Word Count: 4,395
Warnings/Spoilers: There is some discussion about past depressive episodes.

January seeped into February and, with it, an afternoon where Carla needed to drop Christopher at the 118 after school for the final few hours of shift because Isabel and Pepa were busy.

"Dad!" Chris yelled as his crutches clattered across the station floor, spotting Eddie as he jogged down the stairs. Buck followed at a slightly more leisurely pace, knowing he'd never hear the end of it if he didn't greet the kid. Above him, Hen, Chim and Bobby hung over the railing and waved.

"Hey, mijo." Eddie crouched to wrap Chris in a tight cuddle, decorating his face with kisses as Chris broke into peals of laughter.

"You tickle!" Chris protested, bumping at Eddie with one of his crutches until Eddie released him. He grinned when he saw Buck leaning against the truck. "Buck!"

"Little man." He danced closer to run his fingers through blond curls as Chris wrapped an arm around one leg, head pressing against his stomach. "How was school?"

"Great," Chris said with a restlessly excited quiver. "This is more fun though!"

"Yeah?" Eddie eyes met Buck's. "You won't get up to too much trouble, alright?"

Buck's lips tugged into half a grin. "Is that a jab at me or at your kid?"

Eddie rolled his eyes and motioned towards where the other three were still watching them from the balcony above with expressions ranging from hope to amusement to frustration. "It's a guarantee that Bobby will make you wash trucks for a month if you blow something up with Chris here and I will find a way to make you regret every decision that led to the explosion."

Buck's eyebrows inched towards his hairline as Chris clattered away to climb the stairs. "Is that a threat or a promise?"

Eddie chuckled and shoved his shoulder lightly. "Both, you jerk."

Buck watched him chase after his kid before realising he'd neglected Carla. She was still standing by the entrance, a large grin across her face.

"Buckaroo!" she called as he hugged her in hello. "You and Eddie seem to be getting along well."

He stared at her, then glanced back at where Eddie had light fingers on Chris' back to help him up the stairs. "He's- We're just-"

Carla made a knowing "mhm" and a rumbly laugh filled her chest. "You look at him like you used to look at Abby."

"I-" He blinked rapidly, struggling to hold her gaze. "It's not like that, Carla."

She pursed her lips, eyes tracing over him and then up again to fix him to his spot on the floor. "Does he know that?"

Buck wasn't sure what she meant and she'd already left by the time his brain started to feel like her four word sentence hadn't completely scrambled every thought towards Eddie that he'd ever had.

In terms of calls, the final hours of the shift were blessedly quiet.

In terms of frivolity, fun and games… Well.

Chim and Hen had undoubtedly filmed Chris trying to teach Bobby how to floss and sent it to Maddie and Athena. Bobby, to his credit, tried his best while looking equally mortified and lost as he kept banging his fists into his thighs and wiggling his hips the wrong way. Buck wasn't sure if Bobby was doing it deliberately or he really was that uncoordinated but it hardly mattered because Chris thought it was hysterical. Every time Chris cracked up with laughter and started trying to explain again, Buck spied the grin on Eddie's face that crinkled all the way up to his eyes. Buck wasn't sure he'd seen him look so happy since… Well, he could barely even remember. Some of the horror of the shooting call seemed to have eased from his shoulders the more days that passed.

Chim unearthed a bag of marshmallows from the hot chocolate supplies. A very competitive game of chubby bunnies began with them all clustered around the kitchen table. Bobby refused to participate, but he did take photos. And those were probably sent to Maddie and Athena too. Chris started laughing too much while saying "Fwee chuvvy buvvies" and had to give up when one of the marshmallows leaked past his lips. Eddie fell out soon after at five, but Chim and Hen were battling Buck and doing a reasonably good job of it.

"Sevev chuvvy buvvies," Chim said, making Chris erupt into fresh giggles.

"I don't think that was clear enough," Eddie said, waving a hand in front of his throat like he was trying to cut it off. "Too many 'v's, not enough lips on those n's and b's, Chimney."

Chim looked positively outraged, his eyes bugging out almost as much as his cheeks. Hen dissolved into fits of laughter, six marshmallows escaping in a sloppy mess onto the table before she threw her head back and cackled loudly enough to wake the dead.

"Your face!" she squawked as she slapped the table and almost sobbed with glee. "Please tell me you got that, Cap?"

