Archive of Our Own ^beta

“If you’re going to be a career woman, at least spend your money on something better than learning to be a human security blanket.” 

Alex Doyle is no stranger to running through life tripping over both feet trying to please everyone–and failing spectacularly to please anyone. Sandra Doyle, longsuffering wife and champion of a mother, had softly but strongly assured Alex through every childhood dream that she could be whoever she wanted to be. Nicholas Doyle, however, had seemingly made it his sole purpose to remind Alex that a woman’s place was within the four corners of a suffocating two bedroom, picket-fenced lockbox, a reminder he’d shown through his constant beratement of Sandra as often as he had through his pointed sighs in response to each of Alex’s carefully-voiced aspirations. 

Alex didn’t spend eight years earning various degrees in psychology without learning that she’d be well within her rights to hate her father. Instead, those eight years stubbornly remind her, constantly, that it’s okay to love him even if she wished she could hate him.

Still, there’s a middle ground somewhere between hate and love, and sometimes there’s no ground separating them at all. They had certainly felt the same to her when she’d simultaneously indulged both her complicated resentment and her need to please him the moment she joined the LAPD after her mother had died. 

It had blossomed into a pretty fulfilling career, if she’s honest, even if she’d only left her full-time clinical practice and joined the force to quiet her father’s incessantly disappointed tone and forcibly tamp it into something more forgiving, something resembling the pride she knew he would have shown if only she’d been born the son he’d been promised instead. 

A lot of good that had done either of them, she thinks ruefully as she pulls up to the grocery store surrounded by the familiar cacophony of flashing lights. Maybe if he’d lived long enough to see her help implement the LAPD’s SMART response team, he’d have understood that running into a situation guns blazing wasn’t always the point of pride he’d lost his life trying to prove. 

The patrol car halts to a stop, and Alex forces her inconvenient reminiscing to do the same as she follows closely behind Sergeant Athena Grant. 

“Any word from the mother, Doyle?” 

Sergeant Grant calls over her shoulder as she surveys the scene. Alex glances down at her phone briefly before taking in the scene herself. 

Howie’s Market, often buzzing with midafternoon shoppers, is alight in red and blue, even in the sunshine. Inside, she can just make out the pacing shape of the man she knows from his picture to be Cowan. Her heart twists despite itself, and she shakes her head to loosen the grip of her father’s memory.  

“Nothing yet, Sergeant.” 

The senior officer nods tersely, turning her head from the storefront to the direction of a familiar siren. 

The fire engine pulls to a stop between two patrol cars, and Alex watches as several of LAFD’s finest emerge from the interior. She assesses them automatically before she can stop herself. 

Two men exit the engine itself. One tall, curly-haired, a strawberry-colored birthmark above his left eye. The other shorter, his dark hair tightly clipped on the sides. The captain, she realizes. 

Ah. The 118. 

Alex glances briefly at Sergeant Grant. They aren’t close, but she knows that Sergeant Grant's husband, the late Bobby Nash, was the 118’s former captain. Alex is a crisis response professional, she can’t help it–she’s curious. What does Sergeant Grant think of the new captain? 

“Athena, what do we got?” the new captain asks. 

Alex blinks. Well, that answers her question. Athena. Sergeant Grant and the new captain are on a first name basis. 

Interesting. 

“Shooter,” Sergeant Grant replies, stepping easily, familiarly, toward the captain. “Swiped the security guard’s gun, shot him in the chest.” 

“A robbery.” 

Alex swivels her head, surprised. The curly-haired one spoke with authority, with a confidence somehow directed toward Sergeant Grant. 

Alex desperately wishes for a freeze frame as her thoughts scramble to keep time with the curious dynamic. 

She notices no adornments, no specialized demarcations on Curly’s uniform that would indicate any level of command, and yet he speaks to Sergeant Grant just like the captain had–familiarly, resolutely. Alex speedruns the rolodex of active shooter situations she’s responded to in the last ten years and can count on only one hand the amount of times an LAPD commanding officer had dealt with other emergency response personnel so easily. Even fewer in which the emergency personnel had been the ones to initiate such casual communication. 

“No, a mental health crisis,” Sergeant Grant explains. 

Sergeant Grant explains, Alex notes, but her tone isn’t corrective. It’s entirely narrative. She doesn’t assert her knowledge with arrogance, doesn’t speak with condescension the way Alex recalls is characteristic of so many other sergeants.

Alex wishes she could record these confounding observations. Her fingers twitch against the phone in her pocket. She’s spent her entire personal and professional life taking  notes; she can’t help it. 

“The shoppers and employees made it out, but the guard’s still in there with him.” 

Alex returns her gaze to the storefront, carefully noting the position of the veteran pacing inside. His hands cradle the sides of his head, the gun resting dangerously but unintentionally against his right ear. 

“What do we know about this guy?” 

Alex turns her attention to the unfamiliar voice, another brunette dressed in an LAFD uniform. He’d emerged from the ambulance, she remembers, her mental placement of the man aligning with the red medical bag slung over his shoulder. 

He stands close to Curly, and though he’s addressing Sergeant Grant, his entire center of gravity is trained on Curly. It’s almost magnetic. 

Sergeant Grant nods at Alex before she can help the instinctual squint of her eyes in the direction of the two seemingly Magnetized Firefighters. She’s a professional, though, and files the observation away for later. 

“Benjamin Cowan,” Alex offers to the Medic and the rest of the newly gathered team. “He’s a vet.” 

The firefighters seem to notice her for the first time. Whatever familiarity and ease they carried with Sergeant Grant is joined by mild incredulity directed at Alex. 

Alex subtly shifts her weight to her back foot under as she looks toward Curly, whose quizzical gaze presents as an honest question. And even though she’s sure that an honest question is all it is, his gaze registers under her skin as something a little too close to doubt. She turns to Sergeant Grant, hoping to tap into the group’s ease by authorized proxy. 

“Alex Doyle,” Sergeant Grant introduces her. Alex settles under the vote of confidence laced in the officer’s voice. “She’s with the LAPD SMART team.” 

The Magnetized Firefighters turn their attention toward  her in tandem, and this time Alex borrows from Sergeant Grant's confidence and accepts their glances for what they are. Earnest, trusting inquiry. She’s itching to dissect whether it really is Sergeant Grant’s inexplicable rapport with these firefighters that changed their demeanor toward her entirely, or whether they'd had the same demeanor all along and she’d been too lost in her own unfounded insecurities to realize it. 

Whatever the reason, her conscious thought finally falls in step with her subconscious, and she remembers: she’s good at her job. She’s supposed to be here. 

“Systemwide Mental Assessment Response Team,” she recites. Even though SMART was entering its tenth year of implementation, there were still plenty of first responders—not to mention civilians—who were unfamiliar with the acronym. 

“Cop therapist. Interesting,”  the captain comments.

“You said this guy’s a vet?”

Alex turns to face the Medic, who now addresses her directly but still remains trained in all but his eyes on Curly. She scrambles to check her tablet. 

She’s memorized Cowan’s chart by now, so she doesn’t actually need to check it to answer Medic’s question.

But if she doesn’t force herself to look somewhere else, somewhere away from these Magnetized Firefighters, she’s certain her eyes will be forced out of her head by the sheer volume of questions she’s itching to ask them. It’s widely inappropriate, she knows, but there’s just…something. Something she can’t quite put her finger on. Alex loves to poke, to prod, and the Magnets are beckoning to her inquisitive brain like sirens. 

Alex looks down at her tablet and rattles off Cowan’s military history even though the screen before her displays only apps. She hopes it looks like she’s reading. 

“It says he’s currently living with his mother.” 

It doesn’t say that. Though the chart displays an address, Alex had googled the residence back at the station. The home is owned by Cowan’s mother, and Alex confirmed with a few more searches that she still resided there. A recent cell phone bill had confirmed Cowan was still using the address. 

“We’re tracking her down,” Sergeant Grant confirms. Alex knows Sergeant Grant is equally aware of the chart’s content, and she’s once again grateful for the implicit backup. 

“Supply specialist? No that’s gotta be wrong,” Medic asserts. 

Alex taps the tablet twice to pull up the actual chart, horrified that she may have made a mistake. Supply specialist, it reads. No, she got it right. She knew that. 

Alex looks up at the Magnetized Medic, eyebrows raised. She’s not wrong. Why does he think she’s wrong? She soothes her bristling skin with measured breaths, tossing her short-cropped hair over her shoulder to hide the trained rise and fall of her shoulders. 

“If he was supply, he wouldn’t have been in combat, or sent to Landstuhl.” 

Alex drops her arms in front of her, wrists crossed in an iron grip across the tablet. 

It says “supply.” 

It says “Landstuhl.” 

It says “combat.” 

Alex is a professional, a trained crisis response professional with the degrees, experience, and LAPD badge to prove it. She squints at the medic, not bothering to hide it this time. Her eyes flicker, though, to the way he imperceptibly shifts his shoulders toward Curly. 

She’s annoyed, and she’s curious, and she’s more annoyed that she’s curious. 

Magnetized Medic’s  eyes flicker toward Curly at the exact moment Curly opens his mouth, and Alex forgets her annoyance. Did either one of them notice their mirrored movements? 

“Eddie’s a vet too,” Curly offers directly to Alex. She blinks, logging the words with her mind but tracking their  movements with her eyes. Curly gestures toward Medic—Eddie—in explanation, and Eddie’s shoulders relax in time with the movement. “Army medic.” 

Alex grins despite herself. 

They speak for each other. Move with each other. Eddie hadn’t been shy to voice his thoughts on Cowan, so why hadn’t he offered the information himself? How, more importantly, did Curly intuit the precise moment that Eddie would stop using his words? 

Eddie was quick to advocate for Cowan. 

Curly was quick to advocate for Eddie. 

Alex is desperately wishing for a clone—she needs to be present for Cowan, but she needs to know what’s going on with these two. One need though, is objectively more pressing, and she dismisses the curiosity in the same breath that she softens toward Curly’s Army Medic. 

“I’d be game for a consultation,” she invites, extending the tablet toward Twice Medic Eddie. And she is. She’s already reconfigured his perceived challenges for what they were—genuine concern for the man inside the store. Alex knows she’s still far behind where she’d like to be when it comes to the insecurities she’d inherited by blood and belittling on her father’s side, but she’s proud, at least, that she’s learned to accept sincere help. 

She’s grateful it’s a lesson she’s tucked under her belt as she and Eddie navigate the dual realities of the man inside the store. Eddie’s a natural, and her heart aches with the obvious weight of the words he speaks to soothe Cowan. They carry the weight of someone who knows, who will always know, what it is to live many lives, what it means to accept the terrifying, soft truth of coming home. 

The heavy gratitude of ensuring Cowan’s safety and the safety of everyone inside the store is almost enough to make Alex forget about her curiosity surrounding the Magnetized Firefighters. 

But then Curly runs in and nearly bowls her over in a frenzied rush that ends in him kneeling beside Eddie, breath heaving until a single touch of Eddie’s palm on his shoulder grounds him immediately. 

“I’m okay,” She hears Eddie say. Curly nods slowly, and Eddie ducks his head, searching for Curly’s eyes. He must find them, because Eddie speaks again, and Curly’s head lifts with the sound. “Buck, hey. I’m okay.”

So, yeah. Alex is relieved. A job well done. And she almost forgets about her curiosity surrounding the Magnetized Firefighters. 

Almost. 

“Prove it!” Ben Cowan begs, and Eddie feels it in his bones. It knocks against him swiftly, a tired, relentless ghost searching for an opening, a way back inside.

Eddie shivers against the brush of the familiar desperation. He knows what it is to plead for the truth, to be so caught up in the midst of himself that the truth itself isn’t enough reassurance. 

It’s all a hall of mirrors, really. To glance in every direction and see yourself, to know that the face staring back at you is your own, is true in a sense but not true enough. 

Truth is hard. It’s complicated. Eddie knows this. 

He knows that he is standing in Howie’s Market, that Alex Doyle stands to his left, that an injured security guard lays on the floor to his right, and that Ben Cowan is standing in front of him having just fired a gun into the ceiling. 

He knows that Cowan can see him, knows that Cowan is attentive and perceptive enough to clock the now-smashed radio Eddie had barely touched. 

He also knows from experience that right now, Cowan knows all of that that too, and that it doesn’t matter, because Cowan does not–can’t–trust the truth of Eddie standing in front him, the grocery store around them, the street names visible from the window. 

Cowan sees it but does not believe it, because it is equally true that Cowan’s mind and body are mixing past and present in a way that makes the reality of the brick and mortar surrounding them entirely irrelevant. 

So he begs. If what Eddie is telling him is true, if he is not in Iraq, please, Cowan pleads with himself, with Eddie. Prove it. Pull me out of it. Prove it, please, because I’m seeing and I’m hearing and I’m feeling but none of it feels real or right or safe and showing me isn’t enough, not right now. Prove it. I don’t know how, but please. Do something. Anything. 

Eddie lets out a steady breath when he hears Cowan address his mother outside. 

“Ma,” Cowan’s voice breaks. Eddie feels that too. Knows it. The relief. The body’s exhale when it finally accepts the truth of the ground beneath your feet. The steadiness that only comes from finally being anchored. 

For some, Eddie knows, the anchor is a place. A smell. A song. A touch. 

For others, the anchor is a voice, a face, a person. 

Eddie can tell from the fall of Cowan’s shoulders, the tenor of his voice, that his mother is that person. All it took was seeing her face, hearing her voice, and suddenly Cowan’s house of mirrors collapsed into shards–still there, but powerless to distort. Fragmented reminders that might cut if you get too close, but that won’t pull you in, won’t have you backed into a corner, because suddenly instead of looking at a hundred identical reflections of yourself, you’re looking at someone else, and they’ve got you. 

Yeah, Eddie knows this feeling well. 

Cowan sets down the gun at his mother’s plea, and Alex rushes to retrieve it as Eddie rushes to catch Cowan. Having removed the weapon, Alex steps in, allowing Cowan to fall against her so that Eddie can tend to the security guard. He’s miraculously maintained consciousness. Eddie reaches into his bag to begin tending to the guard’s wounds. 

“You know,” the guard whispers, despite Eddie’s insistence that he not talk right now. “That was pretty,” he coughs, “impressive.” 

Eddie smiles grimly. 

“Just doing my job, sir,” he replies sincerely. He presses his hand to the man’s chest. To his surprise, the man places his own hand on top of Eddie’s. 

“I think we both know,” he wheezes, willing his eyes into focus as he trains them on Eddie’s. “There was nothing ‘just’ about it.” Eddie pauses for a moment before smiling again, warmly this time. 

“What branch?” He asks softly. 

“SEALS,” the guard replies. “Got injured.” He directs his eyes downward, and Eddie’s grateful he doesn’t try to lift his head to look at his chest. “You know,” he grunts, closing his eyes. “Before.” 

Eddie squeezes his hand tightly. 

“Let’s get you home, huh? Again.” He pauses. “Thank you.” 

The guard smiles weakly, his eyes still closed. 

“Just doing my job.” 

Eddie doesn’t have time to rinse and repeat the guard’s earlier admonishment before he hears the familiar rush of heavy footfall making its way toward him. He turns in time to see Buck fall into a half crouch beside him, his blue eyes frenzied but laser-focused on Eddie.  

