Word Count: 5,157
Warnings/Spoilers: None in particular for this chapter.
He froze, because there was no way that Eddie could see him when he'd barely stepped into the room and there was a curtain partway around his bed which meant Buck couldn't see him yet either but-
"No one else has tried to creep into my room this week so if it's not you, then it's someone coming back to finish the job."
And that…really wasn't Eddie's typical sense of humour but it was definitely Eddie's voice. Eddie's warm and confident voice that was tinged with concern and worry and life.
He shuffled into view, hovering near the corner of the curtain, and kept his eyes fixed on the floor because he was too scared of what he'd see, too scared of what he'd say, too scared to even think about-
"Evan?"
He pushed his fingers into the pockets of his jeans in an attempt to hide how they trembled, but Eddie had probably already seen it. Eddie was always the observant and rational one. Buck was always the one who moved too quickly, too stupidly, and broke everything in his path.
"Please, I-" Eddie released a slow breath, not quite a sigh but certainly something like it. Buck wondered how much pain he was still in. "I don't have amnesia. I know what you said…before. But I- I really, really need you, Evan. Please."
Buck chanced a quick look at Eddie, and he at least had a hospital gown covering his chest now, and less tubes and wires spouting everywhere, and there was colour in his face again, and he…could almost have passed for looking normal. It was a significant improvement on when he'd seen Eddie in the ICU.
"Please?" Eddie said again, extending his right hand and wriggling the fingers to encourage him closer. Buck's eyes traced over the left arm, folded over his chest and wrapped in a thick cast and a black brace that snaked from his wrist to his elbow and higher, disappearing into the sleeve of the hospital gown.
"I didn't- I didn't want this," Buck said, unmoved by the palm that was extended towards him and returning his eyes to a really interesting speck on the floor.
"Want what? Me getting shot? Well, that's a relief to hear. I didn't want it either."
Buck opened his mouth to reply before sealing it shut again, his words failing him although he'd hardly spoken for over a week. The disconnect between his mouth and brain seemed like an entire transmission tower was missing.
"That- That's not-"
"I know, Evan, I know," Eddie relented, his tone gentling. "And I- I should tone down the gallows humour, huh? You look rattled."
"You nearly died," Buck said, his voice cracking because ever since that day, every time he'd closed his eyes, he'd seen Eddie's funeral and he'd seen Eddie's blood on his hands and he'd woken up to the sound of his scream of Eddie's name and-
"It's not the first time I've been shot at, Buck," Eddie replied, deceptively calm, and for a moment, Buck's breath stuck in his lungs. Eddie never talked about his time in the military, never even breathed a word of how or why he got a Silver Star. It was… Buck hadn't expected Eddie to be okay, especially after the home invasion call they'd had earlier in the year, and to Buck it had felt like the Latest Awful Disaster that he'd brought upon someone. But for Eddie… Getting shot wasn't the big deal that Buck thought it was. It didn't make it easier to deal with but it did change his perspective a little.
He inched closer to Eddie until light fingers touched his arm, until they skimmed his skin and tangled around his hand.
"I'm sorry," Eddie said and Buck frowned, looking at their joined hands like they had personally wronged him.
"You're sorry?"
"Yes, I'm sorry," Eddie repeated, squeezing his hand and drawing his attention slowly upwards. His eyes were clear, reflecting none of the turmoil that had plagued Buck for weeks or months. He wondered if a near-death experience did that to a person who was used to them, or if he and Eddie just handled things completely differently. Perhaps a bit of both. Maybe that was how Christopher coped so well all the time. He had Eddie as a role model. "I'm sorry I made you feel like you aren't enough for me, and I'm sorry I made you feel like you don't matter to me when we're at work. Nothing could be further from the truth, mi amor."
Buck traced Eddie's expression, looking for any of his usual tells for nerves or uncertainty or deception. He'd gotten used to Eddie concealing feelings from him with the fighting ring but this? This openness was a different side to Eddie and he wasn't sure how to deal with it.
