Archive of Our Own

After Eddie was shot in the streets of Los Angeles, after he woke up in the hospital and was assured of Christopher’s safety, Buck’s continued existence, and his own, he finally thought: At least I’ve done this before. The same wound, just mirrored to his other side. Eddie remembered wearing the sling, the days of pain, the struggle to shower and dress himself and be a human. Be a father.

Looking at the empty space in his bed, Eddie thinks: At least I’ve done this before.

It doesn’t take long for Buck’s absence to be noticed. He didn’t join Eddie when he went to family dinners—because Eddie didn’t want to subject him to his mom’s quiet sniping, or his dad’s silence, or Christopher’s continued antagonism—but Eddie talked about him. Though they barely saw each other, Eddie always had something to say about Buck. Always good things, in front of Christopher and his parents.

Several days after Eddie wakes up to an empty bed and a note, he drags himself to one of those dinners. Eddie feels cracked open and on edge, and he’s not up for his parents’ needling—but he has to go, because he’s trying. He can’t cede any more ground to the two of them, even if it feels like a war of attrition he’s steadily losing. He parks in the gravel driveway and looks at himself in the flip-down mirror: scruffy facial hair, dark circles, his fair falling loose and unstyled because he can’t bring himself to deal with it. Eddie looks at himself in the mirror: Get it together, soldier.

Eddie makes it through most of the dinner unscathed. Christopher’s doing well in school, but his parents are thinking of hiring him a tutor—just so he can be well-prepared for high school. His parents are hoping to break ground on that pool come spring—just so it’ll be finished in time for summer. Christopher mentioned wanting to go on a vacation this summer—we were thinking Chicago, wouldn’t that be fun?

Most of the dinners follow this script. Eddie listens to the way his parents disrupt their lives for Christopher, in a way they never did for Eddie or his sisters, and he can’t call them on it. Christopher deserves the attention, deserves to be someone’s first priority, but he’s still Eddie’s. It’s impossible to explain this, because that conversation always leads to an argument, and his mom will tear up, and his dad will say look what you did, you made your mother cry, and Eddie will have to apologize.

This dinner goes off-script. His mom asks, “How’s your roommate doing?”

It’s not the first time she’s asked about Buck. Helena Diaz is a true southerner, all polite passive-aggression. She always asked about Eddie’s friends growing up, even if she never cared to actually know about the kids on the JV baseball team. She’s met Buck a couple times before, had expressed her quiet distaste at Eddie’s living situation, but her true feelings on Buck are hard to grasp. Eddie can’t imagine anyone disliking Buck but, by association of being Eddie’s best friend, she probably does.

“He’s, um.” Eddie falters. He looks at Christopher, who’s already looking back at him. Eddie shouldn’t lie, not to his kid. He’s trying to fix things, not make them worse. But he knows the truth—it’s not going to do any good. “He went back to Los Angeles.”

There’s a pause before Christopher asks, “What?” His voice is flat, emotionless, but Eddie can see the way he’s starting to panic. The grip on his silverware tightens, his eyes wide. “Buck went— Buck left?”

Eddie nods. He can’t find the words, suddenly. He doesn’t know what else to say, how to make the ugly truth any gentler. Because it is ugly, isn’t it?

This is the first time someone has said it to him: left. This is the first time he’s acknowledged it.

A single dad packs up his life in El Paso and moves to Los Angeles. His wife—her dead, decomposing body—is out there anyway.

Eddie’s return to Los Angeles is a quiet one. There’s still a few months left for the renters in the house, and while there’s probably some way for Eddie to kick them out early, he doesn’t care to. He doesn’t want to go back to that house. It’s too full of memories, the good and the bad. The ghost of Shannon; the ghost of Buck, too. Eddie doesn’t think he can handle either of them, much less both.

He finds a two-bedroom apartment for rent over on the westside, surprisingly within his budget, and moves again. Eddie spent his entire childhood in one house. A house always seemed—permanent. He bought a house with Shannon, and then he was shipped overseas, and grew used to living out of a couple of duffel bags. He had a house, but it didn’t feel real when he was in the desert. It didn’t feel real when he was discharged with three holes in him, because a house is supposed to be warm and inviting, but it felt like walking into a grave instead.

Eddie didn’t think he’d ever leave that house, either. He thought Christopher would have one house for his entire childhood, a height chart carved on a door jamb that Eddie would probably immortalize. His handprints in a stepping stone, his life spent in one room, a safe place for him to land, but Eddie’s fucked that up. Christopher has lived in three houses—might even add this apartment to the mix.

He’s coming back, is the thing. He’s finishing out his school year in Texas, because Eddie already paid the spring tuition, and Christopher didn’t want to switch schools mid-year.

And—Christopher had been insistent on this—Eddie needs to fix things. Eddie needs to get their life back. Their life, their house, and—Buck. Eddie has to get him back.

In his two-bedroom apartment, barely furnished, his arms aching from carrying boxes in, Eddie doesn’t know how he’s going to fix a single thing. He isn’t the guy who fixes things. He’s just the one who breaks them.

Eddie contacts the LAFD to start his transfer process. Again. He’d call Bobby, but Eddie doesn’t know if he can. He doesn’t want to, because Bobby undoubtedly knows. There’s two people Buck would run to, and Bobby’s second on the list. Eddie used to be on it, too, but he’s the one Buck is running from this time.

The LAFD liaison informs him there’s still an open spot at the 118, if he’s interested. He considers it for a moment. The 118 has done a lot for him. Eddie knows Bobby and the others are his friends; he knows they’ll listen to him, they’ll welcome him back. But Eddie can’t have that. Doesn’t deserve it, maybe.

He says no. He’d prefer a fire house that’s closer to his new address on the westside, if that’s possible.

Eddie starts with Station 62 one week after moving back to Los Angeles.

“Buck left?” Christopher had asked, and Eddie nodded. What followed was a tantrum Eddie hadn’t seen since Christopher was a kid, his face bright red and eyes wet, as his voice got higher and higher, cracked on every other syllable, his breathing too fast and too shallow. It was less of a tantrum and more of a panic attack, and Eddie had to carefully talk him down from it, his parents watching from their chairs at the table.

The tableau: Eddie, crouched by his son’s legs; his parents, watching from the other side of the table. Eddie had to hold Christopher’s hands between his own, to keep him from digging nails into skin.

Christopher was fourteen, old enough to figure out when Eddie lied. He knew Eddie was lying when he said, “Buck had to go back to L.A. for some stuff. He’s staying with Maddie, now.”

He can’t say why, because Eddie—he didn’t know. Buck was gone. Los Angeles was his home. He didn’t leave Christopher, he left Eddie. Knowing this didn’t make it any easier to explain it to Christopher.

“You have to fix it,” Christopher demanded, seeing through him. “You have to— He can’t leave me, Dad.”

“He didn’t,” Eddie said quickly. “I promise, Chris, he didn’t. Buck loves you, kid. It was just—something else.”

“I want our lives back,” Christopher said, his voice trembling but firm. “You have to— You have to fix it. Or I’m not— I’m never gonna forgive you.”

Eddie reeled back at the words, but he knew Christopher meant them. He looked so much like Shannon, giving Eddie another ultimatum. He nodded, felt himself grow a hundred times heavier with his new goal.

“Okay,” Eddie said, his voice soft and quiet in the dining room. His parents watching, Christopher waiting to catch him in another lie. “Okay, I’ll fix it.”

Eddie tried to reach out to Buck. That first day, when he woke up to an empty bed. He thought Buck was coming back. It wasn’t until he saw the note in the kitchen, a SORRY scrawled over their grocery list, that Eddie knew he wasn’t coming back. He stares at the note and tried to call Buck—again, and again, and again—until he was sent straight to voicemail. He checked Buck’s location after that, and the last shared location was El Paso. Buck turned it off.

Eddie tried, sending endless text messages until a wall of blue built up. He stopped expecting answers. He played this game before—lost it then, too.

Eddie doesn’t remember if he’s worked with the guys at Fire House 62, but they’re welcoming enough. He falls in with their C-shift easily. A couple of the guys like baseball, already talking about spring training. There’s a few into UFC, and Eddie is drawn into conversations about different bouts. It’s easy, in a different way than it was easy breaking into the 118’s deep-rooted camaraderie. No one’s trying to goad Eddie into a dick-measuring contest. Instead, he’s given slaps on the back when he moves in to doing a risky medical maneuver, and Captain Lawlor commends him when they get back to the station.

Of course, he’s one of the few that have seen Eddie’s personnel file. He didn’t hide the fact that he worked for the LAFD prior to this, only at a different station, but he didn’t want to say which one. He knows the 118 is… ubiquitous, for some of the incidents that have happened to them. Eddie’s surprised no one’s noticed him anyways, between being one of the firefighters shot a few years back and the medal ceremony from last spring.

“Good work, Diaz,” he says, giving Eddie one of those shoulder pats. Most everyone here calls him Diaz, but Eddie doesn’t mind it much. He doesn’t feel like Eddie these days. “I can’t believe we poached you from Nash. Though, I wouldn’t have wanted to go back either.”

