Work Text:
Eddie is a straight man. Eddie is family-oriented. Eddie has a Silver Star.
He’s a great father, effective medic, the kind of teammate you trust to fix things where others might freeze.
He buys coffee for his coworkers and keeps their orders saved neatly in his phone’s notes app. He launches himself off bridges so no one else has to. He effortlessly throws himself into sending a message, shoving, punching, grabbing a fistful of someone’s shirt, if he needs to.
He shows up - for Buck’s baking experiments, for May’s secret Substack, for Harry’s DnD meme Instagram page (which he doesn't quite understand, but Chris finds funny), for Hen’s International Pride Alliance events, even for Josh’s insult comedy career (okay, that one isn’t real, but for the record, he still thinks could’ve worked if anyone had listened).
Chris, his son, is his pride and joy; Eddie would do anything for him (no, not let him get a Hildy, he’s not that irresponsible). Everything else bends around that truth.
Eddie has a Silver Star!
And if that were all - if no one looked any closer, if nothing deeper was ever asked of him - he thinks he could live with that version of himself. It’s a good summary. More than good enough; most people don’t get to have such a full life. There’s always more, sure, but what does that matter? He has a son to raise, a firehouse to stand with, a home and bills and responsibilities that fill the hours. And besides, trying to be known - truly known - has never ended well for him.
So, he rattles around these musings, allowing a brief, but lingering moment to feel sorry for himself as a treat, albeit one he can’t savour:
No one remembers 2004’s State Open, not his outfit, not the song he chose for that winning ballroom performance. Sure, there was the applause, the heat of the lights, the brief, glittering certainty that he was seen - all of it gone, a single droplet swept away in the river of other people’s lives. No one knows how, after the celebration died down and his family’s congratulations waned, he sat alone in his bedroom window, legs dangling into the Texas night air, staring up at a sky that felt too wide to hold onto.
No one alive knows how nervous he was when he proposed to Shannon, even in the looming certainly that she would say yes. Or how he cried tightly into his pillow the night he found out he was going to be a father. Cried without understanding why.
No one knows how carefully he arranges his bookshelves, the way he studies a sentence for its weight and rhythm, his opinions on writers’ voices echoing in his head like half-remembered conversations. The ideas of novels he’s been carrying for years, living somewhere just out of reach, as if naming them might make them disappear.
How he finds comfort in routine: the clean drag of a razor across his cheeks, the methodical rounding of his nails.
He loves the burn of a workout; the sharp, righteous adrenaline of stepping into someone else’s crisis; the rush of wind through his car windows and an iced coffee in hand strong enough to kill a Victorian child.
It all jolts him into being. It answers him back. It makes sense.
People might rightly assume he’d go to his grave praying for Chris to be watched over. They would not guess he’s still praying to be forgiven for not loving Sharon enough, in the right ways, to save her.
And it’s in that crowded space of thought that Eddie stands now, staring into the sterile white light of his open refrigerator, one hand braced against the door, his attention fixed on the fifth bottle in a six-pack like it might offer him salvation.
He picks it up, jumps on the couch, and knocks the cap off so it skitters across the coffee table.
After the first biting swig, he checks his phone for any updates from Chris’ sleepover. Nothing, no reason to keep checking (except, he does). He won’t say the ‘Q’ word, won’t even mouth it, but the thought hovers, uneasy and persistent.
If something were to go wrong, he knows Buck would step in to rescue Chris; Eddie leans on that certainly more than he likes to admit.
Another sip.
The television murmurs on in front of him and his gaze fixes on a film too dim to follow, his eyes too blurred to hold it in focus. A story is happening, it's just cloaked behind poor lighting and indecipherable movement and no subtitles. Dialogue melts before it can even land. Eddie gives up.
The couch cradles him, easing him deeper into this pervasive sense isolation for as long as is enough. Enough time for penance, enough drink to dull the ache, enough quiet to keep the world at bay. Time stretches and he lets it, allowing all the horrible, selfish, lonely feelings building up to overwhelm his body’s chemistry.
He lets his head fall back, eyes half-lidded, and his mind unspools further.
He’s glad to have this evening to himself. The drink. The silence. The deliberate not-thinking, followed inevitably by the thinking anyway.
Eddie never really got this close to blackout and certainly not by himself. The truth is, he wanted this: the absence of anyone relying on him holding it together. Eddie doesn’t unravel where anyone can see. He’s been careful about that, more and more practiced at containment when the anger and fear rear their familiar faces; though, he’s glad it’s not as bad as it was.
Sometimes he thinks he’s living his life backwards. Like everything that was supposed to come later is happening now, all at once. The life he built - marriage, fatherhood, the long grind of becoming someone solid, someone reliable - already behind him, already calcified into something he can’t quite step back into. The Silver Star sits somewhere in that past too, belonging to a version of him that made more sense.
And this - this confusing, searching, youthful version - comes after.
Late nights span further than he let them before. There’s vibrant social events, traveling the country, picking arguments with his parents, changing small things about his looks as though he’s circling an answer he can’t quite land on, lashing out, breaking the law (multiple times)(on purpose), drinking stupidly named cocktails until he passes out. And threaded through it…
Wanting to tell his best friend everything.
Wanting Buck to know him so concretely, intimately, constantly, that it sits heavy in his heart and refuses to be reasoned out.
Wanting to share that he is gay.
Eddie tips the bottle back again, eyes fixed on nothing.
So, yeah, everyone thinks he’s straight. Add that to the list of things no Teenage Years Things I’m Going Through That No One Knows About. Title of your memoir? says the voice of Josh.
Eddie drinks. Again.
It’s got to that time of the night, he thinks to himself. Fine. I’ll go there.
Another sip; the bottle is half finished and the condensation has all but dripped away on to his bare thighs and couch.
It’s not like Buck would judge him or be hostile. A passing thought utters that his Silver Star isn’t worth anything if he can’t even come out to his also Not Straightbest friend.
Right, so there’s no downsides to this. Right?
Right?
“Fuck no,” Eddie breathes aloud to himself, sealing that thought shut.
He’s already thought about keeping this secret every waking hour, or at least reminded of it.
Every time women and dating and sex lives and bars and clubs are brought up, Eddie internally arrests until the cool and calm take over. He’s perfected that.
Nights out can be the worst, he has to go through his ritual of composure: hot steam of a shower in his lungs, sea salt aftershave, his own version of meditation, and practicing his let-downs in the mirror: Sorry, I’m taken. Sorry, my friend here has it all wrong. Sorry, I have to stay available for my son. Sorry, I’m gay-
Well, he hasn’t said the latter, yet.
The guilt of hiding makes light work of him, corroding his fluttering heart when he watches Buck just talk. About everything. About nothing. It gnaws at his softest parts so that he is left stiff.
Heat creeps low and unwelcome between his hips when Buck mentions sleeping with men, casual as breathing. No idea what he's doing to Eddie.
Breezy, that’s Buck.
Eddie’s stomach pinches, even hours later, at the thought that maybe - maybe - Buck has already seen through him. Named it. Filed it away. And then feels like shit for not being trusted with that information, spirals, and acts out. Maybe Eddie’s imagination is being unfair to Buck.
He knows these feelings are so mismatched, damaged, layered and tangled; making sense of them would take too much therapy and self-care to unpack it, but making it all neat with a bow wouldn’t stop the urgent siren in his head blaring ‘TELL HIM’.
Tell him what, exactly? How much? Where it started, where it ends, whether it ever does. Those questions fracture the moment he tries to hold them up to the light. There’s no ‘clean’ version of this. No careful script that doesn’t unravel halfway through. Buck would just pull at the threads until he knew everything.
