Archive of Our Own ^beta

Eddie isn’t a loud man. 

He's never been one for as long as he can remember. He grows up to a hushing mother and an absent father, and understands quickly that he is much more liked when he doesn't take any space. He's three and bites his lips to avoid crying when he scrapes his knee. He's five and walking around with a soleless shoe to not bother his mother with having to buy another pair. He's eight and spends sleepless nights learning multiplications to make sure he never gets a bad grade again, the print of his father's hand still burning on his cheek. 

He's ten when his father takes him aside to tell him it's time to be the man of the house. 

This means, he learns, to not show fear, or any sign of weakness. This means, he learns, that it's better to suffer in silence and never let anyone know. This means, he learns, that any emotion should be pushed away and locked in a box to never be seen again. Eddie had taken those lessons very seriously.

He needs to be, for his fragile mom and for his younger sisters, a reliable, dependable presence, someone you can count on, someone always there.

He brushes Adriana's hair as she suffer from the flu and buys tissues and chocolate ice cream when Sophia goes through her first breakup. He does the weekly grocery shopping to let his mother rest, and asks his girl friends how to deal with periods when Sophia first gets hers. He cancels hangouts to take Adriana to her dance classes, and wakes up at the crack of dawn to do her makeup and be at the front row for her recitals. He helps Sophia with her chemistry homework, and finds a part-time job to afford the dream dress she wanted for her quinceañera.

He never ever lets himself think about what he wants.

So Eddie has never been a loud man—but coming back from Afghanistan, the silence felt more like a necessity. 

Coming back to El Paso, everyone wanted to talk to him, the prodigal son with a silver star, the abandoned husband with a young child, the traumatized shell of a man with the faraway gaze. An overwhelming amount of sounds, touches, smells, sights. He didn’t even know half of the people, didn’t remember the rest, didn’t bother trying to. He smiled politely, answering intrusive questions as best as he could, often using his son as an excuse to retreat to his bedroom and hide. Everything was too much. 

For months, he could barely sleep, waking up sweating, trashing around, his heart beating wildly, thinking for a second that he was still back there, still stuck. On the worst nights, he'd stagger feverishly to the bathroom to puke—food or memories, he's not sure, the shooting sounds still ringing in his ears long after the sun rose.

Fighting with his parents, he tries really hard to never raise his voice. He doesn’t want to know what would happen if he did. There's a white, blinding pain punching him in the stomach and it takes everything in him to remain as calm as he can. They reach a breaking point, and to avoid having to be loud, he chooses to run instead.

Chris and him leave for L.A.

It’s probably the best thing he ever did, and for the first time for years, since Shannon has told him she was pregnant and wanted to keep the baby, maybe even before, Eddie finally feels like he can breathe. 

He rents a house, two bedrooms, a small garden, and lets Chris cover his ceiling with glow-in-the-dark stars. He has lunch with his Aunt Pepa and his Abuela every Saturday, and they barely mention his silver star, or Shannon. He joins the 118. He meets Buck.

Buck is, by all means, a loud man. 

He is loud in the volume of his voice, frequently ending up shouting when having a conversation, whether it's about a strange anecdote from his time in Peru, a fun fact from his most recent wikipedia deep dive, whatever Jee and him did last afternoon or even his bizarre dream where Eddie was a snake that had created a cult of people cutting their arms off. 

Buck is also loud in his actions, reckless, impulsive, often extremely dumb and brave, and so, so impressive, his big, broad body (not that Eddie notices) always studded with cuts and bruises, a treasure map leading nowhere but back to him.

And this should make Eddie’s skin crawl, make him want to hide after pretending his sleeping son needs him in the next room, make him want to get away.

But it doesn't.

Being loud, for him, has always been associated with bad : his father screaming at him for trying to help his mom, his mom pushing him to go dancing even though she had sucked all the fun from it and left only the pressure of succeeding, it’s fights with Shannon, it’s war, and blood, and ugly, and it claws at Eddie like a beast, leaving him marked and scorched and hurt.

But Buck is so gentle in his loudness : he is clumsy and constantly walks into whatever is in his way, but always profusely apologizes, even to just furniture ; he says things without thinking but always with genuine intentions of wanting to help ; he runs and jumps into fires without any regards for his own safety but cradles littles kids oh so delicately. He's one of the best person Eddie knows. 

Buck’s loudness feels safe. Eddie wants to bask in it. 

✴︎

He rarely gets nightmares anymore, spending most nights in a deep, dreamless slumber. Tonight, however, isn’t one of those nights. 

He’s back there. In the helicopter, kneeling in front of Gregg, bandaging his leg. He’s trying to help him. The air is hot and heavy on his shoulders, on his lungs. Sweat is damping his forehead—from the weather or the situation, he doesn’t know. He’s trying to save him. He has to. Gregg smiles at him, a bit feverish, a lot grateful, all teeth "Whatever would we do without you, Diaz."

Then the impact. The fall. The fear. Someones screams. Eddie grabs ahold of something and braces for landing, closing his eyes. The ground, everything hurts. His heart racing, his body trembling. He dares to open his eyes. The sun, burning, blinding. The sand, scorching, stifling. The blood, overflowing, overwhelming.

He’s holding Gregg’s leg, the one he was just patching. Except it’s no longer Gregg’s. 

It’s Chris’s. 

Eddie’s own son, red glasses broken and askew, eyes wild behind it. Eddie can’t breathe, he can’t breathe, can’t breathe. "Dad." A hoarse voice, a juvenile one. He’s raising his oh so little hands towards Eddie’s face ; Eddie stumbles back. Covered in sticky red, he’s never looked more like his mother. 

"Dad!" He repeats, voice breaking. Eddie’s heart swells, he might throw up. Can’t breathe, can’t breathe, can’t breathe. Glossy eyes, full of tears. He has to help him, he has to get to him. But his body is unresponsive. His head is spinning, mouth opening to say something—reassure him, call for help, something, anything. Still no sounds. Chris is throwing up blood now, and all Eddie can do is stare at it, transfixed. Can’t talk, can’t move, can’t breathe. He has to help him. He has to save him. Why can’t he do it? 

His eyes are terrified, roaring all over Eddie’s face, searching for reassurance, for hope, for love from his useless dad, stuck in his own body, unable to do anything to help his dying child in his lasts moments.

Suddenly, nothing. His small hands fall rigid. His eyes are vacant, open windows to an haunted house, still locked onto Eddie. He manages to crawl towards him, whole body hurting, and cradles the red glasses close to his heart. He tries to close Chris’s eyes, but finds only two black holes. They are, as it horrifically turns out, stuck to his glasses. 

They morph onto something unrecognizable: hatred. Eddie has failed him. Failed Shannon. Failed everyone. He’s the only one to make it out alive. He’s the only one who doesn’t deserve it. 

"Whatever would we do without you, Diaz." The impact, the fall, the fear. Someones screams. Eddie wakes up.

