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Eddie remembers the first time that he fought for money. Not the first time he fought. No, there was a distinction between those two things. Because he’d been fighting for as long as he could remember.
Playground fight as a kid, his anger boiling over and clenched little fists pounding against a kid two times his size until he had to be pulled away. Shouting matches with Shannon that never got physical because he’d never do that, but he still fought with his words, putting all of the anger and frustration in harsh communication that she didn’t deserve. He still doesn’t know why he did it. Why was their relationship always fraught with struggle and pain. He fought as a soldier too, one of the first times that he realized his fighting, his struggle with his own emotion, could be used to help.
Those fights had always been about something. About making sure that the people he loved were safe, about getting home, about wanting to feel something. But this? This was different.
The money had been incidental. Just a stack of cash that had been pushed over to him by the organizer, a social lubricant that kept him stepping back into that ring and into the bloodied dirt circle, no matter how dangerous it was. No matter how much he knew that it was wrong. He thought he’d put it behind him. He thought that he was okay with just a punching bag in the station gym or his twice weekly Muay Thai training sessions, where he knew he could still channel his anger against people who were consenting. Who were safe due to the rules and regulations, no matter how hard Eddie could punch.
It wasnt’ about the money, he found. Not really. It was about the feeling of a crunch beneath his fingers and the fire behind the eyes of an opponent. It was the lack of rules, and knowledge that the man across from him was in just as much pain as he was. Also searching for relief, for something different… no matter how much it hurt. And no one would ask if he was okay or what he was fighting for. No one would care about the ptsd or the mental health concerns that drove him. No, they’d just put a punch drunk opponent in front of him, letting them go, and handing over a stack of cash in the darkened parking lot to let Eddie drive his battered and bruised body home to fall into bed before his son could ask if everything was okay from behind his bedroom door.
Eddie knew how bad of an idea it was as he stood outside of the worn down factory door 7 years on from his first battle. The last time he’d set foot in this place, someone had almost died. Eddie had broken the rules, calling 911 to save the life of a man who was there for the same reasons he was. Money problems and a life that was eroding beneath his feet. He knew it was a bad idea.
He went inside anyway.
It looked exactly the same inside. Smelt like it too. The metallic tang of blood and sweat was nearly an assault the way it wafted around him, an all consuming and near addictive in the way it blanketed over him in a familiar and comforting way. He had always wondered what was wrong with him that this grounded him. That the electric current in the air and the knowledge of pain and violence that clung to his skin made him excited. Made him feel alive again.
He walked against cracked concrete, the industrial lights casting a slimy yellow glow over the path he continued to follow despite knowing what lay on the other side. Despite knowing that one wrong move could cost him everything. His job. His kid. Even his life if he wasn’t careful. But, he didn’t care. There was nothing left to help him. Nothing to try. No one cares. At this point he wondered if it was even a loss?
His son didn’t need him. Christopher had grown into a young man who was self-sufficient. He still loved his father, Eddie knew that. But, he was 16 now and almost an adult. Only 2 years shy of the age Eddie found out about Chris’s existence, 3 from when Eddie had held him for the first time and had given up every dream he had to throw himself into fatherhood and servitude. He wouldn’t change the decision for the world, but Eddie had spent the last more than decade of his life living for Chris, and now, the teenager didn’t need that anymore.
Buck didn’t need him either. Engrossed in his new life with a rambunctious toddler and help from everyone who could possibly give it. The jealousy had churned in Eddie's stomach when he’d watched their friends and co-workers rally over the past year around his best friend, the only person he thinks he could love as much as he loves Chris. Buck had struggled over the last year, but so had Eddie.
Buck had lost Bobby. So had Eddie.
Buck had found out someone was living in his attic, anger seeping out. Eddie stood by Abuela’s bedside clutching a too cold hand against his chest as he held back tears.
Buck had been kidnapped and beaten. Eddie had laid in a pool of his own blood for hours and traipsed through a desert fueled on only adrenaline in a battered state, terrified of what he might find when he finally knew where Buck might be.
Buck had fallen into a vice, begging for help. Eddie had called his guy.
Buck had rallied the team together in a moment of relief. Eddie bled out in an elevator. Alone.
He’s jealous. He’s upset. He doesn’t want to talk about it. To talk about how Buck was rallied around in every moment. How Buck has a trauma and everyone falls at his feet. It’s not fair to feel, not fair to expect more when he himself won’t open up. Unfair to think when Buck of all people has always been there for Eddie… even if they don’ t talk about what it all might mean. Eddie knows that he’s the reason he doesn’t get what Buck does.
