Work Text:
Can't do this alone
We need you at home
There's so much to see
We know that you're strong
The station still smells faintly of smoke and lemon cleaner, like the air can’t decide whether to remember or forget. Everything gleams in the harsh morning light. The trucks have been washed twice, the bay floors mopped to a mirror. Even the coffee pot has been scrubbed until it shines. It’s as if the whole place is trying to prove something—that it can still hold itself together, even now, even without him.
They hung the plaque this morning. Captain Robert Nash. His legacy lives in the 118. The brass catches the light whenever someone moves past, throwing a flicker of gold across the walls. Eddie avoids looking directly at it, though he doesn’t need to. The words have already branded themselves into the back of his eyelids. When he blinks, they’re still there.
Hen’s his partner now, and she’s good; steady, unflappable, the kind of calm Bobby used to carry like armor. They fall into rhythm easily enough, but it’s not the same rhythm. She doesn’t fill the same space. She doesn’t reach for him without thinking, doesn’t know how he moves before he does. Buck did. Buck always did. And it shouldn’t matter this much, shouldn’t catch him off guard every time Hen calls his name and it sounds like the wrong key in the right song, but it does.
Buck stands across the bay, laughing at something Chim says, though it sounds more like muscle memory than joy. He’s been doing that a lot lately, performing normality in the same way Eddie’s been performing composure. They orbit each other carefully, like two people afraid of sparking a fire neither of them can control. Eddie tells himself it’s fine. It’s what Buck needs. Space. Time. But the words taste bitter every time he repeats them.
When Buck moved out, he said it quietly, like it was some kind of mercy. Like leaving would help. Like his absence would rebuild Eddie and Chris, as if he wasn't the glue holding them together in the first place. Eddie remembers standing there, watching him gather the last of his things, wanting to say you don’t have to go. Wanting to say please don’t. But the words stayed where they always do, trapped behind his teeth. Because if he said them, he’d have to admit what they meant. He’d have to face what he’d only just begun to understand, how every piece of his life had bent itself unconsciously toward Buck, and how the thought of losing him felt like tearing out something vital.
Now the house is too quiet. The bed feels too big. Christopher’s drawings still hang on the fridge, their corners curling slightly in the heat, and sometimes, late at night, Eddie catches himself listening for footsteps that never come. It’s a stupid habit, one he can’t shake. Grief does that; it rearranges the ordinary into something unlivable. And anger slips in beside it, quiet but sharp. He’s angry that Buck left, angry that Bobby’s gone, angry that the world keeps demanding he pretend this isn’t breaking him open.
The tones drop, mercifully, the sound of purpose slicing through the haze. Eddie moves on instinct, grateful for it, gear, gloves, motion. Hen’s already climbing into the rig. Buck passes close behind him, the brush of his shoulder so light it could almost be an accident, but it leaves a trail of heat all the same. The air between them crackles with everything unsaid.
Outside, the city hums. The morning is pale and washed out, the kind of colorless sky that makes every shadow look longer than it should. As the truck pulls out of the bay, Eddie glances back just once. Through the glass, he sees the plaque catching the light again, Bobby’s name shining for a heartbeat before it disappears from view. And next to it, just for a moment, he sees Buck’s reflection, head bowed, eyes distant, the same grief caught in the same quiet cage.
It hits him then that maybe this is all that’s left to them. Not peace. Not closure. Just this, some kind of love that refuses to burn out, even when everything else already has.
It’s been like this for weeks. Careful distance. Too-bright smiles. Space where warmth used to be. Buck says it’s what he needs; to get his head straight, to find some balance again. Eddie nodded, said he understood, and watched him carry his boxes out of the house that had been theirs without ever daring to call it that. He didn’t stop him. He wanted to. He didn’t.
Now the house echoes. The walls feel too thin. There’s still a dent in the couch cushion where Buck always sat, one mug missing from the rack, a pair of shoes Eddie hasn’t been able to throw away, or give back. He moves through the rooms at night and feels the absence like static against his skin.
He tells himself the anger is easier than the grief. That it’s righteous. That it keeps him from sinking. Because it’s not fair, Bobby’s gone, and Buck left, and Eddie is the one standing in the ruins pretending he’s fine. He’s furious with the world, furious with Buck, furious with himself for loving someone who keeps walking away. Even though, he's done it too, walked away.
By the time he gets home from shift, the anger has nowhere left to go. It sits heavy in his chest, simmering low and hot as he kicks off his boots and drops his bag by the door. The house is dark except for the faint streetlight bleeding through the blinds. Christopher’s at a sleepover. The third in as many weeks. The quiet is too clean, too still. Eddie stands in the middle of it, unmoored.
He doesn’t turn on the lights. He doesn’t need to. He could walk this space blind. His fingers trail the edge of the counter, the back of the couch, the dented armrest that still bears the shape of Buck’s knee.
And then there’s a knock.
It’s soft, hesitant. He knows that knock. He knows it before he opens the door.
Buck stands there in jeans and a hoodie, curls damp again like he’s just showered, a takeout bag clutched in his hands. “Didn’t think you’d eat,” he says, quiet, eyes flicking past Eddie’s shoulder as if unsure he’s allowed to look inside. “Figured I’d bring something.”
