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“So, this guy gets in my car, tears and snot streaming down his face because his girlfriend dumped him,” Eddie says, gesturing wildly with his chopsticks. “For twenty five minutes — and I timed it, Buck, twenty five full minutes, he just monologued about how he didn’t mean to sleep with her best friend and how he’s never gonna find love again.”
Buck laughs, tipping his head back until it hits the cushion behind him. “Oh god.”
“Guess how much he tipped me?” Eddie asks with a quirk of his eyebrow, setting up the punchline like he’s been practicing it since the moment the guy slammed his passenger door.
“Five bucks?” Buck guesses, already grinning. He knows the rhythm of Eddie’s stories, knows where the humour builds and when it’s about to snap into something ridiculous.
“That would’ve been generous,” Eddie deadpans. He shakes his head, with a dramatic sigh, and Buck watches the motion of it, the slight lift of his shoulder, the way he glances down at his food before looking back up with that telltale twitch at the corner of his mouth. “No tip. Not even a ‘hey man, thanks for the free therapy session.’ He smelled like weed and axe body spray. My car still hasn’t recovered. It’s like I’m driving around in a teenage boy’s locker room.”
“Be nice,” Buck snorts.
“I was nice. I’m always nice, Buck.” Eddie’s eyes crinkle from the effort not to smile, but he breaks anyway, he always does. His laugh comes out bright and sudden, like a sunburst and Buck has to look away for a second, just to recover.
He tells himself it’s just because he misses him.
Which is true. But also… not enough.
Because Buck is watching him now, not just watching him, but tracking the details like it’s life or death. The way Eddie eats in little, focused bites, pausing only to talk. The tilt of his head when he’s recalling something stupid. The wrinkle in his nose when something really pisses him off. The fact that his joy is always a little surprised, like he doesn’t quite expect to be happy but lets it happen anyway.
And suddenly Buck isn’t just amused by Eddie.
He’s enchanted by him.
Not in a cute fairytale kind of way, but more like, holy fuck, has it always been this obvious?
Oh, no.
One second he is laughing along with Eddie, and the next he’s spiralling into an existential gay crisis.
He loves his best friend.
And he only has himself to blame.
Eddie has always been everywhere in his mind. In the way Buck reaches for his phone without thinking just to tell him something dumb. In the way he knows when Eddie’s lying about how tired he is. In the way Eddie’s voice pulls him back from the edge when no one else can.
“Buck?”
He blinks back to the screen, and Eddie is waving a chopstick at him, eyebrows raised.
“You alive over there?”
“Yeah, yeah. Sorry, I zoned out for a second,” Buck says quickly, adjusting his position, as if that’ll somehow make the moment less awkward.
Eddie grins, his eyes sharp with amusement, clearly unaware of Buck loosing his mind. “Right, well, anyway, I swear to God this guy was even worse than when Ross Perez got in my car.”
“Who?” Buck asks, trying to keep up, his heartbeat still doing jumping jacks in his chest.
“You know, my buddy from high school. Did I not tell you about this?” Eddie furrows his brow. “He had a bad date, I picked him up, it was the most awkward five minutes of my life. We stared at each other in the rear view mirror for way too long trying to figure out if it was really happening. But we were like best friends back then, it was crazy. I mean it got better once we started talking, but those first few minutes were brutal.”
Buck freezes.
Best friends? Ross Perez?
He’s never heard that name before in his life.
Not once.
Eddie talks about Christopher, about Shannon sometimes, about the army, about LA, but never about El Paso like it was a place he lived in, like he existed there. This is the first Buck’s hearing about someone who knew him before the layers of guilt and war and loss started stacking up.
How much doesn’t he know about pre-LA Eddie?
There’s this whole version of him, young and probably stupid and maybe still hopeful, that Buck doesn’t know. He can’t imagine Eddie as a teenager, but god, he wants to. He wants to know what he laughed about, who he trusted, what he dreamed about before he had to be man, a husband, a father.
All these emotions hit him fast and ugly.
He’s in love with Eddie. He’s been avoiding the thought like it’s radioactive, but he can’t deny it now. He’s fully, painfully, world flippingly in love with him.
And the worst part? Just as he accept it, he’s also realising that he doesn’t even really know him, he thought he did, but he doesn’t.
Not all of him.
Not the past, not the jagged pieces he keeps hidden. He knows this Eddie… the dad, the friend, the guy who pretends he’s fine until he suddenly isn’t and then pretends again, but there’s a before, a whole goddamn lifetime of it, the beginning of the book, and Buck doesn’t know that person.
And he really wants to.
“I gotta go,” Buck says abruptly.
“Go? Where?” Eddie blinks. “It’s almost midnight.”
“I just—” Buck stares at the end call button. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow okay. Night… bro.”
Bro, he cringes.
Why didn’t he just say he was tired?
Before Eddie can say another word, Buck ends the call.
The silence is immediate and oppressive, like it’s been waiting for him for years to fall into it.
He sinks back into the couch, eyes on the ceiling.
“God,” he mutters to no one.
He’s so stupidly in love with him.
And he barely knows him.
Well, no, that’s not true.
He knows who Eddie is now. He knows the way he holds grief in his spine, the way he clings to routine, the exact way he talks when he’s trying not to say something important. But Buck doesn’t know who he was before everything broke him into pieces.
He doesn’t know who Ross Jenkins is.
Fuck.
He wants to know.
Because he’s not in love with the idea of Eddie… he’s in love with Eddie. All of him. Even the parts he hasn’t met yet.
That realisation hurts. But it’s also kind of beautiful. In a totally messed up, inconvenient, soul wrenching kind of way.
He sighs, heavy and aching, and pushes himself off the couch like his bones are made of cement. Everything feels too quiet now, the house, the night, his own body. He brushes his teeth without really tasting the mint, he changes into a t-shirt and soft worn sweats, peels back the covers, and sinks into the bed like maybe it’ll hold him through this sudden ache.
The sheets are cool, the pillow familiar, but his brain won’t shut up. It spins and spins, thoughts bumping into each other, messy and unfinished. Buck just lies there, eyes fixed on the ceiling like he’s waiting for it to blink back, hoping something will click into place.
He’s never wanted something so badly and so gently at the same time.
After a while, he whispers it, barely louder than the rustle of his sheets.
A wish, a prayer, maybe it’s a plea.
“I want to know everything.”
It spills out of him in the stillness that follows, not loud, not dramatic, just the quiet truth of it.
“I wish you’d let me know you. I wish you trusted me with the parts you never show. The fears you don’t name. The secrets you keep buried so deep even you don’t look at them for long.
I wish I’d known you before life made you flinch. Before war and heartbreak, before your smile got quieter. I wish I’d seen the kid you were, so I could understand how you became the man I’m—
Buck pauses, the words catching in his throat.
—the man I’ve fallen in love with, without a shred of logic or timing or self-preservation.”
I wish you’d let me know you.
He turns on his side, stares at the empty space beside him. He imagines Eddie lying there laughing about something dumb, he’d tell him some story he’s never heard before, one of the ones he keeps locked away like treasure, but Eddie knows is safe with him.
I want to know everything.
Not just the stories Eddie tells when he’s comfortable. Not just the curated memories. All of it. The messy stuff, the dark stuff, the before.
Because Buck is already in too deep, and if he’s going to drown, he wants to know exactly what kind of ocean he’s in.
Buck is woken up by crying… a child crying.
It’s not just jarring, it’s deeply confusing in the worst kind of way… it’s creepy. Because he lives alone, and the sound feels too real to be a leftover echo from a dream but too surreal to be anything else.
It’s loud and sharp, a piercing sound that makes his heart lurch before his mind can catch up. He listens closer and he swears there are words in there somewhere, choppy, broken syllables muffled by sobs, but the crying swallows them up, turns them into something haunting and disjointed.
He must be dreaming, stuck in one of those half conscious states where your brain mixes the real with the imagined.
It can’t be real.
So he shakes his head, rolls over, pulls the blanket tighter around himself and tries to ignore it.
But the crying doesn’t stop.
There’s something about the pitch of it, so shrill and panicked, that gets under his skin, like a frequency he can’t tune out, one that pushes at the edges of instinct.
He doesn’t even mean to move, but his feet are already halfway to the floor, pulling him out of bed because some part of him has to make it stop, has to soothe whatever hurt is making that sound, has to know that the child (if there is a child) is okay.
Maybe a little girl or boy is wandering outside, lost and scared in the early morning, calling for help.
Maybe the TV’s somehow came on and it’s playing one of those heartbreaking clips, one of those charity ads or viral videos about abandoned children.
Maybe… he doesn’t know.
All he knows is that he’s up now, moving clumsily through the dark, following the sound that’s grown quieter but no less desperate, there is less sobbing now, more shaky breathing, the kind that comes after crying, when panic starts to settle in its place.
When he turns into the kitchen, he stops dead in his tracks.
Two little sock covered feet poke out from beneath his kitchen table.
What the actual fuck.
Buck has seen some things, he’s lived some things, but kids materialising in his house at three in the goddamn morning is not something he’s trained for. Not even the weirdest of calls has prepped him for this creepy ass shit.
Even still, his instincts take over again, the ones that show up every time a child is in trouble or needs help. So, trying not to spook the clearly upset child under his table, he crouches low and peeks under the edge.
Sitting there is a little boy.
He’s tiny, with dark eyes, darker hair, and pyjamas that look like hand me downs from the nineties, a haunting looking faded Mickey Mouse patterns covering them. They look like something he would have worn as a kid, familiar somehow, worn in a way that says they’ve been loved for a long time. He looks maybe three, maybe four, Jee’s age, it’s hard to tell because he’s curled in on himself like he’s trying to disappear, while his whole body trembles.
“Hi.” Buck softens his voice.
The little boy straightens a bit, rubs at his face with the heels of his hands like he’s trying to erase the crying from his cheeks. His lip still quivers, but he sits taller, just enough to speak.
“Where’s my mommy?” he asks, his voice small but steady, and Buck blinks, stunned, because, well… yeah. He’d really like to know that too to be fair.
He takes a closer look at the kid and… holy shit.
Now, Buck is not the smartest guy in the world, he knows that, he’s not insecure about it. He’s not dumb, but just not wired for genius. He’ll never invent anything groundbreaking or solve quantum equations, but he knows how to save a life. He knows how to pull people to safety, how to run into chaos instead of away from it. He knows how to read people, he can vent a roof when fire is consuming a home.
He knows Eddie Diaz.
And these big, sad, brown eyes scream Eddie Diaz.
“Mister?” the boy whispers.
And Buck’s brain does the math before he even realises he’s doing it. Three years old… maybe four. Add a year for him being small. Plus nine months of pregnancy.
Ana Flores? No, that doesn’t make sense.
Would Eddie have hidden this?
A one night stand, maybe?
Someone Eddie never mentioned?
Would a mother really just… drop a kid off like this?
Did someone put him here?
Did he leave a window open, and someone just slot their kid through the gap like he’s a package?
The kid sniffles, and looks up at him again. “Who are you?”
“Yeah,” Buck murmurs to himself. “I’m wondering the same thing.”
This is insane.
“I’m Buck,” he smiles, gentle and slow, crouching further down so he doesn’t loom. “What’s your name?”
“You’re a stranger,” the boy replies, voice trembling again. He hugs his knees tighter and makes little fists in the fabric of his pyjama pants. “I can’t talk to strangers.”
“You’re in my house, kiddo,” Buck says, dropping to his butt, his leg aching like it normally does in the early morning. He rubs at the bone for forgiveness. “I need to know your name so we can figure out where your mom is, okay?”
The boy studies him, chewing his lip in a way that’s so familiar, so Eddie, it hits Buck like a sucker punch. The kid doesn’t know if he can trust him— smart boy— but Buck knows from experience, that you normally just have to wait kids out.
Finally, after a pause so long Buck thinks he might stay silent forever, he whispers softly, “Eddie.”
And Buck feels the world tilt a little.
Eddie.
Not a coincidence anymore.
Buck’s thoughts start tumbling over each other. He’d place his bets on his mother being Ana then, she always had a weird thing about calling Eddie, Edmundo.
But would she really name a kid after Eddie without ever telling him the little boy exists? Why would she do that? Why hide a child? Why—
Buck blinks away the questions, they can come later. “Okay, Eddie… where do you live? Do you know?”
“1522 Willow Street.”
That hits something in his mind, he knows that address.
Why does he know that address?
“Do you know the area?”
The boy shakes his head. “El Paso.”
What the actual hell.
Wait.
Buck pulls his phone from his pocket, his hands suddenly unsure, his fingers a little numb as he opens his messages and scrolls through his conversation with Christopher.
Chris:
please send me sugar
Buck:
What? Why?
Chris:
my grandma hasn’t let me have sugar since I got here buck pls
i can tell her it’s a care package of books or something
send it to 1522 Willow St…
El Paso. 1522 Willow Street.
Eddie’s parents’ house.
He looks up at the little boy again. This time, he really looks.
No way.
“Eddie?” Buck says gently, and the boy’s head snaps up, big eyes wet again. “When’s your birthday, bud? Do you know?”
“Feb-ruary,” the boy says, stumbling over the syllables. It be cute if Buck wasn’t freaking out right now.
“Do you know the day? The year?” He says, and he automatically knows it’s too clipped.
Eddie’s shoulders tighten and he shakes his head.
Buck swallows and softens his voice, he knows he sounds desperate, but this is insane. “Do you know what year it is now?”
He shakes his head again.
“Do you have any siblings?”
A nod this time. “My sister Sophia. She’s a baby.” He holds up three fingers. “I’m three. I’m a big boy. I’m not a baby.”
And Buck just stares at him, because it’s him.
It’s Eddie.
It’s Eddie Diaz, somehow three years old and sitting under his goddamn kitchen table asking for his mommy.
“I wanna go to my mommy now,” the boy says again, and Buck realises his hands are shaking so he clenches them, his nails biting at his palm but it grounds him a little.
This can’t be real. It’s got to be a dream, or maybe a nightmare. A hallucination brought on by too much bad TV and not enough sleep.
But then, he remembers the wish.
The fucking selfish, crazy wish.
I wish you’d let me know you.
He closes his eyes, and tries to will it all away, but when he opens them again, Eddie is still there, still watching him, still terrified.
Then Eddie’s face crumples and he curls into himself, he places his head between his knees, and begins to rock, the tiniest motion of someone to little to be telling himself not to fall apart.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay, come here,” Buck says softly, and reaches out his arms. “I know you’re scared. It’s okay, Eddie, I won’t hurt you.”
He could never hurt Eddie.
“I’m not scared,” the little voice says, even though it shakes. “Big boys don’t be scared.”
Thats not true, he’s scared all the time.
“Okay,” Buck says softly. “Well, then you’re upset, and that’s okay too. Would you like a hug?”
“I’m a big boy.” He looks up and shakes his head, big tears welling in his eyes.
And if that isn’t the most devastating thing he’s ever seen in his life, he doesn’t know what is.
“Big boys can get hugs too, kiddo.”
Eddie just cries harder, and shuffles back further. “No, I’m a big boy now.”
Buck has had a lot of practice dealing with scared kids. It’s just part of the job. He knows how to be patient, how to wait them out, how to work around fear without pushing too hard. Usually, he gives them space, and waits for them to acclimate.
But this is Eddie.
Buck knows Eddie, better than he knows himself.
He knows that Eddie never asks for comfort, how hard it is for him to accept it. It’s a hard pill to swallow and push aside, knowing that it isn’t something that started in adulthood, that it started here, in this little boy who’s desperately trying to self soothe and is insistent that big boys don’t need hugs at three years old. But he doesn’t have time to be heartbroken right now, he has to take action.
So Buck moves before he can talk himself out of it. He leans forward, hooks his hands under Eddie’s arms, and lifts him, even as he squirms and protests, his little legs kicking at him.
“No, no, no—put me down—”
“I’ve got you,” Buck murmurs, settling him against his chest. “You’re okay. You’re safe. I promise, Eddie.”
Eddie fights him with tiny fists, but Buck just holds him tighter, rocks him gently, soothing him with soft words and steady hands. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you. No one’s gonna hurt you. It’s okay to cry. It’s okay to be scared. You’re still a big boy.”
Eventually, the fight goes out of him. The fists unclench, and little hand grabs at Buck’s shirt. His cries turn to hiccups, then to sniffles, and then to heavy congested breathing. Until finally, Buck feels the warmth of his little body slump fully against him, his thumb finding its way into his mouth at some point, small snores beginning to puff against his neck.
Buck doesn’t move from his spot, only sways back and forth in a soothing motion.
Buck used to believe in fairies.
He thinks it probably started when he was a kid, his mind full of Peter Pan and all the ways the world could bend if you just believed hard enough.
It was his favourite movie. He loved it.
To him it was more than just make believe.
Buck thought he was Peter Pan, or at least he tried to be. He ran through the backyard with a stick in his hand, shouting commands to imaginary Lost Boys, singing following the leader as they trailed behind him. He scaled trees and leapt off them, his little arms outstretched, hoping maybe this time he’d actually catch the wind. He always hit the ground hard, scratched up and bruised, but he never stopped climbing, never stopped trying.
Tinkerbell was his best friend. He used to whisper to her, smile when a breeze tickled the back of his neck like it was her teasing him. She was his secret partner in crime, encouraging him to sneak cookies or wander further than he was allowed — to be just a little more daring every time.
A lost boy.
She never talked back, but that didn’t stop him from believing she was there, flickering just out of sight.
For a while, it was enough to keep him company.
But then Buck got older, the trees seemed smaller, and the world felt heavier. He stopped looking for her, stopped expecting her to show up. He told himself she’d never been real anyway, just a story he’d needed when he felt lonely.
