Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The house is fine.

Really. Buck loved it when he bought it. It’s small—the listing kept calling it a craftsman bungalow, which from his research just means it’s got a low-pitched roof and a porch. Which it does.

It’s forest green, which stood out from all the cream and red before it, and he likes the porch. What sold him was the kitchen, though, with its built-in breakfast nook and original glass-front cabinets.

The house is great.

Maddie warned him about impulse buys; this was not an impulse buy. He brought Eddie three times, Maddie twice, and then both of them together. They approved of it and it’s hardwood floors and re-done fireplace, and if Buck’s bedroom closet was weirdly shallow, well—he doesn’t have that many clothes anyway.

The house is perfect.

Buck loves it here, so he’s not sure why he’s staring at the cracking plaster over his bed for the fourth night in a row. With the lights on, it’s a basic cream shade, but in the dark—it reminds Buck of that dead jogger from Pet Sematary. He hated that movie as a kid, had to sleep in Maddie’s room for a month after he saw it—and he was thirteen.

He closes his eyes. This is ridiculous. He couldn’t sleep in Eddie’s house when he lived there either. It’s just an adjustment—these things always are, and the occasional thumping and slightly less occasional creaking is just the product of buying an old house.

And this house is old, originally built in 1917 and purchased a year later by Henry and Maybell Caldwell. He was a railroad clerk, and they had two kids, who seemed to have led perfectly normal lives.

They sold it to a guy named Jacob Brant in 1944. He was also normal, worked at a bank and lived here for almost thirty years before he sold it to John and Karen Hill, also very normal people with three kids. They sold the house in 1991 to Arthur Purnell, who apparently did a lot of renovations before he left the house to his son, Brett, who was a sixty-seven-year-old man that retired to Florida and leased the place for eight years before finally selling it.

So, sure, there are missing pieces—Buck can’t find information on leasing agreements, but the point is, people weren’t fleeing this place the second they bought it. It stayed in someone’s family, for god’s sake.

The house was normal.

He’s the weird one.

And Buck knows all this because he spent seven hours researching the first night he couldn’t sleep. Just to be sure. And then he looked it up again, and again, and now it’s been four nights, and his laptop is calling to him—promising he’ll find the answer if just looks one more time.

But there is no answer; he’s just having trouble sleeping.

He has work in the morning.

He swallows and closes his eyes, tries counting backwards from one hundred, then gets to eighty-four and thinks about the jogger from Pet Sematary again. Buck can’t remember his name. It started with a P, maybe.

He’s not sure whether he sleeps or not, but his brain fogs and simmers through images. He thinks about the nights after Pet Sematary when he knocked on her door. He thinks about her sitting near his bed, chin on her folded hands. He wants her to sleep with him, so eventually, she does.

She climbs in bed and lies beside him, except it’s not her—it’s Eddie. He’s rolling his eyes because Buck’s ridiculous, but Buck tucks against him anyway. He’s warm and quiet like he always is, and Buck’s hand trails up and over, until he’s on top of him. He’s got his mouth on Eddie’s neck, but Eddie gets a hand on his face, lifts his head and Buck looks up, but it’s not Eddie, it’s the guy from Pet Sematary with the chunk ripped out of his skull and black blood on his lips, and he’s smiling with his hand still on Buck’s face.

Buck wrenches upright to the sound of his alarm. His shirt and sheets are soaked. He pants, head and heart pounding as the world settles back to solid, but the fear won’t fade. He drops his face into his hands and screams until his throat hurts.

He hates this fucking house.

Well, at least he has a reason to leave now. He’s got to be at work in an hour for a twenty-four-hour shift. Hopefully he’ll have time to sleep at the station. Hopefully his brain will forget everything about that dream before he gets there and has to look Eddie in the eyes.

Naturally, none of that happens. Buck is still fighting demons to stop thinking about the dream six hours into the shift. They’ve already been out on two calls. His vision is starting to get bleary, and he’s barely said two words to Eddie, which always makes everything worse.

Now he’s sprawled on one of the couches, thinking he should probably go to the bunk room, try and get some actual sleep, but that would require moving his body, and the couch is essentially a cocoon at this point. He may never move again.

“Hey.” Eddie’s voice tears Buck’s eyes open, and he sits upright almost immediately. Despite everything, he can’t be too disappointed. It’s Eddie. “You alright, man?”

Buck sighs and blinks as Eddie sits on the couch, and Buck shifts to put a little more space between them. He’s not thinking about the dream, which meant nothing. He just needs space. “Wh-why do you ask?”

“You really want me to answer that?” Eddie asks.

“Is it the family game night I interrupted because I heard Chimney wrong on the radio, or was it how, after that, I turned the volume so loud on the radio the alarm almost gave us all ear damage, or is it that I just burned four chicken cutlets and the entire firehouse smells like smoke?”

Eddie lifts his eyebrows, and there’s the softest curve to his mouth, the faintest scrunch to his nose. Judgment’s never felt as inviting as it does on Eddie. Buck’s spent his entire life afraid of being judged, but it’s different with Eddie. Like Buck could strip naked and sprint through the firehouse and Eddie would just shake his head and hand him a towel.

Buck should not be thinking about being naked in front of Eddie right now.

The thing is, Eddie would offer to help if Buck admitted to what was going on—the sleeplessness not the horror-sex dream—but there is the matter of dignity. Buck is a grown-ass man in his thirties, and he can’t sleep in the house he just bought because he’s afraid of—what?

Monsters under the bed?

A horror movie he saw twenty years ago?

He settles for a half-truth. “Just having trouble adjusting to the new place, I guess. Haven’t been sleeping great.”

“Is it noisy?” Eddie asks. “I told you that creek might mean crickets, and those things are annoying.”

