Work Text:
Everything’s perfect. It is, really. Eddie’s telling himself that over and over again, so it must eventually be true. Because everything is supposed to be perfect.
He’s back from El Paso, he returned to the 118 like he’d never left, Chris is here with him. Buck hasn’t found an apartment, but having him around is far from causing complaints on Eddie’s behalf. It’s all exactly as it should be.
Except…well. Buck has been weird. And Eddie’s trying to push it down, justify it as a period of readjustment. He hadbeen gone for upwards of two months, so Buck probably isn’t used to having people back in his space yet. But then, Eddie’s mind unhelpfully supplies, it’s not people—it’s him and Chris. Buck had never had a problem with Eddie and Chris in his space before. Hell, they’d been in each other’s space more than out of it in the last seven years. So why the sudden distance?
Eddie can admit to himself he’s probably blowing this out of proportion. Buck’s been mostly present. Happy to have Chris back, clearly; the nightly homemade dinners and too-long video game marathons are proof of that. Happy to have Eddie back, presumably, too.
But Buck’s been running a lot of errands. Vague errands, like the kind of half-hearted, air-quoted errands someone says they have when they’re scrambling for an excuse. And sure, Buck’s allowed to have errands. Eddie’s just insulted to not be privy to them. They always did ‘errands’ together, before. Now Buck has a seemingly endless laundry list of these stupid fucking errands, disappearing for an hour or two at a time with no further explanations, and Eddie’s going a little bit crazy.
If Buck has a new girlfriend—or boyfriend, for that matter—he should’ve just said so.
Eddie would have given them space, taken Chris out for an evening if they wanted the house to themselves. He might’ve put aside his selfishness and actually helped Buck in his apartment search, even though the thought of Buck moving out inexplicably brought tears to his eyes every time he considered it. He could be a good friend about this. He really could.
If only Buck would own up to it.
The bleeding heart he is, Buck’s probably worried about disrupting the dynamic at the house. Trying to let Eddie relax into the familiarity of LA, of Bedford Street, of home, without adding a new variable to the mix. For that, Eddie does appreciate him; but the terrible attempts at lying are worse than the truth. So what if Buck has a new partner? He’s had plenty of partners before! Sure, Eddie hated (still hates) most of them, but he survived. More importantly, they survived—their little family unit always weathered the storms of Buck’s awful taste.
It isn’t until the fifth consecutive day of the errand apocalypse, as Eddie so lovingly dubbed it, that he finally breaks.
“I’m going to go out for a bit. I have some errands,” Buck states out of nowhere, moving to stand from the kitchen table and avoiding Eddie’s eyes with practiced diligence.
Eddie decides to bite the bullet.
“Are you back together with Tommy?”
The parting sip of coffee Buck had taken was now decorating the wood.
“I’m sorry…what?” he chokes out, wiping the corners of his mouth.
“Buck, this is the fifth day you’ve had mysterious errands. Obviously you’re seeing someone. Which is fine, of course. Totally fine. But you won’t tell me anything. I have to assume it’s because you’re seeing someone I don’t like,” Eddie explained, managing to limit his frustration to one subdued huff.
“I…you and Tommy are friends,” Buck says after a few seconds, scrunching his face in confusion.
“So you are dating Tommy again.”
“No. And I mean, like, hell no. I’m not back together with Tommy. But I…I thought you liked him? You guys were hanging out.”
Eddie shrugs, feigning neutrality.
“We were friends. I stopped liking him somewhere between the ditching you on a first date and showing up out-of-theme to Chim’s bachelor party.”
“That was…before we were even official. You hated him that whole time?”
“This is so not the point I was trying to get to, Buck.”
“What is your point?”
“Where are you going?” Eddie groans out, like it pains him to ask so plainly.
“You keep disappearing on me. I know things might be weird now that I’m back. Me and Chris in the house is an adjustment, I get it, and you didn’t want to spring new things on us. But you don’t have to sneak out to go see someone. We’re settled back in here, so if you’re dating someone new, you don’t have to hide it. We already disrupted your life enough, moving back in with no notice. I don’t want to ruin your new relationship, too.”