Bobby held out his phone first to her and then to Chim, who choked on his own laugh and sent a marshmallow flying across the room past Buck's shoulder.

Stuck with half a dozen marshmallows in his mouth, desperately fighting the urge to swallow, choke or laugh, he pointed towards his cheeks.

"Fine. Yes. Attempt another one, say it better than Chim, and you win," Bobby said with a roll of his eyes as he positioned his phone to capture Buck's crowning moment.

It was terribly off-putting to have five pairs of eyes on him, plus Bobby's phone, as he decided to squish two marshmallows past his lips just because he knew he could and to ensure he was absolutely an outright winner. He paused, inhaling slowly through his nose to adjust to how full his mouth was.

"Eigh… chu…mmy bummies," he said carefully, eyes roaming between the five of them for confirmation that he had done what he needed to do. Eddie was looking at him with wide, rapidly blinking eyes. The urge to ask why the hell Eddie was looking at him like that wasn't helping. Nor were his attempts to avoid laughing.

"Alright, close enough. Better than Chimney," Bobby conceded after a very long pause.

Chim attempted to mount a protest that he'd try again, that Buck hadn't enunciated the 't' clearly enough, but Buck was already poking his cheeks to get marshmallows under his teeth so that he could chew them. Bit by bit, he mashed and swallowed segments of marshmallow until his mouth was free again.

"So I'm victorious?" he said with hopeful eyebrows and pursed lips in Bobby's direction, much to Chim's chagrin and Hen's amusement and Christopher's laughs.

"This time," Chim hissed, swiping the marshmallow bag and returning the meagre contents to the cupboard for another shift.

Eddie was still staring. Buck arched an eyebrow at him.

"That was…" Eddie shook his head, dispelling whatever had captured his attention and frowning at Buck. "Absolutely disgusting. And a terrible example for my son. You should not be proud of that, Buckley."

"Oh?" He nudged Christopher beside him. "What d'you reckon, bud?"

"I think you looked ridiculous," Chris said, very seriously, and that sent Hen into a fresh wave of semi-hysterical laughter.

Buck stared at the entry to the store with a tinge of trepidation trickling down his spine. Even months later, even when things between him and Eddie were good, great even, he still looked at grocery stores and felt uncomfortable remembering the way Eddie had approached him, eyes narrowed and teeth gritted with such a horrible, hopeless fury pouring off him… Buck never wanted to see Eddie look at him like that again.

"I've got the kid, you've got the list?" he said, running his fingers through Christopher's curls at his hip even as the kid almost vibrated with the excitement of finding the closest piece of sugar, or chocolate, or cupcakes. And given it was Valentine's Day, there were a lot of sweet treats right at the front of the store.

Eddie eyed Christopher dubiously. "I'll try not to take too long. Remember-"

"Say no. I know, Eddie. I heard you," he teased, shooing Eddie away from him so that the other man could get the groceries he desperately needed to stock his empty house as well as obtain food for dinner which was why he'd called in reinforcements by way of Buck to conduct the shopping expedition.

As soon as Eddie was out of sight, Buck looked down at Chris. Chris was gazing up at him with wide, hopeful eyes and a smile as bright as a sunbeam on the coldest of mornings.

"How am I meant to say no to that?" he groaned, rubbing a hand over his face while Chris giggled.

"I feel used," Buck complained as he unloaded another bag of groceries from Eddie's truck.

"It's punishment," Eddie called over his shoulder as he unlocked his front door and ushered Chris inside, out of the cold. Buck pretended his heart didn't do a little uptick at the words. "You should've said no."

"I don't like you anymore," he said, waving a hand laden with bags at Eddie. He knew Eddie was right. Eddie had tried to tell him how good Chris was at getting what he wanted. And perhaps Buck should've said no to Chris but once those big eyes behind his glasses had turned on Buck? And once that dazzling, toothy smile was used? After all they'd been through?

Buck was a sucker for the kid, and he knew it. And Chris knew it. And if Eddie hadn't known it before, he definitely knew it now.

"I'm cancelling our friendship policy," he added as he ascended the stairs.

Eddie's eyes twinkled, fingers twirling around his house key. "You sound like you should be in elementary school with Chris. Should I make an enquiry for you to start on Monday?"

Buck scrunched his nose and pouted, deliberately bumping into Eddie's shoulder as he entered the house and followed the sound of Chris' clattering crutches. Eddie's laugh drifted through the hall from the front door.

