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Originally, Maddie and Chimney were going to host, but a burst pipe in their kitchen shut that down quick. Buck was first to volunteer before everyone reminded him that his studio apartment was not going to fit a whole firehouse worth of families. Hen pulled a “don’t look at me” face because she had hosted last year, and everyone’s eyes drifted to Eddie. Eddie with an empty nest and a perfectly manicured mustache to show for it.
“What?” Eddie said, pausing the movement of his tiny mustache comb when the firehouse’s dining room fell silent. “I got something in my ‘stache?”
“You would be the first to know if you did,” Chimney sighed, pushing away from the table to take his and Hen’s plates to the sink.
“What do you think?” Buck asked from his seat next to Eddie. Eddie was dumbstruck for a moment as he met Buck’s intense gaze. What were they talking about, again? And why did Buck’s look make it seem so life or death?
“About what?” Was the best Eddie could come up with.
“Will you host the officially unofficial Thanksgiving gathering this year?” Hen said, mercifully cutting to the chase.
“Official because everyone will be there, but unofficial because Gerard is not invited,” Buck added, correctly guessing that Eddie had been tuned out for the entire conversation.
Eddie didn’t really think before he said, “Sure.” There wasn’t really another answer when Buck was already smiling so big at him for agreeing.
“Hell yes, party at the Diaz house!” Buck whooped and grabbed his and Eddie’s plates. Eddie put away his tiny comb and dutifully got up to follow Buck to the sink. Buck cooked, so Eddie wasn’t gonna let him wash the dishes too. Somehow, Buck ended up next to him with a towel for drying anyway.
***
“There’s like a million bags, can you help grab the rest from my Jeep?” Buck didn’t even have to say because Eddie was already half out the door to do just that. Buck insisted that he would cook the lionshare of the dishes even though the event was technically potluck. Something about “I think cooking is my love language, Eddie. Don’t push me on this, I just got done fighting with Bobby over the turkey.”
The next several hours were a beautifully mind-numbing whirlwind in Eddie’s kitchen. There were pots to stir and bread to bake and tablecloths to find and zero time for Eddie to think about how Christopher would be a much better sous chef to Buck. Instead of feeling hollow, Eddie’s kitchen once again felt bright and busy and joyous. It felt like home again.
Eventually, the dishes were all done and the tables were all set up and decorated. After cooking for like 5 hours straight, both Eddie and Buck needed to freshen up and get properly dressed. Buck insisted that Eddie take the first shower, despite the fact that there were two showers in the house. Eddie didn’t try putting up a fight.
“Have fun watching the food. I’m sure it’s just aching to sprout legs and run away before it can be served,” Eddie threw over his shoulder on his way out of the kitchen.
“You smell!” Buck threw back, sounding so much like Christopher that for a moment Eddie could just roll his eyes and appreciate it.
Eddie did his best to keep the mellow feeling of the afternoon going as he put on some music and hopped in the shower. It had been a good day. One of a relative few in the last couple months.
Eddie had tried his best to keep busy, and a lot of the 118 had helped him: he was the one Chim went to first if he needed a shift covered, the one Hen asked to pick up Denny from school if her and Karen’s schedules clashed, the one Bobby asked to help submit maintenance requests and the like. He appreciated that they were all trying to make him feel integral and useful at a time when he felt neither. Right now, he was a friend and he was a coworker, and he was trying to be okay with that.
Eddie heard somewhere that a 3-legged stool could be stable on an uneven surface where a 4-legged one would wobble. A 2-legged stool could balance, but it served no practical function, just waited to collapse. Eddie tried really hard to think of himself as a person and not a stool.
He finished his shower and got dressed while thinking about what type of furniture he would be if he could be any type of furniture. He was stuck between being a lamp and a couch when he made his way back to his kitchen to tag Buck in for a shower. He’d ask Buck which one Eddie was. Buck always had the best answers for silly-sounding questions, because he always answered seriously.
The sun was starting to set, orange light coming through the window and illuminating Buck as he jumped from one side of the kitchen to another, grabbing serving spoons and checking under tinfoil, probably still fretting over the doneness of the pies.
Something in Eddie’s chest loosened even as his heart tightened up. It was good seeing Buck happy and in his kitchen. It was right. Until he noticed that there was a beer in Buck’s hand and an open seltzer can on the counter. Eddie only knew a couple of people that preferred seltzer-
“Did Tommy get here early?” Eddie asked. There wasn’t anything weird about Tommy being in his house. Tommy had been over before. Tommy and Buck had been over before at the same time. But any time they had both been over, Eddie was usually in the room.
“Yeah!” Buck’s smile was bright as he swung to face Eddie, and Eddie knew if he let on about the weird feeling sprouting in his stomach that Buck would fixate on it. Eddie imagined going quiet, letting Buck start to worry over why. He imagined having Buck’s focus be solely on him again as he tried to fix whatever was suddenly wrong with his best friend.
“Cool,” Eddie said instead, moving to grab a beer of his own from the fridge. He cracked it open to take a gulp. “He can help set up the buffet.”
“Just finished,” Tommy chimed in, hip checking Eddie as a greeting before walking over to Buck, casual as anything, and pressing a kiss to his cheek.
