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one.
Abby finds out via Instagram. He still follows her, though he hasn’t liked a photo since she got back from her trip across the globe. Not even the wedding photos of her and Sam. (Sure, he may have saved the man's life and all, but he’s not going to be that guy.)
It’s late morning and Buck’s on the couch at his loft, mindlessly flicking through channels, when he gets the notification. Tommy’d spent the night last night, but was up and out before breakfast. Buck had posted a set of pictures from Pride this year, captioned “First Pride as a card-carrying bisexual with a boyfriend (and some amazing friends)! #bisexual #LAPride #ally”.
Tommy, notably, doesn’t “get” Pride. He never goes, he’d said, and had no interest in dressing up or doing any activities. He did come for a little bit after Buck had promised they could have a low-key night in after, but ducked out early before Buck had a chance to take any photos with him. Buck had had a great time anyway—he’d spent the rest of the day yesterday with Hen, Karen, and Eddie. Especially Eddie, who had listened patiently to Buck rambling about the history of Pride in Los Angeles and even surprised him by wearing a rainbow t-shirt of his own. And when they got back, Christopher had informed him that Eddie had spent 15 minutes deliberating over the shirts from the Target pride collection before making his decision, which made the whole day even better.
So now Buck’s sitting on the couch, and Abby likes the post, and then she comments, “Congrats, Buck! Eddie seemed like a real sweet guy when I met him!” Which. That can’t possibly be true. He doesn’t remember Eddie being particularly warm to Abby at the train derailment.
But that’s not the point. The point is that he posted a picture of Hen, Karen, and Eddie, and Abby had assumed Eddie was his boyfriend.
He re-reads the caption, and swipes through the post, and he gets it. Tommy left before Buck had remembered his camera, so in the roll of photos, it starts with a picture that Eddie took of Buck by himself holding the bisexual flag, then a few shots from the parade that Buck had thought were artsy (rainbows and paintings and people holding hands), and then finally, a group shot of Buck, Eddie, Hen, and Karen taken by a stranger.
He can see why Abby would assume, he decides, though it hadn’t even crossed his mind when he was posting it.
He looks back at his Instagram page, trying to decipher if any one else would make the same mistake. The picture before this one is just Tommy, from last week when they went to try out that brewery that Tommy’s friend recommended. Other than that, there’s one more picture of Tommy from a month ago, and the rest of his page is filled with Eddie, and Eddie and Christopher, and Maddie and Jee Yun. Eddie. The rest of the 118, shots of his hikes around LA. And Eddie.
That’s normal, right? He and Eddie are best friends. They’ve been close for years. It’s normal to have lots of pictures of the two of them up, because they spend so much time together. That’s all it is.
He clicks over to Eddie’s profile, and looks at that. Eddie’s a lot less active than Buck is; the last thing he’d posted was months ago, a picture of Christopher at his school science fair. He scrolls down, sees more of Christopher, sees himself. He sees hardly any Eddie.
He goes back to his own post, thinking. Eddie’s laughing at him in the picture, his eyes not on the stranger with the phone but looking over at Buck with his toothy grin and wearing his rainbow shirt. Something about it makes Buck’s stomach ache.
He swallows, and puts his phone down on his chest. He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath in, then lets it out. Then he picks the phone back up.
He likes Abby’s comment.
It’d be rude not to, right?
He tells himself that, locking his phone before turning back to the T.V. screen. It can be a funny anecdote to tell Eddie later. Or Tommy, he supposes. It takes him a minute to realize he’d left the channel running on an infomercial, so he switches it to Animal Planet.
He doesn’t end up mentioning it to either of them.
two.
They run into Ali on a call, because of course they do. It’s even at a hotel downtown, though they’re responding to a kitchen fire, not an earthquake.
She looks good, Buck has to admit. Her hair is blonde again, and it’s longer now. She shrieks a little when she sees him, rushing over as they’re packing up to go. “Buck! Hey, Buck!” he hears, and has barely a second to react before she’s there, arms out for a hug.
