Chapter Text
It happens like this:
When Evan is thirteen, he breaks his collarbone riding a skateboard down the slope in front of his parents house. It might be his worst fracture –until then– by the pain scale alone, which goes off the chart. Even breathing hurts, and Maddie can’t answer for him this time – he needs his legal guardians, and dad’s on a trip for a state’s school meeting. Maddie has to scream at Margaret for her to drive Evan to the hospital, and when she does, she looks as pale as him.
She doesn’t give any vocal answer to the doctor words –diagnosis, treatment, follow-up care– only nods and grabs Evan’s uninjured arm to drag him outside the hospital when they’re done, incredibly hastily. High off his gourd on analgesics, Evan only thinks, a little deliriously, that it’s the first time he’s seen his mother beside a doctor.
The attending doesn’t want to let him go just yet – he keeps speaking, to Margaret’s annoyance (dripping into dread, almost, not that Evan really gets it), and the doctor has more than one reason for it. He’s looking at Evan’s chart when Margarat keeps a tight grip on his wrist, and his eyes stop where his age must be written down.
“I see here he’s thirteen. He’s started puberty, hasn’t he? Have your family physician already ordered a test to determine–”
“He doesn’t need it,” Margaret cuts him off. Her hair’s more messed up than Evan’s ever seen, and that’s the part of the conversation he pays attention to: his mother’s frizzy hair. That must be where the curls had been hiding.
“Are you sure?” the doctor asks Margaret – at the other side of the world. She makes a noise and starts pulling Evan again.
“I’m sure,” and they leave.
Buck doesn’t think about the conversation; doesn’t really remember it. In the end, his stupid fucking assumption is the same as the doctor’s – that that was never something he had to concern himself with, because his parents must have already had him checked.
Funny, that a childhood in hospitals –for more than one reason– and they never cared enough to actually do it.
–
It happens like this:
After the third date, Tommy boxes Buck against the inside of the loft’s front door. He isn’t taller than him –no one seems to be– but Tommy looms now, in a way that has Buck’s belly going hot in a way he hadn’t really felt since high school. He feels like a virgin. In a way, he is. Wasn’t that the reason they took three fricking dates?
Tommy looks at him. Smirks down. “You wanna do it?”
Buck nods in the little space their heads keep apart. He follows Tommy, hands laced together, upstairs, and trails like a puppy – giggling, blushing, smiling impossibly wide at him.
Tommy walks him through it. All in all, he’s quite patient. And it’s not his fault – when he touches a hand to the back pocket of his jeans, going for protection, it’s Buck who stops him, palm at Tommy’s elbow.
“You sure?”
“Yeah– I’m, I’m clean. If you are too…”
Buck’s fluster –here he goes biting on too much again– gives away to a breezy smile when Tommy starts grinning. He chuckles, and Buck laughs, head falling against Tommy’s shoulder, not even flinching anymore at the feeling of his fingers.
“Okay, cowboy. Shuffle up.”
The condom stays in his pocket for the entirety of their relationship.
–
Buck has a cold, but he has more important things to think of.
Chris moves out on a thursday. Buck moves in on a friday. Eddie breaks down as soon as his parents are out of the driveaway, and Buck does his best to catch the remains of the dam. It’s the worst moment of his life, because it’s Eddie’s –it’s Chris – but he, for the first time ever, won’t make it about himself. He needs to take care of Eddie.
When he’s packing the things off his apartment, Tommy comes in. He doesn’t have a key – Buck just didn’t lock it, bringing boxes down the building, and he hears the door from where he’s crouched in front of the kitchen’s drawers. When he rises to his feet, Tommy’s in the middle of the loft.
“H-hey, Tommy– I’m not sure you’ve seen my text, I, I can’t go on our date today. Maybe for some time– Eddie’s doing r-really bad, and I have to, uh, hold down the fort for a while–”
“I’ve read your text,” Tommy stops him. And he does stop him. Heaving a box of pans, Buck falters on his feet when he actually reads Tommy’s face; the tired resignation on it. Not from a canceled date – something bigger, and wider.
Buck, already with his stomach in knots for over thirty-six hours, discovers that it can afford one more.
“Hey– what’s, what’s, uh, going on?” He puts down the box on top of the first surface he sees, walking around the counter to stand face to face with Tommy. But when Buck gets closer, he steps back – defensive, almost. “Tommy?”
“I don't think this is going to work, Evan.”
Buck has to do a double take.
“Uhm, uh– what?”
Last week, they spent the night together – the way that it began to be a weekly thing, like a sleepover, except with sex. They text when they’re both on break, or off shift. Just some days ago, Buck had dinner with Tommy, despite the fact Bobby had been in the hospital – he didn’t want to cancel, anxious like he usually is about disappointing anyone, but especially someone who matters. This –blowing off Tommy to stay urgently with Eddie– is a first time thing. Buck wouldn’t do it if he hadn't to. He has to.