Buck winces, worrying his lower lip. “I, ah… no, it’s not really the noise. I think maybe it’s, uh, too quiet?”

“Too quiet?” Eddie asks.

This is treading dangerously close to grown man in his thirties afraid of the dark territory. Still, it’s Eddie, so Buck shrugs, kind of sheepishly. “Yeah?”

“Well,” Eddie says, trailing like he’s considering. “Maybe I can come over and bring some beer, make it feel a little less new?”

Buck could leap across the cushion and hug him, might, even—but the dream. “That would be amazing. Would Chris want to come?”

Eddie tries, really tries, not to scoff. “Yeah, that’s gonna be a no. He’s a teenager, remember? We’re not cool anymore. I’ll tell him he can have a friend over.”

“Ouch,” Buck says, but selfishly, he’s glad.

Selfishly, he just wants Eddie.

Because it’s easier to relax when it’s Eddie, because Eddie is his best friend—not anything else. Not like the dream.

Things get easier for the rest of the shift. Buck stops dreading going home, because Eddie’s going to be there. He even stops thinking about the dream, mostly.

They can drink and watch stupid movies, and Buck doesn’t have to think about the jogger from Pet Sematary. His name is Pascow; Buck looked it up. But now, he doesn’t have to think about it, now all he has to think about is Eddie, and that’s the easiest thing in the world.

~

It becomes routine pretty quick. Eddie comes over to Buck’s when they aren’t working. They drink, watch a movie, or just talk. It’s so easy with Eddie, and when he’s there, Buck doesn’t think about the way the floors creak or the scratching he swears he’s heard in his closet.

The problem is Eddie leaves. Eventually, he has to go home to his kid, and Buck’s left to lie in his bed and stare at the ceiling again. It isn’t helping the problem, really, but if Buck admits that then there’s the chance Eddie will stop coming. He’s going to have to stop eventually, anyway, because Buck can already see that dad-guilt scrunch Eddie gets when he looks at his phone sometimes.

Buck offers to cook for them a couple times to make up for it, but it’s a tenuous arrangement at best. Eddie’s already noticing the dark circles under Buck’s eyes aren’t getting better, which is probably what he’s squinting at now, three and a half cans of beer into the night.

“I don’t think this is helping,” Eddie divines, which would be more impressive if it didn’t slur together a little. “You still look pretty tired.”

“It’s helping,” Buck says. “I like having you here.”

“Hm,” Eddie says, like this is a nugget of information he can’t process. “What’s really going on, Buck? This place is nice.” He stands up, and to his credit, he doesn’t wobble. He slides his hand over the fireplace. “It’s not too hot, or too cold, and I don’t even hear crickets. I get you hate change, but this one’s pretty minor.”

Buck’s tongue is loose, looser than it ought to be, which is why he says, “I should’ve just stayed at your place.”

The expression on Eddie’s face isn’t what Buck expected, even though he isn’t sure what he expected, but before Buck can figure out what it means—it’s gone. Eddie shakes his head, half-smiling. “It woulda been cramped. It’s good you have your own place.”

Buck’s starting to have doubts.

“Don’t you miss me cooking for you every night?” Buck asks.

Eddie’s smile is soft, before he wrinkles his face to something Buck can’t read. “This isn’t about me. It’s about you and overcoming that whole…” He casts his hands in a kind of circle towards Buck, like he’s warding off evil spirits. “Whatever made you get back with Tommy.”

“It was one night,” Buck says. “I was lonely. You were gone.”

He’s not thinking about the dream. He’s not thinking about how he was about to jump back into a relationship he didn’t even want solely because Eddie was gone. He’s not thinking about the competition. He’s not thinking about the fact that Tommy knew—he’s not thinking about any of it.

Eddie blinks a little too hard, crossing his arms and staring at the fireplace; his back’s the only think Buck can see. “Well, I’m here now, and you’re still not sleeping, so there’s gotta be something else going on here.”

“You could stay over.”

Eddie whips around to look at him way, brown eyes all blistered with shock. “What?”

Buck’s really got to get a stronger grip on the brain to mouth pipeline. He clears his throat. “I-I just mean, you said Chris was at a friend’s tonight, right? What if—what if you just stayed the night and h-helped me unpack or whatever?”

Uncertainty coils through Eddie, knocks some of the haze out of him. Buck wants to shove another beer in his hands, but instead, he keeps going. “What? I’ve stayed at your house plenty! It’s not weird.”

“It’s…” Eddie says, kind of slow. “I have a couch. You have a recliner and a lot of boxes.”

Buck did not think about that. Or, maybe he did—maybe some deranged part of him wanted Eddie in the bed next to him, wanted his soft, easy breathing to stave off the scratching.

It’s not about the dream. Eddie’s not going to turn into a monster, and Buck’s not going to—

“I-I have an air mattress,” Buck announces. “I’ll dig it out. C’mon, Eddie.”

Eddie still has his arms crossed, almost defensive, and Buck’s already trying to find another avenue—figuring out a way to plead his case, because he needs it, bad, when Eddie drops his arms. “Okay, sure, if you think that’ll help… but we have to actually unpack.”

“Yes!” Buck jumps off the couch. “Let’s, uh… see which boxes the air mattresses ended up in.”

After a few boxes in the living room turn up nothing, Buck heads down the hall towards his bedroom. Buck’s bedroom is by far the creepiest part of the house. The hall’s not great, either, though. It’s too narrow. The shadows are too long; the air’s too thick.

Buck’s relieved when Eddie follows him because the floor’s creak with every step, and it’s more rhythmic when it’s both of them.

Or it is, until another noise halts them both. Something pinging, like a coin hitting the floor, and then it rattles, almost like rolling. Fear wrenches up Buck’s spine, but Eddie just raises his head, kind of curious, like he’s trying to find a source.

