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"Chris is still feeling fine, by the way."
Eddie's voice is clipped and terse, his eyes not quite looking over to Buck's in the locker room. He hears the squeak of metal, hesitant, then a soft, careful inhale.
"Eddie," Buck says. "I'm so sorry. I didn't--"
"-- do anything?" Eddie finishes, closing his locker. He leans against it, turning towards Buck. It's a hard thing, because it's almost impossible to be mad at Buck when he looks like that, bruised and blue-eyed and earnest to his bone. Eddie has to press down on the fondness, the concern. He remembers the clatter of Christopher's crutches instead. "No, you didn't."
"You're right," Buck says immediately. "I should've grabbed Theo-- or Chris-- or--"
"-- or, here's a suggestion," Eddie lets the words that have been bubbling up inside of him loose, meaner than he means to be. "Control your fucking kid, Buck."
An incremental flinch. A sliver of guilt. Eddie watches Buck shrink in a little on himself, and doesn't allow himself to fold.
"...he's not my kid, Eddie," Buck protests finally, voice weak.
"That's not what I mean, and you know it." Eddie runs his palm down his face, sighs. "I've held my tongue this entire time, Buck, because who the fuck am I to judge, when I failed Chris at every turn?"
"You didn't fail Chris," Buck interjects immediately, and Eddie fails to suppress a swell of affection for the way that that's still somehow his priority.
"Not the point," Eddie repeats. "But you-- Buck, you can't sustain this, with Theo. The bruises, the throwing things around-- you have to--"
"-- discipline him?" Eddie blinks at the surprising tang of bitterness in Buck's words, the sharp, dark humor in them. Buck closes his eyes for a moment. Opens them, resigned. "The kid's parents just died, Eddie."
Eddie sighs. "I know," he says, softer despite himself.
"They loved him so much," Buck says, something thick in his voice. "And he lost them."
For a moment, Eddie wants to say you lost them too, but he catches the words before they escape. Some things are too tender not to hurt.
Buck runs a hand through his hair. "And now-- it's just me, and I-- I know what it's like, Eddie," he looks up, blue eyes pleading. "I know how it feels when the only people in the world who loved you leave, and the only people you have left keep telling you that you're not enough."
The air rushes out of Eddie's lungs, a bloody exhale. It wasn't that he couldn't see the shape of the thing around Buck, the grief and the way he looked at Theo sometimes like he couldn't bear the guilt of it. And the thing is, Eddie had seen Buck with Chris, coaxing him into good behavior, negotiating with grace. It had pissed him off, before, because he knew that Buck could do it. He knew that it was a choice not to.
But then, didn't he say himself to Hen that Theo reminded him of Chris? Eddie remembers salad bowls and nightmares and sneaking to parks, Uber trips without permission and every exhausting night, every hard conversation, every hole in a wall. He knows what it is to not know what you're doing, with a kid. He knows what it's like to try so hard not to fuck up a child that you go too hard the other way.
"Buck," he says, softer now. He ducks his head until he catches Buck's eyes, resigned as if he expected Eddie to laugh in his face. He doesn't. "Telling Theo where the boundaries are isn't you telling him that he's not enough. It's-- it's making sure that he knows that you trust him enough to tell him when he's going too far."
Buck looks down at his hands. "I just don't want to make him feel like I did, Eddie," he whispers, like a guilty confession. "If some bones have to be broken-- I'd rather it be mine, than his own."
There had been times, throughout the years, when Eddie had learned things about Buck's childhood that made him wish he could meet Buck as a kid. That he could put his hand on that sweet little boy's shoulder and tell him that he's enough, just the way he is. It's a disquieting thing, remembering his irritation towards Theo the night before, to realize that perhaps it was not that simple of a thing.
"But it's not just you," he reminds Buck. "It's Chris, too."
Buck closes his eyes. "I know," he whispers. "I'm so fucking sorry, Eddie. I'll never forgive myself for that."
Eddie sighs. "He did," Eddie says, as much forgiveness as it is a statement. He watches Buck for a moment, the defeated line of him, then goes forward and clasps Buck's shoulder, thumb rubbing against his collar.
"You turned out fine," he reminds Buck. "And Theo will, too. But he needs you to give him structure. Boundaries. He needs you to be a parent. He needs you to be--"
What you are with Chris, Eddie barely stops himself from saying. It feels too revealing, somehow. Too big in his mouth.
Buck hears him anyway. Or, at least, he hears the important part, the way Buck always does. He looks up through his lashes, quirks a little smile.
"Are you telling me to dad up, Eddie?" he asks, something almost like humor in his voice.
Eddie chuckles, feels his shoulders loosen. "Maybe I am," he says. And: "And next time we have dinner, I'm making sure that neither of you are within grabbing distance of any basketballs."