“You’re so cute, Evan,” Tommy says – and looking apologetically back to Buck, he must mean it. It’s almost a repeat of their first-first date, and as awful to hear as back then. “This is my fault. I’ve bitten more than I should – I knew better.”
“Wait, wait, wait– where’s this coming from?” When Tommy sighs tiredly, Buck has to bite back the urge to shake him like a ragdoll, feeling frustration pick up beside distress. “We were okay yesterday, what could possibly have changed–”
“Nothing did,” Tommy says – but he doesn’t mean it in a positive way.
“Is it about Eddie?” Eddie, who’s alone at home, Eddie, who should not be alone at home. Eddie, who Buck should get back to already, and Buck, for an instant, feels almost a flash of annoyance at Tommy for stringing this on him when he has the worst going on. “Because, man, I’m sorry– but he really needs my help right now, but I swear we’ll go out another time…”
The sentence drifts off – because Tommy is looking at him like that again. Evan, you’re adorable . A sensation of immaturity that was 50/50 on making Buck feel alive or then impossibly small. It’s the latter now.
“You’re a wonderful friend,” Tommy starts in Buck’s silence, sounding –worse than all– tentative. “And I wish you the best. The both of you. But maybe we’re looking for different things.”
Buck lists away – a physical thing.
“I don’t get it,” he croaks. Tommy’s fucking face doesn’t change – if anything, it’s like he’s reaffirmed something.
“It’s always going to be Eddie,” he says cryptically. Except it’s not all cryptid; Buck’s not a fucking idiot, and he gets the suggestion, souring his stomach in what feels like, out of everything, fear. But Tommy’s already walking away again, outside Buck’s living room and Buck’s loft and Buck’s life, not even a last touch for the memory.
“Good luck,” he whispers back to the apartment, before slowly pulling shut the door with himself.
Buck’s left in his apartment. Drawers open, boxes and bags to pack.
It’s harder to do it when he’s tearing up a little bit.
–
“Hey, Bobby – can you see if me and Eddie have sick days left over?”
“Buck, you haven’t taken a sick day in your life.”
“Alright, but has Eddie ?”
The line is quiet for a moment. Buck hears the silence like a funeral march.
“What’s this about?”
He suppresses back a noise; Buck’s not sure if of the tired or sad variety. Only that, speaking, his voice croaks.
“Christopher’s grandparents, uhm, took him back to Texas.”
Bobby gives him only a moment to breathe, before he starts talking –more softly– on the other side of the line. “Okay. What happened? Is there something going on with Eddie – with yourself? Buck?”
He’s sniffling against the back of his wrist. Buck doesn’t have the time for this – Eddie will wake up in an hour, and then he’ll drive him to Frank’s office (his civilian one, not the one kept by the department) a last minute fitting Buck almost had to sell a nut for. But Bobby always calms him; even when he’s making Buck tear up. It’s a long-term thing.
“I can’t, I can’t tell you. It’s E-Eddie’s stuff. But it’s bad, Cap – and I’m really worried about him.” He walks through Eddie’s kitchen towards a table chair, afraid he’ll be listened to –like Eddie’s not comatose two bedrooms away, and so apathetic he won’t complain about a thing. “He won’t leave the bed. Or Christopher’s room. He isn’t even crying anymore – it’s like he isn't even there. And, and– I’m really fucking over my head here, because I’ve never really been in this side–”
“Okay, Buck, take a breath for a moment. Do you need me to come there?”
“No, Eddie won’t like anyone to see him like that.” Buck never did. It would have been more heartwarming to be so easily accepted into Eddie’s arms, if he wasn’t dangling from a metaphorical ledge.
“I don’t need to see Eddie – I just want to make sure you’re okay. Have you called his doctor? Frank?”
“Yeah,” Buck croaks. “I’ve got Eddie an opening at two.”
“That’s great. I’m going to drive you two. And then, while Eddie’s being taken care of, we can take care of you, right?” Bobby’s putting a smile on his voice – like he’s talking to a victim. Buck, still covering up sniffles, isn’t sure if that helps with the weight on his chest or if it just feels worse. “Buck?”
“I-I’m still here.”
“Talk to me.” There’s noises from the other side of the line: clothes rustling, the clanging of keys, and the opening and closing of doors. Of course Bobby’s coming for him – both of them. “Eddie’s in the bedroom, but where are you?”
Buck doesn’t complain, only clearing his teary throat. Didn’t a part of him want the help? “Kitchen.”
“Did you make something for you both to eat?”
“Eddie’s not hungry.” Eddie’s fucking– Buck doesn’t even have the words. He feels about just as crazy. “And I’m not either. I got– uhm. I got a, a stomach bug before coming here, so I’ve only been making Eddie stuff. But he isn’t fucking eating .”
“You both have to. Have you been to the doctor?”
“I didn’t have the time. It doesn’t matter.” He sniffs. “Eddie’s got no one with him.” Christopher won’t take any call, or answer any text, and Eddie’s parents may as well be a tomb. The last Buck had seen his mom’s text history with him, she just said Christopher and us need time right now after a flurry of questions.
