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Chapter Text

The story of how Anthony and Serena Carson had come into their lives started on a random mid-August Friday morning, with Eddie sitting at the kitchen table across from Chris. They were tiredly chattering back and forth over their cereal about the day ahead, Eddie having just come back from being on shift while Chris was still in the process of fully waking up before school.

“Oh, Dad, remember that you have to actually come to the office to pick up Anthony after school. They need you to sign something before he can leave campus with us,” Chris said, raising his head from where he had been staring, completely zoned out, at the kitchen table.

Eddie was normally very on top of Chris’ schedule— he had to be, considering the insane amount of sleepovers and school trips his fifteen year old son had planned on the average month. Now, though, with his brain barely functioning after an exhausting twenty four hour shift, he was drawing a blank.

He pretended to stretch back in his chair, not-so-subtly looking over at the calendar stuck to the fridge. He squinted determinedly, trying to make out the bright red letters that were circled on the day’s date, his glasses sitting unworn across the room where he had left them by the coffee maker. “And Anthony is…” Eddie trailed off, a pitch in his voice that gave away his confusion.

“My lab partner, Dad,” Chris said with a roll of his eyes. “He’s coming here after school so we can work on our first chemistry project. It’s been on the calendar for, like, two weeks.”

“Right, right. Course, I knew that,” Eddie nodded, shrugging his shoulders as he straightened himself in his chair again. “Buck will be here, too, so it’ll probably be both of us coming to pick you guys up.”

“Cool.”

And that had been all— a mundane, seemingly unremarkable conversation with his son that would end up changing the rest of his life.

***

After dropping Chris off at school, a solid five hours of sleep, and two full hours of LA traffic, Eddie was now pulling into one of the handicap parking spaces in front of Chris’ high school while Buck tapped his fingers along the dashboard of the passenger seat.

“Wait, so why do we have to go to the office to pick up Chris’ friend?” Buck asked as he swung his legs out of the passenger door.

“I don’t know, Chris said we have to sign something before he can leave campus. Probably something about approved contacts for pickup or something,” Eddie replied, making his way around the car and up the walkway to the school’s front entrance. Buck followed close behind him, stopping to hold open the door for a mom that happened to be walking in at the same time as them.

Once they made it to the front office, they were met with the sight of Chris sitting in one of the office chairs, talking animatedly with his classmate, wide smiles taking up both their faces. The other kid was taller than Chris, with a dark head of curls that were clipped close to the sides, his dark brown eyes creased in a laugh.

Chris turned towards them as the door opened, turning to tell his friend something when he spotted them before moving to get up from his seat. The kid next to him stood too, a few inches taller than Chris, throwing both the backpacks that sat at their feet over his shoulders so that Chris could get situated with his crutches.

“Hi, I’m Anthony,” the kid said with a small smile once the two boys had made their way over to them. Anthony stuck out his hand towards Eddie, Eddie pausing in surprise before reaching out and shaking the teenager’s hand.

“Hi, I’m Chris’ dad, Eddie,” he said, breaking the handshake to pat Buck’s shoulder next to him lightly. “This is my friend, Buck.”

Buck smiled brightly as Anthony reached over to shake his hand as well, saying through a chuckle, “I’ve never met a teenager that shakes hands before.”

“It’s polite,” Anthony said with a slight shrug, ducking his head to hide the fact that Buck’s comment had made him smile.

“It is polite, you should teach Chris some of those manners,” Buck joked as he reached over to tousle Chris’ hair. Chris dipped his shoulders back, dodging the attempt at the last second as he let out a quick “hey!”

As Buck grabbed the backpacks from Anthony and started asking the two boys a million questions about their chemistry project, Eddie walked up to the front desk. He threw a polite smile at the middle aged receptionist as he said, “Hey, Tammy! I was told I have to sign something before I can take Anthony home with us.”

“Oh, yes! Good to see you again, Mr. Diaz! They let me know ahead of time about this, let me grab the paperwork from the filing cabinet,” the receptionist said, swiveling around in her chair to rifle through a few folders in the cabinet behind her. Eddie heard a muffled “ah!” as she pulled out two pieces of paper before turning back around.

“Here you are! Shouldn’t take long, it’s just basic contact information and state regulation things!” she said, sliding the papers over to him along with a pen.

“State regulations?” Eddie asked, raising an eyebrow as he looked over the page.

“Yeah, it’s one page for the group home’s records and one for the schools,” she nodded, starting to click at her computer’s keyboard as she spoke.

“Sorry, what— what about a group home?” Eddie asked, causing Tammy the receptionist to look up at him with wide eyes.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I thought someone from the school would have told you about Anthony’s situation ahead of time,” she said, throwing a cautious look over Eddie’s shoulder. “His parents lost custody a few years ago. He currently lives in a group home.”

“Oh,” Eddie breathed out, eyebrows lifting in surprise. “No, no one told me about that.”

“Sorry about that,” she said as her face scrunched slightly in discomfort. “Um, feel free to sit here while you fill out the two forms. And, by the way, for the forms— Anthony’s last name is Carson.”

“Thanks,” Eddie said, turning to sit at the opposite side of the long desk to fill out the forms. It was a lot of basic contact information, like she had said— phone numbers and addresses, and one very specific question about his relationship to the ‘ward of state’ that Eddie was very much not confident in answering.

“Eddie, any day now, man!” Buck called over to him jokingly, leaning against the wall with a grin while Chris and Anthony stood next to him, the two of them playing what seemed like a very intense game of chopsticks on their fingers. Eddie rolled his eyes across the room towards Buck, filling out the final name and signature portion at the bottom of the second paper before dropping it back to the front desk with a parting smile.

“Okay, let’s head out! Grab your stuff, guys,” Eddie said as he made his way back over to the three of them. Buck pushed himself off the wall, grabbing both the backpacks from the floor, before the group of them started making their way out of the front office.

“Bye, Tammy! Thanks!” Anthony said when they reached the door, swiveling his head to smile towards the front desk.

“Bye, Sweetie!” she called back as they rounded the corner.

“Dude, Tammy calls you ‘sweetie’?” Chris asked once they had reached the car, laughing and jabbing an elbow into Anthony’s side.

“Yeah, whatever,” Anthony said with a shake of his head and a roll of his eyes. “I’m in there all the time for paperwork stuff— me and her are, like, weirdly friends.”

The drive back to the house was uneventful, a mix of radio chatter and conversations between all of them filling the time. Once they pulled up to the house, Eddie walked to the trunk to grab the backpacks while Buck went to unlock the front door.

“Your dad’s friend has a key to your house?” Eddie heard Anthony mutter under his breath to Chris, seeming genuinely confused.

Chris just shrugged and said, “I mean… yeah. He’s Buck, he basically lives with us at this point.”

Eddie just smiled, feeling some unnamed warmth run up his neck, and walked up the front steps of the house, two giant backpacks in hand.

***

Over the next few weeks, any time that Eddie was off shift, bringing Anthony home with them became a part of their routine. Eddie and Buck would drive to the school together, Eddie would fill out the same two forms of paperwork, and once they got home Buck and Eddie would hang out around the house while Chris and Anthony worked on whatever various lab assignments they had due. Buck would cook an early dinner, conscious of the fact that Anthony always had to be back at the group home by 8:30pm on the dot, and the four of them would sit and talk as they ate.

Eddie found himself struck by how easily Anthony fit into their dynamic. He was funny, always having a story that ended with some punchline that had them shaking with laughter– at one point Buck had laughed so hard that he shot water out of his nose, which in turn made Eddie almost choke on his food from the snort he had let out.

Anthony was kind, one of the most polite kids that Eddie had ever met. He was thoughtful, always offering to help in the kitchen or to clean up the dishes after dinner. Eddie and Buck always refused, though, telling him to go play a round of whatever game Chris was setting up before they had to drive him back to the group home.

Most notably, though, Eddie couldn’t help but notice how thankful Anthony seemed whenever he was at their house. He would make these offhanded comments– about how the food was always so good, about how welcoming they were to him, about how it was so nice that they always came to pick them up from school. That last one had earned a follow up question from Buck, asking Anthony if he normally didn’t get picked up from school. He had said no, that he normally took the city bus to and from school every day.

The more that Eddie learned about Anthony, the more he found himself agonizing over how alone he seemed. He was one of the oldest kids at the place he was at, and he never mentioned any of them in any way that made Eddie think he had friends there. He shared a room with five other boys, only one of them even being high school age. Eddie couldn’t help it, he thought about Chris– about how it would feel if Chris had to get himself to and from school alone, or if he had to eat the same plain meals every day, or if his schedule were so regulated that he needed an adult to do paperwork just so he could spend time with his friends.

There was one day, when Buck was in the kitchen making dinner and Chris was in his room trying to find some old notebook for Anthony to borrow, that Eddie was sitting one on one with Anthony in the living room. There was a rerun of some old Disney Channel movie musical playing half volume on the TV, and Anthony looked over suddenly and said, “I’m really glad you guys like me.”

Eddie paused, whipping his head around and drawing his eyebrows together. “Of course we like you, bud. Why would– Is something up?”

“No, it’s nothing,” Anthony said, uncharacteristically shy for a moment as he looked down at his feet. “It’s just nice… like, it’s comfortable here. I don’t feel like that very much where I’m at.”

Eddie felt like his heart could shatter. He reached out and placed a hand on Anthony’s shoulder as he said, “I’m glad you’re comfortable, because we like having you here. You’re welcome any time, you know?”

The idea started in Eddie’s head right then, as he felt Anthony’s shoulder slump under his hand, a small smile crossing his face as he muttered a quiet “thanks” before Chris came back into the room. That same night, after they had dropped Anthony off and after Chris was in his room for the night, Eddie sat with Buck on the couch. They had both been nursing the beers they had opened an hour earlier, sitting in comfortable silence as they paid half-attention to an old episode of Storage Wars.

“What are you thinking about, Eddie?” Buck asked, turning to look over at him from the right side of the couch.

Eddie exhaled and turned his body so that he was facing Buck. The thought had been gnawing at him for hours. It felt like it had hit him all at once, like the idea had settled into his skin and refused to slough off. Buck scooted towards him, dropping a hand onto Eddie's ankle.

Buck gave him a soft smile. “Come on, I can tell you’re thinking about something. Tell me.”

Eddie took a deep breath in, steadying himself before saying, “What if I applied to foster Anthony?”

“Wait, really?” Buck asked.

Eddie nodded, his lips pressed together in a line. “I know it’s probably not realistic– I mean, I’m a single dad with a demanding job, but… He’s a great kid, and he’s alone.”

Buck’s eyes softened, and he started sliding his thumb over Eddie’s ankle where his hand still rested. “He is a great kid. If you want to do it, then I think you should. But maybe just… think on it for a little? And talk to Chris about it first.”

“Yeah, I know," Eddie nodded again. He dropped his hand on top of Buck’s, letting the warmth from it comfort him. In all honesty, if the past few hours had been any indication, Eddie knew that he would probably be thinking about it non-stop.

He brought it up with Chris three days later, the two of them sitting side by side on the couch.

“He would, like, live with us?” Chris asked.

Eddie nodded. “Yeah, but only if it would be okay with you. It’s just an idea I had, but I wanted to talk about it with you first.”

“I mean…” Chris started, his eyebrows pulling together as if he were deep in thought, “I think it would be okay.”

“Yeah?” Eddie asked, letting out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding.

“Yeah,” Chris nodded. “I think it would be cool.”

“Okay.” God, Eddie had the best kid in the entire world. He put a hand on the back of Chris’ head, ducking his head to press a kiss into his hair. “I’m not sure yet, I’m still thinking about it.”

***

As it turns out, Eddie didn’t have much time to think about it at all before the final nail in the proverbial coffin hit. That next Friday, while the four of them were sitting down at dinner, Anthony hesitantly asked if they would want to come to Visitors Day at the group home the following day. He had said that it was normally a way for the littler kids to meet prospective adoptive parents or for relatives to come by, and that he didn’t usually have any visitors, but that he would like it if they wanted to come spend some time with him. Of course, they were all more than happy to agree.

That was how Buck, Eddie, and Chris had all ended up heading over to Anthony’s group home on a bright Saturday morning. They pulled up to the plain brown house and parked in the one handicap spot in the very front, and as they walked up to the front door Eddie felt his hands start to sweat in a way that had nothing to do with the end-of-summer heat.

They passed a few of the other boys that were sitting on the front lawn, some with visitors and some by themselves. They walked through the front door, propped open so that visitors could let themselves in and out, and were immediately met with the sight of Anthony running down the staircase towards them.

“Hey, guys! Thanks for coming!” he said, pulling Chris into an enthusiastic side hug as he smiled at Buck and Eddie.

“Of course, kid!” Buck said, clapping him on the shoulder with a smile.

“So, what do you want to do today?” Eddie asked, smiling despite the apprehension he was already feeling just by looking around the tiny, colorless living room.

“Actually, I have good news! I do have another visitor today, I want you guys to meet her,” he said, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet. He started climbing the narrow stairs again, slower now so that Chris could keep up. “I didn’t think she would be able to come, but it ended up working out!”

They followed Anthony up the narrow staircase and down a plain, picture frame-less hallway, towards what looked like the shared bedroom space. Eddie stuck his head into the open bathroom door as they passed, frowning at the fact that it bore more resemblance to a high school locker room than anything fitting what a house’s bathroom should be. Once they walked into the small bedroom, Eddie’s heart strained helplessly in his chest as he looked around at the uniform light grey sheets, the same small dressers tucked next to each twin size bed. There was barely enough space in the room for the four of them to move around, let alone to have six kids living all squashed together.

Eddie’s brain snapped back to attention when he heard Anthony quietly say, “Guys, this is Serena.”

Eddie blinked in surprise, drawing in a small breath as he turned to see a little girl plastered to Anthony’s side, the two of them looking remarkably similar with the same dark curly hair and brown eyes.

Chris stuck a hand out to the little girl for a high five. “Hi Serena! I’m Chris, Anthony’s friend.”

She reached her hand out and gave him a very weak high five, letting out a quiet, “Hi.”

Eddie walked over to them and grasped onto the back of Buck's shirt slightly. “Hi Serena, I’m Eddie,” he said, waving at her with the hand that wasn’t clasped onto Buck before turning to give Anthony a questioning look.

“She’s my sister,” Anthony said, smiling widely before looking down and smoothing a hand over the top of her head.

“Well, hi Serena, I’m Buck,” Buck said now, leaning over to get closer to her eye level as he smiled at her. “How old are you, sweetie?”

Serena just looked up at Anthony and curled her arm around one of his legs. “Go ahead, Reena, you can tell him,” he said softly.

“Three,” Serena said, looking over at Buck with wide, shiny eyes as she held three fingers up in the air.

