Archive of Our Own

It feels like there’s ice inside of Eddie’s bones. Every move sends a shudder through his body and a chill down his spine. It’s like the rain has seeped through his turnout gear and his skin, and has frozen solid deep inside of him.

He’s in warm, dry clothes now. He’s spent the last hour and a half with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders and Hen holding it - holding him - together.

But the cold is relentless and unceasing.

It’s the kind of cold that makes you ache, makes you tremble. The kind of cold that makes you forget what sunshine feels like on your skin, and the kind that makes you wonder if you’ll ever be warm again. If you’ll ever be normal again.

The chapel is empty when Eddie slips inside.

For half of his life this place was one of sanctuary - of safety. It was the place he came when he felt alone, or afraid, or lost. It was the place he came for answers and for peace and for hope.

Eddie hasn’t set foot in a church since before he was shipped off to Afghanistan.

He lost more than just his blood - his friends - in that desert. He lost a part of himself that he’s never been able to find again: his belief, his faith. Because there was no god out there with him, no guiding light, no hand to show him the way. Because he prayed and he prayed and he prayed, and Eddie got them out but he didn’t keep them safe - didn’t keep them alive. And it was easier to be angry at god than at himself.

Eddie hasn’t set foot in a church since before he was shipped off to Afghanistan, but he does now.

He takes a seat in one of the middle pews. Too far back and god will think you’re hiding something; too far forward and Eddie might forget how to breathe.

It’s non-denominational. There are no crosses, or chalice, or ciborium. It’s not like the one he grew up going to - the sanctuary that became a cell, for Eddie. There are just candles at the front that you can light if you want to, and a quiet place to pray, or to cry, or to hope, or to beg.

Eddie isn’t sure which of those he’s going to do - isn’t sure if there’s much of a difference between praying and begging - but he closes his eyes anyway.

There’s a flash of Buck’s smile, and then a flash of white light. There’s Buck, Buck, Buck. Hanging from the ladder by a thread, not moving. Not even breathing.

There’s screaming, too. And it’s loud and raw and aching. It’s Eddie. Though he didn’t realise that until later - until he had to pull himself together enough to answer questions about Buck’s medical history, and he realised his voice was hoarse and scratchy. Until he realised that they were all terrified, but they were looking at Eddie like he might shatter into pieces, right there in the hospital waiting room.

There’s his hands on Buck’s chest, but his skin is cold and his heart is still, and Eddie keeps pushing and pushing - trying to force life back into him - but it’s not working. It’s not working and Eddie can’t - he can’t -

He opens his eyes. Clenches his hands into fists so he can’t see the way that they’re shaking like leaves in an autumn breeze. He takes a breath, and then another, and then another.

His voice is barely even a whisper when he finally begins to speak.

“I think I might have forgotten how to do this,” he admits. “But I’m going to try anyway.”

He’s going to try because he’d do anything, everything, to bring Buck back to them. He’s going to try because the fear of losing Buck is even bigger than the fear of losing himself.

“I’m not sure if I believe in you anymore, and even if you are real - well. I’m not sure if you’ll want to listen to me,” Eddie says, a self-deprecating laugh slipping from his lips. “But this isn’t for me, it’s for him. It’s for Buck.”

Eddie might not be worthy of god’s help or his guidance or his love, not anymore - not after he’s spent so long rejecting the very notion of it. And he finds that, when he thinks about it, he doesn’t really mind. It’s not like when he was a kid, and god’s love and grace felt like the biggest, most beautiful things in the world. He doesn’t need it now.

But Buck does. Buck needs it, and he deserves it, too. Because he’s good, and he’s selfless, and he’s kind. Because he’s patient, and honest, and he cracks his own chest open and lets his love pour out of it for anyone and everyone that he meets.

Buck is worthy, even if Eddie isn’t. Buck is worthy, even if god isn’t.

“You need to give him back,” Eddie says. “You can’t take him from us, because he has so much living left to do. Because he makes the world better just by being it. Because Buck is the very best of us.”

He knows if Maddie, and Bobby, and Hen, and Chim, and Athena were all here, that they’d agree too.

“Please.”

Eddie prays. Eddie cries. Eddie hopes. Eddie begs.

“Chris can’t lose another parent,” he whispers. “I - I already lost Shannon. Please don’t make me do this again.”

