Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It’s an accident, the first time it happens.

Or, no, that’s not quite right, because that implies that the incident was, in fact, the first time it happened. It would probably be more accurate to say that it’s an accident, the first time Eddie’s brain clocks what’s happening.

“Hey, so what are you planning on wearing to Nash’s baby shower?”

Buck tilts his head at him, and Eddie can tell that this is one of those times when there is a Wrong Answer to the question.

“Is there...a dress code?”

Buck shrugs. “No, but I saw what you had laid out, and I just think that it’s kind of risky to wear something that light to an event with kids- you know we’re just gonna have to bleach the stains out afterwards and hope for the best.”

Eddie rolls his eyes, even as some part of him curls up, warm and content, at the easy way Buck says we. “I think I can handle a few stains, Buck.” he says, instead of commenting on Buck focusing that much on the clothes he laid out haphazardly on his bed.

“You say that now, but that’s one of your nice henleys. You’re gonna be upset if you have to throw it out.”

“I’m not gonna bitch about my clothes getting a little dirty.”

“No, you’re just gonna make sad doe eyes all day, and Chim’s gonna ask me if it’s because he ate the last cinnabon from the fridge again.”

Eddie throws up his hands. “Fine, then. You choose, if you know so much about my clothing preferences.”

It’s half a joke, mostly teasing, but Buck doesn’t even blink before ducking his head into their- Eddie’s bedroom, the creak of closet doors sounding moments later. He comes back with a navy button-up, grey jeans, even a pair of plain black socks. He holds them out to Eddie, then, when Eddie stares at him, raises an eyebrow. Shakes the clothes a little until Eddie holds out his hands.

The shirt is soft in his palm, and Eddie’s fingers clench in the fabric unconsciously. Buck pushes him towards the bedroom. “What are you waiting for? Do you need me to change you too or something?”

It’s another joke, all of it is, really. The question and the answer, the clothes and the challenge. Eddie should be amused, instead of swallowing down a traitorous yes, please from his tongue. Instead, he goes, a small smile fighting its way through at the edges of his lips.

Buck grins at him when he comes out, does a deliberate once-over with his eyes and jokes about how the person dressing him must have good taste. Eddie avoids the soft blue of his eyes, feels pinpricks of heat at the back of his neck, is saved from having to come up with a retort that doesn't sound unhinged by Chris tumbling out of his bedroom with nap-mussed hair and his PJs on, sufficiently distracting Buck to drag him into something socially acceptable as well.

Buck tells Eddie what to put in the trunk of the jeep, when they’re coming back, slips into the driver’s seat the way he always does and drives them to Maddie and Chim’s place without a blink. It’s all normal, but there’s something about the tenor of it that feels different. Or maybe it’s just the part where Eddie is noticing.

Buck’s right, of course. Half an hour into the party, Jee-yun spills a full bottle of blueberry gogurt on his shirt while throwing her arms around him. Maddie apologizes profusely, and Eddie is reassuring her when a warm arm slings around his shoulders. He leans into it without thinking, and Buck isn't speaking to him but Eddie can feel the warmth of his breath anyways. 

“Don’t worry, Mads,” he says, grinning that sunshine smile of his. “I’ve got him.”

And something about those words clicks into Eddie’s brain, a box at the back of his mind creaking open.

Yeah, he thinks. He does, doesn’t he?

The truth of it is this: Eddie is tired.

Moving back from El Paso has been a bitch and a half, between placating his parents and getting all his affairs in order. Eddie barely registers half of it, moving like a zombie through his life, blinking one day under Texan sun and the next in LA. It’s worth it, obviously, because they’re coming home, but Eddie feels exhausted, or maybe is realizing that he has been exhausted for a long time, ever since he left, since Chris left, since Kim or Marisol or even before that, since blood running down a street and a grief that he’s never sat still with long enough to let heal.

Eddie is exhausted, and the thought slips into his mind more than once, more than occasionally: Buck would’ve made this better.

It’s not Buck’s fault, of course. Buck has been helping, as much as he can, getting Christopher’s documents ready to move back to high school in LA, fielding calls from Eddie’s realtor (who Eddie is a little afraid of after buying and selling back-to-back, and who seems to be under the impression that Buck is Eddie’s spouse, which is crazy, they were just friends, and Eddie’s straight, anyways, and-), and getting professional movers because you are selling that Prius, Eddie, you fucking hate that car, and you can’t subject Chris to another u-Haul. C’mon, I already got you flight tickets, you can pretend to fight Chris for the window seat.