“Eddie,” Buck breathes, shoulders curling around the name. Like if he could just squeeze himself into the syllables, he would be okay. He is okay. Eddie is okay. 

“I’m good, it’s good, I’m okay,” Eddie promises, squeezing Buck’s shoulder with his free hand to punctuate the truth of it. 

He is, he’s good. For the most part, he’s good. 

His hand had landed somewhat awkwardly atop the strap of Buck’s kevlar vest, and he’d managed to push down Buck’s collar in the process so that the pad of his thumb now rested heavily against Buck’s collarbone. He feels Buck’s pulse, the steady rhythm of it syncing with Eddie’s. 

Eddie’s own heartrate had spiked only momentarily when Cowan’s gun went off, but other than that, it had been normal. Trained. Practiced. Measured, even in the face of objective uncertainty and danger.

Now, though, his pulse thunders in his ears, a deafening echo of the one humming beneath his thumb. 

He said he was good for the most part, okay? He wasn’t lying. Not completely.

Buck’s eyes are fixed on Eddie’s hand, and Eddie ducks his head to find Buck’s eyes. 

“Buck, hey.” Buck tears his eyes from Eddie’s hand, and they soften, the storm behind them settling into a calm ocean blue. “I’m okay.” 

“You sure?” Buck asks, searching Eddie’s face for something, and Eddie wonders if he finds it. It took Eddie almost a lifetime to find it, to see it. Wouldn’t that be just like Buck, though, to find it so effortlessly? 

Eddie swallows, cursing his mouth for being so dry. This isn’t the barrel of gun trained on his chest. This isn’t an emergency. This is Buck. 

“I’m sure,” Eddie lies. Because he does. Sometimes he does. 

The thing is, Eddie hates lying. 

Hates it as a concept, hates that it’s a thing he does. It’s not that he ever does it on purpose. 

Well, maybe that’s not true. 

He does lie on purpose–but he never lies to hurt anyone. If anything, he lies to keep from hurting people. He knows, though, that that’s not how it works. 

No matter how well-intentioned, no matter how loving the motivation, lying doesn’t work. Not in his experience. Not in anyone’s, probably, though he thinks whether lying “works” or not is really more about the end goal than about the success of the lie itself. 

If the goal is to get rich, to isolate, to get laid, to survive, then yeah. Lying works. But that’s not Eddie’s goal. Not to get rich, not to isolate, certainly not to get laid. And not to just survive; not anymore. 

He wants a life. He wants a full life, an honest life, a beautiful life with his son and with his friends who became family and–well, he wants. He’s always wanted, despite his best efforts not to, and he knows, finally, that it’s probably true that he deserves it. He deserves to want, deserves to pursue what he wants. 

He knows it in theory, at least. It’s a lot harder to believe that truth, to feel it. To trust it.

The problem is, when it comes to feeling like he deserves joy, truly believing in a way that matters that he deserves the life he’s finally allowed himself to want, it’s just another hall of mirrors. 

He can see the truth reflected all around him. He knows, despite his Catholic upbringing, that flawed people still deserve joy. Bobby taught him that. In fact, Eddie thinks, the most on-paper flawed people he knows are probably the most deserving. To say someone is flawed is just another way of saying they aren’t perfect, and how fucking boring is perfection? It feels pretty flat to love someone who’s perfect, because who wouldn’t? It feels even flatter to be loved by someone perfect. Someone who’s perfect, in biblical terms, loves everyone. Big deal. Nothing special about being loved by someone who loves everyone. 

But to love and to be loved in the mess of it all? Eddie’s seen it. Lived it, even. So he knows it’s true, in a universal sense, that he deserves joy. It’s just that he doesn’t know how to feel it. 

But he’s trying. He really is. 

It’s hard, though. 

It’s really hard, he thinks, stealing a glance at Buck sitting in the passenger seat of the ambulance while they’re stopped at a red light and Buck is explaining that there was absolutely no reason for the bathrooms at the Hoover Dam to be so beautiful, because who even thinks about making a bathroom beautiful, and isn’t it wild that they built something so architecturally insane over a century ago? A century, Eddie! 

It’s hard because Buck had asked if he was really okay–Buck always double checks, always makes sure–and Eddie had said yes which wasn’t really a lie but it wasn’t really the truth, either, not all of it. 

The truth is that he’s in love with his best friend and he’s gay and the truth is he knows Buck is the safest person to tell but he can’t because the truth is that he’s scared that not getting the first thing he’s ever truly allowed himself to want might be too much to bear, might be too close to confirmation that he doesn’t deserve joy, actually, and he’s trying really hard to accept that he does deserve it before something proves the opposite and locks him in a damn hall of mirrors forever. 

Eddie doesn’t want to lie to Buck. 

He’s not afraid he’ll lose Buck. He couldn’t, he thinks, not even if he tried. 

He’s afraid because he wants to keep Buck, and, well, he loves Buck too much to keep him against his will. 

He wants to keep Buck, and he wants Buck to want to keep him back, and that feels treacherous. He wants, he wants, and he wants, and the sheer force of what it means to want makes him sure that the denial of the want will land too hard, will knock him off his feet and resign him to a life of strict, necessary denial. 

He doesn’t want to risk that almost as much as he wants Buck. 

So he wishes Buck would just figure it out. Take risk out of the equation for him. 

And, he thinks, hitting the gas a little too swiftly once the light turns green, it’s not a crazy wish, because he’s seen the way Buck looks at him. He realized this about Buck sometime in the aftermath of his own revelations–that Buck would look at him, sometimes, the way Eddie now knows he looks at Buck. Buck would say things, sometimes, that Eddie could swear were not the same words that Chim would say. Or Ravi. Or Hen. Things that sounded a lot more like things Eddie would say, if he was brave enough to test the waters. To risk. Things that Eddie had said, even, before his conscious mind had clocked the bone-deep rightness of it all that prompted the words in the first place. 

But then Buck says other things, too. 

Buck says things like, “I went on a date,” or “I’m your wingman,” or “what about her?” and Eddie thinks maybe he is crazy for looking too closely at the way Buck looks at him, or thinking too deeply about the things Buck says. Because Eddie? Well, he can’t fathom saying those Other Things, those things friends say to each other to hype them up, to be their wingman, to Buck. Not anymore. 

He’d barely been able to choke out, “Why don’t you just go talk to her?” when he and Buck and Ravi had been out at that club a few weeks ago. The words cut into his throat, burning so viscerally with the sharpness of the unspoken lie that he’d instinctively taken a drink of his beer just to soothe the ache. 

It hadn’t worked. 

But Buck had also stayed, which was almost worse than going over there to talk to Her, somehow. 

Buck had stayed, and he’d leveled the most sincere gaze at Eddie and told him he wasn’t going to leave his side, and well, what was Eddie supposed to do with that? 

Probably not picture Buck saying those words at the altar, Eddie thinks. No, definitely not that. 

But Eddie had been–is still!–actively trying to break his “supposed to” habits, and sometimes, at the worst times, inevitably, when “supposed to” would be helpful, he breaks the habit despite his better judgment. Sometimes, like at times when his best friend is staring into his soul just a foot away from his face and vowing to get him a date with a woman while Eddie is picturing him adorned in sunlight surrounded by their family vowing to never leave his side. 

Eddie had blamed the alcohol because it was easier. 

Sometimes he lies, okay? He’s not perfect.

He’d been stone cold sober the next week in the gym, though, and couldn’t blame anything but his stubborn, inconvenient inlovewithmybestfriend feelings for the way he’d positively beamed when Buck had said he’d have to break up with the Siblings. Couple, actually, though Eddie hadn’t known that then. 

And he swears he would have been happy for Buck if he hadn’t broken it off. He was, before Ravi had found their Instagrams, happy that Buck was having a good time, that he was being treated well. 

That’s the complicated thing, here. One of the complicated things. 

He’s in love with Buck, sure, but he also loves Buck. Would die for Buck. Would live for Buck. That would always be true, no matter the contours of their relationship. The fact that the prospect of Buck’s future romantic happiness would now add a layer of sadness that Eddie had never before been conscious of–conscious being the operative word, here, considering Eddie had realized in hindsight a part of the reason he’d actively disliked all of Buck’s romantic partners–didn’t make the fact any less true. 

It just made things a little more complicated for Eddie. 

And the complications continued, as they always did, right up until this morning when they’d been brushing the hoses together. 

Eddie had shrugged, agreeing that Chim had maybe been a little too harsh in firing Hen, but that was just the way things go sometimes. 

“Chain of command,” he’d summarized. 

“Oh, you and ‘chain of command,’” Buck had mockingly lamented. “Yes sir, Eddie sir,” he’d saluted, his dancing eyes betraying the intended mockery. 

Eddie’s heart had stopped. Full on, pulse who?, get-this-man-a-Lifepak stopped. It was too much. 

First Buck says that he can tell Eddie relates to the man being publicly dommed into compliance, locked in a chastity belt on full display. Eddie had carefully studied the woven pattern of his shoelace to keep from throwing up. 

Sure, Buck had quickly said he meant a chastity belt of his mind, but the words dripped from his mouth too smoothly, bold and tantalyzing, and Eddie could have sworn in that moment that had Ravi not been there, the mischievous light in Buck’s eyes would have erupted into a catastrophic supernova targeted specifically at Eddie’s sanity. 

And then Buck says things like “yes sir, Eddie sir,” in the most devastatingly pointed, mocking, tempting tone, like he knows Eddie likes calling the shots but loves it even more when someone else calls the shots for him. 

His ears had burned. His face likely matched. But it was Buck, and he was Eddie, so he had poked. He loved to poke. 

“You know what? You’re right,” Eddie had conceded, if only for his own benefit and amusement. It had backfired slightly as Eddie went dizzy with the sincerity of the delight in Buck’s eyes at the words. And that fucking smile. 

“I am. Thank you for noticing,” Buck had grinned, both boyishly pleased and infuriatingly smug. Eddie loved it. He hated it. He loved how much he hated it and hated how much he loved it. 

“You’re welcome,” he’d shot back, hoping it didn’t sound too much like what he meant. 

I notice everything about you.

They had bickered and bantered for only a few more moments until Athena had appeared, and flirtatious bravado be damned, no one can make a grown man–or even two–fold like Athena Grant. They’d laughed sheepishly at themselves as Athena ascended the stairs to talk to Chimney, and they’d taken turns narrating the conversation from below, hoses abandoned. 

They’d resumed their joint tasking once Athena left, falling easily into the banter that had defined the last eight years of Eddie’s life and complicated it now in equal measure. 

So, sure, Eddie may lie sometimes, and he may not be the best at flirting, but he’s not an idiot. Buck flirts with him, doesn’t he? Eddie may not have seen Buck 1.0 in action, but he knows the stories, and more importantly, he’s actively seen Buck flirt with people in the years since. And so sometimes, yeah. The way Buck talks. The way he looks. The way he moves. It all gets jumbled together in Eddie’s head with Buck’s Other Words, with the way he pushes Eddie to go out and date, the way Buck never makes a move. 

Eddie knows the difference between a cinnamon raison cookie and a chocolate chip cookie, but sometimes they look identical, okay? Sue him if he’s afraid to take a bite. 

“Eddie?” 

The sound of his name on Buck’s lips instantly pulls Eddie back to the sight of the road in front of him, the feeling of Buck beside him. 

Buck follows Eddie’s name with a good-natured snap of his fingers to make sure he’s pulled Eddie out of his head.

Eddie grips the wheel tighter. 

Don’t you know you had my attention the second you said my name? 

“Sorry,” he says instead. “Yeah?” 

“Does that–I mean. It’s fine if you have plans,” Buck retracts, modifying a question Eddie hadn’t heard. Eddie huffs, remembering Buck’s authoritative insistence the night they went to the club. 

“I’m sorry, do you have plans? No, you don’t.” 

But then Eddie softens, because there’s no authoritative insistence in Buck’s tone. It’s careful, it’s gentle. It’s as worried as it is hopeful. 

“No plans,” he assures Buck. 

Buck brightens as they pull the ambulance into the bay. 

“Okay, good. I mean, not good, just. Yeah. Okay. So do you want–”

“Yes,” Eddie answers, instinctively. Even though he knows that at this point he’d likely say yes to anything Buck asked, he’s relieved for his dignity’s sake that his “yes” isn’t simply blind, automatic acquiescence. 

It's an anticipatory agreement. 

He knows what Buck is about to ask because he knows Buck. 

-

The only thing currently stronger than his unhinged desire to be wherever Buck is, do whatever Buck is doing, is his inherent Buck Intuition. He can tell by the way Buck tilts toward the dashboard  in a half shrug, half shield that he’s not only asking if Eddie wants to grab breakfast, wants to go back to Eddie’s house with him, wants to not leave his side. Because Buck had heard a gunshot, and Eddie had been inside, and Buck had been outside, and Buck is still trying to remember that Eddie is okay this time.

Eddie knows that Buck is in a mirrored house of his own, at the moment. 

Eddie is fine, Eddie is alive, Eddie isn’t bleeding out, but the gunshot was real and it’s been real before and Eddie’s been not fine before. So Buck needs to be sure. He wants someone to prove it. And Eddie can, so he does. 

“Yes,” Eddie says again. “Did you want to cook? I just went shopping, so the fridge is mostly full, but Chris added a bunch of things to the list so I’m not entirely sure what all is in there,” he continues. “We can pick something up, though, if you want. I know you’re exhausted.” He pauses, thinking better of it. “We’re exhausted,” he clarifies. 

Buck hums in agreement as he unbuckles his seatbelt and exits the ambulance. Eddie follows. 

“Both sound good. What do you want?” Buck asks as he shuts the door and falls in step beside Eddie. 

You. I want you. 

“Sleep,” Eddie admits. He’s not lying. 

Buck laughs, and it’s big and bright and unreserved and if Eddie was forced to choose one song to listen to for the rest of his life, he’d ask if it could be Buck’s laugh. 

“That’s fair. Me too. Nap first, then food?” Buck offers with a grin. 

Eddie tries not to picture Buck asleep on the bed beside him, on the pillow Buck had claimed when Eddie and Chris had returned from Texas and Eddie finally insisted that Buck stop sleeping on the couch before Buck ruined his back for good. He tries not to picture the way Buck’s cheeks look when he wakes up, curls awry, the imprint of the pillow leaving shapes across his cheeks that Eddie’s had to force himself not to trace. 

He gives up trying not to picture it, though, because sanity be damned, he loves the way Buck looks in his bed. 

“That sounds great,” he agrees. It’s not a lie. It does sound great. 

Buck doesn’t know that Eddie means two things. 

“Hello?” 

“Hi,” Eddie drawls, the hazy remnants of sleep softening the kitchen’s early afternoon glare. Buck is standing in front of him, his curls framed in a refracted halo of sunlight. There’s an apron tied around his waist, and a spot of flour dusts his birthmark into a muted pink. 

Eddie steps toward him, easily, naturally, like there was nowhere else he could possibly go, no universe in which he doesn’t always move toward Buck. He reaches out and swipes at the flour with his thumb, his palm cupping the sharp curve of Buck’s jaw. 