It’s not the same. It’s not - it shouldn’t be. But it feels like it is. It feels like losing his partner, like Chris losing his parent. Like losing the version of himself that Eddie has become since knowing Buck - the version of himself he’s become because of Buck.

He closes his eyes again. There’s a flash of Buck’s smile, and then a flash of white light.

”Please.”

Eddie prays.

They’re standing in a cemetery, by the grave of someone they didn’t know for more than a handful of minutes. The moment still feels big, somehow. There’s sorrow, and there’s grief, but it’s not for her. Not really.

Buck’s shoulder brushes Eddie’s and Eddie wants to say something to him, but he isn’t sure what. He isn’t sure what words he’s supposed to say, or how he’s meant to find a way to say them to this version of Buck - the one that’s just a little bit different. A little bit changed.

Eddie looks at him sometimes, and he thinks that maybe Buck left a part of himself behind when he woke from that coma.

But he thinks maybe Buck found a part of himself, too. A part that he’s spent a long time searching for, and even longer missing. Maybe he lost it along the way, or maybe he never had it in the first place, but now he just has to figure out what to do with it. And different doesn’t have to mean better or worse, it just means different.

Because how could Buck be anything else after what happened to him? You don’t die, then come back to life, and expect everything to be the same as it was. It just isn’t possible - it’s not how human beings work. It’s too big of a thing to live and die through, and have nothing be altered by it.

But it’s just another thing to add to the very long list of topics they avoid really talking about.

When Buck says her name, Eddie knows what’s coming. He can hear the smile in his voice, the hope hiding inside of every word that he says.

It feels like an ice bath, for reasons that Eddie doesn’t - or doesn’t want to - understand.

“Dating someone you rescued? You know that never ends well,” Eddie reminds him. They’ve both been there before. They both know how this story goes.

“This is - this is different,” Buck insists.

And he might actually believe it, because if Buck is anything then he’s an optimist. But Eddie has known him long enough - knows him better than anyone else does - to know it’s probably just wishful thinking. It’s probably Buck trying to convince himself of the fact, because it feels like an option. Natalia feels like an option.

“I feel like she sees me,” Buck says, and it’s like a sharp right hook straight to Eddie’s jaw. “Like she really sees me, for who I am and what I’ve been though.”

It feels like splinters in his veins and broken glass in his lungs - it aches with every move, every breath.

Because this woman…she doesn’t know Buck. She doesn’t know anything about him - about his life; his loves and his joys, and his fears and his hurts. She cares that he died, she doesn’t care that Buck lives. And she definitely doesn’t see him. Not the real Buck, who is good and kind, and insecure and fragile. The Buck who is a brother, and a friend, and a father figure, and a partner. The Buck who is a person worthy of being seen entirely.

Eddie sees him.

Eddie has seen him right from the very moment they met, when Buck sauntered up to him with resentment and false bravado seeping from his pores. He knew that it was a facade even then. He definitely knows that it’s one now. A mask that he’s showing everyone so no one worries - so no one asks too many questions.

But Eddie sees past it. He sees the anxiety, and the questions, and the pressure, and the fear. He sees Buck, coming unraveled at the seams but desperately trying to stitch himself back together before anyone else has a chance to notice.

He sees Buck, finally wanting something for himself but having no idea how to take it. How to even decide what he truly wants, because he’s spent so long ignoring that part of himself - so long giving and giving and giving, that’s he forgotten how to take.

“I think she might even see more of me than I see of myself.”

And Eddie wants to scream and cry and beg for Buck to just open his eyes. He wants to tell him that he won’t find what he’s looking for with her. So he jokes, he tries to tell him in as many ways as possible that, whatever question Buck is asking, she is not the answer.

He doesn’t know what is, but he knows it’s not her.

“You don’t have to be anything for anybody,” Eddie promises him.

What he means is you don’t have to be anything for me. Because Buck has spent so long folding himself into something smaller and smaller, so he always fits wherever he is needed. So he never takes up too much space.

What he means is you’re enough, exactly as you are. Because Eddie wants every version of Buck. Because he doesn’t ever want him to have to pretend to be something that he’s not - feel something that he doesn’t. He wants him however he comes, mess, and heartache, and cracks, and all.

He doesn’t say that, though. He can’t. It’s too big and too heavy - it weighs more than either of them are ready to carry, right now.