She’s doing great, he learns as they chat. She shows him her ring (huge), talks a mile a minute about her job (promoted to director), and then gets a sweet, dreamy look in her eyes as she talks about her fiancé (an orthodontist named Ethan). Can’t get much more stable and secure than straightening children’s teeth. He bets there are no work accidents on that job. Well, who knows—maybe Ethan will get his fingers bitten off by a third grader.
He’s surprised by his bubbling resentment, honestly. He hasn’t thought about Ali in a long time, and all things considered, they parted ways pretty amicably. It’s chafing him, though, to see her happy and settled, and while he knows he wants that settled feeling more than he wants Ali, he finds himself starting to gush about Tommy in a way that’s a little too fond to be genuine. He likes Tommy, he does, but it’s early, and… He’s not sure.
So he tells Ali that he’s recently out as bisexual, and that he has a boyfriend, and it’s going great. Like, so great. He swears. He’s thinking about Tommy and his broad shoulders and his big hands and his big brown eyes. Uh. Blue eyes. And –
“Is your boyfriend a firefighter too?” Ali says knowingly, a little smirk on her face. He feels like he’s missed a step in the conversation, because how could Ali know anything about Tommy?
But he soldiers on, says “Yes, actually, he’s—”
“Eddie!” She calls, and apparently Eddie was just standing around waiting to join the conversation, because he’s there, hugging Ali too.
“Ali, nice to see you again.”
“I’ll never forget the man who saved my life,” Ali says, tucking her hair behind her ear, and Eddie knocks his shoulder against Buck’s.
“It was a team effort.” He gives Buck his half-smile, the one that makes the dimple come out on one side, and Buck can’t help but smile back.
“I am like, so happy for you guys, seriously,” Ali goes on, and Buck’s heart stops. Because she can’t mean—no—not again, not in front of Eddie. Please. “Like, Ethan and I were friends first too, you know? And it’s so great having your best friend as your partner.” She’s got a fond smile on her face, looking at the two of them, and Buck shoots a quick, fearful glance at Eddie.
Eddie just smiles warmly back at her, as relaxed and easy as ever. “It’s the best,” he says. “Buck’s always been there when I needed him. I’d follow him anywhere.” Buck feels a little bit like someone has hit him on the head with a frying pan.
Ali presses the back of her fingers to her lips, making a sound like she thinks they’re adorable. Buck’s mouth opens, but no words follow. He has no idea what he’s supposed to say to that.
Eddie notices, because of course he does, and takes charge. “Well, we’d better get back to work,” he says smoothly, grabbing Buck by the elbow and steering him toward the doors of the hotel lobby. “It was great to see you, Ali.” She wiggles her fingers at them in a goodbye wave, and Buck gives her a two finger salute back.
“What was that?” he hisses as they get further away.
“What?”
“She thinks we’re dating!” Buck says, struggling to keep his voice down.
“Does she?”
“Eddie, she—” It takes him a moment to realize Eddie’s fucking with him, a glint in his warm brown eyes. “C’mon, man.”
“Look, I figured it was easier,” Eddie says, still holding onto Buck as they exit back out onto the downtown street. Buck thinks he might be able to feel the heat of Eddie’s hand through his turnout jacket. “It’s not like you’re going to see her again anytime soon, and I wanted to save you from it being awkward.” He shrugs. His ears are a little red, Buck notices, and he makes a mental note to make sure Eddie puts on sunscreen when they get back to the station.
“Okay, but you didn’t have to say all that,” Buck insists. He’s not even sure why he’s pushing, not really. But Eddie had to go and be—be all sappy, like it was nothing to him, and Buck doesn’t know how to feel about it.
“All what?”
“You know—that uh, that you’d follow me anywhere.”
“I would,” Eddie says, so softly that Buck almost misses it. Buck feels his breath catch in his throat. “Buck, I would.”
The noise of the bustling downtown street drops away, leaving only the two of them. He’s caught looking into Eddie’s eyes, warm and earnest, his hand still resting on Buck’s elbow. Eddie can’t mean that, he can’t. Because Buck is the one who follows, who goes after Eddie through smoke and fire, down cliff sides and up buildings. Through the rain and cold and 40 feet of wet earth. Through sunny LA streets riddled with bullets. He’d follow Eddie anywhere.
