Archive of Our Own

“I’m leaving the 118,” Eddie had said, and Buck felt the earth shifting beneath his feet.

Like the moving of tectonic plates. Like the rumble of an earthquake. Like the whole goddamn world collapsing around him, beneath him, on top of him.

The words are still replaying in his head even now, a full twenty-four hours later. It’s like living inside of an echo chamber that forces you to keep reliving the most painful, heartbreaking thing you can imagine.

He’s leaving me, he’s leaving me, he’s leaving me, plays over and over again like a broken record. And no matter how many times Buck tries to shut it off - no matter how many times he tries to tell himself that leaving the 118 doesn’t mean that Eddie is leaving him - it just won’t stop.

And it’s a selfish thing to think, Buck knows. Because Eddie is doing this for Christopher and for himself, and they’re the two people who will always matter most. It’s not like they belong to Buck - they’re not his to love, or even his to miss - but it doesn’t change the way that it hurts. The way that it feels personal, even as he tries to remind himself that it’s not. It’s not about him.

”Not everything is about you,” he hears the reminder in his head.

He knows, he knows. It still hurts anyway.

He should sleep soon, probably. It’s not late, but tomorrow is his first shift without Eddie on the team. And though he trusts all of his coworkers implicitly - would give his life for them like he knows they would do for him - he doesn’t have with any of them what he had with Eddie. That easy, almost telepathic connection, that saw them moving and acting with nothing more than a quick glance or a tilt of the head.

Buck remembers how it felt to walk into the locker room and see the uckley of his name taped over, with osko in its place. That sense of being replaced even as he stood right there, like they were all moving on around him and he was just stuck in place.

He can’t replace Eddie, and he can’t move on from him either. Even if he wanted to, it wouldn’t be possible. There’s no letting go of the way his heart beats too fast when Eddie gives him his softest smile. There’s no getting over the warmth that settles inside him when he spends the day with his Diaz boys.

Buck couldn’t leave Eddie, so it’s fitting that Eddie is the one to leave him.

Just as Buck stands up to stretch and head up to bed, there’s a knock at the door. Quiet first, almost hesitant, but then more insistent the second time around. Buck briefly considers ignoring whoever it is - he’s not in the mood for any kind of conversation whatsoever - but then the lock clicks, and the door handle is pressed down, and Eddie is standing in his doorway.

“Hey,” he says, sounding almost surprised even though he’s the one who’s let himself into Buck’s place unannounced.

“Uh, hi?” It’s not a question, but it sounds like one.

“I - I think we should talk,” Eddie says as he closes the door behind him.

“It’s almost nine in the evening,” Buck unnecessarily states the obvious.

Eddie smiles a little, shrugging a shoulder up and down as he toes off his shoes and leaves them on the mat. He moves around Buck’s space like he belongs there, hanging up his jacket next to Buck’s and dumping his keys in the bowl by the door - the one that Chris had painted for him at some arts and crafts fair he’d gone to with school.

“I know, but I figured this should be done in person and I didn’t want to wait any longer.”

Buck has to bite back a hysterical laugh, because the first thought that pops into his head is - are you breaking up with me? It’s ridiculous on so many levels that Buck couldn’t even begin to count them all, but he can’t help feeling like that’s what this is: a breakup.

Eddie is moving on to bigger and better, and Buck is going to be left picking up the pieces. It’s not you, it’s me, except that’s not true; it’s always, always Buck.

“Oh, okay,” Buck acquiesces, sitting back down on the couch as Eddie takes a seat beside him.

Their knees knock together, and he has to fight the urge to press closer.

“I’ve messaged you a couple times since yesterday,” Eddie says. “You haven’t replied.”

Buck shrugs his shoulders. He doesn’t really know how to respond to that. He can’t very well tell Eddie the truth, which is that he was trying to make the letting go easier. He was trying to take a step back before Eddie had to ask him to.

There’s nothing like clinging onto someone when they so desperately want you to let go. Like a starfish that keeps re-growing its legs even after they’ve been cut off, in the hopes that this time it will turn out different.

“I wasn’t sure what to say,” Buck tells him, but it’s a half-truth.

