Archive of Our Own ^beta

“At least my playboy phase didn’t end up with me needing medical attention,” Buckley boasted, waiving his fork at Eddie.

“I didn’t realize penicillin was an over-the-counter medication now,” piped up, Chim.

Hen laughed into her cup as Cap sighed. “Do I need to remind you that this is a workplace. I’d hate to have us revisit those HR videos.”

“Yeah, listen to Cap,” Buck said cockily. Eddie couldn’t help but smile as he shook his head. “Also, I’ll have you know that I am clean, thank you very much. Safety first. Hey, why is that funny? I’m serious, why is that funny?”

“Buck, darling,” Hen began patiently, “we all love you, but it’s a little funny to hear safety first from Mr. Daredevil himself.”

“Whatever, all I’m saying is that if we’re comparing phases than mine is hardly the worst.” 

“Just the longest,” Chim muttered under his breath.

“That’s what she said.” Buck’s smirk was met with a collective groan from the table as topic quickly veered on to the next subject.

Eddie could feel his shoulders relax, slowly coming off guard from the conversation. The topic of phases seemed to come up a lot lately and usually by Buck. At first, he thought he was being overly sensitive to it as it was focused on him, but it kept popping up until there was no denying Buck was doing it on purpose. Just a phase. Buck’s new favorite phrase. Eddie tried not to let it bother him. He knew what he had done was stupid, but all he wanted to do forget about it. The shame of it all burned at him like a sunburn he couldn’t soothe.

But Buck wouldn’t let him forget, because Buck was Buck. They were two sides of the same coin. Where he was purposefully calm and collected (recent events excluded), Buck was pure passion and impulse. If he didn’t know the other man so well he could chalk it up to him wanting to knock him down a peg, but Buck wasn’t that guy. He was the guy with a heart of gold. Maybe he was trying to convince Eddie it was only a phase to make sure he wouldn’t pick it back up. So he wouldn’t be that brash, reckless, violent guy his friend didn’t recognize. Or maybe he was trying to convince himself that wasn’t who Eddie really was. As if he said it enough it would be true. Just a phase.

He hated that expression ever since the first time he heard his mother whisper it to his dad after he had offhandedly agreed with his sister that some boyband member or another was cute. He hadn’t understood his father’s scowl. Hadn’t understood why what he said was wrong. That was the day he learned that some parts of himself were better left private.

Street fighting might have been a phase, but it was merely the latest symptom of an underlying problem. Eddie tried extremely hard every single day to be put together as was expected but try as he might – and fuck did he try- sooner or later he always came back severely lacking.

He has been several years younger than his own son was now when his father began instilling on him that as a man thing were different than they were for his sister. He might be the youngest, but he had the most responsibility. One day he would be the man of his own house and that meant being strong. There was no room for weakness. His father only wanted to prepare him for the world; to make sure he could survive it. 

While his sisters’ scraped knees and broken hearts were met with hugs and words of comfort, his weakness was met with scorn and disappointment. Real men don’t cry. Are you a man or are you a baby? Weakness is a burden and you owe it to your family not to be a burden. Do you want to be a burden, Eddie? Complaining was a weakness. Crying was a weakness. Need was a weakness. He learned to hold it all in, to suppress the faults and cracks deep down. For the good of his family.

His abuela is always telling him that he was a happy sweet kid like Christopher. The thing is, try as he might he can’t remember ever being that person. He remembers the scared kid who hid down the street to hide his tears when he fell off the bike or shoved his fists in his mouth to hide he cries after a nightmare. He remembers the angry kid with constant stomach aches who would punch the wall when he couldn’t grasp a concept in school no matter how hard he tried. He remembers the cool indifference he adopted as a means of controlling the storm. It felt like the mature approach. Still does most days.

Hell, maybe he was regressing. He was stumbling back from anger to raw fear. It would explain why everything seems terrifying lately as everything spins out of his control. Somehow he doesn’t think it ends with him feeling like a happy kid again.

How did he explain to Buck that he was a massive swirl of inadequacies wrapped in a seemingly calm package? That the package had been crafted over decades at this point, but that he was still making it up as he went along. That he would make himself okay because Christopher needed him to be, but it was only a matter of time before the ugly truth came seeping out. That the best he could do was keep his son out of its path. Not that he had been doing a great job of that.

