Work Text:
“This is definitely a shift-ending kind of injury, bud.”
“It’s not—” Buck pulls his leg away from Eddie’s gloved hands. “It’s not an injury, it’s just a-a flare-up.”
Eddie pushes Buck’s slacks up past his knee, his very swollen knee, and gestures to the mottled bruising stretching down his shin like bleeding ink. “A flare-up,” he says, flat. “After you fell down the stairs.”
“Only because that girl tried to jump out of my arms!” He pushes up from the couch, letting his pantleg fall back into place, and begins a limping journey to the kitchen. Eddie follows, pulling off his nitrile gloves with a snap.
Chimney, from the dining table, rolls his eyes but stays silent, prefering to focus his energy on his day-end paperwork.
"Go home, Buck,” Hen says from the other end of the loft. “It hurts looking at you.”
Buck huffs and grabs a can of soda from the fridge, passing a second to Eddie, one of those kinds that are low in sugar and high in fiber and taste slightly questionable. Eddie drinks it anyway, letting a beat pass, then another.
And then: “Why don’t you want to go home?”
Buck sets his soda down on the counter. “Because I don’t need to, Eddie.”
“No, I mean—” Eddie sets his own down. “Is it Theo?”
“Wait, what?”
“Do you— I mean, I get that this is all new, Buck, but you can’t—”
Buck holds his hands up. “Okay, wait, you think I’m avoiding going home to Theo?”
Eddie shrugs. “I mean, isn’t that what I was doing with Chris when he was Theo’s age?”
“Eddie, it’s not like that,” Buck says. His face does something that makes Eddie’s stomach twist with immediate regret. “He— We just spent, like, eight weeks together, I-I loved every second, seriously.”
“Okay,” Eddie says.
“He needs to get used to me being gone, you know? We-we got our home routine down, bedtime and stuff, so now we’re just working on the other one where I’m at work. You know what I mean?”
Eddie can only stare. A huge, swelling feeling takes up space in his chest cavity, like someone inflated a jump cushion behind his ribcage.
“Yeah,” he eventually says. “I know what you mean.”
Buck shrugs. “So I don’t want to disrupt the routine.”
“And throw him off.”
He nods, and a single ringlet of hair flops over his forehead. “Yeah, exactly. You get it.”
Eddie gets it.
But Buck is holding his left foot an inch off the ground the way a dog might when it gets a thorn in his paw, and Eddie really wants him to go home. If not his own, then—
“Hey, why don’t you head to my place, then? Chris should be home by now, and you know how much he loves to dote.”
Buck looks like he might actually be considering this when his phone rings from his pocket. He pulls it out, and Carla’s name flashes from the screen. He answers it on the second ring.
“Carla,” he says, eyebrows meeting. “Everything okay?”
Eddie leans in to listen, and Buck puts her on speaker.
“Oh, yeah,” Carla sighs more than says. In the background, loud and wailing, is Theo. Eddie’s heart constricts at the sound, and with the way Buck’s bottom lip disappears between his teeth, he thinks his does too. “We’re just missing our Buck tonight.”
Buck lets out a breath that fans over Eddie’s face.
“Oh. Uh—” He covers the mic and says to Eddie, “Should I talk to him?”
Eddie gestures to the phone with his soda. “Unless you want him up all night, I would. Maybe he just needs to hear your voice.”
Buck’s eyes soften, and he uncovers the mic. “Carla, could you—”
“Theo, come here, sweetpea. I got your Buck on the phone.”
There’s some shuffling, a toddler-sized sob that sounds more like a cough, and Theo’s tiny, lisping voice rings through clear.
“Buck?” it says.
Buck softens further, to the point where he has to lean against the counter to keep himself upright, and Eddie squeezes his forearm, one quick comforting pump of pressure. “Hey, buddy,” he says. “What’s the matter? Why are you crying?”
“When are you coming back?”
Buck settles his weight onto his left foot and lets out a hiss away from the phone. “Uh, tomorrow, remember? We marked it on the calender together before I left this morning.”
Another sob. Closer to a whine, this time. Eddie thinks they might be veering into overtired territory.
“But you said you would tuck me innn.”
Hen sneaks into the kitchen to get something from the cabinet above Buck’s head, and Eddie’s hand finds its way back on his forearm as he helps him shift out of the way. At the sound of Theo’s sad little voice, she pouts and mutters, “Poor baby.”
“Yes, but tomorrow, Theo. I said I would tuck you in tomorrow night. Tonight Miss Carla—”
“But I don’t like Miss Carla!”
“Oh, now—” Carla starts.
Eddie winces. He gets a feeling of déjà vu, and for a second he’s brought back to that second year in LA, after Shannon died, when Christopher spent weeks refusing to let Carla put him to bed. He was so little, and all he wanted was his dad.
