Chapter Text
“You need a wedding website.” Ali said much more stubbornly than was necessary. She was leaning over their kitchen island, her zip up sleeves pushed to her elbows and cleavage on impressive display. I don't have to worry about any of you, she had said once, your boyfriend's gay and you're too crazy about him to stare at my boobs. Buck wouldn't say she was right but, well… she wasn't wrong. He could admit that Ali was exactly his type, but he wouldn’t be looking at her in anything other than friendship when he had part Mexican God sleeping in his bed. And he didn’t know (and didn’t care) how Eddie identified on the sexuality spectrum - it’s not like it changed anything about what they were. Besides, it wasn't them she was scaring. It was Christopher who had taken two steps into the kitchen, accidentally stared at her breast's, blushed an impressive red and ran from the room.
They had come from the gym, and Buck was still suitably sweaty and sore, and Eddie had wrinkled his nose at him when he came into the kitchen but he had kissed him even if he smelt atrocious. “No.” Eddie said before Buck could even think of a response, picking at a stray curl and pulling it away from his head before letting it snap back with a small, secret smile. “Have fun at the gym?”
Ali grumbled at him, “Who has fun at the gym?” She wondered allowed. “You need a website, trust me. It'll make everything so much easier to plan.”
“Speaking from your endless experience.” Eddie said dryly and reached around Buck to grab the dry dish from the rack. Unsubtly, Ali held up her middle finger so that he could see it. Fondly, or at least without even a hint of anything except amusement, Eddie rolled his eyes. “You’re like my mom,” he continued. “Start a website, make a binder,” he pitched his voice the same way he did whenever he made fun of one of his sisters. It always brought out his accent. “Not your wedding,” Eddie said with a point of his finger. “Not your say.”
“As the maid of honor -.” Ali began. Buck furrowed his brow at her and Eddie leveled her with a wry, purse of his lips. “As your maid of honor, Buck…” Ali continued louder, as though they had said anything in protest. He tuned her out. Ali was his best friend, and he wouldn’t trade her for the world, but there was… he had never really thought of who would be standing next to him at an altar. He supposed most people already had these sorts of things planned as they grew up - who would be their best man or maid of honor or part of their wedding party. Who would walk them down the isle, who would do the whole dance and rings and the whole ceremony of it all. But Buck… well… he, frankly, hadn’t ever planned for longer than eighteen. He had never really considered an altar to begin with. Eddie would have his sisters, or Joe, or Chris and Buck would have… Maddie? Bobby? Hen or Chim? He’d call up Connor and ask him if he wanted to be there? Making friends was hard and keeping them was harder and… Sometimes he missed the relationship he could have had with Maddie. That he should have had with Maddie. If Daniel had survived and their parents hadn’t decided to work out their frustration with bruises and sharp palms against skin. The dynamic between them wouldn’t have been nearly as complicated then as it was now. Maddie could have just been his big sister, his best friend, and not the only safe adult in his life for the longest time. “I mean, unless you want Maddie.” Ali’s expression yanked him out of where he had gotten lost in his own head.
I’m pretending it’s fine, her eyes said. But she was good. Her mouth only told him it didn’t matter what he did. Obviously, it was going to be Ali. The only person to maybe come close was Hen. Once upon a time, he would have said Connor, and even further back, he would have been marrying Natalia. Chimney was his friend, the closest thing to a living brother he had, but someone had to hold Jee-Yun and control the music, and Chimney had all of his karaoke bar experience to show off. “No, of course, it’s you.” Buck waved her concerns off with a shake of his head. “Hey, one thing to check off the to-do list.” He joked weakly in Eddie’s direction.
God bless the man, he mimed drawing a check in the air and nudged Buck more fully out of the way of the cabinet. He threw a gentle smirk over his shoulder and Buck loved him in every moment, but in the small, quiet ones, it sometimes felt so all consuming that he couldn’t breathe around it. He smiled down at his fingers and thanked his already flushed cheeks for making it impossible to be teased about his answering blush. It was like they had just started dating all over again, when everything had been so secret and so loud at the same time. Buck hoped it would always feel like that. “Who are you going to ask?” Ali asked Eddie abruptly.
“I don’t know.” He muttered and scratched at the stubble on his cheek.
“Who was your best man at your wedding with Shannon?” Buck asked him in pure curiosity.
Eddie shrugged, “We didn’t have anyone.” He squinted his eyes and tilted his head in thought. “Well, Shannon had Olivia, her sister. I think Adriana’s husband might have been mine? There… wasn’t really time.” Because Shannon had been pregnant, and Eddie had been blinded by both nerves and excitement and…. Buck wished he hadn’t asked.
“And that has literally nothing to do with this.” Ali declared. “Joe?”
“I don’t know.” Eddie groaned. “Probably just Chris.”
“He can’t give you away and be your best man.”
“Literally why would anyone be giving anyone away?” Eddie asked the ceiling. “We’re not women. That’s kind of one of my favorite things about him.”
“Awe, Eddie,” Buck teased. “You wouldn’t love me if I was a woman?”
“I’d love you if you were a speck of dirt.” He assured without a glance or hesitation. “Adriana and Sophia will probably be pissed if I don’t ask them to be something in the wedding.”
Ali and Buck shared a look, “It’s not their wedding.” She said slowly. “Come on, Eddie, who would be your first pick? No thoughts, just a name.”
“I don’t know.” He insisted, a bit of desperation tinting into his voice. Buck straightened up. “Why does it matter? We don’t have to figure it out now.”
“No,” Ali agreed. “But you do have to figure it out. No time like the present.”
“Ali,” Buck placated softly. “Let it go.”
“I think Joe would be a good choice. But he hasn’t really known you for that long.” She ignored him and tapped thoughtfully on her chin. “Someone from the station? You’re all pretty close.” Eddie’s shoulders were tense. “Oh! What about someone from the army? You absolutely still talk to them, right? And what’s a better best man or best woman speech then, he saved my life?”
Wasn’t planning a wedding supposed to be fun? Buck swallowed, “I think we should ask Bobby to officiate.” He stated much louder than he intended. Oh well, he thought, it worked.
Ali clapped her hands with an excited grin. “Oh, that’s cute,” She declared. “Have you guys thought of venues yet?”
“The backyard.” Buck said dryly, just to see her wrinkle her face in disgust. He wouldn’t mind the backyard, actually. It was theirs, and the cleanup would probably be easy.
Ali didn’t disappoint. “No.”
Eddie’s shoulders started to relax. “The station.” He wrapped his arm tight around Buck’s waist from behind, his chest a familiar warmth against his back. He leaned forward, his weight something Buck could easily handle and breathed a puff of air against the jut of his chin.