Which only reinforces his point: that Buck makes everything in Eddie’s life easier, and any decision he has to make in his absence is absolute bullshit.

Which makes Buck’s declaration that he would be moving out even more incomprehensible.

It’s a well-worn conversation.

“You don't have to go,” Eddie keeps telling him. Buck always, always smiles back, with that edge of sadness to it that Eddie cannot for the life of him understand.

“I can’t keep barging in on you and Chris,” he would say back, shrugging a shoulder like that’s just how it is.

Eddie doesn't get it. He doesn't understand why Buck would think that. Have they not shown Buck how welcome he is? How important? He knows that Buck has his issues, has scar tissue in the shape of a house in Hershey, an apartment that smelled of powder and florals, a loft that has seen a door close behind it one too many times. But he’d thought that Buck had known that they were different, that Eddie was different.

“You can stay,” Eddie says, which is to mean: I want you to stay. I need you to stay. The words don't leave his lips. He can't put that on Buck. Not if he really wants to go.

Buck sighs, a heave of a thing that reminds Eddie of Christopher. “I know, Eddie,” he says. “It’s- look, this isn’t- I already decided, okay? Just drop it.” And Eddie does, every time, because he is secretly well aware of the fact that his desire for Buck to stay is more about himself, really.

See. Eddie is also aware that every single good decision he’s made recently - or, rather, in the last eight years - has been because of Buck, whether directly or indirectly. He is afraid, in a way he doesn’t know how to articulate, that Buck moving out will revert him, somehow. That this home that has always been made better by Buck’s presence will go cold and dead without him. It won’t, of course, because Christopher is here, and because Buck would never let them stay alone (would he?), but Eddie went from El Paso to LA, famine to bounty, and he is desperate not to let anything change.

So, Eddie needs a plan.

It comes together like this:

Eddie notices at baby Nash’s baby shower, and he develops a hypothesis. He decides to do some testing, because he remembers Christopher explaining to him the necessity of experimentation.

Test 1

Eddie starts out small.

“What do you want for dinner?”

Eddie tilts his head, squints in the face of Buck’s sunshine-bright smile. It’s easy, faster than instinct, to shrug, smile. “You choose, you always know what I want.”

He can see the moment the words hit Buck, his eyes going soft and startled around the edges, his smile the almost reluctant one he always wears when he’s embarrassed about how much he’s loved. Eddie ignores all of this, leaving the menu in front of him untouched.

When the waiter comes by to take their orders, Buck smiles a small, secretive smile before getting  the primavera for himself, and the diavola for Eddie. When their dishes arrive, Buck doesn’t even glance at Eddie before requesting the extra parmesan for him.

After they take a bite, Buck looks at him expectantly. Eddie doesn’t say anything. Buck huffs out a soft laugh. “Is it good?”

Eddie hides a smile in his fork. “Yeah, Buck. It’s delicious.”

Test 2

Eddie has a meeting with Christopher’s school board, something about making sure that his classes in El Paso and in LA are synced up. He’s buzzing out of his skin with nervousness, pacing a hole into the living room floor.

“Eddie,” Buck says from the couch. “Relax, it’s not an interrogation.”

“I know,” Eddie lies, continuing to pace.

“They just want to know his curriculum. We looked it up already. It doesn’t mean he’s behind, or that you didn’t do something. You’re doing everything exactly right.”

The soft surety of his words melts a little of Eddie’s nerves, but he runs a palm over the bottom half of his face nonetheless, a pit at the bottom of his stomach. He hadn’t been there, is the thing, for so much of Christopher’s first year of high school. The knowledge gnaws at him, and he doesn’t need the school board to say it for him to feel like a failure of a father, someone who doesn’t even know his son’s school for the past year-!

Gentle fingers wrap around his hand, stopping Eddie mid-step. His hand is pulled down from his face. Buck’s fingers are a loose circle around his wrist, shorter and thicker than Eddie’s, callused in a way that tells the story of hard work and dedication and love made physical. Eddie wishes he would hold on tighter. Eddie puts that thought into a box at the back of his mind.