“I’m up, I’m up,” Buck grumbles into Eddie’s hand. 

Eddie chuckles as he steps in even closer, his hips now flush with Buck’s. He reaches his left hand behind Buck, tucking his fingers behind the apron strings and settling his hand into the small of Buck’s back. It’s easy. Inevitable. 

“I can see that,” he teases, tugging Buck closer. Eddie leans in, burying his nose in the crook of Buck’s neck. He breathes him in. Buck smells like Buck. A hint of citrus bright underneath a blanket warm, fresh linen. He smells like waking up, like coming home.

And cinnamon. And bacon grease. 

“What’d you make us?” Eddie hums against Buck’s neck. 

“What time?” Buck asks. 

Eddie pulls his head back in confusion. 

“Uh, this time?” He gestures to the full stove behind Buck. 

Eddie can see the pancakes, the bacon, the two types of eggs (fried for Eddie, scrambled for Buck). It’s obvious what Buck made, sure, but Eddie likes to hear him talk about the process. About anything. Everything.  

“You know, for breakfast?” Eddie presses,  though he can’t understand why he has to, doesn’t know what Buck means by “this time.”

“Does Chimney know?” Buck asks.

He looks at Eddie earnestly, his tone earnest but hesitant. 

Eddie blinks. 

“I…don’t think so? Know what?” Eddie whirls around. “I, wait-is Chimney here?” 

Eddie doesn’t get to investigate. Instead, he yelps, closing his eyes instinctively at the sound of  a sudden crash to his left. He hopes it wasn’t the bacon. He’s starving.

When he opens his eyes, there’s no bacon. There’s no stove. Buck is no longer in the kitchen, and neither is Eddie. 

He wonders, with vague concern, why someone turned off the gravity in his house. 

His window is sideways, and his wall is where the floor should be, which can only mean that he’s floating around untethered. This is not ideal, Eddie assumes.

Thankfully, Eddie is not floating, and gravity is still doing its job, grounding him to the bed where he fell asleep just moments after he and Buck walked inside. Which was–god, wasn’t that days ago?

He bolts upright, immediately alert, his brain scrambling to catalogue how much time he’d lost–had he missed a shift? Who picked Christopher up from school? His parents aren’t here, are they? When did Buck leave? Did his parents say something to Buck? Where is Buck?

Buck turns to him sheepishly from the floor–which is on the ground, right where it should be–where he’s hunched over and pressing a towel down beside a now-empty water glass. 

“Sorry,” he whispers, holding his phone away from his ear. “I tripped over…” he looks around at Eddie’s spotless floor and shrugs. 

“I tripped,” Buck confesses. “Sorry I woke you.”

Eddie shakes his head and dismisses Buck with a haphazard wave of his hand. 

“No worries,” Eddie croaks, dragging both hands down his face. 

Buck smiles and carries the glass to the kitchen, returning the phone to his ear.

“Sorry Athena, knocked something over. What did you say?” 

Ah, Athena. Chimney. He’d been dreaming, and Buck had been talking to Athena on the phone, and his brain had scrambled the two together like Dream Buck’s Eggs. 

This isn’t the first dream he’s had about Buck, not by a long shot. 

He thinks it’s likely that he’s been dreaming about Buck for a long time, which makes sense. He’s spent the better part of most of his days with Buck for the past eight years, and Eddie’s no psychologist, but he gets the basic concept of dreams. They’re a warped highlight reel of the things he doesn’t know he feels, the things he does, the people he sees, the ones he thinks about. 

Buck is his best friend. Of course he dreams about Buck. 

But Eddie had never really noticed how much he really dreams about Buck until he’d moved to Texas. If the frequency with which Buck appeared in his dreams then was any indication of how often Eddie had dreamed about Buck before, well. It’s possible Eddie’s spent as much time with Buck in his dreams as he has in reality. 

At first, the Texas dreams were pretty normal. 

Very little had distinguished Dream Buck and Eddie from Awake Buck and Eddie other than incongruous settings and inexplicable, out-of-place side characters. Dream Eddie knew, for example, that there was no reality in which Helena Diaz was riding along on a call asking Eddie if he remembered to check Chris’s homework. 

Dream Buck had told her to fuck off. 

That had made both Dream Eddie and Awake Eddie smile. 

But then, one night, the dreams had become decidedly…abnormal. Abnormal for Eddie, at least.

In contrast with the other dreams, the setting of The Dream was eerily realistic (except for the fact that it was back in time, before Eddie had moved.) It was Eddie’s house–Buck’s house, now, back when they were Awake–but everything was the same. 

Everything in the Dream had been in its rightful Awake place: Eddie’s pictures were on the wall, his keys were in the bowl by the door, one of Christopher’s sneakers was strewn in the middle of the entryway, and Buck was next to him on the couch. They were watching a movie, drinking beer. It was crystal clear. A copy paste of their Awake life before Eddie had left for Texas. 

Dream Eddie could feel the softness of the carpet through his socks, the cold bottle against his lips, and the burning heat charging the few inches separating Buck’s thigh from his. He could feel the rightness of the space between them when it closed, the way it sighed in relief as it evaporated  like it had never wanted to be space at all. He could feel the gentle give of Buck’s chest underneath his own, could taste the remnants of beer and sweat and strawberry chapstick as he traced his tongue reverently along Buck’s bottom lip. 

Dream Eddie had vanished, and Awake Eddie had been panting, clutching at his side where he still felt the phantom weight of Dream Buck’s fingers anchoring him in place on top of him. 

The dreams persisted, a constant, urgent force ironically begging him to wake up. Dream Eddie seemed hell bent on not letting Awake Eddie rest until Awake Eddie got the fucking message. 

In his defense, it didn’t take him long, as long as nobody counts the years before the dreams started. 

Eddie hadn’t been psychoanalyzing his dreams, of course–though he was sure someone would have a field day if they got the chance to–but the work was happening all the same. The rightness of the dreams, the way a reality without Buck felt more out of place than his dream-mother in the back of the rig, the steady ache in his chest he’d never felt even when he was with Shannon–it made sense, it was true, somewhere bone-deep and dormant. 

So Eddie investigated. He took a flashlight into that boarded up basement somewhere deep in his chest and he looked, really looked. 

Buck was his best friend. Eddie knew what a best friend looked like, what it felt like. Shannon had been his best friend. 

But Shannon had also been his wife. Things had gotten messy and hard because that’s what romantic relationships look like, Eddie had always told himself–they take work, they take effort; it’s normal to feel like you’re squeezing yourself into something just a little too tight, like a stuffy suit on Easter Sunday that itches your neck but everyone compliments. 

Love, when you add something romantic, something beyond friendship that comes with responsibility, isn’t easy. So sure, even though it had been easy with Shannon when they were best friends, of course it never felt easy once she became his partner, his wife. 

Everything felt easy with Buck, though, so that–that was just being a best friend. Eddie had separated them into categories, and it made perfect sense. 

It had been easy with Shannon, before. Before the stress of a marriage, the beautiful, terrifying responsibility of a child. 

Shannon before? Easy. Best friend. 

Buck? Easy. Best friend. 

But the rest–well, the rest was confusing, because it was different, and Eddie didn’t know which box to put it all in. How to make it fit. 

Eddie had never gravitated toward Shannon the way he did Buck. Never really expected anything of her, wanted anything from her, because that was his job, right? To show up, to give, to serve, to provide. Eddie had never let himself lean on Shannon, didn’t try to depend on Shannon–not the way he did with Buck, the way he leaned on him and depended on him as naturally as he breathed. 

Eddie had never seen Shannon with anyone else, but he could imagine now so easily a world in which she was alive like she was supposed to be, a world in which they’d moved past the hurt of divorce and failure and lost time and had settled into co-parenting Christopher. He could imagine a world where Shannon had moved on and met someone good, someone kind, someone who could give her what she wanted, what she deserved. Shannon deserved to live, to love, to be loved the way she wanted to be loved. And Eddie knows that he would have been happy for her, only happy, because she’d been his best friend first, and she would always be that. He could always, would always, love her that way. 

But Buck is also his best friend, and Eddie has never been “only happy” for In A Relationship Buck. In fact, Eddie’s never liked a single person Buck has ever been in a relationship with. They left Buck, or used him, or belittled him, or treated him like a fascinating science project. They may have liked him well enough, Eddie begrudgingly allows, but they never really knew him. 

No one had ever appreciated Buck for exactly who he is, no one had ever properly adored Buck or loved him enough to push him when he needed it or hold him when he couldn’t find the words to ask to be held or remind him that the world is a better place just because he exists. No one has ever really seen Buck. 

Not like Eddie sees Buck. 

Buck’s partners–they hadn’t been evil. They hadn’t been horrible. They hadn’t been monsters. They just. Weren’t Eddie. 

And, well. 

That had done it. The basement lights had flooded, and when Eddie had allowed his eyes to adjust to the light, he realized it wasn’t a basement light at all. It was sunshine, and it felt like Buck, and Eddie knew. 

It’s not nothing. Never had been.

Not even close. 

So yeah. Eddie is Buck’s best friend. Eddie is not Buck’s partner, though, not like that. And it turns out Eddie really, really hates that, actually. 

Eddie flops backward onto his pillow and crosses his arms over his eyes. He hears Buck still talking  on the phone in the kitchen, which is funny, considering he was just talking to Buck in the kitchen. 

He was just talking to Buck in the kitchen. Holding Buck in the kitchen. He was just pulling Buck in by the small of his back and burying his face into the side of Buck’s neck in the kitchen where Buck had put on an apron and made them breakfast and probably would have kissed Eddie if he hadn’t knocked over that stupid glass. 

Except, none of that was true. The only thing that was true was that Buck had knocked over a glass, and Eddie might never stop dreaming about Buck, and he is so, so fucked. 

“Sure thing Athena.” 

Eddie keeps his arms crossed over his face as he feels Buck walk back into the bedroom. 

“We’ll be there,” Buck promises for both of them, apparently.  

Eddie unfolds his arms from across his face and lifts his head, curious. Buck raises his eyebrows and looks at Eddie pointedly, anticipating his agreement. 

“Where will ‘we’ be, exactly?” Eddie presses once Buck hangs up. 

Buck sighs dramatically and falls against the door, his eyes searching the ceiling for an outline of an explanation. 

“So, that was Athena,” he begins, clapping his hands together emphatically. 

“You don’t say,” Eddie deadpans. 

He shifts slightly upward, propping his upper body against the pillow. He’s comfortable enough just like that, but he lifts his right arm and leisurely folds it behind his head, keeping his eyes trained on Buck. If his arms look extra defined in this position, well. Buck should notice.

For a second, Eddie is thrilled, because Buck definitely notices. 

Buck’s eyes widen, and Eddie doesn’t miss the way they trace a path from Eddie’s arms and down the length of his abdomen, lingering on the exposed skin between the top of Eddie’s gym shorts and the bottom of his tank top. 

Do something about it, Buckley. Anything. 

Instead, Buck coughs, and doesn’t do anything except continue. Fine.

“Right, you heard. Uh, yeah. So. We’re going to Athena’s tomorrow night.” 

“Are we?” Eddie challenges. 

“I–well, yeah. Athena invited us. It’s-it’s important. And–” 

Eddie’s lips are moving before he can stop himself. 

“Athena invited us?” He emphasizes. 

Buck blinks, then nods, confused. 

“Sh-yeah? Just now.” He holds up his phone and waves it back and forth for emphasis. “You–you heard. On the phone.” 

“She called you. To invite us,” Eddie reiterates. 

Buck lets out an exasperated huff as he pushes himself off the door, arms flung out to his sides. 

“She calls me all the time,” he cries, looking around the room like he’d somehow find whatever he was apparently missing.

Eddie reaches across himself to grab his phone off the bedside table. It would be easier to simply reach out with his left hand to grab it, but he can’t help himself. He knows his best friend so, so well. Knows he appreciates a good ass. Eddie may not know much for certain, but he knows he has a good ass, so he wants to share the view. Sharing is caring. And he does care about Buck. 

Eddie grabs his phone and taps the screen, maintaining his contorted position to give Buck ample time to enjoy the show. He sees no notifications other than a “thumbs up” from Chris. 

“She didn’t call me,” Eddie confirms, setting the phone down before settling back against the pillow. He glances up, pleased to see Buck snap his mouth shut as though pulled from a trance. 

“Yeah,” Buck agrees despite shaking his head back and forth. “Okay.” 

Eddie grins.

“So. She invited you. You are going to Athena’s tomorrow night.” 

“No, Eddie,” Buck instructs. “We are going to Athena’s. She invited us.” 

Eddie opens his mouth to argue his point once again, but Buck holds up a hand to stop him. 

It works. 

Dick. 

“She said, and I quote, ‘are you and Eddie free tonight.’ And I-ah! Let me finish,” Buck warns before Eddie can contest the state of his alleged freedom this evening. 

“And I said, ‘yeah, do you need something?’ I thought maybe she needed help hanging something up at the house, or moving something, or I don’t know, some sort of manual labor,” Buck explains as he paces. 

“But then,” Buck pauses and shakes his head like he’d just heard the most absurd thing in the world. “I was like, this is Athena, I mean I call her for help when I need,” he waves his arms in the general direction of Eddie’s newly decorated walls. 

“When I need stuff like…that.”

 Buck’s eyes pause, stuck on Eddie’s new Keith Haring print he hung next to the closet. 

Ask me about it. I’ll answer, I swear. Just ask. 

“Anyway,” Buck continues, “she said, ‘yes, I need you two to come over for dinner.’ And I thought maybe she wanted me to cook, but then…” 

Eddie listens intently as Buck rambles, interrupting himself at every recounted piece of dialogue to give Eddie the rundown of each of his tangentially related thoughts. Eddie loves him like this. Eddie loves him like everything. 

“So, yeah. That’s it. We’re going to Athena’s, because she invited us, and we’re having dinner, I think, and we’re intervening. Or, she is. We’re there for moral support. For–for everyone, I think? I’m not sure. I don’t know. But we have to go.” 

Eddie sits up now and rests his elbows on his knees, thoughtful. 

“We’re…intervening? In what? Is this about Harry joining the Academy?” 

Buck barks out a laugh. 

“Oh, I wish. That actually sounds easier, surprisingly. It’s, ah. For Chim. And Hen. And their…everything. With the firing. And the lying. And the rest of it.” 

Eddie’s jaw drops, and he can’t help it. He laughs. 

“I’m sorry, we’re what?” 

Buck spreads his hands wide in front of him, nodding emphatically. 

“Right? I know. An intervention. A whole intervention. The SMART lady, Alex–she’ll be there and everything. Athena’s serious.” Buck shakes his head and sits down on the bed. 

If Eddie stretches out his leg, he could rest his heel on Buck’s thigh. If Buck stretches out his arm, Eddie could take his hand, and he would. 

But Buck doesn’t, so Eddie doesn’t. 

His heart races as it tries to outpace the rapid highlight reel of Buck in the kitchen with an apron and an Eddie wrapped around his waist. The picture is so loud, so bright, Eddie thinks it might just burst out of his mouth in vivid detail if he doesn’t get a fucking grip. 

