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Buck has his mouth full of the meatball stew he and Bobby cooked for lunch when he speaks, so it takes Eddie a couple of seconds to understand that he just said, “I broke up with Tommy.”
Everyone at the table falls silent.
To Eddie’s right, Buck swallows and then brings another spoonful of the dish to his mouth. To Eddie’s left, Hen has been frozen with a glass of water in her hand, raised halfway to her mouth. At the head of the table, Bobby has his eyebrows raised, his eyes set inquisitively on Buck. Chimney’s mouth is wide open, showing Eddie and every other member of the 118 the half-chewed food inside it. Ravi’s head is tilted to the side for one single second before he shrugs and goes back to eating.
“Buck,” Hen and Bobby say at the same time, practically stealing the word from Eddie’s own lips.
“It happened three days ago but I didn’t want to steal the spotlight,” Buck says, referring to the fact that three days ago marked Bobby’s first shift back with the team after the hell that was having Gerrard as a Captain for two whole months.
“How—”
Chimney doesn’t get to finish his question before Buck interrupts him, “I’m okay. Everything’s okay. Nothing bad happened.”
Eddie tries to search for the lie in the words but he can’t find it. Buck looks relaxed, unburdened. Even trying to think back on the last 3 days to remember if there have been signs that he missed proves futile. Buck has behaved normally, he’s been his usual self.
And yet, Eddie can feel that something is missing. That something isn’t quite as right as Buck is saying everything is.
“I’m just telling you all because I didn’t want to feel like I was keeping something from you guys,” Buck explains.
It’s somewhat funny how casual he keeps trying to appear while everyone else around him looks as if he’d just delivered the news that all along he was a sleeper agent sent by Captain Gerrard to dismantle the 118 from the inside.
Not that the news of the breakup itself is what has Eddie so baffled, and he doesn’t think is what the others are shocked about either.
If anyone had asked Eddie only an hour ago whether he thought Buck and Tommy were likely to break up soon he wouldn’t have been able to give an answer. Or well, he would have been able to think of the answer of what he most desired, but he would have known to keep those thoughts to himself. But the question of if it would happen was one he would have had to leave unanswered.
To his knowledge, nothing had been going wrong between Buck and Tommy.
But to his knowledge, nothing had been going particularly right, either.
Buck and Tommy’s relationship, up until a mere minute ago, existed rather uneventfully in the world. He knew of it. It was there.
Except that now, apparently, it is not.
“Look, I don’t need you guys to be worried on my behalf, alright? And I don’t need any of you to think less of Tommy, or to think that you owe me to stop talking to him or anything.” At this last sentence, Buck focuses his gaze on Eddie in a pretty unsubtle way. “Tommy and I are cool. We’re going to stay friends. You can stay friends with him, too.”
Knowing that Buck’s words are mostly meant for him, Eddie nods his head.
“Sure, Buck, that’s great,” Hen says, finally coming back alive. “But what—”
“There’s really nothing more to say about it,” Buck rushes to say, cutting off Hen’s line of questioning. “I broke up with him and everything is fine. We can all move on now.”
And this, this is what Eddie and, if he knows his family as well as he thinks he does, everyone else is surprised about.
There is something Buck is not saying, something that he is doing a very, very bad job at pretending it doesn’t exist.
And sure, yeah, it’s not like Buck is always an over-sharer, as much as he sometimes labels himself one. Sometimes, when he feels doubtful and insecure, Buck hides behind bright and colorful walls that conceal the dimmer light of his true feelings.
But this blatant denial of things? The way he didn’t tell any of them not just about the break up itself, but about the possibility that there could be one?
That is what first ignites Eddie’s curiosity.
That is what makes Eddie want to talk about it so badly.
_________________________
Two weeks later, Eddie has as much information about the situation as he had that afternoon at the station when Buck out of the blue announced his most recent change in relationship status.
This is, objectively, not actually true. But it somehow feels as if it is, because all of the new details Eddie has gotten still fail to paint a clear picture. In fact, all of the details that Eddie has gotten from Buck have only served to make him even more confused.
After that shift, that one famous and fateful shift where Buck so carelessly announced he was single once more, Eddie had tried to engage Buck in conversation during their pre-planned weekly movie night.
