Archive of Our Own

Eddie finds him sitting on the back of one of the 133 ambulances, wrapped in a shock blanket. One of their paramedics is leaning over him, checking his pupils, holding an oxygen mask to his face. Eddie’s legs are carrying him over there before he’s made a decision about it.

“How’s he doing?” Eddie asks the paramedic—Ramirez, he thinks—without taking his eyes off Buck.

“Could be worse,” Ramirez replies. “Smoke inhalation, minor concussion. We’re gonna have to transport him just to be safe.”

Buck lifts the oxygen mask away. “Eddie, I’m fine.”

Ramirez raises his eyebrows at Eddie, shaking his head slightly, but packs up his kit and moves on to the next patient.

Eddie sits beside Buck, the nearness of him settling something inside him. “You really scared us, you know.”

It was as Eddie had stumbled out of the building with May and Bobby that he’d heard it over Bobby’s radio—may day, firefighter down. Two firefighters trapped under debris near fourth floor north window. Firefighter Buckley, come in. Firefighter Han, are you there?

Eddie’s heart had stopped, and he was already turning back toward the building when Bobby’s arm shot out, grasping him by the shoulder. 

And a tense moment later: This is Firefighter Han—other Firefighter Han—with the 118. Got eyes on both of them.

“He’s got them, Eddie,” Bobby said. “Chimney’s got them.” 

And he had. With Ravi’s help, Chimney had managed to get Buck and Albert out. Eddie hadn’t been able to stop himself from crashing into Buck as they emerged from the smoke, wrapping him up tight in his arms like he’d never let go. He had, eventually, but only because Buck still needed to get checked out. 

But now Eddie’s sitting next to Buck, both of them whole and alive, the call center still smoldering across the way.

“Albert okay?” Buck asks, lifting the oxygen mask away again.

“He’s good,” Eddie answers. “Chimney’s good. May and Bobby are good, too. We all made it out.”

Buck closes his eyes, swallows. “For a minute there, I wasn’t sure I would.”

Eddie’s chest clenches. He doesn’t want to think about that. Doesn’t want to go back to those heart-stopping moments when he wasn’t sure he’d ever see Buck again.

Buck is looking down at his own hands, fidgeting with the oxygen mask. Something’s on his mind—Eddie can always tell. 

It doesn’t take long. “Eddie,” Buck says. “I need to tell you something.”

It almost stops his heart again, how serious he sounds. The way he still won’t look up at him.

“Okay,” Eddie says. “You know you can tell me anything, right?”

“Yeah,” Buck says. “It’s just, uh. I really thought I was gonna die. And—and it just made me think about, you know, the people in my life. And the people I love the most and—god, this is probably a really bad idea, forget I—”

“You’re shaking,” Eddie says, because he is, trembling like a leaf. He catches one of his hands, folds it between his own. “Hey, it’s okay. Whatever it is, it’s gonna be okay.”

“Y-you promise?” Buck asks, looking at Eddie for the first time since he started talking. His eyes are so wide and open and blue.

Eddie squeezes his hand. “Of course.”

Buck stares at him a little desperately. “Eddie, I—I’m in love with you.”

There was a moment, right after a bullet ripped through Eddie in broad daylight in the middle of the street, when he was still standing, when the pain hadn’t reached him yet and it felt like time had stopped. A moment when all he could do was stare at Buck’s shocked face.

This moment feels just like that. The same feeling that nothing could have prepared him for this. The same feeling that the entire world had been upended in a fraction of a second.

“Buck,” Eddie says, but he has nothing to follow it up with, there’s not a single other word in his head.

“Alright Buckley, we’re cleared for transport,” Ramirez’s voice barrels into the moment, shattering it.

Buck startles, blinks, and Eddie feels himself slide off the ambulance as the 133 packs Buck inside. Eddie just stands there, still staring as the doors close between them.

It’s only when Buck’s out of sight that Eddie’s brain starts working again.

“Ramirez,” Eddie says. “What hospital are you taking him to?”

“Memorial,” Ramirez replies, and then slips over to the driver’s side door.

A minute later, they drive away.

Let it be known, Eddie Diaz is not a coward. He is a grown man and definitely, absolutely, doesn’t need to drive home and pick up his eleven-year-old son (who, it must be noted, is already up past his bed time) and bring him to the hospital just because Eddie is too afraid of being in a room alone with his best friend after said best friend confessed his love to him a mere hour ago. 

He just wanted to see Chris as soon as possible, is all. And Buck will be happy to see him, too.

Buck is happy to see him. He lights up and shouts “Christopher!” at the top of his lungs as Chris barrels into his hospital room, throwing his arms around Buck.

“What are you doing here, buddy?” Buck asks, pleased and surprised. “Shouldn’t you be asleep right now?”

“Dad said I could stay up to come get you.”

“Get me?” Buck asks, but his eyes dart over Christopher’s head to Eddie, who’s hanging back in the doorway.

“They’re not keeping you overnight, are they?” Eddie asks casually.

Buck shakes his head mutely, but he looks a little overwhelmed. “You didn’t have to—I mean Bobby’s here, he said—”

“Buck,” Eddie says. “Let me take you home.”

Buck swallows and then nods. He looks so young, suddenly, under the fluorescent hospital lights.

Chris climbs up onto the hospital bed, situates himself at Buck’s side.

“Are you gonna be able to go to the Observatory this weekend?” Chris asks.

“C’mon, I’m not going to let a little bump on the head stop me!” Buck says. “I’ve been looking forward to it all week.”

“Me, too,” Chris says, and then they’re off, discussing all the cool exhibits at Griffiths that Buck has researched ahead of time. Eddie lets the sound of their excited chatter wash over him as he lingers by the door.

It’s funny, maybe, that this hospital is exactly where Eddie first put words to how he felt about Buck, at least in his own head. Except then, their positions had been reversed—Eddie lying in his hospital bed, arm all bandaged up, and Buck in the doorway, appearing like the first glimpse of sun after a dark night.

And Eddie had just known. With his girlfriend sitting two feet away, Eddie had looked up at Buck and known that he was completely, utterly gone on him. There was no denying it anymore, no bargaining with it—it just was, and Eddie just had to deal with it.

So he had—for almost a year now, he’s been dealing with it. Through his recovery, the rest of his ill-fated relationship with Ana, the hostage situation, Taylor Kelly, quitting the 118, a total breakdown—all of it. His feelings for Buck were constant and absolute—he wanted Buck in every and any way he could have him. 

But in all that time, Eddie had never once thought about telling him. There was the fact that Buck, until recently, was with someone else. There was the fact that Buck had never once mentioned liking men. There was the fact that, all that aside, until an hour ago Eddie had been certain that Buck loved him only as a friend.

I don’t worry about things I can’t control, Eddie had said once, and he meant it. It was enough, wasn’t it, to have Buck in his life at all? It was enough to have his friendship, his care, his generous heart. It was enough that over and over again, Buck stepped inside the mess that was Eddie’s life and said here, take my hand, we’ll find the way out together.

It was more than enough, it was more than anything Eddie could have asked for, and he’d decided a long time ago that he would never do anything to jeopardize it.

It wasn’t that Eddie thought that giving voice to his feelings would scare Buck away, or freak him out, or create some unnavigable breach in their friendship. Four years into whatever it was they were doing, they were too damn solid for that. It was more that there was no point.

Buck didn’t feel the same way, so why put that on him? Why tell him something that would only make him think he was hurting Eddie by not wanting him back? Why make it his problem?

Only now, of course, Eddie knew that he was wrong. That Buck did want him back. That he loved him.

It was something that, two hours ago, Eddie hadn’t even known how to hope for.

Even now, watching Chris and Buck chattering in their own little world, Eddie aches with something he doesn’t know how to name. 

He owes Buck an answer, he knows that. And he knows what that answer has to be, even if he’d rather run blindfolded across the 405 than give it. When it comes down to it, there’s a whole universe of things Eddie would rather do than hurt Buck.

Buck has given him something so unfathomably precious and Eddie—he can’t give him anything back except pain. Because that’s what happens, isn’t it? Eddie hurts the people who love him. His parents, Chris, Shannon…he’s hurt all of them, in so many ways, over the years. It was only a matter of time before it happened to Buck, too.

But Eddie knows better, now. He’s not going to draw out the hurt like he did with Shannon, with Ana. He’s not going to let it get that far.

So when the nurse comes in and lets them know Buck is all set to be discharged, Eddie drives him home and quietly prepares himself for one of the most painful conversations of his life.

Christopher begins to drift off in the back seat on the way back to Buck’s apartment, and Buck is quiet, fiddling with the radio, the passing streetlights painting shadows over his face.

When Eddie finally pulls up to his apartment building, Buck already has one hand on the door handle as he says to the windshield, “Thanks. For coming to the hospital.”

“You don’t have to thank me for that,” Eddie says. “You know I’ll always come. Always.”

Buck nods. Eddie has to do it now. Has to do it quick, before he can doubt himself. 

But before he can marshal the words from his mouth, Buck is hopping out of the truck and half-jogging up the steps of his building.

“Buck, wait—” Eddie throws open his own door and goes after him.

Buck stops halfway up the steps, turning on his heel to face him and throwing out his arms. “We don’t have to do this.”

“I think we do,” Eddie replied, measured. “Earlier, I was caught off-guard. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Buck says. “I’m the one who—I should be sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking, let’s—can we just forget it?”

“Buck,” Eddie says, helpless.

“Please,” Buck says. “I don’t want things to be awkward. I can’t handle that. I don’t—I just need us to stay friends. Can—can we?”

