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They’re still about an hour away from home when Eddie just—he needs to pull over. Under normal circumstances he wouldn’t hesitate to ignore a speed limit when he’s barely 65 miles from seeing his son after everything that’s happened—let alone willingly stop alongside the 10 in this hunk of junk—but these really, really aren’t normal circumstances.
He and Buck had talked a little as they drove through Arizona like they had on the first leg of their road trip—singing obnoxiously loud to some songs, playing I Spy, ranking the worst Arnold Schwarzenegger movies—but Buck’s comments became fewer and more languid the longer they were on the road and he ended up nodding off a few hours into the drive.
Eddie was glad Buck was getting more rest—frankly, he was glad Buck was even able to sleep at all after the nightmare they both lived through—but it certainly left Eddie with a lot of time to think.
About the prick who called him princess, like that’s supposed to be an insult.
About the cop telling him the doctor wanted to check his wing—a remark so sly he might not have caught it if Buck hadn’t told him about what Gerrard said to Tommy at the medal ceremony for rescuing the remaining passengers of the capsized cruise ship Uno nearly two years prior.
About the fact that these jackasses could see something in him that he himself hadn’t even been sure about.
He was getting used to the idea when they crossed state lines into California around sunset—as he glanced over at his sleeping best friend and, despite all the cuts and bruises, despite the open-mouthed snoring, his only thought was about how beautiful Buck looked in the golden light—but sometime as they were passing by Joshua Tree he became so aware of all the thoughts he’d been repressing that he felt like he was going to vibrate out of his seat.
He’s sure now—that he’s not straight, that being gay is the main reason as to why all of his previous relationships came with an expiration date he willfully ignored, that it was so easy for complete strangers to pick up on a vibe between him and Buck because—
And he wanted to wait before he said anything. He did! He wanted both of them to get hugs from their family and rest somewhere that wasn’t a car or a hospital or a veritable prison and have some time to move at least a little bit past another trauma thrown on their heaping piles—but he knew it would be too easy for him to keep making excuses until he put it all back down in the place he hadn’t looked at all these years.
So he pulls over.
Buck wakes with a start as Eddie crosses over the rumble strips on the shoulder. “Wassgoinon?”
“Everything’s fine,” Eddie reassures Buck as he puts the car in park. “I just—can we talk about something for a sec?”
“I really don’t want to talk about what happened—”
“And that’s fine! Well—it is what it is.” He sighs. “It’s actually–it’s something about me.”
Buck sits up in his seat at that, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and furrowing his brow as he looks Eddie over. “Are you okay? Are you in pain? Is it your arm? Your head?”
Eddie chuckles to himself. Of course Buck’s first thought would be concern for his wellbeing even though he was visibly more worse for wear. Shaking his head, Eddie says, “I’m okay. Really, I just—” He reaches for Buck’s hand across the center console and threads their fingers together. In for a penny, or whatever.
Buck’s eyebrows raise but he doesn’t say anything, just squeezes Eddie’s hand before softening his grip.
“I’ve been thinking—”
“Dangerous,” interrupts Buck with a small smile tugging at his lips, squeezing Eddie’s hand again.
Eddie levels him with a look that says, You’re funny but can I keep going now? and Buck raises his free hand in playful surrender.
Eddie starts again. “I’ve been thinking about how quickly that diner dickbag and the useless sheriff made assumptions about us—no, Buck, whatever you’re about to say, I promise you it wasn’t your fault, wasn’t my fault, just their faults—because even though they were shitty bigots in a dusty, backwater town… the parts of the equation have been there for people to see.” He takes a deep breath. “I’m–I am gay, Buck. I’ve been ignoring that part of myself for so long that I forgot that the way we are with each other—the way I am with you—isn’t exactly platonic best friend behavior.”
Buck stares at him, eyes moving rapidly as they search Eddie’s face and wide enough that he can see how blue they are in spite of the late hour, and it feels like he’s watching Buck solve the problem in real time.
The grip Buck has on his hand tightens once again as Buck says a soft “oh,” and then he’s leaning forward, hovering a few inches in front of Eddie before hesitating.
In for a pound, Eddie thinks before making the decision easier on Buck and closing the gap between their mouths.
They’re both keenly aware of how banged up the other is so the kiss is gentle, and chaste, and a little awkward because they’re still holding hands between them, and both of their lips are chapped as hell after being in the desert air even with all the chapstick they’ve collectively gone through, and—
And it’s the best kiss of Eddie’s life. They should have been doing this forever as far as he’s concerned. How had it taken them so long to do the math? Buck’s lightning powers should have cracked this years ago.
Fuck waiting, he thinks as he exhales an “I love you” right onto Buck’s lips as the kiss breaks.
Quickly, so quickly, Buck replies, “Tommy broke up with me because he thought I was in love with you.”
Eddie snorts. “Weird way to say ‘I love you too’ but I’ll take it.”
Buck looks like he wants to flick Eddie in response but can’t decide where he’s uninjured enough to do so. He purses his lips in an attempt to hide his smile, but his eyes are sparkling in a way Eddie hasn’t seen in a while, and his whole expression suddenly softens as he says, “I do love you, Eddie. More than I ever thought was possible.”
Eddie disentangles their fingers so he can instead hold Buck’s face with both of his hands. He nods in understanding and agreement, then leans forward to place a kiss on Buck’s temple, his forehead, and one last kiss upon his lips before sitting back properly in his seat.
Foot on the brake, he puts the blinker on to indicate his intention to get back onto the road and shifts the car back into drive. As he merges he says, “I think that cop also called me your wife.”
In his periphery he sees Buck quirk an eyebrow and give him a shit-eating grin. “You wanna be my wife, Eddie?”
Humming, Eddie says, “Well, at the very least I would like us to be husbands.”
“Pull back over!” Buck says frantically, waving his hands in front of him as if the momentum will somehow slow the car back down.
Eddie laughs. “We need to get home! Our kid is probably waiting up for us even though he should’ve been asleep for hours by now.”
“Our—Eddie.”
He flits his eyes over just long enough to see Buck’s awestruck expression before turning back to the highway, smiling the whole time. “What?” He shrugs a shoulder. “I didn’t say anything out of the ordinary.”
Buck leans forward enough for Eddie to be able to see the incredulous look on his face without his eyes needing to leave the road. “Ordinary?! I think you just proposed to me and implied I have joint custody of Chris without batting an eye!”
“Like I said—our normal, non-platonic best friend behavior. And I arguably gave you joint custody of Chris, like,” Eddie pauses to count the years back in his head, “I don’t know, almost seven years ago?”
“Okay, sure, but—Eddie.”
“Don’t ‘Eddie’ me,” he says with a chuckle. “You love me, I love you—that’s it, that’s the end of the line, bud. We’re gonna get married. We’re… inevitable.”
Buck leans back in his seat. “Misquoting Marvel movies to make a point and you expect me to marry you?” He grabs at Eddie’s wrist and pulls it towards him, giving his knuckles a kiss before pressing his smile into the back of Eddie’s hand. After a moment he whispers, “Of course we are,” before dropping their joined hands to his lap and using his other to fully envelope Eddie’s.
And now Eddie wants to pull over again—wants to kiss Buck senselessly regardless of their laundry list of injuries as the other cars on the 10 pass them by—but he knows that the sooner they get home, the sooner they can hug Christopher, send him off to sleep together, and get so wrapped up in each other in bed that when they wake up in the morning they won’t know where one of them begins and where the other ends.
So he steps harder on the gas.
The risk of a speeding ticket is small potatoes when the rest of their lives are ahead of them.