Archive of Our Own ^beta

It had been about two weeks since Eddie said he was planning to move to El Paso and…nothing had happened. At least not as far as Buck was aware. No one else at the 118 seemed to know about it and Eddie hadn’t brought it up again. Two possible reasons for the lack of discernible movement on the plan had settled into Buck’s mind, one which tended to give him traitorous hope (and thus he tried very hard to ignore it), and the other that felt a lot like a knife to the gut (so he also tried to ignore that one).

Option one: Eddie had given up on moving. Buck couldn’t decide how he felt about that option. Eddie had to fix things with Chris, somehow. He just had to, for both his sake and Chris’s. If going to Texas was the way to do that, so be it. But on the other hand…Buck can’t deny how much he selfishly wanted Eddie to stay. He wanted Eddie to stay and Chris to come home.

Option two: Eddie was still moving forward with the moving plan, but he wasn’t telling Buck about it. That possibility hurt. Eddie didn’t owe him anything, but…still. He thought they told one another everything. When Buck did let himself think about option two, he couldn’t help but wonder if Eddie had ever intended to tell him at all. If Buck hadn’t caught him looking at listings that day, what would’ve happened? Would Eddie just have announced it one day and been gone the next?

It’s all made Buck a little reckless, spinning back and forth between these two ideas while trying not to actually think about either of them. Not reckless at work, he still had a good handle on that. But more interpersonally. After he and Eddie had spent the afternoon looking at houses and talking to that real estate agent, Buck had gone home and done some serious introspection with a tub of ice cream as his guide. Forced himself to look directly at a lot of thoughts that he’d kept in his peripheral for a long time.

What it all amounted to by the time he reached the bottom of the tub was that he was fucking lonely. No matter how much you loved your friends and family, it sucked being the only single guy among them. It sucked not being anyone’s first thought, first priority. It sucked coming home to an empty, cold apartment and knowing if you wanted to eat you’d have to cook the meal yourself or pay out the nose for some delivery driver to drag something long gone cold up to your door. It sucked throwing away half your groceries because you couldn’t get to them in time, and nothing was portioned for single people. It sucked not having someone to curl up with and keep the bed warm. It sucked. It sucked. It sucked.

He’d also realized, though, that he’d been able to live with it—mostly—because Eddie was around to help fill in a lot of the gaps. Yeah, they weren’t dating, but they were still partners of some sort. Eddie’s home was always warm and open to Buck. Cooking there with company and good music never felt as obnoxious as doing it alone, and Eddie was always happy to do the dishes when Buck cooked. They had their own shelves in one another’s fridges, and traded food back and forth when one or the other couldn’t finish something. And they’d obviously never shared a bed, but Eddie’s couch was always comfortable as they splayed across it to watch movies or play games with Christopher.

The last major realization of the night had been that Tommy was a mistake. Buck realized he had gotten swept up in not being lonely for awhile and ignored all the bright red flags; how disrespectful Tommy could be, how impatient, how unwilling to compromise. Being with him had unlocked something good in Buck—realizing he was also into guys was a welcome revelation that did settle a lot of things among the chaos that was the inside of his head—but that didn’t mean Tommy was ever actually a good fit. Then they’d broken up and, yeah, it had sent him reeling for awhile.

Now, though, two weeks out from Eddie announcing he was leaving, Buck was freed from the stress of his breakup only to be staring down losing his best friend, his strongest support system, and realizing he might crumble when that friend was gone. So yeah, maybe that had made him a little reckless interpersonally. Maybe he’d been indulging in a little Buck 1.0 behavior, just for fun. Maybe his quipping with the rest of the 118 had a bit more bite, a bit more raw honesty than usual. But no one had pointed it out yet, not even Eddie, so he figured he was keeping a handle on it just fine.

When the tones dropped, there wasn’t a lot of information attached to the call. The dispatch notes that Bobby read out just gave an address and the words “stuck patient.” Not trapped. Stuck. There was also a mention that law enforcement was involved, but that was it. They were sent out in the main truck and an ambulance, though, which implied that tools would probably need to be involved in whatever this was.

“$5 says its another dude tapped to something as a publicity stunt,” Chimney said as they drove over.

“Bet,” Buck replied, reaching across to bump knuckles with him.

Hen ignored them, pulling up Google on her phone. “Cap, what’s the address again?”

Bobby read it off to her from the captain’s seat. “Dispatch just said it’s some sort of club.”

Oh. Buck knew that address.

“Hey Buckley, what’s with the face?” Chimney said, suspicion clear in his tone.

Buck opened and closed his mouth a couple times, both trying not to laugh and deciding how to handle this tactfully. Problem was, he didn’t have much tact at the moment.

“Cap, did they say what kind of club?” Buck asked. Better to know what sort of information everyone else had before he dove in. They were all looking at him now as he clearly struggled not to laugh.

Bobby shook his head slowly, turned around to stare at him along with everyone else. “No…?”

Hen, eyes squinted in his direction, seemed to know something was up even more than everyone else did. She’d pulled up the club on her phone, but that wouldn’t do much good unless she knew how exactly to dig down to the real website.

“Do you know what kind of club it is, Buck?” Hen asked.

Buck finally laughed, lower lip pinned between his teeth on one side. “It’s…ah…it’s a kink club. So I don’t know what kind of ‘stuck’ we’re going to handle right now, but given some of the setups they have…this could go a lot of different ways.”

He was met with solid silence and wide eyes by everyone but Hen, who just rolled her eyes. “Familiar with it from your 1.0 days, I take it?”

“Nope.” Buck popped the “p.” “Went for the first time last week.”

Now Hen’s face matched everyone else’s.

