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Four days after Eddie comes home from Texas, Buck falls.
He hits the mats covering the floor of the bouldering gym with a dull thud. The positives: he only fell a couple feet. The negatives: he only made it a couple feet up the wall before his arms decided they were over it and gave out.
“You okay?” Eddie asks. When Buck opens his eyes, he’s standing over Buck, one hand extended.
“Yeah,” Buck says, reluctantly.
He kind of wants to stay here, on the mats that smell like elementary school gym class. Instead, he takes Eddie’s hand and lets him haul him up to standing.
They’ve been here for a half hour. Buck knows he’s doing a bad job of not letting his frustration show. It’s just—
“—I did a rope rescue six days ago ,” Buck complains. “I should be good at this.”
“Who was working the ropes?”
“Chimney.”
“Hm,” Eddie says. He’s got the judgmental little tick between his eyebrows that he gets whenever Buck talks about something that happened while he was in Texas. That, more than anything, cheers Buck up.
“Seriously,” Buck says. He runs the back of his hand across his face, getting the sweat out of his eyes. “What am I doing wrong?”
“Nothing. You just have to get used to it.” Eddie reaches inside the bag he brought, brushes chalk on his hands. “I’ve been doing this five months. You started today. Give it a sec.”
Buck knows. Eddie had barely been in El Paso for a month when he answered Buck’s call, sounding out of breath, apologizing. Telling him he was at the gym.
“If you plan your route before you get up there, you won’t be spending so much time trying to figure it out when you’re hanging there and getting exhausted,” Eddie says. “That’s how you end up falling. Trevor told me—”
“Trevor?” Buck repeats.
He doesn’t know what his expression is doing, but it must be something, because Eddie looks up from his fancy little chalk bag. His face cracks into a smile.
“Trevor from the gym. Don’t worry,” Eddie says. He rubs the back of his hand across his forehead, leaving a little smear of chalk below his hairline. He’s still looking at Buck like he’s holding back a laugh. “He wasn’t my type.”
Buck blinks. “Uh, yeah,” he says.
“Listen, just watch me,” Eddie says and approaches the wall.
Buck steps back. He watches.
He doesn't really get why Eddie thought this would put him in a better mood. Eddie picks his way up the wall like it’s as easy as climbing a ladder, as crossing a street. They’ve graduated from the 0-level routes he made Buck start at, ignoring Buck’s protests that zero is pretty much the most humiliating number there is, but Buck’s not stupid: Eddie’s only doing the easy routes because that’s what Buck can manage—or try to, anyway.
Where Buck was hanging onto the wall for dear life, losing feeling in his stupid rented climbing booties that make him feel like a dog walking on too hot pavement, trying to find where the fuck he could reach another blue hold, Eddie just—goes. He stands in front of the route for a second, considering, then pulls himself up and barely stops moving until he reaches the top. He pulls himself from one stupid little piece of plastic to the next, moving his toes from the big round thing where Buck got stuck to the weird little piece that looks like a fucked up kidney stone that Buck had discounted as probably a joke, too small to even try getting his weight on. The whole way, the muscles in Eddie’s shoulders are shifting smoothly under his loose black tank top.
Eddie looks good. It’s kind of unfair, Buck thinks, that Buck has to be sweating through his t-shirt and falling on his ass, and Eddie gets to look hot and muscular and be good at this, all at once.
He doesn’t really think that Eddie came back from El Paso different. He looks the same, talks the same, cracks jokes at Buck’s expense the same. But after six months of phone calls and grainy Facetimes, having a flesh and blood Eddie in front of Buck has been kind of…overwhelming.
Four days ago, Buck picked Eddie and Christopher up from the airport. He got there obscenely early and parked in the cell phone waiting lot with the professional drivers and the anxious parents, blaring music and trying to resist the urge to check their flight status every ten seconds. By the time Eddie texted that their plane had landed, the mix of anxiety-anticipation-excitement clogging up Buck’s chest had reached its peak.
Buck doesn’t remember the stretch of minutes between getting Eddie’s text and finding the two of them on the curb of LAX. One second, he was idling in the parking lot; the next, he was looking at Eddie looking back at him from between a guy with half a dozen suitcases in a pile and a couple having a fight.
Eddie hugged Buck once he got the car into park and fumbled his way through opening the trunk, once he got out of the car and around to the curb. He pressed his hands into Buck’s back, tight, and Buck’s heart did something stupid in his chest.
