Work Text:
“Ow!”
Buck startled awake to a loud thud and a hard bang against the side of his head.
He groaned, slowly raising a hand to assess the damage. No wetness. So, not blood. Just pain. He would live. As long as his head stopped hurting, that is. A constant, throbbing ache pulsed in his brain, making every movement hell.
The low, droning sound of an engine wasn’t helping. He frowned, confused, closing his eyes harder against the bright light that tried to sneak past his eyelids.
Wait, why was there an engine in his room?
Shit.
Well.
This wasn’t his room…
His head pounded painfully behind his eyelids as soon as he opened them, finding himself curled up on a bus seat, head against the cold window. Nausea tied his stomach in knots, his tongue dry, his body heavy and sluggish.
Okay.
Wow.
This was a new low.
He blinked a thousand times, looking around, trying to force his intoxicated brain cells to rub against one another in hopes of sparking a single coherent thought.
How did he get here? How did he even get this drunk?
More importantly, where the fuck was he going?
He studied his environment, squinting against the bright sun coming in through the windows.
The bus smelled like sweat, disinfectant, and shitty burnt coffee. The soft hum of distant conversation was barely audible over the noise of a loud, clearly old engine. The seat beside him was empty. There weren’t many people on the bus, the closest an old lady across the aisle, dozing off with a half-crocheted blue scarf on her lap.
Deciding against waking her, Buck closed his eyes again, letting his head fall back against the headrest.
Why couldn’t he fucking remember anything?
~~~
“So, Eddie pays the tab, we both run out to the parking lot, and there’s a boot on my front tire,” Buck explained animatedly, hands barely missing the empty glasses in front of him. A bored Ravi stared at him from behind them.
“Damn. That sucks,” Ravi replied, clearly unamused.
If looks could kill… Fucking hell. Ravi looked ready to chuck a glass at his head.
How dare he.
Whatever.
Buck kept going. It was an important story, because Eddie was important, and he always made things better, and that was the point, wasn’t it? Ravi didn’t get it, but he would soon, if he only paid attention.
“Yeah! So, obviously at this point I'm like, we're not gonna make the game! And Eddie goes, ‘where is your spare?’ and I kid you not, five minutes later the spare is on, we're driving down the road, and the old tire is sitting on the side of the curb, boot still on!”
It had been amazing! Eddie was so much fun. So smart. Always so damn smart. So capable.
Ravi looked unimpressed, though. Concerned, even.
“Isn’t that illegal?”
Oh, Ravi.
No.
Never.
“What? No, no, it's not illegal! Eddie would never do something illegal! Eddie has a silver star!” It should be fucking obvious. How drunk was Ravi not to see how impressive everything Eddie did was? How many more stories was he supposed to tell him until he got it?
Ravi looked at him with unmitigated annoyance in his eyes. “Wasn't he in some kind of underground fight club?”
What did that have to do with anything? Pfft. “That was ages ago, and he had a ton of stuff going on.”
Finally, the quarter went in the glass.
“Drink!” Buck banged on the table. He was way ahead, like three drinks at least. Ravi had a lot of catching up to do. “Come on!”
The guy didn’t look like he was having any fun at all. Which was silly, because they were playing a game. And games are FUN. “Have I mentioned how much I hate this game?” he complained.
Buck smiled triumphantly. “The loser usually does,” he reminded the loser in question as the waitress brought them a fresh round. “Drink,” he ordered.
“I mean, who even plays quarters anyways?” Ravi asked, staring at his drink like it had personally offended him.
Buck happily took the opportunity to talk about Eddie again. Maybe Ravi needed another reminder of how awesome he was. “Eddie brought it from El Paso, he said it's huge in Texas,” he explained. It was such a fun game! Eddie and him played it all the time. Ravi was just a party pooper. A sober, boring party pooper.
Not for long, though, if he kept losing.
“Come on, bottoms up! Ravi! Ravi! Ravi!” he chanted, just like Eddie had chanted for him the first time they played. They had ended up so damn drunk that time, sleeping all over each other on Eddie’s couch. It was amazing, even if he puked all over the kitchen floor the next morning.
Ravi didn’t fight him. He probably realized it wouldn’t get him anywhere. He just downed his drink, wincing and coughing at the taste.
“Okay, your turn,” Buck encouraged him. The game wasn’t over. He was not drunk enough. He needed to be drunker. Drunk enough to stop his mind from spinning. His heart from aching.
Ravi cut him short, though. “You know what? Um, I think I’m gonna switch to beer, all right? You want anything?” he asked.
He was still being a party pooper, but at least he wasn’t leaving.
So, Buck played along. “Uh, yeah, I’ll take a beer,” he agreed.
As soon as Ravi was gone, he resumed the game, because he was not a chicken.
The point was not to win.
The point was to get shitfaced enough to stop missing Eddie.
~~~
The loud honk of an eighteen-wheeler woke Buck up again, the sound roaring and grating in his ears.
Fuck.
Ravi .
This had to be Ravi’s fault. Why didn’t he stop Buck from getting this drunk? He wanted to stop thinking, but completely blacking out and ending up on a bus to who-knows-where was quite a few steps beyond that. It was too much.
He needed to talk to Ravi. Ravi had to know what happened right?
He forced his eyes open again, squinting, patting his pockets, trying to find his phone.
Oh.
Oh no.
It was gone.
Panicking, he opened his eyes big, scrambling in his seat, his hands searching all over the place, trying to find it. It had to be somewhere.
It wasn’t.
It fucking wasn’t.
He was alone, hungover, on a random bus, with no idea where he was or where he was headed, and with no phone.
Okay.
Great.
His low just got a lot lower.
How was he supposed to find out where the fuck he was? How was he supposed to call someone to pick him up, or even call an Uber? He wished he was the kind of mind wizard Eddie was. He had an incredible amount of relevant phone numbers safely stored in his head. He wished he at least had his post-lightning mind back, maybe that would help.
No such luck, though.
His brain hurt and trying to think of any familiar phone number only resulted in a jumble of blurry digits and letters behind his eyelids, making him dizzier.
It was pointless.
Buck sighed deeply, exhaling his frustration loudly, curling up against the window again.
He would never live this down.
~~~
“Hey hey hey, look who I found!”
Buck looked up, drink halfway in his mouth, only to find fucking Tommy Kinnard standing in front of him, like a ghost back from the dead.
His first instinct was to run.
His second instinct was to dunk his head inside a humongous bowl of flour.
His third instinct was to clean his mouth to at least not look like the sloppiest drunk on planet earth in front of his judgemental eyes.
Ugh.
Tommy.
It had been too long since the last time he thought about him. He had been too preoccupied, too sad.
Finding the time to think about Tommy’s departure from his life was kind of hard when someone else left him behind soon after, leaving an even bigger hole in his soul. One he still hadn’t managed to close, or fill back up, no matter how hard he tried.
Being sad about Tommy dumping him was also hard when the man in question had been a total asshole to him. It took Buck a while to understand it. It took him many many nights talking with Eddie about it over countless beers and ignored movies playing in the background to really get it.
See? Eddie was amazing. Eddie was the only one that got him to see how shitty Tommy had been to him, how bad of a person he was.
But now he was standing there, in front of him, and Buck felt lonely and stupid and he was too drunk to deal with whatever he was feeling. The pain inside his chest hurt worse than whatever Tommy had done to him. And that was dangerous.
His first instinct was always right, that’s what Bobby always said.
He should be running.
He froze instead, watching as Ravi invited Tommy to sit, then promptly left them alone like a fucking coward.
What kind of friend was he?
Eddie would never.
“Funny…” Buck mumbled, leaning forward over the table in an attempt at forcing the bar around him to stop spinning. “I kind of feel like I was just dumped again.”
Tommy smiled that stupid condescending smile, not even acknowledging Buck’s comment, and asked “So… How are things?”
Buck decided to do the right thing and be polite, so he answered. “Things are good… Some stuff has happened. My sister was abducted.”
Tommy looked at him like that was not just ‘stuff’. He was probably right, so he rushed to clarify. “She's back now, she's fine! She's pregnant in fact. The two things are not connected.”
Obviously.
He would’ve never needed to clarify that to Eddie.
Eddie just got him. He always knew. He always understood.
Tommy didn’t.
Still, Buck was trying the polite thing, so he returned the question. “Uh… how about you?”
“Same.”
Wow.
Riveting.
“How's everybody at the 118?”
There was that tone again. The one that always flooded Tommy’s words when he asked about Buck’s friends. It sounded a lot like jealousy. Buck didn’t like it one bit, it made him feel protective.
He answered anyway. Half out of politeness, half because he would always enjoy bragging about his family to whoever would listen.
“Yeah, good… You know, just… adjusting to life without Eddie.”
Buck felt the energy shift. It was so obvious, it made its way to his brain even through his drunken haze.