It’s the way he says it, like the two of them are in some kind of joke about the 118. Lawlor only knows them through their high-rate of accidents. He doesn’t know them like Eddie does, the tight-knit family they’ve made.

“This commute was better for me,” Eddie says, which isn’t a lie.

He could’ve gone back. The option was given to him. Eddie thinks about it, sometimes, showing up to the 118 and forcing Buck to deal with him. Maybe it would’ve played out the same way, Buck all huffing-mad at him and Eddie trying to figure out how to work with him without stepping on his tail. Eddie didn’t go back, because the 118 was Buck’s first.

He knows it’s not how these things work. You can’t split the states like assets (though if they did, Eddie would be left with Texas alone; Buck’s left his footprints over all the others). But Buck ran to Los Angeles, to his family, his safe place. Eddie didn’t have the same claim to them, not the way Buck did—not when he got there second. It’s fine. Buck has his people; Eddie isn’t going to disrupt that.

He’s supposed to fix it, and he needs to talk to Buck to fix it, but Eddie doesn’t know how to start that conversation.

Eddie didn’t let Shannon know he moved to Los Angeles until Durand needed her to come in for the interview. Eddie thought about it countless times, while he packed up their house in El Paso, while he drove Christopher across states. Sat at the kitchen table, phone in his hand, his fingers hovered over her contact name. He moved out here for Shannon, and for Christopher, and maybe for himself, but Eddie didn’t know how to reach out first.

Shannon made all the first moves throughout their relationship. First conversation, first date, first kiss, kiss time. All the bad ones were Eddie’s fault. Eddie was the one who said they should get married, and she agreed. Eddie left first. He can’t blame her for leaving him, not when he’d been the worst husband in the world.

He could blame her for leaving Christopher, though. That’s why he waited. That’s why he took too much time, he told himself—because of Christopher.

Eddie doesn’t think about it, when Captain Wright on A-shift asks if he could pull a double since one of their guys called out. Eddie agrees, because he’s got fuck-all to do at the apartment. He’s happy to take the overtime. He doesn’t think about how covering for A-shift means he’s working at the same time as the 118’s A-shift. Station 62 and the 118 are pretty distant; it’s unlikely there’s a call they would both respond to.

Unlikely, but not impossible.

It’s a high rise apartment building, and there’s two stations responding by the time the 62 pulls up. Eddie’s eyes glance over the trucks already parked, ladders extended—the 73 is the only one he can see. Captain Wright finds I.C. and then he’s doling out orders: “Patterson, Montgomery, I want you two on an attack line for the lower floors. Diaz, Webb, you’ll be working with Buckley and Panikkar from the 118.”

There’s a pause, as Eddie computes the words. His eyes scan over the crowd. It’s not hard for him to find Buck, even when he’s in full turnouts, helmet and mask and jacket. Eddie knows Buck without needing to see him, like there’s a gravitational pull between them. Buck’s standing tall, his turnouts facing Eddie. He doesn’t know yet.

Eddie could refuse, could ask for a different assignment. But he doesn’t. He bumps shoulders with Webb and they cross over to where Buck and Ravi are waiting.

“Where we going?” Webb asks, which makes Buck turn.

It’s the first time Eddie’s seen Buck since that night—and he aches with the memory, suddenly.

Eddie remembers being desperate for it. He didn’t expect Buck to kiss him, but Eddie didn’t hate it. He melted into it, even, being consumed by Buck. He knew Buck was avoiding an argument; Eddie let him. He fell into it, into Buck, and he doesn’t regret it. He had thought—in the after, curled up with Buck’s arms around him—that they’d talk in the morning.

Never go to bed angry. Eddie wasn’t angry. He’d been—sated. Content, almost, for the first time in months.

He thought Buck was too.

“We’re clearing the upper floors,” Buck says. His eyes drift over to Eddie, widen obviously, and his entire body makes an aborted movement towards him. “E-Eddie?”

“Buckley,” Eddie says, because he’s white-knuckling his composure and his professionalism, and he doesn’t have time to fall apart. “Let’s go, then.”

Webb sticks to Eddie’s side. He’s alright, for someone Eddie just met earlier that day. He doesn’t have a real partner in C-shift, not like he did with Buck. He doesn’t think anyone could fill the Buck-shaped hole beside him.

They clear the middle floors. The fire is somewhere above them—11th floor, Eddie thinks—but the building is a bit older. There’s chatter of improper materials over the lines, the fire spreading faster and farther than expected. There’s whole families unaccounted for. Eddie keeps looking, finds the stragglers. Webb is at his back, checking the other rooms. Buck and Ravi are on the other side of the hall, doing their own sweep.

Webb finds a teenager with a cast and crutches, and says he’s going to help the kid down. Eddie radios it over, says he’s going to keep looking. The floor they’re on isn’t close to the source, and there’s still more rooms to check. Eddie makes it to the end of the hall, peeks his head down the emergency stairs, but they’re all clear. He makes his way back to the middle, expecting to find Webb, but instead—he finds Buck.

“Where’s Ravi?” Eddie asks. Half-instinct, half-caring about the answer.

Buck looks surprised by the question. “He helped a woman down,” he says, pointing down the stairwell. “I, uh. Delta side is clear.”

Eddie nods. He heard it over the radio, Buck’s voice crackling. Buck must’ve heard him too, mentioning Charlie’s side is clear. He points up. “Next floor?”

“Sure,” Buck says, and they move up.

Buck sticks by his side, at his back, as they move through the next floor. Eddie keeps looking over his shoulder, keeps double checking. There’s been a Buck-shaped shadow at the edge of his vision for the last several years; only now has Eddie considered its impermanence.

He keeps looking. They clear the floor, and he keeps looking. The I.C. calls for them to evacuate, and Eddie keeps looking. Little glances over his shoulder, just to be sure.

Once, he wouldn’t have doubted it: Buck at his back.

Buck finds him later, when the 62 is packing up to head back. The fire is contained, and while I.C. and the 38 are remaining, the 62 are free to head back to their station. It’s been several long hours, and Eddie hasn’t seen Buck since they last walked out of the apartment building. He’s been making himself not look for Buck, really, keeping his gaze trained on the apartment building and the attack line he’s working with Webb.

Buck finds him, his helmet held between his hands. His hair is all sweaty, wet from the exertion. His face covered in soot, deep red lines from his mask carved into his cheeks. Eddie watches him approach, his hands stilling from where he’s rolling up one of their lines.

“Hey, Eddie,” Buck starts, and immediately falters. Eddie lets him, silently watching, waiting for what’s next. He doesn’t know what he would say anyway. Buck takes a deep breath, Eddie watches the rise and fall of his shoulders. “I didn’t know you moved back.”

Eddie has been back for several weeks. It’s been nearly two months since the last time he saw Buck. It’s been nearly two months since the last time he spoke to Buck.

“I did,” he says evenly. He doesn’t point out that, if only Buck gave him some time, like Eddie had asked for, maybe Buck would have known.

“Can we… Can we meet up?” Buck finally asks. “Talk?”

He means it, is the thing. Eddie can tell Buck wants to talk, wants to reconnect, because Eddie is Buck’s best friend, and they were best friends before it all fell apart. Eddie wants it, too. He misses his best friend. He misses his family, the 118, family dinners and the sound of someone walking into his own house because he gave Buck a key years ago.

“Sure,” Eddie says, with an easy shrug of his shoulders, except nothing feels easy anymore. “You have my number.”

He says it to be mean. He says it to be snide, to watch the way Buck’s face flushes red in indignation, his eyes narrowing as he thinks about his own response. Eddie says it because it’s the truth. He says it because he’s sick of always being the one to reach out first.

In his dreams, Shannon is running. Eddie is chasing her. They’re teenagers again, and Shannon is running through the desert, and Eddie is chasing her. She was on the track team; Eddie played baseball. He’s used to sprints. In his dreams, which are really nightmares, Shannon is running until she disappears over the horizon line. Eddie keeps following, his eyes trained on the last place he saw her shadow.

He’s still chasing her.

Buck texts him, and Eddie agrees to meet, but Eddie’s embarrassed of the apartment and its state, so he asks to come over to the loft. It’ll be easier that way, he figures, because then he can leave. Eddie can leave first, which is a novel thought. Eddie has left before—left Shannon, left Texas, left Los Angeles—but never like this.

He gets there in the afternoon, after trying to nap but failing, pacing the small length of his apartment until Eddie is wound up tighter than a goddamn spring. He practiced what he was going to say, walking the eight feet of his apartment’s living room: Why did you leave, Buck? What can I do to fix things? I know I fucked it up, I know, but give me another chance, please. We can put it behind us, can’t we?

Buck opens the door, because Eddie knocks instead of using his key, and Eddie can tell he was going to mention it then doesn’t, pursing his lips as he welcomes Eddie into the loft. It hasn’t changed. Eddie would be surprised if he did.

“So, you moved back,” Buck starts off with. He can’t seem to look Eddie in the eye, fidgeting with one of the mugs on his kitchen island. Eddie stands on the other side of the island. They’ve never really stood like this before, with a barrier between them. Buck has never been shy about wanting in Eddie’s personal space. Eddie has never minded.