“I missed you,” Eddie said into Buck’s ear. Buck’s heart kept doing the stupid thing, convulsing distractingly in his chest. Eddie pulled back an inch, just far enough to get a look at Buck. His gaze moved over Buck’s face, coming to rest on his eyes. “You look good.”
Before Buck had a chance to figure out what to say to that, Christopher was interrupting, asking Buck for help with his bag and accepting a hug and telling him ten different stories from the plane and the airport and Texas, all at once. The moment fell away. They got in the car and drove. Every time Buck glanced over at the passenger’s seat, he found Eddie already looking back at him.
When Eddie gets to the top of the wall, he gets both hands on the final hold and hangs there for a second, turning his head so he can look down at Buck. His grin lights up his face, strands of hair sticking to his forehead. Buck smiles back. He’s not sure he could do anything else.
“See? Not so hard,” Eddie says when he makes it back to the ground.
“Yeah,” Buck snorts. “Sure.”
Eddie comes to stand next to Buck, close and in his space. “What did you think?” he says.
“You’re better at this than me,” Buck says. He tries not to let it come out sulky; Eddie’s grin suggests he failed.
“Eh,” Eddie says. He bumps his shoulder against Buck’s. “I’ve had a little more practice.”
“With Trevor?” Buck says, before he can stop himself. Eddie’s grin widens.
“Yeah, with Trevor,” Eddie says. He’s laughing at Buck. Buck’s covered in chalk and paying thirty dollars to climb a wall when he’s off the clock, all because Eddie said it would be fun, and Eddie’s laughing at him. “You wanna try again?”
“Not really.”
“C’mon, hotshot,” Eddie says. He slaps a hand on Buck’s back. “I know you do.”
“Fuck you,” Buck says. Eddie, the asshole, just laughs harder.
“You’re cute when you’re pissed off,” he says breezily. “Let’s go.”
Buck swallows. “In a sec,” he says, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. “Water.”
Eddie taps his hand against Buck’s arm, leaving behind a ghostly chalk handprint, and lets Buck go.
He crosses the gym to the water fountain. He fumbles with his water bottle for a second, taking his sweet time getting it open.
Buck can’t put his finger on it. Eddie hasn’t been different since he got back, not really. He’s been…happy. Really happy, in a way he wasn’t in the long months before he went to Texas, or in the even longer ones while he was in El Paso. Buck would say that it feels like everything is back to normal, finally, with Eddie and Chris in LA where they belong, with Eddie back at work next to Buck. But—
But there have been these moments.
At home—Eddie’s home, the one they’ve been sharing since Eddie got back—when Buck looks up from the pot he’s stirring and catches Eddie’s eyes on him. At work, when Eddie makes himself a cup of coffee and comes back with a second for Buck, when he takes his time passing it over to him, his hands lingering on Buck’s. At the door to the house, when he looks Buck up and down before they leave and tells him he looks good.
At the airport, when Eddie’s eyes lingered on Buck before letting him go.
It feels like Eddie’s waiting for something. It’s driving Buck a little crazy, not being able to figure out what it is.
Is this how Eddie was before? Did Buck, somehow, forget? He doesn’t think that’s the case. He’s not sure how it could be, because he doesn’t think he would’ve forgotten Eddie being…like this.
Buck finishes filling up his water bottle and takes a long drink. When he lowers the bottle, he sees Eddie across the gym—Eddie and the woman who’s talking to him.
Flirting with him is maybe the better description, actually, as Buck slowly crosses the gym back toward them. Eddie’s facing away from Buck, but he can see the woman clearly, can see the way she keeps laughing loudly at whatever Eddie’s saying, the way her hand keeps getting closer and closer to Eddie’s arm with every big gesture she makes.
“That’s very nice of you,” Eddie says, when Buck’s gotten close enough to overhear without being noticed. Eddie’s got his grocery store voice on, the one he pulls out when someone tries to press a free sample on him or he gets caught listening to an old lady explaining which one of her grandkids taught her about protein powder. “But I’m actually here with someone.”
Buck doesn’t hear what the woman says back, but he sees what her face does, going polite and apologetic and smooth. She excuses herself and disappears. Buck takes a step toward the edge of the mat. Hesitates.
“Hey,” Eddie says, catching sight of Buck. His face splits into a genuine smile. “You ready?”
“Do I have a choice?” Buck says.