Thankfully, there’s some part of the dream he remembers he can speak out loud, a relief valve he can pull to get the dream out of his head and out into the open without risking too much. 

“Does Chim know,” he asks easily, repeating Dream Buck’s words. The picture fades, and Eddie breathes. 

“Ha. Well. No,” Buck admits with a shrug. 

Eddie laughs again, incredulous this time.

“Ohhh my god? This…” he shakes his head. “This is going to be so messy.” 

“I know, right? Like, okay.” Buck whispers, as though anyone else could hear them. He’s quiet, like even though no one else is around, he’s a little afraid that Eddie might hear him too. 

“I want them to be good. I hate that they’re not good. And I know they’re our friends but. Is it awful that I’m also glad there’s going to be snacks? Like-like a movie theater.” Buck looks at Eddie sheepishly, his eyes bright with a question like they’re asking for Eddie’s silent permission for it to be okay that Buck loves his family but also loves to watch some good old fashioned drama. 

Eddie knows what it’s like to ask silently. 

Buck’s asking Eddie’s permission for two things to be true, for it to be fine, and Eddie gives it. He’d give Buck almost anything. 

“Do you think she’ll bust out the good wine?” Eddie whispers back conspiratorially. 

Buck breaks into a grin so wide that Eddie wonders if it’s possible to name a ninth wonder of the world or if there were only ever eight spots reserved for such things. Buck would know the answer to that, he thinks. 

Buck knows so many things. 

“Oh, absolutely.” 

Buck punctuates the sentiment by planting his hand firmly on Eddie’s knee. It lingers there for a second before Buck slaps his knee once, playfully, and gets up. 

“Breakfast?” Buck asks, leaning against the doorframe. 

Eddie yawns and nods, his eyes closing as he does. 

“What do you want?” Buck asks again. 

Eddie opens his eyes. 

Buck is still leaning in the doorway, and a single curl sticks out to the side of his forehead. The rest of his curls are pressed up against the inside of the white frame where Buck softly rests his head, but this one singular curl  remains in the forefront, bright and golden brown contrasted against the white of the doorframe. It looks like a child’s squiggle, and it reminds Eddie of the shapes Christopher used to draw when he was just big enough to hold a crayon on his own. 

Once, Eddie had caught him drawing squiggles on the wall in his room. He’d told Chris no, that’s not where crayons go, that’s not where we draw, that’s not what we do. 

Eddie fights the urge to text his very teenaged son who hasn’t used a crayon in years and tell him he can draw all over the walls, if he wants. Eddie would wallpaper his whole house with the shape of Buck’s runaway curl if he could. 

“Anything,” Eddie answers too honestly. “Whatever you want.” 

Buck nods and mock-salutes, grinning as he spins himself off toward the kitchen. 

Yeah, Buck knows so many things. Just. Not everything. 

Alex never got used to the concept of using first names to address people she considered to hold positions of authority.

If any one of her clients admitted the same, she’d ask the right questions to help guide them to the likely conclusion that addressing authority figures with distanced formality was perhaps a defense mechanism implemented to ensure that being let down or betrayed by an authority figure wouldn’t carry quite the same sting that it would if they’d become too close, too familiar. And then they’d likely bring up their parents, because doesn’t everyone? 

That might be true for Alex, in some capacity, but considering she got used to the idea of being disappointed by authority figures long ago, she thinks it’s less likely to be a defense mechanism and simply far more likely that some lessons from childhood are just harder to unlearn than others. 

“Please, call me Athena,” Sergeant Grant insists as she welcomes Alex into her home with a sincere hug. Alex returns the hug politely, though not easily. 

“I…will do my best,” Alex admits, handing a bottle of wine to Sergeant Grant. “No promises though.” 

Sergeant Grant laughs good-naturedly and beckons Alex to follow her into the kitchen. 

“I understand,” the hospitable sergeant reassures. 

Alex smiles warmly and follows behind Sergeant Grant. 

“I appreciate it,” Alex says. She looks around, awed by the vibrant simplicity of the space. 

“You have a beautiful home,” she breathes. 

Alex takes in the space around her. Pictures on the wall. Her immediate family, she guesses, looking at two framed pictures. One she recognizes as a picture of the late Captain Nash and Sergeant Grant’s two children. She doesn’t recognize the man in the other picture, but guessing by the age of the children in the photo, Alex assumes it’s Sergeant Grant’s first husband, the children’s birth father.

Her eyes land on another picture, a smaller one framed beside a vase of flowers on the table just inside the door.

Alex steps forward, studying the photo without stopping to consider any social improprieties she may be committing by picking up at a host’s personal belongings without permission. The golden swirls frame a snapshot of several well dressed people. At the center she sees Sergeant Grant and Captain Nash. 

It’s the duo to the photo’s left, though, that catches her attention. 

The Magnetized Firefighters. Eddie and Buck, she remembers, because she couldn’t possibly forget. Their movements and interactions outside the store had intrigued her, and the image of Buck running headlong into Eddie’s immediate orbit the moment the store had been cleared for entry was seared into the back of her mind with alarming clarity. 

She hadn’t been able to let it go. 

She doesn’t know either of these people, she understands. Even her and Eddie’s shared brush with imminent danger didn’t entitle her to any sense of personal knowledge or understanding about him. Certainly not about Curly Buck. 

She had thought, when she left that day, that she would likely never see either one of them again. Knowing that, though, had only sharpened the edges of her curiosity. She would be cursed with the burden of curiosity about those two firefighters for far too long. 

But then Sergeant Grant had called and requested her professional help–not in an LAPD capacity, of course, but instead in her capacity as a mental health professional. A trained, educated therapist. One whose job it is to facilitate, to mediate, in some cases, to listen, and always to ask questions. 

Alex loves asking questions. 

She would have helped Sergeant Grant regardless; she respected her and always enjoyed the opportunity to help where help was sought. When Sergeant Grant had explained some details about the nature of the situation, however, including those she intended to have present, Alex hadn’t been able to help the smile that crept into her voice as she enthusiastically agreed to facilitate Captain Han and Firefighter Wilson’s intervention. 

If the Magnetized Firefighters had behaved like that in a professional setting, on-duty, how would they behave in a more intimate setting? Somewhere familiar, somewhere unguarded, somewhere inherently personal? 

Alex thinks she may get some answers after all. At the very least, she’ll have something fascinating to discuss with her colleagues. A second opinion never hurts, she knows. 

“Ah, I love that picture. Hen and Karen’s vow renewal.” 

Alex jumps, startled at the sound of Sergeant Grant’s voice just over her shoulder. She sets the picture carefully back on top of the table, embarrassed. It was rude to walk into someone’s house and just. Grab things. Especially such personal things. 

“Sorry, Sergeant Grant, I was just–” Alex stops, unsure of how to finish that sentence without sounding like maybe she wasn’t the best person for this job. 

Sorry, I was just looking at the two men to the left in this picture because I have a really strong suspicion they’re actively in a romantic relationship and I think they might be hiding it–terribly, if you want my opinion–and I’m not trying to get anyone in trouble here but have there ever been any instances in which they’ve actively endangered themselves or others where the other one is involved? Now, they seem great at their jobs, they really do, and I don’t want to question their professional decisions, but I’m fascinated by their dynamic and it’s clear you care about them so I’m curious if you’ve noticed any–

“You’re sorry? For what?” Sergeant Grant laughs with a wave of her hand, unknowingly but mercifully cutting off Alex’s internal monologue. Alex breathes a sigh of relief. “You were looking at a picture–that’s what they’re there for.” 

Alex smiles and gives a slight nod, accepting a glass of wine from Sergeant Grant as she moves toward the picture to pick it up herself. 

“Karen–that’s Hen’s wife–she gave this to me a few months back. It was a very Karen move. Very sweet, very thoughtful, and very to the point.” Sergeant Grant’s eyes are on the picture, and her fingertips trace the back edges of the frame, but Alex can tell her mind is elsewhere. She sips her wine, allowing the moment the breathing room it deserves. 

“After Bobby died,” Sergeant Grant begins, swallowing an obvious lump in her throat like it’s something she’ll never quite get used to holding, “I couldn’t look at Chimney. Couldn’t be in the same room with him, really. I blamed him, in a lot of ways–too many, and I knew it even then–for Bobby being gone.” 

Alex keeps her eyes on Sergeant Grant. Doesn’t look down, doesn’t look away. There was a time when she would have looked away, when bearing witness to someone else’s pain felt like an intrusion. She knows now that when someone shares something with her, something on purpose, they may not always be asking for words in return, or a reassuring touch–they’re only asking to be seen. So Alex doesn’t look away. 

Sergeant Grant gives a slight shake of her head, and Alex doesn’t press. She just listens. 

“That’s behind us, now, and lord knows it’s not why you’re here tonight. Sorry,” she offers with a heavy smile. 

“For what?” Alex echoes Sergeant Grant’s earlier assurance, and Sergeant Grant chuckles. 

“Touche,” she concedes with a tip of her glass in Alex’s direction. Sergeant Grant returns the photo to the table and motions for Alex to join her in the living room. 

“It is connected, though, I suppose. To why you’re here tonight. We’re a family, and all this between Chim and Hen, well. Families have problems, and sometimes family members can’t see far enough past their own nonsense to resolve their problems on their own. So thank you, again, for agreeing to this, especially on such short notice.” 

Alex settles into a comfortable chair and glances around the room. The fireplace behind her is warm, but not overbearing. The charcuterie spread across the coffee table puts Alex’s pinterest board to shame. She can’t remember the last time she’d had a glass of wine that made her briefly consider what her life would be like if she became a sommelier. 

“Believe me,” Alex reassures, “it’s my pleasure.” 

“Well, we’ll see how you feel at the end of the night,” Sergeant Grant warns with a knowing smirk. “This bunch can get…” she swirls her glass and raises her eyebrows at Alex before taking a sip. “Passionate.” 

Alex mimics a checkmark in the air. 

“Noted.” 

She’s considering the best way to posit an innocent, directly related question to Sergeant Grant about the Firefighters. 

So, when you say passionate…

Families are complicated. Speaking of complicated…

She doesn’t think there’s any professional, organic way to pry into this, but thankfully she doesn’t have to decide one way or the other. 

The doorbell rings. 

“Excuse me,” Sergeant Grant obliges. 

From Alex’s seat, she has a full view of the door, and thanks to her eerily detailed memory, she instantly recognizes the two men revealed as Sergeant Grant opens the door. 

“Hey Athena,” Curly Buck greets their hostess with a warm hug. 

Just Buck, Alex reminds herself. His name is Buck. Don’t call him Curly, do not call him Curly. 

Eddie follows, giving Sergeant Grant a hug of his own, and the two stand inside the threshold as Sergeant Grant closes the door behind them. 

“The place looks great,” Eddie compliments as he looks around. 

Alex agrees, but wonders how much he can see, exactly, given that the right half of his vision is entirely obstructed by Buck, who stands so close to his side that Alex thinks if she walked up and stuck a slice of cheese between their arms, it wouldn’t fall an inch. 

She doesn’t, of course. But she could. 

Alex takes a sip of wine. That’s what an entirely uninterested and objective third party would do. 

Of course, a person with manners would also stand up, and she’s not just a person with manners, she’s a professional with manners. So she stands. 

“Hi,” she greets the Firefighters just a little too enthusiastically. 

She clears her throat and desperately tries not to meticulously catalogue the way the Firefighters’ heads move in her direction at exactly the same speed, at the same angle, at the same time. 

They even smile at her at the same time, though, and she’s powerless over the way the visual is immediately captured and stored in her mental folder unofficially labeled What Is the Deal with These Two. 

“Hi Alex, good to see you again,” Eddie greets her warmly. 

He steps forward, hand extended to shake hers. 

Alex extends her own in response,  but because she can’t help but stare at the way Buck automatically angles his body to realign with Eddie’s as he moves to approach Alex, she accidentally extends the hand holding her glass of wine. 

“Oh, thanks, I-well I prefer white, actually,” Eddie states, quizzically eyeing her outstretched glass of red. Something in his tone makes it sound more like a confession, though, and Alex wonders by the way Buck snorts if maybe all these years Eddie has pretended to like red wine for Buck’s sake. 

She gets it. She once pretended to hate pickles so that her ex-girlfriend wouldn’t pout about not being able to share her food. 

She loves pickles. Hates sharing her food. Those things and a laundry list of others had spilled out in her long overdue confession to her ex that she did not want to be with her, actually, and she should lose her number and forget her name. 

Alex always orders extra pickles now, and she is certain that Eddie’s admission that he prefers white wine to red won’t be nearly as catastrophic for his and Buck’s relationship as pickles and painfully obvious incompatibility had been to her own. 

How could it be? How could anything be? Look at them. They have their own orbit. 

“Wow, sorry,” Alex laughs, apologetic that her accidental faux pas had unveiled Eddie’s wine preference. She’s apologetic, but not embarrassed. 

There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. 

Would anyone be embarrassed if a giant elephant walked through downtown, and it was so distracting that they accidentally fumbled a social cue? No, that’s understandable.

 If anything, it’s embarrassing to pretend the elephant isn’t there at all. 

Alex does not pretend.

“I get in my head sometimes. New place, somewhat-new faces, all that,” she explains honestly. She extends her correct hand this time, and Eddie shakes it graciously before turning to grab a glass of white wine. 

“Tell me about it,” he says. 

If Eddie is surprised to turn around and see Buck already pouring a glass of white next to the glass of red he’d poured for himself, Alex can’t tell. She, though, is not surprised. In the cumulative 10 minutes she’s spent around these two Firefighters together, she’s learned that nothing would surprise her less than Buck offering Eddie exactly what he needs. 

“Thanks Buck,” Eddie says, surprised. 

She wonders, then, if Eddie knows what she does about Buck. Isn’t it obvious?

He gets Alex, Eddie thinks. 

They haven’t interacted much, sure, considering the entire basis for their acquaintance centers on their combined efforts in talking to an entirely separate person. 

But Eddie has a good sense for these things, and he can tell Alex is just a kind, serious person. Not without her struggles, he assumes, and by her own admission they share the tendency to get in their own heads. Despite this, they’ve both chosen to live their lives in service of other people, and that, he thinks, is sometimes the best way to get out of your own head. 

So, yeah. He gets Alex. He doesn’t know Alex, but he gets her. 

Buck, on the other hand? 

He knows Buck. And he usually gets Buck. Right now, he does not get Buck. 

Eddie watches as Buck sits down next to him on the couch. Eddie is all the way to the right, which leaves a solid two-thirds of the couch wide open. Unoccupied. Buck sits directly in the middle, his knee knocking against Eddie’s. 

This is not unfamiliar. It’s not even unexpected. Buck is always close to Eddie, and Eddie is always close to Buck. It’s ordinary. Ordinary and infuriating. 

Infuriating because Buck had looked at Eddie’s arms and Eddie’s hips and Eddie’s ass and squeezed his knee, and  Eddie has decided that he’s well aware that Buck is in fact flirting with him, sometimes. More and more, it seems. Eddie is also painfully aware that Buck doesn’t do anything about it. 

No, instead, what Buck does is drive Eddie insane. He flirts and then turns around and tries to set Eddie up with women and then he flirts again and then he tells Eddie he needs to get out and date. Get out of your own head, Buck says. 