Buck shrugged. “Finally got over Tommy, which means that, for the first time in my life, I am both single and aware of the fact that I’m also into men. Not interested in another relationship right now, so I decided to explore other options.”

Bobby finally shook his head, turning his attention back to the road. “Well since you know the place so well, you’re lead on this one. Consider it punishment for inflicting that knowledge on all of us.”

“Hen asked!” Buck laughed.

Eddie had been silent through the whole exchange, but Buck didn’t miss the slight redness around his neck. Eddie rarely blushed across his face, but his neck was always a dead giveaway when he was embarrassed by something. Buck would have to talk to him about it later. Make sure he hadn’t just crossed a line he shouldn’t have. But for now, they were pulling up on scene and had work to do.

As they pulled up, it was to a crowd of people packed in around an impromptu barricade, all of them with their phones up as two cops attempted to keep everyone back. One of those cops was Athena, the other was her new rookie. Another man was standing there, inside the barricades, looking frustrated. It wasn’t until Buck shouldered a path through the crowd that he realized what was happening, though.

There was a woman glued across the recessed double doors of the entrance, with a T-shirt proclaiming that “Jesus Hates Sinners.” She was yelling loudly about the place being a den of evil. If Buck wasn’t a professional, he would’ve been thrilled to inform the woman that she was about to be rescued by someone who had partaken in a lot of what went on inside that den of evil. But he was a professional, and Bobby had given him the lead on the call.

Buck tried to go up and introduce himself to the woman, but she just yelled at him for abetting the devil by trying to remove her from the door. The other man who had been standing around, Ricardo, was the club owner, it turned out. He’d been coming to open up for the night when he found her there, the glue still drying.

“Alright, Bobby, try and help Athena get everyone farther back so we’ve got some actual room to work,” Buck dictated. “Hen, Chim, what can you tell me about whatever the hell she’s done to attach herself to the door?”

The woman tried to spit at them as Hen and Chim got close, but as a lot of the glue was attaching her hair to the doors, she really couldn’t move her head much to aim. It seemed like she had just poured the glue all over herself and then smacked her back into the door and stood there until it dried. Chimney swiped up the gallon tin of glue where she’d apparently dropped it after pouring it on herself, mumbling his way through reading the label.

“This is some industrial grade stuff,” Chimney declared. “Highly toxic, too. I don’t think we have any solvents with us that would dissolve it, not without causing her more harm.”

“So we need to move her and the doors together,” Buck said, stepping back and crossing his arms to look at everything. Both doors together would be too wide to fit into the ambulance, and once they were off the frame they’d have to be stabilized so as not to bend in the middle. She’d splayed herself wide across the doors, so cutting the width down wouldn’t do much either. It was a tricky little problem for sure.

“I’m worried about blood pooling in her legs, too,” Hen said, crouching down and feeling at the woman’s legs. The woman yelled at her for her trouble.

“Okay, so doors off first, move her second,” Buck decided. He could work on the moving problem while they removed the doors. The easiest way to remove and stabilize the doors would be from the inside, though, so he headed over to Ricardo.

Ricardo looked like he was probably in his forties, with a well groomed, short salt and pepper beard and slicked back black hair that was about as long as Eddie’s. He looked both exhausted and worried, eyes constantly darting around to all the cameras still filming in people’s hands, though Bobby and Athena and her trainee had managed to get everyone moved back a good distance now.

“I’ve been to your club a few times,” Buck offered in a low voice. “I’m not here to judge, just help.”

The change was immediate. Ricardo’s shoulders dropped and his eyebrows unknotted. “What can I do for you?”

“Do you have a key to the back door? We need to get inside to work from there.”

Ricardo nodded and pulled out a ring of keys, handing them over to Buck with one held out from the others. Buck thanked him and whistled for Eddie’s attention. He’d been ferrying various tools up to the doors.

“Eddie, you and me are heading inside.” Buck felt a little bad about it, if this was indeed something that would make Eddie uncomfortable, but they had a job to do.

Eddie came without hesitation, slinging a bag full of tools up onto his back and following Buck around through the alley and to the back of the building.

“Have you really been to this place?” Eddie asked. Buck tried to pull apart his tone. A little confusion, maybe some wariness. Didn’t sound like there was any judgment there, though.

“Three times,” Buck replied as he unlocked the door.

Now Eddie just looked slightly flabbergasted. “In a week?”

Buck shrugged, flipping on the lights inside of what appeared to be some sort of employee break room. “Weekish.”

“Huh.”

Eddie didn’t say anything else as Buck led the way inside, using his flashlight to light the way rather than try and find each and every lightswitch. The break room opened onto a hallway of private rooms on either side, each with the doors open to reveal a different setup cloaked in shadows. Intricate tables with moving parts, stocks, even a mechanical bull in the largest one. Buck tried not to notice Eddie’s eyes straying into each room.

They came out in the large front area, which had the dry bar running down one side, an open use area full of leather couches on the other, and a dance floor in the middle. Buck located the lightswitch for the room and flipped it on.

“Brace it and pull the hinges?” Eddie said, setting the tools on the floor and nodding towards the front doors.

“You got it.”

Together they screwed in several two-by-fours, cut to the width of the doors, coordinating via radio with Hen and Chimney to make sure none of the screws would be near the woman. Not that they went all the way through, but still. Buck put in a call to dispatch for someone to bring a box truck to the scene—something that earned him a very confused, “Okay?”—and then he and Eddie went about popping the hinges.

They worked as methodically as always, and Buck couldn’t tell if they weren’t talking because they didn’t need to, or because Eddie was uncomfortable with where they were, or if Eddie was just avoiding talking to Buck overall. Aside from Eddie not bringing up moving again, everything else between them had seemed fine, but something just felt different. Maybe it was just because he was in a place that he’d come to in private to be a little vulnerable while his world broke down, and he was standing next to the man who had unintentionally (and understandably) dealt one of the hammer blows. It might’ve been getting to his head a little bit, might’ve made the silence a little grating rather than comfortable and familiar like it usually was.