“Díaz left?” Tommy asked, eyes bright and genuinely interested for the first time since he sat down.
Weird.
“Yeah, he, uh… He went to be with his son in El Paso.” How did Tommy not know this? “I figured he would've told you, no?”
Tommy sighed dejectedly. “No… He pretty much stopped speaking to me after you and I broke up.”
Ha.
Broke up.
Like it was a mutual agreement.
The sudden anger that statement made him feel was strong enough to mute, for a moment, the butterflies attacking his belly over the fact that Eddie chose him. That Eddie stopped talking to his friend because he had hurt him.
He would have time to enjoy that little fun fact later, when he was alone.
For now, he made his best effort to focus on complaining about the break up comment, but Tommy interrupted his train of thought with the shittiest bombshell of them all. “You know, I’ve been fighting the urge to call you for months…”
~~~
A wave of nausea brought Buck back to life again.
God.
No.
Ugh.
Buck winced at the memory of that man. That conversation. He winced at the thought of what could’ve happened after. What did he do?
He hated that idea. He absolutely despised the possibility of having been weak enough to fall for that cheap line. But it was a possibility, wasn’t it?
He had done it before.
Ran to the arms of someone that was bad for him, desperate not to think about other feelings that were equally as bad and uncalled for. Too many times to count.
Not that he was ready to think about those other feelings. He felt like he probably never would. Especially now. Especially now that—
Buck rubbed his face with both hands, groaning.
He missed Eddie.
He missed him so damn bad.
Did he miss him enough to have made a stupid mistake to run from it?
How the fuck did he go from talking to that man to waking up on a random bus?
He looked out the window, trying to piece the rest of the night together, trying to guess where he was headed. There was no information to be gathered from the view outside. No road signs. No people. Not even cars. Just an empty road and a deserted landscape that stretched out for miles, way beyond what he could see.
The monotone sound of the bus engine and the hypnotizing view ended up lulling him back into a restless sleep.
~~~
“In fact I was uh… driving by your place the other day,” Tommy said, pulling that face that used to make Buck’s knees a bit weak.
It made him a bit queasy now, if he was being honest. How did he never notice how ugly this man was?
“Actually, you weren’t.” Thank god.
“I wasn’t?”
“No, I don’t live there anymore,” Buck smiled. Some days it didn’t feel like a positive development. Some days he locked himself between the walls of his new-old place, the one that used to feel like home, and he cried about how empty they felt now.
Other days he tried to be happy about it.
He never succeeded.
He knew exactly what was missing. Not that he was anywhere near ready to admit it.
“You got a new place?” Tommy asked, interest clearly piqued.
“Yeah, I did,” Buck mumbled.
And his determination faltered.
Every single night he had ever spent alone came back to him all at once, tormenting him, reminding him of how fucking lonely he was, how it was his fault, how clearly unlovable he was.
He felt weaker than ever, and he could feel himself slip into that uncomfortable headspace where he needed something to hurt enough to make him at least feel alive. Tommy’s attention felt like the perfect weapon, drawn and pointed right at his heart.
He considered the possibility for all of three seconds before Tommy spoke again, interrupting his determined march towards a downward spiral.
“Oh, that’s crazy! You really liked the old place.”
He didn’t.
It always felt cold and impersonal.
It lacked the warmth of the people he loved.
It lacked the smell of breakfast in the morning and Eddie’s obnoxiously loud alarm and his comforting presence by his side on the couch and Christopher’s giggles and photographs and knickknacks and toys all over the floor.
Much like the new place.
It felt like a house. It was not a home anymore.
The warmth he had been chasing was no longer there.
“I moved into Eddie’s place,” he blurted out, apparently unable to stop himself from talking about him.
Tommy’s expression fell. “You’re joking.”
Buck frowned. “Why would I be joking?” he asked, confused. “He needed someone to sublet his old place so he could move to his new place in El Paso, so I rented it.”
Tommy rolled his eyes, his condescending expression awfully familiar.
There we go again.
“You moved into his house? He finally leaves and you move into his house?”
What the fuck? “What do you mean ‘finally’?”
“Evan, please,” Tommy scoffed.
What was he so offended about? It made no sense. Buck was too drunk to understand, and too sober to just ignore the comment. “What?”
“How long are you going to keep this up, huh?” Tommy asked, with a tone that clearly showed he felt he had a right to be offended. “How many good things are you going to let pass you by while you blindly chase after him?”
“Chase after who? What are you on about?”
Tommy scooted to the side on his seat, getting ready to leave the booth, clearly annoyed. “Oh, come on. Not even you can be that dumb.”
“Excuse me?”
Tommy laughed, the sound grating in Buck’s ears. “Here I was, thinking I could maybe try to get you back now that the competition’s out of the way, and it so happens that you’re just as pathetically in love with the guy as you were back when we were together,” he spat, finally getting up. “I can’t do this again, Evan.”
Buck was too busy trying to get his intoxicated brain to process what Tommy said three sentences ago to even register what was happening anymore.
“Wait, where are you going?”
“Far away from you and—” he gestured vaguely with a dismissive hand towards Buck,”—whatever your deal is. I’m done.”
And then he was gone.
Buck scrambled out of the booth too, chasing after him on unsteady feet, heart in his throat.
~~~
The sensation in Buck’s stomach wasn’t nausea anymore.
It was dread.
Why the fuck did he even chase after that man? What was he hoping to accomplish? What did he want?
An explanation? An apology? A declaration? A pity fuck?
Ugh.
He went over Tommy’s words again and again until he made himself dizzy. He couldn’t mean—
No, that was stupid. That was crazy. He couldn’t be talking about Eddie. It wasn’t like that between them. Never was. Never would be. What they had was both just a friendship and way more than that. They were each other’s person. Each other’s safety net. Each other’s family.
Platonic soulmates, the internet said that one time he went down a desperate Google rabbit hole trying to understand it.
But that didn’t mean he was—what, in love with him?
Nah.
No way.
Tommy was just a jealous, insecure asshole, and he decided to spew venom the second he felt threatened again, like the wrinkly, slithery snake he was. Nothing more.
The problem was that Buck was even more of an insecure asshole, and sometimes sharp fangs and venom was all that he deserved. Sometimes he needed to feel his veins burning. Sometimes he needed the pain, the gangrene. Sometimes he needed one hurt to forget another, at least for a while.
Did he do that?
Did he offer himself up to be bitten?
~~~
The cold night air hit Buck like a freight train, sobering him up enough to find the man standing in the small crowd gathered outside the bar, phone in hand.
“Tommy!” he called, marching up to him, grabbing his arm to stop him the second he turned to walk away with an eye roll. “What the fuck are talking about? What do you mean ‘my deal’? I don’t get it.”
He didn’t even know why he was asking, why he needed to understand. Eddie would probably be asking him why he even needed to talk to that man again.
Hell, Eddie would’ve probably stopped him from even walking out of the bar.
Or, even better, he would’ve kept Tommy from even approaching Buck in the first place.
He was protective like that.
He always made Buck feel so safe.
A pang of nostalgia hit his chest hard enough to knock him off balance.
Or maybe it was the alcohol.
Fuck.
Tommy stopped, turning back around. “I don’t have time for this, Evan. I truly hope you figure yourself out before you spend your entire life chasing after a man that’s never going to be yours,” he spat, and then he was gone.
Buck stood there for a long minute, staring at the empty space Tommy had left, trying to process. When the minute was over, he was nowhere closer to understanding what the fuck he was talking about. Every time a conclusion started to form in his brain, it vanished into thin air, swirling away in the pool of booze twisting his gut.
Tommy was an asshole. He was full of shit. Whatever he was implying, he was wrong.
Buck wasn’t chasing after anyone. He never needed to.
People just walked into his life, always at the wrong time, and he always let them in, desperate for an ounce of affection, and then they left.
They always left, as they should.
And Buck clung, maybe, sometimes.
But he never chased. He never pined.
He knew better than to want things.
Or people.
Especially people.
Fuck Tommy. Fucking asshole. Eddie was right. Tommy was the worst.
Buck scoffed at nothing, and then he walked back into the bar, ready to get as drunk as humanly possible.
No reason.
Just because.
~~~
Well, that was pathetic.
That was Buck’s first thought when the sound of voices woke him up again.
The old lady had gone to the bathroom, presumably, loudly apologizing every time she accidentally bumped into anyone.
Buck followed her with his eyes until she disappeared from sight, contemplating his life.
He had truly lost the plot at some point. When did it happen? Was it when Tommy dumped him? When Maddie got kidnapped? When Eddie decided to leave?
Was it before? When Christopher left? When lightning killed him? When Eddie got shot and decided to give him his heart and soul in notarized writing?
