Work Text:
Eddie winces as he steps out the truck, gingerly clutching his side. Gauze chafes against his skin, butterfly tape dry and peeling around it.
He remembers this from when he was shot, this stage of recovering from getting a hole ripped through his body. The Uncomfortable Stage. The stage where most of the pain is gone, reserved only for feverish moments at midnight, and when he stretches a little too ambitiously. Instead, the pain dulls its sharp edges to something rougher, a nugget of irritation that festers just under the skin.
Eddie would be lying if he said he preferred the visceral pain, but it’s a damn close thing.
Gravel crunches under his boots, kicked up and loose from years of a thousand shoes running up and down the path. He remembers his elementary school being the same, with its worn-down tarmac road leading up to the school. It was too little of a school to do anything about the five inch deep potholes. The money they did have was spent on spare glue-sticks and fuzzy pipe cleaners, not construction workers.
The elementary school that Buck somehow managed to get Theo up the waiting list for (Eddie’s still not completely certain he didn’t bribe someone, or pay an Etsy witch or something) isn’t exactly similar to his old one in El Paso. Instead of squat, red brick, the school is an industrial grey, towering up with wide panel windows. There are arts and crafts projects stuck up to the glass, colorful scraps of paper and drying watercolor paints. Theo’s school has a gate too, dark green with thin threads of string and ribbon tied to various rungs. Concerningly, Eddie’s pretty sure his elementary school was left open at all times.
Shackled to the confines of R&R – as Chimney cheerfully donned it – Eddie hasn’t really had much to do. For the first couple of days after being stabbed, it was more that he couldn’t do anything. Getting a knife in the gut is pretty up there in awkwardness with being shot in the shoulder, it turns out. Awkward, in terms of him not being able to dress himself, or wash himself, or cook, or clean, or walk further than five steps, or do anything but lie on his bed and rot into his mattress.
But, eventually, that passed as all things do, and Eddie is back up to dressing and washing himself, which he thinks everyone is pretty relieved about. Despite insisting that she obviously couldn’t care less, he doesn’t think Hen was all too happy helping him wiggle on sweatpants and a hoodie every morning. It probably wasn’t an all too pretty sight.
With quiet shame, Eddie does miss Buck helping him wash his hair, how his thick fingers teased gently at knots, deftly prying them apart. He laid a towel over the edge of the bathtub for Eddie’s neck to rest on, made soft jokes under the squelching sound of shampoo when he could tell Eddie felt too pathetic to talk.
He wouldn’t go through it again, wouldn’t put Buck through it, but it was sort of nice.
Checking the time on his watch, Eddie stops awkwardly at the front of the gate. There’s a teacher already standing on the other side, hi-vis jacket blinding in the bright sunshine. He clears his throat, giving her a sheepish smile as she startles, whipping around to face him.
“My apologies,” she says before he can get a word in, “I zoned out. What’s your name and who are you here to pick up, sir?”
She brandishes a clipboard from beneath her hi-vis, clicking the end of the pen that was clipped on her purple lanyard.
“Eddie Diaz,” he says, shifting more of his weight onto his left side. Maybe the Pain Stage hasn’t completely faded yet. “I’m picking up Theo– uh, Theo Riley-Buckley? He’s in pre-k.”
The teacher nods, pen skimming down the list on her clipboard. She stops two thirds of the way down, tapping against what he supposes is Theo’s name.
“There you are.” She makes a small, humming noise of recognition. “Ah yes. I remember Buck saying something about you picking him up the next few days. Come in.”
She holds the gate open for him, smiling as he thanks her before shifting her attention to the next arriving parent. They get a more familiar greeting than Eddie received, and he wonders if Buck’s achieved that sort of status yet. He reckons he has, if the literal gatekeeper knows him on a first name basis. Then again, Buck strikes up conversation with anyone at any possible time. The chances of him meeting that teacher only once before are just as high.
He weaves his way past the groups of parents scattered about, chatting together as they wait for their kids to burst through the doors, and stops by a muddy vegetable garden tucked in the side of a playground. It’s a cute project, with little slips of card poking out of the dirt, the names of vegetables scrawled on them in varying degrees of neat handwriting. The names of the students who planted each vegetable are written on the other side.
