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Dinner was nice, as it always is. Eddie and Ana take advantage of the timid spring warmth to take a walk around the pier; the days are getting longer and they catch the tail end of a sunset dipping its head underwater.
Eddie reaches out and takes Ana’s hand, tangles their fingers together.
She blushes a little—it’s cute and adorable—and looks up to him all pleased and pretty. Eddie smiles, but it doesn’t occur to him he should lean in and kiss her. It’s strange.
They’ve been seeing each other for close to a month. Ana has been nothing short of great, adjusting to Eddie’s glacial pace but making sure they always carve out some time to be alone together—late lunches and dinners like tonight, or making lazy laps around museums they can’t get into because, hello, welcome to dating during a pandemic.
She has met Christopher, and Christopher seems to like her well enough.
Ana is perfectly nice—and fucking hot, Eddie is allowed to think that, it’s not disrespectful, is it? They’re dating—and Eddie is… being a moron.
He holds her hand. He’s kissed the corner of her mouth a few times. His hands have wandered a little, but strictly above clothes.
It’s like every time he and Ana end up somewhere alone after dark, Eddie feels like the poor woman’s father is standing in the corner with a baseball bat and a very significant expression on his face.
Of course, he hasn’t met Ana’s father, doesn’t even know if he owns a baseball bat. Unfortunately, ignorance does not help Eddie’s situation one bit.
When he tries to explain it in so many words, Buck laughs at him, but it’s not cruel.
“Eddie,” he says, smirking and pretending to be wise beyond his years, “first of all, way to go perpetuating the stereotype, buddy. But also, you’re both adults, and Ana is a smart woman with a paycheck twice the size of yours. You’ve been dating for over a month. Even if her father was the I’ll-shoot-you-if-you-don’t-make-curfew type of dad, he would be the first in line begging for you to get a fucking move on.”
Eddie knows that Buck is not wrong. He’s trying, okay? He’s doing his best, but for some reason, those things—touching and kissing and anything physical, really—don’t seem to want to come naturally to him. He’s a bit stuck. Luckily, Ana understands he has his hang-ups. She hasn’t pushed, so far.
Eddie knows he’s on thin ice. The woman can have the patience of a saint, but nobody is that patient.
So he takes her hand in public and doesn’t seize the moment to kiss her, but as they walk back to the inevitable end of the night—“So sad,” an imaginary Buck comments at the back of Eddie’s brain, in his best, worst Trump impression—he swallows around the lump in his throat and invites her over for one last drink.
She seems delighted.
When they get home, Eddie’s eyes automatically go down and to the left, to the spot where Buck always leaves his shoes—and there, like clockwork, stand his brown leather boots, worn in and soft, so fucking familiar.
For a quick, insane moment, Eddie aches with the need to reach out and run his fingers over the smooth surface of Buck’s shoes. Which. Is weird. Eddie pushes the thought away.
The house is quiet enough that Eddie can half-hear Buck doing voices as he reads Christopher’s bedtime story. He’s already smiling when he recognizes Professor Snape with the exaggerated s’s, and Minerva McGonagall who always gets a little of Athena’s distinct inflection when Buck’s the one playing her.
He’s so fucking good at the voices; Eddie used to be kind of jealous of how much Christopher enjoyed it. Now, he’s usually one more enthralled spectator.
He looks at Ana, and she tips her head forward, looking up from under her lashes. “You go first.”
Eddie doesn’t need her to say it twice; he trots to Christopher’s bedroom and makes a show of knocking on the open doorframe.
“Oh no,” Buck says from where he’s sprawled on top of Christopher’s comforter, long legs folded awkwardly to fit the short bed. “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named found us! He’ll turn us into cups for his tea parties with the snake!”
“Noooo,” Christopher laughs, burrowing under the covers for safety. “Quick, Bucky, do something!”
Buck is more than ready; he grabs one of Christopher’s crutches and solemnly aims it at Eddie.
“Riddikulus!” he says, waving the makeshift wand around. Eddie grins wide and stupid.
“Sorry, that doesn’t work on me, I’m already the most ridiculous of all,” he says, and with an evil cackle he throws himself at Chris on the bed, tickling the everloving shit out of him. What can he say? He’s missed his son.
Christopher laughs and kicks and squirms and eventually Eddie has taken enough elbows to the ribs that he feels like he’s done his job and he can let go. He kisses his forehead and Christopher looks up at him with the sweetest little smile in the world.
“G’night, mijo,” Eddie mumbles into Christopher’s soft hair, and the sweet-clean coconut scent tells him Buck managed to give him a bath before putting him to bed.
“Night, tickle monster,” Christopher says, still grinning. Eddie ruffles his hair and leans back.
Standing at the foot of the bed, Buck wipes fake tears from his eyes. “We’ll never forget you, Christopher. A hero, really, fallen to the hands of a cruel, awful monster.”
Christopher giggles, then makes grabby hands at Buck. He wants a proper kiss goodnight, of course, as he’s still young enough not to be weird about affection. And like every single time this has happened, Buck hesitates, looking at Eddie for guidance, half-expecting Eddie to scold him for—what, hoarding the kid’s love?
Eddie shakes his head with a fond smile and takes a step back. When Buck slips past him, his cheeks turned slightly pink already, Eddie absent-mindedly puts his hand on Buck’s waist to pivot around him and away. Buck gets enough room to kneel next to Christopher’s head and gets his kiss.
Buck still looks so completely overwhelmed and in awe and honored that Christopher would want to give him this.
Eddie tears his eyes away before he does something stupid—he’s always so frustrated by how hard it is for Buck to trust that Christopher loves him and wants him around all the time. It’s stupid, but Eddie wants to scour the earth for whoever has made Buck this insecure about his own worth, hunt them down and give them a piece of his mind.
Buck turns off Christopher’s light and steps out into the hallway with Eddie, their shoulders bumping together.