Maybe it was before that. Long ago. When he left home, speeding away in Maddie’s jeep. Or when Daniel died before he even knew him. Or even before that, the second his parents decided to manufacture him like he was an object instead of a person.
His life had been a series of unfortunate events that would give Lemony Snicket’s Baudelaire kids a run for their money. He couldn’t remember a single moment when he felt actual solid ground beneath his feet. He couldn’t remember ever not wanting to run somewhere. He couldn’t remember ever feeling he was actually where he was supposed to be, whole, safe and sound.
He got glimpses of that, with Maddie, with the 118, but even then, something was always wrong, something was always out of place, and he was tired. He felt like a puzzle with too many pieces and still there was always one missing.
The only person that ever felt like that one missing piece, the only person that ever felt like home was gone.
He scowled at his own reflection on the window pane, rolling his eyes at himself.
This was stupid.
He was stupid.
Was he really so desperate to stop thinking that he actually drank himself into unconsciousness? How drunk did he get that he ended up here? Where did his intoxicated mind want him to go?
Where the fuck even was he?
The old lady returned, and now that she was awake, Buck decided that it was time to get some answers.
“Excuse me…” he asked in a hushed voice before the lady went back to her seat, leaning towards the aisle.
The lady smiled an adorable little smile. “Yes, darlin’?” she asked in a deep southern accent.
“Um… where are we going?”
She grinned down at him, completely oblivious to how stupid that question was, considering he supposedly paid for a ticket to go wherever they were going. “Oh, El Paso! We’re almost there.”
Well…
Fuck.
~~~
An hour and one awkward taxi drive he had to pay with crumpled up bills later, Buck found himself sitting on the porch of Eddie’s El Paso house.
As his bad luck dictated, Eddie wasn’t home.
One hour turned to two and then four, and all Buck could do was wait, his big body uncomfortably folded to fit on a shitty lawn chair.
He shifted in his seat for the hundredth time, aching all over. He kept telling Eddie he needed to get a decent patio set, he even offered to help him choose one. Him and Christopher would really need it soon. He could already picture them, sitting on this very porch, talking, enjoying a nice iced tea. Hell, maybe even a couple beers when Christopher was old enough, Buck said.
Eddie hadn’t found that amusing. The man still refused to believe his kid was a whole ass teenager already, and would become an adult soon.
The memory of that conversation many nights ago, sitting on Eddie’s couch, made Buck’s heart hurt.
The knowledge that he would never be present to witness those shared beers between his boys hurt even more.
Clearly, Eddie hadn’t gotten around to buying that patio set yet. The only furniture on his porch were two ratty lawn chairs and a small table, two empty beer bottles on top of it.
He wished he remembered Eddie’s number. He wished he could’ve at least warned him he was coming. The poor man would most likely get home tired after enjoying a nice Saturday with his son, only to find an uninvited guest on his porch.
A guest that was kind of having a mental and existential crisis about him.
A guest that had nowhere else to go.
Buck scoffed, grabbing one of the empty beer bottles to distract himself, patiently peeling the label off it. The cacophony of crickets and the semi darkness of dusk were making him sleepy again. He needed to stay awake.
He laughed at himself.
This was so, so stupid.
Somehow, he didn’t remember his best friend’s phone number, but he did remember his new address. He had hours spent looking at the dumb posting on the dumb homes dot com website to thank for that, wishing the dumb place would magically evaporate.
It didn’t.
It didn’t, and Eddie left, throwing Buck’s life in utter disarray, and now he was here.
Sitting on his porch like a fucking lost dog under the rain, pathetic and confused.
What was he even doing here? Why did his drunk brain decide he was supposed to be here, of all places? What was he hoping to accomplish?
Yeah, his entire being had been scrambling for something to hold onto since the day Eddie had confessed he was planning on leaving, but Buck was a grown man. He could live without Eddie in his vicinity. He could maintain a long distance friendship like many other people did.
He could. He so could.
This meant nothing. Tommy was wrong. He was not chasing after anyone. What the fuck.
Maybe he was just drunk and he missed his best friend.
Maybe he was sad and lonely and he needed the only person that always made him feel better.
Maybe he just needed a fucking break, and of course he ended up at the only place he felt safe in, the only place that brought him comfort and happiness.
Only… he had never set foot in this place before. That safe space was supposed to be the house on South Bedford Street. His house.
But then why did it feel so empty?
And why was he now sitting eight hundred miles from it, heart in his throat?
Buck set the bottle back on the table with a scoff, crossing his arms over his chest in hopes it would stop hurting.
Whatever.
This was whatever.
Buck sighed, closing his eyes.
~~~
“I just miss him so much,” Buck complained, his voice whiny and small.
The barman rolled his eyes, serving Buck another measure of that bitter, gross whiskey Buck didn’t like but drank anyway because it got the job done faster than beer.
“I know, buddy,” the man sighed with practiced patience, probably very used to pathetic losers like Buck drunkenly complaining about their sad little lives.
Buck frowned. “No, you don’t,” he spat, his hand shooting forward to grab the barman’s wrist when he moved to take the bottle away. “Leave that here.”
“I think you’ve had enough.”
“Not nearly,” Buck shook his head, clumsily pulling his wallet from his pocket, pulling a bunch of bills he didn’t bother to count, slapping them on the bartop. “You leave that here.”
He got the bottle and the resigned look of a man that was clearly not paid enough to deal with his bullshit for his money. It was a great investment.
Buck downed what was on his glass and then he made his best effort to serve himself some more with minimum spillage. “You don’t get it. I love the guy. I love him so much I can’t think sometimes.”
The barman crossed his arms over his chest, probably wishing the bar was still full so he could fuck off to serve someone else. “Have you told him?” he asked, regarding Buck with something that looked a lot like pity.
Buck laughed out loud. “Have I to— of course I have! Many times! He’s my— he’s the best friend I’ve ever had, he knows.”
“And are you sure he’s just your friend?”
“Not you too!” Buck groaned. Then he pointed an accusatory finger at him, whiskey sloshing around in his glass. “He’s my best friend! I just… I just miss him and my life doesn’t make any sense without him,” he explained.
What part of that was so hard to understand? This guy was an idiot. Just like Tommy. That’s all. “I just miss his smile and the way he smells, y’know? I miss laughing with him, no one else makes me laugh like that. I miss… I miss the way he, like, casually touches me when he needs to make sure I know he is there… But now he’s not, and I… I don’t know what to do with myself…”
The barman just stared at him, one eyebrow raised, looking as much like Hen as a white, tall, burly dude could look. It was a bit terrifying.
Buck kept going, though. He needed to get this out. He needed someone to understand. “I wanted him to stay, but I knew he had to go, and nothing ever hurt as much as watching him leave, you know? Not even dying. I died once! Did I tell you that?”
No reaction.
Whatever.
Buck drank. Then he poured again.
“Anyway. He went to get his kid. Christopher. He’s the best. I miss him too. I miss him like he’s my own so— no no no, I know he’s not, before you say anything, but, like… the point is he left, right? And we still talk, but I feel like I’m missing a limb, and no matter how hard I cry about it I just can’t stop needing him here with me, you know what I mean?”
“I know you need to tell him you’re in love with him.”
God, not again. “But I’m not! That’s what I’m telling you! Why does everyone keep saying that?”
Silence.
“He’s my best friend, and he’s straight, I can’t be in love with him. I can’t—”
Deafening silence.
“Can I?”
The man rolled his eyes, throwing him an exasperated look. “Please talk to him, buddy.”
“I’m— I can’t. He’s in El Paso.”
“Go to El Paso, then.”
Oh. That was… that was actually a great idea.
Buck stood up, the bar swirling around him. “You’re right. I… I need to see him, I’m—”
“Hey, maybe not right now…”
“Why not? I have to tell him!”
“You can’t drive like this, man.”
Buck laughed. “Oh, I know! I’m a firefighter!” he yelled, grabbing the bottle and waving it at the man before stumbling his way out of the bar.
~~~
“Buck?”
That familiar voice calling his name woke Buck up to what felt like a dream.
He opened his eyes to find Eddie standing right in front of him, looking down at him with an endearing mix of confusion and concern on his face. The precarious lamp hanging off the wall illuminated his figure from behind, wrapping it in a halo of bright light, making him look almost ethereal, like an angel.
Buck’s throat seized up immediately.
His chest started hurting right after.
He scrambled to his feet, mumbling, the pain searing through his body making him stumble. Eddie reached forward in an instant, noticing before Buck said anything, his hands helping steady him. “Buck, what the hell happened? Are you okay?” he asked, and then his arms were tightly wrapped around Buck, knocking the air out of his lungs.
Tears rushed to Buck’s eyes. Feeling himself wrapped up in Eddie was too much for his exhausted heart. Eddie was so warm and he held him so tight and Buck had missed him so damn bad that he felt like his soul finally returned to his body, like Eddie had finally put him back together somehow.