Tinkerbell was just something to hold onto when everything else around him felt too uncertain.
But even when he let go of fairies, Buck didn’t stop believing in other things. He held onto the idea that the universe had some kind of order. That there were forces out there that were unseen and unexplainable, things that shaped the paths people took. He didn’t say it out loud, but he still made wishes on eyelashes and threw coins into fountains. He believed in karma. In fate. In the kind of love at first sight that hit without warning and settled deep in your bones. He hadn’t felt it himself, but he believed it was out there.
To Buck, magic wasn’t something he scoffed at. He knew there were things in the world that couldn’t be measured or understood, and he was okay with that.
If anything, he welcomed it.
But even so… what the fuck.
Because this thing happening right now, well that defied everything.
It isn’t fairy dust or some warm and glowing feeling of destiny.
It is fucking insane.
Maybe he’s finally lost it.
That’s the only explanation that makes any sense. Because the past few weeks, have been some kind of slow motion unravelling, and now it feels like his brain has snapped under the weight of it, this is the moment it’s all decided to come crashing down.
He’s spent so long pretending not to be in love with Eddie, trying to stuff it down so deep it couldn’t touch him. Then last night, literally hours ago, he let himself admit it. Let it settle in his chest like something fragile and warm and terrifying. Let himself believe, even for a second, that maybe loving Eddie wasn’t the worst thing he could do.
And now he’s here, holding the three year old version of the man against his chest, like this is just another Monday morning.
This cannot be real.
This has to be some kind of dream. A delusion. A punishment?
Because if magic exists, if time travel or fate or divine intervention or whatever the fuck this is exists… why the hell is it wasting itself on torturing him? Why now? Why this?
What did he do that was so unforgivable?
Slept with a man he doesn’t love? Lied about loving the man he does? Lied to himself over and over until he started to believe it? If that’s all it takes to earn a cosmic gut punch, then the universe must be a real fucking asshole.
He looks down at the little boy in his arms and sighs, long and low and defeated.
What is he supposed to do with this?
With him?
His leg is aching from standing still too long, and there’s no point just hovering in the kitchen like he’s waiting for reality to come back and tap him on the shoulder, so he walks to the living room. It’s slow, careful, partly for the weight in his arms, partly for the overwhelming sense that one wrong step will shatter this entire moment like glass.
He sinks into the couch, easing down until he’s fully seated, then adjusts Eddie so he stays curled safely against him, still fast asleep, still clinging with one hand and sucking his thumb with the other. Buck shifts just enough to make them both comfortable, then lets his eyes linger on the soft little face tucked into his chest.
He reaches up and gently brushes back Eddie’s hair, fingers catching lightly in the fine strands. He’s adorable. Buck knew he would be, of course he would be… he’s a beautiful adult. But there’s something about seeing all of it stripped back to the beginning, thick lashes clumped with leftover tears, a tiny crease between his brows like even in sleep he’s bracing for something.
He hadn’t expected the thumb sucking. It’s a bit of a surprise, but then it also makes complete sense when he really thinks about it. If this was the only way this kid knew how to comfort himself, if he was already learning at three years old that comfort had to come from within because no one else would give it to him, then it makes perfect, heartbreaking sense.
He hates Eddie’s parents a little more when he thinks about it too deeply.
He can’t understand how anyone could look at this kid and decide not to hold him, not to reassure him, not to make sure he felt safe. How anyone could tell him he had to be stronger, quieter, tougher, when all he wanted was a little room to feel.
It pisses him off in a quiet, exhausted kind of way.
Because if it was up to him, he’d hold him like this forever, keep him here in this moment where nothing can touch him, he doesn’t have any expectations, there is no shame, no fear.
Just warmth. Just stillness. Just safety.
But he knows better.
He knows what’s coming for this child.
He looks at his red, damp cheeks and feels this aching pull deep in his chest, because this sweet, scared little boy, doesn’t get to stay here. He won’t stay small enough to be carried.
He’ll grow up too fast, faster than he should. He’ll spend his life trying to live up to someone else’s idea of manhood. He’ll keep things in, and push through pain, and make sacrifices no one should ask of him. He’ll have a child before he’s ready, and he’ll love that child with everything he has, but it won’t erase the fear that he’s doing it all wrong. He’ll go to war because he thinks it’s what he’s supposed to do. He’ll be buried alive twice, once in dirt, and once in the life he thought he had to settle for. He’ll be shot down in Afghanistan, and right in front of Buck on a sunny day in Los Angeles.
He’ll move back to El Paso, even when it breaks his heart, and he’ll try so hard to convince himself it’s the right thing.
He won’t know, might never know, just how much Buck loves him.
That’s the part that stings the most. That even after everything, even after years of friendship and loyalty and knowing each other in ways most people never get close to, Eddie won’t ever see it.
Buck pulls him closer. Tightens his grip without thinking, just needing to keep him here a little longer, where the weight of everything hasn’t settled yet.
Eddie sighs in his sleep, soft and warm against Buck’s neck, and Buck rests his cheek on the top of his head.
He doesn’t know what this is. Doesn’t know how it happened or what comes next. But right now, this is the only thing that feels real. A small body in his arms. The rise and fall of a tiny chest. The simple, impossible fact that this is Eddie, before the pain, before the silence, before the armor.
And Buck, who has never been able to stop loving him, holds him through it and falls asleep.
Buck blinks awake slowly, his eyelids heavy with sleep and confusion. The room around him is dim with the early morning light filtering through the curtains, and his brain lags behind as he realises he’s not in bed. His neck is twisted uncomfortably to the side, and a dull ache pulses from the base of his skull down into his shoulder blades. He grimaces as he sits upright, stretching his arms with a groan, trying to ease the stiffness from falling asleep on the couch.
He knows better than to do this shit, he isn’t in his twenties anymore and immune to the consequences of bad sleeping positions and terrible life choices.
He rubs a hand down his face and tries to recall how he even got here. When had he sat down? What had he been doing before this? The memories are jumbled, half-formed thoughts interrupted by exhaustion.
And then he hears laughter.
At first it’s soft, a whisper echoing through a tunnel, but it quickly grows louder, richer, sweeter. The sound of a child giggling fills the whole house, bouncing off the walls, rising with uncontained joy. It rings out like a bell, too pure to be background noise.
And then it hits him.
He freezes.
Oh, shit.
Eddie.
His stomach drops.
Three year old Eddie appearing out of nowhere, all wide eyes and trembling lips and tiny hands. The one Buck had carried while he slept to the couch, because he’s something precious and impossibly delicate. The one who was crying for his mom and looked at Buck like he was going to gobble him alive like a monster under his bed.
The one who shouldn’t exist.
Buck jumps to his feet, suddenly wide awake, and follows the sound of giggling down the hallway. The laughter echoes in the tiled bathroom, bouncing with that hollow, amplified quality that makes everything sound closer and bigger. His footsteps are fast but quiet, propelled by a mix of worry and disbelief.
When he reaches the doorway, he halts stunned. He has to blink a few times just to make sure he’s seeing it right.
Eddie is… older.
Not dramatically so, but definitely not three anymore. He’s maybe five now, a little taller, a bit sturdier, still tiny in comparison to Buck but noticeably grown. His face is fuller, his limbs less babyish, he’s not in the cosy pyjamas anymore. He’s wearing cargo pants and a soft looking slightly oversized sweatshirt. The sleeves are rolled up messily to his elbows, but it hasn’t saved them, his whole front is soaked, as he stand on three of Buck’s vintage Encyclopaedias he got at a flea market last month.
In the sink, in his very adult, not child proof bathroom, is a chaotic concoction of water, creams, gels, and toothpaste. His toothbrush is being used as a stirring stick, and judging by the bubbles and iridescent mess, a lot of expensive skincare products have gone into this potion.
Buck has to bite down on his immediate reaction to scream, laugh, and cry.
He leans casually against the doorway, arms crossed, trying not to let the full body horror of watching his high end moisturiser meet his expensive curly hair shampoo in a swirling foamy mess.
“What are you doing?” he asks, voice even but laced with curiosity.
The giggling stops instantly and Eddie freezes. He stares at Buck through the mirror above the sink, wide eyed, and his little face crumples from joy into dread.
“I’m… I’m sorry.” His voice is small and scared. He turns slowly, as if expecting punishment. His big brown eyes blink up at Buck, already glassy. “I’ll clean up, Mr Buck. I—I’m… I…”
The way he stammers makes something cold twist in Buck’s chest. That’s not Eddie. That’s more his thing. Eddie doesn’t stammer. But the way his small fingers tangle and fidget with each other, the way his shoulders hunch like he’s bracing for impact… that is Eddie. It’s the Eddie who worries too much, who takes responsibility too early, who carries guilt he never should’ve been handed.
Buck steps forward, and somehow little Eddie seems to shrink in real time. It’s as if the closer Buck gets the smaller Eddie gets, like some sad, twisted funhouse illusion.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be bad,” he blurts, voice quick and tight.
Buck notes the absence of tears this time. Earlier, when Eddie was younger, he’d cried a lot, at soft words, and a question he couldn’t answer. But now he just stands there, clearly expecting the worst, but ready for it. Buck has seen this man at his most composed, most stoic, most unshakable, but this is harder.
This is a child who’s already learned to expect anger.
And then it hits him… Mr Buck.
Does Eddie remember this morning? Had the magic kept the memories from earlier, from when he’d been younger?
“Eddie, it’s okay,” Buck says gently, shaking his head and crouching down so they’re eye level. “You’re not in trouble. You’re not bad.”
Internally, he’s cataloging the damage, toner, cleanser, conditioner, and that one goddamn serum he had to order online because he couldn’t find it anywhere after seeing it on TikTok.
But none of it matters right now.
This is still Eddie, still a child, and Buck’s not going to chastise him for something that at the end of the day is Buck’s fault.
He should have been supervising the little menace.
He’s not Eddie’s parent, (and God isn’t that thought disturbing) but the kid already looks like he’s been told off too many times in one lifetime, Buck isn’t going to be another name on that list.
“Do you remember earlier?” Buck asks quietly, watching his reaction.
Eddie tilts his head, brows pinched in confusion. “Earlier?”
“When I found you under the table?”
Eddie scrunches his nose and shakes his head. “No, sir.”
“How did you know my name then?” Buck presses, watching closely.
“I don’t know,” Eddie looks down again, shifting on his feet. “I’m sorry.”
Buck sighs softly, more to himself than anything. “Okay, that’s fine.” He offers him a reassuring smile. “How old are you, Eddie?”
“Six,” Eddie says, barely audible. Then he frowns, like he’s disappointed in himself. “I should know better. I’m really sorry, sir. Please don’t tell my mom.”
Well, that’s heartbreaking.
I should know better.
What six year old says that? When did Eddie ever let himself just be a kid?
“You don’t need to call me sir or mister, buddy,” Buck says, voice light as he grins. “Just Buck, okay?”
“Okay.”
He points toward the sink, eyeing the mess. “And I’m sure this was a really important job you were doing. What are we making?”
Eddie hesitates, “You’re not upset?”
Yes, Buck thinks. So upset I could scream.
But that’s not Eddie’s fault, he’s just a little kid.
“Of course not,” he says instead. “I like potions too.”
“You do?”
“Of course,” He stands and peers into the bubbling chaos. The smell alone is enough to make his eyes sting a little. “What is it?” He asks, keeping his voice light and curious.
Eddie glances up at him warily, his posture tensing the moment Buck looms taller again. The shift is subtle, but Buck sees it, how his body language curls inward, protective, like he’s waiting for the rug to be pulled out.
Buck can play the friendly giant all he wants, but if the kid doesn’t feel safe, it won’t matter.
“You’re not in trouble, Eddie,” Buck says again gently, crouching back down for good measure. “This isn’t a trick. I just want to know what I’m looking at. Is it a super serum? A potion to make teachers grow tails? Oh no wait, is it a stink bomb?”
He grins, wide and exaggerated, and to his relief, Eddie lets out a small laugh. “No, no.” He shakes his head quickly.
“Well then,” Buck says, watching him closely. “What is it?”
Eddie steps forward and climbs carefully back onto the stack of books he’d arranged to reach the sink, moving with the determined precision of a kid on a mission. He steadies himself and peers into the foaming mixture, then turns to Buck with all the seriousness a kid can make.
“It’s a medicine,” he says, voice quiet but steady.
Buck leans in a little, his eyebrows raised. “What kind of medicine?”
Because, of course it’s medicine.
Of course, Eddie isn’t concocting a prank or trying to stir up trouble.
Of course, he’s trying to help, the only way a six year old knows how.
Of course he’s this heartbreakingly earnest, this thoughtful, this Eddie even this young.
“To make people better when they’re angry.”
Buck blinks at him, what?
“When they’re angry?” He asks.
Eddie nods, and stirs the mixture a little with Buck’s toothbrush. “Mommy gets angry all the time, and Daddy does too when he’s home. Like this—” He drops the toothbrush and brings his hands to his head and pulls at his hair. “Eddie, can you just watch your sister!” he says in a deep, gruff voice that’s chillingly mean.
Buck’s jaw tightens, and he takes a deep breath. Goddammit Helena Diaz, it is on fucking sight.
“Well, that’s a very thoughtful thing to make,” he says as gently as he can muster, stepping forward and removing Eddie’s little fingers from his hair before he hurts himself. Eddie looks up, unsure, and Buck offers him a warm smile.
“Thanks, sir—Mr…” Eddie huffs and tries again, “thank you, Buck.”
“And as amazing as this potion is,” Buck says, starting to tidy the bottles on the counter, “how about we make a different one in the kitchen?”
“I’m not allowed to help in the kitchen,” Eddie hesitates and frowns, “Only my abuela lets me, and she lives far away now.”
Buck’s chest tightens at that, a deep familiar ache blooming behind his ribs. He already had a soft spot for Eddie’s Abuela, but now he feels something closer to fierce affection for her.
Of course, Isabel Diaz let Eddie help in the kitchen. He can imagine her making space for his little hands and curious eyes, probably guiding him patiently through recipes, teaching him how to fold tamales or stir a pot of arroz con leche with gentle encouragement.
She must have been the one person who made him feel capable, wanted, included. When Buck first met Eddie, she’d still been his loudest supporter, his unwavering source of warmth. The one person who reminded him, even when the world didn’t, that he was good and loved and enough.
“Well,” Buck says, “after seeing your mixing skills, I could really use your help. I’m a terrible mixer. Think you can help me?”
Eddie straightens up, puffing out his chest with all the seriousness a six year old can muster. “I can help you.”
Buck grins, ruffles his hair, and tries not to melt at the proud little smile Eddie gives him in return.
“Good,” Buck says. “Because we’re making pancakes.”
Buck pushes a chair over to the counter, steadying it with his foot to make sure it won’t wobble. He pats the seat and nods toward Eddie, who climbs up with careful clumsiness, his hands planted, tongue peeking out in concentration, sneakers squeaking against the wood. Once he’s standing securely, Buck grabs the bag of flour and sets it down in front of him.
“Alright, chef,” Buck says, keeping his voice warm and steady. “What’s this?”
Eddie peers at the label, his brows furrowing. “Flour?” he says, uncertain, almost like it’s a guess he expects to be wrong, though he’s read it correctly.
“Yup,” Buck confirms, tossing him a grin. “Nice job. So, we need to measure this in cupfuls. You ready?”
Eddie nods solemnly, clearly taking the role very seriously.
Buck hands him the measuring cup and holds the bag open, guiding his hand as he scoops out the first heap. A puff of flour dusts the air and lands on both their shirts, and Eddie giggles, his shoulders relaxing just a bit more.
They go through each ingredient one by one, eggs, milk, a bit of sugar, a splash of vanilla, with Buck keeping his hand over Eddie’s as he pours, mixes, and cracks eggs, his confidence growing by the second.
When it’s time to whisk the batter, Buck pulls out the electric hand mixer, and Eddie’s eyes go wide and he jumps on the chair with his hands out, but then he stops and his hands go behind his back. “Sorry.”
“Wanna do it?” Buck asks.
And Eddie grin grows, and he nods eagerly. Buck helps him wrap his little fingers around the handle, covering his hand with his own to keep it steady. They press the button together, and the beaters whirl to life with a satisfying buzz. Eddie jumps slightly at first, startled by the vibration, but quickly breaks into delighted laughter as the batter swirls in the bowl.
“You’re doing so good,” Buck says, beaming. “Like, really great. Think you’ve got a future as a chef, buddy.”
Eddie practically glows at the praise, his chest puffing out with pride. When they finally finish, he points to the batter and asks, “Is it ready now?”
“I think so,” Buck nods. “It’s pancake time.”
He moves over to the stove and gets the pan heating while Eddie lingers by the counter, watching his every move. Just as Buck is about to pour the first ladleful, he feels a tug on the hem of his shirt. He glances down to find Eddie looking up at him, one hand clinging to his side.
“Can I see?” he asks softly.
Buck doesn’t hesitate. He scoops Eddie up in one smooth motion, settling him on his hip with ease. Eddie wraps an arm around his shoulder, his other hand gripping Buck’s T-shirt like he’s afraid of slipping even though Buck’s hold on him is steady and sure.
“Should we add chocolate chips?” Buck asks, smiling as he pours the batter into the pan and waits for the edges to bubble. Eddie leans in closer, eyes wide with wonder.
“I think we need to, Buck.”
“Me too,” Buck grins and wonders to the pantry grabbing the packet and returning to the pan. “It’s hot so I’m going to do this job, okay.”
“Okay,” Eddie nods and watches as he adds the chocolate chips to the pancake. Then Buck flips it, making sure it lands perfectly in the center of the pan, and Eddie gasps in delight.
“Whoa!” he says. “You’re really good at this.”
