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As he wipes down the kitchen table, Eddie listens for the sound of murmured voices drifting down the hallway from Christopher’s room. It had taken all of five minutes of Buck being in the house—for the first time in a week—before he hastily made himself scarce under the pretense of checking in on Chris.
Eddie tries to remember the last time they were so awkward around each other.
The lawsuit, he supposes. They haven’t fought the way they did then since, though—not even now. Not even after Buck slammed into Eddie on the basketball court, sending him to the ground and spraining his ankle.
“I’m sorry,” Buck had blurted out, desperately, the moment Eddie opened the front door to him. “Eddie, I—”
“It’s alright,” Eddie had cut him off immediately, his skin prickling at the remorse on Buck’s face. “It’s—Let’s just put this behind us, okay?”
He wasn’t being entirely truthful when he said that.
The truth is, if Eddie looks at this too closely, he has to seriously consider the possibility that Buck did it on purpose. And that’s what hurts—more than the sprained ankle, or the cut on his thigh, or the twinge in his back from when he hit the ground—the fact that Buck might have wanted to hurt him. Not that Buck had actually injured him, but the way he just stood there, afterwards, not making a move to help. Because, maybe he’d—
He doesn’t want to think about it.
“Are you sure you shouldn’t be resting?”
Eddie’s head snaps up, and he nearly drops the cloth he’d been wiping down the table with. Christ, he was so lost in his head that he didn’t even notice that Buck had come back.
He studies Buck for a moment, the way he’s hunched in on himself, like he’s trying to seem smaller; the guilt on his face. Eddie swallows around something and looks away.
“It was just a sprain,” he dismisses, turning away from Buck under the pretense of washing his hands. “I’m fine.”
He hopes Buck doesn’t make him talk about it. After injuring him, the least he could do is allow him to lick his wounds in solitude.
Eddie is turning off the tap when Buck speaks again, unsure and hesitant.
“Uh…is Christopher okay?”
Tensing, Eddie turns to stare at him. “What do you mean?”
Chris has been fine. Better than fine, actually—he’s certainly perked up quite a bit since Eddie gave him Shannon’s letter, he’s been less of a moody teenager lately, and he’s not two-timing girls anymore (Eddie made sure of it). But the look on Buck’s face—
“Uh, maybe I’m imagining it, or—or, I don’t know—” Buck hedges, looking deeply uncomfortable in a way he’s never been while talking about any of Chris’ issues. It’s just another knife to the heart.
“What is it, Buck?” Eddie asks, maybe a little more tersely than the situation deserves, but, hey. After everything, he thinks he’s allowed.
“He—He just seemed very distant,” Buck says, finally, his brow creasing. “He barely said two words to me.”
“Did you interrupt his video game, or something, because, well…” Eddie tries for a joke but it clearly doesn’t land. Buck frowns even harder.
“No,” he says. “He wasn’t—he was just tidying up his room.” Ah, Eddie had been after him all day to get to that. “It was like—it was like he didn’t want to see me.”
Eddie sighs. “Okay, just—just hang on, for a moment.”
He leaves Buck there, hovering awkwardly in the kitchen, and strides down the hallway to Christopher’s room. When he pokes his head through the door, Chris glances at him from where he’s dumping some stray papers into the bin and rolls his eyes.
“I’m doing it, Dad,” he grouses, and Eddie smiles, despite himself.
“You were supposed to do it this morning,” he retorts lightly, steps into the room, and closes the door behind him. Buck wouldn’t eavesdrop, but if this is something serious, Eddie figures that Chris will want his privacy.
Eddie sits down on the bed, and beckons to Chris. “Come over here for a minute, bud.”
Chris frowns at him, a suspicious twist to his mouth that makes him look so much like Shannon for a moment, Eddie’s heart skips a beat. He just about manages to collect himself by the time Chris joins him.
“What’s going on?”
“You tell me,” Eddie says, gently. “Buck mentioned you were being a little…odd.”
To his surprise, Chris scowls.
“I bet he did,” Chris mumbles, scoffing, half-under his breath. Eddie stares at him, taken aback.
“Chris? What does that—”
“I want you to tell him to leave.”
The statement sounds so absurd in the moment, coming from Chris’ mouth, that Eddie laughs before he can help himself. He instantly wishes he could take it back, though, when Chris looks up at him indignantly, his eyes blazing.
“Okay, okay,” Eddie says, raising his hands. “I’m sorry. But why would you say that, Chris, I mean—”
“Seriously, Dad?” Chris says, looking genuinely upset in a way Eddie doesn’t think he’s ever seen before, at least not in connection with Buck. “He hurt you.”
Eddie freezes.