“Oh my god,” Ali reeled. “Absolutely not.”
Buck’s lips twitched, his hand loosely wrapping itself around the skin of Eddie’s wrist. “The academy.” He squeezed it and Eddie relaxed a little bit more, the muscles in his arm contracting into a hug and then relaxing into a loose cage. The others had been passive jokes, but that one… he’d do it there, symbolically, right on the stairs that he had first asked for Eddie’s number and been laughed away.
“Sap.” Eddie whispered.
Like he was one to talk. “Oo,” Buck widened his eyes and glanced over his shoulder at him. “The Santa Monica Pier.”
Eddie stared at him, the silence in the kitchen resounding enough that he could make out the noise of whatever Christopher was moving in his room. Ten seconds and Buck broke, laughing spilling out past his lips as Eddie valiantly fought his own smile with a fond shake of his head. “You dick.” Ali threw her empty water bottle at his head. He dodged it and it it hit cap up into the kitchen sink. “Seriously.” She pressed. “The ocean would be pretty.”
And Buck probably wouldn’t be able to step on the sand without having a panic attack. Eddie squeezed him a bit tighter around the middle until Buck was looking at him in question. “Paula’s.” He suggested and Buck remembered talking to him in the industrial kitchen, teasing him from behind the bar, teaching him how to make drinks, hugging him after his first big emergency in the middle of the restaurant, sinking to his knees in the locked bathroom…. “I think they’d do it if you asked.”
Buck hadn’t really spoken to Paula or Kevin unless it was at a party or when the team spent an evening at the bar after a shift but…. “Yeah,” he said on a breath. “Probably.”
“Wouldn’t that be more of a reception hall?” Ali asked.
“Not your wedding.” Unsurprisingly, the two of them spoke at the same time. Surprisingly, Ali held up her hands in surrender.
“So long as it’s not somewhere one of you almost died.” She conceded.
“Well,” Eddie sighed and pulled back with a dry kiss against Buck’s shoulder. “That rules out the house.”
“Oh fuck you,” Buck groaned and pushed him more firmly away. “I’m going to take a shower.” Eddie let him go with a loud laugh.
Ali snorted, “Isn’t shower sex super unsafe?”
“Only if you’re not careful.” Buck threw over his shoulder with a wink.
“You literally lectured me about it last week.” Ali protested.
“You’re not careful.”
“Oh, and you are, Buck?” Ali shook her head. “You’re a walking hazard sign.”
“We’re always careful.” Eddie answered before Buck could think of a good enough response.
Ali made a mildly disgusted noise and Buck let his laughter flow out of him.
It was a good day.
And then the power went out across the city.
--
Eddie was on a video call with Adriana when the power went out and, at first, he thought it was only their house. One minute she was doing a wonderful impression of their mother lecturing him about wedding planning, and the next the video had frozen on her face, her mouth pulled up to the side and her eyes bearing into his soul. Eddie swallowed and closed his laptop entirely so that Adriana’s image couldn’t haunt his waking nightmares. He was tempted to just hand the planning of the entire wedding over to Ali and his family, since they all seemed to have so many opinions about how the day should go. With a shrug, a Eddie leaved back and crossed his ankles, resigning himself to have to step outside in the blinding heat to look at the electrical box to figure out which outlet they had blown.
It was probably just too much technology on at the same time and they had overworked the circuit. Their air conditioning units had shut off, as had the fans circulating the cool air, and it was one of the peak days for summer heat in the city and Eddie had certainly felt the wall of it when stepping outside to see Buck off that morning with a kiss like a housewife. “Dad,” Chris called with a whine from his bedroom. “The AC isn’t working.”
Eddie rolled his neck, “Power’s out, bud.” He stood up with a grunt. “I’ll look at the box.”
“It’s too hot.” Chris protested loudly.
“I’ll just wave my hands and make it snow.”
“That would be cool,” Chris said and poked his head out of his doorway with a grin. “Abra-snow-dabra.” He waved his hands enthusiastically.
“If Buck calls and said they had to deal with a snow emergency,” Eddie cautioned him. “I’m telling him it’s your fault.”
Cheekily, Chris smiled. “Bet.”
“Bet.” Eddie mocked and screwed up his face as he stepped outside and was assaulted with a brick wall of stiff, ninety-seven degree weather. It wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been, summer in Los Angeles always felt different than summer in El Paso and at least it didn’t bring the sticky sweet air of humidity. But that didn’t remove that fact that it was hot and just because Eddie was acclimated to it, didn’t mean that he wanted to linger outside in it.
“Yours too, huh?” His neighbor asked with a grunt.
“I think it’s the whole block.” Said another.
“It’s the whole city.” Buck said on the phone an hour later. “Athena said someone’s attacked the grid. Shut the whole thing down.”
Eddie frowned and kicked his feet up on the coffee table. “Seriously?” Chris had declared it too hot to live, and had made a fort for himself in the bathroom, the coolest room in the house thanks to the tiles and one, singular, tiny window. Eddie had been considering joining him, but he had had to, first, throw the majority of their freezer into a cooler with a quick prayer that it would hold until the power got turned back on. So much for that plan. If it was the whole city, their little suburb wasn’t exactly going to be the first priority.
“Yeah,” Buck sounded already annoyed with it all and, not for the first time, Eddie wondered why he was dragging his feet about going back to work. His shoulder twinged at the thought of putting his uniform back on. Bobby had ordered him a new set of blues, his old ones sitting in an evidence box somewhere. “We have the generator running but we can’t leave it on all day, so Bobby put me in charge of handing out charged batteries and shit.”
“Oh, Bobby put you in charge.”
“Me and Ravi.”
“Sure you didn’t just take that over?”
“Me?” Buck laughed softly. “I would never.” Which meant he had. Buck was a helper, and he had clearly seen a situation that needed help and thrown himself at it. “I think I’m pissing Chim off.”
“I’m sure the heat is pissing Chim off.” Eddie assured.
“I think he’s worried about Maddie.”
Which meant that Buck was worrying about Maddie. He was trying not to, Eddie knew that much, but worrying about each other was just what the Buckley siblings were wired to do. It wasn’t like they could just turn it off. “We could swing by their place,” Eddie offered. “Pepa has the pool open and already told us to stop by.”
“I don’t know if I want you guys driving right now.” Buck admitted slowly. “Traffic lights are down.”
“It’s not like they live far.” Eddie said softly. “It’s just Pepa’s. And getting Maddie out of the house might be good for her.”
