Word Count: 2,821
Warnings/Spoilers: References to excessive alcohol consumption, a panic attack, and references to gun violence.
The trouble with drinking, Buck decided when everything was a little fuzzy around the edges, was that it didn't really help or solve anything. Drowning himself with the alcohol did nothing to drown the weight of his feelings and insecurities and anxieties. Not when he needed to drown those so he could think straight again.
And yet, for another night in a string of so many lately, he found himself curled onto his couch with a diminishing bottle of vodka and an increasing amount of hysteria and despair and knowledge that he was on the precipice of destroying everything.
His phone clattered across the coffee table in front of him and he sighed, seeing Maddie's photo as he picked it up and swiped at the screen.
"Buck?" she shouted, some sort of cacophonous noise making it difficult to hear her. Not to mention Buck was a bit slow on the comprehension of what was going on around him anyway.
"Maddie?"
"Buck, I'm sorry. Next time you want to use me as a cover story for whatever you're doing, you need to tell me."
He frowned, covering his free ear like that would somehow help him understand her better. "What?"
"I posted a photo," she explained, and there was a shout in the background and then some of the noise reduced. "I posted a photo and then I had a text from Eddie telling me to make sure you didn't drink too much so I replied that you weren't with us. I'm guessing from his response, he thought you were? So I'm s-"
Shit.
So Eddie knew he'd lied.
Shit.
Shit shit shit.
"It's okay. He just wanted to hang out this evening and I didn't," he said, because he really didn't need her to put any puzzle pieces together and start making assumptions and ask Chimney questions and then everything spiralled. "It'll be fine."
"You sure?"
He forced a smile even as a stray tear spilled down his cheek. "Positive. Go back to enjoying your night, Mads."
"Okay. Love you!"
"Love you too," he said, and she ended the call and Buck was left alone with the glowing phone in his hand, tempting him and mocking him to call Eddie, or text Eddie, or say anything to Eddie that could make up for this.
But he couldn't.
Because then he'd just be adding to the lies and Eddie almost certainly would see through him now.
Blessedly, his phone didn't light up with accusatory texts or calls from Eddie.
He put his phone back on the coffee table and swallowed another couple of mouthfuls of vodka, wincing at how cheap and nasty it was and settling back on the couch to continue to sink into his maudlin and miserable thoughts...
He awoke with a start, body jerking and cushion flipping off his stomach and onto the floor. He didn't even remember falling asleep but based on the uncomfortable twists of and sharp pains in his limbs, he had and he'd been stuck like a crumpled pretzel for a while.
He groaned and then realised what must have woken him – another knock at his door.
Rubbing a hand across his face and stretching his neck from one side to the other as much as he dared, he stumbled to his feet and shuffled to the door. His head swam and the floor beneath him undulated. He glanced at the time on his oven and saw it was early in the morning and sighed. So he'd slept all night on the couch then. No wonder his mouth felt like a sandpit and his head felt like all those collapsing animals from The Lion King had landed on his brain.
He unlocked the door and paused, eyes sweeping over Eddie. Eddie, who had his hands in the pockets of his jeans and wore a pale grey Henley. Eddie, who was rocking slightly onto his heels. Eddie, who had his lips in a tight line and his eyebrows furrowed over shadowed eyes.
"Hi."
Buck swallowed around the difficult lump of dryness in his mouth. "Hi," he said, his voice rough with fatigue or maybe too much alcohol. Who could be sure? Did it even matter?
"Can I-?" Eddie began, making an aimless sort of wave of his hand towards Buck's apartment.
There hadn't been this much awkwardness between them in…months and months and months. Not since the tsunami. Not since the lawsuit. Not since he'd left Eddie's house in the middle of the night. Not since Eddie had confronted him that he wasn't okay. It made Buck's stomach quiver with discomfort because everything he'd been dreading was finally here.
He left the door open and padded towards his kitchen, intent on hydrating so that he could actually produce words. It wasn't until he'd retrieved a glass and filled it that he heard the door close behind him and Eddie's tentative steps towards the kitchen.
"You know, if you'd wanted to drink alone, you could've just said that," Eddie said and Buck stared at the leaves outside his window, trying to hold the glass of water steady. "You don't have to lie to me, Buck."
Buck swallowed the water and set the glass in the sink, fingers curling against the edge as he next tried to organise all his thoughts and feelings into some sort of coherency. "I can't tell you the truth, either."
"What?"
