Wrote a fic based on this post by cranberrymoons
Very Much Not Pining (Please Stop Saying That)
He says it out loud to his brand-new, definitely-not-Eddie’s, entirely his own kitchen. “I am fine,” he announces to a bowl of cereal he isn’t hungry for and a plant he’s trying not to kill.
His new house has creaky floors and south-facing windows, and a water heater with opinions. It also has a bedroom that could, theoretically, be a kid’s room someday, which is absolutely not why he liked the listing, thank you, next question.
The point is: Buck has a house. He has a fucking mortgage and rugs that he chose and a neighbor who asked if his boyfriend would be mowing the shared strip of lawn, and Buck said “I don’t—there’s no—there isn’t a—I’ll mow it” while trying not to die.
He has walls, dammit. He has space. He has a closet that looks like an adult lives here instead of a man who keeps getting blown sideways by his own life.
This is what Buck tells Maddie, then Hen, and the mirror. This is what he will tell anyone who even hints at the word pining, which, by the way, is the most humiliating verb in the English language. It sounds like a Victorian ghost making jam.
It’s not that he hasn’t thought about it—about Eddie—about the thing Tommy fucking Kinard said (“the competition,” casual as a thrown elbow; Tommy knows how to land a line). It’s not that Maddie didn’t practically sit him down and, in sister-voice, ask, “Are you in love with Eddie?” and had to interject, “It wouldn’t be so crazy.” It’s not that Buck didn’t blurt out “Everyone wants me to be hopelessly pining for my straight best friend” like he’s been rehearsing that exact scenario for a week and a half.
It's that his primary concern at the time was not Love, capital L. His primary concern was Dignity, capital D. The fact that people might think he was, or is, pathetic.
The thing about pathetic is it’s sticky, like that Victorian ghost jam. It clings to your ribs. Buck has spent a lifetime trying not to be the punchline in a story he didn’t write.
So now he wakes up in a house that’s only his, and he goes to work where Hen partners with Eddie because Hen needs a partner now that Chim is Captain, and Bucks runs with Ravi, and it’s good, it’s fine, it’s—fine.
He’s not pining. He’s fucking living, okay?
The day Eddie walks into the station for the first shift after he’s back, everyone does the thing where they act normal for exactly two seconds before turning into a chorus line of relief and excitement. Hen hugs him for so long, Karen texts Hey, where did you run off to ??? to the group chat. Chim cries, and then he claims he didn’t, then clears his throat and pretends he isn’t wiping his eyes.
Buck says, “Hey,” and Eddie says, “Hey,” and for a second the floor lines up under both of them in a way that feels suspiciously like gravity, and a lot less like lava.
Then Buck goes back to being extremely fine. Magnificently, fine, even.
