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The first sticky note Buck finds in Eddie's clear, utilitarian script is at the bottom of the top drawer of a dresser Eddie left behind because it was "all real wood and entirely too heavy to bring along, you can use it, Buck."
So, now that he's finally moving in, finally not sleeping on his sister's couch, he's using the dresser. But there, in that top drawer, on the very bottom, on a yellow sticky note is a message: Tell him.
It's definitely Eddie's handwriting—Buck would know it anywhere. Tell him what? Buck wonders. And who? It must be Christopher, right? That's what makes the most sense.
Buck takes the sticky note out of the drawer and finds his little shoebox of mementos where he keeps most of his Chris-related things—Christmas or Get Well cards, other random childhood drawings, copies of fliers for school bake sales and other events Buck's attended over the years, the copy of the will he finally bullied Eddie into getting from his lawyer. He sets the sticky note down on top of the stack and then slips it onto the top shelf of the closet he hasn't gotten around to setting up yet, next to a few boxes Eddie left behind.
Buck looks at those boxes, looks at the dresser, and he gets a little flutter of hope in his chest that maybe Eddie will be back. Or maybe one day Eddie will ask Buck to ship him these boxes and he can sell or keep the dresser.
His hope crashes out again.
…
The second sticky note he finds is in the medicine cabinet. He hadn't looked in there when he was unpacking because he just left his tooth brush on the edge of the sink. But he'd just gotten back from the farmer's market with May where they'd had a booth of organic curly hair products that she'd convinced him to try. So, he's stocking them into the shelves behind the mirror when he finds it, stuck on the inside of the door.
This one says Tell him, too. So, he puts the too-expensive bottles in there and grabs the sticky note, yellow and bearing Eddie's script, and takes it back to his bedroom to put in Chris's box.
He hadn't gotten around to talking to Eddie about them. Mostly because every time he's talked to Eddie in the last few weeks, Eddie's had so much to say about about his parents, about the house, about Texas, about Chris. Buck's sure that whatever it is that Eddie needs to tell Chris, he's probably already done it. And it's private. Something between a father and a son, not between the three of them.
Still, his heart aches as he adds this sticky note to his little pile.
…
The third sticky note he finds is a bit of a head scratcher. See, this one Buck finds in the junk drawer—one that Eddie did not bother to clear out and contains all the miscellaneous crap of a long life lived in the same house with scissors and screw drivers and fliers and user manuals and extra packets of soy and duck sauce all tucked in—but Buck was looking for batteries for his Roku remote, hoping and hoping he wouldn't have to get dressed and go to the store to buy some when he finds it.
Kiss him, this one says. Oh. That's interesting, Buck thinks. But his heart melts at the thought of Eddie kissing the top of Chris's curls on a hug. He wonders, idly, how tall Chris is now. He doesn't actually know, hasn't really seen him. Is he still shorter than Eddie? Or has he sprung up like a weed and Eddie will have to bend Chris's head down to even manage the kiss?
It's what compels Buck to finally FaceTime Eddie, all thoughts of the Roku remote forgotten.
Eddie answers the phone in his Prius since it's the middle of the day and he's out running his routes. "Hey, Buck," he says, face and eyes soft.
"Hey, Eddie," Buck says, feeling the smile split his face.
At the end of the day, he's just happy to see his best friend's face. It settles something that's like a restless caged animal inside him.
"How tall is Chris now?" Buck asks, diving right in.
Eddie snorts, shaking his head. "Uh, taller than I'd like, but still not taller than me, thank god."
"Oh! Good," Buck says on a smile. "I was worried."
"Me too," Eddie admits. Wherever he is, he's stationary, so he must be waiting for a fair to pick up. "Though I don't think he's done."
"God. I'll never get over him growing up," Buck admits, and it's fucking true.
Eddie, impossibly, looks softer. "Yeah, man. Me neither."
"I just was making sure you could still kiss the top of his head." Then, Buck holds up the sticky note for Eddie to see.
What he's not expecting is to see Eddie's face pale, the color draining entirely, and the smile wiped clean off.
"I, uh, I found these," Buck stutters, suddenly not confident at all. "I wasn't sure if you'd, you know, gotten around to telling him whatever it was you were going to tell him. Or kissing him."
"Hey," Eddie says, voice strained, "I've got a ride I need to take, so I'll talk to you later."
Buck doesn't even get a chance to say goodbye before the call disconnects. It's odd, though, because Eddie always talks to him on his way to pick someone up, so he's not sure why now he can't. Whatever. Eddie must have his reasons.
…
The final sticky note he finds is in the back of the linen closet when he goes to grab a change for the bed. He must have glossed right over it when he was loading it up with his sheets and towels, but now that he's found the other three, it's really obvious. It's right there, yellow and bearing the same familiar script.
Just tell him, you idiot! it says. But Buck can't abide by people being mean to Eddie, even if that person is Eddie himself.
So, he whips his phone out and presses Eddie's contact, number 3 in his emergencies only behind Maddie and Bobby. He sure knows a lot of people with "ee" sounds at the ends of their names. Anyway, the phone rings once and Eddie's already answering.