He’s thought about letting it happen, though. God, he’s thought about it. Messy. Raw. Unrestrained.
Only in the warm L.A. nights, in that suspended, private dark where everything feels briefly possible - after spending hours touching himself to blurry faces and tattoos and broad shoulders and rounded chest muscles - does he think picking up the phone and calling Buck is a good idea. He’d come close.
But the crashing intimidation of change, of rejection, a reaction he doesn’t account for, washes him in a cold sweat. He turns his phone off again and sleeps the whole thing off with dreams heavy and unkind.
Tonight should be no different. There’s no reason to call Buck, no reason to drag Buck in for help figuring things out, unduly burdening him with years of cursed ideas and thoughtless curses. No reason to get to that edge.
There is a spectre in the air, though, a possession of movement that drives his body forward, gripping his phone with the concentration of a very drunk man. He feels in this momentum that his body has slipped half a step ahead of his mind and refuses to wait.
He discards the empty bottle and lays flat on the couch, feet reaching over the other end, head on the dented pillow.
His thumbs and fingers dance on the phone screen, clumsily gliding around the apps, overshooting icons, and the only thought in his head is finding that damned notes app. He slides up from the bottom of the screen, trying again to see if it’s already open.
Eddie finds the wherewithal to search for key words in bright white and dust black: Buck, Notes, Text. Ah. There it is.
He clicks on the already opened page and gets to writing, not a novel, but a journal:
‘Pros of telling Buck I’m gay:’
He makes it that far before panic obscures his heart. The cursor blinks in the next line, flashing all the choices before him, while his fuckass light mode blasts from his full-brightness screen. He backspaces the entire thing. Fuck, this is hard.
Eddie sees that there’s a little microphone option. Huh, must be the new iPhone update. Technology. Maybe speaking everything out loud would be easier; he could let the diction put everything in writing rather than him having to squint to see if that’s the letter ‘r’ or ‘t’ while using correct punctuation. And anyways, he’ll probably pass out before getting to the cons. This was the better option. Letting his remaining discernment just wander to all the good that could come from it, the weight lifted, the shared joy he sees in Buck and Hen’s eyes. Yeah, he’ll give that a go.
He shuffles into a comfortable position, legs parted, knee facing out, one hand on his thigh and the other on his phone.
For a fleeting moment, he thinks better of the night’s plan. He could just as easily sleep the tension off. He could go shower, wash the fantasy away. He could shift his hand over his underwear, palm and stroke, while imagining a familiar weight straddling him, full lips trailing his collarbones, short curled hair begging him to tug it-
He presses the microphone next to where the text goes, places the device on his chest, and closes his eyes.
A few seconds after the familiar ding of the microphone being enabled, he begins.
“Uhh. This is… the, uh, pros-and-cons of telling Buck, my best friend, my coworker, my closest… whatever. Um, telling him I am gay. I’m gay, Buck.”
His breath stutters at that confession, snagging between his lungs and teeth. It’s not the first time he’s said it aloud, but that’s only been to himself, in the haven of his foggy bathroom mirror. The mirror never responded, didn’t make it as real as this.
He clenches his eyes for a few seconds, tight enough for a spark to set off in his vision, and quelling a sudden burst of anguish - or was it laughter? This is ridiculous, he thinks. How many emotions can one guy cycle through in order to just say one sentence? Pull yourself together.
“I don’t know where to begin,” Eddie starts again, voice thinner than he’d like. “I guess, pros point one: he’s my best friend and he, well, he came out to me. He looked almost scared, maybe thinking that it would change things, that I’d judge. I mean, that was his first question.”
He pauses to swallow that memory.
“Of course it doesn’t, Buck. Of course it doesn’t change anything. I guess it changed things for me, but not us. If that makes any sense.”
Eddie recoiled that his old assumtions, that Buck was straight, that him and Tommy were out together looking for women. Bonding over… whatever it is straight men bond over these days, proving their place in society. Breasts? Hair preferences? Even then, that version of Buck never existed, let alone would put up with it.
His memory shifts, reorients itself around a different moment - Buck’s voice, careful but steady: “It was a date.”
He remembers how he had been taken aback, but something else quickly rushed in, shimmering. Pride, yes, but more honour, composed and devoting. Buck handed him something fragile and trusted him to not let it break, and all the world’s hate couldn’t penetrate those tall loft walls.
“Buck came out to me and it felt like we became closer, in some way… more secure. I think that’s what I want to come from this, more than anything. Being known, meeting each other where we’re at, in it together, y’know.”
In it together.
The phrase lands heavy. God, it’s bruising on his ribs. He quickly moves on before it settles too deep, before it can turn into something harder to ignore and joins up with the other somethings laying in there.
Eddie weakly clears his throat. “Point two… I get to be open and honest. I don’t think I need to say more about that.” He lulls, considering if that’s true or another dishonest mantra he’s clinging to.
It’s been so long since he felt he knew himself, so long since he thought he was being authentic, when being was a choice not negotiation. Maybe the last time was that 2004 championship win, before it was trophies and masculinity and pressure, performances for survival. Keeping himself together, rather than becoming.
“And having Buck by my side as I figure out who I am would be-” He exhales. “Everything. He- I mean, this would be so good.” And, despite himself, his mind runs ahead, lacing his words with warmth. “Sitting on a firetruck in L.A. pride would be fun, bathing in confetti and glitter and music and every colour imaginable. Both of us helping with Hen’s international pride meetings. Going to bars, freely, not checking over my shoulder. I want that. I want… I want.”
A beat passes.
“Who knows?”
He does know that if he had to Buck’s wingman, watching something he knows he can’t have, it would sting; nothing he hasn’t endured before.
“There’s a lot I can do, when I can just be. And I can be with him.”
The words open that dangerous something again.
A vision surges up, a silly but explosive one: him and Buck, riding on top of a 118 truck covered in banners snapping in the wind, a flag draped around his neck and a steadying hand squeezing his, fingers tightening, becoming real.
He cuts it off. Still, he gathers it away carefully, fastening it somewhere private. A not-memory he can return to.
“Uh, so, that’s the pros, I suppose.” He shifts, trying to shake off the last image. “I think thirdly could be my, well, mental health. This is more self-serving.” A self-conscious, pitiful chuckle scapes him. “As if this entire thing isn’t an adventure in selfishness. Eddie Diaz: Angry, Selfish, and Gay, live, for one night only!”
He winces as soon as it’s out and the humour fades: he sounds like he's trying to make his Abulea laugh, like she’s here listening. He wishes she was here. God, why isn’t she here?
“I just-” He stops, scrubs a hand over his face, then lets it fall. “I’m thinking maybe I wouldn’t wake up every day already trying to outrun myself. Because there's something to make quiet all the time.”
In therapy, Frank always went back to Eddie’s ‘inner world’ and he thinks, if there’s anything to that, telling Buck - coming out - might lend itself to an internal freedom, too.
Eddie inhales, listening to the rush of air in his nose, feeling the expanse of his lungs push against his chest, the cooling of his body. He moves his hands to rest behind his head.
“I can think about men without my first instinct being to create a million excuses as to why I’m actually straight. No backtracking, no ‘this doesn’t count, actually’, no building a case against a guilty verdict.” Sinning, whispers his younger self. His mouth presses thin, then eases. “There wouldn’t be that constant fear of being found out.”
He’s pretty sure the lightheadedness was from the beer, but he could pretend it’s from imagining a tomorrow where he can exist.
Before he can drift too far into that thought, he peaks one eyelid open, glancing at the timer next to his microphone to ensure it’s still recording. Ten minutes, it reads, though it felt like both two and two hundred at the same time.
He gets back to it before liquid courage wears off.
