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Eddie loves a lot of things.
He loves the way the sun feels on his skin when it’s just warm enough without being scorching. He loves fresh bed sheets. He loves the way Christopher still leans into his space when they’re near each other. He loves when tacos are made right and taste like the best pieces of home. He loves the weight of Buck against him in the evening; fresh oranges; the soaring feeling in his chest every time Buck laughs; the weight of his turnouts on his shoulders.
And this— Saturday mornings at the start of a forty-eight off; sunlight drenching the walls and the carpet and Buck next to him; the sweet ache in his muscles that comes from a solid night’s sleep; and the shaking of their bed that wakes him as Lucas climbs exuberantly onto it with kicking feet and determined hands and a head full of gloriously sleep-mussed blonde curls, his Daddy’s wide, bright smile already fixed to his face.
Eddie loves this.
“Oh my goodness,” Buck says from his place next to him as Lucas scrambles onto the bed, bouncing on his knees. “Eds, is there an earthquake?”
Eddie bites back the smile that rises to his features, tucking it into his cheek and doing an admittedly bad job of it. Luckily, newly five-year-olds aren’t that perceptive about it.
“There might be,” he plays along. “We gotta call 911!”
“No!” Lucas laughs, throwing himself with abandon into the barely-there space between Eddie’s side and Buck’s, managing to elbow them both sharply in the process. “It’s just me!”
“What?” Buck gasps, throwing back the blankets on the bed and capturing Lucas in his arms in such a quick, fluid motion that the kid has no time to attempt to squirm away. “You’re the earthquake?” he demands over Lucas’ squeal of delighted surprise at finding himself trapped against Buck’s broad chest.
“No, Daddy,” he giggles, tilting his head back to look at Buck’s face. “I’m Lucas!”
Edie watches them, no longer bothering to hide his smile, and wishes— like almost every day— that he could freeze-frame this moment and keep it forever, just like it is. Buck is propped up against the pillows now with Lucas thoroughly cuddled into him, his small body in a set of pajamas that he’s nearly outgrown with little smiling planets and stars all over them, the ankles riding up just a little. His head is tilted back against Buck, still, and he’s beaming the way he always does when he looks at either of them— like they’re everything to him. And Buck, of course, is beaming right back, their matching smiles and mirrored pink birthmarks on full display.
It’s funny, Eddie thinks. There was a time when this reality must have felt so deeply out of reach to him. When he never could have imagined that they would be firmly tied together in parenthood not only to Christopher— who is, now, openly and equally theirs but also off in the world flourishing in all the ways Eddie ever could have wanted for him— but also to this child who completed their family five years ago.
That is— until he and Buck inevitably wear him down and they end up with the dog that they both want so desperately. He guesses that will really complete their family.
“Whew,” Eddie says teasingly, reaching out to trap Lucas’ ankle in his gentle grip. “I thought we might have to get Aunt Maddie on the phone for that one.”
Lucas turns to him, blue eyes wide. “We can only call 911 if there’s an emergency,” he recites, then tilts his head and adds— “But we can call Aunt Maddie any time.”
Eddie chuckles warmly as he watches Buck smooth Lucas’ curls back off of his forehead and press a kiss against his hairline.
“That’s right, bud,” Eddie says encouragingly, giving his foot a little shake. “You ready for breakfast?”
Lucas perks up. “The carnival!” he says, insistent and bright.
It’s Buck who laughs this time, shaking his head a little. “After breakfast, baby,” he says gently. The carnival was something Lucas had known about for all of two days— since a little girl in his ballet class had arrived with her face painted like a butterfly and regaled them all with wide-eyed tales of her afternoon at said carnival. Two days, they’d discovered, was plenty of time for him to remain entirely fixated on it and they had agreed to take him today.
After breakfast, of course.
Lucas looks back at Buck.
“Daddy,” he says seriously, putting his hand on Buck’s cheek. “I can only eat French toast.”
Buck grins. Eddie knows what he’s going to say well before he says it.
“With bananas?” he asks.
Lucas cheers, and with that their morning begins in earnest.
