Work Text:
Eddie sees Alex Doyle four days after the disastrous double intervention at a coffee shop a couple blocks east of his Muay Thai gym. She was sitting alone at a bistro table, a laptop open in front of her with a mostly empty cappuccino cup sitting next to it. Eddie had only spotted her because there was nothing to do but people-watch while he waited for his pour over, and as his gaze slid over the mother and her small child coloring at a table in the corner and the serious-looking businessman angrily narrating an email to his assistant, he did a double take when he saw Alex. Though, it wasn't for any other reason than it had taken his brain a few extra seconds to recognize her in the craziness since Hen’s diagnosis.
But now that his brain had placed her, Buck’s admonishing you haven’t even looked at a woman in a year was echoing around in it. So Eddie, with two minutes left on his pour over and nothing better to do, looked at Alex Doyle.
Take that, Buckley.
She was pretty and poised, even off the clock. There was a little furrow in her brow as her eyes scanned her computer screen, her fingers flying over the keyboard as she typed. Mindlessly, she pushed some of her hair behind her ear with one hand, but it was so short that it fell back across her face like a curtain only moments later.
Eddie hadn’t gotten a good look at her the other day because of the whole veteran-having-a-PTSD-episode-in-a-grocery-store thing, but he had noticed her competency on the job and the confidence she carried in the face of danger. And while the intervention had been a disaster, it hadn’t been Alex’s fault. Hell, up until Hen's collapse, Eddie had been impressed by Alex’s control of the situation. They weren’t an easy group to wrangle, the 118, and Alex had handled it well.
Out of the corner of his eye, Eddie watched the barista pour his coffee into a ceramic mug. They slid it across the counter to him with a polite smile before moving on to their next task. Eddie took the cup and considered his options, few they were. There was an empty table shoved into the far corner of the café, a crumpled-up napkin and a crumby pastry plate sitting on it, and there was the seat across from Alex.
Normally Eddie would go for the empty table, clearing it himself, much to the appreciation of the overworked and underpaid baristas. But here was this attractive woman who Eddie knew to be generally well-adjusted and—most importantly—not the spitting image of his late wife, and she had an open seat at her table.
Eddie may not have felt ready for dating, or had ever even really liked dating, but he knew that sometimes you gotta fake it till you make it. So, with a deep breath and a quick internal pep talk, Eddie summoned every ounce of faux confidence he had and walked across the café, right to Alex’s table.
“Alex?” he asked, once he’d arrived.
Alex looked up, and it was obvious to Eddie that it took her brain a few moments to recall his name. But after a look of recognition crossed her face, she asked, “it’s Eddie, right?”
“Yeah, hi.”
“Hi,” she said, smiling, half-closing the lid of her laptop. “Do you want to—” she started, Eddie accidentally talking right over her.
“Is anyone—”
They both cut themselves off, Eddie laughing quietly at the awkwardness. “Sorry, sorry,” she said, “go ahead.”
“No, it’s alright; I was just wondering if anyone was sitting here.”
“No, feel free to have a seat,” Alex said, scooting her coffee a little closer to her laptop.
“Thanks,” Eddie pulled out the chair and lowered himself into it. He took a sip of his coffee before asking, “so do you, uh,” he struggled to find something to say that wasn’t some overused cliché, “live around here?”
“Yeah, not far,” Alex said. “I like to walk here on Saturdays and answer emails before I go to yoga. You?”
“No, I live over in Beverlywood,” Eddie replied. “But my Muay Thai gym is near here.”
“Oh yeah, I see that place on my commute.”
“Cool,” Eddie said with a nod. He took a sip of his coffee, wracking his brain for something interesting or clever to say, coming up completely empty. The silence dragged on between them, Eddie silently begging for the ground to swallow him whole. Just as he was about to open his mouth and excuse himself, Alex swooped in to save the day.
“How’s Hen doing?”
Eddie had to stop himself from sighing in relief. “She’s okay,” he said, “she has a diagnosis, which is a step in the right direction.”
Alex’s brows drew together in concern. “Is it serious?”
“It’s an autoimmune disorder, but it’s not terminal or anything.”
“That’s good to hear," she said, sounding completely sincere.