Sweat. Nausea. Exhaustion. Eddie extricates himself from sleep through coughing and wheezing, his lungs screaming indignantly at him. Confusion, lingering just for a moment (I am in my bed, in Los Angeles, California ; I am not in the middle of the Afghanistan desert). 

Before his brain even has a second to catch up, he’s stumbling out of his bed, out of his room, feet heavy, simmering sands, and rushes as fast as he can to his son’s bedroom. He only stops when he reaches the handle of the door, apprehensive (I am home, I am okay ; what if Chris isn’t?) 

Christopher Diaz is the very best thing Eddie ever did. He still isn’t sure how he managed to raise such a sweet, happy, understanding child, but he’s never been prouder of anything. Everything he does is for him, sky blue eyes crinkling with laughter, saccharine smile. He’d do anything. 

He’d bleed, burn, drown. He’d killed. He’d die. He’d set the entire world on fire if it meant Chris was safe. If his heart could beat just a second longer. There’s no length he wouldn’t go through for the sake of his son. 

But what if he fucks it up? (Eddie has an habit of doing just that). Innocent, angelic Chris tarnished by the sharpness, darkness, harshness of the one and only Edmundo Diaz. The thought suffocates him. What if he is currently failing him and he doesn't even know? Oh God, what if he already has? What if it's irremediable? Lungs pleading for air, Eddie is dizzy. Is he a good dad? Does he do the right thing? Would he know if he didn't? 

He tries so hard to give Chris everything he wishes he had when he was young: unconditional love and trust, a space to make mistakes without fear or judgment, to express his emotions, the autonomy to make his own choices, quality time with his favorite people… But is he giving him enough room? Is he giving him too much? How can you know how to be a dad when yours was constant only in his absence? 

Bleed, burn, drown. He opens the door.

Relief floods through him. Chris is sleeping peacefully, light snores coming through his open mouth, hugging his favorite plush toy (a lion gifted to him by Buck, who claimed it had reminded him of Chris). His red glasses are intact on the nightstand. The stars on his ceiling are glowing, whispering reassurance for a shaking father.  

The stars outside, them, know not to say a word—they’re the same one he was making wishes upon when in the army. Not one of them has answered. 

Eddie breathes in, breathes out, breathes. For now, Chris is okay. For now, that’s enough. 

He stands there for a while, simply watching the slow rise and fall of his son’s chest. The sun is starting to peek through the branches of the old tree in the garden. A familiar greeting softening the edges of reality ; Eddie can risk himself to touch it without bleeding. It’s this weird time where the night has ended but the day not begun entirely. The line between is blurred and golden—nothing is real just yet, everything a bit too raw. The world translucent, beginning to warm up. A halt.

As the morning starts to shapes itself, so does Eddie. He puts his death-soaked sheets into the washing machine. Remakes his bed, fluffing the pillows just the right way. Showers. Gets dressed, his favorite jean, his white shirt (that someone who may or may not be Buck has complimented a couple years back and is since then his most worn one), socks. Goes into the kitchen.

He grabs a mug, turns the coffee machine on. Sounds of coffee grinding, smell of coffee pouring. Warmth in his hands, bitter taste. He drinks it all anyway. Burn in his throat, clearer head. 

Empties the dishwasher, sets the table : the green plate is Christopher’s favorite, with a drawing of a bee in the middle. He won’t be awake for at least two good hours, but Eddie is filled with a weird restless energy that he can’t seem to shake.

He cleans the living room, and then the bathroom. He hangs out the laundry to dry, and then irons it. He doesn’t let himself think.

By the time he gets started on breakfast, the sun has pinched his cheeks pink. He pours Chris a glass of orange juice, and after a slight hesitation, one for himself. A quiet luxury, a refreshing one. He even picks his special glass, with almost completely erased vaguely heart-shaped red slops of paint on it. It was a gift for a father’s day a few years back, their first one in L.A. Chris had been so proud of it, stars in his eyes and red all over his fingers when he handed it to him. It’s one of Eddie’s most prized possession. 

The problem is that Eddie has never been allowed to do anything for himself without paying the price. This is why, he figures, the glass half-full slips from his hand and crashes on the floor. 

He blinks a few times, praying for a heat-induced mirage at nine in the morning. Because there is no way.

There is simply no way he just broke his precious, decorated with hand-made hearts, glass and spilled juice all over his kitchen tiles.

However, no matter how he looks at it, there is shards of glass drowning in sticky, cold, orange on the floor, and nothing in his hand. 

Eddie wants to bash his head on the counter. To crack it open and let his blood mix with the juice. Bitterness tainting sweetness. A father breaking his son’s gift. Fragments of glass seems to be lodged in his throat. It hurts. He might hate himself. 

Something awfully viscous is swirling around his stomach, his lungs, his heart. He wants to smash the remaining pieces into dust. To throw them against the walls. To destroy everything until his fists are bruised and bloody, and his anger finally satiated. 

Because his son is in the other room, and is going to come for breakfast any minute now, Eddie doesn’t do any of that. He clenches his teeth and presses the palm of his hands into his eyes as hard as he can. Breath in for four, hold for six, out for eight. His son in the other room. He has to get it together. 

In for four, he kneels on the floor. Hold for six, he picks up the pieces. Out for eight, he— "Fuck!"

Out for eight, he cuts himself. The red-painted glass leaves a red-tainted line across his left palm, dripping onto the already waiting juice. Blood orange. Insatiable hunger. 

He throws the guilty shards into the trash-can with all the fury he can muster, and for good measure tries to shut the lid angrily too. However, because he has one of those soft-close trash-can, it just miserably closes. He might as well have tried to throw a feather. 

His big, grand, dramatic gesture having been sabotaged by his choice in kitchen furniture, Eddie feels frustrated. Infuriated. He wants to grunt and stomp around like a petulant child. Isn’t that pathetic. Isn’t he. 

He ends up clenching his fists with all his strength, nails not long enough to leave any marks but just enough to reopen his wound. The sharp pain helps clear his mind, both his blood and his anger trickling out of him. Four, six, eight. 

He mops the floor as best as he can with his only, not-even-the-dominant-one, functioning hand, and makes sure there isn’t a potential slipping risk, before allowing himself to go grab the first-aid kit he keeps in the bathroom. Cleans the wound methodically. He doesn't feel like a person.

Anger lives beneath his ribs, behind his teeth. It strangles his throat and burns his eyes. It has transformed him through the years. Staring at a perpetually frowning face in the mirror, he tries hard to find something he recognizes. The mole under his eye, the color of his irises, maybe. Most of it is unknown to him. A stranger in his own body. 

Anger has shaped him into someone unrecognizable. Not completely human anymore. A morose creature with a foggy face pretending to be him. 

God, is there even a him anymore? Or has anger swallowed him whole? 

The sounds of Chris's crutches in the hallway brings him back to the moment. He may not be completely human but he is still a father. Before anything else, he is a father.

