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It’s dark when they stop for the first time, though Eddie made sure to park on the well-lit side of the conveniently placed gas station. Merely looking at it brings back all the worst memories and he swallows them down.
“You gotta walk around,” he says instead. “Doctor’s orders.”
The silence lasts as Buck stares out the window, no doubt thinking the same things Eddie is. He’s barely spoken since they started driving. “…in a minute.”
Eddie isn’t feeling particularly eager to get out himself. When they got in this rust bucket – and it’s a miracle the damn car’s been functional so far – the only thing on his mind was getting Buck as far away from that town as possible. He’s still not sure how they convinced the doctors to let them go, though he’s positive there was meddling from both Maddie and Athena to get them released. Both women were eager to get them back home and Eddie felt like climbing out a window all over again when that sheriff came by to take Buck’s statement. But Buck was still mostly out of it at that point and Eddie isn’t going anywhere without Buck right now. He’s following him to the toilet if that’s what it takes. And considering the cold unease that’s followed him here, that’s still nestled in his stomach like a permanent ulcer, it’s going to take a lot more to feel at ease again than simply seeing Buck.
Without prompt, Eddie reaches over and puts a hand on Buck’s arm. They’ve been quiet for almost a minute now and Buck really does need to move around, but Eddie takes the opportunity to feel his best friend alive right next to him.
“Eddie?” Buck sounds even worse than before, but he does turn with that familiar confusion pulling on his cut up face. “You okay?”
Eddie fights a scoff at that. “No. And neither are you. It’s been a minute, Buck, you need to walk around.”
But Buck keeps looking at him and Eddie doesn’t move his hand.
“Maybe I should drive,” Buck finally breaks the tension. Was there tension? Buck’s certainly looking stubborn enough to create tension in Eddie, but he breathes out slow and softens his tone.
“I’m fine to drive. You need to-”
“You climbed out of a window from the hospital,” Buck argues with something like disapproval in his frown. “Your arm got worse and- and you’re hurt.”
“Buck-”
“Let me drive the next stretch.”
“Buck!” Eddie snaps and he pulls his hand back and he hates the flash of fear on Buck’s face. Anger mixes with heartbreak. “I’m hurt, yeah, but you’re hurt worse. And the longer we sit here debating on it, the longer it’s going to take us to get home. So will you please get out of the-”
Before he’s even finished, Buck shoves the door open. The car protests with a loud creak and Eddie’s heart momentarily migrates to his throat when he realizes Buck is about to be out of the car by himself-
“Buck, wait up, damnit!” Eddie struggles to follow, hoisting stiff and shaking limbs out of his own seat and into the arguably cold evening. It hasn’t been that long since the sun left, and maybe it’s due to his own injuries, but the air leaves a trail of goosebumps on Eddie’s neck even as he slams his door closed and shuffles as fast as his feet will take him to Buck’s side of the car.
Buck is waiting. He’s hunched over himself, a stormy look on his face, but he doesn’t move until Eddie is next to him. He does pull away from the steadying hand Eddie offers and Eddie pretends like that doesn’t hurt.
They stay in the light, moving in a slow circle. Eddie keeps a sharp eye out for any car passing by or stopping, but thankfully it’s just them. It does create an unnatural silence in both the air and between the two of them. Their steps leave little dust clouds and Eddie tries hard not to compare the shrubs he sees to the ones back at that house. With that couple. With Buck dropping like a sack of stones-
Eddie clears his throat and blinks the after-image off his eyes. “Kind of cold out, huh?”
Buck hums and keeps his eyes on the ground. “You’re not wearing a jacket.”
“Neither are you.”
“I’m not cold.”
Eddie shoots Buck an annoyed glare. “You’re shivering.”
“Shaking,” Buck corrects as if that makes it better. “I’m tired, not cold.”
Eddie keeps himself from once more grabbing Buck’s arm. “Back to the car? You can close your eyes for a bit-”
“Until the next ninety minutes pass and you wake me up like I’m some sort of concussion patient?” Buck sharply turns toward their car. “You don’t have to keep reminding me how useless I am.”
It stops Eddie dead in his tracks and he’s not sure whether he wants to scream in anger or pain. Buck keeps walking for three more steps, then he glances behind him. Even with all the bruises coloring his face, Eddie spots the guilt. “Uhm, Eddie, I didn’t mean-”
“Then why’d you say it?” It comes out much more hurt than he’d wanted and Buck winces. He turns fully.