"You're coming to school with me?" Chris said, eyes big behind his glasses.

"What? No, I-" He frowned, lifting the bags onto the counter and shook his head decisively at Chris. "Kid, I've already been to school. I'm not going back."

"Oh." Chris' lower lip jutted, but his eyes suggested mischief. "I guess that's understandable. You'd probably break our chairs."

"Break your-? Diaz, your kid just called me fat!"

Christopher broke into peals of giggles and Buck could hear Eddie's shuffling footsteps in the corridor, his barely-concealed snorts bouncing off the walls.

"I'm never going grocery shopping with either of you ever again," he threatened, crossing his arms as Eddie turned the corner and lifted the groceries onto the counter. Buck tried very, very hard not to focus on the way the fabric of Eddie's shirt pulled taut across his back and arms and instead looked to Chris like the kid had betrayed him in the worst possible ways.

"Aww, don't be like that." Eddie motioned towards Chris, who was covering his mouth but clearly still grinning behind his hands and did a little wiggle of unbridled joy. "No one can resist that."

It was true.

Buck didn't think he could resist either of them.

He also didn't think he could resist the way being around these two filled him with warmth and hope and happiness.

"So…" Eddie began once Christopher was tucked into bed, and the leftovers were stored in the fridge to take to their shift at the 118 tomorrow. He flopped onto the couch beside Buck, who had been idly flipping through stations in search of something to watch for a while and in the interests of procrastinating a return to his lonely apartment on Valentine's Day where he could dwell on his failed relationships with Abby and Ali and wonder who might be making them happy now.

"Hm?"

"You gonna tell me?"

He nearly dropped the remote at the tone Eddie used. "Tell- Tell you what?"

"About the tattoo?"

"Oh."

It had been all anyone at the 118 had talked about after they'd returned from the call at the laser tag place during the last shift. Chim kept pestering him, demanding to know if Maddie knew so he could satisfy his curiosity. Hen and Bobby were clearly intrigued, but kept a polite distance when Buck kept repeatedly shutting Chim's lines of inquiries down. And Eddie… Eddie had…seemed almost indifferent about it, somehow.

It hadn't even occurred to Buck that his arm would light up like a Christmas tree after he removed his jacket at the site. The blacklight made it harder to see what they were dealing with but Bobby had sent one of the kids that worked in the place to deal with it. And it was a simple enough call: a girl had run into a barrier in the minimal light and dislocated her shoulder after the laser tag vest had yanked around when she'd fallen. He'd worked beside Eddie and Hen but the ventilation in the place was poor and he'd felt overheated and constricted, so he'd removed his jacket without thinking. It was an easy enough way to deal with how he felt and then return to the task at hand of splinting the girl's shoulder for transport.

"Uh… Buck…? Why's your arm glowing, man?"

For a moment, Buck had startled and been freaked out by the question. What was wrong with him now? Was he radioactive? Was he feeling overheated because he was going to die?

And then he'd turned his arm over to see the glowing words on the outside of his right forearm and realised what Chim had been asking about. The words were invisible in the daylight but they lived beneath his flesh, a constant reminder and mantra. Under the blacklight, they had erupted to life for the team to see.

"Just another tattoo," he'd mumbled, pulling on his jacket despite the speckles of sweat on his brow and concealing it before anyone looked too closely and read the words and started asking even more questions than he already knew they'd have for him.

So perhaps it shouldn't surprise him that the first thing out of Eddie's mouth was to ask about the tattoo. Christopher was in bed, any interruptions were minimised. It was a safe place to share as they reclined on the couch.

"Like I said at the time, just another tattoo," he said, folding his arms over his stomach like somehow that would conceal a tattoo that wasn't even visible under the lights in Eddie's family room.

"Okay." The weight of Eddie's look sat on him for another minute, or it could've been another hour, before he turned his attention towards the TV. "I- I didn't mean to push and make you uncomfortable."

He pressed his lips together, the noise of the TV washing over them, the flicker of light and colour casting shadows across the room. It wasn't even that Eddie asking made him uncomfortable, per se. It was more that the tattoo had been there so long, virtually invisible, and something he could almost forget existed. Suddenly having everyone's attention on him again, when he'd spent the last few months working to prove he was getting better, was unnerving. And this tattoo… Even Maddie didn't know about this one. He'd never told anyone about this one.