“Eddie,” Buck says, and his voice is steady, low. He’s only just louder than the soft electric hum of their lights, the churn of their water heater. He sounds like he’s in the bones of Eddie’s home. 

Eddie swallows, and he imagines Buck’s gaze flitting to his throat for a moment before dragging its way up his face, meeting his eyes. Buck is alit from behind, blocking the light with his body, and the world is soft at the edges except for him. 

“Eddie,” Buck repeats again, in that voice that makes the world make sense. “It’s okay. Stand still, you’re going to hurt yourself.”

Eddie stands still, looking at Buck. He tries to find words, and doesn’t. It doesn’t feel like he needs them. Help me, he could say, but he knows Buck will regardless. Buck won’t let him need to say it out loud. 

Instead, he looks down at their hands, Buck’s palm still warm against the tendons of Eddie’s wrist, fingers still wrapped one-two-three-four-five around the line of it, pale against tan, callused against the soft vulnerable beat of his pulse, nails blunt and just barely scraping the place where Eddie’s blood would spill if he pressed in a little harder, a little sharper.

He wouldn’t, Eddie knows. Eddie also knows that he would forgive him if he did.

“Come with me,” spills from his lips without permission, more a plea than a request. Buck startles, then, pupils dilating with surprise.

“Eddie-”

“You helped me research it all,” Eddie says, trying to make his voice sound something in the realm of casual. He smiles at Buck, like this is a normal thing to ask. “You know his classes as well as I do. And you’re better at explaining things.”

Please, is what he doesn’t say. I need you.

Buck hears it anyways, the way he nearly always seems to. He smiles back, as if Eddie’s request is normal, after all. As if it’s not a sign of unforgivable weakness. As if Buck would forgive him anyways. “Are you finally admitting that I’m a better teacher than you, Diaz?”

Eddie scoffs, a soft fission of relief running down his spine at the way the air around them loosens, the world rushing in both a disappointment and a relief. “I’m saying that they’ll understand you better because they’re more used to talking to teenagers than adults, Buckley.” Buck laughs, the sound a balm to every wound in Eddie’s life. His hand is still circling Eddie’s wrist. Neither of them moves away.

“Pick my clothes for me?” Eddie says, in the exact same tone, because they’re both here and he wants and doesn’t think too hard about why.

Buck’s mouth opens, closes. Eddie doesn’t wait for him to process before going to pack the papers they need to show Christopher’s teachers, the reports and letters that his school in El Paso sent over. He deliberately doesn’t look at Buck. After a few beats, he hears Buck walking away.

Eddie keeps concentrating on what he’s doing, going through the papers one by one with unnecessary care. Eventually, a shadow falls over him, Buck’s voice at his shoulder. “I, um. I’m done.”

Eddie looks up. Buck’s changed, in a mustard button-up rolled up to his elbows, dark pants, curls tamed. He could just mean that. Eddie knows he doesn’t. He smiles, hands Buck the paperwork. “Look through the rest for me?”

Buck looks down, softens. “Always.”

Eddie puts on the heather-grey henley and dark denim jacket laid over their duvet, the stone-washed jeans and the black cotton socks. Every piece fits over him like a whisper, like another pair of hands holding him steady. He shivers, slightly, as he pulls the jeans on, quietly ignoring the swell in his underwear as he zips himself up. A breath, and another. He walks out and watches the way Buck’s eyes are drawn towards him, the easy slide of him to stand by Eddie’s side.

“Everything’s done,” Buck tells him, that soft voice again. “You don’t have to worry about anything anymore. I got it.”

Every string in his body is- not loose, but held gently in Buck’s palm, the world made easy again. You don’t have to worry about anything has never been true in Eddie’s life, except when Buck says it.

He nods, and follows Buck to the car.

Tests 3 through 6

It becomes less like a conscious choice after that, and more like a series of dreams. Standing to the side when they’re at the grocery store, letting Buck compare pasta brands with a furrow in his brow. Giving the remote to Buck on the nights they watch TV without Chris. Letting him fuss over Eddie at the smallest injury on call, listening when he puts him in the bunks with a bottle of water and a bowl of fruit.