Eddie peers for Theo’s name but to no avail. Ah, well. He’s not really sure if planting vegetables is something a four year old learns in preschool. Thinking about it, he’s sure Buck would’ve mentioned if Theo stuck a potato in the ground. Eddie probably would’ve heard it from the kid himself first, actually. The pair of them – just two grinning chatterboxes.
The school bell screams, making Eddie jump. He straightens up, feeling weirdly caught for staring at a vegetable patch. Well, it’s not like it’s growing anything yet. It’s there to be stared at; you can’t do much else.
The playground fills with noise as kids filter out of the school building, sprinting and skipping over to their parents with wide giddy smiles. One girl, barely the height of Eddie’s knees, comes barrelling over to him, pigtails flying behind her until she seems to realize he’s not who she thought he was, and pivots in her place. He bites back a laugh, and searches the crowd for Theo.
It takes a minute, but eventually Eddie spots him lingering by the front doors. He’s wearing his (current) favorite t-shirt, a red-cotton Spider-Man tee with patchy grey sleeves he's tugged over his wrists, and green cargo shorts falling at his scraped knees. His Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles backpack sits flat on his back, empty except for his lunch leftovers. There’s a melting popsicle clutched in one of his hands, dripping sugary pink onto his t-shirt.
Wide blue eyes flick across the playground, looking for Eddie. Or, at least, Eddie hopes Theo’s looking for him. Surely Buck had the foresight to tell Theo he wouldn’t be the one picking him up from school today.
Fortunately, Theo’s eyes catch on him, a toothy smile stretching across his chubby cheeks. He bounds over to him, sneakers scuffing over the gravel, one strap of his backpack falling to the crook of his elbow.
Eddie crouches down to meet him, ignoring the raw feeling of his stomach rubbing against the gauze to catch Theo before he careens into his knees. Theo giggles, high-pitched and mousy, and Eddie can’t help but ruffle the top of his sandy hair.
“Hi, sunshine,” he says. He catches a chunk of ice that falls off Theo’s popsicle, holding it up for Theo to quickly eat. “What do you have here?”
“Popsicle!” Theo chirps, watery sugar spewing all down his chin. “It’s strawberry flavored.”
“Yummy. Did you make it yourself?” Eddie asks.
Theo laughs, shaking his head like Eddie is the silliest thing.
“No,” he says, dragging the word out. “Andrew gave it to me.”
“That’s very kind of him. Did you remember to say thank you?”
“Yup,” Theo says. He gnaws on another mouthful of ice, completely immune to brain-freeze, apparently. “Molly was sad ‘cause she wanted strawberry but it’s my favorite and I didn’t want to share with her.”
Well.
You can only ask for so much, Eddie supposes.
“Maybe next time Andrew brings them in you could let Molly have the strawberry one?” he suggests.
Theo grunts but doesn’t verbally disagree, so Eddie takes it as a win. Theo’s been getting better at negotiating recently, less inclined to throwing a tantrum at the briefest sign of compromise. He’s still stubborn from his head to his toes, as all four year olds are (not taking into account a four year old with Buck’s DNA coursing through him), but he’ll listen to a proposal now, at the very least taking an opposite approach into account.
Ever the one to pass the credit along, Buck reckons it’s mostly Andrew’s handiwork. During the process of getting Theo enrolled into the school, Buck carefully went through the details concerning Connor and Kameron. He talked about how Theo knows his parents aren’t coming back but still, sometimes, can’t quite wrap his head around why. How he sometimes gets nightmares so bad that Buck ends up calling Eddie in the middle of the night, voice cracking and breaking with emotion as Theo sobs in the background.
And, in the most loving way possible, Theo is a bit of a handful. The most precious, sweetest, cutest handful that Eddie wouldn’t change for the world, but a handful none the less. His energy skyrockets through the roof, his words spilling out a mile a minute until it gets hard to understand what he’s actually saying, and Theo is panting with exertion. He hates how certain clothes feel on him, and it took a good few weeks before he was willing to take off his gold plastic medal before bedtime.
Buck told Eddie softly, over a rare glass of wine on his back patio step, that he thinks Theo might have ADHD, autism too, maybe. From what Buck said he remembers about his own childhood and how he behaved, it feels very reminiscent of Theo. Except Theo has a support system, people that care for him – parents that loved him so much – rather than just one, grieving teenage girl.
The principal heard all this, and decided maybe it was best if Theo joined an in-school group for kids who are struggling just a little more, who might need an hour or two away from the bustle of a classroom every day.