The day is as bright and sunny as any other in a typical Los Angeles June. After Buck’s standard French toast breakfast— the bread diligently cut into sticks before being dipped and fried, the bananas sliced into circles— Eddie had done the dishes while Buck walked Lucas through choosing an outfit and then they had switched. Eddie brushed his own teeth with Lucas next to him, while Buck made their bed and got dressed. Another switch— Buck helping Lucas make his own bed and put on his shoes, slathering him in sunscreen while Eddie got dressed, too. It’s how they work best— trading jobs, smiling at each other over Lucas’ head, operating in perfect tandem just like they always have. It’s reminiscent of the days when Chris was barely older than Lucas is now, and Buck would spend his weekends with them without ever having to be asked; when he’d show up for school drop-off and he was the only one who could get Christopher to hustle when he was slow and they were late.
Not so much is different now, Eddie thinks as they lead Lucas out into the driveway and Buck lifts him into his car seat. And yet— he adds to himself, catching Buck’s eye as he slides into the driver’s seat, noticing the faint, barely there lines around his eyes— so much is, too.
“Okay,” Buck says, glancing in the rearview mirror at Lucas, who’s practically vibrating with excitement. “Carnival time!”
“Yeah!” Lucas cheers in the backseat, throwing his hands up and everything. Eddie smiles at the sight, and then at his husband as the Jeep— not Buck’s old one, but near enough the same, the car he’d bought just before Lucas was born— hums beneath them.
“Alright,” he says. “Let’s go, boys.”
By the time they arrive, Lucas is beside himself with joy. From the parking lot, the sight of the turning Ferris wheel against a backdrop of endless blue sky is enough to make him kick his feet against the seat under him, so excited that he can’t contain it in his little body. Buck grins at the sound of his light-up sneakers hitting the seat, a familiar tone by now, and then looks over at Eddie as he puts the Jeep into park.
Lucas chatters about Emilia— the little girl from his ballet class— as Eddie lifts him out of his seat and sets him on the ground, while Buck collects the small backpack they keep in the back of the Jeep for outings and slings it over his shoulder knowing that it’s fully stocked with extra sunscreen, water, wet wipes, and a first-aid kit.
“And,” Lucas is saying as he puts his hand in Eddie’s and they fall into step walking in the direction of the carnival entrance. “Emilia said that she went all the way up!”
“All the way, huh?” Eddie asks, looking at the Ferris wheel that’s towering above them. “That’s high, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Lucas answers emphatically, a skip in his step at the mere thought of it. Buck has stepped away to purchase tickets, so Eddie takes the moment to crouch down in front of Lucas, who’s looking all around with wide, bright blue eyes. Hands on the boy’s hips, Eddie draws his attention in with a practiced little squeeze and meets his gaze.
“Okay,” he says, Dad voice fully on. “Remember our rules for big places?”
Lucas nods his head enthusiastically, bracing his own hands on Eddie’s shoulders like a habit. “No running,” he starts. “Stay with Dad. Or-or with Daddy. And always hold hands and— and—”
“And,” Eddie says gently, “this one is harder. Look out for our—”
“Our surroundings!” Lucas chirps. “Like so we don’t step on stuff or trip and fall.”
This, Eddie thinks, is a particularly important rule for Lucas— a social butterfly with Buck’s propensity for astonishment, he has lost his footing and gone tumbling more than a couple of times out of sheer distraction.
“Right,” Eddie praises. “Good job, bud.”
Buck returns then like he could be on cue, and his blue eyes are sparkling as much as Lucas’ are when he looks down at them, one hand on the crown of Eddie’s head, and says—
“Who’s ready to go?”
It’s a resounding, easy answer. They wrap paper admission bracelets around all three of their wrists and then situate Lucas between them, each of his hands in one of theirs, as they make their way inside. Lucas looks around at everything in total wonder, and Eddie relaxes into the moment. He hasn’t always been able to do that— particularly when Christopher was around Lucas’ age and he was just beginning to do all of this on his own with a child who didn’t know him as well as he would have liked him to. This is easier, simpler— he has a partner next to him all the time now, someone who takes half and occasionally more of the duties of fatherhood. It’s not up to Eddie to be vigilant all the time anymore, and the days when it was feel like a muddled, distant memory. The twenty-something single father who’d felt lost and drowning feels so far away to him now.
And maybe that’s why he misses it at first, on this particular day. He’s not as vigilant as he used to be. He’s distracted by the sweet scent of funnel cake in the air and the warmth of the sun and the contentment of carousel music filtering in over Lucas’ incessant, adorable chatter and his intermittent requests for them to swing him between their clasped hands.