“I did.” Eddie can’t look him in the eye, either, but he’s... smug. Somehow. Buck can’t look at him. Buck knows he fucked up. At least Eddie isn’t shouldering the blame by himself.

“When?” Buck asks, and Eddie knows what he wants to know.

How much time did it take for Eddie to follow him? Buck asked if Eddie would leave with him, and Eddie said no, and now, weeks later, Eddie did. Eddie didn’t say no. He asked for time. He needed time to convince Christopher his father will always be part of his life, whether that be in Texas or California, and to tell him they’re moving back. Eddie didn’t want to spend the rest of his life in Texas, even if Buck thinks he did.

“A few weeks back,” Eddie says shortly. “Since, y’know, I couldn’t afford the rent on the house you picked out…”

Buck’s shoulders jump up to his ears. He looks at Eddie, then, his mouth twisted to the side. He’s trying not to get mad. Eddie’s familiar with the expression. Instead of rising to the bait, he asks, “Where’s Christopher?”

“Back in Texas, with my parents.” Eddie watches the way his expression drops, the way the anger falls out of him like the bottom of a box falling out. Eddie can tell what conclusion Buck has drawn. He could correct it—should, probably. He could say the truth, that Christopher is just finishing up his school year down there and he’ll join Eddie in Los Angeles in May.

He doesn’t.

“Eddie, oh my god,” Buck says, his voice quiet. “I didn’t…”

He didn’t know, but he didn’t care to know. Eddie swells with anger for a second, high tide coming in, almost turns lightheaded with it. Buck didn’t know, because he didn’t answer a single one of Eddie’s phone calls, his text messages. Eddie wanted to tell him. Eddie wanted to talk to him, because Buck is his best friend, and Eddie really could’ve fucking used his best friend.

Instead, all he had was an empty house in Texas.

Eddie lets Buck run with the assumption. “Yeah,” he says, his voice small. It’s not like he’s playing pretend; Christopher being in Texas feels like he's scraped empty, all of him pulled out and gone. Eddie hates being 800 miles away from his son, again. He hates that he’s done it again, fucked it all up.

Buck moves closer. The island isn’t a barrier between them, but Buck is still out of reach. Eddie wants to touch him, but the inches turn to miles between them, and he doesn’t know how to bridge that gap. If he’s allowed to.

He thinks of what he wanted to say, earlier. All the questions he needs answers to, but the need for answers flees. Eddie looks at Buck, who’s closer to him than he’s been since that night, and the answers don’t seem too important.

“I’m sorry,” Buck murmurs. He steps closer. His hand lands on Eddie’s forearm, slides up. “I’m sorry, Eddie.”

It’d be nice, maybe, if he was apologizing for the right thing. This is just empty platitudes. Buck is apologizing for something that hasn’t even happened, and Eddie lets him, because he’s desperate to hear those words in his voice. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

Suddenly, Eddie doesn’t want to listen to what Buck has to say. He doesn’t want to hear anymore of these empty platitudes, these apologies Buck doesn’t mean. Eddie doesn’t want to talk. He doesn’t want to ask his questions, have Buck give him a rundown on every reason Eddie failed as a partner and friend.

He doesn’t want to leave, though. He missed Buck. The ache in his chest has finally settled now that he’s looking at Buck.

He doesn’t want to talk, but he doesn’t want to leave. Eddie steps forward and kisses him.

Buck kisses back, eagerly, his hands dropping to Eddie’s hips and his grip tightening. Eddie runs his hands up Buck’s arms, his shoulders, one sliding up to cup the back of his head. It’s no less desperate than the last time they did this. They’re both angry, and hurting, and desperate—and Eddie’s enough of a masochist to keep going.

He pushes Buck back until they end up on the couch—the leather couch he got after Kameron giving birth ruined the one his mom bought, because leather is easier to clean—and Eddie straddles him, his legs pinning Buck underneath him. Buck’s hands are still on his hips, moving back to palm at his ass, pulling Eddie flush against him. Eddie groans into the kiss as Buck shifts his legs, and Eddie presses against him.

It’s like fire underneath his skin, licking at his ribcage and spreading through his entire limbic system. Eddie is overheating, and he wrestles his shirt off, makes Buck take off his. Their hands dig into each other. Eddie drags his nails down Buck’s arms, delights in the red lines. He wants to leave a mark. He wants to leave something that lasts, so the memory will haunt Buck, too.

They’re gasping into each other’s mouths more than they are kissing, as Buck reaches between them to palm at Eddie’s aching dick. He wrestles his pants open, able to push them down his spread thighs just enough to get Eddie’s dick out of. Eddie whines, almost, dropping his head to Buck’s shoulder as he sucks in eager breaths. He’s still on fire. It burns his throat, spreads down his limbs.

Eddie watches as Buck works his cock, his grip strong and unwavering, working Eddie over the edge without any teasing. His orgasm sweeps through him, a rush of water that douses the fire, and Eddie slumps into Buck. His body melts, like his skeletal system has turned to rubber, and Buck lets him. He’s hard under Eddie, he can feel it, and once Eddie gets his wits about him, he returns the favor.

“You don’t have to,” Buck tries to say, but Eddie slips between his legs anyways. He pulls Buck’s boxers down, and gets his mouth on Buck’s dick.

It’s probably not a good blowjob. Beginner, no technique, too much teeth, but Eddie is enthusiastic and Buck is moaning, so he figures it’s not that bad. Eddie can only fit some of Buck’s dick on his mouth, uses his hand to work the rest, and he pulls back at the right time for Buck to come on his face. Eddie’s mouth drops open, and some lands on his tongue, but most hits his face.

Buck helps clean him off, using a thumb to wipe the cum from his cheek. Eddie cleans off his hand, already missing the feeling of Buck inside of him.

They actually clean up, later. Eddie borrows a shirt. Buck asks if he wants water.

Buck still won’t meet his eyes. Eddie came over because—he thought he could fix things. That Buck wanted to fix things, too. Except they’re no closer to fixing things, and now Eddie knows what his best friend tastes like, and that knowledge feels too sacred and too heavy to know.

Eddie declines the water. Says he better head home, has a lot to do. Buck just nods, doesn’t fight him on it. As he walks out the door, Eddie wants to ask where his best friend went.

Nothing can really leave Texas, Eddie figures. Of course Buck didn’t come back the same way.

Eddie didn’t have to fix things with Shannon. He understood why she left, after all. Her mother was dying, and Eddie was back from war, and Eddie’s parents were overbearing and mean and cruel, and Christopher couldn't be a shield. Shannon left, and Eddie followed, and then Shannon died, and Eddie thinks a part of him died that very same day.

Sometimes, he thinks he’s still underwater. Still drowning. It’s easier to live with the pain in his lungs than to come up for air and realize he drifted downstream, out to sea, away from everything he knows. At least in the water, Eddie knows what to expect.

Eddie isn’t covered in blood, but he takes a long shower anyways. Scrubs until his skin feels raw and then changes into a clean uniform. Stares at himself in the mirror until he recognizes the man in it, until his shoulders relax. Stand down, soldier.

It was a rough call. A woman with an arterial bleed that no one noticed until the bus took off with another patient in—they thought—worse condition, their paramedics with them. Eddie had jumped in as Captain Lawlor called in for another ambulance, wrapping the injuries and applying a tourniquet, running a line and hoping her blood pressure didn’t bottom out. It took five minutes for the other ambulance to arrive, another five to the nearest emergency room. Eddie helped pack her up, her blood on his shirt and staining the skin of his arms.

There will be a report about it, and Eddie has to file paperwork later, but Lawlor let him duck away for a long shower. The captain is waiting in the common area, though, a pile of documents around him. Eddie skirts the table for as long as he can, makes himself a cup of coffee. It’s early morning, before the sun has even risen, but he knows he’s not getting any sleep until C-shift shuffles out the door.

Eddie sits down at the table, across from Lawlor. He can see the familiar headings for incident reports.

“That was good work out there, Diaz,” Lawlor says.

“Thank you,” Eddie says, hiding his grimace with a sip of coffee. The beans they buy here suck. Maxwell House. Usually, Bobby splurges for some nicer blends.

“Have you ever thought about becoming a paramedic?” Lawlor continues.

Eddie freezes, cup to his mouth. He has thought about it, actually. Paramedics have a non-negligible pay bump. In theory, it would mean he’s safer rather than being just a firefighter. When Hen started making noise about med school, Eddie considered it. He looked into it, even, quietly asking her what all went into it. Four months of classes, clinicals, field work. He’d be paid a fraction of his salary for the duration. He’d have more time with Christopher, while he was doing the training.

Eddie considered it, at the 118, but then he realized—he wouldn’t be working with Buck. Eddie would have to go to class for months. The 118 already had its two paramedics for A-shift, and Hen was still far away from switching fulltime to medical school or leaving the field entirely. If Eddie became a paramedic, he wouldn’t be Buck’s partner. He wouldn’t have Buck’s back.