He had a plan for his life. He was going to go to college and make something of himself. He worked hard and got the grades. Then he met a girl, fell in love and she got pregnant. His father was disappointed, but he stepped up, dropped out of school to start working full time and got her a ring. He didn’t get the big loud wedding he always wanted, instead opting to elope at the courthouse. His abuela cried when she realized she wasn’t there to see him get married, but that was money better saved for their son.

Their apartment was too small and not in the neighborhood Shannon wanted. He couldn’t afford the best new baby items and he relied on his sister hand me downs. Shannon was disappointed, but they managed. They were going to manage.

When Shannon’s contractions started he did not panic or let fear or nervousness take over. He was surrounded by nieces and nephews and had enough medical training to know delivery never occurs as fast as it appears on television. He teased her relentlessly for wanting to rush to the hospital, his calm demeanor in sharp contrast to her panicked energy. He made her take her time before they went in.

He was ready. They were ready. He remembered everything in their baby bag, all the family members had been alerted, she got the birthing room she had wanted. This time he had got things right.

Only then things started to go very wrong.

Logically he knows there was no way to know Christopher would get stuck. There are risks in every pregnancy and you can’t prepare for every single one. Logically he knows this, but when Shannon is crying and screaming that it was his fault for not bringing them in when she wanted, that this never would have happened if they had arrived earlier, he knows deep down she had been right.

His son hadn’t even taken his first breath before he had messed everything up.

But he tries. He keeps trying because that child is everything to him and he would do anything to do right by his family. Each doctor’s visit is followed by new recommendations for specialist, new hypotheticals and a mounting stack of bills that he has not idea how they’re going to cover.

He works three jobs and barely see his wife and son, but the money has to come from somewhere. He and Shannon only talk to fight and every day is like walking on eggshells. Every time he comes home it seems like either Shannon is crying, or Christopher is. He doesn’t allow himself to fall apart. He doesn’t allow himself to rage or be worries or scared. He needs to be the strong one, so he is the strong one. And it worked for a while, until he’s driving home from his third midnight shift in a row only to be startled from a blaring horn after dozing off for just a second.

As he parked on the side of the road, adrenaline coursing through his frayed mind all the could think about was how if he had just died Shannon would be stuck with another bill they couldn’t afford. It’s so morbidly bleak he laughs himself to the point of tears before realizing at some point he must have started sobbing. Real men don’t cry. That was the night he knew things had to change.

The army would solve so many of their problems and it wasn’t like he was really getting to see his son as it was. The benefits and hazard pay couldn’t be matched anywhere else and while Shannon didn’t give her blessing for him to go, she also didn’t ask him to say.

He hadn’t realized he wanted her to until she didn’t. Silly, really. Going had been his idea.

Eddie had always done well with structure and taking orders. That’s why the army had fit so naturally. One of the first lessons he learned in the army was that everything had a specific purpose and when something broke you threw it away. A broken tool no longer had value. There was no room for sentimentality when your life was in your pack and every ounce weighed more with each step. The lesson was reinforced in the muddy fields of basic, those long-cramped rides in a tank, and in the stifling hot briefing rooms in the desert. By the time he returned home it was a fact he no longer had to give active thought to. He was thankful for it really. It got him through his time in the desert. It made packing up and moving to Los Angeles less of a hassle than it might have been. It worked.

Only, they never prepared him for when he became the broken thing.

Eddie knew coming back to civilian life would be an adjustment. It was one of the many cowardly reasons he had delayed the process so long. There was no running into a warm embrace as he walked through the airport. There were no large banners and tear streaked faces of his loved ones to greet him with open arms. There was only his wife, his son with face buried in her shoulder to hide from the unknown man in front of him and years’ worth of distance.

“Give him time,” Shannon said in way of greeting. “He’s probably still getting used to you having legs. He has only seen you from the shoulders up,” she said, trying to make a joke but the bitterness left it falling flat and heavy between them. “You’re a stranger to him, Eddie.” Which was your decision, she left unsaid. In truth, he knew he was a stranger to them both. “Let’s just go home. We can try again somewhere he feels more comfortable.”

