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“Okay.”
Buck slams the door against the side of the ladder truck hard enough that it rattles a little. Behind it, Eddie is looking at him with a blank, mild expression on his face. Buck grinds his teeth at the sight of it.
“What’s your deal?” he demands.
Eddie just keeps looking at him, arms crossed over his chest, defensive and closed off.
“What deal?”
It goes back to— well, to the lawsuit, or maybe to the tsunami or maybe all the way back to the week of the truck bombing when Shannon died and Eddie’s life fell apart and then Buck’s life went that way, too, and maybe that’s when there was forged a sort of distance between them. It hadn’t made itself known right away, of course, and it’s not just that even now. But Buck thinks that maybe that’s where it came from, in a way.
Whatever. It doesn’t matter what started it. What matters is that now, he’s back at the 118 where he belongs and everything should be good, except that it isn’t. Eddie is still pissed at him, which he deserves but also hates, and on top of that there’s a more pressing and worse issue. That’s the one he’s trying to address right now, because Buck has just about had it with watching Eddie wince every time he moves.
Eddie isn’t waiting for Buck to answer; he’s walking away, in fact, and Buck pushes off of the truck and steps insistently forward, bullying into Eddie’s path and stopping him in his tracks.
“Eddie,” he seethes. “I know you’re mad at me, but—”
“Well, then,” Eddie says, raising his voice, “you also know that I don’t want to—”
“But you have to—”
“I don’t have to do anything,” Eddie says simply, but there’s a shadow in his voice now that indicates he’s not quite as light as he’s trying to sound. Buck knows better than to press on that point, but he does it anyway because he can’t help himself now that he’s started. Call that Evan Buckley 101. He’s a dog with a bone before he’s much of anything else, and knowing this about himself doesn’t stop it from being true.
“You have to,” he insists. He crosses his own arms for good measure, like making himself a mirror of Eddie might help somehow.
Something dark crosses Eddie’s features.
“Who are you to tell me what to do?” he asks, composure ever so slowly slipping. “Look— I have somewhere to be, so can we just—”
Buck lets out a frustrated little noise. “How long are we going to do this, Eddie?” he pleads. “Come on, I know something’s up with you so just tell me what it is and we can—”
Eddie sighs roughly, dropping his head and shaking it as he looks at the floor. “You really do not know when to quit, do you?” he asks.
Buck flashes back to the grocery store. He can still smell the flower display and feel the hot press of shame on his nerve endings, like he’s right back there with all eyes on him trying desperately to appeal to Eddie. It feels remarkably like this, and his mind flashes unhelpfully with the words, you’re exhausting.
He flails for a moment, but tries again anyway.
“I wouldn’t have to, if you’d just—”
Eddie shakes his head again, sharper and harder this time, still not looking at Buck as the muscle in his jaw jumps tightly.
“Buck,” he grinds out. “Move out of my way, man.”
“No,” Buck answers immediately. Just keeps digging his teeth in despite all the alarms going off in his head that tell him to stop before it’s too late. Self-awareness only gets you so far when you’re as stubborn as Buck is, and he has an unfortunate habit of leaning too far in every time. “Not until you tell me what’s going on with you, because I’m your—”
“No,” Eddie interrupts sharply. His eyes flash dangerous and dark, and Buck gets a whole second of warning that comes in the form of an unpleasant, nauseating swoop through his chest and stomach before Eddie says: “You’re not my anything, Buck.”
Buck thinks about the way glass shatters. Imagines dropping the mirror that he is of Eddie from the loft above them, dark and quiet with the telltale lemon clean end of shift scent that drifts through the space, and watching it shatter spectacularly on the concrete at his feet. He sees it clear as day, the way the shards would splice and disperse in sharp, jagged, dangerous pieces.
And he feels just like that, when Eddie turns and walks away, favoring his left hip just enough to make Buck ache.
Okay. So, maybe Buck made a mistake here. Again.
