Chapter Text
The thing is, Buck actually feels incredibly guilty for being happy right now.
It’s like there’s this steady undercurrent of misery pulsing through the lives of everyone important to him. Bobby and Athena. Hen and Karen. Eddie and Chris. It makes him feel stupid. Worse, it makes him feel selfish.
Bobby died. Bobby wanted to die, is the thought that Buck can’t shake. Bobby really believed the world would’ve been better off without him. The first time it happened, it was easy for Buck to blame it on the drugs and put it out of his mind—but this is something scarier, and Buck doesn’t know how to help.
The worst part is everyone walking around like it’s normal. Work is miserable, sure, but that’s more because of Captain Gerrard than anything else. It’s like everyone is too busy being miserable at work to feel the weight of everything else.
At least at work, Buck gets to feel useful. He actually takes a sick kind of pleasure in putting himself on Gerrard’s shitlist, knowing he can at least help take attention off the others. It’s kind of like being a kid again, acting out whenever their parents were riding Maddie too hard about her grades, or her clothes, or the boys she was dating. They couldn’t make her cry when they were too busy yelling at him.
With Chim and Hen, it almost becomes somewhat of a choreographed dance. The two of them get it the worst from Gerrard, but they also have the most experience dealing with him, and are far less easily rattled. They more or less stick to their usual routine they had under Bobby, and Buck runs interference. He’d already put himself on kitchen duty after Gerrard had tried to assign it to Hen first, and then Eddie. They try to keep up the tradition of family dinner, even without Bobby there.
As soon as Gerrard determines Hen and Chimney are too thick-skinned to be intimidated by him the same way they were when they were still probies, he sets his sights on Eddie and Ravi. Buck does not react to that well. None of them really do, and it’s quickly discovered that nearly the entire 118 shares a particularly strong protective instinct when it comes to Ravi, something that had only gone previously unnoticed to Buck because there’s never been anything quite so obvious to protect him from.
Gerrard orders Eddie to shine the hubcaps and Buck is right there next to him, picking up a rag. Buck is mopping the floors one morning when he sees Gerrard heading straight for Ravi, to chew him out for God-knows-what, because Ravi isn’t doing a single thing wrong. Buck goes “Oops!” and kicks over a bucket of water, causing Gerrard to slip and slide the way Buck did the last time they got a call at a skating rink. He’s so red in the face from yelling at Buck over that embarrassment, that whatever he’d planned to yell at Ravi for winds up forgotten.
Throughout it all, Buck complains loudly about how this isn’t how Bobby makes them do things, the same way he did in kindergarten when his favorite teacher went on maternity leave and he whined incessantly about how her substitute smelled like tuna fish and didn’t follow the pre-established line leader selection process.
He keeps doing stuff like that until Gerrard pulls him aside one day and tells him if he’s got such a hard-on for their old captain, he’s welcome to join him in the unemployment office. Annoying Gerrard becomes significantly less fun after that.
“He can’t say that to you,” Eddie insists, brows furrowed in concern, when Buck tells everyone else about it at their weekly commiseration brunch.
“He’s right. That qualifies as sexual harassment,” Bobby agrees. “Add it to the report.”
They’ve all settled on an agreement until Bobby returns, hopefully sooner rather than later. Buck, not for the first time, prays for sooner. Maybe next-shift sooner, as unlikely as that is. Every little comment—no matter how innocuous or ambiguously discriminatory—goes straight into a file. Nobody quits, nobody requests a transfer, and nobody does anything stupid to get themselves fired. Buck is particularly struggling with the last one.
“It’s his word against mine that he even said it,” Buck grumbles.
“Bullshit. I’ll back you up on it,” Hen says. “Hell, I’ll file the complaint myself if you want.”
“But you weren’t even standing there when he said it,” he argues.
Hen shrugs. “The brass doesn’t need to know that. Like you said, it’s our word against his.”
“United front,” Chim agrees. “We’ve got strength in numbers on our side.”
“Yeah, but I don’t wanna lie.” Buck frowns.
Commiseration brunch had been Karen’s suggestion, partially a way to get the kids together all under one roof at least once a week, and partially because…well, they needed it. The 118 was fractured in so many ways, and they needed to check in with each other. They took turns hosting while Bobby and Athena were still staying in a hotel for the time being. Michael had come back to LA at the beginning of the summer, shortly after the fire, to start drawing up plans for rebuilding the Grant-Nash residence.
It was a nice new tradition, a way of keeping their family together. Not everyone’s shifts always lined up perfectly where they could all meet at the same time, but they tried to get as many of them together as possible each week. They all split up the cooking duties, potluck style, and Buck was getting to try out a lot of new recipes now that Bobby had pretty much nothing better to do all day besides teach him.