With a lopsided smile, Buck asks, “So, how was the date?”
Eddie draws a blank and then suddenly he remembers, shit, Ana. Buck’s eyebrows climb impossibly high up his forehead.
“Eddie, is she here, did you forget she was he—” he starts to say, already stifling laughter at Eddie’s grimacing face. Muttering insults to himself and himself only, Eddie turns on his heel and marches back into the living room, his face bright red like a fucking traffic light.
Ana is sitting at the kitchen island, poking away at her phone, but she looks up and smiles the moment Eddie and Buck come in.
“Sorry,” Eddie says, and if there was a sword anywhere in the house he would fall on it without question. He can feel Buck vibrate right behind him with the effort not to laugh at his incompetence as a human being. “I didn’t mean to—I—that was so rude of me—Christopher just needed to, uh.”
Eddie knows that Buck is pressing his lips together and rolling his eyes at him. To, uh. Yeah, that’s eloquent, Diaz. At least Ana doesn’t look upset or offended. Instead, she is the picture of comprehension and tranquility.
“Don’t worry, Edmundo. I get it, you don’t have to apologize,” she says, then her eyes move to the right and up a little. “Hello, Buck.”
“Hi,” Buck says, and shoves past Eddie with his hand outstretched and a thousand watt smile. “It’s great to finally meet you.”
“Likewise,” Ana says, tilting her head to the side just a little. Her hair slips off her shoulder, baring her neck. Her skin is warm and silky smooth in the shitty lighting of Eddie’s kitchen—she looks good, she really does. Eddie should do something about it, but—what? Why?
He taps Buck’s elbow before making a beeline to the fridge.
“Beer?” he asks, groping for the secret stash of good IPAs he keeps at the back of the bottom shelf.
“Ah, I’m alright, thanks, I think I’m gonna go, leave you kids to it,” Buck says with a grin that’s more weak than smartass, and he’s eyeing Eddie like he can’t believe he even has to say this.
“You sure?” Eddie asks, and already he’s pulling out three beers. Buck waggles his eyebrows like he’s trying to convey some sort of message Eddie should be able to decipher. “C’mon, it’s one beer. You looked after my kid all night, it’s the least I can do.”
Ana, perfect and kind as she is, chips in and insists that Buck stays as well.
Cornered by two ruthless sets of pleading brown eyes, Buck has no choice but to give in.
They have pleasant enough conversation, Eddie sprawled on the armchair, Buck and Ana sharing the couch. There’s something odd going on, Eddie notices. When they have video game night or movie Fridays, he and Buck and Chris have barely enough room to squeeze into the couch, and more often than not Eddie ends up pressed into Buck from shoulder to knee, Christopher thrown across both their laps like the most wonderful blanket in the world.
But now, not only are Buck and Ana sitting at a respectful distance; when she turns to look at Buck and laugh at a joke he just made, her knees shift around too, but she doesn’t even come into brushing distance of Buck’s long, long, long legs, stretched out diagonally under the coffee table.
Sure, Ana is petite and slim, but that’s not really enough to explain it.
Eddie wonders idly if the couch has become bigger in the past few days. Then the toe of Buck’s shoe hits the side of his foot, and Eddie retaliates with a playful little kick to Buck’s calf. He smiles around the neck of his beer bottle when he takes the next gulp.
Buck stays for exactly one beer. He hasn’t been chugging it, but he isn’t pacing himself either, the way he usually does when he hangs around after they’ve put Christopher to bed.
Before Eddie can even think of offering another round, Buck is standing and stretching his arms over his head, making a show of how tired he is.
“I’d better go,” he says with half an apologetic smile and a not-so-secretive wink in Eddie’s general direction.
He kisses Ana’s cheek goodbye with an ease that Eddie wants to steal away from him; he throws Eddie a mocking salute and already he’s showing himself out.
Eddie scrambles to his feet and follows.
Buck is at the door, his facemask hanging from one ear, and he’s slipping his boots back on. He shoots Eddie a strange grin—like maybe he’s judging Eddie a little, but he’s also somewhat glad Eddie isn’t making him slip out like a thief.
“Man, you don’t live in a castle, I don’t need an usher,” Buck says, but his voice is soft and kind.
Eddie’s heart is in his ears, and he doesn’t know exactly why he followed Buck.
“What the fuck do I do now?” he asks under his breath, and yeah, he’s an adult male with all his parts in working order, he’s aware of how stupid that question is—but still, he needs to ask it. He’s feeling a little lost and overwhelmed at the moment.
Whose idea was it to invite Ana over so late at night? Oh, right, Eddie’s. Since when does Eddie go through with his own ideas?
The look that Buck gives him will go down in history for the most fond and patient and exasperated of all time.
He pats Eddie’s cheek, gentle and just a little bit teasing. “There’s no dads with baseball bats, Eddie, I checked every corner. No need to be scared.”
Eddie frowns, because he rejects the notion of being scared—Ana doesn’t scare him, Ana is perfectly proper and funny and smart, she’s not an hungry bear in a forest, she’s not enemy fire, she’s not the thought of losing Chris. She doesn’t scare Eddie.
It’s just—Eddie doesn’t want to be alone with her. He knows what he should do, he can very well picture every single motion he could go through, the kissing and the touching and the undoing of buttons and slipping out of underwear, but—but he doesn’t really want to do any of that with Ana.
He’s been ducking behind all sorts of excuses to delay the inevitable intimacy with her. Silly curfews, exhaustion from work, well-timed calls from his abuela and tia Pepa. Eddie is in a rut, he doesn’t know how to break it and he doesn’t want to have to face her alone.
He likes Ana. There’s just something that keeps him from wanting to really, really be with her all the way. She thinks it’s Shannon and Eddie, a coward, has let her believe it. He knows it isn’t; that particular torch he’s been carrying burned out a long time ago.