He thinks about it for a long time after he stands in place and watches Eddie go and collect his stuff from his locker and slam it shut and walk out of the station without even changing. He stays there longer than he should, and only moves when B shift trickles in and he can’t get away with it anymore.
After that, he keeps thinking about it.
How did they get here? He can’t help but wonder about it as he slips behind the wheel of the Jeep and sets off into the dark evening, driving aimlessly just to avoid going back to his place. When he does that, it’s just so oppressively empty and dark and cold, and it serves as a big, flashing reminder of everything that isn’t right anymore. He can’t stand in his own kitchen without thinking about Eddie putting his hand on his shoulder and ducking his head to look him in the eye, telling him that he doesn’t trust anyone more than Buck. Can’t wallow in misery in his bed without remembering when Eddie was so comfortable with him as to waltz right in unasked and pull the covers off. Can’t look anywhere without traces of him and Christopher and everything that Buck feels like he’s losing.
So maybe he’s spiraling. He keeps thinking about Eddie across the table from him in the deposition and feeling sick at the look on his face. He’s desperate to walk them back from this, and now Eddie is acting so weird, and Buck wants to press and press and press until Eddie folds open for him. But maybe that’s the wrong approach. Maybe he just needs to— apologize, and leave it at that. He turns down a side street at a stoplight and turns that over in his head in the silence left by his turn signal flicking off. Yeah. Maybe that’s the issue— he’s being too much about this, and what Eddie needs is just a solid, real apology, and some space. That has to work, Buck resolves, feeling only a little bit manic as he takes note of where he is and mentally reroutes his car in the direction of Eddie’s house. He knows that maybe the better approach would be to wait and approach it when things aren’t so raw, but now that he’s resolved to do it he knows he has to go through with it now, or things will go awry again.
Buck doesn’t think they can afford that, so fragile is the state of their friendship at this moment, and so he drives to Eddie’s. When he gets there, it’s dark and Eddie’s truck is nowhere to be seen, but Buck takes that in stride. He’d said he had somewhere to be, anyway, so— yeah, it hurts that he used to always know where Eddie was, but he can suck it up. He can just sit here and wait. It’s a nice night, warm and soft, and Eddie will come home eventually. Maybe he’ll even have Chris with him and Buck will be able to see him for a second, and then the kid will go inside and Buck will deliver his apology and then—
And then he’ll leave. He can do that if it’s what Eddie needs from him. It’ll be fine.
Except that half an hour ticks by while Buck sits on Eddie’s porch steps, waiting. And then it’s been an hour. And then it’s nearing two hours. And then— then, just when Buck is starting to waver in his resolve, the sweeping beam of familiar headlights brushes over the driveway. Buck’s heart leaps into his throat and he tries to remember what he’d been deciding he would say while he sat here waiting, all that stuff about backing off and the carefully casual I’m sorry for pushing you, man he’d been sure would land well.
But then Eddie climbs out of the truck in the darkness and it all sort of tumbles out of Buck’s head to the floor. Shatters like the mirror, like Buck, like—
Like Eddie’s skin, broken open blood vessels on his face that spill crimson onto his brown cheek. Buck can see it even in the dim light, and nausea grasps at him followed by a wave of dull, aching, panic as he forgets everything about what he’s here for because—
Because Eddie is hurt.
Like, really hurt. Hurt enough that his cheek is swollen and his eyes are wet and he sways when he stands in front of Buck and says, hoarsely:
“What are you doing here?”
Buck takes a second to find his voice, and then he’s on his feet without knowing how he got there.
“Eddie,” he says— gasps, kind of. Is he being dramatic, he wonders for a fluttering half-second, but then Eddie’s eyes briefly close and he leans a little and his features crease with pain and no, nope, he’s not being dramatic; Eddie is hurt and bleeding and in pain and Buck’s system shifts into immediate overdrive with absolutely no effort on his part.
