Work Text:
Ravi feels a bit bad about abandoning Buck with his ex-boyfriend but he genuinely couldn’t listen to a single second more of and then Eddie did this — Eddie who has a Silver Star, did you know? while sitting in a shitty pub, drinking vodka (which he explicitly told Buck he didn’t like) and playing a stupid, dumb game. All the while hearing Eddie Eddie Eddie like if Buck said his name enough he might summon the guy back from Texas like some sort of weird twist on the Bloody Mary game. And, admittedly, Buck hadn’t looked exactly happy at seeing Tommy but surely some terrible, misguided sex might give him another conversation topic other than Eddie.
He was woefully misguided.
“Fun night boys?” Hen had asked over lunch, looking between Buck and Ravi with a smirk. “You’re looking a little worse for wear, Buck.”
Buck had shifted his gaze to Ravi in a pointed way, widening his eyes as if to say do not say a fucking word. No problems on that front. Ravi actually would quite like to not be involved in the personal turmoil of the A-Shift, thanks. He learnt his lesson in the treasure hunt.
“Yeah,” Buck had mumbled sheepishly. “Ah - it was fun. Mm. Great time. Good night.”
Chim and Hen’s eyebrows snapped upwards in comical unison. “That’s an interesting way to answer a question,” Hen said. But she had let the topic drop and Ravi had thought, at that point, the deed was done. Buck was a terrible liar but he clearly didn’t want anyone to know about Tommy and that was fine. Ravi could keep his mouth shut.
He didn’t realise that Buck not wanting other people to know meant that he had one safe outlet: Ravi.
It was a disaster of his own making.
“I mean we had a good time,” Buck says, after cornering Ravi by the ladder truck. He’s picking at his nails, restless energy basically radiating off him. The words good time are not really corresponding with the scowl he’s wearing. “We were always pretty good at the physical stuff and I mean - I finally was able to sleep at Eddie’s because — well,” he slants an awkward glance in Ravi’s direction, “he kind of tired me out.”
Ew. Gross. Ravi doesn’t want to think about Buck being tired out because of vigorous sex. Sure, when he’d first started as a probie he’d had the slightest, tiniest crush on Buck but that was before he got chased with a chainsaw and realised actually this man is unhinged. Plus, Tommy is most assuredly not Ravi’s type. So the visual of Buck and Tommy is just — no.
“Okay, Buck,” Ravi sighs. He curls up the hose, focusing on the equipment like if he stares at it enough he can just tune out this entire conversation. But Buck keeps going.
“But then, Ravi, he said the most insane shit to me the next morning,” Buck says, his scowl becoming more pronounced. “Like it actually really pissed me off.”
And — despite himself — Ravi is intrigued. It’s not his fault, he just likes gossip. “What did he say?” Ravi asks, finally looking away from the hose.
Buck blinks at him for a moment and the nail picking intensifies. Ravi has a bad feeling about this.
“He thinks Eddie was his competition,” Buck finally says. “Like I’m in love with Eddie, or something. Isn’t that crazy?”
Oh. Oh, this is really bad actually.
There’s this unspoken rule in the A-Shift to not mention the whole BuckandEddie thing. It’s not like Hen or Chim have ever said that to Ravi explicitly but there’s enough knowing glances that he can read between the lines.
Look, Ravi’s pretty good at being social. He has a lot of friends - like the guys in his frisbee golf team have weekly drinks after their games, his roommates have monthly trivia nights and he’s pretty close with the majority of B-Shift. He does not have a friendship anywhere in the realm of whatever it is Buck and Eddie have.
Bobby had asked him to cover some of Eddie’s gaps in the roster because C-Shift were getting a new recruit and they didn’t have enough budget to hire any more new starters. Ravi hadn’t been opposed — he likes the guys on B-Shift but Hen and Chim were cool and, once Buck had eased up on his whole quitting thing, they’d actually become pretty friendly last time. Friendly in a normal coworker context.
He hadn’t necessarily been surprised by Buck’s very evident misery the first shift he covered for Eddie, but it was certainly illuminating. When Ravi worked at Target while in the academy he had this coworker Talia who he was close to. They mucked around most of their shifts, did one person jobs together and gossiped about whether Ashton from the electronics section was aware that his new goatee was doing him no favors. When Ravi had joined the 118, Talia texted him rip to my work husband :( divorce is hard and they’d hung out a few times since.
What he didn’t do was look like a kicked puppy staring down at his phone every two minutes. He didn’t endlessly bang on about his coworker to anyone who could bear to listen. He behaved like a normal, rational human being who had moved on to a different phase of their life. Buck’s behaviour is just — weird. Intense.
But Ravi can’t even blame him. For two reasons; the first being that Ravi actually does like Buck and thinks he’s a genuinely good guy. He’s pretty emotional despite his whole frat bro aura, and Ravi thinks Buck’s just the kind of person who feels things more deeply than others. It’s what makes him a good, if slightly reckless, firefighter.
But the second reason is that Eddie is also just as weird and intense about Buck. Ravi thinks Buck is like Eddie’s emotional support person. His son moves to Texas and suddenly Eddie is all in Buck’s business, despite Buck having a boyfriend at the time. And the dog thing. Oh my God. Ravi wasn’t even working with A-Shift then but he and Hodge had been gossiping in the kitchen between shift changeover one day and Hodge had said, “Dude, I’ve never seen anyone glare at a dog before,” and Ravi had shaken his head and replied, “Literally, I don’t want to know.”