That sounds great, Buck, Eddie thinks. I’d love nothing more. Since you seem to be so aware of where my head is and what’s going on inside it and are so insistent that I get myself out of it, could you lend a fucking hand? 

Eddie knows what Buck is thinking at pretty much all times. 

It’s not hard, because Buck isn’t really one to keep his thoughts to himself, especially not with Eddie, but still. Even in the quiet moments, the rare introspective beats, Eddie knows. And for the most part, Eddie is pretty sure Buck knows what Eddie’s thinking too. Buck has always had a knack for getting Eddie to admit things he doesn’t even realize are true before he’s said them out loud. 

Usually by the time Eddie figures things out about himself,  he’s watching Buck graciously fight the urge to say “I told you so.” 

So why on God’s–or whoever’s–green earth does Buck not know that Eddie’s in love with him? That Eddie has zero interest in women, or in anyone who isn’t Buck, for that matter? 

Buck is sitting next to Eddie, and their knees are touching, and Eddie is so annoyed he could kiss Buck. Hit him. Kiss. Whatever. He can’t think straight. Never could, turns out. 

Eddie reaches down and grabs a slice of cheese, stuffing it roughly into his mouth. 

Buck turns to look at him, amused. The movement brushes their arms together. 

“You good?” Buck asks, like he won’t believe Eddie if he said yes. 

God forbid a man eat a slice of cheese. 

“Never better,” Eddie mutters. 

“You sure?” Buck prods. He gestures to the admittedly outrageously full plate on the table in front of Eddie. 

“You’re eating that cheese like you’re punishing it for thinking about running away,” Buck teases. 

“Are you food shaming me, Buckley?” Eddie accuses, his tone dangerously flirtatious and dangerously close to betraying the actual annoyance that has nothing to do with Buck’s clearly unserious thoughts about the food on Eddie’s plate.

“Oh, I would never shame you,” Buck promises. He raises his eyebrows at Eddie and his wine to his lips. “You know, unless you wanted me to.” 

Eddie immediately regrets his last bite of cheese, which launches itself straight to the back of his throat. 

He sputters, reaching for his wine. 

“Oh god, sorry, I-Eddie no don’t drink, seriously?” Buck takes the wine out of Eddie’s hand and slaps him hard on the back. Eddie waves him off, still sputtering even though his airway is now clear. 

“Paramedic chokes and reaches for glass of wine even though the worst thing you can do when you’re choking is drink something. I mean, I get you’re Catholic and all, but I don’t think you get extra points drinking wine right before you meet God if it’s not technically communion,” Buck chides as he places Eddie’s glass at an exaggerated distance across the table. 

Eddie wipes his mouth and glares at Buck, unable to keep his mouth from turning up in a traitorous grin when he catches the glean in Buck’s eye. 

He doesn’t want to smile, he wants to wipe the grin off of Buck’s face with his own two lips. 

But Buck is his best friend, and Buck doesn’t know that Eddie is gay or that Eddie is in love with him, which makes no damn sense because Buck is so smart and knows everything about Eddie. 

And Eddie can’t tell him himself because the real truth is that Buck is so smart and knows everything about Eddie, which means he probably does know that Eddie is gay and Eddie is in love with him, right? And if Buck knows, and Buck hasn’t said anything, or done anything, then it probably means that Buck doesn’t feel the same way. Because Eddie knows Buck and Buck isn’t afraid to go after what he wants, so if he knows Eddie is gay and knows Eddie is in love with him and isn’t saying anything about it and isn’t making any moves then it probably means Buck doesn’t want Eddie. Not like that. 

But if that’s true, if Buck knows, then Buck is flirting with Eddie even though he doesn’t want Eddie when he knows Eddie is in love with him. And that seems cruel to Eddie, and Buck is so, so many things, but cruel has never been one of them.

There is no world in which Buck could be cruel.  

So Buck really doesn’t know, Eddie decides, which brings him back to being furious with Buck for not knowing. Being furious is arguably better than the non-existent alternative reality where Buck could ever be cruel, or the possible, present reality where Buck finds out but doesn’t want Eddie, but still. 

Buck could drastically lower Eddie’s blood pressure to normal levels if he would just read Eddie’s mind like he always does. 

How do you not get that I’m in love with you? Eddie thinks. 

“I’m not Catholic, Buck,” he says. 

“Sure, yeah,” Buck allows. 

He sets his plate on the table and dusts the crumbs off his hands onto the napkin in his lap, turning toward Eddie to explain.

 “I just meant, the whole being raised Catholic thing. It sticks with you, like you said. You know, with your whole—the nun stuff? Avoiding sex, the underwear dancing, the chastity belt.” 

Alex—who is still very much in the room, Eddie and Buck both seem to remember suddenly—chokes on her wine.

Athena reaches out from behind and pats her gently on the back. 

“You okay, sweetie?” 

Alex gives a thumbs-up, smoothing an invisible wrinkle on her jeans as she recovers. 

“Wrong pipe.” Alex coughs a few times, then takes a deep breath. 

“Crisis intervention? No problem,” she jokes. “Swallowing? Not my area of expertise.” 

Athena laughs. 

Buck laughs. 

Eddie grabs three crackers and shoves them into his mouth. 

“Seems to be contagious this evening,” Athena jokes. “I’m gonna run to the bathroom before the rest of them arrive, but if that wine gives you any more trouble,” she instructs, pointing a stern finger in Buck and Eddie’s direction, “these two won’t let you choke to death.” 

She pauses and lifts her hands like she’s bargaining with the universe, calling over her shoulder as she walks away.

 “Just as long as they don’t choke to death first.” 

Buck snickers and Eddie tosses a mocking grimace in Athena’s direction. 

“Funny,” he calls after her as she disappears around the corner.

“Says the man who can’t handle a piece of cheese,” Buck quips. 

“Pretty rich coming from a guy who gets trached on a first date because he thinks bread is meant to be swallowed whole,” Eddie shoots back. 

“So,” Alex interjects. They both turn to her, and Eddie is grateful he’s not alone with Buck. 

He’s losing it. 

He’s so annoyed that he’s tempted to shove a piece of bread down Buck’s throat to prove his own point, but he’s so in love that he thinks if Buck were actually choking he’d try to dig out whatever was blocking his airway with his own tongue. 

Not only is it physically impossible, it’s also absolutely disgusting, and Eddie doesn’t trust himself to care about either one of those things enough to keep from trying anyway. 

“Can I-and I apologize if this is overstepping, in any way,” Alex continues, her voice mercifully dissolving the mental image Eddie had cursed himself with. 

“But, since we’re here, I just wanted to offer. Well, obviously I’m not here as an officer, I’m here because I’m an actual therapist.” She reaches beside her for her purse as she continues. 

“And my practice isn’t quite as busy as it used to be, but I still have a few regular clients, and I do specialized sessions like this one.” She digs around in her purse for a moment, and Eddie looks at Buck. He raises his eyebrows in a question, and Buck shrugs. 

See how easy it is, Buck? I raise my eyebrows, you know what I’m asking, you know what I’m thinking. You answer, you respond. You’re good at this! Be better at this! 

“Can’t find them,” Alex mutters. “Must be in my other bag.” 

She closes her purse and looks up at Buck and Eddie. 

“Anyway, I can’t find my cards, but I’d be happy to give you guys my information.” 

Eddie narrows his eyes in genuine uncertainty. 

Buck leans forward, elbows on his knees, and asks the question they’re both thinking. 

“Information for what, exactly?” 

“Right, sorry, I wasn’t super clear,” Alex says with a shake of her head. She smiles brightly. “I do couples counseling, too. First session is on me, if you guys are interested. I have plenty of experience with long-term partners. LGBT included, so you’d feel right at home!” 

Eddie leans forward now, mouth open in shock. 

“How did you–” 

He doesn’t finish the sentence, because Buck is choking. Of course he is. 

When Sergeant Grant had left for the bathroom, Alex thought how nice it must be to be a part of such a close-knit family whose love language seems to be incessant teasing. It indicates a level of earned intimacy, and Alex likes that Sergeant Grant could share it so easily with these two Firefighters. It’s probably not easy, she thinks, for anyone to insert themselves into their orbit, but it’s clear that for as much as they’re a part of their own separate world, they’re also very much an active part of this larger, familial one. 

Alex had not thought, however, that one of them would actually, literally choke to death before Sergeant Grant returned. 

She’s on her feet instantly when Buck starts to choke, but Eddie is unsurprisingly ten steps ahead of her. He has Buck on his feet and is about to wrap his arms around Buck, but Buck’s coughing proves sufficient. He takes a deep, ragged breath, already attempting a weak smile. 

Eddie lays his hand on Buck’s shoulder, and Alex recognizes the gesture. It’s the same one he made inside the grocery store when Buck had rushed to his side, panicked, breathing unsteadily. It logs itself in Alex’s brain as The Way Eddie Grounds Buck.

“Hey,” Eddie says, dipping his head searching for Buck’s eyes. Buck looks back at him, and Alex looks away this time. They aren’t asking to be seen. Not right now. 

“You good?” She hears Eddie ask. 

“Yeah,” he answers, and Alex looks up. Buck nods. He leans his head closer to Eddie’s hand on his shoulder, but snaps it back up before they can touch. 

“Yeah,” Buck repeats. Eddie nods and sits back down, his eyes still trained warily on Buck like he’s very much still waiting for him to actually be “good.” 

Buck turns his head to look at the couch behind him. His knees bend slightly like he’s about to sit down, and Alex catches the way Eddie shifts just an inch to his left, closer to the middle. Closer to Buck. 

Buck straightens, though, and grabs his wine glass off the table. There’s still a solid amount of wine left. 

“Gonna grab a refill,” he announces, stepping gingerly in front of Eddie as he makes his way to the kitchen. “Anyone need another?” 

“Oh, I’m okay, thanks,” Alex answers. Her glass has considerably less wine than Buck’s. 

Refill? She thinks. Okay. 

“No thanks,” Eddie responds, eyeing Buck’s glass the same way Alex had. He doesn’t ask any questions. Doesn’t make a single quip. 

Fascinating. 

“Great,” Buck squeaks. “That’s great.” 

He takes quick strides to the kitchen, and Eddie watches him. 

Alex watches Eddie watch Buck. 

Eddie watches Buck like a question he knows the answer to but doesn’t know how to articulate in a way that makes sense to anyone else. It’s the same way a child looks at an adult when asked to explain a color. 

What’s purple? 

Well, it’s purple. 

What does purple mean? 

It’s a color. 

Can you describe it? 

Of course. It’s purple. 

Some things are so obvious, so intrinsic, that when it comes time to put them into words, it’s almost impossible. 

Buck looks up at Eddie from the kitchen and smiles. It’s different than the other smiles, though, that Alex has seen him give Eddie. It’s still bright, still warm, but it looks careful. Apologetic, almost. 

For what? Alex wonders. She hasn’t seen anything worthy of an apology. 

She shifts her glance back toward Eddie, and he’s still looking at Buck, but his shoulders have turned in toward himself. It’s the only time Alex has seen him turned toward anything, anyone, but Buck. 

What had she missed? 

She replays the last few moments in her head. 

The Firefighters had been talking, bantering, sitting almost on top of each other on a couch that could have easily fit two more people. Buck was turned toward Eddie, and Eddie toward Buck. She’s absolutely certain they had forgotten she or Athena were there until she’d choked on her wine when Buck unabashedly informed them all of Eddie’s chastity belt. 

It doesn’t surprise her, not in a clinical sense, but normally she doesn’t learn those types of things about couples until they’re under the umbrella of doctor-patient confidentiality. 

She’d thought, in that moment, that she must have read it wrong, then. 

If Buck could talk about these things with Eddie so freely, so pseudo-publicly, then clearly their found family–including their captain–knew about their relationship. Which meant that what Alex had been noticing wasn't a secret relationship, but instead just the manifestation of a very familiar obstacle for most long-term couples. 

They were having trouble communicating. 

It’s obvious they love each other deeply, though, Alex had thought, and if they’re willing to participate in an intervention as sensitive as this one is about to be, then they’re at least familiar with and comfortable with the role of a therapist. And given how graciously and compassionately Eddie had handled the situation with Ben Cowan, Alex guesses this man has seen his fair share of counseling, and benefited from it. 

So she had offered! It was the right thing to do! And, selfishly, even if she’d been mistaken about some things, she still has so many questions. But mostly she wants to help them. 

She’s been studying, counseling, and listening to people for years. And couples. Countless couples. Some were in love, some were falling out of it, and some were struggling with the reality that they’d never been in love to begin with. 

But even the strongest, most committed couples she’s ever known, personally and professionally, didn’t move the way these two move, didn’t look at each other with the same quiet intensity. There was a trust, an inherent understanding between the two of them that she knows people go their whole lives hoping to experience. She doesn’t know them, not at all, but she thinks she’s never been more certain about anything than she is about the depths to which these two Firefighters know and love each other. 

She’s not sure, though, that she didn’t overstep. 

As well-intentioned as it may have been, her offer to act as their couples therapist is the only thing she can point to in the last several minutes as the thing that could be serious enough to knock these two out of orbit. 

She’s absolutely certain of that, in fact, as Buck returns from the kitchen with a slightly fuller glass of wine and sits down–not on the couch next to Eddie, but in the seat across from him. 

Eddie leans back, starts to cross his arms, then shifts forward. He adds more charcuterie to his plate, shoving more cheese into his mouth as he stacks several crackers on top of one another. 

Buck winces. 

Alex feels awful. 

“I am so, so sorry,” she hurries. “I did not mean to overstep, that was completely inappropriate and I–” 

“No, no, you didn’t do anything wrong,” Buck responds earnestly. 

Eddie grunts around a cracker and an olive in what Alex assumes is agreement. Buck steals a glance at Eddie and hunches forward a bit, running a hand absentmindedly through his curls. 

“No, but I assumed–” Alex tries to apologize again. 

“You weren’t wrong,” Buck shakes his head faster like he’s rushing to make Alex feel better. Eddie grunts again, louder this time, and Buck looks at him frantically. Maybe it’s Eddie he’s trying to soothe? That would track, Alex thinks. But for what? 

“Well, you weren’t wrong about me,” Buck clarifies hastily, his words tumbling out with such force Alex wonders if Eddie’s not the only one wearing a chastity belt.

“Eddie, though,” Buck continues, flinging his hand toward Eddie, who is suddenly very interested in Sergeant Grant’s collection of coffee table books. 

“Eddie is straight,” Buck exhales in a single breath. He sits back, his shoulders visibly relaxing in a way that does not match his wild eyes and flushed cheeks. 

Alex stares. 

She stares at Buck, who averts his eyes and carefully selects his next cracker. 

She stares at Eddie, who is holding an open book in his hands but very much staring at Buck. 

She stares back at Buck, who looks like the fate of the world depends upon whether he chooses the rectangular cracker or the circular cracker. 

Buck does not look at Eddie. 

Eddie does not take his eyes off of Buck. 

Alex wishes she had taken Buck up on his offer to refill her wine. 

“So,” Sergeant Grant announces as she reappears from the bathroom. “Which one choked?” 

