Archive of Our Own

When Buck started fostering Theo, he noticed a lot of things that he had passed down to his biological child. A love of learning — the kind that came with a million questions before breakfast. A preference for sweet over savoury. The ability to walk into a doorframe and come away with three new bruises and zero memory of how. An ADHD diagnosis that explained a lot, actually, about both of them. 

And a love for Eddie Diaz that Buck was pretty sure neither of them had learned, but had rather just always been there. 

Theo absolutely worshipped the ground Eddie walked on. Ever since they met a few months ago, Theo has attached himself to Eddie and not let go. Theo simply lived wherever Eddie was. If Eddie was on the couch, Theo was on the couch. If Eddie was in the kitchen, Theo was in the kitchen, or close enough to count. If Eddie left the room entirely, Theo's head was already turning, already tracking him down.

Eddie was like a magnet and Theo had been made entirely of metal.

And Buck could not, in good conscience, judge him for it. Because he got it. He genuinely, completely, embarrassingly got it. He felt it too — that gravitational pull, that specific kind of ease that only existed around Eddie. 

If he was being honest with himself, which he tried not to be too often, he was desperately in love with Eddie. Had been for a while now. So no, he could not hold Theo's clinginess against him. Not even a little. The only difference between them was that Theo was four and got away with all the affection, and Buck was a grown man with a whole lot to hide. 

If it wouldn't have said everything he wasn't ready to say out loud, Buck would have glued himself to Eddie's side years ago and never moved.

Eddie was safe. Eddie was home. Eddie was the person Buck measured everything else against without meaning to.

He was also, currently, the exact reason Theo refused to go to bed.

"Come on buddy," Buck said, for what had to be the millionth time. "It's time to sleep."

"Nooooo." Theo burrowed deeper into the blankets. "I don't want to. I want Eddie."

Buck wanted Eddie too, if he was being honest. For backup. For the specific calm that Eddie brought into a room without trying. Or, more practically, because if Eddie were here Theo would have been asleep an hour ago and Buck could stop negotiating with a four year old and go to bed.

"Eddie's working, buddy." Buck sat on the edge of the mattress and sighed. "He can't come over right now."

"But why?"

Oh, the why stage. Adorable at noon. Considerably less adorable at nine at night when Buck had already exhausted every tool in his arsenal to try and get Theo to sleep.

"Because he has to help people," Buck said patiently. "He can't do that if he's here. You know this — it's just like when I have to go to work and you stay with Chris and Carla."

Carla had been a lifeline he hadn't known he still needed. Chris was older now, more independent, and she'd faded naturally from their lives the way things did when they were no longer strictly necessary. But when Buck had called her, voice a little too hopeful, she'd said yes before he'd finished the sentence. Before he knew it, she had slotted herself back in like no time had passed at all.

He'd suggested Chris be there the first time Theo met her, a soft landing, a familiar face. Theo knew Chris. Theo loved Chris. What Buck hadn't fully anticipated was that Chris would just keep showing up. That it would become a system. A routine. On the days Buck and Eddie were both on shift, Carla watched them both — Theo and Chris together. On the days one of them was off, they became the designated child watcher by unspoken agreement.

It worked. Seamlessly. Suspiciously seamlessly.

Buck had learned not to think about it too hard. Every time he did, something in his chest did something unhelpful, and he'd get this image of what it looked like from the outside, and then he'd have to find something very urgent to focus on instead.

"I want Eddie now." Theo's voice cracked on the last word, and then he was crying. Properly crying, the small hitching kind that Buck was entirely defenceless against.

"I know." Buck pulled him in without hesitation, tucking Theo against his chest. "I know you do. He loves you so much. And I bet he wishes he was here too." He pressed a kiss to the top of Theo's head. "But he has to work, sweetheart. I'm sorry."

Theo cried quietly for a moment. Then, muffled against Buck's shirt: "I want him to read me a story. And— and say goodnight."

Buck closed his eyes briefly.

He was a weak man. He had always been a weak man. He had made peace with that a long time ago.

"What if I message him," Buck said carefully, "and see if he can call to say goodnight?"

Theo pulled back just enough to look at him. Eyes red, cheeks wet, expression hovering somewhere between hopeful and unconvinced. "Okay," he said quietly.

It was the saddest okay Buck had ever heard.

Buck: Hey man, any chance you could give me a call. Theo wants to say goodnight.

Luckily Buck didn’t have to wait long for a response. 

Eddie: Yeah, of course. 

It's been a, you know what, type of shift today. 

If it wasn’t so late, I’d say you could bring the little man to visit. 