He wasn’t sure what to say other than please don’t go, don’t leave me, don’t leave us. He didn’t trust himself to say anything at all, in case a begging, pleading, desperate thing dripped from his fingertips instead.

The way he feels is so selfish, but he refuses to be selfish. Refuses to ask for anything that Eddie won’t be able to give to him -

“I need to do this, Buck. For Christopher, but for me as well. For the person, and for the dad that I want to be.”

-especially when Eddie is the most selfless person he has ever known.

Buck nods his head. “I know, Eds. I do. I understand.”

“But I need you to know that me leaving the 118 - it doesn’t change anything between us. It doesn’t mean that I’m leaving you.”

It’s a gift, Buck thinks. A superpower. The way that Eddie always know what the right thing is to say. The way that he doesn’t look at you but into you, and he sees all of the things that you’re too afraid to say and he soothes them anyway.

Buck didn’t have to say it for Eddie to know. He didn’t have to claw at his chest and crack open his rib cage to let Eddie see inside of him, because Buck has worn his heart on his sleeve since the very first day that they met. It’s not a safe place - his heart gets bruised a lot - but Eddie makes sure to keep an eye on it. Makes sure to check if it’s hurting.

“You’re still mine and Christopher’s family,” Eddie says, and it sounds like a promise.

His heart has been beating too fast since the moment he felt Christopher’s panic through the phone. That desperate, terrified plea for Buck’s help, that had his insides twisting the whole way to Eddie’s house.

It doesn’t settle when he gets there and Christopher is crying, and Eddie is silent, and Buck has to break down the door.

There’s a twinge in Buck’s right shoulder, but it’s nothing compared to the ache he feels - right down to his very bones - when his eyes finally land on Eddie. Strong, composed, controlled Eddie, cowering on the floor with a baseball bat in his hands and tears streaming down his face.

He looks haunted, like he’s battling ghosts that only he can see. Ghosts that have got their claws so deep into him that Eddie doesn’t see a way out.

And for an awful, terrifying moment, Buck thinks he might be losing him. Because Eddie - he looks like he’s ready to give up. Throw in the towel. Wash his hands of whatever war he’s fighting in his mind.

He looks broken, and that’s enough to scare Buck into action.

“I’m afraid,” Eddie tells him, his knuckles bloody and tears dripping down his face and off his chin.

“Okay…okay, well what are you afraid of?” Buck asks.

He’s cautious, careful. Not wanting to set him off again, but not wanting to pity him either. Buck knows what it feels like to be pitied, and it does nothing but make you feel worse. But they can’t let this thing fester inside of him until it’s too late to do anything about it. Until it’s too late to save him.

“That I’m never going to feel normal again.”

The words shake Buck to his core. They make him feel exposed even though Eddie is the one who’s breaking down. Because Buck knows that feeling all too well. He knows what it’s like to feel changed - to feel damaged way beyond the possibility of repair.

Because when you’re on the edge of that cliff and you look back over your shoulder, everything seems too far away. The person you used to be before it all changed, the life you used to live, the normal that you existed inside of - it’s all too far gone for you to ever get back to it. It’s all slipped beyond your reach.

So the jump, the fall, the crash landing into nothingness…that seems so much easier. So much quicker.

Buck knows what it feels like to want to leave it all behind, and he knows from the look in Eddie’s eyes that he’s thinking that too. He’s thinking how much easier everything would be if he simply wasn’t around anymore.

So Buck takes Eddie’s hands, and he cleans his knuckles with a featherlight touch, and he says, “we’re going to get you help,” because they’re in this together. Eddie won’t have to do any of this alone.

Buck will hold onto him - will keep him balanced on that cliff edge until Eddie can find the strength to step away from it.

Later, when Christopher is sleeping in his room, and Eddie is passed out on the couch, Buck just takes a moment. He crouches down beside Eddie, cataloguing the crinkles around his puffy eyes and the frown he still wears even as he sleeps. He oh-so-carefully brushes the tips of his fingers through Eddie’s hair, and something inside of him eases as the frown slips off Eddie’s face.

