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Buck has dreaded this situation for weeks, longer than him and Eddie even have been together. It's not the first night Buck has stayed over at Eddie’s - that had happened plenty of times before they’d finally gotten over themselves and ended the year-long dance around their feelings. When Eddie was kissing him slowly and shaking with nerves while he asked him to be his boyfriend Buck had felt something inside his chest settle into place like it had been waiting for that forever.
Chimney had mocked them for being the slowest people of the entire firehouse and Hen had held her hand out to him to collect the debt from a bet they had apparently agreed to months ago. Bobby had just grinned silently and pushed a stack of plates into Buck's hands.
Three weeks isn’t long at all but it’s enough for Buck to know the shape of Eddie’s body in the dark. Long enough to recognize the quiet hitch in Eddie’s breathing right before he falls fully asleep. Long enough to know that Eddie sleeps deeply after a 24-hour shift, one arm usually thrown over Buck’s waist like he’s anchoring him there.
Buck feels safer here than he has with anybody else he can remember being with. The nightmare rips him out of sleep anyway. It was the usual kind: the faceless urgency, the suffocating sense of something going wrong and it all being his fault. A hospital hallway that stretches too long. A door he can’t open. His phone ringing and ringing and ringing while he stands there, frozen.
When he jerks awake his heart is racing and his lungs burn like they did in the tsunami - which is only more fodder for his cruel mind.
For a second, he doesn’t know where he is. Then he slowly starts taking in the details of his surroundings: there’s the ceiling fan above the bed he's in. The faint orange glow of the streetlight filtering through the blinds. Eddie’s arm warm and solid across his ribs.
Buck swallows. He lies perfectly still, like prey. The instinct is old: Don’t make noise. Don’t disturb anyone. Handle it yourself.
His throat feels tight, eyes stinging in a way he refuses to acknowledge. He stares at the ceiling and counts his breaths. One, two, three. In through the nose, out through the mouth. He’s good at calming people down, he can do it for himself.
Eddie shifts slightly beside him but doesn’t wake. His arm tightens reflexively, pulling Buck closer even in sleep. The contact is grounding, at least it helps more than his racing thoughts do. Buck presses his lips together and waits for the adrenaline to ebb. Eventually it does. Eventually exhaustion drags him back under.
In the morning, sunlight spills across the bed and Eddie wakes first. Buck feels the arm around him move slightly and presses closer to his chest.
“Morning,” Eddie murmurs, voice rough with sleep.
“Morning.”
Eddie presses a kiss to his forhead, pulls back and studies him for a second. Buck smiles lazily and chases Eddies face to kiss back. He's fine.
They make coffee and cook breakfast. Him and Eddie move around each other in the kitchen with that new-but-not-new intimacy, bumping hips and brushing fingers.
It’s only when they’re sitting at the table with their plates that Eddie asks, “You sleep okay?”
Buck hesitates just a fraction too long and Eddie notices. Of course he does.
“Buck.” It’s not accusatory or annoyed. Instead it sounds gentle and a little worried. (Which is unfair because that somehow makes it harder.)
“I had a nightmare,” Buck admits, shrugging like it’s nothing. “It’s fine. I’m used to it.”
Eddie’s jaw tightens before he asks: “Why didn't you wake me?”
Buck clings to his coffee and shakes his head immediately. “No. You were exhausted. We'd had that shift with back-to-back calls.”
“And?” Eddie raises an eyebrow and sets his mug down. “So what?”
Buck blinks at him. “So… you needed sleep.”
Eddie leans forward, forearms on his knees, looking at him like he’s trying to make sure Buck really hears him. “If you have a nightmare, I want you to wake me up. Okay?”
Buck huffs a soft laugh. “Eddie, it’s not a big-”
“It is to me.” Eddie reaches out, curls his fingers around Buck’s hand and strokes over the back of it. “You don’t have to handle that alone. I want to be there, that’s kind of the whole point.”
The whole point. Buck swallows before he whispers: “I don’t want to be a burden.” The words slip out before he can stop them.
Eddie’s expression softens instantly. “You’re not. You could never be to me.”
Buck looks down at their hands, trying to swallow the lump that's suddenly in his throat.
