Work Text:
one.
Buck digs.
The air buzzes with electricity. The raindrops are sharp and cold against the back of his neck. Things fall apart quickly, in the blink of an eye. His vision is blurry, legs weak, hands shaking.
Kicking and screaming, taken by terror, Buck digs.
His hands sink into the mud as he wills himself to become one with the soil. As he wills the Universe to be on his side. As he wills the Earth to tell him where to go.
Down forty feet, a little to the right, is Eddie, oxygen deprived and desperate. Buck feels it in his gut, the painful absence of him, the cord between them pulling and pulling, threatening to snap.
He thought he knew what it was like to miss Eddie. To yearn for him down to his bones. He realizes that until now, he’s never come close. Not to this visceral want. This phantom limb, suddenly gone, and the feeling of bleeding out, fading with it.
Buck closes his eyes, presses them shut until white dots cloud his vision and it stings. He makes out the shape of Eddie on the back of his eyelids, the ghost of his hands, his eyes.
The imprint of his silhouette, as much a part of Buck as the heart that keeps him here, present.
The buzzing doesn’t subside. It rattles his teeth through his open mouth, and the scream he lets out is muted, absent. He feels a pair of hands on his shoulders and closes his eyes again, clinging to the notion of Eddie, a guardian angel, divinity.
And he digs.
-.-.-
“What is it?” Eddie asks, walking into the room, a plate of soup in hand. His brows are knitted and the sunlight filtering through the window falls so that there’s an almost celestial aura about him.
Buck grunts, letting his head fall against the back of the couch. “Nothing,” he lies, unconvincing.
Eddie gives him one of those looks that Buck was naïve enough to believe Christopher’s. Busted, the voice in his head provides. “You made a face. I saw you.”
And then he’s sitting on the armchair, digging his eyes into Buck’s, like he could pry him open, lure all of Buck’s secrets into his careful hands and mold them as he pleases.
Buck’s just becoming familiar with this man’s game. It’s a kind of magnetism he’s never experienced, and he can tell, even though he hasn’t known him for long, that Eddie is special.
The corners of Eddie’s lips will curl up into a soft smile and the sun will shine just a little bit brighter for it, and it’ll be enough.
“This stupid thing,” Buck admits, lightly hitting his thigh and squinting at his leg. He adjusts as he sits up to take the plate of food from Eddie’s hands, if only to keep his hands busy, to divert the attention. “It’s nothing.”
But Eddie doesn’t buy this, if the concern still imprinted on his face is any indication. “Yeah, I’ve heard that before,” he comments pointedly, making Buck want to look down and blush and hide. Then, gentler, “is it bothering you?”
Buck shrugs. “It’s always bothering me.”
“Need me to call the doctor?”
“No,” Buck says, terminal, mustering the courage to look back at Eddie with the same intensity. Eddie, who arches one of his brows like Buck’s being silly, stubborn, unreasonable. “I need to work again.”
Eddie shakes his head, not in a scolding way but rather amused, as he sets up a pillow to lean on by Buck’s side. “No can do, cowboy. Recover first.”
And Buck rolls his eyes but he doesn’t really mean it, choosing to settle down and quietly enjoy the soup instead. It’s good, but he can’t say it out loud. Eddie knows, though. Eddie sees him.
Eddie looks at him and smiles and Buck feels it in his chest, him poking around, and digging.
Passively, he wonders what he’ll find.
He wishes he’ll like it, too.
-.-.-
Eddie’s hand finally slips into Buck’s.
It’s Buck’s heart the one that kicks back to life, his soul returning to his body. He holds on to Eddie for dear life, with tear-stained, red cheeks, and palms tired and aching from aimlessly hitting the ground.
He bears the weight of Eddie gracefully, like both their lives depend on it. Maybe, on some level, they do. Eddie leans into him easily and the world is back on its axis, the order is restored.
Buck’s eyes are glued to the side of his face. He stares at him in awe at both his strength of will and the mere, miraculous fact of his existence.
The pull between them has never felt stronger. Buck could run a thousand laps around the Earth, fueled by its energy alone. Eddie squeezes his hand and he feels it taking over, easing his burden.
You’re okay, he thinks, and holds, digging his fingers again, this time into the soft skin of Eddie’s wrist. You came back.
Eddie breathes, and so Buck can, too.
•
two.
Eddie breathes.
Deep, slow intakes, just on the side of enough to keep him alive for a moment longer. He can barely see past the cloud of smoke, can barely hear past the loud thump, thump, thump of his heart against his chest.