“Hey, what happened?” he asks, hearing the softness in his own voice as he moves closer to Eddie. And when he does, it clicks for the first time that Eddie has changed since Buck saw him at the station; his uniform has been swapped for a tanktop and workout shorts, leaving way more skin exposed. It’s in this way that Buck realizes just how covered in bruises Eddie really is: can’t quite get the whole picture in the dim light like this, but he can see enough to know that they’re blooming in myriad shades over Eddie’s shoulders and along his chest and down on his ribs where the side of his tanktop hangs low and open.
“Buck,” Eddie sighs, sounding both pained and exhausted as he shakes his head. “I just want to—”
“Eddie,” Buck insists softly. “Hey— can you just look at me for a second?”
By some miracle, Eddie does.
In his dark eyes, Buck sees pain. The kind that comes from the open gash on his cheek, but also the kind that’s deeper. Regret thrums through him like the beat of a particularly brutal drum and he wishes he could undo any of it, a wild and useless urge that floods through him relentlessly. He can’t do anything about that now, but— he can do this, at least. His other plan is out the window now, but he can do this.
“You’re hurt,” he says gently. “Will you just let me help you?”
Eddie looks at him for a long moment, and Buck doesn’t move. He barely dares to breathe, actually, out of fear that if he does he might somehow startle Eddie away from him and end up on the other side of a slammed door. And that’ll be really bad, because then he’ll end up sleeping on Eddie’s porch or something equally insane because he really, truly can’t help himself.
Eventually, when the silence has stretched thin save for the rustle of the wind on the leaves of Eddie’s orange tree, Eddie sighs.
“Why would you want to do that?” he asks.
This is not what Buck had anticipated. He blinks, confused.
“Why…would I not want to do that?” he asks back.
And then, inexplicably, Eddie breaks.
Later, Buck will not be able to tell exactly how it happened or why. It just happens— one second, Eddie is standing in front of him with a closed-off, tired look on his face, and then the next he’s half-doubled over in the driveway with his hand over his eyes, and Buck is reaching out to catch him as his breath hitches audibly in his chest and he lets out a helpless little noise that tears into Buck like it has teeth of its own.
“Woah,” he breathes. “Okay, I got you.”
“Sorry,” Eddie gasps, raw and wrong and tearful as he attempts to pull back. “I just—”
“Don’t,” Buck soothes. He rubs his hand lightly over Eddie’s arm with a quick glance to find a spot that’s unmarred before he touches, not wanting to make anything worse. “Let’s just get you inside, okay?”
He half-expects Eddie to argue, even now, but he doesn’t. He lets Buck take his keys out of his hand where they’re still hanging and lock the truck behind him, and then he follows on ginger, light steps into the house when Buck unlocks the door and ushers him in. Buck reaches for the lights as they go, flicking them on and flooding the familiar space with a soft glow that only serves to settle his nerves a little.
“Kitchen,” he says firmly when Eddie glances in the direction of the couch, and again Eddie follows without complaint or comment.
Buck’s head spins. Should he be worried about that? Eddie’s silence and compliance on top of the bruises that—
“Jesus Christ,” he says. Because when he turns to look at Eddie, really look at him in the overhead light, the bruises are awful. Eddie’s skin is a mottled mix of alarming shades of red, violet and sickening blue over the half-healed hues of yellow that indicate old bruises. Weeks old, at least. Buck feels sick.
He kneels in front of the chair Eddie is sitting in, and looks up at him as tenderly as he can possibly manage— actually tries his hardest to look soft, because he wants Eddie to see and feel it.
“Please tell me what happened, Eds,” he pleads.
This time, when Eddie looks at him, Buck knows that he’s going to break. The certainty comes a matter of seconds before Eddie’s eyes are welling with tears and then Buck finds himself reaching out to touch him before he can stop himself, and winds up with both of his hands in Eddie’s as Eddie blinks and the tears start to slip down over his cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers.
Buck shakes his head.