“And, now… the reasons that this can never happen.”
This list is shorter than it used to be. When he first figured it out, and the shape of reality finally had a name, it moved through him like something invasive, a full-body certainty that something had gone wrong. The word wrong echoed louder than anything else, dressed up in everything he’d been taught to fear: sinful, broken, unclean. It wasn’t just dread. It was grief, despairing and immediate. The ‘cons’ became endless.
Then, reality quieted, became contemplative. The idea of loving Hen and Buck for who they are and hating himself for the very same reason wore down fast. And he'd worked off most of the Catholic guilt and shame, the reflexive itch of disgust, but got stuck with the stuff that made his gut a home long ago. From there, he’d dissected his life, decisions he’d made, how even loving Shannon meant he ended up here, her doppelgänger, from his sex life to his career. It bled into everything, and now he couldn’t ignore it simply because it didn’t fit the story he thought he was supposed to live out.
And Chris, there, unknowingly at the centre of it all.
In the two years since he realised, it'd been easier to accept himself. That’s a small victory he can wear next to his Silver Star. ‘Gay’ fits now, and sometimes he can trace the words into the pillow next to his.
On the other hand, one item on the cons list had become stronger and heavier until it broke the scale in one direction forever.
(Because coming out to Buck doesn’t stop at this is who I am.
It ends with this is how I feel about you.)
Eddie, interrupting himself, thinks he can get the milder bullet points out the way. Be done with this whole exercise that the morning light will make fade away.
“Buck will tell Maddie, I’ll take that as a given, even if it’s not.”
Buck could keep a secret if he had to. Eddie knows that. He’s seen the way Buck can lock something down when it matters. Eddie suspects this could be the same, but he can’t take the chance, not with the way Buck feels everything out loud.
It’s a safe bet he’d end up in Maddie’s kitchen or on her couch, words spilling out of him in pieces. He’d need to say it somewhere soft, somewhere it could land safe. And Maddie… Maddie is that place. Steady. Gentle. The kind of listener who doesn’t rush you to the end of your own sentence. But she’s also connected. A ripple effect waiting to happen.
Buck’s inability to keep his heart to himself for long isn’t a flaw so much as a force. Chaotic, sure. Unpredictable. But not cruel, not careless in the ways that matter. Buck feels things fully, visibly, without apology. It complicates everything, but it also makes him… him.
To him, silence is something to be worked through, not settled into.
And Eddie wouldn’t take that away, even if it would make this easier.
And he’s happy Buck has a sister like her, unconditionally one phone call away, ready to drop everything for him. He knows what that’s worth. Despite not having spoken to her much, about nothing deeper than a puddle, Eddie feels like if he needed it, she’d listen to him, too.
He remembers how Buck lit up and boasted to him about his big sister, right from the moment she came to L.A., and she was something ethereal and grounded all at once.
He should speak to her more, sometime, Eddie thinks. Thank her for everything.
“Maddie may or may not tell Chim, and then everyone will know. That’s just how it works. So I’d have to tell everyone pretty quick before Chimney gets the chance to. Can’t have my Captain steal all my spotlight,” he huffs.
It lands somewhere between a joke and a warning, trying to become lighter than it is.
“I don’t know if I want to come out exactly like that, all at once, or faster than I’m ready. But at least I can control it.”
He briefly wishes he reached for that last beer.
“And I’d have to tell my family. And Chris. I’d want to tell him anyway. Two separate issues. Chris…” His voice suddenly falters, his words holding on to him. “I don’t know how this will go down. He’s already been through so much because of my personal life, my mistakes. I don't want this to be another one. What if- What if I’m just giving kids another reason to bully him? I don’t- God.”
He wipes the thought of Chris, taunted and teased for who his father is, away from his eyes. A choke threatens to break free.
“But, even if I never tell anyone else, I’ll tell Christopher. One day. I want him to know,” he affirms.
He wishes he could hold Christopher right then, wrap him up in his arms and never let go; the memory of his tiny, warm baby in a sweet smelling blanket tries to fill that hole instead.
“I can only imagine how my parents will take it. They’ve been better recently, sure… can I guarantee I won’t be iced out until they come around? I don’t know. The less they know about me, the less stress I’m under and less uncomfortable comments I receive.” Eddie hesitates, jaw tightening as he fights to shake off the ghost of their old ways. “I think they can know. Or maybe I’d only tell them if it was relevant, like if I had a boyfriend at a family event. Or I was getting married. Again.”
His mouth presses inwards, complicated feelings flickering across his face before he suffocates them: it’s not for unpacking right now.
“And, God.”
The words come out before he can stop them. He lets out a short, disbelieving breath.
“If you're there, listening to another lost and scared homosexual, staring at me in my underwear and t-shirt, I’ve got my own bullet point saved for you,” his words are quieter, but beginning to tremble at the back of his throat.
He’s on high alert, waiting for his voice to break. It quickly does.
“I’ve done a lot of work.”
His neck tightens, drying up before he could catch it. A few purposeful eye clenches later, and he’s still on that brink of tears. He rubs his chest absently; something in there aches.
“I've hated you. I’ve prayed to you. I’ve listened for you.” Each sentence lands more indignant than the last. “And, for a while, I ignored you.” He nods his head, and hears Chris say: “Lock in, Dad.” It's enough to make him laugh for the first time that evening. His breathing gets back to a steady pace. Voice stripped of its catastrophising, he continues. “Despite everything, I’ve come back to you. I’m not sure what you are, what anything means, and it’s all too fucking big for me sometimes… but whatever shape or form you're in, I think we’re good, now.”
He thinks over the blind devotion, the black and white, the sinful and saintly. In learning to leave that behind, he thinks he’s found a truth that matters: if there is a God, condemning Earth - Eddie - is not in their nature.
“Not sure why you're in the ‘cons’ list, but I didn’t think you exactly went in ‘pros' either. You’re not stopping me from telling Buck but you’re not showing any signs that I should, either.”
Nothing answers.
“Sorry, notes app and future me, having to re-read this shit podcast transcript,” he exhales, the words leaving him in a rush and he’s trying to outrun them. He drags a hand down his face, then lets one arm fall over his eyes, forearm pressed there like it might block out more than just the light.
Maybe it might buy him a second.
Because this is it. Everything before this - every rationalisation, every detour, every carefully constructed con - has just been orbiting the same unavoidable Sun.
“Brace for impact,” he mutters, voice thinner now, fraying at the edges. “I give you my final confession.”
The room goes quiet around him. It presses in, waits him out.
He lets it.
Lets it stretch a minute too long, like maybe if he doesn’t move, doesn’t speak, the thought will pass him by this time. Like it hasn’t been sitting there all along, patient and unmoving.
It doesn’t pass him.
His arm drops and his eyes open.
He stares at the ceiling for a heartbeat before turning his head down and reaching for his phone still on his chest. His fingers close around it, grip tightening just slightly as he brings the screen back into view. His thumb hovers over the stop button even now; the choice to not continue screams at him. Switch the microphone off, delete the diction and note, and pretend this never happened before it becomes something real. Before it exists anywhere outside of his own head.
No evidence. No confession. No problem.
His thumb doesn’t move.
Eddie puts the phone back down, looks up, and lets dry L.A. air fill his lungs.
“Cons of telling Buck I think I’m gay:” he says, the words steadier than he feels. “I’m in love with him.”
It hits differently out loud.
He goes still. Because there it is. Not implied, not buried under jokes or half-truths or technicalities. It’s somehow simultaneously a huge word, larger than a Texas night sky, and doesn’t even capture a fraction of how he feels.
Telling him this, he thinks after a moment, a hollow edge to the attempted humour, is what we in the gambling world call high-risk, no-reward.