In an attempt to move them to a lighter topic of conversation, Eddie said, “I imagine that was your first intervention to end with someone collapsing?”
Alex laughed, “you’d be surprised by the kinds of things people will do to avoid conflict. It was probably my first intervention to end with someone actually fainting instead of just faking it, though.”
“That happens sometimes on calls, too, people pretending to pass out to avoid embarrassment.”
“Fight, flight, freeze, fawn, and faint,” Alex joked, the corner of her mouth turning up in a smile.
That was good, right? Alex, smiling. Eddie was so out of practice in this sort of thing. And even when he had been in practice, he was a disaster at flirting and dating and not having a mental breakdown at the mere idea of commitment. But Alex was smiling at him and joking with him and she hadn’t run off screaming. Yet.
That was as good an omen as anything.
Eddie mustered up all his courage. “Would you like to get dinner with me?”
Alex had picked up her cup, but she froze with it halfway to her mouth to ask, “dinner?”
“Yeah,” Eddie nodded, “there’s this Cuban restaurant that just opened up near my firehouse that I’ve been wanting to try.”
Alex set her cup down, blinking at Eddie in confusion. “Like a date?”
“Mhm,” Eddie hummed, stomach churning. He had a feeling that this wasn’t going well.
Alex didn’t seem any less confused by that answer. “You’re single?”
“Uh, yes?”
“I thought you and Buck were—“
“Together?” Eddie cut in.
“—married,” Alex finished.
Eddie snapped his mouth shut. Around him, he could see the café and its patrons continuing on like nothing had happened, but for Eddie, it felt like the world had stopped spinning. There was a low, incessant buzzing in his ears, his vision tunneling. Eddie could feel himself starting to panic, cortisol zipping down his spine.
“Buck and I are friends. Just friends. Best friends,” Eddie said, the words pouring out of his mouth, almost unbidden. “We’ve been through a lot, more than what you heard at the intervention, so we’re close. He’s important to me, a-and he’s important to my son.” Eddie scrubbed a hand through his hair. “I have a son, by the way. His mom died a few years ago, and Buck’s like a second parent to him.”
Alex’s eyes went wide at that, in shock, or maybe even horror. Eddie wasn’t sure if it was the reveal that he had a kid or that his kid’s mother was dead or that Buck was like a second parent to said kid that had Alex so aghast, but Eddie was willing to bet that it was probably a combination of all three.
“Or—or,” he stuttered, “not like a second parent. More like a friend or, um, a cool uncle.” The words tasted like ash in Eddie’s mouth.
Alex remained unconvinced, just blinking at him, her mouth slightly ajar.
“That’s not really the point. The point is that we’re just friends. Platonic,” he emphasized, “friends. Plus, I’m straight,” Eddie added, after an awkward beat. “Buck is bi, but I’m straight, and we’re just friends.”
That was probably enough, right? That certainly covered all the bases.
“I see,” Alex said carefully.
Eddie took a long pull of his coffee, just to buy himself some time before he had to respond. “Look,” he started, “I’m sure that all of that doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence in me, and I’d be lying if I said that was all of my baggage, but I am single. You know,” he cleared his throat, still feeling awkward, “if that was the only reason you would have turned me down.”
Alex still didn’t say anything, her dark eyes studying him. Eddie suddenly felt like a patient under Alex's assessing, clinical gaze. Eddie felt words rising in his throat, ready to defend himself. His dating life in recent years may have been an absolute disaster, but it wasn’t like he was in the midst of a mental health crisis; he was just teetering on the edge of a panic attack.
Before Eddie could come to his own defense, Alex said, “eighteen months ago, I was engaged.”
“Oh?” Eddie said, unable to help the way his voice tipped up at the end. Maybe he wasn’t the only dating disaster sitting at this table after all.
“His name was Paul,” Alex continued. “I met him at yoga. He was sweet and handsome. Funny and smart. He had a good job and a great relationship with his parents without being too close to his mom,” she laughed a little darkly, tracing the rim of her cappuccino cup with her finger. “And he had a best friend named Danielle.”
Oh.
Oh no.
Eddie knew exactly where this was going.
“Buck—” he started, but Alex just forged on.
