Work Text:
if you knew how lonely my life has been
and how long I've been so alone
and if you knew how I wanted someone to come along
and change my life the way you've done
it feels like home to me
September 2017
Hi Evan,
first off, I’m sorry it took me so long to write. There’s so much I wanted to say when we said our goodbyes but I didn’t know how to say any of it. Too much? Too soon? Were those 5 days even real?
The memories feel a little too good to be true over here, in the fucking desert. Makes me question real hard why I came back a 3rd time… but of course I know why I did, as I told you in unnecessary detail. This is the one thing I’m good at, so what else was I supposed to do with my life?
You can’t even imagine how often I sat down to write this letter to you, only to tear it up again. Pretty sure everyone in my squad is laughing at me by now.
So you might ask yourself, why now? What made me write and even send this letter after all? The answer is, as for many things in my life, my son. I’ve been writing to him, as much as I can. We video call, too, when it’s possible, but… technology’s only semi reliable out here half the time. Service was stable at the base, but out here at our camp it’s an issue. Call times are limited and we all get our allotted slots, but 90% of the time it’s not good enough for a video call anyway. The letters might not always get shipped immediately, but he’ll get them all eventually, and he’ll know that I was thinking of him. He’ll know that I care. That’s what matters, right? I can only hope. He’s 6 now, and I feel like that’s the best I can do, after abandoning him for a 3rd time.
Either way, I was writing to him, and mentioned the stegosaurus thing you told me, about the size of its brain. So I mentioned you, too, and I realized: I want him to meet you. I want my kid to know you. Dios.
So, I decided to tell you that. And that I miss you. Because I do. We only had 5 fucking days together, but they were intense, to me at least.
How did your move to L.A. go? I hope you’re doing well, send me your new address if it changes (unless you’d rather not hear from me again).
You don’t have to write back, but I’d like to hear from you, if you want. I added a separate note with the correct postal address.
Cheers,
Eddie
“Cap? We got visitors,” Hen calls up from the bay where she is busy cleaning up the ambulance after their last call, which turned from a presumed ordinary medical into a gigantic clusterfuck within the space of minutes. Typically, Chim would be helping her at this point, but today he is still getting dressed after showering about a third of the aforementioned clusterfuck out of his hair.
At Hen’s call, Bobby abandons their cooking efforts without hesitation and heads for the stairs, Buck taking over seamlessly. There is still an entire pile of root vegetables to peel, and he wordlessly keeps working his way through it. Bobby has been teaching him, and besides, cooking is a nice distraction from the ever-present grief lingering in the back of his throat, in the yawning pit of his chest; ever since his last letter came back stamped “undeliverable” two months ago.
“Hello, can I help you?” he distantly hears Bobby’s calm, familiar voice echo up into the loft.
“Yes, uh” -Buck’s knife clutters to the countertop, fingers suddenly numb and nerveless- “I’m, uh, looking for Evan Buckley?” -his heart might have given out, he could not say, blood rushing in his ears so loudly he barely catches the second question as he rushes over to look, to see- “He works here, right? Is he on duty?”
Bobby is turning around where he stands down in the bay, easily visible from the loft. He opens his mouth to call up and fetch Buck, but Buck is already crashing into the banister with so much momentum it almost sends him over.
“E-Eddie?” His voice cracks, and his chest aches, and, deep in the hollow, his heart starts beating again.
The smile wrought into Eddie’s stunning features is small, and familiar, and real. Buck is flying down the stairs before he even realizes that he is moving, careening around the truck and barely stopping his half-crazed advance before he can crash into Eddie, because Eddie — Eddie has his arm in a sling, and a kid with glasses and crutches tucked into his side, and he is there.
He is alive.
“I- I thought you were dead,” Buck — somehow — croaks around the massive lump in his throat. It grows and grows and grows, taking over the space of the grief against his trachea, deep in his chest, open-mouthed hope and bone-shattering relief and panic-struck joy blooming to life in its wake. The frantic tears rise abruptly, without warning, to burn against the corners of his eyes.
Eddie’s small, familiar smile falls.
“I’m sorry, Evan, Dios, I’m so sorry-”
“No, I, you’re here- can I hug you?”
Buck freezes. Eddie is an insanely private guy, is not even out, and Buck went and behaved like he did (does)-
“Carefully, please.” With a sad, ironic little smirk wrought into the corners of his lips (lips Buck would have sold his fucking soul to see smile just one more time these past two months), Eddie lifts his uninjured hand from Chris’s small shoulders, trails it through blond curls, and extends his arm in open invitation. Then, the warm smile is abruptly, firmly back in place.
Buck comes slowly. Cautiously. He is bitterly, achingly aware that he has dreamed this before, more than once. But — never with Chris there. Never with an uncontrollable sob ripping through him the moment he makes contact, head gingerly resting against a broad shoulder, and never with Eddie injured. (At least not in the good dreams, the dreams that made him wake up in despondent tears, heart breaking all over again that they were not real. The dreams where Eddie shows up injured, a walking corpse come back to the US to haunt and torment him; those are different dreams. Those dreams he is glad to wake up from.)
“E-Eddie-”
“Evan,” Eddie breathes into his neck, warm timbre trembling and rough fingers tightening around Buck’s nape, only to be interrupted by a small, inquisitive voice:
“I thought we’re supposed to call him Buck now?”
Eddie exhales a burst of laughter that sounds suspiciously like there might have been a sob right on its heels (Buck’s heart shatters and splinters and beats) and slowly disengages from their half-awkward half-desperate, one-armed embrace. “That’s right,” he concedes hoarsely, smiling down at the boy still wrapped into his side, and Buck finds himself dropping to his knees without ever consciously choosing to do so.
Chris.
He looks just like in the photo, only more real, and Buck loves him already. Has loved him for a while now, ever since he put the drawing of the brachiosaurus onto his fridge.
He holds out a slightly shaking hand, heart almost beating out of his chest, and tries to breathe through the terrified exhilaration bubbling up in his lungs, his veins, his heart at the prospect of finally really, actually meeting Christopher. I want my kid to know you. Shit.
So many of Eddie’s words, spread across five letters and ten months, haunted him ever since he had to accept Eddie’s death (which is not what actually happened, clearly, and he still does not quite know how to believe it-) but what he said about Chris? That just about broke Buck. He has always adored children, always wanted some of his own to love and raise and be a dad to, and with how things were developing between them, with how Buck was writing directly to Chris — he thought, he hoped-
But then he had to presume that Eddie was KIA, and he lost not only the man he has come to love, but also the child whose drawings he still treasures and yet cannot quite look at without keening, whose letters he still hoards greedily, and who he has come to accept that he will never get to actually meet. Only, here they are, Chris still nestled into his father’s side and watching Buck avidly through red-framed glasses.
“Hi Chris, I’m Buck. It’s nice to finally meet you in person.”
Chris regards him critically for another few long, heavy moments, Buck’s heart stumbling desperately in its pace, before a beaming smile splits his little face. “Buck!” he declares, forgoes the hand entirely, and throws himself into Buck’s arms without hesitation.
Buck catches him. Of course Buck catches him, wraps the little body in the warmest, most tender embrace he has ever had the honor of giving, and tries not to cry (again). “Chris,” he murmurs into the riot of golden curls now tickling against his nose, takes a deep breath.
Eddie’s good hand flutters against Buck’s shoulder as he steps closer, and Buck looks up to meet the other man’s warm, gentle gaze. He does not know what to do about what he sees in Eddie’s eyes, or about the way it makes him feel.
“Evan,” Eddie breathes again, fervently, and Buck swears his heart is just going to stop. At some point today, this wonderful, joyful, beautiful day, his heart will just give up and crumble to dust and glitter.
“Buck,” Christopher contently corrects his father, face still buried in Buck’s neck, breath warm against his skin.
Somewhere in the space between Buck’s little bubble of disbelieving joy and the rest of the world, somebody clears their throat.
Right. Right.
Eddie is here, but he is injured, and Buck needs to make introductions, and the mere idea of letting go of this kid already is unbearable, and-
“Chris, would it be okay if I picked you up and carried you?” he asks cautiously, somewhat relieved that his voice sounds… semi casual, at least. It was only towards the end of the five days Eddie and Buck spent in Austin that Eddie mentioned his son, his CP, and how much it hurt leaving him behind, but even when he was not yet ready to share the kid’s name he mentioned to Buck how much he cared about his son’s independence and belief in himself. It made Buck crush even harder, back then — or maybe that was the beginning of him falling in love with the soldier headed off to war, with the man he lured into his bed and life and heart and never wanted to let go of.
Chris just nods silently against his neck, still boneless in his embrace, and Buck finds Eddie’s gaze across the kid’s narrow shoulders. At the unspoken question echoing between them, Eddie simply nods, that damningly warm smile still firmly etched into the corners of his mouth, and Buck somehow manages to get up and lift Chris without stumbling even though his heart nearly gives out on him mid-beat.
Eddie catches his son’s crutches with his good hand without batting an eye, and he is standing way too close for Buck to be able to concentrate on anything other than the warmth against his shoulder (Eddie, Eddie, Eddie) and the warmth in his arms (Chris). He wonders, for a moment, whether he will ever be warm again when they —inevitably — leave, and that thought instantly sends his mind into a tailspin.
“Can you- stay?”
Eddie must have heard some of the desperation Buck tried his best to keep out of his (rather shaky, okay, he is not playing this cool at all; whom is he fooling) voice, because he crowds even closer. “We’ve got nowhere else to be,” he assures lowly, warmly, and Buck tears his eyes away from Eddie’s brown, brown, brown ones with what must surely be the world’s most impressive display of self-control.
Around him, the rest of the world begins to seep back in. Bobby is still standing where he called out to Eddie from, arms crossed and eyebrows raised though he is smiling. Hen has abandoned her cleaning efforts in favor of watching curiously, leaning into a smirking Chim’s shoulder at their Captain’s side, and Buck gulps sharply. Catches Bobby’s gaze with a question of his own.
“If a call comes in, we have to head out of course, but you’re welcome to stay until we return. And in the absence of any emergencies that require our presence, why don’t you join us for dinner?” Bobby does not even bother to pretend he was not listening, and his smile only widens as his arms fall to his sides. “Bobby Nash,” he seamlessly introduces himself, steps closer and extends a hand in Eddie’s direction.
“Eddie Diaz. Nice to meet you, Captain,” Eddie answers easily, almost snapping into what might have been a salute before he catches himself with a pained little gasp, and Buck tries to breathe through the sudden intense vertigo of his two worlds meeting. He told Eddie about the 118, of course, but he never mentioned Eddie to them in return — first because he did not really know them well enough, was not quite comfortable laying his heart bare like that, and then because it hurt too much. Not even Chim knows, Maddie promised not to tell anyone without Buck’s express permission.
Luckily, his team is courteous enough to let him breathe for a moment, though there is little doubt he will be in for the interrogation of his life. They have grown close over the last almost-year, ever since Buck got assigned to them in January, and he knows they care about him. Also, they are nosy little shitheads, and will no doubt want to know everything. For now, though, Bobby leads the way back up into the loft without another word, Hen and Chim hot on his heels, and Buck follows almost on autopilot. He does not miss the subtle limp in Eddie’s gait as they make their way up the stairs, nor the occasional grimace flitting across his face, but — Eddie is here.
Eddie is home.
October 2017
Eddie,
you can’t imagine how excited I was to get your letter! My roommate is still laughing at me. I guess at least we’re both getting laughed at?
Hey, did you know that there’s a sauroid called suzhousaurus that looked like a giant rat and is thought to maybe be a distant ancestor of the giant ground sloth? How cool is that??
Shit, Eddie. You want your son to meet me. That means more to me than anything else you could’ve said, I know how much you love that kid. I might’ve cried when I read that (don’t tell anyone). I don’t believe in love at first sight, because IMO you need to know someone to love them, but damn if I didn’t start crushing on you the second you opened your mouth. (I miss that mouth, man.) I think at this point it’s obvious that there’s a ton of shit I didn’t know how to say, either. Our time in Austin was intense for me, too, Eddie. Physically (ha!) and emotionally. Please don’t doubt that.
And your son might not understand now, but he will when he’s older. I wish you weren’t in Afghanistan, with a constant danger to your life, but I get why you signed up for a third tour. There might’ve been some running away involved, but you told me how out of place you felt between the divorce and your ex-wife’s choices and your parents’ behavior. I get it. I do. And you’re doing everything you can to keep in contact with him, yeah? You mentioned what a clever kid he is. One day he’ll understand, if he doesn’t already.
The move wasn’t a lot of effort, I lived out of my Jeep for a good few years, and I’m used to packing up my life and moving. I’m glad I paid for that mail forwarding service from my old place in Austin, though, or I wouldn’t have gotten your letter. Not living alone takes some getting used to, but I’ll start looking for my own place as soon as I’ve got a stable job. For now I’m bartending again to keep afloat, and I started fire academy last month. So far I’m really enjoying it, and I can’t wait to graduate and join a station!
Please, please, please write back, Eddie (if you want to). I enclosed my new address in L.A. for you. Also, please take care of yourself.
I miss you,
Evan
“I, we, came here as fast as we could,” Eddie says earnestly, warm (warm warm) eyes flickering hungrily across Buck’s features. Eddie allowed himself to be pressed into one of the couches, Chris over in the kitchen corner “helping” Bobby with the abandoned pile of vegetables, and Buck is kneeling on the ground next to Eddie because he needs to look at him, they have to be on eye level, and he cannot ask him — he is injured, and Buck still does not know how badly — to roll up on the cushions so they can face each other. “We, uh, I’ll tell you everything you want to know later, in detail, yeah? Everything I’m allowed to talk about at least?”
Buck nods quickly, desperately. Yes. He wants, needs to know what happened. How Eddie got hurt, why his letter came back as undeliverable and he had to presume Eddie was dead. “Please,” he chokes out, and claims the fact that it sounds only half-frantic as a minor victory. “Eddie…”
“We came as fast as we could,” Eddie repeats, and reaches out a hesitant hand. Buck snatches it up faster than he has ever reached for anything, clings to the warm, rough fingers as though they are the only glue holding him together. “After we were shot out of the sky-”
“What-”
“It took them a minute to get us extracted,” Eddie continues hoarsely, as though uninterrupted except for the tight clutch of his fingers, “and they shipped us back home to the US as soon as we were stable, but… I had to go to Texas first. I had no phone number, of course, and aren’t we idiots?” He laughs self-deprecatingly, hollowly, and Buck abruptly clings to his hand even more desperately. It must be painful by now, his own knuckles white from how tightly he is holding on, but Eddie does not bat an eye.
After we were shot out of the sky, reverberates through Buck’s mind, echoes through his skull and bites into the void in his ribcage, after we were shot out of the sky, after we were shot out of the sky-
But Eddie is here, and he is breathing, and he is talking. No, not talking right now, waiting for an answer? Maybe. Yes.
“Uh — yeah,” Buck half-laughs, half-sobs, “I’m sorry, that’s on me-”
“Don’t,” Eddie immediately interrupts, “you have nothing to apologize for. It was… I would’ve loved to talk to you, Evan, you know that, but I had little enough chance to speak to Chris. It was really thoughtful of you and-” He swallows whatever he was going to say, warm eyes darkening abruptly into haunted stillness, and Buck’s heart breaks. Again.
“And you probably won’t get a stable call through from camp anyway, and you’re not supposed to return to base before the end of your tour,” Buck finishes the sentence for him, the present tense of Eddie’s letter bleeding into the words without his conscious intent.
Eddie flinches violently, the near verbal quote flogging through his strong body like the lash of a whip, and Buck clings even harder. He did not mean to, he did not mean to-
“Y-Yeah,” Eddie confirms hoarsely, “…that.” Their gazes are interlinked and intertwined, like two pieces of string inextricably entangled, like two comets on collision course.
For a few moments there is silence, heavy and loaded and daunting. “I — that was probably creepy, I’m sorry,” Buck stutters out, erratically, when he tries to gasp for breath and the too thick, charged air settles viscously against his throat, his lungs, “I just, I read all your letters so often and, and-”
“And I think I might know every one by heart,” Eddie interrupts him softly, gently, tenderly. Between them, the air thickens even further. “Evan.” Buck has never heard his name spoken — whispered, breathed — like that, desirous as a prayer.
“Eddie,” he gasps (sobs) in response, and Eddie leans forward on the couch.
“Evan,” he repeats, “Buck. I… I know, we wrote about our feelings but we never promised each other anything-” (liar, his brain whispers, I promised that I’d be patient and wait for you to be ready, and you promised that you’d come find me when you got back home) “-and it’s been a while without contact, and you thought I was d-dead, but- are we?- Do you-”
“I love you,” Buck blurts out, any sense of control lost. Swaying into him, Eddie freezes.
