly the leather groans beneath her fingers. Her gaze stays fixed forward, the city lights casting long, broken reflections across the windshield, painting both of them in golds and grays.

Eddie doesn’t speak. He watches the world pass by in smudged fragments—traffic lights blinking red, a man walking a dog that looks too small for the night, the ghost of a billboard half-seen through fogged glass.

Somewhere, a siren wails in the distance, Eddie flinches without meaning to.

When they finally pull up outside his house, the engine hums into stillness.

Athena shifts in her seat,

"Eddie—" she starts, voice softer than he’s used to from her.

"I'm fine," he cuts in automatically, the words brittle and worn out, like something borrowed from another version of himself.

Athena looks at him, and there’s nothing but sorrow in her smile.

"I'll check on you tomorrow," she says, not asking for permission.

Eddie nods, the movement small and jerky, then forces himself to get out of the car.

The night air meets him like a wall, thick and cold. The porch light flickers once as he fumbles with his keys, and for a moment, he feels certain it’s Buck standing behind him, laughing low and warm at his clumsiness.

But when he turns, there’s no one there.

Just the hush of the world breathing around him, and the door yawning open to swallow him whole.

Dust and darkness greet him at the door, curling into the hollow spaces of the house.

That can't be right, he thinks, frowning into the gloom. It hasn’t been more than a day. Maybe two. Maybe longer.

The air is stale, too still. It clings to him like wet fabric.

He steps inside and shuts the door behind him out of instinct, but the click of the latch sounds unnaturally loud, echoing through the silence.

There’s a scent lingering in the air, faint but stubborn, a trace of Buck's cologne, that easy, familiar warmth of cedarwood and soap and summer, but beneath it, something else has taken root.

He stands there, not sure what to do with his hands, not sure if this is real.

The house presses in around him, unchanged and unkind, a museum to a life that’s slipped through his fingers.

Outside, the world keeps spinning.

Inside, time has already stopped.

His feet drag across the floorboards, slow and graceless, as if some part of him is trying to root itself into the wood and stay behind.  

He doesn't remember deciding to move, doesn't remember crossing the living room, but somehow he's standing in the kitchen.

The sink is full, dishes stacked haphazardly, food gone cold and stiff in its plastic containers.  

The remains of a life paused mid-breath.

Two glasses of wine still on the counter, the lip of one stained.  

A bouquet of sunflowers, slumped sideways in their vase, petals curling inward like they’re too tired to go on.

Remnants of the last conversation.  

last fight.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, voice rasping against the quiet, standing in the same place he’d stood before.  

The words feel smaller this time.  

Hollow. Weightless.  

He isn't sure they mean anything anymore.

Something inside him pulls tight—

He turns to the sink, sleeves shoved up to his elbows with trembling hands.  

The faucet groans awake. Water scalds his skin, too hot, too fast, but he welcomes it.

He scrubs the dishes 

Plates, glass, forks, bowls, he can’t tell what belongs to who, can’t tell whose fingerprints he’s trying to erase.  

scrubbing at plates that don’t need it, scraping at stains that aren’t there. His skin burns, reddens, but he doesn’t stop.

Blood.

There’s blood under his nails.

There’s blood in the water.

There’s blood on his hands, warm and slick, Buck’s blood, Buck’s life seeping between his fingers—

He gasps, jerking back, water sloshing over the edge of the sink. The plate slips from his grip, shattering against the floor

The sound is too loud in the hollow quiet of the house.

Eddie stares at the broken pieces, breath coming too fast.

Then, slowly, he kneels.

One shard at a time. One jagged edge pressed into his palm. One sharp reminder that some things can’t be put back together.

He gathers them anyway.

When the sink is empty, he moves to the counter.  

Cloth in hand, wiping, scrubbing, polishing until the surface gleams cold and clean.  

Until there’s no proof anyone ever lived here at all.

The sunflowers don’t belong here.

They’re too bright, too alive, in this house that’s become a tomb. Buck bought them last week—“Because they look like sunshine, and you need more of that”—grinning as he shoved them into Eddie’s arms, his fingers brushing Eddie’s wrist, lingering just a second too long.

Now, they’re dying

Eddie trims the stems with shaking hands, the scissors biting into green flesh, sap sticking to his skin. Fresh water in a new vase. A futile attempt to delay the inevitable.

He thinks of Buck, pale and still, his hand reaching for him, Thinks of his own hands, useless, useless, useless—

The flowers don’t perk up.

He should call Chris.  

He doesn’t.

He just stands there, kitchen too dark and too silent, hands trembling over the clean counter, the smell of soap thick in his throat, a thousand apologies rotting in his mouth.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

Time unspools strangely after that.  

A loose thread he can’t follow back to its beginning.

Some days he floats above himself, watching a man who wears his skin shuffle through the house, move plates from one place to another, forgets what he was doing mid-action and stand still for hours.  

Sometimes he remembers to breathe.  

Sometimes he doesn’t.

He eats when Bobby shows up with food, insistent and patient, sitting across him, distant, not from him, from the world.

He chews mechanically, everything tastes like ash.

Sometimes he gags.  

Sometimes he doesn’t.

The smell—

it clings to him.  

The ghost of blood never leaves his nose.

One night he stumbles into the shower, half-dressed, half-asleep, scrubbing at his skin with shaking hands until he’s raw and pink and shivering under water so cold it burns.  

He watches the rivulets run down the drain, waiting for them to turn red.  

They don’t.

At some point—days, maybe a lifetime later, he brings Christopher home.

Chris moves carefully through the house, as if the floorboards might collapse under his feet.  

Eddie tries to smile for him, but his mouth feels wrong, too heavy, too broken.

Hen checks on them frequently, a steady pulse against the silence.  

She leaves groceries on the porch, sometimes stands with him in the kitchen and talks about nothing at all while Chris does homework at the table, pencil tapping a slow heartbeat against the wood.

He hasn’t heard much about Maddie or Chimney.  

it’s understandable.  

they’re grieving, even if he doesn’t know exactly what they're grieving.

It’s better this way. He’s better alone.  

No one has to see the cracks spiderwebbing through him.

He tells himself he’ll fix it.  

He’ll fix all of it.  

Once Buck gets home.

He’ll fix himself too.

Can he even be fixed?

The question curls up under his ribs, sharp and silent, gnawing at the soft parts of him he tries to pretend aren't there.

He doesn’t answer it.

He just stands there in the kitchen, sunflowers wilting quietly behind him, and lets the clock tick forward without him.

Every time the door creaks open, a stupid part of him still looks up, expecting Buck, demanding Buck.  

It’s automatic now, stitched into the ruined muscle memory of his days.  

Hen steps in, or Bobby, or Athena, their faces pulled tight at the edges, voices soft like he’s a spooked animal.  

It doesn’t matter. His heart leaps anyway, a brittle thing cracking against the cage of his ribs.  

And every time, when it isn’t Buck—and it’s never Buck—he folds back into himself, a house with all the windows boarded shut.

He tells himself he’s learning.  

He tells himself he’s getting used to it.

It’s a lie.  

Every noise, every breath of wind against the door, every sigh of the old pipes still slices him open along the same seams.

Sometimes, late at night, when the house sighs and the floorboards groan with settling, he hears footsteps that aren't there.  

Buck's laugh, just around the corner.  

The thud of boots dropped carelessly by the door.

He doesn’t go looking.  

He just presses his palms flat against the kitchen counter, willing the world to stop spinning, willing himself not to call out.

I’ll fix it, he promises the sink, the silence, the walls, the half-dead sunflowers.  

I’ll fix it when Buck gets home.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

Sleep comes like a thief, snatching him into the dark without warning. He wakes gasping, heart battering his ribs, the taste of copper thick in his mouth.

Sometimes it’s the desert.  

Dust in his lungs, Buck's voice crackling through the radio—“Eddie—”

The world painted in blood and sand and silence.

Other times, it’s the street again, Buck’s body crumpling beneath his hands, the blood dripping on his hands.

He wakes tangled in sweat-soaked sheets, his fists clenched so tight the nails bite into his palms.

Sometimes There’s blood dripping from Buck’s mouth, bright, blooming red, tracing the line of his chin.  

Eddie stares, frozen. He wants to wipe it away.  

He wants to force it back into Buck’s body, stuffing life back into lungs that have already forgotten how to breathe.  

He wants to cry.  

He wants to scream.  

He wants to claw his own heart out, just to make it stop.

Buck smiles at him—  

Soft, forgiving—  

comforting Eddie—

A hand reaches up—Buck’s hand—and brushes a tear from Eddie’s cheek.

Somewhere, distantly, someone screams.

It takes him a long moment to realize the sound is coming from his own throat, broken and wild, suffocating against the prison of his sheets and pillows.

he can still feel the ghost of Buck’s blood on his hands.  

Christopher stirs down the hall, restless. Eddie holds his breath until the house stills again.

He scrubs a hand down his face, but it doesn't wipe anything away. The smell of iron lingers.  It’s in the walls now. In the bedsheets. In his skin.

The blood stays.  

It’s in him.

The shooting loops behind his eyes whether he’s awake or asleep, a stuttering film reel he can’t tear out of the projector. The gunshots always sound like thunder.  

Buck always falls too far away to catch.

Some nights he doesn't even try to sleep.  

He sits in the living room with the TV flickering soundlessly, a cold cup of coffee forgotten in his hands, waiting for a dawn that never seems to come.

Waiting.  

Hoping.  

Breaking.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

The scent fades by degrees.

Eddie knows this. He knows how memory works, how smells dissipate, how cotton breathes, how time erodes even the most stubborn remnants of a person.

But sometimes, in the dead hours between midnight and dawn, he rolls over and buries his face in Buck’s pillow and—

There.

Cedar and salt and that stupid citrus shampoo Buck always used.

It’s so vivid it steals his breath.

He inhales sharply, fingers twisting in the fabric, heart pounding—

Then nothing.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

It happens on a Tuesday.

Autopilot carries him through the motions, chopping vegetables, boiling pasta, stirring sauce. Christopher chatters from the table about a school project, his voice a distant hum beneath the static in Eddie’s skull.

He sets the table.

Three plates.

Three forks.

Three glasses of water, condensation beading on the rim of the one Buck always used.

Chris goes very still.

He doesn’t realize what he’s done until he’s standing there, staring at the empty chair, his hands shaking around the serving spoon.

The silence is deafening.

“Sorry,” he rasps, snatching up the extra plate like it’s on fire. “I wasn’t— I didn’t—”

Chris looks at him with those knowing eyes. Says nothing.

The food tastes like ash.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

 He wonders sometimes, if love didn't need words, would buck see it in his eyes? Would he notice how his world slowed down every time he walked into a room? Would he realizes how easy it was to love him?

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

The last one dies on a Thursday.

Eddie watches it happen, the final petal surrendering to gravity, drifting in a slow, almost reverent fall to the counter. He doesn’t move to catch it. He just watches. Watches as the stem wilts into a crooked question mark, as the water turns cloudy with decay.

He doesn’t throw it away.

Just leaves it there, rotting quietly in the vase, while he scrubs the same plate for the third time, scalding water turning his skin red, the soap bubbles clinging like guilt.

The doorbell rings.

He doesn’t move.

It’s probably Hen. Or Bobby with another casserole wrapped in too much hope. They don’t ring the bell anymore. They just come in. But—

The bell rings again.

Then knocking.

Urgent.

Sharp enough to rattle something loose inside him.

“Eddie?”

The voice splinters the stillness.

Eddie drops the plate.

It shatters against the floor, tiny white teeth skittering into the corners. He barely registers it. His body is already moving, like a marionette cut from its strings, like momentum could outrun reality.

He pulls the door open and—

Buck stands there.

Real. Solid.

Leaning heavily on a cane, pale and drawn, but alive.

Sunlight tangles in his hair. His sweatshirt hangs off his frame like it’s lost the right to touch him.

Eddie stares.

Breathless.

Weightless.

This isn’t real.

It can’t be, because the sunflowers are dead, and the pillow stopped smelling like him three days ago, and the house is a mausoleum now.

But Buck shifts, a tiny grimace flashing across his face, the kind of small, human hurt that no dream could conjure.

“Uh,” Buck says, voice hoarse. “They discharged me. Maddie’s at work, and I—”

He shrugs helplessly, swallowing hard.

“I didn’t know where else to go.”

Eddie’s knees nearly buckle.

He catches the doorframe.

Catches himself.

He lets him in.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

It’s awkward.

Of course it is.

Buck moves like he’s wearing someone else’s body, lowering himself onto the couch in fits and starts, one breath, one wince at a time. His shirt rides up just enough to show clean white bandages, a cruel reminder of where the bullets tore through him.

Eddie can’t look at it.

Can’t look at anything.

“I made soup,” Eddie blurts, voice too loud, too brittle, already turning away, already retreating into the kitchen like a coward.

Buck doesn’t answer.

The pot’s been simmering for hours.

Chicken broth and carrots and too much salt, the way Buck liked it, likes it—

Eddie ladles the soup into bowls.

One for Buck.

One for himself.

Buck Just takes the soup with a quiet thanks, their fingers brushing, both of them flinching at the contact.

The silence is suffocating.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

Eddie wakes to the sound of retching.

He’s on his feet before he’s fully conscious, stumbling down the hall to the bathroom. Buck’s on his knees, forehead pressed to the cool porcelain, his whole body trembling.

"Hey—" Eddie crouches beside him, hand hovering over Buck’s back. "Hey, it’s okay."

Buck gags again, nothing left in his stomach but bile. The pain meds always did this to him—

Eddie knows this. Knows him.

But knowing doesn’t stop the way his chest cracks open at the sound.

He reaches out, hesitates, then gathers Buck’s curls back with one hand.

Buck freezes.

For a heartbeat, neither of them breathe.

Then Buck sags, letting Eddie hold him, his shoulders shaking with exhaustion.

"Sorry," he mumbles, voice wrecked.