"I got it on my twenty-first birthday," he said, his voice quiet but carrying over the reduced volume of the television so whatever was playing didn't disturb Christopher. "It was my first tattoo. A…a reminder, I guess. But it's been there so long, in a spot I can't see easily, with ink that's basically invisible, that I- I've almost forgotten it's there over the years."

He could tell Eddie was deliberately making his breathing shallower so that he didn't miss anything and it made Buck's skin crawl that Eddie was listening so closely. Because every time they were together, Buck became increasingly aware of the fragile thing between them that made his heart skip beats and his breathing shorten and his hands flex with the urge to reach out and touch. And he could. Sort of. Sometimes. Whenever he worked out how to have a tight leash around his emotions and feelings so that he didn't unravel how he felt for his best friend and lose everything that really mattered. Michael and Carla seeing straight through recently him had been unnerving enough.

"If it was a reminder, why…why'd you get it in ink that you can't see?" Eddie said and Buck's eyes slipped from the television to some of the scatterings of Legos on the floor in front of it.

"Because I didn't need or want everyone asking questions about it for the rest of my life," he said, rolling his bottom lip between his teeth as he fought against the urge to speak and the urge to flee like he so often did around Eddie lately.

"Sorry, I-"

"No, it's-" Buck sighed, running a hand through his hair before holding out his right arm to Eddie. It twisted his shoulder, almost painfully, but Eddie's fingers circled his wrist and his thumb traced over where the smear of words were even though he couldn't see them like someone handling valuable crystal. There was almost a sense of reverence in the touch and Buck shivered at how light Eddie's thumb was against his skin, how much just a simple touch could make the spark in his stomach catch into a full flame that threatened to make him shiver. "It's just…complicated."

"Yeah?" Eddie trailed his fingers down Buck's arms until their hands were intertwined, turning his shoulder back into a neutral and more comfortable position. Buck spent a long few minutes trying to ensure his hand stayed steady and his palm didn't start sweating and his heartbeat stayed regular. "You can tell me anything, you know."

A brief burst of laughter escaped him. He rolled his eyes, shooting Eddie a glare even as Eddie's cheeks dimpled around a smile and his eyes glittered in the light of the television.

"That's my line," he protested and Eddie's smile widened, one eyebrow arching in a silent challenge. A challenge of what, Buck wasn't sure. It was hard to think straight when Eddie was looking at him like that. It was hard to even remember how to breathe when Eddie was looking at him like that. The overarching thought he had when Eddie looked at him like that was to lean forward and kiss, and he knew that would be a disaster.

But then Eddie's grin slipped a little, something gentler and more serious shifting across his face. Buck panicked, wondering if he'd broadcast his feelings too openly and Eddie was closing himself off.

"I mean it though," Eddie said, his words mixed in with an emotion Buck couldn't decipher as he gently squeezed Buck's hand. "I can handle complicated."

And Buck…really wasn't sure he remembered what words were or how to use them.

He tore his gaze from Eddie's and fixed it on the television, completely ignorant to what was on. If a police officer had asked him for an alibi beyond "I was on the couch watching TV with Eddie Diaz last night, officer", he wouldn't have been able to state with any degree of certainty whether they were watching a scripted or reality show. He was completely oblivious as his heart thumped uncomfortably hard and slightly painful in his chest, mulling over the words and the ramifications and whether he should say something, whether Eddie was offering him the chance to confess how he felt.

It sank into his awareness at some point that Eddie's thumb was rubbing against his from time to time, which meant the butterflies that kept settling in Buck's stomach were being disrupted into soaring to swirl around his heart. At the back of his mind, he was acutely aware that it was Valentine's Day but this was… He and Eddie were just…

This was not…

Right?

He didn't have the words for whatever they were doing.

And he didn't want to ask for clarification and torpedo the best thing in his life.

"It says 'fight forever'," he said suddenly, unbidden. The words filled the silence and he recoiled slightly into himself because he wanted to get up and put distance between them but Eddie was practically holding him in place with their hands folded together. "I- It finishes with a- a semi-colon."

He wasn't sure if Eddie would understand the reference but he heard Eddie's sharp intake of breath and closed his eyes when he felt the prickle of tears because it was clear that yes, Eddie did understand. And maybe Buck should have guessed Eddie would know it. He was a veteran, after all. He probably knew people, or certainly would've known people who knew people. He knew the statistic about veterans' deaths. He would know.