But Eddie can’t put a name to this thing—this stupid block he can’t unplug and he can’t go around—and he’s been feeding a wonderful woman false hope and—
“Eddie, Eds, hey, are you panicking? Man, I didn’t mean to—” Buck bites his tongue, now both his hands are on Eddie’s shoulders, and that’s good, that’s grounding, that’s warm and comforting and Eddie grabs onto Buck’s arms without thinking. “Listen. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want, okay? She’s one of the good ones. Really. So just… go with your guts. You’re good at that.”
Buck’s bright eyes are wide and worried, and Eddie forces himself to let go and get his shit under control.
“Sorry,” he says, a little self-deprecating smile curling his lips. “I guess I’m out of practice.”
“Yeah, I can see that,” Buck half-laughs, ducking his head. “You’re doing great, though. You—you’re great, Eddie. Christopher is more than great. Anyone lucky enough to have the two of you, huh—” Buck’s voice dies a little, and he clears his throat. Eddie feels his heart swell two sizes, comforted by his best friend’s kindness. “Well. I’m sure she knows that.”
“It would explain why she hasn’t run for the hills yet.”
“I dunno. The window in the living room was open, wasn’t it?” Buck jokes, and before Eddie can reply, he’s pulling the door open and walking off with one last half-hassed wave over his shoulder.
Go with your guts, Buck said. Eddie takes a deep breath and tries to listen.
*
The next morning, Eddie drags his body into the station and blinks angrily at all the bright lights. Whoever designed the building must’ve been a grade-a sadist.
Eddie is, like, only three minutes late; but Buck is already in uniform, perched on the balcony, and he wolf-whistles, loud and obscene, when he sees the mess of dark circles and stubble on Eddie’s face.
“You had fun last night? Or this morning? Or, last night and this morning?” he asks, way too fucking chipper for the ungodly hour.
Eddie doesn’t have the energy for a full answer. He shakes his head and ducks into the locker room. He can hear the quick stomp of Buck’s feet coming down the stairs, but doesn’t acknowledge it.
Chim is slipping into his pants and gives Eddie a once-over, smirking slightly.
“I wish I had the lungs to sing Hot for Teacher without embarrassing myself more than I want to embarrass you,” he says, doing a little air guitar too.
Eddie is about to point out that Chim doesn’t have the lungs to sing anything without embarrassing himself, except maybe very simple nursery rhymes that don’t require any particular vocal extension, when Buck barges into the room, slipping on the glistening floor and nearly face-planting into Eddie’s locker.
Suddenly, Eddie turns bright red and he wants to put his back to a wall to feel a little less exposed.
“I didn’t—it’s not what you’re thinking, you jerks,” he says, rubbing his face. “Ana went home a little after you left, Buck. It was Christopher—he woke me up at, light, five, he was so excited to show me this science project he made yesterday.”
“Oops, sorry, my bad,” Buck says, and he’s grinning from ear to ear, so that undermines the apology a little.
Eddie smiles despite himself, and kicks off his shoes. “It’s fine. It was worth it.”
“Right?!”
While Eddie was out eating dinner and walking around aimlessly with Ana, Buck and Christopher had put together a superbly detailed diorama of the water cycle, complete with shimmering glaciers and actual, remote-controlled falling rain.
It was seriously impressive. Better than anything Eddie could’ve come up with, anyway. And they’d even cleaned up perfectly after themselves.
Buck is delighted at Eddie’s approval; he waits for Eddie to be done changing, practically buzzing with energy. Then he throws his arm around Eddie’s shoulders and pulls out his phone to show him the six thousand videos he took as he and Christopher worked on the diorama.
Eddie’s arm naturally comes up to curl around Buck’s hip as he guides him upstairs, to the couch, where they’ll sit until the next call, discussing the relative merits of vinyl glue against silicone.
Chim, by now used to being neglected by those two, shakes his head and carries on doing his shirt’s buttons up.
These past few days, he and Maddie have been binge-watching Disney animated classics to be ready when the kid comes around. It just so happens that last night’s film of choice was Hercules, so it’s only a matter of chance when Chim starts singing under his breath, hips swaying exaggeratedly, “Who d’you think you’re kidding, he’s the earth and heaven to you, try to keep it hidden, honey we can see right through you~”
*
It’s a week later when Buck shoves a pan of potatoes in the oven, checks the consistency of his green sauce—Christopher will only eat salmon if it’s literally drowning in a sauce that’s thick enough that it could hold together a wall and in the exact shade of radioactive waste, but that doesn’t mean it’s gotta taste like shit—and then goes to throw himself on the couch, forcing an impromptu cuddling session on Chris, who’s more than glad to oblige.
Jesus, Buck hopes the kid never gets too old for cuddles.
They start another round in Mario Kart, and by now they’ve spent so much time together that Buck is kind of a scholar at everything Christopher, so he knows something’s bothering him just from the odd stiffness in his shoulders as they play.
He doesn’t push it, though, confident that Christopher will talk when he’s ready. He’s the smartest Diaz by a long mile, after all.
Christopher literally shreds him, there’s little pieces of Buck’s dignity all over the Rainbow Bridge. Buck laughs and goes to check on the potatoes; they’re done, so he throws the salmon in a pan for a quick sear and calls out to Christopher to come set the table.
They sit close together, Christopher’s plate nearly overflowing with green sauce. Buck knocks their knees together and smirks.
“Should’ve gotten you a bowl,” he says, as Christopher stabs blindly with his fork through the sauce looking for a perfectly bite-sized piece of fish or potato.
Christopher isn’t buying the joke, though. Whatever he has on his mind, it’s gotta be pretty serious.
Buck bites his tongue and waits, and waits, and waits, but luckily it’s not that long a lull in the conversation.
“Bucky,” Christopher says, and gosh, he sounds so serious, it’s adorable. “Why does Ms. Flores call Dad Edmundo all the time?”