“Evan-”
“I- I told you,” he babbles, and, oh, wow, now he knows what fear is — “in my last letter to you, but it was returned as undeliverable, and I was asking you to come home, to be safe, and I told you I loved you, and-”
“I love you, too,” Eddie interrupts the spiral spewed right into his lap, eyes dark dark dark and fingers shaking in Buck’s unscrupulous hold. “I know we’ve only had those letters for so long, but… everything I wrote to you is still true. I don’t want to lose you. You make me want to build a life of happiness. And I’m still… there’s still only a handful of people who even know that I like men, but… but you’re the reason I haven’t given up on myself.” You’ve made me want to fight for a better future for myself. “Be my- … be mine. Please?”
“Yes, yes, yes-”
Eddie tilts fully into Buck’s space with a soft laugh, then, his uninjured shoulder against Buck’s, his weight sinking into Buck’s frame, his forehead against Buck’s temple.
For one long, perfect moment, they share the sweet air between them.
“Boyfriends?” Buck asks quietly, because he has abandonment issues as big as a brachiosaurus and needs the clarification, and Eddie raises his head to smile at him.
It is the most beautiful, exhilarating, grounding thing Buck has ever seen. “Yeah, that sounds good.”
Buck turns his head, tips just the slightest bit closer, but finds himself hesitating when he remembers his team puttering around the kitchen behind his back, cooking and chatting with Chris and setting the table. Eddie is a private guy, and he is not out. Buck cannot just-
Eddie traces a long, calloused finger down the line of Buck’s jaw. “What’re you thinking about, hmm?”
Buck gulps audibly, pulls back the slightest bit — barely enough to be able to look at Eddie, for all that he wants to hide in the warmth of his embrace and (preferably) never resurface. “You, you just said… there’s only a handful of people who know you’re gay, and… I don’t want to be the one to out you, Eddie.”
Something softens in Eddie’s gaze. “I got your last letter in June. I… I tried to write back, but things started going South around that time, we had to relocate our camp, a lot of things were lost. For a while, there was a lot of chaos. Lots of fear, too, and not much structure. But… I did get that letter, and you told me about your sister… and that you consider these people here family, too. Is that — do you still feel like that?”
Buck tries to breathe around the sudden panic clawing at his lungs, his heart, his throat at Eddie’s casual mention of things going South in a damn active warzone. Somehow, he manages to nod jerkily; Eddie’s warm hand still a soothing weight against his jaw. “Y-Yeah. They’re… yeah. They are my family. Chim… Chim and Maddie are dating, actually, so — it’s really everyone.” Everyone but you, and Chris.
He does not say the last part out loud, but Eddie seems to hear it anyway. “I… I don’t think I’d be comfortable going to them and telling them about my sexuality, but… I’m proud to be your partner, Evan. I made it back home to Christopher and you, and I’m… I’m okay with people knowing about us. Your family at least, and maybe even my abuela and my aunt. Okay?”
“Okay,” Buck breathes, because — yes, that is okay. More than okay, actually. Perfect.
October 2017
Eddie,
I haven’t heard back from you yet but I just learned something super cool and I really really wanted to tell you about it so you could pass it on to your son:
Couple of years ago they found a new dinosaur, a cousin of the triceratops (they’re of the same tribe, Tricerstopsini) called regaliceratops, that the scientists nicknamed Hellboy. Because its horns look like the comic book character. And they had a, quote, hellish time excavating the skull from the rock. This is my favorite new fact.
Please take care, and please write back.
Evan
“Dinner’s ready,” Bobby announces mildly, and Buck clambers back to his feet a little shakily. His knees are sore, shanks tingling from where he half sat on them, but there is nowhere he would rather be. Eddie accepts his outstretched hand after only a short amount of hesitation and a minor huff — Buck recalls, remembers, achingly and tenderly, how stubbornly self-reliant Eddie is. The time they spent together in Austin was short, no more than five days (five days and four nights, four sleepless, eye-opening nights), but they did learn as much about each other as can be learned in five days about another human being.
Eddie follows Buck to the table with that addictive sense of calm he exuded one and a half years ago, too; though it is doubtlessly a mask. Chris is already in a chair propped up on a collection of pillows, placed next to Bobby around the corner, and Eddie easily steers Buck to sit down next to the kid. Between the two Diazes.
Oh.
“Thank you so much for the help, Christopher. After Buck abandoned me, I’m glad I had you as my sous-chef,” Bobby smiles cheerfully at Chris, who nods importantly.
“Never ask my dad to help you,” he declares with a cheeky little grin, and Buck’s heart aches, burns, throbs. “He burned water twice since he came home.” And, well. Buck vividly remembers Eddie’s cooking skills; or rather the glaring lack thereof.
“Traitor,” Eddie hisses playfully, pointing an accusatory finger at Chris, and his son giggles so hard he hiccups as he flops bonelessly right onto his plate on the table.
Buck turns to his brand-new boyfriend (boyfriend!) as Hen and Chim — sat opposite of them, with the rest of A shift filling up the table — cackle in delight, raises a teasing eyebrow. Bobby interrupts him before he can give voice to the bratty comment on the tip of his tongue, though, reaching out to clasp Hen’s and Chris’s hands. The gesture travels around the table, Eddie’s arm in a sling a dead end, and Bobby says grace before motioning towards the pile of pasta with Bolognese sauce.
“Tuck in.”
Eddie leans forward intently, earnestly, to capture Bobby’s gaze. “Thank you so much for the invitation, Captain.”
“You’re very welcome, Mr. Diaz,” Bobby smiles mildly, and serves Chris without further ado.
“Eddie, please.”
“You must call me Bobby then.”
Buck watches as Eddie observes his Captain’s actions with keen eyes, nodding almost imperceptibly at the size of the kid’s serving when Bobby raises the corner of a questioning eyebrow. Huh. Is that a dad thing?
“Good thing you made these noodles rather than spaghetti, Cap,” Hen grins at Chris. “Much easier to eat. I’ve got a son, Denny. He’s about the same age,” she explains for Eddie’s benefit, before shoveling a forkful of pasta into her mouth.
“These are also my favorite type of pasta corta,” Buck grins at Chris, knowing fully well that this is the exact reason Bobby bought them in the first place, after they had a lengthy discussion about pasta one night after a particularly gruesome call. It was shortly after Buck’s last letter did not make it through to Eddie’s camp, sometime in August, and around the time his team began to understand that Buck was not okay, even though he never found the strength to elaborate. His grief was an all-encompassing, but ultimately quiet and private thing. Before Eddie, and Austin, and one and a half years of increasingly emotional letters exchanged with a soldier on the other side of the world, no one who knew him even passingly (not that there was anyone to know him better than passingly, not with Maddie gone, before the 118 did its Thing) would ever have believed that Buck could be private about something so emotional but — Maddie is the only one who knows. Or, well, who knew, now. Shit. “That just means short pasta, by the way, as opposed to long pasta. And these are orecchiette, meaning small ears, because they look like little ears.”
“They do!” Chris exclaims, no less excited, after examining the piece of pasta on his spoon, and turns on his pillow pile to look at Buck. “Did you know there’s dinosaur pasta?”
Buck, who feels more alive than he has in more than four fucking months, clutches his left hand to his heart and dramatically throws himself back into the frame of his chair. “Do I know there’s dinosaur-shaped pasta? What do you take me for, Christopher Diaz, a savage? A barbarian? I’ll have you know I had dinosaur-shaped pasta only last week” -crying into the store-bought sauce because he could not be bothered to cook, could barely do anything beyond staring at the letters from Eddie and Chris and mourning what he was never going to have for yet another afternoon- “and before you ask, Bobby, I cooked it perfectly al dente! Dinosaur pasta is a serious matter, after all.”
Chris giggles so hard he hiccups again, snorting laughter into his pasta, and underneath the table Eddie presses a warm, affirmative knee into Buck’s.
“Christopher,” he reprimands softly, the smile audible in his voice, and Chris takes the tissue held out to him without complaint, wipes the Bolognese sauce from his face and glasses both. Quite suddenly, between one heartbeat and the next, Buck aches to be a dad — Chris’s dad — too, so violently he is not sure how he manages to breathe through it. Christ, but he is getting ahead of himself; has only just officially agreed to be Eddie’s boyfriend. Has only just held Chris in his arms for the first time ever. Has only just gotten them back.
“Bu-uck,” the kid inquires almost seriously, though he cannot quite suppress his wide grin, and Buck is near delirious with the impact of his cheerful, joyful presence, “do you think there’s brachiosaurus pasta?”
Buck cocks his head, exchanges a short glance with Hen, who shrugs. She is also grinning wildly, like this is the entertainment of the week to her, but Buck genuinely cannot be bothered to care. For all her curiosity, he knows she is — will be — happy for him, too. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen brachiosaurus pasta,” he admits, “which doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.”
Chris nods slowly, wisely; apparently not unduly disappointed. “But Buck?”
“Hmm?”
“Would brachiosaurus pasta be short pasta or long pasta? You know, because of the long neck?”
Buck finds himself staring at the kid for a moment before he breaks out into loud, guffawing laughter, the rest of his team right on his heels. To his left, Eddie snorts out a heaving laugh, too, before flinching almost violently. Buck twitches around instantly, finds his boyfriend’s gaze even as Eddie grimaces.
“Ribs,” is all the explanation he offers, but that is plenty — broken ribs and laughter do not go all that well together, Buck knows. Across the table, Chim winces in open sympathy.
“That is an excellent question, Chris,” Bobby calmly draws the child’s attention away from the not particularly stealthy conversation about his father’s injuries, and Eddie’s gratitude is almost palpable in the pleasant warmth of the firehouse this wonderful November evening. That warmth, Buck knows, has only a little to do with actual temperatures, and a lot with the people sharing this meal with him. “I must admit, I don’t know a lot about brachiosaurs. They were tall, I assume?”
Chris nods emphatically. “One of the tallest plant eaters. They ate, like, hundreds of pounds of food every day!”
“Hundreds of pounds? That’s a lot,” Hen nods along solemnly.
Chim’s eyes widen dramatically. “Even worse — hundreds of pounds of salad!”
Next to Buck, Eddie coughs shallowly in amusement, and Buck feels that warmth spread right through him, to settle like syrup in his veins, his bones. “Hey, did you know that brachiosaurus means arm lizard? Because its front legs were longer than its hind legs.”
“Yup, I know,” Chris quips cheekily, and Buck grabs his chest again in exaggerated dismay.
“I see I need better facts for the dinosaur expert.” Chris giggles again. Buck does his best to ignore how every single giggle feels like a fucking achievement, Eddie’s knee still pressed into his, and pretends to think really, really hard. He tries to pose like one of those old Greek philosophers, and Chris giggles harder. Strike. “Weeeell. Did you also know that… brachiosaurus heads could be detached from their necks super easily after they died? For many brachiosaurus skeletons, the heads were never found.”
Chris cocks his curly little head, apparently more impressed by that particular fact. “Why?”
Uhm. “Apparently the skulls were kinda light, and also with the long neck they got easily detached by predators trying to eat them, or by water or mud washing them away?” he tries to remember what he read as part of his sauropod research binge in June and July, after he sent his second letter for Chris along with the fourth letter to Eddie, hunting for cool facts he could write to the kid while they both waited for his dad to come home. Before he got really scared when no answer would arrive; before his next letter was returned as undeliverable and he lost all hope. He shudders as the echo of that incessant, heart-wrenching grief eats through him like acid, tries to stifle the physical reverberation burning against his eyes. They are here — they are here, both Eddie and Chris, and they are alive, and he gets to discuss dinosaurs over dinner rather than through letters. “Most other bones were heavier, so they had a much higher chance of staying with the skeleton I think.”
“Makes sense,” Chris nods smartly, and Buck shudders as a hand makes not-so-subtle contact with his shoulder. Eddie’s left arm is the one in a sling, so he has easy access to Buck sitting to his right, digging strong fingers into the muscle next to his shoulder blade in a somewhat askew marriage of an embrace and a massage, at least that is what it feels like. Apparently, his attempt to swallow down the memory of soul-rendering grief ripping through him was not quite as successful as he hoped, because he can feel Eddie’s burning gaze dance across his cheek. It feels intense enough to leave a trail for everyone to see, engraving pyrography into his skin. For a short, insane moment, Buck wishes almost violently that he would really get to keep permanent evidence that Eddie is here, that he cares.
Buck swallows down the impulse to blurt out tattoo your presence into my skin or something similarly idiotic and instead presses his knee even more firmly into his partner’s, turns his head just far enough to barely catch that burning case. Barely. He is a little too close to broken right now, presence and memory abruptly bleeding into each other, and he knows that this is real, he knows, but — but for four months, having to accept that Eddie was KIA was real, too. And Christ, this is the most joyful day of his life, and he would not trade this dinner for anything in the world, but it is also… a lot.
“Evan?” Eddie murmurs quietly, warmly, leaning in so close that it cannot be comfortable for the state of his ribs. “Are you… okay enough?”
Okay enough.
Buck is not okay, he is not, and the fact that Eddie sees that, recognizes that, understands that and accepts that, settles around him like a weighted blanket. It grounds him, just a little, but that is enough to grind out an answer lowly enough Chris hopefully will not hear it.
“You were dead, Eddie. You were dead, and I was never gonna meet Chris, and it’s…”
Something breaks in Eddie’s warm, brown, real eyes. “Yeah,” he mutters painfully, and his fingers dig even deeper into Buck’s back extensor, “yeah. I’m… I’m sorry.”
“No, don’t- you said you got shot down” — after we were shot out of the sky, after we were shot out of the sky, after we were shot out of the sky — “and I’m assuming that wasn’t something you did on purpose, and you mentioned there was a lot of chaos before that, and clearly you couldn’t have written-”
“Doesn’t mean that my dropping out of contact didn’t hurt you,” Eddie argues quietly, “or that I can’t be sorry that it did.”
Buck collapses into himself, because yeah — yeah, that hurt worse than anything ever hurt in his entire life.
“I don’t mean to pry,” Chim comments curiously as he leans back in his chair, clearly finished with dinner, and ignores Buck’s and Hen’s incredulous snorts by lots of practice, “but what the fff- what happened?” He barely catches the expletive in time, gaze flicking towards Chris for a second, before zeroing in on the hand damn near molten into Buck’s shoulder again. “Also, who exactly are you?”
Next to him, Eddie stiffens, and Buck’s gaze twitches towards Chris before returning — inevitably — to entangle itself with Eddie’s. He gulps softly. “How much… how much does he know?”
Eddie’s own eyes trail past Buck’s broad frame, towards his son, before he huffs slowly. “Everything that really matters,” he acknowledges slowly, finally withdraws his hand. His knee remains firmly, immovably pressed into Buck’s. “But I don’t expect this to be a child-friendly conversation-”
Then the alarm goes off.
Of course. They had quite the reprieve, Buck muses morosely, jumping to his feet. He turns towards the stairs, but then he looks at Eddie and finds himself frozen in time, in space. He cannot leave. He just got Eddie back — Eddie, who he thought was dead — and he cannot leave. What if- what if-
“You’re welcome to stay and wait,” Bobby offers calmly to Eddie and Chris, Hen and Chim already gone, “but please stay up here in the lounge. There are restrooms through there.” He motions towards a door, looks at Buck. “You gonna be man behind?”
“No, I- I’m good, I’m coming,” Buck stutters out, because as much as he wants to stay — neither himself nor Eddie would want him to leave his team hanging. Bobby nods once, sharply, and also takes off, and Buck’s hand finds his partner’s uninjured shoulder. Eddie has gotten up, too, stepped right into Buck’s space. “You — can you wait?”
“We’ll be here, however long it takes,” Eddie promises quietly, intently, and lifts his own hand to grasp Buck’s chin. “Be careful, please?”
“For you, always,” Buck swears, and he thinks his battered, broken heart might stop again when Eddie surges forward to press a quick kiss to the corner of his mouth. Then he is flying down the stairs for the second time today.
December 2017
Hi Evan,
Dios. I have no words to describe the way you make me feel. I’ve known you for half a year. I’ve known you for 5 days and 2 letters. It’s a little ridiculous how attached I got, and how fast. When I got your second letter, it took my team a whopping 5 seconds to figure out I was fighting tears. They wanted to know why, and didn’t really get what was so emotional about a weird dinosaur fact. I’m embarrassed (I’ve cried about calls with my son not connecting or about having to hang up when they do, but that’s it), but I also can’t quite be bothered to care.
I don’t know what to say, Evan. Maybe I just need to rely on my little wingman again. When we last got a stable connection and video chatted, I told my kid that you’d written to me. He was super excited about me making and staying friends with the “cool dinosaur guy” (for now friends it is, at least to him) and you can’t imagine how thrilled he was to hear about the Hellboy dinosaur. He was so thrilled, in fact, that he insisted on sending a picture of himself with his next letter (I’ve got 1 picture that I took with me, but I’m not parting with that, sorry), which is why this answer took a while. Or, well, that’s my excuse anyway. I’ve added it to the letter, together with a picture of a brachiosaurus he drew for you. At least he insists it’s a brachiosaurus, I wouldn’t be able to tell. Evan, meet Christopher, the light of my life.