“I just- I hate feeling like a burden-”
“You’re not.” He can’t stress that enough and knows from the sad smile on Buck’s face that the other will never believe him.
“No, I- I know you don’t see it that way. It’s just- you’re hurt too, Eddie, and you’re having to drag me all over just ‘cause I got one more bruised rib than you-”
“You have a broken rib which could have pierced your lung-”
“Eddie!” Buck’s shout is hoarse and loud and desperate. He flings out his good arm, the other pressed tight against his side. “You almost died in a car crash and everyone is making it all about me! I’m worried about you!”
Which is sweet – somewhere in the very back of Eddie’s mind he can acknowledge that – but only serves to fan the flames of his anger. “I’m fine, Buck! I’m not the one who was kidnapped and tortured!”
Buck goes affronted. “It wasn’t torture! It was-!”
“Do not finish that sentence if you’re going to try and talk it down!”
“You’re blowing it up! You all are! And you’re doing it at your expense!”
Eddie wants to shake him, but Buck looks too broken and Eddie feels too broken. “Get in the car,” he snaps.
Buck keeps glaring. “You gonna let me drive?”
“Get in the car,” Eddie repeats. He tries to swallow his anger. “Now, Buck.”
“What, so you can crash it again!?”
The words hit harder than that truck ever did. Eddie staggers back with the impact, lungs suddenly struggling with air that feels thin and unhelpful. Right in front of him, Buck’s face goes through multiple fazes of shock before he settles on shame.
“Eddie, I’m sorry, that’s not-”
He holds up a hand, which is more to try and stop himself from crying than anything else. It has the added effect of shutting Buck up, of plunging them back into an icy silence only broken by a car speeding down the road and a far-away bird giving a lonely cry.
Eddie stares at Buck’s hoodie. He can’t get himself to look up, to see the wounds on his best friend’s face. Guilt will drown him if he does that now.
Buck breaks the silence with a shaky sigh. “I’m sorry. I- I didn’t mean that.”
Eddie nods, unsure why. He’s unraveling and scared that Buck will pull on the worst thread. “Get in the car,” he says again, except it’s more like he’s begging this time.
After a last moment of hesitation, Buck moves to the passenger side.
Eddie waits to follow. He’s off-kilter in the worst way, guilt and self-hate snapping hungry jaws right at his feet and he knows a single misstep in his thoughts will leave him as useless as Buck always fears he is. Useless in ways Buck has never been.
Eddie’s the useless one.
He crashed the car, and before that, he ordered them to stop at that damn diner just because what? He was upset? He got his panties in a twist about taking a detour he agreed to taking? Eddie just about served Buck up on a silver platter to a psychotic woman and her ex-husband, missing the danger by a mile and almost driving away from it a second time.
If he hadn’t seen the reflection of that tarp in the car’s window …
He shakes the thoughts off, mostly because he has to if they’re going to keep driving – and they need to keep driving – and wordlessly drops himself into the driver’s seat again. There’s no grace to it, but Buck has even less of that right now so Eddie doesn’t care. He starts the engine and they’re off again.
The radio stays silent this time.
Every now and again they pass headlights of oncoming cars, a few trucks, and the night darkens further along their lonely stretch of road. It’ll take an hour or two more before they hit any bigger, more frequented roads, though the time of night will hardly make them busy. On the one hand, this guarantees a fast trip, and on the other hand, it makes the night feel near claustrophobic, as if they never left that damned stretch of road they were driven off.
For the third time in ten minutes, Eddie catches himself checking the rear-view for any headlights, or floodlights. He grips the steering wheel tighter and tries to calm down.
They’re not here.
No one’s here.
A tired sigh from Buck finally breaks the suffocating silence. “You shouldn’t’ve come looking for me.”
Eddie almost crashes the car all over again as he sends a sharp glare to his right. Buck isn’t even looking at him, just staring listlessly out the window like he didn’t just say that.
“What?” Eddie focuses on the road, teeth gnashing to try and hold back his anger still so easy on the surface. “What is that supposed to mean? Of course I’m gonna come looking for you!”
“Yeah, I know- I understand why you did it-”
“I don’t think you do if you’re trying to argue that I shouldn’t have!”