“He has you – and me. I’ll get there in a moment. We’ll work through this.” Buck isn’t so sure. But he keeps on the line, holding on to his phone –to Bobby– with a vice grip. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
Things are not fucking okay. Eddie doesn’t speak with Buck or Bobby as they drive to Frank’s office, just looking out the window, and Buck is much the same when Bobby drags him to sit on a park bench while Eddie’s in therapy. He hadn’t had the time to cry about any of it, his worry about his friend, now and before, when Eddie was seeing that woman, the sense of failure of not having been able to convince Chris to stay, the grief of Chris going away . He cries on that park bench and Eddie must do the same inside Frank’s office, but it doesn’t change a thing. They’re spent, Eddie specially. Buck doesn’t know what to do.
Monday Bobby goes into the station to see about requesting them leave, but comes back to Buck with a late call, talking about not being the house’s captain anymore, a boogeyman Buck had only heard stories of taking his place, and it’s like a cosmic joke. Okay, you fucking idiot – here’s despair after despair. Buck can’t only dry laugh, until he’s almost dry heaving, and Bobby almost goes to Eddie's place again, but it won’t change a thing either.
After those days, Buck creates a new routine: he gets up early, makes Christopher’s favorite breakfast to guilt Eddie into eating it, and then he drives both of them to work. He keeps Eddie close like he’ll blow away into the wind, and maybe he will. They work with fires. He can’t imagine letting Eddie walk close to death right now, and he’ll keep doing it even if Gerrard gets cute –read disgusting– with it, calling them lovebirds, except with worse words.
What Bobby had been right about is that they aren’t alone. Chim and Hen keep just as close, to Eddie and to Buck. Buck can’t tell them anything about Christopher either, but it doesn’t seem to matter; they care either way. Buck accepts it, though not graciously. If he gets really close to breaking down once or twice on someone’s shoulder, they don’t comment on it. They can’t. Gerrard can’t notice.
Buck hopes work will at least work as a distraction for Eddie, and it’s funny, because in a way Eddie works as a distraction for him . Buck doesn’t think about Tommy, or even tells anyone that they’ve broken up for the longest time. He doesn’t even think about feeling sick like a dog, mostly because he actually thinks that’s all from Chris leaving.
–
It’s nine weeks after everything that Buck allows himself to take a breath – if that. The moment isn’t of rest as much as someone almost choking. Buck would know the difference.
It starts with a small improvement: Chris texts. One day he answers Eddie with stop , and Buck with get dad to back off , which is actually an improvement after Buck has driven Eddie to another emergency sitting down with Frank. Chris isn’t ignoring them anymore, and Eddie can actually make requirements: that he’ll give Chris space if his grandparents actually start talking.
And so they have a bridge. Eddie calls his mom every day, morning and night, to know about Chris, how he’s doing, what he’s eating, where he’s studying, who he’s talking to, and he eventually gets to directly exchange an actual word or two with his own son, if through his mom’s phone. Buck doesn’t actually get anything. Which is fine. This is about Eddie.
He goes to the doctor, first in foremost, because, though Eddie’s getting better – not a huge bar. He gets through the days, because he wants to hear more about Chris. Buck doesn’t actually receive any improvement.
They’re answering to a house fire. They’ve become Buck’s least favorite because of Eddie, after everything – seeing him close to danger, and having to let him stray further from his side through it. Gerrard doesn’t help, never does, and is all Buck can do to actually pay attention to his job, more anxious at work since Devon.
This time Eddie’s not the trouble, though. He’s doing better. Buck has to start believing he’s doing better, under Frank’s actual words – “Eddie has to trust he is still himself, to know he can get back to Chris,” – and when Gerrard orders them to search through opposite sides of the house through the radio, Buck lets him go after a held breath, sharing a look with Eddie.
“I’ll be right behind you outside!” Eddie shouts over the inferno, offering a fist –a promise– to Buck, and breathing out shakily, he answers it with his own.
“I’ll be waiting for you!” Buck waits for Eddie to nod before doing the same, and then –still unsure– he takes off. He still looks back, seeing Eddie disappear behind a wall on fire, before getting back to his own search, thinking be okay, be okay, be okay .
Buck’s side of the house –east– is alright. There’s two people missing, the house’s father and younger son, and the people working the hoses outside eventually find the man, laying down beside the house after jumping from a window – a last resort. He’ll live, and Buck’s got to go. The flames crackle so loudly around him –a house built on dangerous material– it’s hard to read the radio. But he eventually hears the words he’s waiting for, “ Diaz here! I’ve found the boy – bringing him out! ”, and Buck exhales.
A piece of the ceiling falls in front of his face, and he hurries up again, retracing his steps to the front of the house. It’s not big, but, falling apart, it’s become a labyrinth, even more from during Buck’s first way through. Half of the corridor is broken apart, a side of charred drywall hanging down like an impromptu rabbit's nest, and Buck has to curl down on himself to walk through it, as hurried as he can.
