Archive of Our Own

Buck doesn’t think there’s a word big enough for this.

For the way Eddie hums under his breath when he’s stirring something on the stove, hips swaying minutely to music only he can hear. The sound is low and tuneless, more vibration than melody, the kind of absentminded noise he only makes when he feels safe—and Buck feels it like a hand pressed warm and steady over his sternum.

For the way the late-afternoon light slants across the kitchen table and turns the dust in the air into slow, lazy constellations. The sun catches on the edge of a half-full glass of water, throwing a tiny prism across the table leg. 

For the way Christopher’s hunched over his laptop at the end of that table, headphones around his neck, mouthing the words as he types. There’s a faint, off-beat tap of his fingers against the arm of the chair, completely unaware he’s doing it, a little smudge of pencil dust on the side of his hand where he’s been erasing things with more energy than necessary.

It’s all so normal that Buck’s heart keeps misfiring, his body still adjusting to the idea that this is his baseline now. That he gets to come home to this. Before he met Eddie, he’d have called a night like this a fluke, a gap between disasters. Now it keeps showing up again and again, stubbornly, like it’s the rule and not the exception.

He has a ring in the back of his sock drawer.

It’s not even subtle as hiding places go—third pair down, wrapped inside socks Eddie once declared “heinous” with an earnestness Buck still laughs about. The drawer has started sticking slightly when you pull it open, a testament to how many times Buck has checked the box without actually taking it out. The jeweler had called the ring simple but substantial, and now whenever he opens that drawer, he thinks the same thing about his life. Gold band with a line of platinum shot through it, a little weighty in his hand, engraving hidden on the inside. It feels like the kind of thing that should hum if he holds it still enough—like something alive.

He’s been working up the nerve for weeks. Not the kind of nerve he uses on a call, sprinting into smoke because someone’s got to. This is quieter, slower, the kind where nothing is technically on fire and somehow that makes it harder.

Not the nerve to ask Eddie; that part feels strangely easy. Terrifying, sure, but inevitable. Eddie’s ring finger used to bear the pale mark of a different life, a different promise, and Buck can imagine something sitting there now that’s meant for both of them. He can imagine Eddie’s crooked smile going soft and astonished, the way his eyes do when he’s blindsided by good instead of bad. That image alone has gotten him through more than one sleepless night.

No, the part that Buck keeps circling like a skittish cat is Christopher.

“You’re staring again,” Eddie says quietly, hip nudging Buck’s at the kitchen counter.

And Buck jolts, because yeah—he was. His brain was writing entire operas about the shape of this life, how it fits him like he was made for it. He blinks back into the moment. The pan sizzles where he’s warming tortillas; the smell of chicken and onions and cumin hits him again. Outside, someone’s car alarm chirps faintly, a reminder that the world hasn’t stopped just because Buck’s heart is doing gymnastics.

“I’m not staring,” Buck lies. “I’m…monitoring.”

Eddie snorts. “Right. Because that’s less weird.”

“Parents monitor,” Buck argues, flipping a tortilla. “It’s a legal obligation.”

The word sits between them for a beat: parents. It still lands in Buck’s ribs sometimes, in the best possible way. Like someone tapping a tuning fork against bone. He still has a moment, every time, where he wants to look over his shoulder to see who else Eddie might be talking about.

Chris pauses his typing long enough to fish a paper out from under his elbow. The top corner is crumpled and he smooths it absentmindedly, thumb running over the wrinkle like he’s trying to iron out the day.

“Hey,” Chris calls. “Can one of you sign the field trip form?”

“Yeah, hand it over,” Eddie says.

Chris doesn’t move. “It has to be a parent or guardian.”

Eddie is already wiping his hands on a dish towel and crossing toward the table. “I am a parent or guardian,” he deadpans, matching Chris’s emphasis. “Last I checked.”

Chris rolls his eyes, unimpressed. “I meant which one of you wants to sign it, Dad. I didn’t say you had to be the only one.”

He slides the form toward them with the heel of his palm.

Someone has highlighted the parent/guardian signature in neon yellow. In the top right corner, in small, careful handwriting that still carries traces of third-grade printing, Chris has written: Either Dad or Buck.

The words hit Buck dead-center. His pulse stutters, that internal jolt he usually only gets when the tones go off when he’s asleep. Except this is joy, flipping itself inside-out and thudding against the inside of his ribs like it wants out.

Joy can be just as physical as heartbreak, Buck thinks. Maybe more. Maybe it’s heartbreak flipped inside-out and filled in; same outline, different weight.

Eddie signs first, then turns the form and offers the pen to Buck, eyes soft and certain.

“Your turn.”

Buck signs. His letters come out a little uneven, a little too pressed into the paper, a faint groove left behind. The pen scratches faintly—cheap ballpoint on cheap school paper—and it still feels monumental.

He rests his thumb over his name for half a second longer than necessary. Because this—this ink, this placement, this title—it lands somewhere old and tender inside him.

He can feel echoes behind the moment. Ghosts of other forms, other years, other little boxes he’d hovered near but never gotten to fill in. The kind of life admin he always assumed belonged to other people—parents with neat handwriting and matching calendars, not guys like him who used to pack their whole life into a duffel and sleep with one foot out the door.

The first parent-teacher night he ever went to. Chris was nine, maybe. Mr. Young wore bright scarves and had a mug that said World’s Okayest Teacher, the “Okayest” underlined twice. The room smelled like glue sticks and whiteboard cleaner. Desks shoved into little clusters, a bulletin board with construction-paper owls lecturing about good study habits.

“And this is?” he’d asked politely when Eddie walked in with Buck trailing behind.

“I’m Evan,” Buck had answered, because “Buck” felt too strange in a classroom. “I, uh—I help out. With Chris.”

Help out. Like a neighbor who occasionally took the trash cans in. But nine-year-old Chris had practically bristled.

“He’s Buck,” he’d declared. “He picks me up when Dad’s at work and he’s not and he knows where my extra brace straps are and he makes the mac and cheese I like.”

Mr. Young had smiled like that made perfect sense—and in his room, it had. He’d almost pulled an extra chair without hesitation, but Buck had still folded himself into a too-small plastic seat a bit further back, knees crammed under the desk, feeling almost-but-not-quite allowed to be there. He’d spent most of that conference trying to be small, trying to be good, trying not to knock anything over. Too many elbows, too many intentions.