Buck’s sigh is even more tired a second time around and that somehow sets Eddie on edge. His friend isn’t truly fighting him on this. It’s more like it’s one of his random facts, like he went on a secret spiral in the past ten minutes and google spat out this irrefutable answer. But Eddie is being stupid about it and Buck is letting him, convinced they’ll both get there in the end.
Buck just sees this as fact and Eddie’s foot spasms on the gas pedal. He doesn’t even wait for the next shoulder on the road, just throws on the hazard lights and steers them to the side.
Buck sits up with a wince. “Uh, Eddie? What- what’s wrong?”
“You,” Eddie snaps. He kills the engine and they’re once more in the dark, their world silent apart from the flickering hazard lights. Without pause he turns to Buck, glares at his friend’s wide, confused eyes in a face that’s been beaten all to hell. “You’re what’s wrong right now because we are not doing this again. We did it once before, in the hospital after I got shot by that sniper, and I am not doing this again with you.”
Buck’s eyes are even wider than before. “What? Doing what? What am I doing-?”
“You-” Eddie spits out, barely refraining from grabbing Buck and shaking him- “are not expendable.”
Buck freezes.
Eddie takes this as his cue to continue. “You are important. You matter. And when you go missing after a major car crash, when I have to wake up in a hospital and find the bed next to me empty because you are gone without a trace-” he grabs Buck’s shoulder across the tight space, careful not to squeeze too hard- “I will look for you. I will always look for you, do you understand me? Do you understand that you matter, Buck?”
Like a deer caught in headlights, Buck keeps staring. His mouth opens and closes twice, and then he gives a hesitant nod, as if he’s expecting to be corrected for his behavior. “Uhm, okay. That’s- I can get that.”
“Can you?” Eddie doesn’t let Buck look away. “Because when you say stuff like ‘you shouldn’t’ve looked for me’, it doesn’t really sound like you do.” When there’s no immediate reaction, Eddie decides to dig a little deeper. “Would you have looked for me if the roles were reversed?”
“Yes,” Buck croaks near instant. He goes hurt. “Of course I would have, but it’s not the same-”
“Yes, it is.”
“No, Eddie-”
“You matter, Buck.”
“I know I matter, I know that, but you-”
“But nothing!”
“But you have Christopher!”
Eddie pulls back out of shock – what the hell does Christopher have to do with this? – and watches how Buck takes that as some sort of agreement. Not that Eddie understands what he could possibly be agreeing to here.
It doesn’t stop Buck from talking. He looks calm with it, or like he’s trying to keep Eddie calm. “I get why you came looking for me, I do, but you’re all Christopher has. I know you know that.”
Eddie does and he refrains from hitting an already injured Buck. “Why the hell are we even talking about this!”
“Because you shouldn’t’ve risked your life like that!” Buck suddenly argues, as if there had been a choice. As if it had ever been an option to simply hang tight and stay safe while Buck was missing.
“No one was looking,” Eddie reminds him. His teeth gnash with it despite his efforts to calm down. But Buck keeps looking stubborn.
“You were hurt. You’d just gotten pulled out of a major car wreck and you were in the hospital.”
“And you weren’t.” Eddie can’t comprehend the non-logic. “I woke up and you were missing. You were gone, Buck. No one had any idea where you were. Hell, they thought I had done something to you.”
Buck blanches at that. “They- what?”
Eddie bites down on a curse because clearly Buck hadn’t been all that present during the sheriff’s interrogation. “No one was taking your disappearance seriously because they all thought I had something to do with it. They weren’t looking, Buck,” he emphasizes to his friend’s frown. “You were in that car wreck right along side me, and then you were gone. You weren’t in any hospital and I had no idea whether you were even still alive!” It punches out of his chest and leaves him breathless. “I had no idea where you were, Buck!”
“I’m sorry,” Buck says in that same, calm voice from before. It’s the worst fan to Eddie’s flames.
“It is not your fault!” he growls at his stupid, self-sacrificing friend. “You got kidnapped out of a car wreck and no one else took that seriously, so of course I came looking for you!”
Buck has that stubborn glint back in his eye. “And I’m saying I get it. I get why you did that this time. But you said it yourself, if the choice is between me or- or Christopher, then it has to be Christopher every single time.” He looks so deliriously serious about it that Eddie’s rage sinks down into a cold confusion. He keeps staring, as if the shadows playing across Buck’s messed up face will somehow give him the answers to this.
“…Christopher wasn’t here,” he finally says, as if Buck could have somehow missed that.
