Chapter Text
//
Buck
(Fifteen unread messages @ 1:48pm)
Okay but did it look cool when I fell because my SEALs training kicked in and it kinda felt cool but I don’t really know what it looked like from the outside
Too busy trying not to swallow any of that nasty water
Also that harbour is GROSS
Can’t wait to have a proper shower the sink is not enough I smell so bad
I’m fine by the way
Bruised to fuck but
Fine
Eddie
Well I’m in hospital AGAIN and I’m bored so I’m going to keep blowing up your phone till you RESPONDDD
Umm hello???
Are you okay????
Rude
Okay incredibly offended but nw ig
Eds, for realsies, you good?
Bobby has informed me that you are in fact fine so fine I guess
//
He bumps into Tommy in the grocery store of all places. Of course it would be the grocery store. The scene now of several Eddie Diaz meltdowns.
Maddie and Jee’s departure left him in a house that felt too big and too quiet all of a sudden. He kept moving between the different rooms trying to find something to occupy him until eventually he’d snatched up his car keys and been out the house before he could really decide where he was going or what he was doing.
He drives round aimlessly, burning through gas, thoughts spinning restlessly until he gets himself good and lost. He’s not in a neighbourhood he recognises. He really needs to stop driving around when his head isn’t in it. He stops when he spots the store. Something about quiet muzak, fluorescent lighting and ambient noise really appeals right now.
‘Bumps into’ isn’t really the right expression. He’s in the pasta aisle trying to decide between campanelle and gemelli for his next pasta adventure when he catches sight of Tommy further up the aisle and freezes.
Evasive manoeuvres, his brain screams, and he about-turns sharply and begins to walk away as stealthily as he can.
“Eddie?”
About as stealthy as a drunk marching band then. He must’ve moved too sharply, drawn the eye instead of evading it. Maybe if he stands really still Tommy won’t notice him.
“Hey Diaz!”
Dammnit. No pretending now. He turns and makes a show of recognising Tommy.
“Oh hey!”
Tommy works not to look disappointed but he's a lousy actor.
“What?” He asks dejectedly, “we can't still be friends?”
Eddie sighs.
“We were friends before I dated Buck,” Tommy reminds him.
“I know,” Eddie says, “It’s just- he’s been stress baking.”
Over you.
“He’s been miserable.”
Over you.
“It’s hard. Right now.”
Hard to understand why you were so important to him.
“Loyal through and through,” Tommy says, nodding at the floor.
“I guess,” Eddie says, awkwardness invading the whole interaction till Eddie can practically feel it, thick in the air around them.
There’s a pause and then the words are vomiting out of his mouth before he can get a handle on them.
“Why’d you do it?” He asks, and he’s surprised by the anger in his voice. Although maybe it’s not so surprising at its core. Buck’s been miserable and Tommy's the reason.
How could Tommy be the one to break up with Buck? Like ‘hey asshole, don’t you know a good thing when you've got it?’
“I’m not an idiot Eddie, I can see what’s right in front of my face,” Tommy says.
Eddie frowns. Riiiiiight.
Eddie's clearly shortsighted because he has no idea what Tommy's on about. His ignorance must be evident because Tommy's face morphs from one of disappointment into one of incredulity.
“Although apparently you can’t… do you really not know?”
Eddie doesn’t know what it is his face does that convinces Tommy but after a quiet study the other man blows out a gusty breath and squares his shoulders.
“Buck’s not in love with me,” he says assuredly, and Eddie has to squash down on the rush of pleasure that expands within him at those words.
“He wants to be loved so badly that he’s convinced himself that he loves me. Or he decided that he'd love me. But he doesn’t,” Tommy continues.
“He asked you to move in,” Eddie says. That has to mean something.
“Exactly. That’s why I had to step in. I realised he didn’t know. I thought he knew. I thought he'd get his head sorted and realise what everyone else knows.”
“Which is…”
“Christ. You two,” Tommy mutters more to himself than to Eddie. He looks him in the eye. “Eddie, we hung out a couple times and Buck became so jealous that he maimed you,” he says with the air of someone explaining basic math.
