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“Welcome back, baby,” a strange, far off, floaty voice says from somewhere nearby. The world is spinning, but it’s also not, and someone is holding onto Buck’s bicep and making him walk into a bright light and he’s so, so very confused.
“Baby?” Right. Baby. He has a baby. “Is my baby okay?”
Oh God, is that why he feels so weird? Is something wrong with his baby? He brings a clumsy hand to his stomach, but it’s completely flat. It shouldn’t be flat.
“You’re okay,” the voice, Eddie, Eddie is somewhere, says, “You just had your wisdom teeth taken out.”
“My teeth? They took my teeth?” Buck starts to panic. “How am I supposed to feed the baby if I don’t have any teeth?”
Suddenly, the pressure on his bicep changes, and then Eddie is in front of him. There he is. His eyes are so pretty.
The bright lights start to fade away into normal lights and now Buck can see that he’s in some kind of waiting room. It’s small and white all over and it has a painting of a tree on one wall and a fish tank on the other. There are so many colors in the fish tank. It’s like a rainbow of colors. A magical rainbow of fishy colors. He should tell Chris about this. Chris likes fish.
“C’mon, Buck, time to go,” Eddie says, guiding him towards another bright light. The world is so bright. Or maybe that’s just LA. Light pollution. Sucks.
“But the baby,” he protests, trying to stay put even though his feet seem to have a mind of their own and really want to go wherever Eddie wants. “We can’t forget the baby. And my teeth.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not okay!” He can feel tears starting to bead in his eyes. “They can’t have our baby and my teeth! They have to give them back!”
In what seems like the blink of an eye, somehow Buck is in the passenger seat of Eddie’s car and he’s being buckled in. He doesn’t understand why Eddie isn’t upset. Did he not want their baby?
“I got them, don’t worry.” Eddie smooths his hair from his forehead in a soothing gesture. “The surgeon gave me a gross little bag full of your teeth just like you asked for.”
“And the baby?” He gazes hopefully up at Eddie.
“Y– yes. You still have your baby, too.”
Buck releases a sigh of relief equivalent to the amount of air he has ever had in his lungs ever and rests his hands on his stomach. It’s still too flat, but if Eddie says their baby is in there, he has to believe him. Eddie doesn’t lie.
When Eddie slides into the driver's seat and starts the car, Buck asks him, “Are we having the smallest baby in the world?”
“It’s still growing, it’ll get bigger,” he says.
The buildings and trees and other cars around them start to turn into mush. Streaky, weird shapes pass by him through the window. It’s incredibly fascinating.
“What if it stays little?” Buck asks. They need to think about these things. “Will we have to call Guinness? World record smallest baby in the world.”
“Maybe,” Eddie hums, “But we should probably wait and see if it gets any bigger before we start making calls.”
“Little baby.” He pats both hands on his stomach where the baby is. “Teeny, tiny baby.”
He all of a sudden becomes very aware of the presence of cotton in his mouth. Do babies eat cotton? Should he eat the cotton for the baby? That doesn’t seem right. Oh yeah, his teeth. Eddie has his teeth. Is he going to put them back when they get home?
Does his voice sound funny? He thinks he might be talking funny.
Whatever.
“Eddie?”
“Yes, baby?” Yes, there is a baby! A teeny, tiny Guinness Book of World Record winning baby. Buck forgets what he was going to ask Eddie originally.
“Are Guinness the book and Guinness the drink the same thing?”
“I don’t know,” he answers, “Probably not.”
“Why don’t you know?” Buck frowns. “You know everything. You have a star.”
“You can look it up for me later and then I’ll know, how does that sound?”
“Our baby needs to be smart,” Buck tells him, “We need to know everything so our baby can be smart.”
Buck looks out the window again and starts to wonder where the trees went. Everything is just gray. What a sad, sad world they live in. Oh, hey, but that building is red, that's kind of cool. And the car in front of them is blue, that’s cool too.
“Hmm,” Eddie hums, “Well, if we knew everything then what would the point of learning be?”
Woah. Eddie is smart. He’s a genius. Their baby is going to have such a big brain. Except, if their baby has a big brain, but it’s so small, how is the brain going to fit in the baby’s head? If the baby’s brain doesn’t fit in its head, does the baby die? Oh God. His baby is going to die and he doesn’t have teeth.
After a moment, Buck realizes he’s forgotten to breathe. He starts forcing himself to take manual breaths, but can’t quite seem to get the rhythm right.
“Hey, hey, hey,” Eddie calls, glancing over at him, “It’s okay, you’re okay.”
“Our Guinness baby is going to die!” Buck cries. Something wet falls down his cheek. Guinness is a beautiful name for a baby girl. Maybe if she lives and her giant brain doesn’t explode her skull they can call her Guinness. “Her brain is going to be too big and she’s going to die!”
“Oh, Jesus, okay, no Buck that’s not going to happen.”
“It is! It is!” Buck turns his entire body in his seat in order to face Eddie. “We’re too smart.”
Eddie purses his lips together. It makes his face look funny. Despite the fact that Buck is actively crying, it makes him giggle a little bit looking at Eddie’s funny face. Then, Eddie bursts out laughing.
“Oh, my love.” He rests a gentle hand on Buck’s cheek. At least he thinks he does. Buck can’t really feel it. Shit, did they forget to put his cheek back on when they took his teeth? “I think that’s a bit of an exaggeration.”
Hey, that’s their house in front of them. The world still seems a bit fuzzy, but he definitely recognizes that porch. It’s a good house. So homey. Homey house. He should talk to Eddie about just adding on another room for when the baby comes. They could totally do that. The landlord would never notice. They’d bring up the property value for sure.