How could he not cry about it?
He felt his body sag against him. He wanted to stay there forever, or at least for however long it took him to cry all the tears he had been carrying with him for months.
Eddie pulled away, though, wrapping both of his big hands around Buck’s biceps instead, keeping him close but not close enough. Buck wanted to fucking crawl inside of his chest. Eddie studied his face, his body, eyes flitting all over, like he was taking inventory. “I was so worried, where were you?”
Buck frowned, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. No words came out. He was so choked up that whatever he was trying to say died in his throat.
Not counting the fact that he really had no way to explain what he was doing there without probably ruining whatever this was forever.
Maybe silence was better.
Still, the thing that managed to force his vocal chords to work was the need to understand. “Worried?” he asked, brows knitted together as he bit the inside of his cheek to stop crying.
Eddie stared at him with those big brown eyes like he was insane. Buck stared back feeling like he was.
Those eyes… So deep. So pretty.
Were they always so pretty?
“Buck, I’ve been trying to reach you since last night and you didn’t answer. You never disappear like that,” Eddie explained, letting his arms go like he suddenly realized he was not supposed to grab Buck like that. Hopefully he considered himself satisfied with his clinical assessment of Buck’s physical well being.
Buck missed his hands on him immediately, though.
“I called Maddie and Bobby and Hen too,” Eddie added, turning around to pull a set of keys from the front pocket of his blue jeans, unlocking the front door. “No one knew where you were.”
Buck rolled his eyes at himself, wiping his face, sniffling. “Should’ve called Ravi,” he mumbled, following Eddie inside.
“Ravi?” Eddie asked, turning around to close the door behind Buck.
“Long story,” Buck chuckled.
On second thought, he was glad Eddie didn’t call Ravi. That traitor. He only had half the story. God knows what he would’ve told him.
“Well, if the long story somehow brought you to El Paso without even telling me, I would really like to hear it,” Eddie declared, guiding Buck to the kitchen.
Buck looked around as he made his way into the house. It looked nicer than he remembered in the photos. Clearly Eddie had been working on it. Before he knew it, it would look like a home. Eddie’s home. Eddie and Chris.
An imaginary fist clenched around Buck’s heart, squeezing.
“The place looks nice,” he murmured, parking his ass on top of the kitchen counter.
Maybe he was stalling.
Maybe.
“Thanks, man,” Eddie smiled, appearing in front of Buck with a big smile and two open beers in hand, offering him one. The gesture was so familiar. So sweet. He had missed it terribly.
Buck grabbed a bottle.
The fist squeezed tighter.
“You gonna tell me why you’re here?” Eddie asked, patient as always. Buck could tell that Eddie could tell something was wrong. Eddie could always tell. Eddie knew him inside out.
He also knew not to push too hard, to give him space until Buck was ready to talk.
Buck took full advantage of that knowledge. “I’m just—” he started, then stopped, shrugging. How could he even explain it? How could he explain that somehow he missed him so fucking bad that he ended up fighting his ex-boyfriend about it? How was he supposed to make sense of getting angry at Tommy for accusing him of doing… well, exactly what he ended up doing?
Finally, he scoffed, looking at his feet, hiding from Eddie’s all knowing stare. “I don’t know how to explain it,” he ended up mumbling, hoping it was enough, at least for now.
When he looked back up at Eddie, his lips were pressed in an understanding line as he nodded. “It’s okay, man, you don’t have to explain yet.”
Maybe he was an angel. Holy shit.
“Are you safe? I mean, are you okay?” Eddie asked, and yeah, those were valid questions, and at least Buck could answer them without feeling like he would explode.
He nodded, smiling, Eddie’s sweet concern warming his heart, calming his galloping heart. “I’m okay, just… really hung over,” he laughed softly, shrugging as he lifted his bottle. “And I lost my phone.”
Eddie sighed, shaking his head with his hands on his hips and a fond smile on his lips. “Okay,” he nodded. “Can I call Maddie to let her know I found you? She was worried too.”
Buck nodded again.
“How can I help?” Eddie asked then. “What do you need?”
Shit.
Buck wanted to cry all over again.
He swallowed hard. He wanted another hug, one that lasted for hours, maybe. He wanted to curl up on the couch with Eddie and cry his heart out. He wanted to make sense of his thoughts and his feelings, he wanted his mind to stop spinning. He wanted Eddie not to hate him for feeling like this, like his life depended on him being around.
“Maybe an aspirin? Something to eat?” Buck asked for instead. “Oh, and a shower, please?”
Eddie sprang into action, going full dad mode. Buck loved seeing him like that, the caretaker in him was a beautiful sight. Chris was usually the recipient of that kind of attention, but the few times Buck was the one being taken care of, it left his entire soul tingling, warm, happy.
Buck watched as Eddie grabbed a bottle of aspirin from a cupboard, along with a glass he filled with water from the fridge. “Here,” he offered both to Buck, taking his untouched beer bottle from him. “I’ll be right back,” he promised, and then he was gone.
The five minutes Buck spent alone, he spent them trying not to crumble. He took the aspirin and drank the water and then he focused on not crying, on controlling his breathing, on pushing down the ocean of feelings bubbling up in his belly.
It was too much. Too much to handle. Everything was too confusing, and the worst part was that there was one simple explanation for all of this. A very simple one, one that maybe had been right in front of him for years, one he kept eluding, escaping from.
One that was now screaming at him, begging to be seen, acknowledged.
One he wasn’t ready to face.
He was almost shaking by the time Eddie came back, towel and clothes in hand. “Come on. Shower time. Terrible water pressure awaits you,” he laughed, nodding with his head towards a hallway. Buck climbed off the counter, following blindly behind him.
~~~
Two hours later, Buck was standing in the middle of Eddie’s bedroom, ready to drop dead.
His belly was full of the delicious tamales Eddie had reheated for him, apologizing profusely about having had dinner already with Christopher. His headache had started to finally recede. He was freshly showered, barefoot and dressed in shorts and a t-shirt that smelled like Eddie.
All he needed now was a good night’s sleep in an actual bed. Maybe he would finally feel human again afterwards. Only his own bed was 800 miles away and the only bed in this house didn’t belong to him.
Not that Eddie cared.
“I’ll take the couch, it’s no problem,” Eddie insisted, standing by Buck’s side in just a pair of shorts, in front of a big, cozy bed that looked like paradise for Buck’s aching body. The amount of skin in sight was making Buck feel drunk again.
Buck distracted himself by arguing about the sleep arrangements because it was the right thing to do, even if the firm mattress, the soft pillows and the warmth of the covers were calling his name like a siren song. “But I don’t want to inconvenience you, man… You know I’m fine sleeping on the couch,” Buck shrugged one shoulder. “I actually kind of miss that thing,” he half-joked.
Eddie didn’t laugh.
“Nonsense. You slept all cramped up on a bus last night. You’re taking the bed,” Eddie declared, already turning to leave the room.
That had been more or less all the information Buck had been able to provide during dinner. His means of transportation between Los Angeles and El Paso. The rest would have to wait until he stopped feeling like he was falling apart at the seams.
Maybe in the morning he would feel a little less frayed.
And maybe Eddie had a point.
“Okay,” he finally conceded, raising both hands in defeat. “It’s just one night. I’ll be out of your hair in the morning,” he promised. There was no way he could stay longer, no matter how badly he wanted to. He had work and a life waiting for him back in LA. El Paso was not his home.
Eddie scoffed, stopping on his way out, turning back to face him again. “You do know you can stay as long as you want, right?”
Buck smiled, nodding. “I know,” he mumbled, sitting on the bed. “I just… can’t.”
Eddie sighed, looking down at him with something unreadable on his face. There was a softness in his eyes Buck wasn’t used to. It killed him. It made the floor beneath him feel unsteady, like one wrong movement and it would turn into quicksand,swallowing him whole.
“Okay,” Eddie murmured, not fighting him about it. Which was… odd. He didn’t insist, he didn’t shove his phone into his hand ordering him to call Cap to ask for a few days, he didn’t tempt him with a visit from Christopher…
He just surrendered, turning away again, flicking the switch by the door to plunge the room in semi darkness. “Night, Buck,” he whispered over his shoulder, looking back at him, his profile illuminated by the light coming from the hallway.
Buck didn’t answer. He just stared at him as he walked away until he disappeared from view, like a starved man, like he would die the second his eyes weren’t on him.
He kept his eyes on the open door, even after laying down and pulling the covers all the way up. Even after taking a deep breath, filling his lungs with that sweet scent that was all Eddie, his body relaxing automatically.
The deep silence around him was only interrupted by the damn crickets outside, and by Eddie. Buck could hear him still moving around the house. He couldn’t help but smile to himself.
