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Buck realizes he's head over heels in love with Eddie, the kind where there's no doubt about it anymore, the kind where there's no more shoving it into dark recesses of his mind to ignore until it goes away — that kind of in love with Eddie, right as he's hugging him goodbye. It's comically bad timing. Buck would laugh if he wasn't about to cry.
It hasn't really hit him that Eddie's leaving, that he won't even need to address any of the feelings he's spent years running away from, and that there's no way of ever knowing if they could've led to something real. All that's left for Buck to do is to whittle them down into nothing until they're small enough to swallow away, which will be a whole lot easier once Eddie's gone, except his brain still hasn't really caught up to that idea.
He allows himself a second, just one, to memorize the feeling of Eddie inside his arms, to ingrain the smell of Eddie's shampoo into his nostrils. He's sure he'll smell it again someday, on someone else, some unsuspecting stranger who'll teleport him back to the exact moment he held his entire heart in his hands and had to let go.
He attempts to freeze time — maybe if he focuses long and hard enough, he'll suddenly gain the power to do that, or the universe will finally take pity on him and throw him a fucking bone.
None of that happens, though.
Instead, Eddie slaps his back a couple of times like he's congratulating a teammate on a game well-played — and you know what, it is, because Buck managed to hide his deepest, darkest secret from Eddie until the very end and never let it ruin their friendship, and he should get credit for that — and inches backwards out of Buck's grip.
Buck shoots him a smile, one he hopes reveals nothing, and then Eddie just walks away like he doesn't have a giant piece of Buck stuck in the back pocket of those light denim jeans. Buck's not sure he'll ever get it back. They'll text, and they'll call, but it won't be the same. It won't be Buck showing up unannounced on Eddie's doorstep to watch a movie, it won't be twenty-four-hour shifts crammed in the back of the same fire engine, it won't be them breathing the same air, recirculating it between them so often they can taste each other on it.
'All right, you hit the road,' Buck instructs, his throat like an open nerve. He wills it to stitch itself back up, pretend to function until Eddie's out of sight. He needs to keep it together for like thirty more seconds max.
He slaps the back of the truck, feigning a lighthearted chuckle that barely sounds believable, but it's enough to pull a last laugh out of Eddie, casually thrown over his shoulder, just a hint of sadness — a normal amount of sadness in the line of his shoulders that sends Buck reeling all over again. That's how it's supposed to be, a heartfelt goodbye between friends, where they're both a little unmoored, but they'll get over it at some point. Not like someone's got a hand wrapped around his lungs and is squeezing them until he runs out of air.
You do matter to me.
'Just get out of here,' Buck calls out. Eddie doesn't look back again, and Buck allows his shoulders to sag, unable to carry the weight any longer. He lets the smile slip off his face and sets his jaw, swallowing back the tears threatening to spill out. He just needs to watch Eddie get in the car and drive off, offer him a last wave goodbye, and then he can shatter into pieces, let them scatter all over the rain-slicked road, and lose track of them forever because there's no way he'll ever feel whole again, so there's no point in trying to put himself back together.
Eddie gets into his car, shutting his door with a finality that reverberates through Buck's body like a gunshot wound. He's never been shot, wouldn't know what it feels like, but he's sure it's something close to this.
Eddie turns on the ignition, leaves his window rolled down, sticks his hand out for a final wave, casts Buck one more smile through the reflection of his side mirror and then — nothing. Eddie's face is tucked deeper inside the car, so Buck can't see his reflection anymore, but it shouldn't take Eddie this long to leave. He needs to go. Buck's barely keeping it together at this point, and he's not sure how many just two more seconds he's got left in him.
But Eddie stays put, his hand resting on his car door, his fingers clasped around the window frame as he seems to be waiting for something. For what Buck doesn't know — maybe for the sky to fall, because it's starting to feel like that might just happen.
Buck's grounded in place, his body pulled taut like a bowstring, stuck inside a moment that seems to go on forever until Eddie pulls his arm back inside his car and Buck finally feels like he can breathe again because, okay, this is it, Eddie's gonna drive off now.
He doesn't.
Instead, the car door opens, and so does a chasm beneath Buck's feet, the ground turning from solid into liquid. Buck locks his knees to keep himself from toppling over as Eddie walks over, his gaze unreadable but his steps determined.
'Forget something?' Buck asks, sending a quick thank you to the universe for making his voice sound relatively normal. It's the most obvious explanation, the only one his brain offers up as Eddie gets closer and closer.
'Yeah,' Eddie says, sounding a little breathless — which is weird, because the distance between his car and Buck wasn't that far, 'I think I did.'
