Look I know this is a scientific publication but you don’t understand— we need to include milk and cookies in the photo. We have to. Otherwise the science suffers
@maraskywalkers replied to your post “one of my favoriteeeee buddie things is when eddie...”:
when he realizes he's in love with buck & there's no other way to say it because he can't leave room for buck to doubt or not get it but that means he has to say it like letting himself know it & want it (because he won't let himself want things etc) & then be like having to tell buck like the potential for some delicious pining & angst & then an emotionally tense confession because he's doing it he's saying out loud to buck hey I'm in love with you I want to be with you you make so happy and that scares me sometimes but I'm gonna let myself have it this time etc I'm just saying
(i don't know why this suddenly made me think of this specific scenario but i'm rolling with it)
when eddie realizes his first instinct is to flinch away from it.
he wants to close his eyes again, to be the person who Didn't Know, who could be buck's friend without all the strings. but the door is cracked, pandora's box is open, and despite every terrible thing that comes with realizing that he's in love with buck, eddie is unable to help the hope that lingers beneath everything.
this could be good, the lingering thing tells him. its voice sounds like every good thing that has clung to eddie despite his best efforts. it sounds like buck. we could really be good, eddie.
and eddie, painfully, reluctantly, trusts in buck's voice. so he decides to try.
he lingers around buck, more than usual. he laughs at all his jokes. he lingers, now, allowing himself to soak in buck's warmth when their shoulders brush. he calls buck big guy and bud and means the love of my life. he wears buck's old LAFD tee when they watch movies together. all very obvious signals.
buck does not kiss him. eddie decides to get even more obvious.
eddie tells him that he's important to him one day, driving home in buck's stupid new truck. buck stares at him for so long, so startled, that cars behind them begin to honk as they slow down on the road.
"are you...okay?" buck asks.
"why wouldn't i be?"
"you're acting weird."
i want you to kiss me. "you're acting weird."
buck bites his lip. eddie wishes he was buck's bottom lip, or maybe his teeth. "okay?" he says, a little pink to his cheeks. "you're, uh, you're important to me, too...?"
eddie waits, but he doesn't slide a hand over eddie's thigh, or tangle their fingers together. a failure, then.
he keeps trying. "you're really good with chris" gets a flushed grin. "that shirt looks good on you" gets buck buying him the same shirt in his size. "it would be nice to be partners again" gets a wistful little smile and knocked-together shoulders. all nice, sweet things, but not what eddie wants.
eddie is, he rapidly and horrifyingly realizes, going to have to say it out loud.
the thought feels like razor-blades on his skin, like a bullet lodged in his shoulder. eddie doesn't know how to, is the thing. the words aren't going to come out right. he's never known how to tell someone other than christopher that he loves them without poisoning them.
still. still. eddie looks at buck, the big, broad reality of him, the knowledge under his skin that buck could, if eddie just asked. that they could have a life that's even more beautiful than the one they're living now, together but unspoken.
buck deserves better than silence, eddie knows. buck has always deserved better than silence, and eddie has so rarely been able to give it to him. he can give it to him now.
on the couch in buck's house, eddie opens his mouth. closes it.
"what is it, eddie?" buck asks, because buck always knows when eddie wants to say something, is always watching.
i love you. i love you.
"nothing."
in the locker room, light carding through buck's curls; i want you shrivels in his throat. behind the engine, buck grinning as he flicks soapy water into eddie's face; i want us to be together turns to ash in his sternum. sitting on the back porch in buck's big backyard and watching his eyes soft and glowing; please, please, please kiss me until i forget my own name ties itself into knots on his tongue.
eddie can't say it, he realizes. the words are like an atrophied muscle, desiccated from disuse. he tries, again and again, to open his heart to buck. inside, the words are too weak to escape. hope remains at the bottom of the box. hope remains trapped.
coward, he tells himself. this voice sounds like shannon.
maybe it wasn't meant to be, after all. if this is the best he can do, then what can he even offer buck? words that have died, a heart sluggish from disuse, a man who has ruined every home he's ever touched.
eddie looks at himself in his bathroom mirror, the lines beginning at the edges of his eyes, every smile line drawn by this impossible life that he'd never thought he'd be able to deserve. how selfish, to want something more, despite it all. how foolish, to think that he would be capable of it.
he's almost startled when he sees the tear rolling down his jaw. the next one. one by one, dripping onto the countertop. he can feel a pressure in his throat, a decade of words dissolved into wastewater and rot inside of him. he clenches his teeth, but something like a sob escapes him anways.
