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Eddie’s life feels like it finally settled into a groove, the kind he’s been chasing in half-formed dreams for years. When he packed up for El Paso, he thought he was pausing his life, not ending a chapter. But cities don’t wait for you; they shift, reshape themselves while you’re gone. Los Angeles hums around him now, familiar and forgiving, a city that somehow remembers him but no longer bruises when he touches it.
Christopher’s laughter ricochets off the walls, grounding him in a way that feels almost sacred, a pulse beneath his ribs, a heartbeat steadying his own. And yet, even as it fades into quiet, the silence feels alive, watchful, echoing in the spaces the laughter once filled. The ghost of old panic lingers faintly, a coil in his stomach he thought he’d left behind, whispering reminders of sleepless nights and the weight of holding himself too tight. It fades fast, but its shadow lingers: don’t trust this calm.
Still, he’s sleeping through the night now. Eating without thought. Moving through his days without bracing for impact. This—this quiet, steady rhythm—is what peace is supposed to feel like, he realizes. And for the first time in a long while, it almost doesn’t scare him.
The 118 moves around him like second nature—calls, cleanup, the clatter of boots in the kitchen, laughter that no longer feels like a patch over an empty space. The work still carries its weight; grief presses close, skimming under the skin, but he can breathe. Hen is there too, teasing, nudging, a spark that makes the air feel lighter, and for a few quiet moments, Eddie can let himself sink into it. He lets it wash over him like sunlight through blinds—thin, flickering, always at risk of fading if he looks too close.
Buck’s still Buck. The fire, the chaos, the energy that used to fill a room just by existing. He burned too bright, too fast. Now, he’s learned how to hold the flame in his hands without setting everything alight, to dim it just enough to survive. Eddie tells himself it’s the grief—Bobby’s absence, the job—that Buck’s fine. Death sandpapers everyone into smaller, sharper versions of themselves. He’s seen it before. Felt it.
Sometimes—rare, brief—Eddie reaches for the old tether between them and feels the give in it, like a rope stretched too long in the sun. No one else would notice, but he does, and it sits low in his chest, stubborn. He looks at Buck, hoping for that old gravity—the easy pull that used to steady him—but every movement Buck makes tugs at something Eddie’s tried to bury: the part that aches. So he does what he’s good at. Swallows it down. Puts on a smile that looks enough like ease to pass. Keeps moving forward because stillness might give him away. And yet sometimes, when their eyes meet for just a heartbeat too long, it isn’t grief he sees mirrored back at him. It’s something quieter, sharper: someone folding up the last of their life, tucking it into a box, and closing the door.
Eddie wants to ask where are you going? He doesn’t. He doesn’t want to know if the answer isn’t here.
That look stays with him. Later, when the room quiets and the noise of the world fades, it’s the thing that rises first. The thing he can’t shake. Eddie pushes it down, the way he’s learned to do with his own messy parts. That’s what matters: Buck is still rushing, still showing up, still dazzling in a way that makes Eddie’s chest tighten. That hasn’t changed. Eddie’s life is finally steady enough that he can hold him in that space without falling apart.
And if Buck feels distant sometimes, well...Eddie figures it’s just the weight of everything that’s happened. That once the dust truly settles, Buck will come back the way he always does: loud, bright, impossible to ignore. That’s what Buck does. He always comes back. Eddie keeps yanking the tangled threads of unease down, tucks them into the corner of his chest. There’s happiness in this room—sunlight, laughter, the smell of lunch—and he wants to sit in it. He needs to sit in it. Later. Later we’ll figure it out.
Because right now, everything else is working. Everything else is bright. Everything else is good.
Outside the moment, somewhere across the room, someone drops a spatula. It's a sound Eddie doesn’t quite register. But Buck does. Buck watches Hen and Eddie from across the room, eyes flicking to where Eddie’s laughing—the easy kind, the kind he hasn’t heard in years. Hen bumps Eddie’s shoulder, something quick and affectionate, and Buck smiles like it doesn’t catch. Like it doesn’t twist somewhere deep in him. He’s happy for him—he is—but the warmth in his chest burns on both sides.
Some moments, it feels like Buck has been orbiting the same sun for too long, and Eddie’s light has moved just slightly out of reach. He swallows it. He always swallows it. Because Eddie’s happy. Eddie doesn’t need Buck to complicate that. But bile is rising, and he can’t hold it in his mouth for long.