“Apparently this Andrew guy is, like, specialized in helping children cope with grief," Buck said through a mouthful of Cornish Pasty. “I don’t want Theo to feel different or– or ostracized, y’know, but I don’t want him to feel like I did when I was growing up, either.”
Eddie stole a fry from Buck’s plate and bumped their hands together. “That makes sense. I think it’s a good idea, Buck.”
Slurping up the last of his popsicle, Theo tugs on his hand, sticky fingers grabbing onto his thumb.
“Eddie?” he says, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet.
“Yeah, sweetheart?”
Theo points over to the end of the playground where the metal climbing frame gleams in the sun, the low hanging monkey-bars probably looking like stacks of precious gold to him.
“Can I go play?” Theo asks.
Eddie hums, tapping his chin thoughtfully. “Are you sure you’re not too tired?”
Grinning, Theo jumps a little, hands jittery and flappy by his sides. He looks like a baby chick about to take off. Eddie quells the aching adoration in his chest by petting the back of his head gently.
“I’m not tired at all,” Theo says, which Eddie has no trouble believing.
“Not even a little?” he teases anyway.
“Nope.” Shimmying out of his backpack and unceremoniously shoving it into Eddie’s hands, Theo stares expectantly at him with a very Buck-like expression. “I can play?”
Eddie slings the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle bag over his shoulder, straightening up. Glancing at his watch, he gives Theo a small nod, unable to stop his smile at the excited noise Theo lets out at the confirmation.
“But not for too long, okay? I have to get us to the doctors in half an hour,” he says, as if Theo has any real concept of time like that.
Theo agrees regardless, and is off before Eddie can give a warning like look where you’re going when you’re running, torpedoing over to the climbing frame. Slowly, Eddie follows him, standing by the edge of the soft, spongy floor the climbing frame and other park equipment is built atop.
The school gives a half-hour leeway for everybody to leave the playground, so he knows it’s okay to hang around for a bit. Still, it feels a bit odd just standing here, watching dutifully out of the corner of his eye as Theo flings himself from monkey bar to monkey bar. He doesn't seem to have any fear or self-preservation when it comes to clambering up climbing frames – or Buck’s kitchen counters – and it’s honestly a little scary to witness.
Snapping a quick video of Theo’s current, rather impressive, gymnastics routine, Eddie pulls up his and Buck’s messages. The last text was from six hours ago, wishing Eddie a good morning, and an unnecessary thank you for picking Theo up from school whilst he’s on shift. As if Eddie would ever say no to that, stab wound in his side or not.
He sends Buck the video, watching as the read receipt pops up less than a minute later.
Buckley (Work): Omg.
How long has he been doing that?
15:11PM
Eddie: About five minutes.
I think the Spider-Man t-shirt has really awakened something within him.
15:11PM
Buckley (Work): Clearly!
Pretty good form, though - maybe I should get him into gymnastics??
15:12PM
Eddie: If you don’t, I will
He would wipe the FLOOR with the other kids.
15:12PM
Buckley (Work): Okay wow, Mr Diaz
I didn’t realize you were so competitive when it came to elementary school level sports.
15:12PM
Eddie: My three ballroom trophies and five baseball medals should’ve told you that, Buck.
15:12PM
Buckley (Work): Well now you’re just bragging
Do you even need your silver star if you have the 2005 WDC Championship Gold Trophy?
15:12PM
Eddie: How do you know that.
15:13PM
Buckley (Work): I did some digging…
13yearoldeddieballroomdancing.JPEG
15:13PM
Eddie: BUCK
DELETE THAT
NOW.
15:13PM
Buckley (Work): As if
Tell the kids I love them before you start ignoring me!!
Read: 15:13PM
The kids. Eddie shoves his phone back into his pocket, swallowing around the sudden lump in his throat. It’s nothing Buck hasn’t said before, in fewer or more words, but it hits him right in the stomach every time, every little implication that Theo and Christopher are theirs, joint and plural, like a thousand hot pokers pressing into the back of his neck.
He purses his lips, resolutely pushing the feeling down. It falls into that category of Things Not To Touch Right Now. That particular box is starting to overflow.
“Eddie!”
Eddie looks up at Theo’s call, shielding his eyes from the sun with his hand. Theo’s crouching on one of the lower bars of the climbing frame, knees bent and hands loosely gripping the metal below him. He lets go of it with one hand to wave frantically at Eddie.