"I have…a bad habit of hurting the people I love most," Eddie admitted, glancing towards their hands and making Buck aware of how Eddie's thumb was tracing absent patterns over his knuckles.
It took Buck far too long to process what Eddie had said.
And then he was doing the blinking thing again when he met Eddie's calm brown eyes.
"And I- I'm hoping you feel the same," Eddie continued, his Adam's apple bobbing the only real sign of nerves even though he was basically laying his heart in front of Buck. "I'm hoping that it wasn't just an act, or that I'm the only one that feels anything. And I'm trying really hard not to be the one who gets hurt here so-"
"How can you just…" Buck wanted to pull his hand away but he didn't want to give Eddie the wrong idea, either. He hesitated and Eddie curled his fingers tighter, anchoring him to the side of the bed like he knew Buck wanted to withdraw or flee or both. "How can you just…forgive me? Or… Or whatever this is. After what I said? After what you said when you left? I thought… No, I know I fucked everything up and I just- How can you-"
"I got shot," Eddie said simply, and it answered a lot of things and none of the questions all at the same time. "I realised while I was lying there that I was- What you said was similar to some of what Shannon said," Eddie explained, his tongue darting out to wet his lower lip. "And it hurt. It scratched at areas I thought didn't hurt anymore. So I had to leave because when I get hurt, I say the worst sort of shit and I didn't want to hurt you more than I knew you were already hurting. So I left so I could calm down. And then I got shot."
Eddie shrugged, though only his right shoulder rose, his hand in Buck's shifting slightly.
"I was scared. I couldn't not be. I knew what getting shot meant, and I knew how bad it could get." Eddie's voice drifted towards a whisper and a bit of distance crept into his unfocused eyes that reminded Buck of the impact of that house call in January. "I could hear Beatrice talking to the 911 operator, though I didn't know it was Maddie at the time, and I could feel her hands against me to hold pressure and it was agonising but…but more agonising was all the fear I started feeling."
Buck noticed the tension and slight tremble in Eddie's hand and he covered it with his other, encasing Eddie's fingers and grateful he still had the chance to do that, that the hand was warm and firm and clinging to his own.
"I felt all the fear because I- I was scared for Christopher and I knew I had to fight for him, because my son needs his father. I was scared for my Abuela and my relatives, whom I love very deeply and who didn't deserve to worry about me while I was in Afghanistan and then I got shot on some LA street for stepping into a situation when I should've called 911 myself."
Eddie's voice broke and Buck was no longer sure whose hand was squeezing tighter but the touch seemed to be a lifeline to staying sane.
"But I was also scared for you, and I was scared of not being with you, and I was scared for how you would cope because I knew you'd blame yourself." Something like a wry smile tugged at one side of Eddie's lips, an eyebrow lifting and fixing Buck to the spot. "It's amazing how easily you make life-altering decisions in the stark and obvious cold light of day, so it was pretty clear amid the haze and the pain that if I got out of there and lived, I couldn't have regrets and I couldn't hold your pain and anger against you. I needed you to know that it hurt me at the time but I couldn't hold onto that hurt. I knew how you felt was born from not talking to each other properly and I had to make sure you knew that."
"But…" Buck bit at his cheek but it wasn't enough to stop the single tear sliding down his cheek. "Eddie, I don't deserve your forgiveness."
"Yeah, I thought you'd say that," Eddie teased, grin stretching to the other side of his mouth. "I've had a lot of hours to lie here and think about what I'd say to you and how you'd respond to everything. Every day that went by, every day that someone asked how you were holding up which made it clear you were lying in your texts to them, made it clear to me that you'd gone back to that place where you didn't leave your apartment for a week. Which just made it more and more obvious than whenever you finally got here, you'd basically say exactly that."
Buck opened his mouth to deny it but he couldn't, and there was a knowing glint in Eddie's eyes that made it crystal clear Eddie knew him better than Buck thought he was comfortable with. He wasn't even sure Maddie saw all the broken pieces but he supposed Maddie wasn't the one that had pulled away the bedding, or had witnessed his breakdown after nearly drowning in the elevator, or had helped him remember how to breathe by the side of a pool or in the locker room. Eddie had seen all those bits and kept holding them together until Buck felt strong enough to hold them himself.