Over the kitchen table, he studies the beautiful face of his son. His unruly curls, his bright eyes. Eddie stares and stares and finds relief when he can't find anything of him. The curve of his nose, the shape of his face is all his mother. The way he scoffs when Eddie doesn't know the new video game all his friends are obsessed with is purely Buck. When he launches himself on a tangent to explain to him why "it's the best game ever Dad, I swear!", he can hear Carla's laughing timbre. A mosaic of everyone who has ever loved him.

Eddie promises him to buy it if Chris brings a good grade on his next test. The game is ordered as soon as Chris goes back to his room to finish getting ready. There's no faith like the one he has in his son. 

Looking at Chris's blinding over-the-moon grin when he hugs him as a thank you, Eddie is especially thankful that he has seemingly inherited nothing of him. He hasn't tarnished his wonderful son, full of life and happiness, with his jagged edges and somber corners. Chris might be the only good part of him. 

While he drives him to his friend's birthday party, Chris can barely contain his excitement and talks his ears off about whatever Mark's parents have planned for the big day. There's a sleepover afterwards for his closest friends—Chris is one of the select fews. The sun is delicately tracing his profile with affectionate hands, unable to resist his charm as his giggles fill the car. Gold incarnate. Somehow, Eddie is the richest man in the world.

He drops him off with a kiss on the forehead and an embarrassing "have fun mijo, love you" and leaves cackling as he hears a drawling "daaaad". A father above all else. A beautiful certitude.

His own job today is to go fix his tía Pepa's sink, which has apparently been leaking for the past couple of days. A task simple enough, and Eddie is content to just work in silence and listen to Pepa make conversation. She gives him updates on his cousins ("Fernando and Marisa are having a second child. They want another boy, but I told them I know it's going to be a little girl this time." ; "Alysia has quit her job, she said she was tired of being invisible and ignored. She wants to be a dance teacher now." ; "Liliana's daughter took her first steps last week, can you believe it? They grow up so fast."), chirps lovingly about Christopher ("He is such a good kid, you're doing an amazing job with him you know."), and inevitably ends up asking him about Buck ("Oh, how's Evancito ? I haven't seen him in a while. You should invite him to the next family lunch, Eddito! Your abuela is coming to visit, she will be so happy to see him. Did you know they're friends on Facebook? They share recipes I believe. Such a sweet boy, this one. It's increíble no one has married him already.") 

Eddie simply nods and nods, and pretends to ignore the flutter in his heart at the idea of Buck being invited to the Diaz's family lunch, of Buck receiving the prized family recipes, of Buck being accepted as Eddie's family. The thought of it both precious and tragic. A life he isn't allowed to hold. One he brushes with grieving hands ; one that reality cruelly slaps away.  

He figures out something's wrong when Pepa offers him a cup of tea, a peace offering in her voice. Has he missed the war entirely? He accepts it with wary fingers and a cautious glance. She hesitates, "your mother called."

Ah. War still going then. Lucky him.

"What about?" Feign indifference, betrayed by the tremors in his voice. He hasn't grown up.

"She said you haven't been returning her calls. She wanted to know if you were okay."

He thinks back to the last six calls he glared at until his phone stopped ringing. "I must have missed them." 

Pepa raises her brows at that, but doesn't say anything. A hidden approval. "It's about Christopher."

"When is it not?" The words are rough and tempestuous. A misplaced punch she dodges easily.

"You should call her back." Not an advice but a plea. Don't pawn her off me. Through a tea-burned tongue and barbed teeth, Eddie has no choice but to comply.

"Hey mom."

"Eddie? Oh wow, I was starting to think you'd forgotten about me." 

He winces. "Yeah sorry, I've been… busy." Half a lie is still not a truth. Half a call is still not a relationship. "How are you?"

"I've been trying to call you for days now," she ignores him easily. Familiar and prickling. "I have something important to ask you. You know, it could have been something severe, Eddie. What if I was calling you to tell you I had cancer? It's really dangerous to not answer, you just never know."

"Do you have cancer, mom?" He asks, half-exasperated, half-guilty. A good father but a lousy son. 

"No, but I could have," she dismisses. "Anyway, that's not the point. I was calling because we wanted to invite Christopher to your father's birthday."

The world comes to a halt. "Sorry, you wanted to invite Christopher?" Eddie parrots incredulously. Surely, he's just misheard.

"Well yes," she scoffs. A lipstick-tainted dagger twisting in his shoulder. "He's our grandson, and we never see him." 

"I know he's your grandson," Eddie can't believe he's having this whole conversation. "I know that because he is my son and I am your son. Although I apparently don't get invited to family birthdays anymore, so really, who knows."

"Jesus, Eddie, don't be like that!" I don't know how to be anything else. "You're always so aggressive. We just thought you'd be too busy to come, that's all." 

The fight deserts his body almost immediately, leaving only the drain in his wake. A crumbled sandcastle. Time has passed and yet, he's still a child with too-expectant rosy cheeks and too-hopeful outstretched arms.

"You know what, sure mom. Send me the dates, I'll set it up with Chris." What else is there to say? What else is there to do? He hangs up.

Wordlessly, Pepa embraces him. Motherly compassion he isn't used to. In her arms, he feels oh so little. The seams of his fortified heart tremble. "I am so sorry, Eddito." A thread falls to the ground. He leaves it there. 

✴︎

When Eddie gets home, the door isn’t locked. For anyone else, this surely would be cause for concern. For him, however…

"Buck?" he calls, the stiffness in his shoulder relaxing instinctively.

He can't help the smile on his face when he hears back "In the kitchen!"

Buck is cooking diner, Eddie can smell it from the door. He’s wearing his apron « KISS THE COOK » given to him by a snickering Chris for a birthday a couple years ago (Eddie still hasn’t figured out the joke) and the dimming sunlight colors his face golden. Eddie’s breath catches, just for a second. 

Hanging in the doorway, Eddie pretends not to notice the way Buck's red shirt hugs his arms and compliments his birthmark. His very own forbidden fruit. Eddie's cheeks, apparently oblivious to his herculean endeavor, hurry to match as well. 

"Like what you see, Diaz?" Buck teasingly asks, with a playful grin. He's lazily adding spices, knowing from sight alone exactly how Eddie likes it. The domesticity of it makes his heart skips a beat. Honey drips in a sand hourglass. Evan Buckley belongs here.

"Always." A breath too honest, it stands on the verge of a confession. Eddie doesn't let it fall.

Big blue eyes finds Eddie's face easily, a mischievous glint brewing in them. "If you keep flirting with me like that, I might get the wrong idea, you know."

Eddie shakes his head fondly, feeling something blooming within the confines of his chest. Whatever is there stays untouched, too fragile to hold, too precious to lose. Too dangerous to consider. He doesn't risk an answer.

(In the back of his mind, he hears a scorching voice screaming at him to stay on the straight and narrow. Neither desire not feelings have a place in a real man, a lesson dutifully learned. Whatever is in his chest is subserviently stifled and stomped on.) 

He’s about to make a comment about Buck being at their place more than at his own, but he is stopped dead in his tracks when he sees it.

The glass.