Now there was a lot to say in response to that, but Buck was more worried about how Eddie had almost ruined the shift for everyone else. 

Buck: Edmundo Diaz, do not jinx yourself like that. 

Eddie: Jinxes aren’t real. 

Plus, I didn’t actually say anything. 

So even if they were, it doesn’t count.

Buck: Agree to disagree. 

If you angered the gods, don’t go blaming me.

Oh, and thank you. 

I’ll get him settled and then call. 

Eddie: Of course. I’ll be waiting. 

“Okay buddy, Eddie said he could call.” Theo perked up at this. “But, you need to be tuck away ready to answer okay.”

“Okay, Buck.”

“Okay.”

And so with that, Buck dialled Eddie’s number. 

Eddie picked up on the second ring.

"Hey." His voice was low, the background noise of the station humming quietly behind him. "Put him on."

Buck smiled despite himself. No preamble. No hello. Just straight to the point, because Eddie always knew exactly what was needed.

He handed the phone to Theo, who took it with both hands like it was something precious.

"Eddie!"

Buck could hear Eddie's laugh from where he sat. Low and warm and so familiar it ached.

"Hey buddy. Why aren't you asleep?"

"Because I missed you," Theo said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Buck said you were saving people."

"I was," Eddie said seriously. "Very important work."

"Did you save lots?"

"So many."

Theo giggled. Buck exhaled slowly.

"Eddie, when are you coming home?"

Buck's heart did something complicated at that. Home. Because this wasn’t Eddie’s home. Not really. 

Maybe it should be?

No, brain, shut up. 

There was a brief pause on the line. "Soon, buddy. I'll see you tomorrow, yeah?"

"That's too far away." Theo's face scrunched. He was quiet for a moment, visibly thinking, which was always either very good or very bad. "Buck could bring me to you."

"Theo—" Buck started.

"Then you could say goodnight properly. And read my story. Buck's not as good at the voices."

"Hey," Buck said.

Theo ignored him completely. "Can we come, Eddie? Can we come to the station? Pretty please."

Another pause. Buck could picture Eddie perfectly — that small smile, the way he'd be looking at the phone, weighing it up.

"It is pretty late," Eddie said.

"I know," Theo said gravely. Like he was conceding a real point. "But it's an emergency."

Eddie laughed, and the sound of it settled warm in Buck's chest, unhelpfully.

"Buck," Eddie said, and somehow the phone had been turned toward him without Buck noticing, Theo holding it up like an offering. "What do you think?"

"I think it's nine o'clock and he should be asleep," Buck said firmly.

"Mm." A beat. "Come anyway."

"It's a school night."

"Pre-school," Eddie corrected. "Barely counts."

Buck pressed two fingers to the bridge of his nose. "He needs to sleep."

"He's not going to sleep like this. You know he's not." Another beat, softer. "Come to the station. We'll do the whole thing properly and then I'll have him out in ten minutes, I promise."

Buck looked at Theo, who was staring up at him with the biggest puppy dog eyes Buck had ever seen on a human face.

He was a weak, weak man.

"Fine," he said. "Get your shoes, Theo."

The noise Theo made probably woke the neighbours.

— — —

The station was quieter than usual when they pulled up, the big bay doors open and spilling warm yellow light out onto the concrete. Theo was unbuckled before Buck had even fully stopped the car, stuffed bear clutched under one arm, dinosaur pyjamas slightly rumpled from the drive over.

"Hold on," Buck said. "Wait for me."

Theo waited approximately two seconds before his feet hit the ground.

Buck caught up with him at the entrance, taking his hand before he could launch himself into the station at full speed. Theo allowed this, but his whole body was vibrating with the effort of walking at a normal pace. His head swivelled constantly, obviously looking for Eddie.

Hen spotted them first.

"Oh my god." She looked genuinely delighted. "Is that a Theo I see?"

"Hen!" Theo brightened momentarily, then immediately returned to scanning the room. "Have you seen Eddie?"

Hen pressed her lips together to hide her smile. "Hello to you too."

Chimney appeared from around the engine, took one look at the situation — Buck, Theo, the pyjamas, the bear, the hour — and tilted his head slowly. "Is it not," he said, "nine thirty at night?"

"It's a long story," Buck said.

"It's because Eddie didn't say goodnight," Theo supplied helpfully, craning his neck toward the kitchen. "Where is he? Have you seen him? Hen, where is he?"

"He's around somewhere," Hen said.

Theo made a noise of pure impatience and looked up at Buck. "Can I go find him?"

