Work Text:
The sound of the duffel bag's zipper closing was like the click of a gun being cocked in the living room.
Eddie Diaz was leaning against the front doorframe, his arms crossed over his chest in a defensive posture that failed to hide the imperceptible trembling of his knuckles.
Outside, the Los Angeles sky was tinged a leaden gray, the low, dense clouds foretelling a storm that matched with surgical precision the oppression crushing his lungs.
In front of him, moving with exasperating efficiency, was him. The man who had entered Buck's life almost a year ago. He wore a perfectly pressed linen shirt and a watch that probably cost more than Eddie's truck. At first, Eddie had tried, really tried, to like him. He had forced smiles at weekend barbecues, nodded politely during trivial conversations about wine and architecture. But, month by month, week by week, this man had operated like a silent, steady tide, eroding the foundation of the life Eddie and Buck had built.
It had started with small changes. Friday night beers on the porch, canceled for "a month-iversary dinner". Then the weekends where Buck used to take Christopher to the park, replaced by "getaways to the California coast". The man was kind, yes, but his kindness was a glass wall rising slowly, isolating Buck from the family he had forged through blood and fire at Station 118. And now, he was taking him away. Upstate. To get married. To start a flawless new life where Eddie and Christopher would, hopefully, be an occasional Christmas card.
Buck came down the stairs carrying the last cardboard box. He was wearing his favorite gray hoodie, the one with slightly frayed cuffs, that was a little too big on him and always smelled of cheap detergent and him. But Buck's posture wasn't its usual self. His shoulders slumped. That thousand-watt smile, the one that could light up a dark alley during a five-alarm rescue, was completely extinguished. His blue eyes, usually a vibrant, energetic ocean, looked like still, frozen ponds.
Eddie lowered his gaze for a second and saw, next to the leg of the coffee table, a small toy fire truck, shiny red metal. A relic from when Christopher was smaller. Seeing it there, almost as if it had survived the rubble of a move, caused a physical pang in his stomach. Throughout his life, Eddie had gotten used to fixing things. He repaired pipes, treated gunshot wounds, pulled people from rubble... he always found a way to put the pieces back together, to fix what was broken. But he looked at Buck and knew, with terrifying certainty, that he didn't have the tools to fix this.
Eddie's mind traveled involuntarily to the farewell dinner they had two nights ago. Bobby and Athena had been the hosts, as always, trying to keep morale high. But Eddie had seen the silent devastation in Bobby's eyes as he carved the roast. Bobby, who saw Buck as a son, seemed to have aged five years that night. And Athena... Athena had hugged Buck at the door for a long, very long minute, whispering something in his ear that Eddie couldn't hear, but that left Buck with shiny eyes and a clenched jaw. The family was fracturing.
"I think that's it," the fiancé said, breaking the thick silence as he closed the trunk of his gleaming SUV. "Ready, Evan?"
Evan. Eddie hated with every fiber of his being how he pronounced his name. He made it sound clinical, sterile, devoid of all the fire and passion that characterized Buck.
Buck swallowed hard. His Adam's apple bobbed sharply before he nodded slowly. He left the box in the back and closed the tailgate. Then, he turned to Eddie.
The space between them was barely two meters, the distance from the porch to the driveway, but suddenly it felt like an unbridgeable abyss. A canyon neither knew how to cross. Eddie clenched his jaw until his teeth hurt, promising himself he wouldn't break in front of them. If Buck genuinely believed this would make him happy, Eddie would endure it. He had survived the war, he had survived Shannon's death, he would endure this internal tearing if it meant seeing his best friend at peace.
"I guess... it's time," Buck murmured. His voice sounded rough, raspy, as if he hadn't used it in days or as if he was fighting to contain something that threatened to overflow.
Eddie uncrossed his arms and took a step forward, stepping down the small porch step. The air between them was charged, dense, heavy with the weight of a thousand postponed conversations and truths they never dared to name.
"Take good care of yourself, Buck," Eddie said. The words came out of his mouth sounding hollow, mechanical. Fake. He hated himself for it. He hated himself for not being able to articulate the chaos roaring in his chest. "Are you sure you have everything? You're not leaving anything behind?"
Buck let out a dry, humorless laugh and kicked a small pebble in the driveway.
"Yeah. Yeah, I think I'm taking everything that fits in those boxes."