“Watch this,” Theo continues, and jumps off the climbing frame onto the soft asphalt.
It’s…well. It’s unimpressive for anyone who isn’t 3 '5, but Eddie makes a surprised noise anyway, giving Theo a smattering of applause.
“Wow,” he says. “That was very brave, mister.”
Theo puffs his chest proudly. “I can do it again!”
He’s already scrambling up the climbing frame again, eager to perform and prove himself right. Eddie probably should’ve seen that coming. Now he’s going to be stuck in an ever-spanning loop of watching Theo jump off things.
“I bet. How about you give it three more goes, and then we say bye-bye to school until tomorrow?” Eddie says.
“Okay,” Theo agrees happily. “I’m going to go higher.”
He has a brief flash of the aerial tower, Theo wobbling precariously as he strained for his red balloon, and winces.
“Not too high, okay?”
“Mhm,” Theo replies.
Reassuring.
Theo jumps again, shoes smacking with a resounding echo. He’s grinning from ear to ear, giggling to himself as he runs around the back of the climbing frame to, presumably, go even higher. It’s hard to tell him to stop, to ruin his fun, when he looks as gleeful as he does.
Eddie’s watching carefully to make sure Theo isn’t getting to a height that’s actually going to do some damage when there’s the click of heels behind him, and a breath that exhales an inch too close to his ear.
He turns, just as Ana Flores stops short of him.
“Edmundo,” she says, breathy and surprised.
Eddie blanches. Ana stares back at him, a strand of curly hair escaping her ponytail, mascara smudged beneath her left eye. She’s wearing the same lanyard as the teacher by the gate, but it’s a burgundy rather than purple, half-hidden beneath her wool cardigan. Still, Eddie can see her photograph printed on the plastic rectangle, the bold letters of MRS FLORES printed next to it. There’s a badge pinned to the lanyard strap, blue with a white unicorn in the center.
Eddie hasn’t seen her since the day she walked out of his kitchen, the touch of her hand lingering on his forearm. He blinks, shaking his head once to clear his mind.
“Ana,” he says, and finds the smile that reaches his lips is easy. “Hi.”
Ana smiles back, shoulders relaxing like she didn’t quite know what to expect from him. “Hi. I hope you don’t mind me coming over. I saw you across the playground and wasn’t too sure.”
“It’s good to see you,” he reassures, waving her off. “It’s been…what? Four years?”
“Almost five,” Ana says. She clasps her hands in front of her, and light catches on the gold band around her ring finger, twinkling in the sun. “How are you, Eddie?”
He pauses to think about it. It’s a broad question, something he doesn’t think he could ever answer with 100% truth. Questions like that are too open-ended for him when the answer fluctuates so much, oscillating up and down like towering sound waves. Still, Eddie tries as best as he can.
“I’m good,” he says, bobbing his head. “Yeah, I’m– I mean, I’m off work for the moment. Um, mandated recovery time. But other than that– no, I’m good.”
Ana raises an eyebrow, eyes darting over him like she’s quickly trying to assess what exactly he’s recovering from. “You haven’t been shot again, have you?”
He snorts. “No. Although, almost, I guess. You know Presbyterian was in lockdown the other week?”
“I heard about that, yeah.”
“Well. I got stabbed.”
Ana’s lips purse like she’s trying to hold back a laugh. Her fingers come up to press against her mouth, manicured and painted pink.
“Sorry, it’s not funny,” she says, even though her voice has gone all high-pitched from trying not to giggle. “You just…You always deliver news like that as if it’s normal.”
He shrugs, cracking a grin. “It sort of is to me. Anyway, what about you? I didn’t know you worked here.”
Ana was working at the middle school on the west side of town when they were dating – vice principle, if he remembers correctly. She seemed happy there. But then again, a lot can happen in five years.
“It’ll be three years in September. I split-teach fourth grade with O’Donall,” Ana says. She tucks the loose strand of hair behind her ear, leaning a little closer to him as if she’s about to whisper a secret to him. “If you don’t mind me asking…well, I know you’re not here for Christopher.”
The question lingers unsaid, and it takes Eddie a moment to gather it up, to form it into a sentence that makes sense for him. He feels his face flush, cheeks heating up as he quickly glances over to the climbing frame.
