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The first tattoo happens three weeks after Eddie moves to Texas.
It’s all becoming a little too much for Buck to bear and when he starts drinking the beer in the fridge faster than he can buy it, he knows that he needs to slow down and be more thoughtful. So, he does one of the only things he knows that has ever really brought him back to earth when he’s floating. A new tattoo.
It’s a Camellia—small, tucked just above the crook of his elbow. He doesn’t pick it for any reason at first, just flips through the flash sheets until his eyes catch on the shape. But when the artist starts inking the petals, Buck realizes it feels like something. It shakes him down to his core the way the needle hits skin, the way it vibrates his entire body. It’s satisfying in a way that nothing else is. It feels like cementing a loss somehow, and Buck craves it. Craves more.
Camellias mean longing is what he learns from a long Goggle rabbit hole later that night. Or maybe remembrance, people really can’t seem to decide on that, but he thinks either one fits the way he’s feeling right now. Or maybe he just needs a reason to feel pain that makes sense. He adores it so much that he adds a Sunflower only a few days later, telling the artist he wanted something else, an additional symbol. It feels right, like somehow those two things inked on his skin forever can erase the pain of events he can’t control.
They heal cleanly. Neat lines, in simple black and grey . Every time he catches sight of it in the mirror, his chest aches in a way he can’t explain.
—-------
The next is a Celtic knot. No beginning, no end.
It curls low on his right bicep, symmetrical in solid black ink with thick lines. Buck tells himself it’s just for the aesthetic. That he liked the balance of it, the intricacy. But he knows that’s not true.
The night before the appointment, he couldn’t sleep. He laid in bed thinking about how Eddie used to curl into him on movie nights, always half-asleep by the end with his head on Buck’s shoulder. Buck never pushed him away even though he should have, even though cuddling on the couch is a little less than platonic. He thought about how he and Chris used to tease Buck for crying during the movie Up, despite how many times they watched it during Buckley-Diaz movie night. About how empty the house feels. It’s too quiet, too still without the joy and laughter and warmth that he’s become so accustomed to.
He shows Hen the design before he goes, and she frowns softly. “You okay?” Her voice is low and quiet, eyes trained on the flowers he’d gotten only 3 weeks previously. It’s still healing, a little red from where it rubs against his uniform long sleeve. He pulls a shirt over his head that’s long enough to cover the ink before she can keep staring, keep looking right through him.
“Yeah,” Buck says, too fast. “Just… figuring things out.”
Hen hums like she doesn’t believe him, but she lets it go.
—-------
The tree comes next and it’s not one he can truly explain. Not one that he can pretend isn’t about the gaping hole that Eddie and Chris’s absence has left in his heart. Sometimes it feels like if someone looks too closely they’ll physically see the way that Buck is damaged by it all.
It’s nothing big—just a tiny tree, barely bigger than a half dollar, etched onto the inside of his left arm. The artist asks if it means something, and Buck lies. Says he just liked the way it fits on his body, how pretty it is. He’s a big guy but he has a lot of tattoos already that he got because he thought they looked objectively pretty. This one doesn’t have to be any different.
Except it is. Because it’s not just the look or shape or aesthetic that drew Buck to it. It’s the tree from the park where they used to take Chris on Sundays, when Eddie still lived in LA. It’s the tree Buck leaned against while he and Eddie taught Chris to ride his skateboard, the bark he can still feel under his skin when he closes his eyes.
The moment is carved into Buck’s memory like he’s a piece of marble that an artist chipped into. So now he wears it on his skin.
It’s later that same day he sees the compass design in another artist's portfolio. He thinks about how long it’s been since he’s seen Eddie in person–two months. There’s texts and calls, FaceTime when either of them is having a particularly difficult day. But, it’s not the same as it once was. Buck’s life feels off kilter, incorrect. So, when he sees the compass he just–he knows.
Eddie’s focused on Chris, on being present, on healing what broke between them when everything got too hard. Buck doesn’t resent him for it. He just doesn’t know what to do with the ache that comes whenever he thinks about the two of them, 800 miles away.
So he gets the compass inked right then and there, the saniderm on his left arm tugging uncomfortably with each drag of the needle on his shoulder blade. North on the face points slightly off-center. Not wrong per say, just… adjusted. Just like Buck feels. Like he's getting used to the way his internal compass wobbles without Eddie there to right it. He mentions that to the artist, whose eyes soften just a tad. He decides right then he won't go to another artist, because somehow…she gets it.