“Almost four,” Anthony said with a smile before reaching down to lift her up into his arms. “She gets a little shy when she meets new people.”

Eddie felt at a loss for words, so he stayed quiet as the five of them made their way downstairs and outside into the sunshine. They saw the woman that ran the group home, Marian, when they passed by the kitchen on their way to the backyard, and she gave them a curt smile and a single nod in greeting.

As it turns out, the backyard was just as small and lifeless as the rest of the house– a square patch of grass surrounded by concrete. The grass was dead, brittle and brown as it crunched under their shoes, and there was one single bench in the corner against the fence. Chris and Anthony sat on the bench, Serena in Anthony’s lap, while Buck and Eddie leaned down to sit on the grass in front of them.

Anthony told them about how Serena was at a different group home– one with all girls– and that they only got to see each other about once or twice a month. He said that they had tried to place them somewhere together but, seeing that they were different genders and so far apart in age, there hadn’t been anywhere that could take both of them. Despite the far-from-ideal situation, Anthony seemed completely overjoyed while he was around his sister.

They talked and laughed, just as they always did, and Serena even slid off of Anthony’s lap at one point to start skipping in circles around the brown lawn. Buck spotted a yellow dandelion in one of the cracks of concrete and picked it, handing it to her. She grabbed it and squealed, immediately running to show her brother. Chris let her swing around on his crutches, and Eddie watched Anthony’s face light up every time Serena let out a laugh.

It was a nice afternoon. It was uneventful, peaceful and plain, and Eddie felt so ridiculously content just sitting and spending idle time together. At one point, he looked over at Chris with a somewhat dazed smile playing over his face, and Chris just smiled back at him. Chris looked over at Anthony chasing Serena around the grass, and he turned back to Eddie wordlessly and nodded.

When Eddie, Buck, and Chris had to leave later that day, Eddie turned around from outside the drivers side door and saw Anthony standing in the doorway, holding Serena’s hand and watching them leave. It almost knocked the wind out of him, and he silently handed Buck the keys, shaking his head at the questioning look he gave him while he walked over to the passenger side door instead.

They got home, Buck made dinner, and the three of them watched two episodes of a random show that Eddie didn’t recognize before Chris resigned himself to his room for the rest of the night. It was barely five minutes into the third episode when Buck turned to him and silently placed his hand gently on the back of Eddie’s neck. “You’re going to do it, aren’t you?”

Eddie took a deep breath and nodded his head. “Yeah.”

Chapter Text

The Monday following Visitors Day, almost a full two months after the first time Anthony had come home with them, Eddie sat down on the coffee table in front of Anthony and Chris with a soft but serious look on his face. Chris took one look at him and immediately paused the game they were playing– much to the confusion of Anthony, who looked between the two of them with a skeptical look on his face.

“Anthony, can I– can we talk to you about something?” Eddie asked, waiting a beat for Anthony to respond. He gave a small reserved nod as a signal for Eddie to continue. “I don’t want to get your hopes up because I don’t even know if it’s fully possible yet, but I wanted to ask your opinion about it first before I make any decisions.”

Anthony stayed completely still, a blank look on his face that seemed cautious, and Chris nodded at him encouragingly. Eddie took a deep breath. “How would you feel about me applying to foster you and your sister?”

Anthony blinked. “What?”

“I know you only have a couple more years until you’re eighteen, and you can absolutely say no if you think it would be too weird for you, but I… If that’s something you would want, then it’s something I’d like to do.”

Anthony just kept blinking, seemingly frozen in place for a couple of seconds, before looking over at Chris next to him. Chris just smiled, giving a slight tap of his fist against Anthony’s knee as he said, “The two of us already talked about it, it’s cool with me.”

“Are you serious?” Anthony said finally, his eyebrows drawing together as if he was confused, like he was trying to figure out some joke that he didn’t quite get yet.

“Yeah,” Eddie said, nodding his head. “Like I said, you can say no. I didn’t want to take any of the first steps in the process without asking if it’s what you wanted.”

Anthony didn’t say anything else. In the blink of an eye, he went from sitting on the couch to leaping forward and throwing his arms around Eddie in a crushing hug.

Eddie leaned back, balancing himself against the change in momentum. “Is that a yes?” he chuckled.

“Yes,” Anthony said into Eddie’s shoulder as Eddie and Chris shared a smile over the top of Anthony’s head.

Eddie brought his hand up to Anthony’s back, moving in small circles along the back of his t-shirt. “Okay, one of my friends from work has a contact at a foster agency and gave me her number. I’ll call her tomorrow to set up a meeting.”

“Oh my God, I can’t– thank you,” he said as he pulled back, turning to throw an arm around Chris’ shoulders with a bright smile.

Right then, Buck came into the room holding a plate of brownies, his coco powder-covered apron still tied in a knot around his waist. He cocked his head at Eddie in a silent question of ‘You asked him?’ and Eddie nodded. He smiled from the doorway and looked over the three of them, and Eddie felt like his heart was going to beat out of his chest. A feeling that Eddie couldn’t name, maybe it was just good, spread through him as a smile slowly made its way onto his face to match the other three in the room.

***

On Tuesday when Eddie called Diedra, Hen’s foster connection, she was able to squeeze him in that afternoon at 2PM for a meeting. Despite the list that she had sent him, Eddie still wasn’t one hundred percent sure what he needed to bring– legal documents, proof of income, any background check records that he would need to make the process as smooth as possible. Chris was in school until 3PM, Buck planning to pick him up so that Eddie didn’t need to rush through his appointment.

Buck offered to drive him to the appointment on his way to Chris’ school, which Eddie was internally very grateful for, seeing as the amount his hands were sweating during the entire ride would’ve surely had the wheel slipping under his grasp. Buck looked over at him every minute or so, watching as Eddie continuously switched between rifling through the papers he had brought with him and wiping his hands against his pants.

“Hey,” Buck said halfway through the drive, leaning over slightly to squeeze Eddie’s knee with his right hand. “It’ll be fine. You brought everything she told you to, don’t stress yourself out.”

Eddie dropped his left hand down on top of Buck’s right, slightly grimacing at the clammy feeling of his own sweat between their skin, his heart picking up speed as his mind raced through every non-ideal possibility. “I know, just– What if it doesn’t work? What if I get denied? And then I’ll have given Anthony all this false hope, and he’ll have to stay in that cinder block of a group home, and he’ll keep on barely getting to see Serena, and I just–”

“Okay, stop. Take a breath,” Buck cut him off, his voice firm and even while still keeping his tone soft. “None of that. Don’t go into it expecting the worst. You’re a good dad, Eddie. You have a stable job, and benefits, and a giant support system that can all vouch for you and help out whenever you need it. It’s gonna be fine.”

Eddie nodded his head, blowing out a deep breath as he pressed his hand down harder on top of Buck’s before repeating the words back to himself. “It’s gonna be fine.”

Whether it was the words or the grounding coolness of Buck’s hand, which was always freezing no matter the temperature, Eddie did feel a little bit better as he breathed in and out against the car’s air conditioning. By the time they were pulling into the parking lot, seeing Diedra standing outside the building to meet him, Eddie’s heartbeat had slowed down considerably and his hands were no longer producing a gallon of sweat per minute.

Buck and Eddie got out of the car together, Eddie pausing for a moment to shuffle the stack of papers into a neat pile before fully turning to face Diedra. Buck was already shaking her hand, a greeting smile aimed in her direction as he said, “Hi, I’m Buck. Eddie’s partner.”

“Hi, nice to meet you!” she said as she leaned over to shake Eddie’s hand as well. “Hen had told me so much about you. You two both wrote character letters for her while she and Karen were going through adopting Mara, didn’t you?”

Eddie nodded, a small smile coming onto his face. “Yeah, we did.”

“I was so happy for them when it finally went through,” Diedra said as she stepped up onto the curb.

“So were we,” Buck nodded, his smile reaching his eyes as he continued. “Eddie will have to show you the pictures from the congratulations party we threw for them, it was so great.”

“Oh, are you not staying for the interview?” she asked, cocking her head to the side slightly.

Eddie shook his head. “Oh, no– he’s going to pick Chris up from school, he was just dropping me off on the way.”

She nodded once, slowly, looking between the two of them before waving a hand in the direction of the office building. “All right, then. Should we head up?”

“Yes, let’s,” Eddie said before turning to Buck.

“Nice to officially meet you,” Buck said as he shook Diedra’s hand again. He turned and placed a hand on Eddie’s shoulder before adding quietly, “Text me when you’re done, we’ll come pick you up. You got this.”

“Yeah. Thanks, Buck,” Eddie said with a small smile before turning to follow Diedra into the office building.

***

The meeting was going well. Very well, actually, if Eddie did say so himself. Diedra was kind, welcoming in a way Eddie assumed probably came in handy in her line of work. She was also straightforward, which Eddie appreciated. She asked for specific documents, explained which pieces of information were the most important for him to remember, and told him which forms he needed to get submitted as soon as possible.

So, the meeting was going very well indeed. That is, up until she was looking over his applications at the end and said, “It looks like you accidentally marked that you were single under the relationship status.”

Eddie looked at her for a moment, doing his best to keep a confused frown off of his face.

“The agency just needs his information to do a background check,” she said, nodding as if she were clearing something up for Eddie instead of confusing him even more.

“Sorry… whose information?” Eddie asked.

“Your partner’s,” she said, raising an eyebrow. “Buck’s.”

Eddie’s eyebrows shot up before he could stop them. He looked around the room, nerves suddenly building back up in his chest. “Um, Buck and I– we’re not…”

“Oh, that’s alright, the agency has no problems issuing foster licences to couples that aren’t legally married. But we do need the information and signatures of both partners on the application documents.”

“Oh.” he said, sliding his hands along his pants as he felt his palms start to sweat again. “Right.”

“So, just have Buck give his contact information and signature on the application before you submit and you’ll be good to go on to the next steps,” she nodded, starting to stand up from her chair. She waited until Eddie was standing as well before reaching her hand out across her desk. Eddie swiped his hand across the back of his pants as he stood, taking her hand and shaking it as he tried to school his features into a calm and collected expression.

“Call me if you have any other questions. If not, then I’ll be in touch to set up a home visit once your application goes through,” she said as she smiled at him.

“Thanks so much, Diedra. Nice to meet you,” Eddie said, letting go of her hand to grab his stack of papers off of the desk before turning and leaving her office. He walked down the hallway to the elevator, a sort of dazed and overwhelmed buzz ringing through his head, not even remembering to pull out his phone to let Buck know the appointment was over.

Buck, who apparently needed to cosign his foster application. Buck, who Diedra had spent the entire meeting thinking was Eddie’s partner– not just his work partner, but his partner partner.

He was so screwed.

***

“I’m so screwed,” Eddie said to himself for probably the fiftieth time that night. He sat alone on the couch, his head dropped into his hands, as Buck rustled around in the kitchen working on some baking project he had been trying to perfect. Chris had long since tucked himself away in his room so that he could pretend to study, while actually playing video games on zero volume. Eddie still hadn’t told Buck about the misunderstanding, instead brushing off any questions about the meeting by vaguely saying that it ‘went well’ and refusing to give any details about it.

He had tried a couple of times to psych himself up to bring it up with Buck, trying to think of how to somehow start the conversation in a way that wasn’t completely absurd. After all, how could you naturally fit ‘Hey, by the way, I need you to sign something saying that you’re my significant other, which would technically mean that we’re lying on a legal document, which might possibly be illegal’ into a conversation.

Buck walked into the room just as Eddie let out another groan into his hands. “Okay, seriously, what the hell happened in that meeting?”

Eddie whipped his head up to see Buck quickly crossing the room, making his way towards where Eddie sat on the couch. “Oh! Nothing, it went well!”

“Mhm,” Buck said as he sat down on the cushion next to Eddie, raising an eyebrow in a way that made it very clear he didn’t believe him. “You keep saying that, but I keep catching you grumbling to yourself and, like, trying to pull your hair out of your head.”

“I have not been grumbling to myself,” Eddie huffed, ignoring the very true allegation that he had been tugging at his hair in frustration the entire night– there was no point in trying to argue that, not when his hair was now standing up every which way from it.

“Okay, sure.” Buck turned towards him, knocking their knees together over the edge of the couch. “I’m not saying you have to tell me if you don’t want to, but you know it’s gonna drive both of us crazy until you do.”

“No, I… Okay, I do have to tell you something,” Eddie said, turning so that they were now fully facing each other. Buck just nodded, waiting for Eddie to continue. “So, Diedra may have, possibly, thought that you and I were partners. Like, together.”

Buck just looked at him.

“And it caught me off guard, and I didn’t exactly correct her. And now she needs your signature on my foster application.” Eddie's voice was rushed, finally letting out the thoughts that had been circling in his brain for the last several hours.

Buck blinked. “Uh… Why…”

“I panicked,” Eddie said more slowly now, voice getting quieter as he dropped his head into his hands again. “She said that it wasn’t a problem that we weren’t legally married, but that she needed both of our signatures for the application. So I panicked, and I let her think we’re together because I really want this application to get approved.”

“Uh… It’s okay,” Buck said, rubbing a hand over Eddie’s shoulders soothingly. “We’ll figure it out, Eddie.”

“How?” Eddie asked through his fingers.

“Well, I’ll sign it.”

Eddie raised his head at that, his mouth falling open in a silent ‘o’ shape. “What? Buck, you would– we can’t just…”

“I mean, it wouldn’t be so crazy.” Buck paused for a second, a look coming over his face that Eddie couldn’t quite read before shaking his head slightly. “I’m here all the time anyways, and we are partners– maybe not in the way she thought, but still. It’s not that far of a stretch for the paperwork.”

“Are you serious? I mean, you would have to be here, like, all the time. Because there’s gonna be surprise home visits and interviews and check-ins. You would basically have to– you would have to move in.”

Buck just smiled and nodded his head. “Yeah, I know.”

“And you would… do that for me?” Eddie asked, his eyes going wide and his eyebrows drawing together.

“Of course, Eddie,” Buck said, so earnest and genuine that Eddie felt like someone had sucked all the air out of his lungs. “Like I said, we’ll figure it out.”

Eddie shuffled closer to Buck on the couch, dropping his head down to press his cheek into Buck’s shoulder. Buck slid his hand down from Eddie’s shoulders, landing at the small of his back and pressing his thumb into Eddie’s side.

“Thank you,” Eddie said, the words coming out somewhat slanted from the side of his mouth being pressed against Buck’s sweatshirt. He squeezed his eyes shut, a stinging feeling under his eyelids as he felt Buck’s thumb brush up and down his side softly. Eddie pushed out a shaky breath and felt the weight of Buck’s head drop on top of his own.

“Just tell me what I have to sign.”