Eddie steps toward him, mounting the stairs until he’s close enough to look Buck in the eye, one step below. “Of course we’re still friends. That’s not even a question, Buck. You’re—you’re so important to me. To us. You know that, don’t you?”

Buck nods again, his expression cracked wide open in the soft lights of the apartment complex. There’s fear there, and gratitude. Pain and love. So much of it Eddie almost can’t look at it head on, needs the buffer of Chris or the cover of half-darkness again to face it. But he needs Buck to know this, to trust it, if they’re ever going to survive this.

They will survive this. Eddie won’t accept anything else.

“As long as you want us, you’ve got us,” Eddie swears. “But if you…if you need space, or—anything, really. I’d understand.”

He’d understand, sure, but it wouldn’t tear him up inside any less.

Buck slowly shakes his head. “No, I—no. I don’t want that. I just want us to be okay.”

Eddie smiles—his best approximation of one, at least, when he can feel his heart cracking in his chest. He reaches for Buck, a hand on his shoulder. Familiar. Grounding. “You’re my best friend. You’re family. Nothing’s going to change that.”

Buck returns his smile, a little dimmed, a little hesitant, but it’s genuine and full of relief. “Thanks, Eddie.”

Eddie shakes him a little by the shoulder. “Get some rest, all right? Chris is really looking forward to this weekend.”

Buck steps out of his hold. “I am, too.”

“We’ll see you then,” Eddie says, like a promise. He starts back down the stairs, and on the bottom step he turns to watch Buck go through the glass doors and cross the lobby to the elevator bank. He doesn’t look away until the elevator slides shut and whisks Buck away from him.

The thing about Buck confessing his love is that it actually changes very little. It would have been easy, now that they don’t work together, to let themselves drift apart. But Eddie asked if he needed space, and Buck said no—and if Eddie’s being honest, he’s pretty sure it would’ve killed him if Buck had said yes.

So they commit, ruthlessly, to maintaining the routine they’d built up in the weeks since Eddie quit the 118. Movie nights with Chris, dinners with Pepa and Abuela, park days with Carla or, lately, Maddie and Jee-Yun, or sometimes just the two of them and Chris.

Eddie meant what he said—Buck’s family, and that’s never going to change.

He searches for signs that Buck is secretly miserable, that hanging out with Eddie and his kid is like driving a knife into an open wound but—he just doesn’t see it. If Buck is hurting, then he’s hiding it well. His smiles are just as easy, his jokes just as quick as they always were. Eddie feels relief wash over him every time Buck teases him, or their gazes meet to exchange a private little joke, or Buck stretches out on Eddie’s couch like he owns it because—here’s proof that for once Eddie made the right choice. Telling Buck the truth would have ruined them, eventually, and at least this way they can still have this.

There’s really only one problem.

The thing is, Eddie had gotten kind of used to being in unrequited love with Buck. He had carved out a space for that love in himself, a place with carefully defined borders that kept it from spilling out all over his insides like wet paint. If his friendship with Buck were to remain intact, he’d reasoned, then Eddie had to stick to a few rules.

One of those rules was that Eddie didn’t let himself fantasize about Buck. Ever. No matter how hot he looked all geared up in that harness for a rope rescue, or with his curls all messy and windswept after a day at the beach, or rumpled and sweaty and worn out after a hard workout in the station gym. Eddie was allowed to look, he was allowed to appreciate, but the second that appreciation tipped over into thinking about how he could really tire Buck out, Eddie shut it down.

Because if Eddie spent a night—or a morning in the shower—thinking about what it might feel like to put his mouth all over his best friend, he’d never be able to look Buck in the eye again. Maybe it was just his Catholic upbringing, but he always felt irrationally like somehow Buck would know.

Only. Well. For some reason, now that Eddie knows that Buck feels the same way about him, Eddie can’t stop thinking about it. His mouth. His skin. His hands. The low, sleep-rumbled cadence of his voice, how it might sound in those secret hours of night or early in the morning. The thought of it is never far away, like his stupid brain has decided it’s all fair game because now he knows that Buck wants it too.

And that’s not the worst of it. As if it weren’t bad enough that Eddie’s brain assails him, daily, with dirty thoughts about his best friend, Eddie also has to deal with the other fantasies. The ones about coming home from work and Buck greeting him at the door with a kiss and the latest 118 gossip. The ones about holding his hand in the grocery store and bickering about cereal brands. The ones where they talk about the future in we and us.

It’s unimaginably selfish, he knows. He gave Buck his answer, the only answer he could give, and still he can’t stop himself from thinking about it. From imaging what their lives could be if only Eddie could deserve a life like that. If only he could could deserve someone as good, as loving, as Buck.

But he doesn’t and there’s no point dwelling on it. Except Eddie can’t seem to stop.

He watches Buck’s hand wrap around the stick-shift in the jeep and his mouth goes dry. He sees him tickle Jee-Yun until she squeals with laughter and almost blurts out, let’s have a baby. Their hands accidentally touch while doing the dishes and Eddie wants to push him back against the cabinets and press his face into the soft dip where Buck’s shoulder meets his neck and his breathe him in.

Eddie’s life is slowly devolving into one long, incredibly unfunny joke. For his part, Buck doesn’t seem to notice. 

That is, until Disney. 

For months now, Christopher has been waging a furious campaign to convince Eddie to take him to Disneyland. The negotiations started when Caden O’Conner showed up at school with “a real lightsaber, dad, it lights up and everything!” and have not let up since.

Eddie figured out pretty early on he was going to cave, but he also knew there was no way in hell he would survive a trip to Disneyland without some backup. And of course, Buck was his first choice. 

So the Disney trip has been in the works for months, and Eddie is well aware of the stakes—nothing can stand in the way of Chris having the most fun any kid has ever had at Disneyland. But it does mean that not three weeks after Buck’s confession, Eddie is going to have to spend an entire day with him. And not just any day, but a day where Buck is at his most irresistible—smiling, face a little pink from sun and exertion, having a blast making sure Chris has the time of his life.

The trip is a resounding success. They ride Space Mountain until they’re dizzy, gorge themselves on churros and “blue milk”, and wander around the new Star Wars land. Eddie makes them all go on the Indiana Jones ride, admitting to a delighted Buck that he was obsessed with Indiana Jones when he was a kid. He fills up his camera roll with pictures of Christopher beaming, Buck being ridiculous, and the three of them looking so obviously and undeniably like a family.

They get home well after Chris’s bedtime, laden with a bounty of Star Wars merchandise and Disney memorabilia, only half of which Eddie remembers buying. Chris conks out about five minutes into the drive home and barely even wakes up when Buck bundles him up and carries him to bed.

Putting Chris to bed turns into having a beer turns into having two. It all feels very normal and easy the way things have always been. But Eddie’s defenses are down after an exhausting, fun-filled day and Buck is sprawled all loose and relaxed on the couch and Eddie just—he isn’t thinking about all the things he hasn’t told Buck, he isn’t thinking about his reasons for not saying them.

He’s thinking instead about Buck’s fingers wrapped around the neck of his beer bottle. He’s thinking about the sweat-dampened curls right above his ear. He’s thinking about how bone tired he is after their day, how Chris is dead asleep in his room, how Eddie could lean in and press his mouth to Buck’s and ask him to come to bed with him. It’s not the first time Eddie’s thought about it, but it’s the first time he’s known what Buck’s answer would be.

There’s so little stopping Eddie from doing it. Just his own fraying grasp on his self-control.

“Thanks for today,” Buck murmurs over the rim of his beer bottle, lips quirking up at the corner.

“Are you serious?” Eddie asks. “Do you know how unbearable ten hours at Disneyland would have been without you?”

Buck just looks down and smiles.

“Chris had a great time,” Eddie says, soft. “He’s so lucky to have you. So am I, for that matter.”

“Eddie.”

He’s not sure, really, if the chiding note in Buck’s voice is just because he’s embarrassed or because Eddie’s stepping over some invisible line in the sand. Suddenly it’s like Buck’s confession has entered the room with them, like it has a physical presence hovering just out of sight.

And Eddie’s just tired enough and just stupid enough to look directly at it for the first time in weeks.

“Can I ask you something I’ve probably got no right to ask?” he asks, shifting a little on the couch to face Buck.

“Sure.” It comes out with a little hesitation.

“When did you know?”

Buck’s face twists. He doesn’t have to ask what Eddie means. “Uh, I don’t–there wasn’t like one specific moment. It was a lot of little things that I guess I was ignoring or explaining away for a long time until I just couldn’t anymore. And then with everything we went through this spring, I–it just felt like I couldn’t, uh, ignore it anymore. Or call it something else.”

God. He’d leaned on Buck so much through therapy and his breakdown and all the hard work of healing that came after. The healing he’s still muddling his way through. Eddie had been drowning for months and Buck was his safe harbor. And all the while Buck had been hiding these feelings, putting Eddie and Chris first and locking everything else down tight.

“Oh,” Eddie says, because if he tries to say anything else he knows what’s going to come out instead. I knew the minute I saw you sprinting into my hospital room after the shooting. You walked in and smiled at me and I just knew that everything was going to be okay. Because you were there. And you always make everything okay.

He imagines saying it. Imagines Buck’s lips parting in surprise. Imagines leaning in and taking Buck’s lower lip between his own, imagines kissing him so slow and so soft, until Buck knows he means every word. Imagines pressing him back into the couch and taking off his clothes and—god, Eddie really should have just kept his mouth shut. He needs Buck to leave before Eddie does something stupid.

“Sorry,” Buck says haltingly. The rueful twist of his lips makes Eddie ache. “That’s probably—weird, or whatever, to hear.”