Buck was used to people judging him for how much he liked sex. Normally he was fine with it. He knew those were their hangups, not his. Eddie though…the thought of Eddie judging him stung for some reason. Well. Not so much stung as burrowed uncomfortably into the space around his heart and squeezed. Eddie had never judged him about it before, but then, Eddie had never really known what it was until today.

Buck couldn’t figure out why it mattered to him so much, though. He knew Hen and Chimney were likely going to rib on him for awhile for this one, and he was fine with that. They all knew one another well enough that no one would intentionally cross any lines, and if they did cross one it probably wouldn’t take much more than a pointed look for them to take a step back and apologize. But the thought of those same barbs coming from Eddie made Buck want to…well, he didn’t know what it made him want to do.

“Last one,” Eddie said, interrupting his thoughts.

Buck shook his head once, and together they all coordinated getting the doors free and lying them down on a couple of dollies. The woman who had glued herself continued to scream and curse them the whole way, but no one was really paying her any mind at this point aside from monitoring her vitals and lightly trying to calm her down, even if it wasn’t working. She was loaded into the box truck with Hen and Chimney and some monitoring gear, Bobby climbing into the driver’s seat to drive to the hospital, escorted by the ambulance which was driven by a couple of newer recruits today.

Buck and Eddie finished up by helping Ricardo create two temporary doors out of plywood, he thanked them both with a firm handshake, and they climbed back into the engine, Eddie taking the driver’s seat. Buck eyed the captain’s seat for a second, figuring this would be a great time to talk to Eddie since it would just be the two of them, but the last time he’d ridden in the captain’s seat the engine had been blown up and he’d nearly died. Years later or not, the spot still made him fidgety. He climbed into his usual spot in the back instead.

“Come by my place after shift for a drink?” Eddie asked, not questioning Buck’s seat choice.

“Don’t say those words, Eddie. You’ll jinx us,” Buck admonished. “We’ll end up on a call that lasts until noon tomorrow.”

Eddie let out an exasperated sigh, but Buck could see his reflection smiling in the windshield.

——

Miracle of miracles, they got off exactly when they were supposed to. Buck kind of thought this might just be the universe cursing him in a different way, though. But, he had promised himself he was going to talk to Eddie, check in with him about the club call, and there hadn’t been a good opportunity to do that while on shift, so. Drinks at Eddie’s it was.

Buck followed him home, pulling into his usual spot next to Eddie and trying not to start a mental tally of how many opportunities were going to be left to do that. Eddie led the way inside and into the kitchen, grabbing a couple beers and popping the tops on both before handing one to Buck. He didn’t turn on the lights, so Buck didn’t either. Some conversations were better in the dark. Buck settled against the counter next to the fridge, while Eddie just stood near the sink.

“So, that call,” Eddie said, just as Buck was about to open his mouth to say the same exact thing.

He put on a smile and echoed Eddie. “That call.”

Eddie fidgeted, fingers tapping on the sides of his bottle. Eddie never fidgeted around other people, not even the rest of the 118. He turned his anxieties inwards when he was around other people. But not Buck. He’d fidget around Buck.

Two weeks ago, Buck would’ve handled this conversation differently. Would’ve worked into it slowly, let Eddie take the lead so the conversation went at a pace he was comfortable with. But Eddie planning to move was making Buck feel rather bold right now, and a little reckless, just like he’d felt ever since he’d found out. He didn’t have the patience to take it slow, even if he should. He just wanted to lay it all out on the table and have the conversation without holding back. Open and honest, hangups forgotten for both of them.

Not that he hadn’t always been incredibly open and honest with Eddie, but something was different now. That raw, wounded edge to the openness he’d been letting leak into the rest of his life, it felt like he couldn’t stop it, even now. Maybe it was because, deep down, he knew his friendship with Eddie was coming to an end. They’d try and keep it up, but he knew from experience that his ADHD was going to steal it away eventually. It always did, no matter how much he tried to hang on. If people weren’t in his sight, eventually they just weren’t there at all. As good as the wider cultural acceptance of ADHD had been for his self esteem—and what led him to getting diagnosed in the first place—he fucking hated when people called it a superpower. It was the farthest thing from that. It was a thief. It stole his time, his focus, his energy, his love.

“Just ask whatever you want to ask, Eddie,” Buck said after roughly two minutes of silence, hoping his tone isn’t too brusque. “I’m an open book.”

Eddie sighed, flicking his eyes over to Buck and then down to the kitchen table, his eyebrows scrunching up in the middle. “When you said you’d been there before, and so recently, and you said it so easily…”

Buck braced himself for some sort of admonishment. It’d be gentle, and probably not even intentional on Eddie’s part. But it’d be there somehow, he figured.

“Man, Buck, it made me so fucking jealous.”

Buck’s thoughts stopped racing, but only because the inside of his brain now resembled a fifty car pileup.

“Uhhh…okay. Lotta directions I thought this conversation might go, and that was not remotely one of them,” Buck fumbled out. Something like nervous laughter bubbled out of his throat, but he managed to tamp it down. Mostly.

Eddie, eyes still locked on his table, weight shifting from foot to foot, seemed to miss Buck’s reaction, which said a lot about how distracted he was by his own thoughts right now.