That’s—well. Buck was expecting something more adherent to what they usually discuss, games or books or natural disasters or weird science facts. Christopher’s question feels… kind of loaded, and definitely out of Buck’s sandbox.
But Eddie isn’t here to answer—he’s out with Ana again, not that Buck needed the reminder or the mental images—and Christopher’s brow is all knotted and worried and he’s not meeting Buck’s eye, so.
Buck makes an executive decision and sighs.
“Well, I’m—I can’t really speak for her, but that’s your dad’s name, isn’t it?”
Nice and tactful and appropriate. Buck wants to pat himself on the back. Except Christopher doesn’t look too impressed. In fact, he rolls his eyes at Buck.
“Yeah, but nobody ever calls him that. Like, not even abuela, and you know she doesn’t even like English very much,” he points out, oh so wise.
Buck scrambles for a second. “Maybe it’s something special between them, y’know? Like, I’m Buck to everyone, but you—sometimes you call me Bucky, and it’s just you.”
Christopher looks downright insulted at that. “You like Bucky.”
“Of course I do, I love Bucky, Bucky is great,” Buck squeaks immediately, throwing his hands up in surrender.
“Dad doesn’t like Edmundo,” Christopher says, with a wobbly pout to his mouth. “It’s stuffy and serious and irky. Dad is not—he’s not the bad guy, he would never betray his family and make Aslan die for him, you know he wouldn't!”
Now Christopher’s eyes are heavy with tears and oh man, Buck is fucking this up, isn’t he? Christopher looks at him waiting—a little desperate—and Buck realizes this is not the time to launch into a heartfelt defense of poor Edmund The Just, High King of Narnia. That one, Chris will have to understand on his own when he’s old enough.
Right now Buck, as the only adult in the room, needs to take a deep breath and address the underlying problem that Christopher doesn’t even realize he has.
Buck smiles, and slides off his chair to kneel so that he’s at eye-level with Christopher. The kid’s shoulders are tiny and bony in his wide hands, and not for the first time Buck wishes he could hold him entirely in his palms, where Chris would be safe and warm and protected forever.
“Buddy,” he says, his voice softer than it’s ever been. “Your dad isn’t leaving. You know that, right?”
“But he’s never here,” Christopher sniffles, so so so quiet, almost as if he’s ashamed to admit his feelings. “He goes away with her and I can’t go with them and people always leave, Bucky.”
God, God, Buck is not equipped to rehash this conversation. It broke his heart the first time around, and now—now, Chris needs him again. So, ready or not, Buck is going to smother him in comfort as well as he can.
He engulfs Christopher into a hug while he tries to collect his thoughts and organize them into something vaguely coherent.
When they pull apart, it’s not just Christopher’s eyes that are wet and shiny. Fucking Eddie Diaz, making Buck ride the emotional rollercoaster time and time again and he’s never even fucking here to help.
“You know what I think, buddy?” Buck says, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. “I think you’re right—your dad doesn’t like the name Edmundo very much, but he’s also a good guy, and he’s polite, so he’s probably just waiting for the right moment to ask Ms. Flores to call him Eddie. And that’s okay, you hear me? Your dad is being nice to her, because he likes Ana more than he dislikes the name Edmundo. Does that make sense?”
Christopher thinks about it for a moment, then he nods, a little weakly.
“He must really like her a lot,” he mumbles, and he doesn’t sound too happy about it.
“Yeah,” Buck says, sharing the underwhelmed sentiment. Then he bites his tongue and tries again, forcing a smile: “Yeah, I think he does. I thinks she makes him really happy.”
And isn’t that just fan-fucking-tastic, Buck thinks, but shoves the traitorous thought deep down, careful not to let it show on his face. No matter how much heartache it causes him, he can’t antagonize Eddie’s new girlfriend around Christopher; he can’t fuck this up for Eddie.
“It doesn’t matter what people call him, Chris—your dad is your dad and he loves you more than anything, okay? That’s never going to change,” Buck says, brushing his thumb over Christopher’s warm cheek. “And, oh, how about this—we can start calling him all sorts of names too, yeah? I’ve always thought he looks a lot like an Archibald, what do you think?”
It’s a weak joke, but maybe Buck’s luck is turning, because Christopher chuckles anyway.
“I hate it,” he says, his smile growing. “Can we call him Archibald Leopold Reginald?”
Buck puts his hands on his face, a life-size embodiment of the scared emoji, except he’s laughing with it, too. “Archibald Leopold Reginald Napoleon the Fifth, you say? I love it.”
Chris laughs, a full belly laughter that has him throwing his head back and kicking his feet a little. Something settles in Buck’s chest, and he ruffles the kid’s hair before going back to his plate.
After dinner, they curl up on the couch to watch Narnia—the one with the ship, at Buck’s explicit request, because Christopher needs to see that Edmund is actually a fascinating, complex and fun character, thanks. Also, Buck is never going to say no to getting an eyeful of Ben Barnes in swirly puffy fantasy outfits.
Also—have Edmund and Caspian always been so indiscreet with their flirting? The sword fighting with the literal heart eyes? What? The long, lingering looks and all the incessant touching? What? Jesus, this is supposed to be a family movie. Buck almost covers Christopher’s eyes and ears a couple of times.
Buck falls asleep and doesn’t realize it until the soft click of the front door closing wakes him up. He’s still blinking a hazy dream of kings and centaurs away from his eyes when he feels Eddie coming up behind the couch.
Buck tilts his head back over the armrest, and smiles sleepily up to Eddie, who looks—well, there’s not one day that goes by with Eddie not being the most handsome man in any room he walks into, but the nights he goes on dates with Ana he always looks especially good.
Who thought that was possible, huh?
And the date must’ve went well, too, because Eddie has this soft, kind of stunned look in his eyes, happy and content, and he’s biting his bottom lip a little, and he seems very much over the moon.