Buck turned, the counter uncomfortable against his back where once he'd been unable to feel it. Eddie stood on the opposite side of the kitchen island, gazing at him in utter consternation. "You heard me."
"Yeah, but I- I don't understand it," Eddie said with a slow shake of his head, the furrow of his eyebrows deepening. "There's nothing you can't tell me."
"Isn't there?" Buck folded his arms across himself, reinforcing the defences around his wall. "What if I needed to tell you at the station?"
Eddie blinked. "Buck-"
"Don't pretend like you care now when you sure as hell don't care then." And maybe he shouldn't have had so much to drink last night, or maybe he should have slept in his bed, or maybe he could have thought of a better way to approach this. Although he had thought through numerous ways to approach this and none of them had seemed plausibly positive.
"You're my best friend. Of course I care!" Eddie retorted but he didn't seem to realise the ramifications of what he'd said.
Not like Buck.
His eyes slipped to focus on the cabinet in front of him. "That's just it though, isn't it?" he said quietly, swallowing the hysteria to keep his voice even. "I'm your best friend. Not… Not something more."
"Buck, that's-"
"You said Christopher had to be told first, that he had to be okay with it," Buck continued as if Eddie wasn't trying to protest. "He's known for almost two months and he still loves me, loves us. Except maybe there isn't actually an us and he and I are the fools."
The breath Eddie sucked in was audible from the other side of the kitchen, the shaky whistle of his inhalation making it clear that even though Buck's words were soft, his meaning still carried. The hurt and pain etched in his tone was unmistakable too.
"I can't do this anymore," he admitted, his voice cracking when he dared to glance up at Eddie and catching the way the brown eyes shimmered in a pool of unshed tears. "I can't keep having you some of the time, feeling like this is…this is something and then we go to work and you pretend like I'm nothing. I just- I can't, Eddie. I feel like you're ashamed of me and I-"
"Ashamed?" Eddie interrupted, trying to cover up a sniff with a cough and failing miserably at both. "Buck, I- I'm not ashamed of you. I- I'm- I grew comfortable with everyone not knowing my business."
Buck nodded, feeling surprisingly peaceful even though Eddie was clearly falling apart in front of him. Maybe it was because Buck had been thinking about this since his conversation with Hen. Maybe because he'd had time to turn his feelings off.
"And that business is a…a what? A relationship with me? They can all know about you and Shannon but you're uncomfortable with people knowing about me?" He managed a brittle smile, his worst fears coming true in front of him the more Eddie used his sparing words. "Well, I guess that makes it easier to work out where I stand. Thanks for that. Now I know I'm your dirty secret that you just don't want to talk to at work."
"Buck-"
"I know I said we needed to take it slow, that I'd give you time." Buck's hands curled at his sides before he relaxed them again, trying to let go of the tension and pain starting to course through his body. "But I don't think you see how much this is hurting me, how much I want to be numb all the time so I don't feel anything anymore like you seem so capable of doing when we're at the station. So I can't do it. I can't- I can't feel like I'm only someone to you some of the time. That's not how this should be. Even I know that."
Eddie's lower lip wobbled and Buck could see the rapid rise and fall of his shoulders. "Buck… Please… Please, I- How long have you been feeling like this? How long have you been bottling all of this up?"
Buck raised one shoulder in a shrug, looking away from Eddie and towards his little living room area beneath the staircase. "Long enough that I started wondering if I even mean anything to you."
"You do. How could you even think otherwise, cariño?" Eddie whispered in a horrified gasp.
Eddie started moving towards him but Buck held up his hands, forcing Eddie to stop in the middle of nowhere and looking as utterly lost and adrift as Buck often felt on-shift. At least maybe Eddie now knew how he felt.
But something crept into Eddie's eyes that Buck didn't like, something he didn't have enough time to prepare himself for before Eddie spoke again.
"So you'll tell all your feelings to some ambulance chaser, divulge all these personal details about the team, and I get vague statements and no answers?" Eddie said, some of his hurt melting away to anger. And Buck could deal with the anger. He knew it was within easy reach for Eddie since he'd given up the fight clubs and he could see it in the narrowing of his brown eyes, the way his arms flexed at his sides, the way his shoulders straightened. "Do I really mean that little to you?"
Buck swallowed, raising his head just a little to restore his confidence. He met Eddie's eyes, braced against the storm of hurt and fury that he hadn't seen since the grocery store. He'd been sure Eddie would have hit him if their argument hadn't been interrupted by the road rage in the carpark. He wondered if Eddie would hit him this time.