Chris was—
Chris was not supposed to know about that.
Of course, there had been no hiding the fact that he was injured. But Eddie had just brushed it off as an accident during a friendly game of basketball. He thought Chris had bought it.
“Chris, listen—”
“That night, when Tommy brought you home, and he was helping you get settled,” Chris interrupts, silencing him. “I heard you guys talking about it.”
Eddie closes his eyes and inhales deeply. Of course. Of course.
“Chris, you were eavesdropping?”
Christopher has the decency to blush and look a little repentant at that, at least.
“I’m sorry. But I wanted to know what was really going on. And I knew you weren’t telling me the whole truth.”
“Listen to me, Chris—”
“It’s true, isn’t it?”
“Okay. Okay,” Eddie drops his head forward and massages his temples, groaning.
Leave it to his kid to bring up the one thing he absolutely did not want to talk or think about.
Steeling himself, Eddie raises his head again, and turns to face Christopher fully. “Chris, it was an accident.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Chris—”
“If it was an accident, how come he hasn’t been over all week?” Chris bursts out. “And I overheard you and Tommy that night. You were talking about…I don’t know, something about problems between you and Buck, and that’s why he—”
“Chris.” Something in Eddie’s voice makes Christopher fall silent, and he blinks up at Eddie from behind his glasses, looking so defensive and protective, and full of righteous anger, and fuck. Eddie never wanted Chris to get caught up in all this, but…fuck, he loves this precious, beautiful kid.
Eddie hesitates as he tries to choose his words carefully.
“Buck and I are trying to figure things out,” Eddie says at last, slowly. “And it may take some time, but we will. But I don’t want you to be angry with him.”
“But he—”
“I know,” Eddie swallows around a sudden lump in his throat.
He’s been going over it over and over again in his head.
“I think he was feeling…jealous, maybe,” Tommy had said, wryly. “Maybe like we excluded him.”
Was that it? Is it all his fault?
He knows what Frank would say, that he’s not responsible for Buck’s actions. He knows the kind of furious his Tia would be if she found out. He knows how upset Chimney was on his behalf, that day on the court.
But—
“This is between the both of us,” Eddie says, finally. “And, Chris, you know—no matter what happens with Buck and I, he’s always gonna love you. And I know you love him.”
Chris juts his lip out, looking mutinous. Eddie sighs and slings an arm around his shoulders, pulling him close.
“I’m not saying you have to talk to him if you don’t want to,” Eddie murmurs into his hair. “If you don’t want to see him, that’s fine. But I just don’t want you to lose sight of how important he is to you—to us, okay? It’s not your job to protect me.”
“Aren’t you upset with him, Dad?”
The question throws Eddie for a loop. He straightens, considering it.
“I don’t know what I feel, Chris,” he admits, honestly.
Frank would be proud, honestly.
When he returns to the kitchen, Buck is pacing a hole in the floor, looking so frazzled and anxious, that for a moment, it floods Eddie with unbearable affection and fondness, almost like nothing ever happened.
Almost.
He stops when he sees Eddie, wringing his hands anxiously, his eyes wide. “Is he—”
“He’s just…a little upset, right now,” Eddie says, delicately.
“He’s upset?” Buck repeats, and for a moment, Eddie burns with resentment, wants to say, really? That surprises you?
He swallows it all down.
“Yeah,” Eddie says, instead, his voice clipped. “The whole, um—” Eddie gestures vaguely at his leg and Buck goes a little pale, his face shuttering.
“He—He knows about that,” Buck says, a little hollowly. “And he—does he hate me?”
Eddie sighs a little, and moves past him to sit down at the table, running a hand through his hair in frustration. “He doesn’t hate you, Buck. He’s just feeling a little…protective, right now.”
Buck bites down on his lip. “I could—maybe I could—”
Eddie shakes his head. “This isn’t something you can fix, Buck,” he says, and maybe, just maybe, he gets a little vindictive pleasure out of the way Buck flinches, like his words were a blow. “I think he just needs some space right now.”
“And you?” Buck asks, lowly.
There’s a terrible lump in Eddie’s throat. He opens his mouth, but no words come out.
It wasn’t an accident.
There’s a long, terrible silence. Then, Buck nods, half to himself, and picks up his jacket from where he’d tossed it over a chair when he came in with shaking hands.
“I’ll see you at work,” he says, and quietly leaves. Eddie keeps his gaze fixed on the table, unwilling to watch him go.
A minute later, he hears the sound of the front door closing.
Eddie almost wishes that Buck had slammed it.
He closes his eyes and hunches over in his seat as he listens to the sound of Buck’s Jeep pull out of his driveway. And that’s when the tears start to fall.