I’m really bad at writing down everything I want to say to you. I’ll have 4 letters to Chris written out, and still spend days’ worth of my downtime staring at the empty pages intended for you. It might’ve been only 5 days, Evan, but we spent a lot of that time talking. I like to think you know me as well as one could know another after 5 days. So, you know that it’s hard for me to open up. I always struggled to tell my ex-wife (Shannon, I don’t think I mentioned her name before) how I felt for her, and some of that was me not knowing it myself. I didn’t want don’t know whether I would have really wanted to stay with her, but that’s beside the point I’m trying to make: I know that me not being open with her about myself was part of why I lost her. And I don’t want to lose you. It’s hard, but I’m trying. Please believe me.
There’s a lot of things I want to tell you, but I’m not ready to, or I don’t know how yet. I hope you can be patient with me to find the courage, and the words, to say them. But for now: I don’t want to lose you, Evan.
Okay, I am not going to trash this letter, even though that’s going to be hard. I’ll just keep writing. I’m glad to hear that you’re really going through with fire academy! From what you told me in Austin, and from the way you spoke about it, I think this’ll be a really good fit for you. I think you’ll be great at it, actually. (I’m also trying not to be jealous of all the damsels in distress that will be flirting with you after you save them.) When are you graduating?
I miss Okay, I wasn’t gonna be emotional again, this letter’s gonna be hard enough to send as it is, but I just re-read your first letter. And I just wanted to thank you for what you said about me signing up for a third tour, and Chris understanding my choice. I’m so used to being criticized for everything I do, it means a lot that you’re in my corner.
Whew, this ended up half a novel. Hope I didn’t bore you.
I miss you too.
Merry Christmas,
Eddie
“You okay, Buckaroo?”
Buck raises his sightless gaze from… somewhere around his knee, to look at Hen instead. Her dark eyes are wide and genuine, and she knocks her heavy shoe against Buck’s between them in the truck.
He finds himself taking a deep breath, darts a glance at Chim next to her observing him equally concernedly (curiously), and another at Bobby in the front. The rest of their shift is distributed across the remaining vehicles they took to the scene (Carson, who is driving the ladder truck, excluded), and Buck feels safe enough, familiar enough, with just his core team-come-family on the channel with him. Bobby does not turn his head to look back at them, but there is no doubt he is listening. A steady presence, as always. They are almost back at the station, and Eddie will hopefully still be there, and suddenly Buck doubts the authenticity of this expectation; the reliability of his own memories. He takes another deep breath, smooths a hand across his thigh.
“That was… that really happened, yeah?”
“If by that you mean a stranger and his kid coming to our firehouse, and having dinner with us, and being real close to you, then yes,” Chim snarks back unhesitatingly, bumps his own shoe against Buck’s.
“Eddie,” Buck corrects him without thought. Not a stranger — Eddie.
“Eddie,” Chim amends wryly, gleefully. “You gonna tell us what that was all about?”
“I-”
“After clean-up,” Bobby instructs drolly, and abruptly, the engine bay looms up before them. “Buck, quick check your guests are alright, then I want you to clean up the truck with Chimney and Hen before downtime.” If there will be downtime. “Couple more hours to go, folks.”
Buck just nods, because of course he will do his duty, no matter how desperately he might want to curl up with Eddie and just… exist.
He takes the steps up to the loft three at a time, heart almost beating out of his chest, and finds himself in an unexpectedly clean — empty — kitchen. There is no sign of Eddie.
His heart breaks and splinters and fucking detonates, because Eddie needs to be real, needs to be here, needs to be alive, Buck needs him to be, and-
The door to the bunk room opens and Eddie slips out, quietly closes it behind himself. His eyes light up when they find Buck and he crosses the distance between them with long feet — only, Buck’s feet are longer, and he is more desperate.
“You’re still here,” he breathes fervently as they meet halfway, and maybe the desperation of the past ten seconds is still a little too present because Eddie wraps warm, rough fingers around Buck’s nape without hesitation.
“I promised to be,” Eddie reminds him calmly, steadily; leans in to rest their foreheads together. “You were gone for a while, so I managed to coax Christopher into sleeping, hope it was okay that we went into the bunk room. There was one bunk with a sweater that said Buckley across the back, I figured that would be a fair bet?” He smiles crookedly. Buck just nods mutely, chest warm, and Eddie continues in this twilight-like moment stretched between them: “I thought I heard you come back, but it took me a while to, uh, extricate myself without waking him.” He smiles even more lopsidedly then, almost a grimace, and Buck understands abruptly that Eddie is considerably more limited in his mobility than he seems willing to admit. “Sorry if I worried you.”
“No, no… it’s okay. It’s all okay,” Buck murmurs just a little loopily. “You’re here. And it’s — it’s late, it’s good if Chris is asleep. I, uh, I gotta help clean up, and take a shower, but I’ll find you after?”
“Of course,” Eddie accepts easily, “take your time. Please. We crashed your workplace mid-shift, please don’t accommodate for or apologize to me. I’ll… I’ll still be here when your shift is done, if you want me to be.”
“I’ll always want you to be here,” Buck blurts out, and it is not the stupidest thing he could have said in this situation, nor is it the cheesiest going through his mind right now, but it still is worthy of a fair bit of embarrassment. He feels the blush rise in his cheeks, but — somehow — he manages to get his shit together enough to press the echo of a kiss right onto Eddie’s lips before sweeping back downstairs, telling the rest of A shift to please be mindful of the kid sleeping in his bunk and then getting the ladder truck taken care of with his team before stumbling into the showers. By the time he makes it back upstairs, no longer covered in sweat and grime and ash and clad in a fresh uniform, Eddie is sitting on the same couch as earlier, a mug of coffee in his hand (long, broad fingers wrapped around the porcelain, and Buck gets distracted for a moment, because Christ, he has missed those hands, has missed them against his skin and on his body and-) and chatting quietly with Hen, who is clinging to her own mug. It must be a little after midnight now, judging mostly by how light traffic was on their way back. Most of the others seem to have filed into the bunk room, but not Hen, Chim or Bobby. Apparently, curiosity wins out over the need to sleep.
For a moment, Buck contemplates grabbing a coffee for himself, too, but his feet carry him over to Eddie’s side before he has come to a conclusion on how desperately he actually needs caffeine, and he drops into the couch cushions instead. He scoots closer, mindful of his boyfriend’s (boyfriend!) injuries, and Eddie hands over his mug without another word.
“You’re not hurt?”
“Nope, I’m fine,” Buck yawns, takes a sip of coffee and grimaces. Right. Apparently, Eddie still drinks his black. Hen snorts at him, but Buck is barely aware of her getting up, too focused on the sling Eddie’s arm is still trapped in, the ribs, the fact that he remembers a limp on the climb up the stairs. He is on Eddie’s left side, now, and that seems like a stupid decision; only, there is a distinct lack of space on Eddie’s other side. “It feels a little surreal that you’re asking if I’m hurt, when you’re sitting here like… this.” He gestures helplessly with the cup, barely manages not to spill any coffee.
Eddie snorts, nudges their knees back together — more gently this time, though. “I didn’t just go out and run into a burning building, though.”
“He’s got a point,” Hen teases with a bright, tired grin and pushes both a jar of caramel sauce and a bottle of milk into Buck’s free hand. Bobby and Chim follow on her heels, pulling over chairs of their own. Huh. Buck did not even hear the coffee machine, but they are both holding mugs.
“Thank you for cleaning up the kitchen,” Bobby inclines his head towards Eddie. “You didn’t have to.”
Eddie just smiles a little self-consciously, and Buck wants to kiss him really, really badly. “You invited me for dinner, it was the least I could do.”
“You’re injured-”
“Not too injured to load a dishwasher, or wipe down a table,” Eddie rolls his warm eyes, carefully knocks his foot against Buck’s — much like Hen and Chim did in the truck. Oh.
“What’re you working with, anyway?” Chim inquires shamelessly, stealing the caramel sauce from Buck the moment he has screwed the jar closed again after adding a sensitive two spoonfuls to his coffee. For all that the lot of them like to tease him about his sweet tooth and the way he drinks his coffee, Chim would not turn down anything with caramel in it if it was going to kill him.
“Uh.” Eddie laughs a little uncomfortably, then grimaces when the movement predictable aggravates his injured ribs. “Well. Couple broken ribs, you already know that. Healing,” he adds wryly, presumably for Buck’s benefit, when Buck promptly petrifies on the sofa next to him. He did not realize where Chimney’s question was headed, which, stupid; but apparently Eddie did, and- “Dislocated shoulder, but that tends to be drowned out by the fact that I was shot in that same shoulder. I-” Buck makes some kind of noise at that, he knows he must, because Eddie pauses mid-recital and turns to face him more fully.
After we were shot out of the sky.
“Evan-”
“No, it’s, it’s okay,” Buck rambles mindlessly, “you said earlier you were shot out of the sky, and, clearly, that wouldn’t have gone down without any injuries, and they were already shooting at you, so it makes sense you were shot, and-”
“Evan,” Eddie repeats, more insistently this time, and Buck swallows down the rest of the sentence. He has no idea where it was going anyway.
“Eddie…”
Somehow, Eddie being visibly injured, and Eddie saying after we were shot out of the sky, and Eddie limping around with his arm in a fucking sling — none of that hit as hard as hearing that Eddie was shot. Because Eddie was in Afghanistan, in an active warzone, and Buck spent one and a half years worrying, and had to assume Eddie died in that warzone for more than four months. Four months, in which he imagined increasingly gruesome scenarios, alone with his grief and his loss except for when Maddie made him talk to her about it, and he always thought… he always thought Eddie died being shot. Buck, thankfully, knows little enough about what it is like to be in an active warzone. He knows that there was that badly planned operation the day before Christmas, of course, that got Eddie injured a little less than a year ago. He knows that Eddie collected an entire array of injuries during his first two tours, as well, that he considers them minor inconveniences (less so the trauma that came with them) even though Buck was already beginning to panic a little when he ran his hands over the scars in Austin. He knows that soldiers get killed in action all the time. During the time they were… well, not together, since they never specified anything, but writing letters slowly giving their hearts away, Buck forced himself not to look up — anything. No statistics, no veteran reports, no nothing. He has no clue about what is particularly likely to kill an American soldier in the Afghan desert, but he always thought it would be bullets.
To hear now that Eddie was actually shot-
“Show me,” he demands abruptly, thoughts screeching to a halt, and Eddie stares at him for a few long, long moments, before nodding slowly.
“It went through my scapula,” he explains quietly, “I’m not supposed to move my shoulder outside of PT, which is… a bitch. But — if one of you can help me, maybe-”
“I’m a paramedic,” Hen immediately volunteers, and helps wrestle Eddie out of his sling (where his forearm and wrist turn out to be in a cast, and, wow, how did Buck miss this?), and his t-shirt. He is still a stunningly beautiful man, but Buck is not even a little distracted by the breath-taking body on display. Eddie’s entire torso is covered in a marbled pattern of bruises and hematomas in all stages of healing, from faint yellow shadows to angry black marks. It is no wonder, really, that there are some cracked ribs underneath all this, but Buck’s gaze is drawn to the large patches covering Eddie’s left shoulder front and back. With Hen’s help he peels off the front one, face carefully blank, and there is a barely healed wound revealed, and-
Buck makes it to the restrooms off the lounge before the pasta Bolognese makes a reappearance, which is a minor miracle.
January 2018
Eddie,
I’ve got your back. Whatever it is, I’m gonna make camp in your corner and stay right there, yeah?
Did you get to have any sort of Christmas celebration?
Hey, can you ask Chris if he’s ever heard of quetzalcoatlus? It was named after Quetzalcōātl (yes, I had to look up how to spell that), an Aztec serpent god, and it wasn’t just the biggest flying reptile, Wikipedia says it’s a candidate for the largest flying animal ever discovered! Wingspans are estimated at 33-36 ft. That’s fucking gigantic, and I love it. Chris really needs to look up pictures of quetzalcoatlus, those are wild!
I also gotta say it was an honour to meet him ;) Please tell him thank you for the photo, and the brachiosaurus drawing. I’m moving next week (my new address is enclosed as usual), and as soon as I’ve got my own place both of them are going onto my fridge the moment I’ve got one! I’ve also enclosed a picture of me in my new uniform (do feel free to tell me how hot I look in it) for him, and a drawing of a troodon, which was probably the smartest dinosaur. Chris is super smart, too, so I thought he might like it. (Between the two of us, I’m afraid my troodon is only marginally more recognizable than his brachiosaurus.) Please do forward them to him.
And yes, I know that you’re a cagey guy. That’s why I actually, really, truly cried (I’m a man who’s not ashamed to admit that, at least not to you) when you wrote that you wanted Chris to know me, because I understand how much that means coming from you. And it means the world to me, man, as does what you said in your last letter. Ask my brand-new colleagues and they’ll tell you that I’m impatient AF, but I’ll wait for you as long as I have to. I guess I kinda accepted I’d have to wait for you in some way when I saw you off in July and realized I couldn’t just forget you and move on. 15 months of tour’s a long time to wait for someone you’ve only known for 5 days, but I guess that’s who I am. I’ve been told before that I’m too intense and get too clingy too quickly. Will you tell me if this is too much? Either way, what I was trying to say: I’ll wait for you as long as you want me to. I don’t want to lose you either, Eddie. I’m not sure how well you can know someone after 5 days and a handful of letters but I think I’m in love with you. Okay yeah you can probably still read that, but I don’t want to rewrite the entire letter. Let’s pretend please?
I just realized, after all this talk about waiting — do you even want to meet up when you get back?
I graduated at the turn of the year, with top grades!, and got assigned a station right the week after! I’ve known my colleagues only for a few days, but so far they seem nice. They’re not completely put off by me, so I guess that’s something. The job’s intense, but that’s part of why I chose it. You know, rushing into burning buildings to save people who’d otherwise die is insane and feels like a high, but the come down (it’s not really the come down, more like the other side of the coin, but I’m still feeling my metaphor) when you lose someone is pretty tough. Still, so far this feels like a good choice.
I miss you, Eddie. Please be careful.
Evan
Bobby is the one who comes to find him, curled up next to the bowl and still focused on breathing without puking again. His fingers rap against the half-open door before he pokes his head into the cubicle. “Buck? Is it alright if I come in?”
“Y-Yeah,” Buck rasps miserably, throws his head back against the cold, hard tiles. The sensation makes is a little easier to stay in the present, to drive away the mental images haunting him. After we were shot out of the sky reverberates through his mind, loud as bells tolling right against his skull, and I was shot in that same shoulder adds to the cacaphony. The bullet wound must already be halfway healed, but even so the view was almost more than he could take; and not for any general squeamishness. Buck is a first responder, he has seen so much worse, but this is Eddie, and suddenly, he could not deal with it. He had to get away. Away from the memories and the mental images, not from Eddie, but-
His stomach lurches again, for a different reason this time. “Is — is he, are they still there?” Christ, the mere idea that he might have driven Eddie away already-
“Eddie and Christopher?” Bobby clarifies, crouching down to squat next to Buck’s miserable carcass in the open cubicle door. “Of course they are. Eddie is probably worried out of his mind, though he’s trying not to show it, but Hen convinced him to wait you out and give you some time. She’s also helping him get dressed again, for everyone’s sakes.”
Buck hiccups out a half-snort half-sob at that. “Y-Yeah,” he says again, because, what else can he say? This is all just too… big, to put into words. “I, I need to-”
“Sure.” Bobby gets up easily, extends a hand to help Buck back to his feet, too. He watches, patiently, as Buck flushes the toilet, then stumbles towards the sink to rinse his mouth and splash some cold water onto his face. His skin is deadly pale, he sees in the mirror (unfortunately), birthmark standing out like a scar of its own. And maybe it is. One and a half years is a long time, but some impressions of those five days in Austin last July have stayed with Buck as though they happened only one month ago rather than sixteen — at first they were cherished memories that made his heart stumble with excitement, later a handful of loving reminders that there was a future worth waiting for him; then cruel mementos of everything he lost without ever truly having it. Eddie’s finger trailing featherlight touches over his birthmark, followed by his lips, is one of those impressions, one of those cherished memories, loving reminders, cruel mementos, and suddenly Buck cannot bear staying in this restroom for even a moment longer when Eddie is on the other side of that door, here, in the firehouse in L.A.
Eddie, who is injured.
Eddie, who is alive.
Buck tears across the restrooms and towards the lounge, only to be stopped in the door by Bobby’s hand on his shoulder. “Buck.”
“Bobby, I, I have to, please-”
“Buck,” Bobby repeats, more insistently this time but still as warmly. “Breathe. Clearly, I don’t know even half of the story, but — he came here for you. He came here, and he brought his son. It seems like there are a lot of conversations you should really have, but… you have time to breathe. And let him breath, too, okay?”