So, Buck and Eddie are equally weird. And it’s this ever-present, unspoken thing at the 118 like if someone dares voice it the insane behaviour will only become worse. For good reason, no one has ever said hey do you think you guys might not be totally platonic about each other? because Buck has a history of completely spiralling about big emotions. And Eddie was in a fight club the last time he had to process any kind of significant emotional baggage.
The worst part about this whole thing is that it’s entirely Ravi’s fault. He dragged Tommy over to Buck. He — inadvertently — opened this can of worms.
“Hen, can I speak to you?” Ravi says, the first minute he’s able to claw himself free from Buck. Buck who has — at length — spoken about how completely crazy it is for Tommy to bring up his straight best friend, like Eddie’s straight, okay, why would Tommy even think that he would be pining for his Very Straight, Completely Heterosexual Best Friend.
Hen looks at him curiously, tucking a bookmark into her novel. She flips it cover down onto the coffee table but Ravi catches a glimpse of two women in historically inaccurate, barely-there pirate costumes. Not the time. Ravi can’t focus on the fact that Hen reads trashy literature when he feels like there is a potential bomb about to go off in the 118.
“Sure, Ravi,” Hen says, patting the couch next to her. “What’s up? You liking being back with us?”
“I mean, yeah,” Ravi says, nodding a bit too empathetically. He does like it, even if Bobby keeps calling him Eddie. Last time he only had to suffer through that from Buck. It’s a little insulting that his captain can’t remember that he’s Buck’s partner now, especially when it was said captain who basically pleaded with him to cover the shifts. “It’s good. Um. I just — okay. I might have really messed up.”
Hen looks increasingly concerned. “Ravi, I’m sure you didn’t mess up —“
“No, Hen, I just need to say, I didn’t realise that this was going to happen,” Ravi rambles on, basically ignoring her. He has this tightening anxiety in his stomach. Buck is never going to be normal again. There is a thin veneer of respectability over his behaviour and that veneer only exists because Buck had been blissfully oblivious to his insane crush on Eddie. Ravi is going to die because Buck is going to be so distracted by this whole thing that he forgets he even has a partner. “Basically, you know how Buck and I went for drinks last night?”
“Yes,” Hen says slowly. She’s looking at Ravi with a moderate amount of suspicion. “You guys didn’t…”
“What?” Ravi blinks back at her, his jaw dropping. “Oh my God, absolutely not. No.”
Hen breathes out a sigh of relief. She smiles at him. “That’s good. Sorry to assume—“
“I mean, Buck and I didn’t hook up. Buck and Tommy did.”
Hen’s eyebrows have this really interesting way of making someone feel about two inches tall with all the judgement they carry. “Sorry, repeat that for me?”
Ravi sighs, props his elbows on his knees and buries his face into his hands. “Hen, I know it makes me a bad friend, but I couldn’t hear the word Eddie one more time and I saw Tommy just like sitting at the bar? By himself? And I saw an out. I took the out. And this is all my fault.”
Hen makes a displeased sound. “That boy,” she sighs. She rubs Ravi’s shoulder with all the tenderness of a person who is so Mom-shaped they can’t help it. “Look, Ravi, it’s not your fault that Buck made a bad decision, okay? He’s a grown man. Is it ideal that he hooked up with his ex? Probably not. Are we going to have to suffer through the tenth batch of snickerdoodle cookies in a week? Yes. But that doesn’t sound like your fault.”
It lessens the tight coil of anxiety in his stomach just a fraction. But Hen doesn’t know the whole story. “That’s not the worst part, Hen.” He finally peers at her between his fingers. “Tommy said — Tommy told Buck that Eddie was competition. And, according to Buck, implied that Eddie might not be straight.”
Hen’s hand on his shoulder stops moving. He immediately misses the soothing touch. He could really do with some Hen-comfort right now.
There’s such a long moment of silence that Ravi finally removes his face from his palms. Hen looks — gobsmacked. Her eyes are the widest he’s ever seen them.
“Fuck,” she says succintly.
“Fuck,” Ravi agrees.
Chim gets looped in by virtue of being Buck’s brother-in-law and Hen’s best friend. He’s snapping at his gum so aggressively that Ravi’s worried for his teeth.
“Tommy Kinard is an idiot,” he tells them both grimly. All three of them are in the loft staring down at Buck who has not bothered to notice his audience in favour of looking at his phone, his expression twisting between mournful and despairingly confused. “I never really liked him but this is just…Too far.”
“Someone has to deal with that,” Hen says, nodding her head down at Buck. “We’ve still got fourteen hours left of this shift.”
“Maybe it won’t be so bad,” Ravi says, with false optimism. “Buck’s probably already over it.”
Hen and Chim exchange incredulous looks. “Ravi,” Chim says, so seriously he feels like he’s a kid in the principal's office. “Buck does not have the emotional fortitude to be anywhere near normal about this.” He sighs and snaps at his gum again. “It’s going to be a long shift.”
Ravi’s feelings about his own survival rate are becoming increasingly worse. When the alarm rang out Buck had been so distracted staring into space that Bobby had had to physically push him towards the engine.
“You all right, Buckaroo?” Hen asks carefully in the engine. Buck looks at her blankly and then nods, four times and with an alarming amount of aggression.
“Oh, yeah,” he says, his voice odd. “I mean, why wouldn’t I be all right? I’m actually the best I’ve ever been and absolutely nothing has changed in my life.”
Jesus Christ.
No one even bothers to reply to that. Bobby glances back at them, looking confused and concerned until Hen gives him a quick shake of her head.
Unprompted by literally anyone, Buck continues, “I mean, it would be crazy, right? If I wasn’t all right? It’s not like Eddie being in Texas is the worst thing that’s ever happened in the entire world. I had a ladder truck crush my leg once, y’know. I was in a tsunami with Chr— nevermind. That was definitely way worse than this. I’m being super normal about Eddie leaving, aren’t I, Ravi?”