He’d listened to test scores and reading levels with his hands clasped tight between his knees, nodding at all the right moments, while a quiet little voice in the back of his head kept saying: Don’t draw attention. Don’t make anyone notice you don’t actually belong here.

Later, middle school. Different teacher. Ms. Rivera. Posters about growth mindset and study skills, a stack of graded essays on solar energy, the faint smell of pencil shavings and leftover cafeteria pizza.

“So this is Dad,” she’d said, smiling at Eddie. “And you’re?”

“I’m Buck,” he’d said, because by then pretending the nickname wasn’t his actual name felt more ridiculous than owning it.

Chris, older now but just as certain, had cut in: “He’s my Buck. He helps. It’s easier if we’re all here.”

Ms. Rivera had accepted that, but Buck had felt her trying to mentally categorize him. He’d pushed his chair half a step behind Eddie the whole time, too tall, trying to shrink himself out of the way. He’d nodded like a bobblehead while quietly tracking the fire extinguisher and critiquing the evacuation poster, because focusing on exits was easier than sitting with the fact that every “your son” was angled mostly at Eddie, and it’s not as if Buck had a right to care about that.

In the hallway afterward, Buck had said, quietly, “If you want me to sit out next time—”

“Why would I want that?” Chris had shot back immediately, visibly insulted. Eddie had laid a steady hand on Buck’s shoulder.

“You being there helps,” he said. “For both of us.”

Buck had believed them. Mostly. But “mostly” still left room for the little voice that said guest, helper, temporary. And school hallways had a way of amplifying echoes—disinfectant, old posters, someone else’s childhood.

The forms had always told a different story: one signature line, one emergency contact, one name that counted.

He thinks of other moments too—quiet ones that never made it onto any form. Chris sitting cross-legged on the living room floor, Lego pieces everywhere, building something halfway between a fire truck and a spaceship. Buck pretends to read, mostly watching him. He doesn't think there's a word big enough for the way Chris changes a room. It's not just light though it feels like that, sometimes, like the air goes gold around him. There's a calm in it that Buck never knew he could have, not the loud kind, not the crash after adrenaline. The quiet kind, where time doesn't need to be earned. When Chris looks up and grins—that small, startled grin, like he didn't mean to get caught being happy, Buck feels it right behind his sternum.

Chris holds up the finished build, a crooked tower of red and silver that wobbles like it's alive. Buck claps like it's an achievement worth broadcasting to the world. Because it is. There's something about these moments that makes Buck's chest feel too full. Not in the old way—not panic, not fear—but in that gentle, steady way that feels like being trusted with something precious. 

He thinks about how, years ago, everything used to be loud in his head—sirens, heartbeats, all that wanting. But now, sitting here, watching Chris build his impossible ship, he feels something settle where it belongs. 

This. This is the place I was supposed to find. 

"You're such a dork." 

"Yeah," Buck says. "But I'm your assistant engineer, so you're stuck with me." The kid laughs, that clear, bright sound that rewires the whole room. 

Chris had also rolled his eyes—Diaz to the bone. Buck remembers thinking, then, that this felt like being trusted with something fragile and important.

And now his name sits right beside Eddie’s. On a real form, one that hadn’t been sitting in a safe for a year before he got to see it. Not in parentheses. Not with hesitation. Written there because Chris expected it to be.

He puts the pen down. The page rustles. Something seismic just happened on a wrinkled sheet of paper, just a quiet realignment of an old fault line finally sliding into place. Buck isn’t sure anyone but him felt the tremor. 

Dinner is easy after that. Companionable noise. Chris accuses Buck of hoarding the good tortillas; Buck retaliates by stealing one of Eddie’s. The kitchen smells like lime and cilantro; the pan still radiates warmth.

But underneath all of it, every time Chris says Dad or Buck or laughs, the memory flashes: Either Dad or Buck. A line he never thought would have his name next to it. A line he’s spent years standing just outside of.

They’re halfway through dinner when Chris glances at his phone and grimaces.

“Ugh. Ms. Patel sent a reminder about conferences next week.”

Eddie wipes sauce off his thumb. “Right, next Thursday.”

“Yeah.” Chris scrolls. “She’s doing that ten-minute-rotation thing.” He flicks his eyes up, quick. “I figured you’d come, Dad. You don’t have to, though, Buck.”

It isn’t rejection. Buck knows that immediately—can hear the careful, practical intention behind it. He’s trying to be considerate. Thoughtful. Older in that way he’s been getting lately.

It’s just that the timing is funny. A beat ago, Buck’s name was on a line it had never been on before. A first. A big one. His heart is still warm from it, still adjusting to the fact that the form agrees with what their lives have looked like for years.

So the suggestion—you don’t have to come—lands in a tender place, brushing up against memories that haven’t stopped echoing. Not a wound reopening. More like tapping a bruise you forgot was there.

Eddie frowns lightly. “Since when do we not all go?”

Chris shrugs, suddenly very focused on his rice. “I just know it’s a pain when you have to swap shifts with people. It’s not—” he gestures, cheeks going a little pink “—it’s not a big deal if it’s just Dad.”

“It is a big deal,” Eddie says gently. “We’ll figure it out.”

“Okay,” Chris says, clearly eager to drop it. “I’m just saying you don’t have to, Buck.”

Buck makes a small, lopsided smile. “Hey, if Ms. Patel docks points for attendance, I’m not taking that hit.”

Chris snorts, the tension dissolving. They do actually finish dinner after that. Eddie nudges Buck with his knee, Buck bumps him back, easy, automatic. Chris launches into a story about someone in his English class who tried to cite TikTok as a source, and Eddie groans like it personally offends him.

It’s…normal. That’s the thing. The moment with the conferences doesn’t hang over the table like a storm cloud; it just folds itself into the evening, one more line in the running transcript of their life together.

They clear plates. Buck rinses while Eddie loads the dishwasher, working in the kind of rhythm that only happens when you’ve done this a thousand times. At one point Eddie’s hand brushes his lower back as he reaches past him for a mug, a small, steadying touch that says we’re fine without making a production out of it. Buck checks his phone while he’s wiping down the counter, thumb flicking over the shift calendar out of habit. Next Thursday. He can already see how he’d move things around if he needed to. It’s not impossible. Not even that hard. Just a few texts, a favor or two. Logistics he knows how to manage.