Buck’s heart aches, but in a bittersweet way. At the end of the day, all he wants is for Eddie to be happy. If he’s gotta go do that with someone else, Buck will find a way to live with it.
“Hey, Archibald Napoleon,” Buck whispers with a grin, careful to not move a single muscle because Chris is asleep on his chest, warm and just slightly heavy, wrapped in the fuzzy blanket Buck vaguely remembers pulling over them a few hours ago. “Sorry, should’ve put him to bed.”
“No, it’s okay,” Eddie murmurs back, just as quiet. “It’s still early anyway.”
“Oh,” Buck says. The accidental nap really fucked up his internal clock, but when he turns to look at the tv, he sees that the movie hasn’t ended yet. The scene is muted and he hasn’t watched this in a while, but he recognizes the liminal place with the weird frozen waves where Aslan makes the Pevensies say goodbye, so it must be close to ending.
Buck looks around for the remote, and then—then he stops moving and breathing altogether, because Eddie’s hand is on the nape of his neck, impossibly warm and large.
Buck feels his face grow warm, and if his eyes flutter closed when Eddie’s thumb strokes gently at the soft, sensitive spot behind Buck’s ear, well, that’s a secret between him and the top of Christopher’s head.
The light from the tv changes dramatically when the film is over and the credits roll; that’s enough to break the little spell they’ve been under. Eddie shivers and pulls his hand back slowly.
“Sorry,” he says, and his voice sounds strained enough that Buck tilts his head back again to steal a worried look up at him. “I just—you looked, uhm.”
Buck tucks that little incomplete sentence away; he’ll agonize about it later. Right now he has an armful of kid that needs to sleep on a real mattress, not a wall of muscle and sinew.
Careful not to jostle Christopher too much, and keeping the blanket firmly in place around him, Buck sits and stands up from the couch in one smooth motion. He’s not a natural, he’s just had a bit of practice.
Christopher mumbles in his sleep but doesn’t really wake up, only moving a little to nestle his head more comfortably in the crook of Buck’s neck. Buck can’t help the tiny smile that tugs at his lips.
Eddie makes a small, strangled sound, and Buck looks over.
“D’you want to, uhm,” he says, still whispering, and takes a half-hearted step to move Christopher over into his father’s arms.
“No, no, go ahead,” Eddie says, running a hand through his hair, messing up the impeccable coif. Buck hesitates for another second, because he doesn’t want to presume—but then Eddie urges him to go again, and his face is pink, his expression a mess of a thousand different things, and Buck doesn’t want to deal with any of that, so. He goes.
Christopher sleeps like the dead throughout the entire transfer to the bed, and Buck misses the time when sleep came to him easy and solid and deep like that. He tucks him under the covers and leaves a feathery kiss to his forehead.
Christopher doesn’t even stir.
When he turns around, Buck half-expects Eddie to be standing in the doorway, ever watchful, his arms crossed and that pinched look on his face. Instead, the hallway is uncharacteristically empty.
Buck closes the door—but not all the way, he knows the exact degree of openness Chris likes best—and walks back into the living room, shivering a little because Albert is always stealing his best, thickest socks.
Weirdly enough, Eddie is still standing in the middle of the living room, in the exact same spot where Buck left him. He still looks dazed, a little out of it, and Buck frowns, worrying.
“Chris is out like a light,” he says, walking up to Eddie and sighing in relief when his feet dig into fluffy, warm carpet. “Hey, man, are you alright?”
Eddie snaps out of whatever daydream he was lost to, and manages to put together half a smile. “Yeah, sorry, I’m—I think I’m a bit tired.”
“Ah, yes, it was a big night, was it?” Buck says, doing a decent job at concealing the bitterness, if he can say so himself. He looks around for his shoes, he knows they’ve gotta be somewhere in the room. “Don’t let me keep ya, I just have to find my—”
“By the door,” Eddie says, softly. Buck looks up, a question on the tip of his tongue, but Eddie’s smile is tiny and clever. “Your shoes? You always leave them by the door.”
He does? He hadn’t noticed.
“Right,” Buck says. “Thanks.”
Buck moves mechanically, going to the door and picking up his left boot first, undoing the laces and pulling it on. He desperately wants to stay—he never wants to leave this house, really—even if it means talking about Ana for two hours, because even stabbing himself in the heart is a better perspective than going back to his Christopher-less, Eddie-less apartment.
But Eddie doesn’t look like he’s up for a beer and a movie—in fact, Eddie looks dead on his feet—and Buck can respect that.
Eddie watches, leaning back against a wall with hooded eyes, as if life is a fucking photoshoot, and Buck fumbles with his coat’s sleeves a little.
“Oh, shit, before I forget—hug Chris extra tight tomorrow morning, okay? He’s a little worried you’ll end up loving your girlfriend more than him,” Buck says, keeping it light because, yeah, Chris did have half a meltdown about Edmundo, but it passed quickly, and he seemed okay the rest of the night.
Eddie looks a little surprised, but he nods, thoughtful.
“Yeah, of course. Thanks,” he says, still up against the wall. “I was thinking—they’re opening a new drive-in, near Dodger Stadium? They’re going to show all these classics from the 80s next week, I thought maybe we could pick one, make a night of it? You, me and Christopher? It should be pretty safe.”
Buck grins, delighted. He read about the new drive-in too, he was going to bring it up—this is wonderful.
“I’d love that, yeah,” he says, and then, because he’s the best, most masochistic friend who’s ever lived, he says: “And, look, Eds—if you, uhm, if you ever want me stay overnight, with Chris… I’d be happy to. Y’know. It’s not a problem, at all. If you need it.”
Smooth, Buckley. Way to go. He stumbled on his words badly enough that it takes Eddie a moment to catch up to what Buck actually meant.