“Did you—”

Buck starts, but before he can finish, Eddie’s eyes blow wide, and his mouth comes open. This isn’t what he wanted; he doesn’t need Eddie scared too. This is supposed to fix things, and if Eddie freaks out and leaves…

“Oh,” Eddie says, and then his mouth ticks up like he’s about to laugh. “Oh my god, Buck, is that it? Are you… scared? Are you scared of your new house?”

A rush of heat smears Buck’s cheeks, down his neck, as the fear bends into humiliation. “Wh—no! Why would you—what are you talking about? I didn’t say anyth—stop looking at me like that.”

Eddie purses his mouth, but it can’t stop the laughter bubbling on his tongue. As mad as Buck wants to be, he loves it—he always loves it when Eddie laughs, especially when Eddie stops fighting it.

“I had no idea,” Eddie says, like Buck’s coming out all over again. “I mean, knew you were superstitious. I didn’t realize you were also a scaredy-cat.”

“I’m not!” Buck smacks his shoulder, mostly playful. “There’s just… you heard that, right? It’s weird. The house makes all kinds of freaky noises, and it’s weird! Hey, if you don’t stop… Eddie.”

“That’s…” Eddie covers his mouth, but his shoulders are shaking. “Is that why you asked me to stay? You want me to protect you from the big bad poltergeist? Let me get out my holy water.”

“Eddie,” Buck whines. 

“You're right,” Eddie says. “We shouldn't assume hostility. Do you have a ouija board? We can ask what it wants.” He ducks when Buck lunges for him, slips into Buck’s bedroom, still giggling.

“Shut up!” Buck chases and gets ahold of his elbow before Eddie wriggles free and gets around the opposite side of the bed, biting his lip, looking way too cute for the level of annoying he's being. “You’re an asshole.”

“Don't be mad,” Eddie says, hands up, trying so very hard to look serious. “Is this an Amityville situation? Are you hearing voices? I’m not trying to—”

Buck snatches a pillow off the bed and drills Eddie with it, knocking him back a step. “Can you not? I realize this is embarrassing, okay? That’s why I didn’t say anything.”

Eddie catches the pillow and throws it back at Buck, and there’s that look again—the one that makes this oppressive, terrible house feel breathable. “It’s fine. You’re ridiculous, but it’s fine. You know I used to do a walkthrough of Chris’s room—need me to do a house tour?”

Sadly, the idea isn’t unappealing, but Buck isn’t about to admit that. Instead, he groans. “I don’t—look, you heard that sound just now, right? It’s shit like that all the time. It’s creepy.”

Eddie tips his chin before something gentle spreads through him. “It’s an old house, Buck. The guy told you when you bought it that you’d probably hear a lot of noises from pipes and stuff, and that? Just now? Was definitely a nail popping out of place. It happens when wood settles. It’s not a ghost.”

“Oh.” Buck deflates a little. “I didn’t know that was a thing, b-but there’s this scratching when I’m trying to sleep sometimes…”

Eddie puts his hands on his hips and glances up, and god, he really is a dad sometimes. “Probably a raccoon or something. I can’t believe you’ve been struggling to sleep because you’re scared.”

“Can you stop saying it like that?”

Eddie waves him off. “Alright, alright, look—let’s unpack a little. This house is dark, kinda eerie. If you get your stuff into some of these spaces, they won’t be so…” He gestures vaguely.

Buck doesn’t mean to, but it comes out anyway. “I’m really glad you’re here.”

Eddie startles enough that it dusts his cheeks and ears pink, before he snorts. “So what are these boxes? Clothes? Decorations? I’m not helping you mount that ridiculous bike on the wall again.”

“It’s artistic,” Buck hisses.

Eddie rolls his eyes. “Do you even know how to ride a bike?”

“Yes, obviously I—that’s not the point.”

They sort out a few knickknacks before they get to Buck’s clothes, and Eddie wrestles with the bag of hangars Buck unceremoniously threw together because it was cheaper than buying the clothes hanging boxes the man at the hardware store tried to sell him.

Eddie finally gets a few shirts on hangars and clips them on the rod in the closet before he glances back towards Buck. “Look, buddy, no monsters.”

“Fuck you.” Buck shoves Eddie into the closet, hard enough that he hits the back of it with a thud. Eddie makes a sound, like it hurt, and then everything’s too quiet, long enough that Buck asks, “Eddie?”

Nothing.

The silence is yawning—strange, almost resonate quiet in the space between them. Buck never realizes how much, how easily, they talk until it goes away. His heartbeat kicks up, even as he asks, “Eddie, c’mon, man, this isn’t funny.”

He gropes, kind of blindly, towards the back of the closet. It’s not far. He should be able to find Eddie pretty easily, but his hand finds nothing but the hollow bang of the back wall.  

“Eddie?” Buck tries to keep the panic out of his voice. He keeps feeling, more urgent, desperate for something. Anything. The closet isn’t that big—there’s no way he… “Eddie!”

Then, he hears it at the same time that he feels it. His foot slides against something soft and moving, and the air lights up with this quiet, suffocated laughter. Relief and rage mingle in Buck’s chest, and he reaches down to haul Eddie back to his feet, slamming him into the back of the closet.

“You’re a dick,” Buck says.

Eddie swallows and swallows and eventually loses the fight and laughs a little too hard. He’s close enough that the breath of it sweeps across Buck’s lips, before he says, “Okay, I know that was mean. I had to. I’m done, I swear.”

“It was mean!” He’s still got Eddie pinned against the back of the closet, fingers settled on the curve of his bicep. “I’m sleep-deprived and grumpy, and you’re pushing it, Diaz.”

