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The months after his parents' visit were weird for Buck. He found himself in a place where he was ready to move along with his life, yet still felt like he was being held back by them. Buck still felt as if he was trying to live up to their expectations, even with Maddie and his real family telling him that he wasn’t defined by what they thought of him.
After the initial sessions with his parents and Dr. Copeland, Buck did feel like he understood them more and had gained a better relationship with them. But after going so long without his parents in his life, he suddenly found himself wondering what they would think of certain choices he made. It’d taken him years to separate their mindset from his own and really do what he wanted to. Then everything came crashing down in October, and they were in his head more than ever.
He wondered what his parents would think when he, for one split second, thought about buying a house. It was something that would have to be done later— he wasn’t anywhere near financially ready for that— but his first instinct had been to think about his parents and which aspect of it all they’d criticize him on first.
Would it be his choice of house? Would it be how he planned to pay for it? Would they go back to criticizing his job and how he could be making more if he had just finished college and gotten a degree? Would they question why he was doing it alone and hadn’t already settled down with a nice woman?
He wondered what his parents would think about the fact that his last date had been with a man. They were so inside his head, and he didn’t even realize it until he had nervously asked Maddie what their parents would think when they found out.
Maddie had been bewildered by the question.
“Do you check in with them regularly now?” she asked.
“No,” he said.
“Then why do they even have to find out? Who cares what they think?”
And fuck, Buck understood where she was coming from but it took him a lot to not snap and say Me! Ever since you brought them back into my life without warning! Caring about what his parents thought about his life wasn’t something he’d be able to turn off in one night.
He knew it was an irrational anger. He and Maddie had spoken about everything in the days following their parents’ leave, and he knew that she had fallen victim to their parents’ emotional abuse, too.
What he knew to be true in his head couldn’t change how he felt in his heart, though. It was a lingering bitterness that he couldn’t completely shake, no matter how much he loved Maddie and understood her circumstances. He was still working on it. Each day eased some of that ache.
Fortunately, not every day was filled with doubt. It came in phases, and they became less and less as the days went by. Good days helped to keep the ghosts of his very alive parents at bay.
But even the good days had their moments.
Lunch with Bobby and Athena had been a spur of the moment thing. His internal clock woke him up that morning at seven with a restless urge to do something. He'd gotten up instead of trying to sleep in for another hour or two like he usually would.
Without Albert around anymore, he always found the apartment a little lonely, so he was out of the building before eight and he finished with his small errands by ten. (Grocery shopping wasn’t much of an ordeal when he was just restocking some basic stuff.)
He turned to cleaning next, but because he was cleaning a little bit here and there almost every time he had a day off, there wasn’t much to do. All he’d done was wipe down the counters and take out the trash.
His room was already clean, too, because he was constantly picking up after himself— a small space meant that leaving stuff out made it crowded.
He’d just been getting ready to think of lunch when Athena called him.
Much like him, Bobby had woken up early today with a bit of extra pep in his step. They’d already been to Lowe’s to pick up pavers for a small project in the backyard, but right now, he was making lunch. Athena knew that the pasta that Bobby was cooking up was one of Buck’s favorites. It was a relatively simple but tasty dish, but since it reminded her of him, she decided to see if he was free to join them and May for lunch.
It wasn’t formal and it would be just the four of them if he didn’t mind. It’d been a while since they had him over for a meal and they all felt that the visit was long overdue.
Buck immediately agreed, and Athena passed on May’s imposed dress policy of no denim being allowed. At Buck’s confused noise, Athena had laughed and told him that she refused to leave her comfort clothes on her day off, but no one was allowed to be dressed nicer than her.
Buck found it funny and didn’t really mind not getting dressed up. He skipped a button-up for a Nike hoodie that Albert had gifted him for no reason other than there’d been a “buy one get one half off” deal. It was a mix of mint green and pastel pink on white that was one size too big and was way more comfortable than it needed to be.
“Look at you!” Athena almost shouted as she greeted him at the door later. “Buck, honey, you should wear these colors more often.”
She pulled him into a hug then, one that never failed to make him feel so wholly loved.
When he pulled back, he had a small quirk in his eyebrow.
“Really?” he asked. “I don’t usually wear these colors.” Buck shrugged and looked down at the clothing, pinching it to pull away from his torso and stare at it. “Albert gave it to me.”
“You look like a darn plush toy,” Athena said fondly. “Now, you come on in. May just finished setting the table.”
Sure enough, as Buck made his way over to the table, he found May, dressed in sweats from head to toe, placing a fourth glass of what looked like lemonade on the table. She looked up and smiled at Buck as he walked over. Then her eyes shot down to his shoes and she scowled.
“Nope. Nuh-uh.” She raised both her hands and shooed him away and Buck frowned in confusion. “Comfort only,” she explained. “Leave your shoes at the door.”
Buck glanced down at her feet, clad in only fluffy socks, and then looked to find Athena wearing slippers while Bobby was simply barefoot.
“Okay,” he raised his hands in mock defeat.
Bobby laughed from in front of the stove. “Didn’t you know? She’s eighteen now, Buck. She thinks she rules the house.”
Buck just laughed under his breath as he went toward the front door to slip his shoes off.
“It’s comfort day!” May insisted.
Buck didn’t really understand the importance of it, but he followed along anyway. From the looks of it, Bobby and Athena didn’t really have a problem with it, either.
By the time he came back to the table, Bobby was setting plates on the placemats and bringing out small bowls of salad on the side.
“Whoa there, Chef Nash. I thought this was supposed to be a simple lunch,” Buck joked. Lining the table were plates of his favorite pasta along with garden salad and—
“Is that garlic bread?” Buck asked. “For lunch? I’m starting to feel like I got tricked into something.”
Athena rolled her eyes at his dramatics and Bobby just laughed some more.
“I woke up in a good mood,” Bobby said with the shrug of his shoulders. “After this, I don’t have anything else I’m obligated to do before work tomorrow and I just wanted to enjoy the day to its fullest with some people I love. Is that too much to ask for?”
For a second, Buck found himself unable to breathe.