And Buck is so willing be anything - be everything - that he won’t hear it anyway. He won’t understand that he gets to put down the armour and the weapons, and just be.

So Eddie lets their shoulders brush together again. He doesn’t call Buck out. He doesn’t argue, or try to change his mind.

He just stands with him, and that’s enough for now.

Eddie is a hypocrite, probably.

He told Buck not to date someone that he’d rescued, because they both know how that story ends. But then Eddie went and called up Marisol because it felt like he had to - because it felt like he was being left behind.

And it was - yeah. It was fine. A perfectly okay date. But it wasn’t what Eddie wanted - wasn’t even close to what he’s been searching for. He wanted magic, but what he got instead was a sleight of hand.

It was acceptable, but it was empty. There was nothing special at all about sitting in a restaurant that he’s been to before with Buck and Chris, and having a much less interesting conversation with a person he found it hard pretending to feign interest in.

So it didn’t work out, and that’s fine. Eddie is content with the life he already has - he doesn’t need to search for more when he already has everything he needs right in front of him.

Except. Except Buck is dating Natalia now. Dating, as in present tense. An ongoing kind of thing. And it’s not Eddie’s place, really, but it doesn’t stop him from not liking it. Not because…because - whatever. It’s just that, Buck wants something deeper than he’s had before. He wants something real. And Natalia isn’t that.

Buck had told Eddie that Natalia thought his death was cool. He’d said it with a proud smile on his face, like a kid who’d just won an award in class and couldn’t wait to show it off. He said it like he expected Eddie to laugh, or smile, or something. But all Eddie could do was stare.

There was a flash of Buck’s smile, and then a flash of white light.

Buck hanging. Buck motionless. Buck dead. Cold skin, and broken ribs, and a still heart beneath his hands. Debilitating panic, consuming terror, agonising numbness. A chapel, and a prayer, and god that abandoned Eddie long ago. Please, please, please.

He was willing to give her a chance before, but not now.

They’re all tired and achy after a too-long shift, and when Hen suggests, “Breakfast?” no one disagrees. But then -

“I can’t Hen, sorry,” Buck says, with a coy grin on his face.

“Oh, is that right?” She asks.

Hen places a hand on her hip and raises a single eyebrow at him. She looks like such a mom than even Eddie finds himself smiling for a moment. Then she smirks like she knows where Buck is going without even having to ask.

And Eddie knows, too, though he’s less thrilled about it than everyone else seems to be. He bites his tongue.

“Hot date?” Chim teases, waggling his brows up and down until Buck laughs and shoves his shoulder.

“No, I mean - not really. We’re just going shopping.”

Ravi spins around so fast it’s a miracle he doesn’t lose his balance. The look of half-disbelief and half-disgust that’s on his face is almost comical, and honestly Eddie can’t say that he blames him.

“Shopping?” Ravi asks. “Why?”

Eddie’s thankful that he asked, because he wants the answer too, but he wouldn’t dare ask it.

Buck shrugs his backpack onto one shoulder, holding onto the strap with both hands as his eyes flicker between everyone in the locker room. It feels like the settle on Eddie for the longest, but he’s probably just imagining that.

“I, uh - I need a new couch, so Natalia’s helping me pick one out.”

Eddie turns to stone.

It’s a non-thing to everyone else. They nod and laugh and change the topic of conversation. They don’t get it, but Eddie does. He knows what this means - for Buck, and for him, and for their…their family.

He can still picture the look on Buck’s face as they ate Bobby’s three-cheese lasagna, when he said, ”My last two couches came with girlfriends…maybe I don’t want to pick the wrong couch again.” He remembers the way it felt, to hear those words while Buck looked at him like that.

He can feel Buck watching him now, can feel the intensity of his gaze even though Eddie is refusing to meet it.

It takes a monumental effort, but when he finally looks Buck in the eyes he feels breathless from the aching in his chest. Because the way that Buck is looking at him, with hope and fear, like he’s waiting for Eddie’s acceptance, his approval. It’s - it’s too much. He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say, what he’s supposed to do.

He wants to ask Buck not to go, but why? That’s not a reasonable request, asking your friend to ditch his - his, what? Girlfriend? - so he can get breakfast with you. With your team.

