Chapter Text
When you open a tube of glitter, you’ll find tiny specs of it for the rest of your life. That is one of the known facts of the universe. Glitter. Never. Leaves. It doesn’t matter how often you vacuum, or shower; it will always be there. A new part of you that you’ll never lose.
To Eddie, that was nonsense. How could glitter never go away. Surely his cousin had been exaggerating when she told him her daughter’s glittery skirt left trails around their house and school. But then Chris decided his fifth grade art project needed something to make it pop. And Eddie understood.
It goes like this: glitter comes into your life, does what it came to do, then sticks around. Like a friend who needed a place to crash for “a few days” and stayed for six months. Except it stays indefinitely. Hundreds of years from now, the house may be gone, but the glitter will sink into the dirt, waiting until someone new comes around to latch onto.
When put like that, glitter kind of sounds like a leach. But unlike a leach, it doesn’t expect anything from you. Doesn’t drain you of your blood or other resources. It just… stays. Hangs around sparkling whenever light hits it, almost giving the home a sense of… whimsey. In every way, it's preferable to a leach.
Especially when it bears a striking resemblance to love.
It shows up when you least expect it. Forcing its way into your life and filling every corner of your dwelling. Every inch of your body, house, mind, is covered, and you're completely helpless to it. Even when you try to ignore it, denying what you’re feeling deep in your chest, it’s there. You can’t enter a single room of your house without seeing it. It doesn’t matter how long you look away. It’s not going anywhere.
But who the hell compares glitter to love? Not Eddie. He hates glitter.
It has been six years. Six. Years. Since Chris insisted on adding glitter to a school art project. And Eddie’s still finding the damn stuff. Somehow it managed to survive three separate moves without getting lost. Three. It’s ridiculous.
Even when he’s not thinking about it, he’ll turn a corner and boom. A sparkle at the corner of his eye. Eddie’s tried deep cleaning the house so many times to get rid of it but it always stays. But that’s not going to stop him from trying again. Unfortunately though, Eddie somehow lost every bit of cleaning supplies he owns. Hell, he can’t even find his dish soap refill - something Buck had insisted he buy instead of buying a whole new bottle every time he ran out.
Thankfully though, Eddie knew Chris was a master at finding lost things. Unless they’re his own things, but Eddie’s not looking for Chris’ phone right now. So with one last forlorn look under the kitchen sink, Eddie makes his way out to the living room.
“Chris!” He calls, making it to his son’s door in a few long strides. “Do you know where the cleaning stuff is?”
He hears some shuffling on the other side of the door, then a slightly muffled, “It’s in the kitchen!”
Maybe Chris wasn’t a master.
“I just looked there!”
He then hears a sigh, an actual sigh from the fifteen year old, and some more shuffling before Chris himself appears. He looks just as unimpressed as Eddie feels with the boy’s attitude, and wordlessly moves past his father, leading him back towards the kitchen.
“Chris, I’m telling you. I just checked in here.”
“Not hard enough.” Chris mutters, and Eddie feels a spark of offense.
It’s quickly overshadowed by confusion when Chris bypasses the sink and walks over to the far side of the kitchen to a completely different cupboard and stops. He looks expectantly at his dad, and Eddie walks over and crouches down to investigate, and low and behold, all of his cleaning supplies are there.
“Why the hell are they over here?” He asks aloud, though not specifically to Chris.
The teen answers anyway, with a shrug. “That’s where Buck put them.”
Buck. Eddie’s heart aches when he thinks of the other man. It’s only been two days since Buck stopped staying with them, insisting he was okay enough to go home. The word “home” was like a sword to Eddie’s heart. He misses when Buck saw this house as home. And maybe that’s selfish. Wanting everything to go back to the way it was before Texas. Eddie is the one who tore their family apart. He has no right to force Buck back into it if he… if he doesn’t want to be.
But it’s hard not to think about what might have been, had Eddie not been a complete idiot and mess everything up with Kim. Especially now, when Eddie is staring proof of Buck’s presence right in the face. Really what Eddie should be focusing on is that he apparently hasn’t cleaned anything since Buck originally moved out months ago. But the only thing on his mind is Buck.