Then, he has the nerve to duck his head and chuckle. The nerve.
“Thanks, Buck,” he says, and he pushes himself off the wall with just his shoulders and a quick crunch of his core; show-off. “I appreciate it. But, uhm—yeah, I don’t think I’ll need you to.”
Buck stares at him for a long second. He can blame the delay in computing on the fact that suddenly Eddie is close, so very close, his nice cologne a wonderful distraction.
Buck does get the hint, eventually. His face falls.
“Oh, man, Eddie—I’m sorry,” he says, genuine, because he is, okay, he wanted this to work for Eddie, he so desperately wants Eddie and Christopher to be happy and whole and loved forever, Jesus Christ.
“Yeah,” Eddie mumbles, and he sounds unusually fine for someone who just got dumped, so maybe there’s something else Buck isn’t getting. “I’ll be fine.”
“Yeah, yes, of course, but—you deserve more, Eddie, more than just fine. You deserve to be happy and—” Buck wrestles with words, torn between the need to comfort and the terror of slipping, slipping, saying too much and losing everything. He should be more open about his feelings, his therapist says, but this isn’t something he can bring out into the light; he can’t risk it, ever. So he swallows, sighs, and puts on a lopsided grin even if he’s dying inside. “Okay, I’m not good at the mushy stuff.”
“No,” Eddie says, amused beyond himself. “You’re really not.”
“Right. Well. I really am sorry, though.”
“I know,” Eddie says, and he’s so much closer now, his head tilting in the way he always does to force Buck to meet his eye—Buck’s never been able to deny him a single thing, and he’s not about to learn a new skill tonight.
Eddie looks at him like he’s searching for something, and whatever it is, he must’ve found it somewhere on Buck’s flushed cheeks and his wide eyes. Eddie puts his hands around Buck’s neck, just holding him there for a moment, then Buck almost flatlines because holy shit he’s pulling Buck in—but no, it’s okay, Eddie is pulling him in for a hug.
It lingers a bit longer than usual, and they’re pressed together from head to toe, Eddie’s head slotted neatly in the curve of Buck’s neck, on the opposite side to where Christopher had put his, not even twenty minutes ago—Jesus, it feels like that happened years ago.
Buck is the first to pull back, because if he doesn’t right now, he might never be able to.
He clears his throat. “See ya at work?”
“Yeah,” Eddie says. “Drive safe.”
Buck nods and makes himself leave. Eddie keeps the door open even when Buck is well into the driveway. Shit, Buck gets into his car and Eddie is still there, engulfed in warm light, watching.
*
Eddie wakes up and all the thoughts he had last night still ring true and urgent and so fucking right. He’s smiling when he slams a hand on the alarm clock, he’s smiling as he goes through his work-out routine, he’s smiling in the shower, he’s smiling as he flips pancakes at the stove.
“Dad, why are you so happy?” Christopher asks, a little wary. Eddie only smiles harder.
“Because I love you, mijo. Did you have a good time with your Buck yesterday?”
Christopher’s expression melts to something cheeky and tender, and really, Eddie can’t fault him.
“The best time,” he says, and it’s easy to believe it.
Eddie drops him off at school, then he calls Ana and asks her to meet him for lunch. She already has plans, but she can meet him for coffee right away, and normally Eddie would hesitate, buy himself a little time and put it off.
But he has been a fucking moron long enough—it took having his heart almost giving out at the sight of Christopher sleeping safe and sound in Buck’s arms last night for him to realize it—so he says, “Alright, I’ll be there in fifteen.”
He’s smiling as he drives in nightmarish traffic, and he’s smiling as he pulls over into a parking lot across the street from a cozy—fancy and artsy—coffee shop.
He keeps that damn smile off his face as he goes to meet Ana, though, because he’s not a fucking monster.
“You’re great,” he tells her, and he can see that she already knows everything else he’s about to say. “But—I’m sorry, there’s just something that’s not working. I think you can see it, too.”
She mulls it over, purses her lips to one side.
“I thought—well, I hoped you just needed time,” she says, stirring her coffee with her beautiful slender fingers and Eddie doesn’t have to feel guilty anymore about not wanting to touch them. “But that’s not what it is, right? We’ve had time. We’ve been seeing each other for over a month, and you still aren’t comfortable enough to kiss me.”
“I’m an idiot,” Eddie says, honestly. “And I’m sorry for dragging you into this.”
“No, it’s okay. It’s—it sounds trite, and maybe it is, but it’s good knowing it’s not me, you know?”
“You are perfectly wonderful,” Eddie reiterates, because she is, she is, she is. The problem was Eddie, all Eddie—he’s a colossal fucking moron, but he’s a faithful moron. And he couldn’t bring himself to even kiss her properly because it would’ve felt like cheating. On a relationship he didn’t even know he wanted until last night. “I’m really, really sorry, you didn’t deserve any of this.”
“Please, Eddie, stop apologizing, you’re making me feel bad,” she says, rolling her eyes good-naturedly.
“It’s the Silver Star glam, people always feel bad for me.”
She snorts, and he’s hurt her, so that’s even more than he deserves.
She picks up her purse and cups his cheek gently before leaving.
“I hope you get your happy ending,” she says, leaning in to kiss the corner of his mouth one last time. Once she’s turned her back on him, Eddie doesn’t fight back the smile anymore.
He’s smiling—like a lovestruck idiot—when he walks into the changing room and Buck is there, buttoning up his shirt. For once, Eddie takes his time to really look. Buck glances up, notices him staring, and just gives him a little nod and a wave.
Eddie should be worried—so, is this normal? He feels like everything is new, like he’s finally giving in to what he’s wanted to do for a very long time, but if Buck isn’t reacting any differently than usual, is this how Eddie has always been? Is he really so fucking oblivious?—but he can’t really muster up the energy to.
“You’re late again,” Buck says, all snickering and sly, as Eddie throws his bag on the floor
and starts undoing his belt.