“Told you I needed a good helper.” Buck chuckles, holding his hand up and Eddie hi-fives him excitedly. “Couldn’t have done it without you.”
Eddie beams, pure unfiltered pride lighting up his entire face, his small body relaxing completely in Buck’s arms as they stand together by the stove making pancakes.
By the time they’ve made more pancakes than either of them could reasonably eat and Buck has artfully stacked the extras on a plate that looks like it belongs in a menu at an artisan brunch spot, he gently reassigns Eddie to sit on the kitchen counter. His arms getting tired from holding him, and he needs space to chop up some fruit without risking tiny fingers getting too close to the knife. Eddie swings his legs where he sits, heels tapping the cabinet, shoulders relaxed in a way that only happens when a kid finally starts to feel safe.
It’s in that stillness, that lull between the tasks and excitement, that Eddie begins to open up more.
He talks about school, about a kid named Mateo who gets in trouble a lot but is still funny, about a girl named Lydia who lets Eddie borrow her sparkly crayons sometimes even though she says she doesn’t like sharing, about how he has to sit near the door because he talks too much during reading time. He babbles in fits and starts and Buck listens, quietly chopping strawberries and nodding at all the right places.
Eddie makes a face and announces almost defensively, “I don’t like blueberries.”
Buck freezes mid slice, eyebrows pulling together. “Are you sure?” he asks confused.
Because that can’t be right. Grown up Eddie practically inhales Buck’s blueberry pancakes. He’s watched him eat them for years, always going for seconds, always claiming they’re the only good reason to wake up before 8am on a Sunday.
“Yes,” Eddie says firmly. “I don’t like them.”
Buck raises an eyebrow, that’s a very fierce stance. “Have you tried them?”
Eddie hums, noncommittal, and looks down at his hands like they might have the answer for him. His feet swing a little faster, and when he looks back up, his cheeks are flushed pink and he gives a small, almost guilty shake of his head. “No.”
Buck snorts and sets down his knife. He walks over to the counter with the container of blueberries and plucks one out, holding it up between his fingers like a peace offering. “Try one.”
Eddie leans away slightly, his nose scrunching up in disgust and his eyes narrowing. “But…”
“I think you’ll like them,” Buck says before he can get too deep into whatever excuse he’s about to offer. “You can be brave and try something new, right?”
Eddie bites his bottom lip, his eyes crossing a little as he stares down the blueberry in Buck’s hand. “But what if I don’t like it?”
“Then you don’t,” Buck replies with an easy shrug. “That’s okay. As long as you give it a go.”
There’s a pause where Buck isn’t sure if he’ll actually do it, but then Eddie slowly reaches out and pinches the berry between two fingers. He holds it delicately, inspecting it like it’s some kind of alien fruit. Buck grins and pulls out another one for himself, then bumps Eddie’s berry gently with his own.
“Come on, I’ll do it with you,” he says. “Count with me.”
Eddie smiles just a little, nervous but trying not to be and together they count, “One, two, three,” before popping the blueberries into their mouths.
Buck eats his without thinking twice, but Eddie chews slowly, his expression pinched and skeptical as the flavour hits his tongue. Buck watches, trying not to laugh as Eddie’s brows furrow, then lift, then furrow again like he’s going through the full spectrum of human emotion in real time. After a few seconds of thoughtful chewing, Eddie swallows with an exaggerated gulp.
“Well?” Buck asks, tossing another blueberry into his own mouth.
Eddie blinks up at him, “Can I have another one, please?” He says shyly.
“You can have the whole packet,” Buck says, grinning as he hands over the container.
He turns back to the cutting board, moving the sliced strawberries and bananas onto the now pretty much cold pancakes, arranging them with a practiced ease. He sets the plates on the table, grabs some plastic cutlery he keeps for when Jee-Yun visits and pours two cups of orange juice, mentally noting how absurdly domestic this all feels.
When he turns back, Eddie is still sitting on the counter, carefully picking out one blueberry at a time cataloging them. He studies each one before eating it, like it’s still a small adventure. Buck pauses to watch him, quiet for a moment, letting himself really see the kid, how thoughtful he is, how much effort he puts into something as simple as trying a new fruit. He seems proud of himself, even if he’s too shy to say it out loud.
The thing is, Buck knows this about Eddie. He knows that trying new things doesn’t come easily to him. Eddie’s the kind of person who sticks to what he knows, who doesn’t take leaps without first checking how far the fall is, he avoids change even when it’s something good.
It’s probably why he makes the same choices over and over, even when they hurt him. Probably why he stays in patterns that don’t serve him, because they’re familiar, and familiar feels safe.
So moments like this one, even small, quiet shifts in perspective, mean more than they seem. Because it’s not just about the blueberry. It’s about trying something new and realising it’s not as scary as he thought.
It’s like when Buck dragged him to Pilates and Eddie ended up liking it so much he started going more than Buck, or when Buck surprised him with matcha one morning and Eddie wrinkled his nose at first, but then it became the only thing he’d order when they would stop at their favourite café. Sometimes it takes someone nudging him forward to get there, but once Eddie finds something he likes, it becomes part of his routine, part of his structure, part of him.
Buck smiles to himself, turning away to pour syrup over the pancakes.
Eddie likes blueberries, he just hadn’t figured it out yet.
Buck can’t help but wonder how many other things Eddie’s never let himself try, just because no one ever told him he might like them.
Eddie sits quietly by the coffee table, hunched over a sheet of printer paper with a box of mismatched markers beside him. His small hand moves carefully as he colours, tongue poking out a little in concentration, completely absorbed in whatever masterpiece he’s working on. It’s peaceful in a way Buck hadn’t expected the morning to be. He’s just beginning to relax again, letting himself believe, that he might be getting the hang of all this madness, when his phone buzzes in his pocket.
He pulls it out and, it rings with a familiar name lighting up the screen and Buck flinches.
Eddie.
This is so fucking weird.
His brain goes off line for a moment. His eyes flick to the tiny version of Eddie on the floor and then back to the name on his phone. There’s a sort of surreal horror in seeing both exist in the same moment, like a glitch in the universe, something he shouldn’t be witnessing, let alone be a part of.
Should he answer? Should he tell Eddie?
Hey man, the tiny six year old version of you is currently sitting criss cross apple sauce on my living room floor, colouring a picture of what looks like a truck with wings.
Isn’t that crazy?
The rational part of Buck’s brain immediately shuts the idea down.
Because that would be fucking insane. Eddie doesn’t believe in magic or any kind of fate and universe stuff. He rolls his eyes at astrology and once said retrograde sounded like a bad vodka name. He’d never believe that Buck is somehow babysitting a magical little version of himself.
He’d probably assume Buck had finally had a breakdown and started hallucinating.
He sighs and walks toward the kitchen, calling over his shoulder, “I’ll just be in here for a minute, kiddo. I have to take this call.”
“Okay,” little Eddie calls back cheerfully, not looking up from his drawing.
Yeah, this is super fucking strange.
Buck watches the FaceTime ring for a few seconds, then hits decline and switches to a regular call. The last thing he needs is for mini Eddie to pop into the background of the screen and traumatise full grown Eddie into an existential crisis. He’s already at his limit trying to keep this surreal reality under control.
The phone barely rings once before Eddie answers.
“Hey. You don’t want to FaceTime?” Eddie says, immediately suspicious in that way that only someone who knows your patterns can be. Buck snorts under his breath. In fairness to Eddie, they always FaceTime. It’s their thing now that he’s 800 miles away. He probably should’ve thought this through, but his hands are kind of full at the moment, both literally and metaphorically.
“Yeah, sorry. Just seemed easier,” Buck says, not even attempting to come up with a convincing excuse. “What’s up?”
“Nothing much,” Eddie replies, and Buck can hear the subtle sounds of him moving around, maybe outside, maybe in his car at work. “Took a break for lunch. Just wanted to check in on you. After you… you know, hung up on me last night like you couldn’t wait to get off the phone.”
Buck closes his eyes and presses the heel of his hand against his forehead.
Right. That.
The moment he realised with full body clarity, that he is in love with Eddie and then immediately spiralled into the second crushing realisation that he doesn’t actually know Eddie as well as he thought he did. That the real Eddie, the one he talks to every day, has no idea what unraveled inside him last night. That their closeness is somehow not enough for him, and now Buck is here, looking after kid Eddie, and falling even deeper in love with real Eddie without meaning to.
He really is an idiot sometimes.
How do I get myself into this shit?
“What was that about?” Eddie asks, a little more serious now. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Buck says quickly. “I was just tired.”
It’s a terrible excuse. Lazy and transparent, and will never work because Eddie knows him too well.
“Buck,” Eddie says gently. “It seemed like more than that. Talk to me, man?”
“It’s nothing, really,” Buck insists, feeling the words crumble in his mouth. “I’m fine.”
“Well now I’m more worried.”
There’s a long pause, heavy and quiet, filled only with the sound of Eddie breathing on the other end. Buck’s shoulders lower just a bit. Somehow, even just Eddie’s breathing, the weight of his concern can make Buck feel a little more grounded.
That’s what Eddie does to him, for him. Makes the noise in Buck’s head calm down, even when he doesn’t try to.
“You know you can tell me anything, right?” Eddie says softly.
“I—“ Buck opens his mouth, ready to say I know, or maybe I’m sorry, or maybe even I love you, because it’s sitting there, right behind his teeth, warm and terrifying and honest. But before he can speak, he hears the sound of small feet padding toward him on the hardwood floor. “I have to go.”
“Buck—”
“I’ll talk to you later,” Buck says, and he hangs up before he can hear the rest.
He turns around just in time to see little Eddie standing at the doorway, his eyes shiny and uncertain. He’s holding one hand in the other, trying not to fidget but he can’t help it, his small body tight with worry.
Jesus, he’d sell his souls to never see him look sad again.
“What’s wrong, buddy?” Buck asks softly, walking toward him.
“I didn’t mean to,” Eddie says, his voice trembling and his mouth scrunching up, to hold back from crying. It’s a look so goddamn familiar, it almost floors him for a second, “but I got marker on the table and I can’t get it off. I’m really sorry, it was an accident, I promise it was an accident.”
Buck exhales and crouches down so they’re eye level. “That’s okay. Don’t worry about it.”
“I’m so sorry,” Eddie says again, and this time a tear spills over and slides down his cheek. Eddie wipes it away so fast, Buck doesn’t know if he imagined it, and his heart twists. He leans forward and scoops him up without thinking, holding him tight against his chest, and rocks him again like he did this morning.
“I don’t care about the table,” he murmurs, his voice low and steady. “As long as you have fun, that’s all that matters, we can clean it up after.”
Eddie nods against his shoulder, but he doesn’t stop clinging to him.
Buck can’t help but wonder what this tiny version of Eddie is so scared of. What kind of consequences he’s expecting for something so harmless. He knows things were different back when they were kids… children didn’t get as much space to be just children, and parents weren’t held to the same standards as they are now.
But this feels deeper than a single moment of discipline, it feels like a pattern. As if Eddie has been taught, slowly and quietly, that doing something wrong means being bad, and being bad means being wrong completely.
Buck doesn’t think Eddie’s parents hit him, at least not in any way Eddie has ever implied, but he’s not sure that matters. The damage doesn’t always come from something visible.
Sometimes the things that hurt you most are the ones no one can see.
He can picture Helena Diaz tutting under her breath, calling Eddie bad in that way that sounds more disappointed than angry. Can picture her sending him to his room, not because she wanted quiet, but because she wanted to teach him that mistakes made him unworthy of comfort.
He can see Ramon giving Eddie a look that lingered long after it ended, the kind of look that made him question his worth, even if nothing was said out loud.
And worse than any punishment, Buck imagines Eddie being told he’s setting a bad example to his little sisters. That he’s supposed to be the man of the house when his father’s away. That he shouldn’t cry. That he should’ve known better. And knowing Eddie, even as a kid, he would’ve taken that responsibility seriously.
He would’ve internalised it.
He still does.
There’s a kind of silence that can hurt more than yelling. A kind of withdrawal that teaches a child they are only as good as the last thing they did right.
Buck can’t help but holds him tighter.
“You’re a really good kid, Eddie,” he whispers into his hair, pressing a soft kiss to the top of his head. “And one day, you’re going to be a really good man too.”
Eddie sniffles against his shoulder, and Buck closes his eyes for a moment, wishing once again that he could keep him here.
Before the world got to him.
Before it made him doubt who he was.
Before it taught him that being soft was something to hide.
Buck makes a quiet promise to himself, whatever this is, however long it lasts, not to ever let Eddie feel anything but safe to be who he wants.
Buck holds Eddie for a long while after he falls asleep on his shoulder. It’s one of those rare moments where stillness feels allowed, where the weight of Eddie’s small body against his chest is an anchor tethering him to the dock of all this.
Buck lets himself breathe into it for a moment longer.
But he’s always been someone who can’t sit still when there’s too much on his mind, and eventually, he carefully lies Eddie down on the couch, tucking a blanket over his small form. He lingers for a second, hand on the blanket, eyes soft on Eddie’s sleeping face, before stepping away to start making sense of the chaos the morning left behind.
He doesn’t know the rules for magically appearing children, but he’s starting to suspect they burn through energy faster than a normal kid. Six, might technically be past the point for naps, but Buck knows better than to apply the rules of the real world here.
After all, this is Eddie and he at any age apparently seems to carry more weight on his shoulders than he should.
The house is a quiet hum around him as he moves through it, he gathers the markers off the coffee table, wiping away the drawings that bled through the paper onto the surface below. It’s not hard to clean, just needs a bit of water and disinfectant.
It’s funny how something so simple can seem so catastrophic when you’re young.
The bathroom is more of a mess, he cleans up after Eddie’s morning batch of make my parents less angry medicine. Buck swallows against the weight of the meaning behind it, pulling the plug on the sink without hesitation, and makes a list in his head of the things he’ll need to replace.
All things to keep him busy, to distract him from the cold ache that’s started to build just behind his ribs.
But the distraction doesn’t hold.
His brain keeps looping back to one thing, one small, glaring, echoing detail since he moved from three to six years old… Eddie hasn’t asked about his parents.
He hasn’t asked where they are, or why they aren’t here.
He hasn’t wondered why he’s with Buck, or what this house is, or how any of this makes sense.
Buck tries not to read too much into it, but he can’t help it.
Buck was a neglected kid.
He knows the signs. He knows what it looks like when a child adapts too easily. He knows what it’s like to keep your mouth shut because needing something never got you anywhere.
Buck’s parents sucked, he can recite the excuses. His parents were grieving. They were overwhelmed. They didn’t know how to connect with him. But he’s long since run out of patience for those rationalisations. Grief doesn’t cancel out a child’s right to affection, and confusion doesn’t negate responsibility.
His parents were the adults; it was their job to love him, to hold him, to see him.
And they didn’t.
But still, Buck remembers being five or six and wanting them anyway. Crying at school and begging for his mom, wanting his dad to come get him, looking to Maddie when everything else failed. He remembers that hunger, that need for attention, even when it wasn’t met. That instinct to reach for the people who were supposed to care.
But Eddie… hasn’t done that.
Dropped into a stranger’s home, a body far too small to carry all the understanding he clearly holds, and he hasn’t made a single attempt to go home.
He hasn’t even seemed like he wants to.
Buck finishes sorting laundry with his stomach twisted in knots, his thoughts spiralling down a tunnel of everything he doesn’t know how to fix. He cleans out the fridge next, half focused, trying to ground himself with mundane tasks. But no matter how much he does, how hard he tries, the worry still lingers like a low hum in his blood.
He’s in the middle of writing out a grocery list when he hears his name called softly from the living room. “Buck?”
He drops the pen and heads that way, already knowing before he sees him that something’s changed again.
Sure enough, Eddie’s older.
Again.
Probably 8 or 9 now by the look of him. He’s taller, turned away from him, wearing a cap turned backwards and dressed in a baseball uniform that Buck half recognises from a picture in one of the photo albums that Eddie used to have hidden away amongst his books. Buck had looked through it once in the middle of the night when he stayed over and couldn’t sleep.
It hits him strangely to be seeing it in real time.
He’s standing in front of the TV, then he finally turns to him with a puzzled look on his face.
And Buck freezes for a second.
There’s something in his posture, or maybe in the shape of his cheeks, that reminds him of Christopher, and it cuts through him so suddenly he has to swallow down a lump in his throat. Maybe it’s just the way Eddie tilts his head, the curiosity in his gaze, the way he turns toward Buck without hesitation, like he trusts him now and he belongs here.
“What’s that?” Eddie asks, pointing at the TV as if it’s an alien artifact.
“A television,” Buck replies, walking slowly toward him.
“No,” Eddie says, shaking his head with certainty, and bending to look at it from a lower angle. “It’s too… skinny.”
“Right,” Buck almost smiles. “TVs didn’t look like that when you were… where you’re from.”
It hits him again, this strange, surreal reality… this Eddie is from the 90’s maybe the early 2000 now, but he’s also still Eddie.
Whatever this supernatural thing is that is happening here, he wonders if Eddie knows that it’s 2025.
Would that scare him?
Should he say something or would that only confuse him?
“It’s just a different kind of TV,” Buck offers, shrugging.
“But it…” Eddie starts again, and Buck cuts him off gently.
“How old are you now, buddy?”
“I’m nine,” Eddie says and then instantly steps forward with a grin. “Look, I’ve got another wobbly tooth.”
He opens his mouth and wiggles it proudly, and Buck recoils just a little on instinct, trying not to show how much that kind of thing freaks him out.
“That’s cool, kid.” He ruffles Eddie’s hair. “So… uh, I need to go to the store. Think you can come with me?”
He really doesn’t want to take him out in public. There’s no good way to explain this to anyone who might recognise him or Eddie. Buck also has no idea what seeing the world in 2025 might do to a kid from the past.