So perhaps he wasn't surprised when Eddie's grip tightened, like he expected – or knew – Buck would try to bolt. He felt the couch shift and couldn't disguise the flinch when a second hand cradled his cheek, tilting his head to where Eddie had to be staring at him.

"I'm…sorry," Eddie said, the words clearly strangled in his throat and unexpected.

Buck hadn't even made a conscious decision to open his eyes but then he was looking at Eddie again, eyes drifting between a face cast in an array of shadows and light and colour dancing off the television.

He blinked, confusion thrumming within his chest. "What?"

Eddie frowned, eyes dropping towards Buck's chest and moving back and forth before they lifted again. "I was- After the clot- And the tsunami-"

"Eddie, no, don't-"

"Let me say this," Eddie insisted, thumb brushing over his cheek and filling Buck's face with undeniable heat. He wondered if Eddie could feel it beneath his palm. It would be terribly embarrassing if he could. At least the lights were dim enough that maybe Eddie wouldn't realise he was red. "I was awful. I was… I told you to suck it up. To move on and get over it. And I- I let that voice get inside my head, the one from when I served, that…that refused to pay attention to how I was feeling after Shannon died, or how you might be feeling after everything and-"

"Eddie-"

"I'm sorry," Eddie said, adjusting the angle of his head to stare at him, through him, into the parts that Buck tried valiantly to hide from everyone, including Maddie. That Eddie could pierce him with such a knowing look, and simultaneously look so devastatingly apologetic, scared the absolute shit out of Buck. "It- It's not good enough to say 'if I'd known' because that's just an excuse but Buck-"

"I know, okay?" He squeezed Eddie's hand and wished he could short-circuit all the anxiety that was clearly buzzing through Eddie just to stop this whole thing. "I don't hold it against you."

"But-"

"Eddie." He placed his hand against Eddie's chest in an attempt to quell the panic, only realising how thoroughly tangled their arms were becoming a heartbeat too late when he felt Eddie's heart against his palm. "Stop. Okay? I didn't tell you so that you could freak out on me. You can't honestly make this into a thing about you."

Some of the wide-eyed fear in Eddie's eyes lessened and he tried to remember how to breathe when he could feel the stutter of Eddie's heart.

"I got it a long time ago, remember? Buck as a teenager was messy. Buck as an early twenty-something with no clear direction and no older sister to smack me over the back of the head from time to time was messier."

A wobbly sort of smile twitched his lips because he didn't want to talk about any of this. It was why he hadn't wanted to say anything to anyone at the 118 about what the tattoo said.

"I didn't want anyone seeing it then, and I didn't want anyone knowing it existed, so I got it in ink that you can't ordinarily see. And if Maddie knew-"

He hesitated, swallowing the ball of emotions that knotted in his throat because the thought of Maddie ever finding out just how dark he'd once felt scared the absolute hell out of him.

"I don't want to see the scared look in Maddie's eyes that you're giving me right now, okay? Because it marked a transition point in my life and I've had others since then that have led me to who I am now, to this moment right here. And I'm okay with who I am."

He offered a small smile, trying to seem reassuring because Eddie still looked petrified. "So just- Everything that happened last year- It's a part of me, everything that's ever happened have all created parts of me that aren't going away and some of them aren't as nice as others."

Eddie's eyes flickered like he wanted to ask another question but Buck couldn't let him. He couldn't expose the scars that were seared so deeply he just covered them over.

"Look, Eddie, it's a reminder to keep fighting, y'know? Like Chris said when we were sitting on the truck, I have to be like Dory and keep swimming."

There was a small, cracked sort of laugh that escaped Eddie before he could stop it and Buck rubbed his hand lightly against Eddie's chest. He didn't want to talk about how bodies of water were still a problem, or how some nights were still harder than others, or that he felt twinges in his leg that were phantom pains from months ago. He didn't want to mention how he twitched when someone raised their voice. Not now. Not tonight. Maybe not ever.

"So keep fighting?" Eddie said, the edge of his lips pressing together in rueful resignation that Buck had said as much as he was planning to and that was that.

He nodded, squeezing Eddie's hand and then curling his head to rest on Eddie's shoulder to stare at something on TV he thought might've been a movie. "Fight forever, Eddie."

~TBC~