Work Text:
Buck’s on his feet before he’s fully awake. Not that he was sleeping. No, he was just resting his eyes, and had been fully aware that Eddie had made his own way out of bed and into the bathroom. He just figured he didn’t need any help, was all. Not like that’s what Buck was here for. To give the help that Eddie would never ask for.
He raps gently on the bathroom door before letting himself in, the concern for privacy swallowed by the worry that’s been churning in his gut for the last few days.
Eddie’s at the sink, arms held stiffly at his sides, bent and frozen with his elbows sticking out. Buck can see his face in the mirror, eyes shut, nostrils flared, jaw clenched tight. He doesn’t react as Buck comes in.
“You okay?” Buck asks, pausing just inside the doorway, heart in his throat.
Eddie grunts. “Time to… change the dressing,” he says around deep breathes, trying to keep himself in check.
Buck feels himself relax, at least a little. This is expected pain, then. Nothing new to worry about.
“Did it pull too much when you tried to lift your shirt?”
The muscle at the back of Eddie’s jaw tics. “No.”
“I told you, you should be wearing something with buttons–”
“I’m fine.”
“Maybe you should try ripping it off again–”
“Buck.”
He lets Eddie work through a few more rounds of deep breathing, closely watching the rise and fall of his chest, like any good caregiver would. Eventually, sheepishly, Eddie relents.
“Can you…?”
Eddie’s wearing cut-off sweats and an old tank, had argued that it’s what he normally sleeps in, that it’s loose and breathable and better than any flannel or button-up he owns – because who even wears button-up pajamas, Buck, he’s not eighty. The arm holes are wide and loose, stretched halfway down his torso, the corner of the bandage just peeking out.
The bandage that’s covering where he's just been stabbed, Buck’s queasy stomach keeps reminding him.
It’s easy for Buck to maneuver the fabric around Eddie’s chicken wing arms, stripping him without him having to move an inch. And, yep, there he is, alive and whole and perfectly fine in his recovery.
From having just been stabbed.
Buck tosses the shirt into the hamper in the corner and moves to wash his hands.
Eddie makes noise in the back of his throat, but it’s not out of pain or discomfort. It's an interruption. Buck pauses, turns to look at him where he’s still frozen in place.
“I got it,” Eddie eventually forces out, voice as tight as he’s holding himself.
Buck nods, crossing his arms as he leans back against the sink. “Oh. Okay.”
He waits, watching Eddie expectantly. His arms are still hovering at his sides.
They stand there in silence. Buck watches as Eddie’s jaw starts to work, fighting against his locked up muscles. He watches Eddie’s abs jump and twitch as he struggles to relax.
“So you’re gonna, what, stand there and watch?”
Buck’s eyes flick back up to Eddie’s face, where his eyes are still shut in concentration. Not that there’s anything wrong with checking out your friend’s abs. Especially if that's where he's just been stabbed.
“Yeah. I'm really looking forward to the part where you try to bend over and get a good look at everything.”
Eddie’s jaw tics again as they fall back into their stalemate. But it doesn’t take long for Eddie to open his big, pleading eyes and unleash them Buck’s way.
“Fine.”
Buck tries not to look too pleased with himself as he turns back towards the sink. “You want to go lay back down?”
He hears Eddie suck in a a harsh breath. “I think I’ll stand, thanks.”
The supplies are already gathered, a box of gloves and sterile dressing and cloth tape jumbled into the small space by the faucet. Eddie must have gotten everything from the kitchen, must have walked right past the couch and Buck and his resting eyes and back again without him noticing. Buck ignores the fresh wave of guilt enough to not let it completely drown him as he gloves up. He can save the wallowing for later.
He tries to be quick about it, taking a seat on the closed lid of the toilet to get a better look at what he’s doing. Remove the old dressing. Wash the area. Apply the new. He keeps his eye clinical. Everything is red and tender but no worse than what’s expected. It’s exactly how it should look, the few inches of flesh violently ripped apart, a neat row of stitches holding it together. But only after hours of lying alone in an elevator, trapped with only the persistent buzz of the emergency light shining directly in his face, sprawled out in a sticky pool of his own blood that grew and grew and grew as it burbled out between weakened fingers, choking the air with an iron scent –
“Looks good,” Buck says, snapping his gloves off, slingshotting them into the trash. “You feeling okay?”