The words ‘new relationship’ are sour on Eddie’s tongue, and he’s not sure if he masks it well.
“Jesus, Eddie. First of all, you’re not ruining anything. I couldn’t be happier you guys are here. It’s where you belong—both of you,” Buck sighs, sitting back down. “Second of all, I’m not seeing anyone. I’ve just been…I’ve got a lot of…errands.”
“You still haven’t come up with anything better? No better lie? Just ‘errands’?” Eddie’s struggling to keep the disdain out of his tone, now.
Buck’s cheeks redden at the accusation, tripping over his breath trying to get the words out.
“I’m not…I’m not lying, Eddie.”
“Then why won’t you tell me what you’re doing?”
“I just…I have some stuff to take care of. It’s nothing bad, just…personal. I have errands to run.”
“Right. Okay, that’s fine. See you later,” Eddie grumbles, grabbing napkins to wipe up the coffee Buck had spit.
“Eddie, don’t…”
“No, Buck, it’s fine. I thought we were in this together. Y’know, did errands together. But it’s fine. You don’t owe me every part of your life.”
Buck takes a step back, recoiling from the sting of the words. Something flickers in his eyes, and he heads out the front door looking half-guilty and half-crushed. Eddie can’t quite find it in himself to feel bad, yet. They’ve never been like this—hiding things, keeping secrets. Buck shared so much with Eddie in the ‘before El Paso’ that they couldn’t help but fall into easy codependency. But Eddie moved, and things changed. Eddie only has himself to blame for leaving. Maybe he shouldn’t have expected an immediate return to normalcy after all.
*******
When Buck gets back, each footstep is a careful thing, clearly trying to avoid the confrontation he’s fearing. Eddie’s not sure he has the energy for one.
“Did everything you needed to?” he asks, trying for a disinterested drawl.
Buck winces at the sound of Eddie’s voice, carrying from the kitchen table. When he walks into view, Eddie doesn’t bother to look up.
“Uh, yeah. Got everything done. That’s my last errands trip.”
Eddie couldn’t stop himself from glancing up, then.
“You…that’s it?”
Buck nods, swallowing hard.
The guilt from earlier finally hits Eddie. A little vindication, too, but he forces it down.
“Buck, you…did you break up with them? I didn’t mean for…”
“Eddie, I’m not seeing anyone- wasn’t seeing anyone. It was really just something I had to finish up.”
Eddie pauses. He’s certain he didn’t read things wrong. Buck can’t lie to save his life, though, so there must be something Eddie’s missing.
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure. Everything’s taken care of.”
It’s three p.m. now, and Eddie’s been glued to the kitchen table since Buck walked out at one. He has a shift at five, an easy twelve, that he picked up to make back some of the cash he blew on moving expenses. But it feels wrong. Like he can’t move, can’t start to get ready for work, can’t leave, when this weird unspoken thing is hanging over them. They’ve fought before, plenty of times. It’s never been like this. He’s not even sure it’s really a fight. Regardless, it should be over—Buck said he took care of what he needed to, so Eddie has no reason to be mad anymore.
It doesn’t feel over.
Something heavy is still pulling at Eddie’s chest, dark cloud materializing around his heart. Still feels left out, excluded by the one person who seemed to always want Eddie around, for better or worse. A memory floods back to him, of telling Bobby that Shannon asked for a divorce. He wants to snap himself out of it, because comparing Buck’s errands to his wife leaving is ridiculous and dramatic; he knows it is. But he can’t help remember how not enough he felt. How not enoughhe feels now, when Buck—his Buck, the one who threaded his way into every fabric of Eddie’s life like it was his greatest joy—is keeping something close to the chest, not letting him in.
He gives his head a slight shake and finally meets Buck’s eyes.
“Alright, cool. I should probably get ready for work. I picked up that twelve tonight.”
Eddie stands, and Buck looks desperately like he wants to say something, like his head is aching with it. Must be able to tell how Eddie is choking back words unsaid, too, the weight of them slicing his insides on their way down, born in his head and dying in his throat. Buck lets out a short breath and nods.
“Yeah, okay.”
Eddie grimaces and heads for the bedroom.
“I-” Buck starts, stopping Eddie in his tracks.
