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A whisper of smoke 5/5

[Buddie fic; Heavy Angst; Angst with a Happy Ending; Hurt/Comfort; Emotional Hurt/Comfort; Established Relationship; Major Character Injury; Blood and Injury; Eddie’s POV; I don’t know how to English; I Don’t Even Know how to tag; I don’t even know why; Author.exe has stopped working]

now part of a series

read ch1; ch2; ch3; ch4

[read this work on ao3]

Eddie has always been good at bottling emotions and putting them away, in am airlocked room with the “deal with it later” label on, when that “later” never arrives, not until the room is saturated and the door threatens to give in.

In recent months he has given himself little time to think, he had to bottle everything and put everything in his airlock: first for Christopher, not to let him sink with him and with his bad mood, not that it was easy, and more than once he found himself wobbling, the weight of the situation upon him that pressed and pressed and pressed and took his breath away. So, he built new, tight routines, made of hospital rooms and doctors, work, appointments with Frank to dispel some of that fog in the airlock, as well as taking care of Christopher and make sure that this thing, this huge, weighting thing that was happening to them didn’t take away all that they had.

But now that the finish line is near, now that it’s all a little quieter and that future is now palpable between in his fingers, and he’s on his way to where he wants to be, all the things he bottled up are now pressing against the airlocked door. Frank helps, ever so cryptic, Christopher helps with his beaming smile, and Buck, Buck who’s simply there, awake and talking, always looking and waiting for him every single day, helps. Even his parents help, in their own way, when they don’t question his educational choices with his son or on his life choices, in general.

And maybe it’s because he’s happy now, happier, because he finally sees the light at the end of the tunnel, he finally sees the finish line and it’s almost where he wants to be, with his beautiful and smart kid, next to Buck for the rest of his life, that the door, always well closed, is giving in.

It started with a nightmare, one night he wouldn’t know how long ago, but now it’s all more present, heavier, more urgent. Because now he’s finally lowering his defences, something that before he couldn’t, absolutely couldn’t let go. And this thing that eats away at his eyes and eats his days, it sticks to him like a bad habit. It’s the distant, familiar hissing of the smoke, just before the explosion, just before Buck was torn from him, trapped under that house, in that hell of flames and ashes.

It smells like smoke, that night, in his nightmare it doesn’t even look like a ton, it’s just the smell of something, even a piece of paper, burning. And he has the clear feeling of the wind sweeping on his face the dust and dirt, the temperature rising.

And before he can react, can run to the burning house that collapses piece by piece, Buck’s voice echoing mechanically in his head, he wakes up.

And it takes a moment to remember.

Just to remember that the bed is only temporarily empty and cold, that Buck will soon, very soon, as soon as the doctors decide he can be discharged, he’ll come home, and he shouldn’t feel so… broken. He really shouldn’t but─

His blood is pounding in his ears as his heart is pounding in his chest. Between his trembling fingers he holds the sheet while his feet tingle.

Clouded by a sleep that hasn’t been at all restful and by a nightmare that has taken his breath away, his head needs another moment to realize that that uncomfortable feeling that now hangs on his chest like a boulder, the heart throbbing and the sight blurring as if looking at the room through a strange wide angle, is something he already knew. Something that has accompanied him for a long time. And that sometimes hurts more than a heart attack.

It’s panic, plain and simple.

But as usual he decides to bottle all this and label it as “having a moment”, and closes again the door of his airlocked room.

.

It’s one in a long line of nightmares, which usually only take his sleep away when he’s at home, and not when he’s at the station, alert, ready for a call.

He’s gotten pretty good at covering up even in front of Frank’s expert eye, little conversations about future plans now that Buck’s coming home soon, about how his parents are spending Christmas with them in Los Angeles, how Christopher decided that Santa Claus still exists, despite all the evidence. He talks about the complicated relationship between Buck and his sister, how he can help them to pacify, him who was about to give up. And he speaks of it lightly, trying to ignore the spectre that awaits him at home at night, or worse, that will appear as soon as he is alone.

This isn’t the time to break, not now, not now that Buck is coming home. He’s just having a moment, he has to bottle it up and close the door and forget. As soon as Buck gets back, everything’s gonna be fine. He has to work, he can’t burden Buck, or his parents or… absolutely not. He just has to get over it and continue. Autopilot and go. So, when he remains alone he plants his fingernails in the palms of his hands and tightens his eyes so hard and tight as not to think, the murmur of the smoke hissing in his ears, the sirens flashing behind his eyelids.

At first he decided it was just a reaction to all the stress, to everything that he and Buck found themselves living, but now it’s like chronic, a bad habit. Before there was that murmur under his skin, that didn’t make him sleep much, that urge to hit things to vent everything that’s crowded in his head in the only way he knows for sure works. But he’s been down that road before, and it doesn’t lead anywhere. And now things have changed, Buck’s getting better every day a bit more and he’s on his way home, and Eddie really doesn’t know what to do, because as soon as he lowers his guard, he’s there on the edge of the cliff, there ready to break.

Then again, it’s not the time. It’s not the time to break. It’s not the time. And in his heart, he knows, as soon as Buck’s out of there, as soon as they’re off those straw yellow walls, he’s gonna get better, and even if he breaks a little bit, Buck’s gonna help him get all his bits back and put them back where they belong. All his things in the right place, the bottles still behind the hermetic door.

Buck has a trained eye, perhaps more than Frank’s, and can recognize the fractures and the tiniest cracks in Eddie’s mask, and as much as he wants to avoid going to Buck’s room and burden him with his bad mood and everything he carries around, he can’t help himself. Now that Buck’s talking, still cheerful even when the day is awfully long and tiring, Eddie can’t force himself not to go. The few times he didn’t visit, he spent over an hour on the phone with him, but that’s not enough. Buck knows, and maybe just because he’s polite and kind doesn’t say it, but he knows Eddie’s broken, and he’s doing everything he can to be strong for both of them. Buck survived hell, a real hell, and back, struggled for months between life and death, and when they were letting him go, he came back with his own strength and he’s getting better, every day he’s a little better, and yet he’s still keeping Eddie afloat, swimming, swimming, and swimming like Dory. And it should be this the time that Eddie is more needed, to make Buck feel better, he shouldn’t be the ballast and take Buck down alongside with him, not like this, not now. He can’t take his son and Buck with him into his abyss, he should at least collect his pieces by himself, close the door of his emotions for good and bottle everything, every single thing. Forget the panic, the terror, the loss. Forget everything. But the only way he can forget and close it, now, is by going to Buck’s and spend time with him. What they call a snake biting its own tail.

He goes to him either before he goes to work or right after, as soon as his shift is over, even when it’s late and he should be home already.

The routine is new and at the same time always the same, he sneaks into the room when he knows for sure that there is no one other than Buck, and climbs the bed and then falls there, with a boisterous poff.

And Buck usually mumbles, if he’s asleep, or laughs breathless if he’s awake, tightening his arm around his shoulders.

.

It’s the same on Wednesday. After two intense weeks, the entering in December that made people even dumber, that tend to crowd in stores to shop (nothing as scary as Black Friday, but enough to have to free people from under the shelves on a daily basis), his parents, who wander around the house and even judge his choices on the smallest trifles, after a very long weekend, in which materially he could only see Buck via Facetime, and a very heavy meal over at Bobby’s that was their late Thanksgiving dinner, finally that Wednesday he managed to go to recharge his batteries before going to work.

Eddie’s seen a lot of things, a lot of weird things in his life, maybe too much even. Between his time in the army and his work here in Los Angeles, he’s seen a lot of quirks. But this is beyond anything else.

It’s mid-afternoon, when he gets to the hospital and he hears Buck laughing and chirping something at someone or something he describes as adorable, so Eddie thinks it’s Maddie, who again brought him the latest pictures of her baby girl, that Buck can’t wait to meet to become an uncle full-time, especially now that between them, after that half discussion, has returned a tranquillity and complicity that Eddie envies.

But when he turns the corner of the hall, ready to enter the room, he finds Ramon Diaz himself sitting next to Buck’s bed, showing him pictures from his smartphone. His father laughs and tells anecdotes and Buck definitely seems to have the moment of his life.

And Eddie must have suffered a head injury and it must be some kind of hallucination, or he went crazy, that’s all that could have happened at an initial examination. By bottling his problems, he lost his last neurons in the effort, it’s called apoptosis, the process of programmed cell death, or maybe he caused a clot or something. It’s the only reasonable explanation.

When Eddie enters, his father gets up and bids his goodbye to Buck. “I guess that’s my cue, I’ll leave you in good hands”.

“In the best hands, I’d say” Buck quips, shaking his hand. “Say hello to Helena and give Chris a tight hug for me”.

“Will do” Ramon nods, passing next to Eddie and squeezing his hand on his shoulder blade. “Be good” he recommends jokingly before sneaking out the door.

