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“Okay, I’m calling it. We’re stopping at the next motel we see” Eddie announces after he feels his eyes starting to droop for the third time in the last ten minutes. He looks over to where Buck is slumped into his seat, his shoulders hunched over, his arm wrapped around his middle protectively.
He was hurting. And he hadn’t told Eddie, as he had promised he would.
“You sure that’s a good idea?” Buck muses, looking back at Eddie. There was an unspoken adage to his comment.
After what happened last time?
“We both need a break from sitting in this car. We’re not even halfway through Arizona yet. I can’t- I need to rest” Eddie admits. He had always had difficulties admitting shortcomings or needing help. He had started getting better at that - voicing his needs and wants - and Buck had never made him feel like he was weak for asking for things.
“We’ve taken breaks every 90 minutes. Doctor’s orders…”
“Buck, please!” Eddie doesn't want to beg, but he is exhausted. His shoulder hurts from being so cramped up and still having to move it continually. His ribs are bruised. He is battered. He just wants to lie down and sleep.
“All right” Buck whispers, his face turned back to look out of the window. “Just… nothing off the beaten path, okay?”
Wow, Eddie is an asshole. Here he was, pushing Buck to stop at a motel in the middle of nowhere, when just 48 hours prior, a motel/diner is exactly where their most recent nightmare had started. Where he had blown up at those dirt bags and had probably put Bonnie and Earl onto them, onto Buck. Of course Buck would be hesitant to stop anywhere on the road again.
“Buck…” Eddie starts, taking his eyes off the road long enough to urge Buck to look back at him. “It’s gonna be okay. There’s a Super 8 just off the next exit, I saw a sign for it. No sketchy diners anywhere.” Eddie reaches across the center console of their piece of shit jalopy, taking Buck’s hand and squeezing it tightly. He hopes that action sends reassurance to Buck. He never wants to see him so small. Not in stature, but in spirit.
“Okay…”
Eddie takes his hand back, gripping the steering wheel tightly. Steering with one hand - and an injured shoulder - hurts like a bitch. He merges into the right lane, seeing the exit come up ahead. He can see the large signs for hotels and fast-food chains, smiling when he sees the sign for In’n’Out. They are truly on their way home again.
“Animal Style burger and a chocolate shake to go?” Eddie offers, and something settles in his chest when he sees Buck smile at the suggestion.
After a 15 minute wait in the drive thru, Buck and Eddie finally pull into the parking lot of the motel. The lot is crowded with cars, which feels reassuring. If there are lots of people staying here, this can’t possibly be a sketchy place, can it? The building seems old but inviting. Unlike the motel where Abigail had worked, the reception here isn’t just a window-paned booth on the far side of the stretch of rooms, but inside an actual lobby, which seems welcoming, bright and airy. There is a breakfast area, a corner with couches - not that they have any inclination to use said couches. Eddie is dead on his feet. He just wants to eat, take a shower and sleep.
The pair sidles up to the reception counter, both laden with a small duffle bag each and the carrier bag containing their dinner. A woman close to their own age sits behind the counter, smiling openly when they approached. Eddie has to commend her; even though they are both bruised and cut up, looking like they have just come out on the other end of a fight, he woman barely bats an eyelash, merely eyeing Buck curiously, the left side of his face colored blue and red from the bruises.
“Welcome gentlemen, checking in?”
Buck hangs back, standing closely in Eddie’s shadow. He is curled in on himself, his arms still wrapped protectively around his bruised midsection. Eddie will have to make sure the bandages won’t be too tight before going to sleep.
“Uhh, we don’t have a reservation, just hoping you have vacancies?”
“Sure thing, let me just check. One night?” Eddie nods in reply. The woman clicks a few keys on her keyboard, then looks up again. “Well, we don’t have any double queen rooms anymore. Just single kings. Do you want two rooms or-“
“Just one.” Eddie doesn’t even really know why he says that. It isn’t as if they can’t afford two rooms, and still…
“Absolutely. Would you like to book breakfast as well?” Eddie looks back to Buck, who seems close to collapsing where he is standing. When had he last had something to eat? Properly?
At the diner before you blew up at him.