“I’m sorry if I made you feel bad. I just had to finish something up that I started while you were gone. Something just for me.”
“Don’t be sorry. We’re good.”
Eddie sighs, shoulders deflating as he admits, “you can have things for yourself, Buck. Just got in a habit of expecting you not to.”
*******
Eddie’s in a much better mood by the time he leaves the bedroom ready to head to the firehouse, probably on account of the ninety minutes he took getting ready (cooling off). He was asking too much from Buck, to be instantaneously all-in again. He’d been gone for months, and sure, they’d talked every day, but it wasn’t the same. The way he felt in Texas—how intensely he’d missed Buck, how desperately he wanted his old life back—was probably exactly how Buck felt here. Stranded, abandoned in LA without his best friend. Eddie pouring himself into home renovations and concerting effort to win back Christopher were the ways he coped, distracting him from the ache. It was only natural, to be expected, that Buck would need some sort of outlet, too. Eddie couldn’t fault him for that. And whatever that was, Buck’s done with it now. Eddie’s back, for good, and Buck’s been ninety-nine percent normal about it. He can’t ask for anything more.
As he grabs his bag and treads towards the kitchen, Buck meets him halfway with a tumbler.
“I, uh, made you some coffee for your shift. Figured you’ll need something to get you through. You’ve been working a lot since you got back.”
Eddie smiles, truly, for the first time all day.
“Thanks, Buck.”
He shifts a little awkwardly on his feet as Buck passes it to him.
“I owe you an apology, too, for earlier. I was being a dick. I was expecting to move back in and feel like I never left. Which I do, mostly. It just caught me off-guard when you had things to do without me. Made it feel more real, that I was absent for so long. But that’s on me. I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay, man, I get it. We’re good. For real.”
A sigh of relief washes over him.
“Great. Thank God.”
Buck laughs under his breath, patting Eddie on the shoulder.
“Have a good shift, Eddie. Be safe.”
“I will. I’ll text you,” Eddie promises, crossing the threshold, car keys in hand.
It’s not until he unloads his stuff—his actual work baggage and the emotional—and turns the ignition that he realizes it’s a C-shift night. A.K.A. dinner is pre-packed and back inside, since the absence of Bobby’s cooking is duly felt when he’s on a different rotation. Begrudgingly, Eddie heads back in and grabs the lunchbox from the refrigerator. As he’s shutting the fridge door, he notices Buck’s phone on the counter, screen flashing on and vibrating a few times. The bathroom sink’s running, so Buck must’ve gone to wash up and left it out.
They just made up. He’s not even mad anymore, really—mostly just curious.
Eddie knows he shouldn’t.
He does it anyway.
Chances a quick glance over to see a notification from the Reminders app.
6:30pm – 5662 Hollywood Blvd.
Dress nice!!!
Yeah, he shouldn’t have looked.
Before Eddie has more than a second to start spinning out, the bathroom door creaks open, and Buck’s ambling into the kitchen.
“Back already? Short shift,” Buck teases, wiping his hands on his pants.
Eddie blinks. Tries to weigh the options: pick a fight, mind his business, or…anything else?
“Forgot my dinner,” is what he settles on. Playing it cool. “Ramirez is in the captain’s chair, so I needed a backup meal in case he tries to make barbecue again.”
Buck snorts, nodding along.
“Yeah, that’d be unfortunate.”
Eddie’s stuck standing still, oscillating between rising anger and wounded confusion.
“See you later,” he eventually gets out, turning on his heel to leave.
“Bye! Good luck,” Buck calls, closing the door behind him.
Eddie’s praying Buck is far from the windows, because he’s been sitting in the idling truck for five minutes by the time his head is clear enough to start driving.
Buck lied. He must’ve taken a lying seminar, or an acting class, while Eddie was in Texas—because what the fuck was that. He lied. To Eddie’s face. Without hesitation. With genuine, real emotion behind it.
Buck’s going on a date. And lying about it.
Eddie’s steaming when he pulls into his parking spot outside the firehouse, frustration clawing its way across his face, furrowing his brows and pushing the edges of his lips into a frown. He sits stewing for another two minutes before a knock on his window startles him out of his daze.