Right.
“O-Okay,” Buck nods slowly, because Bobby is right. Bobby is right, and Eddie is here, and Chris is sleeping in the bunk room, and Buck takes a deep breath and straightens his shoulders and smiles at his Captain (who is more of a dad to him than Phillip Buckley ever was, but right now really is not the time to unpack that), before stepping back out into the lounge.
Eddie twists in place on the couch, grimace flitting across his face as the pain of the movement catches up with him, and Buck crosses the distance between them with a handful of long, determined steps; sinks into place next to him again. Eddie’s t-shirt is back on, his arm in the sling again, and Buck swallows down the immediate disappointment that wells up because — it clearly is better this way. He takes the chewing gum Hen wordlessly hands him with a quiet nod of thanks and folds himself into Eddie’s side carefully, cautiously. His arm on the backrest wraps around Eddie’s broad shoulders to his uninjured side, and it is so, so easy to entangle their fingers when Eddie’s warm hand reaches for his.
Oh. Eddie really meant it when he said he was okay with the team (Buck’s family) knowing about them.
Of course, Hen’s attentive gaze zeroes in on their clasped hands almost instantly.
“Okay, Buckaroo,” she bursts out, “I’ve been so very patient all evening, didn’t even bug you earlier on the truck when you had nowhere to run, but I’ve officially run out of patience. Spill.”
“Yeah, buddy,” Chim echoes, arms crossed. “C’mon, make some proper introductions.”
Suitably distracted from his earlier spiral, Buck searches Eddie’s gaze for a moment, receives quiet consent in the form of Eddie squeezing his fingers. He sits up a bit straighter, stretches out his legs in the space between the couch and his team members’ chairs, and lets the warmth of his partner’s assent eat through his veins. “Eddie, you already met Hen and Chim, my colleagues, and Bobby, my Captain.” Chim glowers in annoyed impatience, but Buck feels absolutely no guilt about making his friend wait for what he really wants to know. (The amused tilt to Eddie’s terribly pretty, horribly kissable lips is absolutely everything.) “Folks, this is Eddie — my b-boyfriend.”
His heart stumbles helplessly, nervelessly. Jesus fucking Christ. Eddie is now officially his boyfriend.
Hen puffs up without a beat, scowls at Buck as she crosses her arms in front of her chest (coffee mug be damned). “You fucking traitor,” she hisses without missing a beat, and next to him, Eddie tenses abruptly. Buck knows, he knows Hen is the absolute opposite of homophobic. But Eddie, of course, cannot know that. “You had the audacity — you let me badger you into coming to Pride as my ally friend when you’ve got a boyfriend stashed away?”
“In my defense,” Buck murmurs weakly, the majority of his attention focused on how Eddie is relaxing slowly, reluctantly, “it’s only been official for a couple hours?”
“Well, officially or not, clearly something’s been going on between the two of you before last night,” Chim remarks laconically.
Buck kicks out a long leg, manages to catch his friend’s shin.
“Ow! Workplace harassment-”
“I think it’s pretty obvious that Eddie just came back from war,” he snaps, “and that I thought he was d-dead.”
Chim falls silent abruptly, but Buck pays him no mind. His gaze flickers towards the patch he now knows is hidden beneath the soft fabric of Eddie’s shirt, the patch that covers a fucking gunshot wound. Abruptly, the nausea returns, but this time he manages to swallow down the initial surge of emotions too big to handle, instead sags further into Eddie’s side — ever so careful not to aggravate any injuries. He still does not know where the limp comes in. Buck breathes, and thinks about Bobby’s words, and breathes a little more. “I’m sorry,” he apologizes quietly, “about earlier. I… panicked.”
“Understandably so,” Eddie answers equally quietly, gently squeezes Buck’s fingers again. “I’m only so, uh, mostly calm about… all this because, well. War tends to reorient your priorities.” He smiles a little crookedly, unsuccessfully, and Buck’s heart does this desperate thing it has really gotten into today. “When we were huddled behind some rocks, under enemy fire and barely covered, after I’d gotten everyone away from the heli but when we still thought reinforcements would never make it to us on time… it wasn’t all that long, really, but it felt like ages. Ages in which all you can think about are your regrets, and what you’d do differently if you got the chance. It… changed everything.”
“I can imagine,” Chim comments more seriously than he usually lets himself get. “So that’s how you collected these souvenirs, getting — what did Buck say? — shot out of the sky in a helicopter?” He motions at Eddie in a gesture that, somehow, manages to encompass the broken arm, and the cracked ribs, and the dislocated shoulder; and the bullet wound of course.
Eddie snorts dryly, and apparently decides to opt for a sense of levity. It lasts all of one word. “Yup. I’m a medic, and we were doing an extraction, transporting a wounded soldier, and ended up flying over a fortification our drones hadn’t picked up on.”
Buck shudders.
“Man, how’d you survive that?”
“Asks the guy who once had a piece of rebar stuck in his head.” Hen’s not particularly helpful interjection sees Eddie’s face go slack with surprise.
“Excuse me, what?”
Chim chuckles darkly. “Yeah, how does anyone survive shit like that? I probably lost a couple brain cells in the process, but I’m good. Can’t recommend the experience, though.”
“No kidding,” Eddie breathes, and- “well, not… not all of us did. Survive, I mean.” He tenses, a sharp downturn to his mouth he cannot quite quench before it flinches across his lips, and Buck clasps the fingers entangled with his a little tighter. Again. “But I — uh, we, did get his body out, so… I guess that’s something?”
“That sounds like you’re a damn hero, Eddie,” Hen remarks, voice caught somewhere between dry snark and warm understanding.
“I’m not-”
“Well, if you wanna be a real hero,” Buck desperately throws himself back into the fray when Eddie tenses even further in obvious discomfort, heart burning and bursting and breaking, “you gotta become a proper firefighter — right?” He grins expectantly at his partner.
After a short, endless moment Eddie bursts out laughing, and then promptly winces when his ribs do not take too kindly to the amusement.
Across from them, in his own chair next to Hen, Bobby raises an intrigued eyebrow. “Are you thinking about joining us, then?”
Eddie sobers abruptly, turns his head just enough to catch Buck’s gaze for a moment. “I mean, first I have to heal up, obviously, but… I’ve been thinking about it for a long while, and… I think I will, yes.”
Buck’s heart stumbles helplessly in his chest, again. This day is too good to be true, finding out about his partner’s helicopter crash and gunshot injury notwithstanding.
“I looked up the EPFD,” he admits shamelessly, smiling with excitement at the prospect of actually getting to share the experience of being a firefighter with Eddie after it was nothing more than a dream for so long, “stalked them a little on social media, too. They seem like a good bunch.” Direct flights from LAX to El Paso take about two hours — or at least that was what he found several months ago, when he first looked it up. (When he still had hope.) By car, it would be around twelve hours, if everything goes well... Buck has lived out of his car in the past, there are worse prospects than regular road trips to Texas when his shift schedule allows.
“EP?” Hen is the one to ask, only to be ignored.
Against his side, Eddie twists his head further; catches Buck’s gaze properly this time, even as he hesitates. “I was going to talk about this with you in private, first,” he concedes wryly, speaking so quietly even Buck has to strain to hear, “but… I’m not staying in El Paso. Shannon, uh… Shannon died in a car accident in July, Christopher was with my parents when I came back. That was… not great, for him or for me. It took me a little to pack us up, especially because of all this,” he nods roughly at his shoulder, at the arm in a sling, “but, I just… I needed to get us out of there. Do you — remember my abuela?”
Buck nods dumbly, his heart picking up pace again. This cannot be going where he thinks it is — right? (He is not going to survive this night. He will have a heart attack at some point, or his heart will just stop, or actually burst into flames, or-)
“I was hoping to stay in L.A., actually,” Eddie finishes quietly. Hopefully.
Buck knows he is beaming, even though he can barely feel his face with the intensity of it. His heart does its Thing again, but somehow he still manages to speak. “Please do,” he blurts out, “Christ, yes, please-”
“He didn’t just ask you to marry him, did he?” Chim comments sarcastically from the sidelines, confirming that Eddie’s words were spoken too quietly to be understood by the other three. Before Buck can have a minor mental breakdown over the remark, over the appropriate answer in this context, and over the mere idea of marrying Eddie, Hen roughly burrows a pointed elbow in her friend’s ribs.
“Don’t be an ass, Chim,” she chastises, “I still haven’t heard their story. If you make either them panic before I’ve gotten the whole. Damn. Story. You answer to me, understood, Han?”
“Understood,” Chim salutes cheekily, and Buck falls back on Bobby’s earlier advice.
Breathing is great. Underrated, really.
To his right, Eddie carefully squeezes his hand, raises a questioning eyebrow in Buck’s direction. He leans in close, to murmur: “I’m not… I’m not all that comfortable talking about all of it, but I’m okay if you want to.”
Buck, to his absolute credit (he deserves a medal, really), does not shudder when Eddie’s warm breath ghosts across his ear, his cheek. Trying to ignore both his friends’ amused gazes and the heat flooding his face, he nods minutely. Yes, he wants to talk about this — about them — very, very much.
Eddie just smiles calmly, warmly in response. Right.
January 2018
Hi Evan,
thank you. This means a lot.
Christmas was a bit of a mixed bag over here. 24.12. sucked big time, there was a badly planned operation and half of us got injured. Before you worry, I picked up a grazing shot, but I’m fine and it should heal up fast. Besides, we all made it out alive, so that’s a major victory. On a way more positive note, we then got to spend Christmas Day at base with stable phone service, so all of us got to call our families and then we picked up a several hour long game of partially-injured soccer. It was memorable, and a break we all needed before shipping back to our camp on the 26th. I talked to Christopher for at least 1.5h, I really needed that. He loved your drawing, and the picture too (though I did consider keeping it for myself. As you mentioned, you look incredibly hot in this uniform. Almost as hot as you look out of it). He also sent me a new drawing to forward to you, it’s enclosed. I called my sisters and parents, too, they were all together, and my abuela. Did I tell you that she lives in L.A.? She’s a lovely lady.
Talking to my sisters was nice, talking to my parents was complicated. It made me wish I could call you, too, but I guess we both thought our time in Austin was gonna stay a 4-night-stand when we said goodbye? I’m glad you asked me to write to you if I felt like it, and I’m glad that I managed to talk myself into sending that first letter. Do you want me to try and call you? I probably won’t get a stable call through from camp, and we’re not supposed to return to base before the end of my tour, but I could try if you want. Let me know what you think.
Evan, your last letter meant a lot to me. You make it seem like opening up comes super easily to you because you overshare (it’s adorable), but the stuff you wrote last showed me how you’re actually insecure about a lot of things. That was probably hard for you to let me see, so I appreciate it all the more. I cherish your honesty, Evan.
Now that I’ve said that, there’s something I need to make really really clear: You’re not too much, Evan. You’re intense, yeah, but I like that. If I didn’t like it, I hardly would’ve stayed all 5 days, right? :) Besides, if these letters are all I have of you for now, I’m glad for every piece of yourself you’re willing to share with me. You seem like the most reliable person I’ve ever met, and to me, that means everything. I feel like I can trust you. Not just with myself, but with Christopher. Besides, whenever I manage to talk to him, and in every letter I get from him, he asks if you’ve written, and if I have any new cool dinosaur facts for him. Clearly he can’t get enough of you. The quetzal-whatever was new to him, by the way, and he wanted to look it up immediately.
I should probably tell you that I could read everything you crossed out. Yes, I want to see you again. I’ll head to El Paso first when I ship back home in September, but I’ll make plans to come to L.A. to see you as soon as I can, okay? Things might be a little chaotic for a while and I really want to spend time with Christopher, but I’ll be in touch and we’ll figure something out (unless you change your mind until then). I promise.
There’s something else I wanted to tell you. I’ve had a lot of time to think (more than I’d like, TBH) out here and I realized something. I know we talked about my family and why I struggle with their expectations and constant disapproval. I’m not sure I mentioned how fucking catholic they are? I’m not quite sure about my own faith at this point, that’s something I’m still very much at odds with, but that’s not really what this is about. The thing is, I married Shannon because I had to. And I loved her, but I don’t think I was ever in love with her? If that makes sense. She was my best friend, and dating her, and sleeping with her, I think that was more of me thinking this was how it had to be than any real attraction to her. Did you know that the Afghan desert is a really shitty place to figure out that you’re 24 years old and had no idea you might not be into girls? I had an illuminating talk with one of my comrades, Mills. She’s gay, and though I didn’t really say anything I think she understood. Made me feel less bad about the rest of my squad maybe finding out.
Obviously you already know where this is going, but: I think I’m gay. Whew. You’re the first person I told, Evan. I don’t know if I can ever tell my parents, but I will tell Chris when I get home. And maybe I’ll tell Mills, and the others. But I wanted you to know first. (Also, please take this as a big fucking compliment: I’ve got no idea how you managed to pick me up and lure me to your bedroom back in Austin when I didn’t even know I might be into men. Sure, I was a little drunk, but that’s no explanation. Must be because of who you are.)
How’s life at the station? How’s being a firefighter? How’re you doing in general? I’m not surprised your colleagues like you, and happy for you.
Please keep making my life better.
Eddie
“You look like you really don’t want to be here, man. Can I get you another one?”
Eddie slowly raises his gaze from the empty glass he was staring at without actually seeing it to look at the bartender instead — a different one than the one who originally served him. He blinks slowly, deliberates. It is difficult to think of anything other than the tears in Christopher’s eyes when Eddie left him, again, to concentrate on anything other than how much he misses his son already. He still does not know what else he should have done, but after one and a half years where he actually got to be the kid’s dad, at least before Shannon began to kick him out of Christopher’s life more and more… the world now feels less bright for his absence, is all.
“I don’t. Want to be here,” he clarifies when the bartender’s second question catches up with him, before sighing. He has never been one to drink his sorrows away, and he sure as hell is not going to start now. He is a soldier with a solid slab of PTSD and off to another tour, he knows the statistics. “Uh. Just a beer, please.”
“One beer, coming right up,” the bartender cheerfully confirms, swiping Eddie’s empty glass and exchanging it with a cool bottle straight from the fridge. It feels cold and unfamiliar in Eddie’s hands. He likes beer well enough, but there is not really anyone in his life he could enjoy it with, is there? Not anymore.
Shannon used to be his friend, before things changed between them, and for all that he does not miss her as a partner, he does miss having her as his friend. On his side.
Well, maybe being back with his squad will help with the loneliness, at least. They will be on the other side of the world again, away from all their families, but these people are closer to him than his blood family, anyway. Or at least closer than his parents. There is no one he loves more than Christopher. No one he feels less close to, either, no matter how much he might want (might have tried, desperately) to change that.
“So, where is it that you’d rather be?”
“Huh?” Eddie raises his gaze again, finds the bartender leaning against the counter in his back behind the bar, opposite of where Eddie is sat. He looks cocky, but… nice. Somehow. Eddie does not quite know how else to put it, but — something makes him want to talk to the guy. Usually, that is reason enough for him to pull back and get the hell out of dodge.
Today, he is a little too broken to be sensible.
“If you don’t want to be here, where is it that you’d actually want to be?” the bartender clarifies, gaze travelling cursorily across the length of the bar and the other customers distributed along it before it returns to Eddie. Avidly.
Eddie cringes. “Home,” he says drily, gulps down a large sip of beer.
The bartender grimaces in open sympathy. “That sucks.”
For a couple of long, awkward moments, Eddie thinks that was the extent of their conversation, before the guy continues:
“Home’s not here, then? Or just somewhere you can’t go?”
Eddie blinks, watches him. He is a private person, keeps his personal feelings even from the people he is closest to, like Norwhal and Mills, and maybe abuela. But something — something — makes him want to talk to this random bartender in Austin, five days before his third deployment. Maybe it is the anonymity of it all, or the fact that he thinks… well, it feels stupid, but he thinks that, in another life, that bartender could have been his friend. Stupid, stupid, stupid, but in less than a week he will be off to potentially get himself killed for a third time. Maybe he deserves to be stupid for once.
“Both,” he admits, voice a little hoarser than he would like to admit. “Gotta report to Camp Mabry on Monday, and there wasn’t… there wasn’t really any reason to stay in El Paso until then.” After all, Shannon packed Christopher up yesterday for a trip to L.A., visiting her sick mother; knowing fully well she was going to cost Eddie four more days with his son before he would have had to leave. The timing worked out badly, but it is difficult not to assume Shannon did this on purpose. She has been actively trying to methodically freeze him out of Christopher’s life for a while now, after all. You didn’t want to be a dad so badly you ran all the way to the other side of the world, twice, and suddenly you think you’ve got any rights to him? Eddie tried so hard not to let it get down to rights and dues, tried to just find a way to constructively co-parent the kid he has come to love so bitterly, so violently, but ever since Shannon served him with divorce papers just after he came back from his second tour… well. It has been a challenge, especially with his parents putting pressure on, too, pulling in the opposite direction. Shannon probably just wants to move on with her and Christopher’s lives and maybe get away from the Diaz parents, and he gets that, but — he also wants to be a dad, to the greatest kid in the world.