“ Buckley !” comes Gerrard’s nasty fucking voice – not worried, just aggrieved as he perpetually seems to be. “ Where are you? Move your ass outside now ! ”
Buck huffs through the exertion, shouting back a half-answer through the radio, but when he goes to straight back up after the impaired hallway–
It’s like his vision tilts–
He only barely holds himself from falling, catching his weight on the first thing he can find upright – something indiscernible in the fire, and hot enough Buck’s hands singe even through his protective gloves. Buck’s words had fallen off with his vertigo, radio still on, and his next noise is one of pain, feeling the burn, and Eddie shouts through the radio for him.
“ Buck! ”
It takes a lot of blinking to get his vision back on track. Buck’s nausea, ebbing for more than a month, more than two , makes such a sudden reappearance, he’s almost sure he’ll keel inside his mask and asphyxiate for real, but Buck makes himself keep moving. Through the falling house and through his ailing body –he promised too– until the heat gives away to fresh air, and there’s a pair of hands grabbing his weight.
“Buck!” Eddie repeats, in the flesh now, out of his helmet and mask, and face and hair all sweaty, patting through Buck’s body for injury or just assurance. It’s a more lively look than Buck has been recently afforded, and he feels his eyes –embarrassingly– tingle. “Hey, hey – are you hurt?”
“Are you stupid ?” Gerrard comes from behind Eddie. Buck almost thinks he’ll shove him away, get Buck’s front view so he can start spouting shit, but Eddie –scowling back to him more heatedly than the flames– keeps his place. “What was that hold up? Is this your first house fire, your imbecile–”
This is hardly the place for a dress down. It’s never stopped Gerrad before, though. With a crowd of people out in the street, the fire going behind them, still fighting against the hose’s stream of water –all those firefighters, too– Buck sets on his feet to be screamed at by Gerrard. He can barely care; because his head’s still not all there, from adrenaline and still dizziness, but especially because Eddie’s still holding him up.
“You’re going to be man behind on the next call. See if you’re actually a man through it. Diaz – let him go.”
Gerrard stalks back to the truck. Eddie, defiantly, doesn’t move an inch away from Buck, and he glares at Gerrard’s back the whole way, until he has enough distance to look back at Buck – as worried as before.
Vaguely, Buck can see Hen’s shape come from behind Eddie’s shoulder. Mostly, he just focuses on his eyes – all black, and round, against the light from the fire.
“Hey–” Eddie repeats. From his tone of voice, he must have been doing it for some time. “Are you okay? Buck?”
Hen sets herself beside his shoulder. Buck blinks slowly – dazedly.
“‘think I might be concussed.”
“Did something fall on your head?” Hen begins her assessment at once. Not for one moment does Eddie step back from Buck.
“‘dunno. But I’m– dizzy. Nauseous.”
Eddie doesn’t mask his worry. It settles comfortably on Buck’s stomach. Eddie’s emoting – Eddie’s feeling something. It hardly matters what Buck’s feeling is awful.
“Come on,” Eddie tells him quietly. He pats Buck once more, and squeezes him in a side hug before helping him walk back to the truck, Hen on Buck’s other side. Eddie doesn’t let go of him.
Hen checks him up in the firehouse. When Gerrard skulks away to his office –he’s not big on communal time– it’s the time they have to actually check on each other, and talk. Chim’s worried when he hears Buck got sick in the middle of the call, but they can’t all stay in the ambulance wing, too close to the captain’s office, or Gerrard will complain they’re having a tea party. Hen gets Chim to go to the bunks, and Chim gets Eddie –still looking like that at Buck– to come with him. Alone, Hen sits Buck on a gurney and checks him.
“You’ve been feeling sick all this time and told no one ?” is the first thing she says when he mentions the stomach bug-slash-flu that had been holding on to his ankle, on and off, for the last months. Buck is too tired to look chastised.
“I had to focus on Eddie.”
Hen shakes her head at him. She looks resigned more than anything. “Have you ever heard that thing about oxygen masks and planes?”
“I have never got on a plane.”
“How did you get to Peru.”
“There was a…travelling bus– anyway–” Buck can’t shake his head, and the tangent away, without puking, but he does his best to blink back to the matter at hand. “What’s going on with me? Is my blood pressure alright?”
“It’s…weird, but not off the safe range.” Hen takes his arm cuff off with a thoughtful look. “If I ask you to get your blood drawn, will you do it? If you’ve been having on and off nausea for so long, and eating close to nothing, I’m really worried about your chart. You have too much muscle, Buck.”
“Thanks.”
“I’m not joking,” Hen chastises. “Muscle breakdown, which is going to happen if you’re not getting your calories, is going to build up a lot of toxins on your body. You can be at risk of kidney and heart damage – and with your cardiovascular history…” Hen shakes her head. “I’ll find you antihistamines and something to eat, and then I’m driving you to the doctor after our shift.”
“Wait, Hen, no. I can’t leave Eddie alone.”