It would probably be good for Eddie too, actually, to get out of the house more. Or at least that was what Frank had told him. Pepa’s was somewhere safe, somewhere familiar. Sure, there was the driving portion that was going to be a bitch but… for Jee-Yun and Chris? Eddie would do anything. “I’ll check with Chim.” It would probably be a relief, Eddie thought, that Maddie and Jee-Yun wouldn’t be alone. Eddie remembered when Chris had been a baby, and how often he was reaching out to Adriana and Sophia or his mother on updates on how him and Shannon were faring - especially in the sticky summer Texas heat.
“Dad,” Chris whined. “I’m hot.”
Coolest room in the house with the coldest water he could afford and yet… Eddie sighed and ran his fingers through sweat damp hair. He wrinkled his nose in disgust.
Yeah.
He was going anyway. “I think Chirs and I are going even if he says no.” He’d probably bring Maddie too. Sure, he was no Buck and they were barely even friends, but she was a new mother, and she was going to be his sister-in-law at some point in the near future and postpartum was hell, from what he remembered the women in his life going through.
Buck’s breath did a thing. The reason why wasn’t lost on him - Eddie didn’t tend to willingly leave the house without him by his side since the shooting. Maybe it said a lot about Eddie’s state of mind that he was assuming where Buck’s went, but he thought it spoke, instead, to their relationship. He knew him, which meant that Buck knew him too, which meant that - “Really?” He was hopeful, Eddie noticed, cautiously, curiously hopeful. Because he trusted Eddie to at least try, and he trusted him even more to ask Buck for help if he ended up needing it. “That’ll… that will be good for you guys. Pepa will be happy to see you. Get out of the house.”
She would be happy to see them. Pepa wouldn’t have floated the idea if she didn’t mean for him and Chris to follow through. Eddie grimaced at a loose thread. “Yeah.”
“Maybe I’ll stop by on my way home.” Pepa’s house was not on their way home from the station, but it was a kind, logical thing to offer. Eddie hated driving, and going back out on the street after already doing it once during that day may be overwhelming, considering. And Buck would want to check in with Maddie and Jee-Yun, see how his sister was doing himself. Maybe it would soothe some of his lingering worries about her. Some of his lingering worries about both of them.
Buck knew him.
It was weird to be comfortable in being known. To make a home in it.
“Promise?” Eddie asked idly and tried not to tip desperation into his voice.He didn’t want to pressure him. If Buck had a tough day at work, then he deserved to be able to go home and relax. But Eddie wanted him there, and Chris would want him there, and Pepa would fill up one of her gardening buckets with pool water and pour it over his head when Buck failed to get in the pool. Maybe Eddie would be able to coax him to sit on the edge of it, the only thing in it his ankles or the calves of his long legs and….
“Promise.”
--
“Buck,” Chimney started, unfurling his hands out at his sides. “I need a charger.”
“Chimney,” Buck said almost robotically, flipping idly through the pages of the book he had grabbed out of his locker in an effort to pass the time between cycles on the road. Currently, it was the 112’s turn, but they would be back on it in a few more hours. “You can have one if you fill out the requisition form in another two hours.”
Chimney sputtered, “Two hours?” He protested. “Buck, come on, I need to check in with Maddie.”
Buck frowned. “Why?” His worry spiked. “Is she okay?”
“Yeah, she’s fine.” Chimney waved away. “But, you know, I have to be sure.”
“Eddie’s picking her up in, like, ten minutes.”
“Eddie’s what?”
“To go to Pepa’s pool?” Buck spoke slowly. “To go swimming?”
A bit of the slope in Chimney’s shoulders dropped, “Oh.” He shook his head with a rueful smile. “Good idea.”
“I’ll be sure to let Pepa know.” Buck replied with a wry roll of his eyes.
Chimney was silent and to his right Ravi was clicking his pen obnoxiously enough that Buck could feel the hair on the back of his neck spike and he cracked a knuckle in an attempt to rein himself in and turned a page to offer up the illusion of paying attention to the book in his hands. Eddie would have called him out on it, probably because the book was his and not the high fantasy Buck tended to prefer. “So…” Chimney drew out the word and idly, Buck raised his brows at him over the spine of the book. Chim glance between him and Ravi. “The charger?”
Buck shared a glance with the younger man. Ravi shrugged slowly, uncertainty causing him to frown. “Did you get a form?”
“Do you want to see your niece again?”
Buck frowned, “Yes?”
“So you’ll give me a charger.”
“So I’ll break regulations meant to ration out the few reusable chargers we have because you can’t wait, like, twenty minutes to hear from Eddie that Maddie’s fine?” Buck rephrased. He snapped the book shut and sat up more fully, his elbows resting on the table. “I thought you weren’t worried about Maddie.”
Chimney’s eyes widened slightly, and he watched as he tried to figure out how to backpedal. “It’s a heatwave.” Chim tried weakly. “I just want to keep in touch. In case she needs me.”
“If she needs you and can’t reach you, who would be the second person she’d call, though?”
“You?”
“And if she couldn’t reach me?”
“Okay, listen,” Chimney sighed, “I have a Candy Crush addiction.”
Buck’s lips twitched. “I’m not giving you another charger.”
He looked about twenty seconds from stomping his foot in a tantrum. Chimney groaned - loudly - in his best impersonation of a six-year-old Christopher who had just been told that he needed to wash his hands before dinner. “Why not?” He whined. °My phone is dying, Buck.°
°So stay off of it, Chim.°
“You say it like it’s so easy.”
“We all have to make sacrifices.”
“What sacrifices have you had to make?” He didn’t mean it in a way that stung, so Buck ignored the part of him that bristled at the question. Chimney was stressed, and obviously he was worried more than he wanted to let on. Wordlessly, Buck grabbed another chair from behind him and dragged it loudly across the floor until it was haphazard with the table. He jerked his wrist towards it and it only took a moment before Chimney was dropping into it with a giant, put-upon sigh, “Sorry.” He muttered the apology into his hands. “I know you’re worried too.”
Buck shrugged, “Eddie hasn’t been out of the house by himself since.”
Since…? He imagined Chimney leading. Since when? Ravi would ask.
Neither of them did.
Since. They all knew what since Buck was talking about. It wasn’t like it was hard to figure out. Beyond that they only had one car between the two of them until Buck had gotten fed up with the truck enough to get himself a well maintained second-hand Jeep to drive to and from work, Eddie had never really gone out of his way to visit the team even once his shoulder had healed the doctor had cleared him for driving. He hadn’t liked it much to begin with, but a healthy dose of agoraphobia had started developing over the past months and Buck didn’t have it in himself to encourage Eddie to push past his carefully cultivated boundaries while he was also working through his sometimes crippling PTSD. “Like…” Ravi started cautiously. “Like… ever?”
“I know he’s gone back to his gym, right?” Chimney asked and dropped his chin into his hand.