“You’re not allowed to leave, you hear me?” Buck whispers into the silence. “I’m not letting you go anywhere that I can’t follow.”

It’s a slow process. Like awakening after a winter of hibernation. Like coming back to life, even though you were never really gone.

It’s slow, but it’s still movement. It’s still progress. There’s no going back to how things used to be, but they’re moving towards something different - something better. A new normal with a little less pressure and a lot more acceptance. And every time Buck looks into Eddie’s eyes, he looks a little more alive. A little more free.

The first morning that Buck wakes up in his loft and doesn’t immediately call Eddie to make sure he’s still alive, he finally breaks down and cries.

It’s their first Christopher-free weekend since Eddie started back at the 118. And that’s not to say Buck doesn’t love Christopher-full weekends - because they’re his very favourite kind - but it’s nice to be able to take some time to be adults.

Adults with maybe a little bit too much alcohol in their system.

The club is loud and fun, and the drinks are cheap. They both have their fair share of dances - with the pretty women who flock to them, the even prettier guy that rests his hands on Buck’s hips and dances with him until Buck not-so-subtly makes his way back over to Eddie, and then, towards the end of their evening, each other.

Their skin is glistening with sweat, their t-shirts are sticking to their backs and chests, and the places where Eddie’s hands are resting on Buck’s waist feel like they’re on fire.

It’s a heady thing, the air so thick with tension that you’d need a chainsaw to cut through it.

But the Uber ride back to Buck’s loft is silent and nervous, like they both know boundaries have been pushed tonight that probably should have been left the hell alone. Like they’re both waiting to see what the other is going to do about it, so they can follow their lead. Like neither one of them want to be the one to make the decision on how they’re going to handle this.

Buck plans on being responsible. Honestly.

They finally get back to his place, and there’s an energy crackling between them that feels like it could catch fire at any moment, but Buck is going to put it to rest. Because what they have - this thing that they’ve built - is too important to risk.

So he’s going to laugh it off, make some comment about how he’s had way too much to drink (even though they’ve both been drinking water for the past hour), and they’re going to pretend that the burning touches and wanting glances never even happened.

But then.

“You’ve got glitter on your face,” Eddie says, with a half smiling curving the right side of his mouth upwards.

He moves in too quickly, stands too close. And Buck is powerless to stop him when Eddie reaches up and swipes his thumb right across the strawberry-pink birthmark over Buck’s left eyebrow. He looks at his own thumb, and then shows it to Buck so he can see the shimmering specks of glitter.

“Got it.”

“Yeah,” Buck whispers.

And then they’re kissing. Buck doesn’t know who moves first but it doesn’t matter. They’re all teeth and tongues and lips, biting and grabbing and pushing and pulling. It’s frantic and it’s desperate, and they should stop - they should talk about what this means, where it’s going - but they don’t.

They don’t stop as they stumble up the staircase, or as they peel each others sweat-slick clothes from their bodies, or as they lose themselves in the heat of each other.

The early morning sunlight shining through the windows is enough to wake Buck from sleep, but he keeps his eyes tightly closed.

The night before comes back to him slowly: the bar, the drinks, the dancing. Them. The touches and the smiles, the heat and the want and the desire. Then Buck’s apartment, and the glitter on his face, and the desperate way that they fell apart together.

There’s a warm body curled up behind Buck, an arm slung over his waist, and a leg nestled in between his own. Buck freezes. If he moves - if he wakes Eddie - then this will be over.

He can already see how it’s going to play out. The way they’ll try and laugh it off in the light of the morning. They way Eddie will call it a drunken mistake, and Buck will agree to forget it because he’d rather lose this than lose them. But he’ll end up losing everything anyway, because they’ll swear up and down that this won’t affect their friendship, but it will.

Eddie will slowly pull away, and Buck will leave claw marks as he tries to hold on for dear life.

Eddie is going to leave. He’s going to wake up, and he’s going walk out of Buck’s apartment, and everything is going to change. It will be a slow goodbye - long, and drawn out, and painful - but it’ll end the same way it always does: Buck getting left behind.