Eddie’s thumb strokes his temple, automatic. "Don’t be."

The bathroom light flickers.

On. Off. On.

Buck’s skin is warm under his palm.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

Days blur.

Smudge against each other like thumbprints on glass.

Eddie sleeps on the couch.

Buck takes the bed.

Eddie pretends not to watch the way his chest rises and falls, not to count the seconds between breaths.

They don’t talk about the fight.

They don’t talk about the blood.

They don’t talk about the way Eddie’s hands still shake when he pours Buck’s pills into his palm.

Sometimes, Buck catches him staring.

Sometimes, Buck looks away first.

Sometimes, Eddie does.

In the moments between sleep and waking, Eddie hears Buck’s voice, soft, laughing, angry, alive.

He smells the stupid citrus shampoo.

He feels Buck’s hand brushing against his, accidental and electric.

Buck breathes.

That's enough.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

The coffee machine gurgles, spitting steam.  

Eddie leans against the counter, watching Buck stir sugar into his mug, three teaspoons, always three, the way he’s done since they were twenty-six and stupid and alive. The spoon clinks against ceramic. Too loud. The sound lingers in the air like a struck bell.  

Buck’s fingers are pale around the handle. There’s a tremor there, faint but familiar, the same one he got after the lightning strike, after the blood thinners.  

Eddie swallows. Looks away.  

"You should eat something," he says.  

Buck hums, noncommittal. His thumb rubs at a chip in the mug’s rim. "Not hungry."  

He hasn’t been. Not since—

Eddie opens the fridge. The light buzzes, flickers. Inside, Tupperware lines the shelves, meals from Bobby, from Hen, from the neighbors Eddie can’t remember speaking to. He grabs a container at random. Pasta. Probably.  

He heats it in silence. The microwave beeps once, twice, the numbers blinking 00:00 long after the food’s done spinning.  

Buck hasn’t moved.  

His coffee sits untouched, cooling in its cup.  

Eddie sets the plate in front of him. "Try."  

Buck’s mouth twitches. Not a smile. Something quieter. Something sadder. He picks up the fork, stabs a noodle. Twirls it. Lets it drop.  

"Tastes like nothing," he murmurs.  

His chest aches.  

He doesn’t look.  

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

They take the path behind the house at dusk.  

Buck’s cane taps against the pavement—one, two, one—but his footsteps don’t. The sound is hollow. Wrong.

The setting sun paints Buck in gold. For a moment, he looks like he used to, vibrant, glowing, alive. Then the light shifts, and he’s pale again, washed out, a photograph left in the rain.  

Eddie’s fingers itch to reach out.  

He shoves them in his pockets.  

"You tired?" he asks.  

Buck shakes his head. "Nah."  

He never is. Not really. Not since— 

A dog barks down the street. Buck startles, his grip tightening on the cane. Eddie steps closer, instinctive. Their shoulders brush. Buck feels solid. Warm.  

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

They sleep in the same bed again.

Eddie wakes to an empty bed.  

The sheets are cold. Untouched. He sits up, heart pounding, and—  

There.  

Buck stands by the window in the moonlight.

Eddie’s breath catches.  

Buck turns. Smiles. "Couldn’t sleep."  

He never sleeps. Not really. Not since—

Eddie swallows. Nods. "Come back to bed."  

Buck does.  

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

The skillet sizzles as Eddie flips the pancakes, Buck’s favorite, the ones with blueberries that burst under the heat. The smell of butter and sugar fills the kitchen, thick and cloying. The radio hums softly, some old rock song Buck would’ve sung along to if he were—  

A hand touches his shoulder.  

Eddie startles, nearly dropping the spatula.  

Buck stands behind him, close enough that Eddie can feel the warmth of his breath on the back of his neck. His face is shadowed, the morning light cutting sharp angles across his cheekbones.  

"You didn’t hear me come in," Buck says.  

Eddie’s throat tightens.  

"I was distracted," Eddie mutters, turning back to the stove. The pancakes are too dark now, the edges crisping. He flips them anyway.  

Buck leans against the counter beside him, arms crossed. His sleeves are rolled up, revealing the jagged scar along his forearm—the one from the firetruck, from the tsunami, from all the times he’s bled and come back.  

"I found a place," Buck says.  

Eddie freezes.  

"What?" 

"A new place. Not far, Just a few blocks away. I think—" Buck exhales, slow. "I think it’s time for me to move on."  

The spatula clatters against the stove.  

Eddie turns, his pulse roaring in his ears. "Why would you need a new place?"  

Buck’s eyes flicker to the sunflowers dead in their vase. Then back to Eddie.

"You kept them."

Eddie doesn’t turn. His fingers tighten around the plate. "Kept what?"

"The sunflowers.”

Buck nods toward the windowsill, where the withered stems slump in their vase, petals curled like dead fingers. "They’re dead anyway. You could’ve thrown them out."

A muscle jumps in Eddie’s jaw.

He doesn’t answer.

"Why would you need a new place?" He repeats instead.

"You don’t have to keep taking care of me just because you feel guilty."  

"Guilty?" Eddie’s voice cracks. "You’re not leaving, Buck. You took a bullet for me—"  

And I’m not staying because you feel obligated because of that!" Buck snaps.  

Eddie recoils like he’s been struck. "I don’t feel obligated!"  

"Then what is it?" Buck steps closer, his voice raw. "Why can you never talk about it? You were shot, and I was shot! You almost died! I died! It happened, Eddie. Not talking about it won’t make it go away!"  

The words hang between them, 

Eddie’s hands shake.  

He wants to scream. Wants to grab Buck by the shoulders and shake him until he understands. Wants to fall to his knees and beg—

"Please," he whispers instead.

Buck stills.  

"Don’t go," Eddie says, the words tearing out of him. "Not yet. I’m not— I’m not ready."  

Buck’s expression softens, something aching and unbearably sad in his eyes. He nods, just once.  

Eddie’s phone vibrates on the counter. 

Buck slowly walks out of kitchen.

The kitchen is empty.  

The pancakes burn.  

The phone vibrates again, insistent against the counter.

Eddie stares at it. 

Hen. The screen glows bright 

"Hey," he says, voice scraped raw but lighter than he feels.  

"You sound better," Hen says immediately, warmth threading through the words. "Actually slept for once?"

A half-laugh, more air than sound. "Tried. Might’ve set a new record for staring at the ceiling."  

"Mm. You eat yet?"

His gaze flicks to the charred pancakes still clinging to the skillet. "Burned breakfast, if that counts."  

"Eddie Diaz," Hen deadpans, "you better stay away from the kitchen."

"Shut up," he mutters, but there’s no heat in it. He leans back against the counter, shoulder pressing into the cabinet. The wood creaks. Somewhere down the hall, a floorboard sighs, the house settling, or maybe just his pulse, uneven in his ears.  

Hen’s quiet for a beat. "You gonna tell me what’s really going on?"

Eddie’s thumb rubs at a smudge of syrup on the counter. Sticky. "Just the wonders of a three minute sleep."  

"Uh-huh." She doesn’t push. Doesn’t ask "Well, just wanted to let you know me and chim are back on shift in a day or two. You and bobby have the rest of the month."

He's not even sure how to answer that. He's grateful for the time off. Buck isn't healed enough to be alone yet.

"Alright." Another pause. "Call if you need anything."

"Yeah." The word tastes like ash. "Thanks, Hen."  

He hangs up. 

His phone buzzes again as he’s scraping burnt pancake scraps into the sink.

He expects another message from Hen, maybe a sarcastic "fire department on standby for your cooking?" but the screen lights up with Buck’s name instead.

Buck 10:37 AM

so are we doing this thing where we pretend  

we don’t live together now  

Eddie scrubs the burnt pan harder. Types one-handed:  

Eddie 10:38 AM

You’re the one who brought up moving out.  

Play stupid games win stupid prizes.

A floorboard creaks. Eddie doesn’t look up.  

Buck 10:39 AM

OUCH  

also ur avoiding the question

Buck 10:41 AM

pls don’t stop talking to me

Eddie’s thumb hovers over the screen. Through the doorway, Buck runs a hand through his curls, a nervous tic Eddie knows too well.  

Eddie 10:42 AM

You’re literally 6 feet away.

Buck 10:42 AM

and yet. so far.

also ur deflecting

Buck 10:44 AM

remember that time u tried to make pancakes  

and set off the smoke alarm  

and i had to fan it with a towel  

while u swore in spanish

Eddie’s shoulders shake once. Damn him.

Eddie 10:45 AM

You’re never letting that go, are you

Buck 10:45 AM

nope :)  

also u smiled just now. i saw it

His phone lights up again. Same plea, third time now:  

Buck 10:46 AM

…pls don’t stop talking to me

Eddie slams his dishrag down. Strides into the living room and drops onto the couch beside Buck, close enough that their knees knock together.  

"Then stop texting me from the next room," he mutters, "you idiot." 

Buck’s grin is all relief. "Make me."  

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

The backyard is suspended in amber. Late afternoon sunlight pours thick as syrup over the fence, dripping from the leaves of the oak tree, pooling in the hollow of Buck's throat where his shirt collar sags loose. The air hums with the lazy drone of cicadas, the scent of charcoal and summer sweat clinging to Eddie's skin like a second layer. He watches Buck at the grill, for the first time in what feels like years.  

Buck's hands move with easy confidence, flipping burgers. The spatula glints gold in the fading light as he gestures wildly with it, telling some story Eddie stopped hearing minutes ago. It doesn't matter. Eddie's too caught on the way Buck's mouth shapes words, the way his shoulders flex under thin cotton when he laughs at his own joke, the way his eyelashes catch the light when he glances over—  

"You even listening to me, Eddie?"  

Eddie blinks. Buck's grinning at him, that stupid, lopsided grin that makes something in Eddie's chest go tight and warm. There's a smudge of barbecue sauce at the corner of his mouth. Eddie wants to lick it off.  

"Not even a little," Eddie admits, and the honesty tastes strange on his tongue.  

Buck's laugh rings out, clear and bright, and the sound settles in Eddie's ribs like something coming home. He reaches out without thinking, fingers brushing Buck's wrist, just to feel the warmth of his skin. Buck stills instantly, spatula hovering over the grill.  

The moment stretches, fragile. A bead of sweat slides down Buck's temple. Eddie watches its path with rapt attention, the way it catches the light, the way it disappears into the scruff along Buck's jaw. He should say something. He should—  

"I keep forgetting," Eddie says, and his voice comes out rough, like he's been screaming. "How to do this. How to just... be."  

Buck's expression softens. He sets the spatula down carefully, turns fully toward Eddie. The grill keeps cooking behind him, flames licking perfect patties that will never char.  

"Hey," Buck murmurs. His hand finds Eddie's shoulder, squeezes. His palm is warm through Eddie's shirt. "You're doing fine."  

Eddie shakes his head. He can't explain the hollowness that's lived in his chest for weeks, the way every breath felt like swallowing glass until—until Buck came back. Until Buck stood in his kitchen like he'd never left, like he belonged there, like—  

Buck's fingers slide up to cradle Eddie's jaw. His thumb brushes the stubble along Eddie's cheekbone. "Breathe, Eddie. Just breathe."  

Eddie does. The air smells like charcoal and Buck's stupid shampoo. The sun hasn't moved an inch in the sky. Somewhere beyond the fence, a dog barks, the sound distant and muffled, like it's coming through water.  

"I wasn't sure I could," Eddie admits. The confession scrapes his throat raw. "Do any of this without you. I kept thinking... I don’t remember how to do this. I don't remember how I did it before you, How to be a father. How to be... anything.”

Buck's smile is sad and sweet and endless. He presses Eddie's hand to his chest, right over his heart. Eddie waits for the beat. 

"You already know how Eddie," Buck whispers. His skin is warm under Eddie's palm. Alive. Real. "You're doing it right now."  

The light catches in Buck's eyelashes, turns them to gold. The burgers sizzle but never burn. The oak tree's shadow doesn't lengthen across the grass.  

Buck leans in, close enough that Eddie can count the flecks of blue in his eyes. "No matter what happens next" he breathes, lips brushing Eddie's cheek, "don't stop talking to me."  

Eddie closes his eyes. The moment stretches, perfect and unbreakable. The golden hour lasts forever here.  

When he opens them again, Buck is smiling at him, and for the first time in months, Eddie doesn't feel the ache in his chest.  

Chapter Text

Cold brass under his fingers. The weight of a folded flag in his arms. A line of dress blues stretching into the rain, shoulders squared, hats clutched over hearts. The hollow echo of a bugle playing taps, the sound warped like a record played too slow. somewhere—somewhere—a voice, raw with grief, screaming into silence.

No.No.No.

He wakes with the taste of rain in his mouth.  

The bedroom is dark, the storm outside reduced to a whisper against the window. His hands are fists in the sheets, his nails leaving half-moon indents in his palms. His breath comes in ragged gasps, his ribs aching like he’s been holding back a sob for hours.  

Next to him, the bed is empty.  

The panic is instant, electric, He’s on his feet before he’s fully awake, stumbling into the hallway, his pulse wild, stuttering thing in his throat.  

The house is silent.  

A clatter from the kitchen. The soft curse he’d know anywhere.  

He rounds the corner and there he is: Buck, bathed in the glow of the open fridge, his hair sleep-mussed, his shirt riding up over the bandages still wrapped around his side. He’s holding a carton of orange juice, the lid dangling from his fingers.  

“Shit,” Buck mutters, bending to pick it up. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”  

Eddie doesn’t move. Can’t.  

Buck straightens, squinting at him in the dim light. “Eddie?”  

He crosses the room in three strides, his hands finding Buck’s face, his shoulders, his chest—mapping the warmth of him, the solidness. Buck goes still under his touch, his breath hitching.  

“Hey,” Buck murmurs, his hands coming up to cradle Eddie’s wrists. “I’m here.”  