“Nope,” Buck popped the word on the way out and twisted the silicone ring on his finger. “He talks about going back, and I know he misses it but if it’s not therapy or Christopher’s school…” Buck shrugged.
“But he was fine in Texas?” Ravi asked with a furrowed brow.
He wasn’t really fine anywhere, but Buck supposed Eddie had been better in his home state. Texas, he supposed, was safer in the abstract. He hadn’t watched his boyfriend get blown up, hadn’t nearly lost his son in a tsunami, hadn’t been shot in the street. Texas, Buck imagined, was healing, in its own way. It had caused a lot of pain through the years - or, specifically, his family had caused a lot of pain - but it was where Eddie historically went to, at least, physically heal.
Plus, Isabel had been there. Nothing could ever be as safe to someone like Eddie than his grandmother’s arms.
He bit the inside of his cheek. “He wasn’t fine, really.” He struggled to explain. “He just… Eddie just…” He paused. “There were more people there, I think, that he trusted to… be around.”
Chimney’s mouth dropped open in an understanding expression. “Oh,” he breathed. “And you don’t think you’re one of those people.”
“No,” Buck argued. “I know I… I know I am. It’s just,” he waved his hand to encompass the station. “People. The job. The uniform.” He shrugged. “It’s a lot for him.”
“Well, you know,” Ravi bobbed his head in sympathetic agreement. “I’m sure it’s a lot. I still get nervous when I walk by an oncology unit, you know?”
Buck and Chimney furrowed their brows in unison. “No?”
Ravi looked between them with a small flush. “I had cancer as a kid.” He explained like that was a normal conclusion to come to. Just an average thing to bring up. Passively, without really thinking on if it was right or not, Buck wondered if he would be a match for Ravi if he needed a transplant of any kind. Born to save Daniel from leukemia and failed, would it be the same case for someone like Ravi who was in the middle of their life? Was Buck the cancer curse?
“Oh, shit.” Chimney sat up straighter. “What kind?”
“Leukemia.”
Buck wanted to slam his head into the table. Instead he shook it and swallowed hard.
The odds.
“Wow.” Chimney whispered and stared at the side of his face.
“I went through remission at thirteen.” Ravi explained. “But, yeah, I spent most of my life in and out of the treatment facility.”
“Shit,” Buck whistled between his teeth and wondered if Daniel would have looked as healthy as Ravi did had he survived. “That’s, uhm,” he shook himself. “That’s really great, Ravi.”
“Yeah,” Ravi agreed with a smile. “So, like… I get it. It’s probably just a subconscious thing in him to worry about what’s going to happen if he goes out on the street now.” He shook his head ruefully. “I know it’s not really the same thing.”
“Eddie was in the army,” Buck said for no real reason at all. “His PTSD has been…”
Chimney twisted his lips in worry, “Has it really been that bad?”
“I’d say no worse than usual but…” But it would be a lie. It was worse than usual. Eddie slept but he was plagued by nightmares. And, if he wasn’t, then Buck was. The worst nights were when they both were, and they would sit up in the living room with coffee and tea and hot chocolate and Buck would inevitably bake cookies because they needed something to do with their hands that wasn’t picking at their own skin. “He’s fine, it’s just… he hasn’t suggested that he go anywhere himself, you know? And Maddie’s is, like, between ours and Pepa’s so…” He rubbed at his wrist and avoided looking Chim in the face in favor of looking out at the sky through the open bay doors. “Maybe they can help each other, you know?”
“Yeah,” Chim flicked his wrist and smiled at him crookedly. “They’re both shit at doing stuff for themselves.”
“Aren’t we all?” Ravi asked sardonically and then chuckled. “So what do you guys think caused this power outage? My money is on Russian spies.”
“Someone probably just crashed into a pole.” Chimney sat back in his seat and crossed his ankles with a groan.
Buck snorted, “Aliens.”
Ravi snapped his fingers at him, “Aliens.”
Chimney nodded in solidarity. “Aliens.”
--
Maddie looked dead on her feet.
Eddie would say she hid it well, except he was very familiar in that particular look. He had found it staring at himself in the mirror every day for the past few months. She let him hustle her out of her apartment, or, really, she let Chris lure her out with a sweet, simple Aunt Maddie and a bat of the puppy dog eyes he had learned long ago to copy from Buck. She had let Eddie pack her and Jee-Yun a bag, let him grab the pumped milk she had in the fridge ready to go and scribble a note on a post-it for Chim in case he forgot where she was when he made it home.
But Maddie hadn’t let him pick up Jee-Yun for her. She had barely even let him give her little chubby cheek a kiss in hello.
Things weren’t okay.
“She doesn’t have a bathing suit.” Eddie heard her say to Pepa in explanation as to why she was only sitting on the edge of the pool with her feet barely skimming the water. Maddie blinked up into to face of Tia Pepa and Eddie was pretty sure the look Pepa gave her was one he was intimately familiar with.
“Just put her in a diaper,” Pepa said with a wave of her hand. “That’s what we did to Eddie when he was growing up and look at him!” She squeezed his bicep in her hand. “He’s a big, strong man now.”
“I thought that was because I ate all of my vegetables.” Eddie said with a quirk of his lips. “Not because I used to go swimming in a diaper.”
“Jee’s a girl, tia.” Chris said like Pepa’s suggestion wasn’t actually logical. “She doesn’t have a top!”
“Aye,” Pepa reached down into the pool to splash him with water. Chris squealed and hopped backwards into Paco’s pool noodle with a loud, boisterous laugh.
Eddie’s heart jumped. “She has a point, though.” Eddie said slowly, lowering himself down next to where Maddie sat and resting his sweating palms on his bare knees. “She’s a baby. Won’t hurt her to go in in a diaper.”
Maddie stared at him, and then she looked away, down at Jee-Yun’s sweaty little head and wide, blinking eyes. “I didn’t bring one either.” She said into Jee-Yun’s hair.
“I brought extra trunks.” Eddie offered with a shrug. It wasn’t like Sophia had never gone swimming in his trunks and a tank-top before.
“I have an extra top.” Pepa decided for the two of them. She tugged on Maddie’s arm until she was pushing herself up to stand. “Give me her,” she didn’t wait for Maddie to give her up like Eddie had at her apartment and ever since, slipping her hands under Jee-Yun’s armpits and pulling her into her chest. “You can sit with Tio Eddie, huh, princessa?”
He took her readily, hands outstretched for Jee-Yun’s little batting arms, settling her onto one thigh and catching her foot before it could kick him anywhere uncomfortable. Jee-Yun blinked up at him, blew a spit bubble in his face, and babbled.
“Oh!” Maddie reached for her but Pepa batted her arms down.