Right before Buck had pressed play on the film, Eddie had gently nudged him and asked, “So how are you doing? With the break up and all?”
Buck had simply shrugged. “I’m good, honestly. Like I said this morning, it was nothing dramatic.”
“But…” Eddie had tried to find the right words. He had wracked his brain to come up with the perfect question. But in the end he had had to give up and just gone for the most sincere one. “Why?”
And Buck’s answer had completely solidified in Eddie’s mind that this was, after all, a matter worth pursuing.
“Sometimes breakups just happen,” Buck had said. “There doesn’t have to be a big why.”
Eddie had been left stunned and speechless, staring right at Buck with unblinking eyes and mouth hanging open as Buck pretended everything was normal while starting the movie.
There was nothing more suspicious that Buck could have said, at least not to Eddie. Because Eddie knows Buck, to his core. He knows the parts of Buck that everyone else knows and the parts of Buck that he keeps hidden from others. He even knows parts of Buck that even Buck himself doesn’t seem to see. And Buck? Buck is a why guy.
Buck is a guy who needs to know the reasons for things. He needs to understand, to connect. Buck always needs to feel like he’s done everything possible to answer the how, when, what, and where of every aspect of life and the world. Buck and his research spirals. Buck and his self-help books. Buck and his constant identity upgrades.
If there is a why, Buck wants to know the because. Especially if the because concerns him in any way.
It is quite literally impossible that Buck hasn’t stopped to think about the causes for his and Tommy’s break up, really. Which means that Buck just doesn’t want to talk about them. Not just with everyone. Not just with the team. Buck seems to not want to talk about them with Eddie.
For about a second after Eddie had this thought, right as the initial credits of the movie had been playing, the sting of it had been unbearable. Quickly, it faded, though, leaving behind only a quiet echo of hurt but an unhealthy amount of fixation.
That night the conversation had been put to sleep by Buck, but the topic has kept Eddie awake incessantly since then. In the past couple of weeks it’s as if Buck’s obsession with the whys and wherefores has been transplanted onto Eddie. There’s not an hour that goes by where Eddie isn’t thinking about it, mulling it over, turning it over and over again in his mind like a Rubik’s Cube that he can’t quite solve. When he was all the blues lined up, the greens don’t quite match. When he manages to sort all the whites and yellows, the reds and oranges are spread all around.
Eddie hasn’t dared question himself more than once on his motives for solving this mystery.
Sure, there is the very simple reason of wanting to know that Buck is okay. He always wants to know that Buck is okay.
But there is a spark that threatens to turn into a real flame if Eddie so much as breathes its way. It’s dangerous. It’s risky.
Eddie would not survive the fall so for now he is ignoring the hope.
_________________________
Four days after the announcement, Eddie comments that he texted Tommy while he and Buck work out at the gym in the station.
Their exchange was nothing special.
“Heard about the break up. Hope you’re doing well,” Eddie had sent.
Tommy had replied, “Thanks, man. It’s all good. Let’s meet soon for some sparring.”
Eddie only really mentions it to Buck in the hopes that it will spark if not an explanation then at least a hint of an opening. Eddie wants to hang onto the smallest of threads and pull until the whole of the story unravels.
But Buck doesn’t offer Eddie much at all.
“You should really hang out with him soon,” Buck tells Eddie instead, sounding and looking like he truly means it. “He really is a great guy. Didn’t do anything that would call for you dropping him.”
“Did you do something then?” Eddie asks, not judgmentally. He would never judge Buck, not for anything, not even for those actions of his that Eddie has disapproved of throughout the years. He sounds intrigued, because he is. He sounds sanguine, but he prays Buck can’t hear it.
Buck stops the bicep curl he was doing and stares far ahead between the ambulance and the fire engine.
“Not something I could help,” Buck says after a couple of seconds of silence, and then continues on with his workout.
As hard as Eddie tries he can’t make sense of Buck’s words in any way whatsoever.
_________________________
“Is it something embarrassing that made you guys break up? Are you embarrassed?” Eddie wonders as he watches Buck cook dinner for them and Christopher a week after he finds out.
Buck looks vehement when he answers, “I could never be embarrassed about it.”