“Breakfast sounds good, thank you.” Eddie will make sure Buck is going to get a good night’s sleep and a filling breakfast before they’ll have to squeeze back into their tin can of a car. It’s the least he can do. If he hadn’t been so bitchy and started that fight, they’d have just gone on their merry way after getting directions. They’d already be home by now. Buck wouldn’t have had been…
“Certainly!” The woman smiles at him, but Eddie is too consumed by his thoughts, his guilt over what had happened, that he barely pays her any attention.
“That’s room 118 for you, just up the stairs and to the right. If you need anything else, someone will be down here 24/7.”
Eddie thanks her, grinning slightly at the key in his hand. What are the chances that they would be assigned that room, of all the rooms in the motel?! Maybe it’s a sign that home is waiting for them. A home away from home, for this one night at least.
“Come on, Buck” Eddie ushers his best friend to the staircase leading up to the rooms, a hand hovering at his back. He takes Buck’s bag from him when they reach the stairs. He knows that Buck needs to steady himself when walking, especially up the stairs.
Eddie doesn’t expect much from the room and is pleasantly surprised when he sees the little sitting area with a table in one of the corners of the room. The color palette (brown and lime green) screams 70s, but hey, maybe that is currently in trend again.
With a hand still at his back, Eddie maneuvers Buck into the room and onto a chair. The drive has taken it out on Buck. Where he had been chipper at the beginning of their trip, promising Maddie that he was fine over the phone, he has now sunken into himself, looking dead on his feet and miles away in his head. He eats his burger as if on auto-pilot, sipping on his shake absent-mindedly.
“Did you text Maddie that we’re gonna be a little longer until we’re back home?” Eddie asks, trying to rouse his best friend out of his stupor.
“What?” Buck looks up from where he is staring at the wood-grain of the table.
“Maddie. Did you text her about our overnight stop? We don’t want her to worry.”
“Oh. Yeah, I need to do that” Buck replies, but makes no move to reach for his phone. Eddie’s heart breaks a little at the sight. This is all his fault. He should have just ignored the dirt bags at that diner. Who cares what they thought about him. He doesn’t have to explode at everyone who assumes things about him. He had thought he had gotten a grip on his anger issues…
But he had been wound so tightly in that situation, after the hours on the road, the traffic, getting lost, the fight with Buck - he’d just snapped when those guys, those homophobic assholes, had started ragging on them, on him. He doesn’t let anyone speak to him like that. What should they care about who or what Eddie was or wasn’t. It doesn’t concern them, so they doesn’t get to have an opinion.
A lot of good his temper had brought him… A crashed car, a stint in the hospital, a cross-country search for his best friend, who could have been dead all that time… All that, just because Eddie couldn’t keep his anger in check and had drawn the sickos’ attention to him and Buck.
Buck, who is bruised, battered and traumatized. As if he hasn’t gone through enough in the last year.
“Hey, look, how about you take a shower and I talk to Maddie about our pitstop. I need to talk to Chris anyways, so it’s no big deal” Eddie offers, anything to take the load off Buck. And it is true, even, Chris is spending the time until their return with Chim and Maddie, since Hen and Karen had left on the surprise birthday trip to Napa.
“Yeah, okay” Buck replies, finally snapping out of it enough to move. He walks over to his bag, rummaging through it and getting out a spare set of clothes.
“Do you need help with the bandages?” Eddie offers, still sitting at the table.
“No, I’m good. Thanks, though.”
Eddie watches Buck disappear into the bathroom, then proceeds with the task at hand - calling Maddie and trying to reassure her that Buck was okay.
Easier said than done if you don’t believe that to be true for even a second. But there is nothing Eddie can do but make sure Buck knows that he is safe and that he is there if he wants to talk. That he’ll have his back, no matter what.
Eddie keeps one ear tuned into the noises coming from the bathroom while talking to Maddie and then Chris. Maddie isn’t pleased that they are making another stop on their trip home, anxious to have her brother back safe and sound. But she understands where they are coming from. Eddie has to promise three times that he would call her if anything happened, if Buck’s condition turned for the worse or if anything else came up. He also promises her that he’ll look after him, that he won’t let anything happen to him.
“I know, Eddie. I’d never doubt that you’re keeping him safe” Maddie replies to that. A comforting warmth spreads through his chest at her words. Maddie’s confidence in him means the world.