Eddie’s favorite glass that he broke this morning and threw out. Sitting on the table, glued back together.
Something whirls in his stomach, deep and unsettling.

"You fixed the glass."

It’s a statement. The glass is there and fixed, and it’s Buck’s making, who just shrugs. "It’s your favorite glass."

Eddie knows he’s never told that to Buck. Buck knew all the same. He doesn’t know how to handle that. Whatever is in his stomach is growing louder, tearing and squeezing. Fire rumbles deep below his gut. Eddie wants to crawl out of his own body. 

"You… You had no right to dig in my trash. I threw it out. It wasn’t yours to take back," he spits, crimson peeking through his teeth with his too sharp tongue (What is he doing? What is he saying?) "You cant— you can’t just do whatever you want here, Buck. This isn’t your house."

Eddie regrets the words as soon as they come out of his mouth. He wants to take them back. To throw them out alongside the broken glass pieces. Maybe Buck could pick them back up too. Make them make sense. Fix everything. Fix him. 

Buck’s looking at him now, his eyebrows furrowed, as if trying to figure him out. Eddie hears, over the deafening pulsing in his ears, in an awfully ironic twist, the sound of Buck's heart dropping and shattering. He wonders what disgusting truth about him Buck is finding out. 

Somehow, the kindness in Buck’s gaze never wavers. He turns back around, putting his dish in the oven—Eddie’s oven, because Buck is cooking in Eddie’s kitchen, at Eddie’s place, wearing Buck’s apron, a gift from Eddie’s son, a fact that sends Eddie’s head reeling.

His movements are slow, deliberate. He’s waiting for Eddie to apologize, to ask him to stay, to say thank you, for the food, for the glass. However, because Eddie is the worst person in the world, he doesn’t. 

"It should be ready in about 40 minutes. I’m gonna go back to my own place now, so please take it out."

His words have no bite, Eddie feels burned anyway.  He takes off his apron. Eddie still hasn’t said anything. He probably should. Somehow he can’t find the words. He wants to scream at Buck, bang his hand against the wall, do something. He doesn’t move.

Buck brushes past him, looking at him with something akin to pity. Eddie wants to gauge his own eyes out.

"Feel free to break the glass again."

Eddie doesn’t.

Instead, he sits at his kitchen table, staring through the mended glass at the empty chair behind it. He tries and tries and tries to swallow back both his anger and his pride in order to apologize to Buck, but succeeds only in leaving an acidic taste in his mouth. 

He lets himself be submerged entirely by regrets and remorse. There's bile in his throat and tears threatening to spill. Head in his hands, he grabs a fistful of his hair and pulls as hard as he can. Temporary relief, permanent insanity. 

The glass in front of him is smirking through his glued-filled cracks, curiously mocking, as if asking how far will you go? He seriously considers throwing it against the door Buck has walked off from. A childish revenge. 

But Chris made it. And Buck fixed it. And Eddie has already ruined everything. 

Instead, he opts for the dirty wooden spoon Buck has left in the sink. The resonating THUNK brings him to his knees. Tomato sauce splatters all over the wall. It looks like blood. It should be his. Shame clings to his face, drawing nail-shaped scars all over. Whatever he has become horrifies him. 

He lies under the table in an attempt to hide from its disdainful stare. The nodes in the wood traces sentences Eddie can't read—or maybe doesn't want to. He hasn't a lot to be thankful for, but at least Chris isn't here to be privy to his father's miserable failures. 

His phone rings. He lets himself indulgently hope it’s Buck, calling to check on him, or maybe, if Eddie’s real lucky, to pretend it never happened, maybe ask to come over for dinner. Maybe they’ll grab a beer and watch a movie, or one of those cooking shows that Buck loves so much.

Because Eddie has not once in his life gotten what he wanted, it’s not. 

It’s Maddie.

Close enough, God seems to think. Not really, Eddie wants to say. He answers anyway. 

"Eddie?"

Eddie sighs, "how mad is he?"

Maddie and he were, for the longest time, not friends. Cordial, yes. Friendly, definitely. But never actual friends—why would they be? Whenever they'd meet up, Buck was sure to be there. What other reason had they to see each other really? 

It took him dying (for 3 minutes and 17 seconds—the longest of Eddie's life) for them to actually get to know each other. There, in the cold waiting room of a one-person too full hospital, they had broken down together. Everyone else had gone home by that point, and in a shuddering breaths and lingering sniffles filled silence, they had gravitated towards one another.

They spent their time quietly talking about whatever they could think off—Buck, for the most part, exchanging childhood memories and on-calls anecdotes ("He used to always keep food on him, just in case he'd come across a hungry animal" ; "He once went back to a burning and falling building, just to get back a little girl's doll who couldn't stop crying"), and as the night went on, more personal subjects: young marriage, failed marriage, overly critical mothers, absent fathers, parentified childhood, parenthood and the guilt of missing so many first moments. The unexplainable darkness within them. 

Later, as the sun replaced the moon in the sky and the doctors came with updates, it was his hand—and not Chim's—that she grabbed in relief. A silent understanding. You love him differently, but just as much. He had squeezed it in answer. I do. I really do.

"Well, hello to you too. Have you even considered the possibility I might call you about something else than my brother?" 

"Are you?" he deadpans, guilt gnawing at him. It twists and turns and suffocates him. A well-deserved punishment.

"No," she admits. "But he's not mad." Eddie audibly scoffs. "He's not, I promise. He's… He's more hurt than anything." And, oh. Oh. Eddie needs to die actually. He needs to be taken in the back of a vile gas station and shot several times in the head. "And," she accentuates, "he's worried. About you."

He doesn't understand. Eddie is an abominable beast with distorted limbs, an uncaged hound whose anger feasts on scraps. Torment is branded onto his skin, bottomless hunger rattles inside him. People should be worried about being around Eddie, not about Eddie himself. It doesn't make sense. It should be the other way around. Why is she on the phone with him, when Buck is hurt and alone, all because of him? 

"So, he asked you to check up on me?" he shoots, cut-throating irritation lacing his voice—a rusty dagger blindingly reaching for its target. It misses by a long-shot. 

She ignores him. "Want to tell me what happened?"

Eddie doesn't. In fact, he can't think of anything he'd want less. Yet, there's something in her voice that soothes, just a little, the inferno and eases the anguish. He exhales, quivering breath. 

"I just got angry. I'm not sure why. He didn't do anything wrong." Eddie is a monstrous creature baring its teeth. A shapeless shadow made from broken bones and despair. He's barely human. He's a child dressed in his father's too big clothes choking on his own words. "I don't know what's wrong with me."

Maddie hums thoughtfully, understandingly, "it happens sometimes. We all have bad days, Buck understands that. I'm sure it'll be all forgiven by tomorrow"

A guttural groan claws its way out of him. Maddie takes it for the what if it isn't that it means.

"Come on, you're Buck-and-Eddie! Nothing could ever pull you guys apart."