“Ravi?” he asks, rolling the window down.
“Hey, man! What are you doing here?”
Eddie doesn’t have much patience, and flicks his eyes between his work bag and the station.
“What does it look like I’m doing? I picked up a shift.”
Ravi isn’t fazed by Eddie’s sharp tone.
“Oh, dude, I thought Ramirez called you! He gave me Paulson’s shift, said you deserve a night off. You’ve been covering for everyone since you got back, him and Bobby really appreciate it. So you’re off the hook!” Ravi explains cheerfully, clapping Eddie on the shoulder.
“I’m…you took my shift?”
Ravi winces slightly but powers through. Eddie nearly laughs at the realization that Ravi still acts like a probie sometimes—still sporadic instances of intimidation when he’s on the wrong end of Eddie or Buck.
“Er, yeah, man. Well I didn’t take it, technically. Ramirez just gave it to me. I’m sorry, he said he’d let you know. You can…I can ask him to give it back now, if you want me to? He’s inside already.”
Despite his better judgment, Eddie shakes his head. He knows exactly what to do with his newfound free time. Knows, also, exactly what he shouldn’t do with it.
He’s, again, going to do it anyway.
It’s Buck’s fault, really, when he thinks about it—lets his head catch up to his rampant mixed feelings. Buck shouldn’t have lied. Eddie trusted him not to.
“No, it’s fine, Ravi. Thanks for giving me a free night,” he answers, rolling the window back up.
Ravi’s bewildered, stuttering out an, “uh, okay, bye!” as Eddie cuts him off via tempered glass.
*******
Eddie has half an hour to kill before he can head to the address of Buck’s date. It’s all the way across town in Hollywood, so it’ll take a while to drive there, but he can’t wait it out at the house either, in case Buck’s still lingering behind.
He’s not really sure what his plan is; he’s not exactly dressed nice, as Buck’s reminder had told Buck to be, so if this is a restaurant with a dress code he might be screwed. Won’t even make it past the hostess table to enact the dramatic confrontation he’s envisioning if his jeans don’t pass.
Dramatic confrontation, he supposes, is the whole plan. He’s just so mad—hurt, devastated, shattered. Being cryptic was bad enough, but then outright lying that it’s over? Saying everything’s fine? Forgiving Eddie, for the way he blew up?
So sue him, he’s feeling petty. Ruining a date is fair retribution for lying to your best friend.
If Eddie could tune the hostile, screaming voice in his head out, he’d realize he’s doing something reckless and incredibly stupid. He’d realize there’s more to it than frustration about dishonesty that’s egging him on. Something about Buck finding someone (a new someone) while he was away is eating at him, manipulating the worst, jealous parts of himself into a weapon of mass destruction. He’s teeming with it; the way it nauseates him, the way it breaks his heart, the way it leaves him feeling lonelier than he did in El Paso.
He came running back to Buck, and Buck was running off to someone else.
Eddie’s stomach is twisted tightly into a knot when he parks a block up from the place on Hollywood Boulevard. He’s walking with determined purpose, practically stomping, garnering enough odd looks that Eddie briefly considers he might be leaving a path of fire in his wake.
5662 sits on the corner of Hollywood and Wilton, and is exactly the last thing Eddie is expecting. Give him hundreds of chances, maybe thousands, and he’d never have guessed he’d be angrily glaring at a photography store. Post Mix Film Lab, the black painted-on letters spell.
Well, there goes the plan, he thinks ruefully. I got the address wrong.
Something in him crumbles, realizing now he’ll have to have this fight at home. No blaze of glory, no firing on all cylinders. He’ll eventually scream, yell, curse at Buck in the kitchen, be forced to suffocate the air of home and comfort that’s clung onto the house since Buck first walked into it years ago. It’s stifling, the thought of it. His eyes have gone misty as he starts to move back in the direction of the car, but a chill courses through him, shocks him into straightening after only a few paces.
It’s Buck. Buck’s voice.
“Thanks so much for having me,” he says, a distant whisper in Eddie’s ears. Eddie can make out, still, a slight quiver in Buck’s voice—like he’s nervous.
