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Eddie loves living with Buck. Really, he does.
Especially ever since they finally confessed their love to each other and started sharing a bed instead of taking turns sleeping on the couch. It’s nice to wake up and immediately get to kiss his boyfriend every day, and he loves not having to ask him if he’s going to stay over, because Eddie’s home is now also Buck’s.
(It always has been, but now it’s finally official.)
He loves that Buck can be even more involved in Christopher’s life now, and that he no longer has to be afraid he’ll make their friendship awkward by acknowledging the fact that Buck’s become a father figure to his son.
He loves that they can drive to work together every day and talk the whole way (although, to be fair, Buck does most of the talking). He loves that all the stuff they own is starting to mix—that there are less and less things that belong to either Eddie or Buck, and instead are simply theirs.
So, yes. Eddie loves living with Buck. He really does.
Except for one small thing: Buck is messy.
Really, really messy.
He leaves his stuff lying around everywhere—like his clothes on the floor or his shoes in front of the door or empty dishes on the coffee table or his socks strewn around the house because sometimes the feeling of them starts to bother him and so he just takes them off wherever he is at that moment.
It’s driving Eddie a little crazy.
He just doesn’t get it. Why can’t he just put his clothes into the closet and his shoes onto the shoe rack and take his dishes to the sink and his socks to the laundry basket and and and? It’s not like those things even require a lot of effort. Most of that stuff would only take Buck a few seconds longer than what he’s doing now!
But the thing is, their relationship is still relatively fresh, and even though Eddie has no doubt in his mind that they’re it for each other, things still feel a little more… fragile now than they did when they were just best friends. Because now if they have a fight, it’ll be a whole thing. Like… their first fight as a couple. That just feels a lot more monumental than a little spat between friends.
So, at first, Eddie tries to just ignore it—pretend it isn’t bothering him that he has to constantly pick up after Buck while Buck seems completely unconcerned with the messes in their shared home. But with every passing day, it becomes more and more difficult.
The first time he decides to say something is when he’s walking into the house, a grocery bag in each hand, and trips over Buck’s shoes, which have been haphazardly discarded on the floor. He thankfully manages to regain his balance before falling flat on his face, but it’s a close one.
He does, however, drop one of the grocery bags. It hits the ground with a thump, a bunch of the oranges Buck had requested rolling out.
“Shit,” Eddie curses under his breath, setting the other bag down against the wall before bending down to pick up the fugitive fruits. He hears the distinct sound of Buck’s footsteps approaching, and a few seconds later, the man in question enters his line of sight with a slightly concerned frown.
“Hey, you good?” he asks before his eyes land on the bag and his concern vanishes upon realizing the thump he heard wasn’t Eddie injuring himself. “Oh!”
Immediately, he comes closer and helps gather up the oranges.
“Thanks,” Eddie says when Buck picks up the dropped bag and holds it open so Eddie can deposit the ones he’s holding in his hands inside. Buck just gives him a bright smile before grabbing the other bag as well and making his way towards the kitchen, where he’s preparing dinner for them and Chris.
When they can, they do the grocery shopping together, but on days when they have a lot to do, they usually divide and conquer, with Buck preparing the food while Eddie goes to buy it. Eddie kind of hates those days though—he’s always found grocery shopping boring and only began to enjoy it when he and Buck started doing it together. It’s kind of endearing to watch him make his way through the aisles with all the excitement of a kid in a toy store, always on the lookout for things on sale or new products he wants to try out.
Eddie usually just trails after him with the cart while grabbing a few things from the shelves here and there. For the most part, he keeps his attention on Buck though—firstly because he always likes paying attention to Buck, and secondly because more than a few times, Buck has simply wandered off into a different part of the store because he remembered something else they needed or saw something intriguing that he simply had to look at more closely, and it always took a little while for Eddie to find him again .
(“They have cans of oreo flavored coke, Eddie! Isn’t that crazy?”)