If he asked.
If he wanted.
If he would just… take.
But he doesn’t. So they don’t know. And he simmers and stews. And he puts himself into danger, footsteps echoing against dirty concrete stained with blood and sweat, letting old ghosts wrap around him like a suffocating type of blanket that he can’t seem to get away from no matter how bad he knows it is for him.
“Wow,” a low gravelly voice came up behind him, a strong hand to his shoulder. “Didn’t think we’d ever see you again.”
Eddie turned. “Yea well,” lets his foot scuff against a crack in the floor. “Neither did I.”
“Spectating or…”
Eddie sucks in a breath, looks around, and makes a decision right there. Because anger was easier. Safer. Better for him to feel than whatever else was brewing at the base of his spine, spreading into his stomach, crawling up his throat to escape at any given moment. That was dangerous. The anger was too, but at least in a way that Eddie was intimately familiar with. It was safer that way. Keep quiet and go fist first into every situation.
“Fighting.”
“You sure?”
No.
Eddie nodded as he let his eyes roam over to the ongoing fight, watching intently as the current champion bounced on the balls of his feet, circling his opponent like he knew it would be easy. Like he was aware of every weak spot that the other man was putting forward. One well timed punch. A dodge. Uppercut with connection. Blood spilling onto the dirt in thick waves, mixed with saliva and sweat. It made him ache as he forced himself to pull his eyes away.
“Yea,” he said despite the churning of his stomach. “I’m sure.”
“Good to have you back.”
Eddie headed towards the back area, pulling the hood of his sweatshirt over his head to try and obscure himself from the crowd whose attention was finally being pulled away to the finishing fight.
“Glad to be back.”
—
Eddie cracked his neck, bouncing on his feet as he stared into the makeshift ring in front of him. His opponent, a guy in his late 20s– lean and lighter than Eddie, obviously still new at the game– waved his hands at the crowd, taking a beer from the person closest to him; chugging and yelling, throwing the empty can into the crowd. It was a performance for him. Something fun. For Eddie it was more than that.
His opponent was fast. Eddie noticed that right away. Light on his feet and good at dodging. His punch wasn’ hard though, kicks not sharp enough. What Eddie didn’t have in speed he had in skill. This was his 7th fight with the new group, all much younger than him and full of bravado, but scared of his age and experience. Scared of the fact that he was there to prove something. A man with nothing to lose. Because for Eddie it wasn’t about the money but about the experience. About the feeling of his fingers, the ones that always help, being the ones to finally be able to inflict, to control. Instead of Eddie letting things happen to him, violence perpetrated against him or his family in a way he couldn’t prevent. This was violence that he was good at. Violence he could keep control of and win against. Violence that he had chosen.
Teh makeshift bell rang, Eddie rolling his shoulders and stepping forward. The guy across from him spit onto the ground, frothy saliva making a puddle on the ground in a way that disgusted Eddie and made him angry. He let the anger fuel him, grow into a resentment that he could leverage.
Lean left. Lean right. Dodge.
Jab. Jab. Cross. Lean. Jab.
Step back. Question mark kick.
It lands against the man' s side, ribs fracturing under the pressure. He stumbles and Eddie takes that as an opening, stepping back slightly to get ready again, hands up in front of his face. He throws a jab. It hits the target. He pulls back, holds his hands up as the other man staggers, head obviously no longer in it.
“Tap out or knockout,” rings in his head. It isn’t over until it’s over. Until one of them finally says they’ve had enough. For a moment he sees another man reflected in his opponent's face. The one that stopped this the last time. The one that almost died, but didn’t because Eddie was willing.
He pauses for too long. He doesn't see it. He doesn't have time to throw his hands back up. It comes out of nowhere and hits like a shock to the system. His vision goes blurry, a sharp throbbing pain hitting the side of his skull. The sound is sickening and Eddie doubles over, vomit spraying into the air like a fine mist. He has only a moment to taste the iron tang of blood before holding a hand up. Trying to tap out.
Another blow lands.
The room spins.
Everything goes dark.
—
When Eddie wakes up three things come to him immediately.
His head hurts.
His mouth is dry.
Buck is angry.
That third one is only available to him because the man in question is right in front of him, standing next to the hospital bed with his arms crossed and fire lighting up those usually gentle blue eyes.