So Eddie can’t mean it.
Eddie’s gaze is searching, and Buck doesn’t know what he’s looking for but he’d be happy to give it if he knew. He opens his mouth to say something, anything, when they hear Gerrard call out from the engine. “Buckley, Diaz, get a move on!”
Eddie’s hand drops off his arm like he’s been burnt, and he takes a step back. Buck feels unmoored as they head over to the truck, Eddie a half-step behind him.
Because he notices it, then. Eddie follows him up the stairs back at the station. Follows him to get the jaws of life off the engine at their next call, then follows him up the ladder at the call after that. Eddie follows him to the bunk room for a nap, to the locker room at the end of their shift, to their cars in the parking lot before they say goodbye.
Buck goes back to his apartment, and he thinks about I’d follow him anywhere, and the look on Eddie’s face when he said it. He wonders how far Tommy would follow him. How far he would follow Tommy. He doesn’t know what it says about him that he’s not sure.
But it’s still early, right? It’s only been a few months, and he’s known Eddie for years, trusts Eddie with his life. Eddie trusts him with Christopher.
It’s not the same thing.
He gets ready for bed and thinks about Ali, and the way she was glowing when she talked about her safe, boring, orthodontist fiancé. He wonders if he glows when he talks about Tommy.
It takes him a long time to fall asleep.
three.
Buck runs into Ana Flores by himself, thank god. He’s at the good grocery store, the one on the west side that Eddie never wants to go to (Because, Buck, we have to drive past three other grocery stores to get there, it’s not worth it when I can get everything I need at the one by my house). Eddie’s a liar, though, because he always smiles that bashful little smile when Buck brings him back the banana nut muffins from the bakery here.
He spots her at the edge of the produce section, where he’s trying to decide if Christopher would prefer mangos or oranges in his lunch this week. He grimaces for a moment, then drops the orange back on the pile and the mangos in his cart before making his way over.
“Buck!” she says, surprise clear in her voice, and Buck gives her a tight-lipped smile.
“Hey, Ana! How are you?”
She’s beautiful, still. Sweet and put together, her voice soft and her words kind. She tells him she’s just bought a house nearby, that she’s vice principal of the middle school down the road. He’s awkward—he knows he and Ana never fit quite right, unable to sand out the rough edges as they tried to piece together where they each belonged in Eddie’s life.
They chat a little about Christopher, and he should have more to say to her, to the woman who helped him help Eddie through his recovery, who helped him organize Christopher and the house and Eddie’s family. He should thank her for that. He’s not sure if he ever did it properly before, because Eddie was shot and Buck wasn’t sleeping because his dreams were full of blood, so much blood, but he had to keep it together anyway. And Ana was there, helping, so he should thank her.
Before he can, she asks about Eddie. Eddie’s great these days, because Christopher is back from Texas and he’s been working through some things with Frank in therapy and he’s so confident and happy that he’s hard for Buck to look at sometimes. So he opens his mouth to tell her Eddie’s great, Eddie’s so great, but he gets a text from Tommy at the same time, wanting to confirm that they’re still on to watch the game tonight at the sports bar near his place, so what comes out instead is: “Eddie’s doing well, I’ve actually got to get home to him. Big plans with the boyfriend tonight.”
And Jesus H. Christ, what possessed him to say it like that? He’s got to drop the groceries off at Eddie’s (home), and then he’s going out with Tommy tonight and he just jumbled that all together and Ana’s eyes are widening and it’s wrong, all wrong, but Ana’s nodding like it’s all right and just smiles her kind smile before saying “Boyfriend, huh? Tell Eddie hi when you get back.” Like Eddie’s his—his—and Buck’s nodding and stammering out a goodbye before he flees towards the cash registers with only half of the stuff on his list.
He’s finding a new good grocery store. Ana can have this one.
Ana can have the whole west side of Los Angeles, honestly. Buck got Eddie.
He tries to forget that thought as soon as he has it—he’s not—and Eddie’s not—well, Buck has Tommy.