Eddie looks at Buck in disbelief, all busy taking a sip from his straw, and he doesn’t know whether to call himself incredulous or worried about that blow to the head yesterday, a water bottle addressed to Hen that Chim launched with his terrible aim and took him behind the back of the head, which clearly caused real, permanent damage.

“My dad?” that’s all Eddie can mumble, confused.

“What can I say, I’m my usual charming self” Buck jibes, shrugging his shoulders before spreading his arms. “Have you come to recharge your batteries?”

“My Buckeries, yes” he replies by crouching on the bed with the usual noisy poff.

Buck caresses the back of his head with his fingertips and grins. “It seems that Chris and your abuelita did some convincing work on your father who now decided to be supportive and decided to come over here to probe the territory and assess the sincerity of my feelings… and bribe me with some compromising photos of you as a child”.

Eddie snorts, rolling his eyes. “Dios, how inconvenient was it from one to ten?”.

“Well, as a kid, you were pretty adorable… and judging by what he told me, Chris gets his sassiness from you” he murmurs, his tone cheerful, happy.

And Eddie couldn’t ever fathom the idea of Buck and his father getting along. “I mean with my dead, was he… you know?”.

Buck snuggles closer, his fingers carding softly in Eddie’s hair. “Well, he was a bit weird at first. But if you count I had a lame talk with my dad before I met your dad, it ended up smoothly”.

“What a beautiful little shitty day” Eddie growls, looking up at him, to try to understand, only from his eyes, from his expression how much the phone call with his father stuck on him.

“Could have been worse” he says, with his bewitching grin. “At least my dad stopped with the usual litany and convinced himself that you and Chris are good for me, plus now I can snuggle with you for a bit, and that’s somehow turning it perfect”.

“You are a sap” Eddie snorts, but then narrows his eyes. It’s been a long week for Buck, too, with long conversations, not to call them phone fights, with his dad over something he didn’t tell Eddie about, he just knows they’ve been talk-fighting a lot. Buck doesn’t talk much about his family, he hasn’t even given him any details about how he and Maddie figured their argument out, much less about his parents. And in addition to feeding the hospital with his insurance and maybe some donations, the man hasn’t shown up there yet, not to mention the mother who’s never even heard from as far as Eddie knows. “That’s good, then” it’s all that he says, rubbing his cheek against Buck’s neck.

“I wouldn’t be so surprised if, along the way, my dad and yours started playing squash together” Buck murmurs.

Eddie snorts. “I think my dad would play his hip before he played squash”.

“I thought it was my father’s too, but instead…” Buck grumbles and shrugs. “Maybe they’d prefer golf,” he adds. “Or maybe we better not support their friendship, it would be weird”.

Eddie nods softly. “We might as well decide not to really talk about our parents, and ignore their existence for a while in our little bubble for a while, what do you think?”.

“It might be a good idea. Charging our respective batteries and talking about the weather is a viable alternative” Buck mutters tightening his grip on Eddie.

Eddie stays there quietly, eyes half closed. And that thing in his chest, that thing that weighs behind his eyes, those emotions, those negative thoughts all bottled up that are piling up one by one in his airlock, they seem to slowly disappear, while Buck talks softly and tells him about physiotherapy, the last visit he made, new medicines that finally do not leave him a bad mouth, all bitter and dry.

And Eddie is there enjoying the moment, in an almost religious silence, letting himself be lulled by his voice, by his fingers carding in his hair, his breath soft ghosting on his skin.

“What are you doing on Friday?” Buck asks him out of the blue, and Eddie knows he has to exit is daze and answer.

“Friday? The day after tomorrow?” he asks, pulling himself up.

“Yeah, what’s your shift?” he mumbles. “I wanted to know if… I guess it’s a mess so…”.

Eddie closes his eyes. “12 hours. I come in at 9 and I leave at 9”. He doesn’t ask him why, because Buck’s on his way home, and he already knows it’s the last routine visits before he is discharged. Maybe he wants help, maybe he wants company. Buck wanted to manage them himself, all the visits, asking Eddie and Maddie not to be there and both agreed with a certain reluctance: after all he is getting better, and he doesn’t need two bundles of nerves there with him during his visits.

“Ah, okay… no, out of time” he says, then pulling a long sigh and stretching his legs under the covers.

“Evan, if you want I can…” he starts to say. “I can change shift… I can ask Jonathan to…”.

“No, don’t worry. Work is important and then…” Buck murmurs softly. “Don’t worry about it. No problem absolutely”.

“I’ll come tomorrow night and spend the night with you?” he whispers.

“You can’t always sleep here, Eds. You’re going to get arthritis. The bed isn’t that big and you’re all crumpling around me.” he replies. “And every time you leave me here all hard and I have to explain to the nurses that that’s a very very normal, physiologic reaction to my very steaming hot boyfriend”.

Eddie rolls his eyes with a whiff and leans in closer, burrowing in his side. “I’m comfortable like this! and then it will get easier when you’ll be home with me… and I could always help you with that in the bathroom if you want…” he mumbles, and has no time to say no more, or act on that long-awaited quick hand-job in the bathroom, that the alarm clock he set to give himself time to get to the station begins to ring.

“It’s time” Buck says. “I know you want to put your hands in my pants, but you’ll have to wait, mister”.

Eddie rolls his eyes huffing a sigh loudly. “I have to go. I’ll text every time we get back at the station.” he promises and reluctantly rises from bed and begins to recover his things.

“Be careful out there,” he hears him whispering.

With his bag on his shoulder, Eddie smiles and leans over him to put a kiss on his forehead. “Goodnight and behave, don’t make too many nurses angry or blush”.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he says before he reaches out and steals a kiss from his lips.

.

The proverbial drop that breaks the camel’s back falls on that Friday night, almost at the end of their shifts. It was a rough day, he didn’t have a moment to call Buck, yet alone to text him, and when he finally managed to carve out those for or five minutes, his phone battery decided to die before he could even make the call, and then the alarm went off again.

Once back, he put the phone in charge and then did his best to lay the table, because he is still banned from the kitchen, and probably will be forever.

By Chim’s great persistent request, the late thanksgiving turkey leftovers had to be transformed into a skewed Mexican fiesta, his words, not Eddie’s.

For the occasion, Eddie’s parents brought their precious help. Complaining about the terrible, horrible, bagged tortillas, his mother set to work kneading them by hand and his father meanwhile shredded his colleagues over at the pinball machine, to Christopher’s immense delight.

.

But before even sitting around the table, as usual for such special occasions, the alarm went of again.

The scene is weirdly, ominously familiar. It looks like his nightmares, or his memories, or a strange mixture of both.

To be cynical, fires all look a bit alike. Fire that burns, walls that give up, smoke, ashes, heat. It’s all easily traced back to other actions, other interventions, and yet…

Eddie can’t ignore the fact that it’s all weirdly similar to that day. What it’s been repeating for nights in his nightmares and he’s trying his best to ignore. To what’s still etched in his mind every time he closes his eyes and probably will never go away.

.

They are a backup for the 412, that’s already on the scene.

The fire is huge, and the cloud of white smoke can be seen from miles and miles away, swelling in the black sky. It started to rain recently and the noise of the water pouring from the hydrants almost covers the echo of voices in their walkies.

This one too is neighbourhood that certainly, before the economic crisis, had to be beautiful, flourishing. Rows of two-storey, pastel coloured cottage-like houses now have plaster mangled by time.

In a corner of his visual field, Eddie notices a bunch of kids getting scolded from a fireman, maybe the 412 captain and a cop.

The backdraft must have brought down part of the house, which is already grotesquely bent over. Part of the upper floor collapsed and chomped on the lower. That too was a beautiful house, in a beautiful neighbourhood, before the crisis and that fire.

The roof, failing, scrunched itself taking away part of the frontage.

The smoke, meanwhile, swells and vibrates, whispers in the sky like a disturbing echo, drums in his ears, like an old well-known song, and delivers a shiver along his spine.

There are people shouting, members of 412 increasing the pressure of water on the house that continues to crumble like a cookie overcooked and dunk too long and begins to look more and more like a pile of flames, dust, and debris.

Bobby barks orders that Eddie can’t hear right now. All the oxygen is ripped from his lungs when a rumble comes from the house, when it folds completely and crumples on itself and the rest of the upper floor crushes the one below. The plywood that splatters off with the glass and the soot like bullets and gunpowder.

They have to act quickly; Eddie must get his fucking shit together and start helping.

There’s a trapped firefighter, he can hear on the radio. A trapped fireman just like Buck. He must have been trapped in the house, too. Apparently, he heard someone asking for help.

This time like that other terrible day, the wind rises, and the speed makes the fire widen even more, which now with much more oxygen burns even more intensely. It is always the change of direction of the air currents that influences most, and dangerously, the fire. And that house now more than ever becomes a trap of flames and smoke.