“No, no, I’m sorry,” he insists. “I was stupid, it was stupid, I didn’t mean—”
“I’ve been— fighting,” Eddie whispers. “I didn’t mean for it to get like this.”
Buck pauses, searching Eddie’s face with his eyes. Fighting, he thinks. It’s so out of character that it stops him in his tracks. He turns it over in his head, and then takes a good, long look at Eddie.
Eddie is solid. He’s the most steady, solid, calm person that Buck knows. He’s not sure of a lot, but he’s sure about that. Even in the midst of the tension that’s blanketed their friendship recently, Buck doesn’t doubt that he knows Eddie. The idea of him willingly getting into fights seems drastically wrong and Buck feels unsteady just thinking about it, like someone’s taken the rug from beneath his feet.
Eddie is looking anywhere but at Buck, his face scrunched up in that just about to cry expression that twists his features and tugs at Buck’s heart.
The thought comes to him in crystal clarity. Eddie is not the kind of person who gets off on hurting someone else. He’s not someone who revels in destruction or power.
If Eddie is fighting, it’s because he wants to get hurt. Buck knows it down to his toes, beyond the shadow of a doubt.
He swallows hard against a nauseous, sick feeling that rises harshly into his throat, and ducks his head to look at Eddie’s face. Eventually, Eddie reluctantly meets his gaze in return and shame swims brightly enough in his dark eyes to knock Buck off his feet if he isn’t careful.
But he’s not here to back down. He thinks back to their fight— well, their fights, after today’s spat at the firehouse— and resolves then and there on Eddie’s kitchen floor to channel all of that energy into this. At the end of the day, Eddie is his best friend and Buck would never— could never— leave him to hurt alone. Bruises or otherwise.
He puts his hand on Eddie’s knee and brushes his thumb lightly over the joint, maybe a shade too intimate for any other kind of moment, and determinedly holds Eddie’s gaze with his own.
“It’s okay,” he says. Puts as much feeling into it as he can muster up. “I know you didn’t want to hurt anybody else.”
Eddie blinks. And if Buck wasn’t watching so closely, he might have missed it. But there it is— right there on Eddie’s face, shining back at him. That look that sends Buck’s heart into his throat, something shimmering and sharp and soft all at once. He doesn’t have the name for it, but it’s there and he sees it and he knows that it’s something so real, even as the word for what it is dances tantalizingly away from him. It disperses in the golden glow of Eddie’s kitchen light and glimmers until it’s gone, but Buck had seen it, and knows that it was there even as Eddie stares at him in the quiet, his face shifting back to something resembling neutrality.
Buck’s nerves fray open at the sight of it, and he has to remind himself to breathe deep in the seconds that follow to steady himself.
And then he turns to the task at hand, because what matters is: Eddie is hurt.
“Sit tight,” he murmurs, tapping Eddie’s knee gently, and then he gets up and goes to the bathroom in the hallway, where he pulls Eddie’s first aid kit from beneath the sink and grabs a soft washcloth from the shelf on the wall. It’s still mounted just the slightest bit crooked. Buck has offered to fix it a hundred times and hasn’t actually done it, and now he pauses just for a half-second to think on that.
Maybe he likes it this way, a little. Maybe he finds it kind of charming how imperfect everything is at Eddie’s house, how the paint peels in the corner of the kitchen and the floor dips unevenly and there are scuff marks on the door frames from Christopher hitting them with his crutches. Maybe he likes this house because it’s not perfect like the loft is, with its gleaming countertops and broad windows. Maybe it’s—
Maybe Buck likes things a little roughed up.
He steps back into the kitchen where Eddie is still just sitting silently, and runs the cloth under lukewarm water for a moment before he wrings it out and moves back into Eddie’s space. He’s quiet as he stands between Eddie’s knees, and only hesitates for a second before he puts his fingers on Eddie’s jaw and tilts his head back into the light. Gold light shifts over Eddie’s features and catches on his lashes, sending them into shadow as the muscle in his jaw pulses lightly under Buck’s fingertips.