Eddie closes his eyes. Presses his forehead to Buck’s.  

Outside, the rain picks up again, tapping against the window like it’s asking to be let in. Somewhere, a clock ticks. Somewhere, a dog barks. Somewhere that isn't here, a folded flag gathers dust on a mantel.  

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

The toaster hums, the scent of scorched crumbs curls in the air. Orange juice glows in the glasses, stained gold by the lean light of dawn. Eddie sets one at Buck’s place without hesitation. 

Buck appears in the doorway, Sleep still clings to him, his sweatshirt hangs loose, shoulder bare, the pale edge of gauze stark against his skin. He pauses, gaze skimming the room but never settling. The morning halts with him.

Eddie gestures to the plate. A quiet offering. Bread, still warm. The knife laid gently at its side.

Buck sits. The chair creaks

They do not speak.

Eddie watches.

Buck chews with the mechanical grace of someone who doesn’t taste anything, throat working slowly, jaw slack with exhaustion. His breath is shallow but even. The sunlight brushes across his face, illuminates the dust on his lashes, the hollows carved beneath his cheekbones. That old, terrible beauty.

He doesn’t mean to look, each glance is a trespass, each second a prayer he won’t name. He marks the rise of Buck’s chest, the faint tug of healing skin beneath cotton, the way his fingers drum a quiet rhythm on the table’s edge. Steady, familiar, infuriatingly gentle.

Eddie’s own hands curl inward.

He doesn’t ask if Buck slept. Doesn’t ask if he’s in pain. Doesn’t say what thrashes beneath his tongue.

Forgive me. I failed you. 

Buck shifts; a tremor ripples through his posture. The bandages tug. Eddie’s stomach clenches.

He stares at his toast. 

Buck exhales. A long, weary sound that seems to empty the room. His knee brushes Eddie’s under the table—brief, uncertain—but neither of them pulls away.

The contact simmers between them.

When Buck speaks, his voice carries sleep and something else—.

“Are we going to talk about it?”

“Talk about what?” A hollow deflection.

“The nightmare.”

Eddie grips the butter knife until his knuckles pale. “It was nothing.”

“You were crying Eddie.”

He doesn’t answer.

“Eddie.”

“Drop it, Buck.”

“You can’t keep doing this.”

He doesn’t look up. “I said drop it.”

A beat. The weight of disappointment settles 

“You’ll have to face it eventually,” Buck murmurs.

Eddie’s throat tightens. He closes his eyes.

“Not yet.”

“When?”

No answer. Only the sound of breath and time.

Eddie lets his hands fall to his lap, lets the morning reclaim its silence.

And Buck—faithful, patient, unbearably kind—lets it be.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

The plates clink as he gathers them, the sound too loud in the hollow kitchen. Scattered crumbs, smears of butter, the dregs of orange juice clinging to the glasses—

He scrubs at a stubborn spot on the porcelain, his fingers pressing too hard, the sponge rasping against the surface 

The water runs hot, scalding his skin, but he doesn’t turn it down. The sting is better than the numbness.  

He glances at the doorway, half-expecting Buck to lean against the frame, grinning, a sarcastic remark already on his lips. But the space remains empty. 

He can still remember how it used to be, Buck’s shoulder brushing his as they moved around each other in this kitchen, effortless, like two currents in the same stream. Buck stealing bites of food before Eddie could plate it. Buck’s hand, warm and sure, squeezing the back of Eddie’s neck after a long shift.  

Now, he doesn’t even stand too close.  

He misses it, misses him, with an ache that settles deep in his bones. Misses the way Buck would sprawl on the couch, taking up too much space, his feet nudging Eddie’s thigh. Misses the way Buck would hum under his breath while cooking, off-key and unselfconscious. Misses the way Buck used to look at him, like Eddie was someone worth looking at.  

He wants to fix this. Wants to reach across the space between them and pull Buck back—back to how they were, back to before everything fractured. But he doesn’t know how. Doesn’t know if he can.  

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

It started small.

A missed gesture.

A hesitation.

The absence of something he can't quite name.

Buck doesn’t steal fries from Eddie’s plate anymore. He waits. He asks. He says please and thanks, murmured like he’s intruding.

And Eddie doesn’t know when those words started sounding like distance.

There was a time when sharing meant nothing, meant everything. Buck reaching over with two fingers, unapologetic, confident in his place. Their meals had rhythms, unspoken. Now, it’s all permission. Formality. Like Buck’s navigating a minefield he used to stroll blindfolded.

He bumps Eddie’s shoulder in passing, then pulls back, quick, mumbled sorry already halfway formed.

It used to be nothing. A brush of arms, a knock of knees, Buck’s socked foot nudging Eddie’s under the coffee table like it belonged there. Like he belonged.

He hates it.

Hates the way Buck hovers instead of inhabiting. The way his laughter dies too soon, like he’s afraid to let it live too loudly in Eddie’s space. The way every interaction now feels carefully measured, meticulously weighed, as if they’re strangers learning each other’s customs all over again.

They speak still. Of going back to work. Of Christopher. Of the thousand mundane things that bind the days together like fraying twine. But the soul of them—the sacred, clumsy beauty of their us—has quieted.

He catches himself watching for the old Buck, the one who’d plop down beside him, thigh to thigh, with no announcement, no pause. Who’d sigh dramatically and throw his head back when Eddie made a bad joke. Who’d tug the edge of Eddie’s hoodie just to be annoying. Just to touch.

So he learns the silence of missing things that no longer happen.

They still orbit each other. Still move in the same rooms. But the gravity has shifted.

It comes to him slowly at first, a creeping light that turns shadows into things he can name.

He hadn’t seen it while inside it. Couldn’t.

You don’t notice the shape of the air until it changes. You don’t feel the heartbeat of something until it stutters.

But now, in this strained new version of them, where Buck keeps a polite distance, where every word is measured and safe, Eddie sees it. The truth of what they were.

Not just friends.

Not the way people mean when they say it. Not Friday beers and birthday texts.

they’d built a life together,

There were toothbrushes kept in each other’s bathrooms without ever asking. Grocery lists made with the other in mind. Buck knew where Eddie kept the backup batteries, the spare keys, the ice packs for Christopher’s scraped knees. Eddie had memorized Buck’s coffee order, the way he liked his laundry folded, the look he gave right before he spiraled.

They didn’t talk about it. They never had to.

It had been so easy, effortless. Buck would show up at his door and stay through dinner, through bedtime stories, through midnight movies half-watched with their legs tangled and their mouths saying nothing at all.

They’d made a rhythm out of each other. Filled in the gaps. Slipped into place without noticing.

And now the beat is gone, and he's left fumbling through the silence, wondering when they blurred the lines between freindship and whatever this is.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

He doesn’t speak the wanting aloud.

Instead, he begins again, slowly, deliberately. rebuilding a ruined chapel with bare hands and too much memory.

He leaves his phone unlocked on the kitchen counter, Buck’s playlist already pulled up. Not subtle—never subtle—but casual enough to pass. If Buck notices the familiar curve of his name next to half the songs, he doesn’t say. He only thumbs through the screen one day and lets the music play. Eddie listens from the stove, not looking. Just breathing.

Dinner becomes an act of hope.

He stops doing laundry in secret. Leaves it out, half-folded, scattered in the living room where Buck used to perch with one sock slung over his shoulder, grumbling about the tyranny of fitted sheets. 

Buck folds them without a word.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

He burns the grilled cheese on purpose.

watches the butter darken in the pan, the bread blackening at the edges, smoke curling lazily toward the ceiling. The smell is unmistakable, charred and bitter, the kind of mistake he hasn’t made since his first week living alone after Shannon.

Buck appears in the doorway, nose scrunched. “Jesus, Eddie, are you trying to set off the—”

The smoke detector wails to life, shrill and insistent.

Eddie doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t move to fan it. Just stands there, spatula in hand, staring at the ruined sandwich like he can’t quite figure out how it happened.

Buck’s eyes dart from the pan to Eddie’s face and back. For a heartbeat, Eddie thinks he’s been caught—that Buck will see right through this pathetic charade, will call him out on this transparent, desperate ploy for.

But he snatches the spatula from his hand. “Move over, you menace.” 

And just like that, Eddie’s chest cracks open.

Because Buck is here, hip-checking him aside with familiar ease, scraping the burnt mess into the trash with the same exaggerated eye roll he’s used for years. The distance between them collapses in an instant, bridged by the sheer force of Buck’s inability to let Eddie fail at something as simple as a grilled cheese.

“How are you even alive?” Buck mutters, slathering fresh butter on new bread. “I’ve seen you field-strip an M16 blindfolded but you can’t—”

Eddie doesn't hide his smile as Buck salvages the meal with a series of exasperated mutters.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

Two days later, Eddie stands in the hallway, patting his pockets with theatrical distress.

"Keys," he announces to no one in particular. Then, louder: "My keys."

From the living room, a long-suffering sigh. Buck's voice carries down the hall, tinged with the familiar fond annoyance Eddie's been starving for. "Hook by the door. Like always."

Eddie makes a show of checking. "Not there."

"Did you check your—"

"Every pocket."

A pause. Then the creak of the couch as Buck stands. Eddie watches from the corner of his eye as Buck moves to the kitchen, reaches atop the fridge—since when does Buck need to stretch for that spot?—and produces the spare set with a jingle.

"You put them up here last week," Buck says, dangling them. 

"I forgot," he lies, taking the keys. Their fingers brush. Buck doesn't flinch.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

The rain is biblical. Fat, angry drops pelt the windows, the roof, the earth with a vengeance. Outside, the world is grey and dripping. Inside, Eddie is under the sink, and absolutely no one is buying it.

“The wrench won’t—” he gestures vaguely from beneath the cabinet. “You know.”

He adds a sigh for dramatic effect and glances sideways, where Buck is standing with a rag slung over one shoulder, arms crossed, one eyebrow raised in what can only be described as unimpressed affection.

“You’re holding it upside down,” Buck says. Calm. Patient. Sassy.

Eddie blinks at the wrench. “Huh.”

There’s a beat of silence before Buck kneels beside him, sliding effortlessly into place Their shoulders knock together, close and unguarded in the narrow space.

“I swear you’re doing this on purpose,” he mutters, nudging Eddie’s arm as he takes the wrench and twists the valve with practiced ease.

Hid laugh is quiet, warm. It fills the kitchen better than sunlight ever could.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

The first thunderclap lands like a detonated memory.

He freezes in the doorway, one hand braced white-knuckled against the frame, breath tangled in his chest like a caught bird. Rain needles the porch, slants sideways in the wind’s ragged howl,

all he hears is the echo of that day—the sizzle of electricity in the air, the smell of burning flesh, Buck's body hanging mid air.

A hand closes around his wrist. Warm. Solid.

Buck doesn't speak. Just tugs gently, pulling Eddie back from the threshold, his fingers sliding down to twine with Eddie's as he leads him inside. The door shuts behind them, muffling the storm.

He should say something. Should make a joke, brush it off, anything, but his tongue feels leaden, his pulse rabbiting in his throat.

Buck doesn't force words where none will come. He just squeezes Eddie's hand once and moves to the kitchen. Eddie watches, still trembling, as Buck pulls out the good cocoa powder—the expensive kind Eddie pretends to hate—and heats the milk slowly, the way Eddie prefers. 

The ritual of it is steadying. The clink of the spoon against ceramic. The rich scent of chocolate and cinnamon blooming in the air. The careful way Buck avoids looking at him, giving him space to compose himself without witnesses.

When the mugs are ready, Buck jerks his chin toward the living room. They settle on the couch, shoulders pressed together from knee to collarbone. His mug is almost too hot to hold, the heat seeping into his palms, but he clutches it anyway, grounding himself in the burn.

Outside, lightning forks across the sky. Eddie flinches—

Buck's hand hooks around his.

He exhales. The next roll of thunder still makes his spine stiffen, but Buck's weight against his side is a counterbalance, keeping him from splintering apart. Slowly, he tilts until his temple rests against Buck's shoulder.

Buck shifts, just enough to let Eddie slot more firmly against him. His heartbeat is a steady drum under Eddie's cheek.

They don't speak.

The storm rages on, but here, in this fragile pocket of warmth, the world holds.

Somewhere between one breath and the next, Eddie's eyelids grow heavy. He feels Buck's head droop against his own, their fingers still tangled together around the cooling mugs.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

Eddie wakes to sunlight painting gold across Buck's face.

He doesn't move. Doesn't breathe. Just watches, half-afraid the vision will dissolve if he blinks too hard.

Buck's sleeps peacefully, One arm still flung possessively over Eddie's waist, fingers curled loosely in the fabric of his shirt. His lips are slightly parted, his lashes casting delicate shadows on cheeks still flushed with sleep. The rising sun turns his skin to honey, his hair to molten bronze, the scattered freckles across his nose like constellations Eddie could map with his fingertips.

He's beautiful.

Slowly, carefully, he lifts a hand. Hesitates. Then brushes a curl from Buck's forehead, his touch feather-light. Buck sighs in his sleep, nuzzling unconsciously into the contact, and something in Eddie's ribs cracks open, tender and sweet.

He should pull away. Should disentangle himself before Buck wakes and realizes how tightly they're wound together. But the morning is soft, and Buck is warm, and for once—just this once—he lets himself want without guilt.

His thumb traces the arch of Buck's eyebrow, the curve of his cheekbone, memorizing the landscape of him. The tiny scar by his hairline from a childhood fall. The faint crease between his brows that appears when he's concentrating. The way his lips part just so when he's on the edge of waking.

He drinks it all in, this stolen moment gilded by dawn.

Buck stirs, his lashes fluttering, and Eddie's hand stills—

He doesn't retreat.

When blue eyes blink sleepily up at him, he doesn't hide his smile. Doesn't pretend he wasn't watching. Just cards his fingers through Buck's hair one more time, slow and soft, letting his palm cradle the shape of Buck's face.