“No, I—I’m the one who asked,” Eddie replies, just as stilted.“I just—didn’t realize it had gotten so late. You, uh, you have that thing tomorrow with Maddie, right?”

He can barely look at Buck, can feel his own face flaming, has to peel off the edge of his beer label just to have something else to focus on beside the horrible pit in his stomach and the ringing in his ears telling him he’s a fucking idiot.

“Oh, um,” Buck says. “Yeah I guess it’s—it’s almost midnight. I’ll just. I should go.”

Hearing Buck sound so uncertain and fragile is devastating. Because they’ve never done this dance before—the I kind of want you to get out of my house now but I’m being polite about it dance. They’ve never had to because from the first time Buck set foot in the Diaz house, Eddie has never wanted him to leave.

And now just the mere thought that Buck could feel unwanted or unwelcome makes Eddie want to climb out of his skin. But he just sits there, hunched in on himself, as Buck rises from the couch and starts gathering his things.

It takes every last shred of willpower to make himself get up and walk Buck to the door. With every step he feels like a man heading to his own execution. He has to do something to make this better. He has to try.

When Buck is just about to pass through the threshold, Eddie stops him with a hand at his elbow. “Buck.”

Buck looks back at him with that same open, vulnerable expression he’d worn the night of the call center fire.

Eddie doesn’t know what to say. Doesn’t know how to apologize for pressing on a wound so carelessly. He swallows and gets out, “I had a really good time today.”

Buck searches his face, but then he just nods and slips out. Eddie watches from the doorway as he makes his way across the lawn and into the jeep, but Buck doesn’t look back at him once before he drives off into the night.

Once the jeep is out of sight, Eddie closes the door and rests his forehead against it, wishing he was better, or maybe a little bit worse.

Hen passes the USMLE-1 with flying colors at the end of May, which means celebrations are in order. Eddie is told in no uncertain terms that his presence is mandatory. Not that he was thinking of bailing anyway—he doesn’t doubt his place with the 118 anymore, even if he’s not ready to come back just yet.

Soon, though. He’s pretty sure. He’s eager, and he knows he wants to be back with them all, but he also knows he can take his time with it. They’re not going anywhere.

(There is also a small part of him that hopes he can get this whole Buck Situation under control before it happens. He knows he can be professional and that there’s nothing that can mess with his and Buck’s perfect teamwork in the field, so he isn’t worried about that. But it also means long hours of  being in each others space and he’s not sure he’s ready for what that will do to him.)

Karen, Athena, and Chim are already nursing drinks when Eddie arrives at the bar, but Hen’s finished hers so Eddie volunteers to grab her another one.

“What’ll it be?” he asks. 

“Another whiskey would be great, thanks Eddie!” Hen says grinning. “Lagavulin.”

“Buck, you want anything?” Eddie asks. He has to steel himself a second before looking directly at him. He’s not exactly dressed up or anything, but he looks good, wrapped up in a white hoodie that makes Eddie want to just bundle him in his arms and hold on forever.

“Sure, I’ll take a beer,” Buck says. His gaze catches on Eddie and Eddie offers a smile, which Buck tentatively returns. They’re okay, Eddie tells himself. They’re fine. “Whatever’s on tap.”

Eddie nods. “Hen, did you want that Lagavulin with rocks?”

“Neat, obviously. You think I want to drink some watered-down swill?”

Eddie laughs and then hears Buck call after him as he starts to turn toward the bar. “And Eddie—”

“Not an IPA, I know,” Eddie says with a fond little eyeroll.

Chim huffs out a laugh. “You’re not even working together anymore and yet you two are just as married as ever.”

It’s the kind of thing Eddie would’ve laughed off, before. Chim doesn’t mean anything by it—he’s just being Chim. But now, shame flashes over him, heat rising into his cheeks. He feels caught out and exposed, which is stupid, but—it’s just more proof that everything Eddie’s been trying to hide is laughably obvious to everyone else.

Everyone except Buck, of course, who lets out a short bark of laughter and avoids Eddie’s eye.

Eddie just—he doesn’t need this right now, especially after the other night. He turns on his heel and marches to the bar. He can just barely make out Chim’s bewildered “Did I say something?”

He orders their drinks and opens a tab and by the time the bartender sets the second pint down in front of him, Eddie can feel Buck pull up next to him. It really is like he has a sixth, Buck-specific sense that tells him when he’s near and what he’s doing at any given time.

Like right now, for instance, he knows without looking that Buck is tense, waiting for Eddie to turn and see him.

“You know, the point of me getting the drinks was so you didn’t have to get up and come to the bar,” Eddie says, depositing the stout into Buck’s hand.

“I’m sorry,” Buck says, “about Chim.”

“Are you now responsible for every dumb joke that comes out of his mouth?” Eddie asks, sipping his hazy IPA.

“Eddie.”

“It’s fine,” Eddie insists. “I’m good. Are you good?”

Buck looks down at his beer as if it has the answer. “I know you were uncomfortable. The other night, I mean. I guess I wanted to apologize for that, too.”

Guilt sits heavily in Eddie’s gut. The last thing he wants is for Buck to blame himself for something that is completely and entirely Eddie’s problem.

“It’s not your fault,” Eddie says.

Buck scratches the side of his neck. “It kinda is. I mean. If I’d just never said anything…”

Eddie’s jaw tenses. He wants to ask if Buck wishes he’d never said anything, but he’s not sure he’ll be able to handle the answer. And tonight isn’t about them—it’s about Hen.

“Buck, it’s okay,” he says instead, a hand on Buck’s shoulder. “I wasn’t uncomfortable. It doesn’t make me uncomfortable, how you feel about me.”

It makes him feel a lot of things, but not uncomfortable. 

“You don’t have to pretend—”

“I’m not pretending anything,” Eddie says, staring straight into Buck’s eyes as he lies to him, again. “There’s—there’s nothing wrong with how you feel. I mean it. I just…I want to make sure you’re not hurt or—or anything.”

Buck doesn’t exactly look relieved. “You don’t have to worry about me.”

They both seem to realize at the same time that Eddie’s hand is still on Buck’s shoulder. 

Eddie lets it drop to his side. “Okay, well…should we head back there? This whiskey isn’t going to drink itself.”

They rejoin the others, and no one else seems to realize anything is amiss. Chim catches Eddie up on the 118’s big rescue of the week while Athena supplies some color commentary. Buck and Hen bicker good-naturedly over their L.A. food truck power rankings while Karen and Bobby egg them on. 

It’s nice, to kick back with everyone like this. Eddie finds himself relaxing into it, Chim’s dumb joke almost entirely forgotten. After another round, Bobby and Athena call it a night, but Hen claims she needs to cut loose after the stress of her exams and challenges Buck to a game of Blackout Billiards. The five of them migrate over to the pool tables.

“Sure hope you didn’t drive here tonight, Buckaroo,” Hen says with a smirk as she sinks another ball and Buck has to drink.

He scowls. “I took an Uber.”

It’s definitely a good thing he did, because by the end of the game Buck is more than tipsy and well on his way to drunk. He plants himself at the table next to Eddie and, for some reason, ends up talking his ear off about the mating habits of freshwater eels. Eddie sits there with his chin propped on his fist and listens, unable to keep the fond smile off his face. He must look completely ridiculous, but in his defense, Buck is adorable when he gets worked up about something.

“It’s crazy, Eddie, they all, I mean literally every eel alive, was born in this one place, the Sargasso Sea, but no one’s ever seen them mate or even seen a single eel egg. We’ve been looking for over a century!”

“Is he on the eel thing again?” Chim asks. “Did you just take Christopher to the Long Beach aquarium or something?”

Buck lights up. “Ooh that’s a good idea, Chris would love it.”

“I bet they know all the latest eel research there, too,” Hen says.

Eddie snorts, and Chim just rolls his eyes and turns back to Karen to finish his story about Jee-yun.

“It’s so warm in here,” Buck complains suddenly, tugging on the sleeve of his sweatshirt clumsily. “Why is it so warm?”

He starts pulling the sweatshirt off, but he’s too uncoordinated to manage it. Eddie laughs, brimming with fondness, and generously leans over to help, lifting the sweatshirt up and over his head. It takes Buck’s shirt with it, exposing him to the entire bar, but mostly to Eddie who suddenly finds himself with his mouth inches from the broad expanse of Buck’s chest.

He swallows hard, desire pooling hot in his gut as Buck, oblivious, tries to shimmy out of the sweatshirt. Eddie breathes out slowly and then yanks Buck’s shirt back down as Buck peels the sweatshirt off, finally. But now Buck’s face is right in front of Eddie, and Eddie’s hands are still at his waist, clenched in the hem of his shirt. 

Buck makes a noise, a soft little breath that sparks under Eddie’s skin. They’re just staring at each other, Buck bright pink, his mouth half-open and his eyes on Eddie’s lips. It’s obvious what’s going through his head, and not just because Eddie’s got the same thoughts loudly echoing in his.

Fuck. He needs to let go of Buck, take a step back—do something that isn’t crossing those last few inches between them and finding out what Buck tastes like.

But before he can move, Buck jerks back, blinking rapidly.

“Uh, thanks,” he says, voice cracking, clutching his sweatshirt.

Eddie forces an easy smile to his face. “Sure thing. Seems like you could use a glass of water.”

He’s not proud of it, but he flees, almost tripping over his own feet in his haste to get to the bar.

He pulls up to it, signaling the bartender, and refuses to look back at their table to see what Buck’s doing.

“I know I’m a little tipsy, but what the hell did I just witness?” 