***

The home visit was scheduled for that upcoming Saturday at noon, Diedra having been kind enough to prioritize it to the front of her calendar. So on top of having a twenty four hour shift, Buck and Eddie only had three days to make the Diaz house as presentable as possible– and to also make it believable that the two of them were a couple that lived together. Much to their surprise, and much to Chris’ delight at the new teasing material, there weren’t very many changes to be made to make it believable.

Buck was already there in so many ways. He was there, smiling in at least seventy percent of the memories captured behind the glass of the picture frames that lined the hallway. His custom ‘Chef Buckley’ apron already hung on the hook in the kitchen, and he always had no less than three pairs of shoes lined up on the shoe rack by the front door. He had his own designated key hook mounted next to the front door with Eddie’s, and even half of his schedule was already scribbled onto the fridge calendar.

Eddie wouldn’t say that these things were a surprise to him, exactly– he was well aware of Buck’s presence in their lives, and he was happy with it. Still, that isn’t to say that each one of these small realizations didn’t seem to dislodge something in him. Every aspect of his home that decidedly didn’t have to change in order to make them a ‘believable couple’ felt like a small spark behind Eddie’s ribs, which he didn’t have the emotional bandwidth to unpack right at that point in time.

On Friday, the day before the home visit, Buck and Eddie talked to Chris and Anthony about it– how they were applying together because it helped their chances of getting accepted. They explained that they were using the label ‘partners’ and that Buck would be moving in, at least temporarily for as long as the foster licence process was ongoing.

Both Chris and Anthony had reacted to their explanation by pointing out that this wasn’t exactly that different from how they had been before, both boys giving them very pointed looks. Eddie had just shaken his head at the pair of sarcastic smiles as Buck muttered, “Oh god, there’s two of them now.”

In preparation for any questions that Diedra would have about house space, the four of them also figured out the plan for rooms. The three bedroom two bathroom house wasn’t the most ideal layout for a five person household. Eddie was admittedly slightly nervous about Chris, who had only ever had his own room, having to transition to sharing his space. Eddie’s nerves were alleviated much quicker than anticipated, though, as Chris matter-of-factly said, “Well, doesn’t it make the most sense for us to share and for Serena to have the middle room?”

By the time that Friday night rolled around, with Buck planning to spend the night so that he could be at the house in the morning, all of the planning and preparations were done. They had finally finished moving the desk and filing cabinets out of the third bedroom that had been acting as a makeshift office-slash-storage room, stuffing them into the backyard shed and effectively making space for any furniture that would need to go into Serena’s room.

Neither of them had considered the physical aspect of moving furniture immediately after coming off a twenty-four hour shift, and both of them had promptly collapsed onto the couch in exhaustion, too tired to even grab themselves a beer from the fridge. Buck had sprawled out, his long limbs taking up almost the entire couch, not leaving nearly enough room for Eddie to join him with any possibility of maintaining personal space. Eddie just shrugged, too tired to argue against something that didn’t bother him all that much anyways, and threw himself down onto the couch, letting their limbs stack on top of each other.

“Can you reach the remote from there?” Eddie asked, unwilling to move from his slouched position on the couch, eyebrow raised in the direction of the television remote that was just out of his grasp.

“Mmh, you get it,” Buck answered, motionless and slumped just as deeply into the cushions as Eddie, his eyes closed with the back of his hand pressed dramatically into his forehead.

Eddie stretched his hand out again in a final, futile attempt to reach the remote, not getting any further than the two previous tries, before defeatedly huffing out, “Silence is fine.”

The quiet filled the room, both of them just staring up at the ceiling and letting the tension in their muscles settle. Finally, Buck raised his head slightly to look at Eddie. “You nervous?” he asked.

“Too tired to be nervous. Ask me again tomorrow,” Eddie responded, his head still tipped back on the arm of the couch with his face facing the ceiling. It was meant to be a joke, but both of them knew that there was some truth behind it.

“It’s gonna be great,” Buck said.

“I know,” Eddie said, pausing to drop his hand onto Buck’s calf, where it was resting on his stomach. “I know I’ve said it already, but… thank you.”

Buck twitched his foot to hit it against Eddie’s shoulder, Eddie’s hand raising to catch his ankle before he could get whacked in the face. “Ah, don’t mention it.”

He said it like it was simple– like Eddie was thanking him for taking the trash out, not for something as big as rearranging his entire life at Eddie’s request. Eddie just shook his head, a smile playing over his face as he looked up to catch Buck’s eyes.

“I’m serious,” he started, his voice even. “Thank you.”

“You don’t have to keep thanking me,” Buck said, smiling now as well. “It’s not like this is some crazy imposition. I want to help– I’m glad you want me to help.”

Eddie didn’t find that shocking in the least, he already knew that about Buck. He liked to feel needed, to feel like he was of use and helpful to the people he cared about, and Eddie had always tried to let him when he could. It wasn’t always the easiest thing for Eddie– letting people help him, feeling like he deserved help shouldering his responsibilities– but it did seem to be an easier feat for him when Buck was the one offering.

He knew that, in theory, Buck would do anything for him. And it went both ways, of course. Eddie had trouble even conjuring up a hypothetical situation where he would say no to Buck. But still, Eddie had never asked Buck for something so significant before. Thinking about it almost made him feel fuzzy in a way– Buck’s lack of hesitation to uproot his life if Eddie needed him to, the tangible testimony to the strength of their bond, confirming it as something boundless, limitless.

“Well, I still want to thank you,” Eddie said, hand still wrapped around Buck’s ankle.

“Well, if you really want to thank me, you can go get us some beers from the fridge,” Buck said, grinning over at Eddie before lifting his legs to give him a clear path off the couch.

“Ugh, fine,” Eddie groaned, heaving himself off the couch and shuffling to the fridge and back, remembering to grab the remote on his way back to the couch. He flipped through the menu screen of whichever streaming service had been open on the TV already, clicking on the episode of Survivor they had left off on during their watch-through, before sinking back into the couch.

Buck’s legs stretched back out over Eddie’s chest, Eddie tucking his feet between the back of the couch and Buck’s side. Curled into each other with their beer bottles placed just within reach on the coffee table, they both nodded off before the episode or their drinks were even halfway finished.

Chapter Text

The morning of their home visit with Diedra, Eddie woke up before the sun had even risen. This wasn’t due to restlessness or anxiety, though he would’ve thought that would be the case. No, in fact Eddie was having a very peaceful and stress free night of sleep. Then, despite the fact that his dreams had been nothing but lovely and for the entire night, he suddenly lurched from sleep as the feeling of falling spiked through him.

He woke up in a gasp, his back against the hardwood floor of his living room, with a throbbing pain in his tailbone and his… nose? He raised his hand to his face, the vague feeling of wetness transferring over to his fingers, and shot up into a sitting position when he pulled his hand back to find a red smear along them. He pinched the bridge of his nose, cutting off the flow of blood that was inexplicably making its way out of his nasal cavity. As he looked around the room, sleep-addled mind still working its way towards being fully awake, the circumstances of his bloody-nose-on-the-floor situation started to fall into place.

Buck was still completely sprawled out on the couch, his eyebrows drawn together, his arms and legs twitching like a dog dreaming about chasing a squirrel. Eddie watched as Buck’s right leg twitched, foot kicking aimlessly right where Eddie’s face had been when they had fallen asleep. Eddie shuffled forward, using his non-blood-stopping hand to shake Buck awake as he whispered, “Buck.”

“Mmh… no,” Buck mumbled, eyebrows pulling even tenser above his closed eyes.

“Buck,” Eddie hissed again, slightly louder this time as he kept shaking Buck’s shoulder.

“What?” Buck gasped as his eyes shot open, his torso jerking up so fast that the two of them almost knocked heads. His eyes widened, frantically looking around the room and shallowly sucking in breath after breath, stopping when his gaze landed on Eddie. A look of confusion fell over his face as he took in Eddie’s disheveled and bloody appearance. “What the…”

“Nightmare?” Eddie asked, leaning back against the coffee table.

“Why are you on the floor?” Buck asked, leaning forward on his elbow and rubbing the sleep out of his eyes with the heel of his palm. “And are– are you bleeding?”

“You kicked me in the face and I fell off the couch,” Eddie said, voice nasally from pinching his nose.

“What… Oh my god,” Buck mumbled, reaching his hand out to tip Eddie’s head back with a finger under his chin. His eyes scanned over Eddie’s face for a moment before he got to his feet and wrapped a hand around Eddie’s wrist, pulling him up with him. Eddie let Buck drag him to the kitchen, parking him at the island counter with a steady grip on his shoulders and a firm, “Stay.”

“Not a dog, Buck,” Eddie said as Buck walked towards the back hallway. Eddie stayed nonetheless, hopping up to sit on the kitchen island, swinging his legs as he waited for Buck to make his way back. Buck came back into the kitchen a minute later, placing the first aid kit from the bathroom onto the counter next to Eddie and opening it up, riffling through the contents before pulling out an antiseptic wipe and some gauze.

Buck raised his left hand to the back of Eddie’s head, holding it in place as his right hand gently brushed against Eddie’ wrist. Eddie took the hint and dropped his hand from his face, and Buck immediately placed the gauze under Eddie’s nose to catch the flow of blood. Eddie didn’t mention the fact that he could easily do this himself, he didn’t need to– Buck knew that just as well as he did.

“I can’t believe I gave you a bloody nose,” Buck said quietly as they stayed in place, Buck crowding into his space as he pulled the gauze back, checking if Eddie’s nose was still bleeding. “God, I’m so sorry.”

“You were sleeping, Buck, it’s okay,” Eddie said, ducking his head to catch Buck’s eyes as he gave a small shrug with his shoulders. “What were you dreaming about?”

Buck turned to drop the gauze into the garbage under the sink, ripping open the packaging of the antiseptic wipe. When he turned back to Eddie, his mouth was pressed into a tense line. He stepped back into Eddie's space, his thighs pressing against Eddie’s shins. He hooked his left index finger under Eddie’s chin, tilting his head up again as he started to wipe the red off of his face.

“It was another swimming dream,” Buck said finally, hands moving softly against Eddie’s face. “I couldn’t get to the surface, no matter how much I– I just kept getting deeper.”

Buck had mentioned his nightmares to Eddie before, though it wasn’t something that he liked to talk about in very much depth. Eddie couldn’t blame him, he knew the feeling– there had been a couple of months after the sniper where he would be back on that street every time he fell asleep, back in that firetruck looking up at Buck covered in blood, and he couldn’t say it was something he particularly wanted to think or talk about while he was awake as well.

Eddie reached up to wrap his hands around Buck’s wrists, gently pulling his hands away from his face and into his lap. “You haven’t mentioned your nightmares in a while.”

Buck nodded and dropped his head to look down at their hands, eyes focusing down when he saw the dark red streaks that had dried onto Eddie’s hands as well. He hummed softly as he started rubbing the antiseptic wipe over each of Eddie’s fingers. “I don’t get them as often now, only every once in a while… I’ve just been having a couple this month.”

Silence settled between them, Buck slowly drifting to slot between Eddie’s knees as he kept his focus on his hands. They were so close at that point that Eddie could feel Buck’s breath puffing out onto his neck. Eddie could just as easily go to the sink and wash his hands, but still he sat contentedly on the counter. He swung his feet back and forth slowly, his socks brushing against Buck’s sweats, as Buck diligently cleared the remnants of blood from his fingers.

“Okay,” Buck said finally, giving a final swipe across Eddie’s last finger as he raised his eyes from their hands. “Done. Sorry again.”

“I’m just glad it was only my nose. Imagine if Diedra showed up for the house visit and I had a fat lip,” Eddie said lightly as he hopped down from the kitchen island.

“Oh god, I didn’t even think of that,” Buck groaned, dropping his head in his hands, and Eddie just laughed softly as Buck peeked at him through his fingers. “Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it, seriously,” Eddie said, smiling and patting Buck on the shoulder as he glanced past him towards the clock on the coffee maker, reading 6:08AM. “Most effective alarm clock ever.”

Buck did laugh at that, the guilt slowly melting off his face to make room for a small smile. Eddie walked over to the coffee maker, scooping the grounds into the filter as Buck came up next to him to fill the side of the machine with water. Eddie hummed a small “thank you” as Buck refilled the pitcher and slid it back into the fridge.

Buck cleared his throat as he closed the fridge door, catching Eddie’s attention again. “So, uh… speaking of the house visit. Are we, uh, going to… like, pretend that we’re together?”

Eddie turned to look at him, Buck’s eyes fixated on the coffee maker that had started to drip into the pot. “Oh, um… I hadn’t really thought about it that hard, if I’m being honest.”

“I don’t mean it should be anything crazy, but…” Buck started, pausing to think for a moment before he continued. “I mean, we should make it believable, right?”

“Yeah, true,” Eddie said, before pitching his voice up an octave. “Believable… how?”

“Just, like, normal couple things, yeah?”

“I mean, I wouldn’t really kiss my significant other in front of my social worker in the first place…” Eddie said, voice getting quiet as he dropped his head slightly.

“No! Not– Oh my god, I meant just, like, holding hands and stuff, not– Not that,” Buck stammered out, pausing and stuttering after every couple of words as he rubbed at the back of his neck.

“Oh… Yeah, sorry, we can hold hands… and stuff, yeah,” Eddie said, rubbing the back of his own neck now.

Buck pushed out a shaky laugh and nodded. “Okay, uh, good. Okay.”

The rest of the morning passed in peace for the most part. Buck and Eddie finished up the last of the tidying that the house needed, being a bit more excessive than was maybe necessary just to ease their minds and give themselves something to do to fill the anxious idle time.

Buck made breakfast, just simple pancakes and bacon so as to not make an absolute mess of the kitchen like he usually would, while Eddie sat at the kitchen table and listened to him ramble on about the history of reality television. Eddie wrapped up a plate to put in the fridge for when Chris got up, then the two of them moved to sit down in front of the television to eat, continuing where they left off on season eleven of Survivor.

Chris woke up around 10:45AM, shuffling past where Buck and Eddie sat on the couch with a mumbled “G’morning” before heading into the kitchen to grab his made up plate of breakfast from the fridge. He brought it into the living room, squishing himself between Buck and Eddie on the couch as he used the coffee table to set his plate down. “Is this Survivor again?”

“Yup,” they both replied in unison, turning their heads back to the TV.

“How many episodes are left in the season?” Chris asked through a mouthful of pancake.

“Three and the reunion,” Eddie said, eyes locked on the immunity challenge that was playing out, squinting slightly without his glasses that were sitting in the other room.

“Oh, come on,” Buck exclaimed loudly, shooting his hand out to gesture at the screen. “I could do this so easily!”

“Maybe you should apply for the next season,” Chris said as he pushed his now empty plate to the center of the coffee table.

“Jesus, did you even chew?” Eddie asked through a laugh, eyeing the plate before moving his gaze to Chris, who was now leaning back into the couch.