He can feel his heart rate picking up and his palms turning clammy. He can feel the dread coiling at the base of his spine, twisting around it and slipping through the notches until every bone in his body is infected with it. He can feel…

…Eddie’s arm tighten around him, his palm pressing flat over the erratic beating of Buck’s heart. Eddie’s breath on the back of Buck’s neck as he nestles closer, pressing his nose into the curling hairs at his nape.

“Stop it,” Eddie grumbles, his voice hoarse with sleep and sex and alcohol.

Breathless, terrified, excited, Buck asks, “Stop what?”

Eddie pulls him closer, until his chest is pressed along the length of Buck’s back and there’s not a millimetre of space between them.

“Stop freaking out.”

“I’m not,” Buck lies.

“Liar,” Eddie calls him out on it.

Buck doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t even want to move in case it somehow startles Eddie into consciousness and he pulls away.

“I want this,” Eddie whispers, his lips caressing the top of Buck’s shoulder as he speaks. “I want you, and I want us. I’m not going anywhere.”

Something inside of Buck unfurls - stretches out like a cat bathing in the first sun-rays of spring. It’s warm, and it’s cozy, and it feels a lot like finding home.

“Okay,” Buck whispers.

“Okay,” Eddie agrees.

He presses a kiss to the sweet spot just beneath Buck’s jaw, and he doesn’t let him go.

Eddie shoves the front door closed a little too harshly for Buck’s liking, and he clenches his jaw against the frustration that’s bubbling just beneath the surface. It takes several deep breaths before he feels calm enough to continue the conversation they’d been having in the car.

“There’s no need to slam the door,” he insists, “I’m just saying-“

“Oh I know what you’re saying Buck, you’ve been saying it the whole ride home,” Eddie grumbles, tossing his keys into Christopher’s hand-painted bowl that sits on the console table by the door.

“Well if you actually listened to me, I wouldn’t have to keep repeating myself,” Buck tells him.

He’s trying really hard not to yell or cry, or completely lose his fucking shit. It’s just - is it really so hard to listen to your partner and respect their wishes? It’s not like Buck is asking for something ridiculous, he just-

“-you’re being ridiculous,” Eddie tells him, both hands on his hips as he stares at Buck.

The words make Buck flinch. This is - it’s not just a small disagreement anymore. It’s not a simple conversation where they explain why they’re upset and they find a way to work it out. This feels like…fuck. It feels like their first real fight, and the reality of it sends Buck’s heart plummeting right down to his feet.

He doesn’t do well with arguments - doesn’t handle the emotions of them very well. Every insecurity he’s ever had always seems to rear its ugly head at the very worst of times. He gets sensitive, and defensive, and he reads things wrong and says things that he doesn’t really mean.

“I’m not being ridiculous!” Buck exclaims, throwing his hands up in frustration. “All I said was-“

“-that I can’t have friends, apparently,” Eddie scoffs, shaking his head as he turns his back on Buck and storms into the kitchen.

Buck should leave it. He should go take a shower and let himself and Eddie calm down, and then they can talk about it again when some of the tension has faded and they’re both more levelheaded. They’re never going to properly discuss this if they’re both too angry to listen each other.

That’s what Buck should do. And yet.

“That’s bullshit,” Buck argues, stomping after Eddie and only just stopping himself from slamming the door behind him. “I never said anything even close to that and you know it.”

Eddie’s standing in front of the open refrigerator, and the light reflects on his face as he tips his head back and laughs without humour. He looks bitter, and angry, and it’s an expression Buck has never seen on his face before - one that he never wants to see again.

He spins around to face Buck, a bottle of condensation-damp beer clutched in his hand. Buck’s eyes flicker to the bottle and he bites down the words he wants to say, but Eddie notices anyway.

“Oh, and now I can’t even have a drink apparently.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Buck reminds him.

Eddie scoffs. “You didn’t have to, Buck.”

“I just don’t think adding alcohol into the mix is a good idea when we’re arguing.”

Buck worked into plenty of bars as he made his way across the US and down through South America. He knows that alcohol only fuels anger, and he’d been caught in the middle of way too many bar brawls while trying to stop them for him to not take a couple of lessons from that.