Bobby had once gently let him know that he was welcome to bring Tommy to commiseration brunch if he wanted, but Buck—well, truthfully, Buck wasn’t sure how he felt about that; he only knew that the look on his face must’ve been enough for Bobby to never bring it up again.
“It’s not a lie if he actually said it,” Eddie points out. “Besides, if he made a comment like that to one of us, wouldn’t you have our backs?”
“Of course I would!”
“So why are you even fighting us on this?” Bobby asks, clearly fed up. “You want Gerrard gone as much as the rest of us do, and he said something over-the-line. Add it to the report.”
Truthfully, something about the phrase sexual harassment makes Buck nervous. He has a feeling Bobby already knows that, as he’d been just as reluctant to file that complaint against the therapist he slept with. Bobby had pushed him to do it anyway, but he still felt kind of bad when she got fired.
He felt a little less bad when he learned it wasn’t the first complaint she’d received, and that he wasn’t the only patient she’d slept with.
“I will. But he’s said way worse to you guys,” Buck protests weakly, and Eddie hits him with the saddest brown cow eyes he’s ever seen.
“No one’s saying otherwise,” Hen agrees.
Chim nudges him, good-naturedly. “That’s all the more reason to do it. You’ve gotta pull your weight.”
Eddie asks, “Why does it have to be different for you?”
And it’s a fair enough question, but the way Eddie’s eyes are drilling into him takes Buck aback. “What—“ Buck stammers. “Y-you mean, because I’m white?”
Eddie shakes his head and exhales heavily, a phantom of his usual laugh. He hasn’t really, fully laughed since Chris left. “No, I mean you have no problem sticking up for any one of us. So what makes you any different? I just wish you’d advocate for yourself the way you do for everyone else.” Eddie sighs sadly.
Buck, not for the first time, is struck by the thought that Eddie looks really, really beautiful when he’s sad. He’s beautiful always, and Buck hates to see him sad, but—God, he looks like some tortured saint in a medieval painting. Or maybe a Renaissance painting. Truthfully, Buck had skirted by with a C in high school Art History, which would’ve been a D had he not gone all-in on the extra credit. He’d gotten really into early impressionism late in the semester, and ended up writing an essay on Monet that had bumped him up a letter grade.
That’s another thing. Buck is really, really worried about Eddie.
He’s been worse since Chris left, but he’s been weird for longer. If Buck is honest with himself, he thinks he’s been weird since the wedding, at least, and the worst part is Buck doesn’t know why. It’s like a switch flipped at some point, and Buck was too self-absorbed to notice. He feels like a bad friend. A good friend would know what’s wrong with Eddie, and be able to make it better. Therefore, Buck is a bad friend.
Christopher calls him sometimes.
The first time was a week after he left for Texas, and a less observant person might’ve mistaken it for a pocket dial. But Buck had been on the receiving end of enough of Christopher’s stewing silences to recognize the sound of his breathing, even when it’s all muffled, like Chris was deliberately holding his hand over the receiver so Buck couldn’t hear him breathe.
“Chris, bud, I know you’re there,” Buck had said, trying to swallow down the hurt he felt at the fact that Christopher didn’t even feel comfortable enough to just talk to him. But he also took it as a small victory, knowing that Chris knew how to mute himself, and that he wasn’t doing that. “I know you’re still mad. And I’m not gonna make excuses for your dad, but… you should talk to someone. It doesn’t have to be me. We just wanna make sure you’re okay. I’d like to know you’re okay.”
Chris hung up immediately after that.
The second call comes a few weeks later, and is slightly more successful, if only because Christopher actually talks. He doesn’t have anything particularly nice to say, but Buck supposes that’s to be expected.
The sound of his breathing is closer this time, less muffled. It’s an opening, a door cracking a little wider than it did with the last phone call. “Chris?” Buck asks after a minute of almost-silence. “Are you still there?”
More breathing, then after a second, Chris makes a small sound, like he’s about to say something, then stops himself. It takes all of Buck’s willpower not to ask again, trying to give Christopher the space he needs to say whatever he wants to say.
Another second of silence, then a quiet, ashamed voice. “I’m mad at you, too, y’know.”
Buck blinks, trying to process that and keep the emotion out of his voice when he says, “Okay. Can you tell me why you’re mad?”
“Because you’re fucking annoying!” Christopher bursts out, and the insult doesn’t catch Buck off-guard as much as the expletive does. Buck is used to needing to be doled out hard, blunt truths from the people he loves, but even at his angriest, he’s never heard Chris use any swear word stronger than “crap.” “I’m not seven anymore. You can’t just try to fix everything whenever Dad has a problem! You can’t!”
Buck’s mouth falls open a little, and it takes a moment before he can even think, let alone respond. “Chris, I—I’m not trying to fix your dad, okay? He asked for my help. Friends help each other.”