“Buck,” Buck and Eddie answer in unison. 

Alex is a professional. In her professional opinion, they all choked. 

“Eddie is straight,” Buck declares like he’s announcing the sky is blue. The sky is blue, the grass is green, excellent snickerdoodles require cream of tartar, Eddie Diaz is straight. 

Except Eddie is not straight, not even close, and the mere suggestion that they could possibly be a couple had sent Buck flying clear across the universe, apparently. 

Eddie knows he’s openly gaping at Buck. He can feel Alex staring at him, watching him stare at Buck, but he doesn’t care. Not even a little bit. 

Apparently she, this-this stranger, basically, knows something about Eddie that Buck–his best friend, by the way? Of eight years? Intended legal guardian of his son, practical co-parent, the man who had kept Eddie’s heart beating in more ways than one, the same man whose heart stopped for the worst 3 minutes and 17 seconds of Eddie’s life?

Yeah, this stranger knows something that Buck does not know about Eddie. 

How, Eddie seethes, is that possible? 

How does someone–his someone! Buck!–know everything about him except for the one thing that matters most? Not matters most, fine, but something so–so life-altering. So intrinsic. So Eddie. 

Eddie knows, rationally, that he’s more mad at himself than Buck. He’s frustrated that he can’t just say it, that he waited so long that now he doesn’t know what to say, how to tell him, how to get it out in the open without it looking like it was something he was intentionally hiding away, how to not be afraid.

So he just needs Buck to figure it out. To know. To see what, apparently, someone who’s known Eddie for exactly three days and interacted with even less than that can see. 

But Buck doesn’t know. 

Buck knows that the sky is blue and that ouija boards are suitable for children eight and up and he doesn’t know that Eddie isn’t straight. 

He doesn’t know that Eddie’s in love with him.

“So,” Athena drawls, “which one choked?”

Eddie doesn’t take his eyes off Buck. 

“Buck,” he hears them both say. 

“Well, at least this one didn’t require a tracheotomy,” she says dryly. “Good thing, too. That carpet is a pain in the ass to clean.” 

Eddie tears his eyes away from Buck. He can’t fight him now, not here. Not when it would leave a mess on Athena’s carpet. 

“I heard about that,” Alex offers, trying to break the tension Athena was pointedly choosing not to address. Alex fixes her eyes on Eddie. “Some sort of…date fiasco?” She raises her eyebrows and looks back and forth between Eddie and Buck. 

Buck looks up for the first time since his grand declaration of universal truth and nods emphatically. 

“Yup, that was me,” he confesses. He looks back toward Eddie, and his eyes are still blown wide. Scared, Eddie can tell. Eddie smiles because it’s Buck. Buck smiles because he’s relieved. Eddie is smiling, and it’s okay. They’re okay. 

Buck turns his attention back to Alex to tell the story, and Eddie lets his smile drop. He smiled, and Buck smiled, and they’re okay, but he is not straight, and he is in love with Buck, so. "Okay”  is complicated. True, but complicated. 

Eddie does his best to engage with the conversation floating around him. 

He offers his own stories about the 118, joining in with Buck and Athena’s attempts to acquaint Alex with the rest of the group in anticipation of their arrival. 

He tells Alex about his first shift, about how he and Buck removed a live grenade from a man’s leg. 

“Eddie was amazing,” Buck gushes. “I told him he could have my back any day.” 

Eddie clears his throat. 

“Technically,” he struggles against the lump in his throat, “I told you first.” 

“Okay, but–” Buck starts to argue. Then he looks at Eddie and softens. “Yeah,” he relents. “You did.” 

Eddie gulps his wine, holding his glass up long enough to blink more rapidly than he knows would look normal. 

The stories continue, and Alex eventually asks the question they’ve all been pointlessly ignoring. 

“So, Sergeant Gr–” Alex cuts herself off at Athena’s kind but insistent look. “Athena,” she corrects, “you told me a little bit about what happened here, with Captain Han and Firefighter Wilson. But,” she looks at Eddie and Buck, who both busy themselves with the charcuterie selection. 

“What exactly happened? I understand not wanting to divulge too much, but…I’ll be a lot more useful if I have a better idea of what I’m walking into.” 

Athena sighs heavily, tracing the rim of her glass with her fingertips. 

“Chim and Hen have known each other for a very long time,” she begins. “You have to understand, when they first started, Chim was the only one–” 

Buck clears his throat timidly. 

Alex and Athena turn toward him. 

“Yes, Buck?” Athena permits. “Something to add?” 

Buck looks at Eddie, who shrugs. He might be in love, but he’s not about to dive in front of Buck when Athena’s holding the battering ram. 

“Sorry, Athena, I just.” Buck glances down at his watch. 

“I know the context is like, important, but I think Alex,” he glances at Alex, who tilts her head encouragingly. “I think she knows, you know. Based on what we-and you, I’m sure-have already said. But if they’re about to walk through the door…” Buck trails off, hoping Athena is on board with the obvious unspoken words. 

To Eddie’s surprise, she shrugs in agreement. 

“Fair point. Take it away,” she allows with a dramatic sweep of her arm. 

Buck turns toward Alex and begins counting off on his fingers. 

“Okay, so first, Hen collapses on a call. It’s a bad one, big structure fire, and the building was supposed to be clear but there were people living inside. We didn’t know that until we got there, but–” 

“I remember you saying something about the importance of getting to the point before they walk through the door,” Athena reminds him. 

He nods, unperturbed. 

“Right, yeah. So, first she collapses on this horrible call. And then–” 

“Actually,” Eddie interrupts, remembering. “First her hands were all shaky. Like when we delivered that baby–” 

“Oh yeah!” Buck agrees. “Her hands were shaking, and–” 

“I’m Hen’s partner,” Eddie explains to Alex. “Work partner,” he clarifies quickly. No point in confusing the poor woman more. 

“Work husband, according to you,” Buck accuses with a roll of his eyes. 

“You knew exactly what I meant.” 

“It’s really lucky for the backs of both of your heads that my hands are comfortable on this wine glass and that the other four forgot how to tell time,” Athena muses. 

Eddie grabs his plate off the table and sits back. Buck tries to continue. 

“Her hands are shaky, she collapses, okay. Hen is unwell. Then,” he ticks off a second finger, “Chim goes to the hospital to check on her, obviously. They’re best friends. Like m-” Buck looks back at Eddie. He opens his mouth, then closes it again. “Like, for a long time.” 

Eddie makes a tiny sandwich out of cheese and crackers. 

“At the hospital, Chim runs into Karen, Hen’s wife.” A beat. “They’re lesbians. Or, they’re,” he runs his hands down his face. “They’re married, to each other. They have two kids. Denny and Mara. Denny is friends with Chris,” he offers, like that explains the inherent goodness of the Wilson family. 

Eddie has to ask Athena where she got these wine glasses. They’re very strong. Eddie knows his grip strength is well above average, and yet somehow, the glass doesn’t shatter beneath his tightened grip. 

“So Karen tells Chim that Hen’s been sick. For like, months. And she never told us.” He waits, like that should explain everything. 

Alex tips her head forward, clearly waiting for more. It does not, in fact, explain everything. 

“So, she was sick, and going on calls. Nobody knew. She collapsed on a call and nobody knew what happened, or that it could happen. I mean, of course it could happen, it’s not totally crazy that–” Buck stops himself, looking like he’d just been slapped. 

He continues before Eddie can even begin to guess what that’s about. 

“Things happen. But, bottom line, Chim said it was irresponsible and that it put her in danger. Us too, I guess, and the people we help. So he fired her,” Buck finishes. 

“He fired her,” he repeats, “because she lied. And she shouldn’t have, I know that, but the 118, we’re a family.” 

Alex nods, glancing back at Athena. 

“And Hen was hurt, and upset, and then they tried to make up, but Chim wouldn’t let her come back to work, and now. Well now they aren’t talking. Because Chim fired her.” 

Eddie clears his throat. 

“Well,” he starts. He can’t help it. He loves to start. 

“Technically, they aren’t talking because Hen lied.” He can taste the hypocrisy on his tongue as the words dry on his lips. He takes a sip of wine, holding eye contact with a now-glaring Buck. 

Alex speaks first. 

“What do you think about that, Eddie?” Alex asks. Eddie recognizes the shift in her voice. It’s the same tone she used with Sergeant Cowan. Her therapist voice. 

Sure, he thinks. Why not. 

He’ll bite.  

“I think,” he says, more to Buck than Alex. Not because he thinks Buck is wrong, not at all. He understands where Buck is coming from. Hell, a big part of him agrees, especially from a familial loyalty standpoint. But sometimes arguing with Buck is a lot more fun than admitting he agrees with him, and if Eddie can’t fight Buck over his lack of knowledge about Eddie’s very not-straight, very-much-in-love-with-Buck state of existence, at least he can fight with him about this. 

“I think Chim had every right to fire her. I mean, she should have told him, as a professional matter.” He shrugs. “That’s just chain of command.” 

It works. 

Buck balks in disbelief. 

“Seriously?” he wonders aloud, annoyed. “Are you ever not thinking about the damn chain of command?” 

Eddie smiles easily. 

“I’m serious, Buck. It’s a thing.” 

Buck levels him with a pointed stare as he leans backward into his chair, throwing one arm behind his head. 

“Oh I know it’s a thing, especially for you, Mr.-” 

The doorbell chimes, and Eddie can physically feel Alex’s exasperated sigh of relief. 

Athena stands to answer the door. 

“Glad we got that cleared up in time,” she deadpans. 

Despite her continually growing confusion surrounding the Firefighters Who May Or May Not Know They’re in Love and Who Definitely Haven’t Talked about the Glaringly Obvious Fact that One of Them is Gayer Than Expected, Alex has a delightful time watching the both of them stomp ungracefully through the landmine of awkwardness that descends upon the room at Captain Han and his wife’s arrival. 

Buck immediately grabs his still-quite-full glass of wine, and Eddie stops choosing between the foods on his plate and eats the first thing his fingers can find. Their eyes flicker in tandem between the newly-arrived couple and each other, and Alex wonders if Athena has ever considered holding an intervention for them. 

If In Love was a diagnosable medical condition, she’d break the news to them immediately and send them on their way. 

It would be the most confident diagnosis she’s ever given. 

Thankfully, she doesn’t have to expend any energy trying to understand the dynamic between Captain Han and his wife. 

“Maddie, this is Alex Doyle, the SMART lady I was telling you about,” Captain Han introduces his wife–Maddie.

Alex extends her hand, and this time she’s sure it’s the one without the wine. 

Nailed it. 

“It’s nice to meet you,” she says. 

“I heard that you were terrific,” Maddie compliments sincerely. Alex likes her. “I heard that you were terrific, um, with the veteran the other day. How’s he doing?” 

Alex wants to be her friend. 

“Better,” she answers, because Maddie asked and Alex believes she genuinely wants to know. “He has legal help now, and we’re optimistic that treatment is going to help him.” 

“Listen, I’m just glad that he was willing to accept help,” Athena stresses. 

Alex looks over at Eddie and Buck, completely unsurprised that Eddie busies himself with the snacks on his plate, or that Buck is staring into the middle distance somewhere between Alex and the back hallway. 

“Because not everybody is.”

Alex is a professional, so she doesn’t laugh. Doesn’t allow herself to state how applicable those words are to the only two seated individuals in this particular group of people. 

Instead, she just quietly marvels at the way Eddie and Buck are sitting across from each other on two entirely separate pieces of furniture, both of them scooted all the way forward to the edge of their seats. Even when they purposely move apart from each other, their bodies pull closer together. As close as possible. 

She looks back toward Captain Han and Maddie and marvels at something else entirely. 

She’s not the only one holding her tongue. 

Maddie Han is, Alex thinks, incredibly genuine. She’s also apparently wickedly perceptive. Alex doesn’t miss the smug, knowing smile on her face as she assesses the Helplessly Oblivious Magnetized Firefighters. 

Maddie keeps her mouth shut, though, and so does Alex. 

Captain Han, however, does not.

“Didn’t expect to see you two here,” Captain Han admonishes the two of them. 

Eddie looks down at his plate like he’s wondering how it got there. 

Buck carefully swallows a sip of wine like he’s just remembering he’s there at all. 

He keeps one hand on the plate in his lap, the other in an iron grip around his wine glass, momentarily freeing his pinky to point in Athena’s direction. 

Eddie looks at Buck just as he begins to speak. 

“Athena…invited us,” Buck draws out. Eddie nods, shoveling a pretzel stick into his mouth. “It felt rude to say no.” 

Eddie nods faster. He inhales a carrot stick. 

Alex is glad there’s at least one more paramedic here now who hasn’t choked yet tonight. 

“Invited you how?” Captain Han presses. 

Alex sucks in a breath as Eddie whips his head toward Captain Han, eyes wide in horror, cheeks ballooned with the saving grace of who knows how much charcuterie. Please don’t choke, she thinks. 

Thankfully, he doesn’t, and as Maddie attempts to deescalate Captain Han’s admittedly reasonable surprise at the staged intervention, the doorbell rings. 

Alex looks at Eddie and Buck. 

They’re looking at each other. 

Alex is a professional. She makes her way to the kitchen table. She does not ask either one of them What Is Wrong with Them. 

As far as horribly awkward evenings go, Eddie thinks he’s seen worse. 

It’s pretty hard to beat collapsing in the middle of a reputable suit store at the mere insinuation that his literal girlfriend was the mother of his child. 

That one, at least, was only awkward. And embarrassing. But mostly awkward. 

Tonight, though? Tonight is painful. And sad. And awkward. 

And to make matters worse, Buck is sitting directly across from him, and their feet are touching, and the red wine makes Buck’s lips match his birthmark, and Eddie can’t decide which of those things he wants to kiss more. 

And he’s really, really tired of Buck not knowing that that’s a thing he can’t decide. 

Eddie is tired, and when he’s tired, he’s irritable, and he’s already irritable because Buck isn’t reading his mind the way he usually does and Chim and Hen are fighting and Hen is sick and no one knows what it is and it’s scary and hard and he really wants to hold his best friend’s hand about it and yeah sure he could ask Buck to hold his hand if he thinks about it because they’ve held each other closer than that but this is different even though it’s not and Eddie doesn’t know what to do about all that, so. 

Eddie takes a deep breath.

He just looks at Buck and he thinks. He makes his thoughts even louder than they already are, so loud it would be impossible for Buck not to hear them. He does this because he’s not thinking at all, actually, so sure, maybe it makes no sense, but his brain is fried and Buck is so beautiful and Eddie is furious about it. 

Buck looks at him, finally, and raises his eyebrows. Eddie starts, a little surprised. It-it hadn’t actually worked, had it? He doesn’t have time to consider the literal insanity of thinking that Buck had actually audibly heard his thoughts, because suddenly Alex’s voice is registering in his ears. 

“And when you know someone for a really long time,” Alex continues whatever thought she had that Eddie had missed in favor of boring a hole into the side of Buck’s head. “You have certain expectations…” 

Eddie looks at Buck again, who is picking at the napkin in front of him. 

Eddie grunts. 

Buck looks up. 

Eddie raises his eyebrows. 

Buck squints. 

Eddie squints back.

“...Of what they’ll do.” 