But he doesn’t have much of a choice.
There’s fruit in the fridge and the ingredients for pancakes in the pantry, but not enough to get through a full day with a growing boy, unless he orders out and he wants to avoid that.
“Yep, I can help you, I promise,” Eddie says earnestly.
Buck lets out a quiet sigh and nods. “You certainly can.”
He hates how ready Eddie is to help, to adjust and fall into line — to prove himself.
As if no one’s ever told him he doesn’t have to earn his keep. Eddie just doesn’t expect anyone to just take care of him because he’s a kid and he’s worth it.
Buck grabs his keys, heart heavy, wondering how many years it takes to teach a child that he doesn’t deserve more.
Before he moved back to El Paso and left Buck standing in a wreckage of loneliness and unrequited feelings, he and Eddie used to do all their grocery shopping together. It had started casually, one of those things that’s more convenience than tradition, but over time, it became something else entirely. Their ritual, a weekly rhythm that belonged to just the two of them, where they would wander the aisles side by side, half paying attention to the list and half lost in whatever conversation they fell into that day.
It was never efficient, it always took them twice as long when they went together, because they’d get caught up in small debates about cereal brands and which shaped pasta was best for sauce distribution, because Eddie pretended not to care and then listened intently anyway as Buck made his case for rotini over penne, and because somehow they always ended up in the toy aisle, Eddie poking fun at Buck’s childish enthusiasm even as he throws a ball at Buck’s head.
It was fun. It was easy. It was something solid between them in a world that was constantly shifting beneath their feet and moving too damn fast.
So when Buck walks into the grocery store with nine year old Eddie trailing beside him now, he doesn’t know why he expects Eddie to be different. He doesn’t know why he thinks this Eddie, this smaller version, would be less slippery than the grown one.
Maybe it was stupid, maybe it was blind hope.
But of course, Eddie at all ages wanders.
Adult Eddie is a wanderer and the kid version of him seems to share that same head in the clouds mentality, that quiet need to move, to drift, to disappear from wherever he’s supposed to be standing.
Buck is only turned away for a few seconds, feeling the firmness of a tomato with practiced fingers, evaluating ripeness like he actually knows what he’s doing, and when he turns back to toss the vine he’s chosen into the cart… Eddie is gone.
Not just out of arm’s reach, he’s no where to be seen.
Disappeared. Vanished. Goneso.
The air shifts in Buck’s chest like it’s been sucked out of the room.
“Eddie?” he calls, low at first, casual, like maybe Eddie’s just crouched behind the cart, like maybe this isn’t anything to worry about yet. “Eddie?”
He abandons the cart instinctively, scanning the aisle in both directions. He moves quickly but not frantically, telling himself not to panic because panicking doesn’t help and he probably hasn’t gone far, he’s probably just gotten distracted by something shiny, something strange, something new.
Theres no way someone has just up and kidnapped his magically de-aged best friend.
But Eddie doesn’t answer, and the aisles are empty.
“Eddie,” Buck calls again, louder this time, his voice edged with tension, and his heart is beating faster now, faster than it should be for something this simple, because he knows how quickly things can go wrong in a world that doesn’t care that this is just a kid in a grocery store, because he knows what it feels like to lose someone in the blink of an eye.
“EDDIE!” His voice cracks this time, rising above the soft background hum of fluorescent lights and shopping carts and shitty pop music. “Come on, buddy, where are you?”
He starts walking faster, almost jogging down the aisle, then pivoting sharply at the end into the next one, eyes darting side to side, body humming with dread that’s grown too loud to ignore. “Eddie! Please, kiddo, you need to come back now!”
His throat is tight, and his body has gone cold, his blood iced over with that terrifying sensation he remembers too well, the one where the world tilts and narrows and nothing makes sense because all you can think about is how stupid you were to look away, how easy it is for a child to fall into the water when your shielding them from a natural disaster.
He’s running now, scanning every aisle, looking into the faces of children who aren’t Eddie, trying not to lose his grip completely, because this version of Eddie is already too vulnerable, already too fragile, and Buck doesn’t know how to explain it to anyone if something happens, doesn’t know how he’d survive it if something did.
“EDDIE!” he shouts again, breath catching in his chest, “please, just say something—just let me know where you are!”
And all he can think, over and over again, like a siren in his skull is that he was supposed to protect him, supposed to be a place where Eddie could be safe, and he’s already failed.
“Sir, are you okay?” a woman’s voice breaks through the roaring static in Buck’s ears, her hand light on his arm like she’s afraid touching him too hard might shatter something.
He turns toward her, his eyes wide and unfocused, pupils blown with panic, chest heaving like he’s just run a mile uphill. She’s wearing the store’s uniform vest, one of those awful synthetic ones in a primary colour that is supposed to be welcoming but feels more like a warning sign. His hands fly up to his hair and clutch at the strands, as if holding his head together might stop it from spinning off his shoulders. “My—my best friend, I can’t find him.”
The woman blinks at him, clearly trying to make sense of that. “Your best friend?” she repeats slowly and Buck realises how insane it must sound, how unhinged it is for a grown man to be pacing the aisles shouting a name over and over again like the world is ending because he can’t find his buddy.
“No,” he says quickly, stumbling over the words, because there’s no way he’s explaining any of this to her, no way to untangle the truth of it from the panic in his chest. “No, not like that, it’s-it’s my best friend’s kid. His name’s Eddie. He’s nine. He was right next to me and then he was just gone.”
The woman’s expression softens with understanding, and she reaches for the radio clipped to her hip. “Does he have a phone?”
And Buck wants to laugh, or scream, or both, because of course Eddie doesn’t have a fucking phone, because he’s from 2002, and in 2002 kids didn’t walk around with GPS trackers in their pockets, they rode bikes without helmets and climbed trees and played in dirt and came home when the streetlights turned on.
“No,” he says, shaking his head furiously, voice cracking under the weight of fear. “No, he doesn’t.”
“Okay,” she says calmly, speaking into her radio, saying words Buck doesn’t even register because his heart is pounding in his throat and his stomach is twisted in knots and he keeps picturing all the things that could have happened in the time it took him to check the ripeness of a fucking tomato.
A moment later, she glances back at him and gives him a tight smile, like she knows he’s on the verge of losing it. “He’s up front. He’s quite upset—”
Buck doesn’t wait to hear the rest.
His legs are already moving, carrying him faster than he can think, faster than he can breathe, sprinting toward the front of the store like gravity has shifted and Eddie is the only thing that can hold him upright again.
And then he sees him, small and in his baseball uniform, cap askew on his head, white pants smudged with dirt, stained from some game that happened two decades ago. Emotions hit Buck like a sucker punch, all of it at once, the fear subsiding for relief, the overwhelming tidal wave of emotion that threatens to drown him right there in the checkout lanes.
“Eddie!” he shouts, and the boy turns at the sound, eyes already glassy and brimming, and as Buck closes the distance. Eddie flinches, curls in on himself like he’s expecting to be in trouble, like he’s already carrying the guilt of something that isn’t his fault once again.
“I’m sorry,” Eddie cries, voice trembling, words coming out in broken gasps, “I’m sorry, I couldn’t find you, I looked and I couldn’t—”
And Buck doesn’t care that Eddie’s nine now, not three or six, doesn’t care that people are watching or that his own chest is heaving with sobs he’s trying to swallow down, because he’s already dropping to his knees and wrapping his arms around Eddie, pulling him in so tightly it’s like he’s trying to fuse them together.
“Oh thank god,” Buck breathes, his voice shredded at the edges. “Oh thank god, you’re okay.”
“I’m sorry,” Eddie keeps whispering, clutching handfuls of Buck’s shirt, burying his face in his shoulder, trying to disappear into him.
“No,” Buck chokes out, one hand cupping the back of Eddie’s head knocking the cap clean of his head, the other holding him tight around the waist, “no, I’m sorry, I should’ve been paying more attention, I shouldn’t have looked away even for a second, but you’re okay now, you’re safe, I’ve got you, Eddie, I’ve always got you.”
A man in a button down shirt with a clipboard approaches cautiously, clearly someone with authority in the store, and says, “He was over by the fruit section. Must’ve just gotten turned around.”
Buck nods, barely looking at him, his eyes still locked on Eddie’s tear streaked face, and he mutters a hoarse “Thank you,” even though his mind is spinning too fast to register the words properly.
The fruit section.
The goddamn fruit section.
Buck had been right there, had touched every tomato on the display, and somehow, Eddie had slipped through his fingers like smoke.
He holds him tighter, tucks Eddie closer, and stand up with him still in his arms, he presses his lips to the side of his head like he can convince the universe to never take him again. “I’m so sorry, Eddie.”
And the kid just cries and cries into his neck, cries until he has nothing left and passes out against him.
Buck doesn’t see it happen. He doesn’t hear it, doesn’t feel the air shift or the temperature change, doesn’t notice the flicker of something out of place in the rearview mirror.
One moment, he glances back and sees nine year old Eddie fast asleep, slumped against the window, mouth parted slightly, his cap pushed up just enough to reveal the worry lines that even at that age seem etched into his brow. The next time Buck looks, maybe two, three minutes later, the kid has changed. He’s not in his baseball uniform anymore, now he’s wearing jeans and a hoodie, and he’s sitting up straighter, blinking heavily like someone waking from a strange dream.
“Eddie,” Buck says, the name coming out half breath, half thought, as if maybe acknowledging it out loud will help him make sense of the transformation sitting right behind him.
“Buck?” Eddie answers, dry and sarcastic, as if Buck’s the one acting strange.
“How old are you now?” Buck asks, and he wishes he could twist around fully, get a proper look at him, but they’re still five minutes from home and he’s not about to rear end someone just to confirm a theory.
“I’m twelve,” Eddie says like it’s obvious, like Buck should’ve figured it out already, and then adds with a smirk Buck can practically hear, “and you’re still old.”
Buck nearly swerves into a parked car because… what the fuck? Was that sass? From mini Eddie?
“How come you’re not getting younger or something?” the kid continues, and Buck has to blink, because that sentence alone, delivered in that tone, is so his Eddie it makes his heart twist a little in his chest.
“I don’t think that’s how this works,” Buck mutters.
Eddie hums in response, not confirming or denying anything, and Buck risks another glance in the mirror. The kid really is twelve now, just on the edge of adolescence, still scrawny, but starting to hold himself with that budding self consciousness that only comes when you’re aware enough to be embarrassed by your own existence.
“Do you remember what just happened?” Buck asks, careful with his words, curious but also aware that pushing too hard might lead to silence.
“I got lost,” Eddie says casually, and then more quietly, “I always get lost. My mom says I have a radar for trouble.”
The way he says it makes Buck ache. There’s something heavy in it, not just the words, but the tone, the resignation, the tiredness that sounds too practiced for a twelve year old. It doesn’t sound like a joke. It sounds like something he’s been told so many times, he started believing it.
“It was my fault,” Buck says quickly, because that part’s true and needs to be said. “You’re a kid. I should’ve been keeping a closer eye on you.”
“I don’t need you to watch me,” Eddie snaps back, arms crossing over his chest. “I’m old enough to know better.”
Damn. So tween aged Eddie is full of that bruised pride, that instinctive need to assert independence, even when it’s obvious he still wants someone to hold him accountable, still wants someone to care enough to argue back.
It’s almost poetic, how this version of Eddie seems convinced that getting lost at nine was some kind of personal failure, a sign of immaturity or weakness, while adult Eddie laughs when Buck calls him a dozen times and eventually finds him mid conversation in a dairy aisle debating the merits of brie versus gouda with a stock clerk without him.
Buck pulls into his driveway a few minutes later, somehow grocery-less and in possession of a brooding almost-teenager who seems to be testing how many different moods he can shift through in the span of a short car ride.
He cuts the engine, and the car fills with silence. Buck tries to wait him out, sees if Eddie will say something first, but the silence stretches uncomfortably and he should’ve really known better, Eddie always wins at chicken, and he breaks, turns in his seat to look at him properly.
It’s Eddie. It’s unmistakably Eddie now. His face still has that childhood softness, but his jaw is starting to form definition, and his eyes are more serious than they should be. He’s slouched in his seat like he’s auditioning for the role of moody teen, arms crossed tightly, mouth set in a neutral line that almost looks bored, but Buck knows him better the he thinks, he’s seen this look in the adult version a hundred times, and it always means there’s a storm beneath the surface.
“What?” Eddie says, and it’s clipped and rude, but Buck sees the flicker of nerves in his fingers, the way he begins fidgeting with the hem of his sleeve, unable to maintain the illusion of indifference.
“Nothing,” Buck says gently. “You look like you.”
“Duh,” Eddie scoffs, rolling his eyes as he starts kicking the back of Buck’s seat. “Everyone looks like themselves.”
“Keep kicking my chair and you can have a fun afternoon washing the car,” Buck warns him with a raised brow, and just like that, the kicking stops.
He says it more as a test to see just how temperamental Eddie is, he would never actually make him clean his car, but Eddie doesn’t know that. Buck isn’t really surprised when he quickly curls in on himself and apologises.
“Sorry,” Eddie mutters softly.
“Come on,” Buck says, getting out of the car. “We’ll have to figure out what’s edible in my fridge.”
Eddie trails behind, slower, quieter, and Buck pretends not to notice how long it takes him to close the car door, how he hesitates before following him inside. Buck doesn’t wait, just unlocks the front door, toes off his shoes, and heads to the kitchen. He hears the faint, almost whispered, “You could have waited for me,” as Eddie finally steps into the kitchen.
“I thought you were old enough not to need me watching you,” Buck throws back casually.
“Why are you being such an asshole?” Eddie snaps, standing stiff in the doorway, arms crossed again like armour.
Oh, swear words.
“I’m not,” Buck sighs, and shakes his head. “But you’ve got a chip on your shoulder the size of Texas and I’m not going to just tiptoe around you. I didn’t do anything wrong, Eddie. You’re mad at something else, don’t take it out on me.”
“I’m not mad,” Eddie mumbles.
“You’re totally snappy,” Buck says, snorting. “Look, I get it, you’re twelve, too cool for someone to worry about you. But I do, I care.”
He means it. Maybe too much, maybe he’s not even really talking to this version of Eddie.
His Eddie — adult Eddie, hates when anyone dares to worry about him until it’s too late, and suddenly Bucks getting a call on a random evening from a scared Christopher that his dad is smashing up his bedroom, and he doesn’t know how to help him.
“I’m sorry, okay?” Eddie says eventually, arms still crossed but his voice is softer now.
“I know you are.” Buck steps closer and pats his shoulder gently. “You’re a good kid.”
“How do you know that?” Eddie squints at him skeptically. “I’m just some random kid who showed up at your house. We don’t even know why I’m here.”
So Eddie doesn’t know anything. Buck had wondered. Eddie doesn’t know anything beyond being twelve, doesn’t know who Buck really is or how deeply their lives are intertwined.
Maybe it’s better that way.
Buck doesn’t really know what’s going on, or when this weird magical shit will end. But if movies have taught him anything, you shouldn’t tell the past anything about the future.
Maybe it’s safer not to break the timeline.
“Well,” Buck says, shifting gears, “do you like pesto pasta?”
Yet… adult Eddie inhales the stuff, but like blueberries, he doesn’t know if this Eddie does.
Eddie shrugs. “Sure.”
“Great.” Buck ruffles his hair, grinning when Eddie squeaks and ducks away. “Wanna help or just watch?”
“I’m really bad in the kitchen… I burn scrambled eggs,” Eddie says, but there’s a tiny maybe hopeful smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“You were a lot of help this morning,” Buck says, offering Eddie a warm smile hoping it reassures him, bridges the gap that still lingers between a kid dropped into the middle of something he doesn’t understand and the adult who’s doing his best to make it feel manageable. “And we’re just boiling pasta and adding jarred pesto, it’s not exactly Michelin star cuisine around here.”
Eddie hesitates, biting his bottom lip as his eyes flick toward the stove, then over to the cupboards, then back to Buck like he’s trying to gauge how serious Buck is being, like he’s waiting for the moment it turns into a test he might fail. But when Buck simply smiles again and gestures to the kitchen without a hint of expectation, Eddie finally nods. “Okay.”
“Okay,” Buck echoes, this time with a little more encouragement in his tone. “Plus if we mess up, I’ve got cereal and milk.” He grab a pot from the lower cupboard and passes it to Eddie. “Can you fill this up with water—just over halfway should do it. We need to let it boil before we can add the pasta.”
He explains it simply, gently, like it’s not a big deal if Eddie gets it wrong, and Eddie, to his credit, doesn’t ask questions, he just takes the pot, turns toward the sink, and gets to work.
Buck watches him move, he’s still a little stiff, still completely unsure, but he follows the instructions without needing to be guided step by step. Buck is reminded again of how this kid is really Eddie, for all his attitude and bluster, it’s still the person he knows best, it’s still just his best friend who wants to do things right, who wants someone to notices when he tries.
When the pot is full, Eddie brings it over to the stove and hands it off, letting Buck take care of the actual boiling part, and Buck keeps the momentum going by directing him to the cupboard with the glasses and telling him to grab a drink, anything he wants, water, juice, soda, it doesn’t matter.
While Buck sets the burner and stirs the water absently, Eddie puts out two cups and sets the table with quiet concentration, occasionally glancing over like he’s checking to see if he’s doing it correctly, even if he pretends not to care either way.
Once the water begins to bubble, Buck hands Eddie the pasta, and together they add it to the pot, though Eddie flinches back when the water splashes a little onto the stovetop, his eyes widening in that instinctive kind of fear Buck has seen to many times today, just a kid who think any mistake might get him scolded.
“Sorry,” Eddie mutters, immediately looking down.