Eddie startles to find Hen at his left elbow, one eyebrow lifted.

Eddie runs a hand over his face. “Nothing.”

“That?” Hen says emphatically. “Was not nothing.”

“He had too much to drink, that’s all,” Eddie insists.

“Okay, and what’s your excuse?”

“Two waters, please,” Eddie tells the bartender.

Hen lets the silence linger for a minute and then says, “Look, I get that this…situation is hard for both of you."

Eddie whips his head back to her. “Ah. So you know about that.”

“Yeah, I know about that,” Hen says, with a little edge of challenge. “Eddie, he told you he was in love with you.”

“You know, strangely, I do remember that,” Eddie says, with his own edge. Then he feels bad for getting defensive with Hen, who only ever wants what’s best for her friends. Who cares about Buck so fiercely and so tenderly it makes Eddie love her even more. “We’re—we’re past it, now. Mostly.”

“Is it something you get past?” Hen asks, skeptical. 

The answer, Eddie knows well, is no. Not for him, at least. “We’re…dealing with it.”

“I’m sure you think you are,” Hen says. “All I’m saying is, I know Buck’s not the only one with something on the line here. But Eddie?”

He has no choice but to look at her now. And when he does he sees the same blazing look she gets sometimes on calls when she thinks someone’s fucking up.

Eddie’s pretty sure he knows who’s fucking up in this situation.

“You better figure out what you want,” she says. “Before you both get hurt.”

The thing is, Eddie knows what he wants. He’s known it for over a year.

Knowing what he wants is not the problem. Actually having it—that’s another question.

Because Buck gives all of himself to the people he loves. He always has. And it’s always gotten him hurt.

He’d give all of himself to Eddie, if he asked. And Eddie can’t trust himself with that. If he messed it up, if he became another person who let Buck down, let him think he wasn’t enough—well he’s not sure he’d survive it.

Asking Buck for more than what they have isn’t an option, even if Buck wants it, too. Eddie already decided that. But Hen’s right—maybe Eddie can’t trust himself even with the parts of Buck he’s allowed himself to have. Not if he keeps letting the lines blur, not if he keeps tipping his hand.

He meets Hen’s gaze and nods. It’s the most concise answer he can give and he knows she gets it—that he takes her warning seriously. That he’ll do whatever it takes not to hurt Buck.

The evening winds down after that, with Chim begging off so he can get up in time to get Jee from Maddie’s in the morning. Karen drags Hen off with a sly furtive little grin that does not go unmissed by Eddie. And then Eddie finds himself alone in the booth with a drunk Buck.

“Stupid surge pricing,” Buck mutters, scowling down at his phone.

Eddie closes his hand around it. “Don’t be an idiot. I’ll give you a ride.”

Buck looks up at him. “You’re sober?”

“I’m not the one who played Blackout Billiards and is gonna wake up tomorrow regretting my entire life.”

“Hen wanted to play,” Buck says simply. Because of course it is that simple—Hen wanted to play so Buck played. It’s how he is with everyone in his life, and it makes Eddie go soft inside and also frustrates him to no end.

“Come on, hotshot, let’s get out of here.” He lets Buck lean all over him as they make their way out of the bar and down the street where Eddie parked the truck. Eddie’s pretty sure Buck isn’t drunk enough to need the support, but it gets surprisingly cold at night and Buck is warm, even without the hoodie on.

They make it to the car and head off toward Buck’s place. Eddie fiddles with the radio, twists his hands on the steering wheel, anything to stop himself from following the intense impulse to turn around and take Buck straight home to Eddie’s house so he can put Buck to bed and crawl under the covers with him.

This is what Hen meant, Eddie chides himself. He has to stop thinking like this. He made his decision. 

Buck is quiet as they drive, head against the window, watching the streetlights flash by. It’s not a bad kind of quiet. It feels peaceful, somehow, and even though Eddie can’t shake the feeling he’s going the wrong way, he can still enjoy this moment with Buck next to him.

Before he knows it, he’s pulling up to Buck’s place, and it’s impossible not to think back to that drive home from the hospital, and all the things Eddie could have said then.

“Thanks,” Buck says a little sleepily. “For driving me home.”

“You know I don’t mind.”

Buck looks over at him, head lolling against the headrest. “You’re always taking care of me.”

“Well, someone has to,” Eddie quips, which isn't really funny because Buck is wrong. He's the one always taking care of Eddie. But right now, Buck looks so, so soft, the way he’s looking at Eddie with those half-lidded eyes, sleepy and fond and like he’s Eddie’s. Eddie can’t help it, he reaches out and cups Buck’s face, thumb stroking along his strawberry mark. Buck’s eyes fall closed and he makes a little wounded sound at the back of his throat and Eddie wants-–god he just wants to keep him here, wants to press his lips to his pulse and just feel the warm thrum of of it.

It would be so easy, too.

“Eddie,” Buck says, so softly that it kind of breaks Eddie’s heart. He can see the delicate fan of his eyelashes and wants to trace each one. “I don’t know what to do with all this anymore.”

“All of what?” Eddie asks, just as soft.

Buck’s eyes blink open. They catch on Eddie’s like blue flame. “You know what.”

Eddie—he can’t do this. He can’t. He closes his eyes and just breathes for a second, slow and deep.

“I really want you to kiss me right now,” Buck confesses, his voice rough and low. “I always want you to kiss me.”

There’s a noise that wants to tear itself from Eddie’s chest. He bites it back, breath hitching. He can’t open his eyes. He can’t see Buck looking at him, longing. It will break him.

I always want to kiss you, Eddie doesn’t say. Always, always.

“What if I did?” Eddie says, his voice catching in his throat. Stupid, stupid. He can’t do this to himself. He can’t do this to Buck.

In the quiet of the truck, he hears Buck swallow. “You wouldn’t really want it,” he says. “And that would kill me.”

But I would. I do. He has to stop touching Buck. Has to let go of him. But he can’t bring himself to.

“I’m sorry,” Eddie croaks, and he’s lost track of just what, exactly, he’s apologizing for. There’s something hard and heavy like a sob building in his chest.

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for,” Buck says, and before Eddie even opens his eyes he’s pulling away, slipping out of the truck and into the building.

Eddie stares at himself in the mirror for a long time the next morning. You need to get it together, he tells his reflection.

Hen gave him a wake-up call last night, one he immediately shoved aside the minute he had Buck alone. He knows, he knows what it looks like. He’s been giving Buck all kinds of mixed signals, stringing him along, toying with him when that’s the last thing he’d ever want to do. Especially knowing Buck’s been through that before. It makes Edide feel sick, knowing he’s doing the same exact thing.

But he can’t seem to stop. It’s just so easy to fall into it, when Buck is there, when he’s looking at Eddie and smiling at Eddie and wanting Eddie. Eddie just—he’s hardwired to give Buck whatever he wants. 

But it’s not fair to Buck, when Eddie knows where it’ll end. With resentment, hurt, and disappointment when Eddie can’t be the partner Buck deserves. When he drags him down with him.

He refuses to do that to Buck.

The weekend passes in a blur of chores and work-outs and shuttling Chris to friends’ houses (now that the pandemic restrictions have lifted somewhat, he’s more popular than ever). The house feels strangely quiet.

Usually, when Buck isn’t on shift, the weekends are for them. But Eddie doesn’t reach out, and the last thing Buck had texted was just, hey, sorry if I said anything weird last night. To which Eddie had replied, you were fine. Hope your hangover’s not too bad. Remember—chicken broth cures all.

Buck had hearted the message but left it at that. Eddie’s not sure if he really was too drunk to remember what happened, or he’s just giving Eddie the out. The selfish part of him hopes Buck really doesn’t remember—but that also means that Eddie’s the only one with it rattling around in his head.

Sunday night is dinner at Abuela’s, and Eddie thinks about asking Buck to come, which he usually would. At least there, Eddie would be well-chaperoned and probably not in danger of trying to put the moves on Buck while sitting at his grandmother’s dining table. Hopefully. Maybe.

Eddie knows he needs to clear the air between them. He just has to get his head on straight first.

But that’s not what ends up happening.

Tuesday, Eddie wakes up from a nightmare so horrifically visceral, he almost throws up in the bathroom. His hands shake for the next forty-five minutes and he almost calls Carla to take Chris to school before he gets himself under control well enough to drive. He’s skittish and jumpy all morning, enough that May notices and he’s only barely able to brush her off.

On the whole, he’s been doing…better. Not great. But definitely better. This feels like a giant leap backward.

Around 3pm, he ducks into the break-room for a cup of coffee and runs into Maddie.

“Eddie, hi!” Maddie says. There’s a little thread of something like apprehension in her otherwise normal smile, and that more or less answers the question of whether Buck has confided in her about Eddie. Not that Eddie doubted it—if he’d told Hen, then he’d definitely told his sister.

“Hey,” Eddie says. “Buck said you’d started back here.”

“Yeah, just over a week ago. Guess our shifts just haven’t lined up yet,” Maddie answers.

“Ah, well, I’m actually not supposed to be in here,” Eddie says. “The coffee is for dispatchers only. Don’t tell Josh.”

“I won’t,” Maddie vows, looking amused.

They make small talk for a few minutes. Maddie shows him a cute video of Jee-yun laughing at Buck’s silly faces and Eddie takes the opportunity.

“So, how is Buck?”

“Didn’t you just see him Friday at Hen’s thing?” Maddie asks.

“Yeah,” Eddie agrees. He clears his throat. “We just—you know. I just haven’t talked to him since then.”