Eddie laughs. Then he pauses, leaning in toward Buck, his eyes intent on Buck’s face.
“Hey,” Eddie says. His voice dips, going quiet the closer he gets to Buck. “You’ve got, uh. A little chalk.”
He raises his hand to Buck’s face and, slowly, brushes his thumb across Buck’s cheek. Buck goes still. After a second that feels like thirty, he pulls away.
Buck swallows. Eddie claps him on the back, his hand lingering for a half a second, and starts for the wall.
Buck follows him. Every step they take together, their shoulders brush against each other. “If you can get up to there”—Eddie points with one hand and sets the other in the middle of Buck’s back, all in one movement, and Buck is suddenly finding it very hard to pay attention to what Eddie’s saying—“then it’s smooth sailing. I liked that edge there, but you can go the other way if you think it’s—”
“Why did you lie to her?” Buck asks.
Eddie stills. “Excuse me?”
“That woman,” Buck says. “She was asking you out, right? Why did you lie to her?”
“I didn’t.”
“You said you were here with someone.”
“I am here with someone,” Eddie says slowly.
“Come on,” Buck says.
He can hear his pulse in his ears. Eddie is looking back at him. When he caught sight of Buck a minute ago, his expression had opened up. That open thing behind his eyes closed fast, when Buck started talking.
“Buck,” Eddie says.
“You can’t just say that,” Buck says. There’s an urgency beating behind his ribs. He doesn’t know where it came from, but it’s here now, writhing and horrible and forcing him on even when the look on Eddie’s face is telling him to shut up, stop talking while he still can. “You can’t, you can’t just—”
“Why not?” Eddie says. A spark’s caught in his gaze. He folds his arms. “Why can’t I, Buck?”
“Because,” Buck says. “It’s not a joke.”
He turns on his heel. He needs to be—not here. He needs to be away from Eddie. He needs to know what the hell is going on.
He collapses at the edge of the mats. The smell of old feet is even worse down here.
Six months ago—six months ago, Buck made himself a promise. It was a promise masquerading as a fact, and he said it to Tommy and to Maddie and to himself, again and again in the immediate, miserable days after Eddie left: Buck wasn’t in love with Eddie. He thinks—he’s pretty sure—that it was true when he said it. He said it because he meant for it to stay true. Because he needed it to stay true.
Six months passed. It didn’t get any less true. It—maybe—didn’t get any more true, but he had that much. He’d said it and he meant it. This whole thing, this whole life Buck’s been trying to build and hang onto without Eddie in it every day, it depended on that being true. He’s not sure how he could keep doing it—keep waking up in the house that was Eddie’s, keep going to work at a job that he did best next to Eddie, keep moving on with his life as it had become—if it wasn’t true.
And then, Eddie came home. And then, Eddie moved himself and his son back into his old house. Eddie started looking at Buck and smiling at him and standing closer than he needs to, and now—and now, Eddie’s telling women in bouldering gyms that he’s with someone, like that’s anything, like that’s real.
Buck’s not sure what he's supposed to do with that.
After a minute, he feels the mat next to him sink. Eddie sits beside him, shoulder just brushing Buck’s.
“I’m sorry,” Eddie says quietly.
“Don’t be,” Buck says.
Buck’s embarrassment isn’t quite as fast as his anger, but it’s pretty quick. He feels stupid. He feels small. He feels, still, confused.
“I think I fucked up,” Eddie says.
Buck shakes his head. With effort, he raises his head to look at Eddie. Eddie’s looking back at him.
Eddie leans into him. It’s a good feeling. Buck doesn’t think there’s a world where he doesn’t lean right back, resting the weight of his shoulder against Eddie’s. “For the record,” Eddie says. “I wasn’t lying when I told that woman that I’m here with someone, Buck.”
“What,” Buck says, “the fuck does that mean?”
“It means…” Eddie brings one hand up to rub across his face, his arm shifting against Buck’s. “It means, I was trying it out.”
Buck’s heart is doing that complicated thing again. His stomach is threatening to join it. “You’re really freaking me out right now, man.”
“I’m sorry,” Eddie says again. “I can lay off. I’ll stop.”
“Stop what? ”
“I don’t know,” Eddie says. “Stop flirting with you, I guess.”
Buck stares at him. Eddie looks right back, not blinking.
“Come on,” Buck says again.
“It’s not a joke, Buck."