Buck emerges from the bathroom in a pair of sweats and bare-chested, a shirt in his hands, alongside a bunched-up bandage.
“Can you help me with that?” He asks quietly, settling on the edge of the bed. Underneath the bandage, he reveals a tube of the ointment the doctor in New Mexico had prescribed, anti-inflammatory to aid in the healing process of Buck’s cracked ribs and contused liver. Eddie has a similar tube in his own duffle bag.
“Sure.” They don’t speak while Eddie applies the ointment on Buck’s midriff, painted in a mosaic of bruises ranging from reddish brown to yellow-green in color. He wraps the bandage back around Buck’s middle, careful to keep it lose enough to not cut off circulation.
“That okay?” He asks once he is done, searching Buck’s face for any sign of discomfort.
“Yeah, that’s okay, thanks.” Buck replies, his voice a little steadier than it had been before. He slips his shirt over his head, then shuffles to the right side of the bed, slipping between the covers.
They hadn’t talked about the ‘one bed’ situation, but if there is one thing Eddie knows for certain, it is the fact that he will not be separating from Buck again if he can help it. Not after the last two days.
“I talked to Maddie, she said we should take it easy and she’ll be glad to see you tomorrow. She can’t make promises about the cake, though. Jee has tried to wear her down to let her eat the cake she had saved for us.” His last words are an attempt to get Buck to smile, but despite looking a little more alive than before, he still seems miles away with his mind.
“That’s okay, I can make more cake once we’re home.”
“Well, we’re not gonna tell Jee-Yun that, though” Eddie comments. “I’m just gonna take a quick shower and then I’ll be right back.”
Eddie feels a little bit like reassuring a small child that they won’t be alone just because he is leaving the room. But after what they had gone through the day before, Eddie is hard set to let Buck know that he isn’t by himself, that Eddie is just next door.
They hadn’t talked much about what had happened to Buck while he had been held captive by Bonnie and Earl. But Eddie can imagine it hadn’t been pleasant. And just like he hadn’t known about Buck’s wellbeing, Buck hadn’t known about Eddie’s either. So a little reassurance is more than appropriate, he reasons.
True to his words, Eddie emerges from the bathroom just a short moment later, dressed in shorts and a tank top, applying ointment to his shoulder as he is walking out. The doctor had given him a sling to wear if the pain got too bad, but it is bearable right then. He’d also need help properly strapping the sling to his shoulder and around his upper torso, and Buck seems to already be nodding off, wrapped up in the sheets facing the middle of the bed.
Eddie will be fine without the sling.
Rounding the bed to the left side, Eddie plugs his phone into the charger, setting an alarm for a reasonable time, then slips between the sheets. He sighs once his body hits the soft mattress, tension easing out of his joints immediately. Turning onto his right side, facing the middle, he studies Buck’s face for a second, the man’s features smoothing out for the first time that day now that sleep is pulling him under, then closes his eyes himself and succumbs to his dreams.
Even though he is dead tired, Buck has a hard time falling into anything deeper than a light slumber. The last two days have exhausted him, but the prospect of falling asleep and being faced with the things he has experienced is daunting. He doesn’t know how he will be able to get past this.
So Buck resolves himself to light napping for the foreseeable future. It had been the same when he had been crushed by the ladder truck. When the tsunami had hit. When he had come back from the coma. Whenever he experiences one of these extreme incidents - and there have been far too many since joining the LAFD - he reacts with being unable to sleep properly. Eventually he will get over it, but it’ll take its time.
It hadn’t just happened after his own near death experiences. He had reacted the same way after Maddie had been kidnapped - both times - or after Eddie had been shot. Buck doesn't know if there has been a year since his joining the fire department that he hadn’t had problems sleeping for at least a few weeks.
He loves his job, truly, but sometimes he wonders if it is worth it sacrificing so much for.
Buck lies on his side in the bed, facing the middle of the bed. He had been a bit out of it from exhaustion and pain when Eddie had asked the receptionist for rooms, so he hadn’t paid much attention to what Eddie had booked. Buck had been a little surprised when he saw that the room only had one bed, but Buck had been too tired to complain.
Not that he would complain anyways. He doesn’t mind sleeping in the same bed as Eddie. Their bunks at the fire station were adjacent, so they basically slept next to each other multiple times a week. And they had shared a bed while Buck had been living with Eddie and Chris after their return to LA. This wasn’t anything new.
