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Buck leaves Eddie at the front door, drifting down the hallway with a mutter of taking a shower, washing off the day’s disaster. But Eddie’s rooted to the floor, staring at a house that’s his and not his, that’s Buck’s and not Buck’s, that’s both of theirs but, in this moment, belongs to neither. The layout of Buck’s furniture is nearly the same, and there are pieces of Eddie and Chris scattered about—one of Eddie’s flannels tossed over the back of the couch where he’s been proving he’s not nearly as young as he used to be and his spine needs better lumbar support than Buck’s couch can offer; a pair of Chris’s shoes kicked under the coffee table, his socks tossed on top of it, the charger for his Switch plugged into the socket below the window, an extra pair of crutches propped against the wall in the corner of the dining room. But Pepa took Chris to her house after Eddie left to go help the 118, and despite the house’s hollow ribs, Eddie’s glad for it now. He doesn’t think he could put on a brave face for them.
Because this house is theirs and it’s not, and it makes Eddie’s teeth ache. Makes him want to tear his chest open, pry his heart out, drop the ugly beating thing into Buck’s hands and ask him to please, please, tell him why it should beat. Who it should beat for. How to make it not give up.
Chimney’s words still ring in his ears, his speech in the middle of the station that ended with Hen declaring him what they all know he’s going to be. And the dirt and dust from the collapsed building still stain Eddie’s white henley brown and grey. And Eddie’s hair still hangs in his face, and his hands still shake, and he . . . aches. He aches, for a thing he can’t name. Chimney told him to stay. He wants to stay.
But—
Eddie’s moving before he can stop himself, striding down the hall to the bathroom, the door locked, the rush of water all he can hear. He reaches up, grabs the emergency key atop the doorframe, unlocks the door and pushes it open and steps inside.
Steam fills the bathroom, fogging over the mirror, sticking to his skin and making each breath heavy in his lungs. Behind the glass walls of the shower (it’s easier for Chris to open a door and step inside than it is for him to step over the lip of a bathtub), he can see Buck standing with his back to the door, his head bowed beneath the water. Eddie shuts the bathroom door behind him and locks it, then sets the emergency key with its loop on the counter and strides across the tile.
Buck doesn’t notice when Eddie opens the shower door. He only turns when Eddie closes it with a clatter, and reaches out with a hand to Buck’s bare shoulders, and exhales when he feels him, alive, alive, beautifully alive.
“Eddie?” Buck says, brows high on his forehead and eyes wide. “What—?”
Eddie crowds up against Buck, ignoring the instant weight of his waterlogged clothes. He’s still wearing his damn boots, but he can’t make himself care, because Buck is here. He’s covering his dick with one hand, even as the other hand lands on Eddie’s shoulder. To hold him back or to simply hold him is unclear, because Eddie doesn’t wait to find out which.
He drops his face to Buck’s shoulder, throws his arms around Buck’s middle, and simply holds on. He’s shaking, he can feel it with every single inhale that hitches and every exhale that trembles. And when Buck’s hand closes on the back of Eddie’s neck, a sound like a sob cracks out of Eddie’s chest.
Buck doesn’t say a word, even when Eddie grabs the hand that’s still trying to cover his dick and forces Buck to wrap that arm around his waist. Buck hesitates for only a second before complying, and Eddie shudders at the feel of Buck: around him, against him, sturdy and strong. He can hold Eddie up. He always has, better than anyone else alive. And Eddie can breathe again, even against Buck’s damp shoulder, in the thick humidity of the shower box, beneath the drops of fire pouring out of the showerhead.
“Why’s it so hot?” he asks, nonsensically.
But Buck chuckles, right into Eddie’s ear. (If Eddie shivers at that, at least Buck doesn’t call him out on it.) “I like a hot shower,” Buck says, like it’s obvious. Like it’s something Eddie should already know about him. Maybe he does. The fuzz in his brain feels too much like static to wade through, the roar of sound that comes after turning off the VCR but leaving the TV on.
Eddie breathes out. “Tell me.”
If Eddie wasn’t pressed so close, his ear right up against Buck’s throat, he might have missed the way he swallows. Like he needs a moment to gather the courage to speak.
“Tell you what?” Buck asks.
And Eddie can’t blame him for not knowing. Eddie climbed into the shower fully dressed, boots on, and wrapped himself around Buck—in all his naked glory—like a limpet. Chris once showed him a video of an octopus snatching up a passing shark with all eight of its arms, tugging it up close to its body. The shark struggled for a moment, at least until it figured out the octopus wasn’t about to eat it—it simply wanted to clean its body of parasites and algae, providing itself a meal and the shark a thorough grooming, free of charge.
This kind of feels like that: Buck giving in to the way Eddie holds him, Eddie glutting himself on Buck—on his skin, his proximity, the weight of his arms around Eddie’s waist. It’s going to be a bitch to peel his soaking wet jeans off, but he doesn’t care. Buck’s holding Eddie back, and it’s all Eddie needs to give in.
“Tell me it’s okay to stay,” Eddie says.