“I’m a growing boy,” Chris said with a shrug.

“Doesn’t mean you can’t chew the breakfast I made you,” Buck said, also laughing now as he nudged Chris’ shoulder next to him.

“Ugh, don’t make me regret sitting down with you guys,” Chris said, rolling his eyes and ducking his head.

“Okay, okay, sorry,” Eddie said, nodding slightly. “You can finish this episode, kid, then I need you to clear everything off your floor and to put your laundry away before Diedra gets here.”

“Why do I have to clean my room?” Chris asked in a groan.

“Because she’s gonna have to look around your room, Chris,” Eddie said, fighting the urge to sigh. “She’s gonna have to look around every room, especially to make sure everything is safe for a kid as young as Serena.”

“Ugh, fine,” Chris said, exaggeratedly throwing his head back against the couch.

Buck and Eddie just looked at each other over the top of Chris’ head, shaking their heads with small smiles– a common occurrence recently between them. As much as Chris was still the same kid he’d always been, with his goofy smiles and sarcastic jokes, he definitely wasn’t exempt from teenage attitude.

Maddie had, in confidence, told Eddie during a recent family barbeque that she had called Buck’s teen years the ‘Terrible Teens.’ She had been telling Eddie to count his blessings– that at least Chris wasn’t blasting punk music and sneaking out of the house every single night, as Buck had done during his high school years.

Secretly, Eddie had found that a little endearing, the thought of Buck running around being a terror as a kid– with everything that he knew about their parents, God knows Buck had deserved to cause them a little mayhem. Eddie probably would’ve been endeared by anything he learned about Buck’s childhood, though, just liking to have a window into the parts of Buck’s life that he hadn’t been around for.

The final hour before Deidra’s visit flew by, Buck and Eddie sitting on the couch and Chris grumbling through his open bedroom door as he cleared his messy room. Before they knew it they were hearing a knock on the front door. Eddie blew out a deep breath, getting up to answer the door. Buck came with him, wordlessly intertwining their fingers together once they reached the front door. Eddie waited another moment, letting the weight of Buck’s hand in his steady him for a second as he took another deep breath, before opening the door with a smile.

“Hi Diedra,” Eddie said as he swung the door open fully, reaching out the hand not held in Buck’s to shake her hand. The two of them shuffled to the side, giving her space to step through the doorway. “Come on in.”

“Hello! I’m glad to catch both of you this time,” she said, stepping into the living room. “Your application looks good so, honestly, this shouldn’t take too long today.”

Buck gave a quick squeeze to Eddie’s hand, a silent excited reaction to that news, before he said, “I’ll go let Chris know you’re here.”

Buck slid his hand along the small of Eddie’s back as he moved behind him, and Eddie could swear he felt his heart stop as he felt lips press to his temple as Buck crossed into the hallway. His eyes widened, and he did his best to fight the blaring blush he could definitely already feel building up his neck, willing it to stop before it reached his face. Well, at least Buck was committing to it– Eddie just had to calm down and make sure he didn’t do something stupid like have a heart attack about it.

“Um- ahem- okay, what do you need to see first?” Eddie asked, clearing his throat halfway through as he wiped his hand along the back of his jeans.

“Kitchen, bathrooms, bedrooms– the order doesn’t matter,” Diedra said with a warm smile. “I just have to make sure there’s no major concerns, you know.”

“Yeah, sure, all the bedrooms are down this hallway.” She followed him down the narrow hallway, coming to a stop at Chris’ room first. The door was already open, Eddie announcing their presence as he poked his head into the room. “Chris, can we come in?”

“Yup, all good!” Chris said, awkwardly standing in the middle of the room when they walked in, Buck standing at his side. He looked to the side, a slightly guilty look coming over his face, at a small pile of clothes stacked onto his bed. “Sorry, I didn’t finish putting all my laundry away.”

“That’s fine, bud, thanks for cleaning your room,” Eddie said through a slight chuckle before turning to Diedra. “This is my son, Chris.”

“Hi Chris, I’m Diedra,” she said with a smile. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Yeah, nice to meet you, too,” Chris said, smiling back at her.

“So, Anthony would be in here with Chris,” Eddie said, pointing to the opposite wall from Chris’ bed as he added, “we just need to set up his bed over there.”

“Ah, how do you feel about sharing your room, Chris?” Diedra asked, amusement lining her voice.

“Oh! Um, I’m cool with it. Anthony and I are friends from school, it’ll be cool,” Chris responded, nodding very seriously.

Diedra smiled. “Well, that’s good.”

“Serena’s room will be the middle one, next door,” Buck added, hitching his thumb at the wall that separated the two rooms.

“Perfect, let’s see it,” Diedra said, turning to walk out of the room. Chris shot Eddie a thumbs up and a smile once her back was turned, hanging back to stay in his room while Buck and Eddie walked out into the hallway.

Eddie raised his hand up, dropping it on Buck’s shoulder as they turned into Serena’s room. “Same with Serena’s room, we just have to set up her bed– the dresser and closet are already empty.”

“Okay, lovely,” Diedra said quietly, giving the room a onceover with her eyes before turning to face them. “Just your room is left in this hallway?”

“Yeah, and the bathroom,” Eddie nodded.

Buck took his hand again, Eddie feeling a tingle in his fingers as they laced with Buck’s, as they led Diedra over to the bathroom that separated Eddie’s and Serena’s rooms, which earned a silent nod from her. Next was Eddie’s room, or– for the sake of the house tour– their room. Buck had lined up some of his shoes along the far wall of the room, put out a picture frame of him, Maddie, and Jee on ‘his’ nightstand, and they had pulled out one of the extra pillows from the guest closet so it would look like two people normally slept in the bed.

They moved on to the kitchen, walking through the living room and dining room while the three of them made small talk. As promised, the house visit took almost no time– just a quick look around each room and a few questions as she seemed to tick off boxes on her mental checklist. Buck kept some part of himself always connected to Eddie’s body through the entire visit– an arm snaked around his waist, a hand on his shoulder– though he didn’t kiss Eddie again after that first instance, which maybe was for the best considering that Eddie was already having trouble forming coherent sentences with all the hand holding going on.

After a final look out onto the back porch, and a very enthusiastic thank you from Buck when Diedra complimented the garden, she was heading out the front door again with a promise to give them an answer by Monday. The second that the front door was shut Eddie turned to face Buck, letting his head drop down in relief, his forehead catching on Buck’s shoulder. “That was so much easier than I was expecting.”

Buck’s hands came up behind his back, sliding up and down in a comforting motion as he huffed out a small laugh. “I told you, you shouldn’t have been worrying.”

Eddie stepped in closer, letting his arms wrap around Buck’s back, feeling the tiniest shivers run through him each time Buck’s fingertips passed his shirt collar and reached the skin of his neck. He raised his head, resting his chin on Buck’s shoulder now. “Thank you.”

“Stop thanking me,” Buck teased, giving a quick squeeze to Eddie’s ribs.

“Hmm,” Eddie mused, pretending to think for a moment before resolutely saying, “no.”

Buck laughed again, Eddie feeling the puff of air against the back of his neck as Buck tucked his chin into his collar. They stood there in silence after that, Eddie just letting his nerves settle in the comfort of being wrapped in Buck’s arms. Buck was the one to pull away first, giving a squeeze to Eddie’s shoulders before dropping his hands, catching Eddie’s eyes in his gaze.

“Do you want to set the beds up today? Or do you want to wait until we get the phone call?” Buck asked, letting his hands swipe up and down Eddie’s forearms.

“We can wait until tomorrow, let’s just relax today,” Eddie said, stopping Buck’s hands when they reached his wrists on the way down. He gently pulled Buck into the living room by the hands, a small smile taking over his face as Buck slightly stumbled over his feet.

The three of them spent the rest of the day doing absolutely nothing, which was a nice change from the frantic energy that the past few days had consisted of. They posted up on the couch, eating popcorn and candy with blankets strewn across their legs. They finished season eleven of Survivor, booing and throwing popcorn at the TV screen when Jeff Probst announced the winner. Once the sun started setting they ordered burgers, staying curled up on the couch until the doorbell rang for the food delivery.

It was the perfect day for their trio, a span of hours that stretched comfortably. None of them really comprehended yet that it was the last time that the three of them would be that trio– that their lives were about to completely rearrange.

Chapter Text

As promised, Diedra called Eddie on Monday morning, while he and Buck were stuck in standstill traffic on their way to work. Her contact flashed on the screen of Buck’s car, both of them taking a deep breath before answering it. She very cheerily told them that they were officially approved to foster Anthony and Serena, and that the kids could be placed with them immediately as long as the rooms were set up.

Eddie reached out and grabbed Buck’s shoulder, nearly crushing it under his grip, trying to keep at bay the overwhelming urge to screech in joy, at least until the phone call was over. They set it up to have Diedra bring the kids over on Wednesday morning, giving them all of Tuesday after work to finish the rooms and to get everything set up. Looking over at Buck’s face, his smile so bright that his eyes were almost squinted closed, Eddie thought to himself that Buck would’ve been doing backflips in excitement right at that moment if they hadn’t been sitting in the car in the middle of the freeway.

They showed up to work practically vibrating, bounding up the stairs of the firehouse and yelling their news out before even reaching the top step. They were met with congratulations and enthusiastic slaps on the back, everyone offering their support and help whenever it was needed. The two of them spent every free moment in their twenty four hour shift planning the things they needed to do to get ready– stock up on groceries so that they wouldn’t have to worry about food while they were getting settled, set up the finishing touches on the rooms, try to fit in as much sleep as possible between the end of their shift and the kids’ drop-off.

Their shift passed by quickly, and Hen was even nice enough to send them home an hour early so that they could get a head start on everything they needed to do. They knocked out their grocery shopping first, stopping on the way home from the station, spending an absurd amount of money on fun snacks at Buck’s insistence– ‘If we’re going to have kids running around, we might as well be the house with the fun snacks!’

They crashed for a couple of hours once they were home, putting the groceries away and immediately heading to their respective napping spots– Eddie in his room and Buck on the couch. They woke up in time to pick up Chris from school, telling him the news right when he got into the car, Chris breaking out into a mile-wide smile and immediately taking out his phone to text Anthony.

The three of them went to the store on their way home, intending to quickly pick up some essentials they had forgotten about at the grocery store– they were almost out of scent-less laundry detergent and the filter on their vacuum was on its last leg– but of course the shopping trip ended up lasting a full two hours. Chris got a new game for him and Anthony to play, and Buck made a desperate call to Maddie about what toys to get for a little girl. They got back to the car with a shopping cart full of Barbie dolls, stuffed animals, and princess accessories, deciding to bring the kids back once they were a few days settled so they could pick out some of their own clothes.

Before they knew it, dinner had been eaten, the rooms were finished, and Chris was tucked into his room for the night. Buck and Eddie sat on the couch, beers in hand as the first episode of Survivor’s twelfth season played on the TV. The two of them watched silently as they appraised the contestants of the season, pressed shoulder to shoulder where they sat in the middle of the couch, waiting until the end of the episode to talk about their predictions for winners and who would be their favorites.

Once they finished their very important and analytical discussion about the reality competition show that they took very seriously, Eddie looked up at the clock on the wall and almost dropped his jaw when he realized it was almost midnight. “We should probably head to bed, get some sleep before tomorrow.”

“Yeah, I should start making the couch up for myself,” Buck said as he nodded.

“Buck, you don’t have to sleep on the couch,” Eddie said as he stood up, grunting slightly as he pushed himself up from where he had sunk into the cushions.

“What do you mean?” Buck asked, his eyebrows scrunching together.

“Well, you’re going to be staying here more often than not, I’m not gonna have you sleep on the couch every night.”

Buck cocked his head to the side slightly. “Like… we would share the bed?”

“Yeah,” Eddie said slowly, rubbing the back of his neck. “I mean, unless you don’t want to, because if it’s weird for you we can—”

“No!” Buck practically shouted, pausing with wide eyes to take a breath before continuing at a more appropriate volume. “Sorry, I… No, yeah, if it’s fine with you then it’s fine with me.”

“Okay, let’s go to bed then,” Eddie said as he turned towards the hallway, feeling heat crawl up his neck as he replayed his words in his head. That had not sounded the way he had intended it. “Sleep, I mean, let’s– let’s go to sleep.”

Buck cleared his throat behind him, the shuffling of his feet audible as he followed Eddie. “Yeah, ahem, yup.”

They got ready for bed together in comfortable silence, laughing softly and wordlessly switching sides when they bumped elbows while brushing their teeth. They changed into comfortable clothes, sweats and shorts and tee shirts. They slipped into the bed side by side, keeping a very respectable amount of space between them on the mattress, both of them pulling out a book to read for a bit before they slept. Eddie picked up his glasses from his bedside table, seeing Buck watching him through the corner of his eye as he put them on.

“What?” Eddie asked, turning to look over the rim of his glasses at Buck.

“Nothing, just…” Buck started, a slight tinge of pink creeping up onto his cheeks. “I like your glasses, I don’t know why you don’t wear them all the time.”

“I don’t need them all the time,” Eddie said pointedly.

Buck raised an eyebrow at that. “Sure, keep telling yourself that, but the way you squint at street signs says otherwise.”

“Shut up and read your book,” Eddie said after a moment, squinting his eyes in a way that was meant to be menacing, though Buck probably just found it amusing given the context.

“Yes, sir,” Buck laughed, giving Eddie a mock salute before slumping back onto his pillow and opening his book. They read for about twenty minutes before they turned the lights off, settling onto their respective sides of the bed. Eddie forced his eyes shut against the slight glow that came through the window from the street light outside, slowly drifting off to sleep to the sound of Buck’s breathing beside him.

***

Eddie woke up with half his face smushed into something that was definitely not his pillow. His arms were pulled into his chest, elbows tucked against his ribs and his hands under his chin. He opened one eye, the one that wasn’t pressed shut, and was met with early morning light streaming into his room from the open window.

He moved slightly, pressing his head further against whatever it was he was slumped against. He could feel a weight across his back as he moved and he shifted again, trying to get his arms under him so he could push himself up.

“Morning,” whispered a deep, gravelly voice from right above his ear, making his head jerk back in a flinch. When he pulled back he was met with a very tired-looking Buck, his curls all pushed to one side of his head, looking back at him. His arm was loosely slung around Eddie’s back– hence the weight Eddie had felt.

“Jesus,” Eddie mumbled, pressing the heel of his palm against his eye to try and un-blur his vision slightly. “How long have you been awake?”

“Uh, ten minutes or so,” Buck said, blinking at him slowly, still laying down against the mattress.

“And you just let me stay squished against you?” Eddie asked.

“You seemed comfortable,” Buck just shrugged, dropping his arm from Eddie’s back and pushing himself into a sitting position, twisting around in a stretch.

