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There’s something horribly satisfying about finally letting yourself fall apart. Something gratifying about giving in, breaking into a thousand little pieces. It’s explosive, and ugly, and entirely inevitable, in the face of grief. It’s the kind of expulsion the human body craves, the kind made to alert the world to the fact that you’re hurting, and you can’t stem the bleeding. It’s a gamble, letting it happen, when you don't know whether you can rebuild afterwards. Not knowing whether there will be anything left to rebuild.
Buck doesn’t want to give himself the satisfaction of falling apart. He’s got himself on a tight leash– one which has kept him afloat, since Bobby’s funeral. Since Bobby died. He knows that if he were to let the leash slip even an inch, there’d be no reeling himself in. He’d explode, and he isn’t entirely sure there would be more than a pile of blistered bones after the fact. An impending failed supernova; a hollow shell of a person, doomed to gorge himself on the life around him, always clinging, clinging, clinging.
Which is why, when Eddie shoves Buck into the counter, fingers gripping his collar, he doesn’t move.
He can see the fire in Eddie’s eyes. The desperation. He’s gunning for a fight, and some small part of Buck wants to give in. Wants to explode right here, with Eddie. Distantly, he feels it: the grief catching up to him, nipping at his heels. He grits his teeth against it.
“You’re not the only person who lost him,” Eddie says for the second time this week, voice trembling. He’d said it days ago– had grabbed Buck then, too. And now he’s saying it again, like Buck isn’t hearing him.
It’s all Buck does. All he hears.
Because he’s alone with this. He’s alone with his grief. Anything he tries to say comes out wrong, comes out the way he knows Eddie hates: me, me, me.
For the millionth time, Buck wishes he was someone else. Anyone else.
“I know,” he says. He doesn’t mean to sound cold. Doesn’t mean to shut him out. But he just– he can’t breathe around the grief. So he skirts around it.
“You’re not getting it." Eddie's voice is severe, but his fingers slacken around his collar. "I was eight hundred miles away, alone."
"You didn't have to be." Buck regrets it the second he's said it, hating the way Eddie's mouth thins.
"I couldn't move my entire life across states on a whim.”
“But you did.”
Eddie's fingers fall away entirely. He steps back, laughing incredulously. “What?”
“Chim just– told you to stay,” Buck says. “And you are. You’re staying. I don’t get it, Eddie. How could it have been so– easy?”
Something unreadable flickers across Eddie’s face, but it’s gone before Buck can identity it. “You never asked me to stay.”
A flare of bright hot anger sparks in Buck's chest. “I— I wanted you to choose something for yourself.”
“You could have asked.”
“I never would’ve!” It’s kind of agonising, twisting the knife. But Buck can’t seem to help himself.
Eddie scoffs. “Then why are you angry? What the hell did I have to stay for?”
Buck tries to take a step back, stumbling against the counter. The clammy fingers of shame, always wrapped loosely around his neck, waiting for him to catch his breath before squeezing, begin to press against his windpipe.
Me, he wants to say. You could’ve stayed for–
But, of course, Eddie couldn’t have. Buck knows that better than anyone. Had Eddie’s parents been even a modicum better than they are, things might have been different. As it is, Eddie had to show up. Had to Dad-Up. Had to prove to himself and to Chris that he could be the parent he deserves.
But implying that he never would’ve stayed for Buck, that he wasn’t even a consideration? That lands like a suckerpunch.
“You’re being mean,” Buck says, eyes stinging. God, he’s always been a cry-baby.
Face twisting, Eddie says, “You’re being impossible.”
How did we get here? Buck wants to ask. How do we stop?
Buck agrees with Eddie, is the thing. He is being impossible. He just- he can’t do anything right, hasn't been able to screw his head back on since the lab explosion. He doesn’t know what anyone wants him to do, who they want him to be.
He gave up his loft to sublet Eddie’s house – the only place that’s ever felt like home to Buck – to make his move to Texas easier. He moved into Eddie’s house so that Eddie could leave. He lived here, filled the spaces Eddie and Chris used to exist, alone. And it’s on him for making it seem like it wasn’t a big deal, like he wasn’t doing it all out of– out of love. Like moving in wasn’t as good as declaration.
Eddie pulls a hand through his hair roughly. “I don’t know how to talk to you.”
“‘Cause I make everything about me,” Buck fills in for him.