“Oh no,” Maddie says quickly, tucking her phone away and clearly cottoning onto what Eddie is not saying. “No, no. I’ve been told under no uncertain terms that whatever’s going on with you two is none of my business. I tried getting involved and I am not doing that again. Buck and I haven’t had a fight that bad since our parents came to visit.”

“You two fought?” Eddie asks, appalled. “Over—over us?”

He’s desperate to know what Maddie said about him, what Buck said. Because Maddie’s the one person, aside from maybe Eddie himself, who Buck always turns to when he needs advice. He listens to her, values her opinion. It’s not like him at all to fight with her over it.

“The fights Buck and I have aren’t really fights,” Maddie amends. “But Buck’s stubborn, and I can be—protective.”

“You said something he didn’t want to hear?” Eddie asks, raising his eyebrows. “Something about me?”

Maddie gives him a tight smile. “It’s not what you’re thinking. I don’t think you’ve done anything wrong, Eddie. I know you care about him, I know you’ve both been trying to do what’s best for each other. I just think he should spend a little more time thinking about what’s best for him.”

“You don’t think he’s doing what’s best for himself?” Eddie asks. He doesn’t disagree, but it’s one thing to suspect that Buck’s not as fine as he lets on, and another to have someone who knows him so well see it.

“I don’t think he even knows what that is,” Maddie answers. “But that’s kind of his whole thing.”

Eddie knows it’s true, and he probably knows what that’s like better than anyone. They’ve both done a lot of things thinking they’re right, only to wind up hurting themselves.

“But he’s—he’s doing ok, right?” he half-pleads.

Maddie looks uneasy. “You should ask him yourself.”

“And am I gonna get a straight answer?” Eddie asks pointedly. “You know how he is.”

“Yeah, I do,” Maddie says, something thoughtful in her expression like she’s suddenly seen something in Eddie she hadn’t before. Maybe she’s just realizing for the first time that she’s talking to the only other person in the world who knows Buck as well as she does. “He’s really important to you, isn’t he?”

“Aside from my son, he’s the most important person in my life,” Eddie says honestly. 

Maddie doesn’t look surprised by this revelation. “I’m pretty sure he’d say the same thing about you. Just—be good to him, okay?”

I’m trying, Eddie doesn’t say. God is he trying.

Maddie returns to her desk and Eddie to his office, but he doesn’t manage to get much done before his 5 o’clock therapy appointment. Now that they’re working out of central dispatch, he has to leave a half-hour early to beat traffic. 

He doesn’t talk about the thing with Buck with Frank. He’s seeing him so he can get himself mentally and emotionally ready to return to firefighting and this—it has nothing to do with the job, with Eddie’s trauma.

The session is a brutal one. Eddie tears up halfway through, talking about Shannon (“I swear,” Eddie once told Buck, “that Frank is trying to get me to cry most of the time.”)

“You said you felt angry toward her after she died,” Frank says in that very annoyingly calm tone.

“Yeah,” Eddie says. “I did, for a long time. She…she asked for a divorce, right before. It felt like she just gave up on us. On me.”

By the end of it he feels wrung out and exhausted, with that lingering feeling of shame for having cried. He’s already dreading thinking about putting together dinner for Chris, knows he doesn’t have the energy to stop at the grocery store, so it’ll probably end up being takeout.

But when Eddie walks through his front door, he’s hit immediately with the scent of baking garlic bread. The speed at which his brain jumps from smelling garlic bread to thinking Buck’s here! is almost comical—or would be, if it wasn’t so deeply pathetic. He’s like one of those dogs they did those experiments on, wagging tail and all.

Except a split second later he realizes that Buck isn’t supposed to be here. He would remember if they had made plans.

Still, he pauses in the archway of the living room and calls tentatively, “Buck? Is that you?”

“We’re in the kitchen!” Christopher hollers back.

Eddie makes his way over there and pauses in the dining room just to take in the scene. Buck’s back is to the door as he stirs a pot of something at the stove, chattering animatedly at Chris who’s leaning on the counter next to him. 

“Dad!” Chris yells, spotting him. “Look! Buck’s here!”

Buck spins around, smiling warmly. “Hey, Eddie.”

“Where’s Carla?” Eddie asks.

Buck’s face flashes with something like hurt or guilt, but he tucks it away before Eddie can decipher it. “You didn’t get her message?”

Eddie stares blankly for a second and then digs his phone out of his pocket to find that yes, in fact, he does have several texts and a voicemail from Carla. He’d muted his notifications before therapy and forgot to unmute.

“She had a family emergency,” Chris says, pronouncing the word emergency carefully. “So we called Buck!”

“She knew you had therapy today,” Buck says, almost apologetically. “And I was free.”

“Is everything okay with her family?”

“I think so,” Buck answers. “She updated us about an hour ago. Apparently her husband collapsed at work, but the doctor’s are pretty sure it was just low blood sugar. They’re releasing him soon.”

“Thank god,” Eddie says. “I’ll—I should give her call, check up on her.”

He calls Carla back while Buck and Chris finish up dinner. He gets the update on her husband—still waiting to get discharged, but much improved—and apologizes profusely for missing the messages.

Carla laughs him off. “Don’t even worry about it. I called Buck.”

She says it so matter-of-factly, and it hits Eddie that none of Carla’s messages were to run it by him or ask his permission, only to let him know what was happening. Just, ‘I have to go, so I called Buck.’

Because of course she knew she could go directly to Buck, that Eddie wouldn’t bat an eye. Of course she knew that Buck would drop everything to come over. The same way Eddie would have dropped everything to race home if she’d called him first. And there’s something about it, the way she called Buck first, before Eddie, that sticks in his head.

“I’m glad he could come,” Eddie says to her.

“Oh come on now, you know that boy would do anything for you,” Carla says.

Eddie knows she doesn’t know anything about the confession, but suddenly Eddie feels like he’s choking on his guilt.

Because she’s right. Buck would do anything for Eddie. And Eddie knows that. And he’s letting him, like Eddie has any right to it. Like he deserves to have Buck rush over to take care of Eddie’s son and cook them both dinner and fill their home with so much light and warmth and laughter when Eddie’s given nothing to him in return.

He’s not exactly sure what he says to Carla after that, but they hang up quickly and Eddie walks numbly back to the dining room, where Buck and Chris are setting the table.

Somehow, he makes it through dinner.

“Dessert after you finish your homework, mijo,” Eddie says, herding Chris back to his room to finish his English essay. Out of the corner of his eye he can see Buck start to clear their plates. “I’ll clean up, Buck. Just give me a minute.”

Chris complains about having his evening with Buck cut short by something as boring as homework. Eddie doesn’t have the patience for it, not today, so he ends up being a little sharper with Chris than he normally would, which in turn makes Chris more pouty. Which makes Eddie feel even shittier than he already does.

“Everything okay?” Buck asks, when Eddie sticks his head back into the kitchen and finds Buck scrubbing at a sheet pan.

“I thought I said I’ll clean up,” Eddie says, and again his voice is too sharp but he can’t help it. All he can hear is Carla saying that boy would do anything for you and Maddie’s, I just think he should spend a little more time thinking about what’s best for him.

Buck turns to look at him, confusion on his face. “What?”

“The dishes, Buck,” Eddie says, marching over to the sink and plucking the scrubber right out of his hand. “Don’t—”

“Eddie, what’re you—”

“Just stop,” Eddie says. “Please, I can’t—I can’t have you coming over here and taking care of my kid and cooking us dinner and doing my goddamn dishes, Buck, I can’t.”

Buck stares at him, suds dripping off his hands. “What are you talking about?”

“You can’t just drop everything to come to my rescue every time something goes wrong,” Eddie says, and he sees by the way Buck’s gaze darkens that he knows this is about more than tonight. It’s also about a broken bedroom door and bloody knuckles and a ten-year-old scared out of his mind for his father.

Buck dries his hands and turns to face Eddie completely. “I want to be there for you. And for Chris.” 

“And I can’t ask you to do that when I know how you really feel.” 

“You’re not asking!”

“That’s not the point.” Maybe it was, though. Because Eddie has never asked Buck to be there, except once, but at some point—probably around the time Buck stumbled through a flooded Los Angeles desperately searching for his son— he started to expect it. “It feels like I’m taking advantage.”

“You’re not,” Buck says, low and decisive. “This is what friends do for each other, Eddie.”

“But we’re not just friends." The words hurt coming out. “You want more than that.”

Whether or not either of them knew it, they haven’t been “just friends” in a long time. There’s always been something else there, too. And now that it’s in the open, they can’t just prune it away and keep their friendship intact. It’s grown over into everything.

Buck flushes, his eyes flashing with challenge. “So what? Eddie, listen to me, having you and Chris in my life—that is everything to me, okay? And just because I...want more, doesn’t mean it’s not enough.”

Is that enough? Buck asked Eddie once, back in September. The answer then was no. 

Eddie doesn't know what the answer is now. He knows what he's been telling himself. It's enough that he has Buck. It's enough that they can have this. But is it worth it, if Eddie's desperate attempts to keep Buck's friendship keeps hurting him?

“You don’t have to protect me, all right?” Buck says. “My feelings are my problem, not yours. I don’t need you to decide what I can and can’t handle.”

“Don’t act like you’re not doing the same thing,” Eddie says darkly. “Like you’re not trying to protect me by acting like everything’s fine, like deep down this isn’t killing you inside.”

Buck looks stricken. “What makes you think this is killing me?”

Because it’s killing me, Eddie doesn’t say. He can’t look at Buck, so he stares instead at the magnets on the fridge. The drawing pinned up there, alongside Chris’s, of a pink and yellow striped heart with a goofy smirk. 