“Yeah,” Eddie says, feeling that familiar creeping guilt. “We were kind of being dicks, excluding him like that, obviously he reacted… a lot. But-”
“Except we weren’t being dicks. You’re allowed to have friends other than Buck, hang out with guys other than Buck. Also we only hung out a couple times!”
“I don’t get you,” Eddie says frustrated.
“Buck was jealous!”
“Yeah, of me! He wanted your attention.”
Eddie doesn't know why they’re rehashing the past. This is water under the bridge. The lore of Buck and Tommy. He knows this, they all know this.
“No Eddie. Not of me. He didn't even know me. He'd met me like three times before that.”
Tommy sighs.
“I took you to a fight, played basketball with you,” he pauses, “put the moves on you a bit.”
Eddie's eyes widen, and Tommy laughs without humour.
“Yeah Eddie. And suddenly I’m getting between you and Buck and Buck is putting you in the hospital to get your attention back on him.”
Eddie's heart pounds. His skull feels tight, the bones seeming to contract in.
“So yeah. I guess I was feeling a little hurt, a little embarrassed, that then when we discussed it all it’s ‘damn we were assholes to Buck’ not ‘damn Buck is crazy’ and clearly… you weren’t interested. Couldn’t see the wood for the trees.
So maybe when I go to sort things with Buck and he's telling me it was my attention he was after I let myself believe him. And then I didn’t want to stop believing him. Because he's Buck. And he's amazing. He's- he’s the best. And I told myself he knew I wasn’t the one, that he'd end it and I’d just enjoy the ride even while it was killing me a bit.
But then he's asking me to move in and I realise he’s going to pretend he’s in love with me for the security of it all… and I couldn’t let him do that. To himself. To me. I think it would’ve- would’ve killed me.”
Eddie is speechless. In all the time he's been coming to terms with the fact that he's in love with Buck, he hadn't considered that Buck might feel the same. But he still needs to hear it out loud.
“You think he's in love with me,” he says, and the words are quiet, barely controlled.
“I think the only two people who don’t know that you’re in love with each other are you two,” Tommy says, exasperation winning out over upset in his voice.
Eddie turns and stares at pasta without seeing it while Tommy stares at him.
“Okay, well, thanks for this I guess,” Eddie says and then he turns on his heel and walks out of the store without buying anything.
He strides across the parking lot, clenching and unclenching his fists. His hands are tingling. His ears are ringing. He can’t remember where he parked his car.
You're in love with each other.
He manages to find the truck and slides into the cab. The restless need to do something is back. Instead he stares at the steering wheel for several minutes.
He needs to talk to someone. There's one person he hasn’t spoken to about this. About Buck. He pulls out his phone.
Eddie
Gossip for you
Chris
(Incoming call)
“Tell me everything,” Chris demands gleefully.
Eddie takes a deep breath.
“Okay, so you know Buck and Tommy broke up a little while back?”
“I heard about that somewhere along the grapevine.”
“Right. Kinda crazy. One minute Buck’s telling me things are good, the next it’s all over.”
“I mean… it’s not that crazy.”
“No?”
“Well I never saw them ending up together,” Chris says.
“You didn’t?”
“No,” Chris says carefully.
“Oh?” Eddie says, voice too high to be nonchalant but he perseveres all the same. “And who do you see him with?”
His heart’s in his throat again.
“Honestly dad? You.”
“Really?” He chokes out.
“Yeah it always seemed kind of obvious to me that you guys loved each other.”
“He’s my best friend.”
“Yeah but you don’t love him like a friend you’re in love with him.”
Eddie’s aware that it’s a stick or twist moment.
“Yeah,” he whispers.
“He loves you too,” Chris says, and Eddie can hear the smile in Chris’s voice.
“That doesn’t… bother you?”
He can’t help the question.
“Why would it?” Chris asks sincerely.
Eddie nods. Why would it?
“It never occurred to me…” he begins then stops, pauses, tries again. “I just ran into Tommy at the grocery store.”
Eddie tells Chris everything. When he’s done Chris is quiet for a moment before he speaks.