They started out small, too— playing boardwalk-style games involving catching rubber ducks and tossing rings, the easy stuff. Lucas is over the moon when he wins a stuffed tiger whose eyes are unbelievably lopsided. They ride the merry-go-round— or rather, Buck takes Lucas and lifts him up onto the animal of his choice, which turns out to be an ostrich, inexplicably. Eddie stands at the fence, shoulders relaxed, and snaps a photo of the two of them when the ride circles around, Buck standing dutifully next to the ostrich while Lucas waves wildly, beaming. They even locate the face-painting station, where Lucas is quick to ask for a butterfly like Emilia’s— pink, he says, because it will match the color of the birthmark splashed onto his cheekbone beneath his eye.
So yeah, maybe Eddie misses the signs. He’ll look back later and think that Buck had been kind of quiet, a little subdued as they inched further from the games and closer to the rides. But he’d had no problem climbing into a too-small train car with Lucas, explaining how a steam engine works to him despite this particular train being far from one of those. He had seemed a little bit unsure about the cotton candy request, but he’d taken his seat with Lucas at a picnic table while Eddie bought it anyway— the kid was going to be hyped up on sugar either way, but there are a stash of vegetable nuggets in their freezer at home that will be an easy, nutritious dinner after all of this. They’ve always agreed that it’s about balance.
The thing is, Eddie is starting to realize that this is actually not about Lucas’ sugar intake. Because they’re standing outside the gate of the Tilt-a-Whirl ride, with its spinning half-domes and relatively short line, and Eddie looks at his husband and can’t miss the anxiety on his face.
“I-I don’t think you’re gonna be tall enough for that one, sunshine,” Buck’s saying to Lucas. Eddie glances over at the sign posted next to the line of people waiting for the ride, and finds that while it’s pretty close, Lucas definitely meets the height requirement. Not to mention the fact that it’s a really tame ride, all things considered, and one or even both of them will be able to go with him. All three of them can cram into one of those seats easily.
“But—” Lucas starts, understandably confused.
“Maybe we can just test it out,” Eddie suggests. “Check the height—”
“Or,” Buck says. “Uh, we can do something else. Can’t we, Lucas?”
Eddie looks over at him. There’s a tension in the set of Buck’s shoulders that wasn’t there this morning. He was happy and relaxed before, moving around their kitchen with his usual ease and taking up space just the way Eddie loves. He was taking bites of Lucas’ French toast stick when the kid offered them, making him giggle by pretending to eat the ends of his fingers, too. Whatever this is, it’s new, something that has settled in since they got here.
Lucas gets a sad look on his face, and Eddie steps forward a little. They’re kind of in the way where they’re standing, so he scoops Lucas up onto his hip and reaches for Buck, removing them from the path of other people trying to get to the ride. In the process, he studies his husband, who’s gotten that furrow between his eyebrows suddenly.
“Buck,” he says. “I can go with him if you don’t want to go, or—”
“I just think,” Buck says, a touch too loud the way he does when he’s slipping; when he’s anxious or angry, and Eddie knows it isn’t the latter, “that we can— we can go on something else.”
Eddie looks at Lucas, who’s uncharacteristically quiet in his arms. He hesitates, knowing that they’re on the verge of ruining this otherwise perfect day very quickly. Five-year-olds, even those with personalities as easygoing as theirs, don’t take well to their carnival dreams being dashed. Eddie can see the meltdown coming a mile away, and he’d really like to avoid it if he can.
“Okay,” he says slowly, looking back at Buck. “Maybe we can do the Ferris wheel, then.”
It all kind of happens at once. Lucas brightens, and Buck does the opposite; there’s little time between for Eddie to predict what’s about to happen, let alone to actually do anything about it. And then Buck says,
“No!”
Like he can’t help it. In that way that means he didn’t think it, didn’t process it, just said it. And beneath the surface of his voice, there’s a simmering something that Eddie doesn’t like. Something that’s a little more sharp than nervousness, something with deeper roots and more jagged edges.
Lucas’ face falls, and Buck frantically tries to backtrack. “I-I mean—” he starts, but it’s too late.