"Stay where I can see you," Buck said, which Theo apparently interpreted as yes, because he was off immediately, padding across the station floor in his socked feet, bear bouncing under his arm.

Buck watched him go.

"Sweet kid," Chimney said, coming to stand beside him. There was a pause. "You drove him to the station at nine thirty at night because he missed Eddie."

"He couldn't sleep."

"Uh huh."

Another pause. Buck could feel Hen looking at him with that particular expression she had. The one that meant she was enjoying herself at his expense.

"You know," she said lightly, "you didn't have to come all this way. You could've just told him Eddie would see him tomorrow."

"He was upset."

"Right."

"He wanted Eddie."

"Mm." Hen tilted her head. "And you didn't?"

Buck opened his mouth. Closed it.

He refused to answer that question. He had rights. He was going to plead the fifth. Yes, that was totally reasonable. 

"I'll go find Theo," Buck said.

Behind him, he could hear both of them failing to hold it together.

— — — 

Buck heard Theo before he saw either of them — the squeal of "Eddie, Eddie, Eddie!" in rapid succession, getting louder, and then the couch creaking, and then Eddie's laugh.

He took the last few steps and came into the loft, and the scene that greeted him was so unbearably domestic that he briefly considered going back down.

Eddie was on the couch. He'd clearly been doing a crossword — it was half finished on the cushion beside him, pencil tucked behind his ear — but he wasn't doing it anymore because Theo had climbed directly into his lap and seized his face in both small hands the way he did when he wanted someone's full and undivided attention.

"You didn't say goodnight," Theo told him, very seriously.

"I know," Eddie said, equally serious. "That was wrong of me."

"It was."

"I'm sorry."

Theo studied him for a moment, apparently deciding whether this was sufficient. Then he nodded, apparently satisfied, and burrowed in. Eddie's arms came around him naturally, automatically, one hand rubbing slow circles on Theo's back.

Buck stood at the top of the stairs and did not move for a second.

He was fine. He was completely fine. His heart was just doing something loud and unnecessary and he just needed a moment to wait it out, that was all.

Buck made himself walk the rest of the way in.

He dropped onto the opposite end of the couch, leaving enough space for Theo between them, which was a decision made partly for Theo's benefit and partly for his own structural stability.

Eddie looked over at him properly then, the warm kind of look that crinkled slightly at the corners.

"You okay?" Eddie asked. Quiet. Just between them. 

"Yeah," he said. "I'm good." 

And he was. He felt infinitely more settled now that Eddie was nearby. He refused to look into what that meant. 

Theo, who had no interest in whatever was happening between the adults, sat up abruptly. "Story time," he announced. "Eddie, I'm ready." 

"Okay," Eddie said, shifting Theo off his lap and onto the cushion beside him, patting it twice. "Story time. Go get your book."

Theo froze.

Buck watched it happen in slow motion. The way Theo's face went from settled and content to the very specific expression of a child who had just remembered something important and devastating.

"I forgot it," Theo said.

"You forgot it," Eddie repeated.

"It's at home." A pause. "Buck, why didn't you bring my book?"

"Because," Buck said evenly, "you didn't tell me to."

"Eddie," Theo said, pivoting immediately, "can you make up a story? From your brain?"

"From my brain," Eddie repeated.

"You have good ideas."

"Do I?"

"The best," Theo confirmed. He looked at Buck. "Tell him."

"He does," Buck said, because he was weak and also because it was true.

Eddie looked at him for just a second too long. Buck looked at the crossword. It was way too late to think about feelings. 

"Okay," Eddie said. "Come here."

He opened his arm. Theo slotted in immediately, and then looked at Buck expectantly until Buck moved in closer too, close enough that Theo could lean across both of them, which he did.

Eddie stretched his arm out along the back of the couch, and it was close enough that Buck could feel the warmth of it behind his shoulders. He didn't move away.

"Okay," Eddie said seriously. "There was once a very brave dinosaur."

Theo's head came up. "What kind?"

"Triceratops," Eddie said, without missing a beat.

Theo looked down at his pyjama leg, then back up at Eddie, delighted. "He's on my pyjamas."

"I know. His name was Theo."

The noise Theo made was something close to joy. He burrowed further into the space between them, bear tucked under his chin, and Eddie kept going — building a world out of nothing, voice low and warm, a dinosaur called Theo who saved his whole family and was very brave and went to sleep at the end because he had a big day tomorrow.

Buck listened and didn't say anything at all.

By the time the dinosaur had made it home, Theo's breathing had slowed. Heavy and even, head dropping sideways against Eddie's arm, bear still clutched firmly in one hand.