“ Buck .” Hen over-enunciates every syllable – more chastising, harried , than before. Buck gets it, he does, but… “No,” Hen shuts him down. “Look. We can ask someone to stay with Eddie – I know you’re worried about him, we all are – but someone needs to drive you to the doctor. Almost fainting is not a good sign.”
Buck thins his lips. “I didn't almost faint… ”
But Hen is still shaking her head.
“Doctor,” she repeats. With her face that closed off, Buck gets the idea that’s not something she’ll let go. Hen almost looks like Maddie does every time she makes Buck do something – most of the time, to go to the doctor, actually. “You pick who’s driving you – but someone is.”
Buck worries at the inside of his cheek.
But if he’ll have to do it…
“Eddie,” he tells Hen. Two birds with one stone. She sighs, deeply – but she puts down the blood pressure cuff.
–
Having Eddie drive Buck down to the doctor doesn’t exactly reassure him, but Buck tries to focus on the fact he’s giving Eddie something to do. That was mostly what had been doing him good, with Christopher’s absence – keeping distracted and bettering himself, not that Buck ever thought that Eddie had to be better. Feel better, maybe. He hopes that’s what all signs are pointing to; even if Eddie does look worried now.
It’s good to see light in his eyes.
“You’re still nauseous? The drive’s not being too bumpy?” Eddie checks with him, more than once. Even if Buck’s words are the same.
“Hen helped with that. You’re alright, Eds.”
Eddie nods – more to himself – but Buck knows that won’t be the last time he’ll be asking him.
Late now, after the end of shift, the waiting room of the emergency isn't that full, at least. They sit down to wait on Buck’s name after admittance, and it’s at least time to keep their knees knocked together, a mutual sort of reassurance. After this, Buck’s will get Eddie to eat something hearty at home. He’ll ride this wave for as long as Eddie keeps on it.
Buck eventually gets called, and he and Eddie part ways with a last look.
“You’ll stay here?” Buck asks him.
“Always.”
Buck goes inside the doctor’s office.
He’s seen by a nurse. His case isn’t immediately serious, unless something really does show on his blood work, and Buck gets his blood taken and then dragged to labs.
He’s told to wait. Buck does it back in the waiting room, more time to be with Eddie –only two minutes at most of distance– and he does so gladly, barely worried about himself.
He really has been treating his body like shit recently. Buck has the consciousness to be slightly regretful of that –if not about his reasons– but he’s sure it’s nothing taking a little more care for a week won’t fix up. At most, some supplements. It doesn’t have to be anything serious.
Eventually the same nurse that called his name the first time does it again, leading him back to another office. This time, there’s a doctor there.
Buck doesn’t think that’s a good sign.
“Mister…Buckley,” the old woman reads from his entrance form. She throws Buck a cursory look – seeming serious. Seeming –almost– troubled.
Oh no.
“Is it cancer?” he blurts out, thinking of childhood leukemia and if that’s something tells something about a family history of cancer, even into adulthood. Shit. Shit . This is bad – this is bad . Right now ?
But the doctor, after a slow blink, doesn’t look any different.
“No. It’s not cancer, Mr. Buckley.” She motions a hand to the chair parked in front of her desk. The nurse, Buck notices, never leaves the room’s door. “I really think you should sit down.”
Around 1,7% of the global population is estimated to have secondary sexual characteristics. It's a very tiny number, until Buck thinks about the fact that's actually thousands of people. He's heard of it, of course: one, because his school wasn't that bad, and two, because he's a certified EMT. It’s not a straight foward thing, because it works as an spectrum, but he’s heard of the cases of dual fertility. He hears of one now, feeling delirious, almost, because the doctor’s talking about him .
“You’re kidding.” She has to. She has to. Buck looks helplessly between the doctor and the nurse –both women, he notices– and is stared dow by walls of seriousness. He still repeats himself. “You have to be kidding. I can’t– I can’t .”
“Your blood work is pretty clear on that remark. Your HCG levels are quite high. It’s the same hormone checked for in the urine by at home pregnancy tests–”
“Don’t say that ,” Buck interrupts her, more rude than he’d ever want to be. He sees his hands shake. He can barely feel it. He can barely feel it as his own hands shaking.
“It’s alright, Mr. Buckley. Let's take a minute. I know this might come as a shock–”
Buck knows shocks – this is worse .
“This isn’t a new development on your body. You’ve always had the necessary parts – the hormonal balance. This–” the doctor taps his HCG counts on his blood test, “is the only new thing.”
“How– how didn’t I know, then?”
“Male children are usually tested for the carrier gene around twelve and sixteen – during puberty. Some present with dual sexual dysmorphism, but not all – for that reason family GPs advise on it for everyone. Didn’t your parents ever bring you to the doctor for this?”
It’s a despairing sort of defeat that has Buck letting down his head until his face is hidden on the inside of his hands. Shaking his head on his shaking hands.
“My parents didn’t like doctors,” he croaks. He can’t see the doctor – he still feels the pity.
“I’m sorry.” She seems genuine – less stiff than from the rest of the consult.
