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It’s been a little grueling, coming back to work; not that Buck would admit it, and not that Buck really cares. He’d missed seeing the inside of the fire truck enough to ignore the twinge in his knee or the burning in his muscles when he jogs up flights of stairs; going out of his mind with it for months, that thrum under his skin waiting for the starting gun that lets him loose. Buck thought he’d just keep soaring, after his first real shift.
Which makes this, right now, a little—
They’re on their 48 hours off, and yesterday, sweat-soaked and tired in the changing room, Eddie had said wanna watch a movie tomorrow, and Buck, gulping, having missed him like a limb, had said yeah—yes, of course, trying not to fling himself into Eddie’s arms, and one Jurassic Park and scrubbing marinara sauce out of the couch cushions where Christopher dropped his slice of pizza turned into beer and Mission Impossible on low volume, sun long gone down, Chris down the hall.
It’s just that this might be the first time in half a year that Buck actually feels at ease, no fire ablaze in his chest, no restless legs, just him on a couch with a movie playing and his mind blissfully quiet. He’s barely aware what’s happening on screen, really; there’s Tom Cruise on screen in a harness, but there’s also Eddie on the couch next to him, beer bottle held in his lap, exhaustion drawn in the lines around his half-lidded eyes, and even motionless he keeps drawing Buck’s eyes—just looking his fill after too much time apart.
He’s missed Eddie just as much as he’s missed work, is all.
Maybe that’s why he sees the bruised knuckles, the cuts and scrapes on Eddie’s arms, an older, faint green-yellow blotch of discoloration around his elbow even in the dim light of the living room.
Something explodes on-screen, and Buck turns back to watch. Peeling at the label of his bottle, he thinks: these aren’t from work, he would have noticed, he would’ve—would he have? Maybe he’s gotten too distracted, and he’s about to take a breath to gently prod, like hey, about those bruises—
Except then there’s the squeak of a door down the hall and the sound of hesitant socked feet on the hardwood floor, and the moment vanishes into thin air just as Eddie grabs the remote to pause the movie, eyebrows furrowed and looking at Buck for a second. He’s already off the couch when Chris rounds the corner, half-hiding behind the wall to the hallway, and it’s mostly dark but not dark enough to hide his tear-streaked face, the terrified edge to his mouth.
“Mijo,” Eddie’s saying, on his knees in front of his son before Buck’s heart can break, and then he’s just watching as Eddie wipes gently at Chris’ cheeks and pulls him into his arms and there’s a split-second memory of stinging cuts on his own face, the lingering smell of ocean water and sewage and death, vision blurred watching Eddie and Chris embrace just like this.
Buck sucks in a breath, a half-sob, and pulls himself back together. “Hey, Chris,” he says, placing his bottle next to Eddie’s on the coffee table and turning but staying on the couch. For a moment wonders if he’s supposed to leave, but then Eddie’s pulling away with his hands huge on Chris’ small shoulders, trying to catch his eyes and saying, “bad dream?” to which Chris just nods, and maybe Buck’s heart does break a little bit, then, Eddie burying his face in his son’s hair and whispering something, gentle.
“Can I stay with you?” Chris asks, quiet, finally looking up.
“Oh, buddy,” Eddie says, flash of hesitation on his face like he doesn’t want to say this next part, “remember what Dr. Lin said last week? If you don’t sleep you’ll become more scared.”
He looks over at Buck for a second, and suddenly—
“Hey, I, uh,” except then Buck realizes he’s definitely over-stepping, but he’s already started, and Eddie’s eyes are wide with this kind of hopeless despair he’s trying to hide, so he keeps going. “I just had an idea, if your dad’s okay with it,” he says, looking at Eddie in question, like, is this okay, waiting for—yeah, that nod, and not without a little waver to his voice goes on, “so how do you feel about blanket forts?”
A moment of silence, a little sniffle, and then Chris is saying, “I like blanket forts,” still kind of strained with lingering terror but also a little bit implying that Buck might be stupid for even asking, and then Buck’s face is splitting into a grin before he can stop it.
“Well, that’s great, because I love them, too,” he says. “Eddie, how do you feel about them?” And there’s that twitch to the corner of Eddie’s mouth that just amplifies how tired the rest of him looks, but then he’s nodding and saying, “I think last time Chris said I was the… Chris, what was it you called me?”
“The–the king of blanket forts,” he says, and then there’s all of Eddie’s teeth as he smiles wide, and Buck goes, “the king? I didn’t know I was in the presence of royalty,” and then Chris is laughing and wiping away the last bit of dampness from under his eyes.
“Okay,” Buck goes on, clapping his hands together, “what do we need? Since you’re the experts.”
Eddie moves to his feet, holding Chris’ hand, who says, “blankets,” and Buck looks at Eddie and catches his smile and the way he raises his eyebrow in amusement and—suddenly, Buck is soaring again.
“Great start, what else?”
“Pillows. A–and lights.”