Subconsciously, he’s aware that he’s surrounded by his team, but he couldn’t pinpoint who’s where if his life depended on it.
What’s worse is that, in a way, it does. Not directly. But Buck’s life depends on it, and so, by association, so does his.
He blinks hard, adjusting the oxygen mask on his face. Sweat drips down his forehead, his back, heat suffocating. The radio is nothing but static as Eddie feels the flames take over the factory inch by inch.
Sooner or later, he knows, they’re bound to come across Buck. To take, too. Inch by inch, skin, fabric, blood, the distinct smell of burning.
The fire licks at the walls and the too-vivid image of Buck flashes across Eddie’s eyes. Writhing and aching; calling for help, feeling helpless. Lost. Gone.
There was an order to evacuate, mere minutes ago. Deliriously, Eddie felt like laughing. Because how could anyone ask him to leave, knowing Buck’s still in here? How could anyone ask him to give up?
Buck wouldn’t. Buck didn’t.
Eddie breathes and wonders, awaiting instructions. He can’t lose Buck. Not now, not ever. Especially not now. Especially not ever. He wouldn’t forgive himself and he wouldn’t forgive Buck for leaving, either.
He’d crawl to him. Buck would. He’d crawl back to him, so he must, too. Bend the rules and hold on. Hold on to hope, hold on to Buck.
Hold on to home.
-.-.-
“Want some coffee?” Buck asks, his voice heavy, tired, but soft around the edges, weary with sleep.
Eddie’s been tossing and turning for at least an hour. He woke up sweaty and uncomfortable and hasn’t been able to drift off again ever since.
It’s inconvenient, at best, to be sharing a bed with Buck right now.
“Did I wake you?” he asks, a faint apologetic lilt to it.
Buck shakes his head. In the darkness of the room, Eddie hears it, feels it, rather than sees it. “No, uh— a nightmare.”
Eddie winces but doesn’t say anything, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hands. He turns his head toward Buck, barely able to make out the shape of him, stark against the moonlight coming through the window of the loft.
He goes for a smile, but he’s not sure it comes out all right. Buck sighs and drowsily pulls himself up. Eddie follows suit, unable to do much else.
Then they’re both slipping downstairs, socks dragging against the wooden floors as they hold on to the wall, and something in Eddie shifts.
They mindlessly waltz around the kitchen while making coffee, and something in Eddie settles. In silence, so that Hen and Chim won’t wake up, they go back to the top floor, mugs in hand.
They get into Buck’s bed, backs against the headboard, and fend off their troubles and worries through lighthearted conversation. Buck’s knee digs into his thigh; muffled, delirious laughter bouncing off the walls.
Eddie feels like the teenager he never was. In more places than one.
His heart, for once, is beating steadily, to the rhythm of Buck’s fingers drumming against his leg. They’re both missing family, but holding on to each other eases the ache tremendously.
Buck says, “I’m happy you’re here,” pink dusted atop his cheeks. “In spite of the circumstances. It’s, uh— it’s good. Having you around.”
Eddie smiles like such a simple statement can make the world infinitely less broken. It can. It does.
He breathes slowly, eyes locked on Buck’s. “Yeah. I’m happy, too.”
-.-.-
Eddie is the first one there.
Even with gloves on, the rope threatens to slip away. He bites the pain into his bottom lip, never letting it get to him. The rest of the team is right behind him.
Together, they pull.
A dense mix of fire and water surrounds them, Eddie’s skin prickling. He squints, barely making out the shape of Buck through the visor of his O2 mask. Like the one Buck should be wearing, but isn’t.
Buck looks weak, small, shy. Hunched over like he’d give into the heat, into a fate that doesn’t belong to him. Eddie pulls like he could get the weight of the world off of Buck’s shoulders, if he wanted to.
He blinks, and just like that, they’re all walking out—alive, shoulder to shoulder. The ephemerality of the moment directly parallels Eddie’s own feelings on life, being in this particular situation.
How fleeting their existence seems. How frail.
When their eyes finally meet, Buck’s are almost spilling over. Tears and clear, uncontained emotion. Eddie knows Buck, so he knows what it means, and preemptively trembles just thinking about it.
“I almost gave up,” Buck confesses, eventually. It’s the rawness of it, if not the abruptness, that throws Eddie off-kilter. The sheer honesty in his voice when he admits how close he was to shattering his entire world into pieces.
Eddie wants to hold him.