Buck lies on the floor beside the crib, one arm folded under his head. The carpet’s rough against his skin, grounding him. Above him, the baby sleeps—his nephew, small and perfect, one fist tucked close to his mouth. There’s that soft baby smell—powder and warmth and something faintly sweet—that fills the air.
“Hey, buddy,” Buck says softly. “We’re holding down the fort, huh?”
Jee’s at preschool, Maddie’s running errands, Chim’s at work. Everyone’s busy, everyone’s somewhere, and Buck—well, Buck’s here. It’s not a bad place to be. Just quiet. Buck’s the one who stayed still. And that’s fine. The blinds carve the room into slow-moving stripes of light. Dust floats in the beams, lazy and aimless. Buck watches the light crawl across the crib rails, catching on the curve of the baby’s cheek. It’s grounding, it's something uncomplicated in a life that hasn’t felt that way in a long time.
“I know you can’t understand me,” he murmurs. “That’s kind of the point.”
He huffs a breath, something that almost turns into a laugh. “I used to talk to Jee like this, too. She’d just stare at me, all serious, like she was about to give advice. You just sleep through it. Good choice.”
He rolls onto his back, staring up at the mobile that turns lazy circles above them. Little wooden clouds hanging among celestial imagery in baby-friendly pastels. The kind of calm you can buy in a box, if you know where to look. Everything in this room is soft by design. Rounded corners, muted colors. “Everybody’s busy lately. Maddie’s got you. Chim’s happy. Jee’s basically a real person now. Even Eddie’s—”
He stops. The name catches somewhere low in his chest.
“Eddie’s good,” he says finally, quieter now. “He’s…settled.”
The mobile offers no answer. The baby stirs, breath snagging before evening out again. Buck watches the movement, his throat tight around something unspoken.
“I’m happy for him,” he says. “Really. He deserves it. All of it.”
He sits up, folding his arms on the edge of the crib, fingers curling over the smooth wood. “It’s just strange, you know? Watching people find the thing that makes them whole. You think you’re part of it, and then one day you realize you were just—filling the space until they got there.”
He runs a hand through his hair. “I still see him. We still laugh, work, talk—it’s all the same, on paper. But it’s not. Something underneath shifted. I think I miss him even when he’s right next to me. Which is…” He lets out a short breath. “Yeah. That’s trouble.”
The monitor hums, a low mechanical heartbeat in the background. Buck swallows hard. Bobby’s face flickers in his mind, not yelling, not overexplaining, just the quiet certainty that made you feel like nothing could go wrong as long as he was there. Buck tries to mimic it, to offer even a fraction of that steadiness to Nash. Every small success with the baby, every ordinary laugh with Eddie, carries the shadow of what they lost. The ache hits him low in the chest, a familiar weight that doesn’t lift no matter how much he rocks the crib.
“I keep thinking about when Eddie first showed up,” he murmurs. “How fast it all made sense. Like we’d been doing this forever. Like we skipped the part where you have to learn each other.” He smiles faintly, not really at anything. “It still makes sense, that’s the messed-up part. It still fits. It’s just—he doesn’t reach for me the way he used to. He doesn’t have to. He used to look at me like I was the only one who could keep up with him. Like there was this unspoken thing between us—this rhythm. And now it’s like…he found a quieter song. One I don’t know the words to.”
The green light flickers in the corner of his vision.
“I don’t think he even realizes it,” he says. “How easy it is for him to move forward. How hard it is for me not to.”
He laughs once, quietly. “I’m in love with him because it’s easy. Because every part of it felt natural, like breathing. Because I never had to earn it. That’s the worst part. It's effortless, and I still can’t have it.”
The corner of his mouth lifts, not quite a smile. “And you can’t exactly tell a guy, ‘Hey, I think I’m in love with you, but don’t worry, I know it doesn’t change a thing between us.’ That’s just asking to make things weird. It’s not tragic, though. Don’t get me wrong. It’s just life. You can love someone and still know you don’t belong where you want to.”
He looks down at the baby, who shifts slightly, fingers uncurling, reaching toward nothing. Buck’s hand twitches like he might reach back, but he doesn’t. “Don’t worry, kid,” he murmurs. “I’m not asking for advice. Just saying it out loud. Everyone I could tell already suspects. They’d look at me like I’d said something obvious, or stupid, or both…I guess maybe I want someone to hear it anyway.”
He leans back on his hands, watching the monitor light blink in tandem with his breath. The air feels thick, not sad, just full. Like the room’s holding its breath with him.