It’s empty, but he doesn’t have to search for long because Theo is suddenly bounding over from behind the monkey bars. He runs up to Eddie’s legs, little hands grabbing one of his belt loops and tugging to get him attention.
“You didn’t watch me jump,” Theo whines, thunking his forehead into Eddie’s leg. “You said you would.”
Eddie drops a hand to Theo’s head, patting consolingly. “Sorry, buddy. I got distracted.”
He shoots Ana a knowing, side-long glance, and finds her smiling, eyes crinkled as she watches Theo. Bending down, Eddie scoops the boy up, settling him on his hip with a swing. He jostles him playfully before focusing back on Ana.
“This is Theo,” he says, feeling Theo tilt his head against the crook of his neck at the sound of his name. “He joined pre-k here in May, didn’t you?”
Eddie brushes a clump of hair out of Theo’s eyes, tucking it behind his ear. It springs back to place immediately, unrestrained and uncontrolled. He really is due a haircut, but any time he or Buck mention it, Theo’s arms fly up to protect his hair like they’re going to hack away at it right there and then.
“Yes,” Theo says, voice lispy and a little shy as he blinks at Ana. “Are you a teacher?”
She smiles kindly at him, lips glossy and pink. It’s the same exact look she used to give Christopher, and quietly Eddie remembers why he was so desperate for it to work out with her.
“I am. I teach kids a little older than you,” she says, lifting her lanyard up to show Theo. He reaches for it, tapping grubby fingers over the plastic cover. “I also used to be friends with your Dad.”
Eddie startles, a croaky noise escaping his throat before he can clamp his lips shut. Fortunately, Theo doesn’t seem to notice, too busy playing with the clip of Ana’s lanyard.
“Oh, uh– not Dad,” he says sheepishly. “Just Eddie.”
Ana’s eyebrows raise, eyes widening a fraction. “Oh?”
She’s surprised, evidently, and Eddie blushes, dipping his head as he tries to think up the right words. They don’t come; there aren’t any right words for this explanation, nothing he can say that fully encapsulates everything. So Eddie just says the clearest, simplest answer that pops into his head.
“Yeah, um. He’s Buck’s.”
Ana’s eyes widen even further, lips parting on her next breath. She nods, brows scrunching just slightly in the middle before smoothing out again. Squirming on his hip, Theo drops Ana’s lanyard to clutch Eddie’s shirt collar.
“Buck!” he says, voice raising in pitch and volume as his excitement begins to bubble again, flooding through his wriggling body. “Is Daddy coming?”
It’s been a cautious thing, navigating how Theo views Buck, and what he calls him. Some days, it’s simply ‘Buck’ (‘Mr Buck,’ in the early days). And then, some days, it’s ‘Daddy,’ or any other variation of the sort. Buck seems to be happy with anything Theo calls him, never correcting him, never faltering when ‘Dad’ switches to ‘Buck’ in the same sentence. The only name Eddie’s seen him wince at is ‘Poopy.’
“No, honey, not until later. He’s at work, remember?” Eddie says softly.
He pats Theo’s back to try and dispel some of his energy, but it doesn’t seem to work. Theo leans back in his arm, hanging half-upside down off Eddie’s body. He giggles, planting one foot on Eddie’s hip and the other on Eddie’s thigh to push off him, dangling like a monkey. Holding Theo easily by the arm, Eddie sways, swinging him lightly from side to side.
Ana laughs, teeth pressing into her bottom lip. “Yes, I can see that. He’s certainly like him, isn’t he?”
“Almost a carbon copy,” Eddie agrees.
Smile fading into something smaller, more private, Ana reaches out to squeeze his wrist. It’s a warm touch, friendly and familiar. Eddie smiles back at her easily. It’s almost upsetting, how much nicer it is like this, when he doesn’t feel the weight of expectation crushing on his chest, yanking his shoulders down. He reckons they would’ve been really good friends, if Eddie even had the slightest bit of his shit sorted out back then.
“I’m really happy for you, Edmundo,” Ana says, squeezing his wrist again before letting go. “I thought– hm. I always wondered, y’know? About Buck. About you. Your love for him always seemed a bit different.”
Embarrassingly, the admission knocks the breath out of him. It digs into his ribs, a splintering shard of wood shoved between the bones. Beneath its gauze blanket, his wound throbs, matching the rapid pulse of his heart.