“I’ve thought about it,” Eddie says after a long, long moment. “It never seemed like the right time for me.”

“I think you’d excel at it,” Lawlor says. He hands Eddie a stack of papers, a hand-out on the program with UCLA, information about the FISDAP exam needed to apply to it. “You have a good head, good instincts. With your background, it should be easy.”

Eddie takes the papers with a nod, scanning over the lines. He’s thought about it. Liked the idea of it. Except, now, he doesn’t worry about what he would be leaving behind.

He’s already been left behind.

It was a cold morning when Eddie drove out of Texas. He visited his parents for an early breakfast, had an awkward conversation over the table while Christopher continued to stonewall the three of them. Since Eddie broke the news—since Buck left—Christopher had reverted to the sullen teenager he was when Eddie arrived in Texas. He didn’t realize how much progress he made until he destroyed it.

Eddie, in a cruel way, was glad for Christopher’s tantrum. He’s glad Christopher wasn’t making it easy on his parents, sweating them out the same way Eddie was.

When Eddie finally had to leave, his truck and its U-Haul of boxes all packed up, he found Christopher hiding in his room. Eddie’s old room, the one he spent eighteen years in. With Christopher’s visit turned into a long-term stay, his parents repainted, redecorated, all the traces of Eddie’s younger self up in smoke.

“I’m heading out,” Eddie said. “I know… I’m sorry, Chris.”

Christopher has his arms crossed, his gaze resolutely glued to his phone. The only indication he heard Eddie was a little scoff before he bit out, “If you were sorry, you wouldn’t be here. You’d be—”

Cut himself off, bit down on his tongue. Eddie watched his son curl in on himself, like he’s years younger. How many mistakes has Eddie made and Christopher has done exactly this? Make himself not a problem.

“I’d be fixing it,” Eddie agreed. “And I am, okay? I’m getting— But Chris, you know that… things have changed now, okay? And some things can’t go back to how they were.”

“Are you talking about Buck?” Christopher asked, his voice tiny and scared. Eddie feels the pain of the bullet again. How does he keep fucking this one thing up?

“I’m not,” Eddie said quickly. “Buck… He’s always going to be part of this family, okay? And I’m sorry that I—” That I pushed him away. That I ran him out of the state, out of our lives. That I always let you get attached to someone before I send them away. That I fucked up. “I’m sorry I’m leaving,” he settled on. “But, Chris, we’re not gonna do this again. When the school year is up, you’re coming back home.”

A tremble of Christopher’s lip, before he turned his head to the side, not looking at Eddie. It was answer enough.

Eddie sighed, patted Christopher’s leg. “I love you, Christopher. And I know Buck does, and he misses you. I’ll fix it. I will.”

That’s a rule Eddie learned early in life, before he held someone’s life in his hands: Never make a promise you can’t keep. Eddie has never been good at holding himself to it.

Buck asks if he wants to come over, and Eddie says yes. He doesn’t fool himself, even when they sit on the couch playing a video game. Buck only wants one thing from him, and Eddie is—okay with it. He’s missed Buck, and he hates his empty apartment, and he’ll let himself have this even if it hurts when he has to leave.

Eddie gets to fuck him, when they finally end up in on the bed. Buck holds up the lube and asks if he wants to, and Eddie wants. They’re in the loft, on his king-sized mattress, a sheet set that’s soft against his skin, and Buck stretches out as Eddie traces paths over his skin. His tattoos are dark against his skin, but Eddie’s fingers find the barely-visible scars left behind by everything. Buck twists beneath him, but never complains.

He’s loud, as Eddie opens him up. He remembers one night Buck had someone over. Eddie was kept up for hours because of the guy’s moans—and Eddie knows it was a guy, even if he never saw him, because he heard him moaning Buck’s name in a low, bassy voice and Eddie smelled another man’s cologne in the morning—but because of Buck’s, too. Eddie could hear the both of them, the sound of skin coming together, and he had shifted restlessly that night. He didn’t jerk himself off then, even though he was hard and aching in his sweatpants. Eddie had laid there, listening to them, wishing he was the one in the room.

Eddie is the one in the room now, and he thinks Buck is even louder. It’s incredible, fucking Buck. Eddie’s scared he’s fucking it up, keeps checking in, but Buck tells him to go faster, harder, adjust the angle, yeah, Eddie, just like that, holy shit. Eddie follows his directions and watches as pleasure spreads through Buck’s entire body, his face, as he turned glassy-eyed and is reduced to wordless moans as Eddie fucks into him.

When he orgasms, he tightens around Eddie, his cum shooting up over his chest, and it’s impossible not to follow. Eddie spills into him, because they’ve forgone condoms again, and Eddie likes—knowing. That he’s inside Buck. It’s gross and Buck probably cleans himself up as soon as Eddie leaves, but Eddie likes knowing.

Other times, it’s not just sex. Other times, they’re Buck-and-Eddie, the two best friends they were before Eddie moved to Texas and Buck followed. Eddie likes those times the most, because he can—pretend. He fixed it, but like a landlord painting over cracks in the wall: they’re still there. It’s easier to ignore them when Buck is just as insistent on everything being okay.

Eddie goes over to the loft for dinner, when they’re both free. He never invites Buck back to his shitty apartment, the depressing box on the westside. They go out to bars, and conversation is easy with a couple of beers, a basket of wings. Buck is—trying. Eddie knows that, because he knows Buck is genuine and would bleed himself dry if it would fix things, because he’s the one who fixes things. All Eddie has to do is ask, and Buck would bend over backwards, break a bone, cut himself to the core.

He doesn’t ask. He doesn’t say anything, just simmers with it. Eddie gets used to being with Buck, again, in this new context where they’re best friends who sometimes fuck each other and don’t talk about anything of importance. Sometimes he sees Buck’s mouth open, sees him form the words, but he never says them.

Eddie wishes he would. Eddie wishes Buck would move first, be the one to break this uneasy truce they’ve settled into, a shoddy replica of what they used to be. They’re standing on rocky ground, and Eddie is too scared of slipping, too scared of making it worse, to find something better.

Come summer, the renters move out of Eddie’s house, and he knows it’s useless to hemorrhage all his money on paying for a too-big apartment, so Eddie moves back into the house on South Bedford. It’s familiar and alien to him at the same time. After months of living elsewhere, Eddie can look at it with fresh eyes. He gets annoyed by the tile in the kitchen, the bathroom faucet that continuously drips, the water stain in Christopher’s room. He needs to fix it up.

Eddie moves back into his house, and he’s somewhat talking to Buck, and Christopher tells him he’s sick of Texas, so Eddie brings him home. He doesn’t make it a choice, even though it’s always been a choice. Christopher sounds relieved, at least, when he passes off the phone so Eddie can argue with his parents. Christopher wants to come home. Eddie contents himself with that fact.

He almost messages Buck to tell him, but never does. Instead, he invites Buck over, christens his old-new bedroom, and almost tells him. The words don’t come out. Eddie has slapped a bandaid over all his problems, and he can pretend the wound is healed. This can be enough.

It has to be.

Christopher comes back to Los Angeles in May, a full year after he left the first time around. Eddie’s waiting for him in LAX. He thought about making a cardboard sign. Buck would’ve. Christopher would’ve thought it was cheesy, but he probably would’ve liked it, and Eddie got as far as ripping up a cardboard box and looking for a Sharpie before realizing Buck isn’t there to hold it with him.

He spots the three of them, Christopher and his parents, because of course they insisted on chaperoning him for a two-hour plane ride. Eddie had been fine with letting Christopher navigate it himself, but his parents insisted. Eddie’s stopped trying to fight them, these days. He won the war; they can win the last few battles.

“Christopher!” Eddie calls, and watches his son’s head perk up. His pace tightens, barely noticeable, but it’s enough to make Eddie’s chest swell. He’s excited. He wanted to come home. Eddie steps forward, too, meeting his son with a hug in the middle of an airport. “Hey, I missed you.”

He buries his head in Christopher’s hair, lifts him up in the hug for a few seconds. Christopher’s crutches hit the side of his legs, a familiar touch. It’s been a long time since they hugged like this. After those seconds, Christopher starts squirming, and Eddie sets his son down.

“Hi,” Christopher says. He’s not as sullen as he was on the phone, the last time he saw Eddie. “Is Buck here?”

Eddie freezes. He rallies quickly, he thinks. “Um, no. Sorry, he had a shift.”

Christopher’s shoulders drop in disappointment. Eddie swallows down the guilt.

Eddie shows up at the loft. He’s only half-sure Buck is going to be there, only because he knows Buck’s schedule like the back of his own. A-shift ended two hours ago. Buck takes an hour to get back to the loft, after a shower and chatting with the guys on B-shift. He doesn’t crash right after, unless it was a tough and busy shift. Eddie kept an eye on emergency alerts from the LAFD account; not much happened in Glendale overnight. Buck should still be awake.

There’s a key to the apartment sitting on Eddie’s key ring, but he doesn’t use it. He knocks instead. It’s been years since he did this, since he had to stand back and wait for Buck to open the door. He does, eventually.