Eddie's voice trailed off gently.

Silence.

Buck looked down at Theo, then across at Eddie.

Eddie was already looking at him.

"Ten minutes," Eddie murmured, the ghost of a smile on his face.

"You called it," Buck said, equally quiet.

Neither of them moved for a while, but eventually they settled into their usual rhythm. 

They talked in the way they always did when it was late and the world had gone quiet around them. Easy. Unhurried. The kind of conversation that didn't need to go anywhere.

Eddie had had a slow shift. Two calls, both unremarkable. He'd spent most of the afternoon helping Chim fix something under one of the trucks and couldn't remember now if they'd actually fixed it or just decided it was someone else's problem.

Buck had had a good day. Theo had asked, at breakfast, why the sky was blue, and then why blue was called blue and not something else, and then whether fish knew they were wet, and Buck had answered all of it to the best of his ability while making toast.

Eddie listened to this with the expression of someone who found Buck entirely too endearing and was only partially hiding it.

"He asked me about the fish thing last week," Eddie said.

"What did you tell him?"

"I said probably not. He told me I was wrong."

Buck laughed, quiet enough not to wake Theo. "He told me I was wrong too."

"Maybe we are."

"Maybe," Buck agreed.

Buck told him about the park. About Theo befriending a pigeon. About the extremely detailed explanation Theo had delivered on the way home about why pigeons were actually very good birds and very misunderstood, which Buck suspected was word for word something Chris had told him.

"Chris told him pigeons are misunderstood," Eddie confirmed.

"I knew it."

"He went through a whole thing about pigeons a few months ago. Apparently they mate for life."

"Theo told me that too. Very seriously. Eye contact and everything."

Eddie shook his head. The smile on his face was the soft, private kind. The kind that meant he was thinking about his kid and couldn't help it.

"He's a good kid," Buck said.

"He really is." A pause. "Thanks to you."

"Can't take credit for that."

"You can a little."

Buck yawned before he could stop it — the full body kind, eyes watering slightly. He pressed his hand over his mouth too late.

"Sorry," he said.

"Don't be."

He hadn't meant to shift closer. It had just happened, some slow gravitational drift while his body made decisions his brain was too tired to override. His shoulder was against Eddie's now, Theo still a warm weight across both their laps, and it was — fine. It was fine. It was just proximity. It was just late.

His internal voice had a few things to say about that.

He ignored it. He was too tired and it was too warm and Eddie hadn't moved away, had in fact settled slightly toward him in a way that was probably unconscious and definitely nothing and Buck was just — he was tired. He was allowed to be tired. He was allowed to sit here.

He yawned again.

"Go to sleep, Buck," Eddie said. Not unkindly.

"I'm not sleeping," Buck said. "I'm just resting my eyes."

"Mm."

"I drove here. I can't sleep."

"I'll wake you up before you have to leave."

"I'm not—"

"Buck."

Buck closed his mouth.

His eyes stayed closed after the next blink. His head tipped, found Eddie's shoulder, and stopped there like it had always known that was where it was supposed to go.

He thought, distantly, that he should probably say something about that. Lift his head. Re-establish some reasonable physical boundary between himself and the man he was hopelessly in love with.

He thought about it for a while.

He fell asleep instead.

— — —

Warmth. 

That was the whole world for a moment. Just warmth and the distant sounds of a building at night. 

Buck came back slowly. Registered the couch first. The blanket second. Theo third — chest rising and falling on top of him, his bear making a small indent against his ribs, one hand pressed flat against Buck's collarbone.

He became aware of Eddie last, which was wrong because Eddie was the most present thing in the room by a significant margin.

They had, at some point, become horizontal. Buck had no memory of this. He was on his back and Eddie was beside him, facing him, head on Buck's shoulder with an ease that suggested he'd been there a while and found nothing troubling about it. His arm was across Buck's middle, over the blanket, hand loosely fisted in the fabric of his shirt.

He was holding on. Gently and completely and without any apparent self-consciousness, because he was asleep and his brain had apparently just done this.

He lay there for a moment in the quiet. Just feeling the weight of it. Just letting himself have this for exactly as long as it took before he had to be responsible about it.

Then he heard it.

A very poorly suppressed laugh from the direction of the stairs.

Buck opened one eye.

Chimney, Hen, and Ravi stood in a loose cluster at the top of the loft stairs. Hen had her hand pressed over her mouth. Chim had his phone out — screen angled directly at the couch, camera clearly open. Ravi looked like a man trying very hard to be professional and failing completely.