The swirling nerves behind his ribcage that that realisation left him with was like some sort of combination of butterflies and a constant thrum of his heartbeat which made his stomach churn. He met Eddie's eyes and felt like he got lost in the gentle sincerity within the brown depths, the slight crease around the outside because of the smile at Eddie's lips.
"I know the team all know too," Eddie continued, eyebrows quirking upwards as Buck ducked his head, heat flooding his face. "Something about my kid asking the cutest questions and leaving you embarrassed?"
"Yeah…" he breathed, trying to clear his throat of the hoarseness. "He…asked if I didn't like you anymore. I think it tipped everyone off."
"And Bobby said they had a betting pool?"
"He told you that too?" Buck said, a small flicker of a smile when he met Eddie's amused grin. "I didn't understand what he meant."
"Apparently they kept seeing the way we looked at each other and wondered when we'd finally, and I quote, 'get it out of our system and bang'," Eddie explained, which made Buck's cheeks almost certainly flush darker as he stared in shock or horror or surprise. "Joke's on them for not realising we already kind of were."
Buck opened his mouth and then realised he had nothing to say, left without words like so often around Eddie. Eddie snorted, then groaned softly in pain, and squeezed his hand again.
"You mean so much more to me than that though, Evan," Eddie said, tugging him closer to the bed with a tone like warm honey that seeped into the scared and scarred parts of Buck's soul. "You and Christopher have become so integrated into my life that I can't imagine what it would be like without you in it."
Buck felt his chest tighten, hesitating over the words as he looked past Eddie's head to a spot on the wall. "I- I could transfer."
"Why the hell would you do that?" Eddie replied, his eyebrows furrowing.
"To be less…integrated," he said lamely with a small sort of shrug.
"Hey. No." Eddie shook his head, the way he held onto Buck's hand almost painful and forcing his gaze back to Eddie's eyes that now looked uncertain and afraid. "I'm asking you to stay in our lives, Ev. I'm asking you to stay with me. If I have to tell you every single day that I love you a hundred times then-"
Perhaps, if Buck had thought this through, he would have realised how awkward it was to kiss someone propped up in a hospital bed when both your hands were holding onto one of theirs. He might have realised the danger of tipping forward too far, of applying too much pressure to Eddie's mouth or his chest or his abdomen, of his emotions unravelling which made it too easy for tears to spill down his cheeks.
But that was why Buck was the quick, impulsive firefighter that he was.
He didn't think those sorts of things through.
He managed to free one of his hands so he could cradle Eddie's cheek, deepening the kiss and soaking in the comfort and the heat that he hadn't let himself feel for weeks, the bright spots of hope and possibility that Eddie left him with rather than the hollow and cold feeling that had been haunting him for months.
"Evan…" Eddie whimpered against his lips and Buck forced himself to stop, foreheads pressed together as he inhaled and exhaled, inhaled and exhaled, soothing the anxieties and the fears and the doubts. "Please tell me I'm not the only one in love here?"
"You're not," Buck assured, kissing the edge of Eddie's lips and tracing fingers over his temple and hairline and ear and jaw and the developing beard he had going on after more than a week in a hospital bed. "Your Abuela called me out on it and Chris was there for that conversation too." Eddie huffed a laugh against his mouth, dragging the tip of his nose against the slope of Buck's. "I- I just got so afraid that…that maybe I was loving you too much but you didn't feel the same and so I- I needed to protect myself and stop feeling it."
"Gracias a Dios, idiota," Eddie murmured, tilting his head until he found Buck's lips for another kiss that didn't last long enough but was still a balm to Buck's splintered soul. "Please don't stop showing it, okay? The house knows. My Abuela and Pepa and mom and dad and sisters know. My son knew before I did," Eddie said with a small laugh as he gazed at Buck. "We don't have to hide it anymore, okay?"
Buck hesitated and Eddie either sensed it or felt it.
"What?" Eddie prompted.
