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Buck and Eddie lived for so long as BuckandEddie that now they don’t have any idea how to live outside of that. Up until about today, they didn’t have to. A love like theirs was meant to last, to be eternal and all consuming, until it wasn’t. Until they burned in their own man made fire. Sometimes things burn, and burn, and burn, until they fizzle out. Then there’s nothing but embers and ashes left in their wake.
Buck smiled and opened his eyes as he turned over in their bed, expecting to see Eddie there next to him. Instead he woke up to a very empty and slightly cold bed. It wasn’t unusual of course, Eddie getting up to take Christopher to school before Buck even woke up. Most days he did wake him up, though.
He got up out of bed and padded down the hallway, searching the house for one half of his two favorite people. It was a Tuesday, so Chris would likely be at school. They’d just started their forty-eight hour off, having two whole days to his hard built family. As Buck made his way into the kitchen, he spotted Eddie sitting at the kitchen table with his head in his hands, looking more worse for wear than when they went to bed together last night. That alone had Buck concerned about his husband.
“You okay, Eds?” Buck asked and stood by his side, his hand on Eddie’s shoulder comfortingly.
Eddie didn’t raise his head for a long few moments, angrily scrubbing at his face when he did so. “Yeah, I’m fine.” He said gruffly.
Buck didn’t believe him for a second but he wasn’t one to push when he knew that Eddie would tell him in time. Eddie usually kept things until he could work them out, then told Buck so they could work through it together. That’s what they always did, worked together. It happened for seven years before they’d even gotten together. Through everything they were always BuckandEddie, partners, best friends, lovers, and now husbands.
Instead of asking the questions that made his tongue heavy, Buck settled on making himself a cup of coffee. It was the best way to both wake up and busy himself to stop from bothering Eddie. It seemed as if fate wasn’t on his side, for as quiet as he tried to make himself, it only seemed to serve to make Eddie angrier. Buck thought that after they’d made up from last night’s argument that everything would be fine. In the silence between them, it was louder than any spat they’d ever had. It was the kind that lingered long after the flame had been put out.
“Buck..” Eddie started and turned towards him, frowning.
”No, don’t say it Eds. We can fix it, we can work through it. Just don’t do this.” Buck pleaded, gripping his coffee cup until his hands turned deathly white.
Eddie shook his head and stood up, the chair clattering to the ground, a final thump in the silence that had haunted them for days. Maybe the final nail in the lowering coffin, or the last sputtering of a fire extinguisher to their towering flame. The one thing that no one wanted to hear.
“We can’t keep doing this. Chris is noticing and I won’t have my son be a part of our mess.” His son. The word landed like a slap in the face. It was never really Buck’s to begin with, was it?
“ Your son? You mean the son that I helped raise? That son? That’s not fucking fair, Eddie. I had just as much part in his life as you did.” His words lashed out like a whip, making Eddie flinch.
Buck just laughed mirthlessly and shook his head, raising his coffee cup to his lips. They were crashing and burning faster than the fire took to kindle. They had a good few years, he supposed. Being married for a year come next month. It was bound to have issues, just not like this. It wasn’t supposed to turn out like this. Nothing was supposed to end as violently as this was going to.
“What do you even want from me, Eddie? Do you want me to lay down and take it? Take that you want to reenlist at over thirty, like you’ll survive another three years of service. I’m not going to watch you kill yourself when we have a boy at home who needs his father.” Buck snapped, slamming his mug down on the counter and staring at Eddie with hardened eyes.
Eddie scoffed, rolling his eyes at his husband. “I’m doing this for us, Buck. We need the money with everything going on with Chris and the house. We wanted another kid. You can’t even fucking see that i’m doing it for the betterment of our family. You’re too up in your own head.”
“There is no us if you’re dead!”
“Clearly there’s no us anymore regardless.” Eddie said, his voice quiet.
Buck just stared, his mouth closing with a soft click. He was right. That’s what hit Buck squarely in the chest, that no matter how much they fought or argued, Eddie was right. Neither of them was going to budge on either matter. It didn’t matter that Buck couldn’t live without Eddie, all that mattered was that Eddie thought he was doing something right.
“You don’t have to be the man of the house, Eddie. You don’t have to take care of everyone. We would’ve been fine. You just can’t get Ramon out of your head.” Buck said, knowing it was a low blow. He regretted it as soon as the words left his mouth but he couldn’t take them back, just like they couldn’t undo the ending.