That’s honest, too. Raw. And it surprises him. The bone-deep want that drives him, that takes over, a lot like homesickness. He stands still, simply staring and thinking, and he’s coated with a very specific kind of fear, as well as selfish relief.
Eddie’s heart is on his palm, pulsating, aching. Buck’s confession bounces around his head like a tennis ball. Fleeting, frail.
But what matters is that he’s out, fresh air rinsing off the darkness in his lungs, in his throat, his head. Hope should be taking over, and Buck should be drunk on freedom.
Eddie keeps looking at him.
I can’t lose you, he thinks, swallowing the lump in his throat. Later, he’ll pull Buck into a hug, and once again, he’ll think, I can’t ever lose you.
Buck hugs him back, and Eddie pulls through.
•
three.
Buck pulls.
His heart beats out of his chest to the beat of the bullets ricocheting off of the fire truck. As he crawls beneath it, his chin hits the ground. His hands itch to get a firmer grasp of Eddie, to pull harder.
The pool of blood under Eddie’s body grows at an alarming rate. Buck can see it. Buck can smell it. Buck can taste it.
He has the impossibly deranged urge to run his tongue across his lips, if only to tell, remind himself that Eddie is, was once real. Eddie once looked him in the eyes and took a bullet to the shoulder.
Eddie’s eyes find his and Buck feels it, near his collarbone, the ghost of the tremendous amount of pain he must be under. The hole in his body, in his heart. The echo of his mind screaming for relief.
Buck hooks his hand in the fabric of Eddie’s shirt and keeps pulling, begging for help to whoever may offer it, thinking, why is nobody here? Why is it just me? Why is it always me?
He can hear the frantic screaming around him, the inherent chaos of a situation like this. The evil voice in his head reminds him that they shouldn’t be here. It wonders, too, at the future.
A firefighter shot in the line of duty.
Eddie, fading.
Eddie is bleeding out and Buck is, too. Every last bit of him is joining Eddie in the task of making himself liquid. A stain. Something to dispose of.
He feels himself falter, but he won’t allow it. Not before Eddie is brought to safety. Then, he can feel for himself, and not a minute sooner.
In the meantime, he pulls.
-.-.-
“Do you really not believe in curses?” Buck asks, plopping down on the couch, beer bottle in hand. “Like, at all?”
Eddie’s been giddy. It’s really the only way for Buck to describe it. He seems lighter, somehow. It makes Buck believe the world cannot possibly be as bad as they oftentimes see it.
Eddie smiles into the mouth of his own bottle, and takes a swig. “I’m not superstitious. I had enough of that growing up.”
“At all, though? Do you not think that— sometimes, the Universe can send you signs?” Buck insists, then adds, “or people?”
This catches Eddie’s eye. He turns his head, tilts it to the side, gaze fixed on Buck’s. “Like what? Soulmates?”
“Yeah!” Buck grins, leaning forward.
He can’t not believe in soulmates. Not with Eddie in front of him, cheeks pink after a night of drinking and talking and laughing until their bellies hurt. His eyes so brown and a smile so delicate Buck wants to trace it with his fingertips.
Everything impossible feels possible when Eddie feels so his.
“Do you— do you not believe in soulmates?” Buck asks, somewhat shy. Eddie looks away again.
After a moment, he replies, “I find it better to think that I choose who to spend time with. That I know what’s good for me.”
Buck weighs this for a second, biting the inside of his cheeks. He thinks, what if Eddie hadn’t crossed my path? What if he’d been assigned a different shift, or a different station? What if he’d stayed in Texas?
There’s some semblance of comfort in the thought that follows. I would’ve found him. Somehow, someday, I would’ve found him.
Buck clears his throat, swallows the idea, chases it with beer. “Yeah,” he replies, mouth dry. “Maybe.”
Then, they’re quiet. The air is charged with alcohol or electricity or something else.
Buck isn’t sure how much time goes by until he hears Eddie breathe, a shallow, quick intake of air, like he’s about to speak. He turns to look at him and his mouth is shut.
He feels the unspoken words, lingering.
“What?” he asks, curious. Eddie looks back with his brows raised, a hint of surprise on his face.
He shakes his head, and mutters, “nothing.”
Buck nods in silence. The moment freezes over.
It feels like something.
-.-.-
Buck hauls Eddie onto his shoulder, hooks his hands under his thighs, carries him like he weighs nothing.
The moment feels liminal. It could go one of many ways from here. Buck’s never been a religious man, but he prays, regardless.
Once he puts Eddie safely down in the ambulance, he allows himself to look.