He can’t. He won’t. He doesn’t.

He slings his own work bag onto his shoulder and heads for the door. As he passes Buck he stops, standing a hair too close. He rests his hand on Buck’s shoulder, lets his thumb brush the bare skin of his throat and doesn’t even flinch when he feels Buck swallow.

“Have a good time,” he says, and it feels there’s barbed wire wrapped around his vocal cords.

Buck lets out a breath, almost like a sigh of relief. “Yeah, thanks. I’ll send you a picture? Of the one I - we pick out?”

Eddie nods. Eddie smiles. Eddie squeezes Buck’s shoulder. He feels like a robot, going through the motions.

“Sounds good,” he lies.

Because what else is he supposed to do?

Buck and Natalia date, until they don’t.

Buck doesn’t make a big deal out of it. He doesn’t even mention it beyond a passing, ”Oh, we’re not seeing each other any more,” said in the back of the truck on the way to a call.

He doesn’t seem to want to talk about it, and although Eddie would like to know where it went wrong, he doesn’t push for details.

Because, more than anything else, Buck just seems embarrassed by it all. Not hurt, like he was after Abby, or relieved, like he was after Taylor. He just seems kind of quiet - resigned. Like Eddie was right, but he doesn’t really want to admit it out loud.

And there’s a part of Eddie that wishes he’d been wrong about Natalia - that she’d ended up being genuinely interested in who Buck is as a person. Because Buck deserves only good things. He deserves to be loved as fiercely as he loves, without restrictions or requirements. He deserves happiness.

But most of all Eddie is just…relieved.

Relieved that for now, this - their family - doesn’t have to change. They still have time.

And they’re definitely making the most of it.

“Dad, come help!” Chris calls out, glancing over his shoulder at where Eddie is sitting just a few feet behind him.

Buck copies the movement, and grins at Eddie as he says, “Yeah, dad, come help.”

Eddie waits until Chris has turned back around before he flips Buck off, earning him a faux shocked face and a teasing wink. Eddie just rolls his eyes, biting back the smile that threatens to overtake his entire face.

Last week was the planetarium, the week before that was the zoo. This week, they’re at the beach. It’s not quite the height of summer yet, but the sun has been hot all day and the water has been just the right temperature for them to swim in without Chris getting cold. Eddie can feel the layer of sand and dried salt coating his skin, and they’ve been out here long enough that he’s mostly just looking forward to going home and showering at this point.

But Chris - and, by extension, Buck - insisted on building a sand castle before they started making their way home. And a castle it definitely is, if the turrets and moat and bridge are anything to go by.

“I think you two are doing just fine on your own,” Eddie insists from his spot in the shade.

“We’re almost done,” Chris tells him, for the sixth time in the past hour.

Eddie doesn’t even dignify him with a response at this point, he just laughs and shakes his head even though they’re both facing away from him.

The sun is slowly inching its way towards the horizon - not quite sunset yet, but getting close. It creates a halo of soft, warm light around Buck and Chris as they kneel in the sand and add to their castle.

Before he even realises what he’s doing, Eddie is holding his phone up and snapping pictures of the two of them.

As they laugh and chat to each other, discussing what else they should do - how they can make it even better - Eddie looks at the pictures that he’s taken. He smiles without even realising, as he appraises one where Buck and Chris are looking at each other. Only their profiles are visible in the picture, but their smiles are obvious anyway. Their love is obvious, too.

It steals Eddie’s breath in the very best of ways.

After adding the pictures to his family album, Eddie glances back up and frowns. Chris is wearing knee-length board shorts, a swim t-shirt, a sunhat, and half a dozen layers of sunscreen. Buck, however, is wearing shorts that come halfway down his thigh and nothing else. Not even sunscreen, apparently, if the red tinge to the back of his neck and top of his shoulders is anything to go by.

Eddie sighs, picks up Christopher’s bottle of sunscreen, and heaves himself out of the deck chair he’d made himself comfortable in.

The sand is toasty warm as his feet sink into it, but the feel of it between his toes makes Eddie wrinkle his nose subconsciously. For someone who lives in LA and who has a kid that would live at the beach if he could, Eddie sure hates sand. Especially when he knows he’ll be finding it for weeks after this trip.

As he approaches Chris and Buck, he sees Buck gently elbow Chris without even turning around to see Eddie.