“You’re doing a lot of self-expression lately,” Maddie notes one day when she sees him changing after a shift as she’s bringing him some extra sheets for the guest bed he’s been sleeping on when the house gets too overwhelming to sleep in.
Buck shrugs. “Just filling space.”
She doesn’t push, just gives him a pitying look that makes him want to scream.
—-------
He keeps going.
A wave on his inner forearm, stylized and sharp-edged. A thin arrow along his collarbone, pointing inward. A matchstick behind his ear, a reminder that things that spark quick fizzle out even quicker.
He gets a little vine winding up the inside of his wrist, fine-lined and almost delicate, except for the thorns that adorn it. A moon tucked just under his ribs. A pair of wings at the base of his neck, just beneath the collar of a traditional t-shirt, definitely low enough to be hidden by any uniform shirt in his closet.
Each one is a moment. A memory. They hold weight, and he can’t exactly explain what he’s doing to anyone else in his life. He doesn’t plan them out. They just show up. Like clockwork. Like every time the ache for Eddie becomes too loud, he finds a way to bleed it out and make something permanent.
People start to notice more easily than before.
“You building a sleeve?” Chim asks one night, gesturing to Buck’s arm where ink dots like constellations, each tattoo its own small universe on his skin. He’s gotten more that aren’t coverable recently, and he wonders if it’s a good thing or a bad thing that his brother-in-law can’t see the rest. He’s been careful about changing in front of the crew these days, not wanting to field the questions or concerns.
“Not really,” Buck replies. “I just– I like the patchwork stuff.”
He doesn’t say what they’re made of: missing pieces, empty hours, and phone calls that just aren't long enough. He keeps that to himself.
—-------
The phoenix comes after a fight with Maddie.
She didn’t mean to upset him, she never does. But she asked why he hadn’t moved on. Why he hadn’t dated anyone since he and Tommy broke up and Eddie left. Why he doesn't go out with the team anymore. Why he's still clinging to something that never officially started. She was frustrated with him, voice rising in the kitchen, trying to force Buck to admit something that he doesn’t even think he can let his own mind wander to. He didn’t have an answer to her questions. Just rage and pain and love he couldn’t put anywhere.
So he gets the phoenix. It’s smaller than he thought he would have wanted, but it’s perched above his heart, wings tucked tight, not quite ready to rise. He loves it, thinks it’s sacred. There's script below it that he got a few weeks prior, directly over his heart and it feels almost like a perch for the bird. He likes the way both things fit on his body. It makes him feel a little more whole.
He doesn’t post pictures. Doesn’t show anyone. This one is just for him. Just for them if he ever gets a chance to show it.
But he touches it sometimes, absently, like a prayer. Like a little reminder than even with Eddie gone, Buck can restart, can rise from the ashes of his own life that he can barely remember owning anymore.
—-------
Almost 6 month passes.
He’s got over a dozen now. Tiny flowers, all different—Daisy, Freesia, Bluebell, Hydrangea–adding to the bouquet on his bicep, each one a different meaning and feeling. A storm cloud on his ankle. A sun hidden just under the edge of his waistband against his hip bone. The ink climbs across his arms, peek out from his neckline, spiral down his ribs like ivy. His chest and upper arms are the worst, lines thin and thick, spiraling across his body in meanings he can’t give a voice to.
He knows that the others can’t see the more important ones, the ones that will elicit soft voices and pitying looks. He’s been careful about changing since people started asking. But, no one says much anymore. The team has learned to let Buck grieve the way he needs to. He’s not hurting himself so they must think he’s fine.
But some nights, Buck lies awake staring at the ceiling and wonders if he’s carving himself hollow. If he’s trying to replace the ache with art because he doesn’t know how to let himself just feel it.
—-------
Eddie comes back on a Thursday.
There’s no fanfare or warning. Just the sound of keys in the lock and a quiet “Hey” from the doorway. Buck nearly drops the casserole dish in his hands.
He looks older. Grounded. He holds himself differently—like he finally forgave himself for everything he couldn’t fix. Chris rushes into Buck’s arms as soon as he sees him, like nothing ever changed. Eddie follows, smiling, soft-eyed.
They move back in. Slowly. Naturally. Like it was always temporary, like they’d always planned to return. And Buck doesn’t know where to put any of it. Doesn’t know where to put the feelings or what kind of voice to give them.