Eddie's body is still rigid and tense, his jaw clenched so tight Buck worries he's about to hear the crunch of a cracking tooth. His breathing is ragged, the occasional hiccupped inhale betraying how hard he's trying to control it. There's a gleam of sweat across his brow. But still, Eddie swallows heavily and pushes out an, “I'm fine.”
Buck frowns up at him. “It must be time for your meds by now, right?”
There's a long pause before Eddie says, “Just took some Tylenol.”
“And what did they give you at discharge? Just oxy, right? You can take those together?”
Another pause. Another, “I'm fine.”
Whatever energy he's had to tease drains out of him. “You're clearly not,” he says, voice soft like he’s delivering bad news. Like Eddie doesn't already know. “Where is it? I'll get it for you.”
“Don't worry about it.” Eddie's reply is sharp, short, the end of the conversation.
Like Buck would listen to that.
There's a different kind of dread that starts to creep into his head. Icy shame drips down his spine, curling through his guts to coat the ball of worry that’s lived there since that elevator door opened. “Eddie…”
“I don't have it, okay?” Eddie snaps. He grimaces, and Buck can’t tell if it’s a flare of pain or unnecessary guilt over losing his temper. Eddie takes another deep breath, visibly composing himself. “I gave it to Hen to get rid of,” he tries again, infinitely softer, like it's Buck's turn for bad news.
Because this time, that's exactly what it is. Because of course. Of course Eddie had gotten rid of his pain medication. What other choice did he have? Buck had made it clear he intended to camp out on his couch until he was back on his feet, so of course he couldn’t keep narcotics around. Buck had done more than enough to show he couldn’t be trusted, not with Eddie on bed rest, tucked away where he can’t keep an eye on him.
“Buck.”
It would only be a matter of time before he felt that itch under his skin again, just knowing there was a pill bottle stashed away somewhere. Especially after the past few weeks, with even more piling on to the already insurmountable mountain of shit that existed before his detox. All the 118 getting suspended. The horror of what had happened to the migrants.
Connor and Kameron, and their son now all alone in the world.
Almost losing Athena.
The elevator door sliding open, and Eddie lying there, skin gray, unmoving, surrounded by blood blood blood so much blood too much blood–
“Buck.”
Hen had been at the hospital when Eddie had been discharged, had brought him some fresh clothes to get him home, had stayed with him when Buck had gone to get the truck. That had been the last they’d seen her, with a promise that she’d stop by tomorrow, and a request to let her know if they needed anything. A request that held a lot of weight that Buck hadn’t noticed, he now realizes. Which means Eddie has been here, lying in agony, for hours and hours and hours and hours –
“Buck,” Eddie tries again, putting his hands on his shoulders, and Buck finds himself back in his body. “You’re spiraling.”
“Sorry,” Buck gasps as he struggles to remember how he normally exists. “Sorry,” he says again, heavy and shaken. “I’m… I can call her, have her or Karen come and… Or I could get Ravi to grab it and he can stay with you. I’m sure May’s with her mom, he’s probably bored –”
“Buck, look at me.”
His eyes snap upwards. Eddie’s face is still tense, but it’s no longer the harsh lines of barely contained hurt. Now it’s something softer, almost delicate, as he takes a moment to do his own search of Buck’s face.
“I don’t have it because I don’t need it,” Eddie states plainly, in a tone that leaves no room for argument. “And I knew that if I had it here, the second you even thought you might be even a little tempted, you’d do exactly what you’re doing right now. So this way you have nothing to worry about, okay?” He squeezes his shoulders. “I can take a little pain if it means I have you here.”
“But– ”
“Because I don’t want Ravi, or Hen, or anyone else who I know would be glad to help.” One of Eddie’s hands drifts upwards, takes a firm grip on the back of Buck’s neck, with an extra little squeeze for emphasis. “I just want you, okay?”
He doesn’t mean it the way it sounds, Buck knows. Not that knowing helps. There’s a big tangled jumble that settled in the core of him a long time ago. He thinks it used to just be part of the constant droning chorus of his thoughts, lost in the noise, but now it's a scream, harsh and demanding, and it’s been getting harder and harder to pretend it’s not there. Not after the last year. Not after almost losing him. Again.
So he gives in, just a little, doesn’t stop himself from leaning in close. He touches his lips to the outside of the dressing, feather light, so little pressure that Eddie wouldn’t know he was doing it if he weren’t watching him so closely. He stays there for endless seconds, waiting for the noise of disgust, of distress, waiting for Eddie to push him away.