Ravi wishes he never became a firefighter, or was never born. “Yeah, man,” he says, smiling encouragingly. “You’re being really cool about the whole thing.”
“Exactly!” Buck says, his face lighting up. “I’m being really cool about it. Like, it definitely wasn’t weird to move into Eddie’s house, was it?”
Ravi isn’t touching that with a ten foot pole, thanks.
“Why are we talking about Eddie?” Bobby asks, confused. Ravi doesn’t know why he’s confused, because all Buck has done recently is talk about Eddie. “Is something going on?”
“Going on?” Buck repeats, his voice becoming incredibly, unnervingly high-pitched. “Bobby. Ha. Ha ha. What could be going on?”
“I…Don’t know, Buck,” Bobby says carefully. The weirdness in the engine is becoming palpable. Hen and Chim are looking increasingly stressed out. Ravi can feel the sweat bead on the back of his neck. “Why don’t you tell me?”
Ravi hasn’t done daily prayers since he still lived with his parents but he must have been incredibly devout in a past life because they’re saved from Buck answering by Hodge, who’s driving, saying, “We’re here guys.” Hodge makes significant eye contact with Ravi through the rearview mirror. Like he’s telepathically saying be careful out there because you can’t trust an insane person to have your back.
Ravi is so, so fucked.
Buck calls him Eddie five times while they’re using the jaws to get a woman out of her car. Each time he does he gets progressively redder and redder. By the time Rose is successfully retrieved from the car, Buck looks so flustered that Ravi genuinely feels bad for him. At this point, it’s whatever. He wishes he was Eddie so Buck could stop looking so fucking miserable all the time. That, or he wishes Eddie Diaz never came to the state of California. Maybe, if he hadn’t, Buck would have found a nice person to settle down with, not this intense, messed up situationship that is now an intense, messed up, long-distance situationship.
Ravi puts a hand on Rose’s shoulder, gently guiding her to where Chim and Hen are waiting to assess her for injuries. “Hey, you did really well,” he says, and he genuinely means it. It wasn’t a nasty crash but bad enough that the door needed the jaws and Rose had been calm and collected the whole time even though her hands were trembling.
“Oh,” she says, blushing. “Thank you. I’m a nurse so I think I snapped into work mode for a bit.”
“That makes it easier for us,” Chim says, as he sits Rose down on the gurney. “I don’t have to give you the spiel about taking care of yourself after we let you go.” He starts gently cleaning her forearm where there’s a nasty cut.
“We’re the worst patients though,” she points out. She smiles gratefully at Ravi. “No, you’ve taken care of me enough. Thank you so much, Eddie.”
Buck, who had wandered over to help close up the engine, makes a choking sound.
“Oh my God,” Chim says, looking between Buck and Ravi. “I — Right. Anyway. Tell me more about your work, Rose. What type of nurse are you?”
Ravi liked working at Target because it was easy, it paid reasonably well and when he went home he completely forgot about anything to do with work.
“I can’t believe that Tommy just told Buck he might be in love with Eddie,” Ravi is instead saying to his housemate, Tobias. They’ve even had to pause Married at First Sight for Ravi to really get into the nitty gritty of how terrible his day was. “Like, is he genuinely insane? Does he have any self respect, at all?”
Tobias hums, looking thoughtful because Tobias is a good friend and genuinely cares about Ravi’s work drama. That and analysing the whole BuckandEddie thing is something Ravi has forced him to listen to since he first joined A-Shift as a probie. Tobias is actually pretty invested at this point. “I mean, maybe this is a wake up call?”
“Yeah, a wake up call that’s going to end up with Buck completely self-destructing. You don’t understand, man. Buck’s like — really fucking incapable of separating work and personal stuff.”
“It sounds like work is his personal stuff,” Tobias says, which. Point. This is what makes it worse. ”Look, I kinda feel for him. I mean every queer person has been through the whole straight best friend thing, right? It’s a rite of passage. It’s just happening when he’s in his thirties, not an awkward teenager.”
Buck, emotionally, might still be an awkward teenager. With a crush. A terrible, life-threatening crush. And it’s Ravi’s life being threatened.
“Tobias,” Ravi says, looking him dead in the eyes. “I need you to know this. Buck is not a person who has normal rites of passage. Like, I’ve been a firefighter for four years and I’ve ended up in the hospital one time. Buck is there constantly. He had a ladder truck end up on his leg. And I’m his partner now, which means I am, by proximity, exposed to that. So, Buck going through it emotionally, along with the whole Buck of it all?” Ravi sighs and rubs between his brows forcefully. “This isn’t good news for me.”
Tobias looks a bit grim at that. “Yeah,” he says. “Okay. I see your point.”
Buck corners him in the locker room as soon as Ravi turns up for his next shift. He looks, if possible, worse than the day before. “Look at this,” he hisses, and shoves his phone under Ravi’s nose, displaying his recent notifications.
Eddie 🔥
Hey man, free to call tonight?
Tommy Kinard
Evan, I didn’t mean to have a blow up fight like that. I’d really like to talk more if you’re free for a coffee sometime. It was nice seeing you the other night.
“Why is that Eddie’s emoji in your phone?” He asks, stupidly. Stupid, stupid.
“Because we’re firefighters?” Buck answers, looking confused. “What do you — Jesus, Ravi it’s not like that,” he huffs, cheeks turning a brilliant red almost instantly. “Oh my God. It’s a funny joke. Like ha ha. We’re firefighters. Fire emoji? You know?”