Watching, watching, watching the way that Buck slips into every crack Eddie reveals, sealing all the broken edges of him with gold and the easy, instinctual knowledge of what’s best for Eddie.

The fact that, whenever he thinks that Eddie needs him, Buck stays.

And that is the crux of it, isn’t it? Eddie doesn’t actually need Buck to do any of these things, not really. He has survived for twenty-six years without any softness but the press of his son’s embrace, the fleeting warmth that he’s offered from people before one of them flinches away. Any of the individual things that Buck does for him could be written off, squared away as a small, inconsequential kindness.

But the whole of it- that’s what Eddie needs. Not the actions themselves but the understanding behind them, the way Buck has always known the most important things to Eddie, and pulls Eddie towards having them even when Eddie refuses him tooth and nail. Now that Eddie sees it so clearly, he wonders how long he's been doing that without Eddie's knowledge, quietly choosing things for Eddie to make his life easier.

For as long as he thinks Eddie needs it, he would assume. And that turns something in his stomach, mixed with the memory of Buck saying that he doesn’t need to stay.

So it’s for Buck’s sake, really, that Eddie keeps letting him circle Eddie’s wrists and pull him where he thinks is best. It’s a win-win: Eddie won’t be allowed to blow his own life up again, and Buck will stay. 

The box in the back of Eddie’s mind rattles. Eddie ignores it.

It’s gonna be great. As long as Buck keeps letting Eddie need him, everything’s going to be okay.

Chapter Text

There’s something wrong with Eddie.

The thought worms its way through Buck’s brain like a parasite, like a maggot feasting on rotting skin, flesh, digging its way to pink-white bone underneath. The flesh of it is that something is wrong with Eddie. The bone of it is that-

Well.

Eddie’s too happy.

It feels like an insane thing to say. A cruel thing, even. Like, why wouldn’t Eddie be happy? He’s back in LA, his son is talking to him again, and Bobby’s alive. That would make anyone happy. It definitely makes Buck happy.

Shut up, yes, Buck is happy. He is.

He’s so happy that he’s spending hours on Zillow, scrolling through listings and favoriting anything remotely in his price range. He’s so happy that he’s organizing all the paperwork for Christopher’s school, for Eddie returning to the 118. He’s so happy that he’s spending three nights a week at the Han residence, so that Eddie and Christopher won’t have to deal with him forcing himself into their space.

It’s great, it’s so good! Buck is having the time of his life, because clearly Eddie is, and it would be insane of Buck to be upset that his best friend is happy, right?

“Right?”

Nash makes a gurgling noise which Buck takes as agreement, and Buck rolls to his side, looking at his big, wise eyes. He’d be half-convinced that Nash was, in fact, Bobby’s reincarnation, if it weren’t for the fact that Bobby was in fact still kicking, and Buck was pretty sure that temporary death didn’t split your soul and deposit part of it in a newborn. Like, 90% sure.

“It’s just weird, you know?” Buck continues, turning to lie on his stomach, chin propped up on his hands. “Like, I’m happy for him! But- I mean, he’s just weirdly chill! He just- he’s having fun with Hen, which, obviously I’m happy for him, he deserves a good-” partner gets stuck in his throat. “- friend. And he didn’t even look a little annoyed when I got Chris that new Steam Deck, not even after Chris let it slip that it was the new expensive one, even though I promised that I’d gotten him the LED one- and, and-” Buck lifts one hand to gesticulate towards the crib, Nash catching one of his fingers with his little hand. Buck lets his hand still, lets his nephew play with the calluses on his joints, proof of years of stupid stunts and failures and throwing himself into every wall he saw. 

“And-” he inhales. “Eddie keeps...letting me do things.”

Baby Nash stares at him.

“Okay, uncle Buck,” Maddie’s voice echos from the baby monitor. “Therapy session’s over.”

Buck sighs, lets go of the half-formed explanation that he knows would’ve sounded crazy if he’d tried to actually articulate it. He pulls his finger gently away from Nash’s hand, stands up. Nash keeps peering up at him, as if wondering if all grown-ups were like this, or if his uncle Buck was a unique disaster.