Ana’s insinuation isn’t lost on him. He can’t even say he’s surprised she’s drawn that conclusion. He’s not even sure she’s wrong anymore.
Whatever’s been swelling in his chest – that warm ball of light that erupts every time Buck looks his way, hand glancing over Eddie’s back in the kitchen, foot hooking around his under the dining table, sleepily blinking after Eddie wakes him up from the couch – isn’t something he’s really wanted to try and figure out right now. There’s enough of his plate as is. There’s enough on all of their plates.
But these kinds of things have no care for personal timing. Eddie’s been ignoring it for a long time. It’s about time it rears its ugly head– and it isn’t even all that ugly, as it turns out. Nothing about Buck, about their family, could ever be.
“Yeah?” he manages to say.
She nods, eyes flicking fondly to Theo yabbering gibberish to himself, and then back at Eddie. “A good different, I think.”
Maybe, if Ana can be this honest, this transparently raw, Eddie can also try to be. He hauls Theo back up, chest fuzzy at the noise of his giddy laughter, and thinks about Christopher, probably arriving home right now, flopping down on the couch. Buck walking through the front door in three hours, sweaty and tired. He’ll press kisses to the boys’ head before he lingers in front of Eddie, grin big and boyish as he cracks some stupid joke.
“I think so too,” Eddie says.
They say goodbye soon after, Ana heading back into the school to finish marking some English homework. Eddie herds Theo out of the school gates, offering the teacher still standing there a two-fingered wave as they hurry past. Down with the routine, Theo clambers up into his car seat by himself, flinging his arms up so Eddie can tuck and buckle him in properly.
“I want froyo,” Theo declares on the third red-light intersection.
When Eddie glances at him through the rear view mirror, the boy is pouting, lip jutted out in the exaggerated way he does when he’s tired and bored, and tired of being bored. Buck wears the same expression in the 40th hour of a 48 shift, right up until someone agrees to play Mario Kart with him.
“We can get some after the doctors,” Eddie reasons. He pulls off the main road, biting back a curse as a car narrowly cuts in front of them. “Have a big think about what flavor you want, hm?”
“And Chris?”
He’s not sure how much Chris would appreciate a tub of what will surely be melted froyo by the time they make it home, but he nods anyway.
“Yes, and Chris.”
Theo takes the job seriously, mumbling about vanilla and flake, cake with sprinkles, and blueberry froyo all the way up to the clinic. Absentmindedly humming and ahhing to all his suggestions, Eddie holds onto his little hand and stops by the front desk.
The man behind it looks up, smiling kindly at them both.
“Good afternoon,” he says, “what can I help you with?”
“Hi,” Eddie says, squeezing Theo’s hand as he jumps in his spot to try and see over the desk. “I’m here for a check-up with doctor Mani? Uh, Eddie Diaz, my appointment’s at 3:45?”
The man types for a moment and then nods, gesturing over to the small waiting area. “He should be with you in a minute. Please, feel free to take a seat while you wait.”
“Thanks.”
There’s only one plastic seat free, so Eddie tugs Theo into his lap and attempts to bribe him to stay still by letting him play with his hand. He gets right to work with bending Eddie’s fingers backwards and pinching the skin around his knuckles, fascinated with how ‘old and weird’ Eddie’s hand looks compared to his own. Theo’s tracing the tattoo trailing down to his wrist when Dr. Mani pokes his head around the room and beckons for them with a toothy smile.
“Can I have a sticker?” is the first thing Theo asks as Dr. Mani shuts the door behind them.
Eddie snorts a laugh, sitting down on the main, resting chair in the centre of the room. “That’s only if you’re the one in this chair, sunshine.”
“Ah, but I’m sure we can figure something out,” Dr. Mani says, winking playfully at Theo.
The boy grins back, plopping himself down on the armchair in the corner. He looks ridiculously small sitting in it, like the furniture has grown to some exaggerated oversized version of itself. Eddie gives him a little wave, heart clenching when Theo’s hand curls into a fist, catching it.
“Are you looking at Eddie’s tummy?” Theo asks, heels hitting the armchair.
Dr. Mani looks up from snapping on his gloves, nodding. “I am indeed. How’s Eddie’s tummy been feeling?”
He directs the question at Eddie, of course, eyes twinkling with the kind of gentle amusement that always comes with interacting with a four year old.