“They lived across the street from each other growing up, went to the same school from kindergarten all the way through college, they even got jobs at the same consulting firm after graduating. The two of them probably spent every day of the last twenty-five years together, and they were still inseparable, always finishing each other's sentences and laughing at inside jokes. When we were together, I was always the third wheel while the two of them were off in their own little world.
“Paul swore up, down, and sideways that it was platonic, that he saw Danielle as more of a sister than a friend,” Alex smiled at him sardonically, “and I believed him. I ignored all the red flags because I liked him, and I figured that one day he’d look at me the way he looked at her.” Alex turned pensive for a moment, likely lost in memory. “Two years later, he proposed. I loved him, and I saw a future with him, so of course I said yes.” Her expression soured, “six weeks before our wedding,” she said, “he told me that he was in love with Danielle, that he had always been in love with Danielle.”
“That’s awful,” Eddie said, for lack of anything better to say.
“You want to know the worst part?” she asked, not bothering to wait for Eddie to answer, “the worst part is that I wasn’t even surprised. I had spent the entirety of our two-year-long relationship ignoring a sea of red flags.” Alex met Eddie’s gaze, taking a deep breath before she said, “but I promised myself that I wouldn’t let that happen again.”
“It’s not like that between Buck and me,” Eddie said.
“It wasn’t just Paul’s red flags I was ignoring,” was Alex’s reply. “I know what a person looks like when they think they’re in unrequited love with their best friend.”
Eddie’s ears started ringing again.
“Oh,” Alex pulled her phone out of her bag and turned off the alarm. The ringing in Eddie’s ears stopped. “I have to go,” she said, looking a bit chagrined, adding, “yoga,” by way of explanation. She started packing up her things, finishing off the last of her coffee. “You and Buck have a special connection,” she said, meeting his eye as she slid her laptop into her bag, “it’s nothing to be afraid of, Eddie.”
Alex grabbed the rest of her things and left, leaving Eddie alone at their table. He wasn’t sure how long he just sat there, mind racing a million miles a minute. It could have been minutes, or it could have been hours, but by the time Eddie picked his coffee up again, it had gone cold.
He got to his feet and walked out of the café, leaving his half-full cup on the table like an asshole, but there were more important things to be doing right now. It was a short walk to his car, Eddie sliding into the front seat and taking a few deep breaths, forehead pressed against the steering wheel. He was, at once, gathering his courage and planning his own funeral.
When there was no more time to waste, Eddie turned on his car, pulled out of his parking spot, and instructed Siri to call Buck.
“Eddie!” Buck said cheerfully when the call connected, “I was just about to call you.”
“Yeah?” Eddie replied, sounding a bit hoarse to his own ears.
“Yeah, Chris and I are done with breakfast, and we are on our way back home.”
Home. Not Buck’s house, not your place. Just home.
Eddie felt like he might pass out.
“How was it?”
“Delicious as always.”
“Eh,” Eddie said, “I beg to differ.”
“You’re really missing out, Eds,” Buck rebutted, “Azay’s breakfast is the best.”
“Sorry that I don’t want to eat fish before noon.”
“Sorry that you have a wrong opinion,” Chris said with all the sass in his fourteen-year-old body.
“Hey, Buck,” Eddie said, gripping the steering wheel so hard that his knuckles turned white, “can you take me off speakerphone?”
“Um, sure, let me just pull over.”
“Dad?” Chris asked, “is everything okay?”
“Yeah, buddy,” Eddie reassured his son, “I just need to talk to Buck about something privately for a minute.”
Chris gave a simple, “okay,” in reply.
A few moments later there was a little digital trill and the telltale rustle of Buck lifting the phone to his ear. “Okay, you’re off speakerphone now.”
Eddie took a steadying breath. It was now or never.
“Are you in love with me?” There was no response. After a tense few seconds, Eddie checked to make sure the call was still connected. “Buck?” he asked.
At last, Buck choked out a “what?”
“Are you in love with me?”
“I—you,” Buck sputtered. “You can’t just—and why would—”
“Buck?”
Buck finally put together a full sentence. “Did my sister say something to you?”
“No,” Eddie replied. “I went to that coffee shop near my Muay Thai gym—”
“Did Tommy say something to you?” Buck interrupted.
