Archive of Our Own ^beta

It starts fast, full-body.

The version of Buck living inside his toilet bowl is wobbly and ashen, all twisted up. All the parts that make up his face are wrong but otherwise in the right place, somehow, like a Picasso that’s mostly rearranged itself back in order.

He’s already thrown up his lunch and the piece of banana bread he’d had earlier in the day, but his body is still retching and lurching like something is trying to reach out of him. He hasn’t been this sick since he was a snot-nosed kid with perpetually sticky fingers, a stomach bug damning him to his bedroom for a whole week while Maddie nursed him back to health.

He’s sick. He’s so sick that he’s definitely never going to be well again. And his banana bread was way too dense.

The shaking in his hands is so fierce that it’s almost overkill, an earthquake ravaging through his organs. Breathing exercises work for everyone except for him, because he doesn’t deserve it. He doesn’t need the oxygen anyway, because he’s sure that no amount of inhalation will save him from his imminent death, unceremonious and untimely on his bathroom floor.

The day is derailed. There was supposed to be complaining, and snickerdoodles, and maybe a drink or two, and—

Eddie. Buck thinks his name and retches immediately, but it’s just stupid bile.

All it took was a couple of words, or, two words, really—El Paso—and all the blood rushed to Buck’s ears, the rug pulled out from under him. He’s been yanked off the stage with a cane. The floor has given out from underneath him, and he’s been dunked in water to be laughed at.

But he picks himself up. He’s going to be good, the best. He turns on his oven and starts a new recipe.

The houses are nice.

Cookie-cutter, but nice. No charm. Nice yards.

“I like this one,” Buck says.

He hates it. It’s so beige. Much too dull for someone like Eddie. And there’s no history. No proof of life. Like smiling faces on the refrigerator. The patches of paint on the walls of Eddie’s bedroom that are slightly mismatched from the rest of it from when he took a baseball bat to everything he owned. Pencil marks on the door jamb for every year Chris grew taller. “It’s in a centrally located neighborhood. Close to everything.”

“Hmm,” Eddie hums to show that he’s listening. He’s toiling around in the kitchen, busying his hands, not even looking at the screen, and that’s good. Because the thing is, he can’t sell the house. Too many things have happened in this house. It’d be wrong for someone else to step inside of it, so Buck will move in if he has to. He'll keep watch over it, keep it warm for Eddie. Wait for him to come back. Except he can’t do that, so he’ll just think it.

“It’s in Central. There’s a nice view of the Franklin Mountains. It’s even got–” Buck feels sick all of a sudden. He has to be good. What’s the point if he can’t even get through a whole sentence, like he’s lost all control over bodily function?

“Got what?” Eddie finally looks at him, finally, and it’s more than five precious seconds, more than when he first told Buck what he was thinking and he was all shifty-eyed, twiddling his thumbs. Buck has to look away.

“Solar panels,” Buck says, and his voice sounds all wrong. Flat. He has to swallow the prickling in his throat all the way back down. He has to be good. It’s all good. “So you can save money. Y’know, they say solar panels will provide 25% of the world’s electricity by 2050?”

“Great. Get ahead of the curve.” Eddie finishes up whatever he was doing—Buck doesn't know because he couldn’t look at him—and sits across from him at the kitchen table. That’s the worst thing he could do now. Buck feels like he’ll crumble under the weight of his attention. He’ll accidentally voice what’s eating at him, and he’ll ruin everything. Eddie doesn’t deserve that.

Buck smiles, and it feels grimy. He feels disgusted with himself. Be good. “I’ll add it to the list.”

Eddie is watching him. He doesn’t say anything.

The snickerdoodles are crumbly like sandpaper. Baking is stupid and useless, that’s what Buck has decided.

Everything tastes like cardboard. And it’s like all of a sudden, it doesn't spark joy anymore. But it was never about joy, really, it was about distraction. A distraction from a blindsiding breakup, but how could he give a fuck about anything to do with Tommy now when Eddie is leaving?

But that’s the thing. Eddie’s not leaving him. He’s going to Chris. He knows this, and he still feels like bashing his head in with a generously-sized rock.

He tosses the cookies in the trash. And Buck—Buck can’t focus. He’s in third grade again, restless and fidgety and getting scolded by the teacher for being a nuisance. He’s frustrated. About to burst out of his own skin because his brain is buzzing and nothing will shut up, the tension sweeping all the way down from the back of his head and through every notch of his spine.

And now he has a pimple. He hasn’t seriously broken out since he was nineteen. He stares at it in the mirror so long it starts talking to him. Like, he’s nothing. He’s nothing. And he’s ugly. And he’s going to die.

He squeezes it so hard it explodes all over his fingers and onto his mirror, and he squeezes some more to remember the pain. The angry red mark on the bridge of his nose is damning, like he’s been decked in the face, and maybe he deserves that too. The pain would jolt him back into focus.

He wants to get back to work. But he’s off for another 24 hours, and Eddie is still looking at houses while he’s right inside of the place he really belongs, so he goes downtown.

Buck remembers how proud he was about all of his software updates. 2.0, 3.0. Maybe if he shed 100 skins and improved himself enough, 3.0 to infinity, someone could take a look at him and find something worth keeping. Because that’s what he kept telling himself: nobody is ever gonna want you enough to keep you.

But Eddie had kept him. He’s keeping him, still, he just has to go.

And now, as Buck finds himself stuck in sweat, arms and legs and chests and backs, mesh and velvet and glitter and secondhand smoke, he thinks about 1.0. But he’s zero now. Negative infinity, really.

Some girl takes his hand eventually, leading him to the bathrooms, and Buck swore this off after Taylor. A quick fuck in a bathroom isn’t what he wants or ever wanted, really. He can still taste the spiciness of Taylor’s perfume all in his mouth.

But she’s beautiful, her long dark hair flowing in rivulets behind her, tangling at her hairline where sweat is beading at her skin, and she looks at Buck like she wants him. And being wanted is all Buck wants, so he gives in.

She’s warm, burning up, but when Buck gets inside of her, he can barely feel it. He’s pressing her up against the bathroom stall door as her legs wrap around his waist, and trying to get as close as he can to her for any semblance of warmth, but his teeth almost chatter. It’s freezing, suddenly, and he’s sweating bullets, dripping down his back, but he’s shivering. And she’s so warm inside, but he can hardly feel it at all.

She writes her number on the palm of his hand and sends him off with a wink, and Buck feels branded in a terrible way. He wipes it off with his spit, but the black ink lingers.

Eddie is perfect in everything he does, dictionary-definition of competence and savoir faire. Buck can do his job too, but he falters the slightest bit.

Eddie hasn’t told the rest of the team what he’s thinking about doing. Some fucked up part of Buck preens at the fact that he’s the only one that knows, but he can’t dwell in that feeling. Because all he can think about is that Eddie won’t be his partner soon. He’ll find some firehouse in Texas, be so perfect for them, too good for them, and Buck will be left with his replacement. But who could ever replace Eddie?

Bobby gives him sidelong glances all shift, but Buck shakes them off. Focus. BuckandEddie, saws and jaws. BuckandEddie, bring the airbags and the cribbing over. BuckandEddie, nice work.

Eddie’s fingers brush against his to pass him a Halligan. And Buck wants to claw. He wants to sink his fingertips in, he wants to get on his knees and beg Eddie not to leave. But Eddie’s not leaving him. He’s going to Chris. It’s different, and Buck knows this, but the selfish part of him still wants. He wants to grab onto his ankle and never let go. Eddie won’t be able to walk away if Buck is clinging to his leg, and he won’t ever lax his grip. Every step Eddie takes will be a step Buck takes, scraping across the floor like dead weight, and Buck will take the pain for the rest of his life if it means Eddie is there, dragging him along.

They’re Buck and Eddie. How could they ever be separated?

One three-alarm fire. He feels the blaze in his chest. Focus. He’s watching water burst out of a firehose so heavy he’ll feel it in his shoulders when the adrenaline wears off, quelling the flames hungry enough to try and ravage an entire apartment complex. Focus. He’s focusing. No casualties. No critical injuries. One desolate building left behind.

Buck should be celebrating the rare high of a call where everything went right, ash in his hair and his eyes, tasting it behind his gums, but his ears are ringing.

Eddie’s arm brushes against Buck’s in the back of the engine, and he feels his body go tight tight tight like a rubber band about to be snapped in half. Focus. They’re in turnouts, he can’t even feel his skin. And he’s touched Eddie before. He's touched Eddie so many times, so why does it feel different now? He wants to touch him all over, everywhere, again and again and again and then again, reach inside of him to brand him. See the shape of his hand embedded in Eddie's skin forever. And he wants Eddie to touch him in return. Beg him to leave a mark so Buck knows that he was really there.

It’s a long shift. Eddie has been watching him, but he hasn’t been saying anything out of the ordinary, like he’s waiting Buck out.

But Buck is going to be good. Eddie won’t have to say anything, because Buck is good, and they’re good, and everything is good good good. Buck almost tells him so, just so that Eddie will stop looking at him, and then realizes that it’ll give him away. He’s just got to rearrange his face into something believable, everything in order and in their right places.

Eddie catches him in the locker room in the morning. The sunlight filtering through the glass walls is haloing him in citrine light, and Buck thinks, deliriously, that Eddie must be some sort of hallucination rather than a real person. Maybe he hasn’t been real this whole time, and Buck’s just been slowly descending into madness these past couple years of his life, like he’s some sort of imaginary friend or angel on his shoulder. But no, that’s not right, Eddie is the realest thing he knows.

“I found another one,” Eddie is saying, buttoning his uniform shirt down and off. Buck looks away. “I think it could be a contender. Follow me home?”

It’s not actually a question. Buck is glad that Eddie wants him there, even if he’s leaving. No, not leaving. Going. I’ll do whatever you want me to do, Buck thinks. I'll say whatever you want me to say. I'll be whoever you want me to be if you just tell me. I'll do anything you ask of me. Anything anything anything.

Buck follows Eddie home. He won’t be able to do this anymore, eventually. The house will be empty. And eventually, some trespasser will take up residence inside of the only place Buck has ever felt intact, the only place that could ever make his brain go quiet. They won’t walk in it the right way. They won’t live in it the right way, and they won’t respect it. They’ll desecrate it.

Buck feels sick again. Eddie passes him a beer. Eddie keeps asking him what he likes. This kitchen backsplash. These floors. This backyard, isn’t it a little too much? It’s not gonna be Buck’s house, but he offers his opinions, even on frivolous things like crown molding and cabinet knobs because Eddie is asking him to.

“So, um.” He’s been making sure that he’s smiling, casual, supportive. Appropriate. But the curiosity has been killing him. He gulps down his beer like it’s water. “How did–how did Chris take it?”

Eddie doesn’t say anything for a painstaking twelve seconds. Buck counts them. “Chris doesn’t know.”

“Oh. S-so when are you telling him?”

Eddie’s gaze is resting pointedly on his iPad screen. “I'm not sure if I am.”

“Oh,” Buck says again. That’s. Very much so, stunningly not his place. He shouldn’t have said that, shouldn’t have assumed.

“But you think I should.” Eddie is looking at him now, skin around his eyes pulled tight like a balloon filled with too much air. It doesn't matter what Buck thinks. But Eddie's asking. How is he supposed to be good in this impossible situation? He needs Eddie to tell him what to do.

Buck will absolutely not tell Eddie what to do. “It’s just–a lot. To take in.”

Eddie runs a tired hand over his face, and Buck is afraid. “I know. You’re right. I just.” He stops talking.

“It’s okay, Eddie.” Buck doesn’t know how to do this. For once, he doesn’t know what to say to Eddie at all.

“It’s really not.” Eddie pushes his bottle of beer away like he’s mad at it. “He’s been talking to me. He doesn’t even seem mad anymore. He knows I want him to come back. I just don’t understand why. I have to go if-if that’s what’s best, then I’ll. I don't know. I don't know why.”

It’s because of his parents, is what Buck really doesn’t say. They’re getting in the way. It's not Chris. Chris is all caught up in the middle. But it’s not Buck's place. Buck isn’t sure of his place right now, it’s all twisted up and misplaced.

“What about you?” Buck asks. “What do you want?”

Eddie shakes his head, all self-deprecating like it isn’t even something to consider, and it makes Buck’s stomach twist. “It's not about what I want. It's what I have to do. I'm missing out on his life again, Buck, it’s like I’m–God, it’s like I'm right back where I started.”

His voice catches. Buck wraps a hand around his arm. Buck wishes he could do the Eddie Thing, where he makes it all better with just a look and a couple careful words. A warm hand. He wishes he could be Eddie. If he were Eddie, it still wouldn’t be enough to quell this unnameable thing inside of him.

“Okay, Eddie. Okay. You’re okay.”

You’re not. They’re punishing you. Buck bites the inside of his cheek until he tastes blood, nice and metallic and familiar. Eddie nods furiously like he’s trying to convince himself that Buck’s words are true.

Buck squeezes his arm hard enough that he can see the imprint of his fingertips when he lets go, Eddie’s skin going paper-white and then rushing back with blood. Proof that he was there.

Buck drains his beer all the way down to the bottom.

Buck feels out of control, and he can’t stop the buzzing. He ups the ante.

He’s never been to a gay club before. He didn’t even think of himself as bisexual until the Tommy-colored glasses came off, and he realized that he didn’t do any deeper pondering on his sexuality. He jumped right in, like he always did, and then he got left at the bottom of the pit. He realized that he also liked men, that it might be the final missing puzzle piece to his life, what he’s been waiting for, something to make him whole. Something to make everything make sense. But he was wrong. Nothing has really changed after all, maybe.

Everyone is so beautiful. It’s so dark, and Buck is thankful for it. He doesn’t want anyone to see him. He just wants to be looked at.

There’s a guy, and Buck doesn’t even remember his name, but it doesn’t matter. He lets him take him home, lets himself be pushed up against the front door of some stranger’s apartment. And it’s good, sort of—he's too rough, but Buck feels like he deserves to be pushed around a little.

He’s pushed down onto a too-soft bed, and when Forgotten Name shoves down Buck’s pants and takes the head of his dick into his mouth, Buck digs his nails into the palms of his hand.

It does nothing to stop the buzzing. No, no, he’ll just have to try again.

He tries again.

He’s never been in this place before; it’s dark and sordid, and there’s graffiti on the bathroom walls. He should stop overestimating his alcohol tolerance. It’s unbecoming. But he looks nice, really, even if he is slowly but surely losing his grip on reality. He swears he sees the word LOSER sprayed into the corner of the mirror, but when he shakes his head it disappears.

He leaves and sits down at the bar. A girl sits down next to him not long after. She’s beautiful, and maybe Buck is just destined to find every woman in existence beautiful, but it’s true. Her hair is dyed darker than midnight, and Buck gets lost in the glint of the shiny jewelry in her nose.

“I’m Harper,” she says even though Buck didn’t ask, flagging the bartender down and ordering a Long Island Iced Tea, which makes Buck wince. Barely any mixer and it sneaks up on you, Buck should follow in her footsteps.

“I’m Buck.”

She forgoes the festive straw placed inside of it and gulps half of it down. “Like a deer?”

“Sure. Are you, uh. Are you okay?”

She blows a raspberry and rolls her eyes, stabbing at her forehead with her sharp dark green nails. “My boyfriend broke up with me. Me!”

Right, breakups. That should be on his mind. Well, it shouldn’t, but maybe it’d be better for him if it were. “Ah…been there. Multiple times, actually. Sorry to hear it.”

“With a face like that?” she asks shamelessly, and right, that’s what he’s here for. The whole point. “We’re all doomed.”

Buck feels himself flush even though he shouldn’t, he’s so easy, but this is the point. “Maybe.”

She tuts at him. “Don’t be coy.”

Buck tries to slip back into it. “Well, I can’t talk myself up. You look sad.”

“So do you,” she fires back easily. Then she perks up like she has a bright idea, the dark cloud over her head dissipating in an instant. “Wanna fuck about it?”

And, well. Who is he to say no?

She drags him to her car with her bruising grip, and she rides him like a prize-winning horse in the backseat. She doesn’t even let him get his fingers inside of her for more than five seconds because she allegedly ‘likes the sting.’ Which is fine, he supposes.

He tries to grab her waist, but she holds his hands down. He's so loose-limbed it really doesn’t take long, but thankfully she’s right there with him, milking him for everything he’s worth. When she finishes, she clenches around him so hard he gets dizzy, spilling into his condom.

She sighs wistfully and rolls off him unceremoniously, her wetness all over his thighs.

“Thanks,” she sighs again. “I really needed that.”

And that’s—well, it’s fine. He was of use.

She pats him on the shoulder kind of like a dog that’s done a cool trick, and Buck has a bad taste in his mouth, her mauve lipstick smeared all over his chin.

Well, Buck thinks as he’s back on the street with his jacket accidentally forgotten, it’s just like all those other times, isn’t it?

Those girls in bars, people he met on calls, his own trauma counselor. Dr. Wells helped him forget, even for a second, and even if he felt an awful and unnameable thing in the pit of his stomach after, he was of use. He got her off. It’s like all those times when he was good, but he felt kind of dirty after, used up like an old rag. It didn’t matter. He was of use in some way. He felt some semblance of warmth, even for a second. There was a connection. It stopped the buzzing. But now, the buzzing doesn’t stop. It gets louder.

Well, the thing is, he tries again.

The thing is, Buck is absolutely cool and spontaneous. He is Totally Down For a Threesome. He’s wearing his hair curly now. He’s even getting another tattoo.

He was never a threesome guy, purely because there are too many body parts to keep track of, and he’s sort of a fiend for singular attention. That didn’t stop him from participating when the opportunities presented themselves, however, and he sort of treated it like an experiment. He was basically a scientist.

But, like, Buck’s not quite sure how he ended up in this predicament. And he’s not even that drunk. It’s genuinely one of those we saw you from across the bar and liked your vibe situations, except Buck thought he was just flirting with a pretty girl, and then she dropped the boyfriend bomb on him out of nowhere. A boyfriend watching them from across the room, in fact. And he’s like, okay, so I'm a homewrecker. But no, it is totally her and her man’s fantasy that they have a threesome with a stranger. Which is kind of a boring fantasy, really, but Buck aims to please.

Really, it’s like walking into burning buildings and tossing his body around, using it to help other people. And the thing is, the guy doesn’t even touch him, and Buck starts to wonder what the point of the threesome is, then. Is it a cucking thing? Buck’s not sure if he’s completely down with that, but he’s really in no place to judge.

They take him home. Buck kind of zones out while he’s thrusting into the warm and wet vice of this lady’s body from behind, and her boyfriend is fucking into her mouth and telling her how perfect she is and how good she is at taking cock, like she was fucking made for it, and that’s when Buck realizes that it’s not a cucking thing, but an Eiffel Tower thing. Honestly, he respects that way more. Buck is more like a sentient dildo in this situation, and that’s fine, he guesses, even though he was seriously hoping for some joint-guy-girl action, but whatever.

They ask for his number after, and Buck wonders if this is like a throuple proposal thing or a let’s have another threesome sometime thing. But it doesn’t really matter, he's still buzzing when he leaves their place. It reminds him of when he was younger and going really fast on his bike, knowing he was probably going to crash into something eventually but refusing to slow down.

Maybe he was that drunk. Buck hasn’t been this hungover since the frat house.

He can still feel all kinds of handprints all over him, dirty, branding, stinging. He throws up until there’s nothing left and then scrubs his skin under scalding hot water until it’s red and raw, slaps himself in the face a couple times. He has a shift. He’s going to be late.

His eyes feel like they’re full of sawdust. He jogs inside the firehouse, world tilting on its axis. He barely makes it ten steps. Bobby sees him first. Takes one look at him, says, “Go home, Buck.”

But he can’t go to Eddie’s house. So what is he supposed to do?

At least no one else saw him. At least Eddie didn’t see him. He’s no good like this, he can’t help Eddie like this. He can’t be of use. He has to be of use.

He sits in his Jeep for an hour, gripping his steering wheel so hard he’s sure he’s going to have calluses. He doesn’t know why he feels like this. He can’t get enough air. He’s running out of air. When everything’s fucked up, falling apart, disappearing around him, at least he has firefighting. What good is he if he can’t even do his job, the one thing he’s always been good enough for?

He drives to the loft on autopilot. He holds his breath as he steps past the threshold; it’s so empty and cold. He deep-cleans. And then he deep-cleans again because it doesn’t feel clean enough. The floors are dirty. There’s something in the walls, there’s something watching him.

He throws out all his baking supplies. Flour, granulated sugar, vanilla extract. Shortening, baking powder. Cocoa. Yeast.

He takes another shower, and he thinks he might feel dirty forever. He lies on the brick he calls a sofa and stares at the pretty people on television.

He doesn’t know how long he sleeps. He wakes up, disoriented, the room bright again, to a knock on his door.

Eddie is on the other side, still in his Class-B uniform. Relief floods through Buck’s body, like this is what he needed to gain back the oxygen that was taken from him. He’s so beautiful.

“Bobby said you weren't feeling well yesterday so he sent you home.” He shoves a takeout bag into Buck’s hands. “I got you some soup from that place you like.”

That place you like. Buck feels warm. But he’s still dirty. Eddie thinks he’s sick. There’s not a word that exists to describe what he really is right now—even Buck doesn’t know it.

“You didn’t answer any of my texts,” Eddie continues. Buck’s phone has been completely off. He’s not being good.

“I’m sorry,” Buck says.

Eddie tilts his head at him as if to say, don’t be. Buck isn’t hungry, but he grabs a spoon out of his kitchen because he’s going to eat whatever Eddie gives him.

Eddie plops himself down on Buck’s couch like he owns the place, and maybe he does. Buck follows. Eddie lets him shove painful spoonfuls of soup down his throat for one commercial break before he speaks up. “So,” he says mildly.

Buck braces himself. He does his best not to physically react, choking down his soup. He wonders how he must look. His hair’s a mess, his eyes red, itching stubble all over. He probably really does look sick. “So.”

“Buck,” Eddie says carefully. “Right now, I'm still here.”

Buck knows that. Logically. Eddie is reassuring him because he’s his best friend, and that’s what they do. But even when Buck knows things logically, his heart never follows suit. “I know.”

They watch TV.

There’s a hiking incident. Rope rescue. Eddie makes sure his harness is secure. Buck feels safe when Eddie’s hands are on him. Annapurna is one of the deadliest mountains in the world, but he could scale it with no equipment if Eddie told him he could.

There’s a couple. The man, Henry, has fallen onto a narrow ledge, his body all twisted up like a test dummy. Bleeding out from his femoral artery.

They’re both going to get out, Buck will make sure of that, but it’s their reactions. His girlfriend is crying like she’s trying to expel all of the water out of her body. Buck gets it. It’s scary, seeing your loved ones in pain. Feeling like you could lose them for even a second.

Buck gets him up. There’s a lot of blood. He’s got his blood all over his gloves and his forearms. He passes Henry off to Hen and Chim. His girlfriend kisses his hand. Buck looks away.

Eddie pats him on the shoulder the same way he does whenever he’s nonverbally communicating, good job. Buck wishes he would let his hand linger.

Bobby tells Buck to see him in his office after he hits the showers, and Buck feels like he’s thirteen again and in trouble with the principal.

He scrubs all the blood off. He walks into Bobby’s office.

“I know about Eddie,” Bobby says in lieu of a greeting.

“What—uh.”

“He told me what he’s thinking last week.” Bobby gestures to the chair in front of his desk with a slight inclination of his head. He stacks papers on his desk. Buck sits.

“It won’t–won’t affect anything.” Buck swallows. “I'm focusing. I'm focused. I swear. That one day, it was just. It didn’t have anything to do with Eddie. I was just. It won’t happen again. I swear.”

Bobby blinks at him slowly, patiently. “It’s a lot to take in. I just wanted to ask you how you’re doing.”

Buck feels naked, suddenly. That makes it sound like Buck’s—something, something more than what he is.

“It’s–it’s fine. People move all the time. I don’t–” Don’t what? He can’t finish his sentence. Bobby looks at him.

Buck knows that Bobby is doing that thing he does when he’s carefully considering his next words. He can see it in the contemplative line of his mouth. Buck is a flighty deer, ready to flee and get caught up in headlights, hit by a car with its brains splattered across the road.

“If there’s something you want to talk about,” Bobby says slowly. “You can talk about it here.”

Bobby doesn’t get it. There’s nothing to talk about. Eddie is going away because he’s choosing his son, and Buck isn’t gonna ask him to stay because he’d also choose Chris over anything in the whole wide world. Buck gets it. It’s good. Everything is good.

“All good, Cap.” Buck stands up. He knows that Bobby’s holding his tongue, and he hopes he keeps holding it. He doesn’t need to hear it.

He almost bowls Eddie over when he shuts the door behind him and rounds the corner.

“Sorry,” Buck says automatically. He should say something funnier. Be more pleasant.

“You get in trouble with the principal?” Eddie asks him, and oh, that’s nice, they had the same thought about principals. Buck would love to know all of his thoughts, 24/7.

“No, just.” Buck doesn’t finish his sentence. He has no idea where all his sentences are going.

Eddie steadies him with a look. “Everything okay?” That’s no good. Buck didn’t mean to make him worry. He has enough on his plate. Fix it.

“No, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Uh, he just wanted to see how I was feeling. If I’m feeling better now.” Because he was sick. Really sick. But it wasn’t a cold, or a flu, or even a broken bone. He was making himself sick and dirty, poisoning himself. And now he’s a liar too. He wonders just how far he can regress.

Eddie punches his shoulder much too lightly. “You should’ve told him the soup I got you fixed you right up.”

“Yeah. Yeah, it did.” Eddie cares for him. Buck wanted to throw it up just so he could eat it again. “I’m coming over after shift.” Not a question. Buck is being greedy, but he needs to get as much as he can get before Eddie’s house is empty. “I set you up another meeting. Katherine is very nice.”

“On a first name basis, are you.” Eddie gives him that cheeky half-smile that makes Buck feel like he’s being given a swirly lovingly.

Buck shoves his hands in his pockets to prevent himself from doing something completely asinine like reaching out and tracing the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it scar crosshatching his lips. “We’ve been messaging. I wouldn’t have to do it for you if you weren’t convinced computers are sentient. Like, I know a whole lot about the El Paso Independent School District now. Y’know, in 2011, the superintendent was arrested by the FBI for, like, mail fraud and shit. Crazy stuff.”

Eddie laughs. “There’s just no way she told you that.”

“Well, no, uh. Wikipedia did. I got bored.”

Eddie smiles at him, Buck wants to know how it tastes.

The rest of shift goes by in a flash because Buck is counting down the milliseconds microseconds nanoseconds until he’s in Eddie’s house again. He took every moment before for granted.

Buck floors it, and he follows Eddie so fast through the door and across the threshold that he almost trips over his heels.

Katherine is nice. Everyone keeps assuming Buck and Eddie are thinking of buying a house together, and that’s. It just is.

Buck shows him more stupid houses. “I actually really liked that one,” Eddie says. Their feet are touching underneath the kitchen table. It’s incidental. Buck had found a good one. He hates it less than the others. If Eddie is going to go, he needs nothing less than the absolute best.

“Me too,” Buck agrees. “Good price. Great location. Amenities.” He pauses. “It’s getting real,” he says with much more weight than he means to. Lighten it up.

Eddie’s lip quirks up, then down, then up again. “You say it like I’m dying and admitting myself into a retirement home.”

“Maybe you are. You’ll have to start getting your affairs in order soon,” Buck jokes. “Put up the house. Gather all your records. Financial information. Your w–” Buck frowns. “Oh. Your will.”

Eddie looks at him. “What about my will?”

Buck’s brain buffers like he’s solving a very complex math equation. “If Chris is in Texas now, and I'm in LA, then.” He stops.

Eddie pulls his foot away. It’s cold again. “Then what?” He sounds incredulous.

“Nothing,” Buck rushes to say. He’s doing what he does best, foot in mouth. He hasn’t even completed a full thought, and he’s still fucking everything up. “Just. Thinking out loud. I'm not asking–I-I’d never ask you to change it.”

Eddie leans back in his chair, runs his hand down his face. He, so suddenly, looks rattled. “Jesus, Buck.”

“Sorry,” Buck says. His head hurts all of a sudden, or maybe it’s been hurting the whole time. It hurts everywhere. “Sorry. Sorry.”

“I'm not mad at you," Eddie says immediately. Buck knows he’s not mad at him. He’s still sorry. “I just wasn’t–I didn’t.” Eddie purses his lips, looks off to the side. His eyebrows go all flat. Buck can’t paint. He wants to paint him. “I wasn’t even...”

Buck has never seen Eddie so struck dumb. He always knows what to say, and Buck has always wished he could be like him in that way. “Okay,” Buck says. His voice is wrong, garbled and disjointed like it’s coming out of an old television. “Okay, it’s–fine.” He doesn’t even know what he’s talking about.

And that’s the moment when it really hits Buck. Chris is in Texas. He’ll keep being in Texas. Buck will keep being in LA.

“Oh,” Buck breathes.

Buck is not Chris’s dad. They’ve been apart, and it shouldn’t feel like this, like he’s missing a limb. Walking through life with one eye closed. They’ll keep being apart, now, and it shouldn’t feel like this. Like he’s losing something very, very priceless. Chris will keep being in Texas. Buck will be in LA.

“I have to–”

“Buck?”

“Uh. I have–I need.” Buck feels like cotton has been shoved in his ears, suddenly. “I should. I have to–”

“Buck.” Eddie goes to stand, but Buck is faster, backing away like a cornered animal before Eddie can do the Eddie Thing and try to make better what he’s not even fully aware of. Because that’s Eddie, he’s selfless. He’ll put a hand on Buck’s shoulder. He’ll go crawling back to the bottomless pit that is Texas with his tail tucked between his legs just to see Chris. He’s choosing Chris because he chooses Chris every time. Chris, who isn’t Buck’s son. Chris, who’ll keep being in Texas.

“I have to go. I’m going, uh. I’ll call you. Later.”

Buck leaves and throws up in the neighbors’ neatly trimmed bushes.

The thing is, Eddie put Buck in his will. Buck gets Chris if that ugly, unspeakable thing ever happens to Eddie. Even if Chris is in Texas, where Eddie’s parents are.

The thing is, Buck hasn’t slept with anyone. He’s not sure he could even get it up, honestly.

He’s three drinks deep, and he’s been getting appreciative, slimy looks all night, but he can’t forget. What about my will?

It’s drag night. Buck has never seen wigs so tall. Everyone is so beautiful. He has no idea what half of the songs they strut around and lip-sync to are, and he feels like a fraud. He’s alone.

After her big musical number, one queen comes up to him at the bar when he’s on his fourth drink, wearing all-blue denim and a platinum blond wig so bright it makes Buck’s eyes cross.

“You look like you could use a friend, honey.” She blinks her long spider-leg eyelashes at him. That’s right, he’s alone. He suddenly misses Maddie with a ferocity he hasn’t felt since she last left, the sensation burning in his solar plexus.

“I’m Buck,” Buck says. That’s right, he’s Buck. He’s not too sure what that means anymore. He reaches out a hand.

“I’m Jean Jacket,” she says, her blood-red acrylics digging into his palm. He appreciates the sting.

“Jean Jacket?”

“No, babe. Jacquette. Say it French-ly.”

“Jacquette,” Buck tries to say. He laughs at himself.

Jean hums approvingly and sits down on the stool next to him. She orders something very pink and no doubt very sweet, downing half of it in one go. “You here alone?”

Buck groans and involuntarily sways in his seat, and she steadies him by his shoulder. “Easy, tiger. You look rough. You just get broken up with or somethin’?”

And oh, yeah, Buck forgot.

“Huh. I guess I did.”

Jean looks at him funny, taking another sip of her drink. “You guess so?”

“Well, it’s just–” Buck heaves a big sigh like a balloon deflating in one fell swoop. “I did. But. It’s–kinda being overshadowed by other…uh, stuff.”

“Other stuff,” she nods sagely. “What other stuff, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Buck groans and smacks his forehead against the bartop with more force than he meant to, but the thud is steadying. “My friend is moving away.”

“Mmm. Must be a special friend if they’ve got you reacting like this.”

“The special-est,” Buck agrees into the cold wood on his face. “The most special ever.”

“So a super special friend.”

Buck sighs wistfully. The cold wood is actually nice. “Yeah, Eddie—that’s my friend—he’s great. Amazing. The best. I don’t even remember my life before him. We–we met because we were. Partnered at work, and now we’re. He’s. So much more than that.” Buck stumbles over the word partnered. Soon they won’t be, and that makes him feel unmoored.

Jean is silent for a couple seconds. Buck finally looks up, the room swimming a little bit. Jean is purple and pink and blue, LED light strobing all across her face. The bass of the speakers around them is giving Buck a headache, but the dull throbbing ricocheting off of the walls of his skull might be the only thing keeping him tethered to reality.

“So…” she says slowly. “More than a super special friend.”

“That's what I’m sayinggg,” Buck whines. He knows how pathetic he sounds, but he can’t bring himself to care because he’s banking on not remembering any of this in the morning. “He’s my friend. But he’s not just–” Buck hiccups. “Just my friend. He's…my Eddie. He's everything.”

“Hmmm,” Jean says mysteriously.

“Y-you. You’re judging me.”

“I think I understand what you’re feeling.” Jean smiles at him like she knows something he doesn’t. Her teeth are extraordinarily white. “In fact, my best friend moved away, and I was distraught. When I was in third grade.”

Buck flushes all the way down to his toes. He has an offhand thought that maybe he should kiss her, and then decides against it. “Don’t make fun of me.”

“I’m not making fun of you,” she assures him. She’s making fun of him. “I’m just fascinated by your predicament.”

“It’s not a predicament. It’s the end of the world.” Buck slams his head back down on the bartop. Maybe he should just knock himself out altogether.

He feels Jean rest her immaculately-manicured hand on the back of his head. Her nails scratch at the base of his skull, and it feels nice. She smells like candy. “Oh, doll. The bartender should definitely cut you off.”

Buck groans.

“Well, how does your friend feel about it?”

“He’s.” Buck swallows. He wants to see Eddie’s face so much and so suddenly that he feels sick to his stomach. “He’s doing it for a real good reason. It’s serious. I’d never ask him to stay, I’d do the same thing if I had to. But it still. Hurts.” Buck sits up again, smacking his chest right over where his heart is. “Right here.”

Jean’s hand falls away. “You’ve got some big feelings.”

“Yeah…yeah…”

Someone calls her name loudly over the music, and she drains the rest of her drink. “Duty calls. I hope you figure it out, Buck. And don’t drink anymore, there will be no vomit on drag night.”

Buck weakly salutes her. “Thank you, Ms. Jacket.”

She walks away in her scary stilettos, pointing a finger at him. “French-ly!”

And then Buck is alone again.

But the next thing he knows, he’s got a guy. He even remembers his name this time—Alex. Or something.

He’s got dark hair, dark eyes, large hands. Buck is going to stop the buzzing with him, he’ll make sure of it.

But then Buck’s in this guy’s bed, under him. And he’s kissing down Buck’s neck and telling him just how fucking hot he is, but Buck can only stare at the ceiling. And he’s unbuttoning Buck’s jeans that suddenly feel too suffocating, going to grope at his dick through his briefs, and Buck just—thinks of Eddie.

He shoots up so fast he gets whiplash, almost knocking—what’s his name again?—off the bed.

Well, whoever he is, he looks very spooked. He raises his hands up like Buck is a skittish animal about to bite. “Woah, woah, woah. Did I hurt you?”

“I have to.” Buck staggers off the bed like he’s never used his legs before, zipping his pants back up. Alarm bells are going off in his head, and he doesn’t even know why. He just—he thought of Eddie, and then he. He just. “I have to go. I have to go, I have to go.”

The buzzing gets louder and louder until he can’t hear anything else, can’t hear this guy calling after him, can’t hear as he shuts the door and sprints out into the night.

It’s cold out. He might be crying. Buck is shivering with how frantic he feels. He has to get out, he has to do something, claw out of his skin, run into traffic, something.

He has no idea how he ends up at Maddie and Chim’s house. He shouldn’t knock. It’s late, he doesn’t have his key, and he’s such a nuisance, but he knows he’ll be let in anyway.

Buck watches a light flicker on. Chimney answers the door, hair sticking out in directions previously unknown to man. He takes one look at Buck, down and up, and says, “Alright. I’ll get Maddie.”

Maddie comes to the door groggily some moments later, and Buck immediately feels guilty. She needs her rest, but he stumbles forward with the immediate realization that he’s missed her so much even though he sees her all the time.

“Buck?”

“Maddie.” His voice cracks, and it hurts.

She’s on high alert immediately, reaching out and pulling him down into a hug, his face in the warm crook of her neck. Buck feels like an overgrown child, shivering into his sister’s skin.

“Come inside,” she tells him. “I’ll make you some tea.”

The thought of putting anything in his mouth makes Buck feel sick all over again, but he steps inside. It’s warm.

She makes him a cup of chamomile and sits him down at the dining table. Buck begs for any God out there to just put him out of his misery once and for all and strike him down. For good this time. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

Buck can feel the snot drying and cracking all over his face, it’s disgusting. Now that he’s here, he has to leave. It’s late. Maddie needs her rest. She’s not even showing yet; in this part of the first trimester, the baby should be about the size of a U.S. penny, Buck knows.

But he can’t leave, because he feels stuck in his seat, feet firmly planted on the floor like he’s stuck in quicksand. He doesn’t know what to say, where to start. Really, where would he even start? I feel like my entire world as I know it is crumbling to nothing. I don’t know why it feels like my chest is completely caving in. I feel dirty, but I can’t stop.

“Eddie’s thinking about moving.”

She’s silent for a moment, her eyebrows going asymmetrical and the crease between them deepening. “Moving…”

“To Texas. El Paso.”

“Oh,” she says, and she sounds unquestionably surprised. “Oh, Buck.”

It’s the way she says it, like they’re kids again, like Buck has gone much too fast on his bike, that makes Buck crumble again.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Buck sniffs. Maddie has a way of looking at people like they’re all she sees, and Buck doesn’t want her to see him. “Don’t–it’s not. It’s fine.”

“Hey,” she says, not unkindly. “How do you really feel about it? And have you told him?”

Buck shakes his head, runs his sleeve under his nose like he’s five again. “No. It’s good. I mean, it’s not good, but. He’s doing it for Chris. And that’s what matters, right–he needs to be with him. So I shouldn’t. It’s not my. I mean, I’m. It’s fine. It’s not–it shouldn’t even be a big deal, but it’s–it shouldn’t feel like this, but I–”

“Hey, it’s okay–”

“It shouldn’t, it shouldn’t–” Now that Buck’s started, he can’t stop. “But it does, and I-I don’t know why–”

Now Buck is having a heart attack. He’s felt this before, but never to this degree, this all-encompassing, large-scale collapsing of his chest. He must be dying, but he doesn’t know why. He’s too young to die. It’s too early. He hasn’t done everything he’s supposed to, he’s just barely gotten started. He’s only just started to really appreciate it, he’s stopped tossing his life around as much. His hands are shaking in Maddie’s gentle grip, and he doesn’t even know when she started touching him. He can’t see.

He can hear Maddie talking to him, but none of it is registering, just warbled TV static. Buck doesn’t know what’s happening. He just feels it in his chest, the collapse. He squeezes his eyes shut hard enough that it feels like they might explode in his head, and he thinks to himself, this must be it. His life is finally over, and Eddie still needs him.

“Buck,” Maddie urges him, and she sounds shaky. Now he’s scared Maddie, and he feels so guilty, doesn't know why he can’t keep it together for one stupid second of his life. “Evan. You need to breathe.”

“Can’t,” Buck mumbles, and his face is unbearably hot. Wet. “I don't know why it feels like this. I can't–I can’t imagine a life without him. Why does it–why does it hurt so bad?”

“Come on. Follow my breaths.”

Buck remembers sitting on Eddie’s couch. His chest had collapsed in then too, and he felt something inside so big, indescribable, all-encompassing, consuming. Because Eddie was thinking about leaving, just thinking about it, and that mere fact made Buck feel like he was being held upside down by his feet. All the blood bum-rushing straight to his head, Eddie’s iPad in his hands. Eddie is thinking about leaving. And that’s when it hits him.

“Oh, God.” Buck’s breath stutters in his chest like a skipping record. “I love him. Maddie, I love him.” But more than that, he needs him. Buck needs Eddie.

Maddie doesn’t seem shocked by this Earth-shattering realization at all. “Buck.”

“No. No, I can’t–I can’t. I can’t I can’t I can’t–”

He can’t regulate his breathing at all like the air in the room is running away from him, and Maddie seems to give up on trying to talk to him and hugs him instead. She smells like laundry detergent and tea leaves, and her neck is damp where Buck leans down into it. That’s when he remembers that it’s his face that's damp, and he’s still crying. He didn’t know he had so much in him. Impressive.

He just cries for a long time. He stays hunched over in the delicate cage of Maddie’s arms, leaking like a faulty faucet until his breathing calms down, and it feels like an eternity and a half later when it does. He’s winded.

Minutes pass and all he can hear is the sound of his own stuttering breath, the world still turning outside of the house’s windows. Buck wants to, but he knows that he can’t stay like this forever, cowering in his big sister’s arms, so he leans back and away from Maddie. She wipes at his warm face with the sleeve of her sweater.

“Sorry.'“ Buck's voice comes out weak and garbled, so he tries again. “Sorry. I’m sorry."

She looks at him. “What are you apologizing for?”

“It was–that was–” Buck gestures around him vaguely, his arms feeling like they weigh ten tons each. “It’s just. A lot.”

Maddie smiles at him gently. “You’ve always been a lot.” Buck finds himself smiling back a little even though he shouldn’t be smiling at all. “Nothing you tell me could ever be too much,” she says seriously. “That’s what I’m here for. And vice versa. Okay?”

“Okay.” Buck knows that. He’s always known that. Everything still feels too heavy. “Yeah, okay. Um.” He looks down at his still-full mug of tea. “Thank you. Listen, I should go–”

“Absolutely not.” Maddie stands up. “We’re going to the guest room.”

Buck blinks. “Uh.”

Maddie stares at him incredulously. “You think I’m leaving you alone like this? Get up. And bring your tea with you, I’m not letting you waste the good stuff.”

She’s wearing that look on her face that tells him she’s not asking, so he makes things easier for himself and acquiesces. He probably shouldn’t be alone right now anyway. He can’t focus. All he’s thinking is just Eddie Eddie Eddie Eddie Eddie Eddie Eddie Eddie Eddie Eddie Eddie Eddie Eddie Eddie Eddie Eddie Eddie Eddie Eddie Eddie. He loves Eddie. He needs Eddie. Eddie is leaving.

He knows that they should talk about it, and Maddie should knock him upside the head, but none of that happens. It feels like a mercy far too large for him. She should do something, like when he hurt Eddie, and Maddie looked at him with such disappointment he felt the sting for days. When he hurt Eddie, another one of the numerous things in his life that he thought was about something else but was probably always about Eddie. Everything was always about Eddie. He knows he needs that same sting all this time later, but he couldn’t take it right now; he feels flayed open, everything is too raw.

Buck hasn’t shared a bed with Maddie since Hershey. He was so much smaller then, his head tucked into her neck, and she was able to wrap around him. Her bed always seemed so much comfier even though there wasn’t any real difference between his and hers. She was always wearing one of those fuzzy cardigans she used to like; she had one for every color of the rainbow. He still remembers the feeling of the fabric tickling his nose. Now, he feels like an overgrown child curled up next to his sister.

Buck knows he’s going to leave before anyone can wake back up, so he whispers into the dark room, “Can you tell Chimney I’m sorry later.” The streetlights outside the window cast an ivory glow on Maddie’s face. Buck is sorry.

“We love you. Now go to sleep, Buck.”

It all makes sense now, the deafening, dizzying sirens that blared inside of Buck’s head when Eddie said El Paso. He replays every single moment they've ever shared ever since they met, and he thinks, of course it’s Eddie. Because why wouldn’t it be?

He couldn't imagine his life without Eddie because there is no life without Eddie. It’s some sort of sick and cosmic twist of fate that Buck realizes this when Eddie is going to be gone. Seeing Maddie made him feel so much better, but now he’s alone again. Eddie is thinking about leaving, and Buck is wasting time. Buck’s running out of it, but he can’t stop wasting it.

Buck’s gotten good at watching people leave, the best. But this, inexplicably, feels different. Eddie’s not Abby, or Maddie, or Tommy, or Ali, even. He’s Eddie. Buck’s not even being left like he’s used to being left, but this is somehow a whole different animal of a thing for him to process. It’s like when he watched the Earth swallow Eddie, or the bullet hit him. He remembers standing there, watching. He couldn’t do anything. He wasted time.

The thing is, he doesn’t even bother going out this time. He re-downloads a bunch of dating apps.

But they’re more like hookup apps, because Buck isn’t looking for that. How could he, when Eddie is leaving and everything has tilted on its axis? It just doesn’t make sense.

The thing is, the guy is super hot and they don’t even get their pants fully off. They’re just grinding against each other, Buck trying his very best not to crush him where he’s straddled on top of him. The guy pants into his mouth, pawing at Buck’s pants, and he barely gets a hand wrapped around the both of them, slick and hot, when Buck imagines it's Eddie’s hands holding him instead, and his orgasm hits him so hard and so suddenly that his brain melts out of his ears.

Buck remembers being thirteen years old and hitting himself in the head so hard he saw stars.

He wasn’t being reckless, at least, not in his usual way. Maddie had left weeks before, and he had no idea how to deal with it. He just remembers being sad and angry and confused and scared, and he needed somewhere to put all of his crackling energy. He was pacing too quickly around his room, and then he kind of just ran into the wall on purpose, his head smacking against it so hard he crumpled right to the ground like a sandcastle.

It left an ugly dent. His head was throbbing, but he was thinking about just how mad his mother was going to be when she saw the indentation in the neat paint of his bedroom wall.

He was right about her being mad, but that was a commonality. More importantly, he liked the way the pain made his brain go quiet because it was all he could really focus on. It was different than scraping his knees all over the pavement or digging his nails into his wrists so hard that he drew little crescent moons of blood. It was more of a shock. It snapped him back into place. He stopped all his crying. Getting tackled to the ground when he played football in high school was even better.

So Buck hits himself nearly two decades later, just a couple hard strikes of the skin of his palm against the side of his head. Then he scrapes his face all over the rough brick of his loft walls until the skin on his cheeks splits open. It doesn’t hurt enough, but it’ll have to do. He has a shift.

He just needs to knock his brain around a bit, get it working correctly. Give it a hard reset. Everything is all wrong, and he needs everything to be right.

Hen sees him first. “Hey, Buck–Jesus, what happened to your face?”

Buck probably should have looked in the mirror, but he couldn’t bring himself to. He didn’t know what he would see. “Bad fall,” he says, and it’s such an obvious lie, but he can’t bring himself to fix it. Maybe he really should have a bad fall, toss himself down his loft stairs and feel himself crumple to the ground.

He squeezes her arm and passes her before she can try and probe at him, and he feels bad. Her arm is so warm, she smells like Hen. It’d be so easy to seek her out for comfort and tell her, but he doesn’t even know where he’d start. He was too much of a coward to even finish his conversation with Maddie, it’d be too much. Everything is too much.

He buttons his shirt all the way up and makes a beeline to the bathrooms, blessedly empty. He doesn’t want to look at himself, but he looks at himself. His hair is tangled into knots, eyes almost bloodshot, but none of that matters. There’s fine red lines and scrapes all over the apples of his cheeks and his forehead, like he’d gotten into it with a rabid cat. Blood pebbled out of the largest one, dried up and browning.

He raids first aid and slaps bandaids all over his face. He has to calm down. He needs to calm down, now.

He wished for it to be a busy, distracting shift, but it’s just calm. Much too calm. Minor calls. A lift assist, an open hydrant. A cooking fire. He has too much time to think. Too much time to feel Eddie next to him, and wonder what his absence will feel like instead. Too much time to work beside him and marvel at how good they are at being partners. Too much time to watch Eddie laugh from across the room and wonder how he ever thought it could be someone else. Too much time to look at Eddie and think, with startling and stupefying clarity, I love you. It all makes sense now.

His knee always wakes up when it gets colder. He has to go downstairs and catch his breath on the locker room bench in between calls, stretching his leg out. He takes deep breaths that don’t help.

He doesn’t know how long he sits there, staring at his feet. Eventually, Chimney sits down next to him. Buck didn’t even hear him come in, he’s always been light on his feet like that. Or maybe Buck will just never be able to focus ever again.

Chimney doesn’t ask about the bandaids. He crosses his arms over his chest and says, “I know about Eddie.”

And God, why does everyone keep saying that to him? Something’s going on with Eddie, now look at Buck. Is he that obvious? Has he been like this the whole time, and everyone just let him be?

“Maddie told you,” Buck doesn’t ask.

“No. Eddie told me and Hen.”

“Oh.” Buck doesn’t know what to say. Nothing is worth saying.

Chimney lets him stew in it for a bit. He could just stay there on that bench forever, his leg throbbing in time with his heartbeat, and never move again.

“Okay,” Chimney says. “Look. I’m saying this because I love you, and you’re my brother. You’re close to self-destructing, Buck. I can see it. And you need to do something about it.”

He doesn’t know what he thought Chimney would say, but that’s—Buck’s not a bomb. He’s fine. No, he’s not fine, but he thought he could regulate his emotions so much better now, and it’s all coming undone because. His need for Eddie is so bone-deep that it manifests as a physical ache, he has so much love for him and it needs to go somewhere, anywhere, he can’t take it. And everyone can see it now. He’s exposed, and it’s so ugly.

“No. It’s just–I mean, he’s leaving.” Buck shakes his head and hopes to uproot his brain. “He’s our family. D-don’t you feel sad? Heartbroken?”

Chimney looks at him with a slight purse of his lip. “Buck. I’m sad that Eddie’s leaving us, of course I am. But not like this.”

“Oh,” Buck says. Not everyone is in love with Eddie. “Right.”

“You have to talk to him.” Chimney rests a hand on his shoulder, and for the first time ever, it doesn’t bring Buck comfort.

“I’ve been talking to him.”

“Really talk to him,” Chimney says. “You can’t let this fester. You know that never ends well.”

Like last time remains unspoken. Yeah, Buck is a piece of shit. The worst. He digs his nails into his palm, but they’re too short and bitten-down to draw any blood.

“Sure,” Buck says. “Yeah, yeah.”

Chimney looks at him like he doesn’t believe him. Buck wants to laugh suddenly. Does he know? He must know. If he didn’t before, he must now. Buck burrows his fingertips into the vicious throb of his knee instead.

“I’ll handle it. I, uh, I need to think.”

“That’d be a first for you,” Chimney says to lighten things up, because he’s so good at small mercies, and Buck does laugh this time. Chimney should call him stupid a couple more times for good measure. Buck knows that he doesn’t ever mean it, but he should.

The rest of shift passes in a Gaussian blur of a haze. Buck feels untethered to his body, and no, he is not avoiding Eddie, because that’d be juvenile. He’s just—he needs to think. He needs time that he doesn’t have.

It’s closing in on twelve in the morning when he has his first moment alone with Eddie since the start of shift. He can’t believe he managed to hold out for so long.

Buck’s on the roof. It’s all dusky, not a single visible star in the sky. The LA skyline is beautiful. He thinks about what it’d be like to jump off, even though he doesn’t actually want to. Just the pain of it, not the finality.

“Buck,” Eddie says from somewhere behind him, and Buck wonders if he’s so far gone that he’s hallucinating Eddie’s voice too, like some kind of guiding North Star.

But he hears Buck again, and then Eddie is materializing beside him, Galatea brought to life by Pygmalion’s desire.

“Hey,” Buck says.

Eddie copies him and leans his arms on the railing, staring out into the foggy night. “Hey.”

They stand there in silence for a while, and Buck allows himself one look at Eddie. Somehow, it’s like Buck is seeing him in a new light. He looks just the same as he always does, beautiful from the strong line of his brow to the sculptured jut of his jaw, but it's like the wool has been pulled from over Buck’s eyes, and he really sees him.

And he looks dastardly tired. Buck’s been so caught up that he hasn’t been asking Eddie how he’s feeling. He’s the worst.

“How are you?” Buck asks. It’s a stupid question. He wishes he could just make everything better, slay every single one of Eddie’s dragons and scare all the monsters out from under his bed.

Eddie starts nodding to himself like he’s really considering Buck’s question. “I called my mom,” he says, which isn’t really an answer yet. “And she said something to me that got me–it got me thinking.”

Buck knows Helena Diaz in bits and pieces. She’s more like a character from a storybook than an actual person, but Buck knows that the perfume she wears makes his nose itchy. But from the hangdog look haunting Eddie’s face, well, he knows it can’t mean anything good.

“What did she say?”

Eddie twists his mouth around in a circle. “I love her. So I told her. What I was thinking, I mean. Just thinking, not even that I had made a concrete decision, and she said. Well, she basically implied that these kinds of impulse decisions I make are the reason Christopher is with them and not in LA. With me.”

“Oh.” Buck bites the inside of his lip. “Eddie–”

“It’s not an impulse decision,” Eddie continues fervently. “Sure, I’ve done some shit, but I can–I can only go off what’s being shown to me, and I wanna see my son. I need to see my son. And I think–I know he needs me.” He takes a deep breath in. “But I’m wondering. What kind of stuff she’s telling Chris, what she’s feeding into his ear. About me. In general. Why he’s been gone so long, I mean–I hadn’t even thought about it in a while, but she did tell me once not to drag Chris down with me. It’s just. I love my mother a whole lot, but. Chris is my son, you know?”

“I know. I know, Eddie.”

It’s complicated. Buck understands. Eddie runs a frustrated hand through his hair, loosening the strands and letting them fall in his face.

“Well,” Eddie says after a second. “I don’t know if that answered your question.”

Buck shrugs. “I can take an educated guess.”

Eddie smiles at him, a small but sure thing, and Buck feels proud of himself. “Well. You’ve been dodging me all day, what’d you do to your face?”

Buck swallows, his throat turning into sandpaper. Eddie doesn’t know. He didn’t mean it like that, but Buck feels exposed. “I didn't do anything to myself,” he says, and it comes out flatter than intended. But he doesn’t say he had a bad fall, because Eddie can see through all of his bullshit, everywhere and all the time.

Eddie looks at him. Buck feels his face twitch. “I just mean–I wish you would tell me what’s wrong.”

What’s wrong. Buck is the last thing he should be worrying about, but he is anyway, because he cares for him. Eddie cares for him. How could Buck ever let him take even one step in the other direction? He wants to hold him down so he can’t move. He wants to get inside. Buck will be his tapeworm. He’ll be his flesh-eating parasite.

And he can’t say. It's selfish, Buck is always being so selfish. He can’t unload the previously unnameable thing he felt in his chest whenever he looked at Eddie, because he doesn’t need to hear it right now. He can’t tell Eddie that he wants to chain himself to him, because he needs to let Eddie go. Buck is selfish down to his bone. Eddie has already given him so much.

“I just,” Buck starts, and then he stops.

Eddie waits patiently. Buck can’t say anything. He needs time. He doesn’t have any time. “Okay,” Eddie says. “The bandaids are coming off. Lemme fix ‘em.”

Buck lets Eddie find him more bandaids and lead him back to the bathrooms because he’d follow Eddie anywhere, and every delicate brush of his fingertips against Buck's face makes him feel more and more like he’s inside of a human-sized pressure cooker. And maybe Chimney was right.

“All better,” Eddie says when he’s done.

“Yeah,” Buck says. “All better.”

Buck is filled with a sudden and acute sense of dread when their shift ends. He just wants one long, perpetual and never-ending shift he can throw himself into and never come out of.

But he can’t avoid Eddie anymore. “I’m cleaning up,” Eddie says. Buck knows where he is, he’s present and this is real. They’re in the locker room. They’re going home and B-shift is taking over. He has control over all five of his senses. He’s fine. “Throwing out stuff I don’t need, and I can't find my portable charger. You don’t happen to have it, do you?”

Buck has a lot of Eddie’s stuff, actually, just like Eddie has a lot of his. There’s pieces of him everywhere. “Maybe,” Buck says, shrugging on his hoodie. “I can look for it.”

“I’ll come get it. Follow you home.”

Eddie doesn’t need to do that, but Buck wants him to.

As it turns out, Buck does have Eddie’s portable charger, shoved in a bottom drawer and forgotten about. Buck definitely meant to give it back to him. It’s stupid, but he almost wants to keep it, some form of proof that Eddie had ever stepped inside of his loft, that he left a mark.

“I wonder what other things you’re hoarding in here that belong to me,” Eddie jokes, shoving his charger into his duffel.

Well, Buck wants to know too. He wants to keep hoarding them, maybe sleep with them under his pillow like a dragon hoarding precious treasure.

“Shit,” Eddie says before Buck can come up with a normal response, “I forgot I had a meeting right after shift. Can I just use your shower real quick?”

“Yup,” Buck says normally. “Yeah, yeah, sure.”

Buck runs as far away from the bathroom as he can, lest he have more freaky sex hallucinations about Eddie with the knowledge that he’s naked on the other side of the door, busying himself with cleaning his kitchen that’s already clean and making a fresh pot of coffee.

His heart is beating so fast, and he doesn’t even know why. He’ll just keel over from heart failure before he even has the chance to self-destruct into Buck-shaped pieces of shrapnel.

Eddie comes out of the bathroom in a rush with his hair stuck in his eyes and an LAFD sweatshirt halfway on. Buck passes him a thermos full of coffee.

“Thanks, man.” Eddie cranes his head toward Buck’s front door. “You coming with?”

He keeps wanting Buck there, and over there, and everywhere. And Buck is glad, he’d give Eddie any and every thing he ever wanted if he could. It’s a fault in the design of the universe that he can’t. But he needs time to think, he needs—time that he doesn't have. He has no time, but he can’t stop wasting it.

“I’m, uh. I’m a little tired,” Buck says, and it isn’t even a full lie. “Next one.”

Eddie stares at him a little too long, dripping all over Buck’s floors. “Alright. I’ll see you later.”

Buck watches him go, the strong lines of his neck and shoulders, and feels the weight of his absence immediately. It settles over him like a heavy fog.

But he should run errands. He should get clean.

Eddie’s work t-shirt is crumpled up in the corner of the bathroom where he must have slung it off and forgotten it, lying in an unceremonious heap.

Buck picks it up and feels inexplicably sad. He should keep it. Eddie’s dirty shirt. Buck knows Eddie. Buck knows the metallic tang of Eddie's blood, shot out of him and bursting on his tongue like a firework. What’s a little sweat?

He shoves his face into it, is faintly aware somewhere in the back of his mind that he should feel some semblance of shame, and breathes in as deep as he can.

Buck stays like that, with his face pressed into Eddie’s shirt, for a long, long time. He has no time for any errands now—he needs to commit this smell to memory. Stay there until he’ll never be able to forget it even for a second.

He forgoes the shower, crumpling into his bed and hiding under the covers. He yanks his own shirt off and replaces it with Eddie’s. It’s too tight under his arms, riding up his hips. It smells like Eddie, and his essence and his sweat. It’s settling.

Buck smells like Eddie’s sweat when he wakes up. He’s never going to take a shower again. He hopes the smell will linger long after Eddie is gone.

Now that Buck has a name for the unnamable thing, a lost word found and matched up to its definition, it feels like it’s going to burst out of him any second. He’s not one to hide things from Eddie. But he can’t put this on him now; it’s too heavy. It’s too much, and it has nowhere to go.

He drives to Eddie’s house.

It’s gloomy enough to make him want to stay inside and waste his day off in front of his TV, but—he just needs to see. He needs to see Eddie.

Buck lets himself in, and there’s trash bags and boxes everywhere, a perfect picture of organized chaos. He feels his hackles raise.

“Eddie?” he calls out, and he drags his feet across the floor and peers his head into the kitchen like a final girl in a horror movie. Eddie must not have heard him. He’s preoccupied with a trash bag on his table, tossing stuff into it like a madman.

“Uh,” Buck says again, louder. “Eddie?”

He snaps his head up and drops whatever little trinket he was holding, looking like he’s just seen a real-life ghost. “Buck.”

He looks unreasonably guilty, like he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t. Buck approaches him slowly with his hands up as if Eddie will flee at any moment. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

“Did you–did you, uh, sell the house already without me knowing?”

He means to say it lightly, jokingly, appropriately. And he does, but it’s so light that it just isn’t at all. And it makes it sound like Eddie has to consult with him first, because it’s his house too. And it’s not his house. But isn’t it?

“No,” Eddie says very seriously. Buck notices that his hands are shaking fiercely. “No, I’m just. Getting rid of things I don’t need.”

“That’s, uh, a lot of things,” Buck says uneasily, gesturing around them.

Eddie nods emphatically. “Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I just need to, uh. I just need–” He picks up an old coffee mug from his obscene pile of things, the ceramic rattling around in his grip and one shake away from becoming a heap of shards on the ground.

“Hey, uh.” Buck approaches him slowly, heart in his throat. He extracts the mug out of Eddie’s death grip, and Eddie doesn’t fight him. He sets it down on the table. “Maybe you should sit down.”

“No. No, I can’t. I need to stand.” Eddie’s voice is otherwise steady and calm, but the tremor puppeteering his body gives him away.

“Okay. Okay. Okay.” Buck shouldn’t be, but he’s acutely reminded of that terrible day he found Eddie on the floor holding a baseball bat, despair palpable in the room. “But you just–can you at least tell me what’s wrong?”

Eddie laughs sardonically, the sound bitter and godawful. “Nothing. I mean.” He heaves a sigh and runs his hand down his face, then up and down. “I’m stuck.”

Buck blinks. “Stuck…?”

Eddie looks toward the window, everything cast in a deplorable gray film. “I didn't…it’s all up to me, do you know what I’m saying? I’m doing it all backwards. It’s like–logistically, I'm ready to take the next steps, sell the house—I mean, I already found an agent—but it’s like. I physically can’t do it.” He pauses. Says quieter, “I didn’t know it would feel like this.”

Buck swallows so hard it leaves an ache. “Didn’t know what would feel like this?”

“Leaving,” Eddie says plainly, and he looks at Buck, really looks at him.

Buck goes a little hysterical, scratches at his neck to fend away Eddie’s feverous gaze like a physical brand on his skin. He has to fix this. He has to be supportive, remind Eddie that he’s not the impulsive maniac failure of a father his parents probably make him feel like. “Well, you’re, I mean. C’mon, Eddie. Just think about what you’re doing it for. Who you’re doing it for. It's good!” Overcompensating. “Very good. Great.”

“Great,” Eddie parrots back flatly. “Yeah, it’s great. At least, you’re acting like it is.”

Buck backs away involuntarily. “I–what?”

“Why can't you just say it, Buck.”

“Say what?”

Eddie gestures in his face vaguely. “Whatever’s been so clearly on your mind.”

Buck’s heart beats all the way up to settle in his throat, choking him out. “Nothing. Nothing’s on my mind.”

Quiet. “Okay,” Eddie says after a second, but it’s not his usual okay that actually means okay.

He’s forcing Buck’s hand. He’s not supposed to say anything. He’s supposed to be good. “Fine,” Buck says anyway, tremulous. “Okay. Okay, fine. I hate it.”

“You hate…?”

Eddie’s asking. Buck can’t deny him. “I hate that you’re leaving. Not why you’re leaving, never that, but the mere fact you are. Okay? Is that what you want me to say? I’ll say it. I hate it more than I’ve hated anything in my whole entire life.”

Eddie looks shocked, and how can he not know that Buck would sit at his feet for the rest of his life if Eddie let him? “You didn’t say anything,” he says quietly.

“How could I?” Buck laughs pathetically. “I didnt wanna ruin your–joy.”

Eddie does a funny little thing with his mouth. “You think leaving is gonna bring me joy.”

“Well, not like–no. But.” Buck tosses his hands up, hopes Eddie can forgive him. “Going where Chris is. You know that will bring you joy, even if it’s hard.” Buck sighs. “I want you to be happy, Eddie. However and wherever that is, even if it’s not here. I want you to–to do what you want. Whatever you have to do.” But God, Buck is ugly and selfish when it comes to him. “I’m sorry.”

Dreadfully, wretchedly, Buck watches as Eddie’s lip quivers an infinitesimal amount, close enough to see. “You’re s–” Eddie cuts himself off. “Why do you keep doing that? Why do you keep saying sorry?”

“It's not good. I’m not–I’m not supposed to say anything.”

“Buck,” Eddie says desperately. “Say what? You gotta help me out here.”

Buck digs his nails into the skin of his palms. “I have to let you go,” he breathes. “Because I love—oh.”

Quiet again.

“What,” Eddie says distantly.

“I. Nothing.”

Oh, here he goes. Doing what he does best. Buck wishes he could shut up forever. And forever and ever and ever over and over again.

“You.” Eddie blinks rapidly, looking like a deer all caught up in headlights. “You love what, Buck?”

“I didn’t mean to,” Buck says immediately, feeling sick to his stomach so suddenly and so violently that his knees almost give out. He needs to pay for this one. “I-I wasn’t gonna say anything. I wasn’t supposed to say anything. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

“Buck.” Eddie grabs his wrist. Buck hadn’t realized that he’s the one shaking now. “Tell me,” he says with conviction, making sure they’re looking each other in the eyes, and there’s no way Buck is making it out of this one alive. “What do you love?”

Okay. Shit. “You.” Buck can’t deny Eddie anything. “You, Eddie, okay? I love you so much it–it tears me apart. I can't stand you leaving because you're my best friend, but more than that I just. I love you. I’m in love with you. I guess I. Always have been.”

Cat’s out of the bag. Buck is breathing way too heavily for the quiet of the house, chest heaving like something is going to burst out of him. And Eddie isn’t saying anything, silent, because Buck has finally ruined this, the number one thing in his life he’s tried his hardest to be deserving of.

“I wanted you to ask me to stay,” Eddie says eventually, eyes smoldering like hilltops on fire. “It doesn’t make any sense. I can’t stay, but I wanted you to ask me anyway. And I’ve been here, trying to figure out why, why it felt like this, and now you–”

“Eddie.”

Eddie takes a steadying breath, his thumb digging into the pulse point in Buck’s wrist, no doubt able to feel how thunderously it’s beating. “I thought about it. Me and you.”

“Oh.” Buck feels that collapse again. Large-scale, all-encompassing. But he’s not dying this time—it’s more like waking up, or being given CPR, the life being breathed back to him. Black and white transforming into brilliant and vibrant technicolor.

“I didn’t know,” Eddie says with heavy weight. “I didn’t know it could feel like this either.”

Buck doesn’t do things in halves, so he kisses Eddie.

Buck’s touched Eddie a whole lot. They shake hands, they hug. They pat each other on the back, they high-five. They brush. They squeeze. Buck has pressed Eddie’s blood back into his body. But this, Buck thinks distantly, maybe this is what he was put on this Earth to do all along. The reason for his creation. There’s no more buzzing.

Eddie makes a wounded sound in the back of his throat and Buck cradles him, has to make sure that he knows, has to make sure that he’s real. He’s faintly aware somewhere in the back of his mind that he should feel some semblance of remorse, but how could kissing Eddie ever be anything even close to a mistake?

Buck steps away much too soon, and there’s an audible smack. “Oh. Wow.”

“Wow?” Eddie asks just to be an asshole, but it really doesn’t have any of its usual snark to it. And Buck can’t take him too seriously because he’s open-mouthed and glassy-eyed, red from his head to his toes. Buck wants to feel it, and then he realizes that maybe he can.

“I don't know why I said that. That was stupid.”

Buck wants to feel it, and then realizes that maybe he can. So he reaches out to rest his fingertips across the vein on the side of his neck. He’s hot to the touch. Eddie is thrumming with life, breathing, real. Right here with him. He’s always been right here with him.

“Buck,” Eddie says reverently, like something has just been clicked into place, and pulls him back in.

Eddie kisses him like he’s trying to steal his oxygen supply, and Buck would gladly let him. It means Eddie will keep breathing. Buck holds onto him for dear life, pressing his finger into that vein, so close to finally reaching inside of him. Eddie’s neck, Eddie’s mouth, Eddie’s hands in a bruising grip on his hips. His feet are back on the ground. Eddie is real, and Buck is real too.

“Buck,” Eddie says again when they pull away from each other, and Buck has never heard anything better. He rests their foreheads together. “I love you. That’s why it feels like this. I get it.”

Eddie sounds sure, surer than anything, like how everyone knows that the sky is blue and grass is green. Stop signs are red. Oranges are orange. Buck is in love. “That’s good,” Buck whispers.

Eddie nods. “Good.”

“I love you,” Buck says. “You have to go.”

“Yeah,” Eddie breathes. “Yeah. Yes.”

Buck hugs him, and maybe if he hugs him tightly enough they'll become one. And wouldn't that be a treat? Eddie’s head over his shoulder, Buck’s hands on his back, forever and ever and ever and then forever again.

He holds Eddie for a long, long time.

The thing is, Eddie doesn’t sell the house just yet. The other thing is, he leaves.

LAX is some sort of liminal space in the early morning, or maybe a vortex. It sucks up everything Buck loves with no remorse. But Eddie is different. It doesn’t matter, though. Even if he finds a house out there, it doesn’t matter. Buck’s not being left.

Eddie is Eddie. He’s not anyone else, not like anyone else, because Eddie keeps his promises. He doesn’t know what’s waiting for him in El Paso, but he’s falling in headfirst anyway, because he has to see. Buck is glad that Chris has Eddie, the best person he knows. He’s never been more glad about anything in his whole entire life.

“Can’t forget this,” Buck says, passing Eddie his suitcase out of the back of his Jeep. Buck rolls it over, but Eddie puts his hand over Buck’s on the handle.

“I don’t know how long,” Eddie says seriously.

“That’s alright,” Buck says.

“But could be a while,” Eddie shrugs. “Weeks. Months. A couple of years, maybe, hell, even a decade or two–”

“Alright,” Buck laughs. “Funny guy.” It wouldn’t matter, though. Eddie can take as long as he needs to sort through all of this. He’s so good.

“Alright.” Buck lets go and Eddie rolls his suitcase toward himself, but he doesn’t move his body.

“You’re my best friend,” Buck says, and he shoves his hands in his pockets so he doesn’t do anything stupid.

Eddie pulls him in for a hug so crushing Buck’s bones must pulverize into dust, and that’s the way it was meant to be. They hold each other for a long, long time.

Buck will be waiting. He’ll keep everything warm for Eddie.