Eddie chooses to bypass this statement, really unprepared to deal with the whole Buck-and-Eddie thing. Because they are an unit. An unshakeable, resilient, in-perfect-synch one. But they're not an unit in the way Eddie wants, and what he wants isn't what he should want, and suddenly the dark, agonizing pressure on his chest is back, and Eddie can't breathe, can't breathe, can't breathe.

Four, six, eight. His hands are wobbling. Four, six, eight. His whole body is trembling. Four, six eight. He deserves to die. 

Four. 

Six. 

Eight.

"Why aren't you mad at me?"

"Well, neither of you have told me exactly what happened to begin with." Overwhelmingly kind. Eddie's heart sinks deeper into his chest, weighted by culpability and untold truths.  "But also, I know what it's like. This overflowing rage that has no beginning and no end, that seems to go on forever. But it's not. Trust me, its not. It gets better, I promise you."

And Eddie wants to believe Maddie, more than anything. But he thinks of Maddie, kind-hearted, generous, always willing to help Maddie. Their anger aren't, can't be on the same level. Maddie's frustration might be a harsh breeze, but Eddie's fury is a devastating typhoon, destroying everything it touches. Maddie's might die down after a while, but Eddie's is unrelenting, unpredictable, unstoppable. He is a convict on death-row waiting for his execution.

His stomach churns with dreadful horror as he watches himself ask in the most miserable voice known to man, "did you feel angry? When you tried to.. you know?"  

"What—Eddie, where is this coming from?"

Eddie doesn't answer immediately, his nails finding their rightful place in the crease of his palm. Admission has never been his forte. "It's— I,I—" Clenching fists, voice hoarse and aching. He just wants to be himself again. "It's—being this angry, it's painful. I just.. thought about like, going to the sea and… just scream underwater until I have no anger left. I thought—I thought that, maybe, that's how you had felt too."

"Eddie, should I be worried about you?" 

"No, I don't think so. I mean—I guess that's what I'm trying to figure out."

They let the confession hang in the air. It swirls around Eddie without ever touching him, burning the corners of his eyes and crushing his lungs. He is a failure in almost all the ways that matter.

"No, I didn't feel angry."

Eddie hesitates, "what did you feel?"

She takes a deep breath before answering, "nothing."

Maddie keeps Eddie on the phone a while longer. He manages to convince her that he doesn’t need immediate assistance, that he’ll be okay. He’s not sure she believed it. He’s not sure he does either. 

The anger is long gone. He had hoped his conversation with Maddie would have replaced it with something, anything. But he just feels drained. Empty. A hollowness carving at his chest, keeping him stuck on the floor of his kitchen. 

He feels nothing. 

By the time Eddie finds the will to get up from the floor, Buck’s dish is burnt beyond recognition. This is, ultimately, what breaks him. Eddie broke the glass, and Buck fixed it. Buck made dinner and Eddie ruined it. He wants to cry but his eyes are dry. Sandpaper in his throat. His whole body dry. Heavy. Ancient. 

He throws it out, goes to bed right after. Smoke in his lungs, taste of cinder lingering in his mouth. Nightmares again ; Buck engulfed in flames, Eddie too late, Eddie holding the match. Morpheus’s light arms tainted by Eddie’s carbonized fingertips. Ruins wherever he goes. He is stuck in a fallen cathedral. 

✴︎

He wakes up to a pounding head and a sunken chest.  

The nightmare clings onto his eyelashes, close to tears but not quite, unrelenting to Eddie’s valiant efforts to push it through. Exhaustion holds a death grip on him, and he considers simply lying under his own car instead of driving it to work. What a solution. What a coward.

He drives anyway.

Feeling nothing is excruciatingly heavy. The tiredness makes his chest aches. He drags his body through the fire station as if he was made of lead (what's heavier : a kilogram of steel or the guilt of your sins ?) A ghost haunting without a purpose. Not really an unfinished business but an unfinished life. 

When Hen asks him if something's wrong, he says he's just tired. When Bobby questions if everything's alright, Eddie answers that he just had a bad night. When Chim remarks he looks a bit down, Eddie grits through his teeth that he's fine.

It's not Chim's fault, he knows. He's just worried about him, they all are. Yet Eddie feels like a wild dog. Ruthless, untamable. Please, don't get too close. I don't want to have to bite you.

Buck doesn't say anything to him.

Everything feels a little bit wrong today, like the world is slightly out of its axis, just enough to drive him insane. It leaves him feeling unsettled in his bones, stuck in his head. A prison of his own making. There's no way out. 

He finds it hard to bear, the nothingness. Eating him alive, discarding only his rotten core for everyone to see. A more grotesque version of himself. Maybe a truer one. He wants to run and hide, to avoid anyone seeing him like this : raw and naked and unexplainably angry. 

Eddie isn't a loud man, and so, anger comes out of him whispering. Poisonous words, insidious wounds, Eddie's anger is a vicious one. It slips through the cracks, softly, and then all at once. An unsuspected storm, an uncontrollable one. 

Frayed edges, frayed temper. He's no longer a person.

This is how the shift goes : with Eddie trying to walk a tightrope and struggling to stay straight. L'appel du vide. He glares at patients, snaps at his team, disobeys orders, and burns with shame. Anger has swallowed him whole. 

This is how the shift ends : with everyone pretending not to avoid Eddie, and Eddie pretending not to notice. It's easier this way.

Mechanical actions : walk to the car, get inside, seatbelt, engines on. He's no longer a person. Driving. He's no longer a person. Part of his brain is hoping for an accident, not enough to die, just enough for people to completely forget the way he was acting today. No longer a person, but still a very selfish one.  

His hands are shaking, his eyes prickling. And he might be selfish, but he isn't inconsiderate and doesn't want to be the cause of an accident, and so, he parks into the first space he finds.

God is probably crying laughing when contemplating the mess of Eddie Diaz's life, because when he looks up to see where he is, he's staring at his church. 

Of course, he is.

Eddie isn't one to believe in signs. However, his best friend is and (if he was here) would tell him this means he has to go into the church now.

Buck isn't here, so Eddie could do the rational choice : drive away and not read anything into this whole thing. This is the sensible choice. To leave. To go home.

It turns out he's never been very good at denying Buck anything, even to a half-hallucinated version of him. 

He gets out of the car.

The sound of the door slamming close seems to scare the birds living near, and he watches them fly away. Mourning doves, he believes. Fitting.

A flock of doves is called a pitying, Buck told him once. Standing there, in the parking lot of a church, listening to someone who's not even here, Eddie has no doubt he's the one being pitied. 

He finds himself sitting on one of the cold, hard benches inside. It's been a while since he last spoken to God, and even longer since he got an answer.

"Is this seat taken?"

Looking up, Father Brian is smiling at him.

"Oh! Um—no. No, it's free," Eddie stutters. 

"I don't see you here very often," he states.

"Yeah," Eddie lamely agrees. "It's just—I'm not sure I remember how to do it," he adds, after a beat. "How to pray."

"Ah," he answers. "Well, I don't believe there's an exact guide on how to pray."