Buck opened his other eye.

Chim waved.

"Don't," Buck whispered, with as much authority as a man could manage while pinned under a sleeping child and a grown adult.

Chim took a photo.

The shutter sound was turned off but Buck could see the little camera animation and it felt personally offensive.

"Put that away," Buck hissed.

"I don't think I will," Chim whispered back, pleasantly.

"I will actually—" Buck shifted slightly, trying to find leverage, and Eddie made a sound against his shoulder. Low and vague. The involuntary sound of someone being disturbed in very good sleep. His grip on Buck's shirt tightened and he burrowed in closer, nose pressing into Buck's neck, whole body curling incrementally toward him like a plant toward sunlight.

Buck stopped moving entirely.

Chim took another photo.

"Delete those," Buck whispered, at a very controlled volume.

"I will not," Chim whispered back, equally controlled.

"I will end you."

"He says," Chim said, to Hen and Ravi, gesturing at the full scene with his phone, "while being cuddled."

"I am not being—" Buck stopped. Looked at Eddie's arm around his waist. Started again. "This is a situation that developed without my knowledge or input."

"Mm," Hen said.

"He did this in his sleep."

"You let him," Ravi said, with the gentle, helpful tone of someone making an observation they thought was useful.

Buck looked at Ravi for a long moment.

"I was asleep," Buck said.

"You're awake now."

Buck had nothing for that. Absolutely nothing. He lay there and Eddie breathed slow and even against him. Oblivious to Buck’s emotional turmoil. 

Chim took two more photos in quick succession.

"I will throw you down those stairs," Buck told him.

"He won't," Chim told the other two. "He can't move."

"This is a violation—"

"Of what?" Hen asked pleasantly. "Your privacy? At your workplace? Where you chose to fall asleep on your—" she paused, with great precision, "—coworker?"

"He's not—"

"On," Hen said, "your coworker."

Buck's jaw closed.

"If those photos leave this building," Buck said, quietly and carefully, "I will make all of your lives extremely difficult."

"Maddie's already seen them," Chim said.

Buck closed his eyes.

Hen patted his ankle through the blanket. It was surprisingly gentle. "She said, and I'm quoting, it's about time."

Eddie shifted again. His arm tightened slightly, a small unconscious adjustment, pulling Buck closer.

Buck looked at the ceiling.

He thought about the choices that had led here. Each one had seemed so reasonable at the time.

Ravi had his phone out now too. Buck noticed this and immediately sighed.

"Ravi," he said.

“What, this needs to be documented.” He punctuated his statement with another picture. “It’s about damn time, man.”

Buck had no response to that. Absolutely none. He lay there under the warm weight of Eddie Diaz and his foster son and said nothing because there was nothing to say that wouldn't make it worse.

"Go away," he finally managed.

Chim patted the railing fondly. "Breakfast is at six," he said. "We'll make extra."

Hen patted his foot through the blanket again. "Go back to sleep," she said, soft and genuinely kind. "Both of you look really peaceful."

Then they all headed back downstairs.

Buck lay in the dark and stared at the loft ceiling and felt Eddie's arm still around him and Theo's warmth on his chest and thought about all the ways he was completely and utterly done for.

Eddie breathed against his shoulder.

Theo snored faintly, which was new.

Buck pulled the blanket up with his free hand, slowly, carefully, not disturbing anything. He stared at the ceiling for a long time.

He thought about fighting it. He thought about all the reasons he should.

He closed his eyes instead.

His hand, without much input from his brain, settled over Eddie's where it was fisted in his shirt.

He lay there and breathed and let himself have it.

— — —

The second time Buck woke up was slower. Gentler.

No alarm. No sudden awareness. Just a gradual surfacing, layer by layer.

The first thing he registered was the hand.

Slow, idle circles on his chest. Barely there. The kind of thing a person did without thinking about it, absent and easy, the way you might drum your fingers or trace a pattern on a surface while your mind was somewhere else entirely.

Buck kept his eyes closed for a moment.

He was aware, in a distant floaty way, that he should probably react to this. That there was a normal human response to waking up and finding Eddie Diaz drawing absent circles on your chest and he should locate it.

He opened his eyes instead.

The loft was soft with morning light. Somewhere below, the station had started its day — low voices, the smell of coffee making its way to his nostrils. And on the floor beside the couch, Theo sat cross-legged in his dinosaur pyjamas, very seriously colouring in the boxes of Eddie's abandoned crossword with what appeared to be a red pen he'd found from somewhere.

Buck looked at Theo.

He looked at the crossword.

He looked at Eddie.