“It’s fine,” Buck says without hesitation, reaching over to squeeze his shoulder. “I’m messy too. You’re doing a really good job, kid.”
Eddie doesn’t say anything right away, but Buck notices the subtle flush that creeps onto his cheeks, quick and unguarded, the kind of reaction that might’ve gone unnoticed by anyone else, but Buck’s been tuned into Eddie’s tells for years. He doesn’t say anything about it, doesn’t tease or smile or make a joke out of it, just tucks the moment away quietly, it’s proof that some things stay the same no matter the age or circumstances.
Because adult Eddie blushes just as easily, just as visibly, at a little compliment, at a pointed look, at the way Buck knows exactly how to push his buttons without even trying. He teases him for it, coaxing that strawberry flush to the surface and watching him try and fail to play it cool. It has always been one of Buck’s quiet pleasures, one of those private joys he never lets himself examine too closely, but makes complete sense now.
The thought brings a heaviness with it, creeping in slowly like a chill that settles beneath his skin. He sighs, trying not to let it show too much, but it’s there, the heavy weight of missing him. The real Eddie. The one who knows him. The one who stands beside him like a constant. The one who isn’t just a ghost of what came before.
He misses him so much it aches.
“How’d you learn to cook?” Eddie asks after a beat, his voice curious, not challenging, just genuinely interested now that he seems a little more at ease.
“Well, like I said, this barely counts as cooking,” Buck replies with a laugh. “But my captain taught me how to really cook. We take turns on shifts, so everyone picks up something eventually.”
“Captain?” Eddie echoes, his brow furrowing as he tries to make the pieces fit.
“I’m a firefighter.”
Eddie’s quiet for a second, letting that settle, then gives a small nod. “That makes sense.”
“Yeah?” Buck asks, not quite sure what part of it makes sense to Eddie.
“Yeah,” Eddie says again. “That’s a really cool job.”
Buck lets that sit for a moment, then decides to nudge the conversation gently toward Eddie. He wants to know more about Eddie, and as cute and interesting as three, six, and nine years old Eddie was… Eddie is actually on his way to becoming who he wants to be at twelve.
Obviously he’s not even close to figuring himself out, but Buck wants to know what Eddie thought he might be.
“What about you? What do you want to be when you grow up?”
It’s not a question Buck asked himself much when he was younger, not seriously, at least. He didn’t know what he wanted to be when he was older, but he always knew what he didn’t want. He knew that a job like his dad would slowly drain the life out of him, knew that sitting behind a desk wasn’t an option, knew that medicine wasn’t his path even if Maddie made it look so noble and worthwhile.
It took years of trial and error, of chasing chaos and hoping it meant something for him to stumble into what he actually did want. And even now, with his life finally feeling like it fits, he still remembers the ache of not knowing where he belonged.
Eddie shrugs, looking off toward the fridge. “I don’t know. Something I’m good at, I guess.”
It’s vague, but Buck thinks there’s something incredibly honest in that answer that Eddie might not realise, unspoken in the way Eddie says it. He just wants a job where he’s not always being corrected, where someone sees the effort he puts in instead of only pointing out where he falls short.
Where there is more praise than criticism.
“That makes sense,” Buck nods, watching him carefully. “A job where you get to feel proud of what you do.”
“Yeah,” Eddie says quietly.
“Do you think you’d be a good firefighter like me?” Buck asks, more out of curiosity than anything, as he reaches for the jar of pesto and starts to crack it open.
“No,” Eddie shakes his head immediately. “I’m not very brave.”
Buck stills for a second, the lid of the jar half twisted and frowns. “That’s not true.”
Eddie blinks up at him, surprised by the certainty in Buck’s voice.
“I think you’ve been really brave all day,” Buck continues. “You’ve been dropped into a place you don’t know, in a time you don’t understand, and you’ve been holding it together better than most adults would. That’s not just brave, that’s really Impressive, Kid.”
Eddie’s smile is small, there’s something so soft in it that Buck wants to protect it with both hands. “Really?”
“Yeah,” Buck says, handing him a spoon to stir the sauce. “I definitely would’ve been terrified if I was twelve and this happened to me.”
Eddie thinks about that, then nods a little. “I’d try to have your back. If I was a firefighter.”
You can have my back any day.
“You’d succeed too, I think,” Buck says gently, watching him start to relax again, shoulders less tense, expression lighter than it had been just a few minutes ago. “You’ve got good instincts.”
As they move around the kitchen together, finishing up the meal side by side in an easy, quiet rhythm, Buck feels it settle in his chest, a sense that, whatever strange force brought Eddie into this version of his life, giving him a chance to understand Eddie better. One thing is true, that he’s always suspected but never had the evidence for, that Eddie’s strength, the core of who he is, was there from the beginning.
After lunch, they end up on the couch, settling into the soft cushions with the kind of casual familiarity Buck doesn’t expect to come so easily with a time shifted version of his best friend. Maybe that’s what makes it so strange, that it feels so natural.
He flips through options until he lands on Iron Man, not really thinking it through, only realising halfway through the Marvel intro that it hasn’t even come out yet for this Eddie. The twelve year old currently curled up in the corner of the couch under one of Buck’s softest blankets, a full bowl of popcorn in his lap and a look of genuine, wide eyed excitement on his face is from three years earlier than the MCU.
Insane.
Buck briefly wonders if he’s breaking some kind of interdimensional rule by letting him watch it, but honestly, he has no idea how any of this works, doesn’t know if time travel rules apply when no one actually traveled through time on purpose, doesn’t know if Eddie will even remember this day at all when it’s over, or if somehow, his present day Eddie, the one Buck is in love with and misses so deeply it makes him ache, will know how he spent this random Monday.
If Eddie does know… what the fuck is he going to think of all this?
Either way, he figures it’s too late to worry about that now, because the movie is playing, and Eddie looks comfortable and safe, and that feels more important than the rules he doesn’t understand. He lets the questions sit unanswered in the back of his mind.
Buck ends up watching Eddie more than he does the movie. He’s seen Iron Man a dozen times, he knows the beats, knows the explosions, knows how Tony Stark ends up in a cave in Afghanistan and builds something miraculous out of scraps.
Eddie whose eyes are fixed on the screen, is far more interesting. The way he tucks the blanket around his legs, the way he shushes Buck without even looking at him when Buck makes a comment about the CGI, the way he picks through the popcorn with surgical precision, clearly eating only the fully popped kernels, it’s all so achingly familiar. All of the tiny, unconscious habits are things Buck has watched adult Eddie do before and somehow that makes it all feel even more surreal.
Not just that he’s watching a younger version of the man he loves, but that the core of Eddie, the little things that make him who he is, haven’t changed since he was a child.
Halfway through the second movie, Buck reaches over and gently lifts the bowl of popcorn out of Eddie’s lap when he notices the kid is nodding off, his head tilting, mouth slack, sleep creeping in even though the action on screen is ramping up. Buck smiles to himself, tucks the blanket in a bit more around Eddie’s legs, then leans back and checks his phone.
There’s a message from Eddie.
Eddie: (4:33 PM)
I’ve been thinking about it and have I done something wrong? You’ve been acting really strange and I don’t remember messing up somehow but if I have you need to tell me Buck
Buck feels it like a gut punch, his breath catching for a second before he exhales slowly through his nose.
Of course Eddie thinks it’s something he did.
Of course his first instinct is to take the blame, to assume that Buck pulling back, being distant, acting weird as hell, has something to do with a mistake he must have made.
It breaks Buck’s heart, not just because it’s untrue, but because now, after spending hours with these earlier versions of Eddie, he understands more clearly than ever that this has always been a part of who Eddie is. A deep, quiet, internalised guilt that doesn’t always make sense, this habit of apologising before he even knows what went wrong.
He’s always been like that.
Eddie is quick to take responsibility unless he’s sure it’s Buck’s fault, like during the lawsuit, when he didn’t hold back, or when Buck cracked an egg in his work boots as a joke and Eddie had to spend three hours at the scene of a six car pile-up with eggy feet. That time, he didn’t speak to Buck for three days, and honestly he deserved it.
But more often than not, it’s Eddie assuming he’s somehow wrong.
Buck hates that.
He hates that so much of what he’s learning from this accidental journey through Eddie’s early life only confirms how deeply ingrained that instinct is.
He types back quickly.
Buck: (4:43 PM)
You didn’t do anything stupid
We’re fine
I’m just busy
Eddie’s reply comes back nearly instantly.
Eddie: (4:44 PM)
You’re acting so strange, Buck
I’m worried about you
Ouch.
Buck never wants Eddie to worry.
Not now. Not ever.
Buck: (4:46 PM)
You don’t need to worry
I’ll call you later and we can talk
I promise there’s no problem
He scrubs a hand down his face, suddenly exhausted. He doesn’t know how to keep all of this straight, doesn’t know to be present with one version of Eddie, while keeping the other one, the most important one, at arm’s length, keeping all these new truths from spilling out.
“Holy shit—” Buck nearly jumps out of his skin, heart jolting in his chest like it’s been shocked back into alertness, because when he glances up from his phone, there’s a pair of wide, steady brown eyes staring at him from just a foot away, eyes that seem older than they were a few minutes ago, eyes that belong to someone who isn’t twelve anymore, someone who’s changed again right under Buck’s nose while he was distracted.
He missed it again.
He doesn’t know how he keeps missing the moment it happens, how a child becomes a teenager in the time it takes him to glance at a text message, but here they are again, sitting on the same couch in the same room, and Buck is looking at a different version of Eddie, one that’s grown again, taller, leaner, sharper around the edges. The baby fat that still lingered before is all but gone now, his jaw more defined, and his hair is longer too, dark strands brushing over his forehead until he pushes them back in a quick familiar motion. He looks like he’s caught somewhere between childhood and adulthood, with one foot still in the past and the other already pushing forward into something more grown up, something more self aware.
Buck thinks he understands the pattern now. Three, six, nine, twelve… and this one must be fifteen.
It’s consistent enough to guess with some confidence, though nothing about any of this feels predictable.
He expected a lot from teenage Eddie. Maybe more sarcasm, maybe a little more defiance that was already beginning to show at twelve, maybe that quiet intensity that Buck has caught glimpses of in the man he’s known for years. He thought there’d be some kind of emotional armor, some version of Eddie testing his boundaries, seeing how much he could keep to himself and still be understood.
What he didn’t expect, what catches him completely off guard… is the shirt he’s wearing.
Red, sequinned, and sparkling like it was designed to be seen from the moon.
Buck blinks, and then blinks again, and for a moment, all he can do is try to process what he’s looking at, because it’s not just a little glitter, it’s full on stage level shimmer, and it completely derails whatever train of thought he was just riding.
“Hey, bud,” Buck says, a little cautiously, unsure of what version of Eddie he’s dealing with now, trying to read the energy before he oversteps.
“Hi,” Eddie replies with a casual smile, clearly amused by Buck’s expression. “I’m fifteen, before you ask again.”
Nailed it.
Buck exhales and nods, leaning back a little in his seat. “Right,” he murmurs, then squints at the shirt again. “Though, my actual first question was going to be why it looks like Elton Johns wardrobe exploded all over you.”
Eddie glances down at his shirt and shrugs like it’s no big deal. “It’s what I wear for competitions.”
Buck raises an eyebrow in confusion, “What kind of competitions?”
“Ballroom dancing.”
There’s a pause, long enough that Buck has to make sure he heard correctly.
“You ballroom dance?”
“Yeah,” Eddie says plainly. “Since I was thirteen. Me and my partner have won our last two competitions.”
Buck sits there for a second, taking that in. He’s heard about Eddie playing baseball, about swim meets and team practices, but not once has he ever heard a single mention of ballroom dancing. No stories, no throwaway comments, no jokes about weekend events or rehearsal halls or sequined costumes. It’s not the kind of thing you accidentally leave out of conversation if you’ve known someone for years. And yet, somehow, this entire part of Eddie’s life, this image of him practicing steps and learning posture and moving in rhythm with someone else has never come up.
What. The. Fuck.
“Boys do it too,” Eddie snaps.
“Riiight,” Buck says slowly, dragging the word out as he tries to catch up. “Of course, boys do it too. I just didn’t know you did.”
“Why would you?” Eddie straightens a little, his eyes narrowing like he’s bracing himself for judgment. “I didn’t do it when I was twelve, and I never told you.”
“Yeah, obviously that’s it,” Buck lies. “That’s really cool. Is it comfy or would you like me to find something else for you to wear?”
There’s something in Eddie’s face that softens a little, like he hadn’t expected that response, but he quickly covers it with a scowl. “I’m fine,” he says, his voice clipped and defensive.
Buck nods, not pushing it. “Alright. Pizza for dinner?”
“Whatever,” Eddie mutters, already turning his attention back toward the TV.
And just like that, Buck’s reacquainted with the moody version of Eddie Diaz, prickly and distant in a way that doesn’t quite hide how much he still wants to be understood.
Buck doesn’t take it personally.
He’s beginning to realise that every version of Eddie is a little different but all cut from the same cloth… deeply self contained, quietly proud, careful about what he lets people see. Unlike Buck, who has always worn his heart a little too close to the surface, it’s both fascinating and frustrating in equal measure.
Still, he finds himself smiling just a little as he pulls out his phone to order dinner. Because even with the attitude, even in the glittering shirt and scowl, it’s still Eddie — and Buck’s never been able to look away.
“So…” Buck starts, after they’ve cleared the table and washed the last of the dishes, his voice casual as he leans against the edge of the counter. “You gonna show me some of your dance moves?”
Eddie scrunches up his nose and gives him a look of half amused horror, like Buck’s just asked him to recite a love poem in front of the class. “How?”
“I don’t know, a little—” Buck makes a vague, awkward movement with his hips, attempting something he thinks he remembers from the one salsa class Taylor dragged him to years ago, back when he still thought trying new things with her would fix something broken between them.
“That was really embarrassing, Buck,” Eddie laughs, and it’s a real laugh, bright and unguarded, his body folding slightly inward like he can’t believe what he’s just witnessed.
“Hey, that’s not nice,” Buck shoots back, grinning as he moves to the table and drops down on to the chair opposite him. “Come on, then, show me how it’s done.”
For a second, Eddie just blinks at him, and Buck suddenly wonders if this is weird. If asking a fifteen year old version of his best friend to dance crosses some invisible line.
But it doesn’t feel weird.
It feels like he’s trying to connect, to show interest in something important to Eddie, even if this version of Eddie barely knows who Buck is.
He figures it’s only weird if you make it weird and Buck isn’t doing that.
“There’s no music,” Eddie says with a shrug.
“I can play you some.”
“I need a partner,” Eddie counters.
Buck shrugs again, light hearted and easy. “I’ll be your partner. You can teach me.”
Eddie blinks, then frowns. “You’re a boy.”
“So?” Buck raises an eyebrow and snorts. “Boys can dance with other boys. Come on, up, up.” He reaches over and takes Eddie’s hand, gently pulling him to his feet without thinking too much of it.
But Eddie resists slightly. “No, they can’t,” he says firmly. “Boys dance with girls, and the guy leads.”
Buck studies him for a moment. The resistance isn’t just about dancing, it’s about something else, something deeper, something taught rather than felt. “Well, I don’t know what I’m doing, so you can lead. Make it something easy though, I’m old.”
Eddie doesn’t smile, if anything his posture stiffens, and when he speaks, it’s quieter. “My mom wouldn’t like it.”
That catches Buck off guard.
He blinks, taking a moment before he responds, “Why not?”
Eddie looks away, voice even lower now. “Because two guys shouldn’t do that sort of stuff.”
Buck’s chest tightens. “Dance?” he asks carefully, keeping his tone level. “If it makes you uncomfortable, we don’t have too, kid. But you know there’s nothing wrong with two guys dancing, right?”
“It’s wrong, it’s… gay,” Eddie says, the word hesitant, like he’s not entirely sure what it means or if he should be saying it at all.
Buck doesn’t react right away. He just stands there, his body still, his hand falling to his side as he tries to decide how to respond without making Eddie feel worse than he already looks. There’s a moment, nothing more than a beat, where everything sharpens into focus.
This is the moment he’d been avoiding without knowing it. The moment where something harmless becomes heavy, and it hurts. It hits Buck right in the gut in a way he’s not proud of, but can’t pretend doesn’t sting.
He knows Eddie isn’t homophobic. Not the Eddie he knows now. Not the man who sat across from him last year while Buck nervously came out, fumbling through his truth like it might fall apart if he said it too directly. Eddie had been good to him then, quiet, steady, supportive. Not surprised, not shaken. He’d said all the right things, and more importantly, he’d meant them.
But that doesn’t erase the fact that this version of him, the teenager raised in a conservative household in a part of the country that never made space for anything outside the norm, has clearly absorbed things Buck wishes he hadn’t.
A fifteen year old kid raised by parents with rigid beliefs, in a town where deviation from tradition meant judgment or worse.
Buck knows that kind of environment too well.
It shapes people before they’re even aware they’re being shaped. This isn’t hate, it’s misinformation. Beliefs that Eddie once carried, unaware it had been handed to him.
“Well,” Buck says after a pause, keeping his voice soft, steady. “Dancing isn’t gay. It’s dancing. Being gay is about who you’re attracted to, and there is nothing wrong about that. Two guys dancing together doesn’t make anyone anything they’re not. But again, if it’s making you uncomfortable, we don’t have to do it.”
He waits, trying not to push, trying to hold the tension without letting it tip into defensiveness or guilt. He knows how easy it would be to accidentally make this moment about him, but it isn’t. It’s about Eddie, and what he’s learned, and what he hasn’t unlearned yet.
“Why do you think it’s wrong?” Buck asks, finally, because he wants to understand, and maybe Eddie needs to hear himself answer that question too.
