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Eddie would like to think that he’s a patient person.
He’s always been patient. He was like a little kid when his sister would sit him down, dress him up and use him like a doll for hours on end. He was patient with Shannon and her yes and no during her pregnancy, even when it made no sense to him - or to her once the hunger was satisfied and she’d cry again because she couldn't believe that she was crying because of hunger to begin with (it’s a whole thing) - and he was patient every nights he had to spend in the desert, lying still in the sand regardless of time and basic needs. He’d just lie on his stomach and wait for the orders to move a toe if that was the order. He’s patient now with Chris, he’s patient in his job, and he’s patient and graceful every time his tia decides to meddle in his romantic life.
All of that to say, Eddie Diaz is a patient man. There aren’t a lot of things that make his skin feel tight, and his jaw clenches or his eyes roll in annoyance.
Evan Buckley rambling about his fling with Tommy ending, however, is definitely one of them.
“I just can’t get it,” Buck says, “I can’t seem to keep anybody, girls and guys!” he laughs bitterly as he shakes his head and looks out the window of the car.
Eddie’s driving. It’s not something that happens a lot, especially when Buck is here, and they’re taking his jeep (it’s happened a total of three times since they’ve known each other, to be exact).
Not only is he driving, but Eddie’s also forced to hear Buck complain about his most recent heartbreak after spending three whole months listening to him yapping about how cool Tommy was and how he’d be discovering so much about himself (which Eddie had been happy to hear about up until Buck had asked him if he thought it was too early to tell Tommy he uses too much tongue when they kiss. After that, Eddie wasn't so thrilled to hear about those discoveries. He’s stuck in this jeep with his best friend on a 25-hour drive for a week's getaway to Banff, in Canada, just the two of them. It’s cold out, and they’ve been on the road for hours now. Eddie’s back is already stiff, and he’s not exactly thrilled at the idea of spending a week camping in the woods hearing all about beautiful Tommy breaking Buck’s heart.
“I know it sucks,” Eddie says, gripping the wheel as he sits straight, “but you guys were barely going out for three months,” he adds, briefly looking towards Buck, “it’s not like you were in love,” he says. Eddie’s heart pins, he wet his lips and swallows hard, “I mean,” he says, “you’re not, right?” Eddie asks, his heart pounding, “In love?”
His heart’s beating so loud now, Eddie wonders if Buck can’t hear it from the passenger seat. The silence is agonizing, and Eddie waits as he grips the wheel even tighter, knuckles hurting. Buck sits up on his seat, coughs and shakes his head, “No,” he says sheepishly, “I wasn't in love with him.”
The thing people should know is that Eddie loves Buck. He’s been pining over him for a few years now, trying to forget about it and distract himself unsuccessfully. It’s hard to invest yourself in someone else when you keep seeing the same person in your mind every day. When Buck came out and told him he was going out with Tommy in the same sentence, Eddie had to go through a myriad of emotions at the same time. In the end, he’d come to the natural conclusion that he’d be there for Buck, like he always was. He thought, since he’d done it before when Buck was going out with his ex-girlfriend, that he’d be able to suppress it enough. He didn't need to be besties with these women, simply casually pleasant.
Buck dating a man, however, kind of reminded him constantly that in some other universe, he could've loved or chosen Eddie.
He can’t stop the sigh of relief that leaves him, “Okay,” he says, “that’s good.”
Buck’s silent for a moment. In his peripheral vision, Eddie sees him turn his upper body to face him, “What do you mean, that’s good ?”
Eddie tenses up, “Well-” he goes.
“You think it’s good that I wasted three months of my life?” Buck cuts him off, a mix of confusion and hurt on his face. Eddie’s already shaking his head.
“No,” he says, raising one finger, looking quickly at Buck next to him, “that’s not what I meant at all.”
Buck stares, swallows, “Well, what’d you mean?” he asks.
“I meant that,” he holds the driving wheel harder again, breathing, “At least you didn’t get your heart broken,” Eddie says through gritted teeth.
Buck turns to look towards the highway. He let out a breath, “No, but we were just starting to get along so well,” he whines.
Eddie scoffs and gives him a look, trying to make things a little lighter, “Three months, and you were just starting to get along?” he teases.
Buck waits a moment before he answers, “I don’t mean it like that, I meant…” he looks over quickly, moving his eyebrows up and down, “You know.”
He freezes. “Oh.”
“It’s not like I'm a prude, you know?” Buck says, playing with his fingers nervously, “Or inexperienced. I’ve done things in my life.”
Eddie’s a patient man, he reminds himself. A patient, open-minded individual. He’s understanding and accepting, and he loves Evan Buckley in every way he knows how to love. They’re best friends, and Eddie can make an abstraction of his feelings for him and be there, listening. He can do it. He’s done it before, and he’ll do it again.
He tries to sound casual when he speaks, “Sure.”
