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Ravi's locker shuts with a clang and it makes Eddie jump. Just a little.
"Sorry, dude," Ravi apologizes, swinging his bag over his shoulder. "Didn't mean to scare you."
"You didn't," Eddie says back, maybe a little too forcefully, maybe not. Maybe it was too quiet instead. "I'm just… maybe a little in my head."
"Yeah," Ravi admits, standing next to Eddie, leaning his bag off his shoulder and onto the bench. "Been a while since I got wordlessly asked to be a third in someone's marriage."
Eddie snorts, ducking his head down, then immediately popping back up. "That's happened to you before?"
"Well, no, actually," Ravi says back on a laugh, "but there's a first time for everything. But hey!" He leans over with a smack to Eddie's arm, "At least I wasn't alone. Zane got you, right?"
Eddie realizes, with a sudden and horrifying jolt, that there's no speed his feet could hit that can get him out of this conversation.
"I, uh— I think so. I think that's what that look was."
"You don't know? Man, you really are bad at this."
"Thank you," he says sharply, like he's bantering with one of his sisters. Even though, in a way, he sort of is. Little siblings and all.
"Just saying! What, you've never had a guy hit on you before?"
And boom, there it is. The car he's been trying to outrun, the kiss of the bumper on the backs of his knees, knocking him to the ground.
"I—I don't really know? I've never—never really—" He's stopping and stuttering with his heart in his chest, unable—unwilling—to look at this feeling too hard.
"Honestly, Eddie," Ravi says, picking his bag back up off the bench and moving towards the door, "maybe it's worth giving it a shot. Ask Buck about it! Maybe he'll give you Zane's number."
Eddie's eyes grow wide and he hopes his anxiety isn't written clearly across his face. But, based on the soft, worried look Ravi gives him, maybe it's a fruitless ask.
"Or…" Ravi starts slowly, putting piece after piece after piece together, "maybe, just ask Buck."
He jumps again when Ravi's hand lands on his shoulder.
"It'd be okay, you know."
"Yeah?"
Ravi's nod is gentle, as is his smile. "Yeah, Eddie. The two of you are good together. If it were a thing that happened. Maybe. Someday."
Eddie's shaking a little under Ravi's hand and doesn't know whether to roll away from the car or let it lay him flat. It flashes in his mind, moment after moment after moment—Buck's hand in his own as his body lays under the fire engine, Buck's grip as he pulls Eddie under an engine of his own, the signature on his will, the lease agreement, the relationship disclosure form, the marriage license—
Eddie nods back and he can feel a tear slide embarrassingly down his cheek. "Yeah. Maybe." He swallows hard. "Someday."
Buck's head pokes in the door, kickstarting movement again.
"Anyone want breakfast? I think I need pancakes to take my mind off of whatever that was."
Eddie scrapes at his face, grateful to Ravi for standing in front of him.
"Buck, it's three in the afternoon," Ravi gripes on a smile.
"And yet, pancakes are an all-the-time food," Buck says back brightly. "At least, so says my favorite Diaz." He throws a wink to Eddie and he can feel the car tires at his feet.
Ravi turns back to look at Eddie, who's looking back at him. Someday, he mouths.
"I can't today," Ravi announces, clapping Buck on the shoulder as he passes out the door, "but you two have fun."
"So, what do you say, Eddie? Mid-day pancakes, then go pick up the kid?" Buck reaches his hand out to pull Eddie off the bench, but when he takes it, Eddie can't seem to move.
He confesses instead.
"Don't call them," he whispers, Buck's hand held securely in his grasp.
Buck's answer is a whisper. "What?"
"Please don't call them."
He squeezes Eddie's hand. "I won't."
"Please."
"I won't, Eddie. Promise. I'm really more of a one-person kind of guy."
Eddie smiles at that. "One person at a time, you mean."
Buck's hand squeezes around Eddie's again. "No."
The tires pull up around Eddie's body, his nose brushing against the car's undercarriage, and if he moves, he will be crushed. But right now, between rubber and asphalt and the calluses on Buck's hands, he is cradled.
"Come on," Buck says, a little louder this time, snapping them out of the moment, "pancakes."
"Pancakes," Eddie agrees, dropping Buck's hand and nodding his head. "Pancakes."