“It’s not even five minutes, Buck,” Eddie says, rolling his eyes, still smiling. He’s a real kaleidoscope of feelings. “You’re early.”
“I’m always early. And you’re always late.”
“You’re never early. And I’m never late.”
“Are too.”
“Am not,” Eddie says, entirely aware that they have descended into third-grade rhetoric proficiency.
Just to confirm it, Buck sticks his tongue out to him. Eddie throws his head back and laughs—shit, this idiot truly does make him happy, doesn’t he? Eddie just wants to be around him all the time, closer and closer and closer, possibly until they can’t tell where one begins and the other ends.
Buck looks inordinately proud, the way he does every time Eddie laughs at something he said or did.
Eddie changes into his uniform pants, pulls off his shirt, then he casually leans into his locker. Buck is busy fixing his hair in the tiny mirror stuck on the inside of his locker, and this is entirely too much like high school. It’s fucking great. Better, even, because Eddie can be as shirtless as he pleases.
He knocks gently on the back of Buck’s locker shutter, and Buck pulls it half closed, peering over, curious.
Eddie bites his lip and he knows what he looks like, okay; even if he didn’t, Buck’s cheeks suddenly turning bright pink would be a good indicator he’s doing something right.
“Wanna grab dinner tonight?”
Buck blinks and, now that he’s really looking, Eddie can see the slight shift in his eyes, from someone who openly wants—wants to reach out and touch, explore, kiss and bite and lick and own—to friend, best friend, buddy, pal, platonic life partner forever.
Now that he’s really looking, Eddie sees all the ways he’s been breaking Buck’s heart and—it’s enough to stop him from breathing.
“Sure,” Buck says, shrugging easily, his eyes hammered to Eddie’s face, never darting downwards. “Pizza for three?”
“Nah, abuela confiscated Chris for the night,” Eddie replies, dripping amusement to hide the white lie—he’d called her and begged and promised to take care of her garden for the rest of the season if she agreed to take him on such a short notice. It’s worth it even if only for the surprised, pleased little smile Buck throws his way.
“Uh, okay,” he says. “I mean I’ll miss my best friend, but I guess you’ll do too.”
“Great. I was thinking—that burger place you liked, downtown?”
Buck’s eyes roll back a little at the memory. Eddie stares. “Oh God, the one with the triple cheese wings? Yes, please. Your place or mine?”
“Oh, I think they still do dinner service,” Eddie says, all casual. He doesn’t think; he knows. He called. There’s no need to tell Buck, though. “I can call, see if we can get a table.”
They have a table. No need to share that insignificant detail either.
Buck looks positively impressed, if a little thrown by the entire thing.
“Okay, I’m not sure what’s the occasion, but I’m all for it,” he says, trying to laugh.
Eddie smirks. He pulls on a shirt, finally—yes, he knows it was getting awkward—then smooths it over his stomach, and he turns towards Buck.
He puts his hand on Buck’s shoulder, very deliberately, his thumb automatically going to rest against the soft hollow of Buck’s neck.
Eddie says, in a ridiculous low and husky voice, “I don’t need an occasion to take you out to dinner, Buck.”
When he turns to leave, he swears he hears Buck whimper. It’s adorable.
Yes, Eddie was approximately six hundred years late to realizing that he is in love with his fucking best friend, and he’s planning on wooing him with burgers, beers and hopefully some kissing tonight. But that doesn’t mean he can’t make fun of him a little.
*
Eddie has been acting weird all day. Buck should be worried, probably, but it’s a good kind of weird—soft, playful, teasing, and pretty sweet. After lunch he made Buck think he’d spilled mayo on his uniform just so he could flick his nose when Buck looked down.
Yeah, he’s acting weird. Buck would even go as far as to saying that Eddie seems—happy. Happier than he’s been in a very, very long time.
Bobby, Hen and Chim all pick up on it pretty quickly, and they turn to Buck for answers, but honestly, he’s as lost as they are.
“I dunno what to tell you guys,” Buck says, after Eddie has handed him a cup of fresh coffee brewed to his liking exactly before going downstairs to do unnecessary inventory. “All I know is Ana dumped him last night—or he dumped her, maybe, he wasn’t very liberal with details.”
“That does not look like a heartbroken man,” Hen says. Christ, they can hear Eddie whistling.
“Maybe he finally snapped,” Chim muses, which, Buck is forced to consider as a very real, very scary possibility.
“Well, if he murders me tonight, we’ll know,” he sighs.
Hen looks amused when she asks, “What’s happening tonight?”
“We’re—uhm, I’m going to dinner with him,” Buck says, and he doesn’t know why he’s blushing, but he thinks he hides it well behind his steaming mug. Just to clarify and make it sound a little less ridiculous, he adds, “We’re getting burgers.”
Bobby says, “Did you ask him?”
Buck shakes his head. “Other way ‘round, cap.”
“Oh,” Bobby simply says, his lips curling into a small, private smile. Buck stares at him.
“What?” he asks, because, really, what? What’s that face? Why’s Bobby looking at him all soft, like he sees something Buck doesn’t?
“Nothing. I remembered something funny.”
“Bobby, I do not believe you for one second—”
“My phone is ringing,” Bobby says, one finger in the air, and he starts walking away towards his office, where his phone is most definitely not ringing.
Buck stares at him, his mouth hanging open.
Hen and Chim are stifling laughter. Badly. So everyone’s in on the joke and Buck is the only one who doesn’t get it. Fine, alright, they can keep their secrets, he’s not offended.
He has dinner to look forward to.
*
The last call of the day runs a little long, so Eddie and Buck agree to just shower at the station and drive to the burger place from there. If Buck pretends to have forgotten his toiletries in his car just so that he can spare himself the torture of showering next to Eddie’s stupidly chiseled abs, well, nobody needs to know.