He doesn't.
This close up, Buck can see scattered marks on Eddie’s stomach, three short silvery lines, barely there and ages old. Laparoscopy scars. Buck had heard the story dozens of times, Eddie at thirteen, up all night before some big final, puking his guts up, writing it off as nerves until he passed out in his cornflakes and had to be rushed to the hospital with an appendix about to burst. Buck had always assumed it was the night before some test, or maybe some big baseball game, but had recently learned that it was the night before the Regional Junior Ballroom Semi-Finals, and that Lauren Delgado refused to dance with him again after he made her miss out.
Buck presses his mouth to each of those lines, firmer now, in quick succession. The muscles of his abdomen jump under his lips, ticklish, and still he braces for Eddie to tell him to stop.
The only reaction he gets is a twitch in Eddie’s fingers, tightening around the back of his neck for a fraction of a second.
It’s barely anything.
But it’s not nothing.
Buck turns his head into it, letting his mouth brush against the pulse in Eddie’s wrist for a brief moment, but that’s not what he’s looking for. He reaches back and grabs at Eddie’s fingers, peeling them away from his neck to get his hand in front of his face. And there, an indent in his wrist where a bullet had struck him so many years ago, just far enough along his arm to have avoided all the fine bones that hold everything together. Buck presses his mouth there, persistent, sure. It’s a minor miracle Eddie still has full use of his hand, when he thinks about it. No permanent nerve damage, just a few months of OT after his discharge and he was right as rain.
But Buck doesn’t like to think about it.
He pulls away but doesn’t let go, separating out Eddie’s fingers until he can press his mouth to the nail on his middle finger. He can feel beneath his lips where the skin is permanently split and doesn’t meet the nail bed properly. A remnant from years ago, before Eddie had any confidence in the kitchen, before he learned any much-needed knife skills. Eddie had stood in the kitchen, hand held above his head wrapped in wadded paper towels while Buck had kept Chris distracted with questions about math he's pretty sure he'll never actually understand. Later, they debated in furious whispers if he needed to go get stitches, or if Buck was just overreacting.
Buck had lost. Because maybe he had been overreacting. But he still thinks it would have been better to be safe than sorry
He takes Eddie’s other hand from where it’s resting on his shoulder, presses his lips against a spot on the back of it where the skin is rough and a little discolored. It happened years ago, a burn from super-heated metal from a totaled car, work gloves thrown off in an attempt to reach the victim. Her name was Carly. She was sixteen. In the end, he hadn’t been able to do much more than hold her hand through it.
She was Eddie’s first. Buck remembers her just as well as he remembers Devon.
He has to pause, has to try and catch his breath, has to try to get back to being normal. He risks a look back up at Eddie’s face, braced for… anything. Confusion, at the very least. Concern. Pity. But Eddie’s just looking at him, same as he ever does, a calm, steady gaze with only a hint of his earlier grimace of pain lingering at the corners of his mouth. Slowly, he pulls his hands free from Buck’s grip, puts them back where they were before. One on his shoulder, thumb resting in the hollow of his collarbone. The other cups his cheek, just for a moment, before returning to its place on the back of Buck’s neck. His thumb sweeps up into his hairline and back, once, twice, a gentle reminder of Eddie keeping him close.
His hands now free, he finds them drifting forward, coming to rest on Eddie’s legs. He finds the divot easily, high up on his thigh, presses his thumb into it through the worn material of his sweats. The mark of a second bullet, uselessly smashed into his meat, a mark Buck’s only recently grown familiar with through stolen, furtive glances. If he were a braver man, he’d roll down the waist band of his sweat pants, press his mouth there too. The way Eddie’s eyes flutter at his touch make him think he could probably get away with it if he tried.
But he’s not that brave. Not yet, anyway.
He has to stand to reach the next mark, left by another bullet, so faded into Eddie’s shoulder he might miss it if he didn’t know it was there. It’s an awkward little crouch to get his mouth there, but he manages. Here, he breathes in, and beneath the reek of hospital it’s all Eddie – his unwashed hair and traces of blood and the musky stink that just doesn’t go away after only thirty seconds washing at the sink before you need to sit down again. It’s kind of gross, if he’s honest, but so goddamn comforting that Buck would bottle it up, if he could.