And if he is honest with himself, he finds comfort in knowing Eddie is close. That there are mere inches separating them, instead of the miles that had lain between them the previous day. Miles, and the uncertainty whether the other one was still alive.
Buck tries to even out his breath, tries to lull himself back to slumber, at least for a little bit, when he notices the noises and movement. The curtains in front of the window don’t block out all the light, so the room isn’t completely dark. Buck can see the outline of Eddie next to him on the bed, turned to face the middle of the bed, the same as Buck.
Unlike Buck, Eddie is asleep. His eyes are screwed shut tightly, his brow creasing in an angry line. Buck can see the tense lines of Eddie’s muscles along his shoulders, the hand on his pillow next to his face curled into a tight fist.
Eddie’s whole body is tense, shaking slightly, shudders running through his shoulders. His breathing is labored, coming out in tight bursts, erratically. But just as Buck gets ready to wake his friend, shake him out of the dream that has him so agitated, Eddie calms down again, his body relaxing, his face smoothing out.
The resolve to try and sleep at least for a little while builds up again. If Buck can sleep a little, maybe he will be good enough to switch driving with Eddie for the last leg of their journey. Buck feels bad for making Eddie bear the brunt of the driving. Especially because this has all been his fault.
He shouldn’t have talked Eddie into taking a car to go home. They should have just driven to the next best airport and flown back home from there. But Buck had to go and convince Eddie into driving the whole way. And for what?
Because he was afraid of flying? Yes, that definitely played a part. But more importantly, he just hadn’t wanted the time together with Eddie to end. Nashville had been fun, he wanted to prolong that feeling for as long as possible. He had enjoyed how carefree he had felt in Nashville. He didn’t have to think about his parents’ divorce, about Bobby and how he had been so sure Eddie would come back to LA that he had put his name forward to compete for them at the firefighter olympics. Bobby had known Eddie would come back home when even Eddie hadn’t been sure about that.
In Nashville, he didn’t have to think about how hearing Eddie say that had felt. He could just focus on the games, have a good time, take his mind off the real world with a mindless hookup…
A load of good that had done them. They had ended up fighting, Buck had called Eddie names, had accused him of things he knew weren’t true. And if Buck hadn’t talked Eddie into taking the route south, they wouldn’t have gotten lost, wouldn’t have had to stop at the diner. They would have never crossed paths with Bonnie and Earl. Would never have been forced off the road, he’d never have been kidnapped, Eddie would never have been hurt…
Buck breathes deeply, tries to steer his mind away from the thoughts circling in his head. If he works himself too much into that thought spiral, he’ll end up with a panic attack.
He’s just about to nod off when Buck feels Eddie tense up next to him again.
“No… where’s- where’s he?” Eddie mumbles, his face screwed up again. His breaths are agitated, labored, his whole body shaking. “Buck- where’s Buck?!”
Buck sits up in bed, wincing slightly, his body so incredibly sore. Is Eddie dreaming?
The labored breaths of his friend turn into whimpers, his hands knotted into the sheet Eddie is wrapped in. Even in the wan light of their hotel room, Buck can see the tears tracking down Eddie’s cheeks.
“No, no, Buck, I- Buck, wake up- Buck, don’t-“
“Eddie, Eddie, it’s okay” Buck reaches over to put a hand on Eddie’s shoulder, carefully, so he won’t hurt him. Eddie’s whimpers turn into full-on sobs.
“I’m sorry, Buck, please- I can’t- Buck, I need…”
Buck turns to face Eddie completely, moving closer to his friend, running his hand over his shoulder, his arm, his side.
“Eddie, wake up, you’re dreaming” Buck feels a sense of urgency bubble up in his throat. He needs to get Eddie to wake up, needs him to fight the nightmare, needs him to calm down. He feels his own tears creep up, threatening to spill over.
Eddie is suffering, and it’s all his fault. Buck continues to run his hand over Eddie’s form, shaking him slightly. Anything to wake him up. His hand moves to Eddie’s face, pushing back the hair that has fallen into his friend’s face. Buck runs his hand over Eddie’s cheeks, over his head, down his neck and to the junction where his neck meets his shoulder.
The same spot where Eddie tends to place his hand when he wants to drive a point home with Buck.