Silence fell again, thick and suffocating. The fiancé was already sitting in the driver's seat, engine running, checking the GPS and adjusting the AC. Oblivious, or perhaps deliberately ignorant, of the silent tragedy unfolding in front of his windshield.
Buck raised his head and looked at the ground, then at Eddie's shoes, and finally up to meet his eyes. His pupils were dilated, pleading for something. They searched for an anchor, a smoke signal, a lifeline amidst the shipwreck he himself had orchestrated.
"Are you happy, Buck?"
The question escaped Eddie's lips before his brain could filter the cowardice. It was a whisper, but in the stillness of the gray morning, it sounded with the force of thunder.
Buck froze. His breath caught in his throat, his chest frozen mid-inhalation. For an eternal second, in which the whole world seemed to stop spinning, Eddie saw through the mask. He saw the naked, terrified fear. He saw the monstrous doubt devouring his friend from the inside, tearing at his guts. Buck's gaze darted desperately toward the black truck, toward the safe, predictable life awaiting him, and then returned, colliding with Eddie's dark eyes.
Buck opened his mouth. His lips trembled. The words seemed to stick in his throat, choked by an invisible knot.
Tell me no, Eddie pleaded in his mind, every cell in his body taut as a bowstring. Tell me no and I'll get you out of here. Tell me no and I'll fight the whole world for you.
Suddenly, the SUV's horn honked. A short, sharp, impatient toot.
The sound broke the spell like glass shattering into a thousand pieces. Buck blinked rapidly, stepping half a pace back as if he'd been pushed. He looked down at the asphalt, fleeing in terror from Eddie's eyes.
"Yes," he lied.
It was barely a thread of a voice, fragile and broken, but it was enough to drive a stake directly into Eddie's heart.
"I am," Buck added, as if he had to convince himself.
Eddie nodded stiffly, feeling his blood run cold in his veins. Without another word, he closed the distance and wrapped his arms around Buck. It was a stiff hug at first, but in a second, Buck clung to him with desperate strength, burying his face in Eddie's shoulder, his fingers digging into the fabric of the Latino's jacket. Eddie squeezed his eyes shut, breathing in Buck's scent, memorizing the pressure of his chest, the solidity of his arms, knowing this was the last time. He wanted to hold on to him. He wanted to plant his feet on the ground and scream at him to stay. He wanted to tell him that no one was going to take care of him like he did.
But he let go. His hands fell limp at his sides.
Buck stepped back slowly, gave him one last look laden with a sadness so infinite and profound it threatened to swallow Eddie whole, and turned around. He walked toward the passenger seat with slumped shoulders. He opened the door and got in.
The sound of the door closing echoed with the finality of a tombstone falling into place. The SUV's engine roared and the vehicle began to back up slowly onto the street.
Eddie stood there, motionless at the edge of the asphalt, as the truck drove away, its taillights glowing faintly until they disappeared into the avenue's mist. And it was in that moment, right when the vehicle turned the corner and out of sight forever, that the sky finally broke.
A thick drop of rain hit Eddie's forehead. Then another on his shoulder. In seconds, the California sky unleashed a relentless, cold, heavy downpour, washing away the fresh tire tracks on the wet asphalt and soaking Eddie to the bone, while the world around him became painfully and absolutely silent.
The ten-minute drive back home was, without a doubt, the longest journey of Eddie's life.
He drove on autopilot, hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles ached, but he could barely feel his own fingers. The outside world had been reduced to the hypnotic, rhythmic monotony of the windshield wipers, fighting unsuccessfully against a deluge that seemed intent on drowning the entire city of Los Angeles. The streets had emptied, as if the rest of the world had decided to take shelter from the storm, leaving him alone, adrift.
The passenger seat to his right was empty. It was a physical, tangible emptiness. For years, that seat had belonged to Buck. Eddie couldn't stop his treacherous mind from evoking the ghost of his best friend beside him: Buck compulsively adjusting the radio to find a song he could belt out off-key; Buck with his long legs impossibly stretched out in the cramped space; Buck turning his head, with a dazzling smile, to tell him some useless, fascinating fact he'd read on the internet the night before.