Ravi does not know. Ravi thinks an emoji pretty much universally associated with hotness saved against Eddie’s contact is pretty telling, actually.
“Sure,” he says instead.
Buck shakes his head, like he’s trying to dislodge something from his brain. “It doesn’t matter. What should I say to Tommy?”
“Tommy?” Ravi echoes. He just wants to clock in. Hasn’t he done enough? “I mean, what do you want to say to him?”
“Well, I want to say hey, why the hell did you imply Eddie was your competition and—“ Buck audibly swallows “—not straight.”
“So say that?”
“I can’t just say that,” Buck says, aghast. “That’s just… Well, it’s just disrespectful to Eddie, isn’t it? He’s been in Texas for a few weeks and people are trying to just make stuff up about his sexuality? That’s crazy. I’m not getting into that with Tommy of all people.”
Ravi has a few choice thoughts about Eddie’s sexuality that he will never verbalise and especially never verbalise to Buck. Actually, in hindsight, it’s pretty fucked up that Tommy even implied anything to Buck considering he was a man who — from Hen and Chim’s stories — had been closeted for years. Perhaps, maybe like another person. But Ravi’s not thinking about it. Very much not thinking about it.
“Look, Buck,” Ravi sighs. He closes his locker door. “The whole Tommy situation is kind of seperate from Eddie, isn’t it? So maybe just focus on you and Tommy. Do you want to meet up with him for coffee?”
Buck kind of looks like no one has ever told him that Eddie does not need to be a constant presence in every facet of his life. He narrows his eyes at Ravi. “It’s all about Eddie,” he says grimly. Which. Well, he’s not wrong. ”The entire fight was about Eddie.”
“Yeah, but as you’ve said—” repeatedly, with such vehemence it was actually a bit frightening, “—you don’t have feelings for Eddie. So there’s nothing to even fight with Tommy over. Just tell him that.”
“I — Well, I can’t just — I mean,” Buck stammers out. He suddenly spins away from Ravi, marching towards his own locker, like he can’t bear to continue making eye contact. “Yeah, of course, like it’s crazy that Tommy even had that idea. I’m not in love with Eddie. He’s amazing, of course. He’s the best person I’ve ever met. He makes me want to be — anyway. We’re bros. Basically —“ Buck stumbles to a halt in front of his locker, his shoulders a stiff, tense line. He says, through gritted teeth, like the words are physically painful to get out, “We’re basically brothers.”
Jesus. Even Ravi feels a bit sick at that.
The shifts do not get better. In fact, they get much worse.
Buck seems like he genuinely can’t even process what’s going on in front of him most days. He nearly dropped Ravi’s line the other day and Ravi had stared up at the sky mournfully, thinking I’m going to die because of gay drama. Bobby pulled Buck aside afterwards in the kitchen, looking incredibly Dad-like and kind and supportive and Buck had stumbled away from him with such panic that he’d nearly knocked into the table.
“Sorry, can’t talk, Bobby,” he’d stuttered out and nearly run out of the loft, catching Ravi by the arm as he went. ”We’re going to the gym. I can’t talk to Bobby about this,” he’d told Ravi, as he frog-marched him down the stairs.
“Why does that mean I have to go to the gym?” Ravi had weakly protested.
“Because I can only talk to you about this, Ravi,” Buck had said, a crazy glint in his eyes. “Bobby will just — ask me things and I’ll have to answer and I cannot, absolutely cannot, think about this right now.”
“About Eddie?”
“Not everything is about Eddie,” Buck had replied like he hadn’t explicitly said the other day that everything was about Eddie.
Then, one shift over dinner, Buck’s phone had vibrated on the table, the buzzing sound loud enough that Ravi had instinctively glanced down to see Eddie 🔥 calling with a contact card that showed Eddie smiling on the beach, sunset golden in the background. The picture genuinely could have been a scene out of a romantic movie. Buck had taken one look at his phone, pure panic crossing his expression, before he threw it across the table, knocking Hen’s taco out of her hand.
“What the hell, Buck?” she’d said, picking the phone up. “What was — oh.” She’d seen the sunset picture, Buck’s frantic, hunted expression, and promptly shut up, handing the phone back to him.
So Buck’s ignoring Eddie and, as Ravi’s realised, has basically no friends outside of work which left Ravi on the receiving end of increasingly unhinged monologues about feelings Buck Did Not Have.
Ravi’s kind of accepted his fate at this point. If he ever sees Tommy Kinard again, it’ll be too soon, honestly.
“I just don’t think I could be in love without knowing I’m in love, you know?” Buck’s saying. They’re theoretically playing pool but Buck hasn’t touched a ball in ten minutes and he’s using the cue exclusively as a place for him to rest his chin. “People know they’re in love. Even if I feel good around Eddie, and want to be around him all the time, that’s friendship? We’re best friends, Ravi, that’s what best friends do.”
Ravi hasn’t heard such an emphasis on the words best friends since he was in middle school.
“And I mean look, do I understand Tommy being jealous of Eddie? Sure. I mean, hell, I was so jealous of him that first shift I acted like a complete crazy person.”
As opposed to now?
“He’s competent, he’s got that really cool and composed thing going for him and obviously —“ Buck goes red “—I mean, obviously he’s good looking. Hen said so and she’s a lesbian. Just because I know that Eddie’s hot and think he has a great — nevermind. What I mean is, I can acknowledge certain physical attributes of Eddie’s without being in love with him or-or even sexually attracted to him.”
Certain physical attributes is a crazy way to say great ass, Ravi thinks despondently.