“Maybe, and this is a radical idea, you should tell Buck how you feel,” Chris says.
“What do I even say to him?” Eddie says with a sigh.
“‘Hey I’m in love with you, wanna get married and stop torturing everyone around us?’” Chris suggests.
“Christopher.”
His son laughs.
“You could tell him I’m coming home for starters,” Chris says.
Eddie’s pretty sure his heart stops for a moment.
“What?” He whispers.
“Yup,” Chris says. “I’ll let you deal with abuela and abuelo but I want to come home. The school term finishes up soon for Christmas, I could come home over the holidays, start back in LA in the new year?”
Home.
“Yeah sure. Whatever you want Chris,” Eddie says thickly.
Eddie sits for a moment and tries to process all the information competing for attention in his poor abused brain. Chris and Buck and Texas and Tommy and pasta and Joy and fucking juice. But at the end of it all a black and white checker flag has been waved. Eddie didn’t realise that part of what was holding him back was Chris, the look on Chris’s face when he saw Eddie and Kim. He feels something big settle into place and he’s filled with a grim sense of determination.
“I need to go talk to Buck,” he says decisively.
“Yes you do,” Chris agrees.
“Okay.”
They sit in silence on the phone.
“You need to hang up on me in order to go talk to Buck,” Chris coaches.
“Yup.”
More dead air.
“Okay I’m hanging up on you now,” Chris declares.
“Wait!”
“Love you bye!”
“Uh- love you Mijo. Stay in touch.”
“Bye dad.”
//
He knocks instead of letting himself in. It’s a knocking situation.
Buck opens the door and every emotion splashes across his face. Surprise, annoyance, confusion.
“How is it that I was the one who got waterlogged and yet it’s your phone that doesn’t seem to be working,” he says, turning away from the door and walking back to his kitchen.
“Hey,” Eddie says, ignoring the spiky question.
“Hey,” Buck says, over his shoulder.
Eddie’s struggling to walk into the loft. Maybe because he knows everything is about to change, whether because he ruins their friendship or changes it irrevocably.
“Can I come in?”
“What are you? A vampire? Of course you can,” Buck says, incredulous. “You’re being so weird,” he mutters to himself.
Eddie pushes himself across the threshold.
He has to tell Buck. But.. he doesn’t have to do it right away, right? He can stall. Just for a bit.
“How are you?”
“Fine. It wasn’t that big of a deal,” Buck says with a sigh.
Eddie bites his tongue.
“I’m a bit sore, bruised. The docs aren’t worried about hypothermia or concussion or any of that jazz. The only real thing is that I swallowed a bunch of water which wasn’t great. They’ve taken bloods but it’s more of a waiting game to see if I get ill or become radioactive or something.”
“Shouldn’t someone be with you? In case you get sick,” Eddie frowns.
“Yeah probably, but everyone was either busy or dodging my messages,” Buck says waspishly.
Eddie avoids his eye.
“Anyway,” Buck softens, “all I really needed was a shower. Don’t get me wrong, that water was gross but I don’t feel awful and I think I would by now if I was gonna get sick.”
Eddie stares at him. He needs to say it.
“You got beer?” He asks instead, skirting Buck to get to his fridge. Tommy was right about at least one thing, doing this with a beer will be easier. Eddie hopes to God Tommy was right about more than one thing. Pulling two bottles out he hands them to Buck who wordlessly pops the top off with his pinky ring.
Eddie lets himself watch, lets himself look at Buck. Eddie takes it all in hungrily.
“What is up with you?” Buck asks, handing the bottle over. Eddie tips his head back and downs half of it.
“What do you mean?” He asks, aiming for nonchalance and failing dramatically. His voice is too raw.
“I don’t know man, you’ve been acting… squirrelly,” Buck says warily.
Eddie tries to take a calming breath.
“I’ve been thinking a lot lately… talking a lot. In therapy, to this priest, Chris, Maddie-“
“-You spoke to Maddie?”
“-And Tommy”
“Tommy?!”
“In fact I think you're the only person I haven’t really spoken to,” Eddie says with a slightly breathless laugh.
