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“You know, they don’t actually serve Italian Wedding Soup at Italian weddings?”
Eddie paused in the middle of chopping a particularly unruly piece of celery and took a moment to breathe in the wonderful, wonderful sound of Buck in recovery. Then he looked over at him.
Buck was a few days out from the last of his worst withdrawal symptoms; the sweating and cramps and pain and vomiting had all finally passed off, leaving Buck tired but mostly okay. Able to get back to cooking at least. He was still taking it easy, under Captain’s orders (and Eddie’s), but the gaggle of people who had been gathered together for the last two weeks to see him through the worst of it had slowly started to drift back to their daily lives. Eddie and Chris were the only ones who hadn’t gone home yet. Eddie almost preferred it now it was just them.
Eddie had kept swinging by to check on South Bedford Street of course, but if he was being honest with himself he hadn’t lingered for more than a few minutes. Hadn’t wanted to. It was just stuff. It wasn’t home. Not while Buck and Chris were both here.
Buck had been lost at sea for a while there, and Eddie would be forever grateful for their family and everything they’d done to get Buck back to safe shores. He was also quietly glad they had felt able to ease off. It felt like things were finally, finally, in a place approaching normal.
Eddie smiled, taking in Buck’s broad shoulders, no longer shaking or sweating, just flexing as he chopped carrots, and said, “Yeah?”
Buck glanced over his shoulder from his position by the kitchen window. His hair was halo’d in bright sun and his smile was relaxed and happy and it was the biggest relief of Eddie’s life just to see him smile again. He could have done without the fragmented cut off sounds of TikToks drifting through from where Denny, Mara, and Christopher had holed up on the deck, but otherwise it was pretty perfect.
“It’s a mistranslation… sort of–” Buck waggled his head, “It’s– It means the flavours. The flavours mix while it stews, it’s why it's so rich. Chicken broth, pork meatballs, the veggies all mixed up together. The flavours compliment each other, it marries up while it cooks so…”
“So… wedding soup,” Eddie finished with a chuckle.
Buck laughed, and repeated, “Wedding soup.”
He turned and tipped his chopped carrots into the already sauteering onions and Eddie followed suit with his celery a moment later, giving it all a stir. Buck was focused on where he was lining the spinach Karen had brought from the farmer’s market up on the chopping board. He always chopped off the stems purely because Christopher didn’t like them. An unnecessary step in Eddie’s opinion, Chris would eat it regardless, but the first time they’d made it Chris had complained all through dinner about them being slimy and gross and that it was ‘really nice except for the stringy bits’ and subtly unsubtly renouncing all spinach stems and from then on, whenever they made Italian Wedding Soup, the spinach quietly shed their stems.
Buck loved Christopher so much and so deeply Eddie could hardly bear it. Since the moment Eddie had let him, he’d stepped into the space by Eddie’s side and never left. He’d chosen Eddie and Chris over and over again. When Eddie was at his worst, Buck was there. When Eddie was at his best, Buck was there. Even on the few occasions when they were fighting, he couldn’t doubt for a second that Buck would come running if he’d asked him to.
He loved him. Eddie loved Buck. And more importantly, Buck loved Eddie. And all the things Eddie had been afraid were one sided, afraid wouldn’t be reciprocated, had been repeatedly proven to be there in Buck too.
Take right now. He was studying Abuela’s curly handwriting as if it might have changed since the last time they made this recipe together. As if her granting him her recipe books wasn’t enough proof that she trusted him to do them justice.
“Hey, Buck,” Eddie said quietly.
“Yeah, Eddie?”
He wasn’t scared, not a single bit. He still took a breath, “Would you like to go on a date this weekend?”
Buck turned rapidly and blinked at him.
“A- A date? With— With you?”
God, Eddie loved him.
“Yes. With me. Me and you. On a date.”
“Wh— Where?”
Eddie cocked his head on the side with a grin and a raised eyebrow and Buck stammered, “I mean— Not that it— It doesn’t matter where. Yeah. Yes. A date. With you.” He paused and rubbed at the back of his neck. “Uh— Are you sure? I’m not exactly good company at the moment. All the— the vomit.” Buck laughed, gesturing at the whole of himself and Eddie had never been so sure about anything in his entire life.