“But they’ve only been with women,” he says, “Until Tommy.”
“Yeah.” Eddie turns on the radio, now a soft noise in the background of their conversation. Buck’s looking his way now, searching for his eyes.
“And it’s different, you know, with a man,”
I bet it is.
“You’d expect that, I guess,” He says, looking at his rear-view mirror even if there are literally no cars behind them.
Buck sighs, annoyed. He turns the radio off. “Why are you like this?”
He gives him a look, “Like what?”
“I’m trying to talk to you, and you’re completely uninterested.”
“I’m not…” he goes to say, then sighs, “I’m not uninterested. It’s just not something I really wanna talk about.”
Eddie can see Buck’s head nodding, “Me having gay sex.”
“You having any kind of sex?” he immediately replies, almost angry at the insinuation, “I don’t care what type of sex you’re having, Buck.”
“You just don’t wanna hear about it,” he adds.
“Why would I wanna hear about it?” Eddie asks and immediately regrets the way he says it. He flinches at his own words, and he’s not surprised when Buck’s face twists.
Buck sounds disappointed when he speaks, “Why are you always like that?”
“ Like what?” he raises his voice, “I didn't wanna hear about your sex life with Taylor either, you never asked about mine with Marisol or Ana!” he hates this conversation, absolutely hates it, “Why would we talk about that?”
“Because it’s normal?” Buck replies, looking away, “Because friends talk about these kinds of things, especially when they have a problem with it.”
“You don’t have a problem with it,” Eddie says with a convincing, final tone.
“How would you know? You never let me talk about it!”
“You never ask me either!”
“Do you want me to?”
“No!” He says loudly, hitting the driving wheel with one hand, exposing his anger in one single breath.
“Well, maybe I want to talk about it with you!” Buck shouts back.
Eddie’s had enough. He looks in the rear view mirror once again, looks at Buck on the passenger seat next to him, and he stops the car on the side of the road. The car lifts dirt, and there’s a cloud surrounding them for a few minutes as they sit there in silence, both of them biting their tongues.
They argue, sometimes. They fight rarely. They’re not perfect, and they don’t always see eye to eye. Buck and Eddie communicate; they talk things out, they don’t risk what they have over nothing. But sure, sometimes, they argue and get irritated, and on some rare occasions they’ve called a night over sooner than they normally would. Screaming is, however, not something they do.
Eddie lets a long breath out through his nose, “What the fuck is there to talk about, seriously?” he asks, turning his upper body to face Buck, “I can’t seem to ever get into the women that I date, and I’m practically dissociating whenever I do get into it. There, you happy?” He spouts, his hands now shaking with the confession. It’s the first time he’s said those words out loud.
It softens Buck’s look on his face, “Eddie,” he goes to say.
“God, Buck!” cutting him off, “Don’t you think maybe I don’t wanna hear about your sex life because it just drives me nuts a little?” he asks, tears coming up in his eyes, “You’ve never had this issue,” he says, pointing vaguely at his best friend, “you meet someone you like, you have sex with them if that’s what you two want. It’s easy for you.” He brushes off one tear which escapes his control and falls down his face, “And I'm over here, and all I can think about is I had sex with Shannon for years, and it was fun and easy, and then she died, and I can’t get behind the idea of having sex with another woman.”
Buck looks baffled when he asks, “You’re still hung up on Shannon?”
Pinching the bridge of his nose, he shakes his head negatively, “No. I’m not.” He’s fully shaking when he dares to look at Buck, “I think my libido died when she did, or something like that, because I just can’t do it, alright?”
Buck hesitates when he speaks, “So you don’t wanna have sex?”
“No, no, I wanna have sex,” the words feeling heavy on his tongue. He does. He does wanna have sex, he thinks about it, touches himself and wishes it were someone else doing it or that at least that he had someone to share it with. Eddie wants to have sex, in theory. It’s the practical part that feels wrong. “It’s more,” he licks his lips, “It’s more like I want to have sex, and I can see myself having sex, but I can’t see myself doing it with someone else. It’s like I need more than just someone there willing to do it with me.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.” He admits with a heavy heart.
They sit there for a moment. Buck never looks away from him, his whole demeanour slowly changing as he goes from angry and annoyed to calm and listening. A few times, he opens his mouth and goes to say something, then closes it every time. After about five minutes of silence, he says, “What’d you like about sex with Shannon?”
His eyes widened with embarrassment, “Jesus, Buck.”
“C’mon,” he brings a hand to his shoulder, squeezing the muscle, “We’re talking about it, it’s more than we’ve ever talked about in eight years of friendship. Don’t run away now.” He bites the inside of his mouth, “You liked having sex with her,” he says, “what’d you like about it?”