“Eddie, it’s a nightmare. You’re okay, you’re safe” Buck tries to sooth, rubbing his thumb over the exposed skin of Eddie’s neck.
“Buck, no, Buck- BUCK!”
With a start, Eddie’s hand reaches out, closing around Buck’s wrist like a vice. He throws his eyes open, a frantic and haunted look in the usually so soft brown orbs. Eddie’s breath goes in spurts, like he has run a marathon.
“Buck…” Eddie doesn’t say anything more before he falls forward, burying his face in Buck’s stomach, his hand still clutched onto Buck’s wrist. The shaking of his shoulders betrays the tears that will undoubtedly stain Buck’s shirt.
It’s almost reflex that Buck envelops Eddie’s form in his arms, pulling him closer and protecting him from anything that could attack him in this vulnerable situation.
“It’s okay, Eds, I’m here. You’re safe” Buck calms his friend, soothes him with running his hand over his back over and over. The repetitive motion, the soft shushes he lets out to console Eddie, have the same effect on him as well. He hasn’t even noticed how much his heart is racing.
“You’re here, not gone, safe, not gone” Eddie mumbles into his stomach in-between stuttering breaths. Buck can feel the tension bleeding out of Eddie’s body slowly, until his friend lies across his lap like a boneless heap of misery.
“I’m here, you’re safe, Eds. Nothing’s gonna happen to you…”
“Not me…” Eddie whispers, his voice barely audible. He lifts his head up again and Buck’s arm falls away. Eddie releases the grip on Buck’s other wrist only to trail his hand down and lock his finger’s with Buck’s.
“You. You are safe. I thought- I thought I lost you.”
Oh. Buck hasn’t… he had thought Eddie’s dream had been about Eddie being hurt. Not about Buck being the one in danger.
“You didn’t lose me, Eds. I’m right here.” Buck tries to find Eddie’s eyes, tries to send him reassuring glances, but Eddie’s eyes keep moving from Buck’s face to his body, to across the room, unable to rest anywhere.
“I didn’t know. They said there was no one else in the car… they didn’t look for you. Thought you were dead. Thought I’d done something” Eddie’s eyes finally stop on his face and Buck can lock their gazes. “I’d never- never hurt you!”
What? Why would…?
“Eddie, what- I don’t understand…”
Buck isn’t ready for this, but he knows the conversation about what had happened to them both after the car crash is going to happen now. In the middle of the night in a motel room just outside of Phoenix, Arizona.
“Who thought you had done something?” Buck’s voice trembles as he asks the question.
“The police” Eddie says quietly, settling down to lie his head on Buck’s stomach. It looks as if all strength leaves Eddie’s body at once, leaving only exhaustion and defeat. “They thought I had hurt you. Because… because of the fight.”
Instinctively, Buck starts running his hand through Eddie’s hair, smoothing down any stray strands, combing his fingers through it. He hopes it will soothe Eddie’s clearly aching heart at least a little bit.
“It’s all my fault…”
“What is?” Their voices are nothing more than almost inaudible whispers.
“Everything. If I- if I hadn’t blown up at you, and then at those guys, they wouldn’t have noticed us. We could have just left and they wouldn’t have followed us. You wouldn’t have been taken. Wouldn’t have been hurt…”
Buck frowns. Is this really what Eddie thinks? That his actions led to the crash, to Buck being taken?
“Eds, no. That’s- that’s not what happened. It’s not your fault. They- Bonnie clocked me the moment we walked into the diner” Buck tries to explain what he had heard Bonnie and Earl talk about in the shed. “If it’s anyone’s fault, then it’s mine. It’s my fault we got lost and had to stop there in the first place. It’s my fault we fought. I kept egging you on. It’s my fault you got hurt…”
From his position on Buck’s stomach, Eddie looks up at Buck, trying to catch his eyes. Slowly, he starts shaking his head.
“No, Buck, this isn’t your fault. You couldn’t have known… You couldn’t have known this was going to happen” he says, pointing his finger at himself. “But I knew that if I got into that guy’s face, it would cause a scene. I knew that. And I did it anyways.”