Buck blinks up at him, sleep-soft and quiet,

"Hi," he murmurs, voice rough with sleep, a lazy smile tugging at his lips.

Eddie’s heart trips over itself. “Hi.”

For a moment, the world is nothing but the space between them, shared breath, drowsy warmth, a tangle of limbs in a sun-drenched room. Buck stretches a little, arm tightening around Eddie’s waist as he buries his face in the crook of his neck.

Eddie swallows. "I missed this," he murmurs.

Buck just stares, his gaze tracing Eddie's face like he's memorizing it. The silence stretches, warm and heavy.

Eddie's throat tightens. "I missed you."

A slow smile curls at the corners of Buck's mouth, 

He shifts, just slightly, enough to nudge his nose into Eddie’s collarbone, to breathe him in. It feels so natural, so devastatingly familiar, like muscle memory their bodies never unlearned, even when their hearts were fumbling strangers.

“we used to fall asleep like this all the time,” Buck murmurs, his voice still thick with sleep. “On the couch. After work. After long days.” He smiles against Eddie’s skin. “You snore.”

Eddie huffs a laugh. “You drool.”

Eddie exhales shakily. His fingers tighten slightly in Buck's hair. "When you were in the hospital—" He breaks off, his pulse rabbiting.

Buck's hand finds his wrist, his thumb soothing against the flutter there.

He closes his eyes. "I couldn't breathe," he admits, the words rough. "Every time I closed my eyes, I saw you—" His voice fractures. "You were so still. There was so much blood.”

"I kept thinking," he starts, then stops. The words feel like shards of glass in his throat. "That night when you were lying there on the pavement...I couldn't—" His breath hitches. "I couldn't remember the last thing I'd said to you.”

"You know what's stupid?" He continues, voice rough. "I was terrified because I couldn't remember our last conversation before the fight.”

He breaks off with a wet sound that might be a laugh or a sob. "As if that would have mattered.”

Buck's thumb presses into the hollow of Eddie's hip bone, a silent reassurance. His lips part but Eddie presses on, needing to purge this poison now that he's started.

"When they were loading you into the ambulance," Eddie whispers, "I tried to remember the last time I'd touched you. Really touched you. Not just passing a coffee or—" He swallows hard. 

"You were right there," Eddie continues, his voice cracking. "Every damn day. And I just...stopped reaching for you.”

The sunlight has crept higher, painting Buck's face in gold and shadow. Eddie can see every freckle, every pale eyelash, the faint scar above his eyebrow from a long-ago call. He's so beautiful it hurts.

"I thought I'd have more time," Eddie admits quietly. "To figure my shit out. To tell you..." He trails off, unwilling to cross that line yet, not when everything still feels so fragile.

Buck's gaze searches his face. "Tell me what?"

Eddie shakes his head slightly, his thumb brushing the corner of Buck's mouth. "That I'm an idiot," he deflects, but the words come out too fond to sting.

The familiar teasing settles something in his chest. He lets his hand slide from Buck's face to his shoulder, squeezing gently. "Seriously, though. I'm—"

"Don't." Buck's fingers tighten on his hip. "Don't apologize. Just...stay here. Like this."

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

He watches.

He watches as Buck bends to gather laundry from the basket, the muscles of his back shifting beneath thin cotton, the sunlight catching in the gold of his hair. He moves with a quiet rhythm, socks paired, shirts shaken out and folded with careful hands. There is something sacred in the ordinary way he tucks the corners, the press of his palm smoothing wrinkles from fabric.

Eddie could paint him like this.

Could paint the way the afternoon light spills through the kitchen window as Buck hums under his breath, scrubbing at a stubborn stain on a dish. The water glides over his wrists, droplets catching on the dark trail of hair leading beneath his sleeves. He bites his lip when he concentrates, just slightly, and Eddie knows without seeing the exact crease that forms between his brows.

He watches as Buck stretches to put away a glass on the highest shelf, the hem of his shirt riding up to reveal a sliver of skin, sun-warmed and freckled. The glass clinks softly as it finds its place, and Buck exhales, satisfied, unaware of how the sound settles in Eddie’s chest like a prayer.

Later, when Buck kneels to sweep up the crumbs beneath the table, Eddie memorizes the slope of his shoulders, the way his fingers curl around the dustpan. He is careful in his movements, methodical, as if even this small act matters. And maybe it does. Maybe Eddie has spent too long not noticing how Buck makes a home out of the mundane, how he leaves traces of himself in the fold of towels, in the even spacing of hangers in the closet, in the quiet way he refills Eddie’s water glass before bed without being asked.

The day fades. The house settles.

And Eddie, helpless, keeps watching. He could live a hundred lifetimes and never grow tired of this, of Buck bathed in golden light, of the quiet poetry of his hands keeping their world together.

So he watches.

And loves.

And hopes, somehow, Buck already knows.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

Would anything have changed?

The question lingers in the quiet hours, when the house is dark and Buck’s breathing is steady beside him. He turns it over again—this worn, useless thought—like a rosary for the faithless.

If he had kissed him that night, if he had let himself want him out loud, would it have saved him?

The fantasy blooms like bruises beneath the skin, tender and painful.

Buck’s confession, breathless and cracked.

Eddie stepping forward instead of back.

His hands on Buck’s face, trembling with the enormity of it all.

The press of mouths, desperate, searching, late.

Would it have been different?

Would Buck have hesitated before stepping into the line of fire? Would love have made him cautious, or would it have made him reckless in new ways? Would he have paused, just for a second, with Eddie’s love wrapped around his ribs like armor?

He wants to believe that. God, he wants to believe that love could’ve saved him.

Buck would still have thrown himself in front of that bullet. Would still have bled out on the pavement, his hand reaching for Eddie’s even as his vision darkened. Because that’s who Buck is, someone who loves too loudly, too fiercely, with his whole body. Someone who would die for the people he loves, whether they’ve earned it or not.

Eddie would still have stood there, helpless, watching the life drain from the only man he’s ever trusted with all his broken pieces.

Nothing would have changed.

It doesn’t matter if they’re friends or lovers or strangers passing in the street, Buck would still choose to stand between danger and him. And Eddie would still have to learn how to live with that.

The mattress dips as Buck shifts in his sleep, his knee brushing Eddie’s under the sheets. 

He knows he should sleep. Knows he'll regret it tomorrow when his alarm blares and the coffee isn't strong enough and his hands shake.

Buck mumbles something in his sleep, his fingers twitching against the pillow. Eddie watches, helpless, as his brow furrows, some dream or memory playing behind closed lids. Without thinking, he reaches out, brushing a thumb over the crease between Buck's eyebrows until it smooths out.

Buck sighs, leaning into the touch even asleep.

His throat tightens.

Forgiving himself feels impossible tonight.

Not tonight, he thinks.

Someday, when the nightmares come less often.

Someday, when he stops counting Buck's breaths.

Someday, when the sight of blood doesn't send him back to that street, that moment, that terrible crack of gunfire.

Someday.

Buck shifts again, his arm flopping out across the mattress until his fingers brush Eddie's wrist. 

He closes his eyes.

Not tonight.

But probably someday.

Chapter Text

The first light of dawn slips through the kitchen window, hesitant and soft, painting the worn linoleum in strokes of molten gold. Eddie stands at the counter, his hands resting on the cool surface, watching the steam rise from the coffee machine in lazy spirals. He doesn’t remember turning it on. Doesn’t remember much these days.

Buck is already moving through the kitchen, and it’s like he carries the morning with him, a restless, sunlit energy woven into the way he moves, easy and unhurried, The knife in his hand flashes silver, dancing across the cutting board, dicing bright red peppers with rhythmic precision. Tap-tap-tap. The sound is familiar, grounding, a heartbeat steady and real in the quiet dawn.

“You’re burning the toast,” Buck murmurs, his voice rough around the edges, softened by sleep. The way it curls through the air makes his chest tighten, like warmth spreading through the cracks. Buck doesn’t look up, but his words slip into the space between them, tethering Eddie back to the present.

He blinks at the toaster, where thin wisps of smoke curl upwards. Before he can reach out, Buck is already there, close enough that Eddie can trace the flecks of green in his blue eyes, close enough that he can see the faint constellations of freckles scattered across his nose. 

Buck’s hand brushes his, just the lightest touch, but it sparks something fierce and aching in his chest.

Buck’s mouth quirks into that crooked, sunbreak smile, the kind that lights his whole face, dissolving shadows. “Distracted?” he teases, not unkindly. He smells like sleep and soap and something indefinitely Buck, a scent that’s lodged itself deep in his memory, intertwined with safety and late-night laughter and too many cups of coffee.

The toast is charred at the edges, blackened but Buck doesn’t seem to mind. He scrapes away the singed crust with care, Butter glides over the surface, melting into the cracks, softening the sharp edges.

Eddie takes the offered plate, his fingers almost, but not quite, brushing Buck’s. 

Buck hums as he works, a low unfinished melody, like he’s making it up as he goes, threading sound through the quiet. The tune wraps itself around his heart, tightening with every rise and fall of Buck’s voice. He watches the way Buck’s throat moves when he swallows orange juice, the way his fingers leave shivering trails of condensation on the glass.

The kitchen breathes around them, filled with the sounds of morning, the coffee maker’s soft hiss, the clink of plates, Buck’s quiet laughter when Eddie grimaces at the syrupy sweetness of his coffee. Sunlight spills over the counter, pooling around Buck’s hands, turning his hair to copper fire, glinting in the fragile spaces between his fingers.

For a moment, this brief, sunlit pause, everything feels right. The world contracts to this quiet space, to the warmth of the mug in Eddie’s hands, to the curve of Buck’s smile. It’s so fragile, so achingly normal, it feels like something he’s borrowed from a life that isn’t his.

Buck’s foot nudges his under the table, a quiet question. He meets his gaze, and for a breath, one suspended, endless heartbeat, he lets himself believe this could last. 

Outside, a bird sings, a single, clear note cutting through the morning haze. The refrigerator hums The world keeps turning, slow and relentless, the dawn giving way to day.

The morning light stretches further into the kitchen, wrapping around the room in golden ribbons that blur at the edges, and Eddie feels almost suspended in it, like time itself has unraveled, slowed to a crawl. The smell of coffee mingles with the faint scent of burnt toast, and there’s a comfort in the familiar chaos. 

He stares at the condensation sliding down his water glass, counting droplets as they fall. One. Two. Three. The numbers dissolve somewhere between his brain and his mouth.

"Earth to Eddie."

Buck’s knuckle raps gently against his forehead. The touch lingers before he steals a slice of apple from Eddie’s abandoned plate. Crunching it loud enough to make Eddie blink.

He glances over, catching Buck’s gaze, a glint of concern behind the crooked smile.

“Where’d you go?”

“Just... thinking.”

“You’ve been zoning out all morning,”

He tries to smile, but it’s a tired thing, worn at the edges. “Just tired, I guess.”

Buck’s lips quirk up, not entirely convinced. “Right.”

He sets down the knife, turning fully to face him, that earnest, searching look softening around the edges. “You’ve been stuck in here since I got out of the hospital. Haven’t left the house, haven’t answered anyone’s calls. You know people are worried, right?”

He knows. He just can’t seem to bring himself to cross the threshold. Outside feels too open, too uncertain. Here, in this sunlit kitchen with Buck, the world feels smaller, easier to manage.

Buck shifts closer, his fingers brushing Eddie’s wrist, “Maybe we just need a change of scenery. Fresh air”

He almost smiles, and Buck catches it, eyes lighting up “How about the beach?” he suggests, voice coaxing but gentle. “You used to love it. Haven’t gone there in ages.”

The kitchen smells of cinnamon and citrus. Buck’s sleeve brushes his wrist as he reaches past him for the coffee pot. A streak of flour dusts his collarbone, pale against sun-kissed skin. Eddie wants to press his thumb there, leave a mark of his own.

"Eddie.You’re doing it again. Talk to me”

The clock ticks. The faucet drips. He watches a crumb cling to Buck’s lower lip and wonders if it would taste like apples or guilt if he licked it away.

Buck’s thumb swipes the crumb himself. "Okay, get up.”

Buck’s palm lands warm on his shoulder. "We’re going out."

"Buck—"

"Nope. Doctor’s orders." Buck’s grin is all teeth now, bright as the sun through the window. "Well. Ex-nurse orders. Maddie says fresh air’s good for…" He gestures at his whole slumped form. "Whatever this is.”

"Come on," Buck murmurs, pulling him toward the hall. "The beach is empty this early. We’ll get sand in our shoes and salt in our hair. It’ll be disgusting." His thumb rubs circles over Eddie’s knuckles. "Just like old times.”

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

The room feels smaller with Buck in it, air dense and heavy with warmth. Eddie leans against the doorframe, fingers brushing the chipped paint, his gaze tracing the arc of Buck’s spine as he peels his shirt off. The morning light slips through the curtains in lazy strokes, spilling across Buck’s bare back, catching the dip between his shoulder blades. Eddie swears he can feel the sun’s touch just watching it, like heat gathering low in his belly.

Buck’s skin is flushed, golden, a patchwork of old scars that Eddie knows by heart. There’s one just below his rib—a crooked, pale line from that warehouse explosion years ago. 

A faded navy shirt finds its way into Buck’s hands, he can swear he folded it in the morning and left in the laundry basket. He feels his pulse stutter, thoughts tangling up like loose threads. 

Buck tugs the fabric down, the hem brushing the band of Eddie’s sweatpants that ride low on his hips. He turns, rolling his shoulders as if testing the fit, and his eyes catch Eddie’s in the mirror—a glint of amusement, softened by something warmer.

“Are you just gonna stand there and stare?” his mouth quirks into that lopsided grin that makes Eddie’s heart skip, and his voice is playful, but gentle.

Eddie looks down, fighting the blush that warms his cheeks. “Sorry. Just... lost in thought.”