He whips around to see Buck standing just under the overhang of the film lab’s front door, shaking the hand of someone he doesn’t recognize.
Two things hit him at once.
First: that is not who Eddie was expecting Buck’s secret paramour to be.
It’s a man, which would have been neither here nor there; but it’s an old man, lines of age defining his cheekbones and grey hair pulled into a tight ponytail at his neck. Not exactly what Eddie considers to be Buck’s type. Even Tommy wasn’tthat old.
Second: ‘thanks for having me’ is a decidedly weird way to greet someone you’re dating.
‘Glad to see you,’ maybe, or ‘thanks for meeting me,’ sure. Not ‘thanks for having me.’
Eddie thinks his feet might be glued to the pavement. He knows he should go, that this whole thing was insane to begin with. That, clearly, Buck’s new relationship is under an umbrella of ‘special circumstances’ that he doesn’t really want to touch with a ten-foot pole. A forty-year age gap is one of the very few things that Eddie could be compelled to let Buck off the hook for lying about. But he can’t move. He’s watching Buck have a subdued conversation in the entrance, and he can’t move. There’s still resentment simmering in his stomach, and he can’t peel his eyes away from its source.
He's so entrenched in the feeling that Buck gets within two feet of him before Eddie realizes he’s there.
“Eddie?” is a strangled question from Buck’s mouth, the first thing he hears when he comes back to himself.
“Eddie,” Buck repeats, apprehensively reaching a hand onto his shoulder.
“What is going on?” Eddie sighs, thoroughly exhausted.
He can’t face Buck, can’t meet his eyes, but he feels the way Buck’s thoughts are stammering. Trying to choose words carefully, trying to placate the tornado Eddie knows is spiraling around him.
“I…thought you had a shift,” Buck tries.
Eddie scoffs, louder than he intended to, shrugging out from under Buck’s gentle hand.
“That’s it? That’s all you’ve got? You lied to me, Buck. You lied, dead to my face, and said you weren’t seeing anyone, and that you were done with your ‘errands.’ Your stupid fucking lying errands.”
Buck takes a step back, faltering.
“I…Eddie, I wasn’t…I’m not seeing anyone. That’s…” he trails off, looks back at the man he’d been talking to. “Wait, do you think I’m dating that guy?”
Eddie’s confidence wavers, but he’s too far in now.
“I don’t know, Buck. What the hell am I supposed to think? What am I supposed to think about any of this? You’ve been driving me insane for the past week! You come in today, say whatever weird trips you’ve been going on are done, and then you sneak off to some secret meeting when I’m supposed to be at work. You set a reminder on your phone to dress nice. I don’t know what it could be besides a date! Awful fucking place to choose, by the way,” Eddie spits.
Buck visibly softens, and it’s kind of infuriating. Eddie wants him to feel guilty. Instead, he looks…it looks more like pity, and worry, and affection. Eddie belatedly realizes he’s acting like Buck is cheating on him; like he’s an outraged husband who caught his partner on a fake business trip. The embarrassment makes Eddie want to scream at him all over again.
“Eddie, look, I shouldn’t have lied to you. I’m sorry, okay? But this…I was never on any dates. I wouldn’t do that when you…I wouldn’t do that without telling you,” Buck starts.
He takes a shaky breath in before going on.
“I can’t…it’s really embarrassing. What I’m here for. I didn’t want to…I didn’t know you’d be back from Texas. And then you were, and I was so happy. Really, so happy, but I just didn’t know how to tell you. Haven’t told anyone, actually. And I just panicked, okay? I didn’t want you to find out.”
“Find out what?” Eddie seethes.
“It’s a show,” Buck admits, suddenly enthralled by the pavement. “A photography show.”
Eddie thinks he might be hallucinating, or tripping, or in a coma somewhere.
“What?” is all he manages to get out.
Buck is rubbing at the back of his neck, an awkward display of nervousness.
“It’s a photography show, and pictures I took are in it.”
Eddie thinks this might be worse than whatever he’d been anticipating. He really thinks he’s going crazy. This whole time, this week of insanity, Buck’s secretive errand apocalypse, was over a photography show?
“What?” Eddie, very eloquently, asks again.