The noise was comforting. He had missed this. These sounds. This scent. That smile. That safe presence.
Tears welled up in his eyes again.
Buck felt truly home.
And that’s when it hit him.
The familiarity, the feeling of belonging, the need to stay by Eddie’s side and never leave…
His heart ached. It ached and ached and ached. It longed, it screamed, it begged.
That man was his life.
It struck him all of a sudden. It was so damn obvious. So clear now.
Everything made sense when he was around. Eddie had the power to stop his head from spinning, to make him feel safe and content and whole. Like he had something that could last forever if he wanted it to. Like he could build a life and a future by his side and never again need anything else to be happy.
But then he left.
And there was no other way to explain the disarray Buck’s life was thrown into. There was no other word to describe the loss, the longing, the constant despair thrumming in his chest.
Tommy was right. That barman was right. Hell, Maddie and her all-knowing exasperated sighs were right too.
What Buck felt for Eddie was so much more than friendship. It was way bigger than anything he ever felt for any of the people he dated. It escaped definition and boundaries, spilling all over every corner of his life, and it made sense now, right?
How could he see it when he was immersed in it? It was too immense, too all encompassing. It took Eddie removing himself from the equation for Buck to be aware of it. And it took Buck seeing him again to finally understand it.
Eddie was not his best friend.
He was his life .
The love of his life.
What kept his heart beating.
The man in question chose that exact moment to slowly walk past the door again, his silhouette silently peeking inside. As soon as his eyes found Buck’s, he pretended he wasn’t looking, and kept walking.
Buck laughed to himself, the sound muffled by the covers.
“Eddie…”
“Yeah?” he asked, taking two steps back until he was in Buck’s eyesight again.
“Are you hovering?”
Eddie scoffed. “No, I’m not,” he lied. Bastard. He so was. It was obvious. Buck knew him too well.
Eddie had been yawning all night. He was definitely tired. And yet, instead of snoring on the couch, he was walking around the house, finding things to do.
“It’s okay,” Buck smiled. “I like it.”
Eddie kind of froze. The room was dark enough that it was hard to make out his face but Buck could see his eyes even in the darkness, staring at him, wide open, surprised. The soft expression lasted a second. It was more than enough to make Buck’s heart skip a beat.
Before Buck could even open his mouth again, Eddie took a couple steps into the room, and then to the side, leaning back against the wall in front of Buck. “Can’t sleep?”
Buck shook his head.
“Can I help?”
The mere offer made Buck feel like his heart didn’t fit inside his chest anymore. He considered refusing the help, letting Eddie go back to bed, lie and say he was okay.
He couldn’t.
“Stay for a bit?” he asked, laying on his side and scooting backwards to make room for one more.
Eddie didn’t hesitate. He nodded, and then he was moving, climbing into the bed with Buck, under the covers, laying on his side too, facing him.
They had been in this same position so many times before. Hell, they shared a bed for months during quarantine, but Buck never felt like this, like whatever happened next could make or break them forever, like there was a tension in the air raising goosebumps on his skin.
He stayed quiet, just lost in Eddie’s eyes in the darkness, taking his shape in, the edges of his body, his weight on the bed, so close and so far away, trying to will his heart to calm the fuck down. He vaguely wondered if Eddie could hear it, thundering in his chest.
It was Eddie who broke the silence. “Are you going to tell me what happened?” he asked softly, his voice barely a whisper even though they were alone.
It reminded Buck of so many quiet late night conversations, hoping Christopher wouldn’t wake up. Them, just them, as always, sprawled out on that damn couch, bodies barely touching, sharing comforting words after a rough call, or hushed laughs just because.
There was no touching now, and there was no kid sleeping across the hall, but Buck still whispered. Something about this conversation felt like a shared secret, like a holy, sacred thing, meant to be kept hidden from prying ears.
“It’s… complicated,” he shrugged.
After a short silence, Eddie spoke again. “I’m worried about you,” he confessed.
“I know. Me too.” And there was that sadness again. Fuck.
“Buck… I need to know,” Eddie pleaded. “All I got is bits and pieces, but I need to understand—”
“Wait, bits and pieces how?” Buck had certainly not given him anything other than the bus ride and the hangover.
Eddie exhaled slowly, eyes down. A confession was coming. “I might have called Ravi while you were in the shower.”
Shit.
“And what did Ravi say?” Buck asked, utterly unable to keep the spite out of his voice.
“He said you convinced him to go out for drinks. He also said you were annoying all night—”
Buck opened his mouth, attempting to protest.
“No, I know! I know you’re not,” Eddie reassured him. “He also said you, um… you ran into Tommy, and he left the two of you alone to catch up.”
Buck fought to control the smile that threatened to split his face in half when he noticed the hostility in Eddie’s voice at the mention of that man.
“He actually shoved Tommy in my face and bailed. The traitor.”
Eddie sighed, exasperated. “Okay. And what happened next?”
Buck mumbled, stalling, suddenly remembering probably the only interesting thing Tommy had said. Eddie didn’t talk to him anymore. “I don’t know, why didn’t you call him too during my shower?” he asked.
Eddie scoffed, like that suggestion was absolutely ridiculous. “I don’t even have his number anymore,” Eddie declared matter-of-factly.
Buck bit back a grin. So he really stopped talking to him. Good.
“Buck…”
Right. He still wanted an explanation. “Eddie, I just…” Buck groaned, not looking forward to giving him one.
“Buck, I need to know, okay? Because to be honest, I’m a little scared here.” Buck frowned. Why would he be scared? “You run into your shitty ex and then you somehow end up crying on my porch one day and eight hundred miles later? I’m—I’m worried.”
“It’s not like that,” Buck tried to assuage whatever fear Eddie had.
“Then how is it?” Eddie insisted. “Did— did he do something to you?”
“What? No, no, he didn’t, Eddie… I would’ve told you right away.”
Eddie shook his head then, mouth open, eyebrows raised, silently begging for an explanation.
“We just… argued,” Buck provided.
“About?”
You. What I feel for you.
“Doesn’t matter. I just… felt bad about it and ended up getting absolutely shitfaced, losing my phone and somehow deciding in my drunken haze that visiting you out of the blue was a totally normal thing to do.” Which it was. Back then, back when Eddie was twenty minutes instead of three states away.
Eddie laughed, biting his lower lip. “Oh, Buck…”
“I know, I know… Muscle memory, maybe,” he admitted.
“At least you didn’t decide to drive.”
“I would never. You know that.”
“Yeah, I know,” Eddie sighed, smiling fondly.
And then, silence.
Too much silence.
This time, Buck broke it. “Sorry for being such a codependent dumbass,” he whispered, because out of all the stupid unrequited things he felt for Eddie, that was the only one he was willing to admit.
“It’s okay. I like it,” Eddie murmured, mirroring Buck’s words, the hand that was resting under his face on the pillow suddenly moving, resting closer to Buck’s.
Buck frowned, his body tensing, fighting the need to just… just touch him. Grab that hand, feel how it fit against his, kiss every knuckle. Shit.
“We both are,” Eddie smiled.
“We both are what?” God, Buck was dizzy.
“Codependent dumbasses?”
“Oh. We are?”
Eddie nodded. “Yeah. I um—” he chuckled. “I really miss you.”
It was such a simple sentence. Such a given. Of course he did, of course they both missed each other. They were so used to being in each other’s pockets, and now they were not, and yeah, it was maybe an obvious thing to say, but it still floored Buck. Hearing it in that moment, in that place, with everything that was swimming in his mind and his heart? It felt so heavy. So important.
“I miss you too…” Buck whispered, smiling at Eddie, his own hand betraying him, moving forward just a bit between them. He stopped it right before it reached its forbidden destination.
The following silence felt more charged than ever.
Buck sat in it with his mind spinning, his heart thundering, his belly swooping. He let his eyes do what they were desperate to do. He let them take Eddie in, really take him in. He hoped the darkness would conceal the way he studied his face in this new light. He hoped Eddie wouldn’t notice the way he drank the deep brown of his eyes in, the beautiful set of his lips, or the perfect line of his jaw.
Fuck.
Eddie was fucking gorgeous.
Really, how did he not get it before?
How deep did his denial go?
He knew Eddie was attractive, he was clearly a good looking man, but now, letting himself really look, he realized attractive felt like an insult. Eddie was breathtaking. Buck wanted to make a home right by that little beauty mark under his eye. He wanted to slide down the bridge of his nose. He wanted to run a thumb across the pink of his cheek. He wanted to press his lips to his. Just once. So bad. So damn bad.
The worst part was that Eddie was staring at him too. Not with the same intentions, of course not, but he was. He searched Buck’s face in the semi darkness, looking for god knows what. In his eyes. Lower. Everywhere.
It made Buck weak. It made sense now, the way he felt every time Eddie looked at him, like he could conquer the whole world. Like nothing else mattered. Like assassin butterflies were attacking his belly.
