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There’s a few people to blame for this, really.
Namely, and in no particular order: Eddie, the barista who messed up his order this morning, Eddie, Chim, whoever invented check engine lights, Eddie, Jeep as a company at large, and the car manufacturing industry as a whole. And did he mention Eddie?
Buck is completely and totally innocent.
“Save whatever you have to say until I am inside and this cup is empty,” Buck slams his traitorous car door shut, shouldering his bag and tipping his coffee to his team in greeting, who have lined up in the open doorways to the station.
“We have nothing to say,” Chim’s smile glistens too brightly for the start of a 24-hour shift, “Just curious—”
“Here we go,” Buck mumbles under his breath and elbows his brother-in-law as he passes him.
“Late to work, snippy comebacks, only getting coffee for yourself,” Chimney lists, jogging backwards to keep up with Buck’s stride, “Should we be calling you 1.0 again? Because I’m not gonna lie, I kinda missed him—”
“Very funny,” Buck rolls his eyes, drops his bag with a thunk in the locker room. Eddie catches his eye above the rest of the team’s heads, lifting one eyebrow in a silent, all good? In answer, to both of them, really, Buck says, “My check engine light came on last night.”
“Aw, I liked the Jeep,” Hen says, taking a seat beside Buck on the small bench.
Buck pulls his shirt over his shoulders and tosses it into the locker Eddie has propped open for him, “Me too.”
“Well now I feel bad,” Chim pouts.
“That’s new.”
“I mean, I’ve had it forever, right?” Buck kicks off his shoes, maybe a little too petulantly, “I was looking it up last night—”
“And you found twenty different ways your car was gonna malfunction and kill you on the way here this morning?” Hen finishes for him, “Hence, the fancy coffee.”
“That was the plan, except they messed it up, and this tastes like shit.”
Hen lifts the lid cautiously to her lips, and then her eyes shoot wide with a gasp, “Whole milk!”
“Dead Jeep and lactose,” Chim shakes his head, leaning into the doorway, “What’d you do to piss off the gods today, Buckley?”
“That’s the thing! I have no idea —”
“I’m sorry, am I missing something?” Eddie finally says something, interjecting with one hand still halfway into Buck’s locker where he was reaching for his uniform shirt to toss him, “Why are we hosting a funeral for Buck’s truck in here?”
Buck gives Eddie a silent look of his own, hands outstretched for his shirt, and then, “Because the check engine light came on.”
Eddie’s brow lifts and his lips scrunch simultaneously and Buck forgets he’s having a bad day.
“Because the check engine light came on?” he echoes. Then shakes his head, like he’s trying to unscramble the thought in his brain, “You know that could mean, like, a million different things, right?”
“The check engine light is the kiss of death,” Chim explains for him, hands gesticulating wildly as he does, “Yeah sure, at first you bring it to the mechanic and it’s just a loose valve somewhere. But a loose valve turns into a rusty gear, and a faulty ignition, and next thing you know your car has been up on that lift for 3 whole months and you’ve replaced the whole engine, all four tires, and you’re 20k poorer.”
“And then they hold onto it for a few more weeks before finally pronouncing it’s a total loss,” Hen adds mournfully, “DOA.”
Eddie’s eyes are comically wide, finally leaning forward to hand Buck his t-shirt, “And I’m assuming you’re all speaking from experience?”
“Buckaroo’s Jeep was the last one standing.”
“And I will take immense pride in that little victory today,” Buck points, lips turning up in a smile.
Hen places a hand on Buck’s knee, and turns to look at him, voice low and serious, “I have oat milk upstairs, too.”
“Henrietta!” Buck drawls as she leans into his side laughing, head on his shoulder as Buck focuses on the loop of his belt. Chim is just starting to say something about soothing his wounds with new pictures of his niece, and god, does that sound like the cure-all to end all cure-alls, and maybe Buck should break his truck more often, feeling flushed and warm from all the attention, quite the turnaround from when he stalked in here 7 minutes ago, but then—
Eddie bursts into laughter.
Like clutch his stomach, bent over with the force of it, eyes glistening kind of laughter.
Today is a bad day , Buck reminds himself. Your Jeep is good as dead. You love your Jeep. You love Eddie --fuck, no, no. You love your truck . You will miss your truck. You want to kiss the laughter off your best friend’s stupid face —
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Eddie wheezes, arms crossed and back pressed into the lockers, “It’s just—I have heard you people come up with a lot of things in my time here, but this is absolutely the most ridiculous one. His car is fine!”
“Did you not hear a word we just said?”
“He drove here this morning!” Eddie yelps over Buck’s head at Chim.
“Right, but something is wrong with it,” Buck tries to catch Eddie’s gaze, which is dangerous, because the way he looks when he laughs like this, oh my god , “I have to take it to get fixed.”
“Which is a slippery slope!” Hen adds.
“You’re all really serious about this?” Eddie’s face is pinched with disbelief, but he’s still smiling, and Buck has forgotten both his shoes are still untied, “What does Cap think about this?”
“I think all four members of my team are late instead of just the one I sent you down to retrieve,” Bobby appears in the doorway behind Chim, voice even and authoritative, but a betraying quirk up of his lips. He looks between the four of them, and asks a simple, “What happened?”
“Buck’s check engine light came on!” Chim whirls on him in a tense whisper.
“On the way here?” Bobby tilts his chin down to Buck.
Buck shakes his head, “Last night.”
“My condolences.”
“ No !” Eddie shrieks, “Not you too!”
“I have yet to find a mechanic in this city that doesn't make my car worse before it gets better in all the years I’ve been here,” Bobby says.
“It’s true.”
“The guy by your old apartment wasn’t bad, what was his name?”
“Oh no, he way over-charged Maddie when—”
“I’ll do it.”
Buck stills, and can feel the rest of his team still right along with him, when Eddie finally interjects over their chatter.
“ I’ll do it ,” Eddie repeats, looking at Buck in one of those silent conversation ways again, but Buck actually can’t figure out what he’s trying to say this time. It messes with his brain, until Eddie speaks again, “I’ll pretend to only be a little offended none of you have thought to ask me before, but Buck, I’ve fixed a lot of cars. I can look at yours.”
“Really?” is the first and only thing Buck can think to lamely respond with.
“Yes, really,” Eddie rolls his eyes, kicks at Buck’s boot to remind him they’re still untied. “It’s still driveable, right?”
“Yeah,” Buck really puts those one syllable responses to work here.
“Great, you can take it to my house when we leave. And I won’t even charge you,” Eddie winks, he winks , and Buck really needs to know what he did to the gods to deserve a check engine light, bad coffee, and Eddie’s full and undivided attention all in the span of 20 minutes. Eddie grins wider and tacks on a cheeky, “A lot. I won’t charge you a lot .”
“Dinner, maybe, sounds fair,” Chim chimes in, shit-eating grin that Buck goes back to wanting to toss hot coffee at.
“Okay,” Buck nods.
“What if it takes a long time to fix?” Hen asks, a weird lilt to her voice Buck can’t place.
“I have a car,” Eddie shrugs, the annoying teenage spirit of his son taking over him for a second, “And get this—Buck and I? We work at the same place!”
“Right,” Buck breathes, begging his brain to come back on line, and fast.
Bobby fixes a hard look at Eddie, then flits his gaze to Buck, then back to Eddie, and after two long beats where no one continues to mourn the Jeep or commiserate over the state of LA mechanics or for the love of god, warn Buck about what a catastrophically bad idea this is because he clearly can’t come to that conclusion himself, Bobby claps his hands together.
“I think that’s a great idea,” their captain beams, and taps twice on the doorframe to signal them out, “C’mon, I’m making breakfast. In honor of the Jeep.”
“To the Jeep!” Hen salutes, holding Buck’s whole milk coffee up in salute.
Chim follows closely behind her, leaving Buck alone with Eddie and his weird, piercing gaze.
“You don’t have to do this, Eddie,” Buck manages lowly.
“Tie your shoes,” is how he answers, smile like a shot of the caffeine Buck didn’t get this morning.
But he does, really, need to finish getting into uniform and get to work, so he does as he’s told, and blames the breakfast he knows is waiting upstairs on the roll in his stomach, and the lack of sleep on the fuzzy feeling in his brain, and his stupid, awful, good for nothing check engine light for just about everything else. Including Eddie.
Buck feels him squeeze his shoulder on his way out, mumbling something through laughter about saving him a seat at the memorial breakfast .
Yeah. Especially Eddie.
Buck pulls into Eddie’s driveway 24 hours give or take later and wonders if maybe the thing wrong with his truck is the AC.
Because one look at Eddie, standing beside his own truck he’s parked in the street, flinging his arms around in what Buck assumes is supposed to be a very poor pantomime of waving a finish line checkered flag, and Buck feels his whole face flame up. And then some.
He rolls his car to a full and complete stop, leaning his elbows on the steering wheel, whispers to himself, “I am so fucked.”
There’s 3 light taps on his window, and a particularly bright post-work Eddie.
He rolls down his window in time to catch the tail end of Eddie’s teasing cheer, “And the crowd goes wild!”
“I hate you.”
“C’mon, lemme see this evil doomsday light,” and then Eddie—god, this should be illegal after a 24-hour shift, or maybe ever—leans his forearms on the edge of the window and leans forward, pulling the hem of his t-shirt sleeves taut, cheek so close to Buck’s they might as well be touching.
It’s so hot . The car, Buck corrects, hot because the AC is not working.
“I wasn’t lying,” Buck grumbles, trying to school his features.
“I didn’t think you were.”
“Well, there it is,” Buck lifts one finger off the wheel to point to the culprit, “So what’s wrong with it, car whisperer?”
“Car whisperer the best you could come up with?”
“I’m tired,” he rolls his eyes.
“Needa get a closer look,” Eddie trails, and oh no—he leans in even further. Buck bites his lips together so tightly he could draw blood.
The problem is that Buck can’t even remember the time when this suddenly became a conscious problem he had to battle on the daily. It would have been really convenient if a handy little light came on to let him know he was going to break down. He feels like this now, all the time, whatever Eddie does, warm and fond and out of his goddamn mind all at once, and sort of like his car, Buck knows, logically, Eddie is the only one who can fix it.
One problem at a time, Buck steadies himself. The Jeep . This is about the Jeep.
“What do you see? Total loss?”
“Nothing,” Eddie laughs brightly, elbowing Buck as he slides his torso back out, “I see nothing because I need to, you know, actually—”
“Check the engine.”
“Check the engine,” Eddie grins, the sunlight behind him hitting him in a way that really isn’t helping the clear air conditioning issue Buck is having. “You didn’t actually think I could fix your car by squinting at your dashboard, did you?”
Buck sputters, finally turning the traitorous engine off, and trying to joke, “Well if I knew you couldn’t, I wouldn’t have hired you.”
“Seeing as I have yet to receive any compensation, I don’t think I was technically hired.”
“I have to pay you before you fix my car?” Buck levels, “What if you make it worse?”
“Consider it a down payment,” Eddie backs up a step, kindly, so Buck can reteach himself how to breathe. It was touch-and-go there for a minute. “Security deposit.”
“How much do I owe you?”
“A meal,” Eddie says, and heads back down his driveway, calling over his shoulder to signal Buck really should be joining him, “Then I’m taking a nap, and then I can fix your car.”
Buck lets out a long, strangled breath, as he swings his car door open, unsure when he’ll step foot in it again, completely at the mercy of Eddie for the foreseeable future.
Eddie shakes his keys in the air when Buck still has made very little movement to join him, “You driving? Or is it too soon?”
I am so fucked tally count: 2
“I can still take my business elsewhere, asshole,” Buck lies, easily, because there’s no world in which he goes anywhere else, but holds out his hands. “When we get back, can you look at my air conditioning? I think that might be it.”
“I was wondering why you looked so red,” Eddie climbs into the passenger seat after tossing Buck his keys.
Correction: 3 .
Buck is so, so, so fucked.
They do get something to eat, and Buck does have probably the greatest post-shift nap of his life on Eddie’s couch, but the car does not get fixed.
Not that day, and not that night, and definitely not before 7 am the next morning when Buck feels himself being corralled out the door by Staff Sergeant Diaz.
“Is he always like this?” Buck leans into Chris at the kitchen table, swirling his coffee around in an LA Zoo mug.
“Worse, usually,” Chris grins around a mouthful of cereal Eddie shoved at him a few seconds earlier, between hopping to get shoes on. “You’re lucky he only asked you if you brushed your teeth once this morning.”
“Hmm,” Buck takes a sip of his coffee, “He did try to iron my shirt for me while it was on my body.”
“Better you than me,” Chris giggles, and continues to devour his breakfast as hurricane Eddie makes some serious headway through the kitchen. Buck’s been around for his fair share of Diaz household mornings, but he must have missed, somehow, the perfect storm that is a work and school morning. For all three of them. Today’s the day though, as Buck listened to Eddie’s feet slide across the hardwood floor before his alarm to shake Chris awake, and has not seen him stop moving since.
There’s way too much fretting and doting for Buck’s liking this early in the morning. He’s not pointing out if Chris isn’t though.
Human stress ball Eddie Diaz zips back into the kitchen, shuffling through a pile of miscellaneous papers and envelopes and old receipts on his counter, his face scrunched so furiously Buck is worried it’s going to start to hurt, “That permission slip I was supposed to sign for you, Chris—”
“Buck already put it away for me,” Chris answers. “We left it in the living room last night.”
“Lunch?” Eddie moves on to fiddling with his belt.
“Check.”
“Uh oh, that’s gonna piss him off,” Buck snickers behind his mug.
“Did you—”
“Our turn for a question!” Buck pipes up before Eddie can make his head explode.
“What?” Eddie crosses his arms over his chest, only mildly glaring.
“Can you sit down and join us for breakfast?”
“No, we need to be in the car five minutes ago,” Eddie scrubs a hand over his face, like he can wipe the morning away with it, “I just need—”
Buck slides a second mug he had been holding hostage towards Eddie, little tufts of steam still coming up.
“My hero,” Eddie deadpans, takes one long sip, and then, “Okay team, let’s go, let’s go.”
“Yes sir,” Buck salutes cheekily, just to see Eddie roll his eyes. Buck leans down to grab Chris’s half empty bowl from him, and whispers in passing, “He’s gonna make me sleep on the porch tonight.”
“I won’t let it get to that. I’ve got your back,” Chris whispers back, pushing his chair in and starting towards the door.
As soon as he’s out of earshot, Eddie is trying (and spectacularly, gorgeously failing, if you ask Buck) to suppress a smile around his coffee, “I taught him that line.”
“It’s a good one,” Buck says, bumping into Eddie’s shoulder as they head for the door, “We’re on time, you know?”
“I know, I know,” Eddie bumps his shoulder right back, the quiet sounds of Chris getting his shoes on ahead of them, meaning they’ve got a full minute before Eddie really does push Buck out the door. “I don’t know what’s up with me today.”
“To be fair, usually the mornings I spend here, it’s not all hands on deck like this. One of us is either injured, or ill, or unresponsive, or, you know, working a 9 to 5,” Buck lists dopily, relishing in how it doesn’t make the air constrict in his lungs at all to say like it would have maybe a few months ago.
“Well that’s not very fair to the Jeep,” and isn’t it the tiniest little miracle, the way Eddie just keeps smiling at him? He presses the palms of his hands into the wall behind him, and grins, “Who is very injured.”
“No thanks to you,” Buck teases.
“I’m looking at it when we get home, I swear.”
“Mhm.”
“I was exhausted last night, don’t even pretend you weren’t too,” Eddie kicks a foot out petulantly, like he’s swinging to hit Buck, missing horribly and smile sticking so bright like he doesn’t even care. Buck has never felt this alive so early into a day before. “I haven’t slept that good in, I don’t, months, probably.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Eddie’s eyes find his, and Buck swears the clock on the wall stops ticking. “I’m really glad you’re here.”
Buck has spent a lot of mornings here, sure, but none of them have ever felt so close to this. To some kind of practiced permanence. Something feels different, and not just the way Buck is trying (and spectacularly, gorgeously failing, if you ask probably anyone except Eddie) (please don’t ask Eddie) to suppress his feelings around his best friend. It could be that all three of them are safe and heading to work and school, like he pointed out. But it feels like something else he can’t quite name yet, but sees in the easy slope of Eddie’s smile, and the thrill of Chris’s laughter, and the way they’ve navigated to where they are now.
And he hasn’t even gotten to the when we get home of it all yet.
“I’m really glad I’m here, too.”
Any inner monologuing Buck thinks he’s going to get a chance to do after that charged exchange is swiftly cut off by Chris yelling, “Thought we needed to be in the car five minutes ago, hm?”
“He is so your kid,” Buck mumbles, leaning in towards Eddie to grab his bag, and pushes the door open for them, “Think of what would happen if we gave him a clipboard.”
Did you know that the earliest versions of check engine lights were called idiot lights ?
Because Buck didn’t, but he sure does now, 20-minutes deep into his Wikipedia-shaped distraction.
“Did you check the gas cap?”
“I did.”
“The O2 sensor?”
“All good.”
“What about—” Buck squints at his phone, overheating in his hand from scrolling furiously, “This can’t be a real thing in there—something called the, uh, catalytic converter ?”
“What are you reading, Buck?” Eddie asks, just this side of fond beyond exasperated.