“Because you don’t make anything about me,” Eddie yells, eyes flickering to Buck's mouth and away. Breathing hard, his face shutters. “Us. Christopher,” he corrects. “Fuck.”
Eddie doesn’t wear an inch of his pain on his face– it’s all in his shoulders. In the way he carries himself. But right now, Eddie’s face is an open book. And Eddie looks stricken.
Unable to keep the hurt out of his voice, Buck says, “I moved into your house, Eddie. I– I’ve been there for you every step of the way, and I don’t– I would never regret it, but that’s– that’s unfair.”
Eddie’s eyes flash, but he says nothing.
“Bad things happen, but it’s like you've just checked out. It’s like– it’s like someone cut your strings,” Buck goes on, all too aware he's describing himself, too. “Like you’re some kind of marionette. You fucked up with Chris, okay, but– but you’ve been punishing yourself for months. You’ve been punishing me for months.”
Silence. Deafening and long.
It’s never been like this, between them. They’ve fought, they’ve argued, but it’s never felt dangerous. It’s never felt like the precursor to an ending.
But then Eddie looks up at Buck, eyes far away.
“When I was shot,” Eddie starts, then stops, gaze settling on the sink. He twitches, eyelids flickering like he’s reliving that sunny afternoon. “When I was shot, all I could think about was us.”
Oh.
“Us?” Buck asks, voice small. It occurs to Buck that Eddie’s never spoken about this before. The one time Buck tried to ask, to prod as gently as he could manage when he still felt raw and unmoored himself, Eddie had told him in no uncertain terms that he couldn’t talk about it because he blacked out. Full stop.
When Eddie doesn’t reply, Buck swallows. Tries, “I thought you said you didn’t remember.”
A terrible, sharp laugh heaves out of Eddie. “I’m a fucking liar, Buck.”
Buck’s heart thuds uncomfortably in his chest. Lips numb, he manages a soft, “Oh.”
“I’ve said a lot of things, but I’ve also– there’s so much I never said,” Eddie continues, hand jerking up to rub at his shoulder, before slipping down to his chest. He presses his palm over his heart, and Buck feels it like a phantom touch over his own.
“Eddie–”
“But when I was shot, all I could think–” Eddie’s eyes flicker to Buck’s, voice wobbling, “Is that I'd miss this. Us. You, and Chris. The 118. but—“ he sucks in a sharp breath, air whooshing out of his lungs in a half-sob. “But I wouldn’t, right? I wouldn't miss it. ‘Cause I'd be dead. And I can’t–”
Eddie’s voice breaks, and he turns away from Buck. For one awful moment, it’s silent. Then, Eddie’s chest heaves around a devastating, seizing sob, and Buck’s moving before he consciously decides to.
“Eddie,” he says, shaky and small, hands flitting over Eddie’s shoulders, because he doesn’t know if he’s allowed to touch, if he’s still doing everything wrong.
But then Eddie’s turning again, slipping his capable arms around Buck, tucking his face into Buck’s neck. He sobs again, breath hitching.
“You’re okay,” Buck says softly, and just like that, Eddie’s crying.
It’s the kind of crying that tears at you. The way an inconsolable child cries when they’ve lost a parent, when they’re too young to understand but old enough to know they’re not coming back. The uncontrollable, soul-wrenching crying that happens when a hurt goes unacknowledged; the kind that takes and takes, demanding to be felt. The kind that feels like dying.
Buck buries his face in Eddie’s hair, breath hitching.
Eddie was always destined to be a supernova.
Buck’s chest constricts around something awful, around a feeling too sharp to acknowledge or look at directly. He swallows convulsively around the sudden lump in his throat, pulling Eddie closer to hide the way he’s trembling. His body aches like it’s in mourning, squeezing around the empty parts Eddie’s presence fills, telling Buck there would be no remedy, nothing he could ever do or say to get used to a world without Eddie.
But he didn’t lose Eddie. He wasn’t even in danger of losing him, because he was safe and sound, 800 miles away. But his absence – his quiet departure from Buck’s life – was a kind of dying, too.
“I needed you,” Eddie sobs, face warm and wet against Buck’s skin. “I needed you, and you disappeared. You were right here, and I couldn’t– I couldn’t reach you.”
“I’m here, Eddie,” Buck chokes out, heart breaking right in two. “I’m here now. I’m not going anywhere.”
Eddie clings harder to him, and Buck clings right back.