“Come with me,” she demanded and physically gripped her shoulders to steer her away. “Don’t you worry, she’s with family.”
Family.
It was a little funny, wasn’t it, that Jee-Yun was family to all of them now. Christopher’s youngest cousin, Buck’s first niece, Eddie’s second. They weren’t related by blood, but Jee-Yun was partially his in some way. Him and Buck weren’t married yet, but Pepa and Paco had considered him family long before Eddie had proposed. Which, in Pepa’s mind, made Jee-Yun and Maddie family too. Maddie chewed at her lip. “Don’t…” She began, “Don’t take her in without me!”
He wouldn’t dream of it. “Promise.” He crossed his heart. That didn’t mean Chris didn’t try to get him to do it, though, swimming over and tickling her feet with wet fingers ntil he got a series of gummy smiles out of her. Eddie was lucky Chris didn’t fear water that much after the tsunami. So long as it wasn’t going over his head and was calm like a pool, he was fine. Eddie used to joke that he was part fish.
"Uncle Buck is going to be so jealous." Eddie absently told Jee, bouncing her on his knee and squinting out at Chris.
"Dad," Chris started, wading closer in the water, holding his arms out with a concentrated seriousness. "I can hold Jee while you jump in."
Eddie... It's was a very sweet offer and, if it had been Adriana or Sophia's kid, he would have taken that step. Passed them to his eager son, slipped out of his tank top and dropped all the way in until the cool pool water was completely over his head. He'd stay at the bottom for a moment, relishing in th quiet, muffled space of being underwater and then he'd pop up, splashing Christopher with enough water to have him shrieking in laughter. But Maddie wasn't Adriana or Sophia, and there was something so very fragile about her that reminded him of that one time Buck had told the ceiling, I don't know what I'll do if one more thing happens. That innate, secret sadness that seemed attached to the Buckley's. Eddie named it Daniel long ago, and loved his despite its best efforts. "We can wait for Maddie." He said and kicked out in a splash at his son.
Chris protested the water droplets with a loud, "Hey!" But he laughed, rested his arms on the pavement next to Eddie's leg, and laid his head on them. He didn't even whine when Eddie carded his fingers through his hair.
Growing up, sure, but still not grown. "Do you think she'll like swimming?" Chris asked suddenly, gazing up at Jee as she waved her arms in her tiny frog bucket hat.
"I... don't know." Eddie told him softly. He didn't know how much Chim liked swimming, or Maddie, for that matter. Buck *had* liked it, had thrived at the ocean, but now, after everything... Besides, it wasn't as though likes and dislikes were genetic. Eddie didn't like half the things Chris did, and he even less like his own parents (thankfully). "I think all babies like it to a point."
"Did I like it?"
Eddie came up short. He hadn't been around when Chris was a baby to know one way or another. Not for the first time, he was struck with a guilt and jealousy he couldn't see around. Shannon had been horrible at times, but he really had left her alone. She had gotten Christopher's infant years and she hadn't bothered to stick around long enough to see th person he was becoming. "You've always been part fish." Paco answered for him. "Like Tia Sophia. You couldn't get enough of it."
Chris smiled sideways at him, "Maddie told me Buck used to hate it."
Eddie blinked, "Huh?"
"He didn't know how to swim until he was eight."
"You couldn't without floaties until you were five." Eddie pointed out slowly.
"That's, like, a whole three years earlier, dad."
"It's not like it's a competition."
"Your dad didn't know how until he was twelve." Paco betrayed him with a fond laugh. Chris whipped his head back towards Eddie with a delighted gasp.
Eddie flushed, "That's..."
"Ramon almost killed Adriana." A gross exaggeration. Paco's eyes sparked in delight at the memory. "She threw him in ." He explained to Chris.
Christopher laughed and then seemed to catch himself with a frown. "That's not really nice."
Eddie shrugged, "It was okay, bud, I knew enough not to drown." And Adriana hadn't thrown him in the deep end.
"I believe you started it too," Paco said with a splash. "Didn't you steal her phone?"
Eddie winced, "I texted the boy she liked."
Chris' eyes sparked, "What did you say?" He asked on an eager laugh.
"Uh..." Eddie squinted his eye as he thought, "That she had a crush on him?"
Pepa clucked as she re-emerged with Maddie trailing behind her in Eddie's extra trunks and Pepa's borrowed swim top. She was twisting her hair in a ponytail, and she had a tattoo on her collarbone that Eddie had never noticed before. A small, orange cancer ribbon. Kidney cancer. Leukemia. It almost matched the color of her skin with age and tan. "Oh, I remember that." Pepa said and ruffled the back of his hair. "Chris, your father was a menace."
"Hey," He defended himself weakly and waited until Maddie was sitting back down beside him to hand her back Jee-Yun. It was certainly made easier with the way she leaned towards her mother, a gummy smile spreading across her face.
Maddie settled her into her lap with a tired, relieved sigh. It was like she was both over holding her and happy to have her in her arms again. "Little brothers." She said with a shake of her head.
Chris bounced to hang his wet hands on Eddie's knees now that he was free of a baby in his lap and could go back to his original purpose of being a jungle-gym. "Did you ever throw Buck in the pool?"
Maddie balked, "God, no." She shook her head. "He might be big now, but he was a really small kid."
"Plus, Maddie was much older than Tia Rana." Eddie pointed out. "And nicer." He added with a wink and a nudge.
Maddie laughed darkly. "I don't know about that."
Eddie frowned, that... "That's not how Buck would tell it."
"Buck doesn't know everything."
"Maddie..."
"Dad, can you come in now?"
Chris stole his attention. Shannon used to scold him for that. Can't you just pay attention to me, sometimes, Eddie? If he ever found his attention straying towards their son and caught himself with an apology to Buck, his fiance would wrinkle the top of his nose in confusion and tell him not to worry about it. His parents, Eddie knew, had spent so much time paying attention to each other, that Buck had been an afterthought unless he was in trouble. Perhaps there was a happy middle that Eddie didn't think he had found yet. Perhaps.... What will it take, Frank would ask, To forgive yourself for being an attentive father? If Chris didn't complain about it, perhaps Eddie wasn't doing anything wrong.
"Yeah," he agreed and sunk himself into the cool, welcoming water he had been sitting on the edge of before. Christopher cheered. Above him, Maddie managed a small, fond smile, He gave his body a moment to adjust to the feel of floating and then turned, offering his empty hands out towards Maddie.
She stared at him still clothed chest. Her gaze was knowing, her brown eyes darting from one shoulder to the next like she knew that sometimes the skin itched like it was splitting itself back open to steal his life. Eddie cleared his throat. "Didn't put on sunscreen."