“Do you…are you okay?”
“I’m being thrown for a fucking loop here, Buck. I need the full story. Right now, you’re really pissing me off. Just tell me what is going on.”
“Alright. Uh, yeah, fair enough.”
Buck clears his throat and stares intently at his shoes.
“A little while before you moved, I bought a film camera. It was an impulse buy, and I never said anything because I was half-sure I’d be awful at using it. Would’ve been ridiculously humiliating if I was going around talking about it, only for the pictures to come back ugly.
“I shot a roll of film…discreetly. Got it developed, and they turned out pretty okay. So I started taking more and more, and it became my own little thing. It was a really good way to keep busy, especially after you left. I was developing my film here, and the owner,” Buck emphasizes, pointing to the man he’d greeted, “said he wanted to include them in a show. I’ve been coming here all week to make sure everything was set up for tonight.”
Eddie’s mind is still racing hundreds of miles a minute, trying to process Buck’s explanation.
“Buck, this still doesn’t…” Eddie cuts himself off and scrubs his hands over his face.
“Why would you lie to me about this? So you’re in a photography show. That’s impressive, not embarrassing. I would never be mad at you over that. Why couldn’t you just tell me?”
Buck reaches out and takes Eddie’s hand in his. Eddie’s confused and slightly infuriated by the gesture, but holds it anyways. Would always hold it, no matter what.
“I can show you, if you want.”
When Eddie hesitates, a shadow of conflict passing over him, Buck backtracks.
“Look, I understand if you’re still mad. I get it if you don’t want to see, or if you want to yell at me more. I handled this all wrong. But I think it’ll make more sense why I did if I show you.”
He pauses again, a blush rising on his cheeks.
“Just…don’t laugh, okay? You’re allowed to be pissed, because I am a complete idiot. But I don’t think I can handle it if you…if I show you, and you laugh at me.”
Eddie’s last shreds of resolve, of anger, disintegrate the second Buck’s expression turns self-conscious. He looks small, as contrite and tentative and genuine as Eddie’s ever seen him.
“Buck, I would never laugh at you.”
Buck nods, though not looking any less anxious, and leads Eddie towards the building.
“Tom, this is my…this is Eddie,” Buck says to the infamous man at the door.
Store owner, not boyfriend, Eddie reminds himself.
“Oh, so nice to meet you. I didn’t know you’d be here for the show, what a pleasant surprise!” He swivels to address Buck, gloating that “the work will be received even better with the artist and the subject here.”
Buck flushes a furious shade of red and fumbles out a string of sounds that Eddie’s certain none of which were real words.
“The subject?” Eddie prompts, searching for a coherent answer amidst Buck’s bashful mumbling.
He gets no response as they step inside. The room isn’t huge, but it’s open, and the light is warm, and easy music is humming from a massive record player by the back counter. The walls are sectioned off and covered, nearly floor-to-ceiling, in photography prints.
There’s a few other people milling about, but Buck tells him, “Those are the other photographers with work displayed. The event’s not open yet.”
Buck leads him to the left, stopping in the middle of the far wall, finally turning to face him.
“This…this is my stuff,” Buck says.
Eddie stares at the nameplate in the center.
Evan Buckley
Before and After
Eddie steps past Buck, closer to the photos. There’s nearly twenty, all black-and-white, organized in distinct pairs of two. It takes him a minute to realize what he’s looking at.
He lets out a gasp, suddenly breathless, and he can feel Buck tense behind him.
They’re pictures of him.
Well, half of them are.
In each pair of photos, there’s one of him. At the station, at the house, even one taken through his side door into the backyard.
Some of the photos from the station have the whole crew in them, but Eddie’s still the focal point. There’s one with Bobby, Hen, Chim, Ravi, and Eddie all sitting at the dinner table, laughing about something Eddie wishes now he remembered. He can’t recall most of the moments captured, has no idea how Buck could’ve hidden himself to take them.
The other half of the photos are of the same scenes, the same exact backdrops, but darker, grainier, and noticeably lacking Eddie.