"I just wanted to be enough for you," Buck whispered, clearing his throat when it came out strangled and choked but Eddie still heard him. The change in his body language said as much, even though Buck didn't fully understand what it meant. "But I'm not, not if I- Not if you still see me as your best friend. I'm not enough for you and I- Now I really need you to go."
"Buck-"
"Please leave."
"Evan, I-"
"Get out!" he shouted, refusing to let the use of his first name get under his skin this time, refusing to let Eddie pacify him and insist he was more than a friend when he'd made it clear how he was seen in Eddie's eyes when the honesty melted into his words.
Eddie flinched, breath stuttering past his lips for a series of heartbeats that made the fractures in Buck's heart turn into solid breaks. For a moment, he thought maybe Eddie would stay – maybe Eddie would protest, maybe Eddie would give him some sort of proof that he did mean something – but then Eddie wilted, shrinking in on himself until he seemed half Buck's size and turned towards the door.
"When I said you could have my back any day, I didn't expect you to stab me in it," Eddie spat and Buck could only blink, repeatedly, as tears filled his eyes and Eddie left, slamming the door behind him.
The sound echoed around Buck's apartment for a long time after Eddie left, reminding him how utterly hollow his place was. And now, even with Buck inside it, the apartment still felt empty.
He sank to the floor where he'd been standing, curling his knees to his chest as the pain he'd been hiding behind all the walls finally started to unravel. He'd been afraid of everything imploding if he confronted Eddie but he'd been foolish, going on the attack from the outset, and he'd been right all along that their end would be all his fault and now he couldn't breathe, fingers scrabbling at his throat and chest in search of oxygen, but he couldn't call Eddie – he could never call Eddie again – and Eddie would never let him see Christopher again and Christopher probably wouldn't want to see him again either because now Eddie would be sad and unhappy and upset and maybe they'd go back to El Paso and Buck would have to call in sick to his next shift because there was no way he could work alongside Eddie and pretend everything was normal and Bobby would probably kill him for ruining everything but he'd sort out transfer papers and he'd be gone and as it all started to sink in, whatever control he thought he'd had on his feelings turned out to be alarmingly fragile as he disintegrated: rocking back and forth, head burying in his knees, hands pulling at his hair, tears streaming down his face, halting breaths barely getting oxygen into his lungs before he was coughing it up again.
By the time he was done being ravaged by everything he'd stopped letting himself feel weeks ago, he was exhausted. His legs ached when he unfolded them and his arms hurt from how tightly he'd been holding onto himself and his eyes hurt from all the tears and his lungs felt raw. The oxygen in his apartment felt stale and tainted and even as Buck star-fished on his kitchen floor to stretch everything out and get his lungs inflating normally again, it still felt like a lot of effort to even consider moving.
So he stared at his ceiling, watching the shadows of fluttering leaves as the tree outside his kitchen window shifted in the breeze. He heard his phone ring on the coffee table, and ignored it. When it rang a second time, he wondered if he should get up to answer it. But then it stopped ringing and he decided that whoever it was that needed to get in touch so badly could just leave a message for him to deal with never. He was hungover and nursing a broken heart and to hell with Maddie wanting to check on him and find out why he'd lied to Eddie last night. He wondered, briefly, if Eddie would have texted her about their…conversation? Argument? Breakup? Once again, Buck didn't have the terminology for any of it and once again, he realised just how poorly defined their time together had been. Could he even call what they had a relationship or had it really just been a friendship that had gotten more heated? Had he been so utterly naïve and not realised that it was some sort of 'friends with benefits' situation that never progressed beyond a lot of kissing and touching? He was so fucking stupid.
There was a hammering at his door and he stifled the urge to yell at Maddie to leave him alone because maybe it was better to just pretend he wasn't home and then she'd go and-
The door opened and he realised his stupidity because of course Eddie wouldn't have locked the door when he left which meant Maddie could just waltz in and-
"Buck?"
He blinked in surprise, eyebrows furrowing.
"B-Bobby?"
"Buck, what the- Why are you on the floor?"
His Captain looked really weird standing over him, staring down at him, all his features upside down like some terrible Picasso painting.
"It's been a morning."
"Yeah, well, get up."
"Why?"
"We have to go."
He frowned, unmoving until Bobby got hands under his arms and practically hauled him to his feet. He swayed, grabbing onto the kitchen counter behind him as Bobby stared at him with something unreadable in his eyes.
"Go? Go where?"
"The hospital. Eddie's been shot."
~TBC~