Buck chuckles, stepping closer. His hand comes to rest on Eddie’s shoulder, thumb tracing small, absent circles just at the base of his neck. He wants to lean into it, wants to press his face into Buck’s palm and just breathe him in.

“We can stay in if you're not ready yet,” Buck murmurs. “no pressure.”

He nods, not trusting himself to speak. 

Buck doesn’t push, just lets his hand slide down to Eddie’s wrist, fingers brushing over his pulse, he wonders if Buck can feel his heartbeat, how it’s too fast and too erratic, like a trapped bird.

“We taking anything to the beach?” he asks, pulling away just enough to rummage through the closet for a duffel.

Eddie blinks, trying to clear the fog in his head. “Uh... sandwiches?”

Buck snorts, zipping the bag. “Right. Because we have a fridge full of the ingredients.” He tosses the bag onto the bed and turns to Eddie, his face softer now, teasing around the edges. 

"Think we need towels?"

Eddie swallows hard. "Probably."

"Keys?" Buck asks,

"Uh." He pats his pockets automatically. "Kitchen, I think."

"I'll get them. You grab the sunscreen from the bathroom?"

Eddie nods, but doesn't move. Not yet. He watches as Buck strides down the hall, the sunlight catching in his hair, Watches the way his shoulders move beneath the thin fabric of his shirt, the way his laugh lines crinkle when he glances back over his shoulder—

"Coming?" Buck calls.

"Yeah," he says, pushing off the doorframe. "I'm right behind you.”

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

The car hums beneath them, a steady vibration Eddie feels in his molars. He grips the wheel at ten and two like he's eighteen again and taking his driver's test, the leather warm and slightly tacky under his palms. Buck sprawls in the passenger seat, one arm dangling out the open window, fingers riding the currents of air like he's conducting an invisible orchestra.

"You're gonna give yourself arthritis holding the wheel like that," Buck says, nudging Eddie's elbow with his own.

Eddie flexes his fingers but doesn't loosen his grip. The road unwinds before them, asphalt shimmering with midday heat.

The radio crackles to life between them - some pop song with too much synth and a breathy vocalist. Buck immediately starts mouthing the words, his knee bouncing in time. Eddie watches from the corner of his eye as sunlight fractures through the windshield, painting Buck in liquid gold - the curve of his throat as he swallows, the flutter of his pulse beneath the thin skin of his wrist, the way his bottom lip catches between his teeth when he's trying not to sing along too loudly.

His fingers tighten on the steering wheel, grounding himself in the hum of the engine, the wind slicing through the open window. There’s a peace in the noise, in the way Buck’s presence so effortlessly fills the silence.

“It’s okay, you know,” Buck says softly, almost like he’s testing the weight of the words.

Eddie glances at him, eyebrows knitting together. “What?”

“You don’t have to hold on to each moment so tightly,” he continues, his voice low and careful, like he’s unspooling something fragile. “I know how you hate when things spin out of your control. I know you’ll find every possible way to blame yourself for it.”

Buck turns his head slowly, his gaze catching Eddie’s with a sad, unwavering smile. “You’ll be okay, even if it doesn’t feel like it right now. You will be.”

The words settle into the space between them, heavy and unbearably gentle. Eddie swallows hard, his throat thick and uncooperative. His jaw clenches against the swell in his throat.

Buck’s eyes trace his face, like he’s memorizing every line and shadow. His hand hovers near the radio for a beat longer, like he’s considering something else to say. Instead, he just breathes out, barely a whisper. “You can move on from this. You should. The world’s still out here.”

A single breath catches in Eddie’s chest, like he’s been punched. “I know,” he manages, his voice scraping against the quiet.

Buck watches him, eyes soft and unguarded, before he turns the volume up, loud enough to drown out anything else they might say. The wind rushes in, scattering words and thoughts like dust. The sun burns overhead, casting long, flickering shadows across the dashboard.

The ocean announces itself first by scent, that briny, iron-rich tang that seeps into the upholstery, clinging to their clothes, settling into their skin. Then by sound, the distant roar of waves chewing at the sand, punctuated by seagulls wheeling overhead. The sky stretches open, endless and salt-bright, and the world feels just a little bigger, a little wilder.

Buck sits up straighter, his whole body thrumming with barely-contained energy, like he’s been plugged into the very current of the sea. Eddie doesn’t need to look to know his eyes have gone that wonder-struck shade of cerulean, bright as Caribbean shallows and just as untouchable.

“don’t,” Eddie warns as they hit the coastal highway, but Buck’s already rolling the window down further, leaning out like a golden retriever tasting the wind. His laughter gets stolen by the gale, carried out over the water, but Eddie catches it in the curve of his spine, the way his shirt ripples like a sail catching wind.

“Buck,” Eddie chides, but there’s no heat in it. Never is.

Buck collapses back into his seat, hair wild from the wind, cheeks flushed with sun and joy. His chest rises and falls like he’s just run a marathon, but he’s grinning like a kid who just tasted summer for the first time. “Almost there,” he breathes, and his hand finds Eddie’s knee, just a quick, casual squeeze, but it brands through the denim, a warmth Eddie feels down to his bones.

The road bends, sweeping them around the final curve, and suddenly the Pacific sprawls before them, endless and blue and singing, the sun splitting into a thousand shattered diamonds on the water. Buck’s fingers tighten imperceptibly, just enough for Eddie to notice, but he doesn’t pull away.

Eddie knows that look, the one Buck wears when the world feels too big and beautiful to hold all at once. He wants to tell him it’s okay, that not every good thing will slip through his fingers, but the words stick like salt in his throat.

Then Buck grins, brighter than the sun on waves, and says, “Race you to the water,” like he’s seventeen again and invincible.

He doesn’t think, just floors the gas, laughter spilling out of him in a way it hasn’t in ages. Buck whoops, leaning out again, arms spread wide like he could catch the wind itself. The horizon stretches ahead, endless and sunlit, and for a moment, Eddie lets himself believe in forever.

When they finally pull over, Buck’s already halfway out the door, kicking off his shoes, and Eddie’s right behind him, caught in the wake of his joy. They hit the sand running, and Eddie doesn’t care about the race, doesn’t care about winning, only that Buck’s still laughing, still wild and free, like the sea itself.

They stumble into the surf, waves licking at their ankles, and Buck’s still laughing, wind-tangled hair plastered to his forehead. Eddie can’t help it, he’s grinning, too, breathless from the run and from Buck’s joy spilling over like high tide.

Before he can catch his breath, Buck scoops a handful of sea water and splashes it straight at his chest. It’s shockingly cold, drenching his shirt, he splutters, wiping salt from his face.

“Buck,” he growls, but it’s ruined by the smile that won’t stay down.

Buck just shrugs, eyes dancing with mischief. “You looked too dry,” he teases, and before Eddie can retaliate, Buck’s splashing him again, this time hitting his shoulder and the side of his neck. The water glistens on Buck’s skin, tiny rivers trickling down his throat, and Eddie can’t quite decide whether to laugh or swear.

“You’re asking for it,” Eddie warns, and Buck’s grin only widens, as if daring him.

He doesn’t think, just lunges, catching Buck around the waist and pulling him down into the shallows. Buck’s yelp of surprise gets cut off as the next wave crashes around them, soaking them both. They come up gasping, tangled together, clothes drenched, sand sticking to their elbows and knees.

Buck’s laughter melts into something softer when Eddie doesn’t let go. Their knees press into the wet sand, and the ocean hums around them, waves pulling back like they’re giving them space.

“Still too dry?” Eddie mutters, his hands steady on Buck’s waist. Buck huffs out a breathless laugh, water dripping from his eyelashes, but his eyes are softer now, searching Eddie’s face.

“Nope,” Buck says, voice gentler now, almost wistful. “You got me.”

They don’t move, just breathing in tandem, caught in the push and pull of the tide. He feels the steady thrum of Buck’s heartbeat against his ribs, and it hits him like a wave, how close they are, how easy it would be to lean in just a little further.

breathless and soaked, he thinks that maybe, just maybe, they’ve outrun the weight of everything they left behind, if only for a little while.

Buck's laughter fades into quiet breaths, his chest rising and falling against Eddie's in the shallow cradle of the waves. The ocean swirls around them, tugging at their clothes with insistent fingers, but neither moves to stand. Sunlight fractures across the water's surface, painting Buck's face in liquid gold, catching on the droplets clinging to his lashes, the curve of his lower lip, the stubble-dark hollow beneath his cheekbone.  

His hands flex unconsciously at Buck's waist, seawater streaming through his fingers. He can feel every ridge of Buck's ribs beneath the soaked fabric, the familiar topography of scars and muscle. The salt water has turned Buck's shirt translucent, clinging to his shoulders like a second skin, hid throat goes tight at the sight of that bullet wound just below his ribs a pale, starburst reminder of how close he'd come to—  

"Hey." Buck's voice is softer than the foam brushing their knees. His fingers find Eddie's wrist, thumb pressing gently against the flutter of pulse there. "Stay with me."  

The words land somewhere beneath his sternum, warm as the sunlight on his back. He realizes distantly that he's been holding his breath.  

Buck's smile is a fragile thing now, sunlight glancing off his teeth. "You're doing it again," he murmurs. "That thing where you..." His free hand lifts, hovers near Eddie's temple like he wants to touch but isn't quite sure he's allowed. "Get lost in your head."  

A wave rolls in, soaking them to the chest. Buck doesn't flinch, doesn't pull away. His knees press into the sand on either side of Eddie's hips, anchoring them together as the water swirls and retreats.  

Eddie swallows salt and something sweeter. "I'm right here."  

Buck's eyes search his face, that impossible blue gone dark with the weight of everything they haven't said. The ocean breathes around them, steady as a heartbeat.  

Then Buck's palm is cupping his jaw, sea water dripping from his wrist onto Eddie's collarbones. His touch is tentative, questioning, his thumb brushing the hollow beneath Eddie's cheekbone like he's memorizing its shape.  

The world narrows to this: the taste of salt on Buck's lips, the press of his thighs against Eddie's, the way his breath hitches when Eddie's hands slide up his back, pulling him closer.  

Somewhere down the beach, a gull cries. The wind picks up, carrying the scent of seaweed and sunscreen. Buck's forehead comes to rest against Eddie's, their noses brushing, sharing the same air.  

"Stay" Buck whispers

The next wave crashes over them, he doesn't let go. Couldn't if he tried.  

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

They stumble out of the surf like shipwreck survivors, dripping and breathless, the ocean reluctant to release them. Buck’s shirt clings to his shoulders, outlining the map of his body, Sand sticks to their shins, their elbows, the damp hollows of their collarbones.

Buck collapses backward onto the warm sand with a groan, arms splayed wide, his chest rising and falling like the tide. Sunlight pools in the divot of his throat, catches on the droplets still sliding down his sternum. He looks like something sculpted from sea foam and gold, ethereal.

Eddie drops beside him, close enough that their shoulders brush. The sand gives beneath his weight, still warm from the afternoon sun. He tilts his face upward, eyes closed against the glare, and listens to the steady rhythm of Buck’s breathing beside him.

"God," Buck exhales, voice rough with laughter. "I forgot how cold the Pacific is."

Eddie hums in agreement.

Buck flicks a grain of sand at Eddie’s shoulder. It sticks to his damp skin, glittering like a tiny crystal in the fading light.

“You’ve got sand in your eyebrows,” Buck teases, his grin wide and shameless when Eddie scowls and swipes at his face.

“You’re one to talk,” Eddie shoots back, eyes narrowing. “Your hair looks like a seagull’s nest.”

Buck gasps, pressing a hand to his chest in exaggerated offense. “Rude.” He shakes his head violently, water droplets spraying like a dog fresh out of the surf. A few hit Eddie’s cheek, and he grimaces, wiping at them.

“Better?” Buck asks, lips quirking.

Eddie huffs. “Now you just look like a wet golden retriever.”

Buck’s laughter is bright, a sound that carries on the ocean breeze, tangling with the call of the seagulls overhead. He flops back into the sand, arms spread wide as if trying to absorb every last drop of sunlight. The sun dips lower, spilling gold and rose across the water, Buck looks like he’s painted in light, skin flushed, eyes crinkled at the corners, breathing in the sea air like he’s storing it up.

Eddie watches him, something soft and unspoken settling in his chest.

“Remember that time you tried to convince me you could skip rocks with your eyes closed?” Buck asks, still grinning up at the sky.

Eddie groans, tipping his head back. “I can.”

“You hit that tourist in the ankle.”

“She was standing in the wrong place,” Eddie protests, but there’s no real defense in his voice, just a resigned amusement.

Buck rolls onto his side, propping his head on his hand, eyes gleaming “And yet.”

Eddie huffs out a laugh, shoulders loosening as he glances at the shoreline where waves crest and break, scattering foam like lace. The sky deepens to lavender, shadows stretching long and soft around them.

Buck plucks a piece of seaweed from his shorts, inspecting it with a dramatic squint before flicking it at Eddie. It lands on his knee, and Eddie just stares at it for a beat, unimpressed.

“Seriously?” he drawls.

Buck shrugs, unrepentant. “Seemed like the right move.”

Without warning, Eddie scoops a handful of wet sand and drops it right onto Buck’s chest. Buck yelps, scrambling upright, eyes wide and mouth hanging open.

“Eddie!” he warns, but he’s already laughing, brushing the sand off with a dramatic flourish. He doesn’t move, just smirks like he’s daring Buck to try something.

Buck plucks a smooth stone from the sand, turning it between his fingers like a worry bead. The fading sunlight catches its quartz veins, making them glow like liquid amber. His thumb rubs back and forth over the surface, slow and absent, like he’s grounding himself in the feel of it.