His eyes are glassy. Lips trembling, mouth agape. Buck moves on autopilot, doing his best to stop the bleeding.
He feels Hen’s or Chimney’s or somebody’s hands on him. He feels the lilt of their voice curling into his ears, telling him to leave it to the professionals.
How could he, though? It’s Eddie. He’s better versed in the art of Eddie than anyone will ever be. He’s a part of him. Eddie is a part of him.
Eddie is leaving him.
“Are you hurt?” Eddie asks, and the words get through, somehow. Enough to make him look. To make him come across the blood—Eddie’s blood, all over him.
His lips and his eyes and his hands sting, and he prays, pleads, begs, please, be okay. Please, God, if you’re listening…
It’s downhill from there. His muscles are sore and his mind is absent, and somebody, a woman, Taylor, dares ask, “are you okay?”
And Buck, broken, frozen in place, utters the first word he remembers saying ever since it happened.
“No.”
•
four.
Eddie freezes.
The air is tense with static. Water and energy and fear, all beating each other to death, pulling Eddie under right along with them.
The clocks stop ticking. The Earth stops turning. Nothing is the same, nothing ever will be. It’s like moving in slow motion, like being under water.
Everything will be taken away from him.
The raindrops blur his vision, deceiving, protecting, but he sees it all the same. Buck falls over, between a second and the next. His body is hanging from the ladder.
Eddie tears his throat screaming, the sharp edges of Buck’s name cutting through his trachea.
Something in him snaps, and that’s when he starts running. Ignoring his professional traning to favor his primal instincts. He goes up the ladder, careless, unrestrained, towards—
The electricity courses through his veins, too. He feels Buck in his blood, mixing in with everything he is. Closer than ever, Buck is here.
Eddie thought the lightning had struck him, too. Now, a foreign, absent part of him wonders if it did, or if it got him in the same way the bullet hit Buck. Inevitably. Coincidentally.
Life-altering, life-threatening empathy.
Gravity pulls his body forward; Eddie goes without question. He’s levitating, breaking through invisible barriers, floating towards Buck, as if to uncover the truth.
As if to fall over, too, to make everything stop for good.
He’ll never forget the image of Buck’s closed eyes, his expression frozen, his body unmoving. He feels so far away, slipping away, falling and falling and—
Eddie needs him close. Needs to bring his mouth close to Buck’s cheek and promise that everything will be okay, that this cannot possibly end like this.
That this cannot possibly end.
He’s overcome by a sense of urgency, and before he knows it, he’s attempting the impossible. Gritting his teeth from the cold, muscles sore, shaky hands. It’s all mere force of will.
Rain and gravity and physics, all pull down, but Eddie is determined. Eddie needs to bring Buck up, home, close to his heart, where he’s supposed to be.
Eddie needs it. Eddie needs. But Buck…
Buck won’t come.
His body begins its descent, and somewhere deep down, where Eddie’s blood is freezing, where even Hell is freezing over, he knows. He knows it.
Buck is dead.
-.-.-
“To firefighter Eddie Diaz,” Buck grins, clinking the necks of their respective beer bottles together. “And to being exactly where you belong.”
Eddie smiles back, tipping his head. “Thanks, Buck.”
“And— to May Grant,” he adds, sheepishly.
“Oh, absolutely,” Eddie agrees, lips puckered. “She’s the real hero.”
Silence settles comfortably over them, if only for a moment. Buck’s cheeks are pink, Eddie notices. It suits him, somehow.
Finally, that sweet blush dances past his lips in the form of, “it’s good to have you back, man.” Eddie’s smiling again, grateful, too. “We, uh— we really missed you at the station.”
Eddie savors the bitter taste of beer on his tongue. Playfully, he answers, “speaking for everyone there?”
“For myself, at least,” Buck admits, easy. “But— yeah. It hasn’t been the same without you.”
Eddie likes the sound of that. He lets it linger. “I’m sure you’ve been needing someone to keep you in line so you didn’t go all Crazy Buckley again.”
“What, like we haven’t had our fair share of craziness together,” Buck says, lightly nudging their shoulders. “What about our first shift, when we blew up that ambulance?”
Eddie clicks his tonghe. “Calculated risk.”
“Or— or the treasure hunt! That was you playing into my crazy, too.”
“Hey, that turned out to be real,” Eddie points out, a finger aimed at Buck’s face. “And I don’t think it counts, the entire city went crazy that day.”