His gaze drifts somewhere past the ceiling, past the house, past the version of himself who thought he could categorise this into something manageable; the problem isn’t the risk, it’s that, somewhere underneath all of it, he knows exactly what the reward would be. And it’s unattainable.
“Fucking had to be him! Had to be Buck.”
Who else could it have been?
“Not a guy on a dating app, someone at another station, a stranger in the street or bar. Him.”
He groans.
“Jesus.”
The cursing centres his thoughts.
“Buck… is… stubborn and loyal and… gorgeous. Buck fights and fights for good, and loves entirely and selflessly and loves people who can’t love him back, not the way he deserves.
“He’s been… fuck, he’s been through so much and I wish I could finally make him feel seen. Chosen.
“Sometimes, I wish we were both 12 and nothing bad has happened to us. I wish we were 20 and in college together, making out in between classes. I wish we were 25 and travelling the continent in a shit car. I wish he never had to save my life or pick up my pieces or sit for Christopher because I wish we were one.”
Everything that’s been building inside him has finally spilled over - messy, tender, kind of cringe but painfully earnest, and the most unguarded he’s ever been, if only because he’s alone.
He doesn’t understand how all of it can live so close to the surface, balanced on the tip of his tongue, when he’s spent so long swallowing it down every time Buck is near.
“He’s my best friend. And I can’t come out to him. All the questions he’d ask, the answers would lead right back to him.”
Eddie feels his eyes soften as they glaze over.
There’s no version of that conversation where Buck doesn’t tilt his head, soften his voice, reach for some physical contact, and ask something like How long have you known? Or Is there someone? And why did you go through this by yourself? Or worse, something gentle and defenceless like How did you figure it out?
“I wouldn’t be able to stop it,” he admits, barely above a whisper. He can't help but dig into the hypothetical. “I’d start with something small, something safe, and then he’d keep asking, and I’d keep answering, and suddenly it wouldn’t be about me being gay anymore.”
His fists constrict.
“It would be about me being in love with him.”
The words don’t leave a giant crator in their delivery this time. Not because they mean less, but because they’ve already landed.
Eddie lets out a frustrated hum.
“Buck’s not an idiot, despite what people have thought of him his whole life. I can’t watch his face when he figures it out,” he admits, entirely unfocused like he’s already seeing it happen. “I can’t stand there and wait for him to decide what to do with it. With me.”
That part sticks. Once it’s out there, it’s not his anymore. And Buck, well, Buck will definitely feel something about it. Deeply. Immediately. No buffer, no delay. And Eddie will have to be rooted there and take whatever that is he inflicts.
He’d have to watch the exact second it all clicks into place behind Buck’s eyes - the shift, the recalibration, the quiet oh that changes everything. The aftermath.
“What if he pulls away?” The thought slips out before he can stop it, sharper than he intended. “What if everything changes, and I’m the one who broke it? I almost did it before, I…”
His hands tighten, fingers curling into themselves and he needs something to hold onto but can’t find. Nails purchase themselves into palms, instead.
“This - us - it works. Whatever this is, it works. Me, him, Chris. I can’t…” He exhales harshly. The words anchor him back to what he has, what he doesn’t want to lose. “I can’t be the reason it doesn’t anymore. God, I love him so much, and-and it’s too much sometimes. I catch myself holding back so much from him. It’s fucking… it’s unfair. I want him and I want him to know. All I want is him. He… I want him here. I don’t want it to be like this.
“I don’t want to be like this. Anything but this.”
A pause stretches out, begging to be resolved.
He wipes a tear breaking free down his cheek, then another one.
“So I don’t tell him,” he says finally. It’s a rule he’s laying down instead of admitting his fears. He’s back in control. “I don’t say anything. I keep it where it is, where it doesn’t ruin anything.”
His voice drops.
“I can live with that.”
Reasonable. Safe. Practiced.
His shoulders drop a fraction, the fight draining out of him as quickly as it came.
“I can live with that,” he repeats, softer now.
Not convinced.
Just… tired.
Eddie stops the recording and pays no mind to what happens next. He locks his phone and finds sleep welcoming him fast.
Eddie wakes up with a deep, bruising pain across his shoulders, almost like he’d slept on his couch.
It takes him a second to piece it together, but the stiff angle of his neck and the scratchy upholstery beneath him confirm it: he did, in fact, sleep on the couch. Great.
Thin blades of sunlight slip through the shutters, striping the carpet in warm gold. As the room naturally brightens, Eddie stretches, wincing as muscles pull, joints crack, and yesterday settles stubbornly into his bones. Everything aches and he feels like shit.
He lingers there for a moment, suspended between sleep and obligation, knowing he’ll have to get up, shower, and eventually pick Chris up.
Before he even opens his eyes, sudden, vile adrenaline shoots through him. It floods his stomach, sharp and off, dragging with it the bitter taste of stale beer and acid at the back of his tongue.
Oh, God. Something feels very wrong.
He has to check if Chris is okay.
His sight barely adjusts to being a working sense before Eddie is darting his eyes around, searching for his phone. They quickly land on the floor next to the couch and Eddie doesn’t even fumble for the device; his hands are a claw machine that actually works.
He sits up, much to the protests of his head, and the phone opens, somehow recognising his FaceID from the most disgustingly low angle. He doesn't spare another thought to that, he only scrambles to call Chris.
The calling-screen pops up, the dial tone drones. The seconds it takes to connect are excruciating. He reasons that he’d know if there was an emergency in the night, it’s not like he turned his phone on mute or do not disturb, unlike Chris.
“Dad?”
Chris! Eddie’s nervous system sings.
“Chris!” Eddie tries to play off his relief as excitement. “Hey, bud, good morning.”
“It’s like 6:30, what are you doing?”
He checks his non-existent watch. Fuck. “Sorry if I woke you, I just wanted to check up… on you.” He can feel the confusion from the other end. “I had a-a feeling something bad happened.”
“No. All good here.” Chris sounds assured, if a little concerned for his father. “Did you… have a good evening?”
That was Eddie’s question, and he felt a bit offbeat having it directed at him first. “Yeah. Yeah. Film, TV… reading…”
“Those are the usual ways to spend evenings,” Chris deadpans.
As if checking his answer, Eddie put Chris on loudspeaker, swipes up, and begins searching for his notes from last night. He faintly remembers a microphone and the most murderous white colour Tim Apple could have implemented on iPhones. He remembers the list, pros-and-cons, Buck’s name etched in every thought. “I’m just saying it wasn’t interesting. I bet you had a good time, though?”
“Yeah, we made homemade pasta. And Daniel is swapping his Mario Kart 8 Deluxe with-”
“Oh, fuck!”
Eddie doesn’t mean to do that.
But, in his defence, what else could he do? In his lap, on his screen, he sees the ‘notes app’ he had candidly spoken to for twenty minutes. His secrets, his fears, his love. Turns out, not the notes app. No.
“Dad?! Are you okay?”
He doesn't have read receipts on. There’s no reply. Nothing. The recording sits in a sky blue in a very familiar chain of messages directly to-
“Heyyy, Chris… how do I delete a message I sent to Buck?”
This is the last time he’s getting drunk.
“And it deletes for both of us?” he adds on.
Alarm sweeps across his chest, curling around his ribs like ivy. His breaths quicken, never quite fitting into a rhythm he’d be happy with on a patient. He drags a hand through his hair, knuckles snagging on the short, unkempt strands. It only makes it worse, this feeling trembling beneath his skin, urging him to move, to do something, anything, before it swallows him whole.
“You can delete it for yourself unless… did you send it two minutes ago?” Chris asks, trying to be helpful.