The thought settles in quietly: I want to be there. I don’t have to justify wanting to be there.

But the earlier moment keeps nudging at him—not in a dramatic way, just the kind of thought that doesn’t quite settle, even when he knows he’s overthinking it. He can tell Chris was trying to make things easier, not push him out. That part makes sense. It’s just that the timing is close on the heels of that permission slip. His feelings haven’t quite sorted themselves yet. He’s not upset. More restless. Buck hangs back a second, towel in hand, realizing he could use a minute to himself before he grabs his pajamas—just long enough to let the evening click into place in his head.

Buck wanders down the hall without really meaning to and finds himself in the laundry room.

The small space hums quietly under the overhead light. It smells like Tide and fabric softener and the faint ghost of socks that didn’t dry all the way. A rogue dryer sheet clings to the wall like it’s staging an escape attempt. The tiles under his bare feet are cool, grounding.

The washing machine churns steadily, suds tumbling in the porthole. He presses a hand to the washer, letting the steady vibration bleed through his palm, trying to match his breathing to something solid. From the outside, he probably looks calm—just a guy zoning out over a load of darks.

Inside, his thoughts are doing laps. It’s that same restless buzz he gets at the station between calls, except here there’s no alarm to blame it on—just one sentence from a kid he loves. He mutters to himself, “You’re fine. It’s fine. We’re all fine.” He sounds like he’s trying to talk down a jumpy patient, except this time the patient is just him. It’s almost funny how automatically his voice drops into that steady, reassuring cadence—like if he hits the right rhythm, his nervous system will fall in line.

“Cool,” Eddie’s voice says from the doorway. “Who are you trying to convince, exactly?”

Buck jumps. “Jesus—don’t you know it’s illegal to sneak up on a man communing with household appliances?”

“The law’s actually pretty quiet on that one,” Eddie leans against the dryer in his worn station T-shirt, hair still damp, smelling faintly of eucalyptus shampoo and grapefruit bodywash—steady in a way that makes Buck want to breathe him in until his nerves unknot. He has a brief, ridiculous thought that if he could bottle the way that smell lays on Eddie’s skin and breathe it on bad days, half his problems would evaporate.

“What’s going on?” he asks.

“Nothing,” Buck says automatically. “Just thinking.”

The second the word’s out, he hears how thin it sounds. “Just thinking” has never meant anything good, not coming from him.

Eddie lifts one eyebrow. “Thinking so hard you left me alone with tidying the rest of the kitchen?”

Buck winces. “Sorry. I’ll—”

“Hey.” Eddie softens immediately. “I’m kidding. Sit.”

There’s a little folding stool shoved in the corner next to the detergent bottles. Buck sits on it because he always listens when Eddie uses that tone. The stool wobbles once before settling—he’s sat on it enough times that it knows the shape of his weight. The room feels even smaller with two of them sharing the narrow strip of floor, but not in a bad way. More in a no escape from eye contact way. The kind of tiny space where you either tell the truth or spontaneously combust.

Eddie settles on a crate across from him, elbows on his knees, face open and patient. “Okay. Outline it for me. Or are we still pretending this is a ‘just tired’ conversation?”

Buck lets out a single, humorless laugh. “Has ‘just tired’ ever worked on you?”

“Not even the first week I knew you,” Eddie says. “So. What’s the thing in your head?”

Buck picks at a loose thread on his sweatpants. The words feel small and dumb and too big all at once. His fingers keep slipping on the frayed cotton, like the thread is intent on escaping. It feels unfair, how his hands can drag people out of wreckage without shaking, but one conversation about being wanted makes them unsteady.

“It’s nothing bad,” he says. “Nothing real. I just—when Chris said earlier that I didn’t have to come to the conferences if my shifts made it hard, it…hit weird. Not because of him. Just because my brain likes to ruin my life recreationally.”

Eddie’s expression shifts into that gentle, exasperated fondness he reserves exclusively for Buck’s worst mental gymnastics. “Okay,” he says. “We’re naming that pattern. Good start. Weird how?”

Buck forces himself to meet Eddie’s eyes. There’s no judgment there, which somehow makes it both easier and harder to keep talking.

“It translated into ‘you’re optional.’ Not in a ‘you hurt my feelings’ way—more like...that old background thought that I’m still the guest. That I can help out, but I’m not the person who has to be there. And it’s stupid. I know it’s stupid. I know he meant it as an ‘I don’t want to stress you out.’”

Saying it out loud makes the thought sound as flimsy as it is. Unfortunately, his nervous system did not get that memo.

Eddie’s mouth twitches. “Right. The old Optional Buck special.”

Buck groans. “I hate that you’ve named it.”

He drops his head into his hands. The heels of his palms press into his eyes until little bursts of color spark behind them. “I don’t want to make this a thing for him. I don’t want to dump my crap on him.”

“Okay,” Eddie says, voice low but grounded. “First of all, your brain is an asshole to you sometimes.”

“Yeah,” Buck admits. That part’s easy. Familiar. “I know it’s my own stuff. I know he didn’t mean it like that. But knowing that and not feeling it are apparently different skills.”

“Yeah,” Eddie says, nodding. “Brains love a rerun.”

Buck makes a face, because of course his greatest hits are all emotional disasters. His internal programming really needs a new showrunner. He lets his head thump back lightly against the stacked towels. “I don’t want to make it his problem,” he says. “Or yours. I don’t want to show up like, ‘hey, any random thing you say might trigger my abandonment issues, congrats.’”

“Hey,” Eddie says, gentle but firm. “You’re not dumping your crap on us every time you say ‘hey, this hurt.’”

“Feels like it,” Buck mutters. The words are small, but the feeling behind them isn’t.

“Feels like it to you,” Eddie corrects. “There’s a difference. You coming in here and saying ‘I’m having feelings, deal with it for me’ would be dumping. You retreating to the laundry room to argue with a Whirlpool is just avoidance.”