“I’m just saying, being held hostage by a fugitive wouldn’t have been the same without you, man.”
It takes Eddie a second to place himself back there, in the ambulance. It feels distant now, even though it hasn’t really been that long. In the grand scheme of things.
He’s about to answer when Buck adds, unapologetically, almost like an afterthought, “I wouldn’t run towards the sound of bullet shots for just anyone, you know.”
Eddie stills, squinting at him. He remembers the feeling of his heart stopping, his body’s response to that injection of melancholy the sound brought, the distant reminder that he used to be under gunfire for a living.
He remembers Buck’s face, amidst it all.
“What?” Eddie mumbles, hoarse. “Wait, is that why you came back out? You heard the gunshot?”
“Well— yeah,” Buck answers, shrugging, like it’s simple. “It was pretty loud. You know, like— like a gunshot.”
Eddie frowns. “Buck, that could’ve gone horribly wrong.”
“It didn’t, though,” Buck answers, gaze averted. “And now you’re back. It’s fine.”
It’s fine.
Eddie feels it, then, more than ever, the fact that they’re the same flavor of loyal and self-destructive. He sees the inevitability of such a combination; the disturbing yet oddly comforting knowledge that…
Well, if it comes to it, he would’ve done the same. He would run towards known and unknown danger, no questions asked, if only to brave it together.
He can’t find it in himself to argue. He simply nods, letting it wash over them, like a distant promise he reinforces every day.
Ever since the first time Death threatened to visit them in an ambulance they were both in, and they came out unscathed. Together. Connected.
Alive.
-.-.-
Three minutes and seventeen seconds. That’s how long it took for Buck’s heart to kick back to life.
Buck was dead for three minutes and seventeen seconds. They went by so slowly. Eddie had time to do so many things. To cry. To ponder. To pray.
A part of him went with Buck, and it hasn’t come back. He wonders, passively, curiously, hopefully, if that’s what made him return. Try again. If Buck will be the keeper of that shard of Eddie’s heart for the rest of their lives.
If it serves as a guarantee.
Eddie promised, I will pour all of myself into you if it means I get to keep you for just a little longer…
Eddie wishes for them to be fused together. For every atom that makes them up to spontaneously drift away, into one being, one mind, one heart.
It should be a jarring realization, the sudden, inescapable thought that he’d willingly drown in Buck. That he craves it, craves him, that much.
When Eddie looks into Buck’s eyes, he knows, he’s certain, that there’s a lot of himself in there. A lot of himself that is for Buck to keep. For Buck to own.
He misses just looking into Buck’s eyes, for the sake of it. The last time he did it feels like a lifetime ago.
Wake up, he cries out in his head, everything about the waiting room he’s in seeping into his pores. The hardness of the chair, the smell, the noises. Taking him. Wake up, wake up, wake up…
Come back.
Eddie is drowning hopeless pleas with salty tears as he bites them into his hand. He thinks everyone is looking at him. He thinks they must know.
If he focuses hard enough, he can almost feel Buck moving. Fighting. Crawling back to them, to him.
“Wake up,” he whispers, so low it’s drowned out by the machines beeping to the beat of Buck’s heart. “Come back.”
But Buck won’t listen. Buck won’t flinch.
For forever, Buck won’t come.
•
five.
They’re drowning.
Just a minute ago, they were fine. Eddie was driving; Buck’s eyes bright from the passenger seat, as they tend to be. They were discussing a book Buck loves on their way home—Eddie’s house, that is.
Then, a honk. Then, blinding lights.
Now, water. Now, the LA River.
The first thing Eddie notices is how different they are. Fire and water. Drowning and burning alive. He has felt the flames as they licked at his skin, at his will to live, at life itself.
Fire takes away bit by bit. Fire makes sure you know. It makes sure you can’t avoid it. You can’t not know what killed you.
With water, he notices, it’s more subtle. Passive.
Imminent.
He looks over at Buck’s side, takes in the fear that’s overcome his lovely gaze, turned it bluer. They’re acquainted. It’s devastating.
It’s slow-motion. Realistically, it’s the shock. The crash echoes through his skull and there’s a ringing in his ears that takes over everything else.
Under the surface, Buck’s hand finds his. It’s Eddie’s only tether to reality.
They’re looking into each other’s eyes as they sink, sink, sink. Buck opens his mouth to speak and, with every last bit of strength, of a damaged sense of self-preservation, Eddie shakes his head so minutely it could’ve gone unnoticed.
It doesn’t. Nothing ever does.