The telltale sound of highway driving whooshes through the phone speaker. "Hello?" Eddie calls, clearly having picked up the audio through the Prius's Bluetooth.
"Hey, Eds. Are you with a customer right now?"
"Nope!" Eddie calls.
Buck is pretty certain he hears a little giggle after that.
"Is Chris with you?" Buck asks, eyebrows scrunching.
"Uh," Eddie pauses, "yeah, Chris is with me."
"Well, hi, Chris!" Buck calls out to the kid.
"Hi, Buck!" And it's really nice to hear his voice.
"Hope you guys are doing okay," Buck says, taking the yellow sticky and moving toward the bedroom without the bedsheets so that he can put this one in the box with the others.
"We're doing great," Chris assures.
"Well, I just called about…" And Buck freezes, remembering the wan expression on Eddie's face when he brought up the last one. "Uh, nothing. I'll let you guys get back to it."
"You sure?" Eddie asks. "We're free."
"No, no. It's okay. We can talk later." Buck knows he's being cagey, knows Eddie will pick up on it, knows Eddie will probably pull at the thread later, but it's just not the time to talk about Chris when he's right there. And it doesn't want to embarrass Eddie any further.
"Okay, man. See you later," Eddie says, a tinge of disappointment in his tone.
Buck feels bad about it, but he does his usual sign off, bye bye bye bye bye.
Eddie and Chris say bye back and then Buck hangs up.
When Buck walks out of the closet, he sees the bare bed and realizes he never grabbed the clean sheets from the closet. He sighs and goes back to his chores.
…
Buck is not expecting a knock on the door just as he's starting to contemplate dinner, maybe even getting some take out. Maddie, maybe? Or maybe a neighbor who accidentally locked themselves out of their house. Or hell, maybe even someone looking for Eddie, not realizing Buck lives there now.
Looking through the peephole, he gets the startle of his life. There's Chris and Eddie, on his doorstep, knocking as if this isn't their house. He blinks and rubs his eyes, thinking maybe he's just hallucinated and when he looks again he'll see something else. But no, Chris reaches up to knock again just as Buck peers out again.
"Buck, open up! It's us!" Chris calls.
Buck wrenches the door open, realizing that he looks raggedy in clothes that have holes at the knee and armpits.
"Um," he says, because what the fuck else is he supposed to say here. "Hi?"
"Hi, Buck!" Chris says, launching himself into Buck since Eddie's got his crutches.
And wow, Chris really has gotten way too tall and Buck's got tears in his eyes as he pulls Chris into him, kisses the top of his curls just like Eddie does. And he has a fleeting moment of thinking maybe he could let Chris try some of his new curl products, because honestly he's really been enjoying them, despite how expensive they are and the fact that he will have to keep going to the farmer's market to buy them.
"Are…are you guys visiting?" Buck asks when Chris pulls back, eyes flicking between Chris and Eddie.
Eddie shakes his head wordlessly, his thumb jerking over his shoulder. In the darkness of the street, Buck sees a U-Haul and the stupid Prius hitched to the back of it.
"Uh…"
"Can we crash here?" Eddie says, completely innocent.
"Crash!" Buck squawks, ushering Eddie in and noticing both bags he's carrying on top of Chris's crutches. "This is your house. I can call Maddie—"
Eddie interrupts him.
"Buck, no. We're not kicking you out," Eddie insists.
Chris is already on the couch. "What's for dinner?" He calls out. "I'm starved."
Buck chuckles and turns to Eddie. "You not feeding your kid?"
Eddie rolls his eyes. "You know he had so many snacks on the ride over." Buck's smiling, his cheeks crinkling the sides of his eyes.
Here are Eddie and Chris, in the flesh. And Buck is at peace for the first time in months—really the first time since Chris left.
"How does Chinese sound?" He asks.
"Perfect!" Chris says as Eddie ducks down the hall to drop his and Chris's bags in the bedrooms.
And it is. It's so nice, even if the house is all full of Buck's stupid furniture, even if there are months of hurt behind them. It feels like none of that matters. Because they're home and there's a U-Haul out front. They're moving back.
…
At the end of the night, Chris is nearly falling asleep into his kung pow chicken, tired from the long drive.
Eddie doesn't look like he's faring all that much better, but they both hug Chris and bid him good night, since his bedroom had been left exactly as it was before he went to Texas.
They hear him shuffling around, brushing his teeth, and all, as they clear off the dining table, throw out all the trash, and put the glasses they were drinking from in the dishwasher.
Then, it's just him and Eddie looking at each other in the kitchen, nothing illuminating them but the light above the stove that Buck has taken to leaving on all the time due to his restless sleep that spurs him in there for a 3 AM glass of water.
"Can we…talk?" Eddie asks, shifting from foot to foot, as he tries to keep his eyes on Buck.
"You wanna sit outside? It's been really nice out the last couple of nights," Buck offers.