“Living in LA, sometimes it really hits me in the face how fucking old-school Catholic I was raised,” Eddie continued. “And I’m not…into that kind of kinky stuff, I think.” He finally flicked his eyes up to Buck again for a quick second, before bringing them back to the table. “And I’m not trying to undermine how much you’ve struggled with who you are and your relationships and all of that, but the idea of just being able to walk into a place like that, to be able to have a good time there and then tease your friends about it…. I don’t know, Buck, it just…it made me kind of jealous. I wish I could be that…relaxed about sex stuff sometimes.”

Buck unhitched himself from where he’d been leaning against the counter a few feet away from Eddie and settled back in much closer to him. He left a few inches of space, letting Eddie choose if he wanted to close the gap.

“I don’t know why I’m so okay with sex,” Buck said. “I think maybe it’s because my parents just didn’t bring it up at all, so I never developed any hangups—bad or good—about it. Hell, they never even gave me The Talk. Just shipped me off to Boy Scout camp and let the older boys tell me how things worked. Maddie tried, a couple times, but I was an angsty teen with zero interest in listening to his big sister about sex and using a condom. Point is, I kind of just figured it all out on my own, mostly. Not saying that was good or bad, it just is what it is.”

Eddie hummed, not offering any reply.

“I’ve viewed sex a lot of different ways over the years, even if I’ve always liked it,” Buck continued to fill the silence. “And I view it differently right now than I did even a month ago. If you don’t like how you feel about sex, Eddie, then figure out how you do want to feel about it and start working towards that.”

Eddie scrubbed a hand back through his hair, setting his mostly empty beer bottle on the counter behind him and finally settling back against the counter, which made his arm brush up against Buck’s. It was warm and solid and familiar and Buck felt his heart slow just a little at the contact.

“I don’t know how I feel about anything right now, Buck. My whole life…my whole life feels like its burning and I’m just standing in the middle of the inferno.”

Buck nodded. His did too, honestly. And there wasn’t much he could do about the rest of the stuff Eddie was fighting with, but this he could at least provide a conversation partner for. “For me, sex has always been about chasing what feels good, sometimes to the point it was harmful. I might not have known which way was up, but I knew that if I found a pretty girl and smiled at her just right, I could convince her to come home with me and for a little while, I could make the world slow down and just be in the moment. Not worry about my job or where I was going to move next or if I was disappointing someone.”

“And now?” Eddie asked.

“Now…” Buck hadn’t quite figured out how to put it into words yet. Hadn’t thought he would have to. But he was willing to try if it helped Eddie with this. “I’ve always been a little kinky. Vanilla stuff is great, happy to do that, but sometimes I want to draw it out a little longer, stay in that headspace longer. Kink is a good way to do that. But up until now, I stuck with the…ah…basics.

“After Tommy, though…I don’t know, Eddie. I just wanted to get into that headspace in a safe way, with someone who knew the rules and wouldn’t mess me up in the process. So I did some googling and found that club, and I went. And then I went back a couple more times, because I’m having fun with it, with just feeling good and not worrying about anything else for awhile.”

“And…kinky…sex really does that for you?” Eddie mumbled. Even in the dim light, Buck could tell Eddie’s neck was red up to his ears. His face, too.

“It does,” Buck replied, not drawing any attention to Eddie’s clear embarrassment. As long as Eddie kept asking questions, Buck would answer. “It’s…I like being touched, Eddie, you know that. It’s grounding. And I like being told what to do, too. I like having clear instructions and guidelines. Adding sex to that lets me push the limits of both. But at the same time, I am doing it with strangers. There isn’t the level of trust there that I’d have with an actual partner, so there’s things I’ve thought about wanting to try, but haven’t. I’ve still got limits, and lines I won’t cross. I cracked the floodgates, I didn’t throw them open.”

Eddie let out half a chuckle, though probably anyone else who didn’t know him so well would’ve assumed he just huffed. “I appreciate the honesty, Buck. I really do.”

Buck smiled and knocked their shoulders together lightly, relieved when Eddie knocked him back. He tried to savor the moment, to tuck it away in his brain with all the little details intact. The edges would still get sanded off eventually, turning the memory a little vague, a little hard to place in time, but he wanted it to stay for as long as possible before his ADHD chewed through it. He wanted to remember the weight of Eddie next to him as they worked their way through a hard topic, the warmth of him, the trust he put in Buck by being this vulnerable.

“Can I be honest with you about something?” Eddie said after a minute of silence that was much more comfortable this time.

“Always.”

Eddie took a long, deep breath. “I don’t want to move to El Paso.”

Buck sincerely hoped Eddie couldn’t feel the traitorous little jump in his heart where their arms were still pressed together. He’d have to figure out what caused that little jump later, probably over another tub of ice cream.

“Chris needs you, Eddie,” Buck managed.

“I know, I know. And I need him,” Eddie said. His voice was exhausted and frustrated and had just the slightest hint of sadness. “But I want him here, Buck. I want him home. El Paso isn’t home, it’s— it’s—”

“Old-school Catholic guilt?” Buck supplied.

Eddie twisted his head around to finally look at Buck straight on for the first time since they’d entered the kitchen—hell, since the first time they’d entered the house—like Buck had just said something remarkable. Somehow that simple, tiny collection of words—an echo of what he himself had said not even five minutes earlier—seemed to have set him back on his heels.

“What?” Buck said.

“I’m letting my parents raise him,” Eddie mumbled, eyes still aimed at Buck, but no longer focused on him. “I’m letting the people who fucked me up beyond repair raise my son.”

There was a lot there Buck felt like they needed to address, but he started with; “Eddie, you are not fucked up beyond repair.”

Eddie snorted, eyes still unfocused.