“Sure,” Chris says, voice dripping with sarcasm, thick and viscous, “friends help each other.”
And yeah, Christopher is a newly minted teenager, so an abundance of sarcasm comes with the territory, but something about the comment grates Buck the wrong way. “What is that supposed to mean?” he fires back, a little more defensive than he means to.
“You used to be my friend. Now you just side with Dad on everything. It sucks.”
Buck has to stomp down the childish urge to argue; has to remind himself to be the adult in this situation. But if he’d been defensive before, now he’s just devastated. “I’m not—” Buck stops himself, clears his throat, and tries to sound a little less broken up than he feels. “Chris, I—I’m sorry it feels that way. I’m sorry if I made you feel that way. I know your dad hurt you, okay? A-and what he did was wrong, but I’m not on anyone’s side here.”
Chris lowers his voice in a mocking imitation of Buck’s. “‘Chris, buddy, you can’t text multiple girls at once, it makes them feel not special. Chris, I know that what your dad did totally sucks, but you should just forgive him anyway.’ You’re not my mom, Buck. That lady that came to the house wasn’t my mom. I don’t need another mom!”
Buck is halfway through trying to craft a suitable, adult response to that before he even realizes Christopher’s already hung up.
So yeah. Buck feels guilty. Everyone he loves is going through something painful, difficult, or unexpected right now. And Buck is just…bisexual. It’s great that he’s figured it out, and it’s great that everyone has been so supportive, and Tommy is—Tommy is fine. The sex is good, at least. Consistent.
It’s not like it’s anything particularly new. Buck’s been fingered before, and he’s been pegged, and he hadn’t really expected it to be all that different from taking a strap-on, except for the obvious fact that there’s an actual dick involved instead of a dildo. He was wrong about that, but not in the way he’d expected to be. He doesn’t really know how to explain it or have anyone to explain it to, and it’s driving him kind of crazy. The mechanics are obviously different, but the overall emotional aspects of sex with a partner remain the same. Maybe it was naive of him to think that gay sex should somehow feel different. Earth-shattering, maybe. Revolutionary.
Still, it’s nice to have Tommy around. It’s nice to have someone who doesn’t expect a lot from him. If Tommy wanted more, Buck would give it, happily, but for now, they just hang out and have sex. No pressure. No commitment.
(As much as Buck tells himself he wants pressure and commitment, he has to remind himself he’s starting from scratch here. He’s the inexperienced rookie in the field of bisexuality, and he’s still got stuff to learn. Patience has never been a strong suit of his, but it is a virtue, after all.)
When Buck gets a call from Eddie’s phone late on a Tuesday night in June, it’s cause for concern.
“Hey, what’s up?” he answers cautiously, and—to his surprise—is met by a background ambience that sounds an awful lot like the inside of a club.
“Hellooooooooo?” sing-songs a feminine voice on Eddie’s end. “Is this the handsome firefighter?”
Blood rushes to Buck’s cheeks. “Uh, it might be. Who is this?”
Instead of answering, the voice continues, “I’ve got an adorably sweet, Southern gentleman here in need of some rescuing. Think you could help with that?”
“Is that Buck?” a faint voice unmistakably belonging to Eddie asks. “Give it—gimme the phone!” He sounds drunk, and Buck’s concern ticks up a notch.
“Eddie? Are you okay?”
“No,” Eddie says sadly, and Buck can picture his little pout. “I lost my shirt.”
“Where are you? How did you lose your shirt?”
The original voice must take the phone back, because she says, “I’m gonna drop you a pin, baby, and you can come pick him up at your leisure. I do suggest you get here soon, though. There’s no shortage of people here willing to take him home.”
“Buck should be here!” Eddie’s voice says petulantly in the background.
“She’s working on it, sweetheart,” says another, lower, voice.
“You know what? Fuck your leisure and get your cute butt over here; we’re all dying to meet you!”
There’s an eruption of laughter that Buck ignores because he’s already grabbing his keys.
—
The voice on the phone was true to her word about dropping a pin, and Buck finds himself standing bewildered outside of a drag bar, of all locations.
He’s never been here before, but he recognizes it from a research binge he went on at the beginning of the month, back when he had… very different ideas about what his first June as an official, out-and-proud bisexual would be like. But Tommy had shot down the idea of a gay bar crawl as soon as he’d brought it up.
“Evan, gay clubs are for horny people on coke looking for someone to fuck,” he’d said in that ever-present dry, disinterested tone of his. Buck used to find it attractive, a sign of confidence and wit. He’s not sure how he feels about it anymore. “The whole point of being in a relationship is we don’t have to do that stuff. We’re already having sex with each other.”
Buck doesn’t exactly agree that that’s the whole point of a relationship, but he can’t bring himself to argue. He likes having sex with Tommy, and yeah, it is a pretty central part of their relationship—with most of his relationships. But Buck likes companionship, too. He likes having someone to sleep next to and come home to, a warm body to hold. He likes waking up next to someone for reasons outside of just morning sex.