Buck sighs, as if Eddie is being the impossibly cryptic one here. “No, it’s not- Eddie, you were. You fled the hospital after being involved in a major car crash. You had a gun pointed at you.”
Eddie leans back as much as the car will allow with the worst kind of disbelief chilling his voice. “And you never even made it to a hospital, Buck. You nearly died on me in that dusty field because a pair of psychotic parents yanked you out of that car crash and didn’t take you to a doctor. And last I checked-” he talks right over Buck’s attempt to interrupt him, anger tight around his lungs- “I know how to act around guns! Definitely a hell of a lot better than you!”
“You’re not bulletproof!” Buck snaps back in his first loss of control.
Eddie keeps viciously calm. “I know. But neither are you.”
“Exactly!” Buck yells. It trips Eddie up because what in the world did they just agree on? Whatever shows on his face has Buck knuckling down on whatever point he’s making. “You could’ve gotten shot, Eddie. You could’ve died because you came after me while you were already hurt, and you can’t do that.” Buck pulls in a serious, end-of-argument breath. “Because you have Christopher and he can’t lose you.”
The disconnect between them snaps from one moment to the next as Eddie finally understands what it is Buck’s been trying to say. What he thinks Buck’s been trying to say. He goes cold all over. “So, you’re saying,” he starts carefully, hoping beyond hope he’s wrong about this, “that Christopher can, in fact, lose you.”
Buck stays serious. He’s fucking serious. “Yes,” he says, as if that didn’t just blow Eddie’s chest wide open. “If it’s between you or me, then he can lose me. But he cannot lose you.” Desperation makes Eddie’s best friend -the best man he knows – hunch in. “He had nightmares about losing you, he- he lost his mom already.” Buck looks close to crying and Eddie’s right there with him. “He can’t lose you, okay? Eddie, he can’t. So- so you can’t do stuff like this. You can’t put yourself in unnecessary danger-”
“Unnecessary?” Eddie repeats it in a whisper. He’s so tense his muscles might snap under his knuckles, but it’s all he can do to stop himself from- from something. His eyes burn and he can’t stop looking at Buck. Can’t even blink. “Is that really what you-? After all these years, that’s how you see yourself?”
Buck swallows audibly and he looks stupidly small in his hoodie, all hunched into this crap car. “You could’ve had an internal bleed,” Buck says. It’s rough with tears. “You could’ve been shot. You could’ve- you could’ve died, and then Christopher would have lost both his parents.”
“Christoph-” Eddie chokes on the name of his son. He sees curls and glasses and a mischievous smile like the kid’s right there with them. Then he sees heartbreak. Nightmares. He goes so cold with it it’s like something sucked all the warmth out of the car. The hazard lights sound louder in the silence and Buck keeps looking serious, and maybe pleading. Like he’s begging Eddie to understand.
A wicked anger flares up and Eddie gnashes his teeth to temper it.
Guess we’re doing this one more time.
After a deep breath, Eddie finally manages to speak. “Christopher is not here.”
Buck groans. “That’s not-”
“Shut up, Evan.”
Buck’s teeth click together and he finally looks wary, like maybe he’s caught on to the fact that Eddie isn’t about to agree with him. That maybe something’s wrong.
God, everything is wrong, but Eddie can fix it.
He can pull a Buck.
“You said way back when that it would’ve been better for Christopher if you were the one who got shot.” He glares when Buck opens his mouth. “That wasn’t a question. You said that, and I told you after how wrong you were. I told you about my will-”
Buck winces. “Eddie-”
“-and now we’re here,” he continues, “and you’re saying the exact same thing like that conversation never even happened. Like you haven’t been a huge part of my son’s life since he was seven.”
“A part of his life, yeah,” Buck argues because he’s Buck, “but you are his life. You’re his father, Eddie, and he can’t-”
“And you think you’re not?” The words are out before he can think about them, but the moment they fill the car Eddie realizes this is one of those things they never say aloud. He didn’t think it had to be said, but Buck seems utterly shocked.
“I- what?”