“13 most common reasons for a check engine light,” Buck responds, and must forget why he’s reading this unhelpful article in the first place, because he looks up and sees Eddie and yeah. Yeah.
Eddie is leaning over the open hood of Buck’s Jeep, sweaty and rumpled from the sun and the heat and the work and there is grease on his hands like he’s in a movie they’d be making down the street to gross a billion at the box office even if the plot is shitty because the actors in it are so goddamn—
“It could be overheating,” Buck ducks his head back down.
He’s sitting a good six feet away, on the ledge of a step up to the front door, while Eddie works in the driveway, because he’d asked Buck to join him but Buck couldn’t really join him . Because if his dad had ever thought teaching Buck about cars would’ve been a fun activity, it wouldn’t have mattered the second Eddie walked out, flipped up the hood, and looked like that.
Buck’s mind went blissfully, cruelly blank. He’s trying to actively refill it.
Idiot lights . Invented in 1930 by the Hudson Motor Company in Detroit, Michigan to alert drivers to major engine issues. Not to be confused with the check engine light that replaced it later, which could alert drivers to a whole array of problems, (thirteen common ones, Buck has learned,) using a computerized control system.
Idiot light feels fitting though, because Buck truly can’t remember why he agreed to this in the first place. It’s idiotic. Catastrophic. He needs to get a grip before he starts sounding even more like a Grease lyric.
“You haven’t turned it on for three days now,” Eddie tuts, “It’s definitely not overheating.”
Well, that’s good for the Jeep. Buck simply cannot relate.
“What is a mass airflow sensor?” Buck ignores him, and reads on.
“I’m gonna confiscate that in 30 seconds if you don’t stop,” Eddie laughs, but goes back to staring intently at something in the car like a mass airflow sensor or a catalytic converter or whatever. Buck truly wouldn’t know. Even though he’s read enough on the subject in the last 20 minutes. (He has not retained a single sentence in favor of retaining the way Eddie looks in what he calls ‘work jeans’. Work jeans . Like Buck could get any work done at their actual workplace if those jeans were required attire.)
“Sorry, I’m sorry, I’ll let you work,” Buck rests his phone on his knee, palms pressing into the pavement at his side and looking up at Eddie again, you know, like an idiot light. “It really is impressive that you can do this.”
“It really isn’t,” Eddie shakes his head, “Not as much as you guys made it out to be.”
“Have I not made it abundantly clear yet how little I know what I’m doing here?” Buck tilts his head to the side, watches Eddie, all almost 6 feet of him, press up onto his toes, and it really shouldn’t have the effect that it does on him, “You could just stand there looking at it for three more hours and I’d be impressed.”
More truthful than teasing, but if Eddie picks up on it, he doesn’t show it.
“You wouldn’t know if I was standing here and doing nothing though.”
“Correct,” Buck points, shielding the setting sun from his eyes with a squint, “Though I believe you are because you and Chris would be stuck with my snoring if you didn’t.”
Eddie makes a pleased little humming noise that Buck barely notices.
“Seriously, though, you can drop me back off at my place—”
“ No , no that makes no sense,” Eddie whips around to face him now, hip pressed into a headlight, “I mean, unless you wanna take it to an actual mechanic, probably fix it quicker—”
“No,” Buck spits back just as fast.
“Okay then, you’ll stay here,” Eddie turns back to work just as quickly, which would be weird if Buck could make sense of the alphabet soup in his brain that looks a lot like something between car manufacturing history and Eddie’s arms. “Easier, so you can, uh, you know. Use my car. Carpool. In the meantime.”
“Right,” Buck says, leveled. He watches Eddie breathe, his chest expanding slowly, methodically, his fingers drumming on the edge of the car, probably looking for the next thing to fix that Buck well and truly will never understand.
“Actually,” Eddie gives Buck whiplash with how quickly he changes position, now back to Buck, gently closing the hood, “I think I know what it might be.”
“No way, what, uh—what was it?”
Eddie looks a little dazed, the fumes starting to get to him, if Buck had to guess, and he presses a hand against his forehead while he looks for the words,
“You know what? Doesn’t matter!” Buck says brightly, “How can I help?”
“Um, I actually,” Eddie starts stammering again, “I think I need to buy a part.”
“Oh?” Buck leans forward, forearms on his knees, “That works out, we can stop and pick it up before we get Chris from school. Want me to grab your keys?”
“Actually, I think, the place,” Eddie glances down to his wrist for a watch that isn’t there, “Is closed.”
“Alright, no worries,” Buck squints at him, “You feeling okay, Handy Manny?”
Eddie finally detaches himself from his worried slump against the truck, and brushes past Buck, hand squeezing his shoulder gently in a way that does not at all match his, “I hate you.”
“Sure you do.”
“I’m getting my keys, don’t move.”
And well, Buck doesn’t need to be told twice. He sits, unmoving, his own personal idiot light blinks bright and rapidly, and he wishes there was a Wikipedia page in existence that could explain a way out of this to him.
“I have to make a call so, I’m gonna run to the car now. Meet you there?”
Buck peeks around the side of his locker door, where Eddie has just slammed his shut. He leans his chin on his fingers where he’s holding on, rocking the door forward and back, nervous habit, “Everything okay?”
“PT has an insurance question, I think,” Eddie shakes his head, “Five minutes?”
“Five minutes.”
Buck watches Eddie press something into his phone, then slot it between his shoulder and his ear as he heads out of the station, reaching for his keys in his back pocket while it rings, probably, and even though his back is to him now, Buck can picture the exact furrow of his brow, the polite smile Eddie makes when he’s on the phone because he hates phone calls, and maybe Buck should have told him to wait, and make the call while he was there, in the passenger seat, and could help—
“How’s that going by the way?”
It’s as effective as the locker slamming shut on his fingers, when Hen’s voice registers, and Buck all but jumps out of his train of thought.
“The Jeep,” Hen clarifies, when all Buck can string together is a hmph, “It’s been a week and you’re still carpooling. Is it bad?”
“Hm?” Buck hums, finding himself, “Uh, no. It’s fine, I guess? Eddie replaced something in it yesterday.”
“ Something ?”
“I can’t pay attention when he uses car part terminology,” Buck huffs, fiddling with an old shirt in his locker that he probably needs to take home to wash. Did Eddie take home shirts too? They could probably time a load perfectly between dinner when they got—
“Right, but it’s fixed?” Hen interrupts again, smile playing at her lips as she changes out of her work shoes.
Buck shakes his head, “We thought it was, but this morning Eddie went to start it so I could drive here, and said something was still wrong.”
She leans forward, peeking up at him above the rim of her glasses, “Really? Eddie said that? You didn’t check yourself?”
“He knows way more than I do,” Buck shrugs. “When he says it’s fixed, it’s fixed.”
“Right,” she repeats, no liess quizzically, and Buck wonders if all this time he should have been cataloging the wordless expressions of the rest of his team as closely as he can name every face Eddie makes, because he doesn’t know what Hen is trying to say to him with this look.
“I should probably…” he juts a thumb out to where Eddie left, grabbing his bag.
And if Hen notices it hasn’t been five minutes the way Buck does, she chooses to ignore it the way Buck does too.
Buck maintains his innocence.
Because in just a week or two, Eddie’s truck has become one of Buck’s favorite places in the world, and there’s absolutely nothing he’s done to make that happen.
No, Buck just gets in the car, like he’s told and like he has to.
It’s all Eddie.
Eddie won’t move the passenger seat when he sits in it because he had watched, hunched on his forearms on the wheel with no less than stars in his eyes, Buck spend 13 full minutes trying to get it in the exact right position. Eddie lets Buck pick music for the way to work, and music for the way home, and music if that’s in the morning, but different music if that’s at night. Eddie cleans up the water Buck spills in the cup holder and looks like he’s actively trying to be mad about it and failing, and Eddie keeps his eyes fiercely on the road while he swipes blindly with a hand the powdered sugar donut remnants off the front of Buck’s shirt. Eddie hangs the bracelet Buck made bored out of his mind on a shift behind his rearview mirror. Eddie has coffee ready in the car on mornings Buck ducks in after him, and he never messes it up like the baristas at the place around the corner of his loft.
Eddie drives down blocks he knows with his head turned to Buck instead of on the road, gentle smile on his face.
And Buck? Buck doesn’t do anything but be comfortable.
Eddie could drive to the end of the earth and back and Buck wouldn’t mind, wouldn’t move an inch from his seat on Eddie’s right that fits him just right.
“I didn’t know we moved to the Arctic,” Buck curls in on himself, goosebumps dotted over his arms.
“We didn’t, Dad has always been an evil air conditioning power czar,” Chris grumbles from the backseat, in a more creative way than Buck would have put it to say: Eddie loves to blast the air. In any and all weather conditions.
“You’re lucky we have AC, kid,” Eddie challenges, and Buck’s brain cells are freeze dried currently, so he can’t stop himself from thinking this thought that Eddie when he’s flip-flopping between power czar and grumpy old dad is the hottest thing on the planet. “Back when I was your age—”
“Dinosaurs stood on the side of the road and flapped tree leaves to make air,” Buck supplies the rest of the sentence for him, catching Chris’s twinkling eye in the rearview mirror. Little victories with newly crowned angsty teenagers, you know?
“We’re the same age.”
“You’re a little older,” Buck retorts, a breath away from sticking his tongue out to prove his point.
“Excuse me for liking to be cool,” Eddie steers back onto the road, light turning green, and steers back to the topic at hand, “And the AC fan, I just think it’s—”
“Soothing, like white noise,” Buck finishes his thought for him again, with accuracy this time, he knows, because Eddie had mentioned this once, maybe three years ago now, but Buck always thinks of it, keeps his AC blasting if Eddie’s driving with him. Doesn’t mean he can’t be a little shit about being cold though. “Yeah, I know, I’m soothed and shivering. Chris?” Buck turns around, largely to avoid Eddie’s scorcher of a smile when he should be eye rolling, but also to address Chris directly, “Can I cash in a favor and borrow your emergency sweatshirt for the rest of the ride?”
“I can do you one better,” Eddie replies before Chris can, and he does that thing again, reaching backwards while his torso stays forward and it makes every muscle in his arm look Herculean and every nerve in Buck’s body rethink complaining about the cool air. When he rights back up, he’s placing a sweatshirt in Buck’s lap.
Buck’s sweatshirt.
Buck never put this sweatshirt in here.
“What is this?” Buck asks, even though he knows exactly what it is.
Eddie got Buck an in case of emergency sweatshirt.
There’s tons of stuff scattered in and around this car, Buck knows, for Chris. Little things Eddie worries he may need—bandaids and extra books for traffic, phone chargers and glasses, empty water bottles, old homework, extra shoes even and yeah, a sweatshirt. Just in case.
And Eddie has started collecting things for Buck. Just in case.
“I tried to steal one from your bag you wouldn’t miss too much,” is all Eddie answers.
“Unless you still want mine,” Chris teases, leaning forwards to grab his from the pocket on the back of the seat Eddie had just grabbed Buck’s from.
Buck feels a little too off-kilter still, to have anything funny to say back to that, about power trips or dinosaurs or anything that isn’t a beat short of a Shakepearian sonnet.
So, “Thanks,” Buck says, pulling the sweatshirt to his chest.
None of it is Buck’s fault. He just wants to keep making that perfectly, and abundantly clear.
“I can get a Uber.”
“I genuinely cannot figure out how that is easier than just getting in my car.”
“Maybe it’s not easier, but…” Buck tries insisting for the seventeenth time this afternoon, pressing his hands into the cool kitchen counter nervously, “You didn’t really sign up to be my chauffeur.”
“No, I did not. Here, you dry,” Eddie tosses a dish towel at Buck before turning on the faucet, like this conversation isn’t fazing him at all.
“So let me get a Uber.”
“Maddie and Chim’s is on the way to Chris’s sleepover, which, speaking of,” Eddie, scrubs at a bowl from lunch without looking, to instead tilt his head towards the doorway, and pitches his voice up, “ Christopher, five minutes! ”
There’s a muffled yeah dad! somewhere in the distance, but Buck can’t stop staring at Eddie. And drying. He takes dish-drying duty too seriously to slack, even at a time like this.
“I feel bad,” Buck pouts.
“There’s no reason to,” Eddie hands Buck some cleaned silverware. “I am driving you to your sister’s, and any place else you want, literally any time you need me to, not because I signed up to drive you around, but because I signed up to be your friend.”
Buck lets a fork clatter onto the counter, and the left corner of his lips quirk up in a small smile.
“Eventually.”
“Yeah, eventually, a few bench presses and a bomb later,” Eddie laughs, “I’m serious Buck. I never meant to make you feel like—this is not—if I did, the past few weeks, then I’m sorry.”
“What are you walking about?” What was
Eddie
apologizing for? Buck—
Buck
should be apologizing. He dropped his car in his driveway and is sleeping on his couch and eating his food and making him drive him places he needs to be and—
“This is not transactional, me and you,” Eddie passes a soapy hand between their torsos. “I’m allowed to do you favors, multiple at a time even, no reason other than that I can. You have to know that by now, because you do a shit ton of stuff for me and Chris. Just because you can .”
It is probably an illogical thought to think about getting on one knee after the guy just monologued about friendship but illogical has never stopped Buck before. Illogical could be his middle name. (Really, could be, his parents probably misplaced his birth certificate years ago. Buck wouldn’t know.)
“Well my rating’s gonna take a hit when I cancel that ride, but fine,” Buck says, scrubbing at a spot on the counter with his dish towel, “You can be my friend. Or whatever.”
Buck doesn’t mean to do anything differently with his voice on that last part, but he must’ve because Eddie quirks a brow up at him, steadily resuming his dishwashing, “Or whatever?”
“Yeah, you know,” Buck makes the situation a million times better.
“Sure,” and Buck doesn’t even chance looking at him for that, wants to have no idea what Eddie’s face does when he replies, even if he can hear the smile around the word.
“I feel like a kid being dropped off for a playdate.”
“That’s because you kinda are.”
Eddie reaches across the center console to hi-five his son for that.
Buck sulks in the backseat.
“This is ridiculous.”
“You did wanna take a Uber,” Chris giggles, this teenager. Buck needs to squish him back down into the size he was when he met him and you know, thought Buck was the coolest guy on the planet. Not back seat material.
“Dropping my boys off for their playdates, they grow up so fast,” Eddie wipes a fake tear off his cheek, turning onto Maddie and Chim’s street. “Do I have to give the spiel? Make good choices, call me if you wanna leave early, if you miss me, or wanna be home, I’m always available, be a nice guest—what am I missing Chris?”
And you know what? Buck would really, really love to sarcastically quip back at that, but his mind is stuck on a loop of my boys, my boys, my boys.
“Eat your vegetables?” Chris says seriously.
“Right, and chew with your mouth closed.”
Buck manages to scrape together a few brain cells, “I won’t miss you or wanna leave early because you're evil, the both of you.”
“Mhm,” Eddie hums, catching his eye in the rear view mirror as he pulls the car to a stop, and the door to the house flies open simultaneously.
“Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a play date to attend to,” Buck pushes his door open with a little hmph , and runs around the back to peek out from the side. “Where’s my favorite niece?”
Jee-yun had started her full-force sprint from the door towards Buck with at least 5 toys balanced precariously in her arms, and by the time she’s giggling and swept into Buck’s, there is one lone survivor, appropriately a (very sharp) plastic fire truck, getting wedged right into Buck’s chest. Buck plants a kiss on her temple, spinning her around a little with the motion.
Once she’s been sufficiently smothered in love, Jee looks right up into her poor, unsuspecting Uncle’s eyes and asks, simply, “Eddie and Chris?”
“Wow,” Buck jokingly deflates, “Called you my favorite niece for nothing!” But Jee is still giggling, and Buck feels kind of ridiculous for the way her asking for them on reflex when she sees Buck makes him feel. Like they’re a unit.
Chris is full-fledged teenage angst in all things, apparently, except how he adores Jee-yun, and is practically halfway out his window reaching for her, Jee squirmy in Buck’s arms as she tries to hug him through the rolled down window.
“Jee, my girl!” Eddie reaches over for—Buck is not exaggerating—the world’s cutest fist-bump, “How was school?”
“I got a sticker!” Jee beams, showing off the sticker on the front of her shirt.
“Of course you did!” Eddie beams right back and Buck feels like he’s standing on quickstand when he leans even closer to them, all bright eyed. “When was the last time you got a sticker, Chris? Hm? Buck?”
Chris is saying his school is paperless and he basically gets a virtual equivalent of a sticker on all his online assignments at the same time Buck is sputtering, “We just don’t carry stickers at the station.”
“Right, that’s it,” Eddie’s eyebrows dance teasingly, and then, “I am so proud of you, Jee.”
“We can share my sticker,” she says, flushing at the praise, staring Eddie down just as intently as he does her, Buck nothing more than her personal stepladder, at this point, to get to him. She takes the sticker from her shirt and starts to rip it in two to pass half to Eddie. Buck’s stomach almost audibly churns—this is not a new development, by any means at all, but it never knocks the air out of his lungs any less. Buck had always known good with kids does it for him, but niece worshiping the ground best friend walks on blows that out of the water.
Buck, not looking for a bruised rib today from Jee’s excited kicking, switches her to his other hip. After the ceremonial passing of the sticker and Eddie showing off the perfect place he would swear on his life to keep it safe tucked in the crevice of the visor above the windshield, she and Chris get into some discussion about show and tell, because that shit is serious in pre-K of course, and Buck tries to figure out how inconspicuous he can be about getting a picture of it.