“If it happens again,” Eddie says quietly, “wake me. Please.”
Buck nods. He means to do it.
It happens again four nights later. This time it feels even worse.
The nightmare is quiet at first. Buck is eight years old again, standing in the dark hallway outside his parents’ bedroom, the door cracked open just enough to hear the TV from inside.
He’s scared of the space under his bed, the dark, or the way the house feels too big and too empty even when everyone’s home. He knocks softly.
“Mom?” No answer.
He tries again, a little louder.
The door swings open abruptly enough to make him flinch.
“What?” his mother snaps, eyes tired and irritated. “What is it now, Evan?”
“I just…” His voice wobbles. “I had a bad dream.”
A sigh that is sharp, exasperated. “You’re too old for this.”
“I just wanted…”
“Go back to bed and sleep. You have school tomorrow and your dad and I have our well deserved free night. Don’t try to delay your bedtime like this.”
Before he can even take a breath to say anything else the door closes right in front of his face. The hallway feels colder and his feet are blocks of ice.
Buck wakes up with that same cold lodged in his chest.
The room around him is as dark as the hallway was. But the blanket he is cuddled into is a warm, reassuring weight and Eddie’s breathing is slow and even beside him.
Buck’s heart is racing so hard it hurts. He stares at the ceiling, but the memory clings like cobwebs. His skin feels too tight. His throat burns.
Wake him, Eddie had said. You don’t have to handle that alone.
Buck turns his head slightly. He can make out the lines of Eddie’s face in the dim light. It looks peaceful. Asleep without a care in the world.
Buck’s mind splits cleanly down the middle. On one side: He told you to wake him. He wants you to. That’s what partners do. The other: Don’t. Don’t you dare. You’ll ruin it. He’ll be annoyed. You’ll be too much.
He swallows hard. This is different, he tells himself. Eddie isn’t them. But the fear is old and ingrained and doesn’t care about logic.
Minutes tick by. Or maybe it’s seconds. It feels like hours.
His breathing keeps catching, refusing to go into a steady rhythm. His eyes burn. Buck curls in on himself slightly, careful not to jostle the mattress, not to disturb Eddie.
You’re not a kid anymore, he thinks. You can handle this on your own.
Except he doesn’t feel like a competent adult right now. He feels like he did when he was eight. The small, unwanted version of himself still clings to him.
Wake him.
Don’t wake him.
Wake him.
Don’t.
The argument loops until the pressure in his chest becomes unbearable.
Finally, Buck makes a deal with himself: Once. He’ll try once. If Eddie reacts badly, if there’s even a hint of irritation, he’ll laugh it off. He'll say he couldn’t sleep, it was nothing, he patted him accidentally. He won’t do it again.
Finally, Buck slowly lifts his hand, moves it over to Eddie's shoulder. For a second he can’t move it the last inch. His throat tightens.
You’re not too much.
Very carefully, Buck rests his fingers against Eddie’s shoulder. Just the lightest touch.
“Eddie?” His voice is barely more than a breath.
No response.
Panic flickers in his chest. See? You shouldn’t have…
He presses into the muscles with a little more strength. “Eddie.”
Eddie inhales sharply and blinks awake almost immediately, a habit that has stuck with him from his military days. He's immediately turning towards Buck with an open expression.
“Buck?” His voice is rough but alert and concerned. To Buck's immediate small relief it's not annoyed. "What’s wrong?”
Buck freezes. There’s no irritation. No sharp edge. Just concern for him. This is further than Buck thought he'd get.
Eddie pushes himself up onto one arm, free hand already coming to Buck’s face. “Hey. Hey, talk to me.”
Buck hadn’t realized how close to the surface the tears were until that gentle tone cracks something open. “I’m sorry,” he blurts out immediately. “I know you’re tired, I just - I tried not to…”
“Whoa.” Eddie shifts fully toward him, hand sliding to the back of Buck’s neck. “Slow down. You have nothing to be sorry for. Did you have a nightmare?”
Buck nods, biting down hard on his lower lip. Eddie’s thumb brushes just under his eye with featherlight pressure. It comes away damp.
“Oh, Buck.” The soft tone of his voice does it.
Buck’s vision blurs completely. “I almost didn’t wake you,” he admits, voice shaking. “I was just gonna—just wait it out.”