And they all hurry to bring their help. But the fire is fast, in less than thirty seconds a flame can become an immense fire, and it takes only a few minutes for the fire to thicken and blacken and fill the spaces of the house, that ends up engulfed in the flames. And the fire is hot, the heat is much scarier than the flames, and it goes from 100 degrees to 600 like a trifle. Inhaling this superhot air will scorch your lungs and melt clothes to your skin. And the fire is dark, it , starts bright, but it’s a matter of minutes and it produces smoke and with it, complete darkness. Fire is deadly. Smoke and toxic gases kill more people than flames do, fire produces poisonous gases that make you drowsy and disoriented. And then, then there’s asphyxiation.

At best, this firefighter has had more or less the same luck as Buck finding himself in a kind of free zone, and they just have to find his way out, with the oxygen tank and the turnout gear they might still have some hope, some time. Although the house is now a pile of debris, breath of flames and wind. But miracles rarely happen, and they have already had more than one.

And that’s why they have to put maximum power in the hydrants, to give their best.

But when they hear the torn apart scream coming from someone of the 412, everything seems to stop.

Blood pounds in Eddie’s ears. His heart thuds in his chest. He needs a moment to readjust his shaking hands on the hose and to plant his tingling feet better on the ground. Flames, smoke, and his vision disfigures, darkening.

He tries to focus on the fire hose, ignoring the overwhelming sense of dread, or the fact that he somehow just forgot how to fucking breath, while his heartrate escalates quickly.

His mouth is dry, his windpipe closing up.

He shouldn’t be there. He shouldn’t be there. He shouldn’t be there. Buck needed him, today, he needed him at the hospital. He wouldn’t have asked otherwise.

There is too much of a risk of someone walking over and notice him.

He clutches the fire hose, his hands wrapped so tightly that his nails dug into his gloves. Breathing is hard, like he’d just run around the world and back, his chest growing tight as bile rises in his throat.

He has to get his fucking shit together and help. No one has to live what he and Buck endured, but he can’t do a single thing, with his head spinning, dizziness taking the upper hand and his stomach churning.

And again, like that other time, like when Buck was trapped in that burning hell, he feels detached from the situation, it’s like looking at himself from an external point of view.

.

It’s unreal.

For another couple of minutes, it’s unreal.

Until they finally take that fireman out of what’s left of the house on a gurney, his face covered with a blanket. And Eddie has to focus on something else, his eyes glued on the smoking debris, trying to ignore the pain raising in his chest and the dizziness, as the 412 ambulance moves slowly, surrounded by the crew. He has to remember that Buck is almost home. Just that.

It takes them half an hour to put out the remaining fire, and by the time they hop back on the truck, it’s almost midnight.

No one is talking all the ride back to the station. It’s usually like this when a crew loses a member, but there’s something else in the air.

Eddie’s in the locker room, still feeling a little dazed, battered, tired, even after the shower, breath still struggling to normalize. He looks at his now charged phone and knows he can’t call Buck tonight, it’s already late and he’s probably already asleep, and yet he needed to see him or at least hear his voice.

“You’re seeing too many similarities, let me tell you” Chim grumbles, as the two paramedics enter the locker room, once they get back to the station, after fixing the ambulance for the next shift.

“Or maybe you don’t want to see…” Hen protests, fiddling with her locker, to retrieve a spare T-shirt and a towel, ready to head to the showers.

“No idea you were such a conspiracy maniac,” Chim shrugs his shoulders. “I was the one with the stalking crow”.

And she snorts loudly. “I’m just saying that I think they’re connected,” she states. “Think about it. A fire in a neighbourhood like this, in an empty house, the cop said there were kids there too… then add that the one of the 412 crew members said that they heard someone call for help before getting trapped…” Hen numbers and then she stops. “Sounds like a pattern to me”.

“Plotter,” Chim retorts. “Cap, what do you think?”.

“I don’t think it’s a pattern,” says the captain, shrugging his shoulders. “As different as they are, fires that break out in similar situations have more or less the same pattern,”.

“Exactly what I say, better expressed, but that’s what I say.” Chim replies. “What do you say, Eddie?”.

But he doesn’t say anything.

“But if they’ve heard someone… it just seems…” Hen continues to say.

“I’m sure the fire inspectors will evaluate everything and eventually contact us if necessary,” Bobby replies. “I know when Buck got better and could talk, they heard him anyway, but it’s standard procedure. As we had to do, in the days following his accident”.

“Eddie?” Bobby calls him. “A word?”.

And Eddie sighs in the hurry to lace his shoes and then follows Bobby out of the locker room. Bobby knows, maybe not as well as Buck, the small fractures in his mask, he knows that somewhere there is a deeper crack, and the mask would crumble entirely.

“Are you all right?” he asks as soon as they are alone. “Is Buck… you know?”.

Eddie looks at him, a certain confusion that clouds his sight. “Yes. He is good, I know you went to visit him”.

Bobby lets slip a deaf laugh. “It took a bit of courage, but the alternative was to get kicked in the ass by Athena. I don’t like to see him there”.

“And think he’s better now,” adds Eddie, the voice stricter than he actually wants.

“I know, I realize. Look… If you had to clock off hours ago, why don’t you take a day off tomorrow and be with him?” Bobby suggests, his voice gentle.

Eddie doesn’t say anything at first. Going to Buck’s could help him feel a bit better, or he could drop his mask completely and he can’t afford to be seen cracked, shattered, broken. He can’t lose Buck; he has to take some time and think. “A few hours will do” he says, “Maybe I’ll come in a bit late and…”.

“Take the day off, I insist. Surely you also noticed the same similarities Hen noticed” adds Bobby squeezing a hand on his shoulder. “And before you ask, I’m telling you to stay with Buck because you’ve been looking like a ghost for days, and today has certainly been hard for everyone… but Buck will do you good. Take a day and stay with him, sometimes the people we love can bring peace in our hearts”.

Eddie grits his teeth, tightens his jaw and nods. “I will take advantage of it,” he says before heading to his truck and returning home, a tiredness that takes his breath away and weighs him down like a boulder, as soon as he is alone.

.

When he arrives at home that night, he is somewhat reassured by the fact that the lights are off and he will not have to undergo a further grilling by his father, who lately weighs his life choices with increasing vehemence. The only light on is the little night light on Chris' nightstand and the one in his bedroom, that is always on when he gets home late.

And it’s like a lighthouse, a harbour to go back to, and so he slips into his son’s bedroom and the weight on his shoulders suddenly disappears.

He has to hold on a bit more. It’ll get better. He repeats himself slowly in his head until his breath completely normalizes and is almost at the point of falling asleep, right then and there, sitting on the ground, near Chris’s bed.

And maybe because his son is a perfect child, or maybe because he has some strange sixth sense, when he moves and just stretches out in bed and opens one eye and then another, he smiles at him, with his sleepy but dazzling smile, and everything seems to disappear.

“You’re back,” he says in his tiny, adorable voice, kneaded by sleep.

“Always” Eddie murmurs under his breath. “You should sleep, you know?”.

“I can stay awake. No school tomorrow… already done all the weekend homework” he snorts and sits up. “So we go to the planetarium with abuelo”.

“And then you’ll get tired… It’s late…” Eddie murmurs, feigning a peremptory tone, which cannot actually slip out of his mouth, in all honesty.

Chris rolls his eyes pursing his lips “I don’t get tired! It’s the planetarium. I learn all the important things! So then when we go with Bucky I’ll teach him!”.

“Sounds like a plan,” Eddie mumbles, stretching a smile.

“You look like you’re having a bad day,” Chris says, rubbing your eyes. “I’ll take you to bed? I’ll tuck you in!”.

“Sounds like a plan,” Eddie mumbles, stretching a smile.

“You have the bad-day face” Chris says, rubbing his eyes. “I’ll take you to your bed. I’ll tuck you in!”.

Eddie is taken aback. His son, his marvellous, funny, smart and perceptive son, reads right through him as an open book.

“Daddy” he says softly. “Are you sad?”.

He clenches his jaw. “I’m just a bit tired, it was a long day, and I couldn’t eat your abuela’s cooking”.

“So, you are hungry! Make a sandwich? Abuela took a plate of leftovers for you” he suggests before yawning.

“Nah, I think I’m going straight to bed, you should sleep too, it’s a big day tomorrow” he murmurs.

“Hugs can help. Like we do with Bucky!” Chris asks with his tiny and bright smile, stretching his arms wide open.

“Always” he leans in and sighs softly, in a slight contentment, when his kid’s vanilla and strawberry shampoo hits his nostrils. It helps, it always helped. “I love you buddy, sleep tight”.

“I can come with you, I can tuck you in” his kid says. “You always do that for me”.

“That’s a dad’s job, you know? One of my favourites, really” Eddie says.