He jumps when the door next to him opens and Eddie looks at him expectantly.
“Ready?” Eddie asks, unbuckling Buck – haha, unBuckling – and holding out a hand. Eddie has great hands. Eddie is so great. He’s such a great person.
“Will you still love me if our baby dies and I have no teeth?” Buck blurts.
“Let’s just get out of the car, Buck.” Eddie winds a hand around Buck’s elbow. “I’ll get you some ice cream.”
“Will you?”
“Yeah, baby, of course I will,” Eddie says earnestly, “We bought some just for you yesterday, remember?”
Why is Eddie avoiding the question? It’s because he knows Buck isn’t going to like the answer. It’s because he hates him. Buck doesn’t have any teeth and their baby might be in danger and it’s all his fault and Eddie is going to hate him forever and he won’t even own up to it.
“No. Will you still love me?”
“I’ll always love you,” Eddie murmurs, “Now, can we go inside?”
Buck lets him lead him inside, but he’s not satisfied with Eddie’s answer. He feels tears start to sting his eyes again and when he blinks them away they fall onto his face. They don’t feel quite right, like he can’t really feel them much at all.
Eddie sits him down on the couch and wipes them away. “What’s wrong? Are you in pain? I can get your meds.”
“I don’t want you to break up with me if our baby’s brain is too big and my teeth are all gone.” Buck starts to sob. The sobbing makes his mouth hurt. Fuck his stupid life. Chris says that, right? When Eddie’s not around to hear, sometimes Chris will mutter it under his breath. It makes Buck laugh.
Eddie plops down onto his butt on the floor in front of Buck. He catches his gaze with wide brown eyes. “You don’t need to worry about that, okay?”
“But–”
“Buck, you still have your teeth,” Eddie explains, then sticks his pointer finger between Buck’s lips and pokes his front teeth. “See?”
“And our baby?”
“Well,” Eddie sighs. Oh no, that isn’t good. Buck rests a hand on his stomach again and tries to feel for his baby. “Buck you’re– there’s no baby, my love, you’re not pregnant.”
“What?” This can’t be happening. There’s no way. He knew the doctors took his Guinness baby when they took his teeth! And Eddie is just letting them get away with it! They need to go back and demand their baby. It must have been some baby napping, teeth stealing, dark web business disguised as a medical office.
“You’re a man.” Eddie rubs his knee in an attempt to be soothing. “It’s not possible.”
“You’re wrong.” Buck tries to scooch away from him, but he’s already sitting in the corner of the couch, so he has nowhere to go. “I have a baby, I know I do.”
“You call me baby sometimes, but you do not have a uterus, I’m sorry.”
“You’re too old to be a baby.” He would go right next to their baby in the Guinness Book of World Records as the biggest, oldest baby to ever live.
“We can talk about having another kid when you’re not drunk on anesthesia,” Eddie offers, “I’d like to do that. Does that sound good to you?”
Eddie’s being way too nice right now for him to be lying. Buck has seen Eddie be a huge, petty asshole, but he’s usually pretty upfront about it. Which means, maybe he isn’t lying. Maybe they really aren’t having a baby.
Buck's heart sinks to his stomach. Where his baby should have been. He starts to cry again, and only cries harder when Eddie begs him to stop because he’s dislodging his cotton balls.
Eventually, through the tears, Eddie resigns to just taking out the cotton balls, shoves a pill and some ice cream down his throat, and lets Buck pass out on the couch.
–
The window has that late afternoon glow to it when Buck wakes up, face painfully pressed into the cloth of the couch. He sits up and tenderly pokes at his cheeks. He winces, immediately regretting it. His face is puffy and hurts like hell.
The past few hours come back to him slowly. He feels much more like himself. The anesthesia must have finally worn off.
“Hey, you’re up.” Eddie appears around the corner, holding a glass of water that he places in front of Buck.
“You’re such an asshole,” Buck replies. Eddie stops in his tracks, half bent at the waist in the middle of standing back up from reaching down to the coffee table. He gestures at the water in a way that clearly reads well what’s this then? Like it could make up for the emotional turmoil he inflicted on Buck in his poor, vulnerable state. “Why would you tell me our baby didn’t exist?”
“Uh, because it doesn’t?” Eddie looks at Buck as if he’s the crazy one.
“Yeah, I know that, but you didn’t have to say it!” Buck exclaims, “Why wouldn’t you just play along?”
“It was ridiculous! And impossible! I couldn’t just keep pretending you, a cisgender man, could magically get pregnant!” Eddie throws his hands up in the air. “You know how I feel about magic, you should be appreciative that I played along as much as I did!”
“What are you gonna do when we do have more kids and you have to pretend that Santa is real?” Buck shoots him a nasty glare. “You gonna ruin the magic then too?”
“That’s different!”
“Oh yeah? How so?”
“It–” Eddie starts to pace the length of the coffee table. “It just is!”
“Ha!” Buck stands, wobbling slightly and pointing a finger at Eddie. “You have no basis for your claims!”
“Fine.” Eddie gives in so easily. Buck is so lucky to have him. “Next time you have your wisdom teeth taken out and you start hallucinating being pregnant, I will go along with it for a little longer.”
“That’s all I wanted to hear, thank you.”
“Great, now can you please use this ice pack?” Eddie holds up a lunchbox ice pack with a kitchen towel wrapped around it. “I swear to God, you didn’t even acknowledge it once when I kept trying to give it to you earlier.”
“I have no memory of that,” Buck shrugs and sits back down, “But I am kind of craving Guinness?”
“No,” Eddie says, then drops the ice pack into Buck’s lap and stomps away, grumbling as he goes.