Now, the only thing filling that space was the muffled sound of the rain and a deafening silence that threatened to suffocate him. Eddie swallowed, feeling a knot made of broken glass tearing at his throat. He had let him go. The flawless soldier, the man who never left a man behind, had handed his partner over to the enemy without firing a single shot. And the enemy wasn't even the fiancé; the enemy had been his own paralyzing terror.
He parked in his driveway and turned off the engine. He didn't move. He just sat there in the semi-darkness of the cab, listening to the violent drumming of the water against the metal roof. He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the cold steering wheel. He was exhausted. A deep, ancestral weariness had settled into his bones. How was he going to go in there? How was he going to look his son in the eyes and tell him that the family they had worked so hard to build had just lost its central pillar?
When he finally found the will to open the truck door, the freezing wind hit him like a slap. He didn't run to the house. He walked slowly, letting the rain soak his clothes, his hair, his face, almost wishing the cold water could numb the fire consuming his chest.
He pushed open the wooden front door. Upon entering, the thermal contrast made him shiver. The hallway was dark, and the air in the house held a faint scent of roasted coffee and those oatmeal cookies Buck had baked on Tuesday afternoon with Christopher, arguing that 'moving boxes make you hungry'. Another sharp reminder. The house wasn't empty, but the absence of Evan Buckley's overflowing energy made it feel like a mausoleum.
As he took off his soaked jacket, which fell to the wooden floor with a wet, heavy thud, Eddie heard the music.
It wasn't the blaring sound of the TV, or the loud video games Chris usually played. It was a slow, melancholic, and deeply solemn melody. It came from the living room speakers.
Eddie walked down the hallway with dragging steps, leaving a trail of water behind him. Reaching the archway of the living room, he stopped dead.
The room was lit only by the grayish light filtering through the soaked blinds. Christopher was sitting on the loveseat, his knees pulled to his chest. His gaze wasn't on his phone screen, or on a book. He was staring out the window, at the storm, with an expression of premature maturity that always broke Eddie's heart a little. His son, the boy who was almost a man, carried the weight of the world on his shoulders.
The music filled the space between them, vibrating in the walls. It was the original cast album of Hadestown. Christopher had been obsessed for weeks with that story about descending to the underworld for love, but in that moment, the lyrics weren't fiction. They were daggers aimed directly at Eddie's conscience.
Wait for me, I'm comin'
Wait, I'm comin' with you...
Wait for me, I'm comin' too...
I'm comin' too...
Orpheus's voice, raspy and full of desperate pleading, slipped under Eddie's skin. Wait for me, I'm coming with you.
Eddie's mind brutally flashed back to the brief five minutes prior. The image of Buck standing before him on the sidewalk. The way his blue eyes had desperately searched Eddie's, crying out for an excuse, a reason, a 'stay' that never came. Buck had been on the edge of the precipice, waiting for Eddie to throw him a rope, and Eddie, cowed by years of repression and 'doing the right thing', had kept his hands in his pockets.
Since when had love become something to be afraid of? Since when was the risk of getting hurt greater than the absolute terror of a life where Evan Buckley didn't walk through that door every day shouting that he'd brought dinner?
Christopher turned his head slowly, pulling Eddie from his spiral of misery. The boy looked at his father. He saw the soaked clothes, the water dripping from his dark curls onto the rug, the slumped shoulders, and above all, he saw the shattered, bloodshot gaze of a man who was giving up.
Christopher didn't turn off the music. He reached for his phone on the coffee table, but only lowered the volume just enough so the song's percussion continued to mark the hurried beats in Eddie's neck, like a ticking countdown clock.
Show the way so we can see
Show the way the world could be...
"I thought you wouldn't let him do it," Christopher said. His voice lacked the high pitch of childhood; it was deep, firm, and carried a disappointment that hit Eddie harder than a physical punch.
"Chris..." Eddie's voice broke. He tried to swallow, to find the institutional words adults always use to explain unjust tragedies. It's complicated. He made a choice. We have to wish him well. But none of those lies wanted to come out. "I... he's getting married. He chose this."
"He didn't want to leave," Christopher interrupted him, frowning, the frustration seeping into his calm tone. "You and I both know he didn't want to leave. He was looking at you the whole time."
Eddie closed his eyes tightly. The tears, which he had been holding back since he saw Buck carry the first box that morning, finally overflowed, mixing with the rain on his face.