Bobby had just admitted that he loved Buck. Well, he hadn’t explicitly said the words, but the implication was there. And it was the first time he’d said it, too.
Buck wondered if Bobby realized what he said. Had he carefully chosen the words or this moment?
Upon looking at his friend’s face, Buck couldn’t find anything in the man’s expression or body language that indicated Bobby had gone out of his way to say it. He wasn’t staring at Buck and waiting to see what he’d say. He wasn’t stilled in his own shock. In fact, it didn’t even look like Bobby realized that it was the first time he had said it.
Buck supposed that somewhere deep down, he knew that Bobby loved him. The 118 were family, and Bobby had said so himself on multiple occasions. But it was one thing to have that suspicion that you might be important to someone and another to hear it from that person’s mouth.
And if that were true, if Bobby really did love him, Buck found himself wondering how it could possibly come so easy to the man that he could just group him in with his wife and stepdaughter like that.
Scratch that. Buck knew it didn’t come easy. When Buck first met him, he was a closed-off man. Bobby knew loss that Buck could never understand— or at least, he hoped that he never would.
Bobby, like Buck, was scared to let people in, out of fear of losing them. Bobby chose to let Athena in, chose to let his friends in.
Bobby chose to love him.
His own parents hadn’t even given him that luxury. The second that he was more trouble than he was worth, his parents gave up. Bobby had pressed a reassuring hand to his shoulder and never let go.
“Not at all,” Buck finally managed to respond. He couldn’t tell if it’d been minutes or just seconds, but no one questioned the delayed response. “Thank you guys for inviting me.”
The meal itself passed along without any kind of significant conversation. May talked about some of her friend’s college adventures in online learning and how much they hated it, Athena and Bobby mostly focused on their idea for a fire pit in the backyard, and Buck didn’t start up any conversation himself. He was content to listen and throw in some opinions about design, but he mostly enjoyed the food and the company.
When the meal was over, Buck was just about ready to take his leave when Bobby did something that really tripped him up.
He invited him to stay.
And it wasn’t that Buck assumed they’d no longer want him around, but they’d never done this before, this thing where Buck sticks around for no other reason than to be around. In the past, a meal would be had, and he’d be on his way out as the conversations wrapped up.
He’d done it with Eddie plenty of times, sometimes talking about current life issues, but mostly just for a drink and company before they went their separate ways again.
“Athena and I are going to be out back talking about the little fire pit plans if you wanna join us for a while.”
Buck was speechless.
“Oh, that sounds lovely,” Athena added. “But don’t feel bad declining if you had other plans today.”
And well, Buck didn’t have anything better to do, and it was only after one in the afternoon, so he agreed.
They all cleared the table pretty quickly after that, creating a chain of Buck passing stuff from the table to May who passed it to her mom or Bobby to either put away or, if it was a dish, rinse off before going into the dishwasher.
When they were done, Buck excused himself to the bathroom, and by the time he came back out, Athena and Bobby were already lounging on a bench in the middle of the yard. There were two different pavers in front of them and Athena was pointing animatedly from one to the other and drawing circles in the air around the space with her fingers. He considered joining them for a moment before he caught sight of May, sitting cross-legged on a chair just outside the back door. She had a nail polish bottle in one hand and was expertly applying it to the nails of the fingers wrapped around the bottle.
The image reminded him of Maddie when she was in high school. She always had a large clear box on her bed beside him. Buck was still in elementary school at the time, but to this day, it was still the largest nail polish collection he’d ever seen any girl have.
Before he thought anything of it, he was sitting in the seat across from May, giving her a small nod. He didn’t pay her much mind for a few minutes before she called his attention.
“Which one?” she asked, raising two bottles of nail polish, neither of which were the original blue she’d been working with.
“I thought you chose that dark blue,” he replied in confusion.
“It’s the accent color,” she said as if that was supposed to make any sense to him.
Buck nodded along like he understood what she meant, but he absolutely didn’t.
“You have no idea what I mean do you?”
“Nope,” Buck immediately said. “Not one bit.”
May laughed and gestured for him to lean forward and look at her hands.
While her right hand was still bare of any nail polish, her left hand had four fingers covered in the deep shade of blue that he first saw. Her ring finger, however, didn’t have anything on it.
“One finger gets a different color,” she explained, then held up two different bottles, one black, and the other white. “Which one?”
“Why?” Buck questioned. “Is there any significance?”
May shrugged. “I don’t know. I think it’s mostly just a thing people do. Sometimes people have designs that mean something, though.”
Buck nodded along. There were some things that he’d never understand and this was apparently one.
“White,” he said eventually. “It’ll stand out more because the blue already looks black from a distance.”
“Oh, true,” she whispered softly, looking between the two colors. “I usually default to just all black so…” She trailed off, and Buck didn’t really follow her line of thought, but it didn’t seem to be a negative one, so he stayed quiet and watched as she twisted open the white one.
Too lazy to move back into his previous position, he sat there, leaned over his knees, and watched her do her nails.
It was the first time he really got a chance to notice that the blue was different from the white and black nail polishes. While the white and black had a kind of shimmery look to them, the blue was more solid in color— no glitter or shimmer, but not flat enough that light didn’t reflect off of it.
It reminded him of the ocean.
Despite his unfortunate encounter with the tsunami over a year ago, the ocean remained as fascinating as ever to him.
The ocean had been a gift to him when he was traveling. Whether he was standing on a bluff or on a pier, if he looked out to the water and kept his eye on the horizon, he always felt like he was standing on the edge of the world. He felt invincible.
(And to this day, if he couldn’t find anything good to watch on TV, he could always count on a deep-sea documentary to hold his attention.)
“You like the color?” May asked as she closed up the white bottle and waved her hand in the air a little.
The blue also reminded him of his uniform. It was one of the most consistent things he had in his life. For too long, he didn’t believe he could be anyone of worth outside of it. He’d since learned otherwise, but it didn’t mean that it didn’t still hold a special place in his heart. Buck would always be proud to put on the uniform and pin his badge to his chest that marked him as being part of the Los Angeles Fire Department.