He’s red-eyed. It must’ve been a rough shift, then. Buck frowns when he sees Eddie. “What— Eddie? Is something wrong?”

“I need to tell you something,” Eddie says. He steps past Buck into the apartment. After a moment, Buck turns to face him, closing the door behind him. He yawns as he does, stretches a little, and Eddie looks at the sliver of his stomach exposed with the movement. His determination wavers for a moment. “Christopher is. Um. He moved back.”

Buck’s face cracks into a grin. “Yeah? Oh, that’s awesome, man.” He pauses, takes in the way Eddie is vibrating. The fact that Eddie is in his apartment in the early morning. “What… Why are you here?”

“He was always coming back,” Eddie admits, finally. “He just wanted to finish out the school year down there.”

Buck freezes in place. His smile fades, and he scoffs. “When did you figure that out?” Buck asks. His voice doesn’t crack, but it’s thick. Eddie knows Buck is quick to tears. He’s seen it happen, over soldier reunions and rescued dog videos. He’s caught off guard, by the way Buck’s eyes suddenly turn wet with tears. “When— One of those dinners I never got to go to? Or one of those father-son hangouts I was also uninvited from?”

“What are you talking about?” Eddie asks, but he remembers as he says the words.

It was the first time Christopher had been free in weeks, and his grandparents weren’t trying to join in. Eddie hadn’t spent time with Christopher, alone, for months. He remembers inviting Buck along but—lied, at the last moment. He didn’t realize Buck found out.

“Why do you care?” Eddie presses on, regardless. “You left us first. You were the one— I just needed more time, Buck. We both just needed time, except—what, you decided I wasn’t worth it anymore?”

“That’s not why I left,” Buck says, wiping at his eyes. Quick to anger, just as quick to burn out, left with defeat in the slump of his shoulders. “You’re the one who—”

And Eddie can’t stand it, this, anymore—so he kisses him, because he doesn’t want to hear it. Buck clearly doesn’t think it’s important enough to say, because he kisses back, deepens it immediately, and they end up in the loft again. Eddie’s determined to keep Buck occupied, so he never stops kissing him. Buck helps open him up, a mess of lube and fingers, and Eddie sinks down onto Buck, groans into the kissing.

He breaks the kiss, because Buck is large and the stretch hurts, but Buck starts biting at his neck instead. He doesn’t want to talk, either. That’s their problem. It doesn’t feel like much of a problem now.

Eddie rides him until his thighs burn, until Buck flips them over and fucks into Eddie until he sees stars, until he’s coming between their stomachs, almost sobbing with it, and Buck bites down on his shoulder as he comes inside Eddie. He feels it, the way Buck’s cum slips down his thighs. It’s messy, and gross, and Eddie wants to—live with it. He wants to feel it forever, Buck inside him, Buck on him.

He doesn’t stay for the afterglow. Neither of them ever do. Eddie waits until his legs feel like they can hold his weight, and he climbs out of bed.

“Does he… Can I see him?” Buck asks as Eddie is pulling on his clothes. His voice is hesitant, barely louder than a whisper. “Or am I in a time-out?”

Eddie tucks his undershirt in. He says, pointedly, “I’ve never gotten between the two of you before.”

He hasn’t. Eddie had always been glad Buck cared so much for Christopher, that his son was as high a priority to Buck as he is to Eddie. It’s not like Shannon; he doesn’t have to be worried about the same things. Buck isn’t going to leave, not as long as they’re in Los Angeles. Eddie doesn’t need to be cautious, here. He’s not going to keep them apart, because he’s not cruel.

He’s just a man with a broken heart. There’s a difference.

Eddie’s biggest regret: he waited. Shannon had wanted to see Christopher, and for months, Eddie didn’t let her. He kept his son away from his mom because he thought that was easier, safer. He thought it would hurt less if Christopher didn’t see her, if he knew his mom left but never came back.

His second biggest regret: he let her back. She was going to leave again. She was always going to leave, but Eddie had hoped, desperate and dumb with it, that he would be enough. That, finally, he could be enough for her.

When Buck comes over for dinner, Christopher clatters down the hall to open the door for him. Eddie watches from the kitchen, the two of them hugging. Christopher’s gotten big, but Buck is still bigger; his broad hands spanning Christopher’s back, curled over him in a hug.

It makes Eddie’s chest ache, looking at them. Christopher looks so much like Shannon, but Eddie can see the pieces of Buck in him, too. He always liked that, the way Buck bled so deeply into their lives.

Buck makes them dinner, and it’s like the last year never happened. Christopher sits at the kitchen table, talking to Buck about school, a science project he did earlier in the year. The house smells good, as Buck ribs Eddie about his lack of spices. He brought an entire grocery bag with him. Eddie didn’t tell him the kitchen had been cleaned out by himself several months ago; and then by the last inhabitants a few weeks ago. Eddie is still building it back up.

It’s a nice dinner, the three of them sitting at the table and laughing. Eddie relaxes as they eat, as the conversation never turns thorny. He does his best to avoid the topics that would cut, because he knows better than to talk about it around Christopher. He forgot, though, how Christopher is just like his mother: blunt, a little careless, a little reckless with his words.

“Dad said you left,” he says, looking at Buck.

Buck’s eyes cut towards Eddie. “I, um. Yeah, I did.” It’s not like he could deny it. He left, and Christopher found out, and Eddie knows a good dinner can’t make up for leaving. He’s not seven anymore. He’s fourteen, and Eddie knows his temper is like his mom’s.

“Why?” Christopher asks quietly.

There’s a pause, as Buck tries to figure out an answer that Christopher can accept. Eddie watches him, because he wants to know the answer too. The justifiable reason Buck can give, for leaving Christopher behind. Eddie knows the reasons Buck gave him—hated Texas, he missed the 118 and his family. Eddie had wanted to ask: What about me and Chris? Aren’t we your family, too?

He didn’t want to hear the answer then.

“You know how you left?” Buck says quietly. “You were mad and wanted to get away from it, yeah? Well, I got—mad. And I didn’t know what to do about it, about why I was mad, so I left.”

Christopher looks between the two of them. He’s fourteen; he can connect the dots. “What did Dad do?”

“I didn’t do anything,” Eddie says. It isn't a total lie. It isn’t the total truth, either.

Eddie did what he said he was going to do—move to Texas—and Buck is the one who followed. He made his bed, slept in it, and left Eddie to pick up the pieces in the morning.

“But this is— This is between me and Buck, Christopher.”

“I’m between you, too,” Christopher says. He’s sitting between Eddie and Buck; he’s the reason for the shaky truce Eddie and Buck have settled on. “I should— If it’s about me—”

“It’s not,” Buck says quickly, shooting a panicked look at Eddie. He reaches out and settles a hand on Christopher’s thin shoulder. Even with all the growing his son has done in the last year, Buck is still—larger than life. Strong enough to carry his son through a tsunami, strong enough to lift Eddie’s dead weight. He’s doing it again. “I know it feels like it, Chris, but this is— You didn't do anything, I promise. I shouldn’t have left like that, without telling you or—or explaining. I’m sorry.”

Buck means it, this time. It’s a genuine apology. Eddie wishes it was directed at him, which he knows is an insane thought.

“And you’re staying?” Christopher asks. He faces Buck head-on, his chin tilted up. The twist to his mouth, the narrowed eyes—all Shannon’s daring, Buck’s defiance. It steals Eddie’s breath, seeing both of them in his son’s face.

“I’m staying,” Buck promises.

Eddie doesn’t believe it, but for Christopher, he pretends. Buck’s eyes dart to him, and he nods—like that seals the deal, somehow. Like Eddie should just trust Buck’s word. Eddie doesn’t know if he can.

“And things are— It’s fixed, right?” Christopher asks, a little desperately. He’s looking at Eddie now.

“We’re getting there,” Eddie says. He looks at Buck, holds his gaze. “We’re fixing it.”

It’s just hard to fix something when no one wants to talk about it.

Christopher has the entire summer ahead of him, and he’s spending it by hanging out with all his friends in Los Angeles. It’s hard for Eddie to keep track of the different sleepovers and beach days, but he manages. He plugs them all into his calendar, otherwise he’d forget. He forgets the calendar is synched to Buck’s phone, which is the only explanation for how Buck knows he’s home alone.

He uses his key. Eddie, drinking a beer on the couch, turns his head at Buck’s entrance but otherwise—what is he to do, get mad? He’s surprised it took Buck a total of three days to come back.

“Hey, Buck,” Eddie says, tilting his chin up to face him, as Buck stands in front of him on the couch. It’s a mirror of the first time this happened, except that time, Buck had left. A preamble, for the last few terrible months.

“You told him I left?” Buck asks, no pretenses. He sounds broken up about it, for some reason. Like it isn’t an objective statement: Buck left.

“You did leave,” Eddie reminds him. Takes another sip of the beer. “He’s… He’s smart, Buck. This isn’t the first time someone’s left him. And I can tell him it’s my fault, that he didn’t do anything wrong, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to believe me.”