Eddie believes him, even if he still doesn’t know what it is that Buck could never be embarrassed about.
_________________________
Thinking that perhaps he’ll have more luck if Buck can’t run away or pretend to be distracted by something else, Eddie starts the conversation again 11 days after Buck delivered the news while they are driving to a new grocery store that Buck wants to try.
“It just seemed like things were going well.”
Buck turns his head for a second to look at Eddie with an eyebrow raised before focusing his attention back on the road as he drives. “What?”
“You and Tommy,” Eddie clarifies, realizing he could have started off with something that wasn’t a non-sequitur. “I thought things were okay between you guys before you broke up.”
“And they were.” Buck clears his throat, tapping his index fingers on the steering wheel. “They were okay.”
“You don’t break up with someone if things are going okay,” Eddie points out. His gaze is focused on Buck, trying to read even the slightest of twitches on his face. If Buck refuses to give him an answer in words, maybe Eddie can read it on his body. He’s got practice at reading Buck’s moves, his actions.
“Maybe you do,” Buck says. He swallows heavily. “Maybe you break up with someone if things are only going okay instead of great.”
Eddie shakes his head and says, “Not you. You’d want to work on it. You always set your heart fully on the things that matter to you.”
“That’s—” Buck exhales loudly through his nose, glancing at Eddie from the corner of his eye. “My heart is fully set and that’s why we broke up. Wouldn’t have made sense to try to take it from okay to great.”
Before Eddie can ask further questions Buck is turning into the parking lot and Eddie curses himself for not properly calculating the time it would take them to reach their destination.
_________________________
“Maybe there’s a chance you guys will get back together,” Eddie says, willing his throat to stop burning and his heart to stop clenching.
“I broke up with him, remember?” Buck says. “I’m not pining away hoping things will work out.”
“I know, I know,” Eddie confirms, trying not to take pleasure in the words. “I’m just saying that maybe whatever it was can get fixed in a way that will make you change your mind and there will be another shot for you two.”
A small smile grows on Buck’s lips. It’s not exactly a happy one but it doesn’t make him look sad, either.
“My mind is not changing about this,” Buck says. “I’ve never been more sure about anything before.”
_________________________
It’s exactly two weeks to the day of Buck’s announcement when Eddie finally snaps.
“— and I changed mine and Maddie’s brunch to Saturday so me and Tommy can go to see the movie we wanted to watch on Sunday,” Buck is saying, and Eddie stops folding the hoodie he’s holding,“but that means that Maddie and Chim had to change their date night from Friday to Thursday which they said was fine but—”
“You’re going to the movies with Tommy?” Eddie asks him, tightening his hold on the hoodie.
Buck also stops folding the clean clothes in front of him so he can turn his body to face Eddie. “Yeah,” he says, prolonging the word and sounding confused. “I’ve told you we want to try to stay friends. We thought maybe we would need some time in-between but we’ve been talking about watching this movie together, and Tommy says he’s okay to start working on the friendship now.”
“I don’t… get it,” Eddie says, dropping the hoodie back onto the pile of unsorted clothes so he can run his fingers through his hair.
“Tommy’s your friend, too. You like him. Why don’t you get me wanting to stay friends with him?” Buck asks, looking even more bewildered this time.
“It’s not that I don’t understand you wanting to stay friends,” Eddie explains, shaking his head lightly. “I just… I don’t understand why you didn’t want to stay boyfriends.”
Confusion fades from Buck’s features to make way for cool detachment, but perhaps a bit of fiery frustration can be read in the blue of his eyes.
“Being boyfriends and being friends is really different,” Buck says, and Eddie wants to laugh at the fact that Buck is saying this to him.
“But if you’re so okay being friends with him,” Eddie explains, “It means there wasn’t anything he did wrong while being your boyfriend. So I don’t understand why you broke up with him.”
“I’ve told you before,” Buck says, and his voice sounds contained, like there is something he’s holding back. Is it anger? Is it an explanation? Is it, perhaps, both? “That Tommy didn’t do anything wrong. That’s why I’m okay with us being friends. I didn’t break up with him because he did anything wrong.”
Eddie opens his arms wide and then lets them drop down to hit the side of his thighs. “But then what happened? I just don’t understand. What happened?”
“You! That’s what happened: You!”