They’re drowning, and Eddie wants to cry.
He sees the moment it dawns on Buck. Sees it in his face, feels it in his grip, tightening. He takes a deep breath, and a mere moment later, he goes under.
Buck goes under. He goes first.
It’s Eddie’s lips that part now, and patiently, beat, with his last breath, he takes over the words for the both of them.
“I love you,” he whispers, to no one. “I’m sorry.”
Then, everything goes black.
-.-.-
Eddie is the first thing Buck sees when he opens his eyes. Buck doesn’t think he’s ever looked like this.
Eddie looks bad, in the most beautiful way possible. He doesn’t speak, he simply stares. Openly. Bravely. In a way that feels foreign, yet natural. Logical.
Buck preens under his gaze.
Buck was the one in a coma, but it’s like time stopped for the both of them. It’s normal, he thinks, to want to reach out towards Eddie and feel him. Learn him.
Understand, internalize the softness of his skin, the plushness of the bags under his eyes, the sting of his newly grown stubble.
He’s a different person entirely, his Eddie, and this is the first they’re seeing of each other since—
“You came back,” Eddie whispers, awed, leaning in closer, his gaze hovering above Buck.
What Buck hears is you came back to me.
He smiles tiredly, and answers, “always.”
Eddie lets out a sigh of relief. Suddenly, it’s like time hasn’t gone by at all. Even with the machines beeping in the distance, the hospital materializing around them.
None of it is real, only Eddie.
Everything is fake, except for Eddie.
“I thought—” Eddie clears his throat, looking away. Buck catches the movement of his throat when he swallows, biting back words. He puckers his lips, eyes wide open. “Buck, you died.”
Buck flinches. “I know,” he says. Maddie told him. Their eyes meet again, apologetic. “I’m stubborn.”
Eddie shakes his head. Devastated, he repeats, “Buck.”
Buck knows it, then. He feels it, coursing through his veins, the aftershocks of electricity and primal forces such as love. Pure, unadulterated love.
One day, he vows. One day, I’ll tell you.
Eddie closes his eyes, a single tear rolling down his cheek. Weakly, Buck swipes it away.
One day, you’ll know.
-.-.-
Buck’s eyes begin to flutter open, and the ache subsides.
Eddie presses his hand against his own chest, the ghost of such a close call still haunting, chasing. He struggles to cough, and cracks a smile when their eyes meet again.
They’ve been here before, more times than they can count. It had never felt like this. At the same time, it always does.
Fingers intertwined, Eddie pulls Buck’s hand towards his mouth and kisses the back of it, gently. “I knew you wouldn’t give up on me,” he whispers boldly, Buck smiling right back.
“You’re alive,” Buck says, tells himself, eyebrows knit as relief washes over his features. Six years of history boil down to nothing. To everything.
It feels so simple.
“They got to us on time,” Eddie says, tells himself, allaying his own fears. He can’t stop looking at Buck in case he vanishes. In case he changes.
Buck is solid, a steady presence in his life. Buck is Buck, and these are the eyes he’s been looking into for the better part of six years. These are the hands he’s been meaning to hold ever since he realized hands are good for that, too.
For holding for the sake of it. Nurturing, keeping, soothing.
Buck’s chest holds space for every last bit of him, the good and the ugly.
They’re on the verge of it, once again. This time, nothing stands in the way. Buck asks with his eyes and Eddie nods, a long lost part of himself crawling out of the shadows, pulling Buck into the light right alongside him.
I can’t go through this again, Eddie thinks. Not without telling you, not without you knowing that—
Buck gets it.
Buck says it.
“I love you, Eddie.” Unrestrained, impossible to control, flowing out of him, breaking and aching and hitting with everything Buck is. “I’m sorry.”
Eddie bears it graciously, takes it in proudly.
Eddie kisses him.
Buck digs his fingers into Eddie’s shoulders, and kisses back gently, and it’s like slow-dancing their way into falling in love over and over again.
Eddie breathes for the first time in his life, it feels like, after being deprived of oxygen. Being deprived of Buck, for so long.
Buck pulls him in slightly closer by sheer force of will, kissing him deeper, pouring promises into his mouth, and accepting Eddie’s without question.
Eddie freezes this moment in time, committing it to memory, holding it dear. Not taking life for granted. Not wasting one more second.
They’re drowning in each other and, for the rest of their lives, for as long as they can, there’s nowhere else they’d rather be.
Not when, so many times, they’ve been so close to losing everything.
Not when, finally, they allow themselves to own it freely.