Eddie copied him, stretching his back and hearing a cringe-inducing pop from his spine. “Mmh, what time is it?”

“It’s seven,” Buck said, now reaching forward to stretch out his bad leg. “Kids get here in two hours.”

Eddie watched as Buck grimaced slightly, stretching his leg in the certain way he always did when it was giving him problems. Without having to think about it, Eddie reached out and started lightly running his thumbs along the muscles in Buck’s shin. “Okay, should we talk gameplan?”

“What do–” Buck started, cutting himself off with another wince when Eddie hit a particularly sore spot. “What do you mean, gameplan?”

“Like, what we’re going to do today,” Eddie replied, moving up to Buck’s knee.

“Uh, did you have anything in mind?” Buck asked.

“I think we should make it the same as any other day, right?” Eddie asked, looking up from Buck’s leg to meet his eyes. “I mean, we’re keeping Chris and Anthony home from school today, so we’ll all be home. We might as well make it feel as normal as possible while the kids adjust.”

“Yeah, that sounds good to me,” Buck smiled, eyes scanning over Eddie’s face before adding, “Are you hungry? I can make breakfast now, or I can wait ‘til the kids get here.”

“We should make breakfast now so we can clean up a little before they get here,” Eddie nodded.

“Sorry, we?” Buck teased, raising an eyebrow. “We’re you planning on helping with the actual cooking?”

“Well, I would if you ever let me,” Eddie deadpanned. “You’re the one that always says I’m ‘better as moral support,’ whatever that means.”

Buck tilted his head in mock confusion before making a conceding expression. “Okay, that’s true. You can just sit there and look pretty.”

Eddie blinked, a small surprised smile coming over his face at Buck’s words. He gave Buck’s leg two gentle pats before pulling his hands away, moving to get up from the bed as he felt a warmth spread over the back of his neck. They walked out into the kitchen together, not bothering to change out of their sleep-clothes yet, taking their pre-discussed spots in the kitchen– Eddie settling into one of the island chairs as Buck started pulling out ingredients.

Eddie watched Buck as he worked, feeling just a little bit mesmerized by the sight of him. They had done this exact thing more times than Eddie could count, yet something about it felt different to him. Maybe it was the fact that they had woken up together, that less than twenty minutes ago he had his face pressed into the soft skin of Buck’s shoulder. Maybe it was that he was still a little warm from sleep– or maybe the warmth was from the ‘look pretty’ comment Buck had made, Eddie couldn’t be completely sure.

Whatever the reason was, Eddie looked at Buck with his unruly curls and his sweats hanging low on his waist, and he was met with this fuzzy feeling through his body. Even while doing something as simple as whisking waffle batter, Buck was beautiful. It was almost unfair, Eddie thought, that no one else got to see the softness of Buck in that moment.

Without thinking, Eddie slipped his phone out of his sweat shorts’ pocket and opened the camera app. He clicked twice on the little shutter button, taking two quick pictures of Buck while his back was turned, before smiling to himself and placing his phone down on the counter. Eddie just sat in his fuzzy feeling, letting it wash over him as he just enjoyed the calm moment. As usual, Buck let him eat the first waffle of the batch, Eddie humming happily and nodding as he chewed.

By the time the kitchen was cleaned up– and Eddie did help with the cleanup, dirty dishes being one of the only things that Buck let him do in the kitchen– there was only an hour before Anthony and Serena were set to be dropped off. They left the stack of waffles to sit warming in the oven before going to get ready for the day, Eddie stopping to wake up Chris on their way back to the bedroom.

Eddie showered first, quickly so that Buck could get in after him, before putting on his standard jeans and long sleeve for the day. As he sat in the bedroom by himself, now fully dressed and fully awake with the fuzzy feeling from before long gone, Eddie was slightly baffled at how the morning had gone.

If you asked him now why he had sneakily taken a picture of Buck cooking breakfast in his kitchen, he would say that he had no idea what possessed him to do it. He took out his phone, listening to the hum of the shower running as his eyes scanned over the photo– the soft lighting, the muscles in Buck’s back pressing softly through the fabric of his shirt as he whisked, the small bit of skin that poked out between the hem of his shirt and his waistband. It really was a nice photo, and Eddie had a very odd urge to set it as his lockscreen, which would decidedly be an insane thing for him to do. He locked his phone, shaking his head as if he could dislodge the thought from his head like it were water stuck in his ear, before slipping it into his jeans pocket.

Buck walked out of the bathroom a few minutes later, towel wrapped around his waist and curls dripping onto his forehead as he pulled out a t-shirt and some cargo pants from his side of the closet. Eddie left the room, giving him some privacy to get changed, and walked out into the living room to find Chris already dressed and sitting on the couch.

“Excited?” Eddie asked, sitting down next to him.

“Mhm,” Chris nodded, turning to smile at Eddie.

“Hey, I know I say it all the time,” Eddie started, reaching out and shaking Chris’ shoulder once before saying, “but I’m really glad you’re my kid.”

“Yeah I know, Dad,” Chris said, rolling his eyes fondly. “I’m awesome.”

“I’m serious, Chris,” Eddie said, keeping his hand on Chris’ shoulder as he smiled down at him. “You have no idea how lucky I am to have you. You’re the best person I know.”

Chris paused for a moment. “Love you, Dad, but why are we getting emotional at nine in the morning?”

Eddie laughed, pulling his hand off of Chris’ shoulder to cross his arms across his chest, sitting back against the couch cushion. “Because you’ve been so… I’m just so proud of you, the way you’re handling all these changes.”

Chris shrugged. “Yeah, I told you that I’m cool with it.”

“I know,” Eddie nodded, a serious look coming over his face. “But if it ever gets to be too much, or if anything changes, I need you to talk to me. Deal?”

“Okay, deal,” Chris nodded.

Buck walked into the room then, and at the exact same time the doorbell rang. Chris sprung up from the couch, crutches nearly skidding against the floor with the sudden movement, moving towards the door but hanging back at the last second to let Eddie open it. Eddie stepped forward, opening the door and being met with the sight of Anthony with a wide smile, Serena clinging onto one of his hands with both of hers, while Diedra stood behind the two.

Anthony held two small duffel bags in his other hand, bouncing on the balls of his feet as he stood on the doorstep. “Hi.”

“Hey, guys!” Buck said as he walked up behind Eddie and Chris, a crinkly smile taking over his face.

“Come on in,” Eddie added, stepping to the side and waving them in. The two of them moved slowly, Anthony letting Serena take her time as she stepped through the door and looked around. Anthony was much less reserved, obviously so, seeing as he had spent so much time there already. He placed the two duffels down by the door, kicking his shoes off and crouching down to help Serena untie her sneakers.

Chris leaned forward, an eager look on his face. He sent a look of excitement over to Anthony before saying, “Are you guys hungry? There’s breakfast in the kitchen.”

“Ooh, yes, did Buck cook?” Anthony said, clapping once as he started making his way over to the kitchen with Chris, Serena following after them quietly.

Buck laughed as he watched them walk out of the room, stepping forward to join Eddie. “Diedra, you’re welcome to stay and eat, we have more than enough.”

“Oh, thank you, but unfortunately I do have another stop to make after this,” she said, smiling warmly at Eddie. “But, now that you’re officially one of my foster placements, here’s my emergency number. I’ll answer day or night.”

Eddie reached out, grabbing the printed card from her outstretched hand. “Thanks, um… Is that all?”

“You have everything covered, by the looks of it,” she said, laughing slightly as she pointed her head towards the kitchen, the kids’ chatter audible even from the next room. “I’ll reach out in a couple of days to check in, but you’re all set for now.”

Buck and Eddie both thanked her again, offering to pack her up a waffle for the road, before watching her pull out of the driveway and turning the lock on the door. They shared a look, a deep breath and nod, and then they walked back into the kitchen.

The sight they walked in on was absurd, to say the least. The waffles were out on the counter, the cut up strawberries in a bowl next to them, and Anthony was pointing the whipped cream canister directly at Serena’s face, her little hands up in surrender as she looked up at him with wide eyes. Chris sat on the other side of the kitchen island, a safe distance from whatever was going on with the whipped cream. Off to a great start, Eddie thought to himself as he took in the scene before him.

“Uh, hello?” Buck said, confusion evident in his voice as they took in the scene.

Anthony spun to look at them, keeping the nozzle pointed at his sister, his face already smeared with whipped cream. “It’s her fault.”

“Okay, how about we don’t spray anyone else with whipped cream?” Eddie approached the two of them with his hands out in front of him, as if he were leading a hostage negotiation.

“She started it!” Anthony exclaimed, waving his free hand towards her.

“She’s three,” Eddie supplied, holding his hand out pointedly, waiting for Anthony to hand him the whipped cream.

“She’s basically four,” Anthony said as he relented, handing the can to Eddie before turning to squint at his sister, who just smiled at his face which was still covered in whipped cream. “You’re barely even a toddler anymore.”

Chris laughed, reaching out from where he sat to grab a strawberry. “This is gonna be fun.”

Anthony grabbed a paper towel from the kitchen counter, wiping his face off as he sat down next to Chris. Serena hovered next to him, not quite able to reach the tall chairs of the kitchen island. Buck walked over to her, holding his hands out as an offer to help her up onto the chair, and she held her arms up towards him.

“So,” Buck said, faking an exaggerated grunt as he lifted Serena into the seat. “When is this famous fourth birthday we keep hearing about?”

“Next week, the 29th,” Anthony answered for her.

“What?” Buck asked loudly, eyes going wide as he turned to look at Eddie. “We should have a party!”

“We don’t really have anyone to invite,” Anthony said quietly, keeping his eyes locked on the counter in front of him.

“Well, we have people we can invite,” Eddie said carefully. “But only if you guys want to.”

“Yeah, you guys would be able to meet everyone,” Chris said encouragingly. “The 118 and Buck’s sister and all that.”

“You don’t have to decide right now,” Eddie said, shaking his head with a small smile as he looked across the kitchen island at the two of them. “We can just focus on getting settled today, yeah?”

The five of them ate their breakfast together with no more whipped cream related incidents. Chris and Anthony went on about how their chemistry teacher definitely hated his job, Buck interjecting to wonder aloud why someone who hates kids would become a high school teacher in the first place. They talked about their plan for the upcoming few days– Chris and Anthony going back to school the next day, while Buck and Eddie were planning to stay home from work for a few days to stay with Serena.

After breakfast, Buck and Eddie let Chris help Anthony get settled into their shared room while they helped Serena into hers. They let her walk in on her own, giving her space to look around a little bit before they followed in after her. Eddie unpacked her bag for her, putting the little amount of clothes she had into the dresser, and told her that the five of them were going to go to the store sometime later to let her pick out her clothes and decorations.

She was still reserved, sitting on the edge of her little kid bed with her feet dangling off the side, still just looking up at them with wide eyes as they moved around her room. Anthony and Chris came into the room a couple of minutes later, Anthony flopping down on the bed next to her and telling her how cool her new room was, and it seemed to raise her excitement level a little bit at least. She nodded and pulled her feet up onto the bed like a pretzel, bragging about how she was going to get to pick out all the decorations later, which pulled a laugh out of everyone else in the room.

After the two of them had fully unpacked, they all filed back into the living room to put on a movie, at Chris’ recommendation. Chris and Anthony shouted out movie recommendations back and forth for a few minutes, shooting each one down for different reasons, before Serena piped up and asked to watch a new Disney movie that had come out, which effectively ended the debate. So they sat on the couch, Serena choosing to sit on the floor with a giant throw pillow under her head and a few blankets pulled up to her chin, as they watched Inside Out 2. Buck sat on the floor with her, removing himself from the couch to leave enough room for Chris and Anthony to stretch their legs out.

Eddie smiled as he noticed Serena inching closer and closer to Buck as the movie went on, her pile of blankets and pillows ending up just a couple inches from where he was leaning against the front of the couch. Buck leaned his head back against Eddie’s knees, looking up and smiling when he caught Eddie’s eye, making Eddie’s heart beat in his chest just a little bit harder.

As far as Buck and Eddie’s track record with first days went, this was by far the best they had ever had.

Chapter Text

“Hey, no running with socks on!” Eddie yelled from the kitchen, shaking his head with a smile on his face as he watched Anthony and Chris chasing Serena around the living room. “One of you is going to slip, and we do not have time today to clean blood off the floor.”

“Come on, Dad! We’re just getting her craziness out before everyone gets here,” Chris said argumentatively, Serena letting out a shriek as Anthony shot his arm out to catch her as she ran past him.

“Yeah, fine, just take your socks off before it ends in a hospital trip,” Buck supplied, giving the two boys a pointed look before turning back to the sheet of cupcakes he was decorating.

It had been a week since the kids had moved in, and everything was going surprisingly smoothly. The boys had gone back to school the day after, not wanting to disrupt their routines or let them get too behind on their classes. Hen had approved Buck and Eddie’s emergency time off request so that they could stay home with Serena for the week, neither of them wanting to leave her with a babysitter before she had the chance to adjust.

There had been a few bumps in the road, Serena having some trouble adjusting. Both Buck and Eddie had noticed her anxiety, though of course she was too young to be able to name it yet. She would get overwhelmed, get quiet or fidgety, or sometimes she would remove herself from them completely. She went to Anthony sometimes, just being in his space seemed to settle her a little bit, so Buck and Eddie tried not to force themselves into it. They were trying to give her time, trying to let her know that they were there but not wanting to push her so soon after she had just started trusting them.

Besides this, Eddie was cautiously optimistic about how everything else was going. Anthony and Chris were getting along just as well as they always had, if anything they were getting closer now that they spent so much time together. Chris and Serena had their own bond going too, Chris and Anthony doing their best to keep her included– even if it was just for their own entertainment, hence the game of capture-the-four year old currently happening in the middle of their living room.

Buck was good with the kids, easily slipping into the second parent role for Serena and Anthony, just as he had done for Chris all those years ago. He was silly and soft with Serena, so good with her when she was overwhelmed or anxious. It was no surprise to Eddie, seeing as how Buck had always been so good with him when his anxiety and panic attacks got bad. He managed to be buddy-buddy with Chris and Anthony while also keeping his role as an authority figure for them. He joked around with them, played video games and gorged on junk food, but he would also get serious with them if he needed to.

On top of that, things between Buck and Eddie had never been better. They had always been abnormally close, very obviously having a different level of involvement with each other than anyone else in their lives, but they had somehow managed to get even more in sync with the added connection of sharing their household.

Eddie had realized that he’d forgotten how it felt to wake up next to someone every day, the level of closeness to them that it gave. Every morning he would wake up squished against Buck, his face pressed into his chest or his shoulder, while Buck’s arms were slung around him. It was nice– better than nice– and most of the time they would stay like that for a few minutes even after waking up, letting themselves stay wrapped up in each other and enjoy the feeling of closeness before the hecticness of their day started.