A fire ignites inside Eddie’s lungs and soon sets his whole body ablaze.
Buck is out of breath, like speaking those five words into existence stole the oxygen out of the room for him. His eyes are bright, shiny in a way that tells Eddie he’s holding back tears. His cheeks are red, and Eddie isn’t sure if it’s from finally releasing some of the irritation he was holding back or if it’s shame over what he just confessed.
Although, Eddie isn’t sure what Buck just confessed to.
“What?” Eddie whispers. It’s such an insufficient question, but it’s all that Eddie can utter.
“Eddie…” Buck says, and Eddie’s never heard his name said like this. There’s so much feeling to it. A world of meaning. “Tommy didn’t do anything wrong. But I— I also didn’t do anything wrong either. I just— I—”
Eddie is holding his breath. His heart isn’t beating. He’s only half-alive.
“I broke up with Tommy the day that Bobby came back to the 118. Do you remember that day?”
Nodding his head, Eddie says, “Yeah,” although he isn’t really following Buck’s side of the conversation at the moment.
“Remember that morning before our shift? I stayed here the night before,” Buck says, motioning towards the couch that is now covered with all their clean laundry, “and we were going to drive together to work.” Eddie nods again. He remembers all this, he just doesn’t get the relevance of any of it in what they were previously discussing. Eddie wants to go back to that. He needs to go back to that. “Eddie, remember that morning?”
“Yes, Buck,” Eddie says, now being the exasperated one, “I remember that morning. I don’t—”
It hits Eddie like a bolt of lightning.
Eddie takes a deep breath. His heart beats wildly in his chest. He comes fully alive.
“I’m gay,” Eddie had told Buck that morning, hands shaking, voice shaking, hopes shaking.
It had taken him months of sorting out his feelings with his new therapist and then weeks of gathering the courage to speak to Buck to finally come out, but it had felt so liberating saying it to his best friend. To the man he was madly and hopelessly in love with.
Buck must read the realization on Eddie’s face because he chuckles airily, saying, “Yeah… Yeah.”
“So I…” Eddie can’t finish the sentence but he doesn’t need to because Buck does it for him.
“You told me you were gay, and suddenly the idea of being with a guy —with anyone— that wasn’t you made me feel sick to my stomach,” Buck explains. Then he chuckles, and this time his laugh is loud. “It’s funny, that a guy had to kiss me for me to realize I was bi, but all you had to do was tell me you were into men —not me, just men— for me to realize I was in love with you.”
Eddie thought he was on fire before but he never knew flames before this moment. He could have dreamt about this moment for a thousand years, could have imagined a million different scenarios, lost himself in a billion fantasies. Nothing could have ever come close to the reality of hearing Buck tell him that he’s in love with him.
Buck is in love with him.
“The thought of you not loving me back, it just— I— It didn’t even matter. That’s not what’s important. I love you. I just love you. Whether or not you love me back, it’s you. For me, it’s you. I couldn’t be with someone else after realizing it and I won’t be able to be with someone ag—”
Admittedly, theirs is not a fantastic first kiss.
Eddie catches Buck mid-word and his lips land half on Buck’s teeth instead of his lips. Eddie separates from him quickly and he has half a second to regret his impulse, to regret the what-could-have been, to curse the fact that Buck’s first kiss with a guy was so good it opened the door of his brain behind where his bisexuality had been hiding, and yet Eddie could only give them a forgettable and clumsy one.
And then, Buck steps forward and captures Eddie’s mouth in their second kiss, and there is no space for regrets in Eddie’s life anymore.
Their second kiss is magnificent. Sweet, and passionate. Long, and deep. Buck’s tongue, the gentle but exciting edge of Buck’s teeth on Eddie’s bottom lip, the tips of their noses rubbing against each other, their hands everywhere.
Eddie only separates from Buck so he can whisper, “I love you, too. For me, it’s you, too. It could only be you.”
And then he goes back for their third kiss, which turns out to be even better than the second.
Eddie can live with an imperfect first kiss if he has all his life to practice how to get perfect at kissing Buck.
Finally, Eddie has all the answers he wanted.
He hopes he can also spend the rest of his life practicing how to be all of the answers Buck has ever wanted and needed, as well.