“I hope this doesn’t set a precedent on how we have to greet Eddie,” Chim quips, coming to stand beside Buck, “Because I really don’t need you expecting me to drop toys at your feet each time I walk into work.”
“Well then don’t be surprised when I have a favorite Buckley Han, and it’s neither of you two,” Eddie grins from his seat, eyes flitting between Buck and Chim. “Though every toy may not have been necessary…”
“Oh they absolutely were, because she agonized over which new toy of hers she wanted to show Chris from the second I mentioned you guys were dropping Buck off, and not staying all night to see all of them,” Chim responds, trying to keep all toys in question in his own arms, now collected, “Because you shouldn’t be . Just dropping him off, that is.”
“Exactly what I told him,” Buck agrees, because in between the breakdown he had over washing dishes earlier, he did tell Eddie, multiple times , to just come to Maddie and Chim’s for dinner with him. If he wouldn’t let him Uber.
“I gotta take Christopher—”
“Come back,” Chim implores.
“I don’t wanna intrude.”
“You would not be, we have plenty of food—”
“No, no, this is family dinner, I am just,” Eddie swivels a little in his seat, shoulders squared towards Buck, “Dropping off a friend, or whatever.”
“Or whatever,” Buck shrugs.
“I don’t know what that means, and I don’t care,” Chim waves them off, “Come back, I mean it.”
“Family dinner,” Eddie repeats, then turns to the four year old, “Jee, I’m so happy I got to see you.”
“You come back?”
And Buck wonders if Jee really came out here to show off her toys, or as a bargaining tactic Chim was using to convince Eddie. Because he looks so very close to caving.
“Next time, play date at my house, okay?” Eddie leans over, a conspiratorial whisper, “I have better toys than Uncle Buck’s apartment.”
It’s easy enough to get her on board, a giggle and one last death-grip hug goodbye to Chris, but Chim looks like he wants to press the issue again. He doesn’t though, and steps back up onto his walkway.
“You remember the spiel, Buck?” Chris asks, that teasing twinkle in his eyes back, readjusting his seatbelt.
“Do you?” Buck counters, “Same rules apply to me, you know. Always available.”
“I know. When you have a car,” Chris smiles, “Have a good play date.”
“You’re the worst,” Buck rolls his eyes fondly, joining Chim up on the curb, and lifts one of Jee's hands to wave, “Bye-bye, Diazes!”
Eddie’s truck blinks back to life, and Buck hallucinates it stalling for a second, he thinks, probably just spending too much time poring over his sad, dejected Jeep with Eddie lately (which, in the most recent development from Car Dr Diaz, probably needs an oil change now) before he hits the gas, and drives down the street.
“So!” Chim grins once the car is out of sight, “How’s the truck coming?”
“Shut up.”
“ His car is fine, you guys are so dramatic, I can use my big beautiful muscles to fix it for him ,” Chim does the poorest imitation of what Buck thinks is supposed to be Eddie’s voice, but he’s likely a biased judge, because he thinks Eddie’s voice could kickstart world peace.
“He didn’t say that,” Buck huffs, and despite his tone, reaches for a toy from Chim so he’s not stuck impossibly with all of them.
“You didn’t deny the big beautiful muscles bit.”
“What do you want me to say, Chim?” Buck exasperates, “He offered to fix my car, he’s doing it for free, and until it is, fixed , I have no other way to get around.”
“Is that so?”
“Rideshare apps are getting out of control with fees,” Buck presses, waiting for Chim to push the door open for them. “And unless I missed the call where you offer to lend me your car—”
“Take the bus.”
“ The bus ?” Buck all but squawks, and he’d be embarrassed by the affronted sound he didn’t even know he could make if it didn’t delight Jee to no end, her cheek pressing into his collarbone contented, “I’d have to leave for work three hours early!”
“You’ve also yet to explain why you’re living with him,” Chim taunts.
“That’s where the cars are.”
“You ever slept over your mechanic’s?” Chim taunts, and when Jee has to physically close Buck’s mouth with one of her tiny hands because he’s left it gaping two beats too long, Chim leans back against the door after it's locked up, smile two degrees too pleased. “That’s what I thought.”
“Hey Buck, hey—” Maddie careens in from the kitchen, expression faltering when she looks between the three of them. She pulls the phone away from her ear and peeks around again, like they’re hiding something from her. “I’m on the phone with Linda, she wanted to say hi. Where’s Eddie?”
“Isn’t that the question of the hour,” Chim kisses the side of Jee’s head, like habit, as he passes them, dropping her toys back with the rest, and leaving Buck by the doorway, rocking side to side on his feet. With a sigh, Chim calls, “He dropped Buck off.”
Maddie gasps, downright scandalized, “Evan!”
“That was not full name worthy.”
“You made him drop you off !”
“He had to take Chris someplace,” Buck repeats.
“Linda, I’ll call you back,” Maddie narrows her eyes at her brother, and Buck suddenly feels the size of his niece in his arms. Maddie was always so good at that look , “I need to teach my baby brother some manners.”
“We told him to come back!” Jee squeals as Maddie hangs up her phone.
“Yes, thank you, Jee-yun, we told him to come back ,” Buck echoes, really loving that his teammate in this is a four year old. “I told him several times to come, but he kept saying this was family dinner—”
“Exactly.”
“You should be thankful he’s not here, actually, because then Chim wouldn’t be able to interrogate me about my car,” Buck says, placing Jee down by her toys, stretching his arms out with a slight groan because she is getting so big and oh , she’s getting so big he kind of needs to cry about it.
No time for sentiment though, because Chim is back to full-body cackling from his perch against the dining room table.
“He’s living with him, Maddie!”
“I know, I just thought,” Maddie’s voice drops into a whisper Buck assumes is meant just for Chimney, “I thought this was like, a post-dinner topic.”
“You guys planned this ?” Buck balks, flopping onto the nearest couch.
“Buck, I have been planning this ever since you looked at me over my coffee table and ruined some perfectly good takeout by loudly declaring that I was dating your sister.”
“And you married her, so you’re welcome!”
Buck is thankful for weird things these days, more and more often, like getting to fight with Chim like a little brother might, like he never got to. If Jee hadn’t already crawled into Buck’s lap again, (because he’s a good enough stand-in if Eddie can’t stay, clearly,) Buck might be immaturely trying to kick Chim in the shin.
“Let’s start with the car, maybe?” Maddie placates, “Is it really broken?”
“Yeah, it’s really broken—”
“Then maybe you should take it to someone else, a real mechanic—”
“Are you crazy?” Surprisingly, it’s Chim who yells, “He can’t do that, we love the Jeep!”
“Whose side are you on, man?” Buck asks, puzzled, while he lets Jee tie knots with his sweatshirt drawstrings.
“Yours, obviously,” the same way a teenager might say duh , you know, too keep up with the annoying brothers bickering of it all.
“Eddie can fix it,” Buck insists, “We’re just busy, you know? We work 24 hour shifts, and there’s Chris, and it’s an old car so sometimes he fixes one thing that leads to another and it’s just,” Buck sighs. “It’s easier to be there. Really. I was gonna Uber here tonight but I seriously can’t keep that up long term.”
“I’m sure it is easier, and I’m sure he can fix it,” Maddie soothes, “But maybe it’s more difficult because he’s fixing it for you .”
“ Or ! He’s intentionally finding things to keep ‘fixing’,” Chim says in full, over-exaggerated air quotes with his fingers, “So that you stick around longer.”
“That’s definitely not true because I snore on his couch, he can’t wait for me to leave,” Buck points, but twists, jostling Jee a bit with a giggle, to face his sister again, “I wanna go back to Maddie’s point.”
“There’s a lot of pressure to get it right, to not disappoint you.”
“Well now you sound as ridiculous as Chim,” Buck scoffs, “He couldn’t—he’d never—it’s Eddie.”
“I know,” Maddie nods.
“He could pop all four tires himself and I’d still never blame him.”
“We could fix them with stickers,” Jee smiles, all teeth, up at Buck, and he needs to find a way to squish her into his pocket and never let her leave. He’ll settle for tucking her under his chin.
“Absolutely we could,” Buck coos, eyes at Maddie and Chim like, can you believe this girl? and how do you stand it constantly? “You should come over and fix my car since mom and dad don’t think Eddie can.”
“I don’t think that,” Maddie responds lightly, “I am simply trying to give you facts that I have. You had buff-fridays and karaoke for us, we have…this car situation.”
Is this really—Buck stops to think about it. Because—no, no—this is different. Buck knows he feels something. Maddie and Chim hadn’t, that’s why they needed him to, you know, say something. But Buck’s car is broken, and Buck thinks he may love Eddie, and Buck doesn’t know if Eddie can know that. And those are all separate facts. This is different.
“Honestly, there’s been plenty of things I could have used before this, but whatever, we’re here now, and the car actually works well,” Maddie continues before Buck can sink too deep into his own mind. Then, “He cares about you a lot.”
Maybe it’s different. But maybe, in any case, you just need to hear someone else say it out loud.
This doesn’t just exist to you.
You can have this. We think you should have it too.
“I think it’s interesting that when our faucet was leaking last month, you spent the better part of a 24-hour shift spouting off more information than I ever needed to know about plumbing,” Chim interjects, “But you keep insisting you don’t understand cars.”
“Eddie does,” Buck replies simply, “I trust Eddie.” The more than I trust what I can look up, more than anything or anyone , lies unspoken between them all.
But Buck knows they get it, because Chim smiles, “Can you please insist he comes here? It's family dinner.”
“You can blame me, or Jee, or Linda,” Maddie is suddenly whirlwinding around the room again, picking up Jee’s toys, and fluffing couch cushions Buck is literally still sitting on, “Who is spearheading a campaign with all my coworkers asking Chim the next time he needs to step in as captain to fire Eddie so he can come back to dispatch.”
“Will add it to my list, along with sticker acquisition,” Chim laughs. “Also, now that we’ve mentioned it, I’m craving a buff-friday.”
“It’s Sunday,” Buck deadpans.
“Eddie can pick stuff up for us!”
“Good idea, babe. What are we craving? Thai? Italian?” Maddie runs back to the kitchen, turning her chin over her shoulder, “Buck, cover Jee’s ears before she starts asking for—” Maddie cuts herself off and mouths chicken nuggets .
And well, Buck loves his sister and brother-in-law deeply, and this conversation was enlightening in ways he’ll need to unpack when he can’t fall asleep tonight, but it was still an ambush, and he’s still their little brother, so, “You know what I’m craving?” Buck yells, staged and loud, “Chicken nuggets.”
“You’re gonna pay for that,” Maddie glares daggers at him, but her smile betrays her, and really, he can’t care a bit when Jee claps and claps and claps until she claps Buck’s face between her hands.
“Hold on, I wanna go back to one more thing before Eddie gets here—”
“He hasn’t said he’s coming back yet.”
“You asked, he will,” Chim waves him off, “You still have yet to refute the big beautiful muscles thing.”
And well.
“I’m not planning on refuting it,” Buck smiles, “Did you want me to?”
All Buck has to do is text Eddie that he’s invoking spiel point number two.
I miss you, and you’re apparently always available, so…
I’ll promise to eat my vegetables too. With my mouth closed.
Forty minutes and a few deliveries to the door later (because Buck has insisted there was a whole thing this afternoon over drying dishes about Eddie not being his chauffeur so, no, he can’t pick up takeout from all five places they wanted to order from, but he could do like, two or three, if they were close), Buck’s phone lights up beside him with a message from Eddie.
Meet me outside
And then less than four seconds later:
Bring Jee
No parentals
:)
Buck sneaks his niece to the front door, Maddie and Chim sufficiently distracted in the kitchen by the nostalgic happy promise of bringing back their early date night tradition, and makes a squealing run for it with her tossed over one shoulder to Eddie’s truck, which he’s parked but still sitting inside of.
When Buck slides into his seat, (perfectly positioned for him, by the way, Chris didn’t move it, and Buck wants to weep) it becomes abundantly clear why Eddie requested the stealth mission.
No amount of crisp pine air fresheners Eddie keeps stockpiled in here can overwhelm the sweet aroma of fast food.
“You’re a horrible influence,” Buck whispers, for no real reason, because Maddie and Chim can’t hear him out here.
“It came with stickers!” Eddie cheeses, pulling Jee-yun into his lap, “And you promised to eat your vegetables they have waiting for us inside so…”
“You can’t hold me to that,” Buck scoffs, already tossing a gloriously greasy french fry into his mouth.
“I have it in writing,” Eddie rests his chin on top of Jee’s head, like Buck had done earlier, and the there’s too much love in my chest so maybe I need to weep it out count just keeps going up. Eddie’s eyes are unmistakably on Buck’s, though, when he delivers his next line, “Amongst other things.”
Buck’s head flops against the headrest.
“I missed you too,” Eddie admits, so softly Buck just catches it over the thrum of the AC. But he does, hear it, and he stores it away in a spot between his ribcage for safekeeping.
And because that wasn’t enough, Jee decides it’s a good time to add, “Eddie came back!”
“Course kiddo, always will,” Eddie hugs her a little closer, “Now pass me a nugget!”
Eddie’s hands move from outside to in over the course of a car ride.
Buck has studied this intensely. You really shouldn’t sound so surprised by that.
It starts, of course, on the handle. He swings his door open just a smidge and makes conversation with Buck over the top, but he doesn’t get in right away. Buck thinks this might be an unconscious thing Eddie does, but he’s more willing to bet he knows, and hopes no one will catch on (he has, metaphorically, never met Buck.) Eddie small talks and waits, his door open an inch, until everyone else gets in the car first.
Then he’ll swing it open wide, moving his hand to the handle inside, one on the headrest until he’s fully seated.
Eddie turns on the engine, pushes to start, a button halfway hidden behind his giant steering wheel, and shoves his phone somewhere, because he knows Buck will use his own for whatever they need, music or directions or pictures of places they pass to add to the list of places they want to go.
It’s always in the same spot, but Eddie always moves his rearview mirror. A little to the left, and then right back to where it started. Buck thought about pointing it out until one day Buck watched his arm instead of the mirror, and he is hard pressed to find a reason to make Eddie stop the habit.
He puts his right hand on the gear shift, and everyone better hope and pray Buck has had at least four hours of sleep before any time Eddie puts the car in reverse, because then he does that thing . That thing where he backs out of a parking spot and puts his hand on Buck’s headrest for leverage and turns, you know, because Buck needs to add premature heart attack to the list of things he’s survived.
Eddie drives with two hands on the wheel when he starts, firmly in front of him, like a picture from a learner’s permit driving manual that Buck probably had a crush on in high school and just didn’t know it. (He does indeed, have a crush now. Even if that feels juvenile. It's the best word for the flip his stomach does.)
Then he gets comfortable, especially when there’s traffic and they’re in a standstill, and he can get away with one hand on the wheel. The second usually sits, out of habit, on the gear.
But Buck wants so fucking badly for it to sit in his.
Buck watches every single place Eddie’s hands go during a drive, like clockwork, in this easy line, and Buck wants to hold his hand in all of them.
Every day Buck thinks to himself, fuck it, I’m gonna do it.
Sometimes Eddie will smile at him a certain way in the loft at work so Buck’ll think, yeah, on the drive home, or when they’re home Eddie’ll sit way closer than Buck thinks he ever has before to him on the couch, so Buck’ll think, yeah, when we get up in 5 minutes to go to work.
It’s this vicious cycle that Buck can’t seem to get out of, and really ridiculous, when he thinks about all the revelations he’s had about Eddie in the past few weeks, months, hell years , that this is the one tripping him up most.
That he wants to hold Eddie’s hand while he drives.
“I think it’s really great, what you guys are doing.”
Buck’s thumb stops mid-mindless scroll on Instagram when he hears Ravi, but he stays perched against the front of Eddie’s car, bag heavy on his shoulder post-shift.
“What—”
“Carpooling!” Ravi’s face lights up in the nighttime air, “So good for the environment, man, you have no idea.”
And well, Buck does have some idea. If he picked through his brain he’d find these statistics he knows—transportation is responsible for 23% of global energy consumption and a carpooler can reduce emissions by approximately 5% and—but he can’t find any of those pieces to pick up because he’s kind of stuck on someone… complimenting him on this?
“Well, you know me and Eddie,” Buck shrugs. He should probably shut this down, and swiftly. But hell, it’s such a nice change of pace from this is dumb, Buck, you’re in love with him, Buck, just tell him, Buck, don’t make him fix your car, Buck. “Passionate about the environment. Go green.”
“If I lived close enough to anyone at the station, I’d be doing the same,” Ravi rambles on, “You know, if you ever do wanna replace your car, one of my renters works at an electric car dealership—”
“Woah, Ravi, don’t say that too loud,” Eddie emerges from the station, all showered and smiley and so goddamn beautiful the environment is so lucky he exists in it. With a teasing wink, “They’ll chew you out, the Jeep is well beloved here.”
“Oh god, I would never,” Ravi shakes his head and his hands frantically, “I was just saying—”
“He’s kidding,” Buck says, eyeing Eddie, who gives a sheepishly guilty grin once he catches up and stands beside Ravi, “It was a good idea, I’ll keep it in mind.”