Eddie was sitting up slightly, back against the couch, one leg stretched out. He had his own coffee. He looked relaxed in the way he sometimes did in the early morning, soft around the edges, unhurried. And his hand was on Buck's chest, drawing those slow circles, and he was watching Theo colour in his crossword with an expression of complete and quiet contentment.

He glanced down when he felt Buck stir.

"Morning," he said. Easy. Like this was nothing. Like his hand was right where it was supposed to be.

Buck's heart was a problem. It was a significant and ongoing problem.

"Morning," Buck managed.

"Sleep okay?"

"Yeah." Buck cleared his throat quietly. "You?"

"Best sleep I've had in a while, actually."

Buck had no idea what to do with that so he looked at Theo instead.

Theo had filled in approximately six squares with a single sustained red line and appeared very pleased with this.

"Buddy," Buck said, "that's Eddie's crossword."

"I know," Theo said, without looking up. "I'm helping."

"That's not really—"

"He said I could," Theo said.

Buck looked at Eddie.

Eddie looked unbothered. "He asked very nicely."

Theo held it up for their inspection. It was, genuinely, almost entirely red. Eddie looked at it with great seriousness and gave a thumbs up. Theo returned to his work, satisfied.

Buck lay there. Eddie's hand had stilled but hadn't moved, resting warm and present against his chest, and Buck was being so careful. So deliberately, exhaustingly careful about how he was breathing and what his face was doing and whether any of the enormous complicated things living in his chest were visible from the outside.

Eddie didn't seem to notice. Or if he did, he didn't show it. He just sat there, like this was just a normal morning. Like this was just what they did.

Buck wasn't sure if that made it better or worse.

Chimney's voice floated up from below. "Breakfast is ready. I made eggs."

Theo's head came up immediately. "Eggs?"

"And toast," Chim called. "Come on before Ravi eats everything."

Eddie set his coffee down and looked at Buck first. Just for a second. Then he leaned down and pressed a kiss to Buck's forehead. Simple. Soft. Out of blue. 

Then he stood, scooped Theo up under one arm to a shriek of delight, and headed for the stairs.

Buck did not move.

He lay on the couch and stared at the ceiling and his hand came up and hovered, completely uselessly, over his own forehead. He put it back down.

His brain was not producing language.

"Buck."

He turned his head.

Hen was in the armchair. He didn't know when she'd got there. She had a mug and the expression she wore when she was being kind rather than funny, which was in some ways harder to deal with.

"How long have you been sitting there," Buck said.

"Long enough."

He looked at the ceiling again. "Don't."

"I'm not doing anything."

"You're doing the face."

"I don't have a face."

"Hen."

She was quiet for a moment. Then, simply: "You should tell him."

"It's not—"

"Buck." Her voice was gentle. Not teasing, not the way Chim's would have been. Just honest. "I've watched you two for years. And I've watched you this morning." She tilted her head. "He kissed your forehead before he got up like it was just the obvious thing to do.”

Buck said nothing.

"That's not nothing," Hen said. "You know that's not nothing."

She let that sit. "That's not something people do with someone who's just a friend, Buck."

Buck was still looking at the ceiling. His chest ached in the exact place Eddie's hand had been. "You don't know that."

Hen just gave him a look. 

"We're close," Buck said, from behind his arm. "We've always been—"

"Buck." Her voice was gentle but direct. "I've worked with that man for years. I've watched him guard himself. I've watched him decide who gets close and who doesn't." A pause. "You have been the exception to every single one of his rules since the day he met you. And you know that."

"I can't," Buck said, and his voice came out quieter than he meant it to. "If I'm wrong — if he doesn't—" he stopped. "He's everything, Hen. Him and Chris and this whole thing we've built. I'm not risking that." 

Hen looked at him for a long time.

"What if you're not wrong?" she said.

He'd been very carefully not thinking about that possibility for a very long time.

“Buck, what you are describing? That thing that would fall apart?" She tilted her head. "You already have it. You've had it for a while." She let that settle. "The question is just whether you're going to let yourself call it what it is."

Buck had nothing to say to that. Because she was right. He knew she was right. 

Hen stood. Squeezed his shoulder on the way past. "Come eat breakfast," she said. "And stop being so afraid of the things you actually want." 

His forehead was still warm.

He pressed his fingers there once, lightly, and then dropped his hand and followed Hen to the kitchen. 

— — —

Ravi hadn't stood a chance.

Theo had taken one look at him over his toast, then looked at the bay below where the trucks lived, then back at Ravi with an expression of pure calculation, and Ravi had apparently read the situation clearly because he'd pushed back his chair and said alright, come on then before Theo even opened his mouth.