Eddie clings to the emollience of his son’s voice; he’s sure it’s the only thing keeping him upright. Otherwise, he’s going to - in no uncertain terms - crash the fuck out.
He checks the timestamp. It definitely does not say 6:28 or 6:29 a.m. He checks again anyway, hoping it might change out of pity.
It doesn’t. He isn’t that lucky.
On the off chance Buck hasn’t already listened, he isn’t sure if he should send a very normal sounding follow-up telling him not to listen. Or just let it play out like God intended.
Besides, telling Buck not to listen might only make him want to more. The struggle of choice digs in, and everything is fucked from the warpath of panic.
“What did you send him?”
“Uhhh,” is all Eddie manages.
“Actually, I don’t want to know.”
If Eddie weren’t so busy spiraling, he might notice how unbothered Chris sounds.
“Chris! It’s not like that! I promise.” Eddie didn’t know his blood pressure could climb any higher. He’s half-tempted to press two fingers to his neck and check how close to death he is. A hesitation distends between them. The last thing Eddie wants is for Chris to worry, or worse, start asking questions. “You should know, though. I mean… I’ll tell you when you’re back.”
“You sound serious. Are you okay?” Chris’s tone shifts, just minutely.
“Yeah, buddy, I’m good. No one’s hurt or anything. It’s just… personal stuff.”
“Okay.”
Chris is fine. Everything is fine. The alarm doesn’t vanish, it's grip still intact, but Eddie can finally pull in a fuller breath. There’s even a trace of excitement at the thought of telling him.
“I love you.”
“Love you, too, Dad.”
After the call ends, Eddie stares back at the cursed voice message sitting idly in the chat, aseptic and final, as if it's not a nuclear bomb. He doesn’t understand how it went this wrong this fast. In none of his worst-case, late-night, overthinking scenarios about coming out to Buck did he imagine losing control of it like this.
Okay - maybe this is a little bit his fault. But still. This feels catastrophic.
His stomach turns.
It’s crash out time.
He grabs what he can to nurse the budding hangover - iced water, Tylenol, his long phone charger - and sets himself up on the couch again. The phone stays in his hand, screen lit, that message still sitting there, unchanged.
Waiting.
7:00 a.m glares at him.
He switches the TV on to the morning news on low volume, puts on his socks that somehow were discarded under the coffee table.
7.41 am.
No change to the message. No follow-up conjured in his mind.
He figures Buck is sleeping in, since he had a late dinner with Maddie and Chimney last night.
8.04 am.
Eddie paces the living room, wearing a path into the rug, preparing his apologies that fall apart halfway through.
“I fucked up. I’m fucked up. I’m sorry. It just happened and I didn't realise and I couldn’t stop it. You never have to see me again if-if you don’t want to. I can transfer, I’ll move firehouses-”
He cuts himself off, scrubbing a hand over his face.
Too much.
“I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want to lose our friendship. This isn’t the end, it doesn’t have to be. I didn’t mean for it to…”
That’s worse.
“I’ll fix it. I’ll work on it. It’ll go away. We can just… have some space. Whatever you need. Just. Just. Fuck.”
His voice fractures under the weight of it.
“Please don’t stop being my best friend.”
He huffs out, hard.
Everything sounds wrong.
“Fuck.”
He can’t stay away from checking his phone for long.
A silent prayer rattles through him, that his apologies will magically come to him and sound completely normal when Buck talks to him. IfBuck talks to you, an evil little Josh whispers to him.
When he next opens the chat, the grey typing bubble flickers into view. The ellipsis vanishes the moment he blinks. For a second, he’s sure it’s a mirage. It wouldn’t be the most surprising thing that’s happened today, and he makes a mental note to Google if there’s such a thing as stress-induced hallucinations later.
His stomach drops. Not for the first time that morning.
A minute crawls by before he notices the faint tremor in his hands. He’s stopped pacing entirely, attention pinned to the phantom of Buck’s speech bubble, as if staring hard enough might summon it back.
Then it does, and three dots resume their endless loop of pulsing, shifting gradients from gunmetal to silver.
Eddie’s breath stutters; all he can hear is the blood rushing in his ears.
He shouldn’t be watching like this. He should just wait for the message, let it arrive on its own. This hovering, anticipating, it feels intrusive, like he’s pressing himself into a space he’s not invited to occupy.
He can’t stop.
Any remaining sense of control slips a little further. At least no one’s here to witness it.
He’s waiting for the end of the world.
It doesn’t come, much to his brief disappointment. Instead, a short message pops up:
I’ll be home in 30
Eddie drops his phone on the floor.
The knock comes at 9:12 a.m. - later than Eddie hoped, earlier than he’s ready for. He’s spent the morning gnawing at his nails, brushing his teeth twice, changing outfits three times, all while trying (and failing) not to think about the sixth, unopened beer. There is no right way to greet your best friend you’ve drunk-come-out-to and confessed your love, Eddie concludes.
His phone, regretfully, is still intact on the other side of the living room so that he doesn’t religiously count the minutes, nor accidentally call 911 and tell them he has a bomb or text Josh 'I’ve always thought you were a bitch’, or any other stupid, irreversible nonsense. (Although, they would help get him out of the current predicament.)
No matter what happens, I’ll still have Chris, he reminds himself.
On a nerves edge, he sprints to the door and fumbles to unlock it.
When he swings it open, Buck is there, two iced coffees sitting in a cup carrier in one hand, a brown paper bag in the other, darkened with small oil stains that smell faintly sweet.
He looks…put together. Confident, even. Shoulders squared, jeans pressed, a mauve sweater hugging his frame.
“Good morning, sunshine,” Buck says, fondly. His gaze flicks over Eddie’s wrinkled plain black t-shirt and cotton shorts combo. “You look…”
Eddie barely hears a single word.
“I’m so sorry,” he blurts, not letting Buck finish his thought, “I thought I was speaking to my notes app because light mode makes everything blur and I was kind of drunk, and I figured I could delete it, and-and then Chris told me it doesn’t delete both ways, and I completely understand if you-”
He watches Buck’s expression alter, his smile dropping and eyebrows furrowing together.
“Woah, Eddie - hey. It’s okay! You-!”
“-want to take some time apart, I mean I’ve created a minefield for Chimney and HR but, look, man, I completely get it-”
“HR? Eddie, what-?”
“And I can’t fucking apologise enough, Buck, I fucked up, I’ve-”
“Eddie, I didn't listen.”
The world tilts, then snaps still, and Eddie’s ears feel like they’ve popped.
For a second, everything goes thin and distant - the hum of the city, the scrape of the door hinge, Buck’s voice echoing around his head. He swallows hard.
And just stares at Buck with dilated brown eyes.
“What?”
“I. Didn’t. Listen.” Buck says, punctuating each word. He doesn’t stop there, filling the space with words that trip over each other. “Okay - I thought it was like a late-night catch-up podcast from you, I pressed play… I heard the first ten seconds, the slurred speech, and assumed - rightly, as I’m now discovering - that it was an accident. I know you have an ongoing battle with technology.”
All at once, the past however-many hours collapse in on themselves: the fear; spiraling, relentless what-ifs; he careful, miserable planning: what he would say, how he would explain, how he would survive if Buck looked at him differently.
Eddie can still feel it, ghosting through his body, adrenaline with nowhere to go. His heart hasn’t caught up yet; it’s still racing like he’s mid-disaster.
Relief hits him wrong. It leaves him sunken. His stomach swoops and begins resettling.
Eddie wants to tell him about everything. God, he wants to tell him everything.
About the dread that festered deep. About how he’d already started grieving their relationship. About how much it matters. How much Buck matters.
The words press at his throat, but what comes instead is a shaky exhale and a wide, crooked smile. “Very funny, Buck.”