“But,” Lucas starts, aghast as he looks between his parents. “That’s not fair!”
The thing is, Eddie is inclined to agree. They go out of their way to be fair to Lucas; they’re not the ‘life isn’t fair’ type of parents. They always take their time to explain things to him when he doesn’t understand, often overexplaining, even. They’re not afraid to be late to something because they were spelling out for their toddler why he has to wear shoes to his doctor’s appointment or talking him through why he can’t be the one to carry the pan of brownies they’re taking to Bobby and Athena’s for a party. It’s part of what they agree on the most in their parenting— neither of them ever want to be unfair to their kid just for the sake of it.
And this feels a little like that, honestly. There’s no reason why Lucas shouldn’t be able to go on the rides they brought him here to go on in the first place, and it’s out of character for either of them to say no to him without a reason, an explanation.
Something is wrong.
There’s full-blown panic on Buck’s face now, and Eddie doesn’t know why; Lucas looks on the verge of tears, too, and the whole situation feels about three seconds from spiraling so far out of his grasp that Eddie will never be able to grasp it back again. So, he does what he does best, and spurs into action.
“Okay, Diazes,” he says with a little bit of forced lightness. “Let’s go sit over here and take a little time-out for a sec.”
Lucas is familiar with this terminology— not in the way a lot of kids his age are, but in the way that their family takes it. To them, the phrase equates something like a breather. Eddie will never be entirely free of lingering PTSD, and Buck has his own traumas alongside what is probably ADHD-related anxiety. Christopher has been through more than most people his age by about tenfold, and Lucas— though only five and as yet undiagnosed— is more than likely also ADHD. They all need it occasionally, and in this moment it serves them well because it lets Lucas understand what’s going on. Eddie congratulates himself on at least staving off the tears for a minute while he turns his attention to Buck, shepherding him gently over to a nearby bench out of the way with a hand to his back.
He pushes his husband gently onto the bench and Buck sits, then immediately leans forward with his elbows on his knees, and that’s when Eddie realizes that he’s only really staved off the tears for one of his boys. He crouches in front of Buck, Lucas still in his arms, and looks up into his husband’s eyes as he takes a shuddering breath indicative of panic.
“Daddy?” Lucas says, his voice suddenly small and scared. Eddie pulls him a little closer where he’s now leaning against him, rubbing his hand lightly over his hip.
“It’s okay,” he whispers. “Daddy’s alright. He just needs to breathe.” Eddie reaches out, his hand covering Buck’s knee, and rubs his thumb lightly into the joint. “Right?” he murmurs, more to Buck now. “We’re just gonna take a breath together. C’mon, Buck. Breathe for me.”
He does— it doesn’t look easy, exactly, but this is somewhere in the realm of minor panic, not the full-blown panic attack that it could be. Eddie thinks back quickly, wracking his brains for what could have triggered a reaction like this as he keeps rubbing Buck’s knee gently, tethering him. And that’s when he sees it— the Ferris wheel, towering over them with its colorful buckets standing out against the easy blue of the sky.
He doesn’t know why he didn’t get it before. But in this moment, it takes him back to a day just like this one, with perfect warm weather and a cloudless sky and—
And a little boy with sweet curls in a yellow t-shirt, much like the one covering Lucas’ shoulders now. And a Ferris wheel, one that was swept up in the forceful waters of a tsunami and which quickly became a death trap.
Chest tight suddenly, Eddie glances around and recognizes so many pieces of that day that had escaped him before— the arcade games; the photobooth in the corner; the cotton candy spinning soft and pink on its wheel; the Tilt-a-Whirl that Chris had recounted for him on the drive to Buck’s the following day, already bouncing back like little kids do.
He turns back to Buck, who’s breathing a little more steadily but looking still tense and on the verge of tears, and now he understands.
“Okay,” Eddie breathes, nodding his head and then looking at their son. It’s funny— how much he manages to look like Christopher, given that they’re not biologically related at all. He loves that about them, and knows that Buck does, too. But today, here, it’s a little more complicated than that. Eddie can understand that. He sees Christopher everywhere, even now— sees Lucas in kids at work that even look nothing like him. The lines blur sometimes, when you love a child that much, that wholly.
“Mi sol,” he murmurs to Lucas now, catching his attention. “You want to cuddle up with Daddy for a minute? I bet it’s gonna make him feel a lot better.”