If he was honest, Eddie had been nervous about it at first. He got it into his head that it would be weird, that surely he would do something to make it uncomfortable or awkward, or that he wouldn’t be able to sleep next to someone anymore. He was wrong, though. Of course he was wrong. He couldn’t remember ever feeling so comfortable sleeping next to someone, at least not since Shannon.

So things were going well. They had spent the week focusing on the kids– making sure that Anthony and Serena were settling in, making sure that Chris was doing alright with all of the adjustments. Having the week off also meant that they had time to plan the fourth birthday party that both Serena and Anthony had ended up agreeing to. Over the last few days, Buck had spent what was, in Eddie’s opinion, an absurd amount of time online looking for theme ideas and decorations.

There were currently two hours before people were going to start showing up for Serena’s birthday party. Luckily, Serena’s birthday happened to land during one of A-Shift’s forty eight hours off, so everyone was able to move their schedules around with minimal problems.

Bobby had offered to come help set up, claiming that there was no point in being retired if he couldn’t help them out with all his free time, despite Buck and Eddie very adamantly telling him that they had it handled. He only relented when they agreed to let him bring appetizers.

Still, an hour earlier than the planned start time of the party, Bobby showed up at their door with a wide smile and a large tray of finger foods in each hand. Buck opened the door, just shaking his head and letting out a small laugh as he said, “Hi Bobby, come on in.”

“Oh, is no one here yet?” Bobby asked as he looked around the empty living room, doing a terrible job of feigning innocence.

“Believe it or not, no,” Eddie said as he walked into the living room, meeting Bobby with a small hug, careful of the large plates of food in his hands. “No one else thought to show up an hour early.”

“Ah, well… Must’ve got a little bit ahead of schedule,” Bobby nodded. “Well, now that I’m here, can I help with anything?”

Buck and Eddie passed each other a look, fond smiles and a quick shake of their heads. Buck looked back at the hallway before saying, “Actually, if you want to entertain the kids while we finish up the last of the decorations, that would be great.”

Bobby smiled and nodded. “Sounds like my perfect job.”

That was how Bobby had ended up sitting between Chris and Anthony on the couch, both of them trying their best to teach him what the buttons meant on the video game controller held in his hands, trying to get him up to speed so that they could play a three player level. Serena elected not to join them, instead deciding to stay in the kitchen and chatter away with Buck and Eddie as they decorated the counter with glitter confetti and a plastic table cloth.

Bobby was truly trying his best, his glasses notched at the end of nose as he held the controller far enough from his face to see the buttons. Still, after two failed attempts at the level, Bobby slapped his hands on his knees with a shake of his head. “Well, that was no good. Maybe you wait until Denny gets here, hm? Maybe we do something that Serena can join in on?”

Serena was a little hesitant to spend time with Bobby at first, but he managed to lure her out into the living room by promising that they would do whatever she wanted until the party started, claiming that the birthday girl always gets to pick. Bobby shot them a thumbs up and a smile as he followed her out into the living room.

That was the part about the party that Buck and Eddie were most nervous for– they knew that Serena wasn’t the biggest fan of meeting new people, but she still seemed to be looking forward to a day that was all about her. A whole party celebrating her and a table full of gifts was, in theory, a very exciting prospect for her, but Buck and Eddie were still worried about overwhelming her. They knew that their 118-extended events tended to be pretty big, just due to the fact that there were so many people that they considered family, but they hoped that they could keep it calm enough for Serena’s sake.

Ten minutes before people were meant to start getting to the house, the sparkly decorations all set up, Buck and Eddie walked into the living room to see the four of them all circled around the coffee table, each drawing diligently in their own coloring book. The doorbell rang at that exact moment, Maddie and Chimney standing on the other side of the door as it swung open. Maddie had a bottle of wine in one hand and a purple gift bag held out in the other, while Chim held baby Robbie.

“Uncle Buck!” Jee screeched from where she stood between her parents, dropping her Dad’s hand as she stepped right into Buck’s space.

“Jee!” Buck said back, crouching down and sliding his hands under her arms before lifting her up above his head with an exaggerated grunt. He let out a huff as he dropped her back to the ground and said, “You’re getting too grown up to be lifted like that, Jee, my back can’t take it for much longer!”

Eddie smiled as he watched them. Buck didn’t actually have any problem picking her up, Eddie knew that for sure, but it was amusing listening to Jee announce to Buck how she had grown a whole inch since the last time they measured her. They stepped to the side, letting the Hans walk into the house. “Oh, I see we’re not the first ones here,” Maddie said, catching Bobby’s eye with an amused look on her face.

“Please, he’s probably been here for an hour already,” Chim said flippantly, walking over to give Bobby a hug. Bobby let out an indignant noise at that, while both Buck and Eddie nodded and gave a small ‘mhm’ and ‘yup.’

Buck had asked Maddie and Chim to get there a few minutes early, hoping that having another kid Serena’s age there first would make her feel a little more comfortable once people started getting there. Her and Jee were around the same age, less than two years apart, and Jee’s constant energy would hopefully help Serena come out of her shell a little bit.

Bobby got up from his spot on the couch, offering Jee his coloring book when she walked over to see what the other kids were doing. The five adults moved to the kitchen, laying out the food and catching up, most of the focus on how Anthony and Serena were adjusting so far.

“Honestly, it’s been a little tough for Serena so far,” Eddie said, rubbing his hand along the back of his head. “There’s been three nights so far where she’s gone into the boy's room and asked Anthony if she can sleep there.”

“We just don’t know what part she’s struggling with exactly,” Buck ran his hand across Eddie’s shoulders soothingly, stopping to settle his arm around his back. “She seems fine during the day, and when we ask if there’s something wrong she just shrugs and won’t tell us what’s going on.”

“Maybe she just missed her brother,” Maddie offered, giving them a sad smile before a softer, more specific look passed between her and Buck. “They haven’t lived together for, what, two years?”

“A little longer than two years, but yeah,” Eddie said, shifting his shoulder so that his weight was pressed into Buck’s side.

“I think all you can do is keep being there, letting her know she can talk to you if she needs,” Bobby said, matching Maddie’s smile.

“Yeah,” Buck said, the frustration seeping into his voice as he dropped his head on top of Eddie’s. Their conversation was cut off by the ring of the doorbell, and after that, the rest of their adjacent family started showing up one by one.

The Wilsons were first to show up after the Hans– much to Chris’ delight, seeing as he now got to introduce Denny and Anthony. They were followed by Athena, May, and Harry, who drove together. Only Ravi was left to show up, but he had let them know ahead of time that he would be about an hour late since he had an apartment showing.

Buck and Eddie welcomed everyone into the house, thanking them for coming and making introductions between them and the kids. Serena seemed to be doing alright, but she still stuck to one of either Anthony, Eddie, Chris, or Buck’s legs during each introduction. After everyone besides Ravi had arrived, the hello’s and excitement leveled out to a calm, constant chatter. The kids sectioned themselves off into a group in the living room, the older boys playing video games and the girls sitting at the unreasonably priced tea party table that neither Buck or Eddie had the heart to deny Serena of getting when they went to the mall a few days prior.

About thirty minutes after the party had started, from where he stood talking to Karen in the dining room, Eddie looked over into the living room. He cocked his head, noticing that Serena was no longer sitting with the group of kids.

“Buck, do you know where Serena is?” Eddie asked, looking over at Buck with a slightly worried look on his face.

“She’s not with the kids?” Buck replied, craning his neck to look over at the kids.

“Anthony, Chris,” Eddie called across the living room to them, both of them whipping their heads up from the video game they had been locked in on. “Where’s Serena?”

The two boys both did a quick look around the group of kids, looking back to Buck and Eddie and shrugging their shoulders. “Thought she was with you guys,” Anthony said.

Buck and Eddie looked at each other, wordlessly agreeing to do a lap around the house to look for her. Eddie was hoping to find her sitting on Bobby’s lap somewhere, seeing as she had the chance to get comfortable with him earlier before the party. When they asked him, though, Bobby didn’t know where she was either.

As they walked down the hallway, heading to check if she was in the bathroom, they noticed that the door to her bedroom was open an inch, despite the fact that they had made sure to close it before the party. Eddie pushed it open another couple of inches, sticking just his head through as he said, “Serena?”

“Mhm,” her tiny voice echoed quietly out of the room. When they stepped into her room, Serena was sitting on the edge of her bed, feet dangling off the end with her hands in her lap.

“Are you in here all by yourself?” Buck asked.

When Serena looked up at them, her eyes were just a little bit watery. “Yeah.”

“Did something happen, sweetheart?” Eddie asked, crouching down on the balls of his feet so he was eye level with her.

She shrugged her shoulders, looking back down at her feet that swung against the bottom of her comforter. “No.”

“Okay,” Eddie said, nodding a few times. “Can we sit with you?”

She nodded, and they moved to sit on each side of her. She kept her hands clutched in her lap, letting the two of them settle next to her on the bed.

“Was there too much going on out there?” Buck asked after a few seconds of silence. “I know there’s a lot of new people.”

Serena stayed quiet for a moment before saying, “It got not fun.”

“Did it get a little scary, everything happening?” Eddie asked carefully, raising his hand to start rubbing her back lightly.

“Mhm,” she said quietly, nodding her head.

Eddie nodded back at her, giving her the chance to continue for a few moments before continuing. “You know, I get scared like that sometimes, too.”

She finally raised her head again, turning to look up at Eddie with big, shiny eyes. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Eddie said, dipping his head slightly as if he was going to tell a secret, though he kept the volume of his voice the same. “Sometimes if it’s too loud, or if there are too many people, it gets a little scary. When something like that starts happening, sometimes my heart will start beating faster, or I start to get really sweaty.”

Serena scrunched her nose up at that last part, making both Buck and Eddie laugh. With a smile still on his face, Eddie continued. “When that happens, I do what you did– I go somewhere quiet to let myself calm down. But, you know, when that happens you can always come find us too.”

“Okay,” Serena said, looking between both Buck and Eddie.

“So, do you want to go back out, or do you want to stay here for a couple more minutes?” Buck asked, raising his hand to cover Eddie’s on Serena’s back.

“A little longer,” she answered, though it came out more like a question as she looked between them again, and they both nodded down at her. “You can stay with me, though.”

“Alright,” Eddie said lightly, dropping his hand to lean his weight back. Buck kept his hand on top of Eddie’s, looking over at him with an emotional smile, and Eddie would bet money that he was fighting off tears. They sat there for a few minutes, Buck and Eddie’s hands joined on the mattress behind Serena, comfortable silence filling the room. Seemingly subconsciously, Buck started to run his thumb along Eddie’s fingers one by one.

“Okay,” Serena said finally, unclasping her hands from her lap and hopping down off of the bed with a squeak. “I’ll go back out now.”

“Okie dokie,” Buck said as Eddie reached out to smooth a piece of hair out of her face. “Will you come get us if you need anything?”

“Mhm,” she nodded, reaching her arms out and giving each of them a small hug before turning and walking back out of her room.

Eddie turned his hand up from where it was settled under Buck’s, letting out a deep breath as he twisted their fingers together. “That was good, that was progress.”

“Yeah, it was really good,” Buck said, giving Eddie’s hand a squeeze and scooting over on the bed until they were right next to each other. Eddie dropped his chin onto Buck’s shoulder, feeling the weight of Buck’s head settle onto the top of his forehead. They stayed like that for a minute before Buck lifted his head. “You ready? It’s almost time for lunch.”

“Yeah, let’s go,” Eddie said, lifting his own head from Buck’s shoulder and getting up from the bed.

They walked together out into the living room, pausing at the front door to take in the ridiculous scene they had just walked up to. Ravi stood in the open doorway, holding a giant, floppy, stuffed black and white dog in his arms that was almost as tall as he was.

“What the hell is that?” Eddie asked, his mouth falling open slightly.

“My gift! It was too big to wrap,” Ravi said brightly, shifting the stuffed dog so that it wasn’t blocking his face. He carefully stepped through the front door, unceremoniously dropping the giant dog onto the living room floor with a labored huff, before standing up and looking around the living room.

When Ravi’s eyes locked onto Buck and Eddie, that specific look came onto his face that meant he was about to make fun of them for something. Eddie sighed, blinking once. “What?”

Ravi raised his eyebrows, smirking as he said, “Oh, nothing… You guys know you’re holding hands, right?”

Both Buck and Eddie dropped their eyes to their, sure enough, still entwined hands. Right. They hadn’t let go after their talk with Serena. Buck cleared his throat, both their hands jumping to their sides. “Right, uh… Uh, yeah, sorry.”

“Man, whatever,” Ravi shrugged and shook his head, walking away to grab a drink from the kitchen.

Buck cleared his throat again, turning to the rest of the living room and announcing, “So, time for lunch! I’m gonna go… get that.”

“Yeah, I’m coming with you,” Maddie said back with a raised eyebrow, handing off baby Robbie to Athena as she got up from the couch to chase after Buck.

As they walked away, Eddie stood awkwardly where the front door and the hallway connected. He looked over to see Chimney smiling at him teasingly, amusement written all over his face. Eddie was not about to deal with that, so he instead walked to the opposite side of the living room to where the kids were all huddled together.

“We’re starting lunch soon,” Eddie said as he sat down at the very, very short princess tea party table with a strained grunt, earning two giggles from Jee and Serena. “Boys, can you three go help Buck and Maddie take everything out in the kitchen?”

“We’re so close to finishing this level, though!” Chris said, eyes still locked on the screen.

“And does it pause?” Eddie asked, waiting for one of them to respond.

“Yeah…” Denny supplied, looking over at Eddie through the corner of his eye.

“Okay then, please pause the game and go help in the kitchen,” Eddie said as firmly as he could, trying to maintain some kind of authority despite his knees being folded to his chest from the height of the chair he was in. Denny, Chris, and Anthony all ducked their heads, pausing their game and getting up as they mumbled three ‘sorrys’ in unison.

“It’s fine, guys,” Eddie laughed as they all trudged over to the kitchen, Mara trailing after them. Turning back to face the two little girls sitting at the table with him, Eddie said, “And what are we doing over here?”

“We’re playing nail salon,” Jee said very matter-of-factly, nodding her head as she held Serena’s hands and pretended to cover her fingers in nail polish.

“Very nice,” Eddie complimented, leaning down in mock focus as he looked at their hands. “What colors are you using?”

“Green and purple,” Serena said, lifting her hands up closer to his face as if it would help him see the invisible nail polish.

“Oh, yes, very pretty,” he said seriously, smiling to himself when both girls laughed at him. “We’re about to have lunch, if we want to move over to the kitchen. Jee, I think your mom probably wants to know what you want on your plate.”