Theo’s even littler, and he lost not one, but two parents.
Eddie can see the fight going out of Buck’s shoulders, and he can’t even blame him.
“I lied!” Theo whimpers. “I’m sorry, Buck, I told a lie.”
Buck clears his throat. “That’s okay, bub, but you should probably say you’re sorry to Miss Carla.”
“I’m sorry, Miss Carla, I like you, I didn’t mean to say that, I’m sorry.”
Carla chuckles. She really is a saint. “That’s okay, baby, I know you didn’t mean it. Do you want to tell Buck what you’re feeling?”
Theo is quiet for a second, then he says, “I just miss you, I guess.”
Buck catches Eddie’s eye. “You didn’t miss me the last time I went to work. What’s different now?”
No answer. Carla says, “He just shrugged, in case you couldn’t see it.”
Buck is biting his lip again, and Eddie has to physically refrain from stopping him. They’re still holding each other’s gaze, like a mutual anchoring. Dad-to-dad telepathic communication.
“And he just ran off, the little spitfire.”
“Did you manage to get him in the bath, at least?”
Carla laughs. “Buckaroo, I barely got him through dinner. There’s leftovers in the fridge. Leftovers! I swear that boy was born with two stomachs, and he had me breaking out the Tupperware tonight.”
Buck squeezes his eyes shut and pinches the bringe of his nose. “God, okay. Okay. I’m on my way.”
“Are you sure? Because I can handle him, you know.”
“I know.”
“I took care of Patricia Clark. Unless you forgot.”
Buck smiles. “No, I-I definitely didn’t forget. Just—”
“We’ll be waiting. Drive safe.”
She hangs up, and Buck stares at his dark phone screen.
“So,” Eddie starts. “About that bedtime routine. Want some help?”
Buck looks at him and lets out a breath. “Yeah,” he says, some of the tension leaving his shoulders, which began inching their way up to his ears. “Yeah, I’d really like that.”
Buck leans against the cab of his truck as Eddie hoists their work bags from the backseats. His face has arranged itself into a permanent grimace.
“Why don’t you head off to bed and I deal with Theo?”
“No, it’s—it’s a process,” Buck says. “Getting him to bed. We have a whole—” he waves his hand. “Thing.”
“Alright.” Eddie, two duffel bags on one arm, offers his other to Buck. He takes it, and together they shuffle to the house. “Whatever you need, I got your back.”
Buck’s cheeks go faintly red as he fishes around in his pocket for his keys. “Thanks,” he mutters.
The house is dark when they go in, the only light coming from the kitchen and the TV, which is playing Bluey on mute. Carla gets up from the couch and hurries over with her bag in hand and light jacket already buttoned.
Eddie drops their own bags at the door. “Geez,” he says with a quiet laugh. “That bad?”
Carla pats them both on the chest and sneaks past. “No, no, I just got a call that one of my other clients is in the hospital, so I gotta run. Your little Buckling is over there auditioning for the role of your new throw rug.”
Then she’s gone, shutting the door behind her with an imperceptible click, and Eddie and Buck are left staring at each other much like how they were in the station kitchen. A united front.
“Buckling?” Eddie says, raising an eyebrow.
Buck shakes his head, cheeks still pink, and starts for the living room. Eddie follows close behind.
They find Theo where Carla said he’d be, sprawled in the middle of the living room floor under the flashing lights of Bluey. Face down, arms and legs spread wide. He’s still in his clothes from the day.
Buck stops short and breathes deep at the sight before them. Without missing a beat, Eddie goes over and fists the back of Theo’s shirt, lifting him up off the ground. He stoops to get a look at his tear-stained face, and when Theo opens his eyes to find him there, he begins to thrash excitedly.
“Eddie!” he yells, almost wiggling himself right out of Eddie’s hold.
“Hey, kiddo,” Eddie says with a laugh as he sets Theo back on the floor. He scrambles up from his hands and knees and attaches himself to Eddie’s legs, pressing his face into the sharp jut of his hip. Eddie pretends to almost lose his balance.
“You’re here.”
He grabs a handful of unruly curls and tugs lightly, muscle memory from when Christopher was this small and still had this much hair. “We’re here,” he says.
Theo pulls back, and when he catches sight of Buck, his dark eyes go comically wide.
“Buck!”
He launches himself at him next, and Buck really does almost lose his balance. He has to catch himself on the edge of the couch.
Voice muffled by Buck’s leg, Theo says, “You came back!”
Buck puts a hand on the back of his head much how Eddie had, rubbing lightly. “I told you I would, bub.”
“You promised.” It comes out as pwomithed.
Buck crouches before Theo, his face carefully schooled against the pain that comes with it. “I did, and we always keep our promises, right?” he says, putting his big hands on Theo’s little waist.