That stunned Eddie into silence for a few beats. “Why would Tommy know if you’re in love with me?”
Buck made a strangled noise. “I-I—” he cut himself off, taking a deep, shuddering breath. “Do we have to talk about this now?”
“I’m pretty sure if we don’t talk about this now, we never will.”
Buck sighed, defeated. “Okay, fine. Hey, buddy,” he said, his voice a bit muffled as he angled the phone away from his mouth, “I’m gonna quickly talk to your dad outside; you just sit tight.”
There was some more rustling as Buck got out of the car, the door slamming shut behind him.
“What are you doing?” Eddie asked.
“I can’t talk about this in front of your kid, Eddie.”
Something about that statement soured in Eddie. He was pretty sure it was the possessive pronoun.
“Okay, fine. So why would Tommy know if you were in love with me?”
“So,” Buck said, sounding defeated, “not long after you left for Texas, Ravi and I went out to that badge and ladder bar on Wilshire. And while we were there, Ravi spotted Tommy and sort of pawned me off on him.”
Eddie’s brow furrowed. He generally liked Ravi, but maybe he had made up his mind too soon, because why the hell was Ravi trying to set Buck back up with his ex?
“Why the fuck would Ravi do that?”
“It’s not his fault, Eds. I spent the whole night talking about you; Ravi was bound to get sick of me sooner or later. I don’t blame him at all.”
“It doesn’t matter. Does he even know how many oatmeal cookies I had to eat after you two broke up? I gained like eight pounds, and he just threw it all away over you being a little annoying?”
“I think I could charitably say that I was being more than a little annoying.”
Impossible, Eddie thought to himself. Out loud, he said, “okay, so you saw Tommy.”
“I saw Tommy,” Buck said carefully, “and then one thing led to another…” he trailed off, waiting for Eddie to fill in the blanks.
“And you went back to his place?”
“Uh,” Eddie heard Buck swallow. “Not so much.”
Eddie paused. “You hooked up in the bar bathroom?”
“No! I don’t do that anymore.”
“Okay,” Eddie mused, “so if you didn’t go back to his place, and you didn’t hook up in the bathroom, that only leaves—Buck!”
“I know!” Buck crowed, “I’m sorry!”
“You brought him back to my house?”
“Well, at the time, it was my house.”
Let’s split the difference, Eddie’s brain offered, rather traitorously, and call it our house.
“It doesn’t matter whose name was on the lease at the time,” Eddie rubbed his brow, “why would you bring him back to the house at all?”
“Because I was lonely, and he was a relatively safe bad decision.”
Eddie’s heart broke for Buck, 800 miles away from Eddie and feeling so alone. “Okay. Then what happened?”
“In the morning, it seemed like he wanted to get back together. But then—” Buck cut himself off.
“Then what?”
“I, uh,” Buck started, clearly unsure how he should approach telling Eddie this story. “I asked him why he wasn’t afraid that I was going to break his heart anymore. And, um, and he said that it was because the competition was out of the way.”
There was a red light ahead, and Eddie slowed to a stop. “The competition?” he asked, his voice sounding foreign and far away to his own ears.
“Yeah, the competition."
“And I’m…?” Eddie trailed off, even though he was pretty certain he knew the answer to his unasked question.
“The competition. Apparently.”
It was quiet for a few seconds. The silence was loaded, but it wasn’t tense or awkward.
“Am I?” Eddie asked, voice quiet.
“No,” Buck responded confidently.
“No?”
“No,” he repeated, “because that would imply that you two were in the same fucking league, like there was anyone or anything in this world that I would choose over you or Christopher.”
Eddie picked up his phone, finding Buck’s location and setting it as his destination. He was only a few blocks away.
The light turned green.
“Good.”
“Good?” Buck asked.
“Good. There isn’t anyone or anything that I would choose over you and Christopher, either.”
“Eddie,” Buck breathed, voice breaking.
“I mean it. You two are the two most important people in my life, more than the rest of my family, more than the 118. And it's not even fucking close.”
“Eds—”
“Buck,” Eddie interrupted, “are you in love with me?”
Buck didn’t respond for a few seconds, the silence dragging on. At last, he said, “probably.”