Eddie, for his part, goes quietly compliant beneath Buck’s touch.
“Let me know if it hurts,” Buck instructs softly, and then he takes the cloth very tenderly to the half-dried blood on Eddie’s cheek, cleaning efficiently and easily around the split in his skin. It’s only when he gets as far as the very edge that Eddie flinches, letting out a soft hiss of pain. “I know, I know,” Buck murmurs. “I’m sorry.”
Eddie lets out another sound then, something exasperated and fond and a little strangled.
“You’re not the problem,” he breathes.
Buck thinks about that.
“You’re not the problem, either,” he says eventually, quietly.
Eddie scoffs, raising his hand closer to Buck’s eye level like a piece of evidence, and says: “I think the other guy would disagree.”
Buck looks down, and sees for the first time that Eddie’s knuckles are raw and open.
He bites back the words that rise to his lips, because he doesn’t think it’s the time to express that he truly, wholly does not give a fuck about the other guy. Instead, he takes a more measured approach, reminding himself he’s trying to fix this, not make it worse.
“I know you better than that, Eddie,” he sighs. “You weren’t trying to hurt anybody.”
Eddie looks at him for a long moment, his expression dark.
“You sound pretty sure about that,” he ventures.
Buck nods, reaching for a butterfly bandage and pressing it gently over the split in Eddie’s cheek before he can protest.
“I am sure about that,” he answers. “Give me your hand.”
Eddie does, and Buck holds him by the wrist as he cleans the blood and grit diligently off of Eddie’s knuckles.
It’s quiet for a moment as Buck frowns at Eddie’s hand, doing his best to be gentle.
“How?” Eddie asks.
“Hm?”
“How are you sure?” His voice has dropped near to a whisper. Buck glances up, and vulnerability glints back at him from the glassy sheen of Eddie’s dark eyes.
Buck looks at him for a long moment. It’s kind of a good question, he guesses. How does he know? It feels like something he should be able to answer more satisfactorily, but he doesn’t have much beyond—
“I know you,” he says.
Maybe it is that simple.
Eddie looks back at him, still teary. “You’re right,” he admits eventually. “I just wanted to—”
Buck doesn’t think he can bear to hear him say it, so he just nods his head. “I know,” he murmurs.
Eddie looks at him again, something hesitant flickering on his features. “It’s not just about you,” he says.
Not just—
Buck blinks, nodding his head stupidly. “Okay,” he says, realizing too late how bland he sounds when something a little bit stricken crosses Eddie’s features.
“I was just— so frustrated and I— I m—” Eddie cuts himself off and sighs sharply, shaking his head a little.
Buck’s heart pulses in his throat, so much so that he’s sure he can hear it in the quiet and maybe Eddie can, too. He’s not sure why that makes him feel so hot and panicked.
“Eddie, I’m not asking you to explain yourself,” he says.
Eddie lets out a little sound that Buck can’t parse.
“I know,” he says, on the ledge of anguished. “You should be, though.”
This has not occurred to Buck. He thinks it would take something truly catastrophic, something with astronomical proportions, for him to want to hold a grudge against Eddie. Even as he thinks about it, he can’t grasp a scenario in which he might do that.
If Eddie killed someone, surely he would have a good reason. Buck blinks himself out of that train of thought and comes back to Eddie’s kitchen and wonders for the first time what the fuck he’s doing. But he knows the answer to that, too. It comes to mind like it’s nothing.
He’s taking care of Eddie. Like Eddie’s done for him. It’s really that simple for Buck, when it comes down to brass tacks.
Finished with Eddie’s knuckles, he returns to where he’d been earlier, balanced on one knee in a half-crouch in front of Eddie, and touches his knee again as he looks up at him.
“Eds,” he starts. “You gotta stop, okay?”
Eddie swallows hard enough that Buck can see it in his throat.