Please, just get it already. 

“Or how they’ll react.” 

I don’t want to find out how it feels to know you don’t want me. 

“And when they fall short, you’re not only disappointed in them, but yourself.” 

I wanted to tell you. I want to tell you. Need to tell you. I just don’t know how. 

“For misjudging the situation.” 

Eddie looks up at Alex, whose eyes flicker fleetingly  between him and Buck before settling back on Chim. 

Buck clears his throat. 

Eddie takes a sip of wine and forces himself into the present. The other present, the one outside himself, the one where there’ll all here to fix whatever is going on with Chim and Hen. 

He listens to them argue, listens to them tell each other what they’re feeling. He’s focused, he’s here. 

And just as quickly as he manages to lock in, to be present, Buck’s foot is also present. It locks around Eddie’s ankle, and suddenly Eddie forgets his own name. 

He darts his eyes over to Buck, eyes wide. 

Except Buck isn’t looking at him. He’s looking down the table at Chim and Hen, leaning forward intently, clearly focused, except that he’s grinning in a way that has absolutely nothing to do with the conversation their friends are having.

He’s got the most infuriating, shit-eating grin plastered to his face, and his ankle is hooked around Eddie’s under the table. The table currently occupied by most of their closest friends and family–and Alex, bless her–and so. 

What the fuck, actually. 

Just as soon as Eddie leans forward to hiss something probably unintelligible in Buck’s direction, Buck moves his foot back underneath his own chair. 

He turns his head toward Eddie. 

“What?” he mouths silently. His eyes are innocent. His grin is evil. 

“Then you would have fired me?” Buck asks, audibly this time. 

For a second, Eddie is worried he’s in another elaborate, horrifically realistic dream. This one feels more like Eddie’s own personal hell, though, and not like the painful bliss of all the others. 

That would track. Buck wasn’t wrong. The Catholic guilt runs deep. 

“In a heartbeat,” Chimney retorts, and Eddie snaps back to reality. Or at least, remembers he’s in reality. Awake. He thinks that might be worse. 

Get it together. 

“We all know this,” Eddie offers, joining the conversation. Because if Buck is going to make him question his sense of reality, then Eddie is going to give it right back. He knows how to drive Buck crazy. It’s one of  his favorite things to do. 

“Chain of command,” he repeats, shrugging like it's a foregone, obvious conclusion and not something he said just to get a rise out of Buck. 

“Oh if you say ‘chain of command’ one more time–” Buck cries in exasperation. He leans forward across the table, and Eddie leans backward, because if he leans forward he’ll be close enough to smell the wine on Buck’s lips and that might just end him. 

“Or else what?” He taunts, begging Buck to answer a question he hadn’t even asked. 

“Uh, okay,” Alex steps in instead. “I think we have strayed, a little.” Her eyes are trained directly on Buck and Eddie, this time, and she makes a point to look at each of them in turn. 

Eddie cocks his head at Buck and drinks his wine, peering across the top of the glass. 

Buck mirrors his movements, his mouth pulled tight in a straight line. 

Eddie’s body betrays him. 

He slowly slides his foot toward Buck underneath the table. He catches Buck’s ankle, tucking his toes right behind Buck’s heel. 

Please, tell me you get it. 

Buck smiles. 

“I am so, so sorry this is how the night ended,” Athena apologizes profusely to Alex beside the door. 

It had been going well, Eddie thinks, judging by the way he’d felt and the forlorn faces of everyone else at the table. It hadn’t been good, not by any means, but they had been getting somewhere. 

He feels terrible that Hen had felt so alone in all of this. 

No matter how Not Alone you really are, he knows, fear and guilt have a funny way of making you feel like that’s not true. 

That’s what he had wanted to say to Hen. What he still wants to say, plans to say. It wouldn’t change things, of course, but he loves Hen, and if there’s anything he could do to make her feel less alone, he would do it. 

But then she’d collapsed, and so now the time for saying things would have to wait. 

Maddie and Chim had followed Karen and Hen to the hospital, and Buck and Eddie had made sure they didn’t need the extra company before deciding to stay back for a minute to help Athena clean up. 

She’d insisted she didn’t need the help, but Buck and Eddie cleared the table, threw away the trash, and Athena didn’t stop them. 

Alex helped too, because what else does a person do when the intervention they’re facilitating in someone else’s home turns into a medical emergency? 

Eddie knows what it’s like to have to just. Do something. Anything. 

“There’s absolutely nothing to be sorry for,” Alex reminds Athena. “I really hope Hen is all right.” She glances over Athena’s shoulder at Eddie and Buck, giving Eddie a sympathetic smile. “I hope you all are.” 

She slings her bag over her shoulder and Athena pulls her into a hug. 

“Thank you.” 

“Of course,” Alex replies. 

Buck finishes tying his shoes and stands up from his crouched position, his shoulder brushing Eddie. 

“Hold on,” he calls to Alex as she puts her hand on the door handle. He turns to grab his keys from the kitchen counter. “We’ll walk you out.” 

They say their goodbyes to Athena, and she whispers something to Buck Eddie can’t quite make out. 

“I know,” he says. “Love you.” 

“Love you too,” she says fondly, shutting the door behind the trio. 

Eddie lets Buck take the lead, falling in step closely behind him and Alex. 

“So,” Buck hedges. “Official diagnosis?” 

Alex laughs and shakes her head. 

“That’s not really how this works.” 

Buch shrugs. 

“Unofficially then. Off the record.” 

Eddie rolls his eyes. 

“She’s not a reporter,  Buck. Neither are you.” 

Buck turns entirely toward Eddie, walking backward for a moment. 

“Thank god for that,” he grins. 

Eddie can’t argue with that. 

Buck turns back toward Alex, who stops a few steps ahead. 

“This is me,” she says,  gesturing toward her car. She looks back toward the house, then at Eddie, and finally at Buck. 

“Unofficially,” she decides, humoring Buck in all seriousness. “You all love each other.” She looks back at Eddie. “Very much.” 

Eddie looks down, in sudden need of a good rock to kick. 

“You’re pretty good at this,” Buck tells her. “You should make a career out of it.” 

Alex laughs, and Eddie groans. 

“Booo,” Eddie laments as he steps forward to steer Buck toward the truck and away from a hostage audience. “That was way worse than my dad jokes.” 

“Chris would disagree,” Buck argues. He looks at Alex as he motions toward Eddie. 

 “Chris is Eddie’s kid. He loves my jokes.”

Alex blinks.

“He’s a child, Buck,” Eddie reminds Buck. “That’s not the winning argument you think it is” 

“Actually,” Alex chimes in, “kids are a pretty good indicator of whether something’s funny or not. They haven’t been taught to laugh because it’s polite. Just comes naturally.” 

Eddie levels her with a stare. 

“Thank you doctor.” 

Buck whoops and clasps him on the shoulder. 

“See? Chris loves my jokes because they’re funny,” Buck gloats. 

“I’m pretty sure it’s just because he loves you, Buck.” 

“Kids are taught some things, though,” Alex mumbles. 

They both stare at her. 

Buck coughs. 

Eddie doesn’t lie. 

“He’s a good kid.” 

Alex smiles kindly and retrieves her keys from her purse. 

“I don’t doubt it.” She waves and steps backward toward her car. 

“Have a good night, you two. It was good to meet you both. Again.” 

Eddie nods, and Buck waves, and they both turn to walk toward the truck. 

Eddie finds a rock to kick, finally. He kicks it ahead a few feet. Buck sidesteps forward and kicks it back toward Eddie. 

“Uh. Hold on just a second,” Eddie insists before he can think better of it. He doesn’t give Buck time to answer before he turns and jogs back to Alex’s car. 

He raps on the window, and she jumps. 

Eddie winces. 

“So sorry,” he mouths as she fumbles to roll down the window. 

“Sorry,” he repeats when she can hear him. 

“That’s okay,” she breathes. “Not the first heart attack I’ve had tonight.” Her eyes grow wide. “Oh, that came out wrong, she probably didn’t have a heart attack, I didn’t mean–” 

Eddie shakes his head. 

“I know what you meant. And I think–” he straightens just a bit and lifts his head to look for Buck. 

He’s standing exactly where Eddie left him, hand on his hips, head cocked to the side. 

Eddie ducks back down. 

“I think,” he says slowly, and then all at once before he loses his nerve, “that you would know what I mean if I said I had a couple heart attacks of my own tonight.” 

He waits for what feels like an eternity. Maybe he had read her look wrong. Maybe when she’d said “and LGBT couples too!” she’d just been trying to be inclusive. That makes more sense, he thinks, because she’s a professional and it’s 2026 and just because his parents wouldn’t know to ask someone’s preferred pronouns even if there was a neon sign hanging over someone’s head that said “please ask me my pr–” 

“I think I do,” Alex confirms. 

Eddie breathes. 

“You do.” 

“I–probably, yes. You aren’t referring to the choking.” She says it like a fact. 

“Not the choking.” 

“Or Buck’s choking.” 

“Not that, no.” 

“But not not Buck, either.” 

Eddie flexes his hand at his side. 

“Right.” 

“About?” 

“Not not Buck.” 

“Buck’s your best friend.” 

“He is.” 

“Buck says you’re straight.” 

“Mmhm.” 

“You’re not.” 

Eddie bites his lip. 

“No.” 

Alex nods. 

“Neither is Buck.” 

“Nailed it.” 

“Eddie.” 

“Last time I checked.” 

“It’s a lot easier if you tell him.” 

“They give you a degree for that one?” 

Alex levels Eddie with a stare of her own. 

Eddie sighs. 

“I know, I know, okay? I do. I will. I just.” He cracks his neck. 

“I don’t know how to tell him. It’s been so long, now, and it feels like I’m hiding something from him, you know? And I am, technically, but not because I want to hide it, but because there wasn’t a good time, and I don’t want him to think I’m ashamed, because I’m not, but he usually just figures stuff out–figures me out–way before I do, and I wish he would, because I’m pretty sure he’s flirting with me, but I’m not really good at that to begin with, but then he also says stuff like ‘Eddie is straight,’ and maybe he doesn’t want me, not like that, and that’s okay, but I don’t–” 

Eddie looks down at the piece of paper suddenly shoved into his hand. 

He blinks. 

“Top is my office number. Bottom is my office hours. Call whenever, though, and if I don’t pick up, just leave a voicemail. I promise I’ll get back to you.” 

Eddie huffs out a breath he forgot he was holding. 

“And Eddie?” 

“Still me.” He shakes his head. “Sorry. Yeah?” 

“I don’t know much. But I’m pretty good at reading people. I don’t think you have anything to worry about with Buck.” 

Eddie stands and sees Buck, hands still on his hips, still watching Eddie. 

“Maybe. I don’t know. I hope you’re right.”

“I usually am. I’m pretty good at this.” 

“You should make a career out of it.” 

Alex gasps in disbelief. 

“Wow. You don’t even know you do it, do you?” 

Eddie looks down at her, confused. 

“Do what?” 

Alex shakes her head fondly and starts her car. 

“Unbelievable. Yeah,” she says, more to herself than to Eddie. “You guys are gonna be just fine.” 

Eddie doesn’t ask her how she knows, because he knows she’s not the one who can prove it. He waits for her to back out of the parking space and drive away before he makes his way back over to Buck. 

He looks at the piece of paper and folds it up, tucking it into his wallet as he reaches Buck. He picks up the pebble they’d been kicking and shoves it into his pocket.

Buck doesn’t say anything. 

“She okay?” Buck asks when they reach the truck. 

Eddie shrugs. 

“She’s great.” 

Buck hums as he unlocks the door and gets behind the wheel. 

Eddie knows that hum. 

“What?” he asks warily. 

Buck shrugs this time. 

“Nothing,” Buck lies, his voice suspiciously higher than normal. 

He puts the truck in drive and directs them toward the hospital. 

“Buck,” Eddie warns. 

“Eddie,” Buck mocks. 

“Seriously?” 

“Seriously what?” 

“You shrugged.” 

“People shrug.” 

“You said it’s nothing.” 

“It is nothing.” 

“It’s not nothing.” 

“What’s not nothing?” 

“Buck!” Eddie throws his hands up, exasperated. 

“Present and accounted for!” Buck exclaims with a mock salute. 

“Are you serious?” 

“No, I’m Buck.” 

“You-” Eddie puts his hand to his mouth and shakes his head, staring out the window. 

“I…,” Buck pushes. 

“Nothing,” Eddie sighs. 

“Mmm, see?” Buck clicks his tongue. “Nothing. Just rolls off the tongue.” 

Eddie sucks in a deep breath, but before he can say anything, his phone rings. 

Buck hums like that again, and Eddie’s half tempted to grab the wheel and veer them both off the road. 

He answers his phone instead. 

“Yeah,” he bites. 

“Oh I’m sorry, I thought I was calling my friend Eddie, not the crotchety old man at the pharmacy who wishes I would just drop dead instead of interrupting his day with the horrible inconvenience of checking on my prescription.” 

Eddie grimaces, but laughs. 

“Sorry, sorry, I didn’t even look to see who was calling.” 

“I’ll let you make it up to me,” Karen permits. 

“Oh I will,” Eddie promises. He sees Buck glare at him out of the corner of his eye. Eddie waves at the road ahead of them, and Buck turns his attention back to driving. He doesn’t look thrilled about it. 

“So?” Eddie says back into his phone.

“She’s stable, but she’s resting. You guys can take your time. She probably won’t wake up for a couple hours; they have her on light meds and she’s exhausted.” 

Eddie closes his eyes and takes a deep breath in through his nose. Thank goodness she’s okay. 

“That’s such a relief.” 

“You’re telling me. Chim and Maddie ran out to grab some coffees and pizza since none of us ate a whole lot tonight. Want us to save you any?” 

“Thanks, but I don’t think I could eat another thing right now.” 

Buck barks out a laugh that Eddie doesn’t understand, and Eddie glares. 

“Totally understandable,” Karen agrees in his ear. “Well, I’m gonna go, got a couple more calls to make. Just wanted to let you guys know. See you both when you get here.” 

“Sure thing. Thanks. See you.” 

Eddie hangs up and returns his phone to his pocket. 

Buck is silent. 

“Hen’s okay,” Eddie relays. 

Buck steals a glance at him, surprised. 

“Oh?” 

“Were you expecting her not to be?” 

Buck blinks. 

“I-yeah, no. No, I just. Okay. She’s okay.” Buck sighs. “Good. That’s good.” 

“Yeah,” Eddie agrees. He picks up a stray quarter off the center console and rolls it between his fingers. “Karen said they’re getting pizza. I’m not hungry, and I assumed you weren’t either, but. I can call her back if you want.” 

Buck straightens and rolls his shoulders. 

“Right, that was Karen on the phone. Good. That’s good. Much better.” 

“W-yes? Karen. Hen’s wife. You’ve met her.” 

“I’m familiar with her work, yeah.” 

Eddie snorts. 

“Right.” 

Eddie stares out the window for a beat, and then something clicks. 

“Buck.” 

“The one and only.” 

“What exactly do you mean, ‘much better?’” 

“You’ll have to be more specific, Eddie. Lots of things are better than other things.” 

“Don’t get cute.” 