Eddie folds his arms and turns away, breathing out through his nose. “I… I don’t want to dance. I’m tired. I want to go to sleep.”
Buck nods immediately. He’s not going to argue, not going to point out that it’s barely seven o’clock and he’s pretty sure no teenager in the history of the world has ever voluntarily gone to bed that early. Eddie is retreating, and Buck knows better than to chase him when he’s pulling away like this.
But also, it isn’t his place to rearrange how Eddie feels about things, clearly he works it out in the end and that’s enough for Buck.
“Okay,” Buck says gently. “I’ll set up the spare room for you. There’s a toothbrush under the sink in the bathroom.”
Eddie doesn’t answer, just nods stiffly and disappears down the hall.
Buck stands in the kitchen for a moment longer, staring at the empty space where Eddie had been, and tries to unclench the knot that’s formed in his chest.
He doesn’t feel angry… just sad.
Sad for the version of Eddie who was made to feel that something as harmless as a dance could be shameful, who learned to see lines where there shouldn’t be any, who pulled away from a moment of connection because it didn’t fit the rules someone else wrote for him.
Buck hadn’t expected to hit a nerve. He just wanted to have fun, to get a glimpse of the thing that young Eddie clearly loved and took pride in. Instead, he’d uncovered a bruise, one that hasn’t fully healed yet. And maybe, by not pushing, by staying steady, he helped Eddie begin to question where that discomfort really came from.
And he can begin to see the world differently.
After Eddie says goodnight and disappears into the spare room, Buck lingers in the hallway for a few extra seconds, wondering if this is the last time he’ll see the fifteen year old version of him, if the next time Eddie steps back out of that room, he’ll be eighteen, an adult, someone closer to who Buck knows, and yet is still discovering himself piece by piece. There’s no real pattern to how this is working, no logic he can pin down, only that Eddie keeps getting three years older every time he falls asleep, and Buck keeps trying to catch up.
With the house quiet and nothing left to do, Buck finds himself at a loss. He showers to kill time, throws on an old pair of sweats and a hoodie, and crawls into bed earlier than he has in years. He puts on a podcast mostly for the comfort of ambient noise and scrolls aimlessly through Reddit, reading threads he’ll forget in five minutes, until his eyes begin to blur and he starts rereading the same sentence twice.
Eventually, he lets the iPad slip to his side, screen still faintly glowing, and stares up at the ceiling, the soft hum of voices from his phone drifting off in the background.
For a while, he lets his thoughts wander, through the long, strange day they’ve had, through all the strange and gentle versions of Eddie he’s seen in the span of just twenty four hours.
He thinks about the thumb sucking three year old who clung to him like he already knew he was safe. The six year old with eyes too old for his face, making pretend medicine for problems that aren’t his to fix. The nine year old who got lost and apologised like he’d committed a crime. The twelve year old who wanted so badly to be seen as capable, but flinched when praised. The fifteen year old who dances in sequins and stiffened at the thought of doing it with another boy.
All of it… the sweetness, the sharpness, the vulnerability, the weight he carried too early, they all sit with Buck now in a way that feels overwhelming.
He doesn’t think he could’ve anticipated how much he would feel about this. About learning all these small, forgotten, formative things that Eddie himself probably doesn’t remember anymore. It’s like seeing him backwards, like being handed the blueprint after already falling in love with the structure.
Every detail only makes him love Eddie more, not in a shiny dramatic kind of way, but in the quiet grounded way that makes it hard to breathe sometimes.
He knows he needs to call Eddie like he promised he would, but he just needs a moment to collect himself, so he floats in it for a while, in every small laugh and wide eyed moment and tiny heartbreak that the day has given him.
Then all of a sudden, he jolts awake.
His body lurches like it’s been thrown forward, and he blinks into the darkness, groggy and disoriented, unsure of what dragged him back from the edge of sleep.
He rolls over and sees the time, 3:07am, and his stomach sinks.
He grabs his phone and sees three missed calls immediately, all from Eddie, spaced out before midnight.
Shit. Shit, shit.
“Shit,” he mutters aloud, dragging a hand down his face. He smacks his forehead once against the pillow and lies there for a few seconds in disgust with himself.
He promised he’d call.
He said he’d call.
He’s such a fucking idiot, he let himself lie down just for a second, even though he knows how that always ends. He’s the kind of person who can fall asleep in the middle of a sentence, who never lasts more than ten minutes once he gets horizontal.
He should have known better.
He stares at the phone a moment longer, it’s too late to call him now. The guilt is loud in his mind, and all his sleepiness has fully evaporated.
He swings his legs out of bed and stands, rubbing at his eyes, and makes his way down the hall toward the living room where he’s almost certain he turned off the lights earlier.
The house is mostly dark, but the faint glow from the front room spills out across the floor, and confuses him for a moment, until he steps further into the room and sees him.
Eddie.
Not the fifteen year old boy in his ballroom dancing costume. But someone older and much taller now. He’s facing the fireplace, his back to Buck, one hand resting lightly on the mantle as he scans the items placed there, photo frames, little keepsakes Buck likes to keep. The sequins are gone, replaced by a black Henley that fits close to his body and soft gray sweatpants that hang loose on his hips.
Eighteen years old.
“Hey, Eddie,” Buck says gently, just loud enough to make his presence known without startling him. The last thing he wants is to seem like he’s been silently watching, even if it’s only been a few seconds.
Eddie turns slowly, and when he does, Buck feels something tighten in his chest in recognition. This version of Eddie is unmistakably like his own. Still young only just stepping into adulthood, but the way he carries himself, the weight in his eyes, the familiarity in his features, it’s more like the man Buck knows and loves.
“Sorry,” Eddie says immediately. He’s sheepish, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. “I wasn’t snooping. Or, well, maybe I was, a little. But not in a bad way. Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Buck huffs a quiet laugh, the tension in his chest easing just a bit. “What were you looking at?”
Eddie hesitates, like he’s debating whether to admit it, then turns back to the mantle and carefully picks up a frame, and Buck knows which one it is before he sees it.
“This is us,” Eddie says, his voice soft, a little uncertain.
Buck steps closer, his eyes landing on the photo in Eddie’s hand. It’s from a summer barbecue a couple years ago, the two of them shoulder to shoulder, laughing at something someone said off camera, Eddie’s hand resting casually on Buck’s arm, Buck leaning into the touch because he just can’t help himself. It’s one of those candid moments that speaks more than a posed picture ever could, and Buck’s always kept it out in the open, though he’s never told Eddie how often he looks at it.
“Yeah,” Buck says quietly. “That’s us.”
“Yeah,” Eddie mutters, almost like he’s talking to himself, his eyes still fixed on the photograph in his hands. When he looks up, there’s something different in his expression, his brow furrowed, his mouth drawn tight, and his eyes suddenly sharper, more certain. He chews at his bottom lip for a second, like he’s working up the nerve to say something he already half knows will change the air in the room, and then he asks it plainly with no fanfare. “Am I dead?”
Buck freezes.
He doesn’t breathe, doesn’t blink, doesn’t even fully process the words until they’re already echoing inside his head.
“What?” he says, but not because he didn’t hear, but because it’s the only word that manages to surface through the panic that starts buzzing behind his eyes.
“Am I dead?” Eddie repeats, firmer this time. “Is that why all this is happening? You know me, you haven’t said it, but you do… so is that it? Is this like some kind of goodbye?”
“No,” Buck says immediately, his voice low and urgent, trying to shut down that thought before it takes hold. “No, Eddie. You’re not dead. You’re alive. I swear.” And then, softer, more hesitant, “I don’t know what I’m allowed to say. That’s why I didn’t tell you anything. I didn’t want to screw things up, and you were so young before I didn’t want to confuse you.”
Eddie’s shoulders relax just enough to show he believes him at least a little, but the intensity in his eyes doesn’t fade. “So… we’re together then?” he asks. “You’re my boyfriend?”
Buck’s brain goes completely blank.
“What?” he breathes, the word barely formed, his whole body stilling under the weight of that unexpected question.
“I mean, I’m not disappointed or anything,” Eddie says with a small laugh, shrugging like it’s no big deal. “You’re really nice and pretty hot, so I’m kind of proud of myself actually.”
Buck’s mouth opens, but no sound comes out. There are so many things wrong, or not wrong exactly, but wildly confusing, about that sentence that he doesn’t even know where to start.
Eddie just called him hot.
Eddie thinks they’re together.
Why does Eddie think they’re together?
It’s not like it’s not what Buck wants, it’s exactly what he wants. But why does Eddie think that?
Why is he standing here at eighteen, on the edge of adulthood but still basically a kid, looking at him with complete sincerity as he asks if they’re together?
It’s too much.
His heart pounds in his chest, his thoughts trying to untangle the timeline, the logic, the meaning behind everything Eddie has just said.
“Why would you think that?” Buck finally manages, his voice rasping a little at the end.
Eddie just gives him a look, as if the answer should be obvious. “I don’t know, Buck. Maybe because you won’t stop looking at me like you’re supposed to matter to me. Because you’ve been acting like you know everything about me, and I’m pretty sure you do because you know exactly how to talk to me. And then there’s all these pictures of us around your house.”
He picks up another frame now, this one of him and Eddie and Christopher at the beach. It’s one of Buck’s favourite photos, the wind in their hair, sunglasses pushed up, Christopher grinning between them.
They look like a family.
“Do we have a kid?” Eddie asks, genuinely confused. He stares at the photo like it might give him the answers Buck won’t.
“No, Eddie, we’re not together,” Buck runs a hand through his hair and exhales, slow and uneven. “That’s not our kid.”
Should he tell him about Christopher? That he’s Eddie’s son, and the most important part of his life.
Should he tell him that Buck wishes, more than anything, that he was theirs and not just his?
“Wait… so we’re not together anymore?” Eddie blinks at him, then looks back down at the photo. “What happened? Did we break up? Did I mess it up somehow?”
Buck swallows hard, trying to stay calm, but his throat feels like it’s closing in on itself. “We’ve never been together,” he says quietly, and he hates the way the words sound out loud, a truth that aches every time he acknowledges it. “You’re straight, Eddie.”
He watches the realisation ripple across Eddie’s face, not all at once, but in waves. Disbelief, confusion, then a slow dawning pain that Buck recognises all too well. It’s not like earlier when he was six and his face crumpled because he thought he’d done something wrong. It’s deeper now, a kind of grief that doesn’t have a name, the kind of sorrow that settles in slowly when you start to connect the pieces of a future you thought was possible and realise it never came to be.
Eddie’s eyes flick rapidly across the room before landing on Buck again, wide and unsteady. “How old am I here?”
“Eddie—”
“How old, Buck?”
Buck hesitates, and sighs. “Thirty three.”
“Thir—“ Eddie recoils, and physically steps back. He can’t even say the number out loud. He turns back toward the mantle, gripping the edge with both hands like he needs it to keep him upright. His breathing is shallow and ragged, his whole body drawn tight.
“Eddie.”
“I’m thirty-three,” he whispers, “and I never…”
He doesn’t finish the sentence. A quiet, choked sound slips from his throat instead, halfway between a sob and a breath, and Buck feels helpless standing there, watching it all hit him.
But in that space, it all clicks into place, slowly, painfully, but with a kind of clarity that makes Buck’s chest ache. At thirty three, Eddie has a son, a home, a life that looks good on paper but is missing something essential. Somewhere between now and then, he let go of whatever hope he had as a teenager. Somewhere along the way, he told himself it wasn’t possible, or it wasn’t safe, or it wasn’t right. He buried it deep enough that not even Buck knew it existed.
Eddie isn’t straight. Buck doesn’t know what he is, he wouldn’t dare put a label on him like that’s his place, but he isn’t what Buck once thought.
“I’m such a fucking coward,” Eddie mutters, his voice cracking. “I’ve always been a fucking coward.”
“Kid—”
“Don’t call me kid,” Eddie snaps, spinning around, eyes red and glassy. “I’m not a kid, Buck. I’m eighteen. I’ll be graduating soon, then I’ll be in college. I can vote, and get a tattoo, I can donate blood, and… and I could join the fucking military if I wanted to. I’m not some stupid kid who doesn’t know what he wants.”
“Okay,” Buck says softly, not trying to argue. “But you’re upset, and this is too much right now, and that’s okay, but you need to focus on your breathing, Eddie.”
Buck takes a step forward, but Eddie immediately backs away.
“Don’t,” he warns. “Don’t do that thing you do, where you say all the right stuff like it’s easy. You always say the right thing, and I don’t know how you do it, but stop.”
Buck nods, holding his hands up as he absorbs the blow, trying not to let it sting.
“It’s because I know you,” he says eventually. “Not yet, obviously, but in the future… I’m not your boyfriend, but I’m your best friend, and I know you.”
It’s an ironic thing to say, seeing as him feeling like he didn’t know Eddie is what got them here in the first place.
Eddie lets out a shaky breath and turns away again, rubbing a hand down his face, and muttering something Buck can’t hear and is sort of relieved he can’t.
The defeat in his posture says it all.
“I’m going back to bed,” Eddie says without looking at him. “Hopefully, I’ll wake up somewhere else. Anywhere but here.”
Buck doesn’t stop him. He doesn’t try to explain or comfort or fix. He just watches Eddie walk away, heart pounding, mind racing, and wonders what it would take to change the course of someone’s life without rewriting it entirely. Because for the first time since this all started, Buck isn’t just learning about who Eddie was, he’s starting to understand what he lost.
He drops back onto the couch with a tired, frustrated motion, letting his head fall against the cushion as he stares blankly at the ceiling. His arms rest limply at his sides, and his whole body feels tense with questions he can’t begin to answer.
What is he supposed to do with this information?
How is he meant to hold the truth of it without falling apart?
Because for all the chaos of the last day, for all the strange transformations and emotional landmines, it’s this moment that finally breaks through the noise and lands somewhere deep inside his chest.
Eddie has never, not once in all the time Buck has known him, said anything that would suggest he might be attracted to men. He’s never made a comment, never looked at Buck a certain way, never even joked in a way that might suggest something more.
But now Buck is starting to wonder if that’s actually true, or just something he’s telling himself because it makes things easier.
Because the truth is, Buck didn’t know how he felt until two nights ago. Or rather, he didn’t accept how he felt until two nights ago, when it became impossible to deny it any longer, when the weight of it finally reached a point where it couldn’t be buried under friendly gestures or inside jokes or the thousands of little ways he’d convinced himself it was just friendship.
But that doesn’t mean it came out of nowhere. He didn’t just decide he was in love with Eddie Diaz in that moment. It wasn’t a light switch, it was a slow burn, and now that he’s standing in the flames, he can’t remember a time he didn’t feel this way.
He couldn’t pinpoint when it started if he tried, but he knows their relationship has never been typical… it’s never been just a friendship. From the very beginning, from the moment Eddie let him in, Buck fit into his life like it had always been waiting for him.
Buck, Eddie, and Christopher.
It had been easy.
He didn’t hesitate, didn’t stand on the sidelines, he stepped in without being asked and stayed without ever really planning to.
It wasn’t effortful, it was natural.
Once he was in, he never wanted to leave.
They’ve never been cautious about how they care for each other. They’ve never avoided vulnerability. They’ve never pretended not to notice when the other is hurting.
They just… show up.
Every time. Without question. Without condition.
That’s always been the quiet truth between them, they orbit each other closely, constantly, instinctively, and it’s never felt strange to either of them.
Maybe that’s the thing Buck’s finally starting to let himself see. Maybe Eddie has shown him something all along, even if he didn’t have the language for it, even if he didn’t know it was safe to say it out loud.
Maybe the boy who was afraid to dance with another boy became the man who still doesn’t believe he’s allowed to want what he wants.
Maybe Eddie does love him, maybe he always has and the saddest part of all is that Buck wouldn’t be surprised if Eddie’s never even let himself even think about it.
He’s starting to realise that this isn’t just about the feelings Buck has been carrying quietly and painfully on his own.
This might be about both of them.
About two people who’ve spent years building something real, something steady and constant, without ever naming it, and now they’re both staring at it from opposite ends, wondering if the other one sees it too.
And insanely, unthinkably, he thinks maybe Eddie does.
Buck blinks awake to sunlight steaming though the window, cutting across the comforter in a way that’s almost too soft to be real, and for a second he lets himself lie still, lets his brain stay foggy. But then he rolls over and sees the time on his phone, 11:21am.
The realisation hits him like a hard reset. He never sleeps this late unless he is sick or something is wrong, and the absence of his alarm only sharpens the edge of his confusion until a single name breaks through the haze.
Eddie.
Buck bolts upright, throws the blankets back, and moves quickly toward the spare room, heart starting to race even though he tells himself not to jump to conclusions.
But the bed is made and the room is silent.
“Eddie?” he calls out, stepping back into the hallway, voice rising. “Eddie, are you here?”
No response.
His chest tightens, his heart racing. He doesn’t know what he expected, that maybe the time travel or magic or whatever force brought all these versions of Eddie into his life would give him some sort of warning when it was time for them to disappear forever.
He didn’t think it would be like this.
Too quiet. No goodbye. Just gone.
Buck stands there for a moment, stunned and unsteady, feeling the ache of what he didn’t get to say. He hadn’t prepared for how much it would mean to say goodbye, even to a version of Eddie who wasn’t quite his, even if the man standing by the fireplace last night hadn’t known him the way his Eddie does.
He’d wanted to say thank you, he wanted to reassure him that his life, while not perfect, is still beautiful. That even if it didn’t unfold the way he thought it would at eighteen, it would still be filled with joy. Raising Christopher, laughing with friends, saving lives, movie nights and beers after long shifts, trips to the zoo and the beach, moments that matter.
“Eddie,” he calls one last time, a little quieter now, already knowing he won’t hear anything back.