“Yeah,” he said weakly. “It’s a really cool color.”
It was the best he could offer. He’d long learned that there was a time for sharing, and even then, he had a habit of oversharing sometimes.
May blew on her nails and picked up the blue bottle before passing it to him. She didn’t say anything, but he accepted it anyway.
It was the same blue that filled the night sky along the coasts, but further away from the cities. A deep, rich blue that he only ever seemed to catch during the summer.
He unscrewed the cap to open it, and the smell took him back instantly.
He’d been fifteen. Maddie was already off with Doug, having left him in the dust.
Those days, his parents hardly paid any mind to his bumps and bruises anymore, so he’d been digging around for a band-aid under his bathroom sink when he came across a bottle of nail polish on its side at the bottom of the cabinet. It was a sleek black, and upon shaking it, he found that the liquid inside was still good for use.
Without even thinking, he was applying it to his own nails on the bathroom floor. So many kids at school were doing it, and it looked cool. And to be fair, those kids wore practically all black, but it couldn’t be all that different just because he fell more in line with the athletes who didn’t really wear the polish.
Well, that had been his first issue: assuming that it didn’t mean anything.
Buck would never forget the look on his father’s face when he found him, sprawled on the floor with drying globs of black all over his nails. It wasn’t the best job, but it wasn’t the worst.
Though, his dad treated it like the worst thing he’d ever seen his son do.
The words that spilled from his father’s mouth were ones he’d never forget. They were ones he’d hear for the rest of his young adult life until he got away from the East Coast altogether. In the long run, it was a drop in the ocean compared to the hate in the world.
It was what his dad did that really haunted him, though. He’d been dragged up by his wrists, forcing the nail polish to spill across his jeans, then dragged to the sink where his father forced his hands under a stream of water.
Buck had fought his father’s grip, but he was still rather lanky at the time. He was barely starting to put on muscle from football, and his dad was still working out regularly at the time, keeping up his own strong physique from his younger days.
Under the water and his father’s strong grip, the nail polish smeared and spread across his fingers, unwilling to wash away. Tears streamed down his face under the aggression and onslaught of words. It was a side of his father that he’d never seen, and until the day he left, it was one that never came back.
When his father realized that his methods weren’t working, he stormed out of the bathroom, leaving Buck crying with his hands still under the stream of water. His wrists were red from where his father held him too tightly, and the black nail polish was a shameful smear on his pale hands.
Buck remembered being too scared to move, afraid that his father would grow angry if he left before getting it all off.
Fortunately for him, it was his mother who came back to him. She’d looked at his hands like they were covered in blood and pulled out a bottle that smelled like disgusting chemicals. Looking back, he knew it was nail polish remover, but at the time, he’d felt like dirt that they wished to cleanse the world of.
His mother had been more physically gentle, but her eyes pierced him and left him feeling hollow for a long time after that.
“Have you ever painted your nails?”
May’s question brought him back to the present.
Buck laughed bitterly before closing up the bottle and handing it back to her. It wasn’t that he forgot it had happened, but it’d been a long time since he remembered.
“Once,” he said. It’d been a time of curiosity, and while he’d well accepted his sexuality and came to understand that nail polish wasn’t inherently meant to be for women or gay men only, he hadn’t felt inclined to try it again. “Philip didn’t like it, though.”
May raised an eyebrow in confusion but didn’t remove her gaze from her nails. “Who’s Philip?”
Buck squeezed his eyes shut at the slip. He cleared his throat and shifted in his seat.
“My father,” he replied. He wasn’t quite sure why he hadn’t referred to him as such, but he could psychoanalyze himself later.
May frowned and grabbed the blue nail polish again. She reached across them and pressed it into his hand.
“Fuck your dad,” she said, her tone laced with bitterness. “Do you want to do them now?”
The curse word startled Buck. He was well acquainted with that particular vocabulary, but hearing it from May was new. He found that he quite liked the sentiment, though.
He glanced at Bobby really quick, but it wasn’t fast enough for May to miss it.
“You think they’re going to care?” May asked incredulously. “You know they wouldn’t judge you for this,” she added on, softer this time, “and there’s no asshole around to judge you for it. Do you wanna do it?”
Buck felt oddly like he was being peer pressured, but he really didn’t mind.
“Yeah,” he admitted with a smile. “I kind of do.”
It was the truth. He wasn’t sure if it was trauma or a genuine lack of interest in painting his nails that kept him from trying it before, but right now, the blue was beyond mesmerizing and had been drawing him in since he first got a good look at it.
It reminded him of things he loved, and that only served to draw him in further.
“I don’t really know how to do them, though,” he said a beat later. “The last time didn’t end up all that great.”
May laughed. “I’ll do them. This is kind of a cheapy one, and it’s really thin, so it’ll dry fast. They’ll be done drying soon and then I can do yours.”
Buck smiled. “Okay. Want some more lemonade while you wait?”
“Oh!” She perked up. “Yes please!”
May gestured at her glass on a small table off to the side that Buck hadn’t noticed before. He reached for it before disappearing into the house.
By the time he came back out with the lemonade, May had arranged the two seats to be closer so she could do his nails. The small table she’d previously had off to the side was now pulled up next to her legs, holding the three bottles of nail polish. He passed off the drink wordlessly and settled himself across from her once again.
Apparently, she didn’t have anything else to say either, and she gestured for him to pass her his hand. He held it out the best he could, resting his elbow on his thigh and spreading his fingers.
Catching sight of them, he was almost embarrassed at the state of his nails. They were almost nothing but stubs and his cuticles were dried out.
May didn’t seem to care, though, just giving them a once-over before she grabbed the blue nail polish brush and got to work.
Admittedly, sitting there and watching his nails get painted was a mindless thing. He’d expected some amount of anxiety, but instead, he found himself feeling calm. When the thought that Bobby and Athena might see his nails crossed his mind, he realized that not only did he not care, but it didn’t scare him.
There were plenty of things that they could criticize him for— and even had when necessary— but he didn’t imagine this would be one. Being with them made him feel safe in a way that he never felt with his own parents.