Maddie set her lips but let his lie make a home between them. "Be careful." She said and slowly passed Jee-Yun over. "Don't put any over her head."
Eddie nearly snorted in insult. Like Jee was the first baby he had ever held in a pool. Like he hadn't raised his son. Like... "Got it." Maddie was a new mother. How Eddie had acted with his niece and nephew had been completely different than how he did with Chris. Careful, he had wanted to say since the day he had first held a picture of Chris in his hands, that's my entire heart.
Maddie's arms strained as she slipped herself in too, her eyes carefully on her daughter as Jee turned her head to look from her, to Eddie, to Chris and Paco playing a violet game of slapping each other with pool noodles in mock medieval warfare. Maddie ducked her entire head in the water, her hair billowing out like a curtain caught in the wind. Eddie was half convinced she only resurfaced because of Jee-Yun's impatient yell and flow in his arms. She brushed her hand roughly over her dripping eyelashes and shook herself.
Was this what Buck had been worried about? So in tune to Maddie's emotions that he knew intuitively when she wasn't acting normally. Or was it that he knew that expression of exhaustion on her face so well since it matched his own?
Eddie wouldn't have handed Jee-Yun back to her if he had known. If he had known, he would have told her to relax, to take some time for herself, to sit on the stairs and bask in the sun.
But he hadn't.
Christopher pulled him into a game, Pepa gossiped about family Eddie had only passively met, and it was probably the first family gathering that no one asked him about the wedding. He relaxed into it, they all did, and Maddie had been quiet but smiling and then....
First responders had an instinct. Maybe it was something in the air that they were more attuned to, no matter how much Eddie believed in that bullshit. He hadn't known either time he had gotten shot. Hadn't known he was going to nearly die choking on mud, either. But he had had a stirring before the bombing, the tsunami, the time his abuela had fallen. Eddie was turning before a noise had even left anyone's mouth.
Maddie had been sitting on the steps. Lounging with Jee-Yun resting on her knees and staring up at the clouds. Try as Pepa and Chris might, she was impossible to much into much conversation. I like hearing you talk, she had said and waved them off. Chris had gone inside to grab a drink, Pepa following after him, and... "Eddie!" Pepa yelped the second Jee-Yun's little body rolled off Maddie's legs and into the pool with a plop as her mother succumbed to exhaustion.
One second she was there, the next she wasn't, and Eddie would have been worried about Maddie, truely, if he wasn't more concerned about the baby sinking under water. Honestly, Jee-Yun was probably more shocked by the whole event and the jerk of her body as Eddie grabbed her than anything else. He pulled her out of the water, her little face screwed up in a high scream and Maddie jerked awake. Eddie bundled her close with a sputter and a shake of his head to try and dislodge water from his eyes, and Pepa nearly slipped on her frantic way to the edge, "Give me, give me." She demanded and bend to her knees to grab her.
Eddie didn't hand her over until he was sure she was fine. No broken bones, a healthy set of lungs, and no part of her had hit anything other than water. If she was screaming, she was breathing, and she hadn't been under water for more than a few seconds. Babies were fragile, but resilient. "Chris," Eddie called as he passed her to Pepa and glanced over at a nearly trembling in shock Maddie. "Can you get us some towels, bud?"
Chris, eyes wide in fear and worry, set his lips in a brave line and nodded firmly.
Maddie gasped and sat up frantic. "No," she cried. "No, I'm - oh my god."
"Hey, no," Eddie caught her before she could scramble too far upwards. He held her by here shoulders and looked deep into her face. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine, I'm fine." Maddie shoved him off.
Eddie, far too used to slippery limbs and stubborn Buckley's, held on. "Maddie, she's fine."
"She's not fine, oh my god."
"If she can scream, she can breathe."
Maddie stopped, her lips trembling in time with her entire body. Her worry changed to panic. She batted Eddie's hands away and he had to scramble to hold onto her. "Maddie," he enthused. "Wait, okay?"
She growled, baring her teeth at him. "Let me go!"
"She's okay." He impressed. "But you freaking out isn't going to help either of you calm down so that we can figure out what happened."
Maddie's breathing rapidly sped up, her hand hovering over her chest. "She's okay?"
He wondered if Maddie would calm the same way Buck did. If he could comfort Maddie the same way he could comfort Buck - wrap her in a hug and just *hold* her until she melted. But he didn't really know her, and Maddie's issues were touch while similar to her brother's, were just different enough to keep him from trying. Eddie rubbed his hands over the tops of her arms instead. "She's fine," He repeated. Jee-Yun was even calming down with Pepa's ministrations on the deck, her hand rubbing a circle in the center of her back and her eyes careful on where Eddie stood, assessing the situation in her own, cryptic way. "Maddie, what happened?"
Had she passed out? Hit her head? Was she sick? Suffering complications from the pregnancy? He knew it was unusual for them to wait to present until this long after, but unusual didn't mean unheard of. "I fell asleep." She moaned and blinked her tears away with a rough fist over her cheeks. Eddie tracked the movement with familiarity. It wasn't Buck, he realized as Maddie hugged her elbows into her body.
It was Eddie.
When he had first come home. When surviving felt like a death sentence and not a blessing. It had been creeping up on him lately too, chased away by a sweet smile and Christopher's laugh.
Eddie knew that tired. No amount of sleep ever made it go away. Okay, he opened his mouth to say. Why don't you go inside. Clean up. Rest.
"I almost killed my baby." Maddie said, her expression on the water and her tone tilting dark and dry.
Eddie swallowed, "Don't go there."
"I almost killed my daughter."
"But you didn't."
"She's not safe with me."
"Honestly, Maddie, I don't know if you're safe with you right now."
She forced a smile. Buck was better at it but Maddie was good. She would have fooled someone who didn't know better. "I'm fine." She declared.
"Your brother's better at that."
Maddie blinked, taken aback by the comparison. "What?"
"Lying." Eddie cleared his throat. "Tia," he jerked his head towards Maddie. "She's good."
Maddie hastily looked from Jee-Yun to him as Pepa stepped closer. "She's not safe with me." Still, she took her, maybe by instinct, as Pepa settled Jee-Yun in her arms, shushing her protests with a soft click of her tongue.
Christopher re-emerged, two towels draped over his arm. He waffled visibly between Eddie and Pepa, unsure of which direction he should stop in first. Pepa made the choice for him, making her way closer and gratefully, if a little hastily, yanking them both from his grip. Jee-Yun whined in Chris' face as if to ask for sympathy and he, wide-eyed, looked back at her. He opened his mouth, maybe to comfort, or maybe to ask if they should do something like bring her to a doctor, "Chris," Eddie called. "Come here, bud."