Theo nods, but then his face twists, and he frowns. He looks down as he says, “I broke my promise…”
“You did?”
“I wasn’t good for Carla.”
Buck squeezes and Theo giggles, holding onto Buck’s wrists. “But you tried, right?”
He picks at Buck’s armhair. “Yeah. I just missed you too much.”
Buck moves his hands from Theo’s waist to his elbows to his shoulders, until they’re cupping his baby-fat cheeks. “I broke my promise too.”
“No way,” Theo whispers, hands still holding onto Buck’s wrists.
Buck nods. “Yes way. I said that I can’t leave work early, but you know what? I missed you too much too.”
Theo’s little face, already as bright as the sun even after throwing a tantrum (a half-tantrum, really, and a fully-justified one; Eddie gets cranky when he goes too long without seeing Buck too), brightens even further, and he throws himself at Buck. Eddie steadies him with a hand on his shoulder.
“Oh, Spider-Man,” Buck groans and laughs all at once, and he wraps Theo up in a bear hug. Eddie has the stabbing urge to look away, for his own emotional well-being, but he can’t. It’s like the sweetest car wreck he’s ever seen.
Buck pats Theo on the butt and extricates himself from his ironclad grip. “Alright,” he says. “We’re behind schedule, but—”
Theo throws his hands in the air. “Bedtime protocol, commence!”
“Yes, sir, Theo, sir.” Buck wipes Theo’s face open-palmed and says, “Any tears left?”
“Nuh-uh.”
“No? You sure? What about giggles?”
He tickles Theo’s tummy and Theo squeals. “It’s bedtime! Bedtime!”
“Alright, I guess it’s bedtime.” Buck grabs the edge of the couch like he’s about to get up, but a muscle twinges in his jaw and he stays put. “Uh, how—how about you go get your clothes off and I’ll meet you in the bathroom?”
“Okay!” Theo is running off towards the bathroom before the word is fully out of his mouth.
"And dirty clothes go in the hamper!" Buck calls after him.
Eddie laughs lightly and comes around to Buck’s front to help him to his feet, grabbing him firm by the elbows. Buck lurches into him with a wince when he puts weight on his left leg.
“This is what I’ve been missing out on these last couple months, huh? By not staying past dinner.”
Buck lets out a breath. “We’re just getting started.”
Theo’s outfit is sitting on the floor in front of his hamper when they go into his room, and Eddie is the one to pick it up so Buck doesn’t have to bend. The longer the night goes on, the stiffer his leg seems to get.
“Alright, uh—” Buck points towards Theo’s dresser. “Pajamas. Do you wanna—”
Eddie waves him off. “I’ll get them. Is he wearing underwear at night, or—”
“No, pull-ups. He’s okay when he naps during the day, but we’re still working on nighttime.”
“Gotcha.”
“They’re in—”
“I got ‘em. Go change into some shorts before we have to cut you out of your pants. I can see the swelling from here.”
Buck limps off down the hall towards his own bedroom, and after collecting Theo’s pajamas, Eddie heads into the bathroom to find him squeezing an entire bottle of bubble bath solution into the tub.
“Woah, okay!” Eddie dumps the clothes onto the sink and grabs the bottle from him. Theo, naked as the day he was born, giggles into his hands.
The tub is already half-full, and when Eddie holds his fingers under the spigot, he finds the water the perfect temperature. He looks back at Theo, who's now rummaging under the sink for his bath toys.
“You really got this bedtime thing down, huh?”
Without looking back, Theo says, “It’s a work in progress. That’s what Buck says.”
“And he’s doing a great job.” Buck appears in a pair of cotton sleep shorts and a holey band tee, and he shuts the bathroom door behind him. “Right, Theo?”
“Correct.” He dumps an armful of rubber toys into the growing mountain of eucalyptis-scented bubbles. “Okay, I’m ready.”
Buck lifts Theo into the bath and shuts the water off. “Eddie, hit the lights.”
Eddie does as he’s told, and when the bathroom is plunged into darkness, a few of Theo’s bath toys come to life, filling the tub with gentle pulsing lights. The ceiling glows every color of the rainbow, and Eddie gazes up at it like he’s at the Observatory.
“Wow,” he breathes. “Wish I knew about this when Chris was little.”
Slowly, carefully, Buck lowers himself to the bathmat at the side of the tub. “Well, Chris liked bathtime. Theo needed a little push.”
“Bribe,” Theo mutters, and Eddie laughs.
“What a pisser. Maybe you and Chris aren’t so different.”
Theo grabs a handful of bubbles and blows them from his hands in Eddie’s direction. They float a few inches and then land on the floor. “Is Chris coming over too?”