“Why?” The question is full of care. There's no accusation, it's like Eddie truly just wants to understand.
Buck still hesitates because this is the part he doesn’t usually say out loud, the part that feels childish and pathetic.
“Growing up,” he starts, staring somewhere near Eddie’s collarbone instead of his eyes, “if I had a bad dream or… or needed something, and I tried to wake my parents…” His chest tightens. “They’d get mad.”
Eddie goes very still.
“They’d tell me not to bother them. That I was too old to come to them at night. That it was stupid.” He lets out a shaky breath. “So I stopped asking.”
Eddie’s hand tightens gently at the back of his neck, pulling him closer until their foreheads almost touch. “Buck,” he says quietly, and there’s something fierce under the softness now. “You were a kid.”
Buck shrugs helplessly. “Didn’t matter.”
“It should have.” The conviction in Eddie’s voice makes Buck’s throat close up all over again. “You deserved comfort,” Eddie continues. “You deserved parents who showed up when you were scared. That wasn’t too much to ask.”
Buck’s shoulders start to shake despite his best effort to keep them still.
“I didn’t want to wake you,” he whispers. “I kept thinking you’d be mad. Or tired. Or that I’d ruin it.”
“Ruin what?”
“This.” Buck gestures vaguely between them. “Us.”
Eddie’s expression breaks. He cups Buck’s face fully now, forcing him to meet his eyes. “You waking me up because you’re scared is not going to ruin us,” Eddie says firmly. “You know what would? You lying here alone thinking you’re a burden.”
Buck inhales sharply, his breath shaking.
“I meant what I said,” Eddie continues, with less force behing it now. “If you have a nightmare, you wake me. Not because you can’t handle yourself. Not because you’re weak. But because I’m your partner and I want to take care of you.”
Buck searches his face for even a flicker of annoyance that could betray his words. There’s still no trace of it. All there is is warmth and love.
“I don’t know how to do this,” Buck admits. “The… asking for comfort part.”
“That’s okay.” Eddie brushes his thumb over Buck’s cheek again. “We’ll figure it out.”
Buck lets out another shaky breath that dissolves into something dangerously close to a sob.
Eddie doesn’t hesitate. He pulls Buck fully into his chest, wrapping both arms tightly around him. Buck goes easily, as if he’s been waiting for permission. Eddie’s hand moves in slow, steady strokes up and down his back. “I’ve got you,” he murmurs into his hair. “You’re safe with me and I’m not going anywhere.”
The words settle somewhere deep in Buck's chest, somewhere close to where the scared child he once was still resides. Buck presses his face into Eddie’s shirt, breathing in laundry detergent, a hint of aftershave and something that is just Eddie.
“Not mad?” he asks, small and unguarded.
Eddie huffs softly. “Not even a little.”
“Even if it keeps happening?”
“As long as you keep waking me.” There’s no hesitation in it, his voice as firm as it is when he tells people they'll be okay.
Buck’s breathing gradually evens out, the tight coil in his chest is unwinding under the steady rhythm of Eddie’s strokes over his back. After a while Eddie shifts slightly, guiding Buck to lie back down but keeps him tucked close. He threads their legs together, one arm firm around Buck’s waist.
“Next time,” Eddie says quietly, “you don’t have to debate it for half an hour.”
Buck snorts faintly. “It wasn’t half an hour.”
Eddie leans down and presses a soft kiss to his forehead.
“You’re not eight anymore,” he says gently. “And I’m not them.”
The simplicity of the statements makes Buck’s eyes sting again. “I know,” he whispers. And for the first time, he thinks he might actually believe it.
Eddie’s thumb traces lazy circles at his hip. “You did good tonight, I'm proud of you” he adds quietly.
“For what?”
“For trying. For trusting me enough to wake me.”
Buck takes a moment to let that settle. This trust still feels fragile but it definitely is there. “Thank you,” Buck whispers.
Eddie smiles softly in the dark. “Always.”
They curl further into each other, legs and fingers woven together. This time, when Buck's dreams come, they're warm. He is anchored by steady breathing and strong arms around him and the newly gained certainty that if he reaches out in the dark, his love will hold him and pull him back to safety.