"Yeah," he eloquently repeats. Isn't he a pleasure to be around. 

Emptiness, confusion, embarrassment. Stone in his stomach, he is trying really hard to pretend to be human. 

"What do you want to pray for?" A simple question, a loaded one. His own name flickers on the tip of his tongue. He settles for an easier word.

"Forgiveness."

Father Brian raises an eyebrow at that, an invitation to continue. Stomach churning and collapsing, throat suddenly dry. He harshly swallows.

"I, um—" How do you say I got mad at my best friend for fixing my favorite glass that I broke without sounding like an insane seven year old? "A friend fixed a glass."

"Did you get mad at your friend for breaking it in the first place?" 

"No, no. I—I broke it. He just… fixed it."

Confusion is splattered all over the priest's face. Eddie can't blame him, he doesn't really understand it either.

"Did you… not want him to fix the glass?"

"No, I mean—I don't know. I threw it away, and then I left to see my aunt, and when I come back home, he's standing there, in the kitchen, making dinner, the glass already fixed, and I, I—I just got mad at him, I guess."

To his credit, Father Brian nods as if this makes sense. 

"This is just something he does," Eddie keeps going, unsure of where he's headed. "Buck, I mean. He loves to fix things. Does it all the time, really. Saved my life many times honestly." A joyless chuckle escapes him. It sounds almost like a sob. 

Eddie clamps his mouth shut and keeps his burning eyes on the floor. The next few words threatening to come out might be fatal. He keeps them tightly inside, locking them for good measure.

"He sounds like a good friend," utters Father Brian carefully, voice filled with something that almost echoes like compassion. Eddie nods miserably. Buck is a good friend. What does that make me? Knot in his throat. He might be drowning. 

"I don't want to be dismissive of the importance of church here, obviously, but shouldn't you be asking forgiveness from your friend first?"

And well, yes, he probably should, but how does he begin to explain that he doesn't just want forgiveness for this, but for everything else? That he wants forgiveness from God for not being able to find neither the words nor the strength to ask forgiveness from Buck? That he wants forgiveness for wanting forgiveness? 

How do you explain wanting forgiveness for the sin of your very existence? That anger is all you know, all you are? That this isn't a single, isolated event but the culmination of a whole life of unreasonable fights, unreasonable rage? 

That he's no longer a person, but something much more sinister, devoured by irrepressible fury. That Eddie Diaz has burned through flames and that only a calcined, sorrowful part of him has survived. How do you begin to pray for something like that?

"Wrath is one of the seven cardinal sins," he manages to croak instead. The words wobble in the silence around them, wet and uncertain. His heart is trying to escape from his chest. Eddie can't blame him. 

He's a pitiful, pleading child, willing to beg for something he isn't deserving of. Eddie's made for pain, he knows. To feel it. To inflict it. There is no absolution for him, no mercy. He is cursed. He is doomed.

"Anger is a human emotion," the priest replies softly. A kindness he isn't worthy of. "It is just as much a part of us as joy, or sadness, just as necessary. Being angry doesn't make you a failure, or a bad person. It makes you human."

"What if anger is all I have?" Quiet desperation. He prays to not start crying. God, who hasn't answered him in a while, doesn't start today. 

Father Brian doesn't answer immediately, taking the time to really study Eddie. There's something in his gaze that Eddie can't quite place. It makes him feel exposed. He hates it.

What do you see? Eddie wants to ask. Is it salvageable ?

Am I?

"I don't think you're an angry man, Eddie," he finally says. "I think you're a scared one."

The words linger uncomfortably between them. Their sharpened fingers tear him apart. It's time for you to be the man of the house, Edmundo. Whatever spills out of him is cold and deafening. Shaking hands, trembling breaths, shivering existence. 

"I don't—I'm not scared. I don't get scared." Fragile voice, bleeding heart. He's holding himself together through medic duct tape and buried secrets. Tight knuckles, purple bruises. Dirt all over. "I can't be scared." Barely a murmur. A bargain he's sure to lose. 

Responsibilities don't leave room to fear. Eddie can't afford it. Man up Diaz. Cracks in the mirror. A child peeks through. Coffee-brown eyes, a mole under one. Terror carved on his face. Struggling lungs. Eighteen and a kid on the way, weight on his stomach as he signs papers—marriage, enlisting, the right thing to do. 

"I'm not scared," he reiterates, trying to aim for assertive. It fails. Isn't he?

Father Brian lets him face his turmoil but doesn't let him go, a hand on his shoulder—a steady presence, a lighthouse. Eddie holds on to him as best as he can. A bit further and he'll be lost forever, he thinks. Finally the storm dies down. Finally the shore. 

"Eddie?" The mention of his name brings him back to his body. Resurfacing, he's drained and freezing. A stranded wreckage. 

Eddie turns his head around, worried about what he might find written on the father's face. How humiliating it is to show weakness, how lamentable. To his surprise, there's nothing but kindness and empathy. Maybe, but how human.  

"I need you to know that He loves and accepts you just as you are," the priest affirms. A knife cutting through years of doubt and guilt. He lets the words wash over him like holy water. "You don't have to be afraid of who that is."

Gratefulness. 

Anxiousness.

Yearning.

He has to talk to Buck.

✴︎

Eddie: Come over?

Eddie: Please?

Buck: be there in 20

✴︎

This is how he ends up sitting next to his best friend, on a couch holding too many memories. Its creaking when Eddie readjusts himself mouth welcome encouragements. 

Buck is strangely quiet—wounded, Eddie realizes. He's standing amidst collapsed glass and trust. His aching heart pounds against his rib cage. Eddie considers ripping it out of his chest and holding it for Buck to take. A measly offering. 

Four, six, eight. 

"Thank you," Eddie mutters, staring at his hands. Healing wounds, covered in dirt. "For the glass."

"It was nothing," Buck answers easily, and isn’t that the whole problem.

Eddie stays silent for a while before adding "I’m sorry."

Buck hums, but doesn’t answer. He’s waiting, Eddie figures, for him to continue.
Eddie can do that. He can be brave. He has a Silver Star for God’s sake. I think you're a scared man. Maybe he doesn't have to be.

"I shouldn’t have gotten mad at you. You did nothing wrong. I’m really thankful you fixed it."

He searches for Buck’s eyes and finds them already looking back. Buck’s face is contemplative and hesitant. "Do you… do you want to talk about why you were mad then ?"

"I’m not sure."

"Well, that’s okay. We don’t have to if you don’t feel like it. As you want." Generous words he is undeserving of. 

"No," Eddie corrects. "I’m not sure what I was mad about."

Buck's gaze is unwaveringly soft. A sturdy, trusty presence. He lets Eddie gather himself, sticking duct tape over both old and new fissures—he can only wish for it to hold. 

Eddie takes a deep breath. His chest swells with something that flickers like hope. He loves you just as you are. He owes at least honesty to Buck.

"I think I was mostly mad at myself."

"For breaking the glass ?"

"For throwing it out without even considering fixing it." So do I. 