“See you tomorrow, baby Nash,” Buck says, leaning down to press no more than three smacking kisses on Nash’s adorable apple of a face. Nash scrunches his face up, somewhere between a smile and mild surprise. He’s less emotive than Jee was at his age, but Buck is of the opinion that both his nephew and niece are absolutely perfect in their own ways.

“Jee’s waiting for her kisses from her uncle Buck,” Maddie tells him when he leaves the nursery. She’s leaning against the counter, doing a great job of pretending that she absolutely was not listening in on him. “You’re gonna spoil her- next time she doesn’t get you for storytime, she’s absolutely going to throw a tantrum.”

“My perfect niece? She would never.”

Maddie snorts, closes the door gently behind him. The plate on the door, a cartoon bear holding a little plaque, simply reads Nash. They had been discussing the process of getting his first name changed, because now that Bobby’s back and with the power of hindsight even Chimney could admit that his full name had perhaps been a bit overboard. Maddie had floated Daniel Nash Han, Albert had inserted a suggestion for Albert Junior. Buck, notably, did not suggest Evan Nash Han. The thought of it, the string of words containing Evan Nash, made Buck feel- 

Well. It made him feel.

“So,” Maddie says, after he emerges from Jee’s room after no less than three storybooks. Buck looks at her, and she looks back, soft and expectant.

“So.”

“Are we pretending I didn’t hear any of that?”

“You shouldn’t be.”

“I shouldn’t be paying attention to my baby monitor?”

“Not when your reliable brother is looking after your kid, no.”

“Buck,” her voice softens. “I try not to listen in, honest. I only heard the last bit.”

Which is the worst bit for her to have heard.

Buck sighs, crumpling down a little more. “It’s not a big deal.”

“It seems to be bothering you.”

“It’s not.” It’s such a blatant lie that Maddie doesn’t even bother calling him out on it, just walks around to grab him a mug of warm milk, like they’re little kids again, huddled under a blanket and confiding in each other things that could still be fixed. Buck looks down at his fingers, remembers the unwieldy bulk of them around Eddie’s vulnerable wrist. He could break things so easily. “It’s not gonna be a big deal,” he repeats. “Not after I move out, anyways.”

“You’re still looking?”

“Have a few places shortlisted, but...” Maddie waits him out. “Eddie- he keeps...he keeps asking.”

“For you to stay?”

He shakes his head. “Just...for things. Help, I guess. I’m happy to do it.”

“But...”

But it keeps him too busy to really look, the way he had been. And it’s not Eddie’s fault, really, that Buck wants to help him, that Buck wants to make sure that he’s safe and warm over finding a new house, but-

“It can’t last,” Buck says, eventually. “And I’m running out of time to make sure that I’m ready to leave when the other shoe drops.”

There is another part that he doesn’t tell Maddie about. The fact that churns his stomach, guilt sitting like a stone, like a bullet. 

The simple fact of the matter is that Buck likes it.

“Hey, Buck,” Eddie says, looking at him with sweet, expectant eyes. “Can you grab me something to drink?”

They’re at a bar, lights reflecting off of dingy wood. They’re not the only ones there- Hen is giggling something to Chimney, tipsy from the first hour of freedom after a 48-hour shift and her second glass of whiskey. Chimney is only half-listening, bent over a darts competition signup sheet with Ravi and muttering with intent. Buck should probably care about that terrible idea, but he has his own bad idea sitting right beside him, leaning into him with soft sleepiness and a trust that Buck doesn’t know how to earn.

Buck is loathe to leave the line of warmth at his side, the vulnerability that he feels awed every time to witness, but Eddie’s voice is soft, asking, and Buck has never claimed to be strong.

“You sure, Eds?” he murmurs, voice probably too cotton-soft and full of stupid want for the bar they’re in. “You’re looking a little tuckered out already, another drink might knock you out.”

For a moment, Eddie looks up at him like he’s about to pout, doe-eyed and the prettiest thing in the state of LA, probably. Then, like a switch, the edges of his eyes crinkle, soften. “You choose, then,” he says, in that voice that Buck has never quite been able to decipher.

It’s weird, is the thing. Usually - months ago - Eddie would push back, would joke about how he can hold his drink, Buck, I know what I’m doing, with a smile on his lips and the barest hint of an edge in his voice, the one he gets whenever he thinks that he’s showing any weakness, even to Buck. He’d drink just to make a point, stubborn in his own quiet way, and Buck will end up driving him home and spilling him in his bed, where Eddie will look up at him with a sliver of shame in his eyes, like him drinking a little too much was tantamount to a cardinal sin. 