Eddie loves him so damn much.
Buck sets the bags down in the kitchen and starts to unpack them, Eddie quickly jumping in to help.
“Hey, uh,” Eddie says as he’s putting a carton of milk into the fridge, “can you try not to leave your shoes right in front of the door anymore? I’d rather not trip over them… again.”
Buck’s eyes widen slightly as Eddie’s words settle in.
“Shit, yeah, of course,” he says quickly, nodding vehemently. “No more tripping hazards, I swear.”
He holds up his hand in a scout’s honor gesture, making Eddie huff a small laugh.
“Thank you,” he says earnestly, leaning over to press a quick kiss to Buck’s lips.
Honestly, he should’ve just brought this up sooner instead of assuming it would turn into a fight. He thinks back on his relationship with Shannon and how even the smallest of conflicts always seemed to add to the uncomfortable tension between them. Looking back on it now, it wasn’t either of their faults—they were both simply too unhappy, with each other and in general; too constantly on edge.
But it isn’t like that with Buck. There’s no tension between them, except for the bit of resentment Eddie’s been silently building up about Buck’s messiness and unwillingness to change. But clearly that was unfair—Buck is willing to change, as he just proved by agreeing to Eddie’s request so easily.
Throughout the next few days, Eddie will just mention the other stuff that’s been bothering him (he doesn’t want to bombard Buck with everything at once), and then Buck will make changes on those issues, too, and Eddie won’t be annoyed anymore.
Problem solved.
Problem not solved.
Eddie really thought that, now that he knows it’s an issue, Buck would do as he said and put his shoes on the shoe rack whenever he comes home. But he doesn’t.
He at least doesn’t always leave them right in front of the door, where Eddie or Chris are likely to trip over them—a lot of the time the shoes lay discarded on the side or a little further down the living room—but still. It’s irritating. Eddie doesn’t like coming home and immediately being confronted with messiness.
Thankfully they come home together most of the time, meaning Eddie can immediately remind Buck to put his shoes away properly when they walk in, but he just doesn’t understand why he even has to. Even if Buck doesn’t care about the messiness, he knows now that Eddie does, so shouldn’t that be enough for him to just do that one little thing?
Eddie’s just coming home from dropping Christopher off at a friend’s house when he trips over the shoes again, stumbling forward and just barely managing to catch his balance. He shuts his eyes and takes a deep breath in an attempt to keep his frustration from boiling over before making his way to the kitchen where Buck is sitting at the table, his laptop open in front of him.
Buck lifts his head when he hears him walk in, his eyes lighting up.
“Buck,” Eddie says in a clipped tone that makes the excitement fade from Buck’s eyes—which, for the record, Eddie does feel a little guilty about, but right now, his desire to not constantly almost break his neck when he walks through the door kind of outweighs everything else. He raises an eyebrow and nods his head towards the living room. Then, pointedly: “Your shoes?”
Buck’s mouth makes a small O-shape before a guilty expression overtakes his face.
“Shit, sorry,” he says with a wince, and Eddie feels some of the frustration leave his body, though not all of it. He sighs.
“It’s fine,” he says, even though it's not. “Just put them on the shoe rack, okay? I don’t wanna keep tripping over them.”
“I will, I swear,” Buck says with a nod. “I’ll put them away from now on.”
He’s looking at Eddie intently, sounding almost as determined about it as he does when he’s about to run into a burning building, and the corners of Eddie’s mouth twitch as he tries to hold back a smile. After a moment, he gives in, because unfortunately his boyfriend is too adorable to be mad at him for very long.
(A few years ago, Eddie never would’ve thought he’d use the word adorable to describe a grown man, but here he is.)
“Thank you,” he says, still smiling, before leaning down to press a kiss to Buck’s forehead.
If Buck didn’t fully understand last time how much this whole thing bothered Eddie, then he definitely did this time.
This time, Eddie is sure, Buck will make a change.