And now, he felt all that, times ten. The moment was so perfect, so intimate, so disarming, that Buck found himself opening his mouth before he even thought about what he was doing.
“We argued about you,” he confessed in a whisper.
Eddie frowned. “About me?”
Buck nodded softly, carefully.
“Care to elaborate?” Eddie begged when Buck’s silence grew way too long.
He shrugged, hiding from those deep, perfect eyes that made him feel transparent. He focused on looking at his hand instead, his eyes following the lines of every knuckle as he talked. “He was mad that I moved into your house.”
“Why is that?”
Buck bit his lip. “He um… He thought about, you know… getting back together now that you were gone, but he got angry when he found out I was living at your place. He said I was ‘blindly chasing after you’,” he blurted out, rolling his eyes.
Eddie didn’t answer. Not immediately. Buck saw the slow rhythm of the up and down of Eddie’s ribs go faster, his breathing hard enough for Buck to feel it brushing his face. “What does that even mean?” he asked.
Buck expected his tone to be angry. It wasn’t. It was… weird.
Buck looked up at him, finding those soft brown eyes had gone all deep and intense. He didn’t have the strength to look away anymore. “He called you his competition. I guess he thought me moving into your house meant he lost.”
More silence.
More heavy breathing.
Buck had a hard time reading Eddie’s eyes. There was something there he had never seen before, an intensity he was unfamiliar with, one that pinned his thoughts down, holding all of his attention.
“What did he mean by that?” he asked again.
He couldn’t answer that question, now, could he? Shit, he didn’t think he could even utter those words, not here, not like this. He felt too naked already, too exposed, too on the verge of ruining everything.
“Buck…”
Closing his eyes, Buck bit his tongue.
“Buck… What did he mean?”
“He um… He thinks I’m in love with you,” he finally murmured, like the words themselves were dangerous, like they would set the bed and the house and the world on fire now that they were out there.
Eddie didn’t laugh at the ridiculous thought. He didn’t get angry at the accusation. He just kept staring at Buck, eyes practically shining in the dark. They were so intense. “Are you?”
Oh, to have another bottle of gross whiskey at hand… Buck wanted to drown in it. He wanted to run from that question, far far away. He wanted to hide from it, from what it meant, from what it could mean. He barely even had time to process that reality, and now he was supposed to say it out loud?
No.
He couldn’t.
So he didn’t.
He stayed very still. Maybe Eddie would forget he was there. Maybe he would forget he was expecting an answer.
“Please,” Eddie begged instead.
That was unfair.
Buck broke. He felt the tears sting in his eyes before he even realized he wanted to cry. He didn’t want to do this. He didn’t want to drop a nuclear bomb on their friendship. It would change everything. It would be the end of BuckandEddie . They would become patheticpiningBuck and uncomfortablecoldEddie .
He refused to lose that. He could live dealing with unfathomable heartbreak all his life, as long as he didn’t lose them .
That ship had sailed, though. It had floated out of him, navigating along the river that first tear carved down his nose as it fell. That tear was confession enough. He was doomed.
So he nodded.
It was done.
It was out there.
He waited for the explosion. He waited for the usual dismissal. He had been here before. Not like this, never like this, but he was used to this part.
Only nothing exploded.
Eddie just nodded too, smiling. His pinky suddenly moved, reaching towards Buck’s hand still resting on the pillow, brushing it softly.
What?
A shaky gasp left Buck’s lungs, as confusion took over.
“Why are you not mad?”
“Should I be?”
“I mean, yeah!” Buck exclaimed, trying to ignore the way his skin burnt where Eddie was carefully touching him still.
“I’m not,” Eddie calmly reassured him.
It made no sense. He shouldn’t be so calm about this. No one ever was in the face of unrequited feelings. Especially if they came from a best friend. Especially if they came from a person of the wrong gender.
“Why not?” Buck asked, more confused than ever.
Eddie laughed. The bastard actually laughed, making Buck want to smack him. “Stop laughing! It’s not funny, asshole…”
“It is, a little,” Eddie laughed again, the soft hushed sound almost a giggle, something Buck had never heard before, something that made his heart flutter in the middle of all the pain and the fear.
“Why the hell are you laughing?”
“Because I’m happy.” Buck’s frown grew deeper along with his confusion. “Because I never thought this would happen.”
“ This is not a happy thing, Eddie,” Buck argued. There was nothing happy about realizing you feel something for someone that’s never going to feel the same, someone so utterly unattainable he could be living on another planet for all Buck knew.
“It is,” Eddie smiled, reassuring. “Because I love you.”
Buck stopped breathing.
He was pretty sure his heart stopped its frantic galloping too.
“Sorry, what?” He needed clarification. He had heard those words before from Eddie’s mouth, in a friendly, playful tone, but considering the context of this conversation, he was going to need a lot more than just a little three word sentence from him.
Was this an ‘I love you, but only like a brother, so we should ignore this and move on’ ?
Was this an ‘I love you, but I can’t deal with you pining for me like an idiot’ ?
Was this an—
No, Buck’s brain couldn’t even get there.
So Eddie went there for him.
“I’m in love with you,” he smiled, like it was the easiest thing in the world to say, like the words had just been waiting for Buck to be ready to hear them, all curled up in his mouth, sleeping under his tongue.
Instead of smiling, or feeling happy, Buck groaned. He had been here before too. “You don’t need to lie for my sake, Eddie,” he complained.
Eddie scoffed, genuinely offended. “You really think I would do that? When have I ever lied to you, Buck?”
Okay, he had a point, but Buck had one too. “Maybe not, but you conceal. It’s the same.” He didn’t forget all the times Eddie kept things from him, out of shame maybe, or to avoid hurting him, or…
Oh.
Oh.
Eddie clearly noticed the second Buck connected the dots, grinning.
So. He meant it. It was not a lie but something Eddie kept from him for a reason, something that… something that made no sense.
“But…” Buck began, his heart suddenly starting again, thundering in his ears, buzzing like a swarm of angry bees. “…you’re straight…”
It was a pretty important point, wasn’t it? It was a fact of life, an unmovable object, something that Buck had very very present.
Eddie shrugged. “Why does that matter?”
Seriously?
“Eddie…”
The man chuckled, rolling his eyes. “Listen, I don’t know what I am, okay? I just know I’m not, like… normal about you.”
Buck wished the world stopped spinning for just a second, just long enough for him to make sense of what was happening. Not normal? “What does that even mean?”
He was met with another deep sigh. “It means the things I feel for you, they’re not… normal. They’re not what best friends feel for each other, and it took me a while to understand it, but like…”
Eddie smiled, pinning Buck down with his deep, open stare, freezing him in place. “I want to spend all my time with you. I did even when I was seeing other people, and especially when you were seeing other people. I think I hated all of them. They were never worthy of you,” he confessed with a little laugh. “I look at you and my stomach does this stupid swoopy thing I have never felt before. I find you fun and fascinating and caring and brave and fucking perfect, even when you get on my nerves. That’s… not normal best friend behaviour, Buck.”
At some point, his eyes had started sparkling in the dark. Buck understood why when he used the hand that wasn’t touching him to wipe his cheek. The hand that was touching him moved closer, his pinky grabbing Buck’s.
And then he kept going, unraveling Buck like it was nothing. “You hung the moon for all I care. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had and my favorite person ever, the person I want by my side, by our side, forever. Just thinking about a future without you hurts, bad. I’ve never felt that before. For anyone. Not my wife, or my girlfriends, or any woman or man I’ve ever met,” he shrugged. “I don’t know what that makes me. Other than in love with you.”
Buck had stopped trying to hold back tears at some point during that speech. Holy fuck. He was shaking. There was no hesitation in Eddie’s words, no doubt, no need to process anything. He just knew, he had already put a name to his feelings, he—
“Wait, how long have you known?” Buck asked, confused.
Eddie shrugged. “ Known known?” He looked up, like he was doing the math in his head. “I think I started putting a name to it when you died. That made me… understand why out of all the things I’ve lost, you were the only one I couldn’t fathom living without.” Wow. What the fuck. “But I think I’ve always felt it, in one way or another. Since we met.”
“And you never told me?”
“I—” His gaze finally left Buck’s, his eyes closing, bravado gone.
“Why didn’t you tell me when I came out to you?”
There was so much sadness in the way Eddie sighed. “I know better than to want good things for myself. Life always finds a way to take them from me.”
Oh, that hurt. That hurt deep. So bad. Thinking about life hurting Eddie so badly, so many times that he constantly kept himself from happiness, self-sabotage as a way of life. Shit. “I wouldn’t have let it. You know that, right?” Buck asked, reaching forward again, finally grabbing Eddie’s hand. The way they fit together made his belly do a somersault, just like he knew it would. “I wouldn’t let life get in our way. Ever.”