It’s never been that Buck cares if Eddie gets a little too drunk - if anything, he loves Eddie red-cheeked and soft, clinging and agreeable, a little too much. It’s just that Buck hates that look in Eddie’s eyes, hates it when Eddie takes every mistake that he’s owed from a lifetime of growing up too fast and acts as if he’s failed in some fundamental way instead.

So he nudges, and Eddie walls him out. Until he doesn’t. Until now.

“O-okay,” he says, surprise tripping over his words. Eddie just puts his elbows on the table (bad idea, probably sticky), puts his chin in his hand, looks at Buck with warm eyes. Buck gets up, because he’s a little afraid of what he’ll do if he doesn’t.

He orders a cranberry juice spiked with sprite for Eddie, because Eddie secretly loves sugary drinks, but tries not to keep too much in the house because of Christopher and his Catholic guilt. He gets a rum and coke for himself, heavy on the rum, because he has a feeling he’s gonna need it to make it through the night.

Buck turns back and walks back to their table, putting Eddie’s drink in front of him. Eddie smiles up at him, all wide brown eyes, a mouth softly parted in awe. It always makes something twist in Buck, to see Eddie looking at him like this, like Buck is doing something amazing and special, rather than just...taking care of Eddie, the way he deserves.

Before he can say or do anything inadvisable, though, Ravi is leaning over, complaining loudly about why does only Eddie get a drink? to Chimney’s snort of because it’s Eddie, Ravioli. Buck rolls his eyes, leaves his drink on the table, and goes to grab more drinks for everyone - a highball for Chim, the most pretentious lager they have on tap for Ravi, and a gin and tonic heavy on the tonic for Hen, because Buck likes Karen quite a bit. They cheer as he comes back with drinks, and Buck laughs before he freezes, staring at Eddie.

Eddie, who’s working his way through Buck’s rum and coke.

“Eddie,” Buck says, sliding into the seat next to him again in a hurry. “What- that was mine!”

Eddie turns his eyes on Buck, all innocent. “You didn’t say,” he argues, a weak argument. He knows Buck’s regular drinks as well as Buck knows his.

“You’re being a dick,” Buck says. Eddie just brings the glass to his lips again, defiant. Buck doesn’t know what rushes through him then, but he blinks, and his fingers are covering Eddie’s on the glass, pulling it down with steady, unwavering force.

The glass clinks as the heavy bottom hits the table, but neither of them look. Eddie’s eyes are fixed on his, a look in his eyes that’s almost-- satisfied, smug, like the cat that got the cream.

Buck’s blood thrums dangerously in his veins. “Why were you drinking my drink, Eddie?”

Eddie’s eyes lower, and Buck tells himself firmly that he can’t be aware of what he’s doing as he peers through his lashes at Buck. “You left,” he said, childish and petulant.

Buck stares incredulously. “I was getting you a drink!” he says, “Because you wanted me to!”

Eddie shakes his head, cheeks flushed, head lolling slightly until it hits Buck’s shoulder. Buck presses a hand to the back of his head instinctively, shifting so that Eddie is more comfortable. Even now, he just wants Eddie to be comfortable.

“You always leave,” Eddie mutters into Buck’s jacket. Buck’s hand freezes in his hair, soft strands slipping through his fingers. He opens his mouth, closes it.

The sound of glass on wood. Buck looks up, and finds the rest of the 118 determinedly not staring at them. He coughs, feeling the back of his neck flush for no good reason. “I--” he gestures with his free hand. “Um, I’m gonna get Eddie home first, he’s pretty conked out.”

Hen giggles, sweet and still so wise, like she’s in on a joke that she’s too kind to tease you with. Ravi looks at them like they’re aliens. Chimney’s eyes are softer, like he’s listened in on some baby Nash conversations himself, like he knows exactly how much it’s costing Buck to stay. 

“Go, Buckaroo, get our boy some rest,” he says. 

Buck smiles gratefully at him, throws some bills on the table, and pulls Eddie up. Eddie barely resists, no more so than the limp bulk of his body is in itself a form of resistance. Buck huffs out something between a sigh and a laugh, shaking Eddie slightly.