And it’s not that Buck even for a second thinks Eddie’s anger could turn into something violent - he knows there’s less than zero percent chance of that happening. But with lowered inhibitions and too much anger, things will get said that they might not be able to come back from.

Eddie doesn’t say anything, he just puts the beer back in the refrigerator and lets the door fall closed on it.

“Thank you,” Buck whispers, and Eddie nods.

They’re quiet for a moment, and it feels deafening after their raised voices. And then-

“I don’t like being controlled, Buck,” Eddie says.

Buck feels his whole body turn ice cold. His heartbeat feels unnaturally slow, and his skin feels like it’s stretched too tightly over his bones. He feels sick.

“I wasn’t trying to control you,” he promises.

“You told me I couldn’t talk to her.”

Buck frowns. “No, I told you-“

“-to stop flirting with her. Flirting, Buck? Jesus. We live together. We have a kid, and you think I’m flirting with some PTA mom at a bar?”

It sounds stupid when Eddie spells it out like that, but Buck knows what he saw. Knows the way his gut began to twist at the sight of Eddie and Rebecca the bank manager.

“She was twirling her hair and had her damn hand on your arm!”

Buck doesn’t mean to yell, he doesn’t. But Eddie is making him feel fucking crazy - like he’d just imagined the whole thing, and that’s so far from what happened. He knows what flirting looks like, he’s a damn expert at it.

But Eddie just laughs again, shaking his head like he can’t believe they’re even having this conversation. At least they agree on something.

“She was being friendly Buck,” Eddie insists. “I’m allowed to be friends with people.”

“Oh, okay. So when you see me batting my eyelashes and pressing up against someone, remember that I’m just being friendly.”

It’s childish. So fucking childish, and unnecessary, and completely counterproductive. Buck knows it - he knows before he’s even finished saying it. But like he said, he’s bad at this. Bad at arguing. He goes on the offensive before he has a chance to let himself get hurt, and it always ends in disaster.

By the look on Eddie’s face, tonight will be no different.

Eddie doesn’t even dignify Buck with a response, he just stalks right past him without even glancing in his direction.

There’s the slamming of a door, and it’s so loud that it rattles Buck’s teeth. Buck doesn’t know which door it was - he can’t see through the tears that are blurring his vision - but he knows down to his bones that Eddie has just left him. That everything they’ve been through, everything they’ve fought for and built with cracked and bleeding hands, has all just turned to rubble around him.

He feels paralysed with the weight of it - the grief of knowing he had everything he ever wanted right there in the palms of his hands, and now it’s just gone.

Buck remembers reading something once. He’s not sure where or when, and he’s not even sure who said it. But he’ll never forget the words. He’ll never forget the way they burrowed beneath his skin like an arrow aiming straight for his heart. Those words had made him ache back then, but now the memory of them is ripping him apart.

Someone has to leave first. This is a very old story. There is no other version of this story.

He’d always known it would be Eddie who would walk away first, but he hadn’t expected it to go like this. He hadn’t expected it to hurt quite so bad. And of all the things Buck has survived, this one would be the very worst - if he even made it through at all.

Buck can’t move - he’s just frozen there in the middle of the kitchen, with shaking hands and tears sliding down his cheeks. He doesn’t know how long he stands there for, it could be minutes or hours. The seconds just bleed into each other like one long, agonising loop.

He doesn’t hear the door, or the creaking of the floorboards, or the tap of Eddie’s shoes. He doesn’t hear anything at all until Eddie’s voice.

“Buck?”

Buck sucks a breath into his screaming lungs, but he doesn’t turn around. He can’t bear to look at Eddie and see everything that he’s just lost.

But then there are arms winding around his waist, and a chin resting on his shoulder, and warm breath against his neck when Eddie says, “Buck, baby, why are you still standing here?”

Baby. Baby. Baby.

He’s holding him. He’s not asking Buck to pack his things - not telling him that he’s no longer wanted here.

Baby. Baby. Baby.

“I’m sorry,” Buck whispers, a fractured, devastating thing.

“Okay, okay love. Let’s go and sit down,” Eddie says, so gentle as he guides Buck into the front room and sits them down beside each other on the couch.