“Right, well,” Ravi seems marginally soothed, less fearful the wrath of the 118 will strike because he suggested Buck replace the Jeep, “You guys get home safe.”
“You too,” Buck waves, still propped up against the car as he watches Ravi back away towards his.
Though still wearing a smirk Buck feels an aching want to devour, Eddie does look between Buck and Ravi’s retreating forms a few times more, “What was that about?”
Eddie spins the key ring around his finger aimlessly, and Buck wants to replace it with an actual ring.
Ravi was right. It really was great, what they were doing.
“Nothing,” Buck quips, “If anyone asks, we fucking love the environment.”
“I really wanna help.”
“You really don’t have to.”
“I sort of do,” Buck swings his feet childishly, kicking the bumper of his car, really not helping his cause, but whatever, “I have a reputation to uphold.”
“ What reputation?” Eddie laughs, picking through a toolbox on the driveway, “I have never in my life met a group of people less knowledgeable about cars than all our friends.”
“Chim was giving me a lot of slack the other night about how by this point I should be an expert on the entire car industry, because that’s what I do about everything.”
“Everything?” Eddie peeks up at him, and Buck thinks this vantage point is dangerous, up from on top of the hood of his car.
“Right, I research,” he answers simply, probably not communicating the full breadth of knowledge Buck needs to learn about every new topic that comes his way, but whatever. It’s Eddie. He knows. He doesn’t even know why he’s being questioned right now, because he knows . “And it’s just, not going as good this time, for some reason.”
“You read some of those articles,” Eddie waves, averting his gaze again.
“Right, like, weeks ago. But none of the information stuck, so I just think,” Buck sits on his hands, shoulders shrugging all the way up to his ears, “I think you should teach me, like, three things you know, so I can prove I’ve still got it.”
“Got your ability to read a wikipedia page?”
“I use credible sources, asshole.”
“Buck, I don’t think you are any less intelligent because you don’t know the history of every part of this car.”
“But you could think I’m more intelligent,” Buck wiggles his eyebrows.
“No, I couldn’t,” Eddie huffs, “You’re the single most intelligent person I know. Everyone else I meet has to measure up against your bar, and they never pass it.”
It’s a really stupid metaphor, but a light goes on inside Buck. Like, check heart . It still beating? Do you know who it’s beating for?
“You don’t have something to prove with me, you never will,” Eddie finishes, “I do appreciate your company though, if you wanna stay.”
“I’ll stay,” Buck doesn’t even have to think about an answer, and stay he does, telling Eddie all about this new book he started reading about the moon landing, until the sun sets too much for Eddie to see anymore, and Buck doesn’t itch inadequately to ask what he’s looking at. He just holds open the door and thinks about what they should make for dinner.
The thing about this whole thing is that it’s new when it’s not.
Buck has driven places with Eddie before, can’t even count the times on his fingers anymore. To the same places they’re driving together now, after nights spent on Eddie’s couch the same way he’s spending now. So on paper, nothing about this should feel different, but it does.
Driving together before was always for convenience, and yeah, this is also for convenience, but it’s different . He knows that doesn’t make any sense, but it’s like—
It’s like—okay. The other day, right? They’re coming home from work, bone-deep exhaustion setting in after the adrenaline of the last call before shift change wears off, the sky dark. Buck chats idly the whole drive home, Eddie humming in all the right spots, and they’re three houses down from Eddie’s driveway when Buck slumps back into a seat with a groan because, “ No , I love this song!”
They’re gonna make it through only half the first verse by the time they have to park and get out and shower and rinse and repeat the whole day, and Buck could just restart the song when he’s standing over the kitchen counter making something for them to eat, sure, but songs sound different in the car, and he mourns the loss for just a moment. He already has one hand on his seatbelt, anticipating getting out.
But just as the chorus of the song is about to hit, Eddie drives right past his house.
“Um—” Buck’s neck cranes as he watches the house disappear into his periphery, “You know we live there, right?”
The car swerves just a smidge, but Eddie rights himself quickly.
“Yeah, we do,” Eddie whispers, “But you love this song, so…”
Eddie reaches over and restarts the song.
He drives them around the neighborhood, going over the same streets, at least four times over, just to get through the song. He rolls his window halfway down, and watching it ruffle the tops of his hair makes Buck miss some of the words he’s supposed to be singing along to, and that’s unacceptable, so Eddie restarts it again.
They drive aimlessly, just for the sake of driving.
They’ve never done that before.
Eddie can play the song again and again just to keep laughing at the way Buck sings and uses an old water bottle as a mic and gets his seatbelt stuck and hits his funny bone on the door when he gets a little too into his dancing.
They’re in no rush at all.
So it’s not different, but it is, you know?
“I’m gonna miss this,” Buck admits softly, when they do finally get the car parked. Because this was so nice, too nice , and Buck knows he’s going to miss it when he has his own car back and any time he’ll share it with Eddie it will just be a means to an end again. Some place to be at some time. They’ll still listen to songs Buck likes and Buck can commit the way that amuses Eddie to memory, the exact crinkle around his smiling eyes and exact hue to his cheeks, that’ll be the same. But they won’t get to do it like this, like this feeling is the destination.
Eddie looks like he agonizes over an answer to Buck for 30 full seconds, stuck in his seat even when Buck’s slipping out of his.
“Wait—what? What do you mean it won’t start?”
“I don’t know—it just, it won’t start!”
Buck rolls his shopping cart to a stop at the end of the aisle, flexes the muscles in his hands around his phone, and then he laughs.
Oh he’s going to get stared at, for sure, some weird looks coming his way (there’s one cashier that’s always working when Buck is here who always seems to have something to say with her eyes about his choice in cereal. So this is certainly not going to help.)
But fuck it, Buck thinks, and he laughs again.
Because he’s been told twice that his Jeep has one foot in the grave. First by his graciously supportive teammates, which made him kinda want to curl up in a blanket and cry, but the second is on the phone in the pasta aisle by the love of his life, and he feels so joyously happy about it.
He’s been doing this thing recently where sometimes he thinks, oh, I love Eddie , and—this is the new part— he doesn’t deny it .
So when he stands here and thinks, I love this man and he killed my Jeep , laughing feels appropriate. He’s happy. Since his weird conversation with Maddie and Chim, Buck has thought about it all both more and less, and he’s stopped putting limits on when he can or can’t let himself feel it. At work, in the car, at the grocery store. All fair game.
Because loving Eddie, even if he doesn’t know it yet, is a joyous thing. So is the fact that Buck’s train of thought uses words like joyous now.
“You’re getting a terrible Yelp review,” Buck restarts his lazy stroll down the aisle, picking up a box of pasta to squint at the ingredients, “Penne or rigatoni?”
“ What? ”
“You’re right, neither,” Buck puts the box down and trades it for another, “I’m gonna get cavatappi so I can watch you pronounce it wrong all night.”
“I think you’re supposed to be upset with me.”
“Why? I haven’t heard you try to say cavatappi yet,” Buck tosses the box into his cart, thumbs at the paper list in his hand to see what he needs to grab next.
“I’m gonna jump start it before you get back. And then I’ll try to figure out what’s really wrong, I swear,” Eddie says in one long rushed breath, “It might just take a couple extra days.”
“That’s fine.”
“Yeah?”
Is a couple extra days crashing under the same roof as the guy he wants to kiss fine?
“Yeah.”
“Then I guess cavatappi is fine too,” Buck can hear the smile around Eddie’s words now too, “When will you be home?”
“Twenty minutes, I’m almost done,” Buck’s stomach rolls in time with the wheels on his cart. When will you be home? “I think at dinner I’m gonna get payback for my dead Jeep by having you read off a whole list of pasta names really terribly.”
Yeah, Buck thinks, it’s fine. More than.
Buck would have probably told anyone who asked, maybe even anyone who didn’t but had ears and was in the vicinity for Buck to yap to, that he loved driving with Eddie, and has since they met. His mind supplies a helpful, long ago memory after an earthquake, Christopher in the back and Eddie a bewildered, happy quiet at his side. Years of similar moments, some louder, some softer, everything in between, come rushing at Buck too, and he knows, he loves driving with Eddie.
But he learns, almost two months since the check engine light in his Jeep went on, that that is a little less true. A little more conditional, than he thought.
He likes driving with Eddie in his car. When the AC is blasting and Eddie has one hand on the gear shift and his eyes split their time between the road and Buck.
Because they’re driving together now, but they’re not in Eddie’s car.
And Buck hates it.
He has only ever hated a drive more than this once in his whole life.
“Six minutes, Eddie,” Buck presses his hands down on a mountain of gauze, much more red than white, and fuck, when did the lifepak get so loud? It’s making his ears ring, “Chim said six minutes, you can do that right?”
Eddie’s head just kinda lolls to the side.
“Fuck,” Buck curses under his breath, then leans more intently towards Eddie’ head, “Hey, hey, look at me. Six minutes you gotta stay awake. It’s like, if we went around your block to listen to a song twice. Twice , that’s it! I know I’ve made you do it more than that.”
He hums, which Buck kinda wants to take as a good sign, but Hen’s face isn’t backing that theory up for him on the other side of the gurney.
“BP just dropped,” Hen says levelly, draping her stethoscope back around her shoulders, “He needs more fluids, Buck, can you grab—”
Buck looks up at her, wildly desperate to do anything—anything except grabbing something maybe, because both his hands are importantly occupied. One is holding pressure over Eddie’s abdomen that’s bleeding, the other has a vice-like grip on his hand.
All these weeks Buck has wanted to reach over the console and hold Eddie’s hand for a drive.
The reality of it fucking sucks.
“You just need one hand, Buck, it’s right behind you,” Hen says, oddly gentle for the situation, “I’d reach over you for it myself, but—”
—but there’s a long piece of rebar sticking up from somewhere inside Eddie’s gut.
“Right, yeah, yeah, I can—” Buck starts, but he physically cannot get himself to let go of Eddie’s hand, like he can squeeze the life back into him, give him some of his own. They can be transactional, or whatever big word Eddie had used, just this once.
He turns to try to do as he’s told, pull himself out of a useless grip on Eddie and grab a very useful bag of fluid, but stops for a millisecond when he feels a hand on his. Hen’s hand, covering the hand Buck has pressed to Eddie’s wound.
“On your right,” she says, nodding towards the ambulance supply shelves. With his one hand still in Eddie’s, Buck feels like he can fly a mile a minute through instructions again, rips open the stiff plastic packaging with his teeth, pops the bag on an IV set so Hen can get it attached, holds it up so she can watch it flow, and well. Buck has never been good at keeping quiet, so he keeps talking, like that could keep Eddie awake the same way Hen’s work could.
“Hey, would it help if I sang it? What’s that song you like?” Buck quips, squeezing Eddie’s half limp hand. He holds his keys in this hand .
Eddie’s eyes are still shut, but is somehow, roused enough to rasp, “That—get my blood pressure—high.”
“He’s got jokes!”
“And a better BP, good work, Buck,” Hen says, but her eyes are focused on Eddie, “Are you swapping medic training for car parts?”
Buck thinks Eddie is trying to shake his head, “Buck—firefighter.”
“I am, I am,” Buck nods, “So are you. A good one.” He talks, he can keep talking, keep Eddie up, “A little jealous today though, didn’t want Chim to have the coolest rebar story.”
“Eddie’s rebar barely broke skin,” Chim yells from the front, pushing through traffic and wailing the siren. The ambulance shakes a little, Buck knows Chim is going as fast as he can. “Though, Jee is alive for this one, so I’ll never be able to convince her now I’m any cooler.”
“You didn’t need any help with that one,” Hen banters back, eyes on the monitor, and an ugly fear is clawing up Buck’s throat, but this is good, the easy way they all talk. It’s keeping him from passing out on top of it all. And Eddie looks good, so maybe it's working for him too. “You’re daughter’s a bigger Eddie superfan than Buck.”
“Got her,” Eddie heaves, sputtering a little, and if Buck had a hand he’d wipe the blood off the corner of his lip, god this is so fucking awful, “New stickers.”
“You did?” Buck’s voice sounds strangled, but he’s trying to keep it up, because it’s working, Eddie is awake, “I’ll run home and get them, you can give them to Jee when she visits at the hospital, which is…”
“Two minutes out!” Chim answers, loud enough to hear over the beeping, and the sirens, and Buck’s thundering heart.
“Two minutes! You can so do two minutes, Eddie, c’mon.”
“ Christopher .” Buck makes it out around another hack from Eddie, watches his heart rate shoot up on the screen beside Hen.
“Woah, woah, hey, I got him, don’t even worry,” Buck shakes his head frantically, thumb smoothing at the dried blood on the top of Eddie’s hand.
And at that—this is so ridiculous because he shouldn't even have enough blood in his body to be able to do this—Eddie smiles. It’s weak but it’s there, and Buck will never, ever forget the sight of it.
“Wasn’t—worry,” he rasps, just before his eyes start to roll back, “Has homework.”
“Fuck, Hen—”
“Eddie, Eddie ,” Hen pulls his face to her, shines a pen light in his eyes, “Tell us about the homework. What’s Chris learning? Can Buck teach him?”
That works enough, Eddie’s smiling again, but his eyes stay shut.
“He’s too smart for me now,” Buck swallows, “What’s happening?”
“Starting him on oxygen,” Hen reaches for a mask, “Keep talking, Eddie!”
“Eddie, you need to stay awake, dammit,” Buck bristles, eyeing a spot on Eddie’s head that’s looking a little too bruised for his liking, not bothering to turn and see the gauze back under his other hand that’s getting sticky with saturation. “You’re gonna stay alive for me.”
“Can’t,” Eddie coughs, and Buck thinks this ambulance could wrap itself around a lamppost and it would be less painful than that one word. Can’t. Can’t, can’t, can’t .
“No, no, no, Eddie, no, you have to—”
And then, this fucker, the love of his life, manages an eye open for the first time the entire ride to smile at Buck and say, “You didn’t say please.”
Air whooshes out of Buck’s lungs at mach 5.
“Fuck you, man,” Buck laughs wetly, doesn’t even know when he started crying, doesn’t know when he’ll stop, “ Please stay alive, I can’t believe you. I was gonna kill you myself.”
“He’s gonna be okay,” even Hen is smiling at the man literally bleeding out in Buck’s hands cracking jokes like his teenage son might , “Teasing Buck gets you five extra points on the coma scale.”
“And five years off my life,” Buck wipes at his cheek with a shoulder, he’s not letting go of Eddie’s hand.
“I’m def—” Eddie cuts himself off with another wheeze, lifting his hand to push away the oxygen mask Hen keeps trying to push on him, “Def-ly a fifteen.”
“And triaging himself,” Chim says, “We can roll him right back to trauma. I’m pulling in now, Eddie! Stay up!”
“‘Hmm, ’m up.”
“Yeah, yeah you are,” Buck whispers, “Please—”
“Buck,” Eddie’s eyes track over to him, it’s the sharpest, clearest word Eddie had managed the entire ride, and it shocks something in him, like Hen has the paddles on his chest.
He thinks he means to hold down at the wound, but Buck puts pressure on his hand instead.
“I,” Eddie starts, then lifts a hand and presses it over his heart, looks straight at Buck, “You.”
Then the ambulance doors fly open.
Buck runs at the side, holding on for dear fucking life, as Hen relays information, and they’re ushered in through sliding doors, and people are trying to put their hands where Buck’s are, which is wrong, because this is Buck’s hand to hold—
“They got him, c’mon,” Chim says—when did Chim even get out of the ambulance, Buck can’t even, when —hand steady and grounding on Buck’s shoulder.
Buck blinks rapidly, scrubbing at his eyes, “I know, I know.”
It’s not Eddie’s worst injury. It’s not anyone’s worst injury, really, that Buck’s seen working. Simple surgery to get it out, a few weeks of recovery. He stayed awake the whole ride here, his vitals were good. It’s okay. One bad call. One bad building structure that fell. But Eddie is good. Eddie is so good. They’ve got him.
“Thank you both, for getting him here in such good condition,” someone with a very nice voice says, a nurse maybe? Doctor? Buck knows a lot of the staff here but he’s coming up blank, all his mind can recant is Eddie, Eddie is good, Eddie is awake, they have Eddie, they’re taking care of Eddie . She smiles softly between Chim and Buck, who are left standing in the ED entrance bay. “Do you need anything? Before you head back?”
“Back,” Buck echoes hollowly, points to the doors they just pushed Eddie through, “Back to Eddie?”
“Oh, I’m so sorry, I assumed—” the woman with the soothing voice and very blue scrubs pales, “My apologies, I didn’t mean to. You’re staying. Are you family?”
Buck finally looks at her. She seems nice. She should be taking care of Eddie.
“I, uh. I’m—” Buck’s voice trails off a little, getting lost in the rush of the emergency department, and he really doesn’t know what to say. He might not even on a good day. The first thing out of his mouth is, “We carpool.”
Buck knows what music Eddie likes to listen to and what roads he’s willing to go above the speed limit on and which cupholder he uses between the two and the exact angle he keeps his vents at so the fans hit him and Buck knows what Eddie looks like when he’s looking at him from the driver’s seat.
“Yeah,” Chim interjects, mercifully, “He’s family.”