He went easily, his steps dragging unevenly against the pavement until he was bumping his head hard into Eddie's sternum. Chris buried his head into his chest, crossed his wrists at Eddie's back, and breathed.
A calm slotted into place.
It didn't make sense, it wasn't fair when Maddie was so clearly in distress but... Eddie ducked his head to plant a kiss on chlorine covered curls and cupped the back of Chris' head. It was... okay. Everything was okay.
Maddie's breath stuttered when Pepa placed a towel over Jee-Yun, and then another over Maddie's shaking shoulders. She blinked up at the clouds and a tear dripped from her eye to only be hastily wiped away before it could track at all down her cheek. Jee-Yun's fist bounced clumsily against Maddie's chin.
Everything wasn't okay.
Eddie breathed in deep and waited for Maddie to... catch it like Buck did.
She didn't.
He breathed out.
--
"Hey, Buck," Ravi knocked his elbow into Buck's wrist. He blinked, righted his chair with a clap so that all four legs were on the floor, and glanced at him in question. "Visitor." He jerked his chin in the direction of the ambulance bay.
Confused, Buck followed his gaze.
Even more confused, he shot to his feet. "E..." He cleared his throat. "Eddie?"
His partner shrugged wordlessly.
"Buck!" Christopher shouted and ran closer until Buck could catch him. He lifted him off his feet, his crutches slapping against his spine as he held him there.
He tried not to ever let go until Christopher did first. Disney hug rules or whatever. Buck was just happy to hold on as long as Christopher wanted to be held. He pulled back after a moment, simply far enough to bump Buck's face with his glasses. "Dad said we were going to surprise you," he declared. "Are you surprised?"
"Very." He wasn't even lying as he set Christopher back on the floor. "Mostly, that you willingly brushed your teeth."
Christopher beamed, "Pepa gave me five dollars to do it. I got a cookie at the deli."
"Oh," Buck high-fived him. "Way to hustle." He smiled worriedly at Eddie and opened up his side for him to settle into, Eddie's free arm slidding around his waist to hug him close. "Hi."
The small kiss at the corner of his mouth sent a bolt settling down his spine and it made a home in the pit of his stomach. "Hi." Still, it was... uncomfortable, if that was the word, to see him back in the bays, in an old, faded navy blue shirt from the academy. The alarm could go off at any second, Eddie would jump in after him and without the proper gear, he would... not that it mattered if he had the proper gear or not. Eddie had been wearing all of their medical gear and Buck had been the one without any on and he had still.... "We brought lunch." Eddie smiled sideways, gesturing towards the plastic bag he was still holding with one hand.
He brought... lunch.
Lunch?
"Oh, sweet!" Hen proclaimed loudly, leveraging herself over Buck's shoulders to smile down at Christopher. "Chris," she said with a bright smile. "You always were my favorite Diaz."
Still, she tugged Eddie into a quick, fierce, one armed hug and gently tugged the bag from his hands. "Yeah, yeah, yeah." Eddie waved off with a flushed smile. "He is the best of both of us."
Buck's heart jumped in his throat, "That's -."
"So true." Hen agreed and hit the two of them on their shoulders.
"Where's, uhm," Eddie rocked. "Can I talk to you about something?"
"Anything." Buck said instantly, without thought, confused, slightly, by Eddie bothering to ask in the first place. Usually he only asked if he was sure how Buck was going to react.
Hen snorted, "Chris, do you want to help me make sure Chim doesn't eat all of this?"
Uncaring, Christopher shrugged, "You can just say you want to leave them alone." Still, he shuffled after her, only pausing to throw an eye roll over his shoulder that only Buck caught. He pursed his lips with a snort.
"I thought that I was supposed to be the one going out of their way today," Buck joked weakly, bouncing on his heels and knowing that Eddie wasn't going to say anything all that serious until the others were out of earshot. He glanced over his shoulder where Christopher had paused to perform an enthusiastic, complicated handshake with Ravi. When they had been together long enough to develop that... Buck didn't know and wasn't concerned enough to figure out. Ravi was a good guy, there were much worse people for Christopher to idolize.
Eddie snorted, softly shaking his head and bumping their hips together. "Don't worry, you can still drive us home."
"Oh," Buck screwed up his face. That meant the truck would be staying at the station. "Yay."
Eddie's hand landed at the small of his back, his finger stroking gently at the base of his spine. "Todos bien," he assured in a low voice. Buck let his shoulders drop. "Have you heard from your sister?"
His shoulders shot back up. "I thought you said -."
"Stop." Eddie cut him off sternly. "I just dropped her and Jee off at home. Have you heard from her?"
"Should I have?"
"I don't know." Eddie admitted with a swallow. "Listen, I... I don't want you to...."
"To?"
"To Evan this."
"Evan this?" Buck echoed with a hint of a smile. "Is that meant to be insulting?"
"That is entirely up to you, baby." Eddie shot him a handsome smile back. "I'm..." Eddie sighed and dragged his hand through his hair. His ring flashed in the light. "I'm worried about her." He swallowed and watched Buck through his lashes. "And I know you've been worried about her."
Buck had probably been worried about Maddie since he was old enough to know what worrying was, and maybe before that too. He worried constantly, about everyone, even when they thought he wasn't thinking at all. Sometimes, actually, it was impossible to do anything but worry and that, it itself, was... worrying. "What happened?" He asked and tried to keep his voice from going dull, swallowing hard and blinking himself into the here and now of the situation.
"Everyone's fine."
"Eddie."
"Maddie fell asleep," Eddie said slowly, his brown eyed gaze holding Buck's intently. "And Jee fell in the pool." Buck's breath felt like it was punched out of his lungs. "I caught her," Eddie breathed life into him like it was what he was made to do. "She wasn't under for more than a second." He smiled crookedly. "Honestly, I think grabbing her scared her more than the fall. But Maddie..."
"Fell asleep."
"I think..."
"She has postpartum depression?" Buck guessed from the slow way Eddie was trying to break the news. He stopped, blinked in Buck's face, and pulled back slightly. "I told you something is wrong."
"Whoa," Eddie defended, "Buck -."
"I told everyone that something's wrong."
"Okay, Buck."
"Depression is genetic."
"Your depression and her depression don't go hand-in-hand." Eddie argued back. "And I am not the enemy here."
Buck wilted, and flushed down his worried annoyance. Eddie wasn't the enemy. He was Buck's partner, and he had never told him that worrying was fruitless or unnecessary. "It's a cycle, Eddie. It's always a cycle." Still, it was like... it was like... it was like with Doug, and the bruises and begging someone to listen to him. It was telling everyone what was going on at home, and what he thought was going on at Maddie's home, and absolutely no one bothering to listen because it was easier to pretend everything was okay. It wasn't Eddie. "I know it's not... I know it's not you." Buck enthused. "It's... it's me, it's Maddie."
"It's Maddie," Eddie agreed. "That's why I need you to try not to spiral about this. If Maddie has postpartum depression, you spiralling isn't going to help her."
It all felt like a bit much, though. Maddie with postpartum, Buck with his own shit, Eddie barely sleeping and not driving and almost never leaving the house.... Buck sucked in a deep breath, crossed his arms over his chest and nodded. "I've been reading up on it."
"I'm not a psychiatrist. Neither are you. We can't diagnose her." Eddie didn't let him go far, reaching out to caress his bicep until his grip on himself relaxed. "But we can be there for her." He studied Buck’s face. "I love you."
"Te amo."
"We're going to figure this out, okay?" Eddie implored. "Together."
"How?" Buck asked with wide, stinging eyes. "Eddie, seriously, how? Be... because you can barely leave the house on your own, and I'm, like, not keeping it together. Like, seriously, babe, I am just... it's a slippery slope."
"We've figured everything else out, right?" Eddie's eyes were swimming, his voice thick and Buck shook into himself. This wasn't about him. This couldn't be about him. "I didn't know you were... struggling."
"I'm not struggling."
"Please don't lie to me."
"I'm not..." Buck shrugged and blinked up at the lights. "Eddie, I love you so much, okay? You're not sleeping. And you don't leave the house unless it's with me."
"I know."
"And I want to be right there with you, but I also want... I want to be..."
"Here."
"Gone." Buck shrugged. "I want to be gone. I want us to be gone. Just to pack up everyone I give a damn about and go somewhere I can keep us safe."
"I know the feeling." Eddie tilted his head and held on tight to his arm. "But that's an impossible task to put on anyone. Including yourself, baby."
"I can't lose Maddie."
"You won't."
"And I can't lose you because I'm too busy being worried about her." Buck shrugged and rubbed at his eyes. "I don't know how to help both of you."
Eddie let out a miserable little noise, and Buck would hate himself later for always causing him so much grief, for always being a little too honest, for all of it. For now, though, he let Eddie pull him into a hug, let himself be comforted when he should be the one comforting and he held on tight, twisted Eddie's shirt in his hands and held his ground. Being honest, Amy had said, Is sometimes the hardest thing about a partnership. A hand cupped the back of his neck, twisting in his curls and making a home there. "You just have to be you." Eddie whispered against the shell of his ear. "Trust me, Evan, that's more than enough, okay?" His lungs inflating and deflating against his chest was familiar, relaxing, a weight that Buck still had to remind himself he didn't lose. "It's more than enough."
--
You barely leave the house. It was hard to prove him wrong when Eddie had stopped himself short from bringing Chris to school just that morning. Carla had watched him fist his keys tightly and set his jaw and brushed her fingers over his wrist. She took him instead, when her shift was meant to be over, with two kisses on his cheek, one for him and one for him to give to Buck when he woke up.
Which was maybe, possibly, part of the problem. How could Eddie tell him that without causing more of an issues was... an impossible situation he didn't know how to get out of. And it wasn't like Buck was wrong. Eddie wasn't leaving the house all that much, and taking care of Eddie's recovery was a lot to put on anyone. Buck had been doing an admirable job, he took care of Eddie like it was second nature, cleaning, cooking, arranging appointments and rides and doing it all with the patience of a saint.
Eddie couldn't even bring himself to go get a coffee without him going with him.
He groaned, rolled his head back to stare up at the roof and sighed, dropping down heavily, but carefully, back next to Buck on their bed. His body bounced on the mattress, his snoring shifting in its soft pattern for a very quick moment and Eddie held his breath as he settled, eyes wide on the scruff on Buck's neck. "I'm a little fucked up, aren't I, Evan?" He asked in a whisper. Buck snuffled and moved closer, his arm slinging over Eddie's knee to hug it closely to his body. "Yeah," Eddie said like Buck had told him anything at all. "I love you too."
Even the not so perfect parts of him.
Which was, practically nothing. Eddie knew that was fundamentally untrue, if anyone asked on any random day what personality traits of Buck's drove him insane, he'd be able to list off twenty, but for every one he could list forty more reasons why he loved him. "It's just a coffee." Eddie told himself. "Start small, Eddie, that's what you always tell Chris."
So he would start small.
Pulling himself away was harder than he wanted to admit. Truthfully, Eddie could spend his whole life in bed with Buck, sinking into the feel of him, linking up their breathing until it matched, pressing kisses into every bit of skin he could reach. Buck would wake up smiling, they'd have a good, easy, comfortable morning in bed and then... and then... and then Eddie would get a coffee with him. And not alone. And the cycle would continue over and over until he died.
Buck was his safe place, sure. But Eddie needed to learn how to be safe with himself too.
So he was at the coffee shop that was at the end of their street, and he had only felt like he was going to have a heart attack for five minutes, and then he was inside, off the street with walls surrounding him and a low hum of conversation. "Hi," the barista smiled wide and fake and Eddie squeezed his fingers into a fist until they stopped shaking. "What can I get started for you?"
"Uhm," Eddie glanced at the menu and read a list of things he didn't even fully recognize. What exactly was in a flat white? What was an affogato and why was it almost eight dollars? Would that even be something Buck liked? "Two cold brews, please." Not that Eddie ever tasted the difference between a cold brew and a regular iced coffee. Buck would probably be able to list off the different properties. Eddie would learn through osmosis and, mostly, enjoying the sound of his voice.
"Can I have a name for the order, sir?"
"Right," Eddie blinked, "Uh, Eddie."
She smiled blandly. "Thank you."
He paid and stepped to the side, putting his front to the Exit and crossing his arms over his chest. It was fine, he was fine. His phone went off with a text from Carla letting him know how drop off went, Buck was still at home sleeping with the door double locked, and Eddie was... Eddie was... he was out and he was fine.
He collected his coffees and faked a smile at the barista who faked one right back at him. His phone vibrated in his pocket, and Eddie stopped at a table only to fish it out and accidentally accept the call. He fumbled with it, swearing softly in both English and Spanish, and held it up to his ear. Hopefully, it was just Buck waking up wondering where he was, or Adriana checking in with a new story to complain about, or Sophia asking for advice or giving advice or checking on him without trying to make it obvious. "This is Eddie Diaz." He answered just in case it was Christopher's school.
"Sergeant Diaz?"
"No one really calls me that anymore." He joked weakly and sat down before he could fall down.
"Oh my god," the voice on the other end breathed, heavy and ragged and familiar. Eddie hadn't heard that accent since Afghanistan. "It's Samira. Tolbahr. From... you saved my life."