The sun has started bidding farewell to the day, hazy light flittering in the room. Eddie's eyes are glued to Buck. Flower-like pink lips, citrusy scent. Time, in unprecedented clemency, stands still. Perhaps, the long-thought lost future is holding out the door open for him. A three-letter word thick in his throat, Eddie has to swallow to speak again. Not now.

But soon. 

"It's just—" He has to dig deep within his ribs to find what he's looking for. A Pandora's box with Eddie's name on it. Who would be surprised that it was Buck who had the key? "I am just so angry, all the time. And I don't know how not to be. I don't—I don't know who I am without it. I don't even know if there is something of me left under it."

"I'm scared, Buck," he whispers. The words ring between them, heavy and sacred. "What if there is nothing left to salvage? What if there's nothing good left of me anymore? What if—" Trembling breaths. He is a feral dog trying to get close. "What if there never was?" 

Buck, ever so compassionate, extends him his hand. An anchor for Eddie's doubt-riddled mind to hold. What if the rot within me stain it? The wind and the tree and the birds outside all whisper the same thing. Take it anyway. 

"But I'm so tired of being so angry." The lament of a young child. With a fracturing voice, he falls apart. As certain as the sky is blue and the grass is green, Buck is there to catch him. Stain it, I don't care.

"Oh, Eddie," he coos, devastatingly kind. "There was never anything else but good in you."

The room glows a soft amber, casting a kaleidoscope of warm shadows on his face. Eddie's eyes finds yet again Buck's own. A constant beacon. He accepts here and there that Buck is all he's searching for: in the color of roses, the scent of lemon, the laugh of a child. In the dark of the night, the smell of smoke, the song of the sea, he searches for Buck. He searches for home.

"I don't want to be scared of who I am anymore," he confesses. "I don't want to keep pretending I'm not wanting, and longing, and wishing. I just want to be."

Buck gently murmurs, "I think we can figure how to do that." We. It rolls out so naturally out of his mouth, like it was never a question. Wherever Eddie goes, Buck follows. It doesn't matter, he realizes, how much he searches for Buck, because Buck will always find him right back. "What do you want?"

Only one word. Eddie has to uncomfortably push it through eternally clenched teeth. He's never been more frightened. He's never been more sure. "You."

Surprise and adoration mingle on Buck's face. It might be Eddie's new favorite expression. "Yeah, I think we can definitely do that."

Happiness blossoms upon Eddie's cheeks with petal-soft fingers. His heart has never beat so loudly. Hooked up to a monitor, the lines would spell out Buck's name in pristine letters. The first step into the light.

Behind the inky sky, the stars are in hiding. Timidly blushing, they have offered Eddie a long-overdue gift with crystalline giggles. 

Buck trades calloused hands through Eddie's hair. "I really want to kiss you," he admits. Wonderfully earnest, impossibly handsome. Eddie can't tear his eyes apart from him (nor does he want to).

"You should do it then," it comes out wrecked, almost pleading. Eddie never knew he could sound like that. 

He feels more than he hears the breathless "yeah?" that comes out of Buck's mouth. Close, close, close. Whatever he was planning on answering is swallowed by Buck's lips. Closer, closer, closer.

The ground doesn't open under their feet, the sky doesn't fall over their head. They kiss and kiss and kiss, and the Earth barely moves. Nothing changes. Everything does.

Their teeth clashes, Buck elbows him at some point, and they can't help but giggle all the way through. It's soft, and tender, and desperate, years of feeling flooding all at once. It's messy, and beautiful, and distinctively theirs. It's the best kiss of Eddie's life. 

He grabs onto Buck as if he might disappear, a melancholy-induced mirage, a sadistic creation of his own mind. But his touch is incandescent, painting ever-changing sceneries onto his skin. Cotton-candy kisses and lilac clouds, fluttering eyelashes, reverent fingertips, a lifetime ahead of them.

Buck holds him tighter. This is real, it's real, it's real. The ever-so present all-consuming rage and all-encompassing shame are gone. What is left is a entanglement of limbs and breathless laughs, swollen lips and sugar-coated words, a new kind of hunger. What is left is just them.

As Eddie steps back to catch his breath, Buck places a kiss on his forehead—a gesture so tender it tugs at Eddie's heartstrings until all of it unravels.

A gesture so familiar Eddie has to wonder if he has already done it before. 

He hasn't.

It's familiar in a very particular way, not as a made-a-thousand-time before gesture, but as a will-be-made-a-thousand-time-from-now-on one. Eddie can see it so clearly: 

Buck kissing his forehead tomorrow morning, as they'll both try to settle into this new reality, disheveled hair and hushed voices, trying to cook while refusing to let go of Eddie's hand. It's the worst omelette he'll ever make. It's already Eddie's favorite.

Buck reassuringly kissing his forehead for comfort after a bad call, whispering sweet nothings and holding him as close as he can, Buck's heartbeat the only sound he cares to hear. 

Buck mindlessly kissing his forehead at a Diaz family lunch, one of the many they'll attend together, the act almost second nature, as Chris pretends to recoil, and Sophia teases jokingly, and Eddie feels full of warm food and unconditional acceptance.

Buck lovingly kissing his forehead during their first dance at their wedding, an apology for his two left feet, while Eddie simply laughs until his cheeks hurt and his lungs burn. Everyone will be there. He'll only have eyes for one.

Buck, with fully-white curls and still the same soft gaze, kissing a much older Eddie's forehead on the porch of their house, who looks at him through a pair of rectangle glasses that Buck makes fun of whenever he gets the chance, time seemingly dissolving with the sugar he now puts in his tea.

This is the beginning of the rest of his life.

The thought of it submerges him entirely. It's too much. It's all he ever wanted. 

He breaks down into sobs. A terrifying hailstorm. It pours out of him through crashing waves and stinging tears. He tries to find the words to explain to Buck what's happening but chokes on them before he can get them out. It doesn't matter, because Buck already knows. Buck knows him better than anyone else. He knows Eddie better than Eddie knows himself. He simply holds him close, patiently, understandingly. "It’s okay, you’re okay. You can let go. I’m here. I got you." A tether. An open door.

Eddie has never learned to not trust Buck. And so, he lets himself be undone. Glow-in-the-dark stars-shaped pieces shatter around them. Their very own version of heaven. Eddie trusts Buck. Lets him pick the pieces up and rebuild him. Gentle hands, tender eyes. The creation of a new constellation. Eddie feels whole for the first time.

Light fingertips, adoration. A religious experience, he is being worshipped. There is so much care and devotion trickling out of Buck towards him that Eddie has no choice but to feel worthy. Worthy of love, worthy of joy.

Worthy of Buck.

"I love you."

The words tumble out of him uncontrollably. For the first time in his life, he lets them. They too deserve to find their place. They too deserve to exist. 

It’s both a prayer and a confession. Not one of love—Eddie has given him his love a long time ago—but a more precious, more delicate thing. Vulnerability.

Buck reaches for him with sky blue eyes and a saccharine smile. Bright sunshine, a taste of freedom. Home. "I love you too."