Buck looks over at him. “Wow. Calling me out on my spin cycle.” Eddie grins briefly, then sobers and tips his head, watching Buck with that soft, steady patience that always pulls the truth out of him. Buck can almost feel his excuses shriveling under it, like they’ve been left too close to the dryer vent.

“Talk to our kid,” he says, voice gentle but certain. “He didn’t say ‘don’t come.’ He said ‘I don’t want you stressed.’ That’s him trying to take care of you the way you take care of him. So let him meet you halfway. He’s not going to break just because you let him see you.”

Our kid still catches at something in Buck’s chest; he files the feeling away next to every other tiny, glowing thing he’s terrified of smudging.

“Besides,” Eddie adds, “this isn’t just about the conferences.” Eddie’s hand comes up, cupping the side of Buck’s neck. His thumb strokes the edge of Buck’s jaw, grounding him. Buck hadn’t realized how high his shoulders were until they start to drop.

“You’re thinking about proposing,” he says. It isn’t a question.

Buck’s eyes fly to his. “I—you—” His brain stalls out. “How did you—”

“It’s me,” Eddie says, like that explains everything. “And there’s a ring box-sized lump in the sock drawer that I’ve been pretending not to notice.”

“Oh my God,” Buck groans, covering his face with both hands. “I’m the worst at surprises.”

“You really are.” Eddie laughs, bright and warm. He pries one of Buck’s hands away so he can kiss his palm, like that’s a completely normal thing to do in a laundry room where Buck’s fight-or-flight response is currently at a low simmer.

“I was assuming you were waiting for the right moment, not chickening out.”

“I wasn’t chickening out!”

“Mm.” Eddie’s mouth curves. “You were just hoping the washing machine would tell you when the time was right.”

Buck laughs despite himself. The sound comes out a little wobbly, but it’s real. Then he sobers.

“I just—Chris. I don’t want him to feel like I’m yanking him into something official. I don’t know how he feels about the next step.”

He doesn’t say: about me. About keeping me. The words are implied, hovering in the gap between them. Eddie’s expression softens in that devastating way it does. “Buck,” he says gently. “You know this is already official, right? Not on paper…or that paper. But in every way that matters.”

The words land somewhere under Buck’s sternum and spread out, warm and terrifying.

Eddie huffs out a breath. “Anyway, first of all, he already knows you’re off right now. You’re not as subtle as you think you are when you’re in your head. Second,” He nudges Buck’s knee again. “Chris is really good at boundaries. Better than we were at his age, that’s for sure. He’s spent his whole life navigating what he’s allowed to ask for, what he’s allowed to say no to. Trust him to tell you if you’re putting too much on his plate.”

Buck chews on that. The image of Chris in different classrooms flickers in his mind—hand raised, explaining his needs; rolling his eyes but still speaking up when someone forgets something from his accommodation plan. It’s weird, realizing the kid he once carried on his back through a tsunami is now the one with healthier coping mechanisms.

“Talk to him,” Eddie repeats. “You don’t have to ask his permission to love me. But he deserves to be brought in on the good stuff. Let him tell you how he feels, instead of you deciding for him that he doesn’t want you to stick around.”

It lands like a challenge and an invitation both. Buck thinks of another night, a year ago, things much shakier then. The first time he and Eddie had sat Chris down and tried to explain that this, them, was not some temporary arrangement. That Buck didn’t plan to run just because it got hard. That he was staying. That he wanted to.

“Okay,” Buck says now, nervousness prickling under his skin. “Okay. I’ll talk to him.”

“Tonight,” Eddie says, kissing him once, quick and firm. “Before you convince yourself out of it.”

“And for the record? You’re not optional. Not in this house. Not in my life. Not in his. There’s no version of this where we just go back to how things were without you.” The words settle in Buck’s chest like someone adding weight to a paper that’s been threatening to blow away. He doesn’t try to swallow them this time. He lets them land. Lets himself imagine, for a second, that they might stay.

“Yeah,” he says, quietly. “Okay.”

“I’m scared,” he says quietly. It feels small and enormous at the same time.

“I know,” Eddie says. His fingers squeeze the back of Buck’s neck. “Do it anyway.” Buck laughs, but there’s no real humor in it. “You’re very bossy for someone who hasn’t even been properly proposed to yet.”

Eddie’s mouth kicks up. “I’m very confident for someone who has a fiancé in denial about his own status.”

“Don’t say fiancé,” Buck groans, because his heart does something stupid every time.

"Fiancé,” Eddie repeats, smug.

Buck’s stomach swoops. “You’re assuming a lot of steps here.”

“I’m assuming you’re going to talk to our kid,” Eddie says. “And then you’re going to ask me something I’ve already said yes to in every way that counts. The rest is details.”

“Details like cake flavors,” Buck says faintly. Eddie rolls his eyes. “We are absolutely not getting into that argument before you’ve even asked.”

“Right,” Buck says. His hands are still shaking a little, but the hum in his chest has shifted. Less static, more anticipation. The good kind, the kind that feels like standing at the edge of a jump you actually want to take. “Okay. I’ll talk to him.”

“Tonight,” Eddie says.

“You have a lot of faith in my ability to procrastinate,” Buck mutters.

“I have a lot of data,” Eddie says, and lets him go.

Chris is on the couch watching TV, sprawled sideways with his feet up on the armrest when Buck finds him. The only other light is from the floor lamp in the corner, throwing soft yellow over everything. It’s the kind of ordinary evening snapshot Buck used to scroll past and ache for—now he’s standing in the doorway of one, trying not to vibrate out of his own skin.

“Hey,” Buck says. “You busy saving the universe, or can I borrow you for a minute?” Chris thumbs the remote without looking away from the screen. “Universe can wait,” he says. “What’s up?” Then, wary: “You’re doing that face again.”

“What face?”

“The one where you’re thinking really hard about feelings.” Buck makes an offended sound and sinks onto the other end of the couch. The cushion dips, familiar, his knee brushing the edge of a throw blanket that still smells faintly like their laundry detergent. “I do not have a feelings face.”

“Yeah, you do,” Chris says, amused. He scrunches his brow, widens his eyes, clenches his jaw dramatically. It’s a terrible face, and also eerily accurate.

Buck barks out a laugh. The laugh feels good—like his body remembering how to choose joke instead of flight. “Okay, rude.”