“Probably?”
“It doesn’t have to be a whole thing. I’m pretty sure I’ve been in love with you since we pulled a grenade out of that guy’s leg.”
“Buck—”
“I don’t think I’ll ever get over it,” he continued on, “but if you’re willing to ignore it, I think we can keep going on like normal.”
“Buck, I don’t think I can just ignore it.”
There was a telltale sniffle from the other end of the line. “Okay, I get it.”
The GPS was telling Eddie that he had arrived, and it only took him a beat to spot Buck across the street where he was leaning against the hood of his car and wiping tears from his eyes. Eddie watched him for a few seconds, tracing the long line of his body. When Eddie looked at Buck, he never felt anxiety or panic. It was the opposite, really. Buck had only ever made Eddie feel safe. Sure, he could be annoying sometimes, but that was part of his charm. In their seven years of friendship, Eddie had never once tried to get out of spending time with Buck, none of those bullshit excuses he used to avoid dinners with Ana’s friends or nights out with Marisol. Buck just felt good to be around.
Eddie had spent so much of his adult life feeling out of place, like dating was a performance that he hadn’t rehearsed for and where he didn’t know any of his lines. It was agony a lot of the time, and Eddie knew it shouldn’t have felt that way, but he had just figured that he hadn’t found the right person yet.
Dating Shannon had been easy. Their marriage had been a disaster, sure, but things had been going great right up until those two little blue lines had shown up. But to say that being around Buck felt like being with Shannon would be an understatement. Buck met Eddie when he was at his lowest; his wife was gone, his kid barely knew him, and he had just picked them up and moved them 800 miles away form the only family his son had ever known. And, barring the first 12 hours of that shift, Buck didn’t seem to care. He’d decided that he liked Eddie and Chris and just integrated himself into their little family unit. If it had been anyone else, Eddie would have felt suffocated, uncomfortable, but it was Buck. Just Buck.
Of course it hadn’t always been easy. If Eddie had been anything less than a staunch skeptic, he would have thought that the 118 had been cursed by one of those tarot-card-reading-crystal-ball-peering witches in North Hollywood. Despite it all, the tsunamis and the lawsuits and the shootings and the breakdowns and the inconceivable losses, he and Buck had stuck together. They had weathered every storm, and when every other relationship in Eddie’s life had fallen apart, Buck had remained at his side, steady and sure.
That was love, right? It had to be. Eddie thought he knew love, but nothing had ever come close to the enormity of the affection and gratitude he had for Buck. It had been seven years, and Buck had been with him through every second of it.
Where are you? Buck had asked from a half-collapsed building.
Right in front of you, Eddie had responded.
Eddie turned off his car, climbing out and shutting the door behind him. Buck hadn’t noticed his arrival, and Eddie didn’t want to cross the street just yet. Leaning back against the side of his car, he said, “you don’t get it. I don’t want to ignore it; I want the opposite of ignoring it.”
Buck dropped his hand, brows furrowing in confusion. “What’s the opposite of ignoring it?”
“I don’t know,” Eddie mused, “talking about it everyday?”
“Eddie,” there was an odd quality to Buck’s voice, more careful and intentional than Eddie had ever heard it. Buck always wore his heart on his sleeve; it was strange to see him keep something close to his chest. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that I don’t want you to pretend that you’re not in love with me,” Eddie said; the time for minced words had long passed. “I want you to be in love with me. I want to love you back. I want you to move back in—”
“I have a year lease,” Buck interrupted.
Eddie couldn’t help but laugh. “Well, good thing I know how to pick a good subletter.”
“Eddie…” Buck trailed off, his voice watery. He wasn’t crying again, but it was a near thing. “Are you just saying all of this?”
“No.”
“C’mon,” Buck chided, giving Eddie the out. “It's easy to do all this on the phone and not mean it.”
“I mean it.”
“Eddie—”
Eddie was tired of waiting, tired of dancing around this thing. He couldn’t believe they had done it for seven years; he didn’t want to wait a moment longer.
Where are you?
I’m right in front of you.
“Look to your left,” Eddie said.
“What?” he straightened up. “Why would I—oh.” Buck finally spotted him, phone to his ear, blue eyes wide. “You’re here.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Which means you’re not just saying it on the phone.”