Buck does not make a change.
He keeps leaving his shoes right in front of the door, and Eddie keeps tripping or almost tripping over them on the regular.
Over the past few weeks, Eddie has brought up the other stuff, too—the clothes on the floor, and the socks all over the house, and the dishes in the living room, and and and. Every time, Buck was apologetic and insisted he would make a change, and every time, everything stayed the same.
It’s driving Eddie crazy.
He loves Buck more than he’s ever loved anybody other than his son, and he wants to spend the rest of his life with him. And that hasn’t changed just because of these issues, but they’ve certainly put a bit of a damper on his excitement about this relationship.
The thing is, it’s not even really about the mess. Eddie has a teenage son—he’s very much familiar with messiness around the house. He’s familiar with having to clean up after another person.
But Buck is not a child. And on top of that, he’s also not like this when they’re at work. Buck wouldn’t dream of leaving his clothes on the locker room floor or not putting away his plate after they eat or anything else comparable to what he’s doing at home.
There’s also the fact that Eddie’s lost count of how many times he’s had to remind Buck to do something. Just yesterday, Eddie had asked Buck to do the laundry, and Buck got as far as collecting about a third of it from their room and Christopher’s and putting it into a laundry basket before deciding he was more interested in sitting down and googling how the first ever washing machine was invented. When Eddie noticed the empty machine a few hours later, he was the one who collected the rest of the laundry and actually put it inside.
But at the firehouse, stuff like this never happens. If Bobby asks him to do something, Buck does it, simple as that. Which means he’s clearly capable of being more organized, he’s just not doing it.
So it’s not really about the mess—it’s about the lack of consideration for Eddie.
He just keeps making empty promises only to then not do anything to actually try to fulfill them, so whenever Eddie mentions something that’s bothering him, it feels like he may as well be talking to a fucking wall, since Buck clearly isn’t taking any of it to heart.
Eddie’s frustration boils over about a month after that first conversation about Buck’s shoes.
He and Buck agreed a few hours earlier that once they got home from shift, Eddie would drive Christopher to the sleepover he’s got planned, while Buck would take care of the dishes they didn’t get around to before work.
And because Eddie knows Buck often forgets these things, he reminds him of it again before walking out the door with Christopher. Buck assures him he’ll take care of it.
Christopher’s friend lives roughly 30 minutes away, so Eddie doesn’t arrive back at home until about an hour later—more than enough time for Buck to do the dishes.
But when Eddie makes his way inside and to the kitchen, where Buck is once again sitting in front of his open laptop, his eyes immediately catch on the dirty dishes that are still sitting on the counter—only a few of the plates have been cleaned and dried. Eddie clenches his jaw.
“Hey!” Buck says brightly, completely oblivious to Eddie’s irritation. His voice is filled with excitement as he continues. “Did you know that the ancient Greeks used tattoos to communicate among spies? They—”
“You didn’t do the dishes,” Eddie interrupts, not trying to hide or sugarcoat his annoyance. He’s fucking tired of this. He asked Buck to do one thing, and instead of doing it, Buck apparently went on another research binge.
Buck looks almost surprised when his eyes land on the dirty dishes, like he completely forgot they were there.
“Oh,” he says, huffing a small laugh. “Right. I got a little distracted. I’ll do them in a minute.”
“Will you?” Eddie asks with a bitter scoff, and Buck reels back slightly, clearly not having expected that reaction.
“I— Yes, I will,” Buck insists, and Eddie can’t help but scoff again.
“Really? Because in my experience you just say you’ll do something and then you never actually follow through,” he says. “And then I end up having to do it, or I have to remind you, or I have to just tolerate your messes.”
Under normal circumstances, the hurt expression that overtakes Buck’s face would’ve broken Eddie’s heart, but right now he just doesn’t have it in him to let go of his anger and allow that sympathy in.
“I’m sorry,” Buck says quietly, his eyes downcast. “I’m trying.”