Buck sighs, like he’s not sure if he’s on the same dimension of reality, but there’s still that same softness in his eyes. The same open, steady warmth. No distance. No indecision. Nothing guarded.
Nothing has changed.
The world didn’t end. Buck didn’t pull away. There’s no fissure running between them, no awkward new space Eddie has to learn how to navigate. It’s all still here, exactly as it was - easy and familiar and unbearably important.
“So you didn’t hear the rest of it? Nothing else?”
“First sentence, I promise. Scouts honour.”
Eddie nods once, convincing himself of reality. Like if he moves too fast, it might all shatter anyway. “How many times do you need to be reminded that it doesn’t count if you were never a Scout?”
“I can do a pinky promise like I do with Jee? Eds, I didn’t listen any further,” Buck adds, reassuringly. A tentative, a half-smile tugs at his mouth. The food he brought along hangs at his hips.
“A-And what did you think? Of the first sentence?”
“I’d rather hear it from you,” Buck asks, the opportunity for Eddie to come out on his own terms now before them. “In person. Sober. If you have the time?”
He gives the bag of sweet treats a little shake, the paper crinkling around its contents, like he’s coaxing a cat out from under a bed.
Eddie takes the bribe and steps aside. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ve got time.”
He can’t take his eyes off Buck crossing the entry and through the living room, the familiarity of belonging together fights the restless love in every chamber of his heart. He lingers for half a second behind him, ribcage thudding but no longer sprinting.
Buck sets the drinks and the bag down on the coffee table with proud precision.
They're barely a foot apart when standing, settled. Buck has a tender but expectant look on his face that continues through their conversation; it makes it easier to be honest, puts Eddie at ease so that he can reach out in the simplest way.
He can be.
“Buck, I’m gay.”
The words float between them, simple and enormous all at once.
Buck’s grin - already there, already bright - breaks open and blinds Eddie, charming him impossibly more.
“Hi, Eddie,” he breathes; it means more than hello, and is filled with something quieter underneath that Eddie can’t catch. “Thank you. For telling me.”
Joy floods in. Eddie can't help it. He’s feels like he’s been through so much his nervous system is fried, the yo-yoing of emotions not something he was ready for - he’s pulled between adrenaline and collapse.
He settles for instinct, which is to be close to Buck.
Eddie closes the distance in two quick steps and pulls his best friend in, arms wrapping tight around Buck’s shoulders before he can second-guess it. Buck makes a small, surprised sound that melts into an appreciative hum as he hugs him back, just as tight, just as needy.
Eddie presses his face into the curve of Buck’s shoulder, closer than he’s ever dared, breathing him in: laundry detergent, sugar, unmistakably Buck.
He holds on. Lets himself be surrounded by Buck’s comforting clasp, his waist and shoulders not knowing whether to push back into Buck’s arms or forward into his torso. It's stupid and careless, but Eddie thinks he might look even more desperately in love if he steps back right now.
“So,” Buck mutters into Eddie’s hair, not showing any signs of parting contact yet, “I’m thinking a ‘pro’ could be saying ‘is it because I’m gay?’ if anyone tells you something you don’t like.”
Eddie huffs out a quiet laugh; it’s easier than unpacking the way his chest still aches, bursting with everything he can’t say. “I’ll keep it in mind. Can’t wait to use it.”
Buck squeezes him. “Will you tell anyone else?”
“Chris will know. ’M telling him later.”
“I thought so.”
“I think I’ll just quietly… tell the other people who matter.”
They sway in each other’s arms for a moment, nothing purposeful. Eddie finds himself counting Buck’s heartbeats as they pass through skin and clothes, and somehow it feels like the most natural thing in the world.
When they finally pull apart, it isn’t punctuated by awkward back slaps or the usual masculine deflection. Just a quiet, if reluctant, distance.
“Look, I’m sorry it happened like this, that you came out to me this way,” Buck soothes. “It’s not a HR-level crisis, but I can’t imagine you’ve had an easy morning.”
Eddie sucks in air through his teeth. Buck’s remembers that comment, huh. Shit. “Yeah, well, I’ve had about a million panic attacks since I woke up, so I wouldn’t exactly say it’s all hugs and rainbows.” Understatement of the year, he notes to himself. “I kind of pictured it differently. Thought I’d be sitting with you and Chris. Together.”
Buck winces in sympathy. “Still beats having soot all over your face and hearing it secondhand from your sister… apparently everyone connected the dots pretty fast.”
They both avoid eye contact for a moment.
Eddie doesn’t know what to say to that. Luckily, he doesn’t have to think of a reply.
“Out of curiosity… what were the pros-and-cons?” Buck asks, careful but insistent. “You didn’t actually think I’d, what, hold a grudge that you didn’t tell me sooner? Judge you?”
There it is. Buck, inescapably Buck, insecurity masking as curiosity, asking because he cares, because he wants to understand, to show up. And somehow still missing the part where this isn’t his fault. None of it is Buck’s fault.
“No, no, not at all. I was…” His mind drags itself back to the evening prior: the self-doubt, tears, guilt, and suffocating You Have to Be Aloneof it all. It takes him a few seconds to refocus his eyes on the present, not flashing back to the past. But Buck is patient, nodding faintly, wearing that look that Eddie only sees in these intimate moments. It’s almost enough for him to spill it all again. Instead, he takes a second to lift one of the drinks free of their holders and takes a sip, just so that he wouldn't have to look at Buck. “I-I knew you’d support me. Everyone would. And I do feel better - lighter - already, you know, as cliché as it is.”
He hopes it’s enough to swerve the conversation but he knows better of Buck than that.
“Okay… So, what was the hold up? Parents?”
“No.”
“God?”
“Hmm, no. Not anymore.”
Eddie takes another sip of whatever caramel-vanilla-matcha hellscape of a flavour profile Buck has created. It is very nice, though, Eddie remarks. Poor barista.
“O-Okay. Then…?” Buck leans in, worry sharpening his voice. He’s not letting this go now it’s clenched between his teeth. “I know I’m not entitled to your whole pros-and-cons list. There’s a reason you didn’t want me hearing that message, clearly. But if you want to get it off your chest, I’m here.” A heartbeat passes; Buck’s face falls. “Was it… me?”
Eddie heaves, trying and failing to say something lighter than how he feels. “Thought you were respecting my privacy.”
“I am,” Buck insists. “I’m not going to listen to the voice message, but I am going to-”
“Disrespect my privacy?”
It almost sounds like a joke but Eddie’s intentions don’t reach that far. He shakes around the ice in his concoction before pressing it into Buck’s hands like an offering, a distraction, anything to take the keenness off the moment before it’s Buck turn to spiral.
“So… it was me?” Buck says at last, the utterance tight.
Eddie sighs, a fraction too slow.
It’s enough for a ‘yes’. Buck’s already running with it.
“I knew it! What, there can’t be two queer guys in the 118? We’re at gay capacity and L.A.F.D. can’t handle us? Our joint slay is too much to handle? Two queens in the firehouse invalidates our insurance? The quota is full, y’know with a Lesbian in the cohort, and one of us has to be non-binary now? W-Which, if you were-”
Eddie thinks Buck couldn't get more unhinged than his crash-out in New Mexico. It’s recognisably teasing, edging on insane, and a string of sentences certainly worthy of adding to the (already lengthy) list of reasons Buck should look into an ADHD diagnosis.
“Buck,” he drags out the vowel a little. “Please. Before you dig yourself any deeper - it’s not that.”
They continue to share the drink, the other cup still untouched. Eddie watches Buck over the rim, bracing for the real response not coated in some levity.