He doesn’t forget the banana nut muffins, though. He snags those on the way to the checkout, and he was right, Eddie smiles his special banana nut muffin smile at him and something in Buck’s chest loosens upon seeing it.
four.
He feels like he should have been expecting this one. The universe is conspiring against him, and bumping into Taylor Kelly jogging at the park by his loft is the next step in his divine punishment.
She comes over to say hello, breathless from her workout but still just as stunning as ever. She’s seeing her cameraman, she tells him, the same one she always had around. She says it like she wants it to hurt him.
It doesn’t sting, though, not really. Not the way it did when he found out about Ali’s orthodontist. Talking to Taylor, really looking at her, he sees that they weren’t ever a good fit, even without the whole Jonah situation. He kept trying and trying to make it work, and he’s gotten enough distance now to realize it never would have.
He does mention the boyfriend thing, just for something to say, and her face twists for a second.
“Eddie’s gay?” she says, her lips pursing in that face she always makes.
And the thing is—Eddie came out to him two days ago, soft and quiet and worried, in his kitchen. He came to Buck and he said, “I think I might be—” Then took a deep breath, steadying himself, and said “Buck, I’m gay.”
He just wanted to sit with it for a while, he’d said. He’d been working through it with Frank, untangling himself from Shannon and Kim and his parents and the military and a childhood spent in El Paso. “I want to sit with it, but I—I wanted to tell you. I wanted you to know,” he’d said, picking at the label on his beer.
Buck gave him his widest smile, gave Eddie the biggest hug he could, wrapping him up, and told him he was proud of him. And if Eddie folded right into his chest, if he shook a little in his arms, if his eyes were wet when he pulled back, then that was between Buck, Eddie, and the frog sponge holder by the sink.
Anyway, Eddie is gay. But he’s not about to say that to Taylor, and that’s not even the point, actually, because Buck is dating Tommy.
Even if things with Tommy are a little strained right now due to the whole interim Captain Gerrard thing (Bobby’s finally been reinstated, he’s coming back next week, thank god). Buck’s not sure how he feels about being told to keep his head down all summer, that it’s just a job, it’s not that big of a deal, but again, not the point.
“Eddie’s not my boyfriend,” is what he settles on, but he’d hesitated too long and Taylor’s caught on to the scent, chasing after it with her teeth bared and claws out.
“Eddie’s gay and the two of you aren’t together?” she says, going straight for the jugular, and Buck gapes like a fish. “Better tell your boyfriend to watch his back.”
Buck wants to insist that no, Tommy and Eddie get along great, that they were friends first, actually. But the fight night in Vegas was months ago, and Muay Thai dropped off and do they even still go to basketball?
And now he’s re-contextualising some of Eddie and Taylor’s interactions from years ago, the way they’d snipe at each other. He’d thought they just didn’t get along, but—but Taylor’s implying there’s a different reason for that than just their personalities clashing.
Does Taylor think that Eddie—? No, no way, he’s not getting into that here, not right now. His heart is hammering in his chest though, and he fakes a text message from Maddie to get out of there.
“Bye, Buck,” Taylor says, sweet and sharp all at once, like she always was. “Tell Eddie hi for me.”
His palms are sweaty as he walks away. Tommy and Taylor and Eddie are swirling around in his brain and he wipes his hands off on his shorts to dry them off. He’s not thinking about this right now, he’s not.
He texts Maddie for real before heading to get his Jeep.
He stops to buy a bottle of chardonnay on the way—there are some things you just need to get day-drunk with your sister about.
five.
So, Buck might need to “re-evaluate” how he feels about Eddie. That’s what Maddie said the other day, in between glasses of Napa Valley’s finest and an extensively thorough rant about how much she loathed Taylor that felt like she’d been holding it back for years. He needs to re-evaluate how he feels about his best friend, and he’s out on a coffee run to bring breakfast over to his boyfriend’s place, and because the universe really does hate him, he runs into Natalia at the coffee shop .
She smiles when she sees him, too wide, so he can tell she’s faking it. “Buck, hey!”
He’s already holding the coffees and pastries, on his way out as she’s on her way in. He shuffles things around in his hands so he can give her a one-armed hug; she still smells like lavender and vanilla. She takes a step back, and he watches her glance down at the two cups. “New girlfriend?” she asks, all casual, and he tries not to wince.