They'd disappeared down the stairs, Theo's voice trailing behind them — something about ladders, something about hoses — and the kitchen had gradually, casually, emptied of everyone else.

Until it was just them.

Buck at the sink. Eddie on the counter beside it, legs dangling, dish towel in his lap.

Buck passed him a mug. Eddie dried it.

"He's going to try to turn the siren on," Buck said.

"Ravi will let him," Eddie agreed.

"And then Theo will talk about it for three weeks."

"At least."

Buck scrubbed a pan. Passed it over. The silence came back, comfortable on Eddie's side, considerably less comfortable on his.

He'd made a decision somewhere between waking up and finishing his eggs. A quiet, terrifying, completely irreversible decision. He could feel it sitting in his chest, and he knew if he waited for the right moment he'd be waiting forever because there was no right moment, there was just this one.

He just needed to—

He needed to find the words.

He turned off the tap.

"Can I say something," Buck said.

Eddie looked at him sideways. "You're already talking."

"Something specific."

Eddie gestured for him to continue. 

The kitchen was very quiet. It wasn’t really relevant, but Buck needed to focus on it before he threw up. 

"I need to tell you something," Buck said. "And I need you to just — let me get through it before you say anything because if I stop I'm not going to start again."

Eddie set the pan down and gave him his full attention. That was somehow worse. "Go ahead."

Buck gripped the edge of the sink.

"You know when you buy a plant," he started.

Eddie's expression shifted slightly. "Okay."

"And you bring it home and you put it somewhere and you don't really think about it that much. You water it when you remember. You kind of just—" Buck gestured vaguely. "It's just there. It's part of the furniture."

"Buck—"

"And then one day you notice it's grown. Like really grown. And you don't know when it happened because it was gradual, it happened slowly over a long time, but all of a sudden it's taken over the whole windowsill and there's no room for anything else and you're standing there thinking—" He stopped.

Eddie waited.

"When did this happen," Buck said. "When did this get so—" He exhaled. "When did it get so big?"

There was a pause.

"Buck," Eddie said. Very carefully. "Are you comparing me to a houseplant?"

"No. Yes. That's not—" Buck pushed off the sink and turned around. "The plant isn't you. The plant is the—" he moved his hand "—the feeling. The thing that grew."

"The feeling," Eddie repeated.

"About you."

"About me."

"Yes."

A beat.

"So I'm the windowsill?" Eddie said.

"No, you're—" Buck stopped. Pressed his hand over his face. "You're not in the analogy."

"You just said the feeling is about me."

"It is."

"So I'm adjacent to the analogy."

"Eddie."

"I'm in the vicinity of the analogy."

"I'm trying to tell you something," Buck said, from behind his hand.

"I know," Eddie said. His voice had changed. "I'm listening."

Buck dropped his hand.

He looked at Eddie on the counter, dish towel abandoned now, hands loose in his lap, watching Buck with an expression that was open and still and waiting.

Buck just said it.

"I'm in love with you," he said. "That's the plant. That's the whole analogy. It grew and it took over and there's no— there's no room for anything else and I needed you to know."

Eddie looked at him for a long moment. Something moved across his face. 

"Buck," he said.

"You don't have to—"

"Buck." Firmer. He slid off the counter. "I've been in love with you for years."

Buck stared at him.

"The plant on my windowsill," Eddie said, and the small smile was doing something devastating, "has been enormous for a very long time."

“Really?”

“Really.”

Then Buck realised the space between them had gotten very small.

Buck wasn't sure which of them had closed it further. Maybe both. Maybe neither, maybe it had just collapsed on its own, the way it often did around them.

He could see the moment Eddie decided. Something in his face settling, going certain, and then he was leaning in and Buck was meeting him and their lips were touching. 

The first thing Buck thought was: 

Oh. Of course.

Of course it was like this. Of course it was easy. Of course Eddie kissed the way he did everything else 

His hand came up to Buck's face, just resting there, and the gentleness of it was what did it, that was the thing that cracked Buck open right down the middle.

He'd imagined this. Of course he had. In the quiet moments he'd allowed himself, late at night, he'd let himself imagine it and then put it away. And the version in his head had been good but it had been missing this — this specific quality, the realness of it, the warmth and weight of Eddie being actually here and actually choosing this and actually—

Buck brought both hands up and held on.

Eddie made a soft sound against his mouth and kissed him deeper, slower, and Buck thought very clearly: 

I have wasted so much time. 