Nothing.

Right, then.

Buck maneuvers Eddie so that he’s half-draped across Buck’s shoulders, somewhere between a firefighter’s carry and a full-body hug. He goes outside, calls a Lyft, and slides Eddie in first before getting in himself.

Eddie is dead to the world the entire way home, head leaning against the car window. Buck watches the LA lights wash over him, painting his skin gold and neon, ethereal and beautiful. Buck tries so, so hard not to want.

They get home, and Buck carries him fully now, shifting so that Eddie is piggybacking him. He opens the door to their- Eddie’s house, kicks the door shut behind him. He walks through the hallway, moonlight drawing ribbons of light to guide him. The bedroom door is open, he walks in. He splays Eddie on the bed, takes off his shoes, his jeans, his jacket, leaving him in a soft red tee and black boxers.

Buck looks down at him. He’s so beautiful. Buck loves him so much, has perhaps loved him from the beginning. Loves everything that Eddie has allowed him to take and take and take, gouging this home until he found himself standing in its hollow bones.

He can’t let that happen again. He can’t be here alone again.

He tucks Eddie in, and there’s a moment when Eddie twists towards him, instinctive. It makes Buck want to hold him. It makes Buck want to flinch away. He doesn’t know how to trust this anymore. 

“You’re the one who left first,” Buck whispers, breath fanning Eddie’s forehead and jostling the strands that fall over his face. Eddie doesn’t respond, breaths deep and even. Buck doesn’t know what he wants Eddie to say, anyways.

He puts an Advil and a glass of water by Eddie’s bedside, and goes to sleep on the sofa.

The next morning, Eddie stumbles into the kitchen with the look of someone who is regretting every decision that has brought them up to this point. Buck, who never got his rum and coke, is frying eggs and toast in bacon fat, sliding the greasy mess onto a plate and putting it in front of a blinking Eddie.

“I feel sick,” Eddie says.

“That’ll be the rum and coke you stole from me,” Buck tells him. Eddie squints at him, and Buck taps the table. 

Eddie frowns, ignores it. “Oh shit- did I pass out on you last night?”

“I had to basically carry you to bed,” Buck says, aiming for teasing. Eddie flushes, pretty and pink. He shakes his head, then winces.

“I have to- Christopher-”

“I already called Ms. Lim, I’ll pick Chris up after lunch today, he’s extremely on-board with a few more hours hanging out with his friends.” When Eddie looks up at him, soft, Buck can’t quite take it. He puts a palm on the back of Eddie’s neck, pushes him forward, just a little, so that he’s facing the plate of food. “Don’t think about it, Eds,” he says, voice in a register he doesn’t quite mean to put it. “Eat.”

And Eddie- he does. His mouth falls open, a little, like he doesn’t quite mean for it to. He starts eating, forkfuls of over-medium eggs and bacon drizzled in hot sauce on golden-brown sourdough. After a few bites, he glances up at Buck. Waiting.

“Good,” Buck says, feeling tender-soft and yearning. He nudges the glass of orange juice forward with his other hand. “Take a drink, too. You need the hydration.”

Eddie tilts his head at him. Takes a small sip. Buck frowns. “You have to drink more than that, Eddie.”

Eddie pauses, for a fraction of a second. “More?” he asks, and there’s a hoarseness in his voice that comes from his sternum, ragged as if his body doesn’t want to speak, as if he’d spent the night choking-

Buck’s hand pulses on the back of Eddie’s neck, a quick, involuntary squeeze. Eddie’s throat works, tendons and veins and pulse swelling and receding under his fingertips, expelling a shivery length of air. Buck has to force himself not to squeeze again, just to see. Just to know how Eddie would sound if he pressed down harder.

“More,” he says, and watches Eddie’s throat work as he takes a longer drag from the glass. His fingers feel warm around Eddie’s neck, like they belong there. He should take them off. He doesn’t. Eddie doesn’t ask him to.

On the table, his phone rings.

Buck’s breath leaves him in a surprised exhale, strangely loud against the morning air. Eddie looks at his phone too, the two of them comically still, like they’d never seen a phone ring before. A moment passes, and Buck flexes his fingers away, walks towards the table to grab it. He can’t quite bring himself to meet Eddie’s eyes.

