Idk what this is but those new stills hurt all three of my feelings so have some angst.
“I don’t understand what happened to us. I don’t understand what changed,” Buck says, and Eddie freezes.
Because he knows. He knows exactly. Every big moment they’ve shared, the beautiful and the terrible, and all of the little ones in between exist in the back of his mind in one giant tapestry of memory. A pulsing, bleeding heart of a thing that he tries not to look at too closely because the fact that it is always there, so close to the surface, never letting him out of its thrall is sometimes more than he can bear.
It’s been years. Eddie’s gotten very used to being in love with Buck. Quietly, achingly in love with Buck, knowing he can’t have him but not being able to stop. Loving Buck doesn’t feel like a choice, it’s just a fact of his existence, rooted so deep and taking up so much space that Eddie can hardly recall being without it, the person he was before—before Buck, before LA and the 118, before tsunamis and shootings and lightning strikes. There are days when loving Buck overwhelms. When he can hardly breathe for the all-consuming nature of it. When the want is so fierce that he can taste it on his tongue. Most of the time though, it’s manageable. Like a radio on in the background, volume low enough that Eddie can ignore it. He can be almost clinical about it: fact—he is in love with Buck, fact—Buck is never going to love him back. It’s been years, so Eddie knows exactly how to handle these inconvenient truths, knows how to handle himself, has gotten used to them. He never expected anything to change, assumed that nothing could surprise him after so long.
But. Buck stood next to him in a cemetery and started talking about a woman he had only just met—a stranger—seeing him, understanding him like no one else, and Eddie—
Something in him broke. Some fragile bit of hope he hadn’t even realized he was harboring shattered, the shards slicing him to bloody ribbons.
And all he could really think was, Enough. Enough now.
Things changed then. He’s changed. Their relationship has changed. And he’s been telling himself that’s a good thing. It’s good, necessary even.
But Eddie doesn’t know how to deal with this. He doesn’t know what to say when Buck is sitting in front of him asking about it point blank while looking like a kicked puppy.
Part of him is angry. He resents being in this position, resents how long it’s taken Buck to say anything, resents knowing he can’t explain himself without revealing things he never wanted to. Mostly though, he resents the fact that after months of work—drawing a line in the sand and dating someone else, pulling away in an effort to establish real boundaries that might let him move on—he is still as much in love with Buck as ever.
Mostly though, he’s just tired.
“We’re still friends, Buck,” Eddie finally manages to say. “That hasn’t changed.”
“But something is different,” Buck insists. “If—you would tell me if I did something, wouldn’t you?”
Eddie drags a hand over his face, resisting the urge to touch his chest where a dull ache has bloomed behind his sternum.
“You haven’t done anything wrong,” he replies. It’s not an answer, not to the question Buck actually asked, but it’s as much of one as Eddie thinks he can give. And it’s the truth—Buck hasn’t done anything wrong. It’s not a crime not to love someone.
“But—”
“Buck.” Eddie’s tone snaps, raw and sharp and jagged. It sounds foreign to his own ears, an unacceptable loss of control, but he is fraying badly at the seams and needs out of this conversation.
A stricken look crosses Buck’s face, and Eddie forces his voice to gentle as he quietly adds, “Please.”
Please drop it. Please don’t push. Please don’t pull this thread.
Please let me go. Just let me go. Please.
Silence stretches between them for a long moment as Buck’s eyes scan Eddie’s face. But finally, as if he heard all the different things packed into that one syllable, Buck nods once.
“Okay.”