“Oh look, Chris. Now he comes over, once we’ve already done all the har-“ he starts to say, but is interrupted by the cool squeeze of sunscreen on the back of his neck. “Shi-sugar.”

Chris snorts in amusement, and he laughs even harder when Buck pretends to glare at him.

“You’re supposed to be on my side!” He tells Chris.

But the kid just shrugs and giggles, and goes back to pressing shells into the sides of his castle. And in that moment he reminds Eddie so much of Buck, that it paralyses him for just a second.

Then with gentle hands Eddie begins to rub the sunscreen into Buck’s neck, mindful of the fact that his skin is already an aggressive shade of pink. And Buck doesn’t say anything for a while, just kneels there with his head bowed as Eddie takes care of him.

“You know, at your big age you’re supposed to remember to do this,” Eddie chastises him, and he can’t see Buck’s face but he knows that he’s rolling his eyes.

“I already put some on,” Buck insists, and Chris giggles.

“Yeah, like three hours ago.”

Buck shrugs his shoulders beneath Eddie’s hands. “Well, it’s a good thing I’ve got you to look out for me then.”

Suddenly touching Buck feels like too much, so Eddie pulls his hands away and ignores the way he instantly itches to touch him again. He wipes his hands on his swim shorts to get the excess cream off, and to keep him from reaching out again.

“You’re all done,” Eddie says, his voice sounding rougher than it did just a moment ago.

“Thank you,” Buck says.

And when he turns his head and looks up at Eddie, Buck gives him the biggest, sweetest smile.

It feels like there’s a ball of sunlight lodged behind Eddie’s rib cage. It’s humming beneath his skin, running through his bloodstream, seeping into his bones. It lights him up from the inside out, and Eddie feels so very alive whenever Buck looks at him like this - like he’s something worth looking at. Like he’s everything.

For a moment he thinks back to that night in the hospital waiting room, when Eddie was so cold that he couldn’t remember what warmth felt like.

Well. It feels an awful lot like this.

It’s day one of A shift’s three days off, and Eddie is just settling in for a work-free, child-free, person-free day, when his phone rings.

He scrunches his eyes closed and bites back a frustrated groan. He considers ignoring it for half a second, but it could be any number of people with any number of problems. So he blindly fumbles around the couch for it, and answers without even checking the caller ID.

“Hello?”

“Hey,” Buck says, and Eddie instantly feels his frustration melting away. “Are you busy?”

“No,” Eddie answers honestly. “But that was kind of the whole point.”

Days off are rarities, and days without Christopher are almost unheard of. And Eddie loves his kid more than anything in this world, but he thinks that he’s entitled to some alone time every now and then. Some time where he doesn’t have to be a dad, or a firefighter, or a paramedic. Days where he doesn’t have to be so responsible all the time.

But if Buck needs him, well. Eddie may as well start getting dressed now, because it’s not like he’s going to say no to whatever Buck asks of him.

“Oh, uh, right,” Buck says, sounding unsure.

Eddie laughs almost guiltily. “What do you need?”

There’s a moment of quiet, like Buck is weighing up whether or not he wants to ask, and Eddie hates that flash of uncertainty. Hates that he’s responsible for it, even if he was mostly only joking.

“You know that couch that I picked out with Natalia?” Buck asks.

He says her name like it tastes bitter on his tongue, like salt and tequila and lime. Like regret. That shouldn’t make Eddie feel good, but it does.

He nods his head until he remembers that Buck can’t see him, so he hums in acknowledgment instead.

“Well it was supposed to be delivered weeks ago and it never came, and I keep calling and e-mailing but the delivery company says that they did deliver it, so they won’t send me a replacement or a refund,” Buck explains.

It’s sucks that Buck is down a couch - or two, technically, after Kameron literally gave birth on his last one - and the money. So is it wrong of Eddie to feel smug, that even the couch Natalia helped him pick out ended up being a disaster?

Probably. But Eddie isn’t above being petty every now and then.

“So anyway, I - uh. I need to go pick another one,” Buck says, finally reaching the point of the phone call. “Will you come with me?”

“Of course,” Eddie agrees without hesitation, trying not to sound as affected as he feels. Trying not to read more into this than is really there.

