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"What the hell is you problem!? I am so tired-"
"You! You are my problem! God, and you wouldn't even fucking understand either!"
"The fuck is that supposed to mean?"
"You got everything! You got and have everything I never could!" Carlos dropped his shoulders and let out an exhale at that. His mind raced, but he thought he had a clue to what his cousin was saying.
"Eddie?" He spoke quietly, after a minute, letting Eddie try and calm down.
"You got the life I dream about. Parents who accept you and don't berate you for every small mistake. Who don't tell you that you are a failure at being a father, who says it's your fault because your wife left. A family who loves your partner and you can openly show that love to them." Eddie let out a harsh sigh as he scrubbed his hands down his face before dropping on the picnic bench behind him.
"You get to spend your every day with the love of your life, while I? The closest I get is being their best friend when all I want is more. You get to go to bed and hold them close, while I can only see mine across a pathway. You get to run your fingers through their curls as you lay on the couch together watching a movie or show. I get that rarely if mine falls asleep on me, which more times i fall asleep on them instead. You can tell them to come home safe to you, while I have to watch mine with my heart in my throat and my breath held as they dangle 100 feet in the air as they save a little girl."
Eddie stared off, looking at the family, his entire family, in the distance. Everyone was moving and laughing, dancing and eating, just enjoying being with each other after the last 2.5 years. With how many people there were, you wouldn't really know where any one person was, but who Eddie was looking for and at? He could find them any time and any where. He sighed again before swinging his legs over the bench, resting his elbows on the table and dropping his head in his hands. Carlos slowly sat down across from him, waiting him out.
"For the last 7 years I thought I wasn't meant for love. That I was destined to be a single father to Christopher and I accepted that. I was okay with that because Christopher needed me and I had no time for anything else. But then? Then I met them, my heart, my other half, and I finally understood what all those stories and songs talked about. How you just want the person to smile and that smile to be for you. How you would walk through fire for them and I have, multiple times, to protect them," Eddie let out a humorless laugh.
"How people can look in someone's eyes and see the rest of their life? Yeah, every single time I look, and I see the future I want, but can never have. But you Carlos? You found T.K and your parents couldn't be happier. They love and accept him and his dad. You got to have a beautiful wedding, after Tio Gabriel recovered of course. You saved your first wife from a serial killer. You got everything I can only dream about and now you want to throw this away? For what? A stupid argument over hypothetical children and what religion they follow? That's bullshit and you know it. " Carlos looked down at the wood grain, deflecting from the look that Eddie was giving him. He heard what Eddie was saying, but his pride wouldn't let him say anything outloud.
"You need to talk and fix this with T.K. He is one of, if not the best, thing about you. Love him. Love him so that I can see what my future could have been like if I was allowed. " Eddie knocked on the table and turned like he was going to get up.
"You know there's no one stopping you but yourself, right?" Carlos asked softly. Eddie turned back and gave one of the saddest smiles Carlos had ever seen.
"I know. And I'm trying, but by the time I'll be strong enough to tell him, he'll have moved on and find someone who can love him loudly and proudly like he would them. I can't do that to him, no matter how much I want to. "
"Have you actually asked Buck what he wants, or just assumed?"
"Yes, and that's all I'll say. But really Carlos, go fix things with T.K, don't let it turn to shambles before it's too late. " and Eddie finally turned and got up from the table, heading to a group of people, his eyes for only two of them in the group, one whose eyes mirrored his, and the other bluer than the sky and brighter than a diamond in the sun. The smiles on those faces got bigger as he got bigger, cheers from the two.
"Dad!"
"Eds!" Eddie smiled as he wrapped his arms around the shoulders of his boys, one that was growing up too quickly and the other who held his heart and didn't know it.
"Christopher, Buck, what trouble have you two gotten in to now?" He laughed, enjoying what little time he knew he had left with them as his and no one else's.