This close, Eddie can feel Buck’s chest expand with his sudden breath. He doesn’t exhale right away. Not until Eddie summons the strength required to lift his head off Buck’s shoulder and meet his eyes. Whatever shows on Eddie’s face makes all the breath, all the tension, flood out of Buck’s body in one fell swoop.
Like parasites cleaned off a shark’s skin.
“What?” Buck asks, but not like he didn’t hear. Like he wants to make sure he understands what Eddie is trying to tell him.
Eddie will do his best. It’s all he has. “Chim—His speech. No one’s moving to Texas. No one’s transferring out of the 118.”
A muscle flexes in Buck’s jaw, and he turns his head, but Eddie latches one hand to Buck’s cheek, holds him still. He won’t let Buck turn away. Not this time. And Buck’s eyelids flutter when Eddie palms his cheek, thumbs his chin.
“I don’t want to go,” Eddie says. “I want to be here, with Chris, and with you, in our house. At our station. With our family.”
Buck’s eyes open. His brows furrow.
“But I just—” Eddie takes a breath. “I need you to tell me it’s okay to want that. To be happier here, in California, than I ever could be in Texas. To want this family, the one I found, more than the family I was born into.” He presses his thumb to the ledge below Buck’s bottom lip, the dip there. Buck’s lips slip open, his breath curling over Eddie’s wrist. Eddie tucks his thumb around Buck’s bottom lip, pulls it down, flicks his thumbnail over Buck’s bottom teeth. Eddie doesn’t know what he’s doing here, but Buck doesn’t tell him to stop, so he won’t. “I—I need you to tell me it’s okay to stay.”
Buck’s eyes are wide, and blue enough to steal Eddie’s breath away. Like throwing open his curtains and finding the sky that gorgeous shade of California blue, when there isn’t a single lick of smog to be seen.
And then he tips his head back. Eddie frowns, sacrificing Buck’s mouth in favor of latching his hand around the back of Buck’s head to keep him from leaving.
“Don’t go,” Eddie says.
A sound breaks out of Buck’s chest. “You can’t ask that of me. Not—not when you keep doing it. No matter how it f-fucking kills me.” His eyes close, and Eddie shoves his hand up into Buck’s soaking hair, curls his fingers in tight. “You can’t ask me not to go, Eddie, not when I’m trying to just . . . survive you already being gone.”
“I’m asking you to tell me to stay,” Eddie says.
“I can’t—”
“Buck.” His name breaks out of Eddie’s chest, shatters on the shower floor, washes down the drain. “It’s—It can only be you. It has to be you.”
“Eddie—”
“I need it to be you. Not Chimney. Not Hen. Not Pepa. Not even me.” He makes himself meet Buck’s gaze. They’re so fucking close, and yet he’s never felt safer, better, more whole. It’s only with Buck that he can simply . . . be. “Please, Buck. Just tell me it’s okay. Just tell me that I can stay.”
Buck stares down at him, those two inches of space feeling so much larger with every second that passes in such uncertainty. He’s still holding Eddie, his arms still wrapped around Eddie’s waist, the water still pouring down on them. Washing away the muck of that call. Washing away the pain and anger and turmoil of the past four months.
Eddie doesn’t consider himself religious anymore, but perhaps this is how a baptism is meant to feel: like you can emerge from the water cleaner than you submerged. Like a shark giving in to the reaching arms of an octopus, putting itself in a hug that could kill it with no intention of ever wriggling free.
“Would you stay if I did?” Buck whispers, so quietly Eddie almost misses it.
Saying, “Yeah, Buck,” is the easiest thing he’s ever done. “I’d stay,” Eddie says, and Buck says, “Stay,” in nearly the same breath, a plea, a promise, and Eddie’s moving before he realizes it, kissing Buck without thought but with complete and utter relief.
It’s a relief, pressing his lips to Buck’s, kissing him like he’s wanted to kiss him for so much longer than he ever could have realized. And Buck’s kissing him back, arms tightening around Eddie’s waist, holding him close close close. It makes Eddie’s blood sing, his skin burn, every muscle go lax. He’s safe here, in Buck’s arms, safer than he has ever been.
The kiss breaks and Buck says, “Stay,” breathes it right into the cavern of Eddie’s mouth, and Eddie inhales, traps it in his lungs, smiles and says, “Thank you,” and Buck laughs, says it again, “Stay,” and “Stay with me,” and “God, Eddie, please stay with me.”
“Yeah,” Eddie says, sliding his hand from Buck’s neck to his cheek, fingers back in his hair. “With you, like this. You and me, bud. Us against the world.”
“Nah,” Buck says, and kisses Eddie, slow and lingering, and says, “Not against the world. Just us. Just this. You and me and Chris and Pepa, and Chimney and Maddie and Hen and Karen. Not against the world. Just . . . together inside it.”
Maybe Eddie can’t hold in the sob. Maybe he has to let Buck keep him from crashing to the floor. Maybe he falls into another kiss like all his strings were just snipped, like he’s suddenly free of what others have always tried to mold him into, like he can finally—fucking finally—discover what it means to be simply . . . him. To be Eddie.
It doesn’t matter if he falls. He won’t be alone. Buck is there to catch him.