Because he knows Buck, knows the way he races ahead of reality and throws himself off a roof from building a narrative where this is his fault: Eddie didn’t come to him, Eddie had to be drunk, Eddie was hurting, and Buck wasn’t there. Buck will carry that weight whether it belongs to him or not.
Eddie can see it happening, live, in front of him, and can’t stop it without jumping off a higher rooftop and crushing Buck beneath him.
“Then what it is? What have I done to keep you in the closet?”
“This isn’t about you,” Eddie tries to explain, but it tastes like the lie it is and he wants Buck to take it from his tongue. “Really. I promise. I just have stuff to work through.”
“About me?”
“I’ve already said too much.” His voice comes out thinner than he intends. He shouldn’t be this upset with Buck, he tries not to be. Buck doesn’t deserve that. Eddie swallows, trying to smooth himself out, trying to gather himself back into something steadier. “I’m good,” he adds, quieter, as if repetition might make it true. “We’re good.”
He sets the plastic cup down beside its twin. The ice clicking echoes louder than it should.
Imperceptibly, Buck shuffles back, folding himself smaller to fit the space he thinks he should take up. “You know… nothing you could say is going to ruin our friendship,” he says, cautious and Buck-stubborn. “I can take it.”
Their eyes are briefly locked.
“Did I make you uncomfortable? Like I was going after you? Or pushing something on you?” Buck releases a sharp breath, going from folded arms to wildly gesticulating. “Fuck. Eddie, until a few hours ago I thought you were straight. I wouldn’t try anything. I wouldn’t - God, I won’t.”
Eddie shakes his head immediately. “No, Buck. No.” His rensonance weakens despite himself, something sad slipping through before he can catch it. “I didn’t think you would.”
He knows he is brushing shoulders with the truth. He can hear himself.
Buck’s eyes narrow, maybe catching on it, and Eddie knows that he’s a second away from being seen - known - too clearly.
That’s the line.
“I’ve run out of guesses here, man,” Buck says; subdued, no less intent.
Eddie doesn’t look at him when he answers. “Good. Because you’re not going to find out the truth.”
“Eds-”
“Buck. No.” Eddie doesn’t mean to raise his voice, but it cuts anyway. He can’t let Buck keep going, can’t let him dig, because if he does, Eddie’s not sure what’s going to come out but he knows it only get worse from here. They’ve had this conversation and made their promises about space, about honesty, about not running; he’s prepared for Buck to push back, and to stand his ground. “Thank you for for showing up. But I need you to leave it alone. And now I need to be by myself for a while.”
“Eddie, I’m sorry. Don’t-”
And something in Eddie snaps, the something he’s tried to control, to not become the angry man he has been branded. But the tension, the fear, the exhaustion - it all surges up. He doesn’t trust it, doesn’t trust himself, but he feels one thing with absolute clarity: he needs to do whatever it takes to get out of this corner, out from the sniper’s scope, out of the headlights.
Before Buck can say anything else, Eddie closes the distance between them. Even in the open room, it is enough to paralyse Buck.
Eddie can see flickers of shock, hurt, and something else entirely passing over Buck.
“You just can’t leave well enough alone, can you? You’re here acting like you’re doing me this huge favour - respecting my ‘drunken mistake,’ cheering me up, easing me into this-this new stage of my life and then you turn around and make it about you. Like I’ve done something to you. Like I owe you something. Live I’m depriving you.”
He motions vaguely between them as if the space itself is the problem.
“You’re not entitled to anything from me, Buck. Not explanations, not timelines, not some neat little confession that makes you feel better about all of this.
“And fuck you - you can’t pull the communication card or say you can ‘take’ whatever my reasoning, whatever I say.”
Eddie can still pull back. He feels his thoughts teetering, balanced between his mind and vocal cords. All he has to do is stop talking.
He doesn’t.
And Eddie knows exactly where this is going.
“We’re not a couple, we’re not husbands, you’re not my boyfriend.”
A warning flare goes off in his chest.
He feels his anxieties of being found out sharpen until it’s all he has left to hide behind. A cornered animal with nowhere to run, so it lashes out instead.
“You’re not in love with me. And I’m not in love with you.”
Eddie’s ears ring in the vaccuumous and immediate silence.
There’s pushing someone away… and then there’s this. He fears this is scorched earth, abandonment, creating the very scene he prayed to avoid.
Buck’s face is crestfallen, slightly screwed in upset, the malaise landing before he can mask it. He bites down on the inside of his cheek, a small, helpless way to self-soothe.
There’s another hollow drop in Eddie’s insides. Heat crawls up the back of his neck as regret easily wrecks him.
“Heard,” Buck says, flatly.
Eddie watches him straighten his shoulders, balance his stance. Buck’s eyes don’t land the same; they glance off, shine with frustration. He can almost see the last minute ticking through Buck’s skull, the processing and decision to distance himself, and there’s no way Eddie can reach in and undo it.
“Sh- I’m sorry, Buck.”
“Save it.”
“Buck, I didn’t-”
“No. No, Eddie. You’re right. Thanks for the memo. We’re none of those things.” Buck’s face is shadowed by vitriolic amusement. “And seeing as you’re so sure, maybe we should start acting like it.”
Oh.
Buck hums lowly, stopping at a half-turn away, before starting his journey to the front door.
Absolutely not.
Eddie’s not letting this end with Buck walking away.
He fucked it up. He knows that. Said the wrong things, not enough, too late. If Buck walks out that door, Eddie might not get another chance to fix it.
So he moves.
With whatever he has left (and the day has left him with very little), Eddie reaches out and clasps a hand around Buck’s shoulder, spinning him around.
In the momentum, Buck stumbles, his foot catching awkwardly on the floor as his balance slips out from under him. There’s a startled gasp - barely a sound - as Eddie swoops forward.
He knows, distantly, that this is reckless. But it could also be the best thing he ever does.
Buck’s back lands on the wall just beside the kitchen with a muted thump, missing the frame of some local artist’s piece. His closed hands instinctively reach up. It’s a strategic failure, as Eddie catches his wrists, resting them on either side of Buck’s head.
The whole thing happens in seconds and somehow he can’t wait any longer.
Eddie surges forward, tilting his head up, and kisses Buck.
His lips perfectly cup Buck’s; he pins their mouths together awkwardly at first, then slowly drags back, pulling lightly at the soft, pink skin.
He repeats the kiss, nose nudging into Buck’s cheek, burying his body as far as possible forward (he thinks Buck can handle his weight, though). There's a soft ‘hmph’ from Buck as he melts into the hold.
It’s Buck, not Eddie, that changes the angle of the kiss; it’s Buck that coaxes a slow grind of their hips; it’s Buck that manages to free his hands, securing them on Eddie’s nape and waist, ensuring Eddie can't doubt that he wants this.
Eddie finds himself fumbling to hold a clean shaven jaw, his other hand roaming Buck’s chest to his shoulder, dipping to the blade before the cold wall plasterting stops him finding further purchase. He is dizzy from caramel coffee and sea salt aftershave and the firm caresses from fingers he’s long coveted.
He’s not sure who parts their lips first, whose tongue makes what move first, or who begins the tangling of legs and fists in shirts. He doesn’t care. As his heart leaps, his respiration gets shallow, eager, charged with how unmistakably right it feels: it’s arriving somewhere he has been moving toward all along.
Between satisfied moans and the atmosphere buzzing of belonging, Eddie doesn’t realise his lungs are empty; air only registers its absence, apparently. That’s a first, he thinks. Then, reluctantly, he slows his movements and leans away a few inches. Buck’s hands are locked behind Eddie’s back, keeping them anchored together, their navels pressed flush.
He can’t stop smiling.