Walking into the bar, Buck feels oddly out of place, considering— well, how people seem to be looking at him doesn’t exactly make him feel unwelcome. Cautious, maybe, but— look, it’s no secret that Buck likes attention. He likes knowing that other people like the way he looks. Back in his Buck 1.0 days, it was sometimes the only thing that made him feel like a whole, living person.
There’s a thumping pop song playing, one that Buck distantly recognizes as being either ABBA or Madonna, and it makes Buck bashful that he can’t tell the difference. He scans the crowd looking for Eddie, but everything is so loud and bright and downright joyful that Buck can’t help but feel a little overwhelmed.
“Buck!” a voice chimes out over the music, and when Buck turns toward it, he sees a beaming, red-faced Eddie on the other side of the bar. True to his word, his shirt is indeed missing—instead, he’s sporting an ill-fitting denim vest, and his chest is absolutely slathered in body glitter. He’s sitting on a barstool, leaning against a drag queen in a curly bobbed wig and a sparkly green bodysuit. There’s a giddy, drunk expression on his face as a butch woman in black lipstick strokes his hair absentmindedly, but even through the tinted club lights, Buck can tell from Eddie’s swollen cheeks and damp eyelashes that he’s been crying—which worries him almost as much as the fact that he’s partying shirtless with strangers on a weeknight.
The first time Buck had met Pepa, she’d described Eddie as a saint, and she’d been right. Buck may be fuzzy on his Art History eras, but he can conjure up plenty of images of shirtless saints, and Eddie, abs adorned with sparkles and glowy mood lighting framing his face, looks more saintly than ever before.
Eddie motions Buck over. “Come meet my friends!” He turns to the woman petting his hair. “This is my friend, Buck!”
The woman eyes Buck suspiciously, but without judgment. “You the baby daddy?” she asks, not unkindly.
Before Buck has a chance to say no, or yes, or what?— Eddie’s face crumples, and he turns to the drag queen forlornly, muttering, “I don’t have a baby anymore,” before face-planting into her breastplate with a sob.
The queen squeezes his shoulder and shushes him gently. “I know, sweetie, it’s okay. You can be our baby.”
“My baby’s all grown up.”
“It’s gonna be alright.”
Someone in a mesh top with a dark, curly mane of hair pats his back awkwardly. “Kids are tough,” they say sympathetically, even though they can’t be much older than a kid themself. Then again, Buck supposes Eddie hadn’t even hit the legal drinking age before he became a father, and that thought makes him ache. Maybe they can relate more than Buck knows.
“Um,” Buck says, clearing his throat, “you wanna introduce me to everyone?”
Thankfully, that seems to temporarily snap Eddie out of his impending doom spiral, as he perks up and says, “Oh, yeah! This is Sid,”, gesturing to the skinny kid in the mesh top, who waves shyly. “My friend Violet—”
“Viola,” the woman in black lipstick and combat boots, corrects gently.
“Viola,” he repeats back, emphasizing each syllable.
“Good boy.” She pinches his cheek.
Eddie looks pleased, blushing even redder than he already is, then throws his arm around the drag queen he’s leaning into. “And this,” he says with a grand flourish, “is Karlee Slay.”
“Charmed, I’m sure,” Karlee Slay says with a giggle, offering her hand out to Buck.
“Thanks for calling,” Buck says, shaking her hand, and then bumping Eddie’s shoulder. “Hope he didn’t cause too much trouble.”
“No, he’s a sweetheart,” coos Karlee, ruffling Eddie’s hair, scratching at his scalp with her long, rhinestoned fingernails. “Wouldn’t shut up about you. We had to pry a whole bachelorette party off of him, but he should be in working condition.”
“They took my shirt,” Eddie informs Buck gravely, again.
“I can see that.”
“I’m glad you’re here.” Eddie finally cracks a sweet, gummy smile, but Buck sees the sadness still lingering behind it.
“Yeah. Me too, buddy. Do you…wanna tell me how you ended up here?”
Eddie rolls his eyes dramatically. “I needed a drink,” is all he offers, mumbling it abashedly into Karlee’s shoulder. The explanation doesn’t do much to tamp down Buck’s spiking uneasiness.
Sid snorts, and Viola glares at them before leveling Eddie with a gentle, maternal look. “You ready to go home, sweetheart?”
Eddie shakes his head. “Buck just got here,” he slurs, but his eyelids are drooping, and it stabs Buck in the heart the way it reminds him of a younger, sleepy Christopher, stubbornly arguing for his bedtime to be pushed back another half-hour while Buck is babysitting, fighting to still be awake when his dad gets home.