It doesn’t change a thing.
“There’s different exams I’d advise you to take now, in adulthood, to learn the extent of your sexual anatomy. In the event of impregnation, that’s especially true, as your doctor and you will need to know that to know your next steps.”
She keeps fucking talking . The world keeps moving. Not for the first time in the last few months, Buck wants to scream, can’t you give me a moment? It echoes like a plea – please, give me one. Please.
His voice sounds run through asphalt the next time he forces it to leave his throat. “What next steps?”
“Keeping the pregnancy,” she says. “Or termination.”
–
Buck’s face is red and blotchy when he gets out of the doctors office, feeling a moment away from hyperventilation. Eddie, when he stops him, stiffens visibly – such a clear dread on his face, beside concern, that Buck does almost start to sob in public.
He’s already on his feet when Buck gets to him, but neither take the next step. Buck is immediately shaking his head at Eddie.
“Buck– what–”
“Please,” Buck stops him. And his voice does do it – so broken with, Eddie’s eyes grow impossibly wider. “Can we– can we just go home?”
Eddies walks him back to the car, and drives him back to his house. Buck pretends to sleep.
–
As soon as they’re home, Buck locks himself in the bathroom
He’s the first through the front door. He rushes past Eddie, and only doesn’t shoulder-checks him because Buck –visibly– moves around every touch, an inch apart from Eddie like his skin would burn on contact. Eddie only gets to see his back disappear into the hallway, and then hear the closing sound of the bathroom door.
Eddie’s worried – has been worried, ever since the house fire, but the concern ballooned exponentially after the doctor visit and Buck’s lack of words. His house is quiet –for a while, since – and that doesn’t help with Eddie’s anxiety either. He can hear every one of his thoughts, flashing like a police-cruiser’s light, an alarm in every form.
Something’s wrong. The feeling latches uncomfortably in Eddie’s stomach, leaving a sort of anxiety that’s all dread, as awful as stomach acid. Very little has been right with Eddie, recently, but if his life has blown up by his own hands, Buck remained the only steady thing in it. Seeing him like that –being presented with the vague notion of something scaring the steadiness out of Buck– is worse than a shower of ice. Eddie feels sick to his stomach.
The night is quiet; there’s only a neighbour's dog occasionally barking from two streets away, and in the surrounding silence, Eddie can hear all of Buck’s, coming from the bathroom. He’s not making a noise. Despite how red his face had looked leaving the doctor’s office, Buck doesn't sound to even be crying anymore.
Eddie keeps standing in the middle of the living room for as long as he can, but it doesn’t end up being too long at all, before he follows Buck to outside the bathroom. Refusing to meet Eddie’s eyes in the car, then to be with him at home, Buck has shown enough what he wants, but Eddie can’t give it to him. He cares too much.
“Buck,” Eddie calls from the other side of the bathroom door. His heart is beating fast against his ear even after thirty minutes of driving. It keeps beating fast, the longer Buck goes without speaking with him. “Buck?”
He keeps hearing nothing from the other side. Lips thinned, Eddie has to make a decision, taking or giving space, and he hopes that, for once, he’s doing something right when he goes to try the bathroom’s knob.
“Buck, I’m coming in,” Eddie keeps his voice soft. Buck still doesn’t answer.
He’s not hiding – Eddie, upon opening the door, sees him immediately: sitting on top of the closed toilet seat, curved miserably into himself. Buck’s elbows are on his knees, and his face is on his hands, obscured further with how his shoulders are curled on himself. His back is shaking. He’s not making a noise, but he’s crying again.
“ Buck. ” Eddie doesn’t take time to kneel in front of where he’s sitting, even if maybe he should. He’s more afraid for Buck than of touching him, and he puts both of his hands on Buck’s knees, curling around his trembling elbows as Eddie cradles. “Hey, hey. Talk with me. What’s–what did the doctor say?”
The reminder only makes Buck tremble harder. He’s shaking his head from the inside of his hands, Eddie doesn’t know if at himself or at the world, but what he does is that he’s fucking terrified.
“Buck,” his voice breaks. “You’re scaring me.”
He still won’t look back at Eddie, but Buck’s first outward breath quivers out of his chest, teary like a sob. “I– uhm. The, the doctor. She said…”
Eddie can’t keep the horror off his voice or his face. “You’re dying?”
But Buck’s shaking his head again, more directly this time. It’s a relief –Eddie can’t imagine a life without him– but not a full one when he still looks like that.
“What did the doctor say then?” Whatever else, it can’t be worse than a world without Evan Buckley. Eddie cups his elbows, then his forearms, hands reaching further through Buck’s arms with a careful, worried touch, and they only stop after Buck’s own hands, curling over them with what Eddie hopes is comfort. “Whatever it was– whatever she said –I’m here. I’m right here with you.”
Buck lets go of his face only enough to peer back at Eddie, but he doesn’t look any more reassured. Buck’s scared – from the frown on his brow to the wide shape of his swimming eyes, red from before and now, still dripping tears.