“Okay, how about you get all the blankets and pillows you have in your room and we get everything else?” And with that, Chris is walking back down the hallway with Eddie looking after him like he wants to follow, but he doesn’t. His smile falters, turns a little bittersweet, a little fond; silence falls over the room as the sound of Christopher’s steps fades, and with it comes a surge of uncertainty.
“Hey,” Buck says, one step towards Eddie, “you okay? Is this—sorry if I overstepped, I know he’s, well, I know you’ve been going to see a doctor so maybe he wouldn’t approve—”
“Buck,” Eddie interrupts, still with that same smile, “this is good.”
Buck nods. “Okay,” he breathes, and then they’re just looking at each other for a second before he says, more assured now, “okay, blankets,” eyes wide in anticipation.
Eddie, kind of half-laughing, says, “you know where the spare sheets are,” and Buck does, because before—all that he’d crash on the couch sometimes, “I’ll get the things from my bed,” and then Buck is alone in this living room that’s illuminated by nothing but the glaring white of the paused tv screen, mid-motion of a scene he can’t bring himself to care about at all. He turns the floor lamp on and the tv off, stalks over to the linen cupboard in the hallway almost on the tips of his toes, still feeling a little like he’s intruding, but grabs some sheets and deposits them on the couch, grabs some chairs from the dining nook for good measure, and just as he’s coming back into the room there’s Chris, too, pillow half the size of himself clutched to his chest and Eddie following slowly behind him, arms laden with a mountain of blankets, and very suddenly Buck feels swept away with something that stops his breath short, fingers curling around the backrest of the chair he’s still holding onto. Eddie looks different now, warm in the new light, and Chris looks much less frightened, and Buck—
“Now you tell me what to do,” arms wide, and then he and Eddie are layering comforters on the floor and moving chairs in the right places and pulling pillows from the couch and draping sheets across the whole thing while Chris is already sitting in the middle placing three pillows at the far end of the structure, giggling when Eddie pretends to get lost in one of the sheets until they’re all laying down, Chris in the middle of them both, a little out of breath. Buck’s feet are definitely somewhere outside of the fort, but Chris is looking up at the sheet covering them with a big, beaming smile, so—he doesn’t complain.
“I can see why you bestowed the title of king of blanket forts on your dad,” he whispers, turning to look at them: surrounded by pillows and comforters and the lamp light filtering in through the bare sheets, muted and a little hazy. Eddie’s on his side, head pillowed on his arm; he’s just looking at Buck, now, lips curled into a smile, blinking slow, and maybe it’s the fact that he’s surrounded by fabric and cushions, but Buck, suddenly, feels a little flushed. He turns on his side, a mirror to Eddie: tucks his arm under his head, too. “Tell me about the first one you ever built,” he asks, and he’s not taking his eyes off Eddie; thinks, secretly, that he might never look away again, not when Eddie looks like this: fond and a little sleep-soft, like he’s about to drift off.
Chris, whispering, too, tells them: just after Shannon left, at Eddie’s parents’ house, just the two of them, and Buck’s still looking at Eddie so he sees his eyes turn a little damp when he presses a kiss into Chris’ hair; watches as he listens to the memories, soaks them up, keeps them for later, for forever.
It’s quiet, after a while, just the low hum of the floor lamp outside. Chris is asleep, head nodded off to Buck’s side, a little seal plush clutched in his hand. Buck barely dares to move. Eddie hasn’t said a word in—however long it’s been; this feels a little liminal, Buck realizes, outside the bounds of time and space, just the three of them in this haphazard heap of blankets. He can barely imagine being anywhere else.
Except—“I’ll go,” he whispers across Chris’ sleeping body, about to crawl outside and leave, because this is not his to intrude on, but then there’s a hand curled around his wrist, loose but insistent enough that Buck doesn’t move further than up on one of his elbows. He’s looking down at the two of them now; something pulls at his chest, something urgent and strange.
“Don’t,” Eddie tells him, voice low. “You don’t have to.” His hand is still wrapped around Buck’s wrist.
“Oh,” Buck says—breathes it, really, barely any air in his lungs. “Okay.” He’s back on his side before he can think about it, pulse pounding in his neck. Eddie’s looking at Chris now, hand resting broad and safe on his chest.
“I haven’t seen him sleep like this in a while.” His own eyes are more than half-lidded now, like exhaustion is taking over; the comfort of it all is oozing all over Buck, too, like the blanket cover he’s missing and doesn’t even need. Eddie meets his eyes, says, “thank you,” and his irises look black in the mellow dark, wide and trusting and like Buck could sink into them if he wanted.
“O-of course,” he says, wants to say more but doesn’t know what, doesn’t want to mess up this fragile, comfortable thing, wants to stay in this cocooned little sanctuary until—forever, maybe, and then Eddie’s eyes fall shut and it’s just him left, watching over them and forcing his eyes to stay open before exhaustion catches up with him, too.