Chapter Text
Buck was not acclimating well to life without Eddie. He knew that he was being dramatic. Eddie was always just a phone call away but he felt so alone without Eddie. The past few days without Eddie made Buck feel painfully alone. Tommy just broke up with him and now his best friend is living in Texas. Buck always struggles with being okay with being alone but this time it was harder than it had ever been to deal with.
Normally on his days off he would be with Eddie but with Eddie in El Paso with Chris he decided he would just play some video game he just got. He wasn’t very good at it but he was glad to just not feel alone.
While he is playing he begins to talk to this other guy he was playing with which he didn’t realize was his best friend. After the round Buck decided to get off the game because he was really bad but he did decide to continue to talk to the guy he met. They added each other on Discord and began talking. He felt comfortable talking to him even though he was a stranger or so Buck thought.
*
Buck and his online friend got along really well. He felt like it was the first time he was able to just talk to someone since Eddie left. Buck still talked to Eddie; he was his best friend but he had a lot going on with his parents and Chris. Buck didn’t want to become an annoyance to Eddie like he had become with most of the other relationships he has ever had.
They talked very casually, nothing deep just about random things. Buck knew a lot of random things like the fact that the planet Mercury is shrinking. He learned that when he was helping Chris with a school project on the solar system. Buck’s new friend actually seemed interested in what he was rambling on about which was something only Eddie did.
Buck still missed Eddie like crazy. He had been gone for a few weeks and Buck still wasn’t even close to being unpacked. The only person he confided in about missing Eddie was Maddie, He loved Maddie but he didn’t really love her addvise most of the time. But Maddie and Eddie were the ones who Buck normally went to with his problems. He can’t really go to Eddie with this problem though so he guesses he’ll just have to ask Maddie what she thinks.
*
Buck texts Maddie and even though there was no response he still decided to head over to her house.
Buck:)
Hey Maddie is it ok if I come over?
If you don’t answer in like 10 i'm coming over anyway
I’m on my way over
Buck knocked on Maddie’s door. Chimney answers the door which suppresses Buck as if Chim and Maddie hadn’t been living together for years.
“Hey Chim, is Maddie home?” Buck thought maybe he should have waited for her to respond to her texts but he was impatient and he needed to talk to someone.
“No, sorry Buck she is out with Jee. Did she not tell you she wasn’t home?” Buck realized he definitely shouldn’t have just shown up randomly in the middle of the day to Maddie’s house and just assumed she would be home.
“Is there anything I can help with?” Buck loved Chimney and their family but he was not going to tell him that he’s been feeling extremely alone and kind of depressed since Eddie moved back to Texas. They just didn’t talk like that about serious things.
“It’s okay Chim I’ll just go talk to Bobby,” Buck decides that Bobby would actually be someone good to talk to because he knows Eddie. Maddie and Eddie never really got to know each other which he did find weird because they were the two most important people in his life.
*
Bobby was at the fire station but he told Buck it was okay for him to come over to talk because it had been a slow shift. Buck was glad he really needed to talk to someone and he knew he could always talk to Bobby.
Buck walked into the station and said hi to the people on the B shift as he headed to Bobby’s office. He knocked on the door and from the other side of the door Bobby yelled to Buck to just come in. The moment he walked into the office Bobby could tell Buck wasn’t okay. He wasn't sure it was about Eddie but he wasn’t surprised when Buck told him that he wanted to talk about Eddie.
“Bobby, I miss him so much. I- I don’t know what to do without him,” Buck didn’t realize how hard it would be for him to talk about Eddie.
“I’m not suppressed that you miss him so much. You two really love each other. I mean you are best friends,” That was a close save on Bobby’s part. He knew that Buck wasn’t in a good state of mind and he didn’t want him to realize his feelings under these circumstances. Except Buck did notice Bobby’s wording.
Hearing Bobby say that he and Eddie really loved each other was not what he was expecting from their conversation. He did love Eddie but the way Bobby said it made something in him clique like maybe he didn’t just love Eddie maybe he was in love with Eddie. However this realization just made everything worse because now he is in love with his straight best friend that is in Texas.
Buck and Bobby talk for a little while longer until the bell rings and Bobby has to go. He told Buck that they could finish their conversation when he got back but Buck said it was fine. Buck left the station and when he got home he decided to confide in his new online friend because he didn’t actually know Buck and that anonymity made Buck more comfortable with telling him about the fact that he just realized he was in love with his best friend.
Fire_Gamer32: hey can I talk to you about something it’s kinda personal tho??
Texas-Cowboy14: sure you can tell me anything
Fire_Gamer32: I realized I might be in love with my best friend today
Texas-Cowboy14: Well that’s something I can relate to. I moved to texas to be with my son and being away from my best friend for so long has made me realize that I’m in love with him. He is so sweet he literally moved out of his apartment to sublet my house so that when I come back we’ll still have the house.
Texas-Cowboy14: sorry I know you were talking about you and I fully just took over the conversation.
When Buck heard that he stopped in his tracks. That was Eddie. He has been talking to Eddie. He just inadvertently told Eddie he was in love with him. But Eddie just said he was in love with Buck. How could this be happening? He thought Eddie was straight.