He was so lost in the rich blue of the polish that he didn’t notice when Bobby and Athena walked over. The couple stood in silence for a moment, just watching the two of them.
“And what are you two getting up to?” Athena asked. “Did she rope you into this?”
Bobby watched as Buck’s shoulders tensed, shifting ever so slightly under the large hoodie. May could feel his fingers twitch where she held his index finger with her own hand and she pinched it to make sure he didn't pull it away.
“No,” May said, assertion heavy in her tone. “We’re dismantling the patriarchy.”
“Oh?” Athena raised an eyebrow and shared a look with Bobby.
“Mhm,” May hummed. “One nail at a time.”
At this, Athena laughed and pressed a gentle hand to Buck’s arm.
“It’s a good color,” she mused.
The comment eased his tension, and he looked up at her with a slight blush on his cheeks.
“Well,” she continued on. “Bobby and I decided that we want to run back out to Lowe’s before it gets too late. We don’t have enough pavers and if we pick ‘em up today, we give ourselves more time to work on it next time Bobby has the day off.”
At the statement, Buck shifted in his seat to get up despite May’s protests, but Bobby was quick to jump in.
“We’re not kicking you out, Buck. You’re welcome to stay and let May finish your nails.”
Buck settled again and May swatted at his arm for nearly messing her up.
“Uh, yeah! Okay,” Buck said. “I’ll probably head out when she’s all done. Thank you guys for having me over. This was really nice.”
“Of course, Buck,” Athena smiled. “We always love to have you over.”
Buck smiled back. “I love being over,” he replied.
“I’ll see you at work tomorrow, yeah?” Bobby asked.
“Eight A.M. sharp,” Buck nodded. Bobby clapped him on the back and stepped past him and May to head inside with Athena.
For a minute, he could hear them moving around the kitchen. The two were slipping on shoes and gathering their keys. At one point, Buck heard Athena ask where her purse was before immediately letting out an Ah sound, likely having found it.
Then, they were gone.
“Do you like how they turned out?” May questioned.
Buck was slipping on his shoes, being extra careful with his nails even though May already assured him multiple times that they were dry.
“Yeah, actually,” Buck said, a grin overtaking his face. “I didn’t think they’d look so nice.”
He tied off one of his shoes before displaying his hands to himself.
“It’s like… they’re pretty, but it doesn’t feel girly,” he continued. He immediately shook his head and moved to grab the other shoe. “I don’t know if that made sense.”
“It does,” May insisted. “Nail polish isn’t only for girls.”
Buck could only nod. He was still working on that part.
“Thanks again for this, May.” He smiled at her and she smiled back.
Before he knew it, he was heading home and listening to whatever alternative music was playing on his Daily Mix from Spotify. And call him crazy, but Buck felt like everything was different.
When he reached for the volume knob on his dashboard, the sun, just starting to peek out from the gloomy clouds, glinted off of his fingernail. The rich blue shined back at him, reminding him of those things he always loved. Looking at that color made him feel as invincible as standing at the edge of a bluff overlooking the ocean at dusk did.
If he had known that painting his nails could make him feel so free, he would’ve done it so much sooner.
So, why did the idea of Eddie seeing his nails freak him out?
It all started after he fell asleep.
The shrill sound of Buck’s phone startled him awake, and his head shot up from his pillow in alarm.
Fuck, what time was it? Buck would be pissed at himself if he was late for—
Buck squinted at his phone where it was lying on the opposite side of the bed and realized that it was a phone call, not an alarm, and the sun was still out but dimming, which likely meant that he hadn’t slept through until the next day.
Eddie’s name was scrolling across the screen above the photo he had set for him.
He picked it up without a second thought and pressed the phone to his ear.
“‘ello?” he asked in a grumble.
A bright laugh boomed through the small speaker.
“Did I wake you up?” Eddie asked. “Don’t tell me I woke you up, Buck.”
Eddie’s voice was loud, and the background sound made Buck wonder if he had him on speaker in the car.
“Yeah,” Buck mumbled. He curled a hand and pressed it into one of his eyes to rub the sleep out of it. “It was just a nap, though.”
Eddie laughed again. “Sorry, I should have called before I left. Chris is with my abuela because his cousins are all there and I was wondering if you wanted to do pizza and a movie or something? I’m already on my way with your favorite.”
Buck’s mouth watered and his stomach growled at the sound of some hot pizza.
“What were you going to do if I wasn’t available?” Buck challenged as he tried to pull himself out of bed.
“It’s almost six and you have work tomorrow. You never have plans at this time.”
“Touché,” Buck said, then promptly fell back on his bed. He groaned and let his back settle into the mattress again.
“I’ll drag you out of bed if you’re not awake when I get there,” Eddie threatened, though his words lacked any heat. “How long have you been asleep?”
“Um…” Buck blinked up at his ceiling. “I have no idea. I was bored. I think I just fell asleep… out of boredom.”
Eddie laughed again, and this time Buck could hear the turn signal in his truck going off. “Well, I’m less than ten minutes out so you better have either beers or a movie set up by the time I get there.”
Buck scoffed at the bossy tone. “And what if I don’t?”
He could practically hear Eddie shrug. “I’ll keep the pizza for myself and then just steal the beer.”
“Alright, alright.” Buck yawned. “I’m getting up. Feel free to let yourself in.”
He hung up without waiting for a goodbye and held the phone above his face to check the time.
And that’s when he realized he’d screwed up.
His nails.
Eddie would see his nails when he got there.
Buck shot up in bed and ran a hand through his hair. His heart raced as he struggled to rationalize things in his head.
Eddie wouldn’t care… right?
When he thought it over, he wasn’t so sure. Eddie was his best friend— had been since the day they met— and while Buck had a feeling that he wouldn’t care if he was wearing nail polish, he also had this terrible, no good, very awful feeling that he would.
Buck knew plenty of men who didn’t care that other men were gay, right up until it was someone they knew and it was being shoved in their face. When Buck mentioned his last date, Firefighter Stevens had bristled from across the loft’s dinner table.