Eddie swallows. “Her.” He says, looking down at his hands, “I loved her,” he says, “Shannon and I, we were just… we were friends,” Eddie’s eyes shine with the rest of his tears and the memory of Shannon, the memory of a long-time, long-lost friend. Someone who knew him inside out, “She was my best friend, and we clicked and sleeping with her… that’s what it was about,” he says, nodding his head slowly, “It was about being with her.”
Buck takes his hand away from his shoulder, but not without squeezing it, “So you wanna have sex with someone you like,” he says, then smiles gently, “Nothing wrong with that.”
“Doesn’t everybody want that?”
“I mean,” he frowns, “There’s like and… like .” he says, “But no, not everybody needs to be like, in love to have sex.”
The words are heavy on his tongue. He looks at Buck, “Not to have it,” he says, swallowing around the words, “To like… You know, enjoy it?”
Eddie’s question lingers in the air around them. His heart beats loudly, anxiously. Buck’s voice is slow when he speaks.
“You’re not enjoying the sex you’re having?”
“I don’t know,” Eddie replies, “None of it feels like it did with Shannon.” He lets out an annoyed, frustrated sound. “I loved Shannon.” He says again.
This is not the kind of conversation Eddie was expecting to have. It’s also not the kind of vibe he was trying to bring on his week-long camping trip with his best friend. He didn’t plan on having a whole ass life crisis in Buck’s jeep one hour away from the border.
Buck clears his throat, reaches for his phone, “Let me just…”
“What are you doing?”
“Googling ‘ wanting to have sex only when you’re in love ’”
His neck snaps, “What? ”
“Let’s just see what it says, alright?” Buck asks him, briefly looking his way before bringing his attention back to his phone. Eddie waits then. Torn between half wanting to run out of the car and the other half wanting to look over Buck’s shoulder to know too. Buck frowns, reading, which makes Eddie frown too.
“What d’you found?”
Buck clears his throat, then reads off his phone, “Demisexual people only experience sexual attraction after a close emotional bond has formed,” he reads, and Eddie’s breath gets caught in his throat, “This is different from seldom experiencing sexual attraction. Demisexual people might experience sexual attraction often and intensely, but only with people they're close to.” Buck finishes, looking up at Eddie. His stomach drops.
Eddie’s shaking in his seat. His lips are quivering, and Buck’s kindness and patience in his eyes are almost unbearing. It’s almost too much to handle. Eddie feels… naked, watched almost.
“Read it again,” he says, fighting the tears.
He nods, looking down at his phone again, “Demisexual people only experience sexual attraction after a close emotional bond has formed. This is different from seldom experiencing sexual attraction,” he looks at him, and Eddie nods. The words are making a little too much sense. It hurts, “Demisexual people might experience sexual attraction often and intensely, but only with people they’re close to.”
Eddie’s teeth are chattering together. He’s nodding, absently. Yeah… Yeah, the words are making sense to him right now. “Okay,” he breathes out.
“Is that something that sounds familiar?” Buck whispers, bringing his hand back to Eddie’s shoulder.
He lets out a cry, “Yeah!” tears are now rolling down his face, “Yeah, that sounds right.”
Buck’s holding him in his arms before he even notices it. They’re not comfortable, not at all. Their seatbelts are in the way, and their water bottles are taking up all the space between the two seats. Buck still holds him close and tight. Eddie still holds him back.
“It’s okay,” Buck says, his hand in Eddie’s hair, holding his head close, “Eddie, you’re okay.”
“That felt like a fucking slap to the face,” he mumbles into Buck’s neck. They both chuckle.
“A good slap at least?”
“You’re ridiculous,” Eddie replies, full on giggling now. He’s still crying, but this time it’s through a smile. Buck breaks the hug, but they both keep their hands on each other’s necks, lingering. Buck’s eyes are soft, a little teasing. “Demisexual, you said?”
Buck hums, “You want me to drive, and you look it up some more?
He thinks about it, nods. Buck smiles. “I hate driving anyway.”
Buck barks a laugh as he steps out of the car with him.
Eddie spends the hour left to get to the border on his phone, sometimes reading something out for Buck, sharing a thought or two about it, sometimes reading something only to himself. He finds out a few things :
1. Demisexuality is a sexual orientation.
2. Most people in the general population can feel sexual attraction regardless of whether they form an emotional bond with someone. They may feel sexually attracted to strangers or to new people they meet. But people who are demisexual don’t feel this initial sexual attraction.
3. Forming an emotional bond doesn’t guarantee sexual attraction will develop, but the bond is necessary for them to even consider sexual activity.
4. For many people who identify as demisexual, having a label gives them a sense of belonging. They may have grown up feeling different from their peers because they didn’t have similar feelings of sexual attraction or interest in sex as described by their peers. Many felt confused and wondered if something was wrong with them. The label gives those who are demisexual a word to use for something they haven’t been able to describe before.
He learns one more thing throughout his quick search :
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with him.