“You’re always good company, Buck.”
“I mean—“ he broke off, then incredulously said, “Eddie.”
“Yes, Buck?”
“You— We—“ he huffed. “Why now?”
Eddie sighed and leaned back against the counter, "Because you cut the stems off the spinach even though you like them.”
“I— I don’t like them.”
“Liar,” Eddie said, and leaned over to where Buck had already set the Tupperware out to store them once he’d cut them off and tapped it on the counter a few times to make his point. “You do it because Christopher doesn’t. Even though you wouldn’t if it were just you.”
“They’re fine in smoothies, Eddie.”
“Buck.”
“Eddie,” Buck reflexively snapped back. Then he laughed, eyebrows tilting up. “Okay fine. So a date. Me and you.”
“A date,” Eddie said. “Me and you. What about that Venezuelan place you wanted to try?”
Buck stared back at him for a second, still half disbelieving, then he smiled wide and said, “Ohhh, a dinner date, I see. Wining and dining. This is serious.”
“It is,” Eddie said, as serious as he could muster. “Serious. For me. So we’re starting serious, a real date, and then we’ll have a fun one next time. Something more us.”
Buck's face wriggled in the way it always did when he was trying to figure out what he was feeling. He seemed to settle on confused.
“What’s up, bud?”
Buck huffed, then turned away, “I don’t understand why now. What? Me vomiting and shivering and sweating my ass off does it for you?”
“Okay,” Eddie said, stepping up beside him and turning him back with a hand on his shoulder, “Listen to me. There is nowhere in the world I would rather be than by your side. When you’re vomiting, when you’re sweating, when you’re actively trying to make me leave. There is nowhere I would rather be. And that’s been true for a long time, Buck. This last month has been a mess but that–”
“Yeah, my mess.”
“No, ours.” Eddie sighed, “Look, when we got back from Texas—“
“Texas?” Buck interrupted, surprise and confusion written across his face.
“Yes, Texas. Listen. Me and Christopher. When we got back from Texas we had a conversation, and he made me realise that I’d been turning you away, not because I didn’t want you around, but because I thought I wanted you around too much. I thought I was being greedy.”
“Wanting things isn’t greedy, Eddie. And— And I want you around too.”
“I know. I know you do. Listen to me. I want, for the rest of my life, to be here, with you. I trust you, and I like you, and I want you, and I love you. So this is serious for me, Buck. I’m taking it seriously. I’ve wanted to say something for a while. I just– Bobby,” Eddie paused, reassuring Buck with a squeeze of his shoulder as he felt the muscle there tense at the mention of Bobby. “I didn’t think it was a good time, and then Athena got stuck in space, and then Chim was struggling with being Cap, and then Hen got sick, and then New Mexico, and then all this. I just– Buck, I’m starting to think there’s never going to be a good time and I’m tired of waiting for one. I want to be with you. Always. Every moment we’ve spent apart this year all I’ve wanted to do is be with you, and I’m done waiting. This moment is as good as any. So… so that’s why now.” He skated his eyes over Buck’s face. It was sinking in. Eddie could tell.
“Since Texas?” Buck asked. His voice was gentle with uncertainty but there was something light in there too, hope maybe.
“Driving away from you was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. And I’ve been shot at, so..”
Buck barked a laugh.
“I never want to have to leave you again, Buck. I want to stay with you for the rest of my life, and I would love it if you’d let me.”
Buck nodded slowly, considering, then he smiled. “You’re really good at that, you know.”
“At what?” Eddie asked, stirring the sauteeing vegetables.
“Saying exactly what I need to hear.”
They shared a smile and Eddie’s heart grew just looking at him. "It was just the truth, Buck. It's just the truth."
"Well, then," Buck said, turning to continue chopping spinach, "We should tell the truth more often."
Eddie smiled. He agreed as it happened, and he hoped, not for the last time, that the rest of his life could be just like this.