The man hadn’t spoken to him since then, besides when necessary for the job. And even then, the man refused to meet his eyes. And while it hadn’t really hurt him all that much (it’s not like they were friends before that or anything), he grew uncomfortable in the other man’s presence as days went on.
And well, Eddie already knew that Buck was into men, and nothing had changed between them when he found out, but this? Nail polish? Eddie would probably look at him and wonder what was next— makeup?
Eddie had always been fine with Michael, but the man had never shown up to an event wearing nail polish. What if this was too “gay” for Eddie?
It wasn’t until Buck had a bitter taste in his mouth that he realized he was absentmindedly chewing on his nail and some of the polish had started to chip.
They had to go.
There was no other choice. He and May could dismantle the patriarchy another day because he wasn’t ready for that conversation with Eddie. The nail polish had been fun while it lasted, but that was enough. Eddie didn’t need to see it, and people at work sure as fuck didn’t need to see it tomorrow.
For all the time that Buck had known Eddie, he thought it was stupid that he had no idea how he’d react to this. How do you feel about men who take part in what’s traditionally considered a feminine act? hadn’t exactly come up in the years they’d known each other.
What had he been thinking?
Then came the guilt.
How could Buck doubt his best friend like this?
Eddie spoke to him before about what it was like growing up. His father had a machismo mindset, heavy in his head from his own father. He’d still been trying to assert himself as a more capable person than Eddie when Eddie was already the man of his own house and a father to his own child.
Eddie had been working to raise Christopher to be better than that— better than him. Buck knew that. But not being outwardly sexist or homophobic didn’t mean there wasn’t space to still have some reservations. (re: Firefighter Stevens)
Buck wanted to smack himself over the head with the circles he was running himself in.
Eddie had never given any reason for Buck to believe that he’d think less of him if he wore nail polish.
But the nasty part of his head that his parents were inhabiting reminded him that neither had they. Buck had never thought that his parents could be anything less than open-minded before that day.
Buck had to stop himself. Going back and forth in his head wouldn’t do any good. His decision was made, and his faith in Eddie was drowned out by the downpour of crippling doubt that festered in his chest. It was better safe than sorry, and if he ever wanted to do this again, he could try to test the waters by drawing an opinion out of Eddie in advance.
He couldn’t lose Eddie over nail polish. He refused to.
Even if Eddie didn’t feel the same way as he did, Eddie was his best friend. If soulmates could come in the form of friends, then Eddie was one and Buck didn’t want to risk that.
He could live without that romantic aspect, but he couldn’t live without Eddie.
Buck opened the Safari app and did a quick google search before he was off to the bathroom in search of rubbing alcohol.
Google had lied to him. The rubbing alcohol was not working.
Or, it was, but slowly and terribly. When the article he read said that it would remove nail polish, he didn’t think that what it really meant was that it would smear the nail polish around, only removing half of it, and cause the rest to stick to his skin.
He also hoped that it would at least work fast enough that he could remove it before Eddie arrived.
Of course, his friend had to show up when he was still elbow deep in nail polish. He regretted telling Eddie to let himself in.
“Buck?” Eddie called out as the front door clicked shut.
Buck’s eyes shot up from his hands and looked into the mirror. In it, he could see behind him and through the cracked bathroom door. Eddie was moving past the bathroom to the table.
Buck hissed under his breath and took in the mess he’d made. The sink space was cluttered from where he’d torn through his medicine cabinet. Buck knew where his own stuff was, but in his haste to get it out quickly, he’d knocked over toothpaste and q-tips along with some other toiletries.
Buck made to pick up some of it and only succeeded in knocking over the rubbing alcohol. The plastic bottle bounced against the countertop as some of the liquid spilled over the lid and into a puddle.
A flurry of fuck, fuck fuck, spilled from his lips, and Eddie must have heard it because he called Buck’s name again.
“Just a— fuck,” Buck cursed again, standing the bottle up. Not much had spilled out, but it was enough to be more noticeable than a splash of water. “Just a second!” he called out.
Buck could hear Eddie move around in the apartment, but his footsteps went silent as Buck went back to scrubbing his nails.
“Are you going to the bathroom?” Eddie asked.
It would have been a stupid question if the door were closed, but Buck had failed to do that, so it was obvious that he wasn’t actually going to the bathroom. But, by nature, Eddie was curious. Buck would be too if he walked in on his friend hiding in the bathroom… but not actually going to the bathroom.
“I’ll be out in a few minutes!” He shouted back. It took him a second to realize that he hadn’t exactly answered the question. The few minutes would give him time to come up with a lie, though.
“Buck?” Eddie called again. And, crap, he sounded worried. He hadn’t meant to worry him.
Buck didn’t respond that time, but that must’ve been the last straw. Eddie came through the door seconds later, and Buck’s eyes met Eddie’s in the mirror.
His hands ceased their scrubbing, and he looked down at the mess he’d made. He probably looked like a mess.
“Are you okay?” Eddie asked gently, jerking his chin at Buck’s nails.
Buck’s mouth opened and closed as he tried to speak, but all that came out were tiny stuttered sounds.
He couldn’t think of anything. The situation felt all too much like the time his father found him in his bathroom.
And to make matters worse, Buck couldn’t read Eddie’s tone beyond confusion and he was too scared to look him in the eye and find out. Was he disgusted?
Without looking up, Buck could see Eddie out of the corner of his eye, turning his head and taking in the state of the bathroom. His eyes lingered a little bit longer on the rubbing alcohol, but he turned his gaze on Buck again soon after.
Buck curled his fingers into a fist and tucked his thumbs under them for good measure in an attempt to hide the smeared stains of nail polish.
“Buck…” Eddie said slowly.
That… That hadn’t sounded like disgust.
After a moment, Buck stood up straight and faced his friend.
Confusion colored Eddie’s expression. “Are you trying to remove nail polish?”
Buck slowly uncurled his fingers and flexed them between himself and Eddie.
“Yeah,” he said with a small nod. “Google said rubbing alcohol could do the job.” Buck shrugged his shoulders in defeat. What a load of shit.