He remembers being twenty-six, grasping Eddie’s hand for the first time. Watching him and realising that he wasn’t the only one burning up, wasn’t the only one with a penchant for seeking out danger. He remembers wondering, then, if there was such a thing as kindred spirits.
They had built a life together. And Buck– he’d been a safe space for Christopher. Had had the honour of loving him like his own. Eddie had given him that privilege, but he’d also taken it away, leaving him behind when he chased after Chris, and Buck–
Buck had been having a hard time getting used to it, was all.
When had things changed? Buck wants so badly to ask Eddie, to make him explain. When did he stop mattering as much to Chris? When had returning to LA in part to reunite with Buck, to be near him, to work and live and laugh together - to go back to the way it was - lost priority? And how– how had he missed it?
Buck’s stomach churns, hands going cold where they’re splayed across Eddie’s back. He settles his gaze on the window and empties his mind.
The sky outside darkens slowly, beautifully. Grey turns into lilac turns into dark blue.
Gradually, Eddie’s breathing calms, but his grip on Buck doesn’t loosen. He’s so warm, pressed against him. Alive. Buck closes his eyes and tries to memorise the feeling.
He knows Eddie’s going to speak a moment before he does, his back tensing beneath his fingers.
“I wanted to ask you to come with me.”
“What?”
“I wanted– I want, Buck. I want all the time, and I can’t…”
I can’t have it. I can’t ask for it. I can’t want it.
“You can,” Buck tells him, hoping desperately he’s not saying the wrong thing.
A pause. Then-
“Bobby once told me, we always have a choice.” Eddie’s deep timbre soothes something in Buck, slowing his racing heart. “Stay or go. Speak or stay silent. Fight, don’t fight. And I just kept… kept doing nothing. I was losing myself, like I always do when I’m alone.”
Buck aches.
“But I wasn’t alone. I was lonely. If I wasn’t with Chris, I was talking to you. I’m– I was always talking to you. So when– when I got that phone call–” Eddie shudders out a breath. “Just for a moment, I thought maybe it was about– you. That you were…” Eddie goes quiet again, chest rising and falling slowly.
Buck waits him out.
“I couldn’t stop spinning these scenarios where it had been you. I couldn’t stop- and- and it took getting back to LA for it to sink in that Bobby– that he was actually–” Eddie exhales. “And then I saw you, and I realised I’d been preparing myself for it– for you to be gone, too.”
Buck swallows hard. Breathes Eddie in, wishing he knew the right things to say.
“Preemptive grief is a hell of a drug,” Buck says wetly, and Eddie huffs in agreement.
For a long moment, neither of them say anything. They hold each other, and it’s enough.
Eventually, though, Buck clears his throat and pulls back enough to look at Eddie’s face. His eyes look darker with his eyelashes clumped together- more disarming, in the gentle light of the kitchen. “What do you want, Eddie? Why are we fighting?”
Let me help. Let me make this easier for you.
“What do you want?”
“Answering a question with a question?”
Eddie shrugs, something like shame making his shoulders curve inward.
“Well, uh…”
Buck’s imagined it many times. Chris eeling past him, giggling as he makes for the console. Eddie, leaning against the doorframe, watching Buck with a fond smile. Late mornings making pancakes together, singing along to Frank Sinatra, making a production out of it to make Chris laugh.
And the thing is– none of it is fantasy. All of it, Buck’s experienced firsthand. He just hadn’t realised, at the time, that he wouldn’t get to keep it.
“Some part of me kind of believed that what– what we had before would be enough,” Buck murmurs. “That we could play house, I guess. We could be an– an almost, and I’d be okay with that. And then, eventually, I’d watch you fall in love with someone else, someone who's not too much or- or too little, and I’d– Eddie– I’d want to be grateful, that you’d found someone to love, but it’d kill me.”
“Buck…”
“But I’d do it,” Buck says intensely. “I’d do it in a heartbeat, because I love you.”
Eddie looks at him the same way he had when Buck had told him he was subletting his house: wide-eyed with disbelief, something like awe shimmering just below the surface.
Buck ducks his head, flushing. “I know we don’t… we don’t talk about it. The whole– us thing. We just say we have each other’s backs, and that’s– Eddie, it was enough, but you deserved more. You deserved to fall in love back, and I still monopolised your time–”
Hoarsely, Eddie interrupts, “Buck.”
Buck pauses, flickering his eyes up nervously.
“Buck,” Eddie says again. “I already did.”