That need to be a little more brusque than usual crept back in, and before he could think it through, Buck reached up and firmly grabbed Eddie’s chin between his thumb and curled forefinger, forcing Eddie to actually look at him. “Eddie, hating yourself does not help you, and it does not help Christopher. You’ve got hangups thanks to your parents, but if you ever want your life to work out and stop being on fire, you’ve gotta find a way to get over it. Go get your son back, get him away from your parents, get both of yourselves in therapy, and stop wallowing in the guilt your parents dropped on your shoulders before you could even walk.”

Buck could feel Eddie’s jaw go slack in his hand, like it wanted to drop but couldn’t with Buck’s fingers holding it in place. Buck didn’t let go for a second, though, just stared into Eddie’s wide eyes to make sure the point was firmly driven home. He did finally drop his hand, but didn’t break the eye contact, and neither did Eddie. They just stared at one another for a long, long time.

Eddie was the one to break it. “You’re a really good friend, Buck.”

Buck smiled. “Happy to help.”

——

Eddie left for Texas the next day. Not to move, but to get Christopher, whatever it took. Buck drove him to the airport for the very early flight, trying to keep his hopes in check. He knew this was going to be hard, maybe even messy, but he really did think it would work out somehow. Eddie was a good dad, and Buck knew Chris loved him, even with his mistakes. They just had to find a way to move past the worst mistake.

Buck just had to wait it out.

Alone.

In his empty apartment.

That was probably a bad idea.

Eventually he went to Jee’s daycare instead, breaking her out for a day of fun instead. Normally, with Chimney off shift, she would’ve been at home, but he and Maddie had baby related appointments for most of the day.

“What do you think, kiddo?” Buck asked as he buckled her into her car seat in the back of his Jeep. “Children’s museum, or trampoline park?”

“Mmmmm…museum!” she declared, pumping her little fist in the air and kicking her legs out.

He grinned, leaning in and giving her a kiss on the forehead. “Museum it is.”

Climbing into the front seat, he took a selfie with Jee in the background grinning so wide it took up half her face, and texted it to Maddie and Chimney with the words, “Mine now!” so they’d know where she was.

Maddie replied immediately with, “Thief. 😛”

They jammed out to Buck’s rock playlist as they drove, and the stress of everything else melted off of Buck’s shoulders a little more with every song. It was still there, tenaciously refusing to go away entirely, but he had his little niece with him and she still looked at the whole damn world like it was all amazing. As long as he was with her, he could do that for a little while too.

The museum wasn’t busy when they arrived, given it was just past ten a.m. on a Tuesday, and Jee was thrilled by being able to do whatever she wanted without too many other kids in the way. She went straight for the little fire station, which always made Buck laugh. It was only recently that she’d started to understand what her dad and uncle did for a living, but the second she’d figured it out, she’d started declaring that was what she wanted to do too.

“Time me! Time me!” Jee said, bouncing up and down next to the rack of costumes.

Buck pulled out his phone and held out a timer for her to see. “Ready! Set! …GO!”

Jee giggled, scrambling to put on a full getup. She was getting pretty good at it.

“That’s a record!” Buck said when she plopped the little plastic helmet on her head.

She jumped up and down, whooping happily before dashing into the fire engine. Back sat down on a bench nearby, next to one end of the pipe speaker that connected to the fire engine, playing the role of dispatch and telling Jee about the fire she was going to fight. About five minutes in, he found himself directing an entire crew of kids about three to six years old as they gleefully hurled blue balls from the nearby Coast Guard Rescue ballpit at the mural of a burning building on the wall.

A woman sat down next to him, smiling. “Which one’s yours?”

Buck smiled back, pointing at Jee. “She’s my niece.”

“Lucky little girl,” the woman replied.

Buck could hear the implication her tone, that little tilt to her voice that said the woman had a very specific direction for this conversation in his mind. A direction Buck was not interested in indulging at all right now, as pretty as she was.

“It was nice talking to you,” Buck said warmly, getting up and going to crouch down next to Jee. “How about we go play on the climbing nets for awhile?”

Jee nodded enthusiastically, going to take off her firefighter costume. Buck followed her across the museum to the soft play area that had a huge variety of things to climb on and through and up and down, smiling as she clambered in and all the way to the top without a second thought. She was such a fearless little girl, and he was so damn happy for her. Despite everything the people she’d come from had gone through, all of them had come together to make sure the pain stopped with them and never touched her.

As he watched from another bench, his phone buzzed in his pocket and he pulled it out to see Chris’s name on the screen. They’d texted a bit ever since Chris left, but never called, and it didn’t make sense that Eddie would’ve already talked to Chris. His plane would’ve landed by now, but Chris should’ve been in school.

“Hey kiddo, what’s up?” Buck answered immediately, hoping nothing was wrong.

“Is my dad in Texas?” Chris asked.

“He is,” Buck answered. “How’d you know?”

“Find my friends. I don’t want to talk to him, Buck.”

Buck sighed, still keeping an eye on Jee. “I get that Chris, I do. What happened, it was bad, and that is putting it mildly. But even if you’re still mad at your dad, you’ve gotta talk to him. Not for him, but for yourself. If you just hold on to your feelings about what happened, it’ll make them hurt more and more the longer things go on. You don’t have to forgive him, just listen.”

Chris sniffed. “You don’t know that.”

Buck hesitated for a moment, trying to figure out how he wanted to go about this. He’d never actually told Chris much about his own parents, and he doubted Eddie had either.

“I do know that, because I hate my parents,” Buck said finally. “Not as much as I used to, but that’s only because we finally talked about the things they did that hurt me. It didn’t fix it, but it made it tolerable. They don’t feel like my parents, and I doubt they ever will, but I can at least stand to be in a room with them now without feeling like I want to break something.” Mostly.

“…what did they do?” Chris asked.