“Okay,” Jee said, making a show of miming twisting the cap onto the bottle of nail polish and getting up from her chair. Before running off to the kitchen, she declared, “Serena, your nails are done!”

“Do you want to come make your plate, Reena?” Eddie asked, watching her as she held her hands up close to her face, seemingly admiring whatever the end result she was imagining on her nails.

“Um, I can’t,” she responded, lifting her hands so that they were held out towards his face again. She gave him a look like he was ridiculous for even asking the question in the first place. “My nails have to dry.”

“Right…” Eddie said, nodding his head once before adding, “Well, I can have Buck make your plate if you don’t want to wait.”

“Yes please,” she hummed, still inspecting her hands.

“Okay,” Eddie let out a soft laugh, which was cut off by a labored groan as he stood up from the tiny chair he had been sitting in– his knees really could not handle this princess tea party table. Smoothing his hand over the top of Serena’s hair, he turned and started making his way towards the kitchen.

Buck’s face was bright red when Eddie walked into the kitchen, blushing wildly from whatever it was that Maddie was saying to him under her breath. Once Buck noticed Eddie, he turned to Maddie and gave her a warning look, before sending a smile to Eddie. Maddie was finishing up making Jee’s plate for her, handing it down to the five year old and instructing her to use both hands when she carried it back to the living room, then swiftly turned to follow her out of the kitchen.

“Hi,” Eddie said as he sidled up to Buck at the kitchen island. “So, Serena absolutely cannot make up her own plate because she’s waiting for her fake nail polish to dry.”

“Well of course,” Buck nodded, turning his body so that it was facing Eddie. “So we have to make her plate for her?”

“Mhm,” Eddie said as he picked up one of the paper plates from the stack, handing it over to Buck with a smile.

The party went on without a hitch. They decided to forgo the normal birthday party traditions of singing happy birthday and opening presents in front of everyone, not wanting the day to overwhelm Serena anymore than it already had. Everyone ate their birthday-themed cupcakes without much fanfare– Chris, Anthony, and Denny all ate two, which in turn made the girls beg for an extra cupcake themselves. Serena would open her presents later, and Buck and Eddie would send thank you’s to everyone individually after the party, though Serena did squeal so loudly when she saw the giant stuffed dog that Ravi had brought her that you could hear it from the driveway.

Serena’s very excited thank you to Ravi somehow ended up with her hanging from one of his arms, Jee hanging from the other, as he lifted them up and down in makeshift bicep curls. The girls couldn’t stop giggling as they swung in the air, making all the adults laugh as well and pull out their phones to record the admittedly adorable sight. After that, Ravi spent the rest of the party being pulled away from the rest of the adults for different reasons by Jee and Serena, the most entertaining of which was the two girls claiming that it was now his turn at the nail salon. From the corner of the room, Eddie could see May laughing and taking sneaky videos of Ravi, his legs scrunched up to his chin and one hand held out to each of the girls.

By the time the sun was starting to set and Serena and Jee’s sugar rushes from the cupcakes were wearing off, people started to head out one by one. The Han family left first, not wanting to put Robbie down too late in the night. They promised Jee and Serena that they could have a playdate soon, the two girls stubbornly doing everything in their power to keep playing for a couple more minutes, but Eddie was just happy that Serena had been enjoying herself enough to want Jee to stay later. Maddie stopped just as she was walking out the front door, pulling Buck to the side and whispering something that made him go red again, before vehemently telling him to call her as she made her way to their car.

The Wilsons and the Grants left around the same time, Denny and Anthony exchanging phone numbers and adding each other on forms of social media that Eddie hadn’t even heard of before. Athena also made a point to tell Buck and Eddie to ‘send her husband home at a reasonable time,’ giving a kiss and a pointed look to Bobby as she left.

Bobby and Ravi were the last two left, Bobby because he was trying to find the recipe he wanted to try the next time he and Buck cooked together, and Ravi because Serena still had him trapped in the middle of a tea party.

“You two are welcome to stay for dinner,” Eddie said, walking back into the living room from where he had been packing up all the food. “It’s leftovers from lunch, but still.”

“Thanks man, but I gotta head out,” Ravi replied, sending an apologetic look to Serena who had paused mid-pour from the empty plastic tea pot. “I have to do a final walk through of one of my apartments before a showing tomorrow.”

“Gross,” Buck said from where he sat on the couch, which was his standard reaction any time Ravi reminded him of the fact that he was a landlord.

“You say that, but my landlord money is how I was able to get the winning gift for the birthday girl,” Ravi shot back with a sarcastic smile.

“Wait, what? How much was that thing?” Buck asked, fully turning around to get another look at the ridiculously-sized stuffed dog again.

“Don’t worry about it,” Ravi said, waving the question off as he moved to get up from the princess table. He leaned down, saying goodbye and a final happy birthday to Serena with a little pat on her back.

As Ravi started to make his way over to the couch, giving a fist bump to Anthony and Chris as he passed them as a form of goodbye, Bobby slapped his hands against his knees and said, “I should probably head out soon, too. I promised Athena I would make it home for a late dinner before May heads back to her apartment.”

They all said their goodbyes, Bobby earnestly offering multiple times to babysit any time they needed him, before Buck and Eddie finally saw their last two guests off to their cars. Buck slumped back down onto the couch, Eddie falling down right next to him with a sigh. Serena got up from her princess table in the corner of the room, walking over and jumping up between them on the couch.

“Did you have a fun birthday, Reena?” Anthony asked, plopping down onto the floor in front of Serena.

She nodded. “Mhm.”

“When do you want to open your presents?” Chris asked from the opposite side of the couch, leaning over to look at her. Serena looked up at Buck and Eddie excitedly for a second, a glint in her eye as she looked over at the corner of the room where the wrapped boxes and bags were sitting together.

“Let's do that tomorrow, hm?” Buck replied quickly, shooting a tired look over to Eddie. “It’s been a busy day already, maybe we just eat dinner and watch a movie tonight?”

“Do I get to pick the movie?” Serena asked, skeptical of the delay in present-opening, raising her little eyebrow.

“Of course,” Eddie smiled down at her. Buck rubbed her back as he added on, “You always get to pick the movie when it’s your birthday!”

After dinner, they spent the rest of the night all squeezed together on the couch– all of them besides Serena, who had elected to use her new giant stuffed dog (which she had decided to name Dot, due to the black spot on its eye) as a beanbag chair– two bags of popcorn popped and poured into bowls, as they watched a Disney movie that Eddie hadn’t heard of before.

By the time the movie was over, Serena was asleep and sprawled out on top of Dot, and he was fairly certain the rest of them would be following her into sleep very soon if they laid there much longer.

Buck picked her up from Dot the beanbag-slash-dog, carrying her into her room as Eddie started folding up all of the blankets. Chris wordlessly stacked the two popcorn bowls and carried them into the kitchen while Anthony stood to help Eddie clean up the living room.

“Eddie,” Anthony called over to him after he had dragged the coffee table back to its spot in front of the TV, waiting for Eddie to look at him before he continued. “Thank you for today. She hasn’t had a good birthday since… I don’t know, I don’t think she’s had a good birthday.”

At Anthony’s words, Eddie felt his stomach drop to his feet. He didn’t even want to think about it– an amazing, sweet kid like Serena never having a good birthday, it was just so wrong. Eddie reached his arm out, resting his hand on Anthony’s shoulder. “You don’t have to thank me. She deserves it, you both do. And best believe that you’re getting an even bigger party for your birthday, kid.”

Anthony stepped forward, wrapping his arms around Eddie’s torso quickly in a fiercely tight hug before stepping back again. He ducked his head, but Eddie still caught the look on his face– full of emotion, something caught between sad and happy– and Eddie wanted nothing more than to pull him back into a hug. He didn’t, though, instead bringing his hand back to his shoulder and gripping onto it in a tight squeeze.

Eddie didn’t know much about Anthony and Serena’s home life with their blood relatives, but what he knew for certain was that he only ever wanted to give them the best. And he was nothing if not stubbornly committed to it.

Chapter Text

Eddie could feel himself losing it, just slightly. It had been a long night. Between the two nightmares Buck had and Eddie having to get up thrice to tell the boys to turn their game off, neither of them had gotten much sleep. Add on top of that, the fact that Maddie had shown up at their doorstep bright and early, a tray of cinnamon rolls in her hands and Jee-Yun bouncing up and down excitedly next to her, for the playdate that Eddie had somewhat forgotten about. Yeah, his nerves were wearing thin.

It was a Saturday morning in early November, just two weeks after Serena’s birthday party, and this was the first time they had been able to coordinate a time where Jee could come over to spend the day with them. Buck and Eddie were now standing in the kitchen, letting the cinnamon rolls warm up in the oven, while they waited for the very loud chattering between the two girls to wake up the two teenage boys that were trying to use their weekend to sleep in.

“Sorry if I kept you up last night,” Buck said, facing Eddie and leaning his hip against the counter. “I really don’t know why it started up again.”

Eddie frowned. “You don’t have to apologize for that.”

“No, I know, but still… I feel bad, you barely slept,” Buck said, dropping his head forward slightly.

“Buck,” Eddie said, sliding his back along the counter so he could lean his shoulder into Buck’s chest. “Even if I slept through one of your nightmares, you could always wake me up. You know, if you want someone to be with you.”

“You– really?” Buck asked quietly, resting his elbow on the counter behind Eddie’s back and snaking his arm around his waist. “I mean… I don’t want to be a bother.”

Eddie dropped his head to Buck’s shoulder. “It’s not a bother– you’re not a bother, Buck. Please wake me up.”

“Okay… uh, thank you,” Buck said, dropping his own head on top of Eddie’s. They stayed standing like that, just slightly wrapped together as they leaned against the counter. That had been a side effect of sharing a bed with Buck that Eddie hadn’t expected– their already less-than-normal physical boundaries with each other had quickly dwindled down to being non-existent. After all, when you spent every night and morning cuddled under the covers with someone, no matter how innocently, it suddenly felt almost unnatural to keep your distance from them in any other context.

They had always gravitated together, always hovering around each other in a way that would probably be overbearing if it were anyone else, but this was even nicer. It was comfortable, warm and secure, and Eddie just couldn’t help from latching onto Buck any time they were alone. Not that Buck minded, after all, he was always meeting Eddie halfway with an arm wrapped around him or his chin propped against whichever part of Eddie he could reach. Eddie knew how it would look to anyone else, it wasn’t something that they could even explain to anyone if they asked, so they had an unspoken understanding to keep their clinging to a minimum when they were with other people.

They were startled from their warm half-hug bubble by the beep of the oven timer, subsequently followed by the synchronized shriek of two little girls who were clearly excited to eat their sugary breakfast. Eddie winced, the shrill noise piercing through his already dully aching head. A lack of sleep always gave him the worst headaches.

“Well, that definitely woke the boys up,” Buck laughed quietly as he ran his hand up Eddie’s back, his thumb and pointer finger landing where Eddie’s head met his neck, pressing down with a quick soothing pressure before pulling away from the counter. Eddie watched as he pulled the cinnamon rolls out of the oven, placing them carefully on the farthest back burner of the stove to let them cool down. Jee and Serena came running into the kitchen then, skittering to a stop as they reached Buck and Eddie.

“Let’s not run in the kitchen while the oven is open, please,” Buck said, taking his oven mitts off as he turned to look at the girls.

They stared up at him, Jee bouncing on the balls of her feet as she said, “Can we eat them now?”

“Not yet, we need to wait for five minutes until they’re not too hot,” Buck said in an apologetic tone.

“Ugh,” Serena groaned, drawing the noise out exaggeratedly as she threw her head back. “Five whole minutes.”

“Sorry, Bean,” Buck responded, stifling a laugh at the level of dramatics.

Over the last two weeks, they had been unintentionally cycling through nicknames for Serena. Anthony had called her Reena a few times, which Buck, Eddie, and Chris had picked up on, and it just sort of spiraled from there. The shift from Serena to Reena was quickly followed by ‘Reenie’ and ‘Reena Bean’ and ‘Beanie Baby.’ After a very shocking realization that neither Anthony nor Chris even knew what Beanie Babies were, which led to the boys teasing them and making them feel like absolute fossils, the nickname ‘Bean’ had ended up sticking.

Eddie moved to pull out two of the kitchen island chairs for the girls. “How about some grapes while we wait, hm?”

Eddie lifted Jee and Serena up into the tall chairs, smiling as both girls immediately started to swing their feet in the air. Just as Buck slid the bowl of grapes across the counter to the three of them, they heard a door squeak and the beginning of footsteps from the back hallway.

“Good morning, sunshines!” Buck called out cheerily as Anthony and Chris shuffled into the kitchen, both looking dishevelled with pillow marks on their faces and curls sticking down against the sides of their heads.

“So loud,” Chris muttered, leaning against the kitchen island and squinting at the natural sunlight shining through the windows.

“So early,” Anthony added, parking himself right next to Chris and taking up the same position.

“Are neither of you going to say hi to Jee?” Eddie asked, raising an amused eyebrow at them. There was one mumbled ‘hi’ and one mumbled ‘hello’ in response.

After five minutes of letting the cinnamon rolls cool, during which Jee and Serena asked a total of four times if it had been long enough yet, the six of them circled around the counter and ate their sugary and very sticky breakfast. The girls chattered between themselves and with Buck and Eddie– at a reasonable volume now– and the boys ate silently as they slowly started to wake up.

When Eddie finished his cup of coffee halfway through breakfast, he didn't even need to ask before Buck grabbed the empty mug and refilled it for him. He watched with a small smile as Buck moved around the counter, putting in the exact right amount of cream and the ‘ungodly amount of sugar’ that Eddie liked in his coffee. When he placed it back down in front of Eddie, a subtle glow on his face, Eddie couldn’t help but reach out and run his hand down Buck’s arm, stopping to squeeze his hand with a hummed ‘thank you.’

When Eddie looked back up, he saw both Anthony and Chris looking at them with light-hearted, yet bordering on accusatory, looks on their faces. Eddie cleared his throat, feeling caught, and dropped Buck’s hand to reach out for his fresh mug of coffee.

After breakfast Buck and Eddie sent the kids into the living room, the two of them staying behind in the kitchen to clean up the dishes and sticky countertops. They could hear vague teenage boy grumbling and quiet little girl laughter as they wiped down the kitchen, keeping an ear out for anything that sounded concerning, but Eddie wasn’t all that worried about what they were getting up to.

“Hey, let me know if you need a break today, yeah?” Buck said quietly as he set the last dish in the drying rack. He kept his voice even, but Eddie knew him too well to not hear the concern underneath it.

“What do you mean?” Eddie asked, now done with the counters, picking at a callus on the heel of his palm as he chewed the inside of his lip.