“Just saying,” Chris goes on. “If you’re gonna start, like, trauma dumping, I’ll need snacks.”

“Hey, who said anything about trauma?” Buck protests. “Maybe I just wanted to say I like hanging out with you.”

Chris smirks and reaches for the TV remote. “Uh-huh. And I’m the king of England.”

Buck swallows, laughter fading. The words get sticky in his throat again, the way they had in the laundry room when he’d been trying to talk himself down off a ledge nobody else could see. He drags his palm over the couch cushion until he finds a loose thread and hooks it with his fingernail, giving his hands something to do that isn’t shaking.

“So, uh,” he starts, and immediately hates how shaky his voice sounds. “About Ms. Patel. And conferences. And...stuff.”

“Wow, super specific,” Chris deadpans, but his eyes sharpen. He sets the remote down, giving Buck his full attention. That simple shift—space made, focus turned—makes Buck’s chest feel too small and too big at the same time.

“Okay. What about them?”

“Earlier,” Buck says, “when you said I didn’t have to come. You know, ’cause it’s hard with my shifts and whatever.”

Chris’s mouth tightens almost imperceptibly. “Did Dad say something?”

“No.” Buck shakes his head quickly. “No, your dad was just—you know, noticing I’ve been weird.”

“You’re always weird,” Chris says automatically, then sighs. “Okay. That came out wrong.”

Buck half-smiles. “It’s okay. I am always weird.”

They sit in that for a second. The TV’s paused spaceship glows faintly in the corner of his vision; the floor lamp buzzes a little, the low kind of static that matches the hum under his skin. His knees knock against the coffee table, rattling the coasters. Smooth.

“Okay,” he says, exhaling. He can almost feel Eddie in the laundry room saying do it anyway. “So I’m gonna try something radical and start by being honest instead of weird about it.”

Chris’s eyebrows climb. “Bold strategy.”

“You said, earlier, that I didn’t have to come to conferences if it was hard with my shifts,” Buck says. “And I want to be clear that I know you meant that as you being considerate and practical and extremely you.”

“Okay” Chris says slowly.

“But my brain,” Buck continues, “took that and translated it into you’re not required, actually; we can handle this without you. And even though I know that’s not what you said, it kind of stung. And then I felt dumb about it, so I didn’t say anything, and then I started doing the weird laundry room lurking thing, which apparently is not as subtle as I hoped.”

He feels ridiculous saying it out loud, like admitting he got spooked by a shadow in his own hallway. But the second the words are in the air, the pressure in his chest eases by a millimeter. Naming it makes it smaller.

“I’m just...clarifying. You got your feelings hurt and decided to go argue with the washing machine instead of telling the person who said the thing?”

“When you put it like that, it sounds way more ridiculous,” Buck mutters.

“Yeah,” Chris says. “That’s kind of the point.”

He shifts, turning so he’s facing Buck more fully. The way he tucks one leg under himself is pure fifteen-year-old; the steady look is older, but Buck recognizes the tell-tale flicker of nerves under it. Chris is brave right now too, even if he’s better at sounding casual about it.

“Okay, so,” he says. “First off, I am very aware that my words have power and whatever. I’ve been through enough therapy for three people. If I say something that lands weird, I want to know,” Chris says. “That’s part of the deal. I don’t want you walking around carrying it and making up new, worse versions in your head.”

Buck grimaces. “Wow. Called out and therapized.” He hears the echo of some long-ago worksheet in that—stuff Chris learned because he had to, turning into armor he can offer to other people now. It tugs at something in Buck, but not in a heavy way—more like pride, like watching someone bench a weight you know used to pin them.

“Secondly,” Chris goes on, ignoring him, “you’re right. That is not what I meant. I meant ‘I know how hard it is for you to swap shifts, and if you need a break, that’s okay, because Dad will be there and I won’t be alone in a room full of adults who think they know my life better than I do. You’re not optional, Buck. If I didn’t want you there, I’d say, ‘hey, please don’t come, it’s weird.’ I’m allowed to say what I want.”

“I know,” Buck says. He does, he really does—it’s just that knowing and feeling have never been great friends in his head. “I just—this old thing in my head still thinks I’m the guest. The guy who helps but doesn’t sign things. And every now and then it gets loud. It’s not fair to you that it latched onto your words.” 

Chris twists his lip, considering. “You’re not the guest. If you were the guest, we wouldn’t let you vacuum.”

“That’s your metric?” Buck asks, a laugh bubbling up in spite of himself.

“Yeah,” Chris says. “Congratulations, you’ve unlocked chore privileges. That’s when you know you’re in.”

It’s a joke, and it lands like a stamp. In. The word settles low in Buck’s chest, heavy in a way that feels good, like weight on a paper that keeps it from blowing away. Buck squeezes his hands together. His knuckles go white; his palms remember holding other people’s emergencies, not his own. “I’ve spent a lot of my life being the extra person,” he says. “The guy you call when you need something, but not the one who gets listed under ‘in case of emergency.’ And even after you and your dad started letting me in, I kept waiting for that to be temporary.”

He’s careful with how he says it—offering the shape of the feeling without dumping all the history behind it in Chris’s lap. Just enough for Chris to see the outline. He can feel Chris watching him.

“Look, official stuff is annoying,” Chris says. “I’ve spent my entire life explaining to people how my family works. If anything, you and Dad putting some extra signatures on things would make that easier, not harder.”

The back of Buck’s eyes prickles. His heartbeat does that startled stutter again. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Chris says. “You being official doesn’t make you more family. It just means the rest of the world has to catch up to what I already know.”

Buck lets out a shaky breath. He can practically feel the words slotting into some old, empty groove inside him. “You sound like your dad.”

“Gross,” Chris says immediately. “Take it back.”

“I just didn’t know how to say it without…”

“Without making me responsible for your feelings?” Chris supplies.

Buck blinks. “Uh. Yeah.”

“It’s a thing Dad says,” Chris says. “Like, a lot.”

“Sounds like him,” Buck says faintly.

“I’m not responsible for your feelings. But I’m allowed to care about them.”

He bumps Buck’s arm gently with his own. The contact is so casual, so teenager-sloppy, and somehow it grounds Buck more than a dozen breathing exercises. “Is there something else?”