Eddie pauses, mere inches away from Buck's face, so close that Buck can see tiny droplets of rain stuck in Eddie's eyelashes, which he curses himself for — he's made a deal with himself; he's not allowed to notice those kinds of things. He casts his gaze away, to the slightly damp fabric of Eddie's black top, one he cut the sleeves off himself, revealing a clear view of his biceps, which are also glistening in the rain and maybe Eddie just shouldn't be allowed to wear sleeveless shirts anymore, or be out in the rain, confined to the indoors and sleeves forever or at least until Buck can get a grip on his traitorous heart.
'What did you forget?' Buck asks, or at least he thinks he does, but he can't really make it out over the sound of his heart pounding inside his chest.
'To kiss you, I think.'
The entire world stops spinning for just a second, throwing Buck off his axis. He can practically hear the record scratch sound as his brain tries to make sense of something so completely senseless. 'You think?'
'I mean, I know I want to, do you-'
Buck doesn't let Eddie finish; he's got gallons of want pouring out of him now, no longer plagued by appearances to keep up or desires to lock away in fear. He crashes into Eddie like a tidal wave, and it's maybe too much; it usually is, but he's so done holding back. He can practically feel the bones inside his body cracking open, his muscles straining and stretching into something new, something free.
Eddie startles, just a little, as Buck presses their lips together, and it's enough to set off alarm bells so loud they temporarily stun Buck out of his reverie, but before he has the chance to pull back, Eddie's hand is gripping his neck, pulling him in closer. Buck goes easily, their bodies slotting together like this is the exact configuration they were always supposed to exist in; their chests flush together as Buck's hands curl around Eddie's waist. Even Eddie's bottom lip, tucked in between Buck's own, feels so right he has a hard time remembering why he ever even tried to convince himself any of this would be wrong.
Eddie makes a small noise in the back of his throat, and his lips soften against Buck's. Buck has spent a lot of time contemplating the softness of Eddie's lips, mostly when he's too drunk or too tired to chastise himself for it, but he never could've come up with this level of softness.
Buck runs his tongue across Eddie's bottom lip, desperate to taste even more, and Eddie, despite them being in the middle of the street where any innocent passerby could just spot them making out like their lives depend on it — which, yeah, they do, probably— grants Buck access easily, opening up his mouth for Buck to lick into.
The rain picks up, beating down on both of them and sending droplets of water running down their faces, but Buck doesn't care, left that station about two minutes ago, actually. All it does is make it easier for their lips to glide together. The air around them starts smelling earthy and fresh, filled to the brim with washed-away worries, cleansed for new opportunities. Opportunities where Eddie leaving might not actually be the end of the world, just the start of something different.
Eddie's hands move to Buck's cheeks, cupping them like Buck's precious gold, and Buck, for just a second, even believes it. Something stirs inside his stomach, alien and familiar at the same time, something he's been simultaneously ignoring and carrying for so long. Eddie's lips against his, that's new for sure, but the curve of them isn't. Neither are Eddie's long fingers, the exact ones Buck's tracked so many times before, in awe as they performed lifesaving magic. They have the same effect on Buck now, drawing out all of his thoughts of abandonment, loneliness, and the idea that he'd even gotten one of the only things right in his life so wrong. Eddie's not letting him slip through his fingers — cold and wet with rain as they might be, and it fills Buck with relief.
Their kiss slows down, Eddie's lips languidly moving against Buck's until they pause. Buck lets out a small sigh, filled with words he can't yet say, but the meaning is clear to his ears: more and why the fuck didn't we do this sooner.
'Fuck,' Buck mumbles very eloquently against Eddie's mouth, pressing their foreheads together because even an inch of space is too much space right now. He needs to climb up through Eddie's throat, make a nice little bed for himself between Eddie's ribs, live out the rest of his life there, carefully guarding Eddie's heart from any more trauma and heartbreak.
'Yeah,' Eddie says, equally as coherent, and Buck can't help but burst out laughing.
Buck spots the U-Haul in his periphery again, and his heart sinks, because as much as he craves all of Eddie, this is the only piece he'll get to have for now. It's more than he had minutes ago, but he's a greedy man.
'Go do what you need to do. I'll be here.'
'You'll be here?' Eddie asks, like he needs Buck to confirm it a second time, his eyes glassy and hopeful.
'Forever, if I need to be.' It's an easy promise to make; no amount of miles is large enough to diminish how sure he feels about all of this. 'Call me when you get there.'
'I think I love you, just a little,' Eddie says, his eyes locked onto Buck's sneakers.
'That's okay,' Buck says, a finger underneath Eddie's chin to make him look up. 'I think I love you just a little as well.'