Chris moves, pulls the covers aside and gets out of bed with some effort, but without asking for help, when his bare feet touch the floor he mutters something under his breath, and then he reaches his hand out to his dad. And Eddie can’t even describe how he feels right now, he doesn’t have enough words to assess the magnificence of his son.

They walk quietly to Eddie’s bedroom, not to wake his parents and most of all, not to explain why his kid is awake so late.

The light on Eddie’s bedside table is still on, it’s always on when he works late, when Chris opens the door, the wonderful smile he beams to his dad, is breath-taking. “Surprise!” he says, not so loud, but enough to reveal all the joy and excitement.

And it takes Eddie a moment to fully function again. He looks over at the bed and he sees Buck and it’s like a mirage.

There’s Buck, awake in his, their?, bed. A book on his lap and a stupid goofy smile on his face when he looks up at Eddie. “Hey there, honey”.

And Chris giggles.

“Too much?” Buck asks Chris with a smirk.

The kid nods. “You sound like Maya’s grandma”.

And Buck snorts. “Hey! I’m not that old!” he retorts softly. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping by now, mister?”.

“Yes! But I wanted to see daddy’s face” Chris says. “He was sad before”.

Eddie wouldn’t know how he feels now, or at least he can’t put it into words. But happy is certainly not a concept big enough to describe what he feels.

“It was a long day for daddy. But his face surely is priceless, you are right” Buck says moving out of the bed with enough fluidity he doesn’t even look like someone who was literally discharged from the hospital today. “Let’s get you back in bed and let daddy take another shower, he is smoke-smelly” he adds, kissing Eddie’s cheek.

But Eddie stays there like a pillar of salt for a fraction of seconds, and then, out of muscle memory, he tags along, practically jumping back in the corridor. He watches Evan walk slowly, limping a bit, a hand on Christopher’s back. They talk under their breaths, and Eddie’s never seen his kid smiling like that in a long time.

Once in bed, it takes Chris like a couple of minutes to fall asleep again, his breath got measured and deeper, while he was still talking about what he’s gonna do tomorrow at the planetarium, and Eddie looks at him, and he could swear that he’s in full, best shape right now. Buck tucks Chris in and Eddie watches quietly, before heading back to the bedroom that for the first time, across the dark hallway seems finally cosy.

His room is no longer empty, dark, perhaps still a bit too neat and without any personality, but the bed is all undone, Buck tends to roll up in the blankets and must have been there a lot, since even on Eddie’s side of the sheet is all ruffled, a burgundy duffel bag laid on the ground near the closet, the clothes rolled over with little grace.

Eddie would say a lot of things, but his emotions are both strong and devastating. Buck is at home, at home with him, his fingers intertwined with his own, and he has no trouble imagining them, in a while in that bed, his moans muffled in the hollow of Buck’s neck. He can’t say anything until his mind is clear enough to be able to connect two thoughts in a row, but then he gives in and abandons himself against Buck. A hug that means more than just happiness. He’s so happy as his thoughts go, his mind a blank page for a moment, he’s so happy as Buck pulls him in and whispers something against his ear, something that sounds “fuck the shower”, and he’s so happy when, with a weak yelp, they find themselves on the mattress that bounces under them with a tiny, little squeal of springs.

Eddie remembers that, until proven otherwise, he knows how to speak when Buck starts to blow light kisses against the edge of his forehead, as if to draw a crown.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks with a little voice.

“I wanted to surprise you, your face just now was priceless, error 404 page not found… A classic.” Buck mumbles as he barely moves and loosens his hug to settle with his back against the headboard of the bed. “Come, I’ll let you recharge all your Buckeries”.

“That’s what you were talking to my dad about the other day?” Eddie mutters, kicking off his shoes and then knee-butting the mattress until he reaches Buck’s side and crouches against him.

Buck starts to caress his hair slowly with the tip of his fingers. “’bout this and more and more, I told you, anecdotes of you as a child took a lot of time… The plan was to have dinner at the station, Athena and Karen came to pick me up at the hospital and they were going to drop me there tonight… but then you left so I had to move the surprise here”.

Eddie doesn’t say anything. There’s no smell of disinfectants, just his fragrant aftershave, patchouli, and something else with a weird name, he doesn’t even know how to pronounce. He’s not happy, he’s not just happy, he’s something that goes far beyond, something beyond imagination.

“I’ve seen the news, do you want to talk about it?” Buck whispers softly, the voice that now resembles a whisper, which breaks in the depth of his chest.

Eddie shakes his head, and sinks deeper into Buck’s neck. “I just want to forget”.

“We’ll have to talk about it at some point. Especially because I told you down there that we should get married, sooner or later we’re gonna have to face this conversation,” he says, amused.

“You said a lot of stupid things that day,” Eddie groans.

“Oh thank you,” Buck boos, still amused. “I thought I’d die down there. Should I have left you with something or not?”.

Eddie gets up, moving away from that safe harbor that is Buck’s chest to look at him in the eye. He wouldn’t know whether furious, wounded or terrified. Or perhaps a more appropriate mixture of the three. It would mean dozens and dozens of different things, but in the end he just sighs.

“Don’t worry,” Buck tells him, a small lacklustre smile that doesn’t reach the eyes. “It won’t happen again”.

“You always say that, but every time you do something stupid and…” Eddie smacks back. “And I stay here to pick up the pieces”.

“It won’t happen again” Buck repeats, his voice louder, confident. Sure. It’s like he’s not gonna do this shit anymore, he’s not gonna be the self-sacrificing idiot again. “You’re being unfair, I didn’t decide to blow up a ladder truck on my own leg”.

“You don’t know that. It’s almost certain that you’re gonna do something else like that” he mumbles. “And I’m talking about the embolism because you overexerted yourself”.

Buck snorts an unsophisticated laugh, squints his eyes, and just looks at him then, in silence, an eyebrow raised as if waiting for Eddie to finish talking or to reprimand him.

“You didn’t think about us, about the aftermath of all this” he continues. “You were leaving us, without… thinking about what we would do without you. I had to tell our kid that we were going to turn off your life support, because you were there for months and, you, always the hero, would love to help other people, and I feel awful because I was letting you go and…”.

“Eddie,” he hears Buck say, but he ignores his soft voice.

“You have a family here, you have a kid, me, who wait for you at home, you have to think about us. About the people you are going to leave and…” he stops looking at Buck.

Buck gulps, taking a heavy, shaking breath. “It won’t happen again,” he repeats in a steady voice. “And not because I wouldn’t do it again, because given the opportunity I’d most definitely do it you are right. If I had to choose between saving my sorry ass and saving yours or anyone else’s, I definitely wouldn’t save mine… far from it: for you, for Chris, for everyone in our family… I’d let you take the oxygen straight out of my chest” he mutters, words rolling on his tongue in such an effortless way that leaves Eddie almost scared.

And he just sits there, about to argue that this is one of the stupidest things someone could say but he sees him, he sees Evan stretching out to retrieve something in his nightstand drawer, a thick, white folder. A medical record. And everything he meant, which he was about to say, uncontrollable and angry and wounded, every single thing disappears from his head. There is tension, the kind of electricity that now whispers under his skin for a while and that today, just today that it should not be, that there should be only joy, is stronger than ever.

Buck sighs softly, his lips curled in half a grimace. “It won’t happen because I’m not going back to 118. Or in general I won’t be a fire fighter anymore”.

Eddie swallows in vain. The words, the reprimand that dies at the bottom of his throat and the only thing that manages to say is a stupid, weak: “What… what are you talking about?”.

Buck shrugs his shoulders and hands him the folder. “I recommend you not to read the very long list of accessory symptoms that I have and those that I could develop, or the even longer list of medicines that I will have to take for a while or the very sad diet that I have to follow to get back in shape, and go straight to the conclusions of the medical exams I did… the conclusions begin with ‘From the assessments and tests batteries performed by the patient and the equipe…’” he adds, retrieving his book and taking up where he left off.

Eddie looks over at Buck for a full minute before looking at the white folder. He sits better, his back against the headboard to read better and have the bedside light in his favour. He hastens to leaf through the pages. Its words, high-sounding, heavy, deep, describe inflammation of the heart wall, symptoms, pain in the chest, shoulders, neck, back, recurrent fever, palpitations, weakness, and shortness of breath. The cause appears to be the thoracic trauma he suffered, along with that wound whose causes are still unclear, that terrible day. Lab tests, all physiological tests, stress tests, all give the same diagnosis. And with every word, everything becomes clearer and heavier and Eddie’s breath gets shorter and shorter, and his stomach turns, nauseous, and tears sting his eyes. Everything clicks in its place: respiratory problems, nausea, intermittent fever, everything that Buck suffered before waking up and after, during his recovery, everything is there, in that folder and clicks together in a weird, ominous mechanism.