Buck winces. “Is it that obvious?”

“Dude,” Chris says, exasperated affection in every syllable. “You signed my field trip form and then looked like you were gonna cry into the arroz con leche.”

Buck huffs out a laugh. “I did not.”

“You did,” Chris insists. “Speaking of—” He raises his voice. “Dad, I’m calling the last of the arroz con leche.”

From the kitchen, Eddie’s voice drifts back. “You’re not calling anything. It’s a communal dessert.”

“Communal means Buck eats it all,” Chris calls back again, rolling his eyes.

Buck puts a hand to his heart in faux offense. “Wow. Slander in my own home?”

Our home, whispers something in him, unspooling slow and sure. The thought used to feel like trespassing. Now it fits. He swallows around it.

“That’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about,” he says.

Chris’s brows knit. “Arroz con leche?”

“Home,” Buck says, and his voice comes out quiet but steady. “Us. Me and your dad and you.”

“Oh.” Chris leans back. There’s that Diaz-family neutral face for a second, the one they pull on right before they decide to be honest anyway. “Okay. What about us?”

“You know I’m not going anywhere,” Buck says. “We talked about that. Years ago. I meant it then and I mean it now.”

“I know,” Chris says immediately. “Buck, I know that.”

Something inside Buck has been waiting for exactly that tone, that certainty, like a smoke alarm waiting to be reset. He nods.

“Okay.” Buck nods. “That’s the most important part. Lately I’ve been thinking about—” He inhales. The air feels thick for a second, then moves. “About proposing. To your dad.”

Chris stares at him.

“I haven’t done it,” Buck says quickly. “Yet. It’s not like I already did and forgot to tell you.”

“Okay, that would be hilarious,” Chris says. “You just come back from the grocery store like, ‘oh, by the way, we got married in the cereal aisle.’”

Buck laughs weakly. The mental image is so stupidly vivid—Eddie holding a box of Cheerios in one hand and a marriage certificate in the other—that it shakes some of the sharpness off his fear.

“I kept getting stuck on you. On whether it would feel too big. Or like I was changing your life in a way you didn’t ask for. If suddenly I’m not ‘my Buck’ anymore, I’m this, like, capital-S Stepdad with rules and paperwork and…whatever. And I didn’t want to push you into that.”

Chris looks at him like he’s grown a second head. “Dude,” he says finally. “You are so stupid.”

Buck flinches. “Okay, ow?”

“I mean it in a loving way,” Chris says. “Do you seriously think I haven’t already thought of you as family? For, like, ever?” Buck opens his mouth, closes it. For a guy who spends his life talking people through the worst days of theirs, he’s suddenly not sure what to do with being told he’s obvious in a good way.

“I know you do,” he says. “I just didn’t know if calling it something else would make it feel different. Or scary.”

“It might,” Chris says. “A little. Change is weird. But you proposing isn’t you changing. It’s you catching up.”

“Catching up?” Buck echoes.

“Yeah. You’ve been my Buck since—forever. Since the first Christmas we moved here, and the Buckley-Diaz Family Game Nights that went way too late. Since the time you let me win at Mario Kart and thought I didn’t notice.”

“I did not let you win,” Buck protests.

“Uh-huh,” Chris says. “My point is, you being official doesn’t make you more something you already are. It just makes it easier for the DMV or whatever to figure out who gets to sign forms.”

“Wow,” Buck says. “My romantic dreams, foiled by bureaucracy.”

“Welcome to adulthood,” Chris deadpans. The startled, almost shy grin that breaks across his face is pure Christopher Diaz at seven and at fifteen, all at once. Buck feels it like a hand closing around his wrist, tugging him forward into something good.

“I’ve been waiting for you two to figure it out since I was, like, ten,” he adds. “You think I’m gonna be mad you finally caught up to my timeline?”

Buck laughs, shaky and wet. He presses his knuckles against his mouth, half to hide the wobble and half because he needs something solid to press against.

“Are you...okay with it?” Buck asks. “With me asking him. You can say no. Or ‘not yet.’ I won’t—”

“Look,” Chris says. “ I won’t pretend it won’t feel a little...big. Like, putting words to something that’s just been how things are. But you and Dad getting married isn’t some new thing being added on top of my life. It’s just naming what’s already true. You’re asking ‘hey, can we make it so if something happens, nobody can argue I’m not your person.’ And I’m very in favor of fewer people being able to argue with that.”

Buck’s voice is quiet. “I didn’t want you to feel like I was demanding permission. Like the whole thing hinged on you saying ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ You shouldn’t have to carry that. But it also felt wrong to do it without talking to you.”

“Yeah, that would’ve sucked,” Chris says. “But this doesn’t feel like permission. This feels like—that’s not—You don’t need that from me. But if what you’re actually asking is ‘am I happy about it,’ then yeah.” He waves his hand. “Like you’re letting me be in on the good stuff. And I want that. I want to get to be excited with you, not just find out afterward. What?”

“Nothing,” Buck says quickly. “Just…I’m really, really glad you’re okay with this.”

“Duh,” Chris says. Then his eyes brighten. “Can I help?”

“Help?” Buck repeats.

“With the proposal,” Chris says. “You’re not going to just, like, throw the ring at him while he’s emptying the dishwasher, right? You need a plan.”

“I had a plan,” Buck lies.

They end up with something simple: dinner, movie, dessert, ring. Clean. Manageable. Romantic without being a spectacle—Eddie-safe, Buck thinks wryly. A sequence he can hold onto the way he holds a rope: hand over hand, one step at a time.

“Movie first,” Chris says. “So he’s relaxed.”

“What if he falls asleep?” Buck asks. It’s a genuine concern; he’s lost count of how many times Eddie has face-planted halfway through a third-act car chase.

“Then you poke him,” Chris says. “You’re not proposing to a corpse.”

“Great,” Buck says. “Perfect mental image.”

Chris opens a note on his phone like this is a group project and not their entire future. Actually, in a way, it is both. “Okay,” he says briskly. “Structure is good. Now we need content.”

Buck laughs helplessly. His brain immediately starts trying to script a speech that is thirty percent childhood trauma, sixty percent pining, and ten percent jokes about combustion.