"Boyfriend, actually,” he says, even if he’s getting more and more certain that it’s not meant to last. “Bisexual,” he adds, then cocks a finger gun at her with his free hand before almost dropping the coffees balanced in his other. Natalia gives an awkward chuckle, and Buck contemplates throwing the coffees in the trash and letting the earth swallow him up whole.
“I should’ve known, honestly,” she says, graciously ignoring the finger guns. “I’m actually bi, too! I’ve been seeing a woman who owns a crystal shop in Silver Lake.” He barely has a moment to process that when she follows it up with, “So how long have you and Eddie been together then?”
That’s it. He’s running away to Antarctica and fighting fires there instead.
“Oh,” Buck says. “Not Eddie. It’s—my boyfriend, he’s—not Eddie.” And for all that Natalia wasn’t surprised before, she’s clearly surprised now, her eyebrows raising almost up to her hairline. She gives a little shake of her head before brushing it off and telling him congratulations anyway.
They fall into an awkward silence, then; he’s about to shift the pastries around a bit so he can wave goodbye when Natalia asks whether he’s had any new near death experiences to add to his collection. And—Buck is just so struck by how little she understands him.
He thinks back to a graveyard conversation with Eddie, when he was fresh off of a fatal lightning strike and desperate to feel normal, telling Eddie that Natalia saw him like no one else did. Thinks back to Eddie telling him he doesn’t have to be anything for anybody.
It hits him, then, why it didn’t work out with Natalia. Why it’ll never work out with Tommy, either. Because they don’t see him. They don’t click. He has all of this love in him, aching to be shared, and everyone he tries to give it to doesn’t hold it right.
But Eddie—Eddie holds it. He’s been pouring all his love into Eddie for years, and Eddie holds it, and keeps it, and all Buck’s ever wanted was to be kept.
He’s standing there, in the kind of gourmet coffee shop that Tommy loves but he hates, talking to his ex-girlfriend while holding two coffees as he realizes—the second coffee is for the wrong person. Both coffees are for the wrong person, honestly. If he was at Eddie’s, they wouldn’t need to go to a coffee shop at all, he’d be in Eddie’s kitchen showing him for the thousandth time which buttons to push on the Hildy coffee maker to make an Americano and Eddie’s face would scrunch up, creasing that little line between his eyebrows and Buck would laugh, and they’d drink their coffee on the couch that doubles as Buck’s bed and it’d be enough. It’ll always be enough, because he loves Eddie.
He loves Eddie.
Natalia excuses herself to get into line and Buck stumbles out onto the street, trying for all the world to seem like he hasn’t just had a universe-tilting realization.
The next thought slams into him—Eddie can’t know.
He loves Eddie, and he can never, ever tell him.
Because what they have is special. It’s precious. Eddie is enough, just the way he is, and Buck can’t ask for more from him.
Buck’s a mess, and apparently so glaringly obvious with his love that every one of his ex-girlfriends has smelled it on him to the point where they all just assume that if he’s dating a man, it must be Eddie. Even Ana clocked it right off the bat, and he never even dated her. But she knew, and Taylor, and Ali, even Abby. Because yeah—he’s clearly been in love with Eddie for years.
And no matter what Taylor said, no matter what Maddie was dancing around in their conversation the other day, he can’t risk telling Eddie and ruining everything. He can’t put this—his love—on Eddie, not when Eddie is finally happy and doing well (well enough to shave off the mustache, which to be honest, Buck almost finds himself missing, no matter how often he’d told Eddie it made him look like a gay pornstar).
He looks down at the coffee in his hands, and he knows what he has to do: break up with his boyfriend. It’s not fair of him to keep pretending this is working.
And then he has to keep his love for Eddie Diaz locked up tight, stop letting it bleed out of every pore. Their friendship, their family, that they’ve built from the ground up, Buck and Eddie and Christopher, will always be enough.
And if Buck wishes, just a teensy tiny bit, that he could be enough for Eddie too, he’ll just have to learn to live with it.
plus one.