The bartender grimaces again, the sympathy more open this time. “I’m sorry, man. Not sure why you came to a bar if you don’t want to be here, though. Doesn’t look like you’re planning on getting drunk.”
Eddie drowns the rest of his beer and looks at him flatly. “Maybe for the conversation,” he deadpans, the chairs on both sides of him pointedly empty.
The bartender cracks a cocky little smirk. “Oh, so you came all the way for me and my delightful company? Well, I don’t like to disappoint! People have the best conversations with me!”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah, totally,” the guy grins, unrepentant in the face of Eddie’s open doubt. “For example, I have great dinosaur facts.”
Eddie’s heart breaks a little — Christopher has been on a dinosaur trip for the last, oh, three years. He is six at this point, so it has been quite the phase. “Do dazzle me, please.” If that bartender were a woman, Eddie would probably call this… whatever they are doing, he would call it flirting. His fingers itch. This is not… this is not a point he allows himself to get to, to even think about. Ever. This guy is — well, a guy, and so is Eddie, and-
“Weeeell,” the bartender crosses his arms, shoulders broad and strong, and raises a pair of challenging eyebrows. “Did you know that the stegosaurus had the smallest brain compared to body size of any known dinosaur? Its body was, like, the size of a van, but its brain was just as big as a walnut.”
Eddie did not, in fact, know that.
“Huh. Consider me suitably dazzled, I guess?”
The guy frowns suspiciously. “If that is what you look like when you’re dazzled, man, that’s really sad. I feel like I gotta try harder. Okay, how about this? There were two paleontologists called Cope and Marsh, and they had this fierce rivalry about who could find more new dinosaur fossils. They were so serious about it that people called it the “Bone Wars”“ — he provides the quotation marks with his fingers — “which went on for about thirty years.”
Eddie fights really, really hard to suppress the smile trying to sneak onto his lips. This bartender is… really kind of cute, actually. For a moment, it is liberating that he is so fucked up over having said goodbye to his son, he cares way less about other shit that usually fucks him up. This is not okay, his mind keeps telling him, you’re not supposed to find men cute.
Somehow, after this new old loss of his son that he feels so keenly (because when — if — he makes it back home, will there be any space at all left for him in Christopher’s life? Or will Shannon take these fifteen months to fully freeze him out?), he cannot be bothered to care. His father’s voice in his ear is quieter than ever.
“Hmm. And who won?”
The bartender flounders for a moment. “Uhm. Uh, Marsh, I think? But only because he had better funding.”
Eddie leans back as far as he can in the barstool, taps a finger against the side of the empty beer bottle as he pretends to be unaffected, unimpressed. “Well, that makes sense I guess.”
Eyes squinting, the (really, really cute) bartender saunters forward, leans right into Eddie’s space. “The dinosaur with the longest name,” he says, drawing out every syllable, “is — wait for it —micropachycephalosaurus.”
He looks so proud. Dios, he looks so proud of himself, and so fucking adorable, and that is one hell of a dinosaur name. Eddie finds himself cracking up, partially because of the ridiculous, exaggerated sincerity, and partially because he is… well, endeared, really.
“Ha!” The bartender straightens, pumps a fist in victory. “I knew I could do it,” he crows. “I’m Evan, by the way.”
“Evan the cool dinosaur guy?” Eddie teases, snark thick in his voice, and Evan’s shoulders fall a little. He seems — genuinely sad, actually, and, well. Shit. “I’m Eddie,” he hurries to introduce himself, “and I don’t know shit about dinosaurs beyond the fact that my kid’s current favorite is the triceratops. I’ve got lots of questionable stories about warzone camp entertainment, though, if you’re into that. Medical quick-fixes too, but those are probably even less appropriate to share.”
A wide, beaming smile splits Evan’s (pretty, okay, yes, he is pretty) face in half in spite of the self-deprecating offer, and, wow. Eddie might be in big fucking trouble. “Are you an army doctor?”
“Combat medic,” Eddie corrects him, “sorry, that’s a little less fancy.”
“Still sounds pretty impressive to me,” Evan happily dismisses his statement. “Hey, can I get you another beer? On the house.”
Eddie eyes the bottle in front of him, thinks about those statistics, and grimaces. “You got any alcohol-free types?”
“Sure, I gotcha.”
Evan cheerfully supplies Eddie with another bottle, then turns around to serve a handful of other customers before he makes his way back to his spot against the counter; arms bulging under his short sleeves again. Eddie belatedly thinks that must be on purpose.
“Slow night, but then, it’s Thursday. Good for me, anyway, or I wouldn’t be able to dazzle you with my awesome dinosaur facts! Hey, did you know that blue whales are actually bigger than any dinosaur was?”
“No, I didn’t,” Eddie laughs, freely this time. Dios, it feels good. “I’m feeling very dazzled, actually.”
“You can tell your son all my cool dinosaur facts; dazzle him, too!”
Something feels worryingly warm in Eddie’s stomach. “Maybe I will,” he admits. “He’ll probably love it.”
“I mean, who doesn’t love cool dinosaur facts?”
A flash of darkness washes across Evan’s face for a moment, and Eddie has the distinct suspicion that Evan has, in fact, met a lot of people who were not impressed by his cool dinosaur facts. Or his outgoing, cheerful personality. Or his cute cute cute smile and ridiculously blue eyes. Idiots.
Eddie makes himself properly comfortable on the questionable barstool, slumps onto the counter, and looks up at Evan. “Not me. I’ll remember all of them to relay to my kid.”
Evan nods importantly, excitedly, all traces of sadness gone. “I love kids. Tell me about him?”
The hesitation is there, but it is easy enough for Eddie to speak of Christopher without mentioning his name, without giving this virtual stranger too many details. He talks about how young Shannon and him were when she fell pregnant, how it was not planned and how he felt he had to provide and ended up signing up. Running away for the first time. He touches on him being special needs, too, and how he got served divorce papers and cut out of his child’s life when he came home the second time.
How, after months of working several jobs in parallel and somehow clinging to Christopher’s presence in his life as much as he could, he did not know what to do other than enlist again.
It is freeing.
Evan nods understandingly, and grimaces and curses in all the right places, and laughs in the right ones, too. Then he says something about how much he would have loved to have a dad like Eddie, a dad who cares, before scurrying off to serve another customer. When he comes back with another bottle of non-alcoholic beer, Eddie allows himself to dig into the guy’s past as much as he dares, and ends up with a whole lot of hatred for a set of parents he has never met (and hopefully never will have to.)
Before he knows it, it is around two a.m., Evan is closing the bar down for the night, and he feels — more seen and more at ease than he has in a long, long time.
“So, where are you staying?” Evan asks casually when Eddie loiters, chatting, as he locks down both sets of entry doors, crouched on the ground to reach the low locks.
Eddie (who is absolutely not looking at Evan’s ass, nope, no Sir) rattles off the address of his cheap hotel, long since past any worry that he might tell this man too much about himself. Details about Christopher he plays close to his chest, but he feels comfortable enough sharing about himself.
“Hmm,” Evan hums lowly, leads the way out through the employee entrance. He watches Eddie from the side for a moment, eyes so very blue, before looking ahead again; fiddling with the last lock. “I live close by. Do you… maybe want to come over? Don’t think I’ve got any non-alcoholic beers, but I can make you a virgin mojito or something.”
Eddie finds himself staring at the back of Evan’s head. Once again he finds himself revisiting a recurring point of this night — if Evan were a woman, Eddie would have no doubt about the nature of this invitation. He has no idea if taking this acquaintance beyond the platonic is Evan’s intention, though, or if he himself wants that. Is he brave enough to ask?
Apparently, he was silent for too long, because Evan’s shoulders sag a little as he turns back around. “Hey, man, no worries-”
“Like a date?” Eddie blurts out, and instantly feels spectacularly stupid. Clearly, this would not be a date. “Shit. Uh. I, I’m sorry, I’ve only ever been with my ex-wife, and she’s a woman, and-”
“It can be a date.”
“W-What?”
Evan said the words so softly Eddie thinks he must have misheard them, but Evan only straightens and searches out his gaze. “It can be a date, Eddie. I… I really like you. You’re, like, super-hot, but I’d rather… I’d rather spend more time with you than just the night.”
Eddie’s thoughts are nothing but white noise. “I’m — my deployment starts in five days.”
Four, actually, it is long after midnight, but Eddie’s brain has currently taken a prolonged leave of absence.
Evan takes a step closer, and another. There is maybe a hand’s breadth of distance between them, and Eddie’s heart decides that now is the time to try and break a speed record. “All the more reason to make the most of the time we have.”
“O-Okay.”
Is that even his voice? Eddie is not sure, is not sure about anything at all, other than the fact that he wants, he wants, he wants-
“Don’t worry, Eddie. There’s no rush, no pressure. I’ll take good care of you, okay?”
“Okay.” He says it more securely this time. His voice sounds somewhat foreign to his own ears, too hoarse and too deep, but he wants, he wants, and maybe he can have, can allow himself to have-
“May I — kiss you?”
“…yes,” Eddie breathes out, and then there are big, warm, strong hands framing his face, and Evan’s lips on his, and Eddie’s world falls to pieces around him.
He has never felt freer than in this moment, in Evan’s arms, in Evan’s bed. It is a learning experience, but Evan is patient and enthusiastic and so damned cute, and Eddie finds it easy to let go and — plummet. To tumble into the abyss together, to spend every minute of his time in Austin at Evan’s side; exploring the city, hanging out at the bar, holed up in Evan’s apartment. Talking about anything and everything.
Five days later, when Evan drops him off at Camp Mabry with what might be tears in his eyes, Eddie is filled with so many emotions he hardly knows where to put them, with so many sentiments he does not know how to warp into words. He also learns that, though they have known each other for such a short time only, saying goodbye to Evan hurts. A lot.
Eddie is plenty used by now to painful goodbyes before going off to war, but this is new. And it is something he desperately wants to be real in a way he never actually wanted with Shannon, for all that he was trying so hard to be a family.
Well, shit.
February 2018
Eddie,
you can’t tell me you were shot and expect me not to worry, even if it was just a graze! I’m glad to hear you could already play soccer the day after (even though that sounds like a medically questionable decision), and I hope it’s healing well.
I’ve enclosed a letter directly to Chris. But in case you’re sad about missing out on this month’s dinosaur fun fact: The hadrosaurus was the toothiest dinosaur, it could have over 1,000 teeth and continually kept growing new ones!
I do wish I could talk to you, video call you. I thought about sending you my phone number, but I don’t think I should. You said call slots are limited, and you should use yours for Chris. Especially if most of the time, you can’t get a stable connection anyway. Damn I’d love to even just hear your voice, but I’m not stealing even a second of your son’s dad time. (Besides, I feel like seeing your face, talking to you, and then having to end the call would break my heart.)
Thank you, Eddie. Thank you so much. You make me feel like I can be myself with you, and don’t have to worry you’ll end up leaving because I’m too much again. Thank you. I trust you too, and I’m honored that you’d trust me with Chris. And of course you’ll head to El Paso first, but I already promised you I’d be patient :) Maybe I can also come to Texas for a visit. I’d really like to see you as soon as possible, if you’re comfortable with it.
Thank you (again) for trusting me with your sexuality. I’ve been openly bi for as long as I can remember, so I don’t really know what you went through, but it sounds like a hard road and I want you to know I’m proud of you. Hey, you’ll be home in autumn, so it’ll be a while, but maybe we can go to L.A. pride with Chris in June next year? :) The parade at least should be kid friendly enough, one of my co-workers and her wife said they’ll be taking their son. (They already talked me into coming with them this year.)
Said co-worker is great! Her name is Hen, and she’s a great paramedic and an even better friend. I’ve begun making friends with the other paramedic on A shift (our shift at station 118, currently there’s only 4 of us permanently) as well, his name is Chimney and he has the worst ever sense of humor. Our Captain, Bobby, is a really good guy too. I might have had a little disagreement with him about taking unnecessary risks, but we’re good now. He seems like a good person, and a good boss. We’ve had some intense calls, but I really like it here, Eddie. You should be back when my probationary period is over, do you maybe want to come to the ceremony?
Love,
Evan
“We met last July, when I was bartending in Austin,” Buck begins hesitantly, sinking further into Eddie’s side. “I, uh. Dazzled him with cool dinosaur facts?”
Chim snorts out a sarcastic laugh. “Of course you did.”
“In Evan’s defense, I’ve got a kid who really loves dinosaurs — I’m absolutely dazzle-able by dinosaur facts,” Eddie defends with a small smile Buck really, really desperately wants to kiss right off his lips.
“Hey, I’ll have you know I’ve got the best dinosaur facts-”
“We know you do.” Hen’s voice is equally dry and fond, and Buck does not find it in himself to be offended.
“Either way, we, uh. Hit it off. Spent the five days until Eddie had to ship out together. We agreed to stay in contact, and…” Back then, just after saying goodbye and pretending it did not already break his fucking heart, Buck wanted nothing more than to talk to Eddie, hear from Eddie, cling to Eddie as best he could. To tell him all the things he swallowed down during the car ride to the military base and then as they shared a quick, intense embrace before Eddie got out of the car and — left. For war. All the things Buck wanted to say but could not, for fear of being too much. All the things he regretted not saying when he realized it might have been the last chance he ever had. “Well, I had to wait a little,” he nudges his partner gently, playfully, because those two months felt absolutely endless but he also knows why it took Eddie so long to write (and damn, reading that explanation was worth the wait — I want my kid to know you), “but I got Eddie’s first letter in September. We kept up constant letters until. Uhm. This June.” He shivers, remembers Eddie’s last message.
Things are getting kind of intense over here.
“We never exchanged phone numbers,” Eddie quietly takes over, squeezing Buck’s fingers and leaning into him as much as his shoulder permits. Buck appreciates it insanely, soaks up the quiet comfort greedily, desperately. “Which, stupid; but we agreed to save my call slots for Christopher, and service was terrible anyway. But… things started looking problematic already in June, and really went off the rails in August. I can’t go into any details, but we had to leave our camp behind and dropped out of contact with everyone excluding command until mid-September, when were shot down in the heli. After we’d been shipped back and I made it back to Texas, I tried writing to you, Evan,” he twists with a grimace, turns wide and a little forlorn eyes on Buck, and Buck’s heart breaks all over again, “but you’d — changed your address?”
Buck gulps. “Oh shit”. Yeah, that makes sense. Shit, shit, shit- “I moved again, and sent you the new one… in the letter I wrote to you in August after I never got a reply to the last one, the letter that got sent back to me because it was undeliverable.” Because Eddie’s squad had to leave their camp behind and dropped out of contact with their families. Fuck.
He sounds a little wild and wretched, he is dimly aware, and Eddie’s grip on his hand turns almost painfully tight. Then there is a warm palm against his thigh, Hen kneeling in front of him with so much understanding in her eyes that the tears come almost faster than he realizes. The next thing he knows is that Eddie is moving, wincing fiercely as he wrestles his legs up onto the couch cushions and turns, pulling Buck in to rest his head against his uninjured shoulder. Something — something involving gazes and a faint nod — happens behind him and then Hen is crowding in against his back. Warm and safe, a stable haven to come home to, as she has been ever since he properly got to know her.
“I packed up Christopher and myself as soon as I could reasonably travel,” Eddie murmurs into the increasing chaos of Buck’s hair, running a large, calloused hand down his side as he gasps for air and fights to regain at least some control over his emotions. “I would’ve come sooner if I could have. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t — don’t be,” Buck hiccups, “none of this is your fault. I should’ve just sent you my damn phone number.”
“Yeah,” Eddie laughs self-deprecatingly and maybe a little tearfully, “maybe you should have.”
“You’re both idiots,” Chim declares ruthlessly, though his voice is suspiciously warm and gentle as well.
That is, of course, when the alarm goes off again.
To be fair, this has been a comparably calm shift so far, it was bound to go this way. Buck sniffles, wipes his eyes and raises his head to look at Eddie.
“We’ll be waiting, if that’s okay,” Eddie promises softly without hesitation, eyes rimmed red, and Buck does not even bother to look at Bobby before nodding vigorously. He jumps to his feet, turns to bend down and press a quick kiss goodbye against his partner’s cheek, and finds himself face to face with Eddie stumbling up instead.
There is definitely an issue with his leg, but-
“Gotta go check on Christopher,” Eddie smiles sadly, corners of his eyes crinkling in that way that made Buck crush on him within the first 48 hours of them knowing each other, “be careful, please?”
“Promise.”