And he doesn’t.
Buck swallows hard against the wave of emotion rising in his chest and takes a deep breath, willing himself to accept it, to believe that this is okay.
Because the truth is, Eddie isn’t gone.
His Eddie is still alive, just not here where he should be.
Really, that’s all that matters.
He walks toward the kitchen, feet dragging slightly now, and rounds the corner with a sigh, only to stop dead in his tracks when he sees someone sitting at the table.
Eddie.
Still here.
Buck stares, frozen in place, unsure if he’s dreaming or hallucinating or just incredibly lucky. He blinks again, waiting for the image to fade, but Eddie’s still sitting there, drinking coffee from one of Buck’s mugs, wrapped in the quiet stillness of the morning.
“You didn’t hear me calling you?” Buck asks, finally stepping farther into the room, his voice half breathless with disbelief.
“I did,” Eddie replies evenly, not even looking up. “Figured you’d find me eventually.”
Buck lets out a shaky laugh, equal parts annoyed and relieved, and watches the steam curl lazily from Eddie’s mug as he sips it. He always drinks his coffee way too hot, something Buck has never understood but always found oddly comforting.
“I’m twenty four,” Eddie says before Buck can ask. “You missed twenty one. He was around, he watched you sleep for a while, which is weird, I know. Don’t blame me for that, that guy was kind of a wreck.”
“You watched me sleep?” Buck asks, incredulous.
“Twenty one did,” Eddie shrugs. “You looked peaceful. He even turned off your alarm so you’d get more rest. If it makes you feel any better, you must’ve bored him to sleep because I woke up slumped against your wall.”
Buck doesn’t respond to that, mainly because it doesn’t make him feel better, and instead turns toward the coffee pot, pouring himself a mug and feeling Eddie’s gaze track his every move. He feels exposed, unsettled, watched like prey. There’s something different about this version of Eddie, something closer to his own Eddie in tone, but still just far enough away that Buck can’t relax into it.
When he turns back around, Eddie is watching him intently, his eyes narrowed slightly like he’s trying to piece something together. “So, I’m really not dead?” he asks, calm but cautious. “I considered snooping through your phone to figure it out, but I still can’t come up with another reason why I’d be here. Why you’d be meeting all these younger versions of me.”
“No, for the second time,” Buck exhales slowly. “You’re very much alive.”
“You sure?” Eddie says, not joking, just weary. “Forgive me, but given the kind of life I’ve had so far, dying young wouldn’t exactly shock me.”
Buck can’t really argue with that. This Eddie’s been through war. He’s a silver star recipient. He’s a father to five year old, Christopher. He’s already lived through more than most people do by their mid thirties.
It makes sense that he’d ask.
“You’re alive,” Buck says carefully, watching Eddie’s expression for any sign of alarm or disbelief. “You just moved back to El Paso.”
“Ugh,” Eddie immediately grimaces, wrinkling his nose like the words physically sting. “Seriously? Why?”
Buck doesn’t answer right away, because the truth is too absurd to say out loud. Your wife died, and then a woman who looked exactly like her showed up, and for some reason you took that as a sign to emotionally cheat on your girlfriend and your son saw it and ran away.
He can’t say that without sounding unhinged.
“Wait,” Eddie sits up a little straighter, his eyes narrowing with sudden awareness. “So I never come out? And I’m living in Texas again after getting away? Where is here, anyway?”
The way Eddie phrases it, the way he says, I never come out, like it’s something he knows he was supposed to do, like it’s a choice he never found the courage to make, sends Buck’s thoughts into overdrive. Because that means this version of Eddie isn’t confused about who he is. He’s not questioning.
He knows.
And somehow, despite knowing, he still ends up hiding, still ends up in the same cycles that never quite fits.
It’s too early in the morning for this kind of emotional unravelling.
“Los Angeles,” Buck answers quietly.
Eddie nods slowly, processing. “So we did move, Shannon and I?”
Fuck.
Buck hesitates, not wanting to lie, but also not sure how much he’s supposed to reveal… how much he can reveal. “Yeah, sure,” he finally says. “You both moved here.” That part’s true.
Eddie doesn’t seem suspicious. He just leans back and asks the next question that pops into his head, “Are we still together?”
“No,” Buck replies, and it comes out a little too flat, a little too fast.
“Good,” Eddie says immediately, and exhales like a weight’s been lifted off his shoulders.
Buck doesn’t know whether to laugh or be heartbroken.
“Any other questions?” Buck asks, mostly because he needs to shift the weight of the conversation off of Eddie’s face, his brows are drawn in, a faint crease between his eyes like he’s been trying to solve a puzzle and keeps landing on the same unsatisfying answer.
Eddie pauses for a second, then looks directly at him. “Have we really never even hooked up?”
Buck blinks, Jesus Christ. “No.”
Eddie lets out a sigh that sounds more annoyed than disappointed, dragging both elbows onto the table and running a hand through his already messy hair. “God, I really have no game.”
Buck huffs out something between a breath and a laugh, unsure if he’s supposed to feel pity or amusement — maybe both is okay.
“Wait,” Eddie continues, squinting at him. “Are you even…?”
“Bi and out,” Buck replies with a shrug, keeping it casual, though his throat feels tight now.
Eddie’s voice lowers, almost to a whisper. “And I never…”
“No,” Buck says again, and this time the word carries more weight, not just because it’s true, but because it hurts.
It’s hurts in a way he can’t even look at without flinching.
Eddie lets out a sharp breath and mutters, “Fucking idiot,” folding his arms across his chest and leaning back in the chair, eyes lifting to the ceiling like it might offer a better version of events than the ones Buck has given him.
There’s a strange moment of quiet between them. It’s not awkward exactly, but it’s loaded, tangled up with years of things that he has never said, things Buck didn’t even realise he wanted until recently, and things Eddie is clearly trying to read between the lines. Somehow, in that silence, Buck feels oddly validated by the fact that both the adult versions of Eddie he’s met, this one, and the eighteen year old who looked at a photo of them with Christopher and assumed they must’ve built a life together, seem disappointed in the man they became. Disappointed that he never tried, never asked, never even wondered, or if he did, never let himself speak it aloud.
“Do you love me?” Eddie asks softly, looking back at him.
Buck’s heart skips in that way he hates, too fast, too much, and he can’t look at him because suddenly the air feels too thick, like everything that’s been unsaid is pressing against the space between them and daring him to acknowledge it.
He turns his head slightly, eyes fixed on some indistinct point on the wall, and swallows hard, because this moment feels dangerous. He knows the answer, but saying it out loud would make it real in a way it’s never been before.
“That’s why all this is happening, right?” Eddie says softly. “Because you love me.”
Buck glances back at him and sees the quiet understanding in his eyes, the kind of deep, patient empathy that has always been Eddie’s greatest strength.
Buck swallows and nods once.
“And there’s really never been anything between us?” Eddie asks again, his voice careful now.
“I didn’t think there was,” Buck says honestly, “but I’m beginning to think there’s never been anything but something between us.”
Eddie’s expression softens, his eyes shining with something quiet and vulnerable, a hesitant smile tugging at the corner of his mouth as he looks at him like he’s only just starting to see him clearly. “Do you know why I’m here?” he asks, and his voice is gentle, as if he’s not just asking a question, he’s searching for something deeper, something that might make sense of everything they’ve shared in the last twenty four hours.
Buck exhales deeply, “Yeah, I do.”
“Can I know?”
“No.” He shrugs a little, then smiles softly. “All you really need to know is that no matter how old you are, no matter what version of you shows up, I care about you more than anyone in the world—” he pauses for a second and tilts his head, “—except maybe Chris, but you’re a close second.”
Eddie blinks, and for a moment he looks genuinely stunned. “You love my kid?” he chokes, his voice cracking, the question thick with something tender and raw.
Buck grins, but it’s warm and honest. “Only slightly more than I love you.”
Eddie’s eyes go glassy almost instantly, the emotion hitting him in a wave he clearly didn’t expect. There’s nothing performative about the way he looks at Buck in that moment, it’s open and stunned and filled with something so soft it makes Buck feel like he can’t quite breathe. His lips part as if he’s about to say something else, something important. “You—”
But whatever it is, it gets cut short by the sharp chime of the doorbell.
Buck huffs a soft, reluctant laugh and gives Eddie’s hand a light pat where it rests on the table. “Hold that thought,” he murmurs. “I’ll get rid of whoever it is.”
Eddie nods without speaking, his eyes lingering where Buck touched him.
Buck makes his way to the front door, his heart still unsteady from everything that’s just happened, but when he pulls it open, he doesn’t need to ask how old the person standing there is.
He knows instantly.
The set of his shoulders, the tired warmth in his eyes, a soft smile that feels like it’s always been reserved for just him, it’s his Eddie. Not a version from the past, not a stranger wearing a familiar face, but the man he’s known for years, the man who left, the man he loves.
“What are you doing here?” Buck asks, the words coming out fast and unfiltered.
Eddie raises an eyebrow at him, unimpressed. “You’ve been acting weird,” he says, stepping over the threshold without being asked in, his eyes scanning the living room with casual familiarity. “I couldn’t tell if you were mad at me or just going through something, and I needed to talk to you anyway, so… I got the first flight out. The place looks good, Buck.” He pats Buck’s arm in passing, drops his bag by the door, and keeps walking heading straight toward the kitchen.
Eddie.
Twenty four year old Eddie.
Fuck.
Eddie can’t meet Eddie.
“Eddie, wait—” Buck calls after him, trailing behind and catching his shoulder, trying to stall, to think, to breathe.
“What?” Eddie sighs, clearly not grasping the urgency. “I can smell coffee, and I’ve been awake since four. So can we talk after I’ve injected caffeine into my bloodstream?”
Buck opens his mouth to argue, to explain, to stop him from walking into something he isn’t ready to see, but it’s too late. Eddie’s already stepping into the kitchen, and Buck prepares himself for the impossible task of untangling time and logic and magic with a single conversation.
But when they enter the room, Buck stops short.
The table is empty.
Younger Eddie is gone.
No sign of him, no sound, no explanation.
Just two mugs of coffee, still steaming quietly on the table as if no one ever left. Buck stares at them for a long second, his chest tightening as the absurdity of it all slams into him again.
Eddie takes a step forward, his eyes flicking from one cup to the other. “Did you know I was coming?” he asks, a little more carefully now, his tone edged with curiosity.
Buck doesn’t know what to say. Because how the hell could he explain this? He swallows around the words building in his throat and gives the only answer that feels true.
“He’s gone,” Buck says softly, almost to himself.
“Buck?” Eddie cocks his head at him curiously.
“We really need to talk.”
Eddie nods like he’s picking up on more than Buck realises. “Okay,” he says, settling into the seat across from the second mug. “Let’s talks.” Without hesitation, he picks it up and takes a long sip.
Buck stares at him, unable to believe how casually Eddie is drinking from a cup that was just in the hands of his twenty four year old self minutes ago.
He rubs a hand over his face, his nerves completely frayed.
He’s going to lose his fucking mind.
Eddie sits across from him, familiar in every way that matters, his shoulders are relaxed just enough to seem casual, his eyes still watching Buck like he’s trying to read a language only he can hear, and Buck wraps his hands around his coffee cup, not because he wants to drink it, but because he needs something to hold onto.
“Where’s Chris?” he asks lightly, trying to buy himself a little more time before the inevitable crash of explanation and consequence.
“With my parents,” Eddie answers, leaning back in his chair. “Told them there was a problem with my safety deposit box here, said I had to come sort it out.”
“You have a safety deposit box?” Buck asks, already squinting at him in suspicion.
“No,” Eddie grins, shaking his head. “I just couldn’t deal with a full blown rant from my mom. Not after I practically yanked him out of her house after the chess tournament. I know she’s been waiting to corner me ever since.”
“That was a terrible lie,” Buck says with a laugh.
“You believed it for a second, though,” Eddie points out, his grin widening. “I saw your face. You were about to go off about how I never mentioned it before.”
“No, I wasn’t,” Buck mutters, even though he totally was.
They fall quiet for a moment, it’s not awkward, it never really is with them, but it’s charged with something else, something Buck can’t quite name but always feels around Eddie, especially when it’s just the two of them in this kind of quiet that feels lived in. There’s a strange sort of ease that settles over him whenever Eddie’s near, even when things are messy.
After everything, after the surreal cascade of younger Eddies cycling through his home like some cosmic slideshow, the one sitting across from him now feels like gravity.
This is his Eddie, he can hold on, he doesn’t have to see him disappear.
“What’s going on Buck?” Eddie’s voice cuts into that calm, soft but direct. “Why didn’t you answer last night?”
The first question is loaded, layered with everything Buck’s been sitting on since yesterday morning.
The second is easier to explain and maybe it’s best to start there.
“I fell asleep,” Buck says, his voice even. “Woke up around three. Figured it was too late to call you back.”
“You could’ve,” Eddie replies without hesitation. “I wouldn’t have minded.”
That’s always been the thing about them, they’ve never had to explain why they show up when they do, never needed permission to lean on each other, never kept score. They’ve always given what the other needed, even when they didn’t ask for it.
Buck knows what he has to do.
He knows he can’t keep this from him, not when it matters so much, not when it’s changed how he sees everything.
“I made a wish,” he says, quiet but firm.
Eddie blinks, “A wish?”
“Yeah,” Buck nods. “I didn’t know who Ross Perez was when you mentioned him and I just… got in my head. You never talk about your past, and I guess it got to me. So I wished that I knew you better.”
“You’re not making any sense, Buck.” Eddie tilts his head in confusion. “You already know me better than anyone. You know me better than I know myself most of the time.”
Buck hears the sincerity in it, the weight in Eddie’s voice when he says it, but that’s the thing, he wants more, he always wants more. Not because what he knows isn’t enough, but because he can’t stop wanting to understand every version of Eddie, especially the ones Eddie tries to leave behind.
“You’re right,” Buck says softly. “I woke up yesterday morning and…” He takes a deep breath, steadying himself. “I heard a child crying, it was surreal, I thought I was imagining it. But I went to check if it was real, and it was you. But not you now, you were three years old.”
Eddie squints at him in disbelief, “Buck, are you fucking high?”
“No,” Buck snaps, already defensive. “Why would you think that?”
“Why would I—” Eddie echoes, incredulous. “Because you just told me you were having breakfast with a toddler version of me.”
“I didn’t have breakfast with three year old you, I had breakfast with six year old you.” Buck corrects, before realising how ridiculous that still sounds.
Eddie groans and runs a hand over his face. “Jesus Christ.”
“Can you just listen?” Buck pleads. “Please, just hear me out. I swear I’m not lying.”
Eddie stands up suddenly, pacing a few steps before pausing by the counter, his arms crossed tight across his chest. After a beat, he gestures for Buck to continue. “Go on.”
Buck nods, grateful for the window. “You were three and scared. You wanted your mom. I held you until you calmed down, and then you fell asleep on me. When I woke up, you were six. You’d changed and I didn’t see it happen.”
Eddie sighs, but he doesn’t interrupt again, just waits for the next part of the story.
“You made a mess in the bathroom, wasted all my products in the sink. You thought you were in trouble but when I told you it was okay and then you opened up a bit more, you said you were making medicine.”
Something shifts in Eddie’s face at that, like he’s been hit by a memory he wasn’t expecting. He moves closer and then sits down again, slower this time.
“What’s kind of medicine?”
“You said it was a medicine to stop your parents from being angry.” Buck says softly.
He watches Eddie, his eyes soft and vulnerable. “Then what?” he asks quietly.
“We made pancakes. You were obsessed with the mixer, you were helpful. You said you didn’t like blueberries, which is insane because you so do, so I got you to try one and then you ate the whole packet.” He laughs.
Buck watches his expression carefully, waiting for the disbelief to return, but instead Eddie just nods slowly, like something in him is starting to believe it might actually be true.
“I was watching mini you,” Buck says, the corners of his mouth twitching into something fond. “And he needed all of my attention. That’s why I was weird on the phone yesterday. I didn’t want you to hear him in the background.”
“That… yeah, that makes sense,” Eddie nods slowly. “That would’ve been hard to explain. Honestly, it’s hard to believe even now and I’m hearing it in person.”
“Exactly,” Buck replies, grateful he doesn’t have to defend the surreal nature of all this more than he already has. “Then nine year old you showed up. He was wearing your baseball uniform, the same team colors I’ve seen in photos, and he was just as sweet as the others. We went to the store.”
“Big mistake.” Eddie lets out a sharp laugh, shaking his head. “My mom hated taking me anywhere. You know how I get distracted, I was always wandering off.”
“Do I ever,” Buck mutters with a knowing smile. “And yeah, you did. You got lost. I turned around for a second and you were just gone. I found you at the front of the store with a staff member, you were crying and convinced you were in trouble.”
“Probably was.” Eddie snorts, Buck knows it’s a joke, but it doesn’t land right, his voice doesn’t sound right.
“No,” Buck shakes his head firmly. “It was my fault. I wasn’t paying close enough attention. You were nine years old, Eddie, you were my responsibility. I was the adult in that situation.”
Eddie doesn’t argue, which surprises Buck a little. Instead, he nods slowly, absorbing that, trying to accept the idea that someone is taking the responsibility for something he’s used to blaming himself for. “Okay.”
Good.
“By that point,” Buck continues, “I’d figured out that every time you fell asleep, you aged up another three years. After the store, you crashed out hard in the back of the Jeep and I didn’t even realise you’d changed until you were older and glaring at me in the rearview. I never actually saw it happen. It was like flipping a switch when I wasn’t looking.”
Eddie’s expression twists into amusement. “So who was next?”
“Twelve year old you,” Buck says, raising an eyebrow. “Moody as hell, by the way. You called me old.”