“No, you’re not!” Eddie snaps. “You’re not, Buck, because nothing is changing!”
For a few moments, Buck simply looks up at him in silence, his expression bearing resemblance to that of a dog left outside in the rain.
“I am trying, Eddie,” he says then, his voice unsteady. “I swear to God I am.”
And there’s something about the way he says it—the earnestness in his words—that makes Eddie pause, some of the anger inside him fading.
“Then why?” he asks, with less bite now. “Why isn’t anything changing?”
Buck shrugs helplessly, looking miserable.
“I don’t know,” he says. “I mean at first I… I didn’t even really notice it, you know? And then you told me all the stuff that’s been bothering you, and I-I really tried to do what you asked. I did. I still am, but it’s just… it’s not working.”
With a small shake of his head, Eddie breathes another sigh.
“I just don’t get it, Buck,” he says. “I don’t get what’s so difficult. I mean, I’m not asking you to be the most tidy and organized person on earth, but it’s— I mean, what’s so damn hard about just putting away your shoes, or picking up your clothes, or all that other stuff I’ve been telling you bothers me?”
“I don’t know,” Buck says again, his voice small. “It’s… I know it shouldn’t be hard. I don’t know why it is for me; why I’m struggling with it. It’s like— like my brain just moves so fast, all the time, and I… I can’t keep up with it, you know?”
Eddie frowns slightly. He does know that Buck’s brain moves pretty fast—of course he does. But to him, that’s always just been one of Buck’s loveable quirks—one of those things that makes people compare him to a Golden Retriever.
But the way Buck’s talking about it right now, it sounds like more than that.
“Like— Like the shoes,” Buck continues. “I didn’t realize I’d been leaving them in front of the door. But then you said something, and I-I promised myself I’d do something about it. But whenever I walk through the door, I just… I just don’t think about the shoes, because I’m already thinking about something else, like what I’m gonna cook, or what’s on my to-do list for the day, or just— just something random, like… like, I’m suddenly wondering why flamingos stand on one leg or how many words the longest book in the world has.”
Now that Buck has started, he can’t seem to stop, the words just spilling out of him.
“Or when I leave my clothes on the floor. I know you hate it, and I’m trying not to do it, but almost every time I get changed, I just… forget, and I leave them on the floor anyway without even really noticing. And then when I walk into the room later, it’s like… like I don’t even see them, you know? I just walk past them, and I don’t even realize they aren’t where they should be. And I hate it, okay? I hate that I’m like this, and that I— that I can’t be better for you.”
His voice cracks slightly on that last sentence, and this time, Eddie’s heart does break.
“I hate that I can’t just do what you ask, even when it’s something as simple as just doing the dishes,” Buck continues. “I mean, I-I meant to do them. I started them. But then I suddenly started wondering about the history of tattoos and I just… forgot I was doing something else. I just grabbed my laptop and started researching, and the dishes were just gone from my mind until you came in and reminded me. And I’m sorry that you keep having to do that, okay? I know it sucks. I just don’t know how to change any of it.”
Buck sounds utterly dejected and by now, any trace of anger that was inside of Eddie has vanished.
He thought that Buck didn’t care—that Eddie’s feelings didn’t matter enough to him to make changes. But clearly that’s not true.
He has been trying. Eddie just didn’t see it.
In fact, there’s a lot that Eddie didn’t see. He feels kind of stupid actually, because the signs have always been there. How did he miss them? How did all of them miss them?
“Buck,” he says gently, pulling out a chair and positioning it in front of Buck before sitting down and reaching out to take one of Buck’s hands in his. “Have you ever been tested for ADHD?”
Buck’s face scrunches up into that confused frown he often wears, clearly caught off guard by the question.
“Um… no?”
Eddie hums in acknowledgement, having expected that answer.
“I think you should,” he says then, getting straight to the point. He can’t help but huff a small laugh. “I don’t know how none of us have ever noticed before. It’s kinda obvious if you really think about it.”