Lucas is quick to nod his head. The pink sparkles in his butterfly face paint shimmer in the light as he moves, climbing into Buck’s lap with the abandon and trust only a five-year-old can muster while Buck moves instinctively to accommodate him and then wraps him up into a hug that has Eddie’s heart squeezing tight in his chest.
Now that his hands are free, he puts one back on Buck’s knee and uses the other to reach up, gently smoothing his fingertips over Buck’s cheek and drawing his gaze to him.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were thinking about that day?” he asks gently.
Buck shakes his head a little. “I-I wasn’t,” he says. “Until I was.”
Eddie nods, and Lucas looks between them, his eyebrows furrowing in a way that makes the two of them look practically identical.
Buck presses his cheek to his head and takes in a breath— the first one that sounds steady since they moved to the bench.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers to their kid, so soft Eddie almost misses it. “I didn’t mean to be not fair.”
Lucas thinks about this for a minute, and Eddie watches him look over Buck’s shoulder at the Ferris wheel with that look on his face— like he’s figuring something out. And then he turns his body, twisting in Buck’s arms so he can look at him fully.
“Daddy?” Lucas says. “Are you scared to go on the rides?”
Buck tilts his head. “I guess I am, yeah,” he admits. It’s more complex than that, Eddie knows. But it’s true, too, and in this way Lucas will understand the unease that his dad is feeling.
At this answer, unexpectedly, Lucas brightens. He looks like Buck then, too— the expression he gets when he has the answer, the fact, the solution. Eddie has seen it over aquarium walls and battering rams and sleepless newborn nights alike. To see it on their baby’s face takes his breath away every time, now included.
“Okay!” he says, decisive. And then he reaches up and puts his hand on Buck’s cheek, his fingers cupping his jaw in such a way that sends a wave of warmth cascading over Eddie as he watches Lucas lock his blue eyes onto Buck’s and soften his voice.
“We don’t have to go if you’re scared,” he says, soft. “It’s okay.”
And sometimes— like this moment— Eddie is so swept away by him. Watching Buck’s features melt in the face of their baby as the tension eases off of him like all he needed was Lucas’ soft, childlike reassurance: it’s enough to make Eddie feel like he could cry, suddenly. He’s so warm and compassionate and all the best of each of them.
He watches as Buck blinks hard, and loves them both so much that it floods every vein in his body with shimmering, golden warmth that even the sun above them could not begin to replicate.
Buck folds Lucas into his arms, hugs him tight and sweet and easy as Lucas throws his arms over Buck’s broad shoulders. He’s watched them do it a thousand times, and he knows there will never be a time when he feels like he’s seen it enough.
“Thank you, sunshine,” Buck says softly into Lucas’ curls. “You’re being so kind.”
Lucas nods his head, resolute and confident. “Dad always says it’s okay if I’m scared,” he tells Buck. “And you and everybody else.”
Buck nods, and when he pulls away with Lucas in his lap, he already looks steadier.
“That’s right,” he says, still soft as he looks back at Eddie. “We do say that, don’t we?”
Eddie grins. “All the time,” he answers, rubbing Buck’s knee again as he looks between them. “What do you guys think we should do?”
Lucas looks up at Buck, thoughtful. “Maybe we can go to the zoo instead,” he says, reasonably. “Because I want to see a real ostrich now.”
And later— when it’s just the two of them— they’re going to have to talk about this. Eddie is already thinking about using the time in the car to text Chris and ask if he’s up to FaceTime Buck tonight. But it’s what they do for each other, like always. And for the time being, Buck laughs and Lucas beams and they both mean it equally, and Eddie thinks back to the waters that had connected him to his boys on that day, even before he knew it, flooded, saltwater molecules that had touched all three of them under a sun like this.
“Sounds good to me,” he says, reaching for Lucas’ hand as he hops back down to the pavement and Eddie looks at Buck with a question in his eyes he doesn’t really have to voice. There had been a time when he would have needed to do more to care for Buck, to bring him back to them in full.
But now when his eyes ask, are you good, Buck sparkles back at him.
“I’m good,” he says.
Buck is soft and sure, and Lucas is already happy and excited again, and Eddie—
Eddie looks up at the Ferris wheel, and finds that he is just grateful.