Something in Eddie wants to cry all over again because Buck seems confused. How is this confusing? “You’ve been there for him in every major part of his life,” he explains, even as it kills him that this is necessary. “You’ve been there for him and me. You’re as much a part of our family as- as me and Christopher. My kid goes to you when he can’t talk to me, or when I’ve done something stupid for the so-maniest time. You care about him like he’s your own and that’s why you’re in my will, Buck, but you can’t seem to understand that Christopher does the exact same. He cares about you like you’re his dad, because you’re family, so if you’re trying to argue reasons I shouldn’t’ve come after you, Christopher is on the wrong side of the list.” He tries to stay firm even though Buck’s shocked face is now covered in tears. “He’s one of the reasons I did, because I have failed my son too many times to count, I have seen him go through heartbreak and loss without being able to do a single thing to stop it, so the one thing I cannot do-” he leans in because Buck is leaning back, as if he’s trying to run from these next words and Eddie won’t let him- “is come home without you. I cannot and I will not put my kid through that. I’d lose Christopher because he cannot lose you, do you understand me.” He grabs Buck again because his friend looks ready to crawl out the car door. “We can’t lose you. Buck.”
There’s no answer. Buck is just staring at him, without blinking, tears shining on his face in the flickering tandem of the hazard lights.
Like he’s hearing all of this for the first time.
Which is not- Eddie must have said this before, right? Hinted at it? I mean, Christopher calls Buck his favorite adult, calls him ‘my Buck’ half the time with a teasing stuck-out tongue … but is Buck ever around for that?
Shit.
“Buck.” Eddie squeezes his friend’s shoulder. Something urgent swells in his chest. “Listen to me, you are family. Not just because of the 118, but because you are. To me and to Christopher and to tia Pepa. And if you had gotten shot – then or now, it doesn’t matter- if you had gotten shot, it would’ve killed us. It would kill Christopher because he loves you. Yeah?” He tries to swallow his own tears when Buck lets out something between a sob and a laugh. His friend is shaking worse now and Eddie holds his shoulder steady. “My kid loves you like nothing and no one else. He- he loves you like he loves me, so the next time you’re worried about Christopher losing another parent-” he makes sure Buck is looking at him- “worry about yourself. Okay?”
Buck doesn’t look like he can talk, but he’s nodding. He’s shaking hard and still barely blinks, but he twists his good arm to grab Eddie’s and holds on for dear life, to the point of painful.
For now, Eddie lets him.
“…okay,” Buck finally whispers. He’s still crying, but there’s something pulling on his mouth like he’s trying to smile too. He looks- hell, he looks shaken. Eddie silently kicks himself for not having had this conversation sooner. For not seeing Buck needed to have it sooner. He has the sudden urge to lean in and kiss Buck’s forehead, like he does with Christopher when the kid has a particularly nasty nightmare. Warmth shoots into his gut and he lets the urge go. Buck isn’t his kid. Buck is just- Buck.
And Buck is important.
Eddie squeezes his shoulder again and speaks softly. “Do you understand now? Why I came looking? Why I will always come looking?”
Buck lets out a slow, tremulous breath. He feels hot under his hoodie and Eddie tucks that away for later, to keep an eye on, but then his giant partner, the biggest and kindest man he’s ever had the fortune of meeting, gives a soft, happy smile.
“Yeah, I think I get it. I uh, I love Christopher too, like he’s family. I always have.”
Eddie gives a satisfied nod. “Good. Then promise me you will never again repeat what you just said about Christopher being able to lose you. Don’t ever even think it again, Buckley. You hear me?”
A tense laugh shoots out of Buck, one he tries to stifle immediately, but Eddie heard enough to realize it’s more sad than anything. But Buck nods and ducks his head to finally wipe at his face. “I won’t, pinky promise.”
“Good,” Eddie repeats. He waits one more beat, then lets go and turns back into his seat again. His side protests the weird position he held for so long and he groans with the stiff pain. At the same time, Buck hisses from probably the same thing. They share a look and Eddie grins, despite the exhaustion hanging from his bones. Buck looks even worse, with his cuts and bruises and newly acquired red eyes.
“You look like shit,” Eddie tells him, holding his breath in anticipation until Buck gives a wobbly grin back. His eyes slip closed.
“You should see the other guy,” he parrots back.
Eddie grabs Buck’s arm and squeezes it, feeling the warmth and strength of being alive right under his fingertips. “I am the other guy,” he finishes with a deep exhale that twinges his ribs. He doesn’t care.
Buck squints at him from the side of his eye. “You’re also the driver, remember?”
He does but he snorts anyway and lets his hand linger for just another moment before he finally kills the hazard lights and brings the car back to spluttering life.
(As promised, Eddie wakes Buck up at their next stop.
This time, they walk with their arms linked.)