The other shoulder next, where the scar is newer and tragically more familiar. He presses his lips to the thick ridge of tissue, the star of an exit wound. Buck wonders, if he ran his tongue around the edge, would he still taste Eddie’s blood? Or would it be what finally flushes the feel of it from his mouth?
He stands up straight now, and before he can second guess himself leans forward, lets his lips brush over the curve of Eddie’s cheekbone, trail up along his forehead and into his hairline. The marks are gone, but it hasn’t been all that long since the last time Eddie had been in the hospital. The last time he had been left to fend for himself, alone, in pain. It hadn’t been his own death that hung over him in the Los Nietos desert, but it may as well have been, if he had felt even a part of what Buck had in that hospital lobby.
He leans back again, jaw set and determined, and makes himself look Eddie full in the face. There are deep bags under his eyes, despite the days and days of bedrest. His hair hangs limp over his forehead, and is cowlicked up in the back from where he had shifted against his pillows. He hasn’t shaved since that day, stubble already thick along his jaw.
His eyes catch on Eddie’s lip, on the faint line running through it. Buck doesn’t know the story behind that scar. It’s just always been there, as far as he can remember.
He shouldn’t. He can’t.
Eddie’s grip on his neck tightens, and there’s the lightest pressure as he pulls him in.
Buck captures that scar between his lips, keeping his mouth soft, steady, not making this anything more than what it is, this thing that Buck refuses to label. Then Eddie sighs, a pleased breath gusting along his cheek, and shifts beneath him, shapes his lips around Buck's and, oh, now it’s a kiss. It’s warm, and gentle, the way their mouths move together, and it actually takes Buck’s breath away.
The chaos in his head, the chaos that's spread through his bloodstream to live in his stomach… it doesn’t quiet, it couldn't possibly. But it fades to the background, easy to ignore, no longer feeling like it controls his life and Eddie's death. Because Eddie's here, and he's okay, and maybe he's in pain but not enough that he can't spare the time to kiss him stupid.
Buck has to pull back, overwhelmed. He presses their foreheads together as he tries to gather himself back in. His whole body is trembling, like he’s the one that’s taking all his effort to stay standing. And Eddie. Eddie’s as solid and sure as he’s ever been, keeping them steady while Buck tries to keep it together.
“You good?” Eddie finally asks, after much too much time has passed for them to be standing in the bathroom like this.
“Yeah,” Buck says, still a little shaken but at least his lungs are working properly again. “Just… No more of these, okay?” he says as he brushes his thumb along the sunburst on Eddie’s shoulder, lets his hand drift downward to settle on his hip.
It's as close as he dares to get to where Eddie had just been stabbed.
“I swear, I’m trying my best,” Eddie says around a laugh. He releases his hold on his shoulder to rub his thumb against Buck’s forehead, where they had been pressed together, where there’s sure to be a mark. Eddie’s fingers drift to card through Buck’s curls, then drop to cup around his jaw. Eddie’s looking at him with an easy, soft affection that Buck feels like the sun on his face, like sinking into a warm bath. It’s a look he’s seen before, that he’s been seeing for months, but that he’s never let himself think could mean… That couldn’t possibly mean…
That doesn’t matter, now. Buck is happily wrong.
He darts forward again, pressing another kiss to Eddie’s lips, just a peck to see if he can get away with it.
He can’t, it turns out, because Eddie meets him in it and holds him firm, won’t let him retreat until he’s done with him.
“God, what animal’s taking care of you, making you stand around like this?” Buck says once he’s finally free. He takes Eddie’s hands in his own, clasping their fingers together as he takes a step backwards, leading him out of the room. “C’mon, let’s get you in bed.”
He watches the grin that spreads across Eddie’s face, watches his eyes dip down, his cheeks go pink. “Pretty sure I have to be medically cleared for that,” he jokes.
At least, Buck thinks he’s joking.
He’s going to go ahead and say it’s a joke, or it’s about to be the longest four-to-six weeks of his life.
“What even happened here?” Buck asks, much later, tracing a thumb along Eddie's bottom lip because that's a thing he can do now. “I don't think you ever told me.”
“Oh. Uh.” Eddie looks a little sheepish. “Abuela used to have this dog, forever ago. Some little mutt she got from God knows where. We…We didn't get along.”
Buck lets the laugh burst out of him. “So there's a history, then? You versus dogs?”
“He was nippy,” Eddie insists as his cheeks start to glow. “And I was six.”
And maybe it's a wound that's decades old and long past healed, but Buck still takes the moment to kiss it better.