Work Text:
Domaystic Day 4: The Dream
“Chris, you call me if anything happens that you aren’t okay with, okay? I don’t care if you’re drunk, or high, or whatever—”
“Dad!” Chris groans, trying to wiggle out from the grip of Eddie’s hand on his shoulder.
“Hey, listen to your dad, okay? It’s important stuff,” Buck adds with a stern look. Eddie smiles back at Buck before turning to the boy in front of him.
“I don’t care if your friends are drunk or high. If there’s a car you don’t feel safe getting in, or your friends are getting into things you don’t want to do, you call me, and Buck or I will come pick you up. No questions asked.”
Chris was going to his first party since starting high school back in LA, and to say Eddie was nervous would be an understatement. Eddie only knew the friend driving Chris, and there were going to be girls at the party, and, well, you know the deal. If his high school years in El Paso—high school years where he got his girlfriend pregnant mind you—combined with the stories he had heard from Buck in rural Pennsylvania were anything to go by, there was no telling what kids these day in one of the biggest cities in the world would be getting up to on a Friday night.
“Dad its Dungeons and Dragons, not dance clubs and drug lords.”
“Okay, smart ass. My offer still stands. I want you home safe tonight; 11 P.M. Whatever it takes to make that happen, it’s worth it. Now have fun, okay?”
Chris groans a “Bye, Dad,” as he walks down to his friend DJ’s car at the end of the driveway, and Buck and Eddie smush themselves together to watch until the car pulls way…and maybe a little after the car pulls away too.
It’s Buck that pulls away first, walking back into the kitchen to grab two beers. When he comes back, Eddie is sitting on the couch like he had just come back from a 5-alarm fire.
“You doin’ okay over there Eddie?”
“Me? I just sent our kid off to a party that has ‘dungeon’ in the title of it. Of course I’m not okay,” Eddie says exasperated. There's a bit of a chuckle at the end as he looks up at Buck, before his face falters slightly. Buck seems frozen.
“I could ask you the same thing.” Eddie’s face softens. He doesn’t dare move from his seat on the couch, giving Buck the space to process whatever it might be. Buck stays put for a drawn-out moment, before coming over to hand Eddie one of the drinks as he sits on the couch with him, staring forward.
“I—I had a dream about this once,” Buck starts softly.
Silence fell between the two of them. Buck didn’t have it in him to quite look up at Eddie, instead training his eyes down the neck of his beer bottle. His cheeks were pink like the birthmark above his eye. Eddie kept his eyes on Buck though.
“A dream about Chris?”
“Well—yeah kind of. In a way. A dream about us; the three of us, like this.” Buck was flustered, and could feel Eddie looking at him, which always made Buck ramble.
“It was the first night I slept here, like, the first night with all of my stuff set up in the bedroom and everything. And I just—we were getting Chris ready for something important. Together. I was tying his tie in the mirror in his room and you were digging your dress shoes out of our closet because Chris, he had this growth spurt and didn’t fit in his anymore.”
Eddie looked on fondly as Buck explained his dream, hanging on every word of this fantasy future his boyfriend was dreaming up for the two of them. He imagined too, the way they’d look down at Chris—well Buck would look down and Eddie would probably look up with the way Chris kept growing every time he shut his eyes to blink. How Eddie would adjust his lapels, and Buck would zhuzh his hair, and Chris would wave them both off to take a look in the mirror by himself.
“Well, we—we watched him walk out to this limo he rented with his girlfriend and friends, and he waved back to us with this big smile on his face and said ‘bye dads!’ and I just—”
It struck Eddie in that moment what this was all about.
“Buck…”
“You called him our kid,” he replied softly.
Eddie set down his beer to take Buck’s hand in both of his, squeezing it slightly and drawing shapes on the back with his thumbs.
“Buck, I do mean it, you know that right? From the second I landed in LA, you’ve had not just my back, but Chris’s. You’ve packed lunches, chaperoned field trips, introduced us to Carla. I put you in the will because you will fight for Chris like I would. You would fight like a father would. And I can’t imagine doing all of this with anyone else.”
Buck finally looks up at Eddie with misty eyes, and Eddie took one of his hands to Buck’s cheek.
“I mean it, Buck. You’re not a stepdad, yet at least, but you’re a dad who stepped up,” Eddie says with a wicked smile. Buck bursts out laughing at that, leaning into Eddie with a smile wider than his.
“Okay, okay, I get it. I’m over the sappy stuff now, let’s just move on, okay?”
“Whatever you say, dad,” Eddie jokes back.
The two of them sit closer now, Buck leaning into Eddie’s shoulder as they both look at the TV for something to watch. But before Eddie can put on Severance for the two of them, Buck pipes up softly.
“Did you mean it?”
“Mean what?”
“What you said about me being…a stepdad, just not yet?” Buck picked at a thread on his sweats. “You think you and him would have me? Like that?”
“Of course, Buck. We want you every way that you come. We love you.”
“I love you guys, too.”