“I’m sorry,” he says again. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything, I should-“

“-no, no I’m sorry,” Eddie says. “I’m so sorry. I wasn’t flirting with her, I promise you. But that doesn’t mean I had any right to react like that.

“I’m exhausted after that double shift, and my parents keep nagging on at me to let them visit and we both know how that will go, and - and it wasn’t about you. I took it out on you, and I shouldn’t have, but that wasn’t about you, baby.”

Some of the anxiety Buck had been holding inside of him seeps out of his muscles, and he lets himself relax into Eddie’s arms. Lets himself take a minute to gather his thoughts as Eddie’s presses a kiss to the ticklish spot right behind his ear.

“I know you weren’t flirting with her,” he explains. “I know that, but she was flirting with you, and I just - she was so beautiful, and I had no reason to worry, but I did anyway.”

“Evan, she could have been a Victoria’s Secret supermodel and it wouldn’t have mattered because she’s not you,” Eddie reassured him, laughing gently as Buck rolls his eyes.

And he feels better already. Feels like the ground beneath his feet is solid once again. But there’s still that lingering sense of fear he felt when he heard the door slam closed - that panic that he’d just lost everything.

He turns to look at Eddie, and Eddie wipes the tears from his beneath his eyes with the sleeve of his hoodie. But then Buck glances down at it and realises it’s his old hoodie, and Eddie hadn’t been wearing it earlier. He must have changed into.

“You left,” he whispers, almost nervously.

Eddie shakes his head and smiles sadly. “I went and sat on the porch to calm down.”

There’s a beat of silence, and then another, and then they both start to laugh. All lingering tension leaves Buck’s body as Eddie’s mouth finds his, and they kiss like they’ve been apart for weeks instead of an hour at most.

It feels like coming home, all the same.

“I’m sorry,” Eddie whispers.

“I’m sorry, too,” Buck says, kissing Eddie again. “Just don’t leave next time, please?”

“Never again,” Eddie promises. “I love you.”

“I love you.”

A heaviness settles over the house the second the door closes on Eddie’s parents. Buck felt like he’d been holding his breath the whole time they’d been there, but even now they’re gone his lungs are still on fire; he’s still gasping for breaths that just won’t come. Still reaching for a relief he’s scared he isn’t going to get.

He can’t look at Eddie. He can’t even look away from the scuff mark on the skirting board, there from when they unsuccessfully tried to rearrange the furniture a couple of weeks ago.

Buck thinks back on that day, on that exact moment when the chair leg scraped against the board and Eddie and Buck locked eyes. There had been a moment of oh shit, as if they were kids about to get in trouble for doing something they shouldn’t have been.

But this is their house - their home - and it’s okay to make mistakes here. It’s okay to make messes. No one is punished just for breathing…just for being. Their home is a safe one. So they both just burst into laughter, instead.

They’d left the furniture alone after that. No point in fixing what isn’t broken.

This isn’t broken, Buck wants to say to Eddie. We aren’t broken. But he can’t make his mouth form the words - they would sound too much like begging. Too much like please, don’t leave me, and Buck doesn’t want to put that on Eddie. Doesn’t want to be yet another person asking him to make an impossible choice.

Mostly, Buck is just too scared to ask in case Eddie doesn’t choose him. In case this is finally the moment that Eddie walks away.

Buck will take every blissfully unaware second that he can get.

Eddie lets out a groan as he takes his place beside Buck on the couch. Their knees knock together and Buck can’t decide if he wants to push closer, or to pull away - to start practising in letting go.

He wants to speak, but doesn’t know how. He wants to look at Eddie, but he’s too scared of what he might see there when he does.

“They want you to move back to Texas,” Buck whispers, and it feels like the floor is giving way beneath him.

They should have known, should have prepared for this. Helena and Ramon haven’t exactly been the most supportive about Buck and Eddie’s relationship. They’re not hostile or intolerant, they’re not even rude. In fact they’re almost overly polite to Buck (though he’s fairly certain that has something to do with Christopher refusing to talk to them for a week after the last time they were rude to him).