“It’s…a long story. I can tell you more about it another time, if you want. But, short version, I had an older brother, his name was Daniel. Before I was ever born, he got cancer. The only potential cure was a bone marrow transplant, but they couldn’t find a match. So my parents decided to have me, in the hopes of creating a match. We didn’t match, though, and he died before I was even a year old. My parents never even told me he existed, and they made Maddie lie about it too. For my whole life they resented me for not being able to save him, and I never even knew he existed until a few years ago.”

“Oh.” Chris’s voice was quiet, subdued.

“I know what it’s like to have bad parents,” Buck said, voice gentle. “And I know what it’s like to not feel loved. Your dad loves you, Chris. So damn much. Enough that, if you really want to walk away completely…I think he’d let you do it. But if you don’t, if there is any part of you that wants to get back to the way things were before, or as close to it as you can manage, you’ve got to give him a chance.”

Chris was silent on the other end, but didn’t hang up. Jee, realizing Buck was on the phone, clambered down and came over.

“Who’s on the phone?” Jee asked, climbing up next to him.

“Chris,” Buck said, smiling and holding the phone out, putting it on speaker for her. “Say hi.”

“Hi Chris!” Jee said, holding onto the phone with Buck. “I miss you!”

“Oh.” Chris chuckled, a tiny hint of tears in the sound. “I miss you too.”

“Go play a bit more, Jee,” Buck said. “Then we’ll go get lunch, okay?”

“McDonalds?” Jee said in that tone that gave away she one-hundred-percent knew that McDonalds was a thing her parents almost never let her have, but that her Uncle Buck would get her in a heartbeat.

“McDonalds,” Buck agreed.

“Yay! Bye Chris!” She dashed back into the climbing nets with a happy laugh trailing behind her as she went.

“Does she really miss me?” Chris asked.

“Of course. You’re basically her cousin,” Buck said. “She loves playing with you. Thinks you’re cool because you’re allowed to play videogames more than her, and you’re good at them.”

A bell rang somewhere in the background. “I’ve gotta go to class,” Chris said.

“Okay. Love you, Chris. At least try and talk to your dad, okay?” Buck requested.

“Love you too. I…will.” Chris hung up

Buck thought about texting Eddie to let him know about the call, but decided not to. He’d done what he could on both sides of this issue, and now they needed to figure out the rest on their own.

Once they got their food at McDonalds, he and Jee found a table and sat down to eat. Jee immediately started using her fries to draw patterns in the pile of ketchup on her tray.

“Uncle Buck, where’d Tommy go?” Jee asked innocently.

“Oh, uh…” Either no one had told her they’d broken up, or they had and she just didn’t quite get what that meant. Tommy had actually been pretty good with her, helping Buck babysit a couple times, even giving her a tour of the helicopter he worked on at one point. “Well, honey, Tommy and I aren’t dating anymore. That means he isn’t going to be around.”

“Oh.” She chewed contemplatively on a fry. “You didn’t love each other?”

Buck shifted in his seat. Chimney and Maddie, for a huge variety of reasons, had a very open conversation policy about relationships when it came to Jee. Both of them wanted to make damn sure that she was prepared for the world, and they didn’t think hiding things from their daughter was the way to do that, no matter her age.

“No, we didn’t. We tried to, but it just didn’t work out,” Buck explained.

“That’s sad,” Jee told him.

Buck nodded. “Yeah, it was. But I’ve got plenty of other people to love, and who love me. Like you and your mom and dad.”

“And Chris and Uncle Eddie,” Jee added. “They love you lots. And you love them lots.”

“Yep,” Buck replied.

“Are you gonna date Uncle Eddie now?” Jee asked, back to drawing pictures in her ketchup.

Buck couldn’t stop himself from freezing at the innocent little question. He’d never gotten the chance to have his second round of ice cream introspection the night before, having crashed on Eddie’s couch so he could take him to the airport in the morning. But her words brought back that constriction he’d felt around his heart as they’d talked in the dark kitchen.

“What makes you ask that, sweetheart?” Buck managed.

She shrugged, talking through a bite of chicken nugget. “You smile at him like my mommy and daddy smile.”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Buck replied, handing her a napkin while his mind reeled.

They passed the rest of the meal not talking about anything to do with relationships, Jee just chattering happily about whatever came to her mind. With the food finished, they headed back to his loft, Buck telling Jee it was to watch movies and definitely not for a nap. No naps here. He was just giving her a blanket and a pillow because his AC was acting up, that’s all. And wasn’t it more comfy watching movies lying down?

She was out cold in five minutes, burrowed in her blanket as Frozen played in the background. Buck kissed her forehead and toed off his shoes so he could retreat over to the kitchen without waking her, promptly having a minor panic attack once he got there.

Did he really smile at Eddie the same way Maddie and Chimney smiled at one another? Jee had to just be misinterpreting that, right? No matter how much Maddie and Chimney had explained different kinds of relationships to her? It wasn’t a thing. He and Eddie were not a thing.

Right?

Sure, he and Eddie were close. Sure, they were always happy to see one another, to spend time together. Sure, Buck always felt a sense of calm when Eddie was around. Sure, they leaned on one another a lot, in good times and bad. Sure, they could talk for hours and hours without a break. Sure, Eddie was the only one who never made him feel obnoxious or overwhelming. Sure, Eddie being happy made Buck happy. Sure, Eddie trusted him enough to make him Chris’s legal guardian should anything happen, and that meant the world to Buck. Sure, Eddie was who he always went to to feel safe, and Eddie never failed to make him feel it.

Fuck.

He was in love with his best friend.

He was in love with his best friend.

Fuck.

He was in love with his best friend, his best friend who was straight and who had also sworn off dating for the rest of his life. That declaration had come about twenty minutes after Chris had left, however, so who knew if it would hold. But it didn’t matter because Eddie was straight. Straight and focused entirely on his son, as he should be.