“You’re the first one who really knows,” he says. “Seems fair. Clean slate and all.”
The baby sighs in his sleep, a small, soft sound that lands somewhere deep in Buck’s chest. “Yeah,” he whispers. “You get it.”
There’s a crackle from the monitor—maybe Maddie, maybe static—but Buck doesn’t move. He just lets it happen. If Maddie hears, maybe that’s okay. Maybe someone else should carry a piece of it. He runs a hand over his face, palm dragging down until it catches on his jaw. His fingers tremble, just once. “If you ever figure out how to love someone without asking for anything back,” he murmurs, “you’ll be better at this than I am.”
The light in the room softens, stripes stretching thinner across the wall. By the time Maddie steps into the doorway, Buck hasn’t moved.
“He went down easy?” she asks.
“Yeah,” Buck says. His voice sounds steady, almost normal. “Out like a light.”
She smiles. “You’re good with him. Calms right down when you’re here.”
Buck smiles back at that, small and honest. “Yeah. Guess we understand each other.”
She lingers for a second, maybe about to say something else, then just nods and leaves.
When she’s gone, the room folds back into quiet. Not empty, though. Just still.
Buck stays where he is, one hand resting lightly on the crib rail. “You keep my secret, alright?” he says softly. “It’s not a big one. Just something true.” The mobile spins above them, slow and steady. Buck watches it turn, jaw working like he’s holding something back. “I think it's safe with you, kid,” he whispers.
The baby doesn’t move. The monitor light blinks on, off, on.
And Buck—tired, steady, heart still too full—lets himself breathe.
From the kitchen, a crackle carries through the baby monitor. Maddie stands over it, hands braced on either side, listening to the soft static that’s replaced Buck’s voice.
She hadn’t meant to overhear. She’d come home early, reached for a glass of water, and then—his voice, quiet and unguarded, filling the space like a confession meant for no one. Buck’s always been easy to read, but this was different. There’d been something in the way he said Eddie’s name—careful, reverent, resigned. Like saying it cost him something, and he was paying in small installments.
Maddie closes her eyes, presses the heel of her hand against her chest. It’s not surprise she feels—it’s heartache. Not for him exactly, but for the way he keeps giving all that love away with nowhere to put it.
She could go to him, tell him she heard, that he isn’t as alone as he thinks. But she doesn’t. Not yet. He deserves the dignity of thinking he’s kept this one to himself.
So she just stands there, listening to the faint hum of the monitor, the sound of her brother breathing on the other side of it.
And when she finally turns it off, it’s with a quiet kind of promise—that she’ll hold this secret the way he holds everyone else’s. Gently. Carefully. Like love, even if it can’t be said out loud.
Weeks pass. Whatever Maddie heard stays unspoken, settling like dust in the quiet.
It takes a while for Eddie to notice that Buck’s distance isn’t something that’s happening to him—it’s something he’s doing.
Stress. Job. Bobby. Fine. Eddie tells himself. But after a few weeks, it starts to seep into him in smaller, quieter ways, the kind you don’t catch at first. Bobby had said showing up was the hardest part. Eddie keeps showing up. Sometimes that feels like enough. Sometimes it feels like pretending the hardest part is over.
Now, Eddie keeps realizing, over and over, that when he’s looking for Buck, Buck isn’t always looking back.
Buck’s still there in all the ways that count, cheery on team outings. Still the first out of the truck, still steady on scene, still grinning at the probies like he’s been doing this his whole life. But when the calls end, when the adrenaline fades, there’s this flicker behind his eyes. There’s no fight to point to, no moment that explains it. Just this quiet rewiring between them, like a current redirected. They used to find each other without trying. A glance across the rig, a nudge of the shoulder, a joke only they’d think was funny. Buck’s eyes do catch on him sometimes, brief but cutting and it’s like a spark catching dry timber. Eddie feels it flare in his chest, hot and impossible to ignore, that old recognition sparking to life.
It’s not a look you can hide from. Buck never needed words to get under his skin—just one glance and Eddie’s hands feel warmer, his chest tighter, his thoughts suddenly too loud. There’s a pull in it, subtle but insistent, a quiet weight that makes him lean in without meaning to. That attention, the thing Buck gives without thinking, it lingers, it presses, and it reminds him of all the ways he’s mattered. Bobby had shown Buck that too—the steady presence, the kind of grounding that doesn’t need a word, doesn’t demand recognition. So he keeps moving, keeps his hands busy, keeps pretending the world is as ordinary as it ever was. If he stays in motion, maybe Buck won’t see what’s already breaking loose inside him.