“Eddie’s just the best, though. I mean who wouldn’t want him around all the time? He’s smart, he’s funny in this really dry way and you don’t realise it at first until you’re like holy shit this dude is hilarious. He’s such a good dad too, I mean look at what he’s doing for Christopher right now? And he’s overcome so much, Ravi, you don’t even know the half of it.”
“I don’t need to know,” Ravi says, but Buck ignores him. Ravi basically doesn’t matter to Buck. Ravi is a sounding board for his bisexual despair and, as a fellow bisexual who was kind of responsible for Tommy and Buck’s fight, he needs to suffer through this. For the sake of the team. The only thing worse than Buck going through it is Buck bottling it up, going crazy and ending up in a near death experience, with Ravi reluctantly just behind him.
“I mean anyone would be lucky to love Eddie,” Buck continues on. He’s digging his chin into the pool cue hard. “Eddie’s going to find someone amazing, that sees how great he is and they’re going to love him so much. Like it’ll be awesome for Eddie. Great. I’ll be so…happy.”
“You’ll find someone too, Buck,” Ravi says gently, and Buck just scoffs, throwing the cue down onto the table, finally giving up on the guise that they’ve been playing pool.
“Yeah, I’ll be Eddie’s best friend, always,” he says nodding firmly, like he’s manifesting the words into reality. “I’ll just be there for him. In my own way. While he — while he just has this incredible, amazing love story and I’m just there. Watching.”
Jesus. Fucking. Christ.
Ravi doesn’t get paid enough to deal with this.
Predictably, Buck’s insanity does affect Ravi.
“I’m so sorry, man,” Buck says mournfully. He’s hovering anxiously at the edge of the ambulance. Ravi can actually not look at Buck right now. His arm is throbbing, his head hurts and even Hen’s gentle shoulder rubs are not helping him at all. ”I didn’t even know you were there, I just thought busting down the door was the easiest way of getting in—“
“Buck,” Ravi says through gritted teeth. “I had just radioed you to let you know that I was inside.”
“Should have checked first, man,” Chim says, not unsympathetically. “We know you were trying to do the right thing but Ravi here got the brunt end of it.”
This was supposed to be a pretty routine call. A kid had got themselves locked in their room and Buck had gone up the stairs, with Ravi going through the window. Except, for some unknown reason, Buck — who’s built like a brick shithouse — had busted down the door that Ravi had been standing right in front of without any kind of hey, anyone in the way back there? Thankfully, the kid had been saved from any damage because Ravi had been in between them and the full force of Buck’s unnecessarily forceful and aggressive kick.
Ravi’s just tired at this point. Tired, anxious almost all the time, and really, really sick of the BuckandEddie thing. Because of course Buck, who looked at all times like he needed to be in motion, would use physical distraction as a way of repressing his feelings. Of course, he was so involved in his own convoluted feelings about Eddie that he didn’t do a simple check to make sure the door was clear. Ravi was just the guy who happened to exist in the Eddie shaped hole of Buck’s life.
“Buck, you need to get your head on straight,” he says, more sharply than he’s ever spoken at work. “I understand, I do, that it’s been really hard for you to come to terms with the fact that you have feelings for Eddie. But I need you to see that right now I’m your partner, and you need to get over it and actually be there as a partner for me. Otherwise, next time it’ll be worse than this and I genuinely do not want to end up in the hospital because you’re too focused on realising you’re in love with Eddie that you can’t do your job.”
Chim’s jaw closes with an audible snap. Hen drops the gauze in her hand.
Ravi’s heart is beating like crazy against his rib cage. He hates confrontation, hates it especially at work, but he is just… really done.
“Oh,” Buck says, a bit dumbly. His mouth opens and closes like he’s not sure what to say. “Oh. Um. Act-Actually, you’re right. And I’m really sorry, Ravi, that I let my personal life impact you.”
Huh. That’s kind of — genuine actually.
“You’re right,” Buck goes on, looking at Ravi solemnly. “I am letting my feelings for Eddie impact work. And I’m not being a good partner to you. I’m sorry, again.”
Feelings for Eddie Chim mouths incredulously. Ravi feels the same.
“Oh, ah. No, sorry, man,” Ravi flounders, mostly in shock that Buck has, in some small way, referenced being in love with Eddie. “I didn’t mean to be a dick, I’m just —“
“You’re completely in the right,” Buck says. He nods at Ravi firmly. “I’ll be better.”
For the record, Buck is better. He locks in on work, doesn’t call him Eddie once and when Bobby does, he firmly corrects him. It’s like working with a completely different guy. He even starts to talk to Ravi about his frisbee golf like he’s genuinely interested and doesn’t mention pick-up basketball, or cars, or any other Eddie-interest.
In fact, he doesn’t mention Eddie at all. To a point where it’s a bit unnerving. Ravi asks Hen about it and she says, “Look at what I’ve been dealing with,” and shows him her recent text thread with Eddie.
Eddie Diaz
Hey, Hen. Is Buck okay?
Not that I don’t think he would be okay, he’s just been a bit distant.
Anyway, hope everything is going well. Chris misses Denny a lot.
Do you mind checking in on Buck for me though?
This is why Ravi can’t really blame Buck for the way he acts about Eddie. They’re equally unhinged.
Hen gently coaxes Buck into talking to Eddie, and things seem to settle down a bit. Ravi notices sometimes that Eddie’s calling and Buck doesn’t immediately try and throw his phone across the room like it’s a cursed object. He’s making progress. Ravi feels oddly proud, in as much as he can feel proud of a thirty year old man.