There’s practically a mirror image of A-shift at the firehouse, but a seat is vacant in the middle—the seat that Eddie had claimed as his years ago. The smiles are less vibrant, more forced. There’s a tightness about Ravi, whose face is the only one fully visible head-on, and Bobby’s head is tilted, like he’s motioning towards the empty chair.
Before and After.
Before, with Eddie. After he was gone.
Every picture is stunning. Every photo in the before feels warm—like the camera cloaked the scene in silk. Somehow, it’s like he can see the color through the absence of it.
The phots without him stand out, even in the monotone, as more starkly grey. Like something crucial is missing, a black hole sucking the life, the saturation out of the image.
He stares at the befores, memorizing details of himself he’d never noticed, never thought to look for. He looks soft, and tender, and happy. It’s hard to even recognize it as him.
Eddie’s never seen himself like this.
Never seen himself as warmth, or radiance, or joy. Never seen himself as someone whose absence is noticed, or felt, or lamented over.
He sees it now. He can’t help but see it. The closure, the feeling of completeness in the befores; the disjointed emptiness of the afters. It’s all there, framed stagnant on the wall.
In these pictures—in the story they tell—he matters.
He becomes acutely aware full minutes must have passed in complete silence. When he spins back around, Buck’s shape is only a blurry, foggy outline in his vision. It takes Eddie a second to realize it’s because he’s crying.
“Eddie…”
“Buck, this is…”
They both start at once.
“You first,” Eddie whispers, biting back a sob.
“Are you still mad?”
There’s so many things Eddie wants to say. He’s trying to assemble the words in his head, parse the floating adjectives into a meaningful sentence, but nothing seems right. He’s never been good at that—saying exactly what he means. Case in point: scream-asking Buck if he’s dating the old man who owns the film lab when the real question is, ‘why aren’t you dating me?’
He throws himself onto Buck instead. Comes at it a little too hard, evidently, because Buck staggers with a surprised grunt at the force of being barreled into.
The tears are streaming freely now, waterfalls of ‘thank you’ and ‘I love you’ pouring down his cheeks. He’s drowning Buck’s shoulder in them, hoping Buck can swim amidst the unspoken. Buck’s smoothing a hand up and down Eddie’s back, breathing quick and shaky in his ear.
Able, eventually, to reign himself in, Eddie pulls back and holds Buck at arms-length. Appraising him with eyes gone soft and dewy.
“You see me,” Eddie breathes, a revelation that hangs in the air between them.
“You see me like this.”
“I see you in everything,” Buck answers. “Even when you’re not there. I see where you’re supposed to be.”
His chest is rising and falling in stutters, but he steps closer to Eddie anyway—soldiers on.
“I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t know how you’d react to…to knowing how much I…Eddie, you’re everythingto me. Like, the world stops moving for me when you’re not in it. It gets darker, so much emptier, and I didn’t know how to tell you that. So I took pictures. Ones I was hoping you’d never see. Because I can’t…I don’t know how to keep going if you don’t see me like this, too.”
“I do, Buck. God, I do. I’ve been acting insane all week, so jealous thinking there was a part of your life that wasn’t with me. I’m so sorry. I’ve never…these pictures, Buck. No one’s ever seen me like that, before. I’ve never seen myself like that.”
“You deserve to. Eddie, I want you to see yourself how I do. This is how I see you, always.”
Eddie’s crying again. He can feel the fresh heat of tears.
He has no pictures to offer Buck. No portraits that capture his intricate affection, no memorializations to show the warm glow of Buck through his eyes. He has even less words to describe it; sub-zero count of phrases that could measure how he feels.
Eddie can show him, instead.
Action. He’s better at that.
Eddie grips both hands around Buck’s jaw, tilting his chin up to press his lips onto Buck’s.
It’s less than graceful, but that’s what Eddie is going for. Passion, depth, promise. It’s all spelled out in the way he parts his lips, grazes his teeth against Buck’s bottom one, breathes life into Buck’s mouth.
It takes less than half a second of processing for Buck to kiss back. His hand is in Eddie’s hair, fingers wound tightly, pulling him in, as if Eddie could get much closer.
Eddie tests the theory, slides one hand down to cradle the nape of Buck’s neck, cards the other around his back so there’s definitively not an inch of wasted space between them.