It’s so dark in the closet. All he can see is Eddie’s eyes backlit by his bedroom light, which, even in the shallow closet feels like a thousand miles away. Eddie’s breathing goes slow and heavy as he shifts beneath Buck’s hand.

Buck hangs on tighter. “Say you’re sorry.”

He can make out the stark outline of Eddie’s mouth—cast in velvet lines of shadow, set almost tauntingly over his jaw—can make out every syllable when Eddie says, “I’m sorry, Buck.”

Buck shudders because Eddie has gone still, and the sincerity of his apology is spilling through Buck almost as heavy as the way Eddie obeyed him. He wonders if he asked something else, something more, if Eddie would do it again.

Every piece of Buck goes thick and hot and heady. He’s thinking about things he shouldn’t think about. Buck’s not worried about scratches in the closet or nails in the wall. He’s worried about Eddie and how soft he feels beneath Buck’s hands, how pliant he is against the closet, how every breath he takes draws definition like nerve endings across Buck’s lips.

Buck presses in, a little further. Eddie’s breathing hitches, stalls, and Buck trembles over his mouth, before something gives, and there’s a real sensation of free fall to match the one in Buck’s chest.

The wall behind them swings open, and Buck flails blindly, frantic, before he topples and his chest lands hard and sharp against Eddie’s.

“Fuck,” Buck gasps, scrambling back. “Eddie, you okay?”

Eddie lets out this half-whine, half-groan.

Maybe it’s dangerous, since Buck’s still not sure what just happened, but he gets his hands on Eddie’s chest, up to his neck, his face, like he can find his heartbeat, his breathing, everything.

“Buck,” Eddie says, then clearer, “Buck, I’m good.” He catches Buck’s hand in his and sits up, and Buck feels more than sees him twist. “Did the wall just give out?”

“Maybe?”

Buck helps Eddie to his feet before he feels along the wall, searching for some kind of switch, but there’s nothing, until something clicks and he sees Eddie cast in a butter-yellow light where he’s pulled a chain in the ceiling.

They both figure it out, mostly because Buck follows Eddie’s gaze like a bodyguard would his charge. It wasn’t the wall giving out; it was a door. The closet was never shallow. A piece of it was sectioned off for this room.

And the room is doing nothing for Buck’s fears.

It’s claustrophobic, exposed beams near the ceiling and subfloor planks along the floor, slots laden with cobwebs and dirt. Burned-out candles are stacked in the corners, and at the center, there’s a symbol painted in what might be red spray paint—a symbol that looks like two interlocking triangles with a slash through the center.

There’s nothing inherently bad about the symbol, but the context sets Buck’s nerves on edge. He can’t pull his eyes away from it or the ritualistic knife at its center.

“What the hell?” he eventually gets out.

Eddie takes a few more breaths before he holds a nail out to Buck. “This is probably what we heard fall out earlier. Must’ve been keeping the door shut.”

Buck blinks at the nail and pockets it because that seems like the only thing to do. “Any rational explanation for the rest of this?”

Eddie sighs. “One of the previous owners must’ve been into some occult stuff or something,” he decides. “We should just clear it out.”

“Absolutely not!” Buck says. “Wh-what if it’s… we can’t just starting touching stuff. Have you never seen a horror movie? This is fucked up.”

Eddie rocks back on his heels, looking over the carnage they’ve just uncovered. All of this is weird, the candles, the symbol. Buck’s eyes follow the faded lines of the paint, up the leather-hilted knife to the blade.

"Is your plan to just leave this here?" Eddie asks. "Because I don't think you're gonna get less scared now that there was apparently a ritualistic sacrifice in your closet."

Buck frowns. He's not wrong. "I-I don't know. I just wish you'd take this seriously."

"I am," Eddie says. "That's why I want to clear it out, so you can sleep."

"Y-you still think this is just in my head?"

Eddie sighs. 

“This is where I heard the scratching,” Buck says. “It can’t be a coincidence.”

And then, he hears it again, this soft, quiet scraping, that slowly builds in his consciousness. His eyes sweep over the corners, the shattered debris in their wake, maybe bones, maybe something else.

It gets louder, and Buck grabs onto Eddie’s wrist, clinging, desperate. Something’s in here; he knows something is in here, and it makes him hold onto Eddie too tight, all tangled around his arm.

“Buck,” Eddie says, like he’s comforting a child.

The scratching worsens. It’s like it’s inside Buck’s skull, clamoring, trying to get out, trying to spill his brains across the symbol in front of him to do whatever magic it never got to do before Brett or Jacob or Henry or someone boarded it up. Or maybe magic it’s already done. Magic it’ll do again and again.

The noise boils to a head, and twists, slowly, into a shrieking, squealing sound. Movement breaks near the far corner of the room. Buck chokes and half tackles Eddie into the wall. He can’t tell if he’s trying to protect or bury himself in him, but after a few seconds, Eddie lets out a wispy laugh that sets Buck at ease.

“It’s rats,” Eddie whispers. “You have rats.”

“Rats?” Buck peaks out from where he’s pressed himself into Eddie’s shoulder, and he sees one of them sniffing, skittering around, desperate for a food source. “Wait…”

Eddie brings a comforting hand between Buck’s shoulder blades. “You can wait outside. Let me clean this up. It’s fucked up, but it’s not supernatural. There’s probably some old food stuck somewhere. You might need an exterminator, but it’s just rats, Buck.”

As desperate as he is to leave, the idea of leaving Eddie in here, alone, is on par with prostrating himself over the symbol and making the world’s creepiest snow angels. “I’m not leaving you in here!”

“You’re scared,” Eddie says. “I’m not. Here, let’s go to the kitchen. I’ll grab a garbage bag and maybe a sponge…”

“Eddie,” Buck tries.