Jesus. Buck was in love with him when he drew it, wasn’t he? While he was picking up and dropping off Christopher from school and making sure his homework was done so Eddie could sleep and go to therapy and just try to stay alive. Taking care of both of them while Eddie was too lost in the fog of his own pain to do it himself.

Eddie remembers thinking thank god. Thank god for Buck. Thank god we have him. I don’t know what we’d do without him. He remembers putting the picture up on the fridge, just a little reminder to himself that he wasn’t alone in all this.

It’s too much. It’s too goddamn much. Eddie doesn’t know what to do with it all.

He shakes his head slowly. “I can’t keep doing this to you. It’s not good for either of us.”

“Eddie,” Buck says, pleading. Like Eddie is breaking his heart all over again. “We said nothing had to change.”

Eddie feels sick. “We were kidding ourselves.”

Buck looks at him head on, absorbs the blow, his eyes dimming only slightly. “Right,” he croaks. “Got it.”

“Buck—” Eddie tries, because he can see the way Buck is twisting this already, making it his fault when really this is all on Eddie.

“No, it’s—you’re right. I’ll go. Uh, tell Chris—”

“You don’t have to go,” Eddie says. Buck is already moving toward the door, through the dining room. “I’m not—I didn’t mean it like that.”

“It’s fine,” Buck says, avoiding his gaze as he gathers his jacket. “I thought we could get past it, but obviously I was wrong. So I won’t make this any harder than it has to be.”

“Buck—”

He’s out the door before Eddie can get anything else out. And Eddie just stands there, heart pounding in his chest, wondering why he’s always stuck watching Buck leave.

The next two weeks are miserable. Buck texted him the morning after their fight to say You were right. Maybe we need some space.

Eddie wanted to throw his phone across the room. Instead he made himself type, Okay. Whatever you need.

Three dots appeared, disappeared, and reappeared again and finally Buck followed up with, Whatever’s going on between us, I don’t want it to affect Chris.

So for the next ten days, the only glimpses of Buck Eddie gets are through car windows as he drops Chris off to play video games at the loft or Buck picks him up for a day at the aquarium. 

Christopher, understandably, is confused by this new change in their dynamic, about why Buck doesn’t come over for dinner and movies, why he leaves the Diaz house as soon as Eddie comes home.

“Are you two fighting?” he asks dolefully one night, after Buck had dropped him back off and sped out of Eddie’s driveway like he’d just heard the station alarm bell.

“We’re not fighting,” Eddie assures Chris. But he’s not really sure what to tell him—some bullshit line about adult relationships being complicated? “We’re just figuring some stuff out. But no one’s mad, I promise.”

Chris pushes his melting ice cream around his bowl. “He’s sad, dad,” he says at last. Eddie thinks his heart might give out. “So are you.”

Eddie has worried Chris so much these past few months. He knows it's been rough on him, seeing Eddie crumble like that. It makes sense that he'd be worried that it might happen again. But Eddie’s just—he’s exhausted, he’s miserable, he misses Buck so badly he thinks he’s going a little crazy with it. He doesn’t know how to explain any of it to his son—hell, he can barely explain it to himself anymore. He doesn’t know how to make things right between them. Doesn’t even know what right would be anymore.

“Yeah,” he says, gathering Chris close. “But remember, it’s okay to be sad sometimes.”

“Yeah,” Chris says, unconvinced. “But I don’t get it. If Buck was here, you wouldn’t be sad.”

It is that simple. And it isn't.

“These things can be hard to understand, Chris,” Eddie says. “But I promise you, Buck and I are going to be okay. And in the meantime, you two can have all the fun adventures you want, just the two of you.”

He can tell this doesn’t really satisfy Chris, but he doesn’t keep pushing. Maybe he’s just realized he won’t get any useful answers out of Eddie.

That night Eddie lies in bed, staring at his phone, willing a text from Buck to come through. How much space is enough? It’s been almost two weeks since they talked—maybe Eddie’s allowed to check in.

But what’s he supposed to say? I miss you so much I can barely breathe sometimes, I think about you every single day, I want to know how you’re feeling—did you laugh today? Did you save someone? Are you thinking about me?

There’s nothing he can say that won’t make things worse.

In the end, Eddie’s not the one who ends the silence. Neither is Buck.

It’s Athena. She and Bobby throw a Juneteenth cook out, and invite the whole crew. Eddie knows there’s no way Buck will miss it, and accepts the invite knowing it’ll be the first time they’ve actually been in the same place in weeks. Maybe it’ll be ridiculously awkward, but Eddie doesn’t even care anymore—he just wants to see him.

Eddie and Chris arrive around 1, and there’s already a good crowd there—most of the 118, some of Athena’s colleagues, even some of May’s friends from dispatch. Eddie sees Linda chatting with Maddie by the cooler, and follows the line of Maddie’s sight to where Buck stands a few feet away in the shade, bouncing a giggling Jee-yun in his arms.

Well that’s just unfair. Eddie can’t be expected to go over there and act normal when Buck is holding an adorable baby. 

Christopher is not so deterred. He crosses the lawn with surprising speed, yelling Buck’s name. As always, Buck lights up when he sees him, goes toward him, and leans down so Chris can say hi to Jee-Yun, too.

Eddie might be dying, actually. He knows he has mere seconds before Buck glances up and sees him too, and he uses them wisely, making a beeline for Athena and Bobby to say hi and thank them for the invite.

He manages to avoid Buck for a full twenty minutes, until Eddie lingers too long at the spread of cornbread and collard greens and feels Buck stop beside him, not quite close enough to touch. If this were any other day, if Eddie hadn’t spent the last two weeks aching to have Buck this close again, he would’ve swayed into his space, bumping their shoulders together casually.

Instead, he feels himself stiffen, and he knows Buck doesn’t miss it.

“Hey,” Buck says, fixing himself a plate. “Figured I’d see you here.”

“Yeah,” Eddie hears himself say, glancing over at him. The sun is bright, but somehow Buck seems brighter. “Wouldn’t miss it. I’m—I’m glad to see you, Buck.”

Buck snorts. “You don’t really look all that glad.”

It’s a knife to the heart. “I am. I’ve missed you, you know.”

“No, I didn’t know that,” Buck says, a little bitter. “You didn’t say.”

“I didn’t think you wanted to hear from me,” Eddie answers. “But of course I missed you. I miss my best friend.”

Buck’s face goes still and dark. “You mean you miss having a best friend who wasn’t in love with you.”

“What?” Eddie says. “Buck, that’s—”

“I don’t really wanna do this right now,” Buck says, plopping a spoonful of coleslaw down on his plate with force. “Can we just—have a good time with our friends?”

Eddie swallows and nods. He owes Buck that, at least. Buck slips off back to his table, and Eddie joins Chris, Karen, and Denny at theirs.

He keeps his distance through the afternoon. He catches up with Bobby and Chim, trades new recipes with Linda, and introduces himself to a few of Athena’s coworkers whose names he immediately forgets. But every five minutes or so, his gaze inevitably finds Buck. It seems impossible not to look at him. He’s so Buck—charming and quick to laugh, full to the brim with life and humor and joy. But Eddie can spot the weary edges of his smile, the slope of his shoulders, the dimness of his gaze—things no one but the people who know him best would see. Eddie sees them all, knows what they mean. Christopher was right. Buck is sad. 

And Eddie’s the one who did that to him.

He looks over to where Buck, Chris and Denny are focused intently on decorating the red velvet cupcakes May brought. Chris presents his cupcake with a flourish and Buck grins, eyes crinkling, and holds his hand out for a high-five. There’s a tiny smudge of frosting right under his eye. Eddie wants to walk over and kiss it off. 

He gets it now. He ripped out his own heart that night of the dispatch fire, and all that’s left now is an empty cavern where all of his longing lives.

“So, you figured it out yet?”

Eddie looks up to find Hen has taken over the seat beside him, and realizes a little belatedly he’s just been sitting here on his own, staring at Buck like a creep for a good five minutes.

Hen glanced pointedly over to Buck and Eddie doesn’t have it in him right now to lie or deflect. To be honest, he feels a bit desperate to talk about Buck, to try to excise all the bitter guilt and hurt that’s been stewing for the last two weeks. 

What does he want? He wants to stop hurting the person he loves more than almost anyone else in the world.

“I broke his heart,” Eddie says. He rarely lets himself think about it like that. He’d let himself be absolved too easily, placated by Buck’s insistence that they could move on, pretend nothing had changed. “And I just keep breaking it.”

Hen’s looking at him with a familiar sympathetic look. “Oh, Eddie.”

“Everything I do ends with him getting hurt and that’s—I can’t handle that. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to do this.” Desperation creeps into his voice. He knows Hen hears it, too, and for a wild second he hopes she has the perfect answer for him, that she knows just how to fix the mess Eddie’s made.

She reaches out and takes his hand, looking him in the eye. “Look. Unrequited love can get messy. Someone’s always gonna get hurt, but that doesn't mean it's anyone's fault. It just is. But you two will be okay. It might take a little while, but eventually Buck will start to move on.”

Eddie stares at her, the words sinking into the hollow of his chest where his heart used to beat. Buck will start to move on. He’s not sure he’s fully thought about that part, or what it will do to Eddie to watch it happen. 

But that was the whole point, wasn’t it? Eddie can’t be the partner Buck deserves, so eventually, somewhere, Buck will find someone who can. And Eddie will—he’ll be happy for him, he’ll get out of his way, he’ll shrink himself and his place in Buck’s life down until there’s room for that partner. 

And it might just kill him.

“He might,” he chokes out, “but I won’t.”