Buck’s expression shutters, all the anger falling out of him. Still, like he has lines to read, Buck moves in, crowding Eddie against the couch. “It was your fault,” he says, miserable and angry and—empty. “You were icing me out. You didn’t— I moved there for you, and you didn’t let me help. I needed you, and you weren’t there.”

He sounds broken up about this part. Eddie remembers Shannon saying the same things—I needed you, I needed a partner, someone who had my back, but you weren’t there. Eddie is just that bad of a husband, of a partner—he’s always good at making up for it, though.

“I’m here now,” he says, and pulls Buck down into a kiss.

It’s more desperate, this time around. It feels different. They still don’t talk, because Eddie doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t want to apologize first, but he can do this. He can make Buck feel good. He sucks his cock until Buck comes down his throat—Eddie’s gotten better at it, over the weeks—and they end up in the bedroom, Buck on his stomach as Eddie stretches him open.

It’s gentler than how they usually do it. Eddie doesn’t feel that same fire in his veins, that same frenetic energy. It’s softer, sweeter. Maybe it is an apology. Eddie presses his face against Buck’s nape as he blankets Buck’s body with his own, fucks into him at a steady pace, his orgasm slow and syrupy sweet. He thinks Buck comes again, maybe a third time, before Eddie follows him over the edge.

They lay in bed together, quietly. Buck is warm against Eddie’s shoulder, and Eddie thinks, if things were different, if Eddie were a better person, maybe Eddie could kiss him again. Maybe Eddie could sweep it all under the rug. Buck is trying to, he knows. Buck wants to, he knows.

Eddie can’t quite let himself. He lets it fester instead, heavy in his stomach, the anger. Buck is warm next to him, but Eddie wishes he were anywhere else.

Maybe he could stand himself a little bit more.

Shannon, gasping for breath, would kiss him as she pulled her dress back on. She loved sundresses. She hated shaving her legs, though, would always make some disparaging remark about the patriarchy every three days as she sat on the edge of the tub and shaved her legs. Eddie would sit with her, sometimes, their voices echoing in the tiled bathroom. She waxed instead, out in California. Sunshine all the time. She didn’t have the time for shaving her legs.

Eddie would watch as she got dressed, would kiss her all the way out the door. He would kiss her all the time, wrap a hand around her waist, his wrist, just to remember that she’s there. Eddie had missed her so much, all the goddamn time. Sometimes, he can’t remember if he did. If it was his misery or Christopher’s. Doesn’t matter. Shannon died, and Eddie was left with the misery.

They end up at the beach, because Christopher hasn’t gone since last summer and Eddie doesn’t want to carry their chairs and cooler over the sand by himself. Buck meets them in the parking lot, pulling an umbrella and cooler set from his Jeep like it’s a goddamn clown car, smiling at Christopher the entire time. It’s not like things are fixed, but it’s like the three of them have agreed to pretend the last year didn’t happen.

Eddie doesn’t mind the pretending, because he wants this too much. A nice day at the beach, Buck shirtless, all his tan skin and freckled shoulders on display. Christopher gets a little more childish at the beach, somehow. He’s always loved the ocean, before and after the tsunami. He laughs when Buck sweeps him up on his shoulders, the two of them falling into the surf. Eddie had thought Christopher would hate going back to the beach after the tsunami, but one day, after the lawsuit, Buck had said they went by themselves. Christopher hasn’t minded it since.

Eddie will let them pretend because it’s better than the truth. It hurts less, the wound that Buck left him with. That’s unfair—Buck just reopened it. Eddie forgot he had it until that morning, waking up alone, a note left for him.

He watches as Buck and Christopher come back in, dropping cold seawater all over Eddie and his towels. He even brought a book, but that’s stayed tucked into one of the beach bags.

“Buck almost dropped me,” Christopher announces. Eddie saw; Buck had stumbled as a wave hit him full in the face, and Christopher screamed as he almost slipped right off Buck’s back. It wouldn't have hurt, since Buck was chest-deep in the water. It wouldn’t have hurt, but Buck had reached back for him, almost desperately.

“Snitch,” Buck teases. He slides his sunglasses up, resting on his wet curls. His eyes are bright, the ocean during midday. “Thought that was our little secret?”

“I don’t keep secrets,” Christopher says, hand to his chest, all mock-affront.

“You drop him, you buy him dinner,” Eddie cuts in, playful.

Buck grins at him, and Eddie feels his breath catch, like he’s a goddamn cliche. He knows, of course. It’s impossible to not fall in love with Buck, after everything they’ve been through. Buck takes up so much space in Eddie’s life; when he’s gone, it’s like Eddie lost half of himself. He misses him, all the time.

He settles against Eddie’s side, his skin cold from being in the water. Eddie presses his weight against Buck, and Buck takes it. Holds firm while Eddie tests the boundaries of this thing between them, looks for its weak points. He can’t find any but he knows—there has to be one. There’s always a sore spot, a bruise that Eddie ends up pressing on. If he can find it, he’ll know to avoid it. If he avoids it, then they can keep doing this.

They can keep pretending. And maybe, maybe they’re not pretending. Buck is a terrible liar, and he’s worse at keeping a grudge. This thing between the two of them—Buck means it.

Eddie is the one pretending. He’s the one playing along, and maybe it’s obvious. The hurt, the anger, it simmers beneath his ribs. He swallows it back, lets it burn, because he’s fixed it. They’re fixed. It’s fine.

Christopher is back. Buck is his best friend again. Eddie is in his house again. Things are back to normal, as close as they can be. Eddie is the one who isn’t fitting in. Christopher seems appeased by the charade they’re playing—or maybe it’s the charade only Eddie is keeping up. Buck comes over on their shared off-days. He comes over when Eddie is on shift. Christopher claims he doesn’t need a babysitter, and Eddie is inclined to agree with him, but he likes knowing Buck is there overnight. He’s always gone by the time Eddie makes it back home, C-shift bleeding into A-shift, but Eddie knows Christopher isn’t getting into trouble between the hours of 5 a.m. and 8 a.m.

There are the times when Buck comes over, and they end up in Eddie’s bed. Sometimes they end up at the loft. Eddie learns the way Buck feels underneath his hands, learns every square inch of his body, but when they’re lying next to each other in bed, he can never quite figure out what to say.

He wants it. Eddie is desperate for it, with it, being in love with Buck. He’s still mad. The wound is still there, its edges stapled together but the wound isn’t healing. Gotten infected, red at the edges, poison in the bloodstream.

Eddie bites his tongue all the time. He’s tired of being mad at Buck. They can’t keep sweeping this under the rug.

Eddie and Shannon always argued. Eddie never got used to it, the way she would find something new to be mad about. Eddie would get mad, too, because he was mad and it would feed back into him. They’d snipe at each other over innocuous things, the way dinner tasted, the way Eddie put away their laundry, the way Shannon organized the bookshelves. They’d work themselves into an argument, even if their voices stayed level the entire time, because if they yelled, Christopher would start crying from the baby monitor.

Eddie was glad, every time he had to ship out. He was glad to leave it behind, even though he knew—he’d be going right back to it. He wasn’t going to leave. He didn’t know how to change, either. Until he almost died, and kept almost dying, and figured—maybe there’s something better. Maybe he could have something better.

Most of the time, he still thinks it’s a pipe dream.

They go out, on Buck’s request. It’s not a date, but it is, because they’re sitting across from each other at a gastropub with great burgers but shit beer, and Buck is smiling at Eddie from the rim of his pint glass. It’s not a date, because Eddie can’t let it be a date.

Buck is talking about work, saying, “You know, you could always come back. I-I’m sure Bobby would be able to shuffle things around, get you back on A-shift.”

Even though Eddie doesn’t live on the westside anymore, he’s still working with the 62. His commute is shit. He needs to transfer, but Eddie’s scared of looking at his employee record.

“I don’t know,” he hedges. “I’m, uh. I’m actually looking into going to paramedic school.”

Buck stills, like every atom in his body comes to a complete stop. “Oh,” he says, his voice carefully flat. “I didn’t… know that was something you were interested in.”

“I thought about it before,” Eddie says. “Figured it didn’t make sense upsetting things at the time, but, now.” He makes a motion with his hands. Things are already upset.

“So you… don’t want to come back?” Buck asks. “If it’s— If it’s because of me, I promise it’s okay. I’m not, like, mad. And the team doesn’t know about it, either.”

Eddie reins it in, the initial response. Buck’s not mad, that’s great. Because it all comes down to Buck, doesn’t it? But Eddie reins that in. Takes a deep breath, because he knows Buck doesn’t mean it. “And what if I’m not over it?”

“You’re not?” Buck’s gone all kicked-dog, like the idea that Eddie isn’t over this just hit him. It’s the same look he gives Eddie during one of their friendly disagreements, like he just has to look sad and pathetic enough, and Eddie will fold.

“I’m not.” Eddie doesn’t realize it until he says it. He’s not over it. “I don’t— I’m scared, Buck. I keep thinking that… that one day, you’re going to do it again. Leave me. And I can’t handle that a second time.”

A third time. Maybe, technically, fourth.