Eddie is warm. Present. Buck catches him looking sometimes; at his hands, his throat, his arms where the ink spills like stories untold. But Eddie never asks.
And Buck doesn’t volunteer the information. Doesn’t say how many more there are, what he’s been doing while Eddie was away.
He stops making tattoo appointments.
—-------
He hides his shame easily despite them living together. He locks himself in the bathroom a little too long after his showers and doesn’t allow himself to change in the locker room with the rest of the team. He keeps it secret, keeps it hidden. Until one night about a month after Eddie and Chris had moved back in.
Buck’s in the bedroom, changing after a run. The door is open. He’s shirtless, sweaty, and toweling off his hair, when he hears an intake of breath. He closes his eyes and turns, finding Eddie standing there. His eyes trace every inch of Buck’s chest and arms, lingering on the tiny sun near his hip, the curling vines along his side, the birds just beneath his collarbone. And then the phoenix.
“ Oh, ” Eddie says, like the breath’s been knocked out of him. “I didn’t— Jesus, Buck .”
Buck tenses and feels like he has to stutter something out. “I can explain.” But he doesn’t have to. Not really.
Eddie steps inside the room, eyes wide, voice quiet. “They’re all new.”
“Yeah.”
“They’re beautiful,” Eddie says, fingers reaching out but curling back inwards before he can touch. “Why?”
Buck swallows. “Because you left. And I didn’t know how else to carry it. You were gone, and I—I missed you so much it felt like I’d burst open if I didn’t do something with it. I know it’s stupid—”
“It’s not,” Eddie cuts in. He sounds wrecked. “It’s not stupid.”
His gaze softens, then drifts to the script over Buck’s heart. Small and careful: Stay with me.
Eddie’s lips part, like he wants to ask.
Buck beats him to it. “I meant it. I mean it. It’s–yea…” he just trails off, the silence blooming between them like something heavy and fragile.
Eddie steps closer. One hand touches Buck’s chest, thumb brushing just over the ink. The other finds his waist, grounding them both.
“I missed you too,” he says. “Every day. I just didn’t know how to come back until I knew I could do it right, until I could bring Chris back too.”
Buck’s breath shudders out and he surges forward before he can even think about it, catching Eddie’s mouth with his own.. It’s hot, sure, and a little messy. But more than that, it’s home . It’s months of tension breaking open in one perfect, breathless kiss.
Eddie groans softly, deepening it, hands skimming up Buck’s sides like he wants to touch every piece of him he missed. His mouth finds Buck’s jaw, then his neck, then lower.
The words between them blur. Need rises fast and sharp. It’s love and want and everything they didn’t say when they should have.
Buck pulls Eddie toward the bed, and Eddie follows without hesitation, fingers reverent on inked skin.
The lights stay low. The door stays closed.
And everything else fades to black.
—-------
The shop is familiar, Buck’s been coming here since the Camellia. He meets the same artist every time if he can. It's been a while since the last one, since he's slowed down. But, he still loves her art and he feels like she needs to be the one to do this for them.
Jules raises her eyebrows from behind the counter when she sees him walk in. “Look who’s back.”
She clocks Eddie at his side, then glances down at their intertwined fingers. “Oh. So this is him .”
Eddie flushes. “I’ve been told I’m the inspiration behind a small gallery wall.”
“Patchwork poetry, that’s what I called it,” Jules says, stepping around the counter to hug Buck. “You finally told him?”
“Eventually,” Buck says. “Took him moving back to L.A. and walking in on me half-naked.”
Eddie smirks. “Best surprise of my life.”
Jules looks between them and grins. “So what are we doing today?”
Buck turns to Eddie. “You wanna tell her?”
“Wedding bands.”
Jules’s brows rise, then soften. “No shit.”
Buck holds up his left hand, spreads his fingers. “We want it simple. No names, no dates. Just… something in black with thick lines that’ll stay.”
Eddie adds, “We’ll wear the rings, too, so can we get it so that it’ll cover if we want it to. But we both work with our hands. We’re firefighters, we do a little bit of everything. We want something permanent. Something that won’t get caught or taken off or lost.”
Jules looks between them for a long moment. Then she nods. “Okay. Let’s sketch.”
They sit together, hand in hand, breathing synching as the ink presses into their skin, a promise made between them. Permanent. Binding. Forever.