“Thank you.” Eddie knocks their shoulders together ever so carefully, and stalks off towards the bunk room.
Buck manages to tear his gaze away after only a handful of seconds (and thinks he would not have if Eddie had looked back, and remembers Eddie himself looking back once after he left in Austin), and he makes it down the pole and into his gear before the last of the guys on their shift who were woken by the bell. That means at least he is not a complete emotional mess, right?
“Three-alarm fire in a nursing home,” Bobby tautly relays the information he received from dispatch and incident command over the radio as they are tearing through the nearly empty streets with blazing sirens, Chim and Hen riding in the ambulance this time, “the 125 is already on site and Captain Martinez is IC. 134 and 136 are en route as well. Multiple people were reported to still be inside, the staff evacuated as well as they could but most of their residents are barely mobile. Upper two floors are expected to be pretty much inaccessible by the time we get there, potential risks to structural integrity are still being assessed. Floors one to three need to be swept and evacuated as possible.”
Shit.
This is going to be a bad one.
Buck makes somber eye contact with Pinn, Metson and Lane riding in the ladder truck with him, the latter grimacing openly. Yeah.
As they arrive, Bobby pairs them up as usual before they tumble out of the truck, and Buck finds himself staring at the upper two levels of the five story building that are, indeed, blazing fiercely. He cursorily checks Pinn’s gear as required, both of them already moving towards the side entrance through the ground floor kitchen Bobby directs them towards. Pinn’s hand heavy against his shoulder is the last confirmation that his own gear is in order, too, then he clicks on his radio.
“Buckley and Pinn, moving in through the kitchen.”
“Copy that. Stairs will be to your left as soon as you clear the kitchen itself, I want you up on the third floor while it’s still accessible. The first two rooms on both sides of the corridor on level three have been cleared out. The third on the right and fourth on the left are empty too, residents confirmed to be outside, but all others are unaccounted for up to the nurses’ station in the middle. Upper floors are holding for now, but being re-assessed constantly. Be ready to evacuate immediately if necessary.”
“Understood,” Pinn checks in with Bobby, always careful to maintain radio contact, as they barrel into the third-floor corridor breathing heavily. Metson and Lane are hot on their heels, and they split wordlessly.
Buck gives himself a moment to do a quick count before hurrying after Pinn, who has just kicked in the door to the third room on the left as their team members rush into the right-side room indicated by Bobby. “Three more doors on both sides until the nurses’ station,” he grimly relays, “that means two more each with people potentially inside,” and then helps Pinn break down the jammed door to the bathroom. The old, spindly man cowering under the spray of the shower is terrified but conscious (if barely lucid), and Pinn gives him no time to fully understand the situation before thrusting a breathing mask onto his face and hefting him across his shoulder. They are running out of time already.
Back out in the corridor they run into Lane also carrying a resident, and Metson and Buck team up with a quick communication to Bobby, sprinting into the next room as Pinn and Lane rush their two charges downstairs.
It only goes downhill from there.
Metson and Buck manage to pull out one more person, and she is already gone, before they get the order to evacuate the third floor; and the entire building, actually. The order comes just in time, too, at least for them: Three firefighters from the 125 are still on the second floor when the roof crumbles in on itself, structure lost to the destructive power of the flames, and takes the ceilings with it in parts of the building. Buck and Metson come spilling out of the kitchen just as part of the building above comes crushing down. Metson ends up with a viciously twisted ankle, and Buck gently transfers the frail dead woman he was carrying to a stretcher and stays with Metson until a paramedic from the 136 grabs her.
Then he finds himself hovering in the vicinity of the still mostly accessible main entrance together with several others (everyone not manning the ladders and hoses, really), waiting for IC to clear them for going in again, to look for the three missing firefighters from the 125. It cannot be longer than a handful of minutes that he spends there as the inferno rages, and rages, and rages. To Buck, it feels like hours pass. That is three of their own still stuck in there, running out of time, and he has to do something, he has to-
But he also has to come back to Eddie and Chris. A week ago, he would have argued for being allowed to go in already, to scout ahead, but now?
Now, he waits.
(He cannot think about Eddie. He needs to focus, has to keep himself in the zone of active duty, or he will drift into emotions he cannot afford to feel right now. He cannot think about Eddie.)
Bobby’s hand is heavy and understanding and maybe a little relieved on his shoulder, right up until Martinez nods sharply as he makes a new decision. “Partner up, nobody goes anywhere alone. The main stairwell has been deemed stable for ascent, but no more than two people at a time. All teams up onto the second floor, you have five minutes max to sweep the entire level.” They team up as he speaks, Buck back with Pinn and Lane ending up with a guy from the 134 since Metson is out for the count, and then they cluster hurriedly around a makeshift map to receive instructions on where exactly to go.
Buck and Pinn are the second pair in, and the stairwell really seems to be stable — unlike the second floor itself as they slip through the fire doors. Heart beating in his throat until it echoes through his brain, Buck follows after Pinn as they keep in constant radio contact with Bobby, relaying both their positions and the status of the building for the following teams. They come upon one of the downed firefighters as well as an employee he was apparently trying to rescue in what looks like a lunchroom. Both of them are halfway hidden under a fucking slap of concrete that looks suspiciously like part of the ceiling. Fuck.
Neither victim reacts when they try to get their attention, though the fire is loud, so it does not have to mean anything-
Pinn calls in another team, but just as two guys from the 136 come barreling into the room the building groans ominously around them. They exchange one quick, alarmed glance; then Pinn is back on the radio with IC and Buck digs his heels in, and takes a deep breath of compressed air, and lifts. The two firefighters from the 136 pull out both injured parties in quick succession as his muscles twitch and tremble with the strain, potential aggravation of injuries abruptly prioritized behind getting people out of here at all. Hot metal burns mercilessly into his skin even through his protective gloves, but then the employee is free, too, and he lets the slab crash back and helps Pinn shoulder half of the downed firefighter’s weight.
The team from the 136, carrying the unconscious employee, is still in the foyer when the building comes down permanently.
Buck perceives the following half hour in vicious flashes rather than continuously, all tinted red-blue and shaded in the hue of furious flames. At some point between the initial and the second collapse, the scene was reclassified as a four-alarm fire as the increasing heat began to actively endanger neighboring buildings as well. Burgie, the heavily injured 125 firefighter Pinn and Buck pulled out, codes before they can get him into an ambulance, and the last they see of him is an ambulance careening away with wailing sirens. Another one of the three missing firefighters from the 125 was pulled out with a severe head injury before the building came down. All other teams made it out, except for the two guys following behind Buck and Pinn. The press is on site, as is an entire horde of spectators and sensation seekers, and somewhere Athena is tearing into a group of civilians blocking the access route of the 133 as they arrive. Pinn gets reallocated to fire containment efforts, but Buck joins the rest of the 136 as they try and get into the remnants of the lobby, ducking under fallen beams and crawling through narrow spaces as the inferno blazes around them. He spots an arm, which turns out to belong to the still missing firefighter from the 125, who must have come down with the second floor — Buck insists on pulling him out after a short discussion with Bobby and IC even though it is obvious that there is nothing left to be done, and finds himself staring at the guy’s turnout coat that was pulled across his mangled torso. Another name he will never forget, just like Burgie’s. He wants to get back, to help, but Bobby sits him down with a bottle of water and he finally admits to the increasing faintness and the quiet rushing in his ears when he watches the two guys from the 136 who helped Pinn and him get pulled out too (along with the no longer unconscious but dead employee), and at least one of them is alive… for now. Hen, who has just returned from transporting a patient to the hospital, makes Buck take off his gloves and let her treat his burns. In the background, he hears Taylor Kelly report on the fire and the growing casualties among the first responders on site.
Somehow, amongst all the horrible impressions, what lingers in the back of his throat, against the conscious corners of his mind, is the fact that Eddie and Buck still have not exchanged phone numbers and he cannot even tell his partner that he is not among those casualties.
March 2018
Hi Evan,
I’m glad to hear that you’re happy at your job, and that you’re getting along well with the other people on your shift! They sound like great people. If I can make the ceremony, I’ll be there. You have to let me know the date as soon as know yourself.
I have to be honest, seeing how excited you were about being a firefighter, and reading your reports about your team now, made me think a lot. I’ve been wondering what to do with my life for a while, and part of the reason that I signed on again (as I told you) was that I didn’t know what else to do with myself, with the abilities my 2 previous tours got me. I worked in construction for those 1.5 years between tours, before we met, and I hated it. I can’t spend my life like that, working myself to death in a job I can’t stand, just trying to pay Christopher’s medical bills. I hate missing so much of his childhood, but there’s no denying that TODs pay better than fucking construction. Besides, he’s got his mum, right?
But, as I said, you got me thinking. I googled the requirements for fire academy, and physically, I should easily meet them. Besides, it’d be a way to help people, and to put my medic training to good use. And, most important, I’d get to stay a hero in Christopher’s eyes ;) I told him you’re a proper firefighter now that you’re finished with the academy, and he’s convinced you’re a superhero. You’re really passionate about this, and I think I could be too. What do you think?
I’ve forwarded your letter to Christopher with my next letter home. As always, it took me a little to reply to you (I’m sorry, I still find emotions hard to put into words. I always get your answers way quicker than you get mine, and I feel bad for that) and from a video call we managed two days ago (stable for all of 5 mins) I know he got it by now, and has read it, and is super-duper-extra (“Make sure you underline it, dad!”) excited about it. You made him really happy by reaching out, Evan. I had 5 minutes with him, and he spent the majority of that time rambling about you (it was adorable). I absolutely can’t wait for him to meet you.
I didn’t read your letter to him, but I did appreciate you sharing the hadrosaurus fun fact. As I’m sure you can tell by now I’m not that much into dinosaurs myself, but I would’ve been sad to miss it. Now, Christopher’s answer to you hasn’t reached me yet, but he told me to ask you if you know how cool the megalodon (did I spell that right?) is.
I think I can honestly say that I’m in love with you too, Evan. Please take care of yourself as well. I think I might have to agree with your Captain, because I couldn’t stand seeing you hurt.
My graze shot is all healed up, so you can officially stop worrying. I was also told I’ll be promoted to Staff Sergeant at the end of this tour (I think they’re trying to seduce me into signing up again, but not a chance in hell).
I would also love to hear your voice, maybe even see your face (why did Chris get a photo but not me?), but your decision to save my video call slots for my kid means a lot to me. You’re a great guy, Evan, and I was really lucky you decided to scrape me off that bar stool last year.
I miss you. 15 months will pass, but right now they’re fucking dragging.
Love There’s something else I meant to write earlier, but then wasn’t brave enough. But I really want to tell you, Evan. Even though it’s really really hard to write down, and I don’t quite know how to say it. What I wrote earlier, how I’m thinking about maybe becoming a firefighter too? You’ve made me want to fight for a better future for myself. Christopher is still my priority, but maybe I can also be happy. Maybe I don’t have to just do whatever my family thinks I should. Maybe I can take care of Chris and be happy. I want that for my life, and I want you to be part of it.
Love,
Eddie
Eddie is sitting on the bottom step of the stairs to the loft, Chris molten bonelessly into his uninjured side, when their company returns to the station. Two steps above them, Buck can see Maddie and Karen are holed up together, looking up sharply at their arrival. It is almost lunch time, several hours after their shift should have ended, and Buck feels physically and emotionally… empty.
When he spots Eddie, though, the exhaustion abruptly melts into cautious excitement, bone-deep relief, and near desperate yearning.
Eddie.
Buck stumbles out of the ladder truck right after Lane, and by the time his boots hit the ground Eddie and Chris have crossed half the distance between them. Somehow, they manage to keep out of the way as the returning team files out of the vehicles and towards the showers and locker rooms, B shift already waiting in the wings to clean and stock up all equipment as they take over the station. Buck drifts away from Lane and Pinn — they left Metson at Cedars-Sinai to have her ankle taken care of — with Hen, Chim and Bobby on his heels. Karen and Maddie already know that their respective partners are uninjured, all of them in phone contact when possible, but Eddie-
Eddie looks a bit wild, a little frayed around the edges.
“Evan-”
“Buck,” Chris guilelessly, sassily corrects his father, grinning up at Buck from where he remains pressed into Eddie’s side.
Buck, still in his turnouts, hair dark with sweat and skin heavy with soot and ash and tears, stumbles right into them. “Eddie.”
Eddie, somehow, braces for impact and manages to catch Buck even as he maneuvers Chris out of the way of any wayward limbs, exhaling heavily when — shit. Shit.
“Fuck, I’m sorry, was that your ribs? I’m sorry, Eddie, shit, I didn’t think, didn’t-”
“Shh. It’s okay, don’t worry about me. Don’t… not right now, okay? I’m… I’m not the one who almost got crushed by a fu- uhm, by a building just now!”
Right. No cursing next to Chris.
Buck takes a deep, deep breath, and tries to reassemble his sanity piece by individual fucking piece. He tries to pull back, to shift his weight off Eddie and his damaged shoulder, his cracked ribs; but finds the single arm wound around his torso to be as tight and unmoving as a vise.
“I was — terrified,” Eddie breathes weakly into his sweaty coat, apparently unconcerned about the amounts of sweat and soot he is currently buried into. “Are you-”
“Exhausted, sad, and feeling like sh- a hot mess, but otherwise okay,” Buck struggles to put the destructive emotions rolling through him into words, fights to reassure his partner as much as he draws comfort from their embrace.
“What happened to your hands?” Chris pipes up from his place squished into both their sides, equally unbothered by the fact that Buck is still wearing turnouts as his father.
Buck… Buck completely, entirely and thoroughly forgot about the burns he suffered lifting that concrete slab to get Burgie (potentially still alive) and the now dead nursing home employee out. The reminder blazes white-hot pain through his bandaged palms, followed by a flash of guilt so intense his knees almost buckle.
Fuck.
He drops a limp arm to skim trembling fingers through the kid’s tousled curls, and breathes Eddie in as best he can.
“I- we tried to get one of the other firefighters out, u-us and two more guys from the 136. They- they were inside because we called in for backup. Because of us. I should’ve, I should’ve just tried to carry that firefighter alone, should’ve had Pinn carry the victim, but I didn’t, and I can’t-”
Eddie is back in his life, alive, and Buck can barely focus on him because he is too busy falling apart at the seams after this fucking call. It feels fundamentally unfair, unbelievable, unbearable.
“Buck,” Bobby is there, somehow winds him out of Eddie’s arms and right into his own. “You did nothing wrong. You radioed, relayed the situation, and IC made the decision to send another pair your way to assist. This was not your fault, nor was it Martinez’s — everyone stuck by procedure, okay? We all did the best we could. Besides, if you had tried to carry Burgie out alone, maybe you would’ve been that much slower, and still been inside when the building came down. We had our experts on site, Buck, and they classified the stability acceptable for attempting a rescue. Come on, breathe with me.”
Buck feebly lets himself be talked into taking calmer, longer breaths. His gaze stays rooted into Bobby’s the entire time, the deep sincerity in his Captain’s eyes bringing him back as much as his soothing voice and absolving words. It is only when his mind has quieted down a little, settled into a somewhat bearable maelstrom, that he has the presence of mind to recognize the lines in Bobby’s face betraying his own guilt, his own grief.
“Thanks, Cap,” he murmurs hoarsely. “I… yeah, I guess you’re right.”
“I know I’m right.” Bobby’s voice is still calm and collected, certain and confident.
“Then you hopefully know that the same goes for you,” Athena drawls from — well, right next to them, actually, though Buck completely missed her approach. “All of you did the best you could, and none of you are responsible for the people we lost today. Understood?”
Buck is… mostly genuine in his response of nodding slowly. The guilt will persist for a while, undoubtedly, but arguing with both Bobby’s resolute rationality and Athena’s no-nonsense finality? That is definitely beyond him, at least today.
“Understood,” Bobby accepts wryly, and salutes. Athena playfully swats his shoulder, still in uniform herself, before her sharp gaze trails past Buck and-
“Do introduce us, Buckaroo?”
Right. Right. Eddie.
The warmth seeps back into his chest, his belly, his heart without warning or regard, just from the reminder that Eddie is — here. With Chris, who has burrowed back into his father’s side, bright eyes avidly observing Buck. “Uhm. Uh, Athena, these are Eddie and Chris. Eddie is my boyfriend” -it still feels unreal, still makes something inside his lungs sprout wings and take flight- “who just came back from tour, and Chris is my favorite dinosaur expert.” The kid grins excitedly, and Buck’s heart just about breaks again. It makes breathing that tiny little bit easier. “Guys, this, uh, this is Athena, Bobby’s wife and Hen’s best friend. You really don’t want to end up on her bad side.”
Athena stink eyes Buck for a long, long moment, before breaking into a genuine smile as she turns back to their visitors.
“I didn’t know you were seeing anyone, Buck. It’s nice to meet you, Eddie, Chris,” she exchanges handshakes with both of them. “A dinosaur expert, huh? I might have to introduce you to my son Harry, he’s about your age and has his own opinions about dinosaurs.”