But still, they don’t like it. Buck isn’t sure if it’s because he’s a man, or because he’s him, but either way - he’s fighting a losing battle trying to gain their approval. And now…now they want to take Eddie and Christopher away from him.

“Yeah, they’ve been asking for a while now.”

The comment has Buck’s heart stuttering in his chest, because he hadn’t known. Eddie had never even mentioned it him. How long is a while? Why didn’t he say anything? Is he really thinking about leaving?

Is this going to lead to a goodbye that Buck won’t come back from?

Buck’s brain feels like it’s made from cotton wool and tv static - his veins feel like live wires, and the current is humming just beneath the surface of his too-tight skin. He wants to cry and beg and plead, but he doesn’t say a word.

“They think Christopher and I would be better off if we were back with them,” Eddie explains.

It sounds like nails on a chalkboard - feels like barbed wire wrapped around his bones.

There’s nowhere Eddie and Chris belong more than here, in LA, with the 118. With Buck. It’s their home - their family. It’s where they were always supposed to end up. They don’t belong to Texas, not anymore. But there’s no way for Buck to say that without sounding selfish or needy.

“They miss you a lot,” Buck manages to say past the lump in his throat.

He can’t ask them to stay - can’t ask them to pick between him, and their blood. He won’t. But oh, does he want to.

His hands shake with the desperate need to reach for Eddie and never let him go, never let him out of sight again, even for a single moment. Buck would fold himself into something small and slot between the spaces of Eddie’s ribs if he could - if it meant they never had to be apart. He would shrink and shrink and shrink, so his weight wasn’t too much of a burden to carry.

He would do anything. Everything. But he won’t ever be that selfish.

“Yeah, I know,” Eddie sighs, running his hand through his hair. “And I know they’re not getting any younger, either.”

Buck scrunches his eyes closed. He wishes he could close his ears too, so he doesn’t have to hear whatever comes next.

“They’ve even been sending listings for houses,” Eddie chuckles, but it feels like a gut punch to Buck.

He doesn’t mean to but a breathless, choked out sound slips from his lips before he has a chance to swallow it down. Before he has a chance to keep it inside, where it can only hurt himself and not anyone else.

“Hey, Buck, what…?” Eddie sounds concerned. Confused, even. That almost makes it worse.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Buck interrupts. “Why didn’t you mention this before now?”

When Buck finally looks over at him, Eddie’s brows are pulled together in a frown. His mouth twists like his biting the inside of his lip, a nervous habit that always gives him away. But then he reaches a hand up to hold the side of Buck’s face, brushing his thumb back and forth over his cheek like a metronome keeping time - counting down the seconds until they run out.

“Why would I?” Eddie asks, and suddenly it feels like all the air has been sucked out of the room.

Buck isn’t family, not really. They’re together now- they somehow, miraculously, love each other - but it’s not the same as blood. Eddie doesn’t need to run this by Buck, and he doesn’t need to ask for his permission. If he wants to go then he’ll go, even though that means leaving Buck behind.

“If you’re leaving, I have-“

It’s Eddie’s turn to make a desperate, pained groan. He raises his other hand until he’s holding Buck’s face between them both, and there are tears in his eyes but he doesn’t look away even for a single second. He doesn’t let Buck look away, either.

“Buck, I’m not going anywhere,” Eddie insists. “I didn’t tell you because it doesn’t matter. They can send me a thousand house listings, they can beg me a hundred times a day - I’m not going anywhere that you can’t follow.”

Those words stop Buck in his tracks. He’d whispered them once before to a sleeping Eddie. It was the only time he’d ever allowed himself to beg, and it was for Eddie’s life.

“But they’re-“

“You are my family, Buck. You and Chris, before anyone else. And this is our home - this house, this city, these people. This is where we belong.”

It’s like his body registers the words before his mind does, because suddenly his muscles relax and his heart rate returns to something resembling normal. His jaw unclenches and his fists uncurl, and it feels like he’s being brought back to life - like Eddie is bringing him back to life.

“You’re not leaving?” Buck asks.

What he means is, you’re not leaving me?

“I’m not leaving you, Evan. Not now, not ever.”

Buck thinks he finally believes him.

Buck has spent his entire life being the person who gets left behind.