Buck has always been all-in or not at all. Loving hard, reflexive, unmeasured. And this...this careful, quieter version of him doesn’t feel like restraint. It feels deliberate. There’s a pang in Eddie’s chest, a knot of recognition that something fundamental has shifted. The old certainty—the easy trust in Buck’s constant presence—is gone. In its place, there’s a tremor, a subtle awareness of something fragile under familiar ground. It’s just there, threading through the ache of absence, threading through the little moments when Buck’s attention lands and the world feels real again.
He thinks about every time Buck had been there: the phone calls that lasted too long, the hospital rooms with quiet steady hands, the kitchen tables where the world paused and Buck showed up anyway. Every time Eddie had broken, and Buck had been there, unflinching. And maybe that was who Buck was. Maybe he’d always be that person.
But now, it’s Eddie who can’t reach him.
It doesn’t make sense. It should be easier, now that things are good again. And yet, the better his life gets, the further Buck seems to drift. Even when he tries—throwing out a dumb joke about paperwork, nudging Eddie’s shoulder in the kitchen—the ease is gone. The laughter isn’t spontaneous; the touch feels measured. Eddie isn’t built for noticing the first subtle slips, the quiet withdrawal, but he’s lost too many people to pretend he can’t feel the distance widening.
Eddie starts to think maybe Buck knows the shape of something Eddie’s been too afraid to look at directly. Because whatever this is, Buck’s not running from him. He’s protecting himself. Now Eddie’s stuck watching him move differently, all soft edges and careful space. It’s the kind of distance that says I know what this all means, even if you don’t.
The truth, the one he can almost feel pressing against the edges of his thoughts, is that he’s scared to. Something in him already knows that when he finally understands what changed, it’s going to change him too. So he laughs a little louder than he needs to, lets the noise fill in where the ease used to be. He keeps moving. Keeps pretending. Keeps waiting for something to settle.
He doesn’t know when it started feeling like work, this business of being fine around Buck. Sometimes he thinks about saying something, anything, but he doesn’t know which version of himself would answer. The one who misses Buck, or the one who’s scared of what it means to miss him when he’s right there.
He tells himself he’ll figure it out. He always does.
The next afternoon, the world feels louder again. There's sunlight, voices, the hum of family stitched over what neither of them is saying. Buck rocks Nash slowly on the porch, letting the motion mask the churn in his chest. From the gazebo, laughter ricochets—plates scraping, Hen teasing Maddie—while Chris lingers at the edge of the yard, tall, steady, scanning everything like he’s running plays he’s memorized.
Buck notices every tilt of Eddie’s head, every half-step, and with each one, a quiet tension coils tighter. Eddie moves through the chaos, guiding Chris without even thinking about it, the rhythm they used to have slipping easily back into place. Every glance, every gesture Eddie makes—light, effortless—hits Buck like a physical weight. The way Eddie laughs, the way his hands hover for a second too long over Chris’s shoulder, the way he tilts his head to catch a sound, it all twists something raw in Buck’s chest.
Chris leans against Eddie’s side as he moves through the yard, asking quiet questions, laughing softly at things Eddie barely remembers teaching him. Eddie can feel Buck in every gesture Chris makes—the way he’s always been the shadow, the guide, the one who lifts the little chaos into order. Chris calls out something, and for a split second, Eddie glances at Buck. That brief look, the memory of a thousand shared glances, of years building something unspoken snags Buck’s stomach.
He wants to speak, to let Eddie feel the gravity he carries, but the words hover, dangerous and fragile. He didn’t mean to pull back from Eddie; he just…he’s scared. Scared of what happens if he leans in, if the words spill out. So he rocks instead, watches Eddie laugh, watches Chris respond, and lets the tension hum between them, taut and alive.
Buck shifts, brushes past him under the guise of going to grab a plate, but his shoulder bumps Eddie’s. Slight. Accidental. He freezes mid-step, lets the contact linger a heartbeat too long, and Eddie lets his hand brush back, just slightly, as if he’s returning the message. Buck’s chest tightens, the faintest hitch in his breath. He swallows, rocks Nash again, pretending the motion is what occupies him. But his eyes keep flicking to Eddie, tracing him.