Hen’s expression flickers with confusion, then concern. Eddie’s grip on her hand is tight, he can feel his chest stuttering on every breath and—oh god. He hasn’t had a panic attack in months, he can’t have one now, not here, not like this.

“Okay, Eddie, okay,” Hen says soothingly, her arm around his shoulder. “Let’s go inside. Let’s just breathe, and cool down.”

He lets her lead him out of the yard and into Bobby and Athena’s kitchen, where she pours him a glass of water. He leans against the counter, not sure he could hold himself upright if he wanted, and drinks it shakily. He feels marginally more calm, in this dark, quiet space, Hen a solid presence beside him.

“Better?” she asks.

He nods, drains the water glass and sets it down on the counter.

“I love him." It just kind of comes out, no stopping it, but Eddie can’t bring himself to regret it. Someone should know. “I love him so much.”

Hen looks stunned, but there’s no judgement in her eyes. Hesitantly, she asks, “Did you just figure that out?”

Eddie shakes his head. “No, I’ve known for a while.”

“Okay,” Hen says. “Then...and maybe this a stupid question, but why did you break his heart?”

“Because I had to,” Eddie answers. “Because I can’t—I can’t saddle him with all this. With me.”

“You’re not a burden, Eddie,” Hen says, gentle but firm. “And if it’s what he wants—”

“I can’t trust myself with him,” Eddie says. “I’m not good at that. I don’t know how to be a partner to someone. I tried it, and every time it just…falls apart. I can’t do that with him. He deserves better.”

“Buck deserves to know how you feel,” Hen says, insistent. “And you deserve to tell him. Even if you don’t think you can be with him. Or you need more time, or—whatever it is. You need to tell him that. He blames himself for the distance between you.”

“I know,” Eddie says dully. “But if I tell him, it’ll just hurt him more. He won’t understand.”

“I’m not sure I really do, either,” Hen says. “What if you’re wrong, Eddie? What if the reason you’re so afraid of it not working is the very reason it will work? You two love each other so much. And you don’t want to risk what you already built together. I get that. But Eddie—if you love him and what you have with him is important, then maybe it’s important enough to take that risk. You’re so afraid of it falling apart but Buck isn’t Shannon, or Ana. He’s Buck. And what you two have is already too solid to just fall apart.”

“I just—I can’t, Hen,” Eddie says desperately. “Look at what’s happened. I don’t know how to be around him anymore. All I can think about is—”

“Buck,” Hen says.

By her shocked expression, Eddie can tell she’s not trying to finish his sentence. He whirls toward the sliding doors, heart plummeting into his stomach when he sees Buck standing there with a shell-shocked expression.

Fuck.

“I, uh, I was just coming to see if everything was okay,” Buck stutters out.

He can’t have been standing there long, because Hen would’ve seen him. And if all Buck heard was the last thing Eddie said—fuck.

No wonder he looks like someone just sucker punched him.

“We’re fine,” Hen says. “We were just—”

“Talking about me,” Buck says flatly. “It’s fine, I—I’m on my way out, actually.”

He crosses into the living room, toward the front door. Hen starts after him immediately.

“Buck, wait,” she says. “You don’t—”

Buck tries to weave around her. “Hen, it’s fine, I just—I need to go. I need to get out of here.”

Hen shoots a glance at Eddie, but Eddie is completely frozen by the counter. There’s nothing he can say, he realizes, that won’t end up hurting Buck worse. 

Buck takes a few more steps and then stops. Turns back toward Eddie. “Just—let me know, I guess, when you can stand to be around me again.”

It should come out biting and angry. Eddie thinks maybe it would be better if it had. But Buck’s voice is quiet, thick with despair, and it carves into Eddie like a bullet. 

Then Buck is turning away, climbing the steps, out of Eddie’s sight. He hears the front door close a moment later.

Eddie still hasn’t moved. His hands have gone numb. He’s slumped back against the counter and he knows what dying feels like and it feels a lot like this.

“Did Evan just leave?” 

Maddie pokes her head through the sliding doors, brow furrowed in confusion. The sight of her face makes Eddie think of the talk they’d had at the call center. Be good to him, Maddie had said, and Eddie had gone home that night and failed so spectacularly he’s not sure he could have done a worse job if he’d tried.

This is it. His worst fears have been realized. Despite everything he tried to do to stop it from happening, all the pain he put himself through, he did it anyway. He let Buck down.

“I have to fix this,” he says suddenly, his tongue coming unstuck. He has absolutely no idea how to do that or where to start, but he knows he has to try. It drives him like a blind panic.

“Woah, slow down,” Hen says. “Take a breath.”

“I have to go after him.”

“What’s going on?” Maddie asks. But she obviously has some idea, because she says, “Did you two fight?”

“I fucked up,” Eddie says. “I—I’ve been fucking up, with him. I have to go make it right. Hen, can you—do you think you and Karen can take Christopher for the afternoon? I can come pick him up at your place later.”

“Of course,” Hen says. “But Eddie—what are you planning to say to him?”

He hasn’t gotten that far. “I-I don’t know.” He stops, swallowing. “Hen, what if I can’t fix it? What if it falls apart?”

Hen looks at him with that expression that says she’s hurting and she doesn’t have any answers for him.

And then Maddie’s standing right in front of him.

“Eddie,” she says gently. “I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but can I say something, before you rush over there?”

Eddie swallows and nods. He doesn’t have anything to lose at this point.

“Look,” she says. “For a long time, I was the only person in Buck’s corner. You know what our parents were like. I was the only person he could count on, the only person who really saw him. But I…I let him down. A lot, actually. I was trying to protect him, but I ended up hurting him a lot worse. I mean, before I moved here, we went three years without talking. So I get what it’s like to feel like you’ve failed him. I’ve been there. But we were always able to fix it.”

“How?” Eddie asks.

“Well, it wasn’t always easy, but it always started with me being honest with him,” Maddie says. “So just—maybe start there.”

She makes it sound so easy. He glances at Hen, who’s giving him an imploring look. He looks back into Maddie’s wide brown eyes and nods. 

“I’ll try,” he says, and that’s the best he can give her.

“And Eddie?” she adds, touching his arm when he turns to go. “I may have been the only person in Buck’s corner when we were young, but that hasn’t been true in years. He has people now. The 118. You. I’ve seen the way you show up for him. I’ve seen how you and Christopher have made him a part of your family. I know how important he is to you. Whatever else there is between you, you’ve always been a good partner to him. And I’m grateful he has you.”

Eddie stares at her and stares at her. It’s been over a year since he realized he loves Buck, and he’s pretty sure he’d been loving Buck for a long time before he could name it. And it’s taken him until this precise moment to see that maybe—just maybe—loving Buck for the past however many years means he’s gotten pretty goddamn good at loving Buck.

Maybe all his failures—Shannon, Ana—don’t mean he’s destined to fail here, too. He’s been so busy convincing himself he could never be the partner Buck deserves, he somehow missed the fact that he already is.

“Maddie,” he says. “Thank you.”

He throws his arms around her, crushing her slight frame to him briefly. She makes a small surprised sound and blinks as he releases her.

“You’re welcome,” she says a little unsurely.

“Hen, I’ll see you later,” Eddie promises.

Then he walks out the front door to go after the love of his life.

Eddie hasn’t been to the loft in weeks, but the key still sits on his keychain, right next to the one for Abuela’s house. He uses it to let himself in, and when the door to Buck’s apartment swings open, the threshold frames Buck perfectly where he’s standing on the far side of the kitchen, hands resting behind him on the counter.

Eddie pauses there, just looking. Buck doesn’t look surprised to see him, exactly. He looks defeated. Heartbroken.

Neither of them speak for a moment. And then Buck says, “I ruined it, didn’t I?”

It takes Eddie a moment to gather himself, but then he’s striding toward him, closing the door behind him. “Buck—no, you didn’t ruin anything.”

“I don’t know what I was thinking,” Buck says, not looking Eddie in the eye. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I should’ve just kept my mouth shut and dealt with it. But I couldn’t do that and now things are weird between us and there’s all this distance and I hate it, Eddie, I hate that I did this to us.”

“You didn’t,” Eddie insists. He reaches for Buck’s hand on the counter but Buck pulls back before he can touch him. Eddie’s heart drops into his stomach like a stone.

“Stop—just stop,” Buck says. His hand shakes. “Don’t lie to me. I can’t take that.”

Eddie has done nothing but lie to Buck since the start of this, all to try and keep him close. And now Buck is further away than he’s ever been and hating himself for the best thing that’s ever happened to Eddie. Hating himself for being braver than Eddie could ever be.

Staring at Buck in the dim light of the kitchen, at the way he’s curled in on himself and the hooded, hollow look in his eyes, Eddie’s never been more furious with himself. He did this. And he’s going to fix it.

“Buck, listen to me,” Eddie says, coming closer, his hands reaching for Buck’s shoulders. This time Buck doesn’t flinch away. “You didn’t ruin anything. You couldn’t.”

“Just tell me what I can do,” Buck pleads, his eyes flicking to Eddie’s finally. “Tell me how to make this okay again and—and I’ll do it. There has to be something.” His voice is edged with the kind of desperation that Eddie’s only ever heard during particularly tough rescues, when the odds are stacked against them and they’re staring down the barrel of a tragedy about to unfold. “I can’t—”

And it’s that reminder of who Buck is at his core, that Buck’s the guy who never gives up no matter how messy things get, that makes Eddie act. He surges forward, taking Buck’s face in his hands and finally, finally kisses him like it’s the last thing he’ll ever do. Buck makes a shocked little sound, his mouth dropping open, his hands broad and warm on Eddie’s waist, sliding up his ribs.