God, Buck’s like my own personal glitter. He thinks somewhat bitterly. Then he stops. Freezes. Wait…
He quickly rises from his crouch, startling Chris who had been watching him curiously as he stared down their cleaning supplies. Chris opens his mouth, saying something - probably asking what the hell is wrong with Eddie - but Eddie isn’t hearing him. His mind is racing too fast for him to keep up with, scanning every inch of the kitchen, flashes of Buck near blinding with the speed of them. Memory after memory, hitting him hard and leaving him breathless.
Shit.
He practically runs out of the kitchen, leaving a baffled Christopher behind, and the flashes continue. Everywhere he looks, he sees Buck. Hears him, smells him. It’s like he’s really there. Photographs litter the walls and shelves, the three of them smiling like a real family. Focusing on the bookshelf, Eddie sees at least ten books that Buck bought. Even a few trinkets he could’ve taken with him when he left but didn’t.
He’s everywhere. Eddie’s little joke is becoming more and more real by the second, and his heart is hammering in his chest. Left, right, up, down, it’s just Buck. Buck Buck Buck. A piece of himself he can never lose. No matter what happens; tsunamis, lawsuits, moving states. Buck’s always there.
Like glitter.
“Dad?” Chris’ voice finally cuts through the mess. “Are you okay?”
Eddie’s eyes find his son’s, and even there. Even in Chris. Eddie sees Buck.
“Uh, yeah.” He hears himself say, but it’s hardly convincing. “Yeah, I-I’m fine. I just…” Think I’m in love with Buck.
“Dad.”
“Sorry, what?” Eddie asks, his eyes snapping back to Chris. When did they leave?
Chris looks fully concerned now, and Eddie feels a pang of guilt for worrying him. He takes a deep breath, trying to calm down his beating heart, then offers a small smile.
“I’m okay, Chris.” He assures the boy. “I just… realised something.”
All of the worry Chris showed on his face vanishes in an instant, replaced by a mix of shock and excitement. Eddie has no idea what that look is about, but he’s starting to think his feelings for Buck might have been obvious to everyone but him. God, this explains so many of Hen’s knowing looks. Despite being ninety percent sure he knows why Chris is so pleased, he still has to ask.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
Chris is practically vibrating, the biggest smile Eddie’s seen on him in years on his face. “You realised something.”
“Yeah.” Eddie says, wishing Chris would just spit out what he’s thinking. “What do you think it is?”
Chris has the audacity to roll his eyes, but the happiness doesn’t leave them. “You love Buck.”
Hearing the words spoken out loud isn’t as terrifying as he thought it would be. And hearing it from Chris, and not in any negative way, just cements the feeling that the three of them are meant to be a family. Suddenly, Eddie’s hit with images of the future, and what their lives could be, if only he was brave enough to make it real.
“I have to tell him.” Eddie says.
Buck has to feel the same way. He has to. There have been too many moments between them; too many lingering looks, and touches, and words. They’ve both fallen apart when the other was hurt, barely holding on without the certainty that they were okay. Both fought so hard for the other.
Buck fighting a tsunami to keep Chris safe and bring him home to Eddie.
Buck digging through the earth to save Eddie from the well collapse.
Buck dragging Eddie under a fire truck after he had been shot.
Eddie running up the ladder to Buck after the lightning strike, not caring that he had just been struck back by the same one.
Eddie, just a few weeks ago, breaking out of a hospital and searching that small town to find Buck. He was willing to kill for Buck. Something he never thought he’d do again after his time in the army. But if it meant finding Buck alive and bringing him home? He’d do it in a heartbeat. And Buck? Buck was willing to die for him. For Eddie to get home to Chris.
It had taken Buck weeks to confess that. The self-sacrificing idiot, thinking any of them could survive without him. Eddie’s heart shattered when Buck said it, revealing he would do anything to ensure Chris didn’t lose another parent. What he didn’t seem to understand is that he is one of Chris’ parents. And Chris would handle losing Buck just as well as he would losing Eddie.
“I have to tell him.” Eddie says again, louder and without a shred of doubt.
“Then go tell him.” Chris says, impatient as ever. Then, softer. “I want him to come back, dad.”
Eddie’s heart clenches at the vulnerability in his son’s voice. He knows Chris loves Buck just as much as he does, and nothing is going to stop him from bringing their family back together.
“I’ll bring him home.”