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Buck doesn’t mean to fall asleep on Eddie’s couch.
But Theo had woken up crying at two that morning after a nightmare. Then refused to let Buck out of his sight for the rest of the night. By the time Buck was able to get Theo settled again, it was almost five. He’d dragged himself through the rest of the morning exhausted. No amount of caffeine was enough.
He dropped Theo at daycare before heading to Eddie’s after he had finished his shift because Eddie insisted on feeding him actual food instead of whatever leftovers from Theo’s dinner Buck would’ve had.
Now Buck’s half-curled into the corner of Eddie’s couch while Christopher and Theo sit on the floor building an elaborate Lego city. Or more Christopher is building, and Theo is sticking blocks together.
“Theo! Don’t knock the tower down.” Christopher sighs.
Theo gasps dramatically, his hand swiping at the sky scraper Christopher was working on.
Buck watches through heavy eyes. Christopher had been hesitant around Theo at first. Not mean, just careful. Somewhere over the past few months they’d settled into something softer. Chris teaching Theo video games. Theo followed Chris around like he hung the moon.
It makes something warm bloom painfully in Buck’s chest.
“You’re staring,” Eddie says quietly, passing him a warm mug of hot chocolate.
“Sorry.”
Eddie sits down next to Buck, nudges Buck’s foot with his own. “You look wrecked.”
“I am.”
“That tends to happen when you spend months fighting the system for custody.”
Buck flinches automatically at the word custody. Eddie smiles softly, to relieve the tension climbing in Buck’s body.
The room suddenly feels too warm. Chris and Theo are still arguing about Lego. Theo’s little laugh cuts through the house. Bright, and safe and alive. Buck grips his mug a little harder.
Because for a while there, he thought he’d lost him.
-
Dierdra had been kind about it. Which somehow made it worse.
“Given your history,” she’d said carefully across Buck’s dining table, “there are concerns regarding long-term stability.”
Buck knew his kinship placement was supposed to be temporary. Until they could locate a more long-term foster placement or next of kin. But the word history. Such a small word for something that had nearly destroyed him.
Buck had sat there frozen while she continued explaining. The ladder truck. The lawsuit. The lightning strike. The documented dependency on opioids after New Mexico. The instability of his work hours. The dangers of his job. The fact Theo had already experienced a catastrophic loss. Buck knows, he was on that bridge.
Buck remembered staring at Dierdra thinking; I know.
As though he hadn’t already replayed every mistake he’s ever made since Theo came into his care. Then the words Buck still hears in his sleep.
“Temporary placement reassignment.”
Every single fear Buck had when Theo was first placed with him came true. He got attached. He fell in love with that little boy. Just for him to be taken away.
Theo had cried when they took him. No screaming. No tantrums. Theo had stood in the middle of Buck’s living room, clutching his spiderman to his chest while tears slid silently down his face.
“Was I bad?” he whispered.
Buck still thinks something inside him cracked permanently at that moment. He didn’t just see Theo, questioning if he was bad. He saw himself, desperately wanting to belong in a family that created him for spare parts. He couldn’t let that happen to Theo.
-
“You okay?” Eddie asks softly.
Buck realises he’s gone completely still. Mind travelling back to one of the worst days of his life.
“Yeah.”
Lie.
Eddie studies him for another second before standing. “Chris, why don’t you show Theo your new game?”
Christopher looks up immediately. “C’mon Theo, let’s go play Mario Kart!”
Theo gasps, “The driving game?”
The boys disappear down the hallway in a blur of competitive yelling. Their laughter fades slightly once Christopher’s bedroom door closes. Silence settling over the house. Buck already hates it.
Eddie sits back down beside him. Close enough for their knees to bump again.
“You’ve been somewhere else all night.”
Buck stares at the dark TV screen in front of them. His darkened reflection staring back.
“Dierdra called.”
Eddie goes still instantly. “And?”
“They want to start discussing permanent placement.”
Eddie turns fully to look at him. “Buck.”
“They said I’ve been approved to adopt Theo.” The words coming out are broken.
Eddie doesn’t speak immediately. Doesn’t rush in. Just waits. Buck hates how easily Eddie reads him. He’s got better at it since Theo.
This should be good news. It is good news. Theo is safe. Theo is thriving. His nightmares are less frequent now. He laughs easily again. He calls for Buck when he gets hurt. Climbs into Buck’s bed during thunderstorms.
And Buck wants him. God, he wants him. That’s the terrifying part.
“I can’t do it,” Buck whispers.
Eddie’s eyebrows pull together slightly. “You don’t mean that.”
“I do,” Buck runs a hand over his face. “I can’t Eds, I can’t replace them.”
Understanding slowly flickers across Eddie’s face. Buck laughs once, feeling bitter and exhausted.
“Connor and Kameron, they were his parents. Now everyone keeps talking like adoption is this happy ending, and all I can think about is how Theo already had parents.” Buck rambles on, his voice cracking.
Eddie stays quiet. And Buck keeps going. The words spilling out, too fast to stop. Too many to keep in.
“He remembers them, Eddie.” Buck’s chest aches. “He talks about Connor taking him to soccer and Kameron singing to him at bedtime and-” Buck presses his palms against his eyes, his hot chocolate long since abandoned on the coffee table. “How am I supposed to adopt him without making it seem like they’re just gone?”
“Buck.”
“I’m serious.” Buck’s chest heaving with each breath. “Every form already says guardian instead of their names. If I adopt him, then it changes everything. His name. His paperwork. School forms. Medical forms. What if one day he thinks I wanted to erase them?”
“Buck, I-”
“What if he feels like I did?” Buck says helplessly. “What if Theo grows up and thinks loving me means he’s betraying his mom and dad?”