Eddie smiled, squeezing Buck’s hand, interlacing their fingers. “I know,” he whispered. “Sometimes fear is stronger, but… I know.”
“I wish you would’ve told me…”
“Why, so you could avoid dating that ugly man?”
Buck laughed, loud. Eddie laughed too. It was a beautiful sound. Buck had missed laughing with Eddie so so bad.
“Yeah, that too, but no, I mean—” he shrugged, feeling more tears coming. “I think I would’ve realized what I feel for you the second you told me.”
“When did you realize?”
“Today? Like… an hour ago?” he confessed, rolling his eyes at himself. “I mean, no, that’s not fair. What I mean is, I finally admitted it to myself an hour ago. But I knew that love was there… God, maybe since that day I took you to pick Christopher up from school after the earthquake?”
“That was less than a week after we met…”
Buck nodded, hating the thought, hating the math. Years. Too many years had passed, for the both of them. Too many failed relationships and heartbreak, too much distance, too much running from the inevitable. It brought a new wave of tears to his eyes. “I think I just knew you weren’t an option, so I kept myself from acknowledging what I felt.”
“Why?”
“Well, because you’re— I mean, I thought you were straight. And I thought I would ruin everything between us. I was terrified of losing you like I lose everyone eventually.”
Eddie shook his head, pulling Buck’s hand closer to him, kissing it softly, then tucking it under his wet cheek. The heat of his skin made Buck shiver. “I wouldn’t have let that happen either,” Eddie smiled. “We’re both codependent dumbasses, remember?” he asked with a little laugh, reaching with his free hand to carefully wipe Buck’s fresh tears with his fingertips.
Buck exhaled a shaky sigh, eyes closing, the soft contact overwhelming.
“I missed you so much,” Eddie whispered, like a sacred confession. Buck opened his eyes to find him looking at him with so much sweetness in those brown eyes. It tore him apart. It was too much. “Life here without you is fucking hell, Buck. I know we still talk but I miss you all the time.”
“I miss you too…” Buck murmured, involuntarily nuzzling his face against Eddie’s fingertips, eyes closing again. “I knew you had to go but not having you close to me hurt every single second.”
He felt drunk again, intoxicated, flying, way beyond trying to process what was happening. This was something he needed too much to try to rationalize it.
All he could do was get lost in Eddie’s eyes, in the way he was now looking at him. It felt both like something completely new and the most familiar thing Buck ever had.
And then Eddie cupped his face in his hand, thumb brushing his cheek. “You’re so fucking beautiful, my god,” he exhaled.
And that’s when it started. Or at least when Buck let himself feel it. The magnetic force. It had always been there, thrumming between them. Buck felt it every now and then, every time they hugged, with every casual touch, or every time the heat of Eddie’s body was pressed by his side while they watched a movie.
He always fought it. He ignored it. He prayed to a god he didn’t believe in that it would stop someday, that it would stop pulling him towards something he would never really reach.
Only now Eddie was right there. Right fucking there.
Touching him.
Wanting him.
Loving him.
The magnetic force became unstoppable, too strong to resist. It felt like his heart would stop beating if he severed that connection, if he resisted it.
So he didn’t.
Keeping his eyes on Eddie’s, he let one leg move forward until he found the solid weight of Eddie’s knees. Eddie exhaled a little surprised gasp, but he let him, welcoming the contact. Buck kept the momentum going, until his leg was trapped between Eddie’s.
His free hand moved too, finding Eddie’s arm first. It rested there a second, feeling the warmth of his skin, softly illuminated from behind by the light coming from the hallway. His hand moved up, shaky but confident, following the hills and valleys of arm and shoulder and neck until it landed on Eddie’s cheek, mirroring his position.
“I love you…”
Buck let himself say the actual words, he let them flow from inside him, thinking it would feel monumental, like a life changing confession, but it didn’t. It felt natural, like he was meant to say them all along, to this one man, in this one place, on this one night.
It was Eddie who moved next. First, he smiled, pulling Buck’s hand from under his cheek to press a soft kiss to the knuckles. Oh, wow. Buck wanted to fucking cry all over again. But then Eddie moved his other hand, the one that was still cupping his cheek, slowly crawling over his skin until it was cupping the back of his neck instead, pulling him closer.
Buck went willingly, dazed but keeping his eyes wide open. How many nights had he dreamed of seeing Eddie’s face this close before he chastised his subconscious into silence and darkness? He didn’t want to miss a single second of it.
Eddie was so gorgeous. So impossibly handsome. Those sweet eyes made Buck feel transparent every time they were on him. That mouth was hypnotic, perfectly plump and tempting. Buck loved every detail, from the strong bridge of his nose to the pretty little beauty mark under his eye, from the long eyelashes to… to the way he bit his bottom lip, staring at his mouth.
Fuck…
Eddie stopped, though, only for a second, almost like asking for permission. Buck opened his mouth to protest for the pause. Eddie, reading him like a book, as per usual, took that as the invitation that it was, and before Buck could prepare himself, Eddie’s lips were on his, soft and perfect, making him shiver.
Buck’s eyes fluttered closed. It was a simple press of mouth against mouth, but it was enough to turn Buck’s world upside down. Or the right side up, probably.
This was Eddie. Eddie . His Eddie. The man that had become the center of his world, the one that understood him better than he understood himself, the one that Buck needed by his side in order to feel like his life was worth something.
The one he missed, the one he loved.
And he was kissing him.
Him .
Buck gasped as soon as he lost that contact. He opened his eyes to find Eddie’s eyes staring into his, full of questions and fire .
Yes.
Fuck yeah.
Buck smiled.
Eddie smiled too.
And then he kissed Buck again. Firmer this time. Buck welcomed him with a shaky sigh. It went slow, perfectly slow, deliciously so. It was exactly the way it was supposed to be, careful but not out of fear. Out of reverence. Out of need to make this a kiss worth waiting a lifetime for.
Every press of their lips was a bit more insistent than the previous one. Fuck, Eddie’s lips were perfect, and warm, and no one could blame Buck for opening his, for wanting more, for wanting to taste. Eddie followed him, his lips parting, a silent invitation Buck accepted eagerly.
Soon lips became tongues, and warmth became taste, and Buck lost his mind. Eddie tasted sweet, like the few spoonfuls of strawberry ice cream they ate straight out of the carton after dinner. He tasted like everything Buck ever wanted. He tasted right . Right and intoxicating in all the best ways, the slow drag of his tongue across Buck’s lips the best thing he had ever felt.
And then came the sounds. And Buck died. The first time a sound of pure satisfaction left Eddie’s mouth, reverberating out of his lips, Buck lost it for real. He felt a pang of need shoot down his spine as his arm dropped to wrap itself around Eddie’s waist. He gasped into Eddie’s mouth. He had forgotten Eddie was only wearing shorts, and the sudden contact with warm skin was an overdose of sensation he wasn’t ready for.
One that, apparently, Eddie liked very much. He made that insane sound again, deep in his throat, and yeah, Buck was losing it, fast. He let the kiss become deeper, intense, maddening, his arm tightening around Eddie, trying to bring him closer.
Eddie went willingly, legs tangling with Buck’s under the covers to scoot closer, the new position granting him better access to Buck’s mouth. Fuck. Yes. And then Eddie’s fingers climbed up, tangling in Buck’s curls at the same time that his teeth captured Buck’s bottom lip and it was Buck’s turn to make an embarrassing, desperate sound. Oh, that felt so good. How the fuck did this man manage to go for two of Buck’s weaknesses at the same time? How was he expected to survive?
All he wanted to do was surrender. Surrender to the weight of their need, to the desperation, to years of want and longing looks and frustrating barely there touches, but what if it was a mistake?
A fear Buck was way too used to began crawling in his mind in between kisses, and suddenly kissing Eddie like this felt wrong, because what if this was too fast? What if it was too much too soon? What if this merited a talk beforehand? What if this became their first and only kiss because he fucked it all up?
“Eddie…” he called him between his lips, breathless already, trying to pull away, failing. His body was a fucking traitor. “Eddie, stop,” he pleaded, hoping Eddie had a stronger will than him.
Eddie forced their lips apart, pressing his forehead against Buck’s, panting softly. “What is it?” Buck opened his eyes to find him looking back at him, eyes all glassy and half lidded and so intense Buck knew his knees would give up, were he standing. “Are you okay?” Eddie asked, brow furrowed, and…
Buck couldn’t remember the last time anyone ever asked him that in bed.
It was so sweet. So sexy. Buck was so in love, holy shit.
He couldn’t help but smile, exhaling a little overwhelmed laugh. He nodded, but then he asked. “Are you okay?” He needed to make sure. “With this, I mean. Is this okay?”