“God, you’re exhausting, Buck. You don’t know everything.” Eddie snapped.
Buck didn’t say anything for quite a few moments, picking up his coffee cup again and drinking from it like the stalling would save his relationship. “I’ll take care of Chris while you’re gone.” is all he says. Somehow the lack of words was louder than what was even said. It was what he didn’t say. That he wouldn’t be there for the after, for the Eddie that would need comforting after service.
“So you’re giving up? This is because I didn’t do what you wanted” Eddie asked, trying to bait Buck into a response.
“I’m not giving up. I’m saving myself because watching you walk into death will kill me. You will kill me.” He said simply and pushed off the counter, setting his mug into the sink and looking up at the man that once meant everything to him. “I love you, but I won’t watch you die. Loving you will kill me.”
Eddie watched his husband meander about the kitchen like their conversation didn’t happen, like the last thirty minutes didn’t matter. His chest felt heavy and tight, like something was sitting on it. Maybe the regret and guilt of the last few days had finally caught up with him. The weight of his decision to leave his family was pressing down on him, even more so considering he was shipping out in a week. It was too late to back out, too late to take back words said, too late to undo the damage that had been permanently done. Once a plate shatters, you can no longer repair it to the same as it was before.
Buck spared one last glance at Eddie before leaving the kitchen and going to what was once their bedroom, the hollowness aching in his bones. He had to get out of the house before the silence of their decisions suffocated him. He loved him more than breathing, everything that he was Eddie helped rebuild. Now Buck had to learn how to be him without having Eddie, how to learn being one half of a whole. Chris was going to need him to be his Bucky, even if he didn’t know how to be Buck without Eddie.
“You’re running away!” Eddie called after him, the words haunting his shadow down the hallway.
Buck didn’t have it in him to respond to the taunt that echoed through the house. He busied himself in getting ready and preparing to leave their shared space, the space that they once called home, the space that they raised their family in. A family that wouldn’t survive the fallout of their nuclear relationship. He could only hope that Chris wouldn’t hate them, or well him for that matter.
He exited the bedroom fully dressed with his phone, wallet, and keys. Buck could hear Eddie in their living room, the anger boiling under his skin was palpable in the air. They wouldn’t make it out of this house alive, not with anything intact. Everything was collateral damage in love and war, if only the war was because of love not despite it. His ghost would haunt him long after the absence had dissipated.
Eddie stood by the couch, his emotions roiling in a battle that left him winded. “Buck. Don’t leave like this. Don’t leave angry.” He said, as if pleading would rewrite the ending.
“I’m not angry, Eddie. I know how this ends, I just don’t want to be around while we wait for it to come. We need space. I’ll pick Chris up after school.” Buck sighed in a resigned manner. This was all it was, just time to themselves thinking it would prolong the inevitable.
“Buck, please. I’m leaving in a week, let me have this.” Eddie tried again. Fate was against them. It was against him. God had long abandoned the praying man before him.
“I won’t let you have me. I won’t let you play happy fucking family when you want, just to leave. I won’t survive you acting like you love me.”
“I do love you!”
“Not enough.” Buck’s words had enough finality to them to finally break Eddie’s last standing pieces.
Buck opened the door and looked out onto the sunny street before him, his jeep parked haphazardly in the driveway, like someone was in a rush to get out before it had even stopped moving. “I’ll bring Chris home after, we’ll tell him together. I’ll give you that.” He said, stepping out and shutting the door with a soft click. The sound bounded through the house as loud as a gunshot, making Eddie flinch. You couldn’t come back from what you refused to change. Even change wouldn’t save them.
He walked to the car, his eyes drifting to the house for one last look at the place that had become their home. The place that would never be their home again, at least not one that they shared together. Now, homes would be separate places, separate people. If Buck had looked longer, he would’ve noticed Eddie watching him leave out of the window. He would’ve seen the beginning of the devastation, but like most, Evan Buckley looked away too soon. Eddie would remember him like this, Buck would remember him like the house, angry, quiet, and whispering.
Buck wasn’t angry when he left but somewhere along the drive, the red hot rage had set in. The anger at the unbelieving finality of it all. He was angry that Eddie could just up and leave their life like this, that Eddie had done so without even consulting him, but mostly he was angry that yet again he was so easily leaveable. Another thing to be forgotten once they moved on. Eddie had told him countless times that he wasn’t as replaceable as he’d thought. Only to turn around and leave him like he was. Maybe that was where the anger laid, in the realization of the fear he thought therapy had worked out of him.