“I know you, Eddie,” Buck said, tilting his head pointedly as Eddie tried to keep a neutral expression. “The tension in your shoulders, the way you winced when the girls screamed earlier, you kept closing your eyes when it got too loud during breakfast… If it gets to be too much today– if you start to get overwhelmed– just tell me, okay?”

Eddie slumped his shoulders slightly, letting out a small breath. “I’ll be fine, Buck.”

“I know you will be, but I still want you to talk to me,” Buck said, stepping forward to put a hand on Eddie’s shoulder. He put on a more teasing tone as he added, “I mean, it’s more for my own peace of mind than anything. You don’t want me to worry, do you?”

Eddie just sighed and nodded in agreement, head still dropped slightly as he looked up through his eyebrows at Buck.

“Hey,” Buck gently shook Eddie’s shoulder where his hand still rested, an earnest look on his face as he waited for Eddie to lift his head up. “You’re not a bother either, Eddie.”

Eddie just sent Buck a soft smile, blinking his eyes down at the floor. That was fair, he guessed– he couldn’t expect Buck to ask him for help when he needed it if he wasn’t willing to do the same. Eddie was getting better at accepting the wordless help that Buck gave him, but asking for it himself was still a struggle for him. But he was working on it, and he was willing to try today for Buck's sake.

Finally, after standing there under Buck’s gaze for what felt like minutes, Eddie opened his mouth to speak. “Okay, let’s go make sure the boys aren’t antagonizing the girls.”

Buck laughed. “I think it would be the other way around, don’t you?”

“Okay yeah, so let’s make sure the girls haven’t taken the boys hostage, then,” Eddie laughed along as they started walking towards the living room.

As they walked through the arched doorway, Eddie half assumed to see Jee and Serena tucked into the corner, where the princess tea party table was set up, while Chris and Anthony played video games on the couch. He was quickly proven wrong in that assumption as he heard Serena’s voice shout out in frustration, “No, Chris, you have to keep your pinky up!”

Both Buck and Eddie couldn’t help but burst out in laughter at the sight of Chris and Anthony with their legs folded awkwardly as they each sat in one of the tiny chairs, plastic glittery tiaras sitting on their heads and bright pink feather boas hanging over their shoulders. The boys sent their most withering glares over to Buck and Eddie as they heard them laughing, though their expressions quickly morphed into pleading– silently begging for Buck and Eddie to get them out of their princess-tea-party-predicament. The desperation on their faces did nothing but make Eddie laugh harder, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Buck pull out his phone to take a picture.

The two little girls were somewhat oblivious to the teasing, instead locking their eyes onto Buck and Eddie with a mischievous glint.

“You sit!” Serena shouted out, pointing a finger at Buck and Eddie with a wide smile on her face.

“Us sit?” Eddie asked, eyebrows raising as he pointed a finger at his own chest and looked back and forth between the table and Buck.

“Yes! You two sit,” Jee added excitedly, jumping up from her seat to grab each of their hands and start tugging them towards the table.

“But there’s only four chairs, girls,” Buck stated, a smile on his face.

That made them pause for a moment, seemingly deep in thought to figure out a solution to that problem, before Serena jumped up from her seat. “You sit, Jee and me will be waiters!”

So Buck and Eddie sat, legs even more scrunched up than Chris and Anthony’s due to their heights, with feather boas draped over their own shoulders. Jee and Serena even took the tiny little tiaras off their own heads, instructing them to put them on. The plastic was of course far too tight on Eddie, digging into the sides of his already aching head, but he didn’t mention it. He could muscle through it– after all, he wasn’t about to let something as trivial as a headache interfere with the pure joy the two girls had as they flitted around the table and served the four of them pretend tea and crumpets.

At one point, Eddie got up from the tiny table to send a picture of their tea party to the 118 extended family group chat. Buck and Jee beamed up at the camera, their matching Buckley smiles lighting up their whole faces. Serena pulled a funny face, eyes wide with excitement with her tongue poked out of her mouth. Chris and Anthony both had crooked smiles, doing their best to hide the inherent embarrassment of being a teenage boy wearing a tiara while sitting at a tiny princess table.

The picture was met with a collection of hearts and exclamation points from their friends and family, with Ravi specifically replying ‘please tell me that Eddie’s also wearing the tiara and feathers.’

Buck responded to that with his own photo, Eddie caught off guard with a slightly goofy look on his face, captioned with an ‘oh he absolutely is.’

About an hour passed, and the girls only allowed them to get up to do other things as long as they promised to keep the tiaras on. Chris and Anthony went back into their room, finally getting to play the video games they had been planning for their weekend. Buck and Eddie sat on the couch with their tiaras securely fastened to their heads, continuing their binge watch of Survivor as
Jee or Serena occasionally came to include them in whichever games they were playing.

After lunch– which had absolutely not been leftover cinnamon rolls, no matter how much Jee and Serena had begged– the girls settled onto the couch with Buck and Eddie, both of them developing some sort of interest in the competition reality show. They had a surprising amount of questions about the structure of the show– why they were on different teams, why sometimes there was only one winner for challenges and sometimes there were whole teams that won, why some of them were friends and why some of them weren’t. They were towards the end of the season, and the girls had even more questions when the teams merged.

Halfway through their third episode, their binge watch was interrupted by a knock on the door. Eddie groaned as he got up from the couch, ankles cracking from how long they had been sitting. “I’ll get it.”

When he opened the front door, Diedra was standing on the other side. “Hi, Eddie!” she said, pausing for a moment as her eyes caught on something above his eyebrows. “I’m, um, here for a surprise visit.”

Her eyes went back to the top of his head, and Eddie felt his face flush red when he realized what she was looking at. “Oh!” he said, his eyes wide as reached up and yanked the plastic tiara out of his hair. “Sorry, um, right! Come on in.”

Eddie heard two quiet chuckles, one from Diedra and one from Buck, and he sent a glare over to Buck in response as he willed the tips of his ears to stop burning. Buck got up from the couch, also taking the tiara off of his head as he moved to shake Diedra’s hand.

Eddie shouted down the hallway to let the boys know that Diedra was there, both of them poking their heads out of their bedroom door wearing a ridiculous combination of gaming headsets and tiaras. They smiled and came out to say hi to her, the amusement on her face growing as she took in the sight of them.

“Oh! This is my niece, Jee-Yun,” Buck said to Diedra, suddenly remembering that they had an extra kid in the house. “Jee, this is Diedra. She’s the one that brought us Anthony and Serena.”

“Oh, I remember you! You brought my godsister too!” Jee said matter of factly, nodding her head like she was proud of remembering that piece of information.

“Your godsister?” Diedra asked, looking down at Jee with a smile.

“Yup, Mara!” Jee said, smiling back.

“You guys really do all know each other, don’t you?” Diedra asked, looking back up at Buck and Eddie.

Eddie shared a look with Buck, eyes crinkling as a soft smile passed between them. “Yeah, we’re all family.”

Diedra’s visit consisted of talking to the kids one on one, including Chris, and then another look around the house. As she talked to the kids, Buck and Eddie sat side by side on the couch, Jee sitting on the floor of the living room playing with some toy cars. Eddie tried to keep himself steady, trying not to focus on how his hands were clammy or how his head was still pounding– trying to stamp down the feelings of anxiety that kept panging through his chest. Buck’s hand was dropped onto Eddie’s knee, the slight squeeze of pressure grounding Eddie just a little bit.

Eddie knew there was no logical reason to be anxious– they had been doing everything right. The kids were happy as far as he could tell, they were settling into their routines now and were getting more and more comfortable around the 118 family unit. Still, the knowledge that they’ve been doing everything right did nothing to stop the subtle sinking feeling in his stomach.

“Hey,” Buck said, putting a little more pressure behind the hand on Eddie’s knee to get his attention. “It’ll be fine, just take a breath, Eddie.”

Eddie hadn’t even known that he was holding his breath until he blew it out, the tiniest bit of tension leaving his shoulders as they sagged with the exhale. He nodded. It’ll be fine.

Once Diedra’s talks with the kids were over, she did her walk around of the house and let Buck and Eddie know that everything was exceeding her standards. Eddie smiled, feeling relief flood through him at the good news. As they walked her out onto the porch, though, her face turned serious again.

“I actually have something to talk to you both about while we’re out here.” Her lips pressed into a line for a moment before she continued. They closed the front door behind them, giving a last look at the living room to make sure that Chris and Anthony were keeping an eye on the girls. “I didn’t want to bring it up in front of the kids yet.”

Eddie could hear Buck suck in a deep breath beside him, and he did his best not to hold his own breath as they waited for her to continue.

“Okay, I’ll just come right out with it. Serena and Anthony’s birth mother, Chrstine, reached out to set up a visit.” Eddie felt ice spike through him, a cold sweat immediately sheening over his back, and he heard Buck draw in another breath through his nose. “I don’t know many details about exactly why she lost custody of the kids, just that she’s in recovery and she meets the requirements for visitation. I want to be clear that while she did complete the court-mandated program she was in, she is still not deemed fit for custody. This is just a supervised visit.”

Eddie nodded, the pit in his stomach that had spread all the way up to his throat making it feel like speaking was impossible.

“The visit is going to be set up through my office, so I’ll be reaching out sometime in the next few days to figure out a time where we can set it up.” She nodded, looking between them carefully, before adding, “I would probably recommend talking to the kids beforehand, try not to surprise them with something like this.”

Buck nodded, reaching out his hand to shake Diedra’s. “Thank you for letting us know.”

“Of course,” she reached her hand out to Eddie as well, and he shook it on autopilot while his brain buzzed unpleasantly. “I’ll be in touch. Good to see you both.”

They stood on the porch and watched her leave, Eddie not really able to get his eyes to focus on anything. He stood in place, neck tense and chest tight, and suddenly Buck stood in front of him.

“Eddie,” Buck said gently, taking Eddie’s hands into his own. Eddie didn’t know when they had started shaking, whether it was before or after the conversation with Diedra had ended. He hadn’t even realized they had been shaking. God, he hoped she hadn’t seen it.

Buck said his name again, but Eddie could only focus on his own breath as he drew puffs of air in and out. It felt like he wasn’t even getting any oxygen with each inhale, and each exhale burned on its way out of his throat. If the anxiety from before had come in pangs, then this was crushing. Like a weight on his chest, pinning him, the throbbing tension of his head now traveling down his neck and into his shoulders.

A panic attack, great, Eddie thought. He hadn’t had one in years but it wasn’t a feeling that was easy to forget, not something that was hard to place.

Still, all he could think of was Anthony and Serena. Anthony, who had spent years being uncomfortable in his own homes before meeting Chris. Serena, who had never had a good birthday. Both of them, about to be put into another situation with someone who was supposed to have protected them but didn’t.

Buck pulled their joined hands to his own chest, pressing Eddie’s palm out against his sternum. His heart beat was steady and his chest rose and fell evenly under Eddie’s hand. “Eddie, I need you to breathe with me, okay?”

“I–” Eddie started, his strained voice quickly cut off by the squeeze of his throat as another shaking breath pushed out of his lungs. He shook his head. It had been too long since he had done this, he didn’t know how to pull himself out of it anymore.

Jello, he thought. Be like jello. The thought did nothing, overshadowed by more rattling thoughts and rattling breaths, both ripping through him in their own ways. Eddie’s hands dropped from where they had been held against Buck’s chest, and he felt Buck’s hands press against his cheeks. There was one hand on each side of his face, Buck’s fingertips sliding into the hair behind his ears.

“Be like jello, right?” Buck tried, his hands lifting Eddie’s head up until he looked back at him. Eddie shook his head, his lungs still burning as he tried to breathe. Buck’s eyebrows drew together when he saw the shake of Eddie’s head. “No? Okay, Eddie, I need you to breathe for me.”

Buck pulled Eddie’s face forward and pressed their foreheads together. “Breathe, Eddie.”

Buck shut his eyes, and Eddie followed. “Breathe…”

After a moment, Eddie felt something soft but solid pressed against his lips. He opened his eyes, and through his nose he sucked in a deep breath, holding it in his lungs. Buck was kissing him. He didn’t know why, and he didn’t really care to figure it out, because he was so stuck on the fact that Buck was kissing him.

If it was just on instinct, Eddie wasn’t sure, but he kissed Buck back. He pressed his lips back against Buck’s, and he felt Buck’s fingers flex against the sides of his head. The pressure felt good, fingertips digging into his hair, and the throbbing in his head seemed to dull a little bit.

Then, just as quickly as Buck’s lips had been there, they were gone from Eddie’s lips. Eddie’s eyes were still open, eyebrows slightly drawn together in confusion as Buck’s wide eyes met his. Somewhat dumbly, his brain not working to its full capacity, Eddie breathed out in a confused voice, “What?”

They both breathed deeply, their breaths mingling, and a small smile made its way onto Buck’s mouth as his eyes scanned Eddie’s face. “You’re breathing normally again.”

“Yeah, I am.” Eddie sucked in another breath, testing it, and letting it out easily. “How did– why did you do that?”

“You were…” Buck started. He trailed off for a moment as he ran his fingertips against Eddie’s cheekbones, his thumbs rubbing across Eddie’s chin. Buck’s eyes tracked the motion, a slightly dazed look in them, before he blinked and slid his hands away. He let them fall to rest on Eddie’s shoulders instead. “You couldn’t get yourself to calm down. I thought it might, I don't know, shock you out of it.”

“Well, um, it worked,” Eddie said, feeling Buck’s breath puff over his mouth from how close they still were. “That was…”

Eddie wasn’t sure what the end of that sentence would've been. That was a lot. That was kind of confusing. That was surprisingly really, really nice. All of those options were technically true, but none of them really felt right, so he just didn’t finish the sentence.

“Are you okay?” Buck asked, eyes still moving over Eddie’s face as if he were looking for cuts or bruises.

Eddie took a mental inventory. He was a little dizzy, but not in a bad way, and his lips felt like they were tingling. He raised his hand up to his face, feeling the heat on his cheeks with his palm before touching his fingers to his lips for a second. He couldn’t remember the last time he kissed someone. He knew it had been Marisol, of course, he just didn’t know which time had been the last. Not that it really mattered to him right at that moment.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” Eddie responded finally. “Sorry, I don’t–”

“If you’re about to apologize for having a panic attack, I’ll smack you,” Buck cut him off, his voice half teasing and half serious.

“Right,” Eddie said, letting out a shaky laugh that felt a little warbled in his mouth. He slumped forward, his body feeling drained of energy after the last few minutes. He tucked his arms into his side, dropping his head and letting his weight fall forward against Buck’s chest.

Eddie closed his eyes, letting the remaining tension melt from him as he felt Buck’s arms wrap around his shoulders. Buck dropped his chin on top of Eddie’s head and said, “Let’s give it a minute before we go back inside, yeah?”

Eddie nodded, his forehead pressing into Buck’s collarbone as he did. “Yeah.”