“You are starting go a bit grey to be fair,” Eddie teases, eyes glinting with mischief.
“Fuck you,” Buck laughs, shaking his head. “We made lunch, just pasta, nothing fancy. You were awkward, kind of unsure. Honestly, you reminded me a lot of Christopher. You know, a little shy, but trying really hard not to be, and… you were so small. I didn’t know how small you must’ve been until high school.”
“Why would I ever tell you that?” Eddie asks, and the way he says it, it’s not defensive or challenging… it’s thoughtful. Buck knows then that Eddie believes him, or at least he’s beginning to. The resistance is fading.
“I don’t know,” Buck admits, softer now. “It just… feels important, it’s something I should’ve known.”
“You didn’t get as big as you are now until you were thirty,” Eddie mutters, laughing to himself. “You were scrawny as hell when I met you.”
“I was not scrawny,” Buck says with a glare, but his grin betrays how little offencehe’s actually taking to Eddie’s teasing.
“You’re drifting now, Buck,” Eddie says, tilting his head. “Focus. You’re losing your point.”
Buck exhales, letting the moment of levity pass before diving back into the story, where things start to get heavier again. But something in him is steadier now, because Eddie is still sitting here, still listening, still with him.
“Right, yeah,” Buck says, shaking himself back into the timeline. “So, we watched a couple movies, and you were starting to drift off. I was texting you, the real you, and when I looked back up, you’d changed again. You were fifteen… and wearing a lot of sequins.”
Eddie’s eyes widen, “Oh.”
“Yeah,” Buck says, grinning now. “How have you never mentioned your cha cha cha days, Diaz.”
“Because I knew the kind of shit you’d give me.” Eddie replies, rolling his eyes with a little laugh. “You’d be digging for pictures the second I told you.”
“I don’t need pictures,” Buck says smugly. “I met the real deal. You had glitter everywhere, by the way.”
Eddie leans back a little, shaking his head with a resigned smile. “Yeah… I’m starting to believe you. This is way too specific to be something you made up. Was I a dick? I kind of remember being a dick when I was a sophomore.”
“You weren’t,” Buck says gently. “You were maybe a little guarded, but you were sweet, all of the little you’s are very sweet. We had dinner together, you helped me clean up, no complaints, no attitude.”
“And then?” Eddie asks.
Buck takes a breath. “Then it got a little complicated,” he says honestly. “I asked if you wanted to show me a bit of your dancing, you seemed so proud of it, and I thought it might be fun. You told me you couldn’t because you didn’t have a partner.”
Eddie nods once, slowly, following along.
“So I offered,” Buck continues, his tone still careful. “Said I’d be your partner, that you could teach me.”
“Did we dance?”
“No, you got a little defensive,” Buck says awkwardly. “You said boys don’t dance with others boys and that your mom wouldn’t like it.”
Eddie looks down at the table, his fingers starting to tap lightly against the ceramic mug in front of him. “And then?” Eddie asks, quieter now.
Buck hesitates for a second, he doesn’t want to hurt him, doesn’t want to drag out something Eddie regrets.
But he also promised himself he’d be honest.
“You said it was wrong,” Buck says, his voice low. “And gay. I tried to tell you that wasn’t true, tried to explain that there’s nothing wrong with two guys dancing, but you got upset. You didn’t want to talk anymore. You just asked to go to bed.” Buck sighs, “And I wasn’t going to push you to do anything or talk about anything you didn’t want too. You were just a kid, Eddie. I didn’t want to make you feel cornered.”
Eddie doesn’t respond right away. He stares at the table, his jaw tight, the flicker of emotion in his eyes growing sharper by the second until he finally stares right at him, keeping eye contact, like he needs Buck to hear what he’s about to say. “You know that’s not what I think now, right?” His voice is steady, but his expression is more vulnerable than Buck has seen in a long time.
“Of course I do,” Buck responds immediately. “You were fifteen. You were scared, maybe confused. I didn’t take it personally. I know you, Eddie.”
But once doesn’t feel enough. “I know you.”
Eddie nods, a quiet relief in his posture, though there’s still something lingering behind his eyes, some mix of regret and reflection that Buck can’t quite name.
“So…” Eddie says after a pause, “did I show up again after that?”
Oh boy.
And Buck knows they’re about to step into even more difficult territory, but Eddie asked, and he deserves the truth.
“Yeah,” Buck says quietly. “I saw you again.”
Eddie leans forward slightly, his eyes searching his face. “Was I still fifteen? Or was I eighteen now?”
“Eighteen,” Buck confirms, and there’s a weight behind the word, like it matters more than either of them expected. “I’d passed out early because you, well, fifteen year old you had gone to bed. I think the emotional whiplash of the day just caught up with me. I missed your calls, I didn’t even hear them come through. I woke up around three and knew I wasn’t getting back to sleep, so I got up. You were already awake, standing in front of the fireplace, looking at the pictures I have up.”
He lets out a slow sigh and drags his fingernail across the surface of the table absently, catching on the grain of the wood. “Until then, you hadn’t really questioned anything. You didn’t seem to know that we knew each other. But the photos gave it away that we did, and after you saw them, I guess it just… clicked. You asked me if you were dead. Thought it was some kind of ghost thing.”
Eddie doesn’t speak, but Buck feels the way he’s paying attention, feels the silence deepen as Eddie absorbs it. Buck still doesn’t know how any of it happened, still can’t explain it in a way that makes logical sense, but it did happen.
That’s the part that matters.
“I told you that you weren’t dead,” Buck adds gently. “I don’t know how you were there, how any of it worked, but you seemed to believe me.”
Eddie is quiet, but his stare sharpens.
He’s waiting.
Buck can feel it, the quiet pressure in the space between them and it’s the kind of stillness that always breaks him. Eddie has this uncanny ability to wait him out, to sit in silence with an endless patience that Buck has never had and so Buck is the one who always cracks first.
It happened with twelve year old Eddie in the car.
But this time, Eddie breaks it first.
“And then what?” Eddie asks softly, like he knows the next part is going to hurt and wants to make space for it anyway.
Buck exhales slowly, and looks down at the table again, not because he can’t face Eddie but because the truth of it is so much and saying it aloud feels like crossing a line, one he’s not sure he has the right to cross for Eddie.
“I don’t know if I should tell you what happened next,” he admits. “Because it wasn’t supposed to be mine to know. You didn’t ask for any of this. You didn’t choose for me to see that part of you.”
Eddie’s face changes, like Buck has just exposed something he hadn’t realised was possible. He starts to fidget, his hands whinging against one another and he shifts in his seat.
He’s nervous.
“You said some things,” Buck continues, quieter now. “Things I think you were feeling at eighteen but didn’t know how to say yet, and then you never did. And if you want, I’ll act like none of it happened, I won’t bring it up again. I’ll let it be yours again, it is yours.”
Eddie freezes for a moment, his hands no longer worrying against each other, he’s just completely still. He bites down on his lip, and breathes in deeply, before exhaling harshly. “What did I say?” he asks.
“You don’t have to—”
“What did I say, Buck?” he repeats, more firmly this time.
Buck studies him. He’s looking for hesitation, any sign that Eddie’s not ready, that maybe this is one of those moments where it’s kinder to protect him than to listen to him. But instead, he sees something else entirely, a quiet defiance or maybe even the kind of certainty that comes after years of silence.
Eddie needs to know.
“You asked me if I was your boyfriend,” Buck says finally. “If we were together.”
Eddie blinks, but doesn’t interrupt.
“I was caught off guard,” Buck admits. “I asked why you thought that, I was confused. I am still confused, honestly. But you said I knew you too well, and that in the photos, especially the ones with Chris, we looked like a couple… like a family.”
“We are a family,” Eddie says automatically.
“Not just like one,” Buck says, holding his gaze. “A real one.”
“We are a real family,” Eddie says again, quieter this time, but with conviction.
Buck can’t even let himself fly away with that kind of statement, because there is so much more to all of this.
“Eddie,” Buck says, his voice tightening, “are you purposely skipping over the implication here?”
Eddie just watches him.
Doesn’t answer.
Doesn’t deny.
“What did you say to that version of me?” he asks eventually.
“I said we weren’t together. That you’re straight.”
He looks away as the words settle between them, not out of shame, not because he regrets saying them exactly, but because the look on eighteen year old Eddie’s face, the way he’d shrunk in on himself, the way the hurt had sat too deep in his eyes, like it came from someone much older than eighteen still clings to him as if it’s happening in real time.
And Buck is scared. He’s scared of seeing that look in the eyes of his Eddie, because he knows if he were to see that hurt, he may never recover from it.
“You got quiet for a second,” Buck continues, slowly. “Then angry. You called yourself a coward. You said some things I don’t think you’d ever said out loud before… you were just really hurt.”
The room goes still.
Not silent, he can hear the soft hum of the fridge, the quiet breath of the house, but still in that way that makes his skin feel too tight, as if all the air around them is waiting for what comes next. Then he hears the scrape of chair legs against the floor as Eddie stands.
Buck doesn’t move.
He doesn’t speak.
If Eddie needs to leave, he won’t stop him. He won’t question it, won’t beg for anything more than what’s already been said. If this has pushed too far, if it’s too much, too fast, if hearing that part of himself reflected back is unbearable… Buck will understand.
He tells himself that over and over, even as something inside him begins to ache with the fear that he might’ve just lost something he didn’t know how to ask for until now.
If Eddie is angry, he gets it. If he’s confused or overwhelmed or scared, Buck gets that too. He knows how much work it takes to confront things you’ve buried so deep you started believing they weren’t even real.
Eddie isn’t a coward.
That has never been a word he could attach to Eddie Diaz.
Not as a boy, not as a soldier, not as a firefighter, and not as a father. Eddie has always done the hard thing. He has always stood up. Always stepped in when it mattered most. He’s one of the bravest people Buck knows, and that list is short, made up almost entirely of people who have stood beside him in fire and flood and chaos, people who never flinched when it counted.
If Eddie walks away, Buck will understand.
But then Eddie’s voice fills the space of the kitchen.
“Buck.” He says softly, gently, carefully.
And Buck flinches at the sound of it, because there is a tenderness there, not anger or judgment, but something warmer, deeper, more.
He closes his eyes, holds the silence for one more beat, maybe it’ll protect him from whatever happens next.
“Buck,” Eddie says again, his voice firmer now. Not loud, not demanding. Just needing acknowledgement, space to be heard. “Please look at me.”
Buck can give him that.
So he opens his eyes, because of course he does, because he always will when it’s Eddie. When he looks up, what he sees nearly undoes him. Eddie is standing beside him, barely a step away, and his eyes, those big deep brown eyes he loves so much are shining.
Not with fear. Not with shame.
Just quiet, wet clarity.
Like maybe something inside him has finally shifted into place, and suddenly, Buck knows this moment will stay with him forever.
“I’m gay,” Eddie says, and it lands like a truth he’s been holding for far too long, his voice doesn’t shake or waver, it’s clear, steady, free.
“I know,” Buck replies, his voice barely above a whisper, as something inside him loosens and unravels all at once, it’s sharp and overwhelming and deeply rooted, breaking open in a way that feels both terrifying and right. If Eddie can be brave, then so can Buck. “And if we’re being honest… I think I’m in love with you.”
He lets the words hang in the air for just a second, lets himself feel how real they are, how much they’ve been waiting beneath the surface of every late night conversation, every quiet moment shared between them when the rest of the world faded into the background.
Then Buck lets out a soft laugh, and shakes his head at himself. He turns slightly in his chair so he can face Eddie fully. “Actually, no, that’s not true,” he corrects gently, and the smile that forms on his face is small but certain. “I don’t think anything… I know I love you. I’ve been in love with you for longer than I can even remember. It just… it’s always been there. It's more than anything I know how to explain…”
“…I love you more than I know how to say.”
Eddie stands in front of him, quiet, still, but the look on his face shifts into something soft and so achingly beautiful that Buck has to stop himself from reaching out right then and there. Eddie’s eyes are shining, and then his lips curl into a smile that is shy and boyish and full of something tender, something hopeful, something Buck has only ever dreamed of seeing from him.
“I know,” Eddie breathes, even though his voice is thick with disbelief. “I love you too.”
And somehow, in the quiet between them, between this confession, everything feels simple for the first time in a long time.
Neither of them speak right away, they don’t have to. Eddie reaches out slowly, his palm open before him and when Buck places his hand in his it fits so easily, it feels right. Eddie curls his fingers gently around his own and with a soft tug, he pulls him up from the chair.
They’re so close now, only inches apart, breathing the same air, and everything around them feels suspended in time. Buck looks at Eddie, trying to memorise him, not just this version, but every version he’s gotten to meet.
The toddler. The boy. The teen. The man.
“I didn’t really need the wish to come true, you know,” Buck says, his thumb brushing against Eddie’s knuckles. “Everything I saw, every version of you, it didn’t feel new to me. It just made me love you even more.”
Eddie lets out a shaky breath, and his expression softens into something vulnerable and open, the kind of look Buck’s only ever caught in glimpses when Eddie wasn’t paying attention. “I’ve loved you for a long time,” Eddie whispers, his voice thick with honesty. “I think I’ve always loved you, I’ve always known. Even when I couldn’t say it, even when I couldn’t let myself want you.” His gaze drops for a moment before returning, more sure this time. “I’ve been running from it since before I can remember. From you and the part of me that knew what I wanted… I was just too scared to be me.”
Buck’s heart hammers in his chest, loud in his ears, but it doesn’t stop him from lifting his hand, a slight tremble in his fingers, as he presses his palm gently to Eddie’s cheek, the soft prickle of stubble beneath his fingers.
His touch is careful, not because he’s unsure of what he wants, but because he’s so sure of what Eddie deserves. He deserves something slow, something honest, something that tells him without a single word that Buck would never hurt him, that Buck understands just how hard it was for him to get here, and how much it means that he did.
He leans in, moving slowly, until his lips are just a breath away from Eddie’s, his voice low and steady when he speaks. “You can stop running now.”
”Please.” Eddie whispers.
Buck closes the gap, not in some grand or sweeping way, but in a quiet kind of closeness that feels like the only possible answer to every question they’ve both been too afraid to ask.
It isn’t rushed, because it doesn’t need to be.
There’s no desperation in it, no heat meant to distract or hide, just the simple, grounding reality of at last. Of finally being able to touch someone he’s loved in silence for so long, and knowing he feels the same way.
Eddie’s hand finds his waist, rests there like this might be the first touch but it’s his now, this is where it belongs, and Buck leans in just a little more, letting himself feel all of it, how Eddie’s lips move with his as if they’ve done this a hundred times already in dreams or almosts, how there’s no hesitation, no doubt.
It’s not just about finally getting to kiss Eddie.
It’s about what the kiss means.
That Eddie is here, choosing him, not with words but with the certainty of his body, his breath, his touch.
That Eddie, who has spent his whole life running from what he wanted, is now standing still for it.
When they part, it’s only by inches, their foreheads resting together, their breath in sync. Buck closes his eyes for a second, just to feel it, the closeness, the warmth, their hearts beating between them.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Eddie whispers, and there’s something unshakable in the way he says it.
Buck believes him, he’s never been more certain of anything in his life.
He breathes out a laugh, soft and full of something that might finally be peace, and lets his smile find its way back to Eddie’s lips. “Good,” he murmurs. “Because I’ve waited a long time for you.”
Eddie grins against his lips, and then deepens the kiss, shifting the energy into something warmer, fuller, more charged with want and Buck doesn’t mind the change one bit. The slow and careful kiss meant everything, it settled something inside him, but this one, this kiss, feels like the release of everything they’ve held back, permission finally given, and Eddie isn’t afraid to reach for what he wants anymore.
It’s not rushed, but it’s confident, and Buck just slips into it, lets himself be kissed like he matters.
He giggles as Eddie nudges him backward until he’s sitting on the edge of the table, sliding easily between his legs, his big hands starting to wander under his hoodie, exploring the planes of Buck’s body eagerly.
“The other versions of you would be so proud right now,” Buck murmurs with another laugh against Eddie’s mouth, letting the words break up the kiss just long enough to smile.
Eddie pulls back just enough to raise an eyebrow, amusement etched on his face,“Oh yeah?”
“Eighteen year old you thought I was hot,” Buck says, grinning wide, he’s been waiting to tell him that fun fact.
Eddie lets out a disbelieving laugh, his hand resting on Buck’s hip. “Seriously?”
“Yup,” Buck hums, leaning closer and catching his bottom lip between his teeth for a second before brushing their mouths together. “Pretty sure twenty four year old you wanted to jump me too. And I was informed that twenty one year old you just watched me sleep, which is slightly creepy, but it’s you so I’ll let it slide. But you better not start doing that now, you know I drool. It’s not cute.” He says poking his chest.
“Yes, dear,” he says dryly, but his eyes are soft and bright, and he leans in to kiss him again, slower this time. “So what you’re saying is… all the grown up versions of me fell for your charm.”
“Every. Single. One,” Buck replies between kisses, his voice a little breathless now, a little shaky in that way he always gets when he’s excited, the closeness between them feels overwhelming in the best way.
“That makes sense,” Eddie hums, thoughtful and teasing at the same time, his hands sliding up his side, his fingers grazing against his ribs. “Twenty six through thirty three haven’t exactly been immune.”
Buck laughs.
I love him. I love him. I love him.
And he loves me.
He tilts his head so he can press kisses along Eddie’s jaw, lingering there for a second. “Yeah,” he murmurs, letting his mouth trail closer to Eddie’s ear. “But thirty three is the one who actually did something about it… so he’s definitely my favourite.”
“Thank god,” Eddie pulls back just enough to look at him, his eyes warm and smile big and bright. “I think he’s my favourite too.”