"Just… I don't want this to be like some teenage…experimentation thing," he said, drawing away and scrunching his eyes shut so he didn't have to see the way Eddie's eyebrows would pinch together above his confused eyes.
"Is that what you think this is? That I'm…experimenting with you?" Eddie's hand clasped at Buck's arm, drawing his heart away from its precarious teetering on the edge of the abyss. "I've told you this before, Ev, but I'm not some innocent virgin. I know what love feels like. I know how happy you make me. This isn't an experiment to me. I'm not trying experimenting to work out what or who I like because I already know that I like you."
"'Liking me' sounds an awful lot like something a teenager would say," Buck pointed out, fighting a petulant smile as he reopened his eyes to witness Eddie's huff of frustration and scrunched nose.
"Dios míos, what else do I have to say to get you to listen to me, Evan Buckley?"
"I'm listening," Buck said, meeting Eddie's large brown depths that he would gladly lose himself in when he had the chance. "It's just been a mess of a week."
Eddie tugged him into another kiss that was softer and slower and coaxed a small whimper from his lips when Eddie's thumb pressed against the pulsepoint in his throat. He could feel Eddie's smile against his mouth and between that and the firmer press of his thumb, a shudder rippled down his spine. Stupid Eddie being fully aware of sensitive spots to drive him crazy.
"Lucky for you," Eddie murmured like he hadn't just made Buck's brain melt out his ears, "I'm literally staying where I am for the rest of the day and you can tell me all about it."
Buck rolled his eyes and Eddie sighed, loosening his hand against Buck's skin and letting it drag over his shoulder and down his arm.
"No puedo creer que esto tenga que decirse," Eddie mumbled as he looked towards the ceiling for a long moment, evidently to gather his thoughts, and then returned his gaze to Buck's. "I mean it, Evan. What is it you want from me? What can I say that will reassure you?"
And Buck really didn't know. He'd always been insecure when it came to believing anyone really wanted him, was really willing to commit to him for something. Abby had cut and run when he hadn't expected it. Ali hadn't been able to reconcile how much he loved his job even when he faced months of rehab. The guys he'd fooled around with as a teenager hadn't been very clear in knowing who they were yet, so it had all been a secretive thing. He was a spider's web of uncertainties and the fact that Eddie had a kid, and he'd been married to a woman, and would be able to obtain anyone he seriously wanted, made Buck question why Eddie wanted him. He wasn't insecure in his appearance. He knew plenty of eyes followed him. He just…seriously doubted that Eddie wanted to put up with his baggage, or his anxieties.
"What?" Eddie prodded, both verbally and with the hand against Buck's arm.
He tugged himself free purely to fold his arms over his chest, stitching together the broken pieces in an effort to preserve some semblance of dignity over his thoughts and feelings and insecurities.
"I lost your kid," he said, inching backwards and nearly tripping over a plastic chair or a machine stand. "And you were married. And I…was a sex addict who slept with my therapist. And I'm not- I try not to be that person anymore but you-" He shook his head and licked his lips and tried to remember the obvious thing he needed to do: inhale and exhale, inhale and exhale. "If you find someone better-"
"Mi amor, cállate – shut up," Eddie translated, a pinched frown on his face.
But Buck shook his head because if Eddie needed to know what to say then Eddie needed to listen to him talk. "No one's ever stuck around, Eddie. It all starts out well enough and then something always happens and I'm left behind and I- I can't- You mean too much to me and- a-and Christopher too and I-"
"Evan, cariño, hush. I know all this and I'm not like Abby or Ali."
Very slowly and very carefully, Eddie sat up in his bed and shifted until his legs were hanging off the edge of the mattress. Buck was faintly terrified he was about to be backed into a corner and shaken until some sense rattled into his head, and perhaps Eddie picked up on that and stayed where he was, or maybe he could sit on the edge of his bed but he wasn't cleared yet to stand or walk. Buck didn't know.