“Good,” Eddie replies, lifting his shirt so Dr. Mani can carefully begin unpeeling the gauze. “A bit uncomfortable but nothing out of the ordinary.”
“Daddy said Eddie’s tummy hurt him a lot,” Theo chimes in, “and that’s why he couldn’t play with me for ages.”
It was a couple of days at most, but Eddie makes a solemn face at him nonetheless.
“It was hard for us all,” he says gravely.
Chuckling, Dr. Mani straightens up, nodding an affirmative at Eddie to drop his shirt again.
“Well, Dad was right about that,” he says to Theo. “Rest is what helps us heal and feel better again.”
Eddie swings his legs off the chair. “Everything looks fine then?”
“Stitches look good, and there’s no sign of inflammation or infection,” Dr. Mani says. It’s what Eddie already suspected but it’s always nice to have a second confirmation. “Just continue what you’re doing and you should be back to work by the end of the week. I understand your partner will be vigilant about making sure you do wait until then, yes?”
The day after he was stabbed and he was still in the hospital, Buck listened dutifully to every instruction he was told, nodding along in that intent, purposefully listening way that he does. As if Eddie hasn’t had much worse than a knife in the gut – as if they both haven’t. That one interaction must’ve been enough to convince Dr. Mani that he was in safe hands and that Buck was his partner.
Eddie used to wonder what people saw when they assumed that, whether it was just because people never had the context of them as Buck and Eddie rather than BuckandEddie that they drew those kinds of conclusions. Now, he thinks they probably didn't see anything that wasn't right there in front of them. It’s taken him a second to catch up to that.
“Yes, he’s…very stubborn,” Eddie says.
It’s definitely one way of describing Buck’s intensity. He can think of a few others he’d rather not currently share in this doctor’s office.
True to his word, they stop at their frequently visited froyo place on the drive back home. Theo settles on his cake-pop flavor, proudly showing off his doctor sticker off to the froyo worker. Eddie has fudge, and they get Chris the blueberry one.
When they get home, he slides it immediately into the fridge, the bottom of the tub already sagging with the moisture of it melting. He can hear the sound of a video game playing from beneath the door of Christopher’s room, and he’d rather not interrupt the process with froyo, of all things. Still, Chris emerges less than twenty minutes later, surprising Theo by tickling up his back where he’s sitting cross-legged by the coffee table coloring, before joining Eddie in the kitchen.
“Hey, kiddo,” Eddie says, gratefully accepting the side hug Chris offers on his way past. “There’s blueberry froyo in the fridge if you want it.”
“Yum,” Chris says. He yanks open the cutlery draw, rummaging for a moment to find his designated spoon. “Thanks. How was the doctor’s?”
“A breeze.” Eddie gestures to the spoon Chris was about to plop into his mouth. “Gimmie some.”
Chris rolls his eyes but holds out the spoon for Eddie to steal. He pats his belly with exaggerated contentedness, narrowly avoiding jabbing his fingers into his wound. That would not help the healing process.
The front door opens just as Eddie’s ladling up dinner, a shop-bought katsu curry that he has little shame in not cooking himself. Theo whips around in his booster seat at the noise, watching intently until Buck stomps round the corner into the dining room.
“Buck!” Theo says happily, stretching his arms out behind him and tipping his head back.
Buck grins, carefully depositing his duffel bag in the corner of the room before coming over.
“Hi, all,” he says. He bares his teeth at Theo like a growling tiger, laughing and plopping a kiss onto his head when Theo growls back. “Hi, monster. What do we have here?”
He draws out the chair beside Christopher and opposite Eddie, foot immediately finding its place against Eddie’s ankle, their bones bumping together. He squeezes Chris’s shoulder in greeting, smile softening into something a little less chaotic.
“Katsu curry,” Chris replies, already chewing around a mouthful of chicken. “Dad got it from Trader Joes.”
“Whoa now,” Eddie says. “No need to rat me out like that.”
Buck clicks his tongue, shoveling a fork of rice into his mouth. “I’m disappointed, Eds. Am I giving you free cooking lessons for nothing?”
“I was a bit busy today, Gordon Ramsey,” Eddie says, fixing him with a flat glare. Buck smiles back, unbothered. “I’ll have you know I cooked the rice and the chicken.”
“I helped,” Theo says as he smears curry over his mouth like he’s trying to give himself orange lipstick. “Eddie let me stir.”