He glances at Eddie, still sprawled on his back, one arm crooked behind his head, eyes fixed on the sky where clouds burn pink and orange, unraveling into the deepening blue. Buck turns on his side, propping his head up with his hand,

“Tell me something I don't know,” he says suddenly, voice quiet but clear. The words hang in the air, caught between the crash of waves and the slow hiss of the tide pulling back. A seagull skims low over the water, its wings dipped in gold, and Eddie follows it with his eyes, the line between his brows deepening.

Eddie takes a breath, deciding how much of himself he’s willing to lay bare. “The ancient Greeks believed the first humans were androgynous,” he says, voice low and thoughtful, tracing patterns in the sand with his pinky finger. “Complete beings, split apart by the gods out of jealousy. That’s why we spend our lives searching.”

Buck’s brow furrows slightly, and he tosses the stone in his hand, letting it thud back onto the sand. “Searching for what?”

“The other half,” he says simply, still not looking at him. “The part that makes you feel... whole again. Like you’re not wandering alone in the dark.”

A soft breeze rustles the sea grass, and Eddie wonders why he feels so exposed, like he’s peeled back something he’s kept buried for a long time. He sneaks a glance at Buck, who’s still watching him, that familiar earnestness softening the line of his mouth.

Buck’s eyes lower, tracing the lines Eddie’s drawn in the sand. “You ever think you found it?” he asks, almost too quiet to hear.

His heart twists, and he swallows against the tightness in his throat. “Maybe,” he admits, his voice rough. “Sometimes you don’t realize it until it’s already slipped through your fingers.”

“I think...” Buck hesitates, the words trembling at the edge of his lips. “I think some people find it without even meaning to. Like... one day, they just look up, and it’s there. And maybe they’re scared to hold onto it because if they hold it too tightly, it might break.”

Eddie watches the damp sand cooling beneath his palms as the last of the sun’s warmth bleeds from the day. The sky bruises from gold to indigo, and the ocean murmurs against the rocks, a slow, steady breath.

Buck’s shoulders rise and fall with a quiet sigh, and he glances back at Eddie, a soft smile curving his mouth. “Remember that time,” he begins, not looking up, “when Bobby tried to teach us how to make his famous clam chowder?” His laughter bubbles up, clear as the tide pool waters. “You put in twice the salt the recipe called for.”

Eddie scoffs, picking up a flat stone and running his thumb over its smooth surface. “I was following his handwriting,” he mutters, and skips the stone across the water’s surface, one, two, three jumps before it sinks.

Buck snorts, shaking his head. “We had to order pizza,” he says, his grin softening with the memory. He reaches into the pool, plucking a hermit crab from the shallow water and letting it crawl across his palm, its tiny legs tickling his skin. “Christopher wouldn’t stop laughing at us. Kept calling us ‘Disaster Chefs’ for a month.”

Eddie chuckles, shaking his head. “You know he still calls us that,” he replies, and Buck just laughs, a sound that feels like sunlight breaking through clouds.

His smile lingers, but it softens into something more wistful as he returns the crab to the pool, his fingers careful, like he’s handling something fragile. The little creature scuttles back to the safety of a crevice, and Buck watches it disappear with a quiet kind of fondness.

Eddie studies him, damp at the edges from their earlier splash fight. Buck’s always been like this, gentle when no one’s looking, fierce when it matters.

Eddie looks down at his hands, tracing lines in the sand. “Remember,” he says quietly, his voice almost lost in the ocean’s sigh, “that Christmas you helped Christopher build the Millennium Falcon Lego set? You stayed up till 3 AM sorting pieces.”

Buck goes still, his hand pausing mid-reach for another stone. When he looks up, his eyes are liquid in the twilight, reflecting the last streaks of rose in the sky. “He wanted it perfect for when you got home from your shift,” he murmurs, and his voice has that soft, fragile.

Eddie swallows the ache gathering in his throat, memories sliding into place like old puzzle pieces. The way Christopher’s face lit up that morning, bright with triumph and sleep-deprived pride, and Buck, half-asleep on the couch, hair sticking up like a hurricane hit him.

A wave laps, and Eddie glances down, watching it tug at the sand like it’s trying to take some part of them away. He’s not sure what makes him reach out, maybe it’s the quiet vulnerability etched across Buck’s face, or the way his own chest feels too full to contain. His fingers find Buck’s in the sand, knuckles brushing, Buck doesn’t pull away.

Their palms press together, pages of a well-worn book, and Eddie can’t help but think how right it feels, their hands fitting together as easily as they breathe the same salted air.

Buck doesn’t say anything, just turns his hand over, letting their fingers intertwine, his thumb tracing slow circles against his skin. The tide pool mirrors the darkening sky above them, capturing the first hesitant stars and the glow of the moon rising, pale and quiet.

He takes a shaky breath, feeling like he’s balanced on a knife’s edge. “Have you ever thought—” He stops, his voice breaking around the words, and Buck’s thumb stills, just waiting. Eddie wets his lips, looking anywhere but at those too-blue eyes. “Have you ever thought about how many of my best memories have you in them?”

He risks a glance at him, and the look on Buck’s face makes his stomach twist “Sometimes... I wonder if I’d still be able to hold onto them if you weren’t around,” he admits, voice raw and low. “If I’d just... forget what it feels like to be happy.”

Buck swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing, his eyes glisten “Eddie,” he whispers, and it’s all there, he fear, the hope, the love that neither of them has dared to put into words.

He lets his forehead drop to Buck’s shoulder, just for a moment, just to steady himself. Buck’s free hand rises to his hair, tentative, fingers weaving through the short strands.

“Do you remember,” Eddie says after a moment, his voice softened by the lull of the waves, “when Christopher taught you how to make those shitty pancakes?”

Buck groans, pressing the heel of his hand to his forehead. “Oh my god. You mean the ones that looked like charcoal briquettes?”

Eddie huffs a laugh, shaking his head. “Yeah. Those.”

“He was so proud of me,” he says, his grin fond but edged with something softer, more vulnerable.

“He was the only one.” Eddie smirks, and Buck’s laughter spills out, warm and unguarded.

“I think I ruined your pan,” he admits, scrubbing a hand through his wind-tousled hair.

“You did,” 

Buck’s smile widens, playful and unapologetic. “And then you made me buy you a new one.”

Eddie raises an eyebrow. “And then you didn’t,” he points out, his lips twitching upward. “Because you ‘forgot.’”

Buck presses a hand to his chest, eyes wide and dramatic. “I did forget!”

“Bullshit.” Eddie’s eyes narrow, but he’s still grinning.

Buck drops the act, his expression turning sheepish but unrepentant. “Okay, fine. I forgot on purpose.” He doesn’t even try to look sorry, just leans back on his elbows with that easy, careless charm that makes Eddie’s chest ache. “But you still let me come over and cook after that.”

Eddie turns his head to look at him, the humor draining slowly from his face, replaced with something quieter. “Yeah,” he says, voice low and steady. “I did.”

Buck meets his gaze, the air between them thickening. His eyes soften, and for a second, Eddie thinks he’s going to say something else—something important—but he just glances back up at the sky, like he’s letting the moment settle.

They sit like that for a while, the sound of waves and distant laughter from other beachgoers floating around them. Eventually, Buck’s voice breaks through, softer now. “Do you remember that time we got drunk together?”

Eddie snorts, raising an eyebrow. “Which time?”

Buck nudges his shoulder, a half-hearted shove. “The first first time. At Bobby’s. When you tried to teach me how to dance.”

Eddie groans, dragging a hand over his face. “Oh, Jesus, You were so bad at it.”

“I was not—”Buck laughs, bright

“You were,” Eddie interrupts, grinning wide enough that his cheeks hurt. “You stepped on my feet, like, five times. I still have scars.”

Buck gapes at him, looking genuinely affronted. “You do not.”

Eddie’s eyes crinkle at the corners, holding back a laugh. “Emotional scars, Buck.”

Buck’s mouth falls open in mock offense, but he doesn’t get a chance to retort before Eddie shoves him, a gentle push to his shoulder. Buck just rolls with it, ending up closer, their shoulders pressed together.

The sunset bleeds out across the sky, streaking the horizon in amber and bruised violet. The air hums with the scent of salt and sun-warmed seaweed, and Eddie sits on the sand, knees drawn up, arms resting on them. Buck sits beside him, a little closer than usual, the line of his shoulder warm against Eddie’s.

The light catches in Buck’s hair, setting it aflame, and his profile is sharp against the sinking sun—jawline strong, mouth soft, eyes lost somewhere Eddie can’t reach. He wants to ask what Buck’s thinking, but the question lodges in his throat, weighed down by something thick and wordless.

After a long silence, Buck’s voice cuts through the stillness, low and careful. “Do you ever think about it?”

Eddie glances at him, drawn out of his own thoughts. “About what?”

Buck’s hand moves, a vague gesture that encompasses the water, the sky, the sand under their feet, the distance between them. “All of it. Everything that got us here.”

Eddie turns his gaze back to the ocean. He thinks about it all the time. About firefights and tsunamis and long, tense drives through the city, adrenaline still spiking in his veins. About hospital rooms and bruised knuckles, the metallic taste of fear when the call goes out, the waiting, the not knowing. About long, reckless nights when the air was too thick to breathe and the only thing grounding him was Buck’s laugh or the way his hands would find his in the dark, like he knew Eddie needed it more than air.

It’s like drowning sometimes, how the memories creep up on him when he least expects it. The warmth of Buck’s skin in the half-light, the way his hair stuck up after napping on Eddie’s couch, Christopher asleep on his chest. Laughter like sunlight after a week of rain.

Buck doesn’t push, just waits, his shoulder solid and steady. Eddie swallows hard, his throat dry. “Yeah,” he says finally, voice rough. “I do.”

He doesn’t move, doesn’t say anything, but Eddie can feel the shift, the way Buck turns to look at him, waiting. He doesn’t have to see it to know; he’s memorized the way Buck moves, like something pulled toward gravity.

“And?” Buck prompts, so quiet it could almost be swallowed by the surf.

He doesn’t look at him. He can’t. His chest tightens, and he closes his eyes briefly, focusing on the sound of the ocean, on the way his heart pounds against his ribs. “And I’d do it all again.”

There’s a breath of silence, and then Buck’s voice, more hesitant now. “Even knowing how it ends?”

His hand curls into the sand, knuckles whitening. “Even with knowing how it ends,” he murmurs. His voice cracks at the end, but he doesn’t move to hide it. 

Buck’s hand moves between them, close but not touching, just resting in the sand like he’s leaving space for Eddie to decide. Eddie looks at him, the light hits Buck’s face just right—golden.

Buck’s looking at him like he used to after long shifts, when Eddie would come home bone-tired and sore, and Buck would be there, always there, with a smile that looked like it hurt a little at the edges. 

The wind shifts, and Buck’s hair lifts from his forehead, catching in the breeze. His eyes are bright, too bright, and Eddie has to swallow down the ache that’s building like a tidal wave. He remembers that night at Bobby’s, whiskey on Buck’s breath, the way he laughed too loudly and swayed a little too close, his hand brushing his as if testing the waters. He had been too afraid to reach back, too afraid to admit what he wanted.

He thinks about all the other times, the calls and the fights and the late-night arguments, Buck pacing, hands restless. How they always seemed to circle each other, like they were afraid to get too close and risk it all.

The sun dips lower, dragging shadows across Buck’s face. His eyes burn.

"I love you," Buck whispers, words spilling from his lips like a prayer, soft and desperate.

He doesn’t notice the tears streaking his face until Buck’s thumb grazes his cheek, smearing saltwater into his skin with a tenderness that splits him open. He leans into the touch, breathing raggedly, each inhale jagged as splintered glass lodged in his ribs, each exhale a surrender.

His fingers weave through Buck’s curls, tracing constellations into the chaos, trying to map the wildness of a storm he’s never been able to tame. He traces the arch of Buck’s brow, the delicate slope of his closed eyelids, the faint crease that carves into his cheek when his smile flickers, fragile as a candle flickering against the dark.

For a heartbeat, the world narrows to this, the warmth of Buck’s skin, the ghost of his breath whispering across his lips, the shadows his lashes cast, soft and ink-stained against sun-warmed skin. His thumb lingers at the corner of Buck’s mouth, as if by pressing gently he could seal this moment into his soul, an indelible mark upon his heart.

Buck watches him in silence, his beauty almost ethereal in the dying light, something born of moonlight and sea foam, too luminous, too fleeting to belong to this world. The sunset bleeds gold through his lashes, gilding the curve of his jaw, tracing light into his skin as if trying to immortalize him. His eyes hold galaxies, liquid and endless, catching the sky’s last embers, and Eddie thinks, wildly, that no one has ever looked at him like this,like he’s the only tangible thing in a world woven from smoke and ash.

He lets out a shaky breath, his hands wandering, over Buck’s jaw, tracing the curve of his cheek, brushing against his lips. He can’t stop himself, can’t stop needing to touch, to map out every inch of him, desperate to make him stay.

Buck just watches, his eyes soft and sad. “Eddie,” he whispers, his voice like a sigh. “I need you to—”

He shakes his head cutting him off, his hand sliding down to rest against Buck’s neck, thumb brushing the line of his throat where his pulse flutters. “You—you’re the best part of my life,” he says, the words slipping out unguarded.

“I tried,” he breathes, his voice fractured. “I tried to tell you—before. I just... never found the words.”

His voice comes out raw and broken, every word trembling in the air like it might shatter before it reaches Buck.

“There are so many things I wanted to tell you, But I lost track of time. I thought I was in control of it, like I could bend it around us, stretch it out to hold everything we could have been. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for believing the minutes belonged to us, for thinking I could hold you forever. I thought time was kind—thought it would give us enough space to figure out what this was, what we are.”

Buck’s fingers brush through his hair, slow and soft and it makes his heart ache with the weight of everything left unsaid.

“I took it for granted,” he whispers, his eyes burning. “I didn’t think I would ever lose you. I don’t remember a time before you, maybe there wasn’t one. Maybe time only really started when you crashed into my world, Maybe it only counts when you’re here.”