Before Buck even got to know him his brother was gone, and his parents walked around like ghosts in a haunted house - there, but not really. Not in any of the ways that mattered. Maddie left, too, even though that wasn’t her choice - even though she would have stayed if she could.

Then there was Abby, and Ally, and a string of other people who he’d so desperately wanted to be the one. Not because they were particularly special, and not because they loved him right, but because he wanted so much to be wanted that he overlooked everything else in the process.

Maybe that’s why it never worked out. Or maybe it was the universe at play, knowing she had something better in store for him.

Knowing that Eddie and Christopher Diaz were just around the corner.

Every morning Buck used to wake with a niggling sense of panic hovering just beneath the surface of his skin. He’d wake convinced every moment up until this one was just a dream, or he’d wake certain that Eddie would no longer be in bed next to him - that he’d gotten bored of Buck and he’d upped and left.

When Buck wakes up early one autumn morning, the bed beside him is empty. He stretches out a hand and runs it over the space where Eddie should be. It’s cold to the touch - he’s been gone a while, then.

But instead of reaching for panic, Buck reaches for comforting weight of the medallion around his neck. St Christopher. He brings it to his lips and kisses it, a habit that he has quickly picked up from Eddie.

His eyes flutter closed and a smile finds its way to his mouth as Buck remembers the moment Eddie gave it to him. The moment Eddie had said his name and Buck turned around to look for him, but he wasn’t there. Instead, Eddie was down on one knee with tears in his eyes and a look on his face that was so sure - so certain - that Buck’s own eyes misted over impossibly quickly.

”I want to live the rest of this life with you by my side,” Eddie had told him. ”And even in the next one, I’ll find you all over again. There’s nowhere you can go that I won’t follow you.”

There’s a St Christopher medallion around his neck, a silver wedding band on his left ring finger, and adoption papers sitting on the kitchen table. Buck has never felt more at peace.

When the bedroom door creaks open a little while later, it’s slow and careful like Eddie is trying not to wake him. He freezes when he glances around the room and sees Buck’s eyes trained on him, and then a smile as dazzling as the sunrise stretches across Eddie’s face. It’s warm, and it’s beautiful, and it feels like everything good in the world.

Eddie raises both of his hands, one holding a tray with two cups of coffee from their favourite cafe, and the other a white paper bag that’s undoubtedly filled with pastries.

“I got breakfast,” Eddie whispers, even though there’s no one in the house but them.

He sets their food and coffee on the bedside table and leans down, one hand on the bed post and the other finding its way to Buck’s cheek. Eddie looks into his eyes, his thumb brushing gently back and forth over Buck’s cheekbone. And Buck feels seen in a way that should make him feel vulnerable, but instead just makes him feel cherished.

Eddie leans down and kisses him, slow and soft and sickly sweet. Buck feels it right down to his toes, and he takes hold of Eddie’s own St Christopher necklace to keep him there a moment longer.

“Good morning, husband,” Eddie murmurs against Buck’s lips.

“Good morning, husband,” Buck repeats, unable to stop the grin that spreads across his face.

They’ve only been married for eighteen hours or so, but Buck has already lost track of the number of times they’ve said that word - in their speeches, to their friends and families, whispered into each other’s ears. It still feels heavy, and expensive, and precious on his tongue.

It still feels like the most important thing in the world.

Eddie eventually pulls back, but not without a kiss to Buck’s strawberry-pink birthmark first. Then he strips off his hoodie to reveal that he was shirtless beneath it, and he rolls his eyes at Buck’s wiggling eyebrows as he climbs right back into bed.

He sits up against the headboard, his arm spread out so Buck can make himself comfortable leaning back against him. There’s another kiss to his temple this time, and then a hot cup of coffee is being pressed into Buck’s hands and gentle fingers are combing through his hair.

He melts against Eddie, so comfortable and at ease that it almost brings tears to his eyes.

“Sorry,” Eddie whispers into Buck’s ear. “I thought I’d be home before you woke up.”

Buck turns his head sideways and kisses the hollow of Eddie’s throat.

“It’s okay,” he says. “I knew you wouldn’t be gone long.”