"eddie?"
he presses his knuckles to his face in a futile attempt to hide it, but he can hear buck's footsteps inside the tiled bathroom. he hadn't even heard his front door open. or maybe he had, and it is just that buck is so integral a part of his home that it did not register as notable in his mind.
"eddie, what's-- what's wrong?" there's a frantic edge to buck's voice, another step closer. eddie steps back. the footsteps go silent.
"eddie," buck says, heartbroken. eddie lets out another, helpless sob. he's never been a pretty crier.
a rustle, then gentle, tentative touch. eddie wants to flinch away from it. but, the thing at the bottom of the box. he trembles, instead.
"please," buck says. "you have to tell me what's wrong."
"i'm in love with you."
silence. and, oh. eddie was right. he really only knows how to wield love in a way that hurts.
"you--" buck's voice shakes. his fingers, on eddie's elbows, are shaking too. "you-- what?"
"i love you," eddie's voice quavers. "i'm sorry. i didn't mean to say it like that."
silence, then: "how did you mean to say it?"
eddie presses his knuckles deeper into his eyes, hiding. "i don't know. not like this."
"but you were going to tell me?" there's a strange note in buck's voice.
"i was trying." bitter, trembling from his lips. poison is so much easier to spill than anything sweet.
fingers on his hands. eddie struggles, but only nominally. buck tugs his hands down, and eddie blinks away the blur of his vision, looks at the gentle hold that buck has around his palms. he wants to tell him to hold on tighter. he knows he does not have that right.
"eddie," buck breathes out. "you were-- you were trying to tell me that you love me?"
"i couldn't."
a pause, then a soft laugh, so dissonant with eddie's mood that it makes him look up. buck is smiling at him, eyes red-rimmed, bright, smile luminous.
"you did," he says. "i-- oh, that's what you meant. i've been trying to figure it out."
"you-- what?"
"you were being weird lately!"
"you're weird," eddie says, instinctive. buck laughs, head tilted back, looks at him like eddie did something incredible, instead of this fumbling, awkward thing.
"you are so--" buck's eyes sparkle, and eddie startles as his hands cup eddie's jaws, thumbs wiping away his tears. "i'm sorry i didn't hear you."
"i should've been able to say it out loud."
"you did," buck repeats, marveling, sure, hopeful, and kisses him.
(after, curled up in bed together, eddie in buck's LAFD tee and buck curled around him like a question mark, answered, eddie mumurs all the things that had been so stuck in his throat. all the softest words that he'd been unable to dislodge. buck trembles at every one, and eddie gets to wipe his tears away, this time.
"i love you," eddie says, again and again. the words weren't dead, after all. they were just waiting for somewhere safe to land.)
Yknow the lil fanfic trope where a character, usually non-human, purrs like a cat. In this case it would obviously be Rocky but what if it was Grace instead hear me out-
if anyone ever broached the idea of buck being in love with eddie TO eddie but they do it with the implication that they’re not sure if eddie feels the same. eddie would be SO offended on buck’s behalf. he’d be like buck is great!! and handsome!! and a good firefighter!! and a great partner!! and a better co-parent!! so the other person is like damn okay fine i guess you’re in love with him too sorry. and eddie’s yeah that’s what i thought. wait.
Do me a favour and reblog this with a show you like that was cancelled after only one season. I don't mean shows that were always meant to be miniseries or shows that work perfectly well as a standalone story, or shows that might still get renewed. I mean shows that are and will forever remain unfinished. The more obscure the better.
I love when people are like “I can’t believe you reblogged that despite their user name, icon, bio, and last twenty posts” bc to me my dash is the only part of this website and I’m not slowing down to look at urls you could all be the same person
#spiritual successor is people being like why didnt you read my pinned before you reblogged!!!#dude i am not. i am not vetting every blog#i am here to backread for 45mins and rb 30 posts in a row and disappear#tumblr life
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