The corners of Bobby’s mouth twitch. Buck, who has spent a handful of BBQs and other get-togethers at the Grant-Nash household playing with Harry, cannot quite muster up a laugh. Eddie, at least, does not appear put off, simply ruffles his fingers through Chris’s hair, making him pout adorably.
Buck thinks he might want to crawl into Eddie and never leave, might want to wind himself around Christopher and protect him forever.
He is rudely restored to reality when an oh-so-familiar voice pipes up behind him: “Excuse me, did you say boyfriend? And I don’t get an introduction?”
“Uhh.”
“We… already spoke, while we were waiting?” Eddie offers slowly, dubiously, when Buck stays silent and unmoving like a goddamn idiot.
Maddie scowls at him. “I’m aware, thanks, but you failed to mention that you’re seeing my brother. Which, fair, you couldn’t have known who I am, but Evan here? He could have said something!”
“I — think he might have been a little preoccupied?”
Eddie does not look particularly comfortable with this line of reasoning. Buck, who remembers only too well that Eddie is a private motherfucker and a stubbornly self-reliant son of a bitch who hates showing weakness to anyone, sways right back into his partner’s space. He barely manages to avoid the bad shoulder this time, somehow fits himself to Eddie’s back as gently as humanly possible. “Maddie…”
Maddie — Maddie is the only one who knows. The only one he told; and how could he not have? She was there this summer when he got Eddie’s last letter, saw him get all excited and blushing over a piece of mail. She gently needled him until he talked about Eddie, her eyes so very warm when he spent hours (hours!) not managing to shut up about him. She allowed him to tell Eddie about her, too, when he asked whether she would be okay with it, still so terrified Doug would find her even in L.A. Maddie may not have been with him when his last letter to Eddie did not make it through and got sent back, both of them living at their new apartments by that point, but she did show up on his doorstep after he called in sick for work the day after, presumably alerted by Chimney. She held him, too, when he fell apart in his grief. (She promised not to tell anyone when he asked, begged, her to. Not even Chim.)
“He came here,” he finds himself blabbering, entirely without his own brain’s consent, “there was — things went wrong overseas, and he got shipped back to Texas, but he came here last night and-”
Maddie’s eyes soften, before she winds herself around Eddie and crashes right into her brother (still in his damn filthy turnouts), clings to him with more force than most people would dare attribute her slender body. But then, Maddie is one of the strongest people he knows. “I’m glad, Evan,” she murmurs into his sweaty, sooty shoulder; warm voice heavy with tears. “I… I’m happy for you.” Buck did not show her the letters, this only piece of Eddie he had too private and precious to share, but he did talk about much of what they wrote to each other. What was between them, and what was missing, and-
She knows, is all. She knows what — how much, how fucking much — it means that Buck introduced Eddie as his boyfriend. His boyfriend.
Maddie straightens slowly, then, squares her shoulders, and turns a slightly tremulous smile on Eddie, who is observing with guarded unease. “I’m — sorry, I didn’t mean to snap at you. I just, I… I know how much Evan was hurting over your… well.” She gestures helplessly at Eddie, and Eddie lets a more genuine smile drip onto his lips.
“Yeah. I’m sorry for that,” he replies cautiously, but relaxes incrementally, pulls Chris deeper into his side. “He mentioned you in his last letter” (not Buck’s last letter, that was not Buck’s last letter-) “and that he convinced you to stay. I’m glad he did.”
“So am I,” Chim quips from the side lines, but finds himself ignored as their little trauma-bonded patchwork family observes Maddie pulling Eddie into a careful, telegraphed embrace. Buck knows he need not worry, Maddie was a nurse goddamnit, if there is anyone whom he could trust with Eddie’s wellbeing it would be Maddie, Hen and Chim, but Eddie almost died, and he just came back, and was put through the wringer by this last call both physically and emotionally, and-
Buck can deal with the lot of them laughing at him when he steals Eddie right back out of Maddie’s arms. He can.
He can deal with them laughing at him when his face does something apparently very very telling when his sister kneels in front of Chris and introduces herself as “Aunt Maddie”, and he can deal with them laughing when he refuses to let go of Eddie so Maddie can take a closer look at his bandaged hands, and he can deal with them laughing at him when he keeps clinging to his partner while Hen introduces Karen, and he can deal with them laughing at him when he does not want to let go in spite of Athena’s stern command to finally get out of their gear and into the showers, so they can all go the fuck home.
He can deal with it, because Eddie is real, and here, and alive. Eddie, who finds himself sitting on the stairs again with Maddie, Karen and Athena (who is still in uniform, too, and should not have quite that much to say about them hitting the showers); Chris preening under the excited attention of all three women. There is… something in Eddie’s gaze, something Buck cannot quite decipher, and he feels his partner’s eyes on him until he ducks out of view, but for now — for now he lets his tired, tired mind float senselessly as he drifts after Chim and Bobby, the rest of A shift already cleared out of the showers and busy packing up in locker room.
You have time to breathe, he remembers Bobby’s earlier instruction, so that is what he does. For now.
April 2018
Eddie,
Wow. I’m speechless. And let me tell you, that doesn’t happen often.
Okay, first of all: I can’t wait to hear back from Christopher! (Does he prefer Chris or Christopher?) I’m familiar with the megalodon, actually. I mean, it was the largest fish that ever lived, that’s pretty damn cool! Also, the females were probably twice as large as the males, that’s cool too! No bones have ever been found, since sharks don’t have bones, so most of what we know about them comes from fossil teeth. Megalodon even means “giant tooth” in Ancient Greek. Cool huh? (Just wanted to make sure that you don’t feel excluded, and that you have awesome megalodon facts to dazzle your son with during your next 5 min of call time. Not a dinosaur, but still cool!)
Second, I had to swallow down some tears over the fact that you didn’t read my letter to Chris. I know you said that you trust me, but still. That means a lot.
Third, I can’t wait to meet him either.
Fourth, I love being Chris’s hero! And I’d love being his heroes together with you even more. You know, that sounds like a great idea. After the first couple of months I’ve now got a solid idea now of what this job is like (I hope), and I think you’d do well here. The tough parts are really tough, but you’re in an active warzone right now. I’m pretty sure that’s worse. We lose people here, too, sometimes our own. It’s dangerous, and lots of first responders have PTSD (there’s an entire Wikipedia article about trauma in first responders. I may or may not have gone down a research spiral when I was writing this letter), but I’m sure none of that compares to fucking war. Also, as firefighters we get to go home at the end of the day (overtime excluded, but that pays well). You’re calm under pressure, you’re already doing something where exceptional situations are the rule, and you’ve got that medic training you mentioned. Clearly, you’re a reliable comrade, and also a good decision maker, since you made Staff Sergeant. (Congrats! I’m super proud of you, and also really really really glad you don’t want to join up again). I think you’d enjoy firefighting. It’s also one of those jobs where you grow close with your colleagues, just because of the crazy stuff you live through together. That’s something you know from your squad right? I think our shift’s especially tight, probably because of how our Captain treats us a little like family, but I’ve talked to some folks from other stations too. We’re all close.
One consequence of that is that I kind of changed my name? I go by Buck now, it’s what my team at the 118 calls me. I don’t mind you calling me Evan, but I wanted to let you know. It feels better, I think, Evan always reminds me of my parents. As you know, that’s not a good thing.
And Eddie? Yes. Yes, you can give Chris a good life, and still find happiness for yourself. Please let me be a part of that.
Love,
Buck
P.S.: That photo’s for your eyes only ok?
When Buck makes it back out into the engine bay, showered and dressed in casual clothes and so fucking tired his brain feels like foam, B shift has cleared out to respond to a call (the alarm went off at some point while he was haphazardly toweling his hair dry) and the station is quiet save the low murmur of their still waiting family members.
Chris has ended up on Maddie’s lap somehow, both of them apparently thoroughly enchanted with one another, and Eddie observes them with a guarded contour to his brown, brown, brown eyes.
His head snaps up the moment Buck comes into view, and he crosses the distance between them in three long steps; limp notwithstanding. “Evan.” He looks… unsure. Hopeful and cautious in equal measure.
“Eddie,” Buck rasps back, equally quietly as his partner’s low greeting, and tries to ignore the rest of his family on the stairs where they are still waiting on Hen and Chim, tries to ignore Bobby and Athena stood next to them in hushed conversation.
“Uhm. Look, I was wondering.” Eddie’s jaw tightens, gaze flitting across the empty space behind Buck before returning to his face. Buck’s heart drops. What- “I know we, I, kind of descended on you last night, and we didn’t… it’s not like I gave you any warning, I mean, I couldn’t, but- anyway. Look, I don’t want to, uh, assume anything, and-” He breaks off, insecurity digging deeper into the shapes of his beautiful, beloved face, and Buck wants to lick it away.
To make it all better.
To make Eddie feel safe and secure and home.
Home-
Oh.
“Come home with me,” he begs quietly, hoarsely, “you and Chris. I… I don’t really have a room for him, but we can set up the couch, and — I’ll probably be asleep for a day or so, sorry, but, just. Please. Come home with me? If that’s, if that’s something you’re comfortable with, I understand if-”
“I’d love to,” Eddie agrees earnestly, “if it’s really something you want, too. I talked to Chris, and he wants to spend more time with you. But I can, we can get a hotel, it’s not an issue, I promise-”
“Come home with me, Eddie,” Buck pleads, implores, desperately; like a vow even though supplication can hardly be an oath, but-
“Okay.”
And there is that smile again, that stunningly beautiful thing Buck coaxed from Eddie’s guarded, slowly melting heart around their third night in Austin (it was on Saturday, while they were holed up on his ratty old couch watching a Spanish telenovela of truly questionable quality with Buck’s head in Eddie’s lap, and he thinks he might never, ever, be able to forget that moment) and that Eddie shared with him freely last night after his unexpected arrival, and then again in the dubious hours of the morning up in the loft. The smile that Buck allows himself to think, ever so carefully, might be just for him.
“Thank you,” he breathes somewhere against Eddie’s temple, acutely aware that no matter how tired he is, how weary and fucking exhausted, he does not think he would be able to sleep if Eddie were not in his space.
A warm, large palm spreads across the small of his back, then, and Eddie gently steers Buck towards the stairs, where Chim and Hen have now joined the others, and Chris is currently headed their way. “Alright there, mijo?”
“I’m hungry, dad,” the kid complains only somewhat grumpily, and Eddie chuckles in a half-sad, half-fond way that makes Buck’s heart do some complicated gymnastics.
“Yeah, we should pick up something to eat for you.”
“And for you!” Chris instantly demands, at which his father nods ruefully in a way that makes Buck think maybe — maybe — eating has been a bit of an issue for Eddie during this recovery.
“Let’s grab sandwiches?” Buck suggests tiredly, because surely, no matter how picky an eater Chris might or might not be, there will be a sandwich that he likes, “There’s a really good place on the way to my apartment, and they do take away.” His words slur a little, now that everything is — well, right. As it should be, with Chris and Eddie here and on their way home with him.
Eddie eyes him critically. “Sandwiches sound great,” he concedes easily — “Sandwiches!” Chris cheers sunnily — “but are you sure you should be driving? I’d offer, but-”
“But no,” Athena interrupts severely, because apparently, everyone is still listening in on their conversation. Lovely.
Eddie raises a somewhat affronted eyebrow in her direction, before turning back towards Buck, who finds himself trying to assess how tired he actually is. And how much his hands will hurt if he tries to grip the steering wheel. Damn. “Uh. It’ll be fine, I can drive-”
“Or how about I drop you off?” Karen suggests calmly, seems to have already thought this through. Meddling little shits, the lot of them, and he loves them dearly. “Chris can sit in Denny’s chair, right? It might be a tight fit, but it’s not that far; and then we can also pick up some sandwiches for ourselves. Flo took Denny and Reid to the aquarium for the day, to keep them busy, but I’ll be happy not to have to cook before we stuff you into a bed.” The latter part is directed at Hen, who smiles tiredly, happily. Reid, Buck knows from almost a year of being friends (being family-), is Denny’s classmate and neighbor, and his mother Florence offers to take on both boys on a regular basis.
“Mmmh,” Hen breathes against her wife’s lips as she leans in, “good idea. You’re a very clever woman.”
“That’s why they gave me a doctorate,” Karen quips without missing a beat, before turning expectant eyes on Buck and Eddie. “So?”
Eddie nods minutely to Buck’s left, and he finds himself smiling at Karen in open relief. “Thanks. You’re a life saver.”
“Oh how the tables have turned,” Karen snarks cheerfully, and then proceeds to herd them all out into the parking lot. Hen and Buck need no words to agree that Eddie should sit in the front, what with his apparent leg injury that still remains unacknowledged, but let him observe critically as Chris is buckled into Denny’s seat. They then gently bully him into the passenger seat, watch him flinch as he fastens hiw own seatbelt, and Buck fishes his phone out of his pocket before sliding into place next to Hen in the rear. It is, admittedly, rather tight between Denny’s safety seat and his own broad frame, but they have stuck out worse circumstances together. He opens the website of the sandwich shop when Karen pulls away from the curb, Maddie and Athena having left just before them, and quickly picks his own late lunch before handing the phone over to Hen. He might dose just a little until the phone makes its way back to him, since he startles badly when Hen nudges him carefully so he can take it from Eddie’s good hand stretched out awkwardly across his shoulder. Buck mindlessly pre-orders their order for pick-up in twenty minutes, and finds himself staring stupidly at his background until the screen goes dark. It is a picture of him and Maddie, a wonky selfie taken the day she decided to stay in L.A. with him, and he loves that picture and everything it entails, implies, so much he sometimes does not know to breathe around it.
Right now, though, pressed shoulder to ankle against Hen’s side in the back seat of the Wilsons’ car, with Eddie quietly chatting to Karen in the front and Hen listening patiently to Chris next to him, his lungs feel like someone took a needle to them and all the air is whistling out as he watches and watches and watches, helplessly-
He thrusts his phone over Eddie’s good shoulder so abruptly Hen flails as he leans forward and she suddenly sags halfway into his seat.
“Eddie- I know, we’re going to my place, but — I still don’t have your phone number-”
Eddie turns around a little too fast, judging by the gasp flogging through him, as far as his ribs and shoulder permit, and searches Buck’s gaze across the space of the car. Well, Buck is directly behind him, face almost smushed into Eddie’s headreast, and Eddie’s eyebrows twitch up before his gaze softens.
“You’ll need to unlock your phone for me if you want me to put in my number,” he points out ever so gently.
Buck, kind of frantic, takes his phone back with shaking hands, presses an instantly sweaty thumb against the finger sensor before fumbling to put in his password. He holds the phone out to Eddie again, then, threading his arm past the space between headrest and B pillar so Eddie need not twist and distort so much. Distantly, he thinks he might have officially lost all pretense of calm now, but — he should be allowed to be not-calm, after this day, right?
Eddie at least does not comment, simply takes the phone back and one-handedly puts in his number. Buck watches, with baited breath, even though he cannot see the screen, until a different phone pings loudly. A phone that seems to be located somewhere in the front of the car.
“Dad?”
“Just making sure we have Evan’s number, too, buddy,” Eddie throws a warm smile Chris’s way, before returning Buck’s phone to him.
Ah.
“Good,” Chris nods quietly, before adding with a yawn — “Make sure you save him under Buck, though. I keep having to remind you-”
Their fond, gentle teasing of each other feels familiar even though Buck heard it for the first time during dinner last evening, even though Buck knows Eddie and Chris must have built the majority of this relationship in the past two months since Eddie returned to Texas, injured, and found himself the only parent of a child whose mother tried her best to freeze him out of said child’s life before he left for war. It makes that intimate warmth bloom to life in his chest again even as his eyelids droop. He knows Eddie is a loving, determined dad, knows how much he grieved the relationship he could have with his son if only he were allowed when they met in Austin. He knows Eddie is filled with regrets, too, at leaving Chris behind in the first place after his birth, and then again last summer when he did not know what else to do, but…
But seeing them like this, so at ease with each other, so openly a family for all that they are doubtlessly still navigating their relationship — tastes like honey against the back of Buck’s throat, sweet and heavy and smooth. It tastes like the promise of a home he did not think he could have, would have, and will now maybe have the chance to build.
It tastes like love.
June 2018
Hi Buck,
I’ve seen you speechless :)
I tend to call him Christopher, but most people say Chris (his grandparents excluded). I don’t think he has a clear preference? At least he’s never said anything. Also, thanks for the megalodon facts. I’m surprised to hear that it’s not a dinosaur. I’m assuming it’s a shark, based on context clues?
Since my last letter to you I’ve received a total of 4 letters from Christopher to you (2 were sent with 1 letter to me). He’s really excited about being your friend. I’m hereby forwarding all 4 of them. Any possible drawings are presumably included. I hope you’ve got lots of space on your fridge.