It was just kissing but this was headed in one direction only and he needed to make absolutely sure Eddie wanted to go there, he needed to know if he was ready, enthusiastically ready for whatever they were doing.
This was important.
Vital, even.
Eddie nodded, smiling, licking already red, puffy lips. “Been dreaming about this for years… about you, about kissing you,” he whispered, running his fingers through Buck’s hair, pulling a sigh out of him. “Never did the real thing justice, sadly,” he laughed, reaching forward again, planting little kisses all over Buck’s lips.
“Don’t say those things to me…” Buck murmured between kisses, pressing closer. “You make me want to—”
“Want to what?” Eddie asked, tone mischievous, barely grazing Buck’s lips now, teasing him. The jerk.
Buck shut him up promptly, kissing him again, deep, hard, tightening his arm until Eddie’s body was flush against his. Fuck. Yeah. That was more like it.
There was nothing careful about the way Eddie kissed him back. There was hunger there, a hunger that spurred Buck on. It was so much. It was too much, being wanted like this by Eddie. His entire body felt suddenly electrified, buzzing like a live wire, and he wasn’t aware of how badly until one of Eddie’s thighs found its way between his legs, high, too high, until it collided with his hard on.
Shit.
He froze for a moment, scared that feeling him hard would be too much for Eddie. Again. But, again, Eddie proved him wrong, swallowing down a soft moan before pushing Buck backwards, laying him on his back. Before Buck could react, Eddie was hovering above him, looking down at him, eyes dark and devilish grin wide, biting his lip with his leg still pressed against Buck’s erection.
Buck looked up at him completely hypnotized, turned on, emotional, unraveled, ready for anything. His hands went to Eddie’s sides, over his ribs, wanting to dig his fingers in just to keep him from moving away. “Please…” he mumbled, not knowing what to do with himself, or with the anticipation that set fire to his blood.
“Please what?” Eddie asked, mischievous, lowering his head, resting it against Buck’s forehead. Buck was definitely not fucking ready for how hot this version of Eddie was. “What do you want?” A kiss. Another. Soft. Teasing.
What a bastard.
There were no words for all the things Buck wanted. He wanted Eddie to destroy him. He wanted Eddie to kiss him sweetly until they both fell asleep in each other’s arms. He wanted to skip straight to the part where he asked Eddie to marry him. He wanted to laugh with him. Raise ten kids with him. Fight fires with him. Live with him. Make love to him. Grow old with him.
“I don’t know,” Buck whispered, wrapping both arms around Eddie’s waist, open hands roaming his back, trying to get him closer, arching his body towards him. “Anything… Everything…”
Eddie grinned, and then he kissed him again. Deep this time. Maddening. Fucking finally dropping his body on top of Buck’s until Buck felt him, wonderfully hard already against his hipbone. Shit.
Buck moaned, hands going lower until they were full of that stupidly wonderful ass he was a bit obsessed with. He pressed Eddie closer, needing to feel him, wriggling his body until their bodies slotted perfectly together, a big muscular thigh pressing down on his erection, his hips pressing up on Eddie’s.
Fuck.
Yes…
The first tentative roll of his hips made Eddie melt on top of him, a deep moan flowing out of his throat directly into Buck’s mouth. Buck swallowed it down and replied with one of his own, his body and mind swimming with the sudden wave of pleasure, so ready to drown.
The next movement came from Eddie. Another roll, another set of matching moans, another wave, and Buck was so lost already. Somehow in the span of twenty four hours he had gone from being the loneliest he had ever felt, to being absolutely surrounded by Eddie, in his bed, dry humping like teenagers after the most ridiculous love confession in the world. It was insane. It felt unreal.
Buck didn’t even know what to do with himself. He kissed Eddie deep, reveling in his taste, in his hunger, his hands all over the place, going from gripping his ass to roaming his back to tangling in his hair, back and forth, again and again. Eddie’s hands set fire to every inch of skin they touched, from holding his jaw to hooking behind his knee to lift his leg, from making a fist in his curls to sneaking under his t-shirt to press against his ribs.
They were a mess of need and love, skin and legs and hands slow dancing in the darkness, tongues and lips and moans confessing and devouring. It was a desperate kind of pleasure too big to contain anymore, too overwhelming to take slow. They had waited enough.
If this was the language they chose to finally clash and meld against one another, so be it.
So fucking be it.
And then Eddie decided to leave his mouth in order to kiss and lick and bite his neck and Buck felt like he was going to explode. Shit, that wet mouth on his skin felt so good, so damn delicious, pleasure shooting from the spot Eddie’s lips met his skin all the way to his cock. He threw his head back, giving him space. “Fuck… your mouth,” he moaned, eyes closed tight, one hand going to his hair, gripping. “I love you…”
Buck was so close to the brink, and Eddie made everything worse all of a sudden. It was like Buck’s words were fuel to his fire, so his body moved faster, every roll pressing his cock harder against Buck’s hips. “I love you, baby… so much,” Eddie whispered between moans, right in Buck’s ear, completely destroying any hope of survival Buck had.
Baby…
Completely overtaken by need, Buck chased that pleasure, and when his other hand went down again to press Eddie harder against him, it completely bypassed the fabric of his shorts, sliding against hot skin. He cupped and squeezed his ass, and Eddie practically growled in his ear.
Shit.
Eddie’s frantic thrusts became erratic, urgent. He was close. Buck could tell. Fuck, he was close too, grinding desperately against Eddie’s thigh, drowning in pleasure.
Only he refused to let it happen with Eddie hiding in his neck.
Buck needed to see.
He needed to capture every second, commit it to memory.
So, he used his grip on Eddie’s hair to pull him away until his beautiful face was in his field of vision. Oh, wow. He was the most perfect, breathtaking thing Buck had ever had the privilege to witness. Hair messy, mouth ravaged, eyes fiery and intense, focused on him, only him.
He got to see the exact moment Eddie came. He saw his eyes go all glassy, his brows knitting together, his mouth opening wide so a loud, broken moan could tumble out, landing on Buck’s lips.
Buck came right after. How could he not? Watching and feeling Eddie’s orgasm was the most erotic, delicious thing he had ever felt. Knowing that orgasm was all his was even better. He pressed hard against his thigh and he came with a shaky cry, one that Eddie muffled with a deep, breathless kiss.
Buck’s body went limp, his hands on Eddie’s hair and ass relaxing their grip but still keeping him close, as close as possible. Eddie went limp on top of him too, resting his forehead on Buck’s, his comforting weight keeping Buck from floating away, overtaken by the pleasure and the love exploding in his body.
They stayed still for a moment, breathing hard, lost in each other’s eyes. The moment felt magical, impossible. Delicate, maybe, but not because it could break. Delicate because it was a treasure, a miracle, a beginning.
“That was… definitely not normal,” Eddie mumbled, smirking.
The laugh that bubbled up in Buck’s chest was inevitable. He smiled, feeling tears well up in his eyes again.
He was in love.
He was so fucking in love with his best friend that he couldn’t understand how he refused to see it for so long.
And somehow, his best friend was in love with him too. Somehow, this time, Buck was loved back by the only person he knew would never leave.
He felt it in his bones.
He was not losing Eddie, ever.
“You’re not leaving,” Eddie whispered, eyes wet with tears too.
“I’m not?”
“I’m calling Bobby in the morning.” Buck frowned, amused by his determination. “Something tells me that he’s not going to have any problem giving you a few days off when I tell him why.”
Well, he had a point there. The thought of spending time with Eddie was exciting enough to keep Buck from arguing against it.
“I’m gonna have to leave at some point, though,” Buck complained, running his fingers lovingly through Eddie’s hair.
Dread suddenly crawled back in his guts, threatening to ruin the moment.
He lived in LA.
Eddie had bought a house in El Paso, and he was trying to get Christopher back.
They truly had the worst timing on the planet.
Not that Eddie gave a fuck.
“I know,” he whispered, kissing Buck’s lips again and again, softly, wiping the tears that were sliding down Buck’s temples with a careful thumb. “But there’s planes. And buses,” he laughed. Buck rolled his eyes. “And to be honest, I’ve been wanting to run back to LA since the very second I left you in the rearview mirror. My home is there. You ’re there.”
Eddie had to be joking. “But what about Chris? And your mortgage? Eddie, you can’t just—”
“No, maybe not tonight. But soon. I don’t know how, but I’ll find a way. I’ll go back for you, and I’ll stay this time. We’ll stay. I promise,” he whispered, interrupting the sudden freight train of Buck’s negative thoughts.
“Do you trust me?” Eddie asked, smiling softly.
Inevitably, predictably, Buck nodded.
He trusted Eddie with his life. Literally.
A future together the three of them felt like an impossible dream, but one he wanted to fight for. One he wanted with all of his heart.
Knowing Eddie wanted the same gave him all the strength he could ever need.