“Buck’s gotta go home too, though, right?” says Sid, and then looks at Buck nervously, like they’re not sure they should be speaking on his behalf.
“I’m sure he’d love to stay, but maybe we can plan for another night, yeah?” Karlee jumps in, putting a bejeweled hand on Buck’s shoulder while continuing to rub Eddie’s with her other hand. “Maybe when you’re feeling a little better?”
Buck nods, clapping a hand over Karlee’s on Eddie’s shoulder, encouragingly. “Yeah, definitely! We can come back some other time, I promise. Now let’s get you home.”
Eddie still looks hesitant, but he allows Buck to sling an arm around his shoulder and drag him towards the exit, Karlee supporting his other side. They get him out to the parking lot, and Buck is just about to breathe a sigh of relief when Eddie hiccups and squirms, turning somewhat greenish as he lurches forward out of Buck and Karlee’s arms before puking his guts out over the hood of Buck’s car.
Buck grimaces, more out of sympathy for Eddie than concern for the Jeep, but he still instantly regrets it when he meets Eddie’s guilty gaze.
Eddie lays a hand reverently on the hood of the Jeep, eyes wide and horrified, like he’s defiled something sacred. “‘M sorry,” he whimpers as Buck plants two hands firmly on his shoulders.
“Hey, don’t worry about it, buddy,” he says, clasping Eddie carefully, praying he doesn’t start crying again. He doesn’t think he’s seen Eddie cry this much since— forever, actually. “Better out here than all over the interior, right? You got it all out?”
Eddie nods, then fervently shakes his head as he gags, turning away from the Jeep this time as he sinks to his knees. Sid presents a grease-stained bucket that obviously used to hold some kind of bar food, and Viola shoves it under Eddie’s head before he pukes again. When he’s finally done, she wipes his mouth with the denim corner of the vest draped over Eddie’s shoulders.
“This is your vest,” Eddie says guiltily, and she just rolls her eyes.
“My girlfriend’s been complaining about the dykishly obscene amount of denim in my wardrobe for ages now,” she says, draping Eddie’s right arm over her shoulder as she helps Buck move him back towards the Jeep. “You can keep this one. You’d be doing her a favor.” Viola leaves a charcoal-colored kiss on his forehead. “Get home safe, kid,” she tells him, buckling him into the passenger seat.
“Bye,” Eddie says, lifting his hand up in a little wave. “Thanks for being so nice.” Viola squeezes his hand.
Buck’s circling back around to the driver’s side when Karlee points a bedazzled fingernail at him. “You,” she says, all breezy and confident and no-nonsense. “Give me your phone number.”
“Uh—I, um,” Buck stutters, feeling his face heat up. It’s not that she’s not his type—or that Buck even has a specific type when it comes to potential partners. He’s never given much thought to his type in drag queens, but as he considers it, he’s quickly discovering that Karlee checks all his boxes. All of his two boxes, which are just hot and into him. “I mean, you look… incredible, and I-I’m flattered, but I kind of, um, have a boyfriend, and—“
Karlee trills with laughter. “You’re too cute. Don’t I know it, baby, it’s all he could talk about. I just want you to call me and let me know when he gets home safe. He already has my number, but he’ll probably be conked out soon enough. Gimme your phone.”
Buck snaps his mouth shut and surrenders his phone over, blushing all the way to his ears. He must look like a tomato right now. At least he matches with Eddie, whose green color is starting to fade now that he’s done being sick, and ripen back into a flush red, still sweaty and out of breath from the bar. Two bright, glitter-covered tomatoes. They make quite a pair.
Karlee hands his phone back. “I texted myself so I have your number. I’m gonna send you to a 24-hour car wash a few blocks from here, so you can take care of—“ she gestures to the hood of his Jeep, “all this.”
Buck thanks her, thanks all of them, again, and proceeds to the car wash, Eddie snoozing in the passenger seat. After that, Buck makes a last-minute decision to head towards his loft instead of the Diaz residence, figuring a big empty house, a reminder of what Eddie’s lost, is the last thing he’s in the mental space to deal with right now. It takes a considerably larger amount of effort to drag Eddie up the stairs of his loft than it would to put him to bed in his own bedroom, in his own one-story house, but Buck would rather have him here, where he can make sure Eddie is safe and sound and not so alone. His phone vibrates right as he deposits Eddie on his bed.
Karlee: home safe? Both of you?
Buck nudges Eddie’s limp form on the bed. “Eddie, you good? Karlee’s asking.”
Eddie raises his hands in two thumbs up, and Buck snaps a picture, sending it off to Karlee. The speech bubble appears as she types.
Karlee: adorable :) you boys come back soon, y’hear?
Buck finds himself grinning, and types back:
Buck: hey can i ask you a weird question?
It’s only a few seconds before he gets a reply.