“Yeah,” Eddie nodded along. “Helps to soak your fingers in it. And that rag is likely absorbing all of the rubbing alcohol. You’re probably not getting much on your nails.”
Buck felt his mouth fall open in shock and he cracked his fingers nervously.
“How uh… how do you know that?” he questioned.
Eddie didn’t answer. Instead, he crouched to his knees and opened the cabinet door beneath the sink. Buck watched him dig around for a moment before he sat back with a bag of cotton balls in hand and raised them in front of Buck’s face.
He stood back up and set them on the counter before removing a couple.
“Pass me the rubbing alcohol?” Eddie’s eyes drifted to the bottle beside him, and Buck immediately turned to grab it. Once it was passed over, Eddie pressed the cotton ball to the opening of the bottle and tilted it to let some soak in.
“You didn’t answer my question…” Buck said.
Buck wasn’t sure why, but Eddie frowned at the words. It disappeared seconds later as he stuck one of his hands out.
“Pass me your hand.”
Buck did so without question. Even if Eddie did have a problem with the nail polish and now him, he trusted Eddie not to physically hurt him.
Eddie took his hand in his and began scrubbing at the nail polish. It took a little longer than nail polish remover would have, but it was getting the job done better than the rag had. Buck instantly felt stupid for using a rag, but the article hadn’t said that how he applied the rubbing alcohol would matter.
“For starters,” Eddie began a few seconds later, “I was the honorary big sister growing up.” Eddie finished with one nail and slotted two of his fingers around another one of Buck’s to hold it separate from the others. “Adriana and Sophia couldn’t stand each other sometimes, so if they were in an argument but needed something that they usually went to each other for, they came to me instead.”
Eddie moved along cleaning a few more nails as he spoke.
“It meant that sometimes I was the one putting nail polish on their toes for them. My mother wouldn't let me hear the end of it if I didn’t help them and my dad never thought boys should be messing with nail polish at all, so it was a bit of a rollercoaster some days.” Eddie shrugged.
“Then there was Christopher this one time…” Eddie laughed and shook his head. “You should have seen him. He’d gotten into some of Shannon’s nail polish and had it smeared across his—”
Oh God, Eddie had found Chris in the same situation before. How did he react?
Buck tensed and waited to hear the rest, but it took him a moment to realize that Eddie had stopped speaking.
Eddie glanced up at Buck and saw that he had his bottom lip between his teeth, pressing into the skin there until it was flushed red.
“Am I the reason you were trying to remove the nail polish?” Eddie asked suddenly. “Were you worried what I would think?”
Buck immediately shook his head, but the longer Eddie held eye contact with him, the less sure his actions became.
“Yeah,” he admitted a moment later. “I just— I didn’t—” Buck sighed as Eddie resumed cleaning up his nails.
“You don’t have to explain yourself, Buck, but you should know that I don’t care. And I don’t mean that I don’t care about you, I just mean that I don’t have a problem with whatever fashion choices you decide to start trying tomorrow. I didn’t become friends with you because you wear flannel and denim jeans, and I won’t stop being your friend if you start to wear what people consider more feminine colors or if you decide to start painting your nails.”
The words struck Buck harder than he expected words could, and he swallowed the sudden lump of emotions in his throat. He knew he’d been overthinking it, and the rational part of his head had been saying that Eddie was his best friend and wouldn’t care, but nothing about Buck’s doubts were rational. The idea that Eddie would care and have a problem with it had consumed him.
Eddie didn’t miss his breath of relief, though.
His friend moved on to the last nail without waiting for a response. The nails were clear of any nail polish now, but some of it was still smeared into the skin, and he’d just have to wash it out later.
“Also,” Eddie added after Buck had been silent for another minute, “it’s a nice color. I’m sure it looked great before this.”
Buck shifted from one leg to the other.
“But… it’s girly, right?” Eddie froze. “I shouldn’t want to wear nail polish.”
“Who the hell told you that?” The words came out with more anger than Buck was prepared for and he flinched, but he knew that anger wasn’t directed at him.
“My dad.”
“Well, fuck your dad,” Eddie spat. “If their visit taught us anything, it’s that they didn’t know shit about parenting.”
Buck let out a small huff of laughter as Eddie finished the last nail.
“That’s what May said,” he supplied.
“May did your nails?”
Buck made an affirmative humming noise. “She said we were dismantling the patriarchy.”
Eddie smiled and let go of Buck’s hand to throw away the used cotton balls.
“Well, we’ve just about undone all of your guys’ hard work,” Eddie said, though he kept his tone light. He wanted to tease Buck, not make him feel guilty. “We can worry about that later, though. Right now, we’ve got cooling pizza.”
Things were still tense through their meal, but Buck felt it was more to do with how he felt about the situation itself rather than how he felt about Eddie knowing. Eddie was great and steered them toward other, less heavy conversation as they sat at his island, side by side. They’d passed up on a movie and beer, and instead, Eddie told Buck about the time that he found Chris with nail polish.
It was after his mother had passed and, in a weird coincidence, the young boy had been sitting on the floor of the bathroom, digging through the cabinet under the sink. Eddie wasn’t sure what Chris had been looking for originally. He only knew that he’d found his mother’s cherry red nail polish and thought it’d be cool to try out. He’d made a mess of it and managed to spill it onto the bathroom rug, enough that they had to toss it out because the stain wouldn’t wash out.
It was lighthearted and made Buck laugh, and Eddie could see him taking down the walls that had shot up between their call and him arriving at the apartment. But he could tell that Buck still hadn’t completely come up from his spiral earlier.
He knew they were going to have to talk about it, and based on the look Buck gave him when Eddie opened his mouth after too long of a silence, he knew, too.
“You can ask,” Buck told Eddie. He really didn’t want to talk about it, but he would for Eddie.
“I don’t want to pry,” Eddie started.
Buck sat there for a moment as Eddie failed to continue. There was a set wrinkle on his forehead that almost never made an appearance except for when he was particularly stressed or worried, and Buck started to feel guilty. Maybe they could pretend this never happened?