Buck? Thank you for that photo. If you think I’d want to share it you’re crazy. It’s not like I get any privacy in this shithole, but it does make me feel closer to you.
I’ve got bad news. Things are getting kind of intense over here. Networks are almost constantly down ATM, so thank god for old-fashioned letters, huh? I’ll try and be safe, Evan Buck. I’d tell you not to worry, but I don’t think that’s gonna work? And I didn’t want to lie to you.
Almost a year down, only a couple more months to go. The end is in sight, and somehow I miss you more than ever. But — soon. Soon, Buck.
Love,
Eddie
Head echoing with the shadows of exhaustion and palms burning quietly, insistently, Buck rolls out of bed at… some point. He does not bother drawing back the heavy blackout curtains to check whether it is still light outside, instead stumbles out of his bedroom and down the short hall of his apartment with his heart in his throat until he hears Chris’s quiet cheer.
The kid is sunken into the moderately comfortable cushions of Buck’s couch, only his blond curls visible over the backrest, and deeply invested in playing one of Buck’s video games at a low volume.
In Buck’s hollow, yawning chest, his heart settles.
He follows the sounds coming from the kitchen without fully comprehending their existence in the first place, and comes across Eddie wrestling one-handedly with a pot on the stove. He looks up when Buck enters, a rueful smile across his lips. “Just boiling water, I promise. And, contrary to what Chris might claim, I can actually do that without burning anything.”
Buck tries — he really, really tries — to swallow down the tender, gooey feeling against the back of his throat. Judging by the way Eddie looks at him, though, he does not quite succeed.
“Oh? What’re you making?”
At that, Eddie blushes violently. “Uhm. Well, I’m doubly restricted right now,” he grins lopsidedly, looks up at Buck almost shyly with an air of vulnerability Buck is fairly sure no one but Shannon and Chris ever got to see before him, “by both my non-existent cooking skills and my injuries. My mother sure had a lot to say about my abilities to provide Chris with a healthy, varied diet when I took him away from their place, but — we manage.” His chuckle is full of self-deprecation, and Buck drifts closer to him, closer, closer.
Closer.
“I’m sure you do,” he assures his partner (his partner!) without doubt nor hesitation, basks in the warmth of Eddie’s bitterly missed presence. “Bobby’s been teaching me how to cook, though. You probably remember how I was only marginally less helpless than you-”
“-Hey!-”
“-but I’m actually quite good now. I’d like to, well, help, if that’s okay with you.”
Eddie softens, and against Buck’s heart, the hard, rough edges carved out by the past one and a half years begin to smooth out. “I’d like that, but for today, I’m taking care of you.” Eddie grins, more at ease now. “Unfortunately, we already had sandwiches for lunch, so I had to fall back on another old faithful. Took Chris to the store while you were out, and we found quite the range of options, so you can pick your favorite.” He nods towards the counter in his back, next to the stove, and Buck shifts to take a quick look.
“Instant ramen?” he cackles delightedly, both amused and endeared, as he spots the veritable pile of containers.
“Hey, man, I lived off MREs for months, there’s nothing wrong with instant ramen-”
“There really isn’t,” Buck grins, then leans in to press a quick, tender kiss against Eddie’s cheek — Eddie, who is here. Who went out to grab a dinner he could make with one hand while Buck was asleep. Eddie. “Thanks for taking care of me. Even if it is with instant ramen.”
Eddie takes a step back and away from where they are standing, up against the edge of the kitchen counter, and crosses his uninjured arm across the one in a cast and sling. He playfully scowls up at Buck, and, fuck, Buck missed him, missed him so bitterly, so violently- “I don’t feel taken seriously here.”
“I’ll have you know,” Buck smirks, and steps right back into Eddie’s space, “I take you plenty seriously. I mean it when I say thanks for taking care of me. And I hope — I hope you will let me take care of you, too. I know you can take care of yourself, can take care of Chris, even now with your injuries but… I want to be there for both of you, if you let me.” Somehow, his tone of voice changed from the initial mischievousness to a more sensual sincerity and then an almost desperate plea; quite without his conscious assistance. Uhm.
There is a hitch in Eddie’s throat, and his uninjured arm falls away, allows Buck to crowd in more closely. “Please. Please do, Evan… Buck. Please.” His hand, large and warm and real, skims across Buck’s side before settling against his hip bone, and Buck breathes in sharply. “Please.”
He surges forward without a second thought, palms coming up to frame Eddie’s face, and brushes his lips against this beautiful, beautiful man’s. Eddie’s own uninjured easily hand intercepts Buck’s left before it can come into contact with his cheek, and he breathes in Buck’s slightly pained gasp when he is rudely reminded that… well, his skin is still burned, even if only superficially.
“You okay? Need new painkillers?” The words are spelt right into Buck’s mouth, lips against his own, and it is really, really hard to focus on their meaning rather than their shape and taste.
“Uh. -Maybe? But — later.”
“If you’re sure-”
“I’m sure,” Buck insists firmly, stubbornly, writes his assertion back into Eddie’s mouth. Eddie’s mouth, which is warm and wet against his own. Eddie’s mouth, which is real, and tastes sweeter than even in his most yearnful memories. If this is a dream, he will have to make sure he never wakes up again.
He pushes into Eddie carefully, ever conscious of the injuries scattered across his battered, beautiful body, and drinks in his warmth, and tries his damn best to feed his soul straight to Eddie’s lips.
“Daaad? Can we have dinner?”
Buck could not say how long they stood against the kitchen counter, lost in each other, when Chris comes padding around the corner, crutches creaking softly against the faded floorboards. He flinches back on instinct, but Eddie’s hand is wide and strong against the small of his back, holds him close for another long moment before relaxing. “I think the water’s boiling, so we can eat in a couple minutes. Why don’t you go ahead and choose which flavor you want?” He speaks the words around Buck before letting him step away slowly, rather than recoiling.
Chris eyes them for a long, long moment before nodding his assent and beginning to drag one of Buck’s kitchen chairs over towards where the two of them are still standing. Eddie does not intervene to help so Buck follows his example, simply shifting to the side to make space for the kid and lifting the lid off the pot on the stove to take a look. He snorts softly at the water bubbling cheerfully, I think the water’s boiling indeed — it probably has been for a while, whilst Buck and Eddie were… busy.
Eddie promptly shoos Buck off to pick some containers too and he bends over Chris who has successfully climbed the chair and is now reading ramen labels ever so seriously, heart lighter than he can remember it being in a long, long time. Even — even after this morning’s call. Eddie swiftly proceeds to pour the boiling water into the chosen plastic containers one-handedly after stink-eying Buck firmly when he steps up to take over. “Go take another painkiller. I can do this.”
Buck acquiesces wordlessly, the vigorous fondness smoldering through his every vein almost painful in its intensity. He bathes — luxuriates — in the sentiment all throughout dinner, descending into a passionate debate about whether deinosuchus or pteranodon is the cooler non-dinosaur reptile as Eddie listens quietly with that private smile tucked into the corner of his mouth.
It is the most at home Buck has ever felt.
“Are you staying in L.A., or do you need to go back before you can come here permanently?” He asks quietly when they make their way into his bedroom two hours later, Chris asleep on the couch after a story read by Buck and a goodnight kiss to his mop of hair by Eddie. (Buck tries not to think about the three new drawings that were added to the collection on his fridge at some point while he slept, because if he does he will cry. Absolutely.)
Eddie waits for the door to close, before searching Buck’s gaze. “We flew over, because obviously I can’t drive at the moment. There’s… there’s still some stuff I want to pick up, most of it Christopher’s, once I’m up for the road trip. But other than that, I wasn’t planning on returning to El Paso unless I have to. My abuela’s promised we can stay at her place until I’ve managed to find a place for us, and-”
“Stay with me,” Buck blurts out, only to blush violently. Eddie’s eyes are wide. “I, uh. I know it’s not much, and really cramped for three people, but… we can make it work, right? And maybe… maybe look for something together? I, I understand if this is too much too fast, I know I can be-”
“You’re not too much, Evan,” Eddie interrupts abruptly, keenly reiterates what he already told Buck in a letter. Only, this time they are standing in the same room, breathing the same air, and Buck almost died today, and Eddie almost died two months ago, and Buck wants to cling to him and never let go, and he feels truly at home for the first time ever since Maddie left, and- “You’re not too much. I… let’s think about it, yeah? Both of us. Ask Chris, too. I think — I think I we should spend some time with abuela, too. She was really worried, and I… I need to get to know you properly, Evan. No matter how I feel about you, I want to do this right. But…”
Buck’s heart plummets. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“But what?”
Eddie’s eyes are dark and wide and bottomless. “I think I’d like to spend my life with you. So — let’s do this right, yeah?”
Oh. Oh.
“Y-Yeah,” Buck croaks faintly. “I — yeah. Let’s.”
The corners of those dark, wide, bottomless eyes crinkle when Eddie smiles his warmest smile. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. Let’s… let’s spend our lives together.”
June 2018
Eddie,
You’re 100% right, telling me not to worry in the same fucking paragraph as letting me know things were getting “intense” did not work. At all. Shit, Eddie, I’m terrified. I wish there was anything I could do. If something happened to you, would I even be informed? Or would I just have to accept that you’re not coming back into my life, whether by choice or death, after long enough radio silence?
Yeah, I’m absolutely terrified.
The megalodon was a fish, Eddie, not even a reptile. And yes, it was a shark. Also, megalodons and dinosaurs never co-existed, even though both are extinct. There were like 43 million years between the dinosaurs going extinct and the oldest megalodon fossils. But hey, on a cool fact note: Scientists call the extinction of the dinosaurs the “K-T event”, for “Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event”. K-T event does sound pretty cryptic and badass, right? There’s several theories about what caused it, the classic meteor (or climate change in general) is just one of them. Actually, one theory says that small mammals ate dinosaur eggs until the population couldn’t survive anymore. That’s pretty badass for small mammals, too. And some believe that the dinosaurs’ bodies were becoming too big for their small brains, which is absolutely hilarious.
On the matter of dinosaurs, I’ve enclosed my answer to Chris (as usual). There’s also a picture of my fridge, which now holds his photo and all his drawings. I really can’t wait to meet him, Eddie, and maybe take some pictures together.
And I still maintain that we should go to Pride together, with Chris, if that’s something you’re comfortable with. I went for the first time in years last weekend, with Hen and her wife and some of their friends, and it was great. But it did make me miss you even more.
I’ve got some pretty big news, actually. In Austin I think I mentioned having a sister, but I didn’t tell you much about her other than that she was gone. The reason for that is that I was pretty hurt by her leaving, and that I didn’t really know how to talk about that. Maddie is 9 years older than me, and she all but raised me (you already know the basics of my difficult relationship with my parents, about how they never gave a fuck about me and I basically had to injure myself to get any attention). We always said we’d leave Hershey together, but then she got married when I was a teenager and left with her husband instead. I never stopped writing her, but she never answered.
Well, about a week ago I found her in my apartment! She knew where to look for me thanks to the postcards I kept sending her. Maddie originally didn’t plan on staying (apparently that asshole better hope I never, ever run into him), but I managed to convince her that we’d keep her safe from him and she’s started looking into getting divorced from him. Now we’ve both got family we want to introduce each other to :) I think she’d like to meet Chris too. She’s very appreciative of his art on the fridge.
(On that note, I think I might have to introduce you to my team as well. We’ve all been getting really close, Hen and Chimney are great, and I think Bobby, our Captain, might have adopted me? I’m a little scared to say anything, because that could just be wishful thinking.)
Please, please, please be careful, Eddie. Please. I miss you too, so much it kinda hurts. And I don’t want to lose you either.
Love,
Buck
“I’ve still got all your letters too, you know,” Eddie mentions absently as he eyes the pile of familiar sheets of paper on the small desk crammed into the corner of Buck’s bedroom. There are two pile, actually, one containing Eddie’s letters and one Chris’s, and both of the were insanely painful to look at until about 36 hours ago.
Now — now, Eddie is here.
Buck freezes, before his fingers resume their careful tracing of whimsical patterns across Eddie’s broad, bare chest. His hands feel a little better after a proper night of sleep, though not enough that he will be able to come on duty this evening. Typically, he hates having to sit out even a single shift because of injuries, but today he is more than content to accept the additional time with Eddie and Chris.
“Oh? I thought you would’ve had to, well. Leave them behind.” If he even kept them at all, but — Buck is honest enough with himself to admit he would be hurt if that were not the case.
Eddie tears his gaze away from the letters, turns his head to face Buck ever so slowly. They have been awake for about an hour while Chris is still asleep, staying pressed into each other in this bed barely wide enough for two (the bed they shared in Austin was way smaller, but neither of them was wounded back then) and talking in low, raspy voices. Over the course of this hour, Buck learned that Eddie’s injuries tend to ache worse in the mornings, and he patiently waits for brown eyes to meet his own.
“I always kept them on my person,” Eddie admits shyly, almost bashfully, “just like Christopher’s. Kept both your photos in my breast pocket, too. I… I spent a lot of time looking at them, reading the letters, back over in Afghanistan, but I haven’t… well. Since I came back, I… There’s, uh.” He gulps deeply, and Buck digs his fingers into the meat of his sides in lieu of a proper embrace. Eddie takes a deep breath, smiles crookedly. Almost sadly, really. “There’s some blood on them? So I didn’t really feel- uhm.”
Buck’s innards tangle into a complicated knot as an entire flash flood of emotions washes through him. His hand slips higher and his grip around Eddie’s torso tightens for a moment, before he is once more reminded of the wounds burnt into his palms; and the state of Eddie’s ribs when his partner flinches. Shit. “Fuck, I’m sorry-”
“It’s okay,” Eddie murmurs — presumably talking about the pain rather than the condition of his letters. “There’s… not really a good way to hug me right now. You can stop apologizing.”
Right, bloody likely.
Without meaning to, Buck lets his gaze fall to the patch against Eddie’s shoulder. He found the other two bullet wounds too, last night, one of which is responsible for the limp that kept drawing his attention. Eddie said that he will need to find a new physical therapist here in L.A. in the coming weeks, but for now he can do his exercises himself, and that he is fine, and Buck — Buck believes him, he does, but he wants. He wants, so badly, to convince himself that Eddie is really, truly alive, to make himself believe it.
He can wait though.
Let’s spend our lives together..
Yeah, he can wait.
“Did you… did you also keep the letter that never made it to me?”
Buck’s gaze snaps up from the patch to find Eddie’s eyes again, brown and wide, and his heart clenches painfully. “…Yeah.”
Eddie’s gaze is ever so clear, and he raises his good arm to tenderly trail the contours of Buck’s face. “May I read it?”
Buck watches him in silence for a long, long time.
Eddie is here. Eddie is alive.
He rolls out of bed slowly, pads over to the desk and draws out the letter at the bottom of Eddie’s pile. It is shorter than most of the missives written by his partner, and his fingers tremble only a little when he hands it over before crawling back under the covers and fitting himself into this beautiful man’s side like a puzzle piece.
Eddie hesitates for a long moment, gaze burning into Buck’s tingling skin, before finally reading the words that still break Buck’s heart to see spelt across the pale paper. He is quiet as his eyes fly across the single page, and his hand slowly begins to shake as much as Buck’s did earlier.
When he reaches the end, Eddie abruptly breathes out a sound of pure distress, like a creature of flesh and blood clawing its way free from his lungs, before rolling right onto his bad shoulder in a move that must hurt like a bitch and clutching to Buck’s shoulders with the desperation of a drowning man.
“I’m sorry, Evan, I’m so sorry-”
“It’s okay,” Buck is the one to say this time. “You’re here now.”
“I… I am. I’m okay, or I will be, and I’m safe, and I love you too.”
Buck whimpers in response, and buries his face in the mess of Eddie’s hair. “Yes. Yes. I — welcome home, Eddie.” They only just found each other again, and both of them are injured physically and emotionally, and there is so much left to talk about, but… there is time now. Time, and space, and a chance. A future.
Welcome home indeed.
August 2018
Eddie,
I haven’t heard from you in too long. I’m even more terrified now. I hope you’re safe, Eddie, and that you’ll be coming home soon. 1 more month, right? You’ll be shipping back mid-September?
I should’ve sent you my phone number even when I told you not to call me, to save your call slots for Chris, just to make sure you had it. I hope he’s okay. I miss both of you.
I moved again. Didn’t plan to, but my apartment was too small for Maddie and I and we decided that we wanted to stay close for a bit, so we got almost adjacent flats in a different building. My new address and phone number are enclosed, as usual.
I’m scared shitless, Eddie. I hope you’re ok. I love you.
Please come home.
If you don’t want to be in contact anymore, at least please let me know you’re safe?
Love,
Buck
if you knew how much this moment means to me
and how long I've waited for your touch
and if you knew how happy you are making me
I never thought that I'd love anyone so much
it feels like home to me