He nodded, shifting his pack on his shoulder with a tight-lipped smile. Home. Did he even know where that was anymore?

Every solider returning home knew that there was a drop once they got back. A sharp shift back to “normal” life, without the army’s rules and regulations to keep everything moving forward as part of a larger picture. In those late nights when his mind won’t stop spiraling towards the darkest corners of his mind he could admit that Shannon’s struggle was his blessing. He could dive right in to doctor’s appointments for Christopher and getting to know the son he had seen grow up from a tiny four corner screen across the world. He could make himself useful. He could find a new purpose.

He couldn’t blame his wife her growing resentment as people gushed over the alleged war hero turned super dad, when she had been the one up every night with the screaming baby. Or the flare of jealousy when Christopher went from being completely dependent on her to always seeming to favor his papa. Eddie hadn’t been there for the frantic ER trips or the wailing cries from Christopher as she waited in the awkward lobby chairs for another specialist who was running an hour behind. He had left them, and she had to do everything alone.

He couldn’t be what Christopher need back then, but he could be that now. If he braced himself after every car backfired or continued to look for her enemy combatants behind every corner, he never talked about it. And if he spent restless nights fighting the demons he brought back with him he never complained. He kept it in, kept it close, because Christopher needed him to be strong.

They formed their new routine and he got comfortable. Then she left. He didn’t give his blessing for her to go take care of her mother, but he also didn’t ask her stay. Sometimes late at night he wonders if she had wanted him to, but he knows deep down that she didn’t.

He devotes his life to Christopher and for all the ups and downs he’s happy. Happy enough all thanks to his amazing boy. They have a good thing going for a while, but as always, he manages to let everyone down.

Shannon once again found him lacking, because nothing about him had really changed, had it? He was fooling himself to think it would end any other way. There was a reason he didn’t let people in. There was a reason his focus had solely been on his son. Except, he was weak. He craved support and comfort. He missed having someone to rely on. He missed having brothers in arms like he had in the military. He knew he’d find a kinship at the station, but he hadn’t counted on Buck.

Buck was young and headstrong, and at first it was easy to assume Buck would flutter in and out of the picture as it suited the younger man. He was young, hot and single. And for a moment he imagines something more, but the fleeting moment passes, and he buries any lingering want for more deep inside. Buck had better things to do than to attach himself to their little family. Eddie didn’t let a lot of people in, but with Buck it happened without thought. Suddenly he was not just letting him in but was actually counting on him. He didn’t even realize how lonely he had been before Buck until the lawsuit ripped them apart.

It hurt. He wasn’t going to pretend that it didn’t. The fact Buck hadn’t even talked to him about it beforehand—That was painful, but realizing at the supermarket that Buck hadn’t even considered the fact that he wouldn’t able to talk to them, that he meant so little that it hadn’t even crossed his mind, was just---

Buck didn’t sign up for whatever Eddie had placed upon him, but that didn’t stop him from feeling the betrayal. Couldn’t they see that they just wanted him safe? Eddie knows he could have done more to express that, but those weren’t the sort of things he was used to talk about. You kept those things inside and carried on. He couldn’t understand how Buck could be so brash and open in his feelings so boldly open in his hurt. Maybe if he had been better about expressing himself Buck never would have done something so stupid, but he wasn’t. Not when the idea of admitting weakness felt like being drowned in a tub of cold ice. 

He could have ignored it if it had just been him, but Buck’s absence hurt Christopher as well and ultimately that was his fault for letting him into their lives in the first place. He wouldn’t allow Christopher to think for one second that he was the one people wanted to leave, not when it was him that they were fleeing from.

He had failed Shannon. He had failed Christopher more times than he could count. Even now his sweet boy was starting to be like him, burying his fears and troubles and making himself scared and angry. He had been so careful not to teach him the lessons of his father, but somehow he had learned the all the same and that was on him. It was all on him.

Fighting hadn’t been about the power. Fighting had been about the punishment. To remind him every time the pain shot through his side as he moved just how weak and broken he really was. Because even after a win, he was still the same broken bastard he always was.

Buck has bent over backwards trying to make up for something that was never really about him. Eddie knows it wasn’t really Buck he was angry at. He was angry at himself. He was angry that he could never seem to be enough. That he could never seem to be there for the people who needed him most. But he’d keep trying, because they deserved that much from him.