“I’m not going to leave.” Buck puffs up, straightens in his seat. Eddie is glad the restaurant is loud around them, though he figures the couple on their right can hear. He hopes they like their dinner entertainment. “I’ve been here, Eddie. I’m not— What else do you need?”

An apology would be nice, Eddie doesn’t say. He does say, “I know you have. This is… It’s me. I’m the problem. I don’t know how to get over it, and this,” motioning between the two of them, their date, the nights they spend fucking each other, “isn’t helping. We can’t keep pretending, Buck.”

“Who’s pretending?” Buck asks, a glint in his eyes. There’s genuine hurt in his voice. God, there Eddie goes again—pressing on the bruise. “I’m not lying about shit, Eddie. You’re the one who—”

“I can’t pretend everything is okay,” Eddie says gently. It takes the wind out of Buck’s sails. He notices the couple to their right staring at them. “I just… I need time. To figure out what to do.”

“You keep asking for time,” Buck points out, but doesn’t say anything else. If it’s a barb, Eddie doesn’t know where it was supposed to land. Maybe Buck didn’t mean it as one. Maybe Eddie’s just looking for a fight, waiting for it, because that’s how it went before.

He smiles wryly, shrugs. “You’re not giving it to me,” he says simply. “It’s fine, if you don’t want to wait. If you can’t.”

Except it’s not fine, because Christopher sits between them. Buck knows that. But Eddie has bent over backwards, fixing his relationship with his son. Its foundations are still shaky, a house in a tornado, but Eddie is trying. He can’t let Buck be a wrecking ball, tearing down the house of cards.

Shannon asked for a divorce. Eddie thinks about that, sometimes. Instead of a widower, he was supposed to be a divorcee. A single dad by choice, not by fate. It felt like a terrible ultimatum when she asked him for a divorce, and Eddie was always glad he never had to make the choice.

If she lived, Eddie doesn’t know what he would do. They never would have gotten back together, Eddie tells himself. But sometimes, he imagines it, the rest of his life with Shannon by his side. What Christopher always wanted, until he realized how his parents argued all the time. He can imagine Christopher at school going, I wish my parents would just get divorced already.

The 62 is called out to a car accident. One of them hit a hydrant, so water is spraying all over the place. Lawlor sends Webb to deal with that, while Eddie joins the paramedics at the cars involved in the wreck. There’s a couple of them, a pile-up, and Eddie triages quickly. He helps a few drivers out of their sedans, none the worse for wear, and moves on. There’s a silver Jeep. Eddie doesn’t think much of it, except he sees the bumper stickers decorating the back of it: state parks, local breweries, a stupid one Eddie remembers Chimney giving Buck one year. He hurries, rounding the Jeep to the driver’s side.

“Buck?” he calls, and his voice is—wavering. He’s thrown back to it, Buck’s limp body dangling from a rope. Shannon on the asphalt. Buck pinned under the fire truck. The way Shannon’s hair caught the sunlight, like she had a halo. “Buck, buddy, can you hear me?”

He gets to the driver’s door and sees the spray of blood on the windshield. His mind conjures every possible outcome at once, and all of them need him to move, to start working, but he freezes at the sight. Says, quieter, his voice a little smaller, “Buck?”

There’s not a response. Eddie’s mind shorts out; his body takes over. Eddie gets the door open, his hands searching for a pulse on Buck’s neck. It’s there. Strong. The blood is still pouring from a wound above his temple. Head injuries bleed a lot, Eddie knows. He needs to seal it. He needs a c-collar. He needs Buck to wake up.

There’s a commotion behind him. Someone hands Eddie a collar, he puts it on Buck. Another body is there, a gurney, and Eddie helps move Buck’s body over. He starts waking up as they move him towards the ambulance. Eddie is at the side of the gurney, barking out things to Montgomery, the paramedic. Early 30s, history of blood clots, history of concussions. No sign of spinal trauma but he’s not waking up, until Buck grabs onto Eddie’s wrist and says, “Eddie?”

“Don’t— Don’t talk,” Eddie says. His brain is caught: then and now. Buck is breathing; Shannon isn’t. They’re pushing him into the ambulance; Chimney is stopping Eddie outside the doors and saying there’s a chance she might not make it back.

“You riding with us, Diaz?” Montgomery asks.

Eddie climbs into the back of the ambulance. Buck starts talking to him, of course he does. “Eddie, I’m fine, it’s okay,” he’s saying. He throws his hand out and Eddie grabs onto it. “Hey, look at me.”

Eddie is seeing double. Shannon wearing a yellow shirt, red floral print; Buck wearing a yellow shirt, specks of blood.

“Eddie, please,” Buck begs. Shannon apologizes for leaving again. “You gotta— Eddie, look at me. Please.”

Eddie sees Buck choking on his blood. If they intubate, there’s a chance—

“Hey, man, you okay?”

“I think he’s dissociating,” Buck announces, his voice far away. Eddie clings to it, clings to that fact that Buck is still talking. There’s still time.

“Shit, really? You know him?”

“Yeah.” A hand in his, and Eddie squeezes hard. “He’s my— I’m his partner.”

The LifePak makes a noise, and the hand in Eddie’s loosens its grip. He leans back on the bench, watches them work. Shannon’s loose curls. Buck’s blue eyes. Eddie feels the bile rise up in his stomach.

Eddie is alone in the waiting room for less than an hour before Maddie rushes in. She heads towards the receptionist, but changes course once she sees Eddie sitting in the corner. He’s been staring at his hands, the blood crusted under his nails. It’s funny. When Shannon died, it was all internal. Eddie didn’t see any of it.

“Eddie, oh my god, are you okay?” Maddie asks, stopping in front of him. She’s wearing her dispatch uniform. He wonders if she got the call from the hospital, or if Linda leaned over and said, It’s Buck. “Is Evan— What happened?”

“There was a pile-up,” Eddie says woodenly. “My station, uh, were the responding units. The Jeep wasn’t damaged but Buck was, um, he had a head injury. Unconscious. He woke up in the ambulance but…”

But then he stopped talking. Shannon stopped talking, too. Funny how that happens when someone dies.

“God,” Maddie says. She sits in the seat next to him, their shoulders brushing. “It’s okay. It’ll be okay.” It’s a mantra she says to herself, not Eddie, but he repeats it. He’ll be okay. Buck will be okay.

There’s not another option.

It’s the two of them for another half hour. Eddie has mostly settled into his body. His hands are still shaking, still covered in blood. Maddie handed him a wet wipe and Eddie had done his best, but the blood is still under his nails.

Then Bobby comes, Chimney behind him, and Eddie is getting up from his seat. He can’t do this right now, see the evidence of Buck’s family. Eddie’s family, too, except he doesn’t— He knows where he stands. Chimney is Buck’s brother-in-law, Bobby took Buck under his wing and stepped into the role of dad at the same time. They’re friends and coworkers to Eddie, people he could depend on, but that was before Texas and being left.

Eddie almost makes it out unscathed, but Bobby calls out his name, and there’s the sound of his heavy footsteps on the linoleum, and Eddie comes to a stop like a soldier obeying an order. His shoulders are up to his ears, perfect posture, as he turns to face Bobby.

“You don’t have to go,” Bobby says. “I got hold of Lawlor, he knows what’s going on.”

Eddie wants to ask how he knows who Eddie’s captain is. They haven’t talked since Eddie left. Eddie’s looked at the contact on his phone, thought about calling. He always stopped himself. “No, I need to…”

“Okay.” Bobby’s voice is gentle, like calming down a spooked horse. “Just know, you’re always welcome with us. We missed you, Eddie.”

“Oh.” His voice is thin, almost embarrassing. “I just…”

“I know,” Bobby says, and then—surprising Eddie—steps forward to wrap him in a hug. Eddie’s vision flickers again: Bobby in plainclothes, Eddie in a hospital, a hug so tight his ribs are going to crack. “I’m glad you were there. I’m glad he wasn’t alone.”

He was alone. Buck was alone, and Eddie was alone, and Eddie doesn’t know how to fix it.

He said he needed time, and he still does, but tomorrow’s not promised to anybody. Eddie would beg for it, more time. All he wanted was time. To heal. With his wife, the mother of his child. To sit with the grief of losing her. To heal again, to fix himself.

Eddie wants time, but he’s so goddamn lonely it’s eating him up from the inside-out. A paradox, a catch-22. How long can Eddie wait until he’s gone? Soon there won’t be anything left.

Eddie is told, an hour after leaving the hospital, that Buck is fine. Another concussion stacked on top of all the ones he had before, some minor blood loss. Eddie thanks Bobby for letting him now, and then curls up on his bed for the rest of the daylight hours, feeling the entire ocean weighing down on him.

He falls asleep at some point. Wakes up, at some point, and finally cleans the blood from beneath his fingernails. He wants to keep it. Some insane thought—if he can keep Buck’s blood under his nails, forever, then he can keep Buck. Eddie washes it off.