Eddie tries to look away but he’s unable to. He knows what’s coming. The verbal lashing, the argument, the deflection. His head is pounding and a searing pain behind his eyes that makes him want to close his eyes and drift back to sleep under the heavy cloud of painkillers. But, he doesn’t because Buck is still there. Still staring at him, and Eddie is powerless against it.
“You’re awake.”
“Hello to you too” Eddie says, the timber of his voice hollow and the words scratching his dry throat raw. Any other time Buck would have a chair pulled up to the side of the bed, a cool glass of water clutched in his palm. He’d run a hand through Eddie’s dirty hair and say how sorry he was, how scared he was. This time, there’s none of that. There’s only Eddie’s aching body against thread bare hospital sheets with Buck staring down at him, nostrils flaring.
Neither of them say anything else, the silence only cut by the faint beep of Eddie's heart monitor. There' s a tension in the room so thick that Eddie thinks he might be choked by it. “Buck…”
“Dont.”
Eddie closes his mouth, setting his jaw as the anger bubbles back up inside of him. He was ready to do the thing that he always does. Apologize and move forward, give Buck what he wants to hear even if it isn’t what Eddie means. Give Buck the thing to stop him from feeling badly even when Eddie needs more. When he needs to scream and yell and attempt to say all the things he’s never felt that he could. He goes to open his mouth again, but Buck beats him to it.
“What were you thinking, Eddie?”
There it is. Eddie’s chest tightens and he pushes it down, lets the anger continue to claw itself through his body, taking over. “What a way to wake up.”
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
Buck sighs, a dry humorless laugh accompanying it as he throws his hands up. “Don’t make jokes!”
“I’m not joking, Buck.”
“You just woke up in a hospital because someone kicked you in the head!”
“I noticed.”
Buck’s nostrils flared at that. “I’m sure you did,” he says, fists clenching at his sides, anger still sparking behind his eyes. Eddie licks his lips and nods slightly. Good, he thinks. Be angry with me. Want to hit me. Want it to hurt.
“The doctor said you’re lucky to be alive.”
Eddie laughs then, a loud type of cackle. Because of course. Of course that’s what they said. He’s Eddie Diaz. He’s always so fucking lucky.
Lucky to survive. To wake up. To make it home. Lucky to still have his son in his home. Lucky that he isn’t dead in a ditch somewhere. Lucky to have made it out of the desert. Lucky to still have a job. Lucky to still have Buck. Except… Eddie looks at him. Really looks. He wonders if that last one is even true anymore. And he wonders when it went from him knowing that Buck would always be there to wondering when he’d think it was too much and turn against Eddie too. Just like every partner he’s ever had. Just like his own parents. When would Eddie crew up enough that when Buck looked at him it would be disgust reflected back?
“Who called you?”
Buck cocks his head, expression changing slightly into something Eddie can’t quite read.
“What?”
“Who–” Eddie coughs a bit, throat still feeling like sandpaper. “Who called you? How’d you know I was here?”
“You’re a fucking idiot.”
Eddie just blinks at him. “That’s not an answer.”
“I’m your emergency contact, dumbass. You never changed it.”
Eddie sighs, lets his head drop back against the flat uncomfortable pillow, eyes staring up into the fluorescent lights. He’d forgotten about that. He’d changed his emergency contact to Buck years ago, after he’d been shot. Buck had been the first person he asked for when he woke up, glazed over eyes moving past Ana to the open door where he had hoped Buck had been standing. He hadn’t. He’d been in Eddie’s house and caring for Eddie’s son, exactly the way that Eddie always knew he would. But, it was after that he changed the emergency contact to Buck.
It was one of the few selfish moves that he had made over the years. Not taking Buck’s feelings into consideration or what else his best friend may have to do in the wake of this type of emergency. All he had thought about at the time was how badly he had wanted Buck to be there. And so he changed the emergency contact and he had never looked back apparently.
“I didn’t know who else to put.”
It’s Buck’s turn to laugh, but just like Eddie, there’s no humor in it. It’s dull and lifeless. Eddie hates it. “Right.”
“Buck I–”
“No,” Buck puts a hand up, shaking his head. “You don’t get to–you dont get to do that. Say my name like that. Act like–you don’t get to do this.”
“Do what?”
