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Two years since the night of the shooting.
Eddie Diaz sat at the kitchen counter of his house — a house that felt too quiet tonight because Christopher was sleeping over at Pepa's. He sipped his bitter black coffee, eyes drifting unfocused toward the window still blurred with the remnants of an LA rainstorm.
The front door opened without a knock. Eddie didn't even need to turn around to know who it was. The footsteps were too heavy and familiar.
Evan Buckley walked in, carrying the cold night air with him. He dropped a grocery bag onto the counter with a loud thud, then planted himself right beside Eddie. His broad, six-foot-four frame instantly made Eddie's small kitchen feel crowded.
"You haven't slept, bebe?" Buck asked, his voice rough but full of something soft underneath.
Eddie just shook his head slowly, deliberately keeping his expression flat and unbothered. His walls went up on autopilot. "Coffee?"
"No, thanks." Buck didn't step back. Instead he leaned forward, caging Eddie against the counter with both arms braced on either side of him. Those blue eyes locked onto Eddie with a deep, quiet intensity — that protective, possessive look that still carried echoes of who he used to be.
Because once upon a time, Evan Buckley had been a walking red flag in a department t-shirt. Everyone knew the history. The guy who'd been reckless and selfish and way too good-looking for his own good, who'd used the firetruck like a prop in his own personal highlight reel. But tonight, that same guy was standing here in Eddie's kitchen, looking at Eddie like he was the only fixed point in a spinning world. He'd done the work. And somewhere along the way, he'd handed Eddie every last piece of the control he used to hoard for himself.
"Stop looking at me like that, Buckley," Eddie said flatly, even as his heart betrayed him with an extra beat.
"Like what?" Buck raised one eyebrow, that crooked smile carving itself into his face. "I'm just making sure my ridiculously stubborn boyfriend isn't running himself into the ground again."
Eddie scoffed, refusing to let on how much the shrinking distance between them was getting to him. Ex-military, used to doing everything alone. He hated looking fragile. Hated being fussed over. "I can take care of myself."
"I know you can," Buck murmured, dropping his voice just enough that it did something unfair to the back of Eddie's neck. There was something unmistakably grounding about the way Buck held space — solid, certain, like he'd staked a claim and had no intention of walking it back.
But then the tension broke. Buck's wide shoulders dropped. And this six-foot-four man, this giant who'd just been staring Eddie down like he owned the room, tucked his head against Eddie's shoulder — the shorter one — and nuzzled in like an oversized golden retriever desperate for contact.
"I just want to take care of you, Eds. Just — let me do that," Buck mumbled into the curve of Eddie's neck.
Eddie rolled his eyes. But his left hand rose slowly, landing on the back of Buck's neck in a pat that was just a little too stiff, a little too awkward to be casual.
He'd never in his life ask to be taken care of. But the weight of this ridiculous, soft, enormous man leaning on him? That was his most classified weakness and he was taking it to his grave.
The next morning, the Station 118 alarm screamed them out of bed.
It was a brutal shift. A multi-vehicle pileup on the freeway pushed all of them past their limits. Eddie pushed himself past his limits — crawling under the unstable wreckage of an overturned semi to pull a victim out, the whole structure groaning above him.
By the time they made it back to the station, everything that had been building between them came apart in the empty locker room.
Eddie was peeling off his dirty turnout gear with slow, stiff movements. His shoulder ached where he'd pulled something.
The locker room door clicked shut. Buck stood there, hand still on the lock. His face was completely unreadable. His eyes had gone dark in a way that had nothing to do with warmth.
"Are you out of your mind, Diaz?" His voice came out cold — nothing like the easy, cheerful guy he usually was.
Eddie didn't turn around. He kept his back to Buck, his spine straight, hiding everything he didn't want anyone to see. "I was doing my job. That victim needed to get out."
"The frame was about to collapse! You could have died under there!" Buck crossed the room fast, cutting the distance between them until Eddie's back hit the lockers with a metallic clang. Buck caged him there, both arms bracketing him in, looming over him with an expression that would've intimidated anyone who didn't know him.
Eddie tilted his head up, meeting those usually-warm blue eyes with his best unbothered stare. "I made it out fine, didn't I? So stop acting like you're my CO."
"I'm not your commanding officer, I'm your boyfriend—" Buck's voice cracked on it, his chest heaving. Because this wasn't really anger. It was the thing that lived underneath the anger — the memory of Eddie bleeding out on a sidewalk two years ago, his blood going everywhere, and Buck's hands not being enough. Never being enough. "You can play tough in front of everyone else, Eddie. But not with me. Not here. You don't have to carry all of it by yourself."
Silence.
The locker room felt airless. Eddie searched Buck's face for something to push back against, some angle to argue — and found nothing but love. Terrifying, bone-deep, possessive love.
His walls came down one brick at a time. Eddie, who never let anyone see him bend, exhaled a long breath and let his body go loose against the lockers at his back.
Buck's whole face changed the second he saw it. The hard lines softened. His arms came down slowly, and then with extraordinary gentleness, he reached for Eddie's hand, threading their fingers together like he was holding something he was afraid to lose.
"Don't scare me like that again," Buck whispered, pressing his thumb to Eddie's cheek. "Please."
Eddie turned his face away, letting the faint color in his cheeks stay hidden behind his signature don't-make-a-thing-of-this expression. The corner of his mouth did something that wasn't quite a smile. "You're so loud, Buckley. Go grab my kit bag."
The shift ended at six in the morning. They drove back to Eddie's house in the kind of comfortable silence that didn't need filling.
The second the front door closed and locked the world outside, Eddie made a beeline for the bedroom, fully intending to fall face-first into his mattress and not surface for eight hours.
One large hand caught his waist from behind.
Eddie was pulled back effortlessly — his back flush against Buck's chest, held there like it was the most natural thing in the world.
"Where do you think you're going?" Buck murmured against his ear, and god, the confidence in that voice. There were still traces of the guy he used to be in moments like this, the easy charm that had never fully gone away, just... redirected.
Eddie made a half-hearted attempt to pull free. Half-hearted being the operative word. "Sleep, Buck. I'm exhausted."
"We sleep together." Buck turned him around in one smooth motion, and now Eddie had to look up at him, which was — fine. That was fine. Eddie had made peace with always having to look up at this man. Buck's mouth curved, reading every micro-expression on Eddie's carefully neutral face. "You know, Eds," he said, pushing his fingers gently through Eddie's short hair, "you can be as closed-off as you want out there. With everyone else. But in this house — in this room — you're mine. And I'm going to take care of you until the thought of treating yourself like you're expendable doesn't even cross your mind anymore."
Eddie's throat went dry. It happened every time. He was a self-sufficient man who didn't take orders from anyone — and yet there was something quietly devastating about the way Buck could dismantle him like this. Not making him feel weak. Just... held.
"You talk way too much," Eddie muttered, crossing his arms over his chest, looking deliberately at a spot somewhere past Buck's shoulder.
Buck laughed — low, quiet, warm. He stepped in close, pressing their bodies together, and dropped his face into the curve of Eddie's neck. His arms wrapped around him and stayed there, this six-foot-four man folding himself around Eddie like a weighted blanket that had somehow developed feelings and a jawline.
"Yeah," Buck said into his skin. "You love it though."
Eddie said nothing. After a moment, his hand uncrossed itself and found the back of Buck's shirt, fingers curling into the fabric, holding on tight.
Eddie Diaz had maybe lost his composure once or twice this morning. But here — with Buck's arms around him and the city just barely starting to wake up outside — he knew exactly where he was.
Home.