Chris squints at him like he can see the draft forming behind Buck’s eyes. “Less ‘I used to be sad’ and more ‘I’m very happy now,’” Chris suggests.

Buck blinks. “That’s...actually really good.”

“I know,” Chris says, matter-of-fact. “You can do the sad stuff in your vows or whatever. Proposal should be, like, ninety percent ‘I love you’ and ten percent ‘please say yes before I pass out.’”

A month later, Buck moves through the rooms half on autopilot—checking the time, checking the oven, checking the ring like it might decide to phase through solid matter if he doesn’t physically touch it every twenty minutes.

The first near-miss is Eddie getting held over at work. Buck spends an hour mentally rewriting the plan while Chris scrolls through his phone and says things like “this is why we didn’t choose a restaurant proposal” under his breath. Every time Buck’s heart spikes at another text about overtime, Chris just tilts his screen toward him—memes, stupid videos, anything bright and dumb enough to keep Buck from spiraling all the way into disaster scenarios.

The second near-miss is Buck burning the garlic bread because he gets lost in a loop about whether the lighting in the living room is “romantic enough.” By the time he snaps back to the present, the edges are charcoal.

“Symbolic,” Chris says dryly, waving smoke away from the oven. “Love is eternal, bread is temporary.” Buck groans and starts another batch, telling himself it’s good practice for staying in his body when it counts.

The third is when Buck nearly drops the ring box down the back of his dresser while trying to get it out of the sock bunker. He only saves it because he lunges so hard he almost takes the dresser down with him. His palm slams flat against the top, breath sawing in and out, box clenched between two fingers.

For a second he just stands there, heart pounding, forehead pressed to the edge of the wood. Then he looks down at the box in his hand and feels it again—that hum, that sense that this isn’t a bomb he’s about to set off, it’s a flare he’s finally ready to light.

From the doorway, Chris says, “See? This is why you need a plan,” like this is all just another Buckley-Diaz weekend activity and not Buck’s entire heart balanced on the lip of a piece of furniture. Buck laughs, a little wild around the edges, and tucks the ring safely into his pocket. 

The fear is still there, buzzing under his skin. But louder than that—finally, blessedly—is the fact that he doesn’t have to do this all alone.

The house smells like sofrito and warm sugar and one stubborn candle Buck lit an hour ago that keeps guttering every time the heater kicks on. Eddie can feel the shift in the air—not the kind you get before an argument, but the kind right before a summer monsoon in El Paso, when the sky goes heavy and electric and every instinct says something’s about to break open.

He knows what’s coming. He’s known since Monday, when he walked past Christopher’s room and saw a Google Doc titled Operation: Catch Up open on the kid’s laptop, Chris muttering about bullet points while Buck hovered behind him, hands on his hips like the world’s most anxious project manager.

Buck had glanced up, startled, smiling too wide—like someone caught with cake frosting on their face and insisting they weren’t eating in bed. They hadn’t said a word to Eddie. But he’d known anyway, in that bone-deep way he knows when a call is about to go sideways or when Christopher is one bad night’s sleep from a meltdown. This one’s mine, something in his chest had whispered. This one’s for me.

And now Friday is here. The dining table is set with the mismatched plates Buck likes because “they have personality,” and the good forks Chris insists are haunted because they were thrifted. The overhead light is dimmed just enough to make the walls feel closer, cozier. Eddie can hear Buck pacing in the kitchen, bare feet soft on tile, the rhythmic clink of a spoon being tapped against the counter the way nervous people tap their wedding rings.

Wedding rings.

His pulse stutters. He pretends to scroll on his phone while he listens. He can’t concentrate on anything; the words blur, the screen feels too bright. His hands won’t stay still. He keeps smoothing his palms over his thighs like he needs to check he’s still here. It’s ridiculous. He’s been shot at, buried alive, trapped under the weight of expectations. You’d think a Friday night in his own living room wouldn’t make his breath catch. Christopher wanders in, trying for casual and failing spectacularly. His hair is slightly too neat. His shirt is tucked in. He keeps glancing toward the kitchen like he’s waiting for a cue from a director only he can see.

“You good?” Eddie asks.

Chris shrugs one shoulder, a move he definitely learned from Buck. “Yeah. You?”

“Yeah,” Eddie lies, because he hasn’t known what to do with his hands since lunchtime. The oven dings. Footsteps. Then Buck appears, carrying bowls like he’s presenting offerings to a small household deity. He’s wearing the soft blue button-down Eddie loves on him—the one that creases at the elbows in a way that makes him look unfairly gentle. His hair is mussed. His neck is slightly flushed. His smile is too careful.

Eddie feels it like a tide rising in his bloodstream. Something big, and bright, and terrifying in proportion. Dinner is a blur. Eddie can barely taste the food. The conversation feels like being underwater—close, warm, distorted at the edges. Chris keeps elbowing Buck whenever Eddie isn’t looking; Buck keeps touching his back when Chris isn’t looking. It’s like watching two people carry a secret between them, delicate as glass. When Eddie reaches for a piece of plantain from Buck’s plate, Buck goes very still.

“Hey,” Eddie says softly. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Buck says, but his voice cracks on the single syllable like he’s fourteen saying I’m fine, Mom. “Just—yeah.”

Eddie wants to kiss him right there. Wants to lean across the table and say, I know. I know what you’re doing. I’m scared too. I want it more than I know how to say.

After dinner, the three of them drift toward the living room. The movie starts. Nobody cares about it. Chris is vibrating like a tuning fork, Buck keeps shifting his weight like he’s wearing clothes that don’t fit, and Eddie—Eddie sits there with the knowledge humming under his skin like a second heartbeat. He can feel the ring in the room. Not see it, not hear it—but feel it, like a pressure change. Like a storm building, ready to split the sky open. A quiet thing, but momentous.

Halfway through the movie, Eddie’s head tips back against the couch. His legs stretch out on instinct. His hand settles on Buck’s thigh, easy and familiar. That’s when he feels Buck go very still beside him. Eddie opens his eyes. Buck isn’t looking at the TV. He’s looking at Eddie like he’s memorizing him. Like he’s checking one last time: Do I jump? Will you catch me?