"I'm scared, Chris," Eddie confessed, his voice reduced to a miserable whisper. It was the first time he had admitted something so raw to his son. Not the fear of entering a burning building, but the fear of rejection. The fear of destroying the only pure thing in his life. "If I go after him, if I tell him... if I ask him to stay and he says no... I don't know if I can survive that."
The room fell silent, except for the song's chorus continuing its relentless climb to the climax.
Who are you to think that you can hold your head up higher than your fellow man?
Christopher leaned on his crutches, standing up slowly but with fierce determination. He walked the two steps separating him from his father and, instinctively, placed his hand on Eddie's soaked arm. The boy's grip was surprisingly strong.
"We survived the tsunami," Christopher said, looking him directly in the eyes with overwhelming clarity. "You survived the sniper. We survived Mom dying. Dad... you're brave for everything else. Don't be a coward about this."
Eddie stopped breathing. His son's words pierced his defenses in one clean strike.
"Don't lose him, Dad," Christopher pleaded, and for the first time, the boy's mask of maturity cracked, revealing the tearful eyes of a teenager terrified of losing his other father figure. "Please, don't let him go. Go get him."
Wait for me... I'm comin'.
The music seemed to explode inside Eddie's mind, syncing with the adrenaline that suddenly flooded his veins. The paralyzing fear evaporated, replaced by a blind, wild urgency. Christopher was right. To hell with prudence. To hell with the rules. He had fought category-five fires and had pulled his family from the ashes over and over again. He wasn't going to let the best part of his life drive down a highway in a black SUV.
Eddie grabbed the back of Christopher's neck, pressing his forehead against his son's for an intense second.
"I love you, kid," he whispered, his voice trembling with emotion.
"Run, Dad."
Eddie didn't need to be told twice. He spun on his heels, forgetting his soaked jacket on the floor, and shot out the front door, throwing himself back into the jaws of the storm.
The rain hit Eddie's face like icy needles the instant he crossed the threshold of his house, but he barely felt it. The door slammed shut behind him, locking in Christopher and the warmth of home, as he threw himself into the storm.
The echo of the song his son was listening to seemed to have followed him outside, embedding itself in his mind, marking the frantic rhythm of his footsteps on the flooded asphalt. As he ran toward his truck, the words resonated with terrifying clarity, as if an ancient voice were speaking directly to his cowardice of the past months.
The dog you really got to dread
Is the one that howls inside your head
It's him whose howling drives men mad
And a mind to its undoing...
The dog you really got to dread is the one that howls inside your head. God, it was so true. Eddie realized, as he opened the driver's door with trembling hands, that Buck's fiancé had never been the real enemy. The monster that had pushed Buck away, the one that had shattered his mind leading him to ruin, had been his own fear. His terror of not being enough. His fear of ruining the friendship.
He inserted the key. The engine roared to life, rivaling the thunder exploding in the gray sky. Eddie slammed on the gas, the tires skidding on the wet pavement before finding traction, and the truck shot out into the street.
Wait for me, I'm comin'
Wait, I'm comin' with you...
Wait for me, Evan, Eddie prayed in a desperate whisper, gripping the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white. Please, wait for me.
He drove recklessly, dodging the scarce traffic that dared to venture out in the middle of the deluge. The windshield wipers whipped back and forth in a frantic beat, but barely managed to push away the wall of water. In his head, the rhythm of the music accelerated, becoming a drumroll mimicking his heartbeat.
As he approached the coastal highway, the Pacific Coast Highway, doubt tried to infiltrate again. It was late. Buck's fiancé was with him. What the hell was he doing? The voices in his head, dark and critical, took the form of the Fates' chorus, mocking his sudden act of bravery.
Who are you?
Who do you think you are?
Who are you to lead him?
Who are you to think that you can hold your head up higher than your fellow man?
Who am I?, Eddie thought, swallowing hard as tears of pure frustration mixed with the cold sweat on his forehead. I'm an idiot. I'm a broken man with a son. Who am I to go ruin his life hours before he moves and starts over with someone perfect?
But then, he clenched his jaw. Christopher's words came back to him: Don't lose him. And the memory of Buck's eyes, blue and pleading before getting into the SUV, shattered any argument those voices could whisper to him. It didn't matter who he was. It mattered who he was next to him.