“No, bub, Chris is sleeping at his and Eddie’s house tonight,” Buck says.
“Aw, boo.”
“Yeah, boo. H-hey, Eddie, can you hand me that pitcher?”
Eddie hands Buck the plastic pitcher from the counter and he fills it under the spigot.
“Pinch your nose.”
Theo pinches his nose with his fingers, blows out his cheeks, and squeezes his eyes shut tight as Buck pours the water over his head. His thick blond curls flatten and turn coppery. Next, Buck, still sitting on the floor, squeezes a generous amount of shampoo into his palm from a bottle with a very familiar eyeball on it, and begins scrubbing at Theo’s scalp.
“Ouch!”
“I’m not pulling.”
“Yes, you are. Ouch!”
Buck rolls his eyes up to Eddie, never stopping his scrubbing. Drama queen, he mouths.
That swelling feeling returns, and this time Eddie manages to look away. The dim lights help, but not much.
Buck doesn’t let his attention wander for long, though.
“I think it’s Goldie Hawn’s turn. Eddie?”
Eddie frowns. “Uh, what?”
He gestures. “Goldie Hawn.”
“My medal!” Theo shrieks as Buck dumps another pitcher of water over his head to rinse out the shampoo. He spits.
Eddie picks up Theo’s gold medal from the sink and turns it over in his hands. It’s sticky and smudged with a mystery substance in more than one place, and he holds it by the red, white, and blue strap. “Goldie Hawn?”
Buck lets out a breath of a laugh and says, “She was in that, uh— That movie on Netflix where her and Kurt Russell played Mr. and Mrs. Claus. We’ve been watching it a lot lately.”
Eddie lifts the medal a little higher. It really is filthy. “Huh. I thought you let him watch Overboard, or something.”
“What’s that?” Theo says. Thinking no one is watching, he slowly starts inching beneath the bubbles.
“A movie about a lady who falls off a boat and drowns.” Buck grabs Theo by the arm and pulls him above the water. “Please sit up.”
“But I can hold my breath! Watch.”
“Absolutely not.”
Theo throws his head back and groans.
Buck says to Eddie, “Can you, uh, rinse the medal in the sink? The hand soap is fine. And then just hang it on the doorknob, it’ll dry by morning.”
Eddie washes Goldie Hawn in the sink while Buck helps Theo wash the rest of him. They sing a little song together that might be the rubber duckie one from Sesame Street, singing, splashing, quietly in sync. Eddie catches their reflection in the mirror and smiles to himself.
Theo finishes with his bath as Eddie is hanging the medal on the doorknob to dry, and he grabs his Spider-Man bathrobe off the hook and lifts Theo out of the draining tub before Buck can get up from the floor.
“Go do something with that knee,” Eddie says. “I’ll dry him off.”
“Okay, yeah.” Buck scoots himself over to the handrails that he’d installed near the toilet shortly after moving in and pulls himself up. “He has, uh, cream, under the sink. For his hair. Just towel dry it and then use a little—”
“Roots to tip,” Eddie interrupts with a laugh. “I know, Buck. You gave Chris a curl routine, too.”
Theo shakes his wet hair out like a dog, and Eddie pulls his hood over his head.
“I’ll meet you in the kitchen in ten.”
They bump fists, and Buck heads out.
Eddie retrieves the tube of kids’ curl cream from the cabinet under the sink and opens it with a snick. He sniffs it.
“Whew. You guys like your smells, huh?”
Theo’s whole body bounces with a nod. “Smells make me feel good. And my brain. We love smells.”
Between the eucalyptis bubble bath and the strawberry shampoo and now the floral curl cream, Eddie can feel his eyes beginning to grow heavy. He’s not sure how much it’s working for Theo, whose little body is still thrumming with energy, but it is for Eddie.
Theo plops himself onto the closed toilet seat, drowning in his Spider-Man robe while Eddie blow-dries his hair. He leans his face into Eddie’s stomach, humming to himself and fiddling with one of his bath toys that he’d rescued before being plucked from the water. The tub slowly drains, the bathroom is humid and nice-smelling, and there’s the weight of a toddler against him. Eddie isn’t just falling asleep, he can feel the stress of the day melting away.
He sighs. Theo tips his chin to look at him and sighs back, flaring his nostrils like they’re two tigers communicating in chuffs.
“I’m happy that you’re here, Eddie.”
“Yeah,” Eddie says. He aims the blow dryer down the back of Theo’s robe, making him giggle. “Me too, kiddo.”
Theo roots his face deeper into Eddie’s stomach. “I wish Chris was here, though.”
Eddie snorts.
Dry now and bundled into his pajamas, Eddie hoists Theo onto his hip and carries him from the bathroom. He notes with a faint sense of victory how Theo’s head is tipping onto his shoulder.