He squirmed under Eddie’s searching eyes.
“Eddie—”
“Look—” Eddie said at the same time, and Buck took a swig of his soda to brace for whatever Eddie had to say. “I can’t begin to imagine what made you react the way you did. I know it has to be some deep-rooted trauma, and I don’t say that lightly. I say it because I understand— I mean, look who’s talking.”
Buck nearly spat his soda out at the dark humor. Trust Eddie to bring out his rare jokes when he’s trying to be serious.
“But… Well…” Eddie waved his hands around like he was waiting for Buck to catch on, but Buck had no idea what he was trying to say. “C’mon, Buck. You had to know that I wouldn’t judge you for this, right? Maybe if you had chosen an ugly color, I would, but not on the fact that you painted your nails at all.”
Buck frowned, and Eddie continued on.
“What I’m saying is that I know how things that happened in the past can shape our thinking in the present. Was there no rational part of yourself that knew I wouldn’t be bothered by this?”
Buck set his soda can down with a resigned thud. “Yeah,” he said. “Part of me did know.”
Eddie pursed his lips and held back on whatever he’d been about to say. He clearly hadn’t expected him to say yes.
Buck fiddled with his tainted fingernails as he continued. “Another part of me just doubted too much, I guess.”
“You didn’t doubt that I would stick around when you came out, so why did you doubt this? You thought this would be the last straw or something?”
Eddie was shocked when Buck nodded.
“For some people, it is. Like Hen and Stevens get along just fine, but she and I have both noticed the looks that he sends her when Karen is around. He’s tolerant. The man hasn’t even looked me in the eye since I talked about my last date at the station.”
Eddie twisted his body and turned to face Buck completely then. “And you thought I was just tolerating you?”
Eddie tried not to be offended by that— he wanted to understand.
“I don’t know! Maybe? I’m— Shit, I’m sorry I doubted you, Eds. I know you’re a better person than that, but I’ve got my parents in my head and I’m still working on getting them out.”
The tension in Eddie’s shoulders eased some, but it didn’t completely go away.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
So, Buck explained.
He told him first the story of his father’s reaction to the first and only other time Buck had tried to paint his nails.
He spoke of the fear and the tight grip on his wrists and what felt like Buck’s heart at the time. Buck’s father wasn’t an abusive man, but he’d been aggressive that time— disgusted.
The memory alone was almost enough to stop Buck from painting his nails, but then May said “Fuck your dad” and knowing that Bobby and Athena loved him was enough to push forward.
The admission had Buck feeling terrible because it sounded like Eddie’s love wasn’t enough. But something he couldn’t tell his friend was that his love was just more important. Buck could live without Bobby and Athena, but he couldn’t lose his best friend.
There was always more at stake.
So he didn’t tell him that, and he pushed on to explain that his parents coming back into town didn’t make matters any better— in all aspects of his life. No matter how many therapy sessions that he’d had since they left, with or without them, they still lingered in his head.
Growing up, everything became about pleasing them. If he wasn’t living up to their every expectation, he was letting them down. At some point, his parents had stopped giving him attention when he was hurt and instead became angry with him for being reckless and not being indestructible.
Sure, Buck felt indestructible sometimes and it felt good, but he knew he wasn’t. To actually have that expected of him was entirely different.
When he moved out, he started to think for himself and it took him years before he stopped wondering what his parents thought of every choice in his life. Buck didn’t doubt that if he had still been in contact with them, he wouldn’t have started half of the things he had tried. He wouldn’t have tried firefighting, and he wouldn’t have found his new family.
It went to shit when they came back into his life. And the joint sessions only made it worse, exposing so many of his adult life choices to them.
They judged the fact that Buck was in therapy in the first place and hadn’t been quiet about it. They questioned Dr. Copeland, wondering how exactly this was supposed to help their son. They thought that there were better things he could be doing with his time.
There hadn’t been anything they didn’t have an opinion on, and even Dr. Copeland had noticed that it was doing more harm than good. When she started to notice Buck’s decline in mental and emotional health, she immediately ended the joint sessions.
Eddie felt anger at the Buckley parents. Admittedly, he was angry with himself, too. He didn’t know how he hadn’t noticed that Buck wasn’t doing well. Buck said that he was slowly getting better, but it didn’t change that Eddie hadn’t noticed at all.
And it didn’t help that Buck felt stuck, like he’d reached as far as he could go and that he would just be forced to carry around that piece of his parents inside his head. He was terrified.
He didn’t want to hide who he was. He was finally at a place in his life where he had his own beliefs and felt safe expressing his sexuality and himself. But his parents and what they might think of something (typically something he wasn’t even obligated to tell them about) would eat him up inside.
He told Eddie about wondering what his parents would think about his date, and how Maddie had reacted. It hadn’t even occurred to him that they didn’t need to know. It wasn’t their business.
“I feel like I have this shadow following me around that isn’t even mine,” Buck said, hopelessness on the edge of his words. “It’s suffocating me.”
Eddie frowned. The words tugged at his heartstrings. Buck deserved the world and more. He deserved happiness and to be himself, but his parents had been snuffing out all of the light and towering over Buck, leaving him in an eternal darkness.
Eddie couldn’t have that.
“You know, those shadows can’t follow you if you turn around and face them,” Eddie said. “I’m not saying that you have to tell your parents all of the things you don’t want to share, but…” Eddie drifted off, not exactly sure how to say what he wanted to.
He eventually found them in his own version of this story.
“Did you know my parents still try to tell me that I shouldn’t do things a certain way?”
At that, Buck shook his head.
“If I tell them that I let Chris do something or that I’ve decided to do a thing that will affect mine and Christopher’s life, they try to tell me it’s wrong, even if I know in my heart that it’s right. They never fail to get my life so wrong.” Eddie nearly laughed at words. “They still think they know what’s best for me, and they judge me when I don’t listen to them. Sometimes, I wonder why I still tell them anything.”
“Why do you?”