I'll tell you where the real road lies
Between your ears, behind your eyes
That is the path to Paradise
Likewise, the road to ruin
He pushed the accelerator to the floor. There was no turning back. Whether toward paradise or absolute ruin, he was going to travel this road.
Show the way so we can see
Show the way the world could be
If you can do it, so can she
If she can do it, so can we...
Show the way!
The imaginary music reached its climax, a symphony of urgency and hope. The road hugged the cliffs. To his left, the ocean was a gray, furious abyss; to his right, the slippery stone mountain. Eddie narrowed his eyes against the deluge, searching for any trace of Buck's Jeep or the other man's SUV.
And then, he saw it.
Parked dangerously close to the edge, in an empty lookout point, was Buck's Jeep. His blood pounded so hard in his ears it almost deafened the sound of the storm.
I'm coming, wait for me
I hear the walls repeating
The falling of our feet and
It sounds like drumming...
Eddie slammed on the brakes. The truck skidded a couple of meters before stopping next to the Jeep. Before even cutting the engine, Eddie kicked the door open and threw himself into the fury of the weather. The wind almost knocked him down, but he pushed forward, running toward the only figure that mattered in the whole world.
And we are not alone
I hear the rocks and stones
Echoing our song
I'm coming!
There he was. Standing on the edge of the cliff, his back to the road, soaked to the bone. The water ran down his broad back, and his posture screamed total defeat.
"BUCK!" Eddie's shout tore through the wind, raw and wild.
The tall figure started, spinning on his heels. When Buck saw Eddie running toward him through the storm, his face was a canvas of pure, absolute disbelief.
Eddie reached him panting, his chest rising and falling violently, water soaking his hair and running down his cheeks. He didn't give Buck time to speak. He didn't give the fear time to return.
"You're an idiot!" Eddie panted, grabbing Buck by the shoulders of his soaked jacket, clinging to him as if he were the only solid thing in a crumbling world. "And I am the biggest coward in existence."
Buck blinked, shaking his head, water splashing from his rain-darkened curls. "Eddie? What...? What are you doing here? I... I was supposed to be leaving."
"I know! And I can't let you do it." Eddie pulled him closer. He could feel the heat of Buck's body radiating through the layers of wet clothing. "I've been fighting the dogs in my head for months, Buck. Trying to convince myself that letting you go was the right thing. But I was wrong. I was going crazy."
Wait for me... I'm comin'...
"Eddie..." Buck's voice broke, and his trembling hands came up to grip Eddie's forearms. "He's up ahead. I asked him to let me stop here. I wanted to see the ocean. I wanted..."
"I want you to see me," Eddie interrupted, his voice trembling for the first time. "I want you to look me in the eyes. I understand that if you love him, if that's the life you want, I will leave right now. I'll get in that truck and take the road to ruin, and I'll leave you alone. But I couldn't... I couldn't let you go without telling you the truth."
Buck held his breath, his blue eyes impossibly wide under the curtain of rain.
"I can't lose you, Evan," Eddie confessed, the last barrier falling, exposing all his vulnerability. "You are my everything. You are my family. I love you. And I am so, so sorry for being so stupid for not telling you sooner."
A profound silence settled between them, ironically loud above the roar of the waves crashing against the cliff. Buck's hands, which had been gripping Eddie's arms, slid slowly up to his face. His thumbs caressed Eddie's wet cheeks. When Buck spoke, his voice was barely a murmur, but to Eddie it sounded like a triumphant choir.
"I texted him five minutes ago. I told him I couldn't do it. I told him my home is in Los Angeles."
Eddie felt his knees go weak. "Why?"
Buck smiled. A tiny, watery smile that lit up his entire face despite the storm. "Because I was standing here, looking at the ocean... and wishing you would come. I was waiting for you, Eddie. This whole time."
Wait, I'm comin' with you...
I'm comin' too...
Eddie let out a choked sob. He slid his hands from Buck's shoulders to the back of his neck and pulled him in. Their mouths collided under the pouring rain. It was a desperate, chaotic kiss, tasting of sea salt and repressed tears. Buck wrapped his strong arms around him, lifting him slightly off the ground, hiding his face in Eddie's neck as they clung to each other on the edge of the abyss.
The storm continued to roar around them, but for the first time in months, the voices in Eddie's head had fallen completely silent. Only the echo of a promise remained, sealed under the downpour: at last, they had found the way.