Eddie leads Buck out, and he’s holding his hand, and Buck’s so enamored with it that he doesn’t stop it. He just follows to the kitchen and watches as Eddie grabs some soap, a sponge, and a garbage bag before he heads back down the hall.

Eddie let go of his hand almost five minutes ago, but Buck can still feel the fingerprints over his knuckles.

“Wait, Eddie,” Buck finally finds his voice as Eddie slips back into the closet and starts clearing the debris near the candles. “Wh-why don’t we call, like… a priest or something to…”

Eddie lifts his head, then his eyebrows, to settle on Buck. “The only priest who’d be willing to come look at this is a scam artist. Oh, hey…” He reaches towards a leather-bound book, maybe a journal, then thumbs it open. “I swear, only you would buy the house of some occult-obsessed eccentric.”

“What is it?” Buck winces, but he does kinda want to know.

Eddie’s brow furrows. “Mostly just drawings like the one over there. Oh, wow. Oh, fun a ritual. There’s a lot of Latin, something about cleansing the soul.” He tilts his head at one of the pages. “Maybe you should hold onto this in case Billy Boils comes back?”

Eddie chuckles and tosses him the book, and Buck just barely catches it. “Ha-ha.”

The journal is flimsy, and dust filters into the air. He can’t imagine how old this stuff is. There’s no name on it. Maybe it was Henry Caldwell. Maybe it was one of the other names.

“Can you at least admit it’s pretty freaking weird that I was already getting a bad vibe, and then we find this in my closet?” Buck asks.

“I’m not saying it’s not… a hell of a coincidence,” Eddie concedes. “But things like this draw rats and all kinds of stuff, and rats make noises. It’s got a pretty logical explanation if you don’t let yourself get swept up in it.”

Buck huffs, resisting the urge to step in and bodily yank Eddie out of the damn space. He shouldn’t be in there. But then, Buck’s not about to sleep next to all this stuff either.

Buck watches Eddie kneel to collect more of the detritus before the guilt starts to fester. “C’mon, you don’t need to… Eddie, stop.”

“I came over to help you sleep,” Eddie says, not looking up. “That’s what I’m doing.”

Buck shakes his head and steps over the threshold, further in than he has before, to get a hand on Eddie’s shoulder. “I don’t feel like dealing with this tonight, and I’m not going to stand here and watch while you do. I’ll pay someone to clean it later, okay? Maybe we can just… share the air mattress tonight.”

Eddie looks up, eyes wide and dead set on the directive he’s given himself. There’s something soft, almost cute about the expression, enough that it feels criminally negligent to let him do even a modicum of manual labor.

“That’s exactly why I wanna clean it,” Eddie explains. “You got no shot of staying in this room if we don’t.”

“Let’s go watch a movie,” Buck pleads and pulls, and eventually, Eddie comes off the floor. “I'll get rid of it during the day, when it's light outside. It's too dark. I don’t want to be in here, and I don’t want you to be in here either.”

“There's no windows in here, why's it matter?” Eddie is always so practical, a trait that Buck oscillates between adoring and wanting to strangle out of him. Currently, the needle’s pointed straight at the latter.

The light isn't the issue. But Buck doesn't know how to explain that there’s this pervasive, crushing fear that this room is going to take Eddie from him, like one second too long and he’ll lose the only safe harbor he’s got left.

Eddie shoves several of the candles into the still-open trash bag. Buck grits his teeth but helps, if only because it’ll speed things up, and then, all that’s left is the book Buck’s still holding, the smudged, still-drawn symbol of the floor, and the knife in the middle of it.

It’s just lying there. Despite everything, perfectly at the center of the symbol drawn on the subflooring. Buck stares at it, trying to sort everything out when he realizes Eddie is about to grab it.

He opens his mouth to stop him, but there’s whispering, laced through the scratching, and he doesn’t—he just stands there and watches as Eddie grabs the hilt of the blade.

The air pulses, and Eddie freezes almost immediately. He stays bent over for too long. His hand tenses around the leather, almost seizing, and Eddie makes this strangled sound before his hand twitches, like he’s trying to let go but can’t. He can’t and can’t and can’t, and too late, Buck says, “Don’t touch that.”

Eddie’s eyes come up to Buck, and they’re wide, almost scared, before he shakes it off. He’s still holding the knife too tight, where he’s got it over the garbage bag, still trying to let it go.

“Eddie?” Buck asks.

Eddie doesn’t look at him. He glares at the knife, like he’s fighting with it. His knuckles have gone white, like he’s straining, but he’s not letting go. He’s just hanging onto it, and the moment goes on forever—until Buck takes a step forward.

“Eddie, let go.”

Eddie gasps, and the knife falls into the black bag.

Miraculously, it doesn’t cut through the bottom.

“Eddie?” Buck tries again, pleading this time.

“Yeah?” Eddie asks, like nothing’s wrong, but his hand is coiled towards his chest—like he burned it.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah.”

They share the air mattress, and despite everything, it’s the best Buck’s slept in weeks.

~

Eddie’s already awake when Buck gets up. He’s sitting at the kitchen table, hands wrapped around a mug. He doesn’t react when Buck walks in. He looks pale—clammy, sick, maybe, and Buck can see the uneven rhythm of his breathing clear across the kitchen.

“Eddie?”

He jumps, like he’s forgotten where he is, and his eyes soften when they see Buck. “Oh, hey, you’re up.”

His voice is hoarse.

“Yeah,” Buck says. “Did, uh, did you not sleep good?”

“I slept fine,” Eddie says, rushed like he’s panicking. “Just went a little too hard on the beer last night. Feel kinda hungover, had some… weird dreams.”

“Wh-why don’t I make breakfast?” Buck says, digging through his cabinets to find the pancake mix.