He drifts through the rest of the day without really taking anything in. He’s waiting on a phone call, he thinks. He needs to find Christopher, he needs to tell him—

Eddie falls back asleep, still in crisis mode, and wakes up feeling like a two-ton truck slammed into him. The two-ton truck firmly settled him back into his body, because Eddie is mostly clear-headed. He gets through the morning without incident, wastes the time until he has to pick Christopher up from a friend’s house.

He tells him, the second Christopher climbs into the truck. Eddie says, He’s fine, but Buck was in a car accident yesterday. Christopher panics, asks, Can we go see him? His voice is wavering. Cracks right down the middle. Eddie nods, shifts the truck into gear. We can go see him, he promises.

It’s only twenty minutes to the loft. Christopher speeds into the building, Eddie trailing behind him. Christopher hasn’t been here in—a year. Still, he navigates it perfectly. He still avoids the dip in the floor in the lobby, groans when the annoying and creaking third elevator is the one they have to use, and holds out his hand for Eddie’s keyring as they ride up.

Eddie hands it over. It’s the first time the key has been used in a while, Eddie thinks, watching as Christopher pushes into the loft and shouts out, “Buck?”

There’s the sound of Buck falling out of bed, before he appears at the stop of the stairs. There’s a butterfly bandage on his temple. Eddie scans his body, looking for signs of any other injuries. “Christopher?” he says, his voice still fuzzy from sleep. His eyes move to Eddie. “What are you— What are you guys doing here?”

“You were hurt,” Christopher says, his voice soft. “Dad said it was a car accident, and—”

Buck takes the stairs fast enough that Eddie thinks he’s going to slip and fall, brain himself, and there will be another hospital visit in their future. He doesn’t. Buck sweeps Christopher into a tight hug, face pressed to his curls.

“I’m okay,” Buck says. “I’m good. Your dad made sure of it.”

Eddie winces. He didn’t— He didn’t tell Christopher that part. He doesn’t think it’s true, either. Eddie didn’t do anything. Eddie couldn’t do anything, because he freaked out. He’s lucky he didn’t have a heart attack on the scene, seeing Buck in his crumpled Jeep.

“Dad was there?” Christopher asks. He says it into Buck’s sweater, unwilling to be moved. “He— He fixed it, right?”

“He did,” Buck says. He’s looking at Eddie, eyes locked. “He fixed it.”

Eddie looks away first, swallowing hard. He didn’t fix anything. Nothing is fixed, but Eddie has done everything he can. He needs more time, but he knows better than to ask the universe for that. Eddie Diaz, most loathed by the universe. His karma’s in the shithole.

But Christopher thinks it’s true. They’ve finally sold the lie. Eddie wishes he could be happy with the lie, with this half-relationship he and Buck stumbled into. Maybe he’s greedy, wanting more. Eddie should stop hoping for more.

Maybe this is it, fixed. The three of them in one room, not having any arguments, no teenaged sullenness or Buck’s slow-boiling anger. Maybe Eddie fixed it, finally.

He wants more. He wants more, but maybe this, the thin veneer of happiness, is the best he’s going to get.

Days later, Eddie gets home after his shift, expecting an empty house, but instead—Buck is sitting on his couch. Bobby must be keeping him off work, Eddie thinks, before he realizes Buck is in his house and asks, “What are you doing here?”

“That’s new,” Buck says. He’s smiling, like he knows a secret Eddie doesn’t. “What happened to me always being invited?”

Eddie stands in the living room. He said that, once. In this very room. The cut on Buck’s temple has scabbed over, a thin red line. Eddie blinks and Buck is still there, still smiling at him. “Sorry,” he says quietly. “I just…”

Buck tilts his head, and it’s not really a command—not much of anything—but Eddie sits on the couch anyways. There’s a cushion between them. It feels like the Pacific, yawning wide and fathomless. “I just wanted to know… Are you okay?”

“I— Yeah?” It’s been three days since the accident, and Eddie knows Buck doesn’t have any lasting injuries than the concussion, but Eddie wasn’t— He’s fine. “You’re the one that was in a fucking car accident.”

“Please, it was practically a fender-bender,” Buck says, waving it off. “But you were… Eddie, you looked pretty freaked out when I saw you.”

“I think it was understandable,” Eddie says stiffly. He stands up from the couch, suddenly, filled with the urge to get Buck out of the house. “Look, Buck, I’m not in the—”

“I’m sorry,” Buck says, and Eddie stutters to a stop. Buck’s not smiling anymore; dead-serious, in the way that he gets when he sets his mind to something. “I’m sorry, Eddie, for everything.”

Eddie swallows thickly, and it echoes in the room to him. “You want to specify, or…?”

“I’m sorry for blaming you when I left Texas,” Buck says. He stands, and he’s slouching, so Eddie doesn’t even have to tilt his head to look him in the eyes. “I’m sorry that I left Texas, left you. I’m sorry I didn’t— There’s a lot I regret about that time. About now.”

“All of it?” Eddie guesses. His heart is in his throat, trying to crawl its way up. He’s been trying to fight off the sensation for months, trying to keep himself from offering it, all bloody and covered in viscera, to Buck.

“Not all of it,” Buck says quietly.

He reaches out, one hand cupping Eddie’s cheek. It’s a soft touch. Buck hasn’t touched him softly in months. It’s always been desperate, aching, fast and quick in the quiet moments they could carve out. Eddie can’t help himself; he leans into it, feels the calluses on Buck’s palm, the warmth of his hand.

“I’m sorry for hurting you,” Buck says. “I know… I didn’t want to be like her, but I guess we fell into old patterns, huh? I made it about me, when I was supposed to be supporting you. When I said that’s what I was there for. And I know— I know that I hurt you, and I can’t fix it, but will you let me try?”

“You don’t— It’s fixed,” Eddie says. He can’t remember any of his problems, with the way Buck is looking at him, holding Eddie’s cheek so tenderly.

“It’s not,” Buck says, and his smile is soft and gentle, a hint teasing. “And I’m gonna fix it, and make it up to you. I promise. But I… What I’m not sorry for is loving you. Just the mess I made of us, trying to figure that out.”

Oh. Eddie’s heart stops trying to crawl out of his throat, because everything feels frozen in time. Buck’s harm hand on his face, Eddie’s hands hanging limp by his sides.

“You love me?” Eddie asks, his voice hushed. It doesn’t feel like something he can be loud about.

“I love you so fucking much,” Buck tells him, the words falling out of him in a rush. “And I know—I know that you don’t trust me, and I get that. I’m gonna do whatever I can to make it up to you, to show that I know you. And I want— I just want to be with you. however you’ll have me. And we don’t have to—to go back to normal. You can have all the fucking time you want, I’ll wait. You don’t have to transfer stations, you can become a paramedic, you can—you can go back to fucking dispatch. Whatever you want, Eddie, I’m behind you. And I mean it. I really do.”

He’s wrong. Eddie can trust him. It’s the easiest thing to do, because Eddie has known it for years. Buck loves him, and it pours out of everything he’s done for Eddie. Even moving with him—that was out of love, even if it turned sour and festered between them. Some of that was because of Eddie; some of it was because of Buck. He’ll blame the entire state of Texas, too, while he’s at it.

“I’m sorry,” Eddie says, because he needs to say it. He hurt Buck, too. Drove him away. “I didn’t— I trust you, Buck, I didn’t mean it like that.”

“It’s okay if you did,” Buck cuts in, smiling softly. “I’m just gonna spend the rest of my life making it up to you, yeah?”

“You sure that’s a promise you can keep?” Eddie asks. He wants it to be. He wants Buck to carve it in fucking stone, so Eddie can trust its permanence. Eddie made the same promise once. He didn’t manage to keep it.

“I’m sure,” Buck says. He drifts closer, his hand moving Eddie’s face. “I love you.”

He pauses, just inches between their mouths. Eddie smiles, a grin that overtakes his entire face. “I love you, too,” he says, and closes the distance.

He’s kissed Buck countless times before, but Eddie knows this one is the best: Eddie, still smiling into it, the warmth of Buck’s hand on his face, the way he sighs, soft as a whisper, as Eddie kisses him. Objectively, it’s not a good kiss. There’s time to make up for it, though. Eddie will make sure of it.

Eddie pulls back. His hands moved to the front of Buck’s hoodie at some point, gripping the neckline tightly. He releases, his fingers stinging. “We should, um. We should take this… slower.”

“Whatever you want,” Buck promises. He smiles, but it’s—unsure. Like he’s doubting it, suddenly. “Can I just… Can I stay here? With you?”

Oh. Eddie almost laughs, but he knows Buck wouldn’t take it well. Instead, he kisses him again—lightly, chastely, just to feel the way Buck presses into it so eagerly.

“Of course you can,” he says, and he pulls Buck back onto the couch.

Buck curls around him, the same way he did when they wind up in bed. Eddie scruffs a hand through his curls, their legs impossibly tanged as Buck lays on top of him. Buck is a heavy weight, a familiar weight. Eddie wants to feel it for the rest of his life.

It’s now, laying on the blue couch in the house he’s owned for years, the city he’s lived in for years, with Buck on top of him, that Eddie finally settles back into his body. He’s home.