“Of all the damn times I could’ve figured this out,” Buck muttered, elbows on the counter and head in his hands.

Suddenly it all seemed so damn clear. The way Eddie had held his hand the entire time he’d been pinned under the engine after the bombing, softly stroking his knuckles and petting his hair to keep him calm, how that had been the only reason Buck had been able to keep it together. How good it had felt to know Eddie still trusted him with Chris after the tsunami. Thinking he’d lost Eddie when the well collapsed, the sheer, unmanageable terror that had gripped him, had torn away all his training and knowledge and control and left him scrabbling at the mud. How the relief of Eddie miraculously just walking up behind them after he’d escaped made Buck so lightheaded he felt like he was going to pass out, and the only reason he’d managed not to was because he knew Eddie needed him. How, after the lightning strike and the coma, the only place he’d felt safe was on Eddie’s couch.

And the shooting. How had he not realized it after the damn shooting? Buck was a strong guy, but he still couldn’t answer the question of how he had laid down on that road and managed to pull Eddie under the engine with him from that position. He hadn’t had the right leverage, the right grip, the right angle. But he’d done it. Hauled Eddie out of the line of fire, picked him up, and gotten him out of there.

But it wasn’t just the big stuff, it was the little stuff too. How had he not realized how in love with Eddie he was when they took Chris to the Christmas Fair? Or when they took him skateboarding? Or when they helped Chris with his homework? Or when the two of them just sat and watched movies together while they talked about whatever random nonsense came to mind? Or when they were at work making dumb jokes about the weird calls?

It was all right there now that he was actually looking, and what the hell was he supposed to do with that? He couldn’t tell Eddie now, not with everything else going on. He wasn’t sure if he could tell Eddie ever, honestly. He’d rather have Eddie as a friend than not at all, and not at all seemed like a far too possible outcome if he told Eddie and Eddie didn’t feel the same. Which he wouldn’t, because he was straight.

So what the hell was he supposed to do? Hope Eddie managed to come home with Chris and then just…keep going like he hadn’t had this massive revelation? He wasn’t sure he could do that either.

——

When Eddie called and said he was coming home with Chris, Buck was elated. It was a tentative, conditional peace between them, but it was progress. Good progress.

One of the conditions was that if Chris got fed up with Eddie again, he was allowed to come to Buck’s for a night without question to cool off. Eddie had sounded a little guilty about it, saying they could figure something else out if Buck wasn’t okay with it, he’d just offered without thinking to ask Buck first because of how badly he wanted Chris to come home. Buck had immediately assured Eddie that it was fine. He was more than happy to have Chris over at his place.

However, Chris was certainly getting too big to sleep on the couch, or an air mattress, at least not comfortably. So Buck spent the next day installing a Murphy Bed into the large closet in his livingroom, behind the couch. He’d have to tear it all out and patch it up whenever he moved out, but he didn’t care. Chris deserved to be comfortable if he was staying over here.

This meant, however, that he had to find a new home for everything that had previously been in that closet. There wasn’t a ton of storage in his loft, so really the only option was to haul everything upstairs to his bedroom closet and try to stuff it all in there. He’d probably have to clear some stuff out entirely, donate it somewhere, but he’d been meaning to do that for awhile anyway. A lot of stuff ended up chucked in his bedroom closet and forgotten about as soon as the doors were closed. Another out of sight, out of mind trick of his ADHD.

An empty box off to the side, he started tossing things in. Shirts that didn’t fit him well now that he’d bulked up more. Shoes that had lost their tread. He even found the torn and tattered suit he’d worn to Chimney’s bachelor party stuffed down in a corner—washed despite being unsalvageable, because when he’d taken it off he’d just instinctively tossed it into his laundry basket. He pulled it out with a chuckle, running his fingers over the fabric. At least those memories were a good kind of hazy, not the ADHD kind. He’d been able to let himself go because he was safe with Eddie.

The burnt end of one of the pantlegs caught his eye, and he frowned, running his fingers over the flaky char marks. He didn’t remember how that happened. At all. Which felt strange. Of all the things to forget, he didn’t feel like catching fire would be one of them, especially as a firefighter. He tugged at the memories of that night as hard as he could, trying to pull something up.

It had been pretty late, Buck thought. A lot of people had left. A few were snoring on the couch or the bed or the floor. He and Eddie were…also on a couch? Yeah. They’d been on a couch, feet up on a coffee table, arms over one another’s shoulders, laughing about something he couldn’t remember. The music and lights had been low. Buck had been floating on a wave of warmth and contentment. He hadn’t cared that Tommy wasn’t there, hadn’t even thought about him since he’d left.

Buck had found himself with his head tucked on Eddie’s shoulder, unsure how he got there, but he hadn’t pulled away. Eddie hadn’t stopped him either. He’d even, after a minute, brought his hand up to start stroking at Buck’s hairline the way he had when Buck had been trapped under the engine. It had nearly put him to sleep, and in his half-asleep, fully drunk state, he’d muttered, “I like you more than Tommy.”

He remembered Eddie pausing in his gentle stroking for just a second, but then he’d started again, softly saying, “Oh?”

“Mmmmhm.” Buck had nuzzled a little closer.

Somehow they’d shifted until they were looking at one another, and Buck didn’t know who’d started leaning in first, but they’d both done it. Both searched one another’s eyes as their lips got closer.

And then suddenly Eddie had snapped away, eyes wide, lunging for the table and pouring the contents of a half empty bottle of Coke on Buck’s burning pants. He’d moved it over an ashtray, apparently, and one of the joints in there hadn’t been quite out.