“You don’t need to do that,” Eddie says. He’s slumped in the chair, not moving, and the thing about Eddie is that he’s always moving. He doesn’t sit still, not like this, but right now, it looks like Buck would have to peel him off the chair to get him up. Like gravity’s turned up too high.

It’s a coincidence, Buck tells himself. They did have a lot to drink last night, and Eddie went hard trying to clean out that room. Being tired makes sense. It would be weirder if he wasn’t.

“I want to,” Buck says, and he considers asking what time Eddie needs to get Chris, but if he does that, he’s liable to have him rushing out the door. Chris can manage a few extra hours with his friend if it means Buck gets the same.

He rifles through the cabinets to find a bowl to mix up the pancake batter, but before he pours it into a skillet, he walks over and presses the back of his hand to Eddie’s forehead.

It’s warm. Warmer than it ought to be, but the more unnerving part is that Eddie doesn’t respond, not when Buck feels his head, not when Buck slides it down his temple, to his cheek, not when he lets it linger, not until Buck’s breathing has gotten shallow and hungry and loud, and finally, finally, Eddie jolts and draws back.

“You’re hot,” Buck says, then winces. “I-I mean, like, a fever. I think you have a fever.”

“You think?” Eddie asks, then puts a hand to his own head like that’s going to do any good. “I should… I need to get Chris.”

“Just,” Buck hedges, “just see if you can eat something first, okay?”

“I’m fine, Buck,” Eddie says, but it’s a little slurry, like he’s still three beers in. “Just give me some of… whatever you’re making, and I gotta… I gotta go get Chris.”

The way he’s talking, the way he’s barely moving, it raises the hairs on the back of Buck’s neck, but he obliges and sets a plate in front of Eddie when the pancakes are done. It takes Eddie a few seconds, but inevitably, he cuts off a piece of pancake, then another one.

Buck watches him; Eddie only takes one bite.

Eventually, he pushes the chair out and gets to his feet, a little unsteady. “Alright, I should go. Thanks for…” Eddie gestures like he’s forgotten the word for breakfast or pancakes or everything. “I’ll see you?”

Buck frowns but stands. “You didn’t eat anything.”

“I ate plenty,” Eddie says, clearer now, as he heads towards the front door. “And I gotta go, Buck. I’m already late.”

“You should take something,” Buck tries, and he’s so much faster than Eddie right now—it’s taking everything in him not to ram into the back of him. “Advil or something.”

“Nah.” Eddie’s smile is wry, and he finally gets back to his full height as he faces Buck. “I’m the one who drank too much. I’ll deal with the consequences.”

“Eddie.” Buck frowns. Eddie’s done this before; it’s bothered Buck before, but he’s never looked quite this bad. “You have a fever.”

“I don’t have a fever,” Eddie says. “You just have cold hands.”

They step out into the balmy LA air, and Eddie falters a little on the porch, enough that Buck reacts by catching him around the waist. “Hey.”

Eddie makes a sound, not quite a whine or a whimper—not quite anything—something low and unraveling, and for a beat, he leans into Buck, like he needs him; then, he shoulders Buck away and watches him, a little glassy-eyed. “Hey, call someone to finish clearing out that room, okay? You need to sleep, and it is pretty creepy.”

“Eddie,” Buck repeats, sharper.

“Oh, I can’t come over tonight,” Eddie says. “I need to spend some time with Chris, and…” He glances at his hand like it’s got an answer. “It’s possible I’m getting sick. Just… clear out the room and use the air mattress for a little bit if you need to. It seems like you slept pretty good last night.”

“That was because y—”

Eddie’s head tilts, an almost birdlike motion, too quick and too fragile. It startles Buck out of finishing, or maybe convinces him that he shouldn’t have started in the first place.

“Text me when you get home?” Buck asks.

“Yeah, yeah,” Eddie says.

But Eddie doesn’t text, and he doesn’t answer Buck’s, either. If nothing else, it keeps Buck’s mind off his house. Nothing creaks, or he doesn’t hear it. He doesn’t even think enough to clean or call someone about the creepy crawl space like Eddie told him to.

He’s trying not to stare at the time on his phone, trying not to think of how long it’s been—trying not to worry. Eventually, he gives in and texts Chris, who answers pretty quickly and says Eddie picked him up and he’s home.

tell him to text me back

tell him yourself

he’s not answering, that’s why I’m texting you

is he ok? he seemed sick this morning

seems fine

Chris is a teenager so Buck’s not sure what kind of reassurance he expected, but the texts do nothing to calm his nerves. Nothing calms his nerves, and it’s almost half past seven—late enough that Buck’s got a threat typed in his phone if Eddie doesn’t answer in the next hour, when someone knocks on his door.

Buck lifts his head, thumb hovering over the send button before he walks over and opens the door.

The sight almost knocks him off his feet. It’s Eddie, looking much better than he did this morning, shoulder against the door frame, mouth pursed, eyebrow raised, like he belongs on a magazine shoot, not Buck’s front porch.

“Eddie?” Buck whispers. “I thought…”

“Thought what?” Eddie steps forward, crowding Buck’s space almost immediately, and Buck just lets him.

“Y-you said you weren’t—you said you needed to spend time with Christopher.”

Eddie’s laugh is strange, more musical than usual—almost haunting, and he holds Buck’s eyes with this challenge of a smile. “Eh, he ran off to El Paso for six months. I don’t think a few hours is gonna kill him. Besides, he can barely stand talking to me anyway…” He licks his lower lip, and he’s slow about it, like he knows Buck’s watching. “You seem to like talking to me.”

“What?” Buck half-pants, then staggers back, trying to catch his breath. Eddie seizes the moment and steps inside. “I-I mean, yeah, I like talking to you. I-is… is everything okay?”