It's not entirely altruistic. He thinks maybe sitting in the two outdoor chairs with the backyard to look over will make it easier, like it is when you're in the car. If you don't have to look at the other person, you can say more than you would with their eyes on you.
"Yeah," Eddie agrees, padding over to the refrigerator, opening it to look for beers.
"Uh," Buck scratches the back of his head a little guiltily. "I don't have any beer," he admits, "but if you want some lemonade, I made some with lemons from the tree in Maddie and Chim's backyard."
"I'll take some lemonade," Eddie smiles, laughing a little. "I'm sure it's good if you made it."
That warms Buck's heart as Eddie pulls the pitcher out of the fridge and puts it on the counter while Buck gets two glasses down. Eddie doesn't let Buck pour, instead tipping the pitcher into each glass before putting it back where he found it.
Buck can admit that he probably added too much sugar to it, but it's really fucking delicious. And it's worth it when Eddie groans in pleasure at the first sip.
"Jesus, Buck, that's delicious."
Buck feels his face heat at the praise. "Thanks, man. Come on," he says, leading the way out the back door, the same door he came through when he confronted Eddie about Kim.
He pushes that thought from his head as he sits down in one of the chairs. Eddie takes the other one, and they sip their lemonade in silence. Buck's stomach is churning with anticipation. The electricity in the air tells him that Eddie's about to have a serious talk with him—probably ask him to move out, if Buck has to guess.
"So," Eddie starts on a huge sigh.
"So," Buck says back, hands shaking so bad he has to put the glass down before he sloshes it onto his lap.
"The sticky notes," Eddie says, not what Buck is expecting even a little bit.
"Uh, right," Buck nods, fiddling with the frayed edge of the ratty t-shirt he didn't bother to change out of. "Did you tell him what you wanted to tell him?"
Eddie snorts. "No, no I didn't."
"Oh." Buck is a little shocked. "How did you convince him to come home?"
"Chris? It was really easy. He wanted to come home. But I just told him what the sticky notes were about."
"But you just said you didn't tell him."
Eddie barks a laugh at that, and Buck allows himself to sneak a peak at Eddie, his fingers moving over the condensation on the glass. "Buck, the sticky notes aren't about Chris."
"Who are they about then?" Buck's eyes snap up to Eddie's, open and vulnerable.
"You, Buck," he says, that soft fondness he gets with Buck that makes him ache.
"What did you want to tell me?" He asks, chest and throat tight.
"Think about the notes again, Buck. All of them," he says meaningfully.
Buck thinks back over them, thinks about where he found them, thinks about what they all said.
"Wait!" Buck startles himself, jumping up from his seat to fully face Eddie. "'Kiss him?' You… want to kiss me?"
Eddie just nods, takes a sip of his lemonade, and puts it on the little table between the two chairs.
"Yeah," he admits, not looking away, still beautiful even under the orange of the back porch's flood light.
"And you wanted to tell me—"
"That I'm in love with you, yeah," Eddie fills in. That's not what Buck expected him to say either, but it's so much that Buck has to close his eyes against how overwhelmed he is in that moment.
"You're in love with me?" Buck clarifies, rubbing at his eyes before finally letting himself look at Eddie again.
"Big time," Eddie nods, face carefully neutral, like he's still trying to parse Buck's reaction.
Buck's still trying to parse Buck's reaction. Fuck. Tommy and Maddie were completely fucking right. As he's standing there in the face of Eddie's own love for him, and he's hit like a Mack truck that just says "You Love Him Too" on the trailer.
"And you told Chris this?"
Because it's too fucking important that Chris is okay with this. But Chris's eager and excited demeanor earlier bodes well for Buck.
"Absolutely. And you know what he asked me when I said it?" Eddie smirks.
"What did he say?"
"He said 'yeah, that makes sense. That's why you blew up your whole life, huh? Because Buck got a boyfriend that wasn't you.'"
Buck can't help snort at that. "Man, I love that kid," Buck says, wistful.
"Me too, Buck. Me too."
There's a pause, a good amount of silence as they just look at each other, but then Eddie starts getting a little shiftless under Buck's gaze.
"So, um," he starts, "what, uh, what do you think about that?"
"About what?" Buck ask stupidly.
Eddie fixes him with an unimpressed stare. "Me being in love with you, you idiot."
"Oh," Buck says, smacking his own forehead. "Yeah, no, I'm super crazy head-over-heels in love with you too. I've been spending all this time shoving that all the way down so I wouldn't be embarrassed about being in love with my straight best friend but..." Buck shrugs.
Eddie's face lights up, his pointy teeth visible and his eyes scrunching up adorably.
"What about your gay best friend?" Eddie asks with a smirk.
"Yeah, I think it's a lot less embarrassing to be in love with my gay best friend who's in love with me too," Buck admits, feeling his own goofy grin spread over his lips.
"Great!" Eddie laughs, holding his arms open. "Can we kiss about it now?"
Buck's heart swells as he bends down into Eddie's space, letting the other man pull him into an embrace and slot their mouths together.