“Nuh-uh.”
“You really mean it?”
“I really fucking mean it,” Eddie said, making sure to enunciate every single word; he didn’t want there to be any confusion. “Hey, Buck?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m gonna hang up now.”
“Okay.”
“So I can cross the street and kiss you.”
Buck let out a heavy, shuddering breath; Eddie was almost worried that he might collapse right there on the asphalt. “Okay.”
“Try to be ready.”
“Uh-huh,” he said, not sounding even the least bit ready.
“Okay, I’ll see you in just a sec.”
Eddie hung up the call and tucked the phone away into his pocket. With a quick check left and right, he crossed the road. Buck opened his mouth, probably to reprimand him for jaywalking, but the words seemed to die on his tongue as Eddie jogged closer.
“Hey, Buck,” Eddie said, once they were face-to-face. His cheeks hurt, he was smiling so big.
“Hey, Eds,” Buck replied, his voice a bit squeaky. He took a half step towards Eddie, blue eyes flicking down to his lips. Eddie clapped a hand to Buck’s shoulder, his thumb finding that little divot in his collarbone that was almost divinely made for Eddie to press his finger into.
“Hey, I just need to quickly talk to Chris about something.”
“Sure, yeah,” Buck said dazedly. “Uh-huh, sounds good.”
Eddie gave him a reassuring smile and reluctantly dropped his hand so he could open the driver’s door. Peeking his head in, he said, “hey, bud.”
Chris looked up from his phone. “Oh, hey, Dad.”
“Look, I’m gonna cut right to the chase, kid. How would you feel about me and Buck dating?”
His son looked at Eddie pensively through his thick glasses. “You’re not already dating?”
“No.”
“Huh,” Chris mused, “I could have sworn you guys had figured this out already.”
Eddie snorted, “Okay, well, we haven’t. But now we are. As long as you don’t have a problem with it, of course.”
His son just shrugged. “Nah. Unless you guys try to kiss in front of me, ‘cause that’s gross.”
“Okay, well, I’m definitely about to go kiss Buck, so you might want to cover your eyes.”
“Oh, ew, Dad,” Chris crowed, tugging the hood of his hoodie over his forehead to cover his eyes.
“Thanks for being a good sport, champ,” Eddie said before standing up to his full height. “Hey, Buck?” he asked, closing the door and rounding the hood of the car to stand right in front of him.
“Yeah, Eddie?”
“I love you,” Eddie said, and for the first time in his life uttering those words to a significant other didn’t feel like an albatross across his neck.
It was the opposite, really; it felt like Eddie had been shouldering the weight of the world these last 34 years, and he was now, finally, free.
“You do mean romantically, right?” Buck asked, visibly nervous.
“Yes, I mean romantically.”
“Cool,” Buck said, clearly trying not to panic. “Cool, cool, cool, cool.”
Eddie placed his hand on Buck’s shoulder again. He could feel the anxiety leech out of his best friend at the simple contact. Eddie couldn’t help but smile. “Hey, Buck?”
“Uh-huh?” Buck replied, steady.
“Can I kiss you now?”
“Uh-huh.”
Eddie took a step closer, his hand moving from Buck’s shoulder to his jaw, cupping the side of Buck’s face. “You haven’t said it back yet,” he said.
Buck, whose gaze had been flicking from Eddie’s lips to his eyes, just asked, “what?”
“I love you,” Eddie clarified. “You haven't said it. Not to my face, at least.”
“Oh. Well, I do,” he said, “love you.”
“I know,” Eddie smiled. “I just want to hear you say it.”
Eddie almost expected Buck to huff and puff and roll his eyes, but there was nothing but sincerity in his gaze when he said, “I love you, Eddie Diaz.”
“I love you, too, Evan Buckley.”
Nothing had ever been truer.
Buck’s face split into a grin. He was glowing and golden and beautiful and Eddie loved him.
“Are you gonna kiss me now?” And there was that bratty attitude Eddie had been expecting earlier. But Buck’s blue eyes were sparkling, and he was smiling so wide, and there was nothing Eddie wanted more in this moment than to tug Buck closer and kiss him.
And so Eddie did.