Eddie frames Buck’s face with both palms, cupping his cheeks, thumbs brushing the warmth there as he admires its rosy glow; he imagines he looks much the same.
“Eddie,” Buck teases. “So you lied?”
“I did. I did lie. Evan.”
“Multiple times.”
“I’m…” So in love with you. Hopelessly. Gay gay homosexual gay queer. I’m gay in love with you. Kiss me again. Lift my shirt up and touch my skin. It’s you. Buck. It’s always been you. I’m yours and you’re mine. I love you. “Sorry.”
Buck’s breath hitches, his chest rising sharply, his gaze inquisitive, somewhat permissive.
“Sorry?” he repeats.
“Yes, Buck, I’m sorry.” He feels the pads of Buck’s thumbs do circles over the small of his back. “I don't want to lose you. You’re the most important person in the world to me and Chris. For good reason. I’m sorry I believed you would leave if I told you the truth, the whole truth.”
“And what is that?”
“That I was scared trusting you with this, with me. That figuring out my sexuality was completely intertwined with you. That I love you.”
He expects Buck at least flinch at that. Nothing.
“Eddie.”
“Hmm?”
“Did you know…?”
“Buck…”
“That I love you, too.”
Both confessions come easy, there’s no need to think twice, no doubt fighting its way in; it's outgrown its hiding place.
“And!” Buck continues, “It took me a long time to figure that out. I mean, we’ve been acting like we’re married for years. It feels like half of L.A. already thinks I’m in love with you.”
Eddie makes a note to question that later. Right now, he’s mapping Buck’s freckles and wondering if he can shut Buck up by kissing him or if he’ll still find a way to yap.
“Honestly, fuck, sure, they're not wrong. Maybe since the day we met, who knows? I’ve been gone for you for a long while, Eddie.”
Eddie lets out a loud laugh, a little disbelieving of Buck’s words. The corners of his eyes crinkle and he’s sure they shimmer with the words ‘I love you’.
“But I didn’t know that’s what it was.” Buck dips his head. He’s sort of shying away, sort of finding himself, Eddie observes. “I just thought… yeah, yeah, this is what best friends do. The jealousy, always needing to be near you, talking about you to literally anyone who’ll listen, those - uh - confusing dreams…” Buck grits his teeth in an apologetic smile. “Basically embedding myself into your life so completely that I’m in your will. I told myself it was normal, surely this is what best friends are supposed to do; I didn’t know what else to call it. Except… then I did.”
“You love me.” Eddie can’t help but kiss Buck again.
Buck makes a whining, offended noise against his mouth. “Hey-” He tries to pull back, but he has little space to move into, and Eddie follows him anyway, another kiss cutting him off. “Hey! It’s my turn to monologue!”
He tries to, but Eddie can’t really remember monologuing at Buck.
He’s only thinking about the healing of his heart and to get more of Buck on his lips.
“What I’m saying is - I didn’t know what to do with it either. I probably would’ve just carried it around forever, y’know? Taken it to my grave, or-” Buck tilts his head, “-made a complete idiot of myself and sent you some half-coherent, drunk confession at two in the morning.”
Eddie knows that, under all the joking, Buck was probably in the same boat. “Sorry for being straight for so long.”
“And,” Buck adds, deliberately slowing his pacing, “maybe I’m a little offended you thought I’d just ditch you. But there’s nothing to forgive, Eddie.”
Eddie reaches for Buck, letting his hands and the press of his mouth say everything he can’t quite put into words. He leans in, encourages Buck to do the same, and is very much answered in kind.
“That’s your pros/cons list?”
Buck slips his JBL earbuds out and sets them on the nightstand. He’s heard it all, the pauses, the softened consonants lost in a slurred word, the little sniffles, the parts Eddie forgot. When he turns inward, he props himself on one elbow, hovering over the other man.
It’s been nearly a week since the voice note, and they’ve kept the circle tight (just them and Chris, for now). Chris handled it better than Eddie expected: few questions, nothing prying, and then a firm insistence that Buck stay for dinner, and that settled everything.
Tomorrow, at Athena’s summer solstice barbecue, they’ll pull Chimney aside first, give him a heads-up about the paperwork, then work against time by ripping the bandage off and telling everyone they’re dating before Chim can either implode or so obviously freak out with the responsibility of a secret.
Tonight, though, the world is smaller. Chris is in bed, the kitchen is clean, and they linger by the back door longer than they need to, talking about nothing at all just to stay close a little while more. It ends with Eddie admitting that, good idea or not, taking it slow isn’t working for him… and then promptly tugging Buck back inside so he won’t leave.
“You get why I didn’t want you to hear it?” Eddie asks. He’s on his back, looking up at bright blue eyes, while his own take in tattoos, groomed chest hair, and defined muscles because he can. It takes everything to not reach out and trace every inch with his hands.
“It’s not that bad.”
“Except for the part where I’m painfully sentimental and sappy?”
“I like that part.”
“Yeah. Only because it’s about how much I love you,” Eddie defiantly rushes out.
Buck grins. “It is!”
The teasing smugness endears Eddie, but he would still very much like the ground to swallow him whole.
There’s no way he’s listening to that recording ever again. He groans, squeezing his eyes shut as heat floods his cheeks.
The sheets rustle beside him. He expects Buck to settle back in, sink close next to him, but instead the mattress dips near his legs. It takes a second of silence for Eddie to register that Buck might be getting up, followed immediately by the unmistakable weight of him climbing on top, straddling him.
Before Eddie can even open his eyes, arms bracket his head, and the faint trace of lip balm and the scratch of stubble brush against his cheek. The kisses come in a slow trail, peppering their way until they reach his mouth, until Eddie’s smiling despite himself, canting up to meet him, kissing back.
He lifts his hands, sliding his fingers into Buck’s curls, slow and deliberate, feeling the softness give beneath his touch; instinctively, he rolls his hips up, chasing the contact. It earns him a quiet, pleased sigh.
Eddie lets the dance stretch, drawing his nails lightly down Buck’s back, just enough to make him arch into it and to pull him closer. It’s easy to guide him. Buck follows without thinking, all heat and devotion, wrapped up in Eddie, in learning what makes him breathe a little deeper, attending to whatever parts of Eddie he thinks have been neglected.
That same laser focus leaves him oblivious to the shift. Eddie’s calves slip around Buck’s, locking him in, his hands settle with sudden purpose on Buck's shoulders. And if Buck does notice, he doesn’t pull away.
It takes almost nothing for Eddie to roll Buck. One smooth press and Buck is trapped beneath him, the rise and fall of his chest under Eddie’s hands. And there’s no real resistance, just a startled sound that dissolves into something rougher, low curses, and Eddie’s sure he heard his name caught between kisses.
When Eddie pulls back and settles on his heels, holding Buck’s thighs apart as he takes him in, he holds him there, pressed close. Working Buck up - getting his bright blue eyes blown wide and hazy - isn’t the goal.
“Now,” Eddie says, his voice more wrecked than he expected, “it’s your turn.” A hand drifts down Buck’s sternum, stopping over his left pectoral. “You’ve got to say it. Tell me how you need me… how long you’ve wanted this.”
He leans forward but it’s not enough for Buck.
“…how you imagined pushing me against the firetruck and kissing me, fucking in the firetruck…” He ruts slightly forward, brushing against Buck. “…And that you've slowly worked yourself into my family and legal documents because I’m the love of your life.”
Buck shakes his head, a small smirk breaking through his put-on pout. “Sounds like you’ve already got me figured out.”
“Nope. You’re not getting out of this that easily.”
“Hmm. Or what?”
So that’s how it’s going to be. “You want to find out?”
“Oh?” Did Buck ever. “Do your worst, babe.”