Not in a painful way. Not in a regretful way. Just — the simple clarity of being somewhere you were always supposed to be and realising it. The way you stepped into a room and the temperature was exactly right and your body just said yes, here, this.

He'd been afraid of losing this. That had been the calculation, all this time — protect the thing you have by not reaching for more. Keep what you can keep. Don't risk it.

And standing here, Eddie's forehead pressed warm against his, both of them just breathing, he thought: 

I should have known that more was always possible.

"Eddie," he said. “I love you.”

"I know," Eddie said back. “I love you too.”

They stood in the kitchen, foreheads together, not quite ready to let the moment go. Buck felt so much joy.

His chest hurt with it. The good kind.

He was going to tell Maddie. She was going to be so insufferable about it. She'd probably say she knew and she'd probably be right and he was going to have to sit there and let her enjoy it.

He laughed, once, small and quiet, against Eddie's cheek.

"What?" Eddie pulled back just enough to look at him.

"Nothing. I'm just—" He shook his head. "Happy. I'm just happy."

Eddie's smile arrived slowly. Buck had spent years earning rare looks at that smile.

He was going to see it every day. For the rest of his life. 

He was mid-thought, face still doing something embarrassingly open and unguarded, when suddenly they were no longer alone. 

Theo arrived first because of course he did. Ravi directly behind him, and Chim a half-step behind Ravi, all of them mid-conversation about something that had nothing to do with what they walked into. Hen came last and stopped in the doorway.

The silence lasted about one second.

Buck and Eddie had stepped back — not panicked, not scrambled, just gently separated — but the kitchen was not a large room and the evidence was circumstantial at best.

Theo looked at Buck. At Eddie. At the very small distance between them.

"Why are your faces like that," Theo said.

"Like what," Buck said.

"Like that." Theo gestured at both of them. "All—" He made a vague hand motion.

Chim looked at Hen. Hen looked back at him. The look lasted one second.

"Twenty dollars," Hen said.

"I need to—can we discuss the terms—"

"Chimney."

"I'm getting my wallet—"

Ravi had crouched down to Theo's level. "Hey bud," he said quietly. "I think Buck and Eddie might have just figured out they like each other."

Theo turned to look at him. "Like like?"

"Yeah."

Theo turned back. Looked at Buck. Looked at Eddie. Looked at the distance between them that was still very small and that neither of them had done anything to increase.

His face split open into the most enormous grin Buck had ever seen, and then he crossed the kitchen in five steps. He grabbed both of their hands simultaneously, one each, and just held them. Looking up at them with that grin.

Buck looked down at him, and then up at Eddie, and Eddie was already looking at him, and the smile on his face was the full one.

Buck's heart was entirely too big for his chest.

"Chris is going to say I told you so," Theo announced.

Buck blinked. "What?"

"To you," Theo clarified, pointing at Buck. "And to you." Pointing at Eddie. "He said he was going to."

A pause.

"Chris said he was going to say I told you so," Eddie said slowly.

"Yes." Theo nodded. "Because he told me. He said he knew. A long time ago."

"Chris knew," Buck said.

"He said everyone knew except you two." Theo considered this. "I didn't know. But Chris told me. So then I knew."

Buck looked at Eddie. Eddie's jaw had done something complicated. He had the expression of a man recalibrating several recent memories.

"When," Eddie said carefully. "When did Chris tell you?" 

Theo thought about it. "At the comic store," he said. "When I asked him why Eddie came over so much."

"And what did he say," Buck said.

"He said because Buck loves Eddie and Eddie loves Buck but they're both being silly about it." Theo delivered this completely without judgment. Just a fact. Just something Chris had told him that had turned out to be accurate. "And then he bought me the Captain America book.”

The kitchen was very quiet except for Chim, who had made a sound like a man inhaling a laugh and was now pretending to look for something in a cupboard that definitely didn't have anything in it. 

"Christopher Diaz," Eddie said quietly, to no one in particular, in the tone of a man filing something away for a later conversation. 

"So can I call him," he said. "Please. I want to tell him I know now too. And that I saw it." His eyes went wide with the importance of this. "I was there. I was right there. In the room."

"You came in after," Buck pointed out.

"Hold hands again," Theo said, undeterred. "So I can tell Chris you were holding hands. He'll want to know that part."

"Theo—"

"He will," Theo said simply.

Buck looked at Eddie.

Eddie looked back at him. The smile was already there, the one that started at his eyes.

He turned his hand over.

Buck laced his fingers through Eddie's and felt the warmth of it settle into his chest. Like finally coming home.

Buck was never going to let go.