Eddie blinked open his eyes to the sun streaming through his bedroom windows. He could hear the sound of birds chirping outside and the sound of someone cooking breakfast in the kitchen. That left him momentarily confused. The only people that were supposed to be here this morning were him and Christopher. Chris was only six years old still, there was no way he would be cooking anything beyond a bowl of cereal.
He rolled over in bed and tossed the covers off of him. Sitting up, he noticed a pile of clothes on the floor. They looked like they had been dropped there as someone had been undressing and forgotten to pick them up. They were obviously a man's clothes, but not his. So whose were they?
Eddie followed the sounds and smell of cooking breakfast to the kitchen. There was an unfamiliar man cooking scrambled eggs on his stovetop. Well, not unfamiliar, Eddie noticed as he realized that it was the Buck guy, his soulmate, of all people standing in the center of his kitchen. What in the hell was he doing here?
It was strange really, Eddie thought as he watched the back of the guy as he cooked breakfast. The only times Eddie had met the man was when he was wearing all his firefighter gear, turnout coat, helmet and all that entailed.
Here Eddie was watching him, watching as his broad shoulders and large muscles worked at cooking whatever he was cooking up. He figured this had to be some sort of his brain's wild imagination, for even though Eddie had never seen the man's body, he can;t help but realize that the guy is exactly his type.
Should Eddie be concerned that the guy he barely knew, had only met twice for God's sake, was in his house having apparently free reign as he and his son were sleeping? Maybe… but for whatever reason, Eddie didn't feel the need to be concerned.
"How long are you going to just watch me there?" Buck asked, as he dished the pan of scrambled eggs he had just made onto a plate.
"I didn't know you knew how to cook…" Eddie mumbled. Really, Eddie? He had just spent the last five minutes admiring Buck's figure and that's the best he could come up with?
Buck turned his head over his shoulder to look back at Eddie, "I can do much more than cook," he said, smiling.
"I know," Eddie said. He came across the remaining length of the kitchen, a placed his chin on Buck's shoulder, his hands on the counter pinning Buck in place.
Buck put the pan he was holding back on the stove and turned around. "Are you going to wake Chris up before we eat?" Buck asked, wiggling his eyebrows in a gesture that made Eddie's heart melt. "Or do I have to do that as well?"
Eddie wrapped his arms around Buck's shoulders. "Maybe we can let him sleep in a few more minutes," Eddie said as he leaned his head closer to Buck's.
"The food'll get cold, you know," Buck said as he brought his lips to meet Eddie's.
Eddie gasped a silent scream as his eyes opened up. He quickly sat up in bed, his chest heaving with deep breaths and his heart beat sprinting. Looking around, he realized it was still dark, still nighttime. That was all a dream.
Taking a deep breath, Eddie layed back down in bed and thought over what just happened, what that dream could have meant. It was the best feeling he had felt in his life… which terrified him.
Xx?xXx?xXx?xX
"Hey Dad," Eddie heard Christopher call out from the living room. "Isn't that the guy you were talking to yesterday? He's on TV now!"
Eddie had no idea what the boy was talking about. Guy on TV? He came around the kitchen counter to see what his son was talking about. On the TV in the living room, Eddie had left it on some local news channel before he went to make breakfast. And there, on the screen, some news reporter had been interviewing Buck about some call they had responded to the night before, most likely sometime after they met at Chris's school.
"Yeah," Eddie said, somewhat dazed. "That's him." Buck looked… different than how he had seen him yesterday afternoon. He hadn't looked any worse than Eddie had last week. That didn't mean that the week they had been separated the bond hadn't done anything to Buck, because it obviously had some negative effect on the man. Eddie had noticed forming bags underneath the man's eyes, and a general paleness on the man's face.
But now, Buck seemed to look better. More color to his face. It looked like he seemed to have gotten another week of sleep in what could only have been three hours, that the man most likely was still awake and doing other work around his Fire House during.
As much as Eddie wanted to continue watching this segment, just to see Buck's face and listen to his voice, he knew he shouldn't. He passed Chris the remote. "Here, you can pick something else to watch this morning," he said.
"Really? Even if I put on Cars again?" the boy asked.
Eddie silently sighed. This would be the fourth time this week he had to watch that movie. God knows how many times he had seen it in the past two months. He was surprised Chris couldn't quote the entire film yet.
"Sure, kid," Eddie said as he felt a buzzing coming from the phone in his pocket. It was a text message… a series of text messages.
"Hey! This is Buck!" Eddie read the first message as he walked back over to the kitchen. It wouldn't do to be doing this right next to Christpher. The boy was too curious for his own good sometimes, particularly when Eddie was on his phone for too long. And Eddie knew, before he finished reading these messages, that he would be thinking over his response for longer than what most would consider necessary.