Slowly life moves forward until he has forgotten all this talk about phases, until Buck brings it up in the middle of P.F. Fucking Changs (Chim’s idea of a joke when someone requested authentic Chinese) with Christopher right across the table.

Eddie freezes instantly and a look of regret crosses Buck’s face. His son doesn’t know about his fighting and he’s determined that he never will.

“What’s a phase,” Christopher asks innocently, looking up from his plate as Eddie scrambles to think of a way to describe it.

“It’s like when I tried kissing girls one summer in college,” the waitress offers, winking at Buck as she refilled his glass. Eddie is shooting daggers as Chim clears his throat uncomfortably. Sometimes he really hates L.A. Buck hardly seems to register the comment at all.

“Oh,” Christopher states cautiously. “So, like when you would kissed Anthony?”

Eddie forces himself not to sigh as he pointedly ignores anyone else that isn’t his son. He’s not ashamed of his romantic past, but this is not a conversation he necessarily wanted to have in the middle of a restaurant. “No, buddy. A phase is only a one-time thing or at least something that you only do for a period of time. That waitress doesn’t like kissing girls anymore and that’s okay. Me being attracted to men and women is just a part of who I am and that’s not going to change.”

He may be a private person by habit, but he needed Christopher to know that attraction was nothing to be ashamed of or hide. He didn’t want him to think this was a conversation that had to be had in secret. He never wanted Christopher to grow up thinking there were parts of himself he had to hide.

Chris shrugged, seemingly content with the answer as he stabbed at a piece of broccoli. The table grew quiet and Eddie fought not to fill in the meaning of the silence.

“Wait. You’re bi? Pan? And who is Anthony?”

Eddie turned to look at Buck, face neutral as he took a sip of his water. “Ex-boyfriend,” he said simply, figuring that was answer enough.

“You never told me.”

“You never asked.”

“You were married to a woman.”

“You can be married to a woman and still be bi.”

“Yeah, I know that. But you never mentioned being attracted to guys.”

“Buck,” Maddie interjected quickly, “Maybe Eddie doesn’t want to talk about this here.”

Eddie shot her a small smile, but shook his head. “It’s fine. Buck, have you ever heard me talk about anyone I was attracted to?” The blond man seemed to think for a moment, his brow furrowing further as he realized it had never come up.

“Wait, so what’s your type.”

“He likes tall people,” Christopher offered from his seat and if Eddie didn’t know any better he would swear he was smirking. He didn’t need army training to know when he was being ambushed.

Eddie felt his stomach did a strange sort of flip at the smile that grew on Buck’s face and he squashed it down. He had buried those fleeting hopes ages ago. “Hello, I’m tall! You totally had a thing for me, didn’t you? Admit it.”

“Oh for—I’m going to the bathroom,” he said with a roll of his eyes. He didn’t look back as he made his way to the back of the restaurant, thankful for the door shutting behind him. With any luck he had escaped fast enough that no one could see the blush on his cheeks. He was a decorated war veteran, not some swooning teenager.

He pressed his hands against the cool counter of the sink and willed himself to pull himself together.

“Hey man, I hope I didn’t make things weird,” Buck said, sliding the bathroom door open and slowly making his way over. “I mean, you know I don’t care right? I slept with a guy once as part of a threesome. I was down in Mexico and having a bit of a Y Tu Mamá También phase myself and-”

“Oh my god,” Eddie groaned burying his face in his hands as thoughts of Buck splayed out on a bed played in his mind. And no! No, he was not going there. Not doing it.

“No, seriously. I mean, I actually enjoyed sex with him more than her, you know?” He was spared the details as they heard of flush in the farthest stall down, the three men avoiding each other’s gazes as the old man adjusted his suspenders, shuffling past them without stopping to wash his hands. “That’s really not sanitary…”

Eddie would wish for an earthquake to open up the earth and swallow him whole, but with his luck it would actually happen. “We’re good, Buck, I promise. We really, really, don’t need to talk about it.”