“What is going on?” Buck asks, completely at a loss and looking a little worried.
Eddie stares at him for a moment. He taps his knuckle against the counter distractedly. Do it or don’t?
Eddie squares his shoulders. Steps forward. He closes the distance between the two of them so he can reach out and fist the material of Buck’s sweater in his hand and tug him closer. Buck's eyes, so blue, are wide and bewildered but he doesn’t resist the pull.
“Do you trust me?” Eddie can’t help but ask.
“With my life,” Buck says earnestly.
Eddie lets his eyes drop to Buck’s lips, flicks them back up at Buck’s sharp inhale. Eddie pulls him in closer. When Eddie kisses Buck for the first time it’s sweet. Lingering but chaste. The kind of kiss you could share in front of family and friends. Inoffensive. Eddie sways away, catches the moment Buck’s eyes flutter open, and gets to meet Buck’s stare head on, blue eyes full of panic.
“Eddie, you're straight,” Buck says, desperation in his voice.
“No Buck,” Eddie whispers, “I’m really not.”
They’re still in each other's space, a quiet bubble of panic, desire, and confusion. Eddie can feel Buck’s short breaths against his spit wet lips.
“Is the only thing stopping you from kissing me back the fact that you think I’m straight?” He asks quietly. He has to know, needs to know.
Buck looks at him.
“I can’t lose you Eddie,” he whispers.
“You won’t. You couldn’t.”
A promise. An oath. A vow.
“Buck-”
But there’s a hand at Eddie’s nape, pulling him in, and Buck’s lips are on his again and this is anything but chaste. Buck kisses him with a desperation that Eddie understands at his core. Like a starved man.
Eddie gives as good as he gets. He finally manages to release his death grip on Buck’s sweater to pull Buck in with both hands, one circling Buck’s waist, the other sliding up to cradle the juncture between his neck and jaw. Eddie nips at Buck’s lip and Buck gasps, lips parting, allowing Eddie to press deeper, slip his tongue against Buck’s and revel in the sound it pulls out of Buck.
Eddie knows, deep down, that even as it starts it’s the end of something because now he’s got Buck, held him, tasted him, he’s never letting him go.
Everything is the wet slide of their lips, hands gripping, pressing harder, pulling. This inexhaustible need to be closer, to hold on tighter, to never let go. All that tension between them, it hasn’t gone, it’s just redirected into a frenzied need to be closer, closer, closer.
Buck is pushing him back against the counter, pressing a thigh between his legs and God.
Eddie’s lightheaded, harder than he’s been in his life, and thrilled.
Even when he pulls away because he does, unfortunately, have to breathe, he can’t let Buck go far. They stare at each other panting hard. Buck bites his lip. Eddie's breath stutters and suddenly he’s laughing. Buck is laughing. It’s all so ridiculous and funny and he’s giddy with happiness and relief.
He can reach out and touch. So he does. He cups Buck’s cheek, rubs a thumb over his cheekbone, and tries to find the words.
“I’ve felt like a failure a lot in my life, but there's one thing I’ve never gotten wrong and that’s being in love with you,” he says.
Buck’s not laughing anymore. He stares at Eddie dumbstruck.
Eddie kisses the shock off his face.
“How long?” Buck whispers.
“I don’t know,” Eddie says truthfully, “definitely since the lightning, probably longer, I just didn’t know, didn’t… want to know, couldn’t-”
Buck kisses him hard.
Eddie kisses him back harder.
Within seconds he’s panting again. He tips Buck’s head back to press his lips against the exposed skin of Buck's neck, nipping and then soothing the delicate skin there, delighting in the whine that slips out from between Buck’s lips. He wants to lay Buck out and taste every inch of skin. He wants to pull every sound out of him. He wants to laugh again.
He wants, he wants, he wants.
And he can have it. He took the juice, reached out and grabbed it with both hands. He chose joy.
Joy.
Joy.
“Oh my God,” he gasps, wrenching himself away from Buck, who looks like he’s been smacked round the back of the head with a frying pan, eyes wide and glassy, mouth hanging open. He sobers instantly, freezing up in tension.
“What’s wrong?”