Karlee: my favorite kind. Shoot
Buck bites his lip, trying to figure out how to broach the subject, then decides to go all-in, explaining everything.
Buck: so i’m like. recently out in my thirties and i feel like i’ve missed a lot of the cultural milestones, if that makes sense? it’s my first pride month since i discovered i’m bi and i’ve been trying to start out slow and familirize myself with like “the gay icons” i guess. i was wondering, if i wanted to get into carly rae jepsen’s music, where should i start?
Buck: i joined r/popheads but it’s all kind of overwhelming so i figured you’d have some more personalized recommendations
Karlee: that’s not weird at all. But I’ll answer it anyway.
Karlee: so first of all you should be aware that you’re waking the beast. I have a LOT to say on the subject, and frankly I’m THRILLED and honored you came to me
Karlee: I assume you’ve at least heard Call Me Maybe and her song with Owl City, correct?
Karlee: so, I’d start with E•MO•TION. Considered by many to be her magnum opus pop album. Listen to it back-to-back with E•MO•TION: side B for the full experience
Karlee: after that, The Loneliest Time is a close CLOSE second for her best album. And since you charmed me tonight, and you’re asking for personalized recs, I’m gonna let you in on an insider secret and divulge that her debut folk-pop album is an INCREDIBLE hidden gem
Buck considers her suggestions seriously, and they text back and forth for a few more minutes. Buck learns she’s from Texas, like Eddie, and that’s how they initially hit it off at the bar. The mention of Eddie has Buck resting a hand on his calf, and when Eddie makes a small, snuffling noise, Buck texts Karlee that it’s probably time for him to wind down and tuck Eddie into bed.
Buck leans over Eddie to grab the corner of the duvet cover, but Eddie stops him mid-motion, while Buck is still straddling his form.
“Wait,” Eddie says, and reaches up, putting both hands on either side of Buck’s face before he can pull away.
Buck suddenly feels a cold flash of fear, like he’s outside his body, watching himself fuck everything up in slow motion. The last time he felt like this was right before Lucy kissed him, and he had kissed back.
If Eddie kisses him now, Buck knows he’ll be powerless to do anything but kiss back. Hell, if Eddie weren’t so piss-drunk, if Buck could be absolutely sure he actually wanted this, Buck would plow him into the mattress right now.
He thinks about what that would be like, to take Eddie right here in his bed. To crack him open and wriggle under his skin, like some sort of squirming, parasitic insect. To be inside him, to use his body as a home. Buck’s mouth waters.
Eddie keeps staring up at him, pupils blown wide, this wondrous, awestruck look in his eyes. Like he’s never seen Buck’s face before. Like Buck is the sun, and Eddie’s lived his whole life in an eternal night.
He runs one hand across Buck’s browline, his thumb lingering on Buck’s birthmark. He licks his lips. Buck braces himself as Eddie’s mouth parts open. “Y’r pretty,” Eddie says, head drooping to the side to loll on the mattress, still not breaking eye contact. Softly, he strokes his thumb over the birthmark again, admiringly, and pats Buck’s cheek with his other hand. “So pretty,” he repeats, and hiccups wetly. Buck expects him to start crying again, but instead, he lurches up suddenly, nearly bonking their foreheads together, and retches over the side of the bed.
Buck swiftly grabs the wastebasket he keeps by his bedside table and positions it under Eddie’s head, equal waves of relief and disappointment washing over him. The first couple of heaves are dry, but he eventually coughs and spits up yellow bile, choking and wincing at the taste of it.
“That’s it, buddy. Get it all out. There y’go.”
“Sorry,” Eddie chokes out between retches, tears threatening to spill over again. “‘m sorry. So sorry.”
“Hey, hey, none of that, okay? You’re okay, I’ve got you, there’s nothing to apologize for. Just let me take care of you, alright?”
“I keep messing things up,” he whimpers, a tear sliding down his nose.
“Eddie, you’re fine. Look, you got all of it in the trash. No harm, no foul.“
“No!” Eddie insists, wrenching out from under Buck’s butterfly-soft touch. “I keep—I keep ruining things. For Chris.”
Buck doesn’t know what to say to that, but he sits down on the bed, next to Eddie, pulling his head into his lap. “It’s gonna be okay,” he placates, combing his hands through Eddie’s hair.
“No it’s not,” Eddie mumbles sleepily. “He hates me.”
“He doesn’t hate you, Eddie.”
“He should hate me.”
“He doesn’t,” Buck says firmly, and Eddie makes a quiet noise of discontent before snuffling into silence.