Buck would lose everything, his husband, his son, his family. Eddie wouldn’t lose nearly enough to match the ache of the loss. Nothing would ever be comparable. At least not to him.
It was in these ever staying thoughts that Buck hadn’t noticed the red light as his jeep trudged on into the intersection. It was those swirling emotions that led him not to see the oncoming semi-truck either. Maybe that was for the best though, he didn’t feel the fear at the ending either.
Buck and Eddie had switched shifts with B shift, letting them have their days off with Chris in the middle of the weekdays. But that meant that when 118 A shift was called to the scene of a car wreck with a fading patient, no one was expecting it to be the best friend of their lives. The person that had gotten them through everything they’d faced with a smile. The person their children loved.
Evan Buckley felt nothing at first, not pain, not fear, certainly not anger. When he roused still trapped in his vehicle, he was confused. He didn’t understand why his friends were hovering over him with tears in their eyes, why his captain looked sick to his stomach.
“Hen? Chim? Cap? What- What’s going on?” He asked, his voice hoarse.
Chim looked to Hen, who looked to Bobby, no one immediately responding to their golden retriever. Hen stepped forward to the open car door, the one that they had pried open minutes earlier, her hands resting on his. “Buckaroo, you’ve been in an accident.” She said softly.
Buck blinked and shook his head, the action making him feel nauseous. “No that’s not.. I just left Eddie’s. I just wanted to get some air.”
“It’s true, Buck. You were hit.” Chim said, coming up next to Hen.
Bobby stood off to the side, talking furiously with someone on his phone. If you looked close enough, his hands were shaking almost in a violent manner. This would be the greatest loss of his life.
Hen couldn’t help the tears that slipped out of her eyes, the ones that scalded her cheeks on the way down. Chim looked like a mirror to his best friend. The man in front of him was his little brother. He was someone’s little brother.
“Cap’s calling Eddie, Buckaroo. He’ll be here any minute. He’s coming.” Hen murmured and stroked his hand in a comforting manner.
“Eddie? Why would Eddie come? He’s– We got into a– Why?” Buck stumbled over his words, finally settling on the one that raised the least questions. He coughed, trying to clear his throat, but the action soon became violent. A wet, hacking thing that ended with blood spraying all over their joined hands. Suddenly everything made a bit more sense.
A black truck flew onto the scene, the tires squealing as it was thrown into park and a man dressed in a red henley and dark jeans yanked themselves out of it. Eddie. The only one to throw caution to the wind when Buck was in trouble.
Eddie all but ran towards Buck’s jeep, the site of the wreckage making bile rise in his throat. “Buck!” He screamed and pushed past police and firefighters alike. Nothing would stand in his way from getting to him. Nothing would stop him except for death itself.
Buck raised his head as Eddie approached, his eyes betraying his emotions as they slid down his cheeks. “Eddie. Eddie ’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.” He babbled.
“I know baby, I know. It’s okay.” Eddie said soothingly and brushed his hand over Buck’s curls, moving them out of his face. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. Buck wasn’t supposed to be the one to die. That was Eddie. It was always going to be Eddie and it was always going to be in war. It wasn’t supposed to be sunshine personified. His sunshine. The light in his dark.
Buck coughed again, the wetness returning. He wanted to say so much more but the liquid bubbling in his lungs prevented much more.
Eddie bowed his head and whispered silent prayers to a God that had long since stopped listening. He prayed over the body of his husband like a man that renewed his faith, begging him not to take the one good thing in his life. A God that had never once answered his prayers did not answer this once. The God that given him solace had taken it away, the very God that Eddie hoped for once would listen. To let him keep it. To let him keep him.
“I love you.” Buck slurred, his already pale face becoming ghastly white.
“I love you, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean any of it, you were my favorite thing. You’re not exhausting, I could never leave you. I’m so sorry.” Eddie said with a sob, his outflowing emotions betraying the usually hard exterior.
When Evan Buckley’s heart finally stopped beating, the screams of his husband could be heard for a mile around the wreck. The clouds covered the sun, as if its own child’s light had been extinguished. As if the sun itself had gone out. There was no light to match the dark anymore. No warmth in the comfort. All that’s left was cold. Cold, unending darkness.
Their love had shaped and reshaped them and those around them. No one would forget the mark it had made. It’s ghost would haunt every corner of their lives, every corner of them. You can’t replace what has been etched in stone.
Maybe the chore was never loving him, it was learning to love without him.