“I don’t know if I can,” he admits.
Buck squeezes lightly. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you before,” he says softly. “Really, Eddie, I— I know this has been going on for a while and I missed it, and I’m sorry.”
Eddie shakes his head. “We’re past that,” he starts, but Buck interjects, because how could they be?
“I’m not,” he insists. “I should have been there.”
Eddie groans lightly. “You’re literally cleaning blood off of my face right now, Buck, you couldn’t have been more here for me if you tried.”
Buck, admittedly, does not think that’s true. But he’ll let it go if that’s what Eddie really believes. If it means that they’re okay. Which—
He summons his courage.
“Are we okay?”
Eddie half-laughs, dropping his head and looking suddenly very tired.
“Yeah,” he rasps, sniffling. “If you—”
“Yeah,” Buck echoes. “Yeah, we’re okay. It’s okay.”
He finds himself reaching for Eddie somewhere between when his breath hitches and when he starts crying, and he doesn’t remember helping Eddie to his feet but somehow, they’re wrapped in a hug anyway, standing in the middle of Eddie’s kitchen.
Buck is careful, but Eddie is fierce, and his fingers wrap themselves into the fabric of Buck’s t-shirt as he takes in a sharp breath. It makes Buck feel a little out of his depth, but he leans into it anyway. Some level of uncertainty or worry that he’s going to say the wrong thing is worth it, if it means being there for Eddie the way he wishes he’d been all along.
“You’re okay,” Buck murmurs into Eddie’s shoulder, so soft that he thinks it might not even be audible. But then Eddie turns his cheek to rest against Buck’s shoulder and he realizes that he’s heard it loud and clear. So Buck does the only thing he can think to do, and runs his hand lightly over Eddie’s back as he whispers it again. “You’re okay. You’re okay.”
It’s half for Eddie, and half for him.
But eventually, there’s little to do except pull away. That familiar reluctance creeps in, the feeling Buck always gets when he has to leave Eddie’s house only amplified by the fact that it’s been a while, that up until tonight got turned on its head Buck had been worried he might not get to have this again. He’s grateful, even though it feels bitter on his tongue when he pulls away from Eddie and looks at the floor at their feet.
“I should get out of your hair,” he starts. A familiar song and dance.
Except that then, Eddie takes a decidedly unfamiliar step.
He reaches out like an impulse, quick and thoughtless, and wraps his fingers around Buck’s wrist with surprising strength. Surprised, Buck looks up instinctively, and when he does there’s something on Eddie’s face that’s soft and desperate and— and—
“Don’t go,” he breathes.
And it hits Buck all at once.
It’s love. Eddie loves him. Eddie loves him. What does that mean? His heart pounds in every inch of his body, thrumming with the bright, impossible certainty of the look on Eddie’s face as he stands in front of him and Buck’s head spins and everything starts to feel like it must be imploding around them and stitching back together at once.
It’s like—
Like when Buck stayed up until three in the morning on his phone reading about the big bang. Like when everything in the universe was jammed into a little tiny point, so tiny that it boggled Buck’s mind then and does still now, before it all exploded into everything that exists now with unimaginable force and created life and atoms and the things that make up Buck today, standing in Eddie’s kitchen and realizing that Eddie loves him.
Yeah. It’s just like that, actually.
And Buck— Buck doesn’t know what that means, exactly, but he knows that Eddie is looking at him with heartbreaking, awful, vulnerable openness and to let him down would probably feel worse than being crushed by a ladder truck or swept away by a tsunami.
So Buck nods his head and says,
“I won’t go anywhere if you don’t want me to, Eds.”
And every bit of pain and confusion would be worth it to Buck for the sheer relief that washes over Eddie’s face.
He doesn’t entirely know how they get there, because he’s still reeling, but something has definitely shifted because Buck ends up crawling into Eddie’s bed that night. Eddie can’t move without wincing, and it’ll be worse tomorrow, but Buck forces some leftovers and Tylenol into him along with water and then they’re lying side by side in the half-darkness, and Buck turns on his side to look at Eddie and thinks:
He loves me.