“That is how I see you,” Eddie murmurs when he pulls away.
He keeps his hands safely around Buck, afraid if he lets go the whole memory—all of Buck—will fade away in front of him.
They eventually snap apart at the sound of Tom, clearing his throat pointedly behind them.
“Um, sorry to- interrupt. Evan, we’re opening in five minutes. Could you…is it possible to be done with the…intimacy by then?”
Eddie wipes the edges of his lips, the undersides of his eyes as Buck mumbles back some half-hearted apology and avid assurance that they’ll stop making out in the middle of his studio. Usually Eddie would be mortified, but he can’t bring himself to care about the blatant PDA when it’s Buck he’s PDA-ing.
Tom gives them an awkward nod and retreats towards the front doors, preparing to prop them open for showtime. Buck laughs, suddenly and a bit hysterically, at his receding figure, and Eddie raises his eyebrows in silent confusion. He’s slightly concerned he kissed Buck into shock, or psychosis.
“Sorry,” Buck wheezes between laughs. “I just can’t believe you thought I was dating him. Like, I know Tommy was older, but Jesus, Eddie. You think I’d date a guy who’s seventy?”
“Yeah, yeah, alright,” Eddie groans, laughing a little despite his urge to go defensive. “To be fair, I was kind of spiraling. I didn’t know what to think.”
“The grey ponytail just really does it for me,” Buck teases.
“Mmm, I’m sure.”
Eddie turns himself solemn again with a deep breath and a quick cough to school the emotion sitting in his throat.
“Look, Buck…I am sorry for the way I’ve been acting this week. Even if you were going on a date, it wasn’t fair of me to get angry with you. I also shouldn’t have checked your phone and followed you to sabotage said date. But I…well, I did just kiss you, so you can gather how I feel about you—how I felt about you dating someone else.”
An inhale catches in Buck’s chest, and he reaches out to anchor himself on Eddie’s forearm.
“Can you tell me anyway?”
“I don’t want you to. Date anyone else, I mean. I want you to…I want you to date me.”
Once Eddie starts, he can’t stop. Floodgates are opened, and everything he’s never said is splashing down around them, a rushing whitewater of repressed feelings.
“I want you to never find another apartment, never move out of my house, never meet another girl out for drinks, never run errands—real or pretend or private or embarrassing—without me.
“I want to be there for everything. I want to do everything with you. And I…I want to be the person you see in these pictures.”
Buck hasn’t answered; he’s gripping Eddie’s arm like a lifeline, glassy blue eyes flicking over him, poring through Eddie’s vulnerability.
“Is that…too much?” Eddie asks, trying to ease his way out of Buck’s grip, confronted, terrified, with the sudden possibility of rejection.
“No!” Buck jolts back into awareness, tightening his grasp.
“No. Eddie, it’s everything I’ve ever wanted. You’re all I’ve ever wanted.”
“One minute!” Tom calls out from the door.
They’re both so lost in each other—in everything past, everything now beginning—that it’s a jarring reminder the world exists outside of this moment.
“Don’t go on any dates,” Eddie states, with more demand than he should be afforded, when Buck turns back from the distraction.
“I won’t,” Buck promises.
“Don’t leave me again.”
“Never,” Eddie assures, a promise of his own.
A crowd had started to gather around the building, and they flood in as Tom swings open the door the second the clock changes. Eddie takes a final second to admire Buck as he is, passingly wishing he had a camera to capture it. He doesn’t need it, though; he’ll remember it all the same—every expression, every word, each and every detail of Buck’s face as he told, and showed, Eddie how enough he is.
In the growing noise and commotion, Buck moves to take his place next to his work and pulls Eddie alongside him. He can feel Buck tense slightly, nervous energy seizing him as probably thirty people file immediately through the entrance.
“I didn’t get to say before,” Eddie starts, hoping to mollify Buck’s anxiety, leaning close to make sure he’s heard. “The photos are amazing, Buck. Like really, really great.”
Buck smiles and nods, shrugs the nerves away, and wraps his arm around Eddie’s shoulders. He presses a kiss to the top of Eddie’s head as he whispers, like it’s obvious, “Of course they are. They’re pictures of you.”