“I can take you to a place to wait,” nice undetermined healthcare worker says, stepping towards them, tentatively, when she sees how Buck, admittedly, still looks a little spooked, “If you’d like—”
“Can Chim come?” Buck asks, doesn’t even know he’s going to before it’s out, voice acting of its own volition. Buck really doesn’t think he could stand if Chim didn’t have one hand on his shoulder still. He can’t leave him here.
“I’m Chim,” he waves, slight smile to his voice which makes Buck’s shoulder sag an inch, “I don’t carpool but I am his brother.”
“Of course he can come,” the nurse, Buck can read her badge now, a big RN on the bottom.
“I just need to check with my partner—”
“I’ll take the ambulance back,” Hen materializes at their side, or maybe she was always there, Buck is kinda seeing things, or not seeing them, things look cloudy, they’re still in the ED, right? “Buck, you let me know if you want me to send Maddie? Or I can get Karen? Bobby’s already on his way, they got the scene cleared.”
“I don’t know—” Buck shakes his head, “Christopher has homework.”
Hen looks at the very nice nurse that Buck is going to nominate for an award when this interaction is over, “ICU?”
She shakes her head, “Can’t know for certain until after recovery, but I’ve seen bigger pieces of metal come out of people and they go straight to a step-down floor.”
“Then I will bring Christopher and his homework,” Hen smiles, “Sit down and breathe, one of you text me anything else you need, any people you want me to send.”
“Will you come back?” Buck asks, again, desperately.
“Did you even have to ask?” Hen pushes a hand over Buck’s cheek, wipes at a smudge of dirt and blood that’s stuck to him.
“Okay, okay,” Buck nods, because it is okay, things feel sort of okay now.
“I can take you guys back to surgery holding, if you’d like,” the nurse says as Hen leaves, and walks them not quite to the doors Eddie disappeared behind, which Buck is not thrilled about, but ones a little to the left. Her smile soothes some of the buzz on Buck’s skin, the nerves, like joking around over Eddie on the gurney had done, “You’re more than welcome to sit in this larger waiting room, if you’re expecting more people. But surgery has better chairs, best kept secret.”
“Oh, believe me, we are too well acquainted with those awful chairs out there,” Chim guides Buck to follow her with a gentle pressing hand, “We will take any upgrade you got.”
They may say a few more things around him, but Buck doesn’t really register it, it’s all white noise.
Eddie loves white noise. The fan. In their car.
“Someone has to get Eddie’s car,” he says abruptly.
“We’ll get your car, kiddo,” Chim says, finding them a seat. Plenty of choices, the room is mostly empty. Buck can’t tell if that’s good or bad. His brain isn’t up for making a decision.
“No, no, Eddie’s car.”
“Yeah, that’s what I said,” Chim lilts, looking back at the nurse, “This is probably a strange question, but do you have like, regular old soap? That’s not mostly bleach? I wanna clean him off—”
“We do,” the nurse points Chim to the bathroom, says she’ll grab some washcloths, “If you need anything else at all while you’re waiting, I’ll be around. Though, you guys have such a wonderful family, it sounds like you’re good.”
There is a thank you lodged in Buck’s throat, fighting to eke its way out between the stone-cold dread he still can’t shake, won’t be able to until he sees Eddie again.
Chim thanks her for them, which feels wrong because Buck had wanted that thank you to be for him , but he gets up to start running the water so it gets warm, claims he’s too well acquainted with the plumbing here too, and Buck watches him go and waits for him to get back, pushing a hand over his heart like Eddie had right before they took him away.
“You snore and you drool?”
Buck’s eyes snap open at the sound of Eddie’s voice, pillow slipping from where it had been precariously positioned between his head and the wall for a nap sitting up.
“Pick one or the other, Buck,” Eddie says, loud enough to be heard over the beeps of the monitor, which is a beautiful thing, Buck thinks.
“I can’t. Not until you say please,” Buck thrums.
Eddie’s head flops black against his pillows, “You ever going to let me live that down?”
“No, because I’m gonna kill you myself first,” Buck stands up a smidge, just enough to scoot the chair closer to Eddie’s bed, knees right up against the mattress. “I can’t believe you did that to me. I have a weak heart.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, it was struck by lightning,” Buck reaches forward to—well, it was to take Eddie’s hand, but now that he’s awake, and very okay, out of here tomorrow, the team said, Buck doesn’t know if he’s allowed to. That had been, not even a decision really, more like a survival instinct. Unsure where the boundaries are now, his hand hovers in the gray area between his own lap and Eddie’s bed. “How do you feel?”
“Like there was something sticking out of my stomach a few hours ago,” Eddie is, god, he’s still smiling . What meds did they have him on? “Did you see my dressing or were you asleep?”
“Might have passed out by then,” Buck says, fittingly, around a yawn. There had been swarms of people here when Eddie got out of surgery, for hours, and only when Buck knew there were plenty of people keeping an eye on him did he feel lax enough to shut his own. Everyone’s gone now, save Buck, and Christopher out in a family room with a real sized table down the hall with Carla, doing the infamous homework.
Eddie carefully props up on one elbow, only wincing a little, as he peels aside his gown, revealing a thick tan bandage that is not covered in blood, like Buck expects, but stickers .
“Kind of outside protocol,” Eddie chuckles, “Don’t tell my nurse.”
Buck’s eyes trace the bright shapes clearly and carefully placed by a four year old, sparkly stars and colorful dinosaurs and unrealistic firetrucks and shimmery Disney princesses, that are there, where something had once been hurting Eddie. You’d never know. Buck’s vision starts to blur.
“I’m so glad you’re okay,” Buck breathes, maybe a tad too vulnerable for the moment.
“Me too,” Eddie nods, smoothing the edges of his gown back down, “Glad you’re okay. You’re always bloody when I get hurt, I worry.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“You know when they knock you out, give you your anesthesia, and they make you count back from ten? When you’re alive enough to be able to do that, I mean, which I was today,” Eddie says, “Pretty sure I spend those whole ten seconds trying to think about the places you could’ve been hurt, trying to tell the doctors to go get you.”
“Eddie.”
“Last thing I said today was that you’re allergic to naproxen,” Eddie glints over at him, “Would have been fun last words.”
“Stop joking about that,” Buck says, even if he thinks maybe they’re allowed to. After how many of these things do you stop letting them be near-death and instead love-life ? Buck rests his forearms on the railing at the top part of the bed, leans his cheek on top of them, “At least say something more interesting about me next time.”
“Too many to choose from,” Eddie’s eyes dance around his face, Buck can feel when they flit between his eyes and his chin and his brows and his nose and all the little places in between, like there's a million interesting things for him to pick just from there, Buck’s regular old face. “It’s just the one allergy. Your aversion to real milk in your coffee doesn’t count.”
“Remember who has a working abdomen right now to get up and get you coffee,” Buck beams.
“ Stop joking about that ,” Eddie spits his words back at him, but he looks so happy, so alive. His eyes stop roaming around Buck’s face for the briefest of seconds, just to gesture to the bed rail behind him, “I assume this was your doing?”
There’s a small portable clip-on fan blowing steadily at them from behind Eddie’s head, and Buck shrugs, “I was fixating on really specific things while you were in surgery, a new one every half hour, which Chim loved entertaining.”
“They had this at the gift shop?” Eddie looks impressed.
“I ordered it weeks ago, It’s technically made for cars. Was supposed to be a birthday gift, but I was really adamant on you having white noise in the hospital room right now,” Buck feels his face heat up, wonders if Eddie has the strength to angle the fan a little more towards him. He obviously needs it, “Had Maddie dig it up from where she was hiding it for me.”
Eddie, at that, looks a little bewildered.
“What’s wrong?” Buck clocks the slight shift immediately.
“Nothing,” the tiniest little shake of Eddie’s head, “I just—you’re here.”
“I know, I know, and before you say anything, the shift was over, and I want to be here, before you try to kick me out—”
“No, that wasn’t—I’m not kicking you out,” Eddie stammers over him, head tilted forward on his pillow, just a few inches from where Buck is still leaning, “It’s—you’re here. Thank you.”
“Oh,” Buck softens, defenses at the ready laid down at the gentle tug of Eddie’s voice, “Well, no where else I could be. You’re my ride.”
And finally, after what has felt like lifetimes between when he heard it last, Eddie laughs.
Waves of ease roll over Buck and off his shoulders, wash him in the unflattering glow of hospital lights, paint Eddie’s cheeks a little pink. So much nicer than red.
“Which—shit, that reminds me—I gotta fill the meter,” Buck sighs up to the sky, squirming out of his chair, “Can you believe this place still has parking meters you have to physically pay at? Like, quarters , Eddie!”
“I can spring you fifty cents, Buck.”
“It’s a dollar seventy five, asshole,” Buck pats around his pants, looking for his, er, Eddie’s keys. Someone, Bobby he thinks, but isn’t sure amidst the whirlwind, dropped them off earlier. “I’m gonna go run and do that real quick. If the nurse comes in while I’m gone to do your vitals, make her write them on the whiteboard, I wanna see them.”
“Copy that,” Eddie is too fond to fight it.
“I’ll send Chris in to say goodnight too, he’s gonna stay at Hen and Karen’s for the night, if that’s okay,” Buck starts, collecting things, his phone, an empty water bottle to refill, then stops, suddenly uncertain. “Or not, I can go home with him, if you want, instead—”
“No, no. That’s perfect. Thank you,” Eddie chimes, looking a little bewildered again.
“Course, I’ll be right back, five minutes,” Buck wobbles, squinting, “Eh, maybe ten, I’m getting to old to sprint. You need anything?”
“Just you to come back.”
Buck pauses, mid-stride out the doorway when he hears him.
There is a long beat of, not silence, but quiet, a steady heartbeat and whirring fan, and this big, pulsating, thrumming thing between the two of them.
Not sure what to do, how to even begin to say all the things weighing on Buck’s chest, he just places a hand there instead.
“You and me, yeah?”
Eddie mirrors him with the hand Buck held the whole way here.
Things sort of snowball after that.
It starts on a shift a few days later, Buck’s working and Eddie’s not, and it’s fine even when it isn’t, because Buck has the greatest team in the world to do all the things Eddie usually does for him on a call, and this call isn’t even a bad one, it’s just—
Well, the universe is laughing at this plan she’s set into motion for Buck, probably, that’s all.
“Buck, Ravi, get the doors off so Hen and Chim can assess the patient.”
“Which one?” Ravi quirks, eyes roving over the scene, where a car has run right into the front entrance of a restaurant.
“Both of them,” Buck answers before Cap can, slinging the jaws to Ravi with a chipper, “Do us the honors?”
While Cap does damage control outside, Buck makes quick work of the restaurant door so Ravi can swoop in under him and get the car door open and off. Buck extends a hand to help get all the uninjured customers out, warning them to watch where they step for glass, and within a few minutes, everyone’s out, save the driver. Hen and Chim have the collar on her and an IV started by the time Buck and Ravi get the last of everyone.
“I don’t know how this happened,” the driver is blubbering, snot dripping down her nose, “I was going so slow, and then the car, this stupid , stupid car just—”
“Hey, take a big deep breath for me, Jessica,” Hen soothes, and Buck waits idly by until he knows where he’s needed, feeling the most at ease he has all day without Eddie here. Hen calms the entire world around her even if she’s only trying to help just one. “We’re gonna get you out of here.”
“Cars are machines, you can do everything right, and they just fail. Machine error,” Chim adds just as pacatingly, “Isn’t that right, Buck?”
This feels a little different but, “Sure, cars are cars. Sometimes they break.”
“I know this is Buck’s line, but it would be really great if Eddie were here,” Ravi looks under the car and over it, wedged at a weird angle, crumpled all over, still turned on somehow.
“Please, Eddie was lying, he doesn’t know anything. Buck’s car is dead,” Chim laughs, “Jessica, we’re gonna try to get your seatbelt off, okay? Might have to cut it.”
“That’s not true,” Buck grumbles, not loving being the voice of reason in this bunch, “And not appropriate to be discussing right now.”
“No wait, what’s wrong with your car?”
Buck turns at the sound of a new voice, from somewhere below him, and finds—nope, they did not, in fact, evacuate the whole shop, because there is a man stuck under this car.
“Uh, guys, did you—”
“They already talked to me, plan was to get her out first, trickier,” the man continues, “But I need to know what’s wrong with your car. And who’s Eddie?”
“Clean break left tibia, not a crush injury, GCS 15, vitals good,” Hen fills in when Buck still stares, appalled at this man, pinned under a car that ran him over in a restaurant, and still trying to strike up casual conversation with Buck. About his Jeep. And Eddie. “Stuck but stable. We need Jessica out before we can lift the car and get to him. Buck, would you—?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Buck side steps some crushed and overturned tables and chairs to crouch by their new, second patient, “Hi, LAFD, my name’s Buck, I’m gonna keep you company until we get this car off top of you.”
“Mason,” he says, tries to reach a hand out to shake Buck’s like the formality is necessary in this wild scenario.
“Well, Mason, you are, quite possibly, the most cooperative person we’ve ever helped,” Buck can’t help a laugh.
“Not unfamiliar with the territory,” he winces just a smidge, Buck sticks a hand blindly out hoping to silent communicate that maybe one of them should hop over with a pain med real quick, and then get back to sobbing Jessica.
“You a firefighter too?”
“No, a mechanic,” Mason smiles. “Used to being underneath cars.”
Of fucking course.
“No way!”
“Buck could use a mechanic,” Chim apparently, still feels like he belongs in this conversation.
“Ignore them,” Buck says, trying to see if they really have to wait to get Mason out, looking for some kidn of loophole. “My Jeep is fine.”
“Love Jeeps, tricky to work on unless you’re an expert,” Mason huffs, uses the sleeve of his shirt to wipe a bead of sweat off his forehead, “You have doors on it, right? Firefighter and all.”
“Buck has read the safety manual for all our cars, front to back, thrice ,” Hen chimes in before she can stop herself, and hates it the second she does, “I’m sorry, Jessica—”
“No, no, keep talking, it’s good. Distracting, I feel better,” Jessica, who has miraculously stopped full-body sobbing, says, “I’m with the mechanic, who’s Eddie?”
“My best friend,” Buck rushes to answer before any of his coworkers can give their own colofrul description, “Likes fixing up cars, offered to look at mine for me when the check engine light came on a few months ago.”
“ Months ? And it’s still not working?”
Buck has his ready made answer on the tip of his tongue: we’re busy, we work long hours, one problem leads to another, Buck doesn’t know what he’s doing and he doesn’t really care .
But he can’t lie to a fucking mechanic.
So, “It’s complicated.”
Mason laughs, and whatever, it’s good patient care to keep them happy, right?
“Where is he now? Your um—” Jessica looks over at them.
“Ravi,” Ravi smiles, a little wave.
“Ravi said he wished he was here. Is he supposed to be?”
“Injured on a call a few weeks ago.”
“Ah, so the car is still—”
“Very broken, yeah,” Buck says. Leaning in on the balls of his feet, crouched.
“Hard to do work for your friends, people you’re close to, or that it’s uh, complicated with,” Mason shares through three large, puffy breaths. Eddie may be the medic half of their partnership, but Buck knows enough to know they need to get Jessica out of this car stat.
“I said the car was complicated, not Eddie,” Buck says, hands splayed over Mason’s shoulder cautiously, “You with me, Mason?”
“Yeah, yeah,” he blinks, “Sorry, starting to hurt.”
“Don’t apologize,” Buck hushes, “Chim?”
“30 seconds, Buck.”
“30 seconds, think you could diagnose my car for me in 30 seconds?” Buck says, holding Mason’s head up, placing it on his knee for cushion.
“Less than,” he smiles, “Sounds like you have a case of: let someone other than your best friend do it.”
“We are, no offense to you, historically untrustworthy of mechanics here,” Buck swipes at the back of his neck, “Hen and Chim took their last cars to a shop and never saw them again.” Not that Eddie is making much more progress, but, you know, Buck doesn’t think too hard about that because it means he gets to keep living with Eddie, and driving everywhere with him, and looking for excuses to hold his hand across the console before chickening out.
“If I could tell you what’s wrong with Jessica’s car right now, would you trust me?”
Buck would trust him anyway, dude is the calmest person in the room and four of them are paid to be here, but he likes a challenge, and it’s keeping Mason’s eyes open and bright, so he nods him on.
“It’s her brakes,” he says simply, trying to point with one aching, bruised arm to underneath the car, “I’’ve had a lot of time to look at it, and that’s it. She needs a new one. Not her fault.”
“Did you hear that Jessica?” Hen smiles, arms up under Jessica to get ready to lift her out and onto the gurney Ravi got to them all on his own (they grow up so fast, Buck silently laments), “You’re okay, it was your stupid car!”
“Hate this stupid car,” she laughs, only a little teary as she gets strapped into the gurney, “Gonna get a Jeep, I think.”
“Excellent choice,” Buck jumps up into position, still holding Mason gently, “Let's get our hero out of here now, yeah?”
(A few days later, Athena texts Bobby an update: it really was Jessica’s stupid, stupid car, her brakes specifically, that gave out on her. Buck starts googling ‘mechanics in LA named Mason’ between their next calls.)
Who’s awake
Buck squints at his phone, surveys his surroundings, and then looks back down at his phone.
Weird question, no punctuation, 10:41 pm. Instead of thinking too much about it, Buck just decides to respond.
