every time i don't (i almost do)
655 words. 6x15 coda.
The ride back is mostly silent. Buck drives, of course, though Eddie doesn’t think he’d be able to focus if he had to. He still feels raw around the edges, skin flayed open, after the conversation at the graveyard.
She sees me, Buck had said, with a dreamy look in his eyes, one he hasn’t seen many times before. And Eddie wanted to scream, wanted to grab Buck by the shoulders and give him a shake because, no she doesn’t! she doesn’t see you! she doesn’t know you like I do!
But what good would come out of that?
It feels like ever since the lightning strike, Buck has been slowly but surely slipping through his fingers. And Eddie’s been– clinging, alright. Trying to steal every bit of Buck’s time and attention, under the guise of being there for him, when in truth it was more for Eddie himself. It was selfish, to try to keep him close, wanting to drape himself in Buck’s laughter and keep every tiny little thing hoarded. As if any minute could be their last.
Because–
Buck died.
For three minutes and seventeen seconds, Buck was dead, and then it was Eddie’s own hands that brought him back to life–and Eddie still doesn’t know what to do with it. Although, apparently, Buck has already found his answer, and it doesn’t involve Eddie.
“We’re here,” Buck says, and Eddie startles. They’re home.
Inside, the house is quiet, the early morning sun filtering through the curtains and bathing the walls with gold. They shrug off their jackets and toe off their shoes, and Buck heads straight for the kitchen– to get the coffee started, probably– but Eddie doesn’t follow.
There’s a part of him that wants to, always wants to follow Buck, but he fights it and heads over to Christopher’s room.
Buck finds him there, what feels like hours later, but was probably just minutes, judging by the steaming mug of tea cradled in his hands.
“Hey, everything okay?” he asks from the doorway, eyebrows stitched into a concerned frown.
Eddie’s sitting by the foot of the bed, contemplating his son’s posters on the opposite wall. “Just thinking,” he replies, and feels Buck’s weight dipping down the mattress where he sits next to him, his body a line of heat just inches away. Close, but never touching.
“Care to share with the class?” Buck prompts, and Eddie can hear the smile as his friend brings the cup up to his mouth.
(Eddie wants to keep it. All those tiny, private moments that make up their relationship, and store them in glass bottles in a shelf, where nothing– no one– could touch them. Where they’ll be safe forever.)
“I just…” he starts, not knowing what he’s going to say next. How does one explain loneliness to the very cause of it? How does he explain without revealing all the broken pieces that make up Eddie’s love?
“You said she– she sees you,” he says instead, and glances up at Buck. His friend is looking back at him with such an intensity in his eyes he doesn’t know how to read.
“And?”
Eddie draws in a breath.
“You should go for it,” don’t fall for her, don’t love her, please, never love her, “you deserve to be happy.”
Buck’s smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes.
“Thank you,” he says. Looks down at his cup of tea. “You do too, you know? You don’t have to be alone.”
I’m not alone. Not when you’re here, when you’re everywhere, filling out all my empty spaces.
But Buck’s not really his, he was never going to be. And Buck deserves to find someone who will love him for who he is, someone who sees him. Maybe he’s right, and Natalia could be that person– there’s only one way to find out.
Eddie just has to learn how to let him go in the meantime.