Thirty minutes later and Buck is pulling into Eddie’s driveway, the sound of his tires on gravel so familiar that Eddie doesn’t need to look to know that it’s him. He has the windows down and his summer playlist blasting out, and two iced coffees waiting in the cup holders as bribery-slash-payment.

But his smile as Eddie walks up to the jeep is incentive enough - his laugh the best payment Eddie could receive.

But then the actual shopping begins, and suddenly Eddie knows why it’s taken Buck so damn long to decide on a freaking couch: he’s one picky fucker.

They hop from couch to couch, and store to store, and Eddie feels like he’s inside of a fairytale. It’s like this is Goldilocks and The Three Bears, and this couch is too lumpy, this couch is too hard, and none of them are just right.

“What about this one?” Eddie suggests.

“No, it’s too soft,” Buck says, without even sitting on it.

“This one?”

“Too colourful.” Sure.

“This one?”

“Too brown.” Jesus Christ.

Eddie stops making suggestions pretty quickly, and instead lets Buck wander around, brushing his hands over the material - sitting on the ones he deems a maybe, before shaking his head and moving on to the next.

Eventually, after four hours and what feels like four thousand couches, they finally call it quits.

Maddie and Chim already picked Chris up from school for a sleepover, so with an empty house and a six pack in the fridge, it only makes sense to invite Buck home with him after their busy day. And Eddie won’t ever admit it out loud, but spending time with Buck - regardless of what they’re doing - is one of his favourite things in the world.

Do you remember those summer days when you were kid, and everything just felt absolutely perfect? When it was hot, but the pool was cool? When your parents were in a good mood, so you got to stay out with your friends past curfew? The kind of days that were so blissful you just never wanted them to end, and when they finally did you would lie in bed and think about them for hours after?

Every day with Buck feels like that.

They collapse on Eddie’s couch, so close that their arms and thighs are touching. Eddie should probably move away, but he doesn’t. And he’s not sure why, but he doesn’t want to examine it too closely. Doesn’t want to peel back the layers in case he finds something that he’s not ready for.

“Well that was useless,” Buck grumbles, and Eddie can’t help but laugh.

“There were at least a dozen great options,” Eddie points out. “You’re just awkward as fuck.”

Buck gasps, presses his hand to his heart like he’s a southern belle and Eddie has just offended his delicate sensibilities. “I am no such thing.”

Eddie rolls his eyes in fond exasperation, and Buck grins back at him like he’s never been happier than he is in this moment. And they’re already sitting too close, but then Eddie’s breath catches in his throat when Buck lists sideways and rests his head on Eddie’s shoulder like it’s normal. Like this is something that they do.

It’s not. It’s not - but maybe it could be? Maybe Eddie wants it to be, and maybe Buck does too.

“You know, I think I like your couch the best,” Buck whispers.

“Yeah?” Eddie asks, and Buck nods his head - his curls brushing against Eddie’s jaw. “Well, maybe we can share it.”

Buck sits up again, his eyes bright and wide when he fixes them on Eddie. And Eddie’s heart is in his throat when Buck asks, “Really?” in a breathless, hopeful voice.

As they stare at each other - their gazes unwavering - a familiar sensation begins to fill Eddie up, from the tips of his toes right to the very top of his head. It’s an ache, but the good kind. A forest fire that he doesn’t even want to try to put out.

And it’s nothing new - not the first time that he’s ever felt it. But with sudden, startling clarity, Eddie finally has a name for it.

For the way Buck makes him feel when he says his name, and when he plays with Christopher, and when he tells a terrible joke. A name for the way the world goes quiet when they’re together, and nothing ever seems as big or as scary with Buck by his side. A name for the thundering in his chest, and the fluttering in his stomach, and the gentle hum just beneath the surface of his skin.

Love.

Eddie loves Buck.

The big, life-altering, irrevocable kind of love. The kind that starts and ends wars. The kind that people write songs, and poems, and books about. The kind that Eddie has been searching and searching and searching for, without ever realising that it’s always been right there in front of him.

“Really,” he murmurs, and he doesn’t miss the way Buck’s eyes flicker to lips, then to his eyes, then to his lips again.

The atmosphere shifts into something electric, crackling in all of the empty spaces between them. There’s quiet for a moment. Stillness. And then -

“Can I,” Buck whispers. “Can I kiss-“

“-yes.”