Buck just keeps stroking Eddie’s hair until he’s all calm and splayed out like a cat, malleable under Buck’s hands. Before Eddie drifts off into too deep a sleep, Buck uncurls his body, forcing him to lay down on his back, resting his head on Buck’s pillow in a way that won’t have him waking up with a horrible crick in his neck. He untangles himself from Eddie’s limbs, carefully getting up to tuck the comforter over Eddie’s weary body. And, in some small act of selfishness, he reaches out and gives Eddie’s hair one last pet, then hurriedly slips out of his own apartment before his heart bursts out of his chest and leaves a gross, gooey mess on the bed.
-
He was supposed to see Tommy tonight anyway. If he happens to be a few hours late— well, Tommy must understand;, otherwise he would’ve been blowing up his phone for those last few hours. It’s not like he couldn’t have tracked him down. Buck shares his location with him, even though Tommy had balked when Buck had first explained his habit of location-sharing with all of his team, and most of his past relationships.
“Evan, that’s how you get murdered,” he’d said, and hadn’t looked amused when Buck told him that, no, that’s how you prevent a murder when all your friends are first responders who can easily check your location in case of a kidnapping.
“The kidnappers would probably just toss your phone.”
Buck huffed. Obviously he had considered that. He’d been actually taken hostage before, after all. “Yeah, but—in case they didn’t!”
“Well, that would be idiotic. Why are you so focused on planning out a hypothetical abduction? Wouldn’t it be more practical to imagine that your abductors are actually competent?”
Buck was getting annoyed. “It’s just—” How could he explain to Tommy that it wasn’t practical, or rational, it was just a way to keep his mind at ease, like a security blanket? He liked knowing that he could check in on Maddie, or Bobby, or Eddie at any given time, and they could do the same for him.
Hell, Eddie was a certified technophobe who’d been equally skeeved out by the idea of location sharing, but he still made an effort to understand it. Didn’t put up a fight, didn’t make Buck feel ridiculous for suggesting it.
He gave up on explaining it. “You’re right. It’s stupid. It’s just something I like to do.”
Tommy had shrugged and given in, like he didn’t really care either way.
He texts Tommy coming over and receives an About time. in response. Tommy doesn’t ask where he’s been. Tommy doesn’t expect things like that from him.
It was nice at first, being with someone who didn’t seem to be all that interested in Buck’s family baggage, or his past dating history, or the multitude of traumas he’d endured in the past seven years alone. A shift from his previous relationships, which were nothing but baggage. He was sure Tommy had his fair share of stories that would put Buck’s own misadventures to shame, but he never pressed for information, and Tommy respected his boundaries in return.
At least, that’s what it felt like, at first, Tommy respecting his boundaries. Like he could be a little freer around Tommy, a little less insecure in a new relationship, a little more himself. But as time stretched on, and Buck tried dropping Tommy subtle hints that it was okay to ask, or share something about himself, Buck began to wonder if maybe Tommy just wasn’t that interested in him.
But Buck pushes that thought aside as quickly as it surfaces. If Tommy didn’t want to see him, he’d say something. He doesn’t say anything, so he must still like him.
Tommy leaves a key under a potted plant outside his apartment for when Buck comes over. He doesn’t offer to make Buck his own copy. Buck doesn’t ask. The key is where it should be, so Buck knows Tommy is expecting him, and probably isn’t mad at him or anything. Not that he has any reason to be.
There’s a beat of silence as Buck lets himself in, and then: “How was the club?” Tommy asks, head cocked. Buck freezes, looking down at himself to see that he’s still partially covered in glitter, and probably smells a little like puke.
Flushing, Buck gets the vague sense that he should feel guilty for something, even though he hasn’t done anything wrong. “I wasn’t there for me,” he says, not bothering to explain himself further. If Tommy wants to know more than that, he can ask.
“It would be okay if you were, you know,” Tommy says lightly, but there’s an edge to it. “You came home to me, after all.”
Which—Buck has officially gone through too much tonight; entertaining a conversation on the monogamy of their relationship is the last thing he wants to do. It reminds him too much of Abby, telling him delicately over the phone that he’s free to do whatever he wants with whoever he wants when she should’ve just said this relationship is over, but you can keep squatting at my apartment and watering my plants so you don’t have to move back into that depressing, makeshift frat house, because Buck has never been great with hints. “I got a call from a Carly Rae Jepsen impersonator asking me to come pick Eddie up,” he explains brusquely.
Tommy does a quick double take, then asks, “What was Eddie doing at a drag bar?” with what sounds like genuine interest.
Buck shrugs. “I didn’t ask, just dropped him off at home.” He doesn’t bother to mention that home means his home instead of Eddie’s. If Tommy’s fine with him hypothetically hooking up with some guy at a club, it probably wouldn’t trouble him to know who’s passed out in Buck’s bed right now. “It’s Pride Month,” he suggests lamely, like that’s enough to explain what Eddie was doing at a gay club on a random Tuesday. Tommy looks skeptical.