“But we can talk about it,” Buck insisted, “I know I still have to make things up to you after the whole lawsuit, but I need you to know that I’m here for you. For everything. You can count on me, man, and—”

“I know,” Eddie said calmly, feeling more confident in that statement in that moment than about anything else in his life. He reached out to place one had on either one of Buck’s shoulders to ground him, not wanting the other man to work himself into a state because Eddie had been awkward and flustered. He could feel Buck’s nervous energy still as things settled between them. “And I’ve told you, you don’t have anything to make up for. You’re my best friend.”

“….Your best friend you have totally crushed on?”

Eddie laughed as he rolled his eyes. “I’m a little old for crushes.”

“That wasn’t a no.”

No, it wasn’t.

“What can I say? My son’s right, I do have a thing for tall people. Don’t let it go to your head.”

Evan seemed to hesitate for a moment, as if plotting his next move. Eddie couldn’t help but worry he had made a mistake in admitting that. He didn’t think Buck would mind, but he didn’t want to strain anything between them or make it awkward. “What if I said I had a crush on you?” Not what Eddie was expecting to hear.

Eddie couldn’t help but tense slightly, dropping his hands and taking a step back. “You don’t have to do that.”

“Do what?”

“Look, I find you attractive, but you’re not under some obligation to feel the same way. Like I said, we’re all good. Our friendship and your place in our lives is not dependent on you feeling a certain way about me.”

“But what if I do feel that way,” he insisted, moving forward to crowd into Eddie’s space. He was always in his space. He hated how much he fell into it. He had been without touch for so long that it felt like a lifeline. It wasn’t sexual. Or he hadn’t been. It was comfort and familiarity and he didn’t want to make Buck feel he needed to blur that line for his sake. “Eddie, what if I’m attracted to you?”

“Then I appreciate the compliment, but that’s where it stops.” He could feel himself building that wall, putting himself on the defensive as his back pressed against the counter giving him nowhere else to retreat without pushing Buck away. He really didn’t want to push him away. “You mean too much to me, too much for us, to be an experiment. A phase.”

“You’re not a phase, Eddie. I mean, look, I’ve never given myself a label. I never really thought about a relationship with a man, but I’ve never been opposed to it, you know? All I know is that I care about you and you’d have to be blind not to see how attractive you are. So why can’t that be something?”

“Because it can’t.”

“Why? HR totally has paperwork we can fill out and—”

“Because I’d fuck it up. Because I always fuck it up, Evan,” he said, purposefully using his name to show he wasn’t messing around. “And I can’t do that to Chris or to you. Because I don’t want to lose the best friend I have ever had because one day you’re going to realize you could do so much better.”

“That’s not—Okay, that is the stupidest fucking thing I have ever heard, first off.” He’d laugh at how indignant Buck looked in that moment if he wasn’t so convinced he was in some sort of fever dream. He hadn’t allowed himself to even dream of such a scenario, knowing the bitter reality would only leave him feeling lonelier in the morning than when he went to bed. He couldn’t allow his desires to cloud his judgment. He had to be better for Christopher’s sake. And he would be, just as soon as he stopped staring at the way the fabric of Buck’s shirt stretched across his arms as he gestured as he talked.

“--I’m not saying to have to marry me, but if you really think about it, haven’t we basically been dating? Would it really change all that much? If you’re really not interested or you’re not comfortable with it then we can pretend we never had this conversation, but I’m in. If you’re interested. Now or later. Your call.”

“This is a really stupid idea.”

“Or brilliant,” Buck challenged, suddenly standing so close he could feel the firm outline of his hip against his own, the taller man’s breath warming his face.

“Definitely stupid.”

Buck knelt down to close the ever-decreasing gap between them, but Eddie pulled back. He flinched at the hurt look on Buck’s face, but he was quick to bring his hand up to cup the side of Buck’s face, his thumb trailing the lower lip he had thought about more than was probably healthy. “Our first kiss is not going to happen in the bathroom of a chain Chinese restaurant.”

But it was going to happen and suddenly they both knew it.

“So Evan, do you have any plans for this Saturday?”

“Just a hot date with this firefighter that’s been thirsting after me.”

“I will hit you.”

“You would never.” No, he wouldn’t. He had no doubt he would screw things up a million different ways, but he’d be damned before he ever purposefully hurt the man in front of him. And maybe this time that would be enough. He would be enough. Maybe that phase would be behind him.