Heat and relief flood Eddie as he presses Buck back against the counter and kisses him slow and deep. Now that he’s let himself have this, it’s all he wants—he’s not sure how he’ll ever look at Buck again without kissing him.

A low whimper escapes Buck’s throat and suddenly the hands at Eddie’s sides are shoving him back, away. Eddie goes easily, swaying back and staring at Buck who just sags against the counter, breathing like he just ran the baby doll factory course in under four minutes. He’s flushed and tousled and Eddie did that, he just kissed his best friend, the love of his life and Buck looks—

He looks terrified.

“W-what are you doing?” His voice shakes. “Eddie.”

He looks like he’s going to fall over, or bolt. Eddie desperately wants to touch him, to get a solid grip on him but he’s not sure he’s allowed right now. He remembers, suddenly, what Buck told him in the car on the way home from the bar.

You wouldn’t really want it. And that would kill me.

“You didn’t ruin anything,” Eddie says again. “I—it’s me. This is all my fault. I haven’t been honest with you.”

Buck looks up at him, startled. Confused.

“Buck, when you told me you loved me, it was everything I’ve ever wanted you to say to me."

He can hear the sharp breath Buck pulls in, sees the disbelief on his face.

“And I was terrified,” Eddie continues. “Suddenly the possibility of us was right in front of me and it scared the shit out of me.”

Buck’s voice is barely a whisper when he asks, “What were you so afraid of?”

Eddie closes his eyes. “I was afraid that you’d make me happy.”

“Eddie—”

“You—you do make me happy,” Eddie says. “All the time. You make everything in my life better. And I’m so goddamn scared that I’ll never do the same for you. I’m scared that no matter what, I’m going to hurt you. Because I’ve hurt everyone who’s ever loved me, Buck. And no one’s loved me like you do.”

“Are—are you kidding me?” Buck says, incredulous. “Eddie. God. You make me—happy isn’t even the word. You and Chris make me feel a way I didn’t even know it was possible to feel. No one’s ever loved me like you, either, you know. Your friendship, Eddie—you have to know. I’ve never had a best friend before. Not like you.”

Something warm and bright glows in Eddie’s chest. The only thing better than knowing Buck loves him is Buck knowing how much Eddie loves him.

And now Eddie can finally tell him.

“I do love you,” he says. “So much. I’ve wanted to tell you every day. I’ve been going crazy, trying to hide it. Lying to you. I shouldn’t have done that, and if you’re pissed, I deserve it, but I—”

“Stop,” Buck says, catching Eddie’s hand and pressing it against his own chest. “Just. Tell me. Whatever it is you’ve wanted to say. Tell me now.”

Eddie closes his hand around a handful of Buck's shirt and meets his gaze. “You’re it for me."

Buck’s eyes go bright and wide, like he can’t quite believe the words.

“I—there’s a lot of other stuff I’ve wanted to say but that’s what it boils down to. I’m so goddamn sorry I didn’t tell you before, but I’m in love with you and I want to be with you and if you need me to get down on one knee and say it, I will,” Eddie says, which is objectively an insane thing to say to someone you just kissed for the first time five minutes ago, but Eddie’s pretty sure he’s been doing insane things over Buck for a while.

Buck pushes him back against the kitchen island and crowds in. “Eddie. Jesus Christ. I mean—yes, but let’s—maybe let’s get through like, the first day of a relationship first?”

Eddie laughs, running his hands up Buck’s sides, pressing in with his thumbs, just because he can. He leans in, his lips just brushing Buck’s ear, and murmurs, “What else do you want me to say? Do you want me to tell you every time I thought about kissing you? Every time I wanted to drag you into my bed?”

Buck shivers. “Actually, that’s enough talking.”

He's smiling when he leans in. The kiss warms Eddie from the inside out. It stokes the fire that's been burning in him for weeks, and Eddie can’t stop touching Buck—cupping his jaw, threading his fingers through his hair, winding an arm around his waist. Buck has him pressed up against the kitchen island and Eddie just wants him closer, close enough that Buck won’t ever leave again.

“Fuck,” Buck says, breaking away to breathe. “I’ve wanted to do that for so long.”

Eddie just slots their mouths together again, tracing Buck’s bottom lip with his tongue. Buck opens to him with a soft, hitching groan that Eddie already knows is going to live in his head for weeks. Eddie might not actually survive having Buck exactly where he wants him. He kisses his jaw, his throat, tugs his hair and lets himself take everything he’s been holding himself back from. 

“Eddie, Eddie, wait,” Buck gasps.

“Sorry,” Eddie pants. He takes his hand off Buck’s belt buckle. “We can—we can take it slow.”

He’s been dying to get his hands on Buck for so long, what’s a few more days of waiting?

But Buck gives him a look like he’s suggested something truly absurd. “No, it’s not that. Definitely not that. I just…can we go home?”

They're in Buck’s apartment, but with a jolt Eddie knows exactly what he means. He wants to go to Eddie’s. The house that’s felt too quiet and too empty without Buck there to make it a home.

A surge of adoration rushes through him and Eddie has to kiss him again, cradling the back of his head. When they part again, Buck looks stunned and halfway to debauched and Eddie has never been more in love with him.

“Yeah,” he breathes. “Let’s go home.”

Later, when they’re lying together in Eddie’s bed with their fingers laced and pressed over Buck’s heart and Eddie’s happier than he can ever remember being, he says, “Thank you.”

Buck looks over with a smile that melts Eddie like warm butter. “For what?”

“For telling me how you feel,” Eddie answers. “For being brave when I couldn’t be.”

“You got there,” Buck says softly, squeezing his hand.

The guilt still weighs heavily. “I really am sorry for what I put you through the last few weeks. For what I put us through.”

Buck’s eyes look a little misty. “It’s funny—everyone kept telling me I should put some space between us and try to protect my heart. Even you. Maddie told me I was…how did she put it?” He thinks for a second. “She said I was setting myself on fire to keep you warm.”

Eddie closes his eyes briefly. He’s never thought about it in those words but—yeah, that sounds like Buck alright. “She told me you two fought.”

“Yeah,” Buck says. “She kinda thought this was Abby all over again. That I was just waiting to get left behind again.”

“I’d never leave you behind.”

Buck’s eyes crinkle. “That’s what I told her.”

“I was the one afraid you’d walk away.”

“Never,” Buck swears.

“I wouldn’t have blamed you,” Eddie says. “I was a mess. It was agony, knowing I was hurting you and not knowing how to stop. I felt like I was trying to hold onto you and push you away at the same time.” 

“I’m sorry you were hurting.” He offers it so freely, his eyes tender and sad. He draws their clasped hands to his lips and kisses Eddie’s knuckles. “I hate seeing you hurt.”

Eddie chokes out a bitter laugh. “I thought I was doing this noble, selfless thing, like I was saving you from…from me, I guess. But I was just punishing myself by turning my back on the one thing I knew would make me happy. That’s pretty fucked up.”

As much as he was trying not to hurt Buck, he was trying equally as hard to hurt himself, and it turned Buck into collateral damage. Frank is going to have a field-day helping Eddie unpack it all.

“We both probably have stuff we need to work on,” Buck allows. 

“The whole setting yourself on fire thing,” Eddie says. “Maddie may have had a point.”

Buck gives him a lopsided smile. “We can work on it together.”

He looks so soft and contented Eddie just has to kiss him, slow and sweet, with a little apology in it. Sorry I didn’t kiss you a thousand times the second I knew how you felt.

“I’m still scared,” Eddie confesses when he draws away. “I just…I don’t want to let you down, Buck.”

Buck shifts over on his side so his whole body is facing Eddie, bracketing him. He cups Eddie’s face with his free hand, thumb gently stroking the ridge of his cheekbone. “Do you remember what you said to me after the tsunami?”

Eddie blinks at him—he said a lot of things after the tsunami, but he thinks he knows what Buck is talking about.

“You told me even when you felt like you failed Christopher, you love him enough to never stop trying,” Buck says.

Eddie pulls in a shaky breath. He feels tears rising to the surface—he wants to close his eyes to hide them, but he doesn’t want to look away from Buck.

“Eddie,” Buck says. “I’m not saying we’re never going to screw up, or hurt each other again. That’s just not how a relationship—how life—works. But I love you enough to never stop trying.”

It cracks Eddie open. He remembers saying those words about Christopher, knowing in some deep, buried part of him that it was something he’d needed to hear his whole life. And now here’s Buck, saying it to him with all the conviction in the world, with all of the love that Eddie never thought he could deserve.

“I love you enough to never stop trying, too,” Eddie says, his throat thick with tears. He means it—even if he hadn’t already known it for years, the last few weeks taught it to him all over again.

“Then we’re going to be fine,” Buck says, smiling. “Better than fine. After everything we’ve been through, I trust that. We’re partners—always have been, always will be.”

“Yeah,” Eddie says, realizing how true that is. 

Maybe Eddie didn’t know how to be a good partner when he was with Shannon. But he knows now, and more importantly he knows how to be a good partner to Buck. This thing between them is new—but it also isn’t. They’ve been building it one brick at a time since the night they climbed into an ambulance and removed a grenade from a man’s leg. Something that’s been built so slowly, so naturally, can’t be torn down.

“Speaking of being partners,” Eddie says, stretching out a little next to Buck. “I think I’m going to tell Bobby I want to come back to work.”

“Yeah?” Buck says, hopeful. “You’re ready?”

If Buck’s there at his side, then Eddie thinks he’s ready for anything. “You know,” he says, leaning in to taste Buck’s smile, “I think I finally am.”