Work Text:
By the time Eddie makes his way into the kitchen after the funeral, Buck’s got both the coffee pot and the tea kettle going. He’s still in his formal blacks, mourning band still around his arm, and his hand is shaking against the kettle’s handle.
“Buck,” Eddie starts. “Why don’t you go change?”
“Nah, I’m okay,” Buck replies. It’s stiff, masked, strong. Solid. “How about you? You go change.”
“Buck, I did already. See?” Eddie points to his sweatpants as enthusiastically as he can muster, like a game show host on quaaludes.
Buck doesn’t turn around.
“Coffee will be ready in a minute. Or tea, that too. Whatever I can make you.”
He doesn’t let go of the handle.
Eddie moves further into the kitchen, coming up behind Buck and placing his hand over Buck’s on the kettle. He wraps his other hand around Buck’s shoulder, leaning his jaw into the meat of Buck’s shoulder. He can feel trembles shake Buck’s entire frame. “You’ve had a really hard day today, Buck. And you,” he adds with a tight squeeze of Buck’s shoulder, “have been so good. All day. So strong for everyone.”
Buck’s body shakes harder under Eddie’s hands.
“But you,” Eddie punctuates with a soft kiss to Buck’s shoulder, “deserve to mourn, too. To be supported, too.”
Buck’s face is twisting, as he tries desperately to plug every hole before the tidal wave of emotions breaks through the barrier he’s successfully held all day. It held as he held Athena’s hand at the internment, as he wrapped a sobbing May in his arms, as he stood beside Hen as she delivered Bobby’s eulogy — it could hold now.
It could. It would.
It had to.
“But you don’t have to hide, Buck. Not here. Not at home.”
The tea kettle clicks off.
Eddie moves Buck’s shaking hand from the kettle handle, folds it gently into his own, and works to turn Buck around. Buck’s head is stuck in the downward position, eyes open and glazed over, tears pouring in streams down his face.
Passing Buck’s hand from one to the other, Eddie moves in, wrapping his newly freed hand around the curve of Buck’s jaw, gently pulling his face forward to meet Eddie’s eyes.
“Don’t hide. Not from me.”
Buck cracks.
Eddie would swear he could hear it like thunder.
All at once, Buck collapses, right there in kitchen. Eddie almost doesn’t catch him, but manages, folding Buck’s shivering body in his own, pulling him in, muffling the wails in Eddie’s shoulder.
“He’s gone, he’s gone he’s gone he’s gone,” Eddie hears between gasps. Buck’s voice is wet and miserable and so, so vulnerable. “And I—I—I couldn’t do—anything—to stop it.” He’s wheezing now, his voice interrupted by the sharp noises. “Just like—just like you—I was just—just the guy—standing there—who couldn't—who couldn’t do anything.”
A part of Eddie must crack too. He feels it, more than hears it this time. He tightens his grip on Buck, pulls into him with every print of every finger on his hands.
“But you are still here, Buck,” Eddie pleads into Buck’s hair. “You are here and you’re right here with me, in my arms. Do you feel them?”
Buck’s body is quivering, breath quick and unsteady. Eddie can feel the wetness of Buck’s tears through his shirt.
“This sucks so much and it’s horrible and awful and your heart is broken but you, you are not broken, do you hear me?”
A fresh wail comes out of Buck, then.
“And even though it feels like every part of you is somehow numb and on fire and drowning and completely fine all at the same time, and you don’t know where to put your feet or how to open your mouth, know that I have never loved you more than I do right now.”
Buck’s body pushes into Eddie’s, his fingers reaching out to grasp into Eddie’s shirt, pulling and shaking.
“You are so full of love and you will make it out the other side. And on those days when it feels like you can’t, you’ve got me, okay?” Eddie nuzzles his nose in Buck’s hair, pressing soft, lingering kisses onto his scalp.
Buck’s sobbing is quieting, his grip on Eddie still firm.
“I’m right here. And I’m not going anywhere.”