“Yes,” Eddie says, fingering the wallpaper like he’s considering ripping it off before he looks at Buck. “Why wouldn’t everything be okay?”

“Just… this morning…” Buck’s having trouble finding his words, because Eddie’s looking at him, and then he’s walking towards him, all feline, like he’s waiting for Buck to reach out and pet him. And, god, Buck fucking wants to. “You seemed sick.”

Eddie grabs Buck’s hand and sets it against his cheek, never breaking eye contact. “And do I seem sick now?”

The skin is still warm, and it prickles beneath Buck’s palm, but it isn’t as clammy as it was this morning. Still, something’s off, and it’s more than the way Buck doesn’t want to stop touching him. It’s something big—something dangerous.

“I don’t…” Buck starts, but the eye contact is so heavy, like Eddie’s waiting, begging for something. “No, no, I-I guess… not. You seem fine.”

“Fine?” Eddie hangs onto his hand and closes the space between them; his next words mist Buck’s mouth when he says, “Just fine?”

“Good.” Buck almost chokes on it. “Great.”

“Thanks.” Eddie grins, sliding back and stepping further into the living room. “Doesn’t look like you got much unpacking done, almost like you were standing around waiting for me to call you all day.”

Buck should deny it. Should do something for his dignity, but he doesn’t. “I was worried. You weren’t answering my texts.”

“I was busy,” Eddie says, “but I’m here now.”

“Y-yeah,” Buck gets out. “You definitely are.”

Eddie whirls, eyes bright. “I’m betting you never cleaned up that room, huh? Is the garbage bag still back there? Damn, you are useless without me.” He slots his fingers around Buck’s elbow and tugs him towards the bedroom.

“Eddie,” Buck says, but they’re inside his bedroom before Buck can muster any real resistance, and Eddie’s already looking at him with that same, starving expression. “Eddie, what’s going on? You seem weird.”

“Weird?” Eddie asks. “I think the word you used earlier was good, great, even.”

“Yeah, but…”

Eddie leans into him, settles a finger against his lips. His mouth moves like he’s going to shush him, but he doesn’t, just stands there and lets his finger slide a little against Buck’s mouth. “You said my name while you were sleeping last night.”

The words knock the wind out of Buck. He stumbles back, and Eddie doesn’t stop him, just tilts his head again. “I-I… I mean, that’s not that weird, after everything—and we were sleeping together.”

“You got hard,” Eddie says simply. “I saw it…” Then, with this purse of his mouth, this raise of his eyebrows. “I felt it.”

“Jesus.” Buck can’t breathe. He stumbles a few steps back and ends up on a wall, still staring at Eddie, in his bedroom, looking shadowed and sinuous. “That doesn’t… okay, what is going on here, Eddie?”

“You tell me,” Eddie answers, all husky, and fuck—it roars through Buck, builds in the center of him until he’s on fire.

This isn’t normal. This isn’t Eddie, and yet, Buck’s throat is dry, and his dick is hard, and all he can think is that he wants it. All he can think is that he doesn’t know how to fight this. Doesn’t know how to say no to it.

All he can think is that he wants Eddie.

Buck swallows as a laugh wrestles free of his mouth. “Listen, maybe we should just… didn’t you say you wanted to see the…” He can’t figure out how to end any of his sentences.

Eddie blinks at him, like he doesn’t understand, then flinches, hand unsteady as he reaches for his neck, trembling. There’s this thunderclap that visibly ruptures through him, this tension that takes hold and brings Buck back to attention.

“Hey?” Buck grabs his arm. “Eddie, what’s going on?”

When Eddie looks up, though, the tension bleeds out of him, even quicker than it came, and he grins, twisting to get two fingers on Buck’s chest to shove him onto the bed. “What’s going on is I need some relief, and I think you do too.”

Buck’s back hits the blanket, and he pulls up onto his arms, wide-eyed as he watches Eddie. This is insane. Eddie is his best friend, his person—his everything. And sex, Buck knows what sex does to a relationship, but that’s what Eddie’s saying, isn’t it? That’s what the look in his eyes means?

“What’s gotten into you?” Buck asks.

Eddie laughs. It’s pretty, but different—sharp-edged and foreign. “Not you, that’s for sure.”

This doesn’t make sense; the words feel shoved down Buck’s windpipe, and he’s choking on them. “Eddie, we’ve never—is this… what you want?”

“Is it what you want?” Eddie asks; if nothing else, he’s waiting, eyeing Buck on the bed with tempered curiosity.

Buck can’t figure out how to work his jaw.

Eddie’s asking him if sex, with him, with Eddie, is what Buck wants. If Buck wants to fuck Eddie. He thinks back to Tommy again, to the competition, to how hard he’s fought against it, how scared he’s been of it, and now it’s staring straight at him and everything’s wrong and weird and yes, yes, yes, yes. All Buck wants is to say yes.

“Let me rephrase,” Eddie says thoughtfully, “am I what you want?”

Eddie wouldn’t ask that question. That’s the inherent safety, the inherent nightmare of their relationship. Eddie Diaz would never ask that question, and yet he’s asking it.

“I… I don’t know how to answer that.”

Eddie grins, like it’s funny; he’s so pretty, Buck can’t stop thinking about it—like fireworks going off in his brain, over and over. Eddie is gorgeous, and it’s like he’s fought the thought for so fucking long, and now it won’t stop coming. He’s fucking breathtaking.

Pretty as he slides over Buck, knees bracketing either side of Buck’s hips. “Maybe I can help.”

Eddie is straddling him. Buck feels the shape of Eddie’s dick through his pants, and Eddie knows it. His grin widens because Buck’s looking at him and he’s looking at Buck, and both of them are hard and wanting and fuck.