A very small part of him, and Eddie will forever hate that he even felt that tiny, almost transparent slice of him, is almost relieved: Buck won’t take any more risks at work, not with this diagnosis. But he gets chills and is disgusted even at the thought: he was relieved, he was relieved for a single moment that his companion, his lover, one who struggled with his nails and teeth for his work, repeatedly, to get back on his feet, and to get out of the hospital, now can’t go back to work, now can’t─Urgh! What a piece of shit he is.

Buck remains silent for a while, as if to give Eddie time to metabolize how much he sucks as a person. “Pericarditis” then he says out loud, to make it true or to exorcise the word. “One of those diseases that doesn’t allow you to do exhausting jobs and stressful physical activities… I could jeopardize my life and the lives of others. In addition to movement and breathing disorders due to coma and long-term intubation, not to mention possible side effects of the drugs.” he adds with an impressive ease, the voice gentle. “And we don’t even talk about the number of disquieting terms that have been chanted to describe the things that I could develop over time”.

“Evan, I…” he starts to say, but the words die down his throat. He didn’t want this, he didn’t want this at all. He couldn’t wait to get back to work with Buck, to watch his back, to those moments of random chatter on the truck, to the bickering with the others, to be able to reach out and know that he would be there. Always there. Because he’s okay now, he’s home, finally, and it’s crazy to even think that he’s…

“In the end, it’s better this way.” Buck murmurs, settling better with his back against the pillows. “At least you won’t have to worry about me while you work. Neither you nor the others… I’ll be the one who’ll worry about you, from home or at the station. I will be on the side of the desperate wives, first row, right chair…” he says sighing. “My father would like me to go back to Hershey… There’s a place waiting for me in the family business, if I…”.

Eddie hastens to disagree, to say quickly that he can’t, absolutely can’t go away and the words are so many and they flock to the bottom of his throat. But Buck goes before him.

“I’ve already told him no. Repeatedly, at some point he’ll understand, I guess.” he snorts shaking his head with a small shrug. “On the other hand, HR offered me a position as a fire investigator. I just have to take a couple of exams; my SEALS training and my degree are enough to qualify and Athena could help me prepare and… I wouldn’t risk it’s practically a desk job so… Could you stop making that face?” he mutters with a raised eyebrow and a kind smile.

Eddie doesn’t even know what he’s doing, all he feels is his eyes burning.

Buck reaches out and caresses his face. “Oh my God, don’t make that face! I’m not dying. I’m fine, except for a little shortness of breath but at least for sex I won’t have to do an EKG under stress every time, I checked… I asked the doctor explicitly, also because it would be a mess with the health insurance and all…” he tells him giggling and maybe Eddie rolls his eyes, or maybe he is frowning, because then Buck stretches out and sticks his finger pointing in the centre of his forehead right between his brows. “You’ll get wrinkles if you go scowl like that”.

“Evan…” he finally says, with a sigh. “I’m sorry, I─I know how important working with the 118 is to you, being a fire fighter and…”.

“No,” he briefly disagrees. “I mean it’s wonderful working with y’all but… I have practically stumbled upon this job… which is─was perfect for me, yes” he murmurs. “But what is important to me is you, you all. It’s belonging to something. It’s no mystery that my family sucks a whole lot, but I know we’re a family, we would be anyway, even when I’m not working at 118 anymore… because we found each other, all of us. We became a family, and there’s nothing I want more than this, something to belong to”.

Eddie’s lips quake for a split second before he leans in, kissing Buck’s cheekbone. “What are you going to tell the others?”.

“They know. Bobby knows, when he came to see me, I told him” he babbles. “I already sent my medical records to HR, but I wanted everyone to hear it from me. Tomorrow morning, I take the opportunity to go and sign some papers, which I should have signed today since I would come to the station… Chim knows this because Maddie was with me when I was first told and… Hen read my medical records and already tried to convince me to undergo the surgery”.

He was the last to know, then. Eddie knows it’s definitely hard for him to talk about this, the fact that he’s never going back to work with them, but being the last one to know this sounds like Buck didn’t trust him.

“Don’t even think about it, Eds” Buck grumbles, as if reading into his head. “It’s not because I don’t trust you, it’s because it’s easy to say it with them, because basically I don’t sleep with them, and I don’t love them the way I love you. I only had to tell Bobby, basically, this thing rained on the others and… I had to tell you in the most painless way possible, maybe when I was out of the hospital so it would be easier, that’s all” he adds with a small shrug. “That’s because you have to digest this news as much as I do, maybe even more…”.

Eddie purses his lips tight, but he can understand: maybe to find the right words he took a while, maybe he had other ideas, maybe to understand how to tell him he had written a speech and Eddie instead decided to get angry with him, all tense as he is. “How long have you known?” he asks then.

“More or less since I managed to have a minimum of language abilities. I did some intensive treatment, so many times I was more tired than normal but… I couldn’t tell you, not while I was in the hospital. You lost the light in your eyes seeing me there, you were always tired and… tense” he stops and curls your lips as if trying to find the right words. “I didn’t want to make it any harder. I wanted to at least… help, okay? Support you”.

“Buck you were sick, you didn’t have to worry about that, you could have told me, I should have been the one to help… to support you…” he retorts. “I could talk to the doctors, Hen, Maddie…”.

“And let Hen try to convince you of the goodness of this surgery? An operation that, although widely performed, is still invasive, is still a needle that touches the heart and wouldn’t allow me to go back to work anyway?” he mumbles. “Talking about this would have made you even more stressed. No, thank you very much”.

“Surgery?” Eddie repeats.

“I prefer a non-invasive treatment, usually you can have a normal life with pharmacological treatment, without needles in the heart and things like that… If it’s needed, I will undergo a surgery, but for now the least invasive therapy is the perfect therapy… A little orange juice with the meds and go.” Buck babbles. It’s a lot of words all together, so this may have been a stressful thing for him, choosing between the two treatments, and having this diagnosis hovering over him. “And this is an unquestionable decision: I don’t want to spend any more time in the hospital, not in the near future, I will have the nightmares of those lunches for the rest of my life and I don’t want to put you in a position to do those nights again, and that face, so soon… If you’re gonna have tears in your eyes, it’d better be an orgasm, and not because I’m dying or something health-related, got it?”.

Eddie rotates his eyes, but decides to postpone: Buck is attentive to his health, he calculates the risks even when he doesn’t look like it and he does his shit on the field, but he is careful and is a good judge, even when his judgment is clouded by adrenaline. And the fact that he’s still more concerned with Eddie’s well-being makes something swell up in Eddie’s chest. “Do you think you’ll accept… The human resources proposal? You would be a… a great fire investigator” he finally says swallowing past the lump in his throat.

“Do you really believe that? The alternative would be without a job, and that would mean burdening on your finances or worse… ask my father for help, no thank you” Buck groans. “I don’t want to weigh on you, I will need a good health insurance… or I could reassess my father’s offer… I mean,” he starts to say, and he takes the medical record from Eddie’s hand. “I guess it’s a lot to metabolize… The fact that I’m not in a decent shape yet, and maybe never will, let’s just say it’s a big deal, huh?” he adds, and his voice trembles. “Man, I wanted to be cool here, but…”.

“Evan, don’t say bullshits like that ever again, okay?” Eddie grumbles, watching him bewildered, and for a moment frowns his eyebrows in a severe grimace before stretching his forehead and sighing for a long moment. “Sometimes I can’t even fathom how stupid you can be”.

And Buck groans, and he’s about to argue but Eddie moves his hand to put his index finger on his lips.

“First, I don’t think I can resist being so far away, and secondly, you’re focusing on the wrong thing here, as usual: we’ll be fine, take as long as you need to get better. Maddie rented your apartment, and this could cover some expenses until you start working again, besides, you’re definitely gonna be a total hottie in the department investigator uniform,” and he moves, then, while he talks softly to put a kiss on his temple, and he hears him sighing. “And in addition to the look, not gonna lie that’s a plus, you’re gonna do great because you’re smart and good, and it’s certainly not just the physique that you joined the fire department… but for your problem-solving skills. A bit of a daredevil for sure but…” he stops and smirks. “Everything is going to be alright”.

And Buck sighs again, like melting in Eddie’s arm.

“Plus, pericarditis can go away on his own,” he adds, moving again to look at Buck’s face, a slight disbelieving look tingling in his eyes. “What? I’m a field medic, do you remember that?”.

“Oh, I know you are and, you are very good at that, so much that you got a medal” Buck says, a fond stupid smile on his face. “Talk medic to me, babe”.

Eddie huffs, rolling his eyes. “What I mean is, sometimes it takes months to recover from it, but full recovery is likely with rest and ongoing care, that can help reduce your risk of having it again and… I’m here for all the aftercare and surely a desk job could help you… and could help me: you won’t make me die of heartbreak at the tender age of forty”.