They find Buck in the kitchen pressing on the waffle maker. It pops and hisses, and the kettle whistles quietly from the stove. Theo kicks his legs.
“Tea time,” he says sleepily into Eddie’s neck.
“Tea time?” Eddie says. “Are we British now?”
Buck looks over his shoulder as they come over, and when he sees Theo in Eddie’s arms, something warm passes over his face, smoothing out the pained crease between his eyebrows for a second.
“Hey, yeah. Tea and waffles.”
“Oh, I don’t want waffles,” Theo whines. His voice goes high with impending tears and Buck scratches his back, his fingers brushing Eddie’s arm.
“Well, someone didn’t finish his dinner.”
Theo turns his face into Eddie’s neck. “Eddiee.”
“Buck’s word is bond, kiddo, sorry.”
“Fine…”
Buck pops the blueberry waffle from the press and cuts it up onto a plastic plate that’s split into three sections. In another section he spoons vanilla yogurt from a cup. Two mugs with teabags hanging from them, one significantly smaller than the other, sit side-by-side on the counter next to the stovetop.
“Bub,” Buck eventually says, the warm rumble of his voice breaking through the delicate quiet of the kitchen. “Can you ask Eddie if he’d like some tea?”
Theo picks his head up with some effort and Eddie looks down at him. He puts his hands on either side of Eddie’s face, squeezing, and says, “Do you want to drink tea with us?”
Through puckered lips, Eddie says, “I would love to drink tea with you. What kind are we having?”
“The teddy bear kind. Teddy tea for Eddie bear.”
Eddie drifts over to Buck while Theo continues squishing his face out of shape. His fingers find the scar on his lips and he quietly fixates on that.
“Sleepytime tea?” Eddie says to Buck. “He’s not too little for that?”
A third mug has found its way down from the cabinet, the one Eddie always reaches for when he comes over, and Buck fills them all with the boiling water from the kettle.
“His pediatrician recommended it,” Buck tells him. Theo’s mug gets topped off with milk from the fridge, whole milk and not the oat kind that Eddie knows Buck prefers, and his teabag is dunked just a few times and then discarded. “He’s basically drinking warm milk and honey anyway.”
“Teddy bear honey,” Theo clarifies.
Buck brandishes the half-empty teddy bear-shaped bottle of honey. “The best kind.”
“Oh, of course,” Eddie says.
“But I have an allergy panel scheduled next week before Deidra’s visit, just to rule out ragweed and stuff like that.” Buck lifts Theo’s mug. “Wanna go put Bob on?”
Theo wriggles in Eddie’s arms until he puts him down. “Yes.”
Buck hands him his mug. “We’re right behind you.” Theo hurries off to the living room with his tea and Buck calls behind him, “Slow down, you’re wearing your slippery socks!”
Alone now, Eddie falls into place at Buck’s side, and together they make up their own teas in silence, passing milk and sugar and honey back and forth. The patio doors are cracked, letting in the chirping of crickets and a gentle late-night breeze. Theo laughs at nothing from the other room, and they can hear him flicking through the TV.
Eddie takes another deep breath.
Buck bumps their shoulders together. “Thanks.”
“Nothing to thank me for,” Eddie says. “Just returning the favor.”
Buck looks at him, eyes shining, but says nothing. Instead, he hands Eddie his mug of tea and holds up his own. They clink the ceramic lips together and drink.
“Buck!” Theo screeches, and Buck cringes.
“That’s our cue,” he says.
Eddie goes over to the Lazy Susan in the corner of the counter and spins it until he gets to the bottle of painkillers. He shakes a couple into his hand and presses them into Buck’s waiting palm with a practiced ease.
“Alright,” Eddie says after Buck swallows the pills with another sip of his scorching tea. “Who’s Bob?”
The couch is piled high with blankets when they go out, and nestled among them all is Theo, mug of tea clutched to his chest with both hands. Bob Ross smiles from the TV.
“Oh,” Eddie says. “That Bob.”
“I like Bob,” Theo says, throwing his head back. “He has a pet squirrel.”
Eddie sets his tea down on a coaster on the coffee table and takes the plate of waffles and yogurt from Buck, setting it in Theo’s lap when he raises his hands. Theo, despite having just complained about the waffles, swaps his mug for his fork and begins shoveling the pieces into his mouth.
“Hey,” is all Buck has to say to get him to slow his chewing. Honestly, Eddie is impressed with everything he’s seen tonight. They definitely seem to have their routine down.
Eddie sits on Theo’s right and Buck on his left, and Eddie leans over the toddler munching happily between them to pull the coffee table closer to the couch and prop a throw pillow on the edge of it.