“But that’s not why we were targeted. So if it isn’t my fault, then it isn’t yours, either” Buck stares down at Eddie, trying to drive his point home, reaching out and wrapping his hand around the finger still pointing at Eddie’s chest. “It’s neither of our fault…”
Eddie holds Buck’s gaze, breathing deeply, but it still comes out as a shudder, full of emotions. Then he nods, a motion so miniscule, Buck can barely register it. Slowly, Eddie lifts his head from Buck’s stomach, sitting up, facing him, barely a hand-width between their faces.
A small success. For both of their peace of mind. But there’s still the more pressing matter of Eddie’s nightmare at hand. As long as that isn’t resolved, Buck doubts they will be able to go back to sleep.
“Eddie, can- can you tell me what your dream was about?” Buck can feel Eddie’s breath catch in his throat, they are so close, he feels the short burst of air on his face when Eddie exhales.
“I was looking for you. It was so real. I was at- at the compound, I was looking for the truck. Just like yesterday… But I- I was too late… and you… you were gone. They had- they hurt you and I was too late… couldn’t- couldn’t safe you” Retelling his nightmare is clearly working Eddie up, his words coming out in fits and starts, but Buck gets the picture. Eddie’s dream had been a twisted bastardization of what had really happened.
“But you did find me in time, Eddie. We’re both okay” Buck tries to reason with Eddie, tries to get him to calm down, to not get too worked up again.
“Buck, I almost didn’t. I almost left after I talked to Bonnie. She told me where to find those guys in the oil fields and I was ready to leave. I was convinced they had been the ones to force us off the road, because we’re… I was at the car! I- I don’t know why I stopped. Why I turned back and looked for the truck there. I almost left you!”
Buck had planned to take what he had been ready to do to safe Eddie to the grave. He doesn't want Eddie to know how much he had been ready to sacrifice for him. But looking at Eddie now, seeing how distraught he is about what could have happened - Buck never wants to see that anguish in Eddie’s eyes ever again.
“I wanted you to leave. I told her to get rid of you.”
Silence engulfs them. Neither Eddie nor Buck say a thing, just look at each other, quietly, letting the words that Buck revealed ring true between them. Eddie’s fingers are still tangled with Buck’s, and he can’t stop his hand from squeezing Buck’s hands, again and again, involuntary spasms of pressure.
“What?” The word falls out of Eddie’s mouth, barely more than a whisper. His eyes grow incrementally larger, the implication behind Buck’s words only registering bit by bit.
“When- when I heard you call out, they… Bonnie wanted Earl to shoot you. To get rid of you, so you wouldn’t find me… I… I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t- you couldn’t… You have Chris and he can’t lose you, you are everything he has so I… I told them I’d stay with them. I’d pretend to be Derek… if they let you leave without hurting you.”
Eddie has difficulties comprehending Buck’s words. He was ready to… sacrifice himself, so Eddie would be okay. So he could return home to Chris.
“Why… why would you do that?” Eddie’s voice still doesn’t muster more strength than a whisper. He doesn’t know if what he is feeling is awe or horror. Awe at the man in front of him, who was prepared to sacrifice himself so that Eddie’s son would still have a parent. Or horror, about the implications that knowledge brought with it. Because if Buck had sacrificed himself, then Eddie would have lost him forever. He might not have been dead, but still lost to him.
“I couldn’t let them take you away from Chris, Eds. You… he needs you…”
“Buck, he needs you, too! I need-“ Eddie stops, reigning in the outburst. He breathes deeply before he continues. “Buck, you’re not expendable. I- we need you.”
“You don’t mean that…”
And that is the crux of it, isn’t it? Buck doesn’t believe he is worth saving. Doesn’t see himself the way everyone else sees him.
Eddie knows that his outburst in the kitchen a year ago had added its fair share to Buck’s self-worth issues. Accusing him of being selfish, of being overbearing and too much? Eddie knows that had been a low blow. But he had thought that since then, he had shown Buck just how much he values the man in his life.
Maybe he hadn’t done enough after all.
“Buck, I escaped the hospital with broken ribs and a fucked up shoulder to go and find you” Eddie’s voice is hard, but he needs Buck to understand. “I rode on a fucking horse from the hospital to the diner for you. I hot-wired that shit car that’s waiting for us outside for you. I would’ve… Buck I was ready to kill Bonnie. To get to you.”
