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“Welcome back to the world of the living, Buck. You were missed…”
…and then he was gone.
Buck stared at the door, half dumbfounded, half very used to it, wholly shaken.
Fuck…
This man would be his doom one day, he just knew it.
He stood there like an idiot, smiling to himself, still feeling the weight of Eddie’s hand on his shoulder, always so casual but so intentional.
Eddie never really shied away from contact, okay? In fact, if he was being honest, Eddie was usually the one to initiate it. But there were touches and then there were touches, and this was the latter. Buck could tell by the way the sensation lasted, like Eddie pressed just a little bit harder, making sure it was imprinted on his memory.
Later that night, home alone and drunk, Buck still felt it. Even with Eddie miles away from him, probably enjoying his night with Marisol, the phantom of that firm hand was still there.
Burning.
Why did he always do that? How did he always know how to capture Buck’s attention with just a touch, so simple but so complicated?
Buck had catalogued every time it happened since they met, and he often spent hours dissecting his little inventory.
The hand on the shoulder move was Eddie’s weapon of choice when he wanted to pull Buck out of his own mind, when he wanted to be heard and understood, when he wanted Buck’s undivided attention.
The weight of that palm, the way his fingers curled around Buck’s shoulder, that thumb always reaching for his pulse… There was no way Buck could ever pay attention to anything else but that. But him.
He was too damn weak to resist. Eddie’s words got seared into his mind every time they came along with that soft gesture, and Buck usually understood his motives, but this time…
What did he even mean by what he said?
Why was he so earnest about it?
Why did he look at him like that when he mentioned he had broken up with Natalia?
What part of that whole situation did Eddie want to make sure Buck saw, heard, understood?
It took him a second to do the math and realize that Natalia was just another girl on the list of people Buck dated and Eddie hated, and that had to be why Eddie sounded so happy about her being out of the picture, right? Buck consciously chose the safety of believing it had to be because he truly never knew how to choose people for himself, and Eddie was fed up with it, as a good friend should.
The alternative was terrifying.
The alternative meant there could be something there, vibrating in the space between them, something that Buck never let himself dream about.
The alternative had the potential to either ruin everything forever, or change it for good.
Buck sighed and quietly wondered if he would ever have the courage to find out which one it was.