“Elevate,” Eddie instructs, and Buck, groaning, lifts his foot onto the pillow. His knee is shiny with Biofreeze gel, but the swelling seems to be going down. The bruising is another thing. Eddie doesn’t think he’ll be back to work for a few shifts.
Buck puts an arm around Theo and pulls him into his side.
Something tells Eddie he’d be okay with that.
Theo suddenly wrinkles his nose. “Yuck. You smell bad.”
“What?” Buck sticks his nose under his arm. “No I don’t.”
“The menthol,” Eddie tells him.
Theo points at Buck’s leg. “That’s a bad smell, Buck.”
“You’re a bad smell.”
“No I’m not! I just took a bath.”
“Mm. He’s got you there, bud.”
Theo giggles and snuggles into Buck’s side. Buck playfully pushes him away. “No. Go watch Bob with Eddie.”
“Okay!”
Theo crawls over with his plate held carefully in the air. Eddie takes it from him and sets it next to his tea on the coffee table. “Hi, Eddie,” he says, sitting up on his knees. “Can I see your scar?”
He’s pulling Eddie’s shirt from his pants before he gets an answer and prodding his tiny fingers into the barely-there scar on his belly.
“It’s not much of anything anymore, kid,” Eddie says, holding his shirt up and out of the way.
“It’s almost gone,” Theo pouts. “Do you have more?”
“Theo, can you sit on your butt?” Buck says, but Theo ignores him. He’s trying to pull Eddie’s shirt off.
“What in the world are you doing?”
Theo just laughs mischievously.
Eddie takes his shirt off.
“Woah.”
Theo, sitting in Eddie’s lap now, begins poking at the twin bundles of starburst-shaped scar tissue in the hollows of his shoulders.
“Do they hurt?”
“Sometimes.”
“Like Buck’s leg?”
“Yeah, like Buck’s leg.”
“Do you put bad-smelling stuff on it too?”
“Sometimes, yeah. It makes it feel better.”
Theo grows quiet and contemplative. He runs both of his hands down Eddie’s arms, bringing his hands together in his lap. He finds the white knot on the inside of his left wrist, then the faint slash on his other arm from the fight with Abigail’s father, which, for some reason, has held on longer than the stab wound in his gut. Theo pokes once more at that one, then touches the scar on Eddie’s lips again.
“There’s another one on my leg. Right here.” Eddie pokes his left thigh and Theo shifts out of the way, looking down at where Eddie is pointing. “But you’re not getting me out of my pants.”
“Woah,” Theo says again. “You and Buck get hurt a lot.”
From the other end of the couch, head tipped back and eyes closed, Buck snorts. “We sure do, bub.”
“Why?”
“Well.” Eddie thinks about it, choosing his words carefully. He sifts through his years of similar conversations with Christopher and comes up with: “Sometimes you get hurt when you have to help people. We try to be careful, me and Buck, but when you’re helping someone, sometimes you’re not thinking a lot about yourself, you know?”
Theo casts his eyes down to where he’s playing with Eddie’s hands.
Buck says, “When I get hurt at work, I like to think that means I did a good job at helping people.”
Eddie usually would argue that, because not only is that not entirely true, but he doesn’t think it should be something they’re teaching a hyperactive four-year-old that shares DNA with Evan Buckley, but Theo looks suddenly sad.
“What are you thinking about?” Eddie asks him. Out of the corner of his eye, Buck lifts his head off the back of the couch.
Theo shrugs.
Buck reaches over and fingers the sleeve of his pajama shirt. “Hey. Use your words, buddy.”
“Did you guys get hurt when our car got smashed?”
Buck’s mouth opens, and he looks to Eddie with his eyes wide. Eddie reaches over and squeezes his wrist once and puts his hands on Theo’s baby face, tipping his head up so he’s looking at him.
“No, we didn’t. But that doesn’t mean we didn’t do everything we could to help your mom and dad.” Connor and Kameron were DOA, but Eddie keeps this to himself. That’s something else a four-year-old doesn’t need to hear. They’ve told him as many times as he’s needed to hear it that yes, him and Buck and all the other firefighters and doctors and police officers did everything in their power to save them. Theo knows, with his limited knowledge and understanding, that no, there wasn’t anything else that they could have done for his mom and dad.
He's accepted this, for the most part.
Eddie swipes some crusted yogurt from the corner of Theo’s downturned mouth with his thumb. “Okay?” he says.
Theo nods.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Buck asks, matching his tone.
Theo shakes his head and rubs his eyes with his fists.
“Do you want to go to bed?” Eddie asks.
Another headshake.
“Wanna watch Bob?” Buck asks.
“Yeah.”
So they watch Bob Ross paint a lake at sunset, and his soothing voice and hypnotic brushstrokes lull Theo to sleep in Eddie’s lap, fists curled under his chin and head pressed into the valley of Eddie’s chest. He doesn’t get a chance to put his shirt back on, but he doesn’t mind. He just grabs one of the many blankets and throws it around his shoulders, pulling it half around Theo.