Buck is silent where he is sitting on the bed across from him, his eyes wide as saucers. Their hands are still tangled, and this time it’s Buck who squeezes Eddie’s fingers tightly, as if to anchor them to each other.
“You would’ve… Eddie…” Buck’s voice falters. He looks down at their joined hands for a moment, then back up, fixing Eddie’s gaze with his own.
“Why?”
And isn’t that the question at the center of it all? Eddie knows the reason why he had done all of those things to find Buck. Why he would do it all again without even blinking of an eye. Why he would walk through fire without his protective gear if it meant finding Buck and keeping him safe on the other side.
“Buck…” Eddie breathes deeply. He hadn’t planned on revealing this secret for a while. Maybe ever. But with Buck looking so lost, so unsure, so devastated, he’ll do everything to make him see how much he is loved. By his family. By his friends. By him.
“I would do everything for you. Because I don’t want to live in a world in which you aren’t by my side. In which you aren’t my partner. In which I don’t wake up every morning knowing that I love you.”
“But…”
“No buts.”
Eddie holds his breath, trying to gauge Buck’s reaction. Buck seems to have trouble computing what Eddie had just admitted to him, because the look on his face makes it look as if Buck’s brain is buffering.
“You… you lo- you do?” Hope. Buck’s emotions seem to settle on hope. Eddie has learned to read his best friend very well over the last almost 8 years.
“I do.” Eddie squeezes Buck’s hand to drive home his point.
“But I thought you were…” The sentence could be finished in a variety of ways, but Eddie knows what Buck is implying. They have always been able to communicate without saying many - or any - words.
“Straight?” Buck nods to show that’s what he means. “To be honest, I don’t care. Not anymore. I love you, Buck. If that makes me not straight, then I guess that’s what I am. I’m tired of denying myself to feel joy. I choose to be happy. And I am only happy if I am with you.”
Eddie is almost breathless after that admission. It had weighed so much on his heart, having that weight removed now feels like he can finally breathe freely and deeply. He can’t stop the smile that creeps onto his face. Every word he had said to Buck was true. Father Brian had told him a year ago that he deserved to choose joy for himself. Abuela had told him that he was looking for love in the wrong place, that love was right in front of him if he was only willing to open his eyes and reach for it.
Buck is his joy. Buck is his love. And he is ready to reach for it.
“Oh.” Buck’s reaction falls from his lips like a sigh, before he himself tips forward, slumping into Eddie, burying his head in the crook of Eddie’s shoulder, wrapping his arms around Eddie’s middle, carefully, so as not to hurt him. It’s an unconscious reaction for Eddie to nuzzle into Buck’s hair, engulfing the other man with his arms. They stay like this, wrapped in each other, for Eddie doesn’t know how long.
“I didn’t know I was allowed to have this” Buck eventually admits, his voice muffled by Eddie’s shoulder. Eddie in turn draws him in closer, pressing his lips to Buck’s temple in a gentle kiss.
“You are, Buck. You are allowed to have anything you want.”
Buck lifts his head from its perch on Eddie’s shoulder, looking at Eddie, so close, his eyes so incredibly soft. Eddie only finds love reflected in them.
“I am.” Buck closes the distance between them, the kiss whisper soft. They are both too exhausted to take it any further, and they are content with what they are willing to share. And when they part, Eddie rest his forehead against Buck’s, their eyes still closed. They don’t need words to communicate that this is just the beginning, that they are moving forward side by side towards a future that is already shaping up to be all they could ever want.
In unison, Buck and Eddie move back up the bed, lying down next to each other, their hands still tangled. Eddie rests his head on Buck’s chest, over Buck’s heart. They trace each other’s heartbeats, Buck with his fingers on Eddie’s pulse point at the wrist, Eddie with his ear, listening to the rhythmic beating that is turning into his very favorite song.
Both their hearts are beating in unison, just like Buck and Eddie have always been a unit so in sync, like two people sharing one soul.
“I love you” Eddie whispers once more before he closes his eyes, letting Buck’s heartbeat lull him to sleep.
“I love you” Buck echoes, a smile in his voice.
Eddie knows that this isn’t a miracle cure, that they will need to work through what happened to them in New Mexico. It’s going to take time until they are okay again. But for this night, at least, Eddie is certain that there won’t be any more nightmares terrorizing them.
Not as long as they are together.