They’re a clash of teeth and tongues, of lust and love. They kiss and kiss and kiss. Until they’re breathless and dizzy, until the inferno in their chests quiets into a simmer, until the longing in their bones settles into loving, instead.

Eddie’s not entirely sure how he got here. When he thinks back over the life that they’ve been sharing together, he can’t pinpoint the exact moment the nature of their relationship changed - can’t pick out a specific place or a time when he fell in love with Buck. When friends became more…became everything.

It’s more like he’s always been falling. Like every second, every moment, every work call and day out and argument and reconciliation, he slipped a little further into this. Into them. Like he’s been living through the worlds longest free fall.

He looks into Buck’s eyes, and it feels like he’s still falling even now.

Buck laughs in disbelief, crowding in closer and resting their foreheads together so they’re close enough to breathe the same air.

“I love you,” Eddie tells him.

“I love you, too,” Buck says.

And it feels like the whole world shifts into place.

Tía Pepa’s kitchen smells like tamales and sunscreen.

Chris is playing out in the backyard, Pepa is cooking over the stove, and Buck is lay on his back trying to fix the leak beneath the sink. Eddie is -

“Are you planning on doing anything to help, Eddie? Or are you just leaving all the work to us?” Pepa asks with a teasing twist to her mouth.

Buck snorts, and then there’s a bump, and he lets an out several colourful words that are absolutely banned from his vocabulary whenever Chris is around.

“Serves you right for laughing at me,” Eddie taunts him.

But before Buck can even retort, Pepa smacks the back of his hand with her wooden spoon. “Your man is working hard, and you’re just sat there enjoying the view. Leave him alone.”

A scolding from his Tía doesn’t quite hit the same as it used to when Eddie was a kid. In fact, this one in particular makes Eddie’s chest feel warm and fuzzy in a way that Chim and Ravi would absolutely laugh at him for if he ever breathed a word of it out loud.

Because hearing his family defend Buck - even from a non-existent threat - feels like a fever dream for Eddie. Like something he can’t believe he gets to have.

Because even now, after months of being together, it still feels impossible. That he has this - has Buck - and his family have welcomed them with open arms.

Chris had rolled his eyes and said, ”well duh, I already knew that.” His Tía and Abuela had cried when he and Buck had finally told them the good news. His sisters immediately added Buck to their group chat, despite Eddie’s many vocal protests. And while his parents reactions were more reserved, they still told him how happy they are for him. How glad they are that he’s finally found somebody.

When his somebody finally lifts himself off the floor with a triumphant grin on on his face, Eddie flips him off. Buck’s mouth drops open in shock, and Eddie only sees a flash of the evil glint in his eye before Buck starts to rat him out.

“Tía,” he begins, and Eddie narrows his eyes at him and shakes his head. “Those tamales smell amazing.”

Eddie resists the urge to flip him off again when Buck winks teasingly at him.

“Thank you, dear,” Pepa says. “I’ll send you home with some, don’t worry.”

”Kiss ass,” Eddie mouths, and Buck makes kissy faces back to him until they both almost burst out laughing and give the game away.

To save themselves from discovery, Buck turns to face the sink and turns on the faucet. Once he’s satisfied that it’s no longer leaking and the job is finished, he washes his dirty hands with Pepa’s lemon and jasmine hand soap.

But as he’s drying his hands on the kitchen towel, his phone begins to buzz on the counter and his eyebrows start to furrow.

Eddie knows exactly who it is.

A few days ago Maddie accidentally let slip to their parents that Buck is in a relationship. With Eddie. It wasn’t an outing - Buck’s parents have known since he was in high school - and Buck isn’t angry with Maddie, but he had been trying to keep their relationship under wraps.

Not because he’s embarrassed or ashamed, or anything like that. But because Buck knows his parents - knows how they pick and pick and pick at things. How they judge, and interfere, and insert their opinions into everything even when they’re not wanted. Buck wanted to have this for himself a little while longer, wanted to keep it safe from their prying eyes for as long as he possibly could.

Because as far as Buck is concerned - and after meeting Philip and Margaret Buckley, Eddie is inclined to agree - the less involved they are in Buck’s life, the better. It’s not like he’s cut them off, but they are hanging by a very precarious thread and Buck honestly isn’t all that bothered if it snaps.