Eddie smiles, a little crooked, the kind of smile that says, I know. I like that you still care. Because for all the things unsaid, all the distance that’s crept in between them—this, this small, quiet, burning attention, is still his. And Eddie? He’ll take it. He’ll revel in it.
The thing about Buck is, he’s always seen Eddie too clearly. Not just the parts Eddie offers up—anyone can read those—but the quiet shifts underneath. The twitch of his jaw before a lie, the pause before he says he’s fine. It used to feel like safety, being known like that. Like someone holding a light steady while Eddie tried to make sense of the dark. Lately, it just feels like risk. Like standing too close to a flame he’s not sure he wants to keep warm by. Like being caught mid-breath, nowhere to hide.
The moment hangs between them, taut and alive, and for a heartbeat, Eddie doesn’t care who sees it. He just watches Buck, lets the fire hit him, lets himself be the sun Buck orbits, even for just a flicker. Shadows stretch across the grass. Buck shifts slightly, careful not to meet his eyes too long, careful not to let the thread snap. For a heartbeat, it hums—the pull, the gravity, the memory of closeness, and the ache of restraint.
They’re in the same space, the same family, sharing the same warmth, but something fragile is stretched between them now. Buck knows it won’t break, not if he doesn’t move. Not if he doesn’t say anything.
Inside, the kitchen hums with the residue of the day with low music, and the faint thud of footsteps on the porch. Maddie stands by the window, watching Eddie through the screen door. He’s still out there, eyes following Buck as he moves across the yard, Nash asleep against his shoulder. There’s a softness in Eddie’s face that startles her, not because it’s tender, but because she’s seen that expression before—heard it, even—in the quiet, unguarded edge of her brother’s voice. Now she sees the other half of it, the silent answer. Two people, standing ten feet apart, building and dismantling the same distance in real time.
When Eddie finally turns away, Maddie looks down at the counter where Buck’s coffee mug still sits, a perfect ring cooling into the wood. She wipes it away, though the shape stays anyway.
By the time the house empties and the laughter drains into quiet, only the ghost of that moment remains.
Eddie’s phone sits face-down on the nightstand, but he can feel it there, humming in the dark like it’s waiting for him. Every few minutes, he glances at it, half-expecting something that won’t come—a text, a missed call, anything. His stomach twists, a sharp little knot that spreads across his ribs. He doesn’t even know what he’d do if it did. So he leaves it, like always, letting his fingers curl around the edge of the nightstand, nails pressing into the wood, grounding himself.
The quiet stretches. The ceiling blurs. Somewhere between the ache and the wanting, it hits him...not all at once, but slow, creeping. The distance might’ve started with Buck, but he’s the one keeping it alive.
The dark presses down, thick and close. The air smells faintly of the faint ozone of that morning’s rain. He can hear the hum of the fridge, the creak of the pipes—every sound too loud, too separate. His heart won’t settle. He replays fragments of the week: Buck’s laugh under sirens, the way his hand brushed Eddie’s shoulder in that casual way that never felt casual, the subtle tightening of his gaze when Eddie leaned too close to someone else’s joke. Buck, still and silent, feels wrong. Like watching the ocean pause, all that power, refusing to move. Eddie’s used to the waves. He doesn’t know what to do when they go still.
Closing his eyes doesn’t help. Buck is everywhere anyway: in the soft rig-light, in the wash of a streetlamp, on the sprawling patio where he rocks his nephew and hums a little off-key. Eddie feels it in his bones, that same ache he’s carried for years, that quiet, tethered knowledge of what he’s been holding back. He’s always known what it is—knew before he could even name it—what he’s been carrying. He’s loved him in all the ways that don’t need words: in the tension in his stomach when Buck laughs, in the hollow pull of absence when Buck looks elsewhere, in the way the world sharpens and softens at the edges depending on whether Buck is near or not.
It's not something you can lay out when the world demands you keep moving. Not when moving is all that keeps you upright. He’s never been ready to risk losing the part of Buck he can already barely hold.
But by morning, he knows what he has to do.
When Chris wakes up, the house smells like coffee and burnt toast. The smell curls in Eddie’s chest, pulling at something low and tight. He’s already at the counter, fingers brushing over his phone, eyes fixed on the screen, a little too still, a little too far away.
“Hey,” Chris says, hair sticking up, voice thick with sleep.
Eddie looks up, offers a quick, genuine smile. “Morning, buddy.”