Eddie’s breath catches, held halfway between inhale and surrender. The paused movie flickers blue across Buck’s face, turning his eyes into something luminous and scared and determined all at once—like the light from a fire reflecting off someone who’s about to run into the building instead of away from it. This is it. The sky-splitting moment. The break-open beat.

“Hey,” Buck says, voice quiet but steady in the way only Buck can manage—like steadiness is a thing he brute-forces into existence.

Eddie straightens automatically, pulse in his throat. “Yeah?”

Buck glances once at Chris, almost imperceptible. Chris nods back, the tiniest jerk of his chin, like passing a baton in a relay they trained for all week. The room holds its breath.

“Can you pause it?” Buck asks.

Chris hits the remote fast, too fast, freezing a bloom of fire mid-explosion. The motion is jerky, nervous. Eddie thinks, briefly, your doc must’ve had an entire section on this moment, and the thought warms him in a way he’s not ready for. Buck shifts, turning toward him, folding one leg under himself like he practiced this movement on the bedroom carpet when he thought no one was looking. Eddie can see the faint tremor in his hands. He wants to reach out—wants to anchor him, reassure him, pull him in—but he stays still on purpose.

Buck deserves the space to land this.

“You…” Buck clears his throat. “You know how I overthink everything.”

Eddie’s mouth curves. “Yeah,” he says softly.

“And how I spiral. And how I talk too much and also not enough and—God, I had a whole speech, but Chris told me to keep it less ‘I used to be sad’ and more ‘I’m happy now,’ and I’m trying, I swear I’m trying, but my brain keeps wanting to go—”

Eddie reaches out, places his fingertips on the back of Buck’s hand, a light touch. I’m here. Buck exhales like that gave him permission.

“Before you guys,” Buck says, quieter now, “home was theoretical. Something other people got to have. I didn’t know how to sit at a kitchen table and argue about dessert.”

Eddie feels the words settle in him like stones dropped into water—heavy, rippling outward.

“And then you handed me your kid,” Buck says, breath shaking once, “and asked me to stay by your side.” A bolt goes through Eddie’s chest—sharp, bright, memory-laced. That day. That tiny, impossible moment of trust. The beginning of this life.

“I’ve screwed up,” Buck continues. “God, I’ve screwed up. But every time, you’ve both—you’ve stayed. You let me stay. And somewhere along the line, this stopped being your house and became ours.” The word ours hits Eddie’s ribs like a hand pressed to a bruise—painful, tender, true.

Buck swallows. His eyes shine. “I know a ring can’t make me more family than I already am. Chris yelled at me about that part.”

“Fact,” Chris mumbles from his armchair, voice thick.

“But I do want…” Buck trails off, fumbling at his pocket. His hand closes around something. Eddie’s heart jumps so hard it feels misaligned. And then Buck moves. He slides off the couch, one knee hitting the rug with a thud. Eddie watches the motion like it’s happening in slow motion, like gravity itself is gentling around him to let him witness this without shattering.

The blue light from the frozen TV washes over Buck’s hair, the curve of his cheek, the trembling line of his mouth.

“Eddie,” he says, and it’s not a question yet, but Eddie’s whole world tilts toward the inevitable.

Buck opens the small red box. And Eddie feels it—not the ring, not the moment—but the meaning crashing through him like that monsoon he felt in the air earlier. A storm that doesn’t destroy, just remakes the land in its image.

“Will you marry me?” Eddie makes a sound he’ll never identify later—something between a gasp and a laugh and a small prayer. He brings a hand to his mouth instinctively, thumb pressed to his lips like he can hold the overflowing in. Buck’s face wavers a little, and Eddie realizes his own eyes are flooding.

“You serious?” Eddie chokes out, because the question is stupid but necessary, a reflex from every cracked piece of his past checking to make sure joy is allowed here. Buck’s answering smile is fragile and bright. “If you say no, this is a really elaborate joke. But yeah. I’m serious.”

“Dad,” Chris says thickly, half-laughing, “say yes before he passes out.” Eddie lets out the breath he’s been holding since Monday. Since longer. Maybe since the day Buck first stood in his doorway with a stupid smile and a willingness to love things Eddie didn’t think were lovable. He doesn’t remember moving. Just that suddenly he’s on the floor too, knees on the rug, hands on Buck’s face, kissing him like the world is finally expanding instead of closing.

“Yes,” he says into Buck’s mouth. “Yes. Of course, yes.” Buck laughs, dizzy and wrecked. His fingers shake as he slides the ring onto Eddie’s left hand. The band settles exactly in the ghost of an indentation left behind by a different life. Same place. New story. They kiss again—messier this time, teeth knocking, someone’s knee hitting the coffee table. Eddie feels the joy like a physical force, pressure behind his sternum, up his throat, the same ache grief lives in but transformed—same outline, different weight, filled with something golden and unbearable.

There’s clapping. They break apart to find Chris sprawled on the armchair, one foot still on the cushion, one on the armrest, applauding like he’s at a Broadway show.

“Took you long enough!” he crows. “I was about to start leaving pamphlets around the house.”

“Pamphlets?” Buck wheezes.

“Yeah,” Chris says. “Like ‘So You Want to Propose to Your Boyfriend’ and ‘How to Recognize Obvious Signs Your Dad Is in Love With Buck.’”

Eddie laughs helplessly. “You made pamphlets?”

“I have access to a printer and a dream,” Chris says.

Eddie reaches up—his left hand, ring catching the light—and tugs Chris down between them. Chris lands in their laps, gangly limbs everywhere. Buck wraps an arm around both of them automatically, pulling them in. It’s a tangle of elbows and knees and warmth. The throw blanket gets caught under someone’s foot. The remote disappears into the cushions. The paused explosion on the TV looks ridiculous behind them.

“Hey,” Buck says.

“Yeah?” Chris and Eddie answer together.

“I like hanging out with you.”

It blooms in Eddie, relentless and bright, filling every corner that had once been hollowed out. He huffs a small laugh, the quiet kind he doesn’t bother to hide anymore.

“Yeah,” he says. “Me too.”

Chris shrugs like it’s obvious. “Same.”

They settle, the couch dipping under their combined weight. The TV glows quietly. Someone’s foot is going numb. Eddie lets himself enjoy it.