He can feel Buck’s breath, warm against his temple, and it makes him tremble, like his body can’t quite contain the grief clawing its way to the surface.

His hand trembles as he lifts it to Buck’s face, tracing the line of his jaw with the tips of his fingers, gentle as a b

“I don’t know how to be without you, I thought we had years, decades. I thought I’d get to hold you for as long as I needed to. I thought I’d never have to learn how to be me without you.” a breath. “You’re in everything I do. Your laughter in Christopher’s joy. Your stubbornness in every argument we’ve had. Your warmth in every night I didn’t feel so alone. You built a home in me when I didn’t know I needed one. You put roots down in my soul, and I don’t know how to dig you out. I don’t want to.”

His tears fall faster now, but Buck doesn’t move to wipe them away—just watches, his eyes too bright, too full of something that makes him want to collapse into him and never let go. 

"I don’t remember how to breathe in a world where you don’t. Where your voice doesn’t color the silence, where the phone doesn’t ring with your terrible jokes at 2 a.m., where my skin doesn’t remember the weight of you against me in sleep."

He presses their clasped hands to his sternum, where his heart batters itself to pieces.

"You were my first real thing. My only true north. And now I’m left with this, an ocean of time that doesn’t know your name, that won’t echo back the sound of you.”

Somewhere, a gull cries. The sound is lonely.

"Tell me how to miss you without drowning. Tell me how to love you past the end of past tense.”

"I memorized the wrong things." His voice is a graveyard, every word an open wound. "The way your hands could cradle a child or crack a ribcage apart, but never how they went still at 5:17 PM on a Tuesday. The exact blue of your eyes in sunlight, but not the way the monitors reflected in them when the machines took over breathing for you."

Buck’s smile fractures. The sunset paints his throat in streaks of violet—the same shade as the bruise the ventilator tube left.

"I remember your laugh like it’s a religion, but I can’t recall the last real one you gave me. Was it when I burned the pancakes? When you let Christopher win at Mario Kart?”

"I keep rewriting our last real conversation. In my head, it’s profound. Poetic. But the truth? You asked if we were out of milk. I said check the fridge. You died with grocery lists in your pocket.”

His fingers find the hole in Buck’s shirt—neat, singed edges around where the bullet tore through. His fingertips come away clean.

"I would trade every ‘I love you’ I never said for five more minutes of your voice, Even if you screamed it. Even if you hated me at the end.”

I love you.

I loved you.

I will always love you.

He feels like his heart is giving out. Then his lungs. Then the last frayed thread of his composure. The weight in his chest feels unbearable, like his ribs are caving in, squeezing his heart until it can’t beat right.

“I can’t—” he gasps, the words half-strangled. “I don’t know how to—how to do this.”

He’s choking on the grief, on the fear, on the aching, relentless love that feels too big for his chest. He doesn’t know how to contain it, how to survive it.

“So much of me is just... loving you,” he chokes out “Don’t make me figure out how to exist without that.”

"Then don't.” buck smiles softly.

"Keep loving me. Love me so loud the neighbors complain. Love me in grocery stores when you see the shitty off-brand cereal I used to eat. Love me when you fold my side of the laundry even though no one sleeps there. Love me wrong. Love me angry. Love me like it's the last thing you'll ever do right.”

Eddie's next breath comes wet and shattered. "What if it hurts?"

Buck's smile is soft. "It will." His palm presses warm over his stuttering heart. "But you've survived gunfire and grenades. You'll survive this."

The waves whisper liar, liar, liar.

Buck leans in. His lips brush Eddie's temple—a benediction, a curse.

"So love me," he murmurs against his skin, "until it doesn't.”

Buck kneels before him, water swirling through his knees. "Talk to me tomorrow," he whispers, as the sea pulls his shape apart thread by thread. "And the day after that. And when it stops hurting—"

"It won't," he snarls to the empty air.

A single, perfect raindrop lands on his wrist.

Another.

Another.

The storm hits all at once.

Rain sheets down in silver curtains, erasing the horizon, the shore, the last fragile outline of Buck’s body. 

a gunshot cracks across the beach.

Except it’s the thunder.

The world tilts.

His forehead hits wet sand as the ocean laughs, as the rain washes Buck’s name from his lips, as the darkness rises up to meet him—

and for one merciful second, he swears he feels fingers in his hair.

Maybe, he thinks as the world dissolves into velvet black —

Maybe Buck is waiting for him there.

Chapter Text

He is five, maybe six, the sun a halo over his head as he kneels beside Abuela's rosary. The prayer beads are cool in his palm, like river stones, and he squeezes them too tight. He doesn't know why he is crying. Only that the statues always look like they're watching him. That the blood on Christ’s hands feels too real. That kneeling too long makes his knees hurt and his chest hurt worse. That God sees everything. Even the little things. Even his dreams.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

He is twelve and standing in the darkened back hall of the church. 

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”

The confession booth smells of old wood and candle wax, the priest’s voice muffled through the screen. “How can love be a sin?”

The silence stretches, “pray, my child.”

The weight of it settles in his ribs, a stone sinking into dark water.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

He’s sixteen and pressing a girl against the locker, her mouth warm, her hands eager. This is right. This is normal. He kisses her harder, like he can carve the other boy’s smile from his memory. Later, in the shower, the water scalds his skin raw. He scrubs until it burns. Clean. Be clean. The mirror fogs over. He doesn’t look at his reflection

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

He is eighteen and Shannon’s lips taste like cherry chapstick. She giggles when he fumbles with her bra clasp, her fingers guiding his.

“You’re so sweet, Eddie.”

She is beautiful. She is kind. She is safe. She is not a boy.

He murmurs the words he’s rehearsed “I love you” He says it like a prayer, like an exorcism. Her belly is under his palm, and he presses his forehead to her skin, whispering promises he doesn’t know how to keep.

I’ll be better. I’ll be good.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

He is twenty and the bus smells like sweat and steel. you can serve God and country and maybe someday be forgiven. He doesn’t look back. Afghanistan is sand and gunfire and blood that isn’t his own. He learns to stitch wounds, to swallow screams, to pretend his hands don’t shake. This is penance. This is how you fix what’s broken.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

He is twenty-two and his hands shake when he signs the papers. He is not supposed to be here. Not yet. Not like this. Shannon is screaming and he cannot look at her. Christopher is crying and he wants to die for it. He kisses his son’s forehead and walks away anyway. He is a coward. He is a soldier. He is a thousand kinds of wrong, and he hopes a battlefield will silence them all.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

He is twenty-three and he puts on the uniform again. A different one. One that doesn’t smell like blood and sand. The 118 is loud and messy and filled with strangers who pretend not to see how he flinches at sudden noise. The firehouse smells of bleach and burnt coffee. Bobby’s handshake is firm. Welcome to the team. He doesn’t speak much. They don’t push. And then, Buck. Loud. Bright. A little stupid in the way that brave things sometimes are.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

Loving Buck is like touching a sunbeam and not getting burned. Like watching lightning crack open the sky and choosing not to run. He tells himself it’s just friendship. Tells himself Buck is too much, too wild, too free. Tells himself he is too broken to deserve it anyway. Every laugh from Buck is a hymn. Every touch is a lit match. He wants and wants and hates himself for it.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

He is twenty-four and the guilt swells like a tide. Shannon returns like a prayer answered wrong. He says yes because it’s the right thing. Because the church still echoes in his head. Because Christopher needs a mother and he needs a path out of temptation. Because he needs a way to drown the guilt.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

He is twenty-five and the car crash is silent. Just a bag of clothes. Just a void. Just a scream he doesn't let himself make. He stands over Shannon’s body and thinks, This is what I deserve. This is what God meant. This is the consequence of every stray thought. Every sin. "Till death do us part" is not a promise. It's a punishment. He buries her with a part of himself he won't get back.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

He is twenty-five and grief makes him cruel. He locks the door on everyone, even Buck. Especially Buck. He holds Christopher tighter, as if the boy can anchor him to something real. He stares at the walls until they blur, waiting for them to collapse in on him. He cannot cry. He cannot scream. He goes to work. He breathes. He survives. Barely.

He is twenty-five and Buck almost dies. He is twenty-five and everything breaks. He sees Buck’s body and thinks, not again, not this. He is still screaming, even when his mouth is closed. He prays and doesn’t care who hears. He's twenty five and He writes a will with a shaking hand and hands his son’s future to the only man he’s ever loved.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

He is twenty-six and haunted. There are ghosts in every hallway. There are bloodstains on his dreams. The therapy helps and doesn’t. He tells stories out of order and forgets which ones are true. He wants to kiss Buck and wants to hit something. Sometimes both at once. He runs, still, even when he’s standing still. His heart never learned how to stop.

He is twenty-six and The water is everywhere.

Buck’s skin is salt-crusted, his eyes hollow.

"I almost lost him Eddie."

Eddie’s hands shake. I almost lost you both.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

He is twenty-seven and The bullet catches him before the fear does. It’s loud, then it isn’t. There’s blood, then too much blood. He sees Buck’s face and thinks, please not this, not yet. The world narrows to pain and memory and hands that won’t let go. He wonders if this is penance. If dying with Buck’s name on his lips is the only way to be forgiven. 

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

He is twenty-eight and The bed is warm. Buck’s breath is steady against his neck, his arm slung heavy over Eddie’s waist. Morning light paints gold across the sheets. He lies very still. This is a sin. This is a miracle. He counts Buck’s breaths like rosary beads. One. Two. Three. prays for forgiveness.

He is twenty-eight and Christopher wins a robocup. Buck whoops so loud the principal glares. Eddie watches them, his son, his almost, and thinks, This is happiness. The guilt lingers.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

He is thirty and Buck is still here. Somehow. Still all laughter and light and sharp, impossible edges Eddie can’t smooth out. They fight. They make up. They grow around each other like vines in a garden left too wild to tame. Some nights, Eddie catches himself staring at Buck’s hands. The way they move when he talks. The way they catch Christopher without ever needing to look. Some days, Eddie thinks he might finally say it. But then Buck turns and smiles and Eddie bites down on the words until his mouth fills with blood.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

He is thirty-three and Buck presses a kiss to his temple when he cries at the kitchen sink, arms full of laundry and shame. Buck doesn’t ask why. He just says, “You’re doing great,” and means it, and it makes Eddie want to tear the world apart and start over where he’s softer, braver, better. He starts sleeping on Buck’s couch again. Or maybe Buck sleeps on his. The line blurs. They wake up tangled together and don’t talk about it. Love is a silent thing sometimes. A quiet ache. A devotion too holy to name.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

He is thirty-four and he runs back To Texas, to dirt roads and sunburnt guilt. His parents say, “It’s good to see you.” They mean, We told you so. 

He is thirty-four and There’s a new priest at the church.

He is thirty-four and so, so tired of running. There is no one left to outrun. No war. No marriage. No God that’ll listen. There’s just him and the hollow place of a life he refused to pursue. He stands on the old porch where his father used to smoke and thinks about how long grief can stretch before it snaps your spine. 

He is thirty-four and sometimes he still feels five. Small hands twisted together in prayer. Knees pressed into cold stone. A boy in a too-big shirt, terrified of everything he couldn’t say. He closes his eyes and the church flickers behind his eyelids. The silence, the shame. The awful weight of being seen. He wonders if Buck would have knelt beside him or pulled him back to his feet.

He is thirty-four and watching Buck’s chest stop rising beneath his hands. It's a flash, a frozen loop. Over and over and over. His own voice screaming. The slick, metallic smell of blood. The way time fractured. 

He is thirty-four and Buck is dead. 

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

Thirty-four and the world is too quiet. Thirty-four and every second stretches out like a punishment. 

“Eddie?”

He’s twelve, and the sun is too bright for a day like this. The cemetery grass is too green, too alive, and he wonders why it doesn’t know better. His mother holds his hand too tightly, and his father’tell him: “Boys don’t cry.” So he doesn’t.

“Eddie?”

He’s twenty-one and it smells like metal and sand and something burnt. The body next to him was laughing twenty minutes ago. There’s blood on his hands and none of it is his. He stares down at the boy who taught him how to cheat at cards and whispers, “It should’ve been me.” Someone tells him to move, to clear out, and he obeys. He doesn't cry. Not when they zip the body bag. Not when they send letters home. Soldiers don't cry, he reminds himself, jaw locked so tight it aches for a week.

“Eddie?”

He’s twenty-five, and Shannon’s name is carved into stone. He thinks of all the times he should’ve said sorry, and all the times he should’ve said stay. Christopher is too young to remember her right, and that makes him want to scream. He lays flowers because it’s what you’re supposed to do. He doesn’t cry. He doesn’t deserve to.

“Eddie?”

He’s thirty-four, and it rains the day they bury Buck.

The flag is heavier than it should be. The honor guard moves in slow motion. Their gloves are too white. Their boots shine like knives.  

One. Rifle salute.  

Two.

Three.

He flinches.  

The bugle starts.  

Taps is supposed to sound mournful. This just sounds broken. The notes fray at the edges, like the musician’s lips are shaking. Or maybe it’s the rain. Or maybe it’s Eddie’s ears, already filling with the phantom roar of Buck’s laughter, 

A hand lands on his shoulder. Maybe it's Bobby. Or hen. Or God.  

He doesn’t turn.  

The coffin is closed.  

He knows what’s inside.  

He saw the body.  

He didn’t look.  

Buck’s hands were,   

Buck’s face was,   

The casket is closed.

Christopher stands beside him, dry-eyed, jaw set. His grip on Eddie’s sleeve is the only thing holding the world together.  

The last note fades.  

Silence.    

A scream.  

Raw. Guttural. A sound that could crack the sky open.  

It takes him three breaths to realize it’s his.

He’s not sure if he has enough tears for him.

“Eddie?”

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

Someone is shaking him. No. He’s already shaking. His fingers won’t close. His lips are blue. Or maybe that was Buck. Maybe that was, The ocean roares. The wind howles. His body curles in on itself like paper in flame. He is so cold.