Chris pads closer, peering over the counter. Eddie’s phone glows there, showing the barbecue with everyone laughing, leaning in, Buck and Eddie at opposite edges. Bobby would’ve noticed the gap, called it out with a glance. Now, no one does.
“You miss Buck,” Chris says. No question, no hesitation, just fact.
Eddie’s chest tightens, just a flicker. He swallows it down, nods quietly. “Yeah. I do.”
Chris studies him a moment, then shrugs like it’s simple. “You should fix that.”
Eddie huffs out a laugh, softer than he means to, almost embarrassed. “Yeah,” he says again. “I should.”
Morning comes heavy but certain. The house smells faintly of lemon cleaner and old wood. Buck runs a hand along the edge of the counter, feels the smooth surface, the polished floor beneath his sneakers, and wonders if it’s just decoration keeping the quiet from swallowing him whole. The place looks lived-in, purposeful. Almost like someone’s home. But it isn’t—not really. Not yet.
A knock. Sharp, deliberate. Buck freezes.
“Buck?” Eddie’s voice slips through the doorframe, easy, casual, like sunlight brushing across the edge of a shadow. Behind him, Chris’s voice: quieter, half-teasing, half-observing. “You around?”
Buck hesitates, a twitch in his chest. “Yeah. Come in.” he says, the words heavier than air.
Eddie steps inside first, scanning the house in a way that doesn’t intrude but somehow measures everything—the furniture, the art on the walls, the empty corners. Chris trails behind, folding his arms, leaning against the doorway for just a second before letting himself move deeper in.
Fifteen, tall enough to see everything without demanding attention, quiet enough to notice what’s missing. Buck watches them, tense without knowing why. Eddie doesn’t smile yet. He’s alive, present, warm, but there’s a careful lightness in his step, the kind that says, “I’m checking, but I’ll let you think I’m not.” Chris is a quiet counterweight.
“You’ve been keeping to yourself,” Eddie says finally, voice low, steady. “We wanted to see how you were doing.” His words land like a stone dropped in a still pond, ripples reaching Buck even if he pretends not to feel them.
Buck laughs under his breath, brittle. “Yeah. I’m…fine.” It sounds wrong even to his own ears. Too thin. Too careful.
Eddie studies him for a beat longer than comfortable, then glances around like he’s giving Buck the grace of not pressing. He always does that—offers space as a kindness, even when it’s the last thing Buck wants.
Chris shifts beside him, leaning casually against the counter, eyes sweeping the house. “You’ve got good taste,” he says softly, like a fact, not a compliment. “Feels like you.”
Buck’s throat catches around something small and aching. “Yeah,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “Trying to make it, uh—” He doesn’t finish. The words don’t matter.
Eddie’s hand brushes against a glass on the counter as he moves past. Buck’s eyes follow without meaning to—the flex of his wrist, the way light catches his hair, the tilt of his shoulder as he moves. Every little thing is a current pulling him in, and Buck knows it, feels it, and pretends not to notice.
“Glad you came,” he mumbles finally. Not fully a confession. Not fully a welcome, either.
Eddie glances up, registers the weight in Buck’s voice, smiles faintly. “Me too,” he says. It’s simple, bright, but there’s something else beneath it, an edge of hesitation.
“We missed you,” he adds, and that we lands right where Buck has been living—between wanting to believe it and knowing he shouldn’t.
Chris shifts again, but he doesn’t say anything more. He doesn’t have to. His presence is enough, something that Buck still doesn’t take for granted, even six months later. Buck lets himself edge closer to the counter, letting his shoulder brush Eddie’s in passing. The contact is brief, accidental-seeming, but it hums with meaning. Eddie doesn’t pull away, doesn’t need to. Just keeps being himself, thriving, luminous, unaware of the gravity he carries around Buck’s chest. If anything, he lets the moment linger, just long enough that Buck feels it. There’s something careful in the way Eddie looks at him then—a half-smile, a flicker of understanding. Like he knows exactly how much space Buck’s been giving him, and maybe he’s done letting him.
Buck swallows, lets out a slow breath. The house is still, but for the first time in weeks, it doesn’t feel completely empty. Not when Eddie’s in it. Not when Chris is laughing softly at something on his phone. The sound hits Buck in the chest. For a moment, it’s like nothing’s changed—the world narrowed down to this small living room, to the three of them, to something that once felt like home.
He can’t claim anything. He can’t even speak the truth out loud. But for a moment, the house feels like it might hold him. Might hold all three of them. The silence hums with possibility.
And for now, that is enough.