This is absolution.

✴︎

Later on, as they lay on the couch, Buck innocuously asks, "so you weren’t mat at me then?"

"God no, not at you. Never at you." A wet, sheepish laugh. A laugh nonetheless. "This is your home too. Always has been."

Buck is silent for a while.

"What about the lawsuit though?" His voice fragile, hesitant. He’s looking past the ceiling, unfocused. Memories of firetrucks and smoke, pooling blood and injured leg, loneliness and betrayal. Eddie gives himself time to think it over.

"Yeah, I was mad at you back then. Not because of the lawsuit in itself." Buck opens his mouth, probably forming an apology, but Eddie doesn’t let him speak. "But because it meant we couldn’t talk to you. Chris couldn’t talk to you. I couldn’t talk to you. I was grieving and spiraling and taking care of an eight year-old boy who had gotten his mother back barely a few months ago before I had to tell him she was gone — and for good this time — and I needed you."

Buck visibly flinches. "I—I’m so sorry Eddie, really, if—if I could go back in time and stop myself from doing it, I would, I swear, I cannot apologize enough for not being there for you, and—and for Chris, and for everything else."

Eddie takes Buck’s hands in his and draws circles with his thumb, trying his best to be as reassuring as possible. I’m not mad at you anymore. It’s in the past. You’re there now. It’s all that matters to me. He doesn’t let go as he keeps talking.

"But I was also mad at me, and at Bobby, and at the stupid lawyer, and even more at the fucking teen who decided to bomb a firetruck.

And then, you gave up on millions of dollars just for a chance to come back to this shitty job, and how could I stay mad at you after that ?"

Buck cracks a smile. It’s timid, and doesn’t quite reach his eyes, but it’s here all the same. "Hey, the job isn’t shitty."

Eddie grins slyly, "no, I guess it’s not. Not when it gave me you."

Buck’s warm chuckle, a bit incredulous, spills honey all over Eddie’s enamored heart. The lightness he feels is unknown to him but welcomed all the same. Sticky sweet, stupidly in love. What could Heaven possibly have over Evan Buckley ? 

(He tells him as much and is pleased to receive, as a reward, no less than a hundred kisses pecked all over his face.)

The truth is that loving Buck comes to Eddie as easily as breathing. To Eddie's sorrows, Buck is its solace. There isn't a rainy day that Buck cannot brighten simply by being Buck. Buck who loves so fiercely and generously, who laughs so openly and loudly, who immediately cared for Chris, not as Eddie's son, but simply as Christopher.  

Through grand gestures and small actions alike, Buck built his space next to Eddie and Chris. Along the way, falling in love was inevitable.

Eddie doesn't believe in fate or in soulmates, but he knows there isn't an universe where he doesn't love Buck. Not every version of him might have the courage to act on it, but he knows, deep within his bones, that there isn't a version of Buck Eddie doesn't grow to love. His name is carved within Eddie's soul.

Buck whispers reverently "Thank you. For trusting me with you."

If this is what damns him, then so be it. Eddie can't find it in him to complain, can't find it in him to care. He'll gladly suffer eternal punishment if it means one more moment with Buck. What is Hell anyway but time apart from Buck?

"Easiest thing in the world."

✴︎

The crushing sound of gravel echoes through the empty rows of the cemetery. Flowers in his hands, the wind bites the tip of his nose and the apple of his cheeks. Time blurs around the edges, lavender clouds surrounding him. The branches of the trees dance graciously, as they show Eddie the way. An useless endeavor but one he's thankful for anyway. 

He sits in front of the tomb, pink tulips staring at him. He finds their gaze compassionate.

"Hey Shannon. Brought you tulips. I know you prefer dandelions, but they don’t really make bouquets out of them I think. So. Tulips. Your second favorite. Hope it’s good enough for you.

I’m sorry I didn’t bring Chris. He’s with Buck at the moment, they went to see a movie I think. I’ll bring him next time I promise. I just—I wanted to speak to you a bit."

He sucks in a breath. Doesn’t know where to begin, not even sure of where he wants to go. 

"Buck’s really good with Chris. He’s really good with kids in general. You should see him with Jee. Maybe you do, I don’t know. I hope you don't actually. I hope you’ve moved on to a better place."

Grief is a peculiar thing. It hides in obvious and unexpected places alike. A wound that never really heals. Eddie thinks he's okay with that. He carries it with him everywhere, an ever-lasting remembrance. The breeze playing with his hair is overwhelmingly familiar. Thank you for being here. 

For you, always.

"He’s really good for Chris too. He helps him in ways I can’t. I’m not—you know I’m not the most emotional person around and— and we didn’t really want that for Chris, we wanted him to feel free to express whatever he felt— and Buck, Buck really helps Chris in that way, you know? Show him that it’s okay to be sad, and to cry, and to be scared, and that it doesn’t make you weak, or pathetic, or whatever." 

Eddie fiddles with a blade of grass, trying to find the words.

"And it’s just—this is hard sorry— Buck’s really good with me too, you know ? He’s this constant, solid, reliable presence all around. He knows what I need even more than I do. He— He does all of those little things, everyday, that seems so inconspicuous, but that amounts to so much ?

He always brings me coffee from my favorite place, even though it’s a bit further, and every time he cooks something with mushroom, he always makes a portion without just for me, and he brought me earplugs when we went to see the fireworks on New Year’s Eve.

He takes an extra sweater every time we go out just in case I get cold, even though I never do. He makes sure to include Chris whenever he can, he buys strawberry jam for his place even though he doesn't like it, just in case we come over. 

He reminds me to drink water and not just coffee, he sewed up a hole in my favorite pair of socks, he stayed awake a whole night to learn about tectonic plates just so he could help Chris with a presentation.

He fixed the glass."

He thinks of sky blue eyes and saccharine smiles, of forehead kisses and devoted touches. A flickering candle flame. There's tears in his eyes and he doesn't feel ashamed. In light of Buck's love, Eddie finds himself changed.

"And it’s not much, I know that, but all my life, I've always been the one who provides, the one who takes care of everything. The one who sees. But Buck—Buck sees me. I don't have to ask, and he's already there, helping me. For the first time in my life, I can depend on someone. 

For the first time in my life, I don't have to hide. 

And it’s just, you know, I can’t help but think, maybe, I don’t know," Eddie’s voice cracks. He hopes flowers will bloom through. "Maybe he’ll be good for me." Maybe I'll be good for him.

It feels weird to say it out loud. To admit it. To admit to wanting. The words are harsh, leaving a bitter aftertaste. Eddie savors it anyway.

He's grinning, he realizes, in the exact same way Chris does. A mark of love. A proof of life. Eddie's heart might burst out of his chest. Unprecedented joy.

Unsurprisingly, Shannon doesn’t answer. Eddie wasn’t expecting her to. He doesn’t need her to. He can hear her, clear as day.

Eddie takes a deep breath. Dandelions are blooming. An omen. A promise. It'll be okay.

You will be okay.