Eddie stares at him for a long moment. The bag smells like sesame and garlic. His throat feels tight. “You don’t have to—”
“I know,” Buck says. And then, softer, “I wanted to.”
Something in Eddie caves. He steps aside. Buck hesitates, then walks in, slipping into the room like he never left. The space shifts to accommodate him; it always does. He sets the food down on the coffee table, glancing around like he’s afraid to touch anything.
Eddie watches him. Watches the familiar slope of his shoulders, the way his hands move, restless, searching for somewhere to land. The air between them hums with everything unsaid.
“Chris isn’t here,” Eddie hears himself say.
Buck nods. “Good. Then I can steal all the spring rolls.”
The joke is bad, soft around the edges, and Eddie almost laughs. It breaks something loose anyway. He sits down on the couch without thinking, the same spot he always does. Buck follows, because of course he does, because some gravitational law still binds them even now. He sits in his place, the one the cushion remembers, and suddenly the house doesn’t feel so empty.
They eat in silence for a while, chopsticks clinking, the low hum of the fridge filling the space between breaths. Buck reaches for the soy sauce and their fingers brush; Eddie doesn’t move away.
He looks over and finds Buck watching him, eyes tired and soft, a sadness there that mirrors his own. Something in him twists painfully.
He should still be angry. He should tell Buck that he’s furious, that he misses him, that he’s so damn tired of pretending it’s fine. But instead, he just breathes.
Because this, this moment, the warmth of Buck beside him, the smell of takeout in the air, the faint pulse of music still in his veins, is enough to break him open.
He loves him so much he can’t see straight. Loves him past anger, past pride, past reason. Loves him enough to let him go again, even knowing he’ll break every time.
Buck leans back, stretches out, and without thinking drops his arm along the back of the couch, behind Eddie’s shoulders, close enough that Eddie can feel the heat of him. It’s nothing, and it’s everything.
The TV flickers with low light, muted and meaningless. The city hums outside. Inside, the house feels like it’s remembering how to breathe.
Eddie closes his eyes, just for a moment, and lets himself rest against the gravity of it, the ache, the anger, the love that won’t die.
Some kind of love, he thinks. The kind that stays, even when it shouldn’t. The kind that finds its way home.
Buck’s voice hums through the room, easy and familiar, the sound of something Eddie thought he’d lost. He’s sitting in his old spot on the couch like he never left, barefoot, hair still slightly damp from a shower, balancing cartons of Chinese take-out between them. The lamplight paints him in gold and shadow, all soft edges and tired eyes, and Eddie feels every heartbeat like it’s trying to climb out of his chest.
He’s been so careful lately. Careful not to look too long, not to let his hands linger, not to imagine what it would be like if Buck never moved out again. Careful to keep his words neutral and his tone even, to live in the narrow space between missing and pretending.
But Buck laughs, really laughs, and it’s like air rushing into a room that’s been closed for too long. Eddie feels it flood through him, warm and dizzying. He loves that laugh. He’s loved it for years. And suddenly he can’t remember why he ever thought he could live without it.
The glass in his hand is sweating, slick against his palm. He tightens his grip, just a fraction too much, and it slips, hits the floor, and shatters. The sound is small but clear, like the moment something finally gives way.
Buck startles. “Shit, you okay?”
Eddie looks down at the broken pieces, light catching in the water pooled around them. He should feel embarrassed. He should feel something sharp. Instead, he feels… light. Breathless. Like his chest has been unlatched.
He looks up at Buck, who’s already leaning forward, worried crease between his brows. And for once, Eddie doesn’t look away. He lets himself see him, the curve of his smile, the freckles, the life still flickering behind those blue eyes, and lets the truth rise unfiltered through the wreckage.
“Yeah,” Eddie says, a little breathless, a little wild. “Yeah, I’m okay.”
Buck frowns. “You sure? You’re bleeding a little—”
“I’m fine,” Eddie cuts in, softer this time. “Really.”
Buck hesitates, then laughs under his breath, shaking his head, that curl falling forward across his temple. Eddie reaches out before he can think better of it and brushes it back. His fingers linger. Buck freezes, eyes lifting to meet his, and something shifts between them, something bright, weightless, inevitable.
For once, Eddie doesn’t pull away. He doesn’t think about Bobby, or the team, or what it means. He just feels it, the pulse under his skin, the heat of Buck’s cheek when his hand slides down, the way Buck’s breath catches like maybe he’s been waiting for this too.
“Eddie,” Buck whispers, half a question.
Eddie smiles, small and real, the first in a long time. “Yeah,” he murmurs. “I know.”
And when Buck leans in, when their foreheads touch and the world exhales around them, it isn’t desperate. It’s easy. It’s right. The glass is still on the floor, the plaque still gleams downtown, the grief still sits heavy in both of them, but this, this small space between breaths, is his.
He wants. Finally. Openly.
He lets himself have it.
Buck laughs again, low and bright against his mouth, and Eddie feels it like sunlight breaking through cloud. The world outside keeps moving, sirens and traffic and memory, but here in this moment, Eddie doesn’t care.
He’s allowed to want. He’s allowed to love. He’s allowed to let the light in.