“Er, cuter. I’m already cute.” 

“I swear to God.” 

“I thought you didn’t do that?” 

“Buck!” 

“I thought it was Alex,” Buck lets out.

Eddie doesn’t understand. 

“You thought–you thought Alex was calling me.” 

“Mmhm.” 

“At,” Eddie double checks the clock, just to be sure. “10pm.” 

“It’s 9:50.” 

“You thought Alex was calling me to update us on Hen at 9:50pm?” 

Buck lifts one hand off the wheel in mock surrender. 

“Hey, in my defense, I couldn’t hear the voice on the other end. I didn’t know it was an update on Hen until you hung up and told me so.” 

That’s fair, Eddie thinks. But still. 

"That doesn't answer the question.”

“And that question is what, exactly?” 

It’s like pulling teeth. 

“Why would you think that Alex would be calling me at 10pm? Or that Alex would be calling me at all?” 

“9:50. And because you got her number.” 

“She doesn’t have mine.” 

“I didn’t know that.” 

“You assumed she did?” 

Buck exits off the freeway just as it’s beginning to rain. He shrugs.

“Seemed like a reasonable assumption.” 

“Well she doesn’t.” 

“Okay.” 

“That was Karen,” Eddie reiterates. 

“You said.” 

Eddie sighs. He doesn’t get it. 

If he didn’t know any better, he would think Buck is being jealous. On the one hand, great. A jealous Buck is a Buck who makes Flirting Buck makes sense. Flirting Buck flirts because Buck is interested. He wants Eddie. Incredible. 

On the other hand, Jealous Buck is still Buck, the same Buck who dragged Eddie to a club several weeks ago and practically shoved Eddie toward every single–and apparently not so single–woman in the place. Eddie’s been jealous, he knows, and he doesn’t think he could ever do that. Certainly would not be able to make an entire evening out of it. 

On the third hand, someone else’s hand, or maybe his own secret hand that spontaneously grew out of his head and is reaching toward his throat to put him out of his own misery, if Buck is jealous and he’s flirting with Eddie but he’s not making any moves or using any of his words to say the important stuff out loud and is taking Eddie to clubs to get him to get some dates or some phone numbers but is apparently jealous when he thinks Eddie actually does get someone’s phone number then what the f– 

“I just meant,” Buck picks back up, derailing Eddie’s train of thought. “It’s a good thing it wasn’t Alex.” 

Buck grimaces, like he’s not sure he should say the next part, but he continues. 

“I liked her, and I think she’d be good for you, but it gave me bad vibes that she’d call this late while we’re literally on our way to see our friend who collapsed in front of us.” 

Eddie snorts. 

“Are you serious?” 

“What?” Buck asks defensively. “Look, I’m not being judgy. Besides, she didn’t even do it. I’m just saying, if she had called, it would’ve given me bad vibes. But she didn’t, and she doesn’t, so. Go for it.” 

“She can’t call me, she doesn’t have my number,” Eddie responds to the only part of that sentence he understands.

“I know. I was explaining why it was better.” 

“Okay.” 

It’s not okay, Eddie thinks, but nothing’s coming out of his mouth, so he just sits. 

“So are you going to call her?” Buck singsongs, unable to stand the silence.

Eddie groans. 

“I don’t know,” he admits. What would he even say?  

“You should,” Buck decides. “ Get back out there.” 

Eddie looks out the window for the nearest cliff. 

“I’m not getting back out there,” he grits.  

“You got her phone number. Went back to get it.” 

“It’s not like that.” 

“It could be,” Buck shrugs.  

“I don’t think so.” 

“You should let me think for you,” Buck offers. 

Eddie twists to look in the backseat hoping to find…something. Anything. Tire iron. Bleach. Cyanide. A gun. 

“Why’s that?” he grunts, unsuccessful.

“I could plan your date with Alex. I’m really good at it.” 

Eddie believes it. He needs to throw up.

“I’m not going to go on a date with Alex.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Not complicated. Alex. Me. No happening.” 

“But you literally ran back to get her number! I’m confused,” Buck cries.  

“Oh I can tell,” Eddie seethes.

“Why aren’t you going to try for a date with Alex?” Buck is stubborn and persistent and the smartest person Eddie knows and maybe the dumbest person alive.

“I don’t want to,” Eddie says. He’s not lying.

“She’s super nice. And funny. Pretty, too,” Buck informs him.

“You should call her, then.” 

“Not my point. Why aren’t you going to date Alex?” 

“I don’t want to.” Eddie tries to remember a time when he knew more words than that. 

“Why not?” 

“I’m not trying to date any women right now. Or ever,” he lets slip.

“What? That seems extreme, Eddie,” Buck worries. 

Buck always worries about Eddie.

“Does it?” 

“Yeah. You’re still punishing yourself.” 

I’m so in love with you, you idiot.

“You have no idea.” 

“Why don’t you want to date any women?” Buck emphasizes. He’s digging with his eyes closed and Eddie can’t stand it anymore.

“Because–” 

“Have you thought maybe you’re being too picky?” 

“Well–” 

“Listen, I know standards are important, but–”

“Buck I’m not–” 

“And as far as your potential matches go, Alex seems like a good fit. You guys would have fun together!” 

“How can you possibly kno–” 

“I just think you should give her a chance.” 

“I don’t wa–” 

“Why aren’t you gonna give her a chance?” 

“She’s not you, Buck!”

The words explode into the empty space between them, the remnants suspended like confetti until it’s all Eddie can see. 

He feels the fragile weight of Buck’s silence, hears only the pounding thrum of his pulse between his ears. Eddie’s hands are glued to the dashboard where he slammed them down, and his eyes are wide open, trained on the road ahead. 

The spaces between the street signs get longer as the truck  slows, but it doesn’t register to Eddie. 

All he can see are the words “She’s not you,” suspended in neon shreds in front of his eyes, set against the backdrop of endless images of Buck.  

There’s Buck in the kitchen with an apron, the way he is in Eddie’s dreams because that’s the way he is in Eddie’s kitchen. 

There’s Buck on his couch, laughing, head thrown back in carefree weightlessness, anchored to the couch only by the force of gravity, or by Eddie’s leg draped over him in his dreams. 

There’s Buck above him, chest heaving, mouth parted in a silent plea and spattered in blood that Eddie knows is his but prays to the universe isn’t also mixed with Buck’s. 

There’s Buck suspended in midair, hanging, lifeless, as Eddie’s muscles burn alongside the scream wretched from his throat begging Buck to hear him, to be okay, just be alive. 

Can you hear me? 

There’s Buck with a beer bottle to his lips, telling Eddie, “I could take you,” while Eddie is swallowing because Buck’s voice lifts a layer off the long-forgotten beat thrumming through Eddie’s chest, the one he’d covered and buried under years of performative perfection and dutiful obedience. 

There’s Buck with Christopher, bright and golden and perfect and more a part of each other than Eddie even knew how to explain. There’s Buck in his home, in the field, at the station, at the bar, in his dreams, in his every waking thought. 

There’s Buck pushing back, Buck holding on, Buck making space for every shape of Eddie without even realizing that he’s carving out a mirrored space for himself right in the center of Eddie’s chest. 

Buck pulls the truck over, and they stop moving, and Eddie doesn’t even notice because he can’t see that the road is now a parking lot or that the truck is parked. Eddie’s body must realize it, though,  because he’s jumping out into the abandoned parking lot in the middle of the pouring rain and slamming the door. 

He circles the front of Buck’s truck and rips open the door, because he can’t think, can’t see, and it has nothing to do with the rain and everything to do with Buck. 

Buck turns his head to look at Eddie. His body still faces forward, his hands white-knuckle the steering wheel, but his eyes are trained on Eddie’s, wild and bewildered and blue and Eddie would drown in them if he could. He just might. 

“Eddie,” Buck stretches his name out like he’s feeling his hands along a wall in a pitch black room, hoping to find a light switch. 

“Don’t,” Eddie begs through gritted teeth. 

He’s still breathing fast, and he can’t make it stop. 

It doesn’t feel like panic, though. Not the kind he knows. 

It feels like stepping into a ring. His limbs are buzzing, he has to move, has to do something. 

The only difference is that in the ring, his head is quiet. 

His head is anything but quiet, now. 

It’s screaming Buck, Buck, Buck, and he doesn’t know how to make it stop, but he needs it to stop because Buck looks like he’s searching for a light switch and Eddie would never leave Buck alone in the dark and he can’t get to Buck if he doesn’t get out of his own head  so he opens his mouth and just prays to anything that will listen that it all just falls out.

“You know,” Eddie groans. 

Buck just looks at him. Blinks. Swallows. 

“I do?” 

“You know!” Eddie exclaims, flinging his hand up across his forehead to stop his hair from dripping rainwater into his eyes. It doesn’t make a difference. He drapes his forearm across the doorframe and drops his forehead against it.

“What am I supposed to know, Eddie?” Buck asks directly. It’s not a challenge. Eddie takes it as one, because confronting a challenge is easier than giving a straightforward answer. He doesn’t have to think about it.

“Everything, Buck!” Eddie cries. 

He pushes himself off the doorframe and stalks backward, leaving Buck to stare back at him. 

Buck takes his hands off the wheel but stays in his seat, turning and leaning forward through the open door and toward Eddie’s pacing figure. The rain steadily darkens the  legs of his pants, the edges of the seat, the tops of his head. 

Eddie doesn’t notice any of it. He paces within the boundaries of a nearby parking spot, bouncing between the corners. 

“You’re supposed to know everything, Buck. You always know everything, always have something to say, and you know what,” he admits with a delirious laugh, “I give you so much shit for it because you’re right so damn often.” He runs his hand through his hair, now completely soaked. 

“Every time I fill in a damn crossword, I realize I only know half the answers because of things you’ve said, things you’ve told me about. The answers I know on my own? ‘Oh, I wonder if Buck knows about that,’” he mocks himself. “The one’s I don’t? ‘Oh, I bet Buck knows about that.’” He shakes his head. His jeans are wet and they’re clinging but he doesn’t care. 

“I don’t know everything,” Buck reminds Eddie gently.

“You know everything about me!” Eddie shouts, thrusting his pointer finger into his own chest. “You know everything about me, Buck, and that’s what makes this so damn frustrating.” 

He should explain. He should get back into the car, take a deep breath, and just calmly tell Buck the truth. That it’s okay, that they’ll be okay, that he’s sorry. 

If he could catch his breath, he could, but he can’t, so he doesn’t. 

He watches his body from a thousand foot view. He can see himself throw his hands over his face, turning in semi circles. He watches himself take two steps toward the door, then three steps back. There’s just Buck, everywhere, all the time. 

Buck’s voice brings him back down, back to his own body. 

“Eddie,” he pleads. “Makes what so frustrating?” 

Eddie stops in his tracks and looks back at Buck, desperate. He’s panting. Buck’s shirt is wet. His curls are plastered to his head. His eyes are blue like the sky. Like the ocean. Like summer. Like a song. Like Eddie’s favorite shirt. Like everything that’s blue. 

“You know everything about me,” Eddie yells, “except that I’m in love with you.” 

If Buck hears him, he doesn’t know, because his body takes over and he’s pacing again and the words are out and he’s getting exactly what he wanted because now they won’t stop.  

“And it took me so long to figure it out, which is crazy, I know. And usually by the time I figure something out, you’re writing a book about it, because you know everything, but you never make me feel bad about it or like I should have known, even though there’s a million things I should have known! You just read right along with me, like how I used to read with Chris when he was learning how to read,” Eddie rambles. 

He doesn’t have the time to worry about whether it makes any sense. 

He doesn’t have time to notice that Buck is out of the car and walking toward him. 

“So you could write the book, you know, on me, but you read it with me instead, and you never read ahead, and you don’t make me feel bad for sounding it out, and I just kept waiting for you to know because you always know, and if you knew then maybe I wouldn’t feel so bad, because you always make me feel better. Feel good. And that’s so selfish, right?” 

For maybe the first time ever, Eddie doesn’t hear Buck say his name. 

“Because you’re not my guide,” Eddie shouts to the sky. To Buck.

He doesn’t feel the rain. 

He doesn’t feel Buck standing behind him.  

“You’re not my teacher, not anything, but you’re everything, you’re Buck! You’re my best friend, and I can’t imagine a world without you, and believe me, I’ve had to, and it’s terrible, and I’d rather live in a world with you in it than a world without you, even if that’s a world where you know I love you and you don’t love me back.” 

“Eddie.” 

Eddie hears it this time, but he can’t stop. 

“That’s okay, it’s okay, really it is, and I would never, ever be mad at you for not loving me back.” 

“Eddie.” 

Eddie feels Buck’s hand on him, this time, as Buck turns him around to face him. 

If Eddie had any power over his own body in this moment, he’d slam his mouth shut, because Buck’s hands are gripping his arms and he’s looking right at Eddie and he doesn’t look like he’s searching but Eddie’s not sure because he can’t hold onto a single thought and he’s powerless so he doesn’t shut his mouth because he just can’t. 

“I know you love me, you’re my best friend, I just mean, like that, like the way I love you in another way, too, not more, just on top of. Like the way you lean up against the doorway and I wonder how my house stays standing when you’re not in it, or the way I can’t stand when you tell me to go out and date because how could I ever want anyone else, or the way you look at Christopher like he’s sunshine in human form, which somehow I think he gets from you, even though–” 

For some people, an anchor is a smell. A sound. A place. For others, it’s a voice, a face, a person. 

Buck tightens his grip and pulls Eddie in and closes his mouth with his lips that taste like wine and salt and chapstick and Eddie briefly remembers that it’s raining before every thought in his head goes quiet. 

He doesn’t think. He just feels. 

Buck runs his tongue along Eddie’s lips and Eddie slides his hands around Buck’s waist. They settle into the small of Buck’s back and he clutches, grasps, pulls Buck closer. 

He gasps into Buck’s mouth when he feels his hands in his hair, and his chest sparks at the memory of the weight of those same hands when they kept his heart beating. 

He always imagined Buck’s lips to be soft, and they are, but they’re strong, urgent. Eddie meets him there, breathless, because he can feel Buck’s breath on his neck as he moves from his lips to the hollow beneath his ear and Eddie thinks that’s probably enough breath for the both of them. 

He sucks in the warm air anyway, hissing as Buck slips his hand underneath Eddie’s shirt, his heavy palm insistent and sure against his back as he crashes their lips together once again. 

Eddie breathes out. 

Buck breathes in. 

“How could you think that I could ever not love you like this,” Buck exhales. Eddie can taste each word, his mouth still ghosting over the lips they left. 

Eddie doesn’t know. But he lifts his head and looks at Buck. 

There’s a raindrop stuck on his eyebrow. Eddie removes one hand from Buck’s back and lifts it slowly. 

He brushes the raindrop away with his thumb, his hand real and awake and steady against Buck’s face. Buck leans into his touch, head resting completely against his hand,  and Eddie traces his birthmark with his thumb. 

“I don’t know,” Eddie says out loud, and it’s not a lie, and it’s not scary, and Buck looks at him like he loves him too, and Eddie believes it's true.

He briefly wonders if Alex is the gloating type.

But then Buck kisses him again, and he doesn't wonder about anything at all.