Their calls have been relentless since Maddie accidentally shared the news, and with each new one that comes through, Buck gets more and more anxious.

He picks up his phone from off the counter, but before he even has a chance to do anything about the name lighting up the screen, Eddie takes it from his hand and slips it into his own back pocket.

“You don’t have to talk to them until you’re ready,” Eddie gently reminds him.

Buck’s eyes soften when they meet Eddie’s, and the tension in his body eases when Eddie slips his arm around Buck’s waist. It’s a rush, knowing he has that kind of effect on Buck even months down the line. He hopes that it never changes, because he knows it will never get old.

“I know,” Buck says. “They just won’t take the hint.”

“They can call as many times as they want,” Eddie tells him. “But you don’t have to answer it until you’re ready to. And when you are, we’ll deal with it together.”

Because that’s how they do everything now: together.

They live together, and sleep together, and eat together, and work together. They raise their son together. They’re building their life together, bit by bit. Day by day. And after everything else they’ve battled their way through - grenades, crush injuries, lawsuits and well collapses, snipers, and lighting strikes and comas - the Buckley parents will be child’s play in comparison.

“Thank you,” Buck says softly.

Eddie brings his hand up to the back of Buck’s head, let’s his fingers brush through his tangle of curls as he presses a kiss to the strawberry-coloured birthmark on Buck’s left eye.

“Of course,” Eddie says. “Now go entertain Chris before he puts that ball through Tía’s window.”

Buck tips his head back and laughs, easy and carefree like he should always be. He finds Eddie’s lips and kisses him quickly, then disappears out the back door and heads straight over to Chris.

Eddie is watching them play through the window when he feels eyes on him. And it’s not like he’d forgotten Pepa was in the room with them, it’s more that the whole world kind of disappears whenever Buck is in his orbit. Like everything else falls away into nothingness once he’s got Buck in his arms.

Athena thinks it’s sweet. Bobby says it’s ridiculous, but Eddie doesn’t miss the loving glances he gives them when he thinks they’re not looking.

“Is he okay?” Pepa worries, as she takes a seat beside Eddie.

Eddie nods. “Yeah, he’s okay. His parents are just relentless, and he’s not ready to talk to them about us yet.”

Pepa hums. “Why not?”

Eddie sighs as he turns his head to look at his aunt. The crinkles at the corners of her eyes and mouth make her look wise, like she has every answer to every question in the whole world.

Eddie smiles at her, and she smiles back.

“Because he’s still trying to figure out how to let them be a part of his life without having them take over it.”

She nods, like she understands exactly where Buck is coming from. Then she squeezes Eddie’s forearm gently.

“Are you okay?” She asks, and Eddie laughs.

“Yeah,” he promises her. “I just - I hate that it bothers him. I hate that I can’t make it better.”

It’s what they’ve always done for each other, after all. Everything feels better, feels less scary, when they’re together. But this isn’t something that Eddie can fix for him. So he just has to walk alongside Buck and help him carry the weight of it, and hope that that’s enough.

Pepa doesn’t say anything for a while, so when Eddie turns back to look at her, he’s surprised to see that she’s already watching him with a smile on her face and tears in her eyes.

Eddie raises an eyebrow in question. “What?”

“The way you two are together,” she says, shaking her head wistfully. “He’s your soulmate.”

Eddie feels his cheeks flush, and it’s not even a conscious decision when he looks out of the window in search of Buck and Christopher. It’s like there’s a thread connecting them all, like no matter how far apart they are they’ll always find their way back to each other.

They’ve been slowly and carefully teaching Chris how to play soccer while using his crutches, and to see them now, kicking the ball around and laughing like they’re having the best day ever - it floods Eddie with the kind of joy he’d never even believed in before.

Soulmates.

It’s a sweet concept, and Eddie knows exactly what she means. He’s even wondered it himself a time or two. But - no. No, it’s not quite right. Eddie laughs, shaking his head as he absentmindedly flicks through the pages of Christopher’s science textbook.

“No - no I love Buck on purpose,” he tells her. “It’s not the universe, it’s not fate. It’s just us, choosing to love each other.”

Pepa pats Eddie’s cheek and smiles. “That sounds like soulmates to me.”

Eddie’s eyes find Buck’s through the kitchen window. Buck grins and winks, and Eddie thinks maybe. Eddie thinks home.