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Hung my head as I lost the war and the sky turned black like a perfect storm. Rain came pouring down, when I was drowning, that's when I could finally breathe.
And by morning, gone was any trace of you, I think I am finally clean.
“Eat your food.” Eddie said with a smile, ruffling Chris’ hair as he walked toward the door. His fingers wrapped around the handle and he pulled with a yank, trying to keep the annoyance off his face. He didn’t want whoever it was to know how mad he was that they were interrupting dinner. The mahogany gave way to Abigail, standing there with careful eyes, and right as Eddie was about to open his mouth, Buck came up the sidewalk. He had a determined look on his face, eyes locked on Abigail, and he stepped around her to get into the house. Stepped around her to get closer to Eddie, and his fingers reached out, grabbed Eddie’s hair and tugged him down to his mouth.
Eddie was too confused for a moment to kiss back, instead, he noticed everything else. He noticed how Buck had put himself between Abigail and Eddie, he noticed how Abigail’s mouth had fallen open in an O. He noticed Buck’s grip in his hair, unyielding and strong, and lastly, he noticed the dirty moan his best friend let out against his lips. In the end, that was what got him moving again, shoving himself into Buck, fingers pulling at his waist to get him closer. Abigail was still standing there, looking at the ground, face flushed.
When Buck finally let Eddie go, they were both red, breathing heavy, and Buck let go of his hair ever so slightly. Eddie almost whined at the loss, but then Buck was swooping in to press another short kiss to his lips. “Thanks for waiting, babe. You must be so hungry.” Buck stopped at the door and threw his duffle by the side of the wall, kicking off his shoes. “How is the babyyyy? God, I’m still so annoyed that Daddy was his first word. I thought for sure I was gonna win him over first.”
“Wait-” Abigail’s hand tightened on her bag and she shifted on her feet. “You two are…? Chris is a baby-?”
Buck slipped his hand into Eddie’s back pocket and Eddie had to try really hard to just blink and not throw his best friend (?) into the wall and bite him purple. “Oh, uh, Abigail right? What’s up?”
Abigail took two steps back and then danced on the ball of her foot for a second, looking like she was trying to decide something. “I-I just… didn’t know you were…”
Eddie blinked at her until she made a face and continued her sentence.
“Gay?”
OHHH.
“Ohhhhh.” Eddie blinked at her again, and forgot he was supposed to offer anything further than that. By now, Chris was getting impatient, and Buck turned to glance behind them like he heard something. His hands clenched, one of them still in Eddie’s pocket, and he turned back to Abigail.
“Well, yeah, we’ve been together since forever. We just don’t wear our rings out a lot, firefighters, hazard of the job! Anyway, Chris isn’t really on solids yet, so we should make sure the little guy isn’t choking on whatever Eddie fed him.” Buck laughed, and Abigail looked like someone had just pulled the rug out from underneath her. “You good to drive back to that nice place Alex got you? I was talking to her today, and she said she was so excited about your first session with the therapist tomorrow. Don’t tell her I told you but, well, I’d be expecting her bright and early with coffee, haha.” Buck didn’t even have Alex’s number, but something told Eddie he was going to need it.
“Bye, Abigail, drive safe.” He closed the door and locked it and drew the curtains and turned back to Eddie. “We have to get new locks, Eddie. Actually, until we actually can contact Alex, you and Chris should come to mine.”
Without a word, he walked off and Eddie heard him asking Chris to pack for a sleepover at his house. Chris wandered off in excitement, and Eddie finally caught up to Buck. He grabbed his arm and turned him.
“Buck, you’re gonna need to explain this to me.”
Buck nodded, the casual expression he’d been wearing since he first walked up the drive slipped off to show something more serious and grim underneath. “I was thinking about Abigail, and something about her was throwing me off. Something about how weird she got when Alex was talking, and then she turned to look at you and it all clicked.”
Eddie shook his head helplessly, and Buck grabbed his hand, like this next part was about to get worse.
“I started thinking about all my problems. My parents weren’t as bad as hers, and I’m still fucked up. If someone had saved me back then, I would have wanted to be around them all the time. Then, I guess I spiraled a little about it, thinking about myself, and yeah, I know, that’s bad, but then I imagined something I’d thought when I found out about Daniel. I remembered wishing I could have been old enough back then to just take Daniel and take him away from my parents. I wished I could have dragged him away and seen what lengths they would have done to get him back. What lengths they would go for him, but not for me.”
And then it clicked, and Eddie almost fell against the island, but Buck caught him, held on.
“Oh my god, oh god-”
“Eddie, Eddie, she’s gone, ok? Chris is safe, he’s safe, and you’re safe, and I’m safe. You are going to come stay at my house, and we’ll have a movie night, and we will keep Chris safe. We can contact Alex in the morning. I may have put an airtag in Abigail’s car somewhere.” Buck was holding Eddie’s face, firm, sturdy, and Eddie felt tears falling down his cheeks.
“I love you, Eddie. I’m not going to let anyone hurt you. And once Alex confirms that she has dragged Abigail to therapy to get over whatever she went through, we can talk about the kiss, and the ‘babe’, and everything else.”
All Eddie could do was murmur back, “I love you too”, and follow in Buck’s footsteps, because he knew his best friend was going to lead him to something great. And right now, that something great was his house, his couch, and Eddie was ready.
Ten months sober, I must admit, just because you're clean, don't mean you don't miss it.
Ten months older, I won't give in. Now that I'm clean, I'm never gonna risk it.