The wild look in Eddie’s expression settles into a smirk as he glides his fingers down the column of Buck’s neck, slow over his chest. His lashes are long and dark, fluttering over his cheeks as he watches his fingers on Buck’s skin, and Buck watches him watch it.

A knot sticks in his throat, and everything in him is panting and over-exposed.

Eddie doesn’t stop, hand trailing down, down, until he’s got the button of Buck’s jeans undone, until Buck’s pants are at his feet, and Eddie’s got his palm pressed over Buck’s cock through his boxers. “I always knew you were big, but damn.”

Buck squeezes his eyes shut because Eddie Diaz has his hand on Buck’s erection and he’s talking about it, palming it, curious and thoughtful, like he knows all the places to press to ramp the tension, to make Buck lightheaded.

“Eddie,” Buck says, and he means for it to be cautionary, this thin line to drag Eddie, the Eddie he knows, back to the surface. To make sure everything’s okay. But it comes out heavy, hoarse with want.

Eddie’s eyes flick up to Buck’s obediently as his eyebrows lift. “Too much for you?”

Every word Buck’s ever known evaporates on his tongue, and he stares, wide-eyed at the man on top of him. He can’t even form a thought anymore, nothing beyond the idea of letting Eddie Diaz straddle him, the idea of Eddie’s body grinding slow and easy into Buck’s.

“Or is it not enough?” Eddie grabs the bottom hem of his shirt and pulls it over his head so Buck’s staring at the full length of his chest, the scant patch of hair in the center, the way it folds into his waist like a fucking sculpture—

“Fuck,” Buck groans, and he grabs onto Eddie’s waist, fingers sprawled until he’s got his hand halfway around it. He’s seen him shirtless before, been dizzy with it. The pinprick waist that feathers out into that lean, corded stretch of chest—the cut of his arms, the curve of his shoulders, and his collarbone—it’s borderline vulgar, how it paints and pools shadows over him.

Buck doesn’t mean to, but his hand skates up to catch the side of Eddie’s neck, to squeeze, and his teeth grit with it. He doesn’t mean to tug, but Eddie comes, anyway, close enough that their breathing mingles together.

Buck’s thumb settles against Eddie’s pulsepoint. It’s too slow: this heady, thump-thump, like it’s in slow motion. Buck’s is pounding, aching for this. He can feel it weaving through Eddie’s under his fingertips, and Eddie’s—it’s barely there. He’s looking at Buck like he wants this, like he needs it, but his heart…

Eddie doesn’t wait. He slides himself up further, pressed hard against Buck’s cock. It’s more than Buck’s ever imagined he’d feel, but it’s still not enough; there’s still too much trapped between layers of clothing. His dick aches for it—throbs with the idea of Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie.

Buck’s other hand slips down, settles on the soft curve of Eddie’s ass and squeezes—in time with his fingers on Eddie’s throat. All he wants to do is squeeze, squeeze and tug and pull, until Eddie is tattooed into the shape of his hands, his cock, his mouth.

Eddie grinds into Buck again, an easy, almost perfect rhythm, and a breathy, desperate sounds slips between his teeth.

Buck stares up at him, half-dazed, at his mouth, pink and a little swollen with effort as Eddie drives into him harder. He’s riding him—Eddie’s riding him, but there’s too much between them, too much cotton and confusion, and Buck’s leaking in his boxers, hot and sticky and—Buck hasn’t even kissed him.

“Eddie,” Buck tries again, “Eddie, look at me.”

Eddie does, after a second, and there’s that almost glassy look in his eyes again—the same one from this morning, and suddenly, the heat of Eddie’s skin is wrong, too bright. Feverish.

“Hang on,” Buck forces out, fighting the muscles in his own throat.

Eddie’s hand flies up to catch Buck’s hand before it falls away from his neck. His heartbeat never changes. This constant, sluggish thrum. Even as Eddie presses Buck’s hand harder into the skin, and Buck closes his eyes against the surge of want.

“I know you want this, Buck,” Eddie whispers.

Buck’s mouth opens. There’s no denying he wants this. Every cell, every scrap, every fiber of him wants this, but something is wrong. This morning, Eddie was sick—barely upright, and now he’s riding Buck like he’s been doing it all his life.

“Not like this,” Buck barely gets out.

Eddie’s eyes shutter, and he drops Buck’s hand, drops everything, and hops off him like it never happened in the first place. He’s a couple steps away before Buck pulls himself upright on the bed.

“Fine,” Eddie says. “You don’t want it.”

“That’s not…” Buck aches with the loss of him. His dick is spilling enough come into his boxers that it’s dripping down his legs. “E-Eddie, c’mon, we haven’t…” Buck can’t get out the words I haven’t even kissed you yet. He can’t get out the words I want do this right. He can’t get out anything but, “Don’t you think this is kinda fast?”

Eddie slips back into his shirt as easily as he slid out of it. “Sure.”

“Eddie,” Buck pleads. “O-of course I want you. I just… can we talk?”

“Of course you want me?” Eddie smooths his shirt, cocking his head when he meets Buck’s eyes again. “Really? It’s been almost a decade, and the closest you’ve come to doing anything for me was breaking my ankle and proximity fucking that ugly old man who wanted me first.”

Buck stumbles back hard enough that he’s sitting on the bed again. “Wh—”

“I’m done waiting,” Eddie says, cutting, like a butcher’s knife, and Buck feels like the raw meat beneath the blade because he bleeds—bleeds even after he’s long dead. “See you around?”

Eddie’s halfway to the door before Buck gets up, boxers still soaked, and catches his wrist. “Eddie, please—slow down… can we please talk?”

“We’ve talked enough.” Eddie slips his wrist free, flexing it thoughtfully. “Later, Buck.”

He leaves, and Buck’s legs give out.