It’s three months since Eddie went to Texas that Ravi realises they’re actually friends now. Not like, replacement-Eddie friends but a totally independent, Buck and Ravi friendship. It only really occurs to him when Buck’s saying, “So how is Tobias’ grandma’s recovery going?” and Ravi’s replying, like this level of knowledge about his roommate’s family is normal, “Yeah, man, it’s good, Tobias is way less stressed.” Because Buck is actually a really good friend. He’s attentive and generous and will gladly do things like head to the flea market with Ravi just to chat shit and spend too much money on dumb things.
It’s why, when they’re out for drinks together one night, Ravi realises, with growing horror, that he has to mention Eddie.
Buck’s a good friend who kind of went through an extreme amount of emotional turmoil and Ravi is aware of how insane Buck gets about Eddie. But insane-Buck that Ravi would gladly tune out is not insane-friend-Buck who Ravi genuinely, deeply cares about.
Ravi steels himself, takes a sip of his beer, and looks steadily at Buck. “Hey, can I ask you something?”
“Sure,” Buck says, easily. “I’m not going to your trivia night again just so you win though.”
“No, um. It’s not that.” He takes a steading breath. “How are you going with…um. The whole Eddie thing.”
Buck’s face drops so suddenly that it’s almost cartoonish. He looks down at the coaster, like the faded Corona logo has all the answers. “Oh. Yeah.”
“We don’t have to talk about it—“
Buck sighs, loudly enough to effectively cut Ravi off. “It’s fine, Ravi,” he says, sounding completely and utterly miserable. “Look, I just. It’s kind of embarrassing? I don’t like to talk about it because then I have to face the fact that I am hopelessly pining after my straight best friend who doesn’t even live in the state anymore. It just…sucks.”
“Are you guys talking much?” Ravi asks carefully, knowing that there was definitely a stage where even seeing a text from Eddie would send Buck into a spiral.
“Yeah, every day,” Buck says. He pokes at the coaster. “He’s good. Chris and him are working things out. He likes the station in Texas.”
“That’s good.”
“Yeah.”
Ravi and Buck don’t look at each other. Ravi takes another sip of his beer.
“Did you ever talk to Tommy again?” Ravi asks, curious because he actually doesn’t know. “After that night where…”
“You abandoned me to my ex because I was being annoying as shit?” Buck asks dryly.
Ravi shrugs guiltily. “Eh, I wouldn’t say it in those words…But seriously, is there anything going on there now?”
“Nah,” Buck says, shaking his head vehemently. “Tommy and I had other issues apart from Eddie but that’s done and dusted now. It didn’t help that he made me realise Eddie was competition, even just to me. But yeah, I think that I’m over the sleeping-with-my-ex part of moving on from Eddie.”
“Oh, you’re trying to move on?” Ravi asks and Buck gives him a pointed look.
“Yes, Ravi,” he says, “I am trying to move on from my unrequited feelings for my straight best friend.”
“That’s great,” Ravi says, and he means it. “I’m happy for you, man. I think this will be good for you.”
That’s why, of course, the next shift everything goes to shit.
They’re walking upstairs, having just finished a call, and Buck is rubbing his sooty hand through Ravi’s hair, laughing as he tries to squirm away.
“No, Ravi, you look so good when you’re dishevelled like that,” he’s saying, snickering obnoxiously and he’s basically plastered to Ravi’s side which is why Ravi feels it when he completely freezes.
Ravi looks up to see Eddie fucking Diaz, leaning against the kitchen island, hands in his pockets and cool as a fucking cucumber. He has a strand of hair falling onto his forehead and the afternoon sunlight makes it look like he’s glowing. Romance movie type of shit.
This guy.
“Hey,” Eddie says, but he’s only looking at Buck. There’s a soft, private smile on his face that Ravi ridiculously feels like he should look away from. But they’re in public. If Eddie wants to expose them to this level of emotional PDA he should have gotten consent in writing first. “I was wondering when you guys would be back.”
Buck has still not rebooted from the shock of seeing Eddie in L.A and in their kitchen apparently, because he just stares, jaw hanging open and his eyes incredibly wide.
“E-Eddie?” he asks. “What the hell? What are you doing here?”
Chim, Hen and Bobby are saying the appropriate hellos and Oh my Gods! but Eddie’s just looking back at Buck. He actually hasn’t once looked away from him.
This is terrible. Buck’s going to lose his goddamn mind.
“I’m coming home,” he says gently, his smile only getting bigger. “Chris and I are moving back to L.A.”
Ravi kind of regrets being friends with Buck now. Because Buck is actually at DEFCON 1 levels of insane behaviour.
“Ravi, I cannot do this,” he’s saying imploringly. They’re holed up in the bunk room together, and Ravi can hear the sound of Eddie, Chim and Hen laughing outside. Buck’s so quiet he’s basically hissing the words when he says, “I’m in love with him. And Eddie’s — here. Eddie is here and he is going to take one look at me and know. He’ll never speak to me again, he’ll move back to Texas and block my number and probably send a message in the 118 group chat about how much of a pathetic loser I am.”
Buck had excused himself from the kitchen with the least believable excuse of needing to charge his iPhone and a be back in just a moment! which he had honestly completely ruined when he’d grabbed Ravi by the shoulder and dragged him along with him. Eddie’s eyebrows shot up and he’d looked intently between Buck and Ravi long enough that Ravi thought hey, this guy used to shoot guns for a living.
Ravi is, reluctantly, involved in this now.
“Buck, calm down,” he says. He places his hands on Buck’s shoulders to forcibly stop him from his frantic pacing across the room. “You’re going to be okay. Eddie doesn’t know anything. He’s not going to know anything because you’re going to be totally normal, and act exactly like you did before he left.”
“I was in love with him before he left!” Buck snaps. “And I think it was pretty obvious I was in love with him if even my ex-boyfriend noticed it!”