“Hm, I thought it tasted extra mixed,” Buck says, before reaching over and wiping Theo’s face clean. “Food goes in your mouth, baby. Okay?”
“‘Kay,” Theo echoes, entirely unconvincing.
After dinner, Theo and Chris escape to the living room to play some Minecraft together. They’ve been working on their joint creative world and, from what Eddie can tell, it mostly consists of Chris building beautiful cherry-blossom houses, and Theo trying to gather as many pet chickens as possible.
He slides up to Buck by the sink, easily stealing the soapy plate in his hands to dry himself. Buck gives him a disapproving look but adjusts to make room for Eddie. On the evenings they spend dinner together, there’s been an unspoken rule that whoever cooks (usually Buck) gets to relax after eating, whilst the other finishes washing up. Still, it feels a little like cheating when all Eddie really did was empty different packets into the same pan.
“Thank you for dinner,” Buck says after a few minutes of comfortable silence. “It was delicious.”
He bumps Eddie’s hip with his own. Eddie nudges his shoulder in retaliation.
“I barely did anything. Trader Joes is the real chef here.”
“You still made it,” Buck says, undeterred. “It was just what I needed.”
You’re just what I need, is almost what spills out of Eddie’s mouth. Instead, he focuses on drying beneath the annoying fold of his plastic colander.
“Hard shift?” he asks, subtly checking over Buck’s demeanor for a strained jaw, or a buckling knee.
Maybe it’s not so subtle, because Buck raises an eyebrow at him. He flicks off suds from his fingers into the washing up bowl, turning so he’s facing Eddie.
“Nah, not really. Just one of those weird ones,” he says.
Eddie hums in understanding, putting down the colander. Sue him, it can air dry. Before he can lose his nerve, he latches onto that warm ball of light inside him and holds fast.
“Hey, did you know Ana works at Theo’s school?” he asks, and watches in real time as Buck’s face morphs into a comical gape.
“No way.”
He laughs, threading the dish towel through his hands. “Yeah. I bumped into her today when I was picking him up. She teaches fourth grade now, apparently.”
Buck nods slowly, seemingly trying to process this new bout of information. And then, maybe because Eddie’s laughing, because he can see that there’s nothing but softness lining his face, Buck cracks a grin.
“You didn’t have a panic attack, did you?” he jokes, and has the audacity to yelp when Eddie swats him with the dish towel.
“Asshole,” Eddie laughs. “Oh my god.”
Buck raises his hands in defense, batting against Eddie’s wielding towel until they’re practically jousting around the kitchen, bumping into the chairs and jamming their hips against the counter tops. He manages to get one more in, mussing up the back of Buck’s hair, before Buck is calling for surrender, barely getting the words out through his hiccuping giggles. Eddie mercifully relents, pushing one teasing finger into Buck’s chest as a final warning. His back is flush against the fridge and he’s looking at Eddie like he’s all the world, and not someone who just attacked him with a wet dish towel.
And Eddie–
God, Eddie really wants to kiss him. He wants to step forward and kiss Buck stupid, until that dazed dreamy look is replaced by another dazed dreamy look, and Eddie can do nothing but kiss him again, addicted to the feeling.
And he thinks he might, he really thinks he might because he’s stepping forward, hand reaching out to curl around the neckline of Buck’s t-shirt, and Buck’s lips are parting, eyes widening as he blinks like a barn owl at him, and Theo lets out a shrill, frustrated scream from the living room.
They both startle, jumping apart. Buck’s head snaps towards the sound, and he’s moving a pace towards the door before his mind seems to realize it at all. He pauses, looking back at where Eddie is still standing, thrown, and bewildered, and red in the face.
“Tell me about Ana later?” Buck asks with a low, pleading note.
Eddie nods, stuffing his hands in his pockets. He feels no doubt that he will, that this is it. There will always be a later, and even if he kind of wants it to be now, that’s probably the better time.
He lets Buck go, turning his attention back to the dishes. He picks up the colander again, and puts it back down. He’ll get to that later, too. There’s a hundred and one things Eddie can do with his time, now that he knows what’s waiting.
This time, he doesn’t let it linger too long. Theo and Chris go to bed, and Eddie leans over to press a chaste kiss to Buck’s lips over a bowl of butter popcorn. Turns out Ana was right about a whole lot of things. It is a good different. The best kind.