When they’re clean and back in civvies, they get into their cars and go different ways, so they can maximize their chances of actually making it in time for their reservation.
Buck drives a little recklessly, if he’s being honest. He hasn’t hanged out with Eddie alone in forever, and he feels like he’s bursting at the seams with excitement.
When he gets out of his car, Eddie is already waiting in front of the burger joint. He must’ve broken every single traffic law and the speed of light to get here so quickly, and he looks every ounce as happy and giddy as Buck feels.
Eddie got them an outside table—“It’s not that cold anymore, and I thought, they have this nice garden,” “Eddie, shut up, it’s great,”—and it is really nice, but still rustic enough that Buck can enjoy his sauce-dripping burger without worrying too much about his table manners.
He has a fucking brilliant time, but then again, he always does when he’s with Eddie. They laugh easily and gossip about their co-workers and end up climbing a philosophical hill about student debts and the future of the country. When they don’t agree about something, it’s civil and amicable and they ruthlessly tease each other over it with mirth and affection.
Buck is on his best behavior tonight, determined to be the best pal in the world, he even gave himself a little pep talk in the car, but Eddie—Eddie is so happy and peaceful and comfortable, he’s making it impossible for Buck.
Eddie’s knees keep knocking into Buck’s under the table and it’s fucking distracting. After a few attempts at adjusting, they just end up tangling their legs together, and that’s distracting. Eddie’s face is distracting. His big hand wrapped around the beer stein is downright sinful. The way he almost chokes around a mouthful of burger because Buck made a joke at exactly the wrong time is endearing and perfect. His big brown eyes are so unfairly gorgeous. His hair is especially fluffy, because he didn’t bother brushing it after the quick shower at the station.
Buck has been biting the inside of his cheek for most of the evening. He’s probably about to taste blood.
Then, Eddie reaches over the table—which is candlelit, by the way—and his thumb is brushing at the corner of Buck’s lips, coming away orange with a smudge of curry-mango sauce. Buck is about to die and then Eddie puts the thumb in his own mouth, licking the sauce off and making a happy face about it.
“That’s good,” he says, like what he just did is okay.
It still doesn’t occur to Buck that this is, in fact, a fucking date.
They share a plate of spicy, curly fries and Buck doesn’t realize it’s a date. Eddie looks at him like he hung the moon in the sky just because Christopher asked, and Buck doesn’t realize it’s a date. They get a third round of beers, and Eddie’s hand wraps around his wrist on the table, and stays there for the rest of the evening, and Buck still doesn’t realize.
Well, it’s not that he’s an idiot. He just—can’t even bring himself to hope, you know?
By the time they’re sharing another plate of curly fries because they both agree desserts are for suckers, Buck is maybe starting to let himself believe it just a little. If only for the way the waitress is looking at them like they’re the cutest thing she’s ever seen in her life.
If this was a date—and for the record, Buck is totally not assuming it is—then it would pretty much be the perfect fucking date.
Buck would gladly never leave. But they have to, eventually.
They shuffle inside, and Eddie literally bodychecks Buck away from the register to keep him from paying. Buck giggles, and he’s a little buzzed and a lot fucking happy, so he crowds into Eddie’s personal space—which isn’t unusual—and hooks his chin over Eddie’s shoulder.
“Eddieee,” he whispers, staring at the side of Eddie’s face, and even if he can’t see it because of the facemask, he can tell that Eddie is grinning like a fool. He likes it when Eddie grins. “Eddie, I’ve gotta tell you a secret.”
“Of course,” Eddie says, punching in his pin code and blushing prettily under the cashier’s amused look.
Buck shuffles closer, positively plastering himself all against Eddie’s warm and solid back. Eddie doesn’t seem to mind; in fact, he leans into it. Buck gasps a little—he did not expect that, that was deliberate, not casual, like they always do; that was different—and he loses his balance, even if he’s just standing there. His hands go sit on Eddie’s hips, and it’s all better.
“Eddie,” Buck says, his eyes wide. “I think maybe this was a date. Did you take me out on a stealth date?”
The cashier is outright laughing now. Buck turns to her with a goofy smile she can’t see because masks, but he’s pretty sure she can tell, even if she doesn’t know him as well as Eddie does.
Eddie’s shoulders are shaking with laughter too, his entire body pushing back against Buck’s, not away, just closer.
Eddie’s hand comes up to cup the nape of Buck’s neck, which is quickly becoming Buck’s favorite thing in the world. He hums under his breath, and squeezes Eddie’s hips, just to make sure he’s really real.
Eddie gets his receipt, Buck puts a lot of cash in the tip jar even if Eddie surely already left a tip with the check, and they walk out of the restaurant, bumping shoulders a lot. They start walking in the general direction of Buck’s truck.
Buck keeps stealing looks over to Eddie, and every time Eddie is looking right back. It feels—intoxicating.
Buck leans back against the side of his truck and unhooks his mask, licking his lips. The sun is slowly setting and Eddie, his mask off too, is breathtaking in the purplish haze all around them. He steps right into Buck’s personal space, front and center, staring up at him with a small smile, almost secretive.
Buck’s hands go to Eddie’s hips by their own volition.
“A stealth date, Buck?” Eddie says, extremely amused. “Really?”
“Hey, it was your idea,” Buck bites back, pretending to pout, and it makes Eddie laugh.
Eddie, still laughing, leans right in and kisses him. His lips are soft and the gentle burn of his stubble is fantastic and the way his teeth pull on Buck’s bottom lip is so hot it should be illegal. Buck is really glad it isn’t, though.
Eddie’s hand reaches out to cup the side of Buck’s face, and when they come up for air, and Eddie looks at him like that—the exact same way he always has, really, but now he’s being honest about it, calling things with their rightful name—Buck finally—finally—gives in and lets himself believe he’s not alone in this. He is wanted. He is loved.