Buck laughs, against him. “Idiot, you’re still far from forty”.

“That’s because I’m forward-thinking,” Eddie quips and sits better in bed, manhandling Buck so that he can rest against his chest. “I’ll have to find someone who has my back”.

“Someone who possible watches your back but doesn’t look at your wonderful ass in the process, maybe,” adds Buck rubbing his cheek against his shoulder.

Eddie chuckles, the weight on his heart, always pressing and oppressive, seems a little lighter now. “I knew you had ulterior motives from the very beginning”.

“You started it, anyway… You said I could have your back, I just followed orders, as usual with great diligence and going a little further” Buck replies playful, but his mouth is kneaded with sleepiness and exhaustion. “Aren’t you tired? You’ve had a long day”.

“You too, you went to bed early in the hospital…” he says and a strange sense of horror mounts again in his throat, the awareness that it is over, reassures him and frightens him at the same time: because from what he read, on that folder, with all the commitment, with all the medicines and treatments, even with all the goodwill, Buck will never get back to his old self.

“I didn’t move out of bed at the hospital, it’s very different,” Buck replies, tightening the grip more on Eddie. “The big bed is better, so you don’t break your sorry back and I don’t find myself having to explain to too curious nurses if what they see emerging from under the blanket is or is not my, you know…” he suggests with a wry smile. “It was clearly my happiness to see you every time. What can I say? It’s physiology and you’re so very hot”.

Eddie rolls his eyes with a noisy sigh and blows a kiss in his hair, there is no more smell of medicines and disinfectants on him, the sick smell of the hospital, but the most reassuring and enveloping smell of patchouli, the smell of home. He hols onto him for a second more, that has every intention of becoming a minute and then moves to disentangle from Buck’s hug reluctantly, but he really needs a moment to himself. “I’m gonna go take a quick shower, ‘cause I smell like smoke, as you kindly pointed out”.

“You could sleep here even covered in mud as far if you ask me” Buck complains. “As I said, finally I won’t have to explain to the nurses… oh wait, there are your parents here!” he adds with the tips of his ears red. “Damn, I had not calculated… It would be difficult to explain to your father or worse to your mother…”.

Eddie throws the pillow in his face. “Sleep that’s better, because you rant when you’re tired. I don’t want there to be a sentence, an idea or an eventuality where you talk about erections or sex to my parents, I don’t want these terrible images in my mind. I’m going to wash off my day and I’ll be right back,” he adds and slips into the bathroom.

And before he closes the door, he hears him growling in mid-voice. “I thought you liked it when I was rambling! I love you, by the way,”.

“Me too,” he says and closes the door behind him.

He rushes into the shower, the station shower is a godsend, but it isn’t enough to make the smell of ash disappear from his nose. The hot water is not enough to wash off that discomfort he’s been carrying around with him for days, maybe months, and now they’ve collapsed on him all at once, with that fire and the awareness that he can no longer work with Buck, everything changed completely.

But when he goes back to his room, his room that until that morning was empty and bare and now, instead, lived, Buck’s clothes crumpled on the bag, the book open on the ground, the curly and ruffled hair that stick from under the sheet, he’s all curled up with the eyes covered by the fabric, he feels better.

Everything changed, every single thing changed, but somehow they’ll manage to be okay. They will be.

When he settles down and moves the sheet to take some from Buck, he hears him moaning and sees him raise his head, opening an arm, as if to invite him, and Eddie does nothing but turn off the light and crouch against him.

It can’t go wrong if one has the other.

.

The nightmare is around the corner anyway, and Eddie wasn’t ready for that. He feels the heat of the day just spent burning on his face, the smoke that stings his nose, his fingers tremble. The nightmare turns in that ambulance, this time, his blood-covered hands as he performs the CPR, the high-pitched sound of the heart monitor. And then it’s dark, it’s so dark and wet, there’s the noise of the water and the smell of mud, that has a particular smell and he’s practically immersed in it now, his hands burning, despite the gloves the friction with the rope, the recoil of the rope that tears his breath away again.

It’s smoke and ashes, flames of dust and wind, it’s mud and water, and lack of oxygen.

“Eddie” Buck’s voice is like a distant echo, murmuring on his skin like the distant rustling of the wind. “Eddie, it’s okay, it’s okay, just open your eyes”.

And he wants to wake up but waking up means being in an empty bed, alone, in a room that has the smell of dust, and everything is dark.

But then there’s that little kiss in his hair, just over the edge of his forehead. “Eddie, it’s all right, you’re home, Chris is asleep and there are your parents who luckily set the alarm later or else you’ll find them up and around the house in a few minutes… and then there’s me, in all my glorious beauty”.

Eddie snorts a hoarse sound and blinks one eyelid and then the other.

“Here you are, what do you say at this ungodly hour? Good morning. I should recommend the melatonin chamomile that Ines, the night nurse, suggested me, it seems to be a godsend…” Buck gently mumbles. “You know what? We both take it, maybe not when we have a social event or something to do at night, because it seems it can knock a horse out”.

Eddie braids his fingers in the side of Buck’s shirt, and snorts.

“That was bad, wasn’t it?” he stammers. “The ones you had at the hospital weren’t so bad… Maybe being uncomfortable helps your sleep, we should talk about it with a good chiropractor…”.

“I didn’t have nightmares in the hospital,” Eddie says.

“Oh, yes. So much so that I thought it was the bed… that’s why I always insisted that you go to sleep at home…” he explains. “I thought you were too uncomfortable, and it was your back that complained… but if it happens at home, in your bed…” he hints.

Eddie swallows and leans better against him, snorting slowly. “I don’t remember the nightmares in the hospital, I was convinced…”.

“Has it been going on for a long time?” he asks and then sighs. “Of course, it has been going on for a long time, what the hell do I ask? How long? We slept together before, before my… accident… you… what does Frank say? Well, does Frank know about your nightmares?” He rephrases, because Buck knows him, and he knows how hard it is to talk about his feelings, about what happens to him, he knows how hard it is for him not to have control over these things. “I mean, you don’t have to tell me about Frank and therapy, I won’t tell you about my therapy, but… Maybe you could talk about your nightmares, with me or Frank or whoever you want… just to… you know? Pull the cork out of your bottles”.

Eddie blinks, obviously he knows everything. Of course. It’s clear: Buck knows him well, so he immediately realized that something was wrong with the first nightmare that he let escape from his control, in the hospital. Damn it.

“You can’t control your dreams, Eddie.” he says slowly, lips against ear. “I mean you could, if you wanted to… You’re supposed to be practicing lucid dreams, but… it takes time and effort and what we live… I mean, who does your job lives, is complex, so it’s normal that it sticks on you…”.

“You talk like a therapist”, he comments slowly, the words that get stuck on his tongue. It’s not the time to make this kind of talk, they should both sleep; so, when it’s morning, morning for real, birds chirping or whatever, they’ll spend some quality time together. Even when Buck was in the hospital, Eddie was never a great entertainer: arriving after an exhausting shift, or the morning before going to work cut off their time together.

“Trust me, I’ve had enough therapy to write five or six books” Buck chuckles and tightens his grip more. “I can help by keeping you like this”.

Eddie huffs a soft sigh of contentment. “I ask nothing else”.

“And I can listen to you, remember. And guess what? Now I can also answer you!” adds the playful tone.

“Coma jokes, really?” Eddie groans, clicking his tongue on his palate.

Buck chuckles, the chest vibrates and almost seems to cradle Eddie in his embrace. “Defence mechanism, irony. The best of all”.

“You’re terrible” adds with some satisfaction in the voice, fondness, softness. Whatever.

“And think that I got better:” replies Buck, the voice that vibrates lightly in the silence of a still distant dawn. “First my defence mechanism was denial… I was spinning like a ghost in my ex’s apartment… then you came along and everything changed. I’ve got better because of you, let me help you,” he adds, shifting closer and pressing his hand on the nape of his neck.

And it takes a moment for Eddie to let go completely. The hermetic door, behind which are bottled all the things that can’t control, seems to be on the verge of collapse. He’s breathing through his teeth, his jaw locked.

And it’s surreal, it feels like they are somewhere between nowhere and everywhere, as if that room, the bedroom that only yesterday was empty and off, is on another plane of the existence, where there’s no pain, or tragedy, or fear. It feels like they are floating in the sea, moving and still at the same time.

“All I want is to flip a switch” Eddie murmurs then. “Before something breaks and can’t be fixed”.

“I won’t say that everything can be fixed, Eds, because there are things that can’t be fixed. But people? Yes. People can, no one is wasted, or rotten, or broken beyond repair. It takes effort, love and care… and you know that. It needs time, but we will manage. Don’t bottle things up, because they are going to break at some point and they’ll flood your pretty little head,” he adds, kissing the top of said head.

“But…” he starts to say, but then stops for a moment, to gather his thoughts. “I can’t control this, and I don’t like this… you know, you were…”.