Buck is still frowning at him, now looking a little more contemplative.
“It is?” he asks, and Eddie nods.
“In retrospect, yeah,” he responds. “I mean, I’m not a professional, obviously, but… yeah. I guess maybe we didn’t notice because you don’t really seem to struggle at work, you know?”
“I, uh… I do, actually,” Buck says, clearing his throat awkwardly, and now it’s Eddie’s turn to frown again.
“What? Since when?”
Buck shrugs.
“Always, I guess? I mean, I… I manage, obviously. But I always have to focus really hard on not forgetting stuff or getting too distracted. And I guess when I get home, I just… don’t have enough energy left to keep doing that, you know?”
Eddie nods understandingly, because that does make sense. If it’s taking Buck that much effort to be organized at work, it makes sense that he wouldn’t have the strength left to do the same at home.
“I really think you should get tested, Buck,” he says with a squeeze of Buck’s hand.
For a few seconds, Buck doesn’t say anything. Then, quietly: “So it’s not supposed to be that hard?”
His eyes are filled with something akin to grief—like he’s only just now realizing that he doesn’t experience the world the same way other people do. Like he’s mourning a way of being that he didn’t even know existed until now—one where the simplest of tasks don’t require so much effort.
“No,” Eddie says gently, giving Buck a sad smile. “It’s not.”
Buck nods, averting his gaze as he processes those words. For a little while, they simply sit in silence, until eventually, Buck speaks again.
“You can still be mad, you know?” he says, and Eddie gives him a questioning look. “About the mess and… having to remind me of things all the time. Even if I do have ADHD, I know that’s not an excuse.”
“Okay, first of all, I think it actually kind of is an excuse. As long as you’re trying your best, at least,” Eddie points out. “And second of all… Buck, it was never really about that stuff. It was about the fact that I thought you didn’t care. That you weren’t even trying. But now I know I was wrong, so… there’s nothing to be mad about anymore.”
Buck swallows hard.
“But you hate messiness,” he says. “I mean, doesn’t that kinda make us incompatible in the long run?”
Eddie’s shaking his head before Buck has even finished the sentence.
“No,” he says firmly. “Because I love you, Buck. Way more than I could ever care about any of that stuff. And besides, now that I know what it’s like for you, we can try to work on it together. Come up with strategies or something. And even if that doesn’t work, we’ll be fine. I’ll remind you of things you need to do every single day for the rest of our lives if I have to, okay?”
Buck’s eyes are glassy now, and his lips are pressed together in a thin line, like he’s trying to stop himself from releasing a sob. He looks like he wants to say something but can’t get any words out, so he simply nods while Eddie leans forward and wraps his arms around him, pulling him into a hug.
“I love you,” Eddie repeats, pressing a kiss to Buck’s temple.
“I love you, too,” Buck responds with a sniffle.
For a while, they simply stay like that, basking in the warmth of each other’s embrace. Eventually, Eddie pulls away.
“Now,” he says, “why don’t you tell me more about the history of tattoos, hm?”
Buck huffs a surprised laugh, wiping away the tears that did end up escaping with the back of his hand.
“Well, um,” he starts, some excitement returning to his eyes. “Okay, so—”
He spends the next fifteen minutes telling Eddie an overwhelming amount of information about tattoos—where they came from, what they used to mean, and so on.
It’s not something that Eddie ever would’ve researched himself, but from Buck’s mouth, it sounds like the most interesting topic in the world.
The longer he speaks, the more weight seems to fall from Buck’s shoulders, all his focus on relaying the findings of his research.
And Eddie knows that once he’s done, he’ll probably have to remind him that they still need to do the dishes. About half an hour ago, that would’ve annoyed him. Now he doesn’t mind.
There’s no damper on Eddie’s excitement about being with Buck anymore, because all that matters is that Buck is trying his best.
And Eddie loves him so damn much.