It’s Maddie. “Maddie?”

“Evan,” she says, and there’s a deliberate steadiness in her voice that makes him come to attention immediately, something like a church bell, a warning, going off in the back of his mind. “Mom and dad are here.”

It doesn’t make sense, because they have a barbeque on the weekend.

It’s a nonsensical argument, some part of Buck is aware. But he makes it anyway, voice sounding distant to himself. Eddie has put his fork down by his cleaned plate, eyes sharp and worried on his. On the other end of the phone line, the sound of static crackles with Maddie’s sigh.

“I know,” she murmurs, like she understands more than just what he’s saying out loud. “But they wanted to meet Nash, and I guess- they just-”

“Came directly to you guys.” Buck swallows. “They’re at your house right now?”

“Arrived this morning in an RV,” Maddie confirms.

Buck opens his mouth, closes it. “Do they-”

He can’t get the words out, can’t bring himself to ask -- do they want to see me? The answer will cut through him either way, whether he’ll be forced to meet their eyes as if nothing is wrong, or if they don’t want to acknowledge him at all.

I can’t believe you’re being so selfish, Evan.

“They-” Maddie swallows across the line. “They asked to come to the barbeque. You can probably see them then.”

The words are funny, coming out of her. As if they were normal kids, kids who looked forward to seeing their parents. “They’re coming to the barbeque?” Buck asks, feeling like a child. Eddie gets out of his chair, comes to stand next to him, shoulder to shoulder. Buck leans into him, because he needs him. Because he doesn’t have anything else.

Another crackle. “Buck…”

“Sorry, sorry. I shouldn’t- are you okay?”

“It’s fine. They’re only here for the weekend.” It’s a reminder for both of them.

Buck exhales. “The weekend,” he repeats. “Okay.” He feels a brush of skin against his hand, and watches Eddie’s fingers brush his. Just once, grounding. He takes a slow breath. “United front?”

A soft sound. “United front.”

He hangs up the phone, and Eddie lets him avoid his eyes for the full ten seconds Buck needs to get himself together before he speaks. “Your parents.”

It’s a statement, so Buck doesn’t feel the need to answer out loud. He shrugs a shoulder instead. Eddie’s voice is careful. “The last time you saw them…”

Was at Maddie’s wedding. Where they’d pursed their lips in disapproval at the ceremony that ended up happening, and disappeared without so much as meeting Buck’s eye. It’s fine. It’s good.

“It’s fine,” Buck says. Eddie does not look like he believes him.

“Have you…”

“No,” Buck has not talked to them since then. He watches Eddie’s expression, the careful folds of it. He knows that Eddie wants to ask about his reaction, the sharp backslide of their relationship from careful neutrality to this cold fission of fear. He can’t make himself say it.

I can’t believe you’re being so selfish, Evan.

“Let’s go pick Chris up,” Buck says, before Eddie can say anything else. He can’t remember. Not now, not while he still remembers the warmth of Eddie’s pulse beneath his fingertips. Not when he can’t bring himself to believe that they weren’t right all along.

Eddie looks like he wants to say something, but shakes his head. Looks at Buck. “Pick out my outfit?” he asks, gentle and steady. Buck stares at him, mouth falling open a little.

“You still--”

Eddie puts a hand against Buck’s shoulder, steady and trusting. “I believe in you, Evan,” he says. “Whatever anyone says, I believe in you.”

Buck’s hands shake, but some part of his mind sharpens, clears. He goes to their- Eddie’s bedroom, and each piece of clothing he puts out shakes away another corner of fog in his brain, a goal and a purpose, someone who trusts him. He hesitates, then puts out a new pair of underwear, dark navy and soft cotton. He looks at it for a bit too long, then looks away.

Eddie puts his hand on his shoulder again when Buck comes out, a brief touch before he disappears into the bedroom. Buck can hear the sound of the ensuite washroom, and he forces himself not to strain to hear the rustle of clothing. He watches Eddie come out, and his eyes don’t dip past his waist, doesn’t look for a navy band peeking through slate trousers. Eddie doesn’t say anything, just hands him the keys.

Buck’s stomach churns. He starts the car.

I can’t believe you’re being so selfish, Evan.