“Okay stop right there. I won’t say that’s in the past, because, I literally was, and I know we’ll have to deal with the consequences of that thing for well long, okay? I have a medical condition to deal with… But now I’m home, Eddie, I mean… that matters, right?” Buck adds softly. “And I’m not gonna leave until you get tired of me, and that’s something you can’t control either”.

Eddie purses his lips. “That’s…”

“Stupid? Yes.” Buck says, anticipating his words. “Like it’s stupid your need to be in control. You don’t need to control everything because if you are this tense, all looking around and trying to watch out, you’ll miss the chance of being happy, the best things happen without a signal boost, an alert, or a fucking bell. You can’t always be in control. No one benefits of full control, Eddie: not you, not me, nor Chris. It’s only going to hurt you, and you know what’s also going to hurt? Your pretty little head if you don’t catch enough sleep before your shift, and you’ll be cranky and Hen and Chim will be a pain in the ass if you are…” he says in the clear attempt to cut this thing short, for Eddie just so he can bottle things up again.

Eddie rolls his eyes. “But I can’t weigh on you. And you have a lot of things you have to deal with, now”.

“We will deal with your things and mine together: it’s what people in a serious, committed relationship do” Buck adds. “You can’t have all that only over your shoulders, because at some point…”.

“I’m already past that point. I’m already broken.” Eddie says, swallowing past the lump in his throat, a lump he didn’t even notice was there to begin with.

“No, you were hurting. Hurting and being broken are two different things, Eddie. Let the people around you help and take care of you,” he adds softly. “You are not alone, you’ll never be”.

Eddie sniffles. He didn’t even notice before, he had to sniffle. His eyes burn, but he doesn’t give in. He’s already almost lost his composure one too many times. He settles on a “It’s hard”.

“Oh, trust me, I know” Buck says. “You were raised like this, all bottling things up and never breaking down around people, but I know you. When this happens you become restless, irritable, tense… even if you try not to be you are…”.

Eddie groans. “That’s not true”.

“It’s true, but that’s your way of dealing with things. You aren’t broken, you are hurting, and you don’t know how to fix yourself, because you can’t fix yourself all alone, you’d let people help you with that. You are a survivor, Eddie, there’s no switch to flip…” Buck murmurs moving enough to regain his position as the big spoon. “Now, let me cuddle you to sleep” he says.

And Eddie just leans in more, muffling a weird, satisfied moan against his pillow.

“Big day tomorrow” it’s all that comes from Buck after a while.

.

The next morning starts loudly.

There’s his father scolding Chris with his grandfather, not-at-all-reprimanding tone, because he opened the door and went into their bedroom to say hello. Eddie is still half asleep when he hears Buck giggling and moving in the bed until he comes out from under the covers and sits on the edge of the mattress.

Eddie stretches and blinks his eyes. Their routine, that of the first, that of the first accident, seems a bit different but practically has already returned, even if his parents have not yet returned to El Paso.

The soft, dim light is the same, it leaks from the curtains that are pulled softly, a thin slit between the two. Perhaps the breakfast won’t be the same for a while, judging by Buck’s diet, which he read quickly last night, which the doctors gave him as a food plan to get fully in strength, it will have to be longer, and they won’t be able to steal as many kisses, or caresses, because not only are his parents still around the house, but because Chris, as much as he tried to mask his malaise in this situation, now he needs to confirm that Buck is home and is here to stay (confirms that Eddie definitely needs too, to be honest).

Buck moves out of bed. “We’ll let your Dad sleep a little longer, hmm? Have you had breakfast yet, buddy?”.

“No! I wanted to wait for you!” chirps Chris and Eddie can’t stay in bed so long if his son was waiting for him.

“Helena made the pancakes, the eggs, the bacon… but you have that diet… she’ll definitely plan something else,” Ramon said.

“Oh, too bad! I’m still on a strict diet of jell-o and juice,” replies Buck very serious which makes Chris laugh breathless.

“He can eat eggs and toast and a yogurt and some orange juice,” Eddie mumbles poking his head out of the covers.

“Uh, buzzkill!” Buck comments sticking his togue out before going to the kitchen with Christopher and Ramon and Eddie hears them chatting animatedly about the planetarium and what Buck will do today.

Eddie gets up, out of bed and decides to take a little trip to the bathroom before reaching the kitchen. He looks less shabby than other mornings, after his nightmare and the abrupt night awakening, he slept much much better.

.

That thing that weighs on his chest, eyes and shoulders is certainly far from going away, but if they both have each other’s back, things will get better.

After breakfast, while Buck, for some reason, persists in helping to tidy up the kitchen, although he should be resting, like in bed, but he is a knucklehead, Eddie accompanies Chris to his room to do a final check on the things needed for his trip today.

“Did you get everything for your day with your abuelitos at the planetarium?” Eddie asks his son taking a look at the backpack.

“Sure! And we’re not going that far, I don’t need a sleeping bag!” Chris retorts shrugging and slipping the camera, a gift from Carla, in its case, before storing it carefully in the backpack. “Will Buck stay with us? But where are his things, Daddy?”.

“His things are in a storage that Maddie got when she rented Buck’s apartment,” Eddie grumbles. “We’ll go and get them, for now Buck can steal my things from the closet”.

“Even the things that were in the station? In his locker?” Chris asks.

“I don’t know, Chimney took them. He took care of Buck’s locker,” Eddie answers, frowning, “Why do you care?”.

Chris smiles, one of his dazzling smiles. “Because I made a drawing and I think it would look good on his nightstand”.

“Ah! So that’s what he went to look at in his locker when he was feeling a little low-key” Eddie mutters spacing out, and Chris giggles. “I’m sure he’ll be happy to have his things back, I’ll send a message to Chim and tell him to bring back at least the ones today since I’m taking Buck to the station to sign some papers…”.

“Don’t worry, I’ll ask him, maybe I’ll have Maddie bring them back when she drives me back here” Buck mutters leaning against the door frame. “Chris, are you ready? Take a lot of pictures, then I want a detailed report, alright?”.

“Yes, Bucky! I also have the recorder for that part about the sounds of the space! Who knows if I can use it” he babbles, putting on his jacket.

“If you ask nicely, I’m sure no one will be able to say no to you,” Buck answers by adjusting his jacket collar. “Have fun”.

“You too! Daddy be careful at work,” he then says, hugging Eddie as usual.

“Ah, no… I have a day off today; I’m just taking Buck to the station and then right back home” he babbles. “So, we are here when you come back and tell us all the good things you’ll see!”.

And Buck smiles adorably, looking at them, and Eddie can’t even define how happy and lucky he is right now.

When his parents and Chris drive away with their car promptly requisitioned from abuela, Eddie prepares for the day and watches Buck settle into this weird new everyday life in his home. Their home.

He’s sitting on his bed and going through his duffel bag with a couple of changes of clothes that Maddie must have brought to him in anticipation of his discharging.

Eddie could get used to this new normal. He might hope that that house, that room, their life, will be nice to them for the rest of their time, he could almost imagine himself all grey, watching the sunset with Buck in the backyard. He might even ignore the fact that they haven’t been together that long, that Buck has spent two-thirds of their new-born relationship in a coma, and that their lives, their job─his job is dangerous and so the years won’t be so nice to them but… He can’t ignore that feeling of warmth that swells in his chest and reddens his cheeks. Growing old has never seemed so sweet.

“Uhm” he hears Buck humming, which brings him out of his maybe too risky daydream.

Eddie cocks his head, moving near him.

“Can I steal you something a little warmer? For some strange reason Maddie decided to ignore my sweaters and just brought me some T-shirts!” he mumbles, showing him all the T-shirts in his duffel bag.

“Maybe he thought you’re used to colder winters than the Californian one.” Eddie replies a tiny smile dangling on the corner of his lips.

“All right, but I think it’s reckless to wear a half-sleeved t-shirt without even having a jacket to cover me with” he mutters.

“How did you get here yesterday? In a T-shirt?” asks Eddie.

“Your mother decided this morning to wash the sweater Karen gave me when I woke up, the white one, for no reason…” he murmurs softly, brows knitted in a frown.

“I’m sure the reason is called sanitizing, Buck,” Eddie chuckles. “Open the closet and choose whatever you want, never stopped you before”.

“Yes, but now we live together; and you complain a lot when I stretch your clothes things bigger” mutters and then looks, frustration cranking in his eyes.

Eddie moves closer to blow a raspberry on his cheek, to make him laugh: if it works on his son, it’ll work on Buck too. “You are going to be back in your usual shape in no time, but you are gorgeous anyway” he murmurs softly, against his face. “Don’t stress too much about it”.

Buck laughs softly heading to the wardrobe. “You are just trying to get into my pants”.

“Not gonna lie,” Eddie says, shrugging and trying to shot him the best subtle wink he could manage.