There’s a paper bunched up in one of Buck’s hands, hidden in a fist, and though Buck doesn’t give it to Eddie, when he looks at it –and back to Buck, in question– Buck, still trembling through his quiet crying, allows it to be picked up by Eddie. He doesn’t hide back again, but it’s a close thing. Buck keeps shaking against the hand that Eddie keeps on one of his cheeks.
He opens up the paper with the other. Despite Buck’s reassurance, Eddie still fears the first thing he’ll see is a death sentence: another person to bury, and carry the absence. Will he see another look-alike in a store and find a new way to ruin what’s left of his life? But there isn’t anything like that – the paper is just a blood review and the request for a physical. Eddie frowns at it, barely comprehending, until he’s skimmed the text properly, feeling his face furrow along with the continuous shake of Buck’s body.
“Your HCG count is high.” Eddie murmurs it almost to himself. In the bottom of the page there’s vague terms – patients presents previously unaccounted nondimorphic sexual development … follow-up with internal exam and specialized care …– but all Eddie cares about is looking at Buck, face to face, and seeing the anxiety on him. “Buck?” Eddie croaks.
“It’s probably good I took so long to realize I’m bisexual, huh?” he tries to joke, masking a thin smile. It falls flat with how the upper half of Buck’s face still won’t stop looking so miserable. “Or– or we’d both be t-teen dads.”
The joke won’t hold. Another tear slides across Buck’s cheek, closest to Eddie’s hold, and he makes a soft, sad sound when Buck’s lip wobbles again. “Oh, sweetheart.” Eddie wraps both his arms around him before he can sniffle another time. The paper slips from his hand, and Eddie allows it – gathering Buck, still sitting higher up, in his hold. Against Eddie, Buck finally allows himself to make noise.
–
It’s an inversion of the most recent times, the night and the morning. Now, Eddie’s the one to lead Buck to bed, let him down genly over the mattress and wash his face with a warm towel as he lies curled on himself. Buck doesn’t sob, just cries, silent and only not soft for the rattle of his shoulders, but Eddie keeps an arm around him all the same, waiting for the moment Buck will feel well enough to talk.
They haven’t shared the bed since the first nights Buck convinced Eddie to sleep back in his own bedroom, but they do it again this time; it doesn’t feel any different in trust. Eddie hardly sleeps, and he’s glad it’s the start of the weekend, because he can’t imagine dragging himself and Buck to work and having to deal with Gerrard on top of everything. There’s very few times Buck has preferred to not go into the station even under the asshole’s captaincy, but now it has to be one. Eddie would put his foot down on it.
He has to be careful to get out of bed without stirring Buck, and quick enough not to wake him with his absence, but when Eddie comes back again with a glass of water, medicine and a packet of crackers, Buck’s eyes are still closed. Eddie’s the one to get them to open, brushing his fingers through Buck’s hair until he’s blinking sluggishly awake.
“Hey,” he greets. Buck’s eyes are still slightly red. The chance of a killer headache is high, but mostly, Buck just looks exhausted, despite having just been sleeping.
“Hey,” he croaks back. Eddie offers him the glass of water, no pills for now, and insists when Buck just takes a deep breath, squeezing his eyes shut.
“Come on. You need to hydrate yourself. I brought meds.” The anti-nausea pills Hen found Buck and an analgesic for his head, if he needed the latter. The help for the nausea is probably a non-question if Eddie’s going to get Buck to eat.
But Buck’s shaking his head, even if Eddie isn’t showing him the medicine yet. “‘Can’t have ‘em.” He turns on his back, breathing heavily.
“What do you mean?”
“Eddie.” Buck stares at him unimpressed, eyes squinted against– the discomfort of his body, the light or the conversation, take your pick. Eddie could guess any one.
He hopes his own head tilt is more reassuring. “I can read the label if their prescription is ill-advised for,” Eddie slows at Buck’s crooked mouth, “...gestation.”
With his eyes squeezed closed, Buck breathes slowly from his nose. Eddie feels his own soften – he lets the matter drop alongside his hand, resting gingerly over Buck’s arm.
“Will you still drink the water? You’re probably dehydrated from last night.”
Buck nods lightly at that, at least. “Okay.”
It’s hard for Eddie not to watch him, even just sitting up against the headboard, working slowly through a full glass of water. He feels stupid – not exactly a new realization, but with a further development now.
Eddie knew, in a vague way, that Buck had been feeling sick. Not a last-week thing, but for the previous months . Like something out of a past life –which it kind of was– he remembered that, the week before Chris ran from him, Buck had asked Chim if Jee was sick, because he felt a little under the weather after visiting them the previous night. It had been funny –Chim said Buck was trying to accuse his infant daughter, and Buck sputtered– but a week later Eddie hadn’t cared about a thing beside his son’s absence. And now here they are.
Buck knows Eddie’s watching him. Almost self-defensively, he curls slightly around his stomach –trying to hide it– still holding gingerly to the glass of water. It’s unneeded, when Buck doesn’t look any different. If anything, from the past months –ran ragged by Gerrard, and by taking care of Eddie, all without accounting the persistent nausea and lack of appetite– he must have lost weight.
“Stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like–like that. I dunno.” Buck abandons the glass to the nightstand by his side of the bed. He looks away, and doesn’t return his eyes. “Just…don’t look at me.”
Eddie turns his head too, if only slightly. “Okay.” When he hears Buck sniff again –dry, for now– Eddie squeezes at his shoulder softly.
He gives him a minute of silence, before speaking again.
“It makes sense, in a way. Your symptoms,” Eddie adds last, when he feels Buck glance at him questioningly. He follows before it can turn into accusation. “Not– not the other thing. But that you’re…carrying. You’ve been feeling sick for a while. I’m sorry I didn’t notice anything sooner.”
“Not your fault.” Buck sniffs again. “I’m the one supposed to feel dumb. Th-that I didn’t have a clue at, at either thing. I should have…I don’t know, done a full body check-up when I left Hershey. I knew I couldn’t trust my parents.”
“Hey. That’s on them, not you.”
“But it’s my problem now. Evidently.”
Eddie isn’t sure if it’s the time to ask – if there’s a time – but he supposes this is the closest opening he’ll get.
“Do you know what you want to do?” he keeps his voice low – soft. Whichever answer Buck gives him, Eddie has his back – like he promised, all those years ago. Like Buck has had Eddie’s, to his own obvious detriment. “It’s Tommy’s, right?” They’d broken up –Buck never said, but Eddie wasn’t that catatonic– and the time checks out. “Do you want to tell him? For the termination fee, if nothing else.”
“Man, I have no idea what I want. I feel– I feel a little dirty. Used. I dunno. And it’s not the– it’s not its fault, or Tommy’s. I just feel betrayed by my parents again. It’s like my body keeps being theirs, or something.”
“It isn’t .” Buck shakes his head through Eddie’s words, but Eddie keeps going – desperate, almost, for Buck to listen. “You’re the one that gets to choose how this goes. You know you’ll have me either way–”
“Eddie–”
“You know you have people behind you, actual family – you’re not going to be alone. Your decision–”
“I don’t got a fucking decision!” Buck snaps. His eyes are red, and shouting, it's almost enough to mistake it only for anger. “I don’t know what to choose! Your highschool girlfriend got pregnant by accident – how did you feel then? How did Shannon?”
Eddie’s breath stutters going into his lungs. The sound, cracking, makes all of Buck’s sag from his chest.
He looks away. “Sorry,” Buck mumbles, voice tiny. With his sagging shoulder, Buck’s whole body falls without weight against Eddie’s bed. He sniffles again. “‘m sorry.”
Eddie couldn’t be angry at him if he tried.
“‘s okay.” He brings Buck close again, shoulder to opposite shoulder, knee to opposite knee, temple to opposite temple. Buck lets him, and Eddie holds him –loosely but securely– squeezing once to settle Buck in his arms. It would be hard, either way –angry or not– to keep feeling the coldness in his stomach at any thought of Shannon, when being close to Buck, even in misery, makes Eddie so warm. “It’s alright.”
Eddie shares the hold, and the silence, with Buck. With the side of their faces pressed together, he can't see if Buck's tears ended up dripping down his waterline again and if the crying restarted. Eddie just gets to hear Buck's quiet sniffles, subdued – he's not sure if only because Buck is keeping them in.
His breathing has gone wet again, and Eddie listens to it for some time, allowing Buck that silence – to think, or to just not speak, do his best not to think too (if he can even not do that). His worry hasn't gone away though, nor the obvious things they have to do, if Eddie's going to take care of Buck, and he has to know what shape that help is going to take.
“Tell me what’s in your head.” His voice is soft enough to miss. Eddie knows Buck won't, not with their proximity. With the hand that keeps brushing through Buck's hair, Eddie hopes Buck won't just ignore him either.
“Lucas.”
It's an unexpected answer. Eddie has to do a mental double take – a name, so far back, after everything, and already so distant, he almost didn’t remember. It’s– Buck’s kid. Donor kid. So much has gone now in what was barely more than a year, it's almost crazy to think that's something that happened, not even that long ago. Buck fathering a baby, to help with his old roommate, a thing and a child that Eddie very carefully never commented about. Buck never did either.
“It’s, uhm, weird to think about, r-right?” Buck continues in just as quiet a voice, sniffles and rattled breaths dispersed throughout. “That I, I could father kids both ways? It’s weird in general. I, uhm. I can’t–wrap my head around it.”
It's not what Eddie finds weird in that whole story. He doesn't comment on it though –Buck already has guilt enough about it– and he just urges him on, whispering back softly, “That’s why you’re thinking of him?”
Eddie has a clue it isn’t. He still waits for the hesitant moment that Buck shakes his head no, pressed against his shoulder.
“I didn’t get to keep him,” Buck says –confesses– simply. Grieving. And maybe it is that simple.
Eddie keeps holding him.