"First of all, we've been through this – so many times but I'll keep saying it – that Evan Buckley, you saved my kid. Without you, or if it had been someone else who didn't have your crisis training and quick responses, Christopher would be gone. I may- I might not even have had a body," Eddie admitted, and Buck's eyes fell away because he'd thought that too. "You know my Abuela took Christopher to the pier too? It could have just as easily been one of her days looking after him and I could have just as easily have lost both of them in that water. Instead, both of you came back to me."
Eddie's voice was calm and steady, his words low and soothing like Buck was a spooked animal that would so easily flee. Maybe he would. Maybe he should. He tried to listen to Eddie's words, tried to believe them, but…he still felt so much guilt and shame even though the tsunami had happened almost a year ago. It probably wasn't helped by how the nightmares had returned with such a vengeance this week, rattling the cages of every anxiety he'd tried to lock away.
"Yes, I was married," Eddie continued, gaze fixed on Buck. "I was married but we both know that wasn't really a marriage because we've talked about that too. I wasn't there for her and Christopher, and then she left and wasn't there for me and Christopher. That is the total opposite of what I believe we have. You adore my son and I adore you for it. My marriage…" Eddie swallowed, eyes drifting out of focus and slightly away from Buck's head. "My marriage was because she fell pregnant with Christopher and we knew our parents would lose it. And I loved her, I really did care for her deeply. The fact that Christopher lost his mom when they were starting to reconnect after I concealed her presence from him for months is…" Eddie sighed, shaking his head and squashing his lips from one side to the other. "That's my burden to bear but you cannot protect your heart from me because I was married to Shannon because she's dead, Buck."
And it was…incredibly blunt and a little harsh and terribly broken and Buck felt the guilt all over again when Eddie held out his right hand, fingers jerking towards him. "And as for Buck 1.0, I don't care who you were or what you were or how you behaved before I met you. I care about who you are now, who you are to me and who you are to Christopher. I care about how you behave towards us, and I care about how much I love you." Eddie stared at him and waited with more patience than Buck thought he possessed. "I can love Shannon and I can love you and not have this be a teenager experimentation phase, Buck. You are not a phase to me."
Buck knew he was still warring with himself and all the turmoil of the past week had left him wrung out and strung out. His chest ached to believe Eddie but his brain still struggled with the noise and he-
"You know I enlisted when Don't Ask Don't Tell was in effect? Even after it was repealed, there was still a lot of uncertainty and fear about being out." Eddie's abrupt change in conversational direction made Buck refocus on the words, a small frown spreading across his face. "There are… You said you had been with guys before, when you were a teenager. But that was…never an option for me. Not with the household I grew up in at the time. And maybe I would have, maybe I was interested? But…I never let myself. Then I enlisted and Don't Ask Don't Tell was alive and sinister and I couldn't be interested, I couldn't let myself feel anything or act on those. If I got dishonourably discharged, I wouldn't have been able to face Shannon or my mom."
Buck blinked.
"So I- I think there are possibly a lot of parts of me that have been…repressed, or avoided, because there are all these complex issues," Eddie said slowly, his gaze drifting around the room as if there were words and explanations floating in front of him. "After I met you and I got to know you and I- Buck, this is- What we have is more real to me than anything I've ever felt, okay? Can you try to understand that for me? I'm still figuring out if I should be getting a pink, purple and blue flag or a rainbow flag drawn on my face at Pride in a couple of months but that detail doesn't and won't change how I feel about you."
And that… Buck could work with that.
He shuffled closer, still afraid but that anxiety just seemed to be something that always simmered below the surface. Eddie's whole face brightened, like Buck getting closer was some sort of version of the sun, and when Buck was close enough to slide his hand against Eddie's neck and tip his head to kiss him, Eddie was more than willing to kiss back, to twist his fingers into Buck's shirt and hold him close.
"I love you, Evan," Eddie whispered repeatedly between kisses and Buck wasn't sure if he was trembling or Eddie was trembling. Maybe they both were.
"I'm sorry I'm so…everything," Buck mumbled but Eddie shook his head, hand rubbing over Buck's chest.