“You are terrible at this” groans Buck, starting to fish for that grey cardigan he likes so much.

“Am not” he quips, “And I know what you are doing over there, Buckley, you are trying to steal my grey sweater” he says. “You aren’t even trying to be that subtle”.

“It has buttons, it’s easier to put it on, I still have some hardships trying to put on something without buttons or zip-fasteners…” Buck says. “My left arm is still a bit… you know? Stiff”.

“I’m more than willing to help” Eddie says, all cocky wink and confident smile.

Buck looks at him with his wry smile, mincing his way up to Eddie. “You are so terrible at this…”

“Am I, now?” Eddie says moving closer, smacking his lips and helping him to get out of his pj’s shirt. “Is it painful to move?”.

“Something stings every now and then, but that’s normal, doc said. I still need PT.” he murmurs. “Which sucks because I had to re-learn again how to fucking walk and I still have a hard time putting a fucking fork in my mouth from time to time”.

“Evan,” he starts to say, lips primed and a serious paternalistic tone in his voice.

“No, I mean, it’s good… I’m getting better but… you aren’t gonna stay here every single time I need to move or… to dress and… I have a lot of t-shirts,” he murmurs.

“So, we are going to buy you a couple more shirts,” Eddie decides.

“I know what you’re doing here, mr. Diaz,” Buck says, in a mocking tone.

“I’m just saying you are way too hot in your shirts” Eddie shrugs. “Let me help you today. You’ll do everything by yourself tonight”.

“I sure hope not to,” Buck retorts, licking his lips.

Eddie clicks his tongue on his palate. “And I’m the terrible one at this” he groans, manhandling Buck to the bed. “Sit, so I can help with your pj’s top”.

Buck reluctantly executes the order, and Eddie moves his fingers to the hem of the fabric from his shoulders and in a fluid gesture takes off his shirt.

And Eddie moves to retrieve from the bag a plain, white t-shirt to put on. And when he goes back to Buck he has his head bent forward, his eyes shut, a hand over his chest where there’s surely that scar from that day.

“Hey” Eddie murmurs, taking his chin between his hands. “Look at me, mh?”.

Buck lifts his head up, a tiny lacklustre smile on his lips.

“I hear chicks dig in scars” Eddie says, smiling.

And Buck lets out a small humourless huff.

“Let me see it.” Eddie murmurs softly. “The sooner the better”.

Buck doesn’t move for a moment, like pondering what to do.

“I’m not in love with you because of your body,” Eddie starts, “I love you for your big stupid self-sacrificing golden heart, for your pretty little head, for the way you make me feel, the way you made me feel since the very beginning, the way you are ‘round Chris, how you make me smile and… okay even for your stupidly good ass and you know” he moves his hand in a self-explanatory gesture to his lower parts. “You are way more than what you look like. And that is just a mark on you, that means you are alive… you are a survivor, and those are just… signs of that. You won a battle, Evan”.

And Buck rolls his eyes skyward, not saying a thing, deciding to move his hand away.

And even if Eddie knows what he’s going to see, because he saw it open, and saw a lot of wound like that before and after healing, and a lot of them which didn’t heal, it still is a punch in the gut. No wonder Buck wanted to cover it, not for yourself but for Eddie, because he may remember how bad it was on the ambulance, right after he exited that fuming inferno. But now is somehow small, it’s like a narrow crooked pink thread, a few inches from his sternum, almost half a palm long, it healed well, and it may leave a glossy, whitened skin in a couple of years. The pinkish-hot steaming and bubbling blood a long-forgotten memory. Evan lifts his left arm enough to make Eddie see the other scar, the chest tube anchoring one: they used a different technique here, something quite new, introducing a two layered closure to avoid wound healing complication, like a hypertrophic or a keloid scar, and to achieve airtight closure. It’s a tiny one, two inches, scar that almost blend with the muscles and the curve of the ribs.

Eddie moves his finger ghosting over the tissue with the tiniest frown. “You scared me so much, but those are proofs that you are alive, and a survivor. Every imperfection makes us glorious. And as I said, chicks dig in scars…”.

“You are terrible at this” Buck murmurs a lopsided smile.

“Nah, you know I’m perfect and always right. I ain’t no chick but, I’m sure diggin’ in” Eddie says, moving to help him in his t-shirt. “Go wash your teeth so we better get going, you have to talk to Bobby and all…” he adds, throwing in his face that grey sweater. “It’s yours now”.

“Nu-uh! I like it better on you. And I want to steal it every now and then…” Buck murmurs, getting up and going to the bathroom.

Eddie huffs a small sigh, when alone, registering this new normalcy. He’d better keep going, and finish dressing up without indulging so much in his daydreaming.

.

Their drive to the station was unusually quiet, not weird-tense quiet, maybe content-quiet. Every now and then, Buck would move his hand on Eddie’s thigh, squeezing softly and smiling at him without saying a word. No weird fun facts, no cheesy words, just them and some awful Christmas song buzzing distantly in the speakers. Maybe Buck is a little tense, that’s what Eddie would rationally assume. ’Cause when he gets tense he does one out of two things: either he talks too much about the most absurd and random facts, or he just shut his mouth in a forced silence.

But this doesn’t sound forced, it’s just content, and maybe he’s almost-worrying too much. Because he isn’t worrying, nope, absolutely

When they reach the station, the station, he hears him groan softly.

He doesn’t ask anything just waits. Buck isn’t so good with dealing with his feelings, but he usually isn’t ashamed of talking about them, so he just waits.

“Fuck, I’m nervous like the very first day I came here” he murmurs. “I guess something never changes, even if a lot of things change…”.

Eddie moves to touch the nape of his neck. “It’s going to be alright”.

And Buck rolls his eyes, snorting.

“I’m not terrible at this, whatever you say” Eddie grumbles and moves to get off the truck. “Let’s go, so we can be home in no time”.

Buck steps out of the car sighing softly. “Go on alone, it’s gonna take me forever to climb all those steps”.

“Okay, wait for you up there.” Eddie says.

“You should say ‘No I’ll carry you, my dear’ or something along the line…” Buck complains.

“That’s because you always say I’m terrible at this” Eddie shrugs, before sprinting inside and leaving him practically there, he can still hear him complaining while he walks past the locker room.

The station is unreasonably quiet, like they are all out on a scene, but the trucks and the ambulance are still in there. And they parked between Chim’s car and Bobby’s, so they are surely there. And there’s also Hen’s white coat attached to her locker’s door.

Eddie decides not to think too much about it and go upstairs. A stupid grin curling his lips every time he stops on the steps to look at Buck who’s slowly climbing the stairs, who mutters something under his breath, his fingers clamping on the banister.

When he reaches the mezzanine, he is about to introduce Buck’s a bit too slow grand entrance when he sees them, their family. Bobby, Athena, May and Henry, Michael and his cute doctor ─ David or whichever his name is, Eddie isn’t so good with names─, Maddie and Chim (and presumably their daughter is somewhere, napping in her carrycot), Hen, Karen with Denny and Nia, Albert, his abuela, Pepa and his parents with Chris and Carla. There’s even Nate – the substitute – and some other colleagues from the other shift. All smiling and with stupid glittering hats on their head.

“Surprise” Buck murmurs behind him and the others echo him.

“I thought you didn’t want a party, you know with all the…” he starts to say, and he feels like a deer caught in the headlights.

“That’s not for me, not only at least. But for all of us,” Buck says.

“And the planetarium?” he asks looking over to his dad, and Christopher.

“It won’t go anywhere!” his father says.

“Hoping the San Andreas fault doesn’t act up” comments May softly.

“We are going in the noon” Chris quips moving to hug his Bucky. “You did good, those are a lot of steps”.

“They surely are, and your dad has been a big meanie ‘bout it” he says. “He just sprinted and didn’t even carry me, can you believe?”.

Chris frowns, thoughtful. “You are big, he isn’t strong enough to carry you over here”. And it’s almost an insult for both of them. No more time with Chim for him.

The kids, Eddie’s parents and Chim and Hen snort loudly. “That’s true, kid, tell ‘em”.

“My own kid!” Eddie groans, but he can feel the big smile tugging at his lips. Their family all together there. It almost feels like it’s normal, perfectly normal.

And it’s a quiet, almost lazy day, not like yesterday, they could eat their second breakfast in peace. He can see Buck talking animatedly with Bobby over his toast and his orange juice, the others have platters full of Bobby, Pepa and abuela’s goodies.

Eddie has never felt so happy, in that station. His family all around them. From time to time, he moves his gaze along the table, exchanging a glance with Buck every now and then surrounded by the kids, all smiles and stories and things he didn’t know happened during his sleep. And every single time he looks at Buck, he seems happier than before, his sister a couple of seats away from him because Athena wanted to seat with him and Chris on his other side, so he is quite far away from Eