Chapter Text
Part II
It’s been forever my dear, but I can’t stop here, because I know where it’s going.
---
Here’s the thing.
The 118 is the best thing that ever happened to him.
Not only is it the only job he’s ever held for this long, but it’s one he looks forward to going to everyday. He gets to save lives. It’s given him a purpose to get up every morning. More importantly than that, though, it’s given him a family.
Bobby is the father figure that he never had. He’s taught him more life lessons than his actual father ever had. Chimney is the annoying older brother he never wanted (and if things continue like they are, this might actually be true) – Buck rolls his eyes at that thought. Hen is like that cool cousin you always want to be around who just makes every situation better.
And then there’s Eddie.
Eddie Diaz is his best friend. The best best friend that he’s ever had, in fact. It’s only been two years, but they’re to the point where he can’t really picture his life without him. He makes him feel safe and like he can be himself without risk of any kind of judgement. No one has ever made him feel that way before.
So when he suddenly pronounces that he loves him while Buck is washing his dishes, of all things, he gets thrown for a little bit of a loop. His brain momentarily stops working while his heart goes into overdrive.
“I’m sorry?” He regrets the words as soon as they come out. Who the hell says I’m sorry after someone says they love them.
Eddie assures him that he doesn’t have to say anything back and makes a comment about how he isn’t even clear on Buck’s sexuality and if it was even a remote possibility. The comment brings up feelings long pushed away and buried from years and years ago, but Buck shakes his head before he can fall too deeply into those memories. He needs to focus on the situation at hand.
“Eds…” He doesn’t know where to go from that, doesn’t know what to say or how to act.
“It’s okay. This doesn’t have to change anything. You’re a part of this family. I just wanted you to know that.”
There’s that word again. Family. It fills Buck with warmth that he wants to stay cocooned in forever. He continues staring at the man across from him, standing in a spot Buck’s seen him in several times before as they talk while cleaning or cooking in the kitchen he spends more time in than his own.
He comes back to himself and nods slowly. “This just took me by surprise, man.”
“It’s okay, Buck,” Eddie reassures him, “it’ll only change things if you let it.”
And that’s true, isn’t it? Eddie seems very calm about the situation, happy, almost, and he can hear the honesty in his voice and knows that he doesn’t expect anything to come from this.
“We’re good?” Buck asks him nervously, because the last thing he wants is for them not to be good and for him to lose this thing that they’ve created in the last few years. He needs them in his life like he needs Maddie. He can’t lose them.
“We’re good,” Eddie assures him, and Buck feels like he can breathe properly for the first time since Eddie started speaking.
Later, when he had returned to his loft and had been staring up at the ceiling watching his ceiling fan circulate for almost an hour, Buck let himself think.
Holy shit, what a night.
Eddie loves him. Eddie is in love with him. He doesn’t know what to do with that information, but there’s a panic slithering up his body and wrapping around his throat that he can’t seem to stop. This can’t be happening. It can’t.
Eddie is his best friend. His best friend in the whole entire world.
He can’t stop his mind from flashing back to a time when he had another best friend. Lucas had been in his classes since he could remember. They were 15 and didn’t know what love was, but they did know what attraction felt like. They just didn’t know that being attracted to someone with the same body parts as you wasn’t a totally socially acceptable thing. They had let those feelings take over halfway through watching a movie and his dad had walked in on them not too long after. What followed was…terrifying.
His father was calm at first. He was making Lucas go home, but he figured it was no different than if he would have gotten caught with a girl in his bedroom. Buck stupidly thought that meant it was fine.
How wrong he was.
As soon as Lucas and his mom walked out the door, Buck found himself on the ground. It took him a moment for the pain to set in and for him to realize that his dad had just hit him. It didn’t stop there, and by the time his mother had ran into the room and pulled his dad off of him, Buck could hardly move from where he was bloodied and bruised on the ground.
“If I ever,” he had spat out, “find out that you are having these thoughts, and God help you, acting on them, you’ll wish I would have killed you tonight. Do you understand me?”
Buck did, and he vowed he would never give his father another chance to hurt him like this.
He never spoke to Lucas again.
He hasn’t let himself think of any man like that in over 10 years, and while in the back of his mind he knows if it’s going to be anyone it’s going to be Eddie, because of course it would, he can’t risk losing them.
He can’t.
If that means breaking his best friend’s heart to selfishly save his own, then so be it.
---
It’s been two weeks, and Buck hasn’t stopped thinking about Eddie freaking Diaz. It’s like the words are on a constant loop in his head, and all of a sudden, he’s just noticing everything. He notices the sound of Eddie’s laugh, and the crinkle he gets in the corner of his eyes when he smiles. He notices how soft his hands are when they brush against his, which is surprising considering the work they do. But then he notices how Eddie almost compulsively washes his hands and lotions them after every call. He notices the way his body tenses before he takes a deep breath and releases all of the negative energy before running headfirst into a burning building. Just…everything.
It’s driving him crazy and he doesn’t know what it means.
He doesn’t know if this means he’s attracted to Eddie, or if he returns his feelings. Or if all of this is just because Eddie planted the idea in his head and now Buck’s mind is playing tricks on him.
He just doesn’t know.
They’re watching Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince when Buck finds himself staring at Eddie over Christopher’s head while they all sit on the couch. His face has a few days’ worth of scruff on it. His hair has grown out a little bit from when he cut it short, and it’s more like it was when they had first met. Long enough for Buck to run his fingers through it, if he so chose to.
And where did that come from?
He watches him for another moment, watches the way he stretches and wraps his arm around Christopher, pulling him closer and pressing a kiss to his head. The scene makes Buck’s heart swell and his body warm and he thinks how wonderful it would be to have that, and how lucky whoever Eddie ends up with is going to be.
It hits him when he’s lying in bed that night that he could be that person.
Well, damn.
---
They’re both working an unordinary Sunday shift when Buck decides to take a chance. He doesn’t plan it, and only really makes up his mind about it when he walks into the locker room to see Eddie with his back to him sitting on the bench. He turns his head to see who had walked in and lifts his chin in acknowledgement.
“What’s up?”
He wasn’t expecting his breath to catch in his throat.
“Hey,” he manages to get out, and he goes to clap Eddie on the back like he has done a thousand times before. Only the feel of his clothed skin under his hand gives him pause, and he lingers for maybe a moment too long.
Fuck.
“You good?” Eddie asks him, and Buck flushes at being called out.
He clears his throat and nods his head. “Yeah.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, man. I’m good.” Eddie stares at him for a moment before he sighs and nods. He sounds slightly dejected when he responds, and Buck starts panicking when he stands to walk out of the room. He only makes it a few steps before Buck is making a grab for his arm.
What is he doing?
Eddie turns to look at him, and Buck can tell by the look in his eyes that he’s asking the same thing.
What is he doing, after all? He didn’t walk into this room with any intentions. He doesn’t even know what he wants. Or…he does. Maybe.
“Can I –“ God, how does he do this. How does he tell him that he wants to see if what he thinks he’s feeling is actually existent and not just in his head? That he wants to see if his mind is playing tricks on him.
“Can you…?”
“I want – “ What does he want? He wonders if Eddie can hear how loud his heart is beating, because he feels like the sound is filling more than just his head. His hand is still on Eddie’s wrist, and the other man’s skin feels warm under his fingertips.
“You want…?”
Buck is opening his mouth to respond, to just come out and say it, when the alarm sounds. It takes everything in him not to groan out loud. Eddie gives him a small smirk and throws him a wink, and it sends Buck’s heart into overdrive again.
“Guess I’ll never know, now, huh?” He steps away, and Buck thinks the emotion that goes through him when they’re no longer touching is disappointment.
Well, that’s interesting.
---
Buck chickens out of doing anything when they get back from the call they went on, and even when they got off shift that day. And the next….and the next…and the next few after that. He can’t bring himself to risk this. Eddie is his best friend. He remembers what it was like not having him during the lawsuit debacle, and it was the worst time he’s had in the last 2 years. If he acts on these feelings he thinks he might have and then messes something up and winds up back in that situation, what would he do with himself?
He’s startled from his thoughts when Hen slides over and throws her arm on the booth behind him.
“Let me level with you, Buckaroo.” She has that no-nonsense, don’t try and excuse your way out of this one voice one. Not quite her mom voice, because Buck has heard her with Denny, but it’s her…well, Mother Hen voice that she uses so often with the 118.
“What did I do?”
“You see, it’s not what you did,” she explains, “It’s what you haven’t done yet.”
His brows furrow in confusion. “What does that even mean?”
“I mean, I don’t know what’s been going on with you the last few weeks, but I know it involves our boy back there.” She nods her head behind them, and Buck turns to look at who she’s referring to, even if he didn’t have to. Eddie had just left a moment ago to go get them another round of drinks. He watches his back before he disappears into the crowd.
“I don’t – “
“If you say you don’t know what I’m talking about, I might hit that pretty boy face of yours.”
They stare at each other for a moment, Buck trying to read her face to see how much she could possibly know and what he could get away with excusing. The answer, he finds, is everything and nothing all at the same time.
“Hen…”
“Eddie told me.”
“He told you?”
“Yes,” she nodded, “who else would understand as much as I do?” She raises a challenging eyebrow at him, and Buck has the decency to blush in embarrassment. “Look, Buck. I’ve been paying a lot of attention since we talked, and I think what you want is obvious. I think you’re just scared to let yourself have it.”
He doesn’t respond, but he knows he doesn’t have to – Hen always has a way of knowing people.
“We can talk about it later, because I know you aren’t ready right now and I’m not the one you should have this conversation with first,” she says pointedly, nodding her head back again. “But you deserve happiness, Buck. That’s all I’m going to say.”
He has a hard time believing that, which doesn’t come as a surprise. But her words fill him with motivation because he could at least try, couldn’t he. He’s nodding his head and moving to slide out of the booth when a thought occurs to him and he turns sharply to face her.
“You have money on this, don’t you?”
Hen doesn’t even deny it, simply sending him a smirk and a shrug. “Make a move by the weekend, won’t you?”
He gapes at her in disbelief before she’s shoving him out of the booth again. He barely catches himself from falling to the ground, but he’s up and moving before she can say anything else to him.
Here goes nothing.
“Hey.”
Eddie looks up from his phone and shoots him a smile, and damnit if Buck’s heart doesn’t start beating a little bit harder. He tries to play it off as nerves, but knows that it’s possible that it’s just Eddie’s smile that’s causing the almost painful thump, thump, thump in his chest.
“Hey back,” he said once he finishes his text and puts his phone away. “You change your mind about the beer?”
Buck shakes his head, and he hopes his nerves aren’t visible on his face. “No, I just wanted to catch you alone.”
A blush immediately forms on his cheeks. When did he become so awkward? Flirting has never been an issue with him. Then again, he’s never flirted with his best friend whose friendship means everything to him and who the thought of losing for fucking this up scares the absolute hell out of him. He tries to stutter out an apology, or an explanation, but his words get jumbled and his face flames with embarrassment. Eddie’s voice finally breaks through his stuttering.
“Buck. BUCK! It’s okay man. I thought we said we weren’t going to make this awkward?”
“I’m not – I don’t mean to make it awkward.” And he doesn’t. Honestly. He just doesn’t know how to do this – whatever this is. He can tell Eddie is starting to get frustrated with him, and he feels a bit of panic bubbling up in him. That’s the last thing he wants to happen. He has to do something to fix it, has to swallow his own nerves and get that calm, welcoming look back on his best friends face. This is what he was afraid of.
“Well, you aren’t doing too well.” Buck can’t really take the criticism. He knows that he’s messing this up. He should just stop now. Get his drink and go back to the table and pretend this never happened.
But that would just put him back at square one. He steels himself for what he’s about to do. Absently, he sees Eddie’s eyes widen just a bit.
“I want to try something. If you – if you wouldn’t mind.” He’s laid out his intentions. There’s no going back now.
“I guess that depends on what you want to try, doesn’t it?” Eddie’s smiling now, and Buck takes that as motivation. He lets out a nervous breath of laughter and takes a step forward. He reaches his hand out to connect to the skin of Eddie’s wrist, but he doesn’t stop there. The pads of his fingertips trail up the length of his arm, and he can feel the goosebumps that are left in his tracks. He stops when he reaches his shoulder and lets himself stare, dazed for a moment.
Eddie’s words barely register to him when he tells him not to do something he’ll regret.
“That’s not – “ Buck inhales, finding the last shred of strength and determination he needs for what he’s about to do. “That’s not why I’m doing it.”
“Then why?”
But Buck doesn’t answer. The smell of Eddie’s cologne is invading his senses, and he takes another step forward. Quickly, before he can talk himself out of it, he leans down and presses his lips against Eddie’s. It’s quick, over in just a flash because Buck doesn’t want to push, and once he gets that first taste, it’s like his mind explodes and he knows, he knows, if he keeps going, he’s not going to stop. Because that was…nothing like he ever experienced, and nothing like he’ll ever experience again.
It was peace and tranquility overlapping excitement and heat and he wanted to do it again.
Instead, he answers Eddie’s question from before.
“Because I wanted to.”
And God, did he want to do it again.
Later on that night, he gets that opportunity. This time, it wasn’t a thought-out decision that he spent weeks agonizing over. They were walking together in the parking lot like they had done dozens of times before, and all of a sudden Buck is pushing Eddie up against the side of his Jeep and crashing their lips together. It’s chaos and pleasure and happiness all at the same time. Vaguely, in the back of his mind, Buck wonders if every kiss with this man will evoke a different emotion. He steps closer, pressing himself against Eddie’s warm body and gripping his sides in his hands.
Kissing Abby had been special. But kissing Eddie…it was like coming home, and isn’t that the much cliché thing he’s ever thought in his whole entire life? He can’t help but smile when he pulls away – an actual smile, sincere and tranquil.
Eddie is opening his mouth to speak when his phone starts ringing in his pocket. He frowns, but Buck knows not many people would be calling him this late at night. He can see that the screen says “Abuela” and he knows the older woman is watching Christopher overnight. He can’t help it when his own heart clenches in worry.
Eddie speaks with her quickly, and because Buck is standing so close, he can hear the entire conversation. Chris had a nightmare about the Tsunami, and he’s been crying for his dad. His clenched heart sinks and he can’t help the flash of Chris being pulled away from him in a wave of water cross his mind. He still hates himself for that day, no matter how much time has passed.
“Go,” he says gently, laying his hand above Eddie’s heart, “It’s okay.”
“We need to talk about this, don’t you think?” Eddie asks a moment later, and Buck shrugs.
“It’s Christopher.”
A look passes on Eddie’s face that Buck has never seen before, but thinks that he wants to see again because the next thing he knows, his breath is getting taken away from him as Eddie’s lips crash against his.
All too soon, he’s pulling away from him and speaking to his son on the phone. The vision he gives Buck, though, sends him into overdrive. He’s leaning against the dark exterior of the Jeep, his head leaning against the window and his eyes closed. His hair is mused from where Buck ran his fingers through it, and his lips are swollen to match his own. He looks…beautiful.
They exchange promises to speak later, and Buck is impressed with his own self-restraint when Eddie all but invites him over. As he’s going to walk around to the driver’s side, a thought suddenly hits Buck. How must Eddie be feeling right now? He laid his heart out for him weeks ago, and now Buck was going around kissing him with no explanation.
“Eddie,” he says, quickly turning around to face him. Eddie was halfway into his truck when their eyes meet again. “I don’t regret this, okay?” he assures him, and knows he did the right thing when he sees relief wash over the older man’s face. “We’ll talk.”
He smiles at him again, and Buck thinks he might be done for.
---
Buck doesn’t want the conversation to be too delayed for fear of talking himself out of it. Or, at this point, even worse, Eddie changing his mind. He brings it up the next day, shortly after they finish their weekly movie night with Christopher. The child had retired to his room to read some of his book before bed, and Eddie and Buck were double-teaming the dishes as they’ve done so many times before.
“My first kiss was with a guy.”
He can tell that he’s startled Eddie with his words by the way his body jerks and his eyes widen when they meet his. He shrugs softly, fiddling with the dish towel in his hands. He takes a deep, steadying breath to try and calm his shaking hands and beating heart before he speaks.
“You said a few weeks ago that you didn’t know if I was into men or not, but my first kiss was with a guy.” He goes on to explain how it had been with one of his closest friends, a boy in his class, who had been staying over at his house. His dad had walked in on them. He didn’t go into detail about how exactly his father had reacted, didn’t mention how Buck had feared for his life that night and it was only his mother running in that stopped his dad from killing him, but told him that he was never allowed to speak to his friend again and that that was the last time he had acted on any kind of impulse. Eventually, after years of trying, he was able to push those feelings far enough down where he could pretend they didn’t even exist.
“What changed?” Eddie asked, because how could he not?
“It’d be incredibly corny if I said you, wouldn’t it?”
Eddie laughs, and Buck feels a flutter in his stomach from the sound.
“To be honest with you, man, I don’t know. You’re my best friend. But I’ve had best friends before and have never felt as comfortable with them as I have been with you since the beginning. You make me feel…safe. Does that make sense?” Eddie nods, and Buck continues on, “I think I had pushed any of those feelings aside for so long that I just didn’t realize what they actually meant. And also because I’ve never felt so…intensely about someone else before. but when you hit me out of nowhere with your feelings, it shocked me, but it made me think.”
“I’m sorry –“
“I’m glad you did. I’m just terrified of losing you, Eddie. Of losing Christopher and this thing that the three of us have.”
And there it is, the truth of all of this. Buck was used to being alone before he came to the 118, but then he got to know what real family is and he doesn’t think he could bear it again. So when Eddie takes a step forward after he finishes laying his heart out and places a soft kiss on his lips, and then goes on to say he isn’t going anywhere, he feels reassured that maybe, just maybe, he won’t have to.
---
He realizes that he’s been in love with Eddie Diaz in the most cliché way possible: when he thinks that he’s going to die.
It’s a nasty housefire. He can hear Bobby’s voice in his ear, asking him to report and to get out of there, damnit. The roof was collapsing piece by piece as the seconds went on, and the frantic beeping of his tank signifying the lack of oxygen inside of it had faded to the background as he tried to crawl his way toward where he thought the door was. There’s an intense itching in his throat, and he feels like he’s burning. He falls to the ground when a coughing fit finally overcomes him, and a piece of debris, while not heavy or harmful, startles him when it crashes against his back. He’s scrambling for purchase on something and for energy and to damnit, Evan, call out, when he hears it.
“Buck!”
He knows that voice. That voice has been such a bright light, has been such a constant and vital part of his life for the last two years. In the last month, it’s been more than he could have ever thought he deserved. It’s been everything.
“Buck!”
He tries his best to call out to him, to try and signal where he is, but all he can manage is a coughing fit from the smoke from where he had slipped his protective face mask off after his oxygen had ran out in attempt to breathe. He doesn’t know how long he lays there choking on dirty air before suddenly hands are grabbing him and he’s being hauled up.
“Damnit, Buck, what the hell were you thinking?” He’s angry. No, maybe not angry. Worried. Worried for him.
He can’t focus on responding to him when he feels like his lungs are going to explode. It’s when he’s being dropped to the cool grass and no longer surrounded by red and heat and when Eddie is ripping off his helmet and he meets those eyes that are constantly present in his heart that Buck realizes it.
“You’re an idiot, you know that?” He does know that, doesn’t need Eddie to tell him. He knows the words aren’t meant with any sort of malice and are only being said because of the worry that’s palpable in the air surrounding them. But he recognizes the truth in his words because how has it taken him this long to realize that he loves this man. “Cap called for us to evacuate over 5 minutes ago. Why didn’t you come out?”
It takes Buck a touch too long to respond, and he hates the look that forms on Eddie’s face when his explanation comes out as more of a wheeze than anything else. He had thought he had heard someone further back in the house, only to realize a touch too late that it had been the tv in one of the back bedrooms still going. Idiot was right.
“You can’t go scaring me like that, okay?” He hears the desperation in his voice, and Buck hates himself a little bit for being the cause of it.
“Eds-“
“I know it’s our job,” Eddie continues, effectively cutting him off, “But we talked about this – no unnecessary risks.”
“You came in after me,” Buck realizes, and the look he receives is almost incredulous in nature.
“What the hell else was I supposed to do?”
He has to tell him, he realizes. He has to tell him right now because another moment can’t go by without this man who has proven time and time again that he would do anything for him, who would literally run into a burning building for him after being ordered to evacuate, knowing that he was loved.
“Eddie-“
“Dios mio, where the hell is that oxygen mask?”
“I love you, too.”
He does, God he does. He hates that it took him so long to realize it, even if it has only been a month since they started this thing that they have going on, almost three since Eddie first told him. Eddie gapes at him for a long moment, his eyes wide and mouth hanging open. Buck wills his body to move, to lift his hand and trail his fingers over the face he’s explored eagerly in the last 30 days, but he’s exhausted. He saves the urge for later.
“I’ll love you until my lungs give out,” he gasps, and the laugh that Eddie lets out allows him to breathe a little easier, if only for a moment.
“So not long then, at this right?”
“Maybe even after that,” Buck responds back, and he wants to move and wrap Eddie up in his arms and just love him, but instead he lets out a groan of pain because damnit does everything hurt.
“How about for as long as we want?” The blonde tries to smile, but the pain is ricocheting through his body as he nods. He tells Eddie how perfect that sounds, how him and Christopher are his family, all the while thinking how much he wants the pain to stop.
“Shh, queirdo. Don’t strain yourself, okay? We’ll have that. You’re going to be just fine.”
God, Buck loves when Eddie talks in Spanish to him. He only knows bits and pieces and knows that this is a term of endearment that he has taken to calling him.
“Promise?” Eddie nods, but before he can vocalize anything, Hen and Chim arrive and an oxygen mask is being placed over his face. Almost immediately he can breathe a little bit easier. Hen makes a crack about how he’s trying to knock every hospital in the Greater LA area off his bucket list as they slide the backboard under him. But all he can focus on is the man beside him, squeezing his hand, and the promise he makes him in return.
“I’m all yours, and you’re all mine.”
Buck knows he can live with that for the rest of his life.