"I know I come with complicated baggage. And I know you're afraid of making a mistake with me or Christopher and losing both of us." Eddie's hand settled over his heart and it spoke of an intimacy that Buck wondered if he'd ever stop being surprised by. "But I'm trusting we've built something over the last couple of years working alongside each other that won't crumble that easily. Can you trust that? Can you trust me, and Chris, that we can make this work?"
Buck gazed into Eddie's wide and hopeful eyes and knew that he could. He didn't feel whole if he didn't have Eddie in his life, and he didn't feel alive if he hadn't seen Christopher.
He managed a small nod and then kissed Eddie again and again until he realised he'd never felt like this about anyone either. It was terrifying and exciting and-
"So am I to assume all the talking was beneficial?"
He moved backwards so quickly like a teenager that had just been busted making out by his father again that Eddie nearly toppled forward, off the edge of the bed, onto the floor. Carla's delighted, smug grin drew Buck's attention back to Eddie and-
Well. Looking at Eddie's kiss-swollen lips and his flushed cheeks and shining eyes, he realised he had been thoroughly kissing the guy.
And he desperately wanted to cover up his own mortified face.
"Thank you for bringing this absolute idiot to see me," Eddie said without a hint of embarrassment, the hand still loosely tangled in Buck's shirt pulling him close again and Buck was forced into stumbling the couple of steps that meant he was back at Eddie's bedside.
"I'd say 'my pleasure' but I think that's all on you," Carla retorted, breaking into one of her loud laughs, and even Eddie snorted at that. "Now, if you two can come up for air, there are some rather impatient visitors out there that I have been trying to keep at bay but I think I'm running out of excuses."
Could Buck jump out a window? He didn't have his rappelling gear but surely he could just jump out the window anyway? Maybe someone at the bottom could open their arms and catch him before he splattered across the pavement? This was a hospital. Any damage could be fixed quickly, right?
"Send them in," Eddie said with a wave, fingers smoothing over Buck's chest. "Don't look at me like that. They're here to see me, not you."
Buck didn't even have a response to that. His mouth had disconnected from his brain, leaving it opening and closing like a dying fish.
"Bucky!"
Oh great.
"Hey, bud," he managed, the sound slightly strangled in his throat as Christopher tapped across the ground towards him and practically hurled himself into Buck's outstretched arms.
Christopher immediately tucked his head into the curve of Buck's neck and shoulder, crutches bumping at Buck's body. "I missed you," Christopher murmured as Buck lifted him off the ground and onto his hip, nosing at Christopher's temple and pressing a light kiss to his cheek.
"I'm sorry I haven't seen you, little angel," he whispered, using his grasp on Christopher to cover for his failure to greet Isabel or Helena or Hen or Bobby.
"It's okay." Christopher patted his chest, right above his heart. "Dad said you would be here when you were ready and we just had to give you time."
"Oh he did, did he?" He ran his fingers through Christopher's hair and kissed his cheek again, knowing that he'd say he was grateful for Chris' forgiveness and love this year at Thanksgiving. "Your Dad's a smart man."
"Not as smart as me though. I knew you loved Dad before you did."
And it was said with such childish wonder and innocence that he burst into laughter, drawing the attention of everyone else in the room.
"Chris was just telling me how clever he is," he explained sheepishly, to the amused smiles of the Diaz trio and Carla. Hen and Bobby clearly weren't sure what to do with their faces but he suspected it was because they so rarely saw this side of him with Christopher. Or maybe just because they hadn't seen him in more than a week and were surprised he was holding it together.
Helena moved around Eddie's bed to rub her hand between Chris' shoulder blades and cradle Buck's jaw, a tenderness in her touch that made his eyes prickle faintly.
"It's good to see you here, Buck," she said, holding his gaze even when he wanted to slink away from it in shame because he hadn't been there for Eddie, or Chris, or any of the Diaz family. "I hope this means you and my son have figured yourselves out."
Buck glanced across to where Eddie was chatting quietly with Hen and Bobby, his hand clasped in Isabel's, and bit his lip to minimise the smile that threatened to erupt across his face.
"Yeah," he said, giving Christopher a small squeeze when the kid made a delighted giggle. "Yeah, I think we did."
~TBC~