Buck’s eyes are glassy when he makes eye contact again. There’s still anger behind the gaze but it’s more hurt than anything else. “You could have died today. Do you know how lucky you are that anyone even called 911? Eddie, you know that they leave people for dead. You could have–what if–”
“I didn’t.”
“Thats not the point!” Buck’s voice raises a few decibels to a near yell. It’s like he’s trying to beg Eddie to understand. And Eddie does. He knows what Buck is trying to say. He fights against it anyway.
“It is the point,” he argues back weakly. “You said I could have died and I didn’t. There’s nothing else to say.”
“Eddie,” Buck’s voice cracks around the word, like he’s trying to explain something but can’t find the right words. Like he needs Eddie to understand but Eddie refuses to be anything other than obtuse. “I got the call at 2 in the morning, Eds.” The nickname burns. Eddie keeps his face even.
“They woke me up. Woke Theo up. Said you’d come in unconscious and they needed permission to–I don’t know they needed someone to be here.”
Edde still doesn’t respond. Doesn’t show an ounce of emotion, or at least he tries not to.
“When I got here they told me what happened, where you were.”
Eddie looks away from him, embarrassment climbing up his face.
“And I had to sit here and wonder if you were going to wake up. I had to call Maddie and Chim and get them to grab Theo. I had to think about what I was going to tell Chris if you weren’t awake by the time he got home from Jake’s house–”
That gets Eddie’s attention. Even in the midst of all of this, he still wants to know if his son is okay.
“He’s fine,” Buck says without breaking his train of thought. “He knows you’re here but I didn’t tell him anything else. Not my place.”
“You can leave,” Eddie says, voice icing over as he lets the anger take hold again. Why couldn't Buck just– why doesn't he do something to force Eddie to be able to really air it all out?
“No”
“Get out.”
“Eddie–”
“Leave!”
Buck just steps closer, hips bumping against the flimsy plastic rail of the hospital bed. “We need to have this conversation, Eds.”
“Oh now you want to talk? What if I want to be alone?”
“I’m not–” Buck pinches at the bridge of his nose as if he’s exhausted by the mere existence of Eddie. “I’m not leaving you alone like this.”
Eddie shrugs his shoulders, going for the jugular with his next words. “Of course, staying when it’s convenient for you.”
“Thats not–Eddie that's not fair.’
“Isn’t it?” Eddie questions. “I needed you and you weren’t there.”
“You didn’t ask.”
“How was I supposed to?” Eddie’s voice rises, knowing that it’ll only egg Buck on. His throat is raw, water so desperately needed, yet he craves the pain of it and the knowledge of what he’s doing. As much as these words hurt Buck, he needs the physical reminder of the way they hurt him too.
“You didn’t even give me a chance to say if I needed you and then you–you kept leaving! Every time!”
“What did you want me to do?!”
Buck’s voice rises again, the two of them breathing heavily as a nurse passes by the open door to give them a scowl. “I was drawing,” Buck finally says. “After Bobby and then–I was– I thought I was okay and then I wasn’t.”
“I was too,” Eddie says and it’s the most honest he’s been in more than a year. “I’ve been drowning too, Buck. From all of it.”
“You never–”
“What was I supposed to say? No, Buck, don’t move out of my one bedroom house and mourn the man that was basically your father the way you need to? No, Buck, don't go out on those dates and hookup with people because I need you here? No, Buck don’t fuck off after one of the biggest truamas of you life even though you’re suffering because I also suffered?” Eddie shakes his head. “Would you have listened? Even if I told you what I needed?”
Buck hangs his head at that. “No,” he finally says after a moment. “I wouldn’t have.”
“I thought you were dead.”
Buck’s brow furrows at that. “What?”
“In New Mexico,” Eddie says finally. If they were going to do this, he figures they may as well go all the way. “I thought I was trying to find a body.”
“I didn't–" he watches and Buck processes the new information in real time, recategorizing everything that happened that day and after, as if this were something brand new that he’d never considered. “No one ever–I didn’t know. They didn’t– they weren’t going to look for me were they?”
Eddie shakes his head. “They thought I had done something to you and they were more interested in proving that I was some kind of gay family annihilator than listening to me about the fact that it was a hate crime.”
“It wasn’t.”
“No,” Eddie spit. “It wasn’t. I just spent a day thinking that it was and that I was going to find you dead in a ditch somewhere in the middle of a desert and I was going to have to bring a body home to your sister and our son!”