Everyone
Watching a movie
Kidding I think Ravi’s out
But rest of us yeah
A little text bubble appears, and disappears, and reappears under Eddie’s name, unsure. They’re in that weird space of time on a shift that’s after dinner and before you wanna sleep, but house chores that were leftover from earlier are done and you don’t have enough energy to do anything but sit so. They’ve found themselves up in the loft, watching something Chim picked out, Buck thinks, and trying not to tempt fate.
Buck’s half listening, cozy against the far arm of the couch, waiting patiently for Eddie to say more. If he takes any longer Buck might cave and call him. Say something dumb about how much he misses him.
Finally: how easy could you get out of that
Not easily at all, Buck thinks, if the way he smiles at that is anything to go off of, but he replies lightning fast: you coming over?
Thinking about it
Whats to think about
We have leftover croissants Cap made
Croissants Eddie
Like we’re in fucking france
His answer takes a while again, something explodes on the TV and Buck remembers to be appropriately awed by it so no one catches on to how little he cares about anything that is not Eddie in his phone right now. Anything that’s not Eddie at all, ever, really.
Delete this after you read it
??
Just wanna see you
Not everyone else
Buck drops his phone off the side of the couch.
“Okay, Buck?” comes Hen’s worried voice, within a millisecond of the sound of the phone clattering to the floor.
“Fine, sorry, butterfingers,” he replies, sheepishly.
Buck elbows sleeping Ravi on his left as he stretches to retrieve it, terrified of anyone else’s eyes getting a look at one of the greatest messages Buck has ever received, but ultimately sitting back upright by the time he comes up with something other than I am deeply and irreversibly in love with you to reply with.
I’ll come downstairs
No problem
Are you sure
Yes. where are you
Like 10 minutes
Was he already on his way when he texted? Buck’s spine tingles at the thought. Like Eddie can read him even from a different place, he adds:
Was just gonna drive around til i got tired if you were asleep or busy
Glad im up then
Im not encouraging speeding but
I kind of am
Now that i know you’re on your way im ansty
And before he can think better of it, because, you know, his mind is in this weird space with the rest of them, between awake and asleep and wanting to be moving and doing nothing, Buck fires off one more text:
I really want you to be here
Buck is sure he visibly lights up when Eddie answers, and his cover he hasn’t even come up with yet will be blown.
Be there soon x
“I’m gonna go,” Buck has to physically push the sides of his mouth down to make the smile go away, “Uh, downstairs.”
“For?” Chim looks up at him, confused, but not interrogative.
“Just feeling kinda antsy,” Buck tells the truth, or half of it at least, because he’s a shit liar, “Gonna walk around, shake some energy out.”
“We’ll tell you how it ends,” and like Buck had thought, Chim leaves it at that, “Come back up if it doesn’t get better though. I—We’ll be up.”
“Thanks,” Buck stands, gently giving Ravi more space with him gone to spawl out against the armrest, and sure that there’s nothing going downstairs right now won’t cure, so he takes the steps down two at a time.
He wanders around the side of the engine, ducks between the ambulance and the wall, watches his reflection in the bumper of the captain’s truck just to give him something to do for the ten minutes Eddie said he was still out. Work without Eddie the past three weeks has been maybe more miserable than when he was out longer, even if in theory it's the same thing. One more week, he reminds himself, one more week. Maybe two, if his doctor ended up wanting to be a little more cautious, which, Buck would be too, but he wants Eddie back at work so bad. Clearly, he’s jumping at any and all chances. Maybe he could work something out—
Headlights careen into the parking lot before Buck can start plotting new ways to get him back to work, and he jumps off where he’d been slumped against the wall, jogs towards Eddie before he can turn the car off.
“Hi,” he says, over the thrum of the engine. He thinks about slipping into the passenger seat, but that’s too far, too much space between him and Eddie, if all he’s going to get is a little bit of time now, ten hours of this shift still looming over him. He crowds against the driver side door and waits for Eddie to roll the window down.
“How long were you waiting?” Eddie asks, amused.
“Ran down the second you sent your last text,” Buck leans an arm on the lip of the window, “You haven’t said hi back.”
“Hi, Buck,” Eddie soothes, “How’s the shift going?”
“Probably would have asked you to come if you hadn’t had the idea first,” Buck says, to indicate he was bored as hell and vibrating out of his skin.
“Movie that bad?”
“Not sure, couldn’t pay attention,” Buck shrugs, “What about you? What were you up to?”
“Not sleeping,” Eddie admits, more readily than Buck had been expecting. There’s something easily vulnerable about being here, and the still air, and the fan in the truck still whirring, and it being that weird time of night. Eddie being here. “Sorry I made you sneak down here. Just didn’t wanna field questions about my stomach. Sucks sometimes to have incredibly knowledgeable health care friends.”
“Am I not an incredibly knowledgeable health care friend?”
“Half true,” Eddie shakes his head, “You just interrogated me already this morning before you left. You won’t do it again.”
“So what’s half true about that? Sounds like I am an incredibly knowledgeable healthcare friend.”
“You’re incredibly knowledgeable,” Eddie says, simply, “About healthcare.”
And well. A few things to unpack there.
Buck tries to shake it off and focus on the task at hand. Eddie. Eddie is here , in his nice car that kinda just feels like theirs now, not his, and Buck had missed him too much to be focusing on anything other than him being here. He can think about whether Eddie was implying he might have slipped into the or whatever category of the your friend, or whatever designation later, when Eddie is well rested and it’s Buck’s turn to not sleep.
“One interrogation question, and that’s it, I swear,” Buck proposed, gesturing a hand halfway into the car, “Or two. Yeah, two. That’s it.”
“I’ll allow it.”
“One, do you feel okay?”
“I do.”
“And two, is that what’s keeping you up?”
“No, just insomnia of the regular old variety,” Eddie grimaces, leaning in closer to Buck, “Not a terrible interrogation, all things considered.”
“I promised it wouldn’t be bad.”
“It was bad this morning.”
“Excuse me for caring about you,” Buck says, an indignant little huff that slips out meant to be teasing, but shows his hand more than he was planning to.
Eddie tips forward the last little bit of space and rests his cheek on Buck’s exposed forearm, whispers, “You’re excused.”
Buck isn’t even sure if it should be comfortable, in fact, he feels very sure that it isn’t, the way Eddie’s neck has to crane an inch further than it probably should, and the divot in the open window digs into Buck’s arm, sure to leave a mark. But Buck finds it impossible to move, and Eddie’s chest rises and falls so gently, even if Buck wanted to, he couldn’t disturb it.
Without thinking about it, a theme of the night, apparently, Buck pushes a hand over the nape of Eddie’s neck, his fingers lightly threading through the hair there.
“You wanna come inside?” Buck whispers, “We could go to the bunks, no one’s there.”
“No, ‘s nice here,” Eddie mumbles, lips half pressed against Buck’s arm. He hopes he can’t feel the goosebumps, “Plus, you said you were awake.”
“You’re making me sleepy.”
“Am I?”
“Yeah,” a sprig of laughter rolls out of his chest, “Gonna nap so good when you drive me home later.”
“That’s really nice, you know?” and Buck can’t figure out how insomnia Eddie morphed into sleep-lidded Eddie within seconds, if he stops to think about it he could probably figure it out, but he can’t do anything but watch Eddie relax, and watch Eddie breathe, and watch Eddie be here, like he’s supposed to be.
“What?” Buck jokes lightly, “Drool on your headrest?”
“No,” Eddie’s nose nudges against Buck’s wrist, like he was trying to shake his head a smidge, “When you say you’re going home, and mean my house.”
Fuck. He wasn’t supposed to catch on to that.
His instinct is to apologize, like a reflex. I’m sorry, I got too comfortable, I took too much, this is yours, not mine, I’ll give it back, I swear, I’m sorry.
But Eddie had said it so plainly, that’s really nice. And before Eddie had tried to bleed out under his grip, Buck had started doing that thing—loving Eddie and not keeping it locked up in his mind, letting it spread out all over him, live and settle into his body until he runs out of space for it and it tumbles out of his mouth.
He’d put the practice on pause for a second but, Eddie thinks this is nice. So Buck smiles, and piles his chin on top of Eddie’s head, “Yeah, I mean. Feels like it.”
“Good.”
Actually, now that’s he’s had the thought, maybe he could just—
The alarm blares loudly inside the house.
“ Fuck ,” Buck whispers, half to the universe for disrupting the first moment Buck ever felt brave enough to say I love you and mean it, and half straight into Eddie’s hair because they’re still leaning on each other. It makes Eddie chuckle, whole body laughing.
“Duty calls.”
“Never say that again,” Buck grumbles, slowly and reluctantly relinquishing his grip.
“Can I stay?” Eddie asks, rolling his shoulders back, neck cracking, and Buck knew that was uncomfortable for him.
“I don’t know how long we’ll be,” Buck pulls at the sleeves of his shirt, listening out for info, trying to see how long he can linger, or if he needs to sprint and get his gear.
“Doesn’t matter.”
“You can head inside,” Buck tries again.
“I’m good here,” Eddie sinks back into his seat. “Thanks for coming to see me.”
“Pretty sure you came to see me,” Buck lightly nudges his shoulder through the still open window, “I’ll be back. Be safe.”
“Pretty sure that’s my line,” Eddie quips back, and then with a hand over his heart, says so softly Buck can’t hear it over the alarm, has to make it out just from the movement of Eddie’s lips, echoes, “Be safe.”
Buck clutches his hands over his chest too, a little dramatically, because it makes Eddie laugh, but he means it, winks goodbye to Eddie in his truck, and runs at the engine.
Bobby meets him halfway to the engine, “I can make you man behind if you want.”
An inward wave of nausea comes over him, wondering how much of that his captain had seen, and trying to school his features when the door is held open for him, a single person job, by not one but three of his nosy teammates.
Buck climbs in, hoping and praying there’s a swift way to steer the conversation towards the couch crease marks on Ravi’s cheek.
And just when they’re rolling out, everyone waving knowingly to Eddie in the parking lot, Buck pressed up to the window a little closer than he needs to be, he finally finds a good answer for Bobby.
“I’ll come back.”
“Right or left?”
“Buck—”
“Just tell me which way we have to turn it.”
“For the millionth time, you two,” Eddie grumbles sharply from where he’s been banished to, a folding chair on the side of the driveway, “It’s a wrench, not a sledgehammer, let me do it.”
“I’m getting a little suspicious of how little you want me to know what I’m doing here,” Buck teases, swinging said wrench around by the open hood of his car, not suspicious in the slightest, but actively very mother henning Eddie’s almost healed injured torso. Five more days until Eddie gets back to work. Five, that’s it. He wasn’t gonna risk it for anything , especially not his stupid, stupid car (Buck passively wonders how Jessica’s doing.) “And isn’t this like, a quintessential father-son thing? Shouldn’t you be tearing up with joy?”
“Yeah dad,” Chris points, “If you don’t need a tissue soon I’m gonna be offended.”
“ I’m offended,” Eddie kicks at the gravel under his feet, and it’s gross how adorable Buck finds it, “You’re gonna let me fight fires next week but not do this?”
“Totally different. We’re bonding,” Buck points between him and Christopher, “And you’re sitting there and looking pretty and cleared for work.”
Eddie coughs. Shit. Did Buck still have him too close to the car? Inhaling fumes?
“Uh, righty tighty, lefty loosey,” Eddie sputters, but stays seated in his chair. “Good work guys, I’m gonna—you want water?”
Then he flies out of his seat, and towards the house.
“You’re evil,” Christopher laughs, leaning back towards the engine, and Buck just shrugs. What did he do?
Two days before Eddie is set to come back to work, he backs their car into a spot on the end. There’s two, maybe three other cars here, all spread out across this overlook, tucked somewhere deep into LA that looks vaguely familiar to Buck, but not enough to ring any specific bells.
Buck can’t help it, twists his body with his hands on the center console and leans in to catch a glimpse out the back window. When he does, he lets out an involuntary, “Woah.”
“Looks better without the backseat in the way,” Eddie says, one hand already on his door, “C’mon.”
Buck follows, of course, hopping out of his seat and rounding out the side, climbing into the bed behind Eddie. He feels like he’s supposed to be a little more wary of something like this, parked near a drop-off, one guardrail, sitting in the back, not in seats. But it’s hard to feel anything but awe when you have this view in front of you.
“Wow,” Buck gasps again, hunched forward, arms around his tucked up knees, as Eddie presses his back against the back window.
“Yeah,” he agrees, “Wow.”
Buck can’t remember the last time he saw a view like this. The city looks like it goes on forever, right until it could fall off the edge of the earth, and the sun is setting in a gradient of the most gorgeous almost-summer colors. He can hear crickets, he thinks giddily. When was the last time he heard crickets? A soft breeze pushes back against his shoulders, and everything feels simple.
“It’s beautiful,” Buck whispers, “How’d you find it?”
“I used to take Christopher here all the time when we first moved,” Eddie starts, stretching his feet out in front of him, the top of his boot absently nudging at Buck’s hip, probably not on purpose, he thinks, or maybe it is, their unconscious need to alway shave some point of contact. “We used to be able to see the sunset from the porch in El Paso, and he threw a fit when we sat down at our new house and couldn’t. Cried for what felt like hours.”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t know if he loved the sunset because it was a sunset or because that was the only time I was home. Little slot of time between jobs,” Eddie muses, “I mean, what five year old knows the word pollution? Air quality?”
“Just the coolest kid in the whole world,” Buck peeks back at him a smidge. Eddie’s head tilts cutely til his ear hits his shoulder. “Plus, we love the environment, remember?”
Eddie laughs, “Well, I polluted the air a little more those first few days here, driving around until I found a sunset spot up to his standards.”
“This would do it,” Buck’s eyes trace over the skyline again. It really, truly was amazing here. He understood it. Could spend hours here, and like Chris, doesn’t know if that’s because of the sunset itself or the company. Probably a little of both.
“Yeah. The shock and awe seems to have faded in favor of video games,” Eddie has to put in a considerable bit of effort to work his jaw over the next words, “And a girlfriend.”
“It’d be so sweet if he took his girlfriend here, Eddie,” Buck coos, “Wouldn’t you cry? Your special place he loves so much? To impress a girl? I’d cry.”
“Of course you would.”
“It’s sweet!” he repeats, insistent, and a little nudgingly, because he likes watching dad Eddie squirm, “Romantic spot to take someone, too.”
“Is it?” Eddie murmurs, eyes on the denim of his jeans, fixed, “Hadn’t noticed.”
Buck twists so his back is against the side of the truck, his feet criss-crossing with Eddie’s now, at an angle to each other. Whole place is beautiful, Buck thinks, staring at Eddie, sunset out of his view. So, so beautiful.
“He could also, maybe, not need the sunsets anymore. Knows he gets you all the time,” Buck considers, knocking the sole of his shoe on the tip of Eddie’s.
“Hmm,” Eddie sinks into the palms of his hands on either side of him, “That’s a nice way to think of it.”
“It’s how I think of it,” Buck admits, slivers of truth peeking out through the cracks in his chest, “I get you all the time. I know that now, and I’m trying to be better at that.”
“At what?” Eddie’s brows scrunch. Buck wants to kiss it, and remembers when that used to be the most abstract, tummy-twisting thought. Now it’s easy as breathing.
“Not holding on too hard, avoiding things in fear, taking what I have for granted.”
“You sound like a greeting card,” Eddie chuckles.
“What kind of greeting cards are you buying?” Buck pushes back, “For what occasions?”
“I have been looking for a sorry you’re still on my couch card.”
“Really? That seems reasonable enough to find,” he shrugs, and then, “You know I love your couch, right?”
“I know,” Eddie says, “I love that you love my couch.”
“Good, so you can save your condolence cards.”
“Buck—”
“I know you didn’t bring me to your gorgeous, special secret sunset spot to talk about couches.”
“Maybe I did.”
Buck fixes him with a long hard look, the wind making his hair flop over his forehead at a funny angle. Buck wants to crawl the rest of the way into the truck bed to push the strands out of Eddie’s eye, let his hand linger. He sits on his hands to keep himself from giving in.
“Okay, fine,” Eddie does then, give in, to the look, and rolls his head side to side, “I think I wanna tell you something.”
“Oh?”
Buck’s not exactly expecting it. Like, he meant it. He didn’t think they drove out here, a half-hour out of the way on a night they had no responsibilities—no work the next day, no kid at home, no dishes to wash, no one looking for them—just to talk about couches. But he didn’t think there was a purpose, a deep, need a pretty sunset to calm and distract us kind of conversational purpose. Suddenly Buck’s stomach feels like lead. What if his car is fixed and he’s being sent back to the loft? Fuck that would be—the sunset would let him down gently. Oh my god, Buck remembers Eddie saying he has this place, this bar he’d bring a girl to let them down gently. What if this is the platonic version of that, the like, please get out of my house now it’s been almost half a year kind of spot.
He’d lulled himself into this false sense of security that this was a thing he and Eddie did now, drive for the sake of driving.
But Eddie wanted to talk. Eddie put a foot of distance between them in the back of his truck and parked them in front of a gorgeous view of the city. Eddie wants to tell him something.
Buck audibly gulps.
“I mean, no, I know, I know I wanna tell you something,” Eddie affirms, knotting his fingers together in his laps, probably sensing that Buck has sensed the tension shift, “I just, I think now’s a good time. I don’t know.”
“Okay,” Buck shifts his weight a little uncomfortably, “You can tell me anything, you know that, right?”