“Never thought I’d be doing skin-to-skin with a toddler,” Eddie says, using one hand to hold said toddler against him as he reaches out with the other to pick up Theo’s plate. He finishes his waffles and yogurt for him.
Buck finishes Theo’s tea, frowning at the milk. “He’s such a good kid,” he murmurs into the mug.
“Hey, give yourself some credit.” Eddie gestures vaguely, at the TV and the bathroom that’s still wafting the smell of eucalyptus into the hall, the toys littering the back patio, at Theo sound asleep and snoring faintly. “You’ve put in a hell of a lot of work here.”
Buck swallows visibly and pretends to adjust the pillow under his foot. “I mean, I couldn’t have done it without you. With—without any of you guys.”
Eddie reaches out and squeezes the back of Buck’s neck. The skin there is warm, and Eddie lets his hand linger. “It takes a village. Right?”
Buck smiles. There’s purple bruises forming beneath his eyes, ones that Eddie recalls on his own face from those first few stressful months after Shannon left. But he’s smiling.
“Yeah.”
The Joy of Painting ends and Rick Steves’ Europe takes its place, and Buck turns the TV off. Theo snuffles against Eddie’s chest.
“PBS does it every time,” he says, carefully sliding his foot from the coffee table and pushing it back. “Do you mind carrying him to bed?”
“Not at all,” Eddie shakes his head. “We’ll put him to bed and then chase the Sleepytime tea with a couple beers. How’s that sound?”
Buck groans. “You’re speaking my language.”
“I’m fluent in it.” Eddie gets up in one easy move, keeping Theo tucked in the crook of his arm. He helps Buck onto his feet with the other, and together they shuffle through the dark and quiet house to what used to be the guest room.
“Oh, shit,” Buck says suddenly.
“What?”
“He didn’t brush his teeth.”
“Shit.” Eddie rubs Theo’s back and says into his ear, “Psst. Theo.”
Theo whines. “What.”
“Teeth, bubba,” Buck says. “Come on. Brusha brusha brusha.”
“Brusha brusha brusha,” Eddie echoes.
Theo whines again but wakes up enough, and they make a tired beeline for the bathroom. Eddie doesn’t let him go, instead propping him on his hip while the three of them brush their teeth in the mirror for two minutes exactly, only setting him down so he can go pee. Then, finally, it’s bedtime.
Except that when Eddie lays Theo into his bed, his hands immediately shoot out in Buck’s direction. Buck fumbles with his pockets and comes up with his phone, which he taps around on before handing it to him.
“What’s happening now?” Eddie says, looking between them. Theo can barely hold Buck’s phone in his little hands.
“I need to say goodnight to my mommy and my dad.”
Buck grabs Eddie’s elbow and steers him from the room. They lean up against opposite sides of the hall, and he doesn’t speak until they hear Theo start talking.
“I, uh, have a groupchat with Connor and Kameron,” Buck explains quietly. “Uh, h-had. He likes to send it a voice message every night.”
Something in Eddie’s chest splinters, and he presses himself further into the wall before he does something stupid like go weak-kneed.
“Do you ever listen to them?” Eddie asks.
“Only when he asks me to.”
“Buck!” comes Theo’s voice. “I’m done!”
They go back in. Buck takes his phone and pockets it, and Eddie just watches while he tucks Theo in. Sheet, then comforter, then the throw blanket adorned with fire engines that was a gift from Chimney.
“Lift up,” Buck instructs, and Theo lifts his feet so Buck can tuck the blankets beneath them. He fluffs his pillow under his head and arranges his mountain of stuffed animals around him. “Who do we want tonight?”
“Lamby!” Theo says.
Buck sifts through the toys until he comes up with a small white Beanie Baby, which Theo hugs to his chest. It’s a little lamb, and Eddie thinks it was a hand-me-down from Jee-yun. He also thinks she called it Fleece, not Lamby.
“What sound?” Buck asks next.
“Rain, please.”
“One rainstorm, coming right up.” Buck presses a few buttons on the white noise machine on Theo’s side table, and the tinny sound of rain fills the room. It sounds more like TV static, but Theo smiles sleepily.
“Thanks, Buck.”
Buck brushes his freshly-washed curls out of his face and kisses him on the forehead. “Of course, honey. Sweet dreams, don’t let the bedbugs bite, all that jazz.”
“Jazz,” Theo repeats with a giggle.
“I’m just down the hall if you need me, okay?”
“Mhm!”
Buck steps back. “Eds?”
Eddie steps forward when Theo holds a hand out for him. He pretends to eat the hand, then he leans in and kisses him on the cheek with a mwah! while he’s still giggling.
“Goodnight, Theo,” he says while he blesses him. He doesn’t mean to, it just happens, but he’s glad he does it.
“’Night, Eddie. Thanks for coming to our house.”
“Anytime, kiddo. I’ll see you in the morning, okay?”
Theo’s eyes go wide, like Eddie just reminded him that it was Christmas Eve, or something. “Really?”
Weally?
“Oh, yeah. I’m taking you guys out for breakfast.”
Theo tosses Lamby into the air and catches him. “Can Chris come?”
“If he wants to.”
“He’ll want to.”
Behind them, Buck laughs. “Okay, go to sleep,” he says, and he takes Eddie’s elbow and drags him out for the second time.
“Night, night,” Eddie whispers through the crack in the door.
Finally, truly alone for the first time all night, Buck sags with a low groan. Eddie puts a hand on his back, rubbing in wide, soothing circles.
“I think bedtime protocol was a success,” he says in his ear. Buck shivers, and Eddie purposefully ignores the ripple beneath his touch.
"I’ll drink to that.”
And they do. Arms loaded with three beers each and the rest of Theo’s cold buttered pasta from dinner, they pile the discarded blankets in their laps and flick through the channel guide until they come across one of the Star Wars movies. They catch the tail-end of Revenge of the Sith. Buck tries to change it. Eddie tells him not to.
“Ewan McGregor,” he reasons, and Buck flicks a noodle at his head.
“When I show Theo Star Wars,” he says, “I’m skipping the prequels.”
“Purist.”
Another noodle lands in Eddie’s hair. He plucks it out and pops it in his mouth, washing it down with his beer. “Hey, no kid of mine—”
Buck stops like someone flipped a switch in him. His beer pauses halfway to his mouth, and he stares at the lightsaber fight happening on the screen like he’s watching a horror movie.
Eddie clears his throat and slides across the couch to Buck’s side. He grabs him under the knees and swings his legs into his lap. Buck returns from whatever darkened corner of his mind he got lost in when Eddie digs his fingers into the stiff muscle of his left calf.
“You know,” he starts as he massages the scar tissue. “I think you should go through with it. Adopting Theo, I mean.”
Buck finally takes that sip of his beer. Then another, and another. When the bottle is empty, he replaces it with a full one and pops the lid off.
“Yeah?” he finally says, carefully, voice as brittle as glass.
“Oh, yeah.”
“You think…” He picks at the wet label on his second beer with his thumb nail. His eyebrows are creating a fissure in the middle of his forehead. “You think I’d be good at it?”
“Buck—” Eddie can’t help the laugh that bubbles up his throat. “I know you would be. I know that for a fact.”
Eddie’s hands find their way to Buck’s knee, and he hisses but doesn’t move. He presses his thumbs into the meat above his bruised kneecap, then a little higher, inching toward his thigh and the tattoos that peek out from the hem of his sleep shorts.
“You’re like a parent to every kid we meet on calls,” Eddie says. “That was my first impression of you. Well, that and you were a hot-headed SOB.”
Buck laughs, but it’s nervous, stretched thin. Eddie wraps his hands around Buck’s thigh and finds himself leaning in, tipping his face up to his.
“Buck, you’ve basically been my kid’s second parent since you met him. If there’s anything I’m certain you could do, it’s raise a child of your own.”
Buck pulls his bottom lip between his teeth and Eddie reaches up and frees it. He keeps his hand on his jaw, keeps his eyes on him.
“Just look at everything you did here tonight. It’s pretty amazing, if you ask me.”
Buck says, breathy, “Yeah. I’m amazed too.”
There’s barely an inch of space between their faces when the front door opens and they’re forced apart. Filling up the doorway with an unimpressed look is Christopher with a backpack on his shoulders.
“Chris?” Eddie says, sitting up. “What are you doing here?”
“Denny told me that Harry told him that Hen said you guys left work early.” He leans his crutches against the wall and hangs up his coat. “So here I am.”
“Oh—” Buck puts the heel of his palm to his forehead. “I’m sorry, Chris, we— We kind of left in a hurry. We forgot to text you.”
Christopher shrugs. “That’s okay. I’m here now.”
“And… Why are you here?” Eddie says. “You know I don’t like you using Uber after dark.”
Another shrug. “I’m not missing a sleepover.”
Eddie and Buck look at each other, but Christopher is already halfway down the hall towards Theo’s room.
“Christopher, do not wake him up.”
It’s useless. They can hear the creak of Theo’s bed, and a second later his little voice rings through the house clear as a bell:
“CHRIS!”
Eddie falls over into Buck’s lap.
Buck puts his hand in his hair with a laugh. “Mission failed,” he says. “Like I said, it’s a work in progress.”