He could burst with it, probably. It hums like electricity beneath his skin, and he’s only a little scared about what it means for either of them. Mostly, he’s—
He doesn’t know what he is. He’s relieved, mostly.
But then, Eddie looks at him across the pillows and surprises him all over again.
“Buck?” he asks. There’s something so tender in his voice.
“Hm?”
“Why are you here?”
Buck blinks, frowning. “You asked me to stay, Eddie.”
Eddie nods, shifting uncomfortably. “I know,” he murmurs, uncharacteristically wobbly. “But why did you say yes?”
Buck— well, Buck sort of flounders at that. There are lots of answers that are true, technically speaking. But the whole truth is deeper, more complicated. The whole truth is—
He looks at Eddie, and Eddie looks at him, and Buck realizes about half a second before it happens that it’s going to happen.
And then Eddie’s hands are on his face and he’s pressing his mouth to Buck’s. And it’s—
It’s like the big bang in reverse maybe, where the whole world narrows back down to this tiny, infinitesimal, miniscule point that exists in their shared breath and the place where Eddie’s fingers cling to Buck’s jaw and press in just enough to ache like he can’t help but hold on tight.
Buck’s breath catches and the world rights itself and he feels spectacularly, unbelievably torn to shreds and left to shatter and like nothing could ever be better than Eddie Diaz kissing him.
When Eddie pulls away— after what could have been a moment or a lifetime— his chest is heaving and Buck’s is too, and Eddie’s looking at him with wide eyes framed by soft lashes and it suddenly hurts to look at him, that’s how much Buck loves him.
“You love me.”
Eddie is the one who says it. His voice is wrecked, but he sounds sure. He sounds— really, really sure.
And so Buck realizes, nodding fiercely, that there’s nothing he will ever experience again that will not be tied to Eddie. Maybe nothing has been since the moment he raised his head and saw his face for the first time. Maybe nothing was, even before then. Maybe when the big bang happened, his molecules were arranged in just such a way that they would be magnetic to Eddie’s molecules.
Buck will have to look up an article about that. But later, because right now he—
“I love you,” he says. “How did you know?”
Eddie laughs. Really laughs, and it must hurt his ribs he’s laughing so hard but he looks so beautiful.
“I just realized,” Eddie says, grinning wildly. “When you were— when you touched my face. I realized.”
That moment, Buck thinks, when he had looked at Eddie and seen something written onto his face.
“Me, too,” he says. It comes out soft and splintered, even though he was just laughing. “When you asked me not to go— you love me.”
“I do,” Eddie says.
He sounds stronger in that moment than he has all night.
Buck leans in, and kisses him again. It’s just as daybreak, big bang, world series life-altering the second time as it was the first. Deliriously, he thinks that he could will the planet to spin differently just by the strength that it gives him and the glow that it fills him with.
But he won’t. Wouldn’t, even if he could. Speeding up time is the last thing Buck wants to do right now, actually.
They pull apart again, each of them wide-eyed, and Buck feels sort of magical and tingly all over and—
“What does this mean?” he whispers.
Eddie shakes his head, all tenderness. “It means I love you,” he says firmly. Wraps his fingers around Buck’s wrist again, pinning it between them as he tilts his head to meet Buck’s waiting blue gaze and whispers, “Don’t go.”
Buck grins.
“You couldn’t get rid of me if you wanted to.”
Everything will change, he thinks. But everything will be— kind of the same. He kisses Eddie again, Eddie who is soft and pliant and safe beneath him. Eddie who is rough, and perfect, and everything.
It’s not new, Buck realizes. It’s just like the bathroom shelf. A little bit tilted, all along, just as it should be.
The rest doesn’t matter so much. It’s all just molecules, anyway.
So, he kisses Eddie again.