“Of course, of course, I—I didn’t think I couldn’t tell you. That’s not what I meant. I’m gonna—It’s not—” Eddie groans, swiping a hand through his hair, “This is off to a spectacular start.”
“Eddie, it’s just me,” Buck reaches forward slightly, palm up. He hasn’t initiated, or insinuated that he might like, this kind of obvious physical contact since the ambulance. But it's a clear invitation, and an easy step to make, when he thinks it will ease the worry clearly and suddenly eating away at Eddie now. It's easy to be brave like this.
“Yeah, it’s you,” Eddie walks two fingers over Buck’s outstretched palm. It tickles, and Buck’s fingers curl up reflexively.
“Take your time,” Buck says, and means it, but adds a teasing, “I’m enjoying your sons’s favorite sunset. No rush.”
Eddie smiles, grateful, and takes a few deep breaths.
When he looks up, catching Buck’s eye, though, he crumbles, “Fuck, why is this so hard?”
“You don’t have to—” Buck starts, because he’s still pretty sure Eddie is trying to move him back into his apartment and Buck really, truly, and genuinely means it, Eddie doesn’t have to do that. Kind of desperately needs him not to do that.
“I want to, I’m going to,” he is resolute, sitting up a little straighter, and absolutely cracking the longer he stares at Buck’s encouraging smile, “I swear, Buck. It’s like I can feel the words stuck in my throat.”
“But they’re not coming out?”
At that, Eddie absolutely loses it, and uncharacteristically boisterous giggle around his words, “Yeah, definitely not coming out.”
Buck is trying and failing to not laugh along with him, Eddie’s joy is just contagious, even if he wants to be a grounding supportive presence. If he can’t do it with his expression, he tries again with his hand gripping onto Eddie’s tighter.
“I know I can say it,” Eddie sputters, almost hysterically, “I’ve practiced.”
“You practiced?”
“Do you know how hard it was to find time when you and Chris were both out of the house so I could stand in front of my mirror, a thirty year old man, and try saying two fucking words.”
And that’s, I mean, two words ? That’s brutal. A speech would be nice but not expected. Even four words would suffice, or three even, move out, please . Nope, just a cold and harsh get out . Alright. Buck could do this. Brave face on. He could always be brave for Eddie.
He tries for comedic relief. That’s what Buck is, always can be, if he can’t be a permanent fixture in the people he loves’ lives.
“You know, there’s a few mirrors behind us,” Buck uses his one free hand to point to the side mirrors and the rearview one through the window, “If looking into it would help.”
Eddie wheezes, like he’s trying to keep laughing, but it’s getting harder. The words are stuck in his throat. Buck wants to wipe every etch of worry off his face, so he continues:
“Eddie, nothing you could say, two words or a million, could ever change anything between us,” Buck tries to soothe. It’ll sting for 3-5 business days, and then a few more months where Buck pretends it doesn’t, but really, they’ll be fine. He’ll get over it, get over him, and learn to just be Buck solo again, his own things, not shared, beautiful parts of his life morphed into Eddie’s.
“That’s—” Eddie laughs again, “That’s exactly what I—when you —my god.” He scrubs at the stubble on his chin, smile plastered wide, like he can’t get it off, and Buck is confused, but he lets Eddie keep going, “I can’t believe I got so mad the other day, when you wouldn’t let me hold a wrench, and I’m doing the same thing.”
“What?”
Eddie is still a little hysterical sounding, a choked giggle, “I’m gonna, what? Kick down doors with brute strength when I can’t even knock down the metaphoric closet?”
Oh.
Oh. Eddie.
How he responds to that is important, Buck knows. Like, life-changingly important. Fuck. And he has one chance. Within, preferably, the next thirty seconds, so Eddie doesn’t think silence is his answer. Fucking shit.
So you know what he does? On reflex, like it keeps coming down to tonight. He couldn't help it, couldn’t stop it if he tried.
Buck laughs, laughs right along with Eddie, “That’s a new way to phrase it.”
Eddie bites at his bottom lip, puffs of laughter still seeping out when Buck speaks again, “Leave it to a firefighter to kick down the closet instead of just coming out of it.”
It’s like the last remaining cord between them, holding them apart, upright, rigid and with space, cracks right then and there. The earth shakes, everything tilts on an angle, or maybe it all rights itself, and Buck feels like his whole life has changed. In that instant.
Yes , Buck thinks, this is it .
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be laughing,” Buck says, laughing so hard now, the harder Eddie laughs, just exponentially multiplying on top of each other.
“No, no, please don’t stop, this is good, this is really good, I thought I was gonna cry doing this, so this is so…” Eddie gushes, almost wheezing, “I was watching coming out compilations on YouTube that night I visited you at work and couldn’t sleep. So many people looked miserable.”
“I mean, you looked pretty miserable for a while there.”
“You asshole,” Eddie kicks at Buck more purposefully now, tears pooling in his eyes, a mix of overwhelm in emotion and laughter, “I was doing a big thing, leave me alone.”
“It was,” Buck lowers his voice, serious for a second, “It was a really big thing.”
“Those videos were shit, more people should be laughing when they do this,” Eddie smiles, “It’s happy. I’m happy.”
“Good. You should be.”
Eddie tugs their interlocked hands to his chest, places them, together, on his chest.
He laughs again, but it’s a real laugh this time, not from nerves and not playing off of Buck’s, and not just as a side effect of happiness.
“What’s funny?”
“I just, I came here to tell you I’m gay, in the gay way,” Eddie giggles, smile stretched so wide Buck’s never seen so many of his teeth all at once before, “And I ended up also gay, but in the happy way.”
Holy fucking shit.
Has Buck mentioned it today?
This man is the love of his life.
“You dork, you nerdy, ridiculous idiot, you absolute—” Buck starts until he can’t stand it, not a second longer, and launches himself into Eddie’s arms.
He pulls Eddie in, wraps his arms around his shoulders, feels Eddie tuck his chin into the crook of his neck, feels the way the air whooshes out of him against his chest, right into his ear.
“Oh my god,” Eddie exhales, sounding a little heavier, until Buck feels a drop on his shoulder.
Buck runs his hands up and down Eddie’s back, slow and soothing, “I got you.” There’s a soft sniffle in answer, so he goes on, “Eddie, I am so, so proud of you. And happy for you. In the happy way.”
Eddie chuckles wetly, clinging to Buck even tighter. Buck lets him, inching impossibly closer, mapping out the way they fit together like this in his mind. He has never felt so safe. Now that Buck is at ease, he’s worried he’s getting addicted to the feeling.
“How the fuck did you hold it together doing this, man?”
And it’s Buck’s turn to all but cackle.
“And you did it in your kitchen!” Eddie sputters, voice vibrating against Buck’s shoulder, “I had to work up the courage to bring you to this hidden place I could avoid the rest of my life if I had to.”
“To be fair,” Buck runs his thumb over the spot between Eddie’s shoulder blades, “I’ve also kind of been avoiding my kitchen lately.”
“You should avoid it forever,” Eddie says, and releases Buck just a hair from his grip, enough for them to see face to face.
“When you started talking, saying you had to tell me something,” Buck quirks, “I thought you were getting ready to kick me out.”
Eddie reaches to wipe some tears off his cheek, but Buck beats him to it. “Oh, I would have been way more miserable if I had to do that.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, I’m not—you don’t wanna leave, right?”
“No.” Never.
“Good,” Eddie heaves a sigh, smoothing his hands down his legs with a whoop, “Okay, one down, everyone else left to go.”
So Buck laughs again, “I was first?”
“Second if you count my mirror.”
“Of course your mirror counts.”
“Do you think if I bring Chris here to tell him, it’ll ruin the place and then he’ll never think about having a romantic date with his girlfriend in the same spot?”
“Shut up and look at the pretty sky,” Buck says, tugging Eddie back, because the space they’re apart feels hollow, even if Eddie didn’t let him get very far to begin with, then lets Eddie rest his head on Buck’s shoulder so they can shut up and look at the pretty sky.
“Check engine light still on?”
“Yeah, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be, we already established I love your couch.”
“I feel like a kid being picked up from a play date.”
Chim snorts beside him, walking side by side out of the station.
“Our grown-ups are talking,” he plays with the strap of the bag on his shoulder, squinting when the morning sunlight hits them. God, he needs a fucking nap.
“About us you think?” Chim plays along, bumping his shoulder into his, “I don’t think I’ve done anything worth tattle-taleing since they last saw each other.”
A few feet in front of them are Maddie and Eddie’s cars, the two of them side by side, Eddie out of his so he can talk to Maddie in the front with one hand outstretched to hold on to a little one in the back seat. Buck tracks Eddie’s every little minute movement, the way he laughs at something Maddie says, the way Jee-yun tugs his attention back, how he leans to be closer to her even as he converses with Maddie, his other hand gesturing happily.
“You stole the bunk I wanted,” Buck pouts.
“You weren’t using it to sleep! You stayed up all night texting. Not to mention you used all the hot water before I—”
“Boys, boys,” Hen scoots between them, arms around either of their shoulders, “You always do something worth tattling.”
“That seems like an over exaggeration,” Buck pouts.
“Maybe, but if you kill each other now, I don’t get breakfast,” Hen shrugs, “So, keep it civil.”
“Copy that,” Chim laughs slipping out of her grasp to run the last few steps to Maddie’s car, bee-lining for his wife, and then grabbing Jee’s attention away for a moment.
Which is more than fine with Buck, because—
“Good morning.”
It is not lost on Buck that Eddie greets him in the same way Chim greets Maddie, save only the kiss.
“Hi, how was your night?” Buck sinks into Eddie’s side.
“You know exactly how his night was,” Chim murmurs, which is true, but unhelpful. Buck’s phone burns a hole in his back pocket, hours of messages between him and Eddie there.
If the comment bothers Eddie at all though, he makes no sign of showing it, instead turning to look up at Buck, “I uh—you wanna start the car? I wanna tell Chim and Hen something.”
“Yeah?” Buck asks a million things all at once with that word, but Eddie nods, so sure of himself. He looks happier than he has in maybe all the time Buck’s known him, even happier than the other night when he told him. So, “Okay, I’ll be in the car. With tissues. Do you want me to record for YouTube?”
The car ride to the station on Eddie’s first day back at work is absolutely bonkers.
Buck is shaking with so much energy he could probably rip open a fault line of his own will. He’s trying not to let it get to that point but you know, Eddie is back. Eddie is in his uniform, looking so good and alive, and he’s driving them together to the station, where they’re gonna work together for 12 full hours, together, and then go home together, and did Buck mention they were going to be together?
“You excited? Nervous?” Buck sits on his hands to keep them from shaking, “It’s okay to be nervous, or take another week if you want. Which I don’t. But you know, it’s an option that’s available to you, and I want you to feel—”
“I’m excited, Buck,” Eddie hums fondly, turning into the station lot, “I’ll go easy when I can and if I can’t, I know you have my back.”
“Always,” Buck says, reaching for Eddie hand and giving it a squeeze, because that’s a super fun thing they do sometimes now. Hold hands. In the car.
He’s going to accidentally phase through the seat and into the gravel.
Buck grabs both their bags from the back seat, and Eddie lets him, which is a nice way he humors Buck. They bump shoulders with every step towards the large, open garage doors, until Buck catches Hen and Chim hiding around the corner in his periphery. HE swings them to a stop, hand on Eddie’s shoulder, “Shit, my phone. I forgot it in the car.”
“Oh, do you want me to—”
His sweet and perfectly predictable man.
“Would you?”
“Yeah, yeah, of course, I’ll be right back,” Eddie squeezes Buck’s elbow, then makes a light jog back towards the car.
When he’s sufficiently out of range, Buck waves a hand at his friends, “Coast is clear!”
Chim sprints with a large bakery box in both his hands, around the corner and past the ambulance, towards the stairs, and Hen, with the much more inconspicuous job of bringing in streamers that she could hide in her bag, skids to a slower half in front of Buck, lingering in the doorway.
“So?” she drops her voice to a whisper, leaning in, “Did you say something?”
And Buck knows she is not talking about him saying something about the surprise welcome back party.
“Do you think if I confessed my undying love to my best friend overnight I’d just be standing here, neutral-faced, helping you sneak in licorice rebar cupcakes?”
Hen quirks, “Maybe?”
“No, no I would absolutely not be,” Buck whisper-yells, “You’d know if I did. Probably be crying. Never learned how to regulate my emotions as a kid and it’s catching up to me now. Anyway, did he say anything?”
“Not to me, but I think he’s talking to Karen,” Hen crosses her arms over her chest, swaying back and forth inquisitively.
“Karen was a wild card, I should have known.”
“Even I forget how secretly close they are,” Hen huffs, annoyed that she missed it too, “She’s being extremely tight-lipped. Maybe you should just—”
“I can’t risk it Hen, I need to be so absolutely certain,” Buck glances briefly to his right, checking to make sure Eddie is still searching through the car for Buck’s phone, which is very much in his pocket, “I could fuck a lot of things up here.”
“What if—crazy idea here—you say something anyway,” she posits, and Buck had known this was coming, but it still makes him pinch the bridge of his nose in stress, “He came out to you in his special place at sunset, Buck.”
“And didn’t mention a single thing about being into me,” Buck whispers harshly, “I just feel like if it was ever going to come up, it would have been then.”
“Did you ever think maybe he thought the same thing? That if you were into him it would have come up when you came out?”
“That is so completely different,” Buck tosses his head back to humorlessly laugh, “I was with someone else, and so was he.”
“You’re gonna go in circles if you keep trying to rationalize it like this,” Hen tries to soothe, “Something's gotta give eventually.”
“Are you sure you left it in the car?” Eddie comes jogging back up to them, then, and they both straighten up and smile on, which isn’t suspicious at all, “Hi, Hen.”
“Welcome back, Rebar 2.0.”
“Oh, Chim’s gonna hate that.”
“It was his idea,” Buck smiles, then waves his phone, “I’m an idiot, it was in my back pocket.”
Eddie clucks adoringly, “You’d lose your head if it wasn’t attached.” He soothes a hand over Buck’s cheek and holds it over his neck for a second, like he can make sure it stays attached, and then runs off, “Chim upstairs already? I promised Jee she could call me to see I was alive and well when I got back to work. She is so your niece, Buck, it's crazy.”
He doesn’t wait for an answer before jogging off to find Chim, but that seems to be enough answer for Hen, and he encourages Buck to go for it again.
She’s right, as always, Buck thinks. Something’s gotta give. She never said what , though.
And last night, Buck was not only dealing with a feelings, but headlights that wouldn’t turn on, a brand new broken development.
So Buck gives in, and calls a mechanic to come look at his Jeep.
One thing at a time.
Buck’s Jeep has been stuck in Eddie’s driveway for four months, two weeks, and six days, and thirteen hours when it comes back to life.
“What do you mean, it’s fine ?”
“It’s fine, there’s nothing wrong with your car,” Mason wipes grease off his hands with a dirty rag, grunting as he pushes up to standing. “I just started it three times to be sure. And every single nook and cranny under that hood is in spotless condition.”
“That’s impossible.”
“I wouldn’t lie to you.”
“I know you wouldn’t, but neither would Eddie,” Buck paces the width of the driveway, his Jeep, alive and okay, check engine light off and practically glaring at him. What the fuck is going on?
“I don’t think he would either,” Mason seems amused, and Buck can’t figure out how or why this could possibly be amusing. “What specifically did he say was wrong with the car?”
“I don’t know,” Buck shrugs, “A lot of things.”
“Start with one,” Mason gets comfortable, his hips against a headlight, which is on. With no problem at all.
And um. Okay. One problem, Buck can do that. There’s been so many, so many months going back and forth to work in Eddie’s car, to buy supplies, watching him from the step, fixing one thing and finding another, keeping Buck here. But suddenly tasked with naming one, Buck is coming up empty. Like his wiper fluid on week six.
He should have so many to choose from. But what—what had Eddie said was wrong with his car?
“He had to replace something,” Buck starts, thinking back as far as he could go, “I don’t think he ever told me the name.”
“Okay, that’s fine, I’ll tell you,” Mason lilts, “Nothing in there looks new.”
“But you said it looked fine.”
“Because you kept your car in really good condition. Nothing in there looks new enough to have been replaced in the last few months.”
“Okay, okay, well what about the battery?”
“ What about it?”
“Right before his accident, Eddie called me while I was at the grocery store to tell me the car wouldn’t start,” Buck recounts, keeping up his pacing, “He said he would jump start it before I got home, then he’d try to figure out what was really wrong. I’m assuming with the battery.”
“I mean, if the car was dead, jumping it would have gotten it to start again,” Mason scratches behind his neck, “You said he did it while you were out?”
“Yeah, I went to get us groceries for the week.”
“You took his car?”
“Yeah,” Buck is not following.
“So whose car did he use to jump start it?”
What the fuck.
“I mean, unless he’s particularly close to one of his neighbors, but the lady over there keeps looking at me funny so—” Mason points across the street, Eddie’s evil neighbor Marcia had thought this car business was fun for all of 0.2 seconds, and would have called the cops if she didn’t already know Athena would show up (because she has, tried to call the cops on Eddie before, and Athena has showed up.)
Refusing to think about that one any more, Buck yelps again, “My headlights!”
“They’re working.”
“They were off yesterday!”
“He probably just, manually turned them off.”
“Why would he—”
“You’ve been staying here, right?”