“Because I stopped caring what they think. They love Christopher, so I want them in his life, but I can’t tell you how amazing it’s been to say that I don’t care when they try to tell me I’m wrong. All you have to do is tell them— or yourself if you don’t want to talk to them— that they’re wrong.”
Buck looked doubtful. He’d been there before, but to be in this headspace again at twenty-nine years old made him feel like he’d never escape it again.
It was such a simple solution, but in his heart, it felt anything but easy.
What would his parents think if Buck stood up for himself? They’d probably think he was being ridiculous for ever thinking he knew what was best for himself. They’d probably call him childish. Of course, his parents knew better and—
Fuck. He’d already done it again.
Eddie’s whole point was that he didn’t have to tell them anything if he didn’t want to. He shouldn’t even be worrying about what they think.
Eddie seemed to catch on that he’d lost Buck to his own thoughts, and grabbed Buck’s hand where it was curled into a fist on the countertop.
“There will come a point where you’ll accept that you’re all you have to live up to. And the people who love you for you will still be there.”
“And you’re going to be there?” Buck asked, turning his body toward Eddie’s. Their knees bumped together, but neither of them attempted to move. “Nail polish and all?” Buck sounded like he refused to believe that it was possible. Like it was a challenge.
“Nail polish and all,” Eddie assured him. After a moment he sighed and pressed further into Buck’s space.
Buck’s heart skipped a beat at the movement.
“Buck,” he began slowly, “You are the fucking sun, man— this massive light that is both this unlimited source of life and simultaneously draws in all of the life around it. And I am stuck in your orbit. I’ll be with you through it all.”
Buck’s mouth fell slack with the shock of hearing those words, and his heartbeat doubled as it raced away inside his chest. His eyes never left Eddie’s as he blinked away the tears that threatened to spill.
“Jesus, Eds.” Buck shook his head. “You can’t just say shit like that if you don’t mean it.”
“I do, though,” Eddie insisted.
“If I’m a sun,” Buck pushed on, “then I’ll just end up going supernova.” Because Buck couldn’t believe what he was hearing. They liked to make jokes about important things sometimes, right? (Or was that only him?) He could do that. He could try to lighten the mood if that wasn’t where Eddie had intended to go. “I’ll go supernova and suck everyone around me into a black hole and—”
“Buck, why can’t you see how amazing you are?”
No, Buck thought. This was some cosmic joke being played on him.
“Eddie, man. Just stop.” Buck pulled his hand out of his friend’s and brought it toward his chest. “You sound like you’re— like you—”
Buck couldn’t even say the words, worried that he was reading the whole situation wrong. He’d never had a best friend before. Maybe this was normal for friends?
His brain couldn’t form a proper thought. He huffed in disbelief at the situation.
“You don’t even like—”
“Shut up,” Eddie cut him off, then cupped the back of his neck and pulled him into a searing kiss that instantly made his cheeks and chest flush.
It took him by surprise and he stumbled off of the stool, but Eddie’s free hand grabbed his shirt and pulled him into the space between his legs.
His hand reached up on instinct, cupping Eddie’s cheek and running a finger along the short stubble there. When he applied the lightest pressure, he could feel the muscles moving beneath his touch as Eddie’s mouth worked itself open and closed in a rhythm with his own.
Eddie reacted to the touch by slipping his hand beneath the edge of Buck’s shirt at his waist, and goosebumps raised across his skin, igniting the rest of his body with an inferno that rivaled ones that had almost killed him.
He gasped at the sensation and Eddie pressed forward with his tongue, taking Buck as he was and encompassing his entire heart.
It’d been too long since Buck had done this with anyone, too long since his lips had felt the tender love bite of another’s. Too long since his hands had been allowed to touch someone like this, allowed to caress the skin of another person with such love and adoration. But he couldn’t imagine that it would feel like that with anyone other than Eddie.
Eddie was his best friend. He’d known he’d found a soulmate in him before he ever knew he loved him; that it blossomed into a different kind of love was just a crazy happenstance that he would forever be grateful for.
When the two finally pulled away from each other, they pressed their foreheads together, simply breathing each other in and basking in the moment.
It took a minute before Eddie spoke again, words spilling out of his mouth unfiltered and breathlessly.
“You are a light, Buck. Don’t let your parents make you feel small. Don’t let them shove you back into a version of you that doesn’t exist.” Eddie’s hand curled into the front of his hoodie, practically pleading for him to listen. “Don’t let their shadow drown you out. And I don’t mean that Buck 1.0 shit you always talk about, I mean the Buck who didn’t get to be who he was. Be who you are and go where the shadows can’t follow you.”
Buck licked his lips. He could barely find words while he was still trying to catch his breath. “Will you come with me?”
Eddie pressed another quick kiss to his lips before pulling away far enough to cradle his face and look him in the eyes. The city lights shined through the large glass windows and twinkled in his eyes as he smiled.
“Of course,” Eddie scoffed. “Someone’s gotta have your back.”
It was nearing eight o’clock on a Saturday evening when Eddie dragged Buck out of his apartment and over to a CVS Pharmacy. There were probably better places to go, but it was the closest place to Buck’s apartment and was likely to be the least crowded.
It took them a couple of minutes to find the right aisle, and then a few more to even find the right color, but Eddie was determined and Buck was a smiling, dopey mess as Eddie pulled him around the store with their hands intertwined.
The cashier didn’t even blink twice when Eddie set down a bottle of nail polish, the glass clinking noisily on the counter, along with a bottle of nail polish remover that thudded hard enough to rattle the counter.
Eddie had flinched and muttered a small apology under his breath because he knew he was being just a little too enthusiastic, but the cashier was indifferent and Buck was enraptured.
It was nearing nine o’clock when Eddie had Buck sit cross-legged on his bed, pressed their knees together, and then took a hand in his.
Eddie doing his nails felt different.
Buck would always be grateful to May for getting him over that first step, but when Eddie applied a coat of nail polish to his nails, it felt as if it was a coat of armor.
Buck couldn’t wait for everyone at the station to see his nails tomorrow.
Even more so, he couldn’t wait for them to see his hand in Eddie’s.