“Good,” Eddie said. It was good seeing Buck happy in his kitchen. It was good seeing Tommy and Buck. It was good that his friends were happy. Together. The beer was cold in his throat but felt hot by the time it hit his stomach.
“You gonna save some of that for later?” Buck laughed, gesturing towards Eddie with his own mostly-full bottle.
Eddie turned back to Buck and Tommy, both leaning against his kitchen counter now. “Hm?”
“You just opened that thing. All the cooking make you that thirsty?”
“It’s 5 o’clock somewhere,” Eddie shrugged.
“It’s only 4 o’clock here,” Tommy shrugged right back. The concern edging into Buck’s tone was one thing. Tommy raising an eyebrow at Eddie was another.
“Yeah, well,” Eddie mumbled a little lamely. “It’s a holiday.”
“And I’ll drink to that,” Buck decided to let it go, instead raising his drink in an impromptu toast. “To Friendsgiving!”
***
It got easier the more people started to arrive, and a new kind of mind-numbing buzz filled Eddie’s house and head. He focused on greeting his friends and coworkers and directing them where to put their jackets, handing their dishes off to Tommy who would take them to Buck in the kitchen. There was so much to do with his hands, smiles to return to his friends; he let himself slip into auto-pilot.
“Hey, are you okay?” Hen’s voice broke through sometime during dinner. Eddie was grabbing another serving spoon after one had fallen to the ground, but Hen didn’t have any apparent excuse for being there.
“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” Eddie replied, letting habit take over rather than make himself think. He went to leave the kitchen, but Hen stopped him with a withering look and a hand on his shoulder.
“How about we take that one back,” she said, hand staying firmly put. “Are you okay?”
Eddie swallowed and fiddled with the spoon in his hands while he avoided her eyes. He loved Hen, and he hated that she was one of a few people that could make him spit out the truth with barely a fight.
“Well I’m not great. Today’s been good though.” Cooking with Buck all day had been really good.
“I’m glad today’s been good. Just, try joining us for the rest of dinner, okay? You don’t have to be the perfect host, but I’d love to actually talk to my friend at some point tonight.” Hen pulled him into a hug that Eddie couldn’t resist if he tried.
“You also have yet to RSVP to next week’s wine night, and Karen is going to have words with the both of us if you don’t get on that soon.” Hen let him go with a wink and a firm pat on the back, left the kitchen to give Eddie a moment. He took a deep breath to center himself, to try to be really truly present. When he felt like he was a part of his own body again, Eddie rejoined the feast.
***
The goodbyes came too soon. Once Eddie had really tuned in to his friends and the food and the warmth surrounding him, he desperately wanted to keep it. But there were shifts tomorrow and homework that needed finishing, and Eddie could only hug his friends extra tight as they left him one by one till it was just Eddie and Buck and a pile of dishes in the sink.
Buck had a kitchen towel slung over his shoulder, ready for drying duty, and he was organizing the dishes into piles on the counter: plates nested into the cookware so as to free up counter space, silverware and utensils in the sink for priority soaking before being loaded into the dishwasher.
Eddie focused on packing the leftovers and imagined he was putting his thoughts into little glass containers as well. Easy to put in the fridge and forget about until Hen or Bobby or Frank made him take them out to reheat and examine.
The containers were neatly stacked in the fridge before Eddie remembered it wasn’t just him and Buck.
“Are you ready to go, Evan?”
“Oh, uhh...” Buck looked like a deer caught in the headlights. Eddie wasn’t the only one that forgot Tommy was still here.
“Didn’t you drive?” Eddie couldn’t help but ask. They didn’t arrive together, why would they need to leave together?
“I got an Uber, because Evan-”
“Promised to give you a ride home, yeah I remember! And we were gonna stop for ice cream on the way.” Buck was doing that thing where he 100% did not remember, but he was making up for it by being cute. Eddie recognized the move because Chris was the one who had taught Buck this great power. Tommy narrowed his eyes as Buck put down the dish towel and stepped away from the sink.
“I don’t remember that being part of the deal, but I accept your terms, Buckley.” Tommy offered his hand to Buck. Eddie must have imagined the flicker of hesitation before Buck took it.
“I can come over tomorrow to help with the dishes?” Eddie must have imagined the sheepish slant to Buck’s shoulders, the guilty turn of his mouth.
“Nah man, I can handle it,” Eddie gave the performance of his life in those few words. He really didn’t want to handle it, and he really didn’t want to handle it without Buck beside him. “Anyway, you cooked most of it. It’s not right for you to clean too.”
“That’s what I’m always telling him,” Tommy chimed in, pressing a quick kiss to Buck’s cheek as he started to pull him from Eddie’s kitchen. He was halfway through the door when he threw a quick wave and a “Goodnight!” over his shoulder. Eddie’s stomach hurt.
There was a moment, as Eddie heard his front door open and close, that he imagined the sound of the door opening again. Saw Buck come back through the door of the kitchen. Felt Buck’s arms wrap around him in one of those hugs that felt like fresh-baked bread. Heard Buck laugh in his ear and say something like “today was great, Eddie. You wash, I’ll dry.”
But there was just the sound of Buck’s Jeep starting in his driveway and then fading into nothing in the night. Eddie turned back to the sink feeling like a two-legged stool waiting to collapse.