“I forgot to feed Joy!”
Buck is silent for a moment as the words sink in. He closes his eyes and visibly collects himself. He takes a deep breath.
“I cannot believe,” he says quietly, “that I’m getting cockblocked by a cat.”
Eddie bites his lip but he can’t contain the grin.
“You wanna know the funniest part?” Eddie asks, and Buck’s eyes flutter open. “You were the one who was so damn adamant that I keep her.”
“Hilarious,” Buck says, dry as the Sahara. “Oh the irony,” he sighs.
He grabs Eddie’s keys off the kitchen island.
“Come on then, let’s go feed your damn cat.”
//
It should be weird.
Everything should be changed. Different. And it is. But it’s also still them. They’re still buckandeddie.
He gets to tell Buck in the car that Chris is coming home. He gets to tease him with comments on his driving. He gets to feed his cat, and then himself and Buck. And then he gets to press Buck up against various surfaces in his house and kiss him, again and again and again.
It’s not altogether surprising that Buck does eventually start to feel sick, although it is a shame. Even the most resilient immune system couldn’t take on that harbour water. Within the hour Buck has his head down the toilet vomiting.
And Eddie gets to look after him, run a hand through his sweat damp curls, bring him water, press a cold flannel against his neck and then tuck him up in his bed. He gets to call Bobby to let him know that Buck won’t be in the next day.
“I’m glad you went to go see him in the end,” Bobby says.
“Yeah, me too. We uh- talked about some things.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, we um- we might need to have a chat with you, when we’re both next on shift,” Eddie says slowly.
There’s a pause.
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, talking is always a good thing. I look forward to having a proper chat with the both of you about it. Tell Buck to get better for me.”
“Copy you, Cap.”
Buck groans when Eddie climbs into bed next to him. Joy at least is delighted by the presence of two human-sized heaters. She makes a happy chirping sound. They lie on their sides facing each other, two parentheses with so much history, and a small black cat, between them.
“I can’t believe I finally got to tell you how I feel and then immediately up-chucked everywhere and now I can’t kiss you anymore,” Buck pouts.
Eddie smiles at him even as his heart jumps.
“You haven’t actually told me about any feelings,” he says carefully, “not that you have to, but…”
But Eddie did notice. He told Buck he loved him and Buck didn’t say it back. Which is fine he tells himself. But he did notice it. He wasn’t going to say anything.
Bucks eyes widen.
“Oh fuck I didn’t did I,” he says, and he rolls onto his back and smacks a hand over his eyes.
“God and now I’ve ruined the surprise and I still can’t kiss you when I tell you,” he moans.
Eddie pries Buck’s hand away from his eyes, tangles their fingers together, watching him intently.
“Tell me what,” Eddie says, because he needs Buck to finish that train of thought more than he needs anything else in his life, he needs to get Buck to focus.
Buck turns his head and looks at him.
“I love you too. So much,” he says quietly, reverently. Then he laughs. “Everyone knows. At least I think everyone knows. They should. It’s not been subtle. But I thought you didn’t like me like that. All this time.”
“You could still kiss me,” Eddie says, his heart feeling too big for his chest.
“No I can’t. I’m all vomity. This is important stuff. I want things to be perfect.”
Eddie doesn’t. For the first time he really doesn’t care about how things should be, how he should be or behave. He’s not chasing any ideal, any pre-packaged, prescribed perfection.
He’s a divorced widower. He’s been in love with his best friend for six years. He has a history of repressing his feelings, especially the gay ones. He’s been shot more times than the average man. His son is coming home to him. He can’t get on with technology. He has a cat.
He pushes up on his elbow, leans forward carefully so as not to crush Joy, and presses a soft kiss to the birthmark splashed across Buck’s brow. Buck hums and his eyes lids flutter shut. Eddie flops back down next to him.
“As soon as I’m well I’m going to show you just how in love with you I am,” Buck promises.
Eddie bites his lip to stop the grin and lets his own eyes fall closed.
“Sounds good.”
Eddie drifts off, in love, and exactly where he’s supposed to be.
And it is kind of perfect.
//