It’s almost six months before he sees Tommy again.
He and Eddie didn’t get together right after the break-up—it took a month or two, another quiet moment in the kitchen when Buck came over to make Eddie dinner. He’d resigned himself to a lifetime of pining over his best friend, pining with a pile of half chopped garlic on the counter and onions caramelizing on the stove.
Eddie had been watching him from the kitchen table, listening to Buck chatter on about the recipe, the way he liked the chicken better from the deli at his new favorite grocery store but he’d stopped for the produce at the farmers market, when he’d stood up and took Buck’s hand off the knife, cradled it in his own as he turned him around, and admitted, quiet and with a shaky voice, that he was in love with Buck. That he’d been in love with Buck. And Buck couldn’t help but kiss him right there in the kitchen, in front of the garlic and the fridge magnets and the frog sponge holder, while wearing Eddie’s “Smokin’ Hot” apron that he got at the firehouse White Elephant gift exchange two Christmases ago.
Buck couldn’t help but kiss him, and it was everything he’d ever wanted.
It felt safe.
It felt like sunshine, and brown eyes, and nights spent on the Diaz couch.
It felt like coming home.
He’d kissed him and kissed him, soft and sweet until it wasn’t, until the cutting board with the garlic clattered on the floor and the onions burnt and they had to order take-out for dinner instead.
He’d cut off the rest of Eddie’s love confession with the kiss, but he got to hear it in full later, safe in Eddie’s arms and pressed into his lips in Eddie’s bed. Buck pressed his love into Eddie right back.
But now it’s three months after that, the best three months of his life, and they’re on a call, a five alarm. And there’s Tommy, geared up with the rest of the 217. Buck looks at him, really looks, and he can’t believe he ever thought he wanted Tommy the way he wants Eddie.
Once they wrap up the fire, Tommy makes his way over to him, and Buck grits his teeth in anticipation. Tommy had taken the break-up the same way he took everything he didn’t like—flatly, with his lips turned down in distaste. “Fine, Evan, if that’s what you really want,” He’d said as he walked Buck to the door of his apartment, coffee abandoned on the counter. “Have a nice life.” The door slamming shut behind him had never felt so good.
Buck pulls his helmet off and tucks it under one arm, bracing himself. Tommy’s just reached him, mouth open to say something, when Martinez claps a hand on Buck’s shoulder in passing. “You and your boyfriend sharing clothes now, Buckley?” She calls, a teasing lilt to her voice, slipping past them to start winding up a hose.
Buck stares after her in confusion, before he twists over his shoulder to look down at his turnout jacket. And yep—there it is, DIAZ, in big yellow writing across his back.
“Boyfriend?” Tommy says, but Buck’s not looking at him. He’s staring across the scene at Eddie, who’s staring back, flushed red and smiling, before he spins to show Buck the neon BUCKLEY across his own coat. His face must do something gooey, because he hears Tommy suck in a breath next to him. “Ah. Eddie,” he says, and it’s kind of mean, kind of smug, in that way that Buck could never tell if it was supposed to be condescending or not.
And Buck—Buck just doesn’t give a shit. “I’ll see you around, Tommy,” he says, not even bothering to wait for a response. He’s only got eyes for Eddie, Eddie who’s wearing his last name on the back of his turnouts and all he can think about is the ring burning a hole in his sock drawer. (There’s another ring hiding in Eddie’s hat box in the closet, so Buck knows he needs to get a move on if he wants to be first.)
He grabs Eddie, tugs him in between the 118’s engines and gives him a big ol’ sloppy kiss. They pull back after a moment, covered in soot and sweat and smiles, Buck’s love pouring into Eddie and Eddie’s pouring into Buck right back. Buck goes to shrug off his jacket, ready to swap them back, but Eddie stops him. “Keep it on,” he says, his eyes twinkling. “We’re heading back to the station now, anyway.” And yeah, Buck really, really, really needs to get a move on.
He’s keeping Eddie, and Eddie’s keeping him, and he never wants anybody to mistake Eddie for his boyfriend ever again.
Fiancé doesn’t sound too bad, though.
Husband sounds even better.