Buck is still, aimlessly, not following. None of this makes sense. Sure, he didn’t know what was going on with his car, but it didn’t matter. Eddie just, he knew better. He knew what was going on, and Buck didn’t need to.
Although…Eddie’s insistence that Buck didn’t ever need to help, or know what was going on. Buck had thought Eddie just didn’t want to bother him, or worry him, because he loved the Jeep, everyone loved the Jeep, but maybe—was he not telling him what was wrong because nothing was wrong ? The store they bought supplies from had the weirdest fucking hours, never open when they needed something. Buck never saw Eddie turn his car on. He hasn’t checked the check engine light since that first day.
“Yeah, I’m staying here.”
“And if your car is fixed?”
“I’d have no reason to stay here.”
And of course, in the metaphor to end all metaphors, a fucking light goes on.
The first thing Buck does as soon as he’s waved Mason goodbye, thanking him profusely for his non-car services and ample relationship advice and insisting he think about changing gears and becoming a therapist (“How do you think I’m paying for the psych degree, man?” Mason had chucked, even as he refused any payment, and a generous tip,) is get in the car and drive.
His keys feel foreign in his hands, they’re so much heavier than their—than Eddie’s.
Buck has solved many a problem by driving around to clear his mind, so that’s what he’s going to do. Eddie had left before Mason got here, dropped Chris off at school and said he was going to grab coffees for the team, having missed his turn in the rotation a few times all the weeks he was out and needing to catch up apparently. Then, he’d swing back and get Buck to head to work.
But Buck’s car is working again, and he can’t sit still, so. Off he goes.
He should text Eddie and let him know he’s gone, so as not to worry him, but his mind looks like a static TV screen, and nothing is making sense but everything finally does make sense at the same time? Buck doesn’t know, he just needs to drive. Put some music on and clear his head.
So Buck turns his car on, the check engine light stays off, and he backs out onto the road.
He makes it two whole blocks before it all feels wrong. It’s so quiet. Eddie should be here.
In search of noise, he knows the best place to go for it.
“You’re incredibly early.”
“I need your help,” Buck lands at the top of the loft steps, hands on his knees, heaving and out of breath from the sprint. “I’m having car issues.”
“I know,” Bobby nods, face crowded with confusion, “Shouldn’t you be talking to Eddie about this?”
“Eddie is the car issue,” Buck swings a chair out on Bobby’s left, the legs skidding against the wood floor harshly.
“I’m not following,” he pushes his crossword book away, marking a page, clearly not getting any of it done any time soon.
“Neither was I, until 20 minutes ago,” Buck drums his fingers impatiently on the table.
“Wait a second—I thought you and Eddie were doing coffee today.”
“Eddie is doing coffee.”
“How’d you get here then?”
“Woah there, Buck here before his carpool buddy?” Chim strides up into the loft next, “Did Evan Buckley take the bus?”
“I drove here,” Buck says evenly, steadily, and then, “ In the Jeep .”
“No!”
Bobby’s mouth almost audibly drops open, “It’s alive?”
“What happened?”
“ Nothing, apparently,” Buck rocks back on his chair the way he knows makes Bobby nervous, but he is, mercifully, not called out for it at the moment. “That’s why I needed to talk to you, before Eddie—”
Bobby’s phone lights up on the table, rings and rings and rings.
Eddie’s name bright at the top.
“You gonna answer that?” Chim leans in, palm pressed into the table right beside the phone.
“Should I?” Bobby looks to Buck.
“I don’t know?” Buck winces nervously, mind running a mile a minute, and then, a frazzled, “Fuck it. Yeah, answer.”
“ Language ,” Bobby hisses, before schooling his features, letting out a whoosh of breath, and pressing accept, then putting it on speaker. “Hey Eddie, what’s going on?”
“I need your help.”
Theme of the fu— freaking day.
All three of the men hunch in close to the phone, still face up on the table between them all, as Bobby answers, “Of course, anything.”
“I think I have a flat.”
The universe and her jokes.
“Oh no, are you okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. I’m at that coffee shop, over on 14th,” Eddie says, and Buck can practically hear the expression on his face, his poor, adorably wrinkled brow. Buck needs to kiss him, asap. “The parking lot here is the worst, the potholes they never fix.”
“But they always make Buck’s coffee right.”
“Yeah, that’s why I—” Eddie starts, before he seems to catch himself, “Actually, what does that—that’s not—not relevant—”
“You were saying?” Bobby smiles.
“This place was a flat waiting to happen, I’m surprised it took me so many years,” Eddie huffs, “Anyway, I called a tow, but it’s still 20 minutes out. I can Uber to the station—”
“Don’t be ridiculous, I’ll send someone to pick you up,” Bobby says, and in the smoothest line Buck has ever seen pulled off, he lilts, “Buck’s with you, right?”
“No, and that’s the other issue,” Eddie is probably pacing up and down the sidewalk outside Buck’s favorite coffee shop, “He’s still home.”
“Eddie, you know I would drop anything to help you, at any time, no questions asked,” Bobby is a master conversationalist. Buck is floored watching him walk Eddie exactly where he wants him to be, “But why don’t you just ask Buck to come get you? If he’s home, and has his car. It’s driveable, right?” He spits back those words Eddie had used months ago, when he was busy calling the whole team ridiculous.
“It is,” Eddie grits, and oh boy is it , Buck thinks. “He can’t drive it though.”
“Why not?” Bobby asks, playing dumb so well.
There is a long stretch of silence on Eddie’s end of the line, for what feels like an eternity, but it maybe only a few seconds of idle noise in his background coming through the speakers.
“Cap, if I tell you something, do you promise not to say a word?” Eddie says, voice uncertain, “This is the biggest secret I’ve ever kept in my entire life, and I just came out at age 35.”
“You can tell me anything, Eddie, always.”
There’s a loud sigh over the phone, and then, “Buck’s car is fine.”
Doesn’t matter how many times he hears that today, or says it himself. Still not going to feel real for a while. He had mourned!
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, there’s nothing wrong with it!” Eddie laughs hysterically, “I’ve been making shit up for the past few months.”
(“I called it! I knew it! Did I not call that exactly!” Chim runs a safe distance away to cheer for himself.)
Bobby remains quiet to let Eddie work out his thoughts for a beat, and then keeps rambling on, “I honestly think it was just overheating. And then it sat still in my driveway for three days, while he drove with me, and lived with me, and then everything was good. Too good, like, I couldn’t kick him out good, Bobby. But if his car was fine, what excuse did I have for making him stay?
“So I kept, I don’t know, stalling? Delaying? Making things up to fix or tinker with week after week. Rebar to the spleen was helpful, actually, because then I had 4 weeks I didn’t have to come up with anything.”
“I wouldn’t call a life-threatening injury helpful, Eddie.”
“He just, he can’t get in the Jeep, because then he’ll see that it’s fine, and leave,” Eddie ignores him, and plows ahead.
“You could just, a thought here,” Bobby posits, “Have two working cars between you. Ask him to move in.”
Eddie cackles at that, “Think there’s something else I need to ask him first before I can do that.” Buck actually thinks he’s going to float away if he doesn’t hold onto the edge of the table. “And I will, I want to. I just, need a little more time. The Jeep needs to stay dead.”
“Well then,” Bobby purses his lips, contemplating, “May she rest in peace. I’ll come get you.”
“Yeah?”
“Told you I wouldn’t tell,” Bobby winks, pushing Buck’s Jeep keys insistently towards his hands, “I’ll send Chim for Buck, Hen will hold down the station til we’re all back. Shouldn’t be long.”
“What am I doing?” Hen traipses into the kitchen, catching the tail end of their conversation. Her eyes flit between all their wil expressions, before she settles on the silver in Buck’s hands, and her jaw drops, “Buck, are those—”
Bobby has Eddie off speaker with lightning speed, phone to his ear as he waves one hm trying to orchestrate everyone around in this elaborate plan he’s apparently just come up with, “Yeah, yeah, Eddie, it's no problem. I’ll see you in 10. … Okay, alright. … Mhm … Bye.”
“She lives!” Hen is still gaping at the Jeep keys, “Someone fill me in immediately.”
“Gladly, and with popcorn, preferably, because I’ve seen movies less entertaining than this,” Chim finally sinks into a seat, pulling the chair next to him out for Hen.
“Go get him, kid,” Bobby nods at Buck. “Take your time. Breakfast when you get back.”
“A celebration of life.”
“To the Jeep!”
To the Jeep , Buck agrees, as he takes off, to the Jeep.
“Excuse me sir, I’m looking for Eddie? Eddie Diaz? I’m his ride.”
Eddie looks up from where he was slumped against the wall of the coffee shop’s exterior, and all the color drains from his face immediately, so Buck soldiers on with his bit.
“I swear, I have a five star rating, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Buck glints in the sunlight, “You don’t even have to tip. But if you want to, I’ll accept it in the form of a meal.”
He takes two steps up over the curb, Eddie staying completely still when he answers, “Buck, I can explain.”
“I know. You did,” Buck nods.
“You heard,” Eddie says, doesn’t ask.
“You remember that mechanic I met on a call a few weeks ago?” Buck tilts his head, tries to find Eddie’s eye, but he’s swiftly avoiding him. “He came by this morning. Gave the Jeep a clean bill of health. And gave me a million things to think about.”
“I’m so sorry, Buck—”
“For what?” Buck smiles, “You fixed my car.”
“I lied.”
“You omitted some truths,” Buck quips, shoving his hands in his pockets nervously, “And honestly, so have I.”
Eddie finally looks at him then, eyes wide and bewildered and worried.
“I um, I probably could have figured it out on my own, if I had dedicated, like, even a single second to it. I guess, I didn't want to? Jump starting my car when I had yours at the grocery store was a dead giveaway, and I didn’t put the pieces together until an hour ago.”
Eddie cracks the teeniest, tiniest smile. Buck’s chest blooms.
“You had said the night before that you were going to miss it, us, driving around my neighborhood,” Eddie admits, “I had to double down. I got desperate.”
“Obviously, I was just as, if not more so,” Buck says, “I love your couch, Eddie. And I’ve been trying to work up the courage to say that to you, with a few less letters, for months.”
“Without which letters?”
“Take off the r,” Buck is surprised his voice comes out so evenly, “Eliminate the whole couch.”
“I thought you liked my couch?” Eddie’s wry smile twists at Buck’s insides.
“I love your couch, but that’s not the point right now,” Buck takes another step towards Eddie, just a few feet between them now. He could probably reach out and touch him, he almost does, maybe he should.
“The point is, I think I loved my Jeep until I started driving with you. Because I love that, I love waking up and running to the car, spilling my coffee on your seats and playing my music too loud. I love driving to nowhere and driving to everywhere. I love how you look when you’re trying not to look at me, when you’re insisting you have to keep your eyes on the road. I love the stupid air fresheners you pick, and your key chains that make too much noise when you twirl them around your finger. I love the environment and I love the stickers you keep in the glove box and how cold you keep the air. I love shivering! I will shiver every day in your passenger seat, Eddie Diaz, if it means I am in your passenger seat, because fuck, I love knowing you’re with me, always.
“So I just. I don’t think I love my Jeep anymore. I can only just like it , if even that. Because I love you . And if what I feel for you is love, which I’m certain it is, never been more certain of a thing in my life, then the things in your car? I like them, that’s all. They’re not even close to you, to how I feel about you. And then the Jeep? Well, you can tell me it’s fine and Mason can say it’s fine, but I knew, and Chim and Bobby and Hen knew that day I came in with my check engine light on, that it was good as dead.”
Buck feels out of breath, winded, fucking exhilarated. He watched Eddie take him in, filter the words, and Buck wonders if he’s playing certain ones on loop the way he is.
Buck takes one more step forward, and this time, Eddie mirrors him.
Eddie puts his hand over his heart. Buck does the same.
“We can keep pretending the check engine light is on, and we can mourn the Jeep over breakfast when we get to work again, if that means I can stay with you,” Buck says, assured, and certain. At ease. “Or…”
“Or?” Eddie probes, so light and hopeful, Buck aches.
“Or, you could ask me a question.”
Time stops moving there for a second. It’s a busy morning, weekday in LA on a crowded street, blocks and blocks of store fronts, coffee shops, office buildings at peak commute time. But there is no one in the world Buck is seeing or hearing other than Eddie. Eddie and the secret dimple he gets on one cheek, his beautiful brown eyes, the piece of hair that falls over the wrinkle between his brows that Buck wants to kiss, that he might get to, if this easy leap of bravery lands the way he thinks it will.
Buck doesn’t hear any of it. It’s all white noise. Eddie’s favorite.
“I want to kiss you.”
Buck’s throat feels like it closes up on itself, all the words trapped, but he manages, “That’s not a question.”
“It’s not,” Eddie nods. Certain. Sure. At ease .
“Can I ask one then?”
“Go for it,” Eddie levels.
“Can I kiss you?”
And Eddie Diaz, the love of Buck’s life, looks him dead in the eye, and smiles a, “No.”
“No?”
“Think you forgot part of the question.”
The love of his life. Easy.
“Fuck you, man,” Buck takes three easy strides to close the distance between them, hands already around Eddie’s waist to get his chest flush against his, and when his eyes are glinting the perfect shade of amused and his lips are close enough he can smell his toothpaste, Buck whispers, practically begs, “ Please , can I kiss you?”
“I forgot—” Eddie sputters, between peals of laughter, “The coffee, Buck, the coffee—”
“Forget the coffee.”
“It was my turn, I missed, ah,” Eddie tries to slink out of Buck’s grip, kiss after kiss after kiss on every available surface of his face, crowded up against the door of the Jeep, “I missed too many, I can’t drop the ball on this one.”
“Think of how many kisses we’ve missed though, Eddie,” Buck says, and kisses him again, to make his point. It is a good point, a wonderful point, and Eddie slips a hum between Buck’s lips sounding so very convinced.
“We have to get to work, c’mon,” he sounds wrecked, pained by this truth, as he backs up, turns to get the trays of coffee he left sitting on the table behind him, and if Buck can’t be kissing him, he can certainly think about how he’s going to kiss him next, when he returns, from the two steps away he took. This is awful, everyone is going to be so sick of Buck in the next few, oh, he doesn’t know, rest of his life, maybe? If he had to put a timeline on it.
“Are you gonna complain about the taste of my breath if I drink this?” Buck reaches for the cup he knows is his.
“I can get used to oat milk,” Eddie says with faux disdain, “You driving?”
“Probably time I returned the favor,” Buck clicks his keys and unlocks the doors, sliding in and leaning way over to get the door from the inside for Eddie.
“Chivalry!” Eddie crows, getting into his seat, the remaining coffees balanced precariously on his lap, “I could get used to this too.”
“I have always been plenty chivalrous, look,” Buck points to the air vents, “I’ve had the car frosting over for you the whole way here in preparation.”
Eddie giggles, pressing one hand over the vent, and peeking up over his bicep at Buck as he shifts the car into drive, and without any other warning, or preamble, or context, Eddie smiles, “I love you.”
Thank god there is plenty of air circulating in this car. Because all of it has left Buck.
But because loving Eddie is a joyous thing, that makes him laugh in weird places and never, ever apologize for it, “In like, the gay way?”
“Yeah, but I’m also, like ridiculously happy about it.”
“Me too,” Buck says, and pulls the car out onto the road, safe from the evil parking lot of flat tire doom, “Happy and in love with you.”
Eddie seems to catch a case of whatever Buck had outside the car, not able to keep from kissing him for even a second, and leans over the center console, like every fucking dream Buck has ever had, and kisses him.
It is perfect, for ten whole seconds, until Buck has to look at the road, and Eddie knocks over someone’s coffee.
Chim’s, it is so Chim’s, and they’re never ever going to live it down.
But when Eddie tips his head back into the headrest and laughs, brighter than he ever has before, happier than Buck has ever seen him, even with chai latte dripping down his uniform shirt, Buck thinks he can live with that.
“Please tell me you have napkins somewhere in here,” Eddie is practically vibrating with joy reaching for the glove box, but Buck stops him with one hand, tips back into his back seat when they roll into a red light, drops one of Eddie’s own in case of emergency shirts into his lap.
Eddie looks at him, kisses between Buck’s knuckles he won’t let go of, and finally asks a question, “How soon can you move in?”
The light turns green.
“I think I get it,” Eddie hums into Buck’s ear, clambering after him, limbs long and uncoordinated, to get into the back seat, like giddy teenagers.
“Get what?” Buck is breathless, elbows on the seat cushions, Eddie’s lips all over him. On his cheek and down his neck and nosing at the spot where the collar of his shirt has been pushed to the side, and his hands . Holy shit—they’re everywhere. Right now, there’s one on his belt, and one under his shirt on the small of his back, and Buck’s whole body is on fire.
“Why we love the Jeep.”
Buck swallows Eddie’s laughter with his lips, and thanks, in no particular order: Eddie, the barista who messed up his coffee four months ago, Eddie, Chim and Hen and Bobby and Maddie and Jee-yun and Christopher, rebar and that one nice nurse, Eddie, sunsets and play dates, buff-fridays and cavatappi and long, useless car rides, Mason and Jessica and her stupid, stupid car, whoever invented check engine lights, Eddie, Jeep as a company at large, and the car manufacturing industry as a whole.
And did he mention Eddie?
Because Buck? Buck is completely and totally in love.