"Would have text you earlier, but we had a really busy night last night," the next one said. And judging by the short news segment Eddie had watched minutes earlier, he would guess that was an understatement.
The next few messages were Buck listing a series of places they could meet up and talk, as well as get a meal or snack together, giving Eddie the option to choose. He sent back a message telling Buck they could meet at the first option he listed, as well as a time in the afternoon. Within minutes, Buck responded with a long string of emojis Eddie could only assume meant the other guy was looking forward to their meeting, and Eddie could feel a small fluttering of excitement through their bond.
Eddie felt his stomach twist in knots, how was he going to turn the guy down without breaking him?
Xx?xXx?xXx?xX
The Sunrise Cafe was a small mom and pop establishment that was only a ten minute drive away from Eddie's house. It was nestled into a medium sized strip mall and set right in between an organic supermarket and a small bookshop. In all, exactly the kind of place you would think to find in Los Angeles.
Eddie parked his truck right in front of the cafe, in a spot that let him see the interior through the cafe's outer windows. It looked nice inside, and didn't look too crowded at this time of day. And looked like the type of place that sold a range of breakfast foods and small sandwiches. Through one of the large windows on the storefront, Eddie spotted the now familiar figure of Buck sitting down at one of the tables.
Eddie briefly wondered if Buck thought he was here yet. But then he remembered that the last time they met they were standing right next to the same truck he was currently sitting in. The man most likely remembered what Eddie's truck looked like. Plus the stupid bond was probably telling Buck that he was nearby. It was screaming to Eddie that, at least. So he might as well get out now and go inside and talk to the man, Eddie figured.
Face the music, as they say. The sooner he did this, the sooner he would be finished with all this bond shit.
He took a deep breath, then exited the truck, heading inside the small cafe. As he entered the front door and walked up to the counter, he could feel the moment Buck saw him. A rush of delight and relief washing over Eddie. Almost like he had been doubting Eddie was going to show up. Eddie ordered a simple coffee at the counter, and then went to join Buck at the two-person table he was sitting at.
"You came!" Buck greeted when Eddie sat down, a large smile stretching across his face.
Eddie let out a sigh, he just needed to get this over with as fast as possible, then hopefully he could put this whole thing behind him and get back on with his life. "Well, you were right," he said, sitting down. "We do have a couple things we need to talk about."
"Yeah," Buck nodded, taking a sip out of the coffee cup in his hands. Eddie could tell Buck was thinking about what to say, he could feel it. "Are you… are you married or something?" Buck abruptly asked.
The sudden question threw Eddie off, and he was startled. "No," he blinked. "What?"
"It's just, I know you have a son," Buck continued. "So there's obviously someone else-"
"His mother isn't in the picture," Eddie cut off Buck's question, he knew the other man probably felt the sudden rage Eddie felt whenever Shannon popped into his mind, but he couldn't help it. At least it seemed, for now, that the other man wasn't going to dig deeper into it.
After a moment of slightly awkward silence, Eddie started again. "Look, I need you to understand one thing here, I don't want this."
"Don't want this?" Buck slowly repeated him, sounding confused. Thoughts started swirling through Buck's mind. What could he mean, don't want this? It's a bond, a soul bond. How could someone not want this? "What do you mean?"
"This," Eddie repeated himself, motioning a hand between Buck and himself. "This whole… bond thing."
"The bond," Buck repeated. Eddie could still feel the conflict coming from Buck. He didn't understand what Eddie was talking about. "Are you trying to say-"
"Look, it has nothing to do with you," Eddie said, cutting Buck off again. And yeah, that might be the stereotypical 'nice way' of turning someone down, but it was the truth here. "It's just… it could be you, or anyone really. It's just the fact that… the bond. I've never wanted one of these Spontaneous Soul Bonds."
"So then what are you saying?" Buck asked, face tightening. "We just ignore each other? Forget this ever happened? Do you know what you're saying?"
And fuck if Buck didn't sound so hurt as he asked that. Eddie could feel the other man's heart aching. But he ignored it. As much as he didn't want to hurt the man, and he really didn't, he hated how this whole stupid bond brought another blameless person into this mess, he chose to ignore it. He had to. It was only the stupid bond speaking, he repeated to himself.
Eventually, Buck let out a self-deprecating laugh. "You know, I never thought this would happen to me," he said.
"To bond?" Eddie asked.
"Yeah," Buck let out another sad chuckle. "I thought it was just a thing in stories. Figures that it would happen to me, only for you to want nothing to do with it."
Eddie felt his heart tighten at that, and a wave of desolation hit him. He looked back up at Buck, who was now only staring hopeless at his coffee cup. "Could you at least tell me why you don't want this?" Buck asked, voice tilting up a bit.
Eddie's mind flashed again to Shannon, and a pulse of panic passed through his body. "What was that?" Buck asked.
"What was what?" Eddie asked in return.
"That feeling," Buck said. "I definitely felt something just now."