“Right. It’s Pride Month,” he agrees, and Buck can tell he’s being mocked, but it’s not like it’s out of malice or anything. Tommy looks like he wants to press, but doesn’t, so Buck doesn’t take offense at the teasing remark. It’s fine. They’re good.
Not wanting to continue talking about Eddie, or Pride Month, or anything, really, Buck busies himself with looking through Tommy’s extensive music collection. Tommy’s apartment is smaller than Buck’s, but it feels fuller, somehow. Buck had learned very early on that while Tommy didn’t offer up much about himself willingly; the clues to who he was were scattered around his car, his shelves, his bedroom—his private, personal spaces. A stark contrast to Eddie, whose walls were mostly bare (barring some generic Target decor), but who put his whole self out there freely, always eager to share some story about Chris, always opinionated about some movie Buck hadn’t seen, always lightly teasing Buck about his music taste.
Tommy has a meticulously organized Blu-ray collection and a shelf full of self-help books called things like The Science of Self-Discipline or The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, organized alphabetically by author. Tommy also has one of those vintage-style record players and a collection of vinyls, and that’s what Buck goes for now. “Hey, do you have Emotion?”
Tommy looks up. “Do I have emotions? I’m pretty sure everyone does, Evan.”
Buck shakes his head. “No, E•MO•TION . The Carly Rae Jepsen album. I got a recommendation to check it out.”
Tommy snorts, going back to his book. “Are you joking?”
Buck frowns at his tone—it’s condescending, dismissive. “No, I’m not joking. I told you, I’m trying to expand my pop music palette. Remember that listicle I sent you; ‘60 Most Iconic Queer Pop Albums of the Last 60 Years?’”
“I remember. I kind of assumed you were joking then, too,” Tommy quips, an amused smirk just vaguely ghosting across his face. “But no, I don’t have Carly Rae Jepsen on vinyl,” he says, like it’s the most obvious answer in the world.
Buck brushes it off, supposing Carly Rae Jepsen is a little contemporary for Tommy’s tastes. He tries to think of something that would be more his era. “What about Ray of Light?”
“Oh my god, Evan,” Tommy says suddenly, sounding utterly exasperated. “You know there’s a difference between being gay and being a fag, right?”
Buck’s mouth drops open in surprise. Suddenly, he feels very small and very dumb. “I-I don’t know what—what-what do you even mean by that?”
“I mean,” Tommy says, dragging the syllable out, “That the reason I’m into you is because you’re hot, and you’re funny, and we have a good time. Not because you put a pride flag emoji in your instagram bio or you know the words to however many Lady Gaga songs. We don’t have to go to gay clubs or wear matching pastel suits or sing duets together. It’s not what I’m into.”
Buck stands there, dumbfounded. He doesn’t even know what to think, let alone say. There’s too much to unpack in that statement, and rather than address any of it, Buck mumbles, “I’m gonna go take a shower,” and then goes to do that.
“Get all the glitter off before you even think of coming to bed!” Tommy shouts after him, like they didn’t just have a fight.
Because they didn’t just have a fight. Tommy said something that upset him, and Buck just…let it happen. Took it in stride. Except—he doesn’t really feel like he’s taking anything in stride. He feels like he’s running away.
He stays in the shower for way too long, thinking about Carly Rae Jepsen and drag queens and pastel suits. He wonders when Tommy says he’s hot and funny, if it means he makes him laugh, or if he thinks of Buck as someone to laugh at. Then he thinks of how he never really makes Tommy laugh. The best he can usually get out of him is a dry chuckle.
He shampoos his hair and thinks about how Karlee had called Eddie adorable, and how different it’d sounded from when Tommy called him the same thing outside the restaurant after their botched first date. He washes under his armpits and thinks about the way Viola had called Eddie kid the same way Bobby sometimes calls Buck kid, and contrasts it against the way Tommy had told him, “You need to raise your bar, kid,” the first time Buck had tried to tell him that he’d liked hanging out with him, that he’d actually had fun on their impromptu helicopter rescue. He scratches glitter off his skin and thinks about how he’s in Tommy’s shower while Eddie is in his bed. Buck thinks about a lot of things, and scrubs his skin raw, turning up the heat until it hurts.
Tommy is asleep by the time he gets out of the shower, and honestly, Buck is relieved. He doesn’t feel like sex tonight. Not with Tommy, not when he can’t decide if he’s mad at him or not. When he can’t even decide if he should be mad or not.
He slides into bed next to Tommy and worries about Eddie. He feels guilty, just dropping him off at his loft the way he did. He doesn’t want him to wake up and wonder where Buck is. He wonders what Eddie’s dreaming about, if he’s dreaming at all. He hopes they’re sweet dreams.
Buck can’t sleep. He itches to get home and make sure Eddie’s okay. He ends up slipping out far earlier than intended, before Tommy even wakes up, to do just that.