"32.4 Celsius. We need to warm him now!”

He thinks he sees Buck on the shore.

Barefoot.

Smiling.

Reaching.

He thinks he hears Buck say his name.

He thinks, 

“Eddie?”

Hands on his chest.

Pads. Pressure. Burning cold.

“Get the Bair Hugger. I want warm IV fluids running now!”

He’s floating.

“BP’s crashing, he’s bradycardic, ”

He’s sinking.

“Pupils sluggish. Eddie, can you hear me?”

"32.1°C." The Bair Hugger whirs, a mechanical beast devouring his skin. Hands press too hard on his sternum, "Come on!”

"V-fib! Charging, clear!"

He’s thirty-four and so tired of fighting.

The crash cart whines. The defib charges.

"Eddie?" Someone voice cracks.

Buck’s hand is warm.

"Tired of running?" he asks, grinning, sunlit, alive.

Eddie takes it.

The heart monitor flatlines.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

Fingers twitch.

A breath, ragged, shallow, slides through cracked lips.

Darkness presses close, thick and heavy, like water pulling him under.

The steady beep, beep, beep, distant. waves crashing far away.

His mind is a broken radio, snippets of sound and light,

voices muffled beneath layers of static.

Cold still claws at his skin.

Faint shapes move at the edge of vision,

hands reaching, pulling, touching—

warmth where there should be none.

A voice slices through the haze.

“Eddie?”

His eyelids flutter, heavy as lead.

Light stabs through the veil of sleep.

A slow inhale—pain and air filling him all at once.

The room blurs into focus—too bright, too loud, too close.

A hand squeezes his own, steady and real.

Another breath.

Another moment.

“Eddie?”

His throat tightens.

His lips part, trembling.

A fragile sound escapes.

“Buck?”

The room falls dead silent.

It’s enough of an answer.

Hen steps into view, her scrubs wrinkled, her smile brittle.

"Hey, Eddie."

The heart monitor spikes.

Eddie closes his eyes.

The darkness smells like salt.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

The world arrives in pieces.

Sound first, thin and distant, like it's traveling through water. The rhythmic hush of machines, a soft mechanical murmur that seems to echo inside his skull. Then light, too white, too still. Pressing against the backs of his eyelids like frost.

His body feels foreign. Mottled with bruises he doesn’t remember earning, heavy in places that once knew motion. The ache is everywhere. Not pain exactly. Something older. Something hollowed out.

He breathes. It rasps. The air burns. His throat is raw, stripped of language, of the last things he said, whatever they were. They feel lost. 

There’s a cold in him that no blanket touches. Time moves oddly here. Slips sideways. He sleeps. Wakes. Sleeps again. Or maybe he doesn’t. Maybe he’s always halfway between.

He sees shadows by the bed sometimes. Hears a voice—Hen’s, he thinks—saying his name like it’s made of glass. There’s warmth in her hands, pressed to his wrist, his forehead. A gentle insistence. A tether.

“Eddie, you’re okay. You’re safe.”

He is neither.

she never stays long.

Sometimes he finds her sitting in the chair, lips moving like she’s praying. Sometimes the chair is empty for days. Or hours. Or minutes. He can’t tell.

No Christopher. No Buck.

No Buck. No Buck. No Buck.

The thought repeats itself like a cracked record, skipping back to the same hollow place.

His breath stutters. The heart monitor answers with a sharp spike, too fast, too bright.

His body has survived.

His body has betrayed him.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

When he opens his eyes again, the ceiling is pale blue with dawn or dusk. The IV sings to itself in its slow drip.

His body hurts differently now, less sharp, more settled. something left behind by a storm.

A nurse says something cheerful in a voice that doesn’t belong in this room. He nods. Or maybe he doesn’t.

They talk about discharge. About healing. About the future.

He thinks about the chair. How empty it still is.

When they wheel him out, the sun is too bright. The sky too wide.

He steps into the silence of his own house like a ghost returning to the scene of his death.

Everything is just where he left it.

the light is wrong. Too dim. The air too still. Something sour lingers in the corners.

There’s a smell.

The leftovers on the counter have grown a skin. The lid fogged over, bloated, distorting the color into some jaundiced thing. Mold creeps along the edges.

The trash is overflowing. Takeout containers and coffee cups and something sticky leaking down the side.

A plate on the table, fork still resting on the edge. One bite missing. Spoiled. Hardened. Forgotten.

He drags himself back to the living room 

There’s a hoodie on the floor. Buck’s. Eddie knows the feel of that cotton. He wore it for three days once. Held it at night. But it doesn’t smell like Buck anymore. It smells like mildew and dust.

A half-finished crossword lies on the coffee table, Buck’s messy scrawl filling in the blanks. 7 Down: "Something you can’t live without."

Buck had written oxygen in pen.

He traces the letters, smudging the ink.

Each room is another lie he told himself.

Each room is a haunted memory of a life not lived.

There are dishes crusted in the sink.

The TV remote buried beneath unopened mail.

Laundry molding in the machine.

Shoes he doesn’t remember taking off.

Time has rotted here.

There's a picture frame facedown on the floor.

He stares. Long enough that the shape of it swims,

bends, becomes meaningless.

Everywhere.

He’s everywhere.

And nowhere.

Eddie sinks to the floor, back against the couch, and screams into his knees.

The house swallows the sound whole.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

Like a shattered vase hastily glued back together, edges misaligned, seams still weeping.

His spine is a rusted hinge, pressed too long against the hardwood. His skull throbs, too heavy for the fragile stem of his neck. His fingers are locked around Buck’s hoodie, the fabric twisted in his fist like a last prayer. The knuckles are white. The tendons tremble.

How long has he been here?

His cheeks are wet. He doesn’t remember crying.

He never does.

There’s movement.

Cloth rustling. The soft scrape of a sponge. A trash bag crinkling.

Footsteps padded quiet across a floor that doesn't buzz with flies anymore.

The sour smell is gone.

Hen.

He blinks, slow and gritty, and turns his head. It’s like dragging the sun across the sky.

She’s in the kitchen. Wearing gloves, sleeves rolled up, wiping down the counter

“There he is,” she says, soft. Not surprised. 

She picks up a chipped mug and walks it over. Steam curls from the top.

She doesn’t startle him. Doesn’t ask if he’s okay. Just kneels beside him, her knees popping like an old house settling, and presses a mug into his hands.

"Careful," she murmurs. "It’s hot."

The ceramic is chipped along the rim. Buck bought it at a thrift store because the slogan was stupid—World’s Okayest Firefighter—and he’d laughed so hard he snorted coffee out his nose.

Now, steam curls up from the surface, carrying the scent of bitter grounds and the faintest hint of cinnamon. Buck always added too much.

His hands shake. The liquid trembles, a miniature storm contained in cheap clay. He doesn’t drink. Just holds it, lets the heat sear his palms until it borders on pain.

Proof of life.

Hen watches him, her eyes dark as wet earth. 

"I’m almost done in here," she says, nodding toward the kitchen. "Don’t mind the noise."

Eddie wants to thank her. Wants to scream. Wants to ask why are you cleaning my house when I’m the one who should be—

But his throat is full of unsaid things. Salt. Smoke. The jagged shape of Buck’s name.

The coffee goes cold.

A skin forms on the surface. Eddie stares at it, the way it wrinkles when he tilts the mug.

Buck hated that. Would make gagging noises if he saw someone drink coffee past the ten-minute mark.

"That’s sludge, Eddie. Have some self-respect."

Eddie lifts the cup. Drinks it all in one scalding gulp.

The bitterness coats his tongue. The dregs cling to his teeth.

World’s Okayest Firefighter.

World’s Worst Survivor.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

Hen moves around the house in small circles, picking up stray clothes, tossing spoiled food, wiping down untouched surfaces. All the things Buck never did. All the things Eddie never let himself see.

Eventually, she stops.

The trash is bagged, the dishes drying, the air clear enough to breathe.

She walks back into the living room, where Eddie still sits on the floor, Buck’s hoodie crushed in one hand, the mug empty in the other.

Hen sighs and sinks down beside him. The silence stretches.

"They didn’t tell us you were discharged. I went to check in and the nurse said you’d already signed the discharge papers.”

"I asked them not to.”

"Yeah. I figured.”

The silence stretches,

"Maybe you shouldn’t stay here alone," she says. "At least for now."

"No."

"Eddie—"

"I said no." His voice is gravel, ground glass, a grenade with the pin half-pulled.

Hen doesn’t flinch. 

"Then look me in the eye and tell me you’re okay."

Silence.

Eddie’s jaw locks. His breath comes ragged. "Hen, just leave me the f—”

"You’re going to shut up and listen to me!”

Her voice cracks through the room like a gunshot. Eddie flinches. Not from fear. From the shock of it. Hen never yells.

“You are packing everything you need,” she says, voice shaking but iron, “and you are coming to stay with us. With your son.”

Eddie turns his face away, but it doesn’t save him.

“He doesn’t need—”

"You don’t know what he needs!" Hen’s voice breaks. "You know what he doesn't need Eddie? Another hospital call at 3 a.m. They listed you as a drowning victim. I drove there thinking—" A sharp inhale. "Thinking I left you alone with your grief so long it made you—”

She stops. Chokes on it.

“I didn’t—” he tries, but the word has no legs, no spine.

"Don’t." Hen’s hand clamps around his wrist, tight enough to bruise. "Don’t lie to me. Not now.”

His vision blurs at the edges. "Buck," he chokes out. "He—he wanted me to— he—”

Hen goes very, very still. Her grip loosens. Her face does something terrible, understanding dawning, horror with it.

"Oh, Eddie," she whispers.

And just like that—

The dam breaks.

He curls in on himself, mouth open in a soundless sob, hoodie still clutched, Hen reaches for him instantly. Pulls him into her arms, and then she’s crying too.

There’s nothing graceful about it. No clean lines. Just shaking and salt and breathless grief echoing off empty walls.

They cry until Eddie can’t feel his eyes anymore. Until he can’t breathe through his nose or mouth or chest.

“You’re coming with me,” she breathes into his hair. “You’re going to stay with us. With your son. You’re not disappearing into this house again. I won’t let you.”

"I can’t—I don’t know how to do this—"

"You don’t have to," Hen whispers. "Not alone.”

Eddie’s breath hitches. "Hen—"

"No arguments." Her eyes flash. "I lost Buck. I’m not losing you too.”

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

Two months later 

The sky is too blue. There's no wind, just the soft sway of leaves, as if the trees are breathing slower now. Slower, quieter, gentler than they used to. Sunlight pours through the thin branches overhead in golden ribbons, brushing the earth with a warmth that doesn't quite reach the skin.

Birdsong weaves through the hush like a lullaby half-remembered. A mourning dove calls, low and throaty, then nothing. Silence returns, heavy and whole. The world holds its breath.

He stands still, hands in his jacket pockets, a breeze barely lifting the hem of his shirt. His shadow stretches behind him, long and lonely. The grass beneath his boots is trimmed short, almost too green, as if someone keeps it alive out of obligation.

It’s peaceful here.

It shouldn’t be.

The stone is small. Too small for the way Buck lived. Too quiet for how loud his laughter had been. There’s no marble angel, no elaborate sculpture, clean, chiseled letters spelling out a name, two dates, and a space in between so vast Eddie sometimes thinks he could fall into it and never crawl out.

His mouth opens. Closes. Opens again.

"I’m mad," he says.

The wind carries the words away.

"I’m so fucking mad at you." His voice cracks. "Not for—not for dying. Not even for leaving. For this." He kicks at the grass. "For making me stand here in this nice fucking weather, talking to—”

A white butterfly lands on the headstone.

Eddie wants to scream.

"I don’t know how to talk to you," he admits. "I used to tell you everything. Now I—" He rubs his chest, where the ache lives. "I don’t know what to say. Do I tell you about others? About Christopher’s science fair? Do I tell you I still set an extra plate at dinner like some pathetic—”

He takes a shaky breath, looks down at the grass, then back at the stone.

“I don’t know how to go through my days and not tell you everything. Everything you weren’t here to see. Chris’s smile this morning. The way the sun hit the kitchen floor. How I made your dumb coffee recipe wrong again and almost set the machine on fire. You would’ve laughed.”

A bitter breath leaves his chest like a sigh that’s been waiting too long to escape.

“I will never accept your loss.

I will accept I will be living with it.

Until I take my last breath, and am reunited with you.”

He kneels Infront of the stone.

“I love you…

 I love you as the plant that never blooms,

but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers.”

His hand curls in the grass. The warmth of the earth has nothing on the absence beside him.

“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.”

A breath.

"I love you because I know no other way.”

A sob claws its way free.

"I love you in the silence," he rasps. "I love you in the empty spaces. I love you in the wrongness of a world that keeps spinning without you in it."

His tears fall onto the grass, onto the earth that holds what’s left of Buck.

"I loved you, I love you, and I'm going to love you. In your first life and all the next ones, I'll love you in every form, every shape, every version of you, every person you become, in every story. In every tale. My love for you is a forevermore constant, and I will continue to love you. I will love you till the end of my own time. . .”

“You could come back as someone else entirely, someone who doesn’t remember me, and I’d still find you. Still love you. Like muscle memory.”

He presses a kiss to his fingertips and lays them against the stone.

The butterfly flutters away.

The sun dips below the horizon.

He doesn’t move.

Somewhere

A door slams

A dog barks

Life goes on.

Finally, he pushes himself to his feet, his knees protesting, his heart raw.

He doesn’t say goodbye.

He’ll never say goodbye.

Instead, he presses a hand to the headstone one last time, his fingers lingering over Buck’s name.

"I’ll love you until the sun burns out," he murmurs. "And then longer.”

He buys a bouquet of sunflowers on his way home.

“Unable are the loved to die, for love is immortality.”

-Emily Dickinson