Eddie’s not looking at Buck like he’s joking. He’s been teasing Buck all day, laughing at him, elbowing him, grinning at him big and easy. There’s no trace of that in the Eddie looking back at him now.
Eddie’s still talking. “I know it was stupid. I didn’t expect that you would just, I don’t know, not notice. But I thought, maybe it would make it feel like less of a big deal if I just. Eased into it a little,” he says. “I was nervous. I thought this might make it easier. But I can back off, Buck. I get it. It’s okay if you don’t feel the same.”
“The same?” Buck repeats.
“Yeah,” Eddie says.
“Hold on,” Buck says. “How do you feel?”
Eddie stares at him. Somewhere behind them, someone hits the mat and cusses good-naturedly.
“I just said I was flirting with you,” Eddie says. “What do you think that means?”
Buck rubs a hand over his eyes. “Tell me,” he says. “Please.”
Eddie laughs, a quiet, breathy noise. “Buck, man,” he says. He shifts on the mat, sitting up a little straighter. One of Buck’s hands is resting on the edge of the mat, fingernails against the seam, not quite digging in. Eddie sets his hand next to it. “I told you, when I was in Texas. I realized that I needed to come home. But coming home—it didn’t just mean coming back to LA. It meant coming back to you,” Eddie says. “If you wanted it, it would mean coming back to be with you.”
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Buck is aware that someone just reached the top of a wall behind Eddie’s head. Someone else just cracked a joke with their friend, laughing loudly a couple feet away from them. Someone’s at the front desk, arguing with the employee about their membership fees. The gym is crowded and loud and Buck’s not taking in any of it.
“Me,” Buck says. “Be with me.”
“Are you going to repeat everything I say?” Eddie says, light. His expression doesn’t match his voice.
Buck shakes his head slowly.
Buck feels it now. What he’s been so afraid of since Eddie left. This feeling, it’s the kind of thing that could run away with him, if Buck let it. Suddenly, Buck’s standing on the edge of something he can’t see the bottom of. He’s clinging onto the wall of the goddamn blue route and he can’t figure out where the floor is below him. If he lets himself go, he’s not sure he’s going to find his way back to where he started.
It’s terrifying. It’s everything he’s been trying not to let himself get close to for the past six months and change. It’s probably the end of the world, except—
Except, the Eddie in Buck’s imagination never looked at him like this.
Eddie gives Buck a healthy amount of time to come up with some kind, any kind, of response. When the threshold of a normal silence has come and gone, he reaches out and raps his knuckles against the back of Buck’s hand.
“Any thoughts, Buckley?”
“I think,” Buck says. “I think—I think I’m probably done with bouldering for the day.”
“Okay,” Eddie says slowly.
Buck feels an abrupt wave of grief, for himself of six months ago, three weeks ago, one day. For the guy who tried so hard not to feel this. For everything he’s done since Eddie moved away that’s made it, even for a second, anything but easy to hear what Eddie’s feeling and feel it right back at him.
“Eddie,” Buck says. “Man—I think you should probably take me home, or I’m going to start making out with you in the bouldering gym.”
Eddie stares at him. He blinks once, then twice.
“I can find another bouldering gym,” Eddie says, and kisses Buck.
When it was first suggested to Buck that he might have feelings for Eddie, he made a point of focusing on that side of it: the feelings. The emotional half of what being in love with could encompass. It was enough to deal with, imagining what it would be like to care about Eddie that way, without also opening up the can of worms that was being attracted to Eddie. Wanting him.
He regrets, abruptly, every second he’s spent not thinking about this. Eddie said he was nervous about this, but he isn’t kissing Buck like he’s scared of this. He kisses Buck like he’s sure.
Eddie smells vaguely of sweat and chalk. Buck’s awareness is whittled down to every place where Eddie is touching him. His mouth. His shoulder, still pressing into Buck’s. His hand on Buck’s jaw. Buck feels—Buck feels like the fucking climbing hold on the wall, Eddie’s grip on him sure and steady and secure.
When Eddie pulls back, Buck has to blink at him a few times. It feels abruptly too bright in here.
“Okay?” Eddie says quietly. The little line between his eyebrows is back, hesitance creeping into his expression.
“I think I’m in love with you,” Buck blurts out.
The guarded look on Eddie’s face disappears. He laughs.
“Too much?” Buck asks.
“Come on,” Eddie says. He pushes off the mat and holds out one hand to Buck. “Let’s go home.”
Buck takes it.