The panic Eddie felt suddenly turned into annoyance. Annoyance at the bond, and annoyance at the fact this man he barely knew anything about could feel every emotion he felt. "You don't know because you don't know anything about me," Eddie gritted out, his hands tightening around his coffee cup.
"Well… we can change that," Buck said, sounding hopeful. "We can, you know… get to know each other?"
"No we can't," Eddie said as he stood up from the table. Buck looked up at him, worried the man was about to leave. As he started to walk away, Buck tried to stop him. "Whatever you think or want to happen between us," Eddie said. "It's just… not going to happen, okay?"
Xx?xXx?xXx?xX
After Eddie left, Buck was just left… he didn't know… bereft, lacking, missing something. He had felt that before he had run into Eddie for the second time at the school, but that felt temporary, just until they finally found each other again. This felt… more permanent, lasting, unchangeable.
It just felt plain wrong.
How could Eddie not want this? Why would he not want this? Buck had never met someone who didn't want their Soul Bond. They were supposed to be perfect for each other.
Even the few times they've had skin contact, or met each other's eyes, or even been in each other's presence, it felt euphoric, intoxicating. The best feeling in the world. Buck had heard stories of people talking about what it was like to be with their soul mate, but those stories didn't do it justice.
Despite how much Buck tried to keep the news of the new bond under wraps, because he respected Eddie's privacy and knew that for whatever reason Eddie didn't want the bond, even if Buck couldn't think of any reasons himself, it had to be an important reason, people started to guess things anyways.
It wasn't surprising. Of course they would. Because it was much more fun to focus on the drama of other people's lives than their own. And because, for most shifts, he worked with Hen and Chimney, and those two lived for drama and gossip.
It didn't help that after their little 'lunch date' as Buck had started calling it in his mind, Buck had started feeling all the negative side effects that it seemed Eddie had been in the days leading up to it.
It started with a headache building behind his eyes after he got back to his loft. He tried just ignoring it, taking a nap to get rid of the stress and bad feelings he had been left with. Once he woke up later in the evening, he felt no better than earlier, in fact he felt worse.
So he did what he usually did when he had a headache like this, drink some water, take an aspirin, and have a small bite to eat. Opening his fridge, he grabbed the first thing he saw that didn't require any preparation, the cold pizza from two nights ago was good enough for now.
While at first he felt a bit of relief, it didn't completely go away. Three days later, when he was due in for his next shift, the same headache had ramped up to become even worse. It wasn't debilitating by any means. It was just making him feel… mad, annoyed, and irritable, wanting to bite the head off of anything that was even a mild inconvenience.
He tried to ignore it when he was around the others, making it seem like nothing was bothering him, when everything was, from the choice of movie Chim had chosen to play that morning, to the usual quibbling Chim and Hen were doing in the engine while they traveled to their first call. Although judging by the look Bobby was giving him as the Captain walked up to him in the locker room, Buck guessed he wasn't all that successful with playing it down
"Okay, kid. What's up?" Bobby asked as he sat down on one of the benches.
Buck curled an eyebrow as he rearranged stuff in his locker for the fourth time that day. With everything that was going on in his life, the last thing he wanted was to talk to anyone right now. "Nothing's wrong. What do you mean?" he asked.
Bobby gave him a look. "Come on now, you don't expect me to believe that, do you?" he asked. At Buck's continued silence, he continued. "You were off and jumpy all last week. Then halfway through our shift on Friday you turn more jubilant than any of us have ever seen you before. And two days later you come back stewing in anger and snapping at everybody?"
Buck huffed, he thought he had been hiding everything well. It seemed Bobby knew him better than he thought. "Everything," Buck grunted under his breath as he dropped a book on the bottom of his locker. It was one of those cheesy romance novels Maddie had given him after she completed it. Usually, Buck would never admit it to anyone in the Firehouse, he liked reading them, but after everything that happened this past weekend, Buck didn't want to see another one of those books again. How had his life suddenly turned into the plots of one of those books?
"Everything?" Bobby repeated. Buck huffed another angry breath, he hadn't wanted Bobby to hear that. "What do you mean by 'everything'?"
Buck let out a breath. "Everything and… Just everything," Buck grumbled as he slammed the door of his locker shut.
Bobby blinked at Buck, clearly lost as to just what might have been happening with his man the past couple weeks. "How about you explain it to me from the beginning?" he tried.
Buck let out another breath and sat down on the bench next to Bobby. He paused, thinking. On one hand he felt as if he should still be keeping this bond thing between him and Eddie private, at least until he was able to somehow figure out a little bit more of the man. But on the other hand… whatever was happening with the bond (because the only thing he could think of that could be causing this was the bond), was affecting every other area of his life now.
The only person he could trust not to tell anyone else about this was Bobby.
"So a couple weeks ago…" Buck started.