Buck has a really valid point actually. But Ravi will not be deterred from his (forced) optimism. He’s Buck’s friend now and if Buck needs someone to help him act normal, Ravi can be there for him. It’ll be like training a dog - he can invest in a spray bottle and just spritz Buck whenever he does something weird.
Fuck. Buck is going to be so weird. L.A. has draughts — this plan is not environmentally conscientious.
“You’re going to be fine, okay? I’m here for you,” Ravi tells him earnestly. He will be because Buck is a good person and a good friend who is ten seconds away from blurting out the words you have a nice ass to Eddie and he doesn’t deserve that level of mortification. He looks at Buck intently as he says, “Don’t worry, I’ll be there the whole time.”
Which is how Eddie finds them when he opens the door to the bunk room, looking between Buck and Ravi with deepening suspicion. Buck startles away from Ravi so quickly he actually stumbles back into one of the beds and lands on his ass with a heavy thump.
“Hey,” Eddie says slowly. He’s looking at Ravi and Buck with a frown. “Buck, what are you doing in here, bud?”
“I-I said I was charging my iPhone,” Buck says, kind of just giving up on existence if the way he slumps back on the bed is any indication. “Sorry, Eddie. Hey! Welcome back to sunny L.A. Well, I guess it’s sunny in Texas too but…” Buck coughs and looks away from Eddie, waving his hands in some approximation of the world’s lamest jazz hands. “L.A.”
“L.A.,” Ravi repeats, a bit blankly.
“Oookay,” Eddie says. His eyebrows are seemingly permanently raised. “Right. Yeah thanks, Buck. I just wondered why you were charging your phone in here because, as far as I know, you usually charge it upstairs in case someone calls you.”
See? Ravi has never been more right. Eddie and Buck are equally crazy and have never been normal about each other ever.
“Oh, I realised that the socket in here is more effective, actually,” Buck says weakly. He looks desperately at Ravi. “Ravi told me.”
Ravi thinks oh no, oh, do not involve me in this at the same time that Eddie snaps, “And Ravi is always right?”
Which, well. Okay? As far as Ravi is aware he has done nothing to earn the vitriol that Eddie applies to his name. Ravi actually barely knows Eddie considering the only times he’s been on A-Shift for prolonged periods of time is when Eddie’s left. But Eddie is legitimately looking at Ravi like they’ve had some sort of falling out that, as far as Ravi is aware, is entirely one-sided, thank you.
“Yeah, Ravi knows a lot about…sockets,” Buck says. He can’t even look at Eddie now. He’s still laying half-sprawled over the bunk bed, staring directly up at the ceiling.
“Ravi does, does he?”
Ravi would like everyone to stop saying his name.
“Eddie, are you hanging around for lunch?” Thank every single fucking deity Ravi’s ever prayed to, because Bobby’s poking his head into the bunk room, blissfully unaware of the weird tension that’s been building. “I’m making spaghetti, if you want to stay.”
Buck has clearly found something life-changing on the ceiling because he’s not looking away. Eddie nods at Buck, looks at Ravi sharply and then gives a half-genuine smile to Cap. “Yeah, Bobby, I’ll stay. Lots to catch up on.”
And with that pointed remark he leaves the bunk room.
Ravi sighs and rubs at the spot between his eyebrows. “This is going to be a long shift.”
Lunch is…awkward. Very fucking painfully awkward.
The thing is, Eddie won’t stop looking at him. Ravi shifts slightly and Eddie’s focusing on the movement so intently he feels like a bug under a microscope. They’re, unfortunately, sitting directly across from one another, so he can’t even escape it. Ravi hasn’t felt this anxious at work since he saw Buck coming at him with a massive fucking chainsaw when he was still a probie.
“Where’s Chris, Eddie?” Bobby says, sounding even and calm. Ravi tries to manifest that calmness into his own being. “We’ve missed him around here.”
Eddie snorts, finally looking away from Ravi. He nudges Buck’s side, and Ravi tries not to wince at the way Buck full body startles at the contact. “Yeah, but he missed his wifi and computer set up more,” Eddie says. He sounds a bit distracted, half involved in the conversation with Bobby and half focusing on Buck’s incredible weirdness. He’s a thorough guy though so he manages to shoot a dirty glance at Ravi too. ”He’ll be around soon, I’ll drag him to a 118 barbeque.”
“That’s great, Eddie,” Buck says and he sounds genuine. Maybe if they keep talking about Christopher, Buck can be normal for the entirety of lunch and Ravi can finish his shift and look at work-from-home jobs as soon as he gets off.
“He’s missed you the most though,” Eddie tells Buck softly and Buck, in return, chokes on his spaghetti.
“Ha! Oh, nah, man I’m sure he’s… No, it’s not like that, bro. Like he would have missed everyone, dude. He loves Bobby!”
Bobby blinks at Buck, his fork freezing midway to his mouth. Hen mutters, “Oof,” under her breath. Ravi thinks Buck might be slightly overcorrecting with the frat bro slang.
“Oh,” Bobby says unsurely, giving an uneasy smile to Buck. “That’s kind, Buck, but we all know you and Christopher—“
“Have a totally normal relationship,” Buck interrupts frantically, saying the words directly to Eddie, like he’s pleading with him. “We’re like — really, just normal. You know, best friend’s son, we’re buddies, of course. But we’re actually so normal about it. I think I’m like his — his—“ Buck flounders, mouth gaping, “—his uncle.”
The entire table falls silent. Buck looks physically pained. Eddie genuinely turns an interesting shade of grey at the term.
“I’ve never really thought of you as an…Uncle,” Eddie says stiffly.