“Eddie–”
“I was terrified and no one cared! I wanted to find you and bring you home but I needed support too and I couldn't get it! I never could!”
“Eddie–”
But he still isn’t listening.
“When we got home I was terrified. I kept waking up and I was seeing Bobby and Abuela. I was seeing you and I was waking up to a point that even Chris knew something was wrong. I was terrified and struggling and everyone just–you all walked away. We could have–we could have gotten through it together and you just–you–” Eddie takes in a deep, shuttering breath. “I needed you and you weren’t there. We could have done it together, Buck.”
He watches as Buck's eyes fill with tears and he blinks them back. He goes to open his mouth again but Eddie isn’t done. He thinks that if he doesn’t say it now he never will.
“I never stopped loving you and I feel like you don't even care.”
“Eddie–” Buck reaches forward, putting a gentle hand on his shoulder. “What did you just say?”
“I’m in love with you!” Eddie finally explodes. It’s the truth, open and vulnerable and placed like an atomic bomb into the middle of the room. His head hurts, his body aches, he just wants to be done. He wants to screw it all up and get Buck to leave so he can cry and shake and sleep and figure out what the future will look like when his best friend inevitably decides this isn’t worth the time or the struggle.
“I was terrified and struggling and I wanted you there because I love you and what did you do? Every single time you could have been there… you left. You moved out after Bobby. You weren't there for Abuela. You went to chim after New Mexico. What was I supposed to think?”
Buck just keeps staring at him, a look of shock refusing to leave his face.
“I miss you all the time,” Eddie says quietly, the anger finally draining out of him. “I miss you and I love you and I just–I just wanted you with me.”
“Oh, Eddie.”
“I didn’t–I didn’t know what to do,” the tears start to fall, fat and wet as they slide down his cheeks. “I–” he sniffles. “I I just wanted to feel like myself again and so I– I’m so fucking stupid.” The shame and the guilt hit him all at once, the very last of his anger falling away. Just like always it leaves him feeling hollowed out and raw. This time though, he aired it all out. There’s nothing left to say, nothing to wallow in by himself later in the darkness and safety of his room. Now there is only the inevitable fallout. The thing that the anger can’t help him escape.
“Eddie,” the name forces him to look up again, the tone so soft that he almost thinks he’s misheard.
“I–” any words die on his tongue as Buck leans over and kisses him. It’s unlike the nights where Eddie has sat alone, staring at the darkened ceiling and imagined what it would be like. In the quiet hours when treacherous brain wouldn’t let him sleep he’d imagined every possible scenario for this, and the reality is far sweeter.
Buck tastes like peppermint gum and stale coffee, and somehow rich, dark chocolate.. He smells like clean skin and a hint of salt and bubblegum and Eddie smiles against his lips realizing it’s the same curl shampoo that he’d always used on Chris when he was young, now likely used on Theo’s soft, blonde curls.
His hand comes up to cup gently at Eddie’s jaw, thumb skimming lightly over bruised skin. There’s a sharp pain as Eddie moves against his lips, a hiss drawn out of him, but he doesnt’ care. He lets his right hand fall to the front of Buck’s shirt, gripping hard at the fabric to pull him closer. Every part of him relaxes at once, collapsing into Buck’s body, letting himself be held. It’s not a messy kiss. Buck’s tongue teases at the seam of his lips, licking at the raw, chapped skin, but he doesn't push in, just lets their lips move together and their bodies click into place. For the first time in a decade, Eddie lets himself stop fighting.
The kiss only lasts for a few seconds and Eddie whimpers as Buck pulls away. He feels his cheeks flush with embarrassment but Buck doesn’t judge or go far. He just rests their foreheads together, mouth still so close that Eddie can feel every exhale battle against his own.
“I’m sorry,” Buck’s voice is light when he says it.
“No.”
“I am though.”
Eddie shakes his head. “So am I, but I think we–” he sighs and closes his eyes again against the pain pounding against his skill. “I think we should start over. No apologies, just–”
“Whatever you want,” Buck promises, letting himself pull the chair close to the edge of the bed so he can sit, but keep their fingers intertwined. “Whatever you need, Eddie. I’m here.”
“I just want you to stay,” Eddie says after a moment of silence, giving into the venderability he so badly wants to push down again. But, he doesn’t and he won't ever again. Not now. “Just stay.”
“Okay,” Buck says as Eddie closes his eyes and feels the way that sleep begins to tug him under.
“I’ll stay.”