“You– what?” Buck’s heart trips over itself. “What are you– Eddie. What are you saying?”
“You’re not too much.” Eddie's hands flex around Buck's waist. “And you’re not too little. You’re– you’re Buck. You’re our Buck.”
And– oh.
Buck feels his lower lip tremble, watching Eddie’s eyes flicker between his. It’s as if his chest has seized up, ribcage squeezing his lungs.
“Some- some part of you had to know,” Eddie pleads, begs— voice shot. “Part of you had to know, right?”
“Eddie,” Buck rasps. A whisper-thin confession, a tender ache of a word: “No.”
Something tender and raw breaks on Eddie’s face, eyebrows slackening. He brings a shaking hand to Buck’s face, eyes shining. He's never been more beautiful, Buck thinks.
“Buck. Evan.”
The words are like a lance to the heart, sharp and familiar all at once. Buck exhales shakily, bracing himself.
“I love you.” Eddie breathes the words, soft and reverent.
The sentiment, the earnestness with which the words depart Eddie, washes over Buck, but he muscles the swell of emotion down. He can’t– he has to be certain–
“You– are you sure?”
Eddie huffs a laugh, eyes still bright. “‘Am I sure’ – are you kidding?”
“I– I just, Eddie, what I feel for you is– it’s a lot. It’s what we already are, sure, but I also want– a– a joint bank account, and family holidays, and sex, I need you to–”
“We already have that,” Eddie interjects. Then, his cheeks flame red. “Uh. Most of it. But sex is– I, uh, I do want to have sex with y–”
“Oh my God.”
Almost like he can’t stop himself, Eddie moves his other arm up, pressing his thumb to Buck’s pulse point. For the first time, Buck realises that this is actually happening.
“My whole life,” Eddie begins, “I’ve been trying to live some sort of half-life. I just– I needed my parents to be proud of me for something. Anything. But I just kept failing, over and over again. You were– you were the first good thing I ever let myself want, selfishly. I didn’t even know it, which– which is why I didn’t stop myself from wanting you. But then– Tommy came along, and suddenly it was like… like it just made sense. What I feel for you. The way I think about you. But I was too late, and Chris was– Chris hated me. I’m not even–” Eddie cuts himself off with a self-deprecating laugh. “I don’t like women, Buck. I’m gay. I messed around with Kim ‘cause I was looking for something familiar. Something that wasn’t so scary.”
“I scare you?” Buck asks softly.
Eddie shakes his head, eyes never leaving Buck’s. “Never. But how– how much I love you, how much I stand to lose if you leave– that scares me.”
For a moment, Buck’s so full of sheer disbelief that he has to hold his breath.
“There’s never going to be anyone else,” Buck tells him. It’s a heavy confession, one Buck hopes Eddie can carry. “It’s been you for seven years. No one else ever stood a chance.”
And– there. That same old fire reappears in Eddie’s eyes, as familiar and wild as it was seven years ago.
“I’m so glad it’s you,” Eddie says quietly, breath ghosting over Buck’s lips.
“You’re my best friend,” Buck says, voice wavering, and then Eddie’s swaying closer, capturing his mouth in a kiss.
It nearly bowls Buck over how right it feels, to kiss Eddie. To make his breath hitch when he presses closer, to cup his face with his palm, to trace the seam of his lips with his tongue. Tasting Eddie for the first time, licking gently into his mouth, is nothing short of revelatory.
This is it, Buck thinks. You’re who I’ve been waiting for.
Later, when they’ve both pulled away to breathe, chests rising and falling quickly, Eddie squeezes his shoulder, stretching to press a kiss to Buck’s birthmark. Buck can’t help but smile when he does, feeling– seen. Seen and understood.
“I’m sorry for yelling,” Eddie says, lips ever so slightly kiss-swollen.
Buck brushes his thumb over Eddie’s bottom lip. “I’m sorry for not being here.”
“I’m sorry for not being here.”
Buck quirks a smile. “Forgive and forget?”
Eddie returns the smile, small but real. “You haven’t let go of a single thing in your entire life, Buckley.”
Buck huffs a laugh. “But I love you, so it’s– it’s different.”
Eddie’s entire face changes, face softening, making him look younger. Less like he’s carrying the world on his shoulders. God, Buck loves him.
“We’re in this together,” Eddie murmurs, drawing a circle on Buck’s neck with his thumb.
Buck’s heart flutters. “Together.”