Ravi wishes he were anywhere apart from here. He makes desperate eye contact with Chim who gives a helpless shrug in return.
“I mean, I guess we’ve never said it,” Buck goes on, like he’s getting some sort of sick satisfaction in digging out his own grave. He may as well be asking Eddie to hand him the shovel. “But Jee calls Hen Aunty and — well, yeah, I guess… it makes…sense?”
“Does it?” Eddie asks flatly. For some reason his Ravi-glaring has intensified.
“I think Buck’s just trying to say,” Ravi starts because he is being a Good Friend and he also just cannot stand the second hand embarrassment he’s feeling at Buck’s expense but Eddie cuts him off sharply.
“I think Buck can talk for himself, thanks.”
“Okay,” Hen says, dragging out the word. She looks between Buck, Eddie and Ravi with a disbelieving expression. Ravi feels her pain. “Moving on. Did you have a good time in Texas?”
“Not really,” Eddie says, his expression grim. He’s handling his knife and fork so tightly his knuckles are white. “It’s Texas. But it was nice to see my sisters and catch up with some old friends.”
“Did you go on any dates?” Buck asks, like a fucking insane person.
Is Buck a masochist? Is this why he’s always in hospital?
Eddie just looks at Buck, so affronted and annoyed that it’s almost like he’s saying the words you are a fucking idiot out loud. “No, Buck. I did not go on dates.”
“Oh, I just thought Helena might want to set you up with some nice Texan girl.” He laughs weakly. “Lock you down in Texas to have one point five more babies.” Ah, Ravi remembers Buck’s spiral about the hypothetical love of Eddie’s life. Buck sounds a little desperate and a lot unhinged. Ravi hates it here.
“She did,” Eddie says slowly. He looks right at Buck and then, conspicuously, looks at absolutely no one when he says, “I told her it wouldn’t work with any of those women because I’m gay.”
This is worse than the Tommy thing. This is so much worse.
Every single person in the room looks at Buck. Chim mouths what the fuck.
No, seriously, Chim’s right. What the fuck.
Hen is the first one to actually speak. “Wow, Eddie, I’m really proud of you. That must have been difficult to come to terms with.”
“Not really that difficult,” Eddie says tightly. He has not once looked away from the fridge. “It’s something I’ve probably known about myself for a long time. Once I admitted it, a lot of things made sense in hindsight.”
“Things?” Buck says, in a pitch only appropriate for dogs. “What things?”
“Things, Buck,” Eddie says. He crosses his arms tightly like if he’s closed off enough he can shut down the entire conversation by force of will alone. ”It doesn’t matter.”
“It — it definitely matters, Eddie, what the fuck?”
Ravi, helplessly, says, “Buck, maybe now’s not the time—“ and Eddie goes actually, genuinely off the handle.
“Ravi, can you just stay the fuck out of it?” Eddie barks at him, and Ravi’s spine straightens so suddenly he’s basically fourteen and in Mrs McEwan’s math class again being told to pay attention. “It’s great you and Buck are happy together, but Buck and I have a lot of history and I don’t really need you involved in every conversation we have, okay?”
“Happy together?” Ravi repeats, shocked. He has actually never been less happy. Ravi really, really hates it here.
“Ravi and — Eddie, what the fuck are you talking about?” Buck says, grabbing at Eddie’s shoulder and spinning him bodily in the chair. Eddie’s making a valiant effort of not looking away from the fridge, what with Buck’s entire fucking body getting right up in his personal space. ”What do you mean Ravi and I are happy together?”
“Let’s not get into it, Buck,” Eddie says, and Bobby goes, “Okay, time out,” and then it’s Buck’s turn to say something crazed because he just yells, really loudly and forcibly, “Eddie, fuck, I’m in love with you.”
If the whole gay revelation caused everyone to shut up, this is ten times worse. Chim is just swinging his gaze between Buck and Eddie like he’s at the Open and this is the most highly anticipated tennis match of all time. Hen says, “Oh, boy.” Bobby shoves a large forkful of spaghetti into his mouth.
“Oh,” Eddie says. He looks like someone’s just punched him square in the face. But with, like, emotions. “Wait. Really?”
“Really— Eddie, are you serious? When I saw Tommy he said he broke up with me because you were a competition that he knew he was losing. Every single relationship I’ve ever had is— it’s absolutely nothing compared to you,” Buck says, so earnestly, with the widest, bluest eyes of all time that Ravi actually nearly swoons. ”I’m so in love with you I’m crazy about it. I’m so in love with you that Ravi said I was going to get him killed because I was so distracted.” Which, well, that was a serious concern and not a lighthearted Ha, see how much I love you thing but whatever, Ravi can deal.
And Eddie just replies — because, as Ravi has repeatedly stated for the record, he is an overly possessive, crazy man — “Sorry, Tommy?”
Buck and Eddie are both, objectively, hot. Ravi can admit that. He can also, with great enthusiasm, agree on the allure of Eddie’s Certain Physical Attributes. With more enthusiasm now since Eddie sheepishly apologised and shook Ravi’s hand and said, “Thanks for having Buck’s back while I was gone.”
He does not want to see, for the third time now, Buck grab Eddie’s ass while they grind into each other in the bunkroom. “Fuck, Eddie,” Buck says, and Ravi might genuinely have to look into ear cleaning methods. “You’re so fucking —“
”Yeah,” Eddie groans back, “You too, baby.”
Enough. It’s enough. Ravi says, “For fucks sake,” and spins on his heel and walks directly to Bobby’s office. Hodge is taking paternity leave soon. Surely he can get a shift swap back to B-Shift. He’s paid his dues. He deserves a bit of peace.