They’d burst into laughter, the danger not even registering with how quickly the situation had been handled. But then Eddie had stilled, blinking a few times as he stared at Buck before saying he needed a little air, vanishing out to the balcony. The next thing Buck remembered was waking up in the morning, no knowledge until now of what had transpired. Almost transpired.

Or had it? Was the memory even real?

Buck stumbled back to sit on the edge of his bed, suit now clenched in his hands. He had to know if that had been real, but he didn’t know how to figure it out. No one else had been awake to confirm or deny. And Eddie had been as drunk as he was, plus he’d never brought it up, which meant he probably didn’t remember either, right? And he hadn’t been acting any different around Buck since then, which was even more proof that he didn’t remember something like that happening.

The one solid piece of ground Buck had in his confusion was the certainty that if the memory was real, he was glad they hadn’t kissed. If there was even the slimmest chance of Eddie returning his feelings, he didn’t want their potential relationship to have started like that. Drunk and cheating at a celebration that was meant to be for someone else and barely remembering it come morning.

But he had to know. He had to find a way to figure out if it had been real.

——

The welcome home movie and pizza night with Chris started a little tense, but by the end it felt just about like old times. They even facetimed with Jee for awhile, and Buck promised to take them both to the zoo on his next day off so they could hangout.

Once Chris was in bed, Buck and Eddie headed for the kitchen to clean up and put the leftovers away.

“So, weird question,” Buck said. He’d thought about this from a dozen different angles, and he was pretty sure he’d come up with a way to figure out the truth of what had happened at the bachelor party without delving into things that might not be real.

“Do you ask any other kind?”

Buck reached into the sink where Eddie was washing soda glasses and then flicked his wet, soapy fingers at Eddie, who tried and failed to dodge as he laughed.

“I was cleaning out my closet yesterday, and I found my suit from Chim’s bachelor party,” Buck said. “Do you remember how the hell my pants got burned?”

Eddie hummed, looking up like he was trying to recall the memory. “I remember pouring something on you to put the fire out.”

Buck stilled. So part of the memory was real. But that wasn’t the part he cared about.

“I saw the flames out of the corner of my eye when we were—” Eddie’s eyes went wide, the sentence abandoned.

 Buck swallowed, continuing to dry the glass he was holding despite it having been dry for awhile. For all his thinking about how to approach this conversation, he hadn’t followed that all the way through to what might happen if the memory had in fact been real. If Eddie remembered it. Was Eddie about to ask him to leave? To play it off as the result of how drunk they’d been? To let Buck down gently?

Eddie didn’t say anything, though. Just put his hands back in the sink and moved on to washing the plates, handing them off to Buck to dry. Buck did, taking each dish until they were all done and Eddie pulled the plug on the sink. He stood there, hands on the counter as he watched the water swirl down the drain.

“I didn’t notice when I fell for Shannon either,” Eddie said finally. “We were friends for so long and then one day we were just…more. And I think we were the last ones to notice.”

“Eddie?” Buck said, not wanting to misinterpret what was, honestly, a rather indirect statement.

Eddie took a deep breath and turned to him. “I don’t know how to do this. But you told me a few days ago to figure out what I want, and go for it, and going to get Chris drove that home even more. I’m tired of living under the weight of everyone else’s expectations. You’ve been there for me through hell, Buck. So many times. And you’ve been there for some of the best moments of my life too, big ones and small ones. Yet somehow, I still never noticed how much I need you. How much I want you around. All I could think when I was waiting to talk to Chris before he got off school was that I wished I’d brought you with me. Even if I’d gone to talk to Chris on my own, knowing you were only a short drive away at a hotel or something…I wanted that. I wanted you there and, until now, I couldn’t figure out exactly why.”

They searched one another’s eyes, Buck still completely unsure what to say or do.

“We almost kissed that night,” Eddie continued. “And I think…I think I did remember that before, deep down. But I ignored it because it scared the shit out of me. It scared me to not be the perfect Catholic son. It scared me to have that happen with my best friend all over again after the last one was killed. It scared me to not know if you actually felt the same, or if it was just the alcohol.”

Buck hated hearing Eddie talk about being scared, and he instinctively reached out to take Eddie’s hand before he could think it through, realizing that Eddie’s hand was shaking just slightly. It stilled when Buck grabbed on, though, fingers curling around Buck’s palm and not letting go.

“What I want right now…” Eddie trailed off, then squared his shoulders and stood up a little straighter. “I want to finish that damn kiss and see what happens.”

A little shiver went down Buck’s spine at the look on Eddie’s face, the solid, brave resolve there.

“Well, you should probably kiss me then,” Buck replied, trying not to be embarrassed by the way his voice cracked.

Eddie just grinned, taking his hand out of Buck’s and reaching up to cup Buck’s face with both hands. Buck melted into the warmth of it, eyes falling half closed even as he clung to the details. The callouses on Eddie’s hands, the slight part to his lips, the way the light over the sink brought out all the different tones in his deep brown eyes. This was real and Buck was going to remember it.

They came together slowly, lips barely brushing as their eyes fell closed, until Eddie finally tilted all the way in, sealing them together. Buck let his hands come to rest on Eddie’s hips, tugging him in and, god, it felt good. Their minor height difference made it just right, made it easy to fold into one another. Buck ended up wrapping his arms all the way around Eddie, holding him tight even as they came up for air, foreheads still touching.

“So,” Eddie said with a crooked grin. “What do you want, Buck?”

Buck laughed. “To do that again.”

“I think that’s a given at this point,” Eddie replied. “But…I want to take this slow, okay? We’ve both been hurt, a lot, and I don’t want to mess this up.”

Buck nodded. He could do slow. He could do anything, if it meant being in love with his best friend and having his best friend love him back.