The house goes painfully quiet again. From Christopher’s room comes the muffled sound of Theo yelling victoriously about banana peels. Buck’s throat burns.
“I already took enough from them, I should’ve been around more, I could’ve helped them with Theo’s behaviour concerns. I should’ve known him better before-”
“No.” Eddie says, cutting off Buck’s never ending spiral. “Don’t do that to yourself.”
Buck’s eyes sting. “But it’s true.”
“It’s not.”
Buck laughs weakly. “You know what the worst part of all of this is?” his head hanging low. “I want him anyway.”
The confession lands between them. Ugly and raw.
Buck’s voice drops to almost nothing. “I want bedtime stories, and school pickups and teaching him how to ride a bike. I want him when he’s fifteen and slamming doors. I want college applications and first heartbreaks. All of it.” Eddie has to focus to hear him. “And every time I think about that, I feel guilty as hell because Kameron and Connor were supposed to get those things.”
Eddie’s expression falters. His best friend is sitting here. Wanting the world for this little boy, but not believing he deserves it. Because he never believes he’s enough. Or that he’s too much.
Buck stares down at his hands. “What kind of person wants someone else’s kid this badly?”
“The kind who already loves him like a parent.” Eddie says. It’s obvious, to him at least.
“That’s the problem.”
“No, it’s not.” Eddie says softly.
-
Eddie leans back slightly into the couch cushions, his eyes tracking Buck.
“You know Christopher still talks about Shannon.”
Buck blinks at the abrupt shift.
“And he always will.” Eddie’s voice stays calm, breaking through Buck’s turmoil. “Nothing changes that. Not even after she died. Not even after everything with Kim and El Paso.”
“If I get remarried someday,” Eddie continues slowly, reaching for Buck’s hand. “That wouldn’t erase her either. Chris having another parent figure wouldn’t suddenly make Shannon less his mom.”
“That’s different.”
“It’s not,” Eddie’s gaze still trained on Buck. “Theo loving you doesn’t take Connor and Kameron away from him.”
Buck’s chest tightens painfully. Connor and Kameron were his friends, and adopting Theo feels like a betrayal to their memory.
“They’re already gone,” Eddie says gently. “That’s the tragedy. Not you loving him after.”
Buck looks away quickly. Because loving Theo feels too much like stepping into a space that never belonged to him. He delivered Theo, almost five years ago. On his couch. He held him in his arms. And he decided he had to walk away. He couldn’t stay in this child’s life without being something to him. Anything.
Now, he was being given the world. He was being given Theo.
“I’m scared, Eds.” Buck admits. “What if I mess this up? What if he gets taken away again? What if one day he asks if I wanted him to forget them.”
Eddie is quiet for a second. “Do you?”
Buck’s head jerks up. “What? No. Of course not.”
“Would you ever stop talking about Connor and Kameron?”
“Never.”
“Would you stop showing him pictures? Or take down the photos around your house?”
“No.”
“Then why would he forget?” Eddie shifts closer, their shoulders pressing together now. Warm, and comforting.
“You aren’t replacing them,” Eddie says. “You’re continuing what they can’t do anymore. They loved Theo, and now you love him too.” Eddie wraps an arm around Buck.
“Those two things can exist together.”
Buck stares down at the coffee table in front of him. Knowing if he looks directly at Eddie, all his tears will fall.
“I don’t know how to be his parent,” he admits shakily. “Not without feeling guilty.”
“You think Connor and Kameron would rather Theo grow up thinking he was too hard? Or bad?”
Buck flinches hard. Eddie’s words leave him feeling punched in the gut. His mind racing back to that dreaded day, Theo asking if he was bad.
“Oh.”
Because he knows Theo already worries about that. Every time Buck gets called into work unexpectedly. Every time Dierdra or another social worker visits. Every time Buck looks stressed. Theo watches him carefully, like he’s waiting for Buck to decide he’s too much. A feeling Buck is all too familiar with.
“I don’t want him to think that.” Buck says, suddenly feeling sick.
“I know.” Eddie says, squeezing Buck tighter. “So tell him.”
Down the hallway, Theo shrieks with laughter. Christopher immediately yells that he’s cheating. A teen and a toddler, at each other’s necks.
Buck smiles despite himself.
“You already know what you want, Buck.”
Buck does. That’s the problem, because wanting Theo forever feels terrifying. It’s permanence, digging its way through him.
But losing Theo had nearly destroyed Buck.
Maybe that means something too.
-
A few minutes later, little footsteps thunder down the hall. Theo appears first, curls messy and flushed with excitement. Christopher follows behind him, arguing loudly about race rules.
“Buck!” Theo climbs directly onto the couch beside him, squeezing in between Buck and Eddie. “Chris crashed into me on purpose.”
“Did not.”
“Did too!”
Buck instinctively reaches out, fixing Theo’s collar on his sweater, and fixing his curls without even thinking about it. Theo leans into him, continuing to complain about Mario Kart injustice.
Eddie watches the entire thing unfold. Buck catches the look on his face eventually. Not smug. No unspoken “I told you so.” Just soft. Like he’s trying to show Buck something he can’t fully see yet.
Theo tilts his head up suddenly.
“Buck?”
“Yeah, Theo?”
“Are you okay?”
Buck’s chest warms instantly. Kids always know. And this kid in particular, has a knack for it.
“A little tired,” Buck says gently.
Theo crawls fully into Buck’s lap and wraps both arms around his neck. “There,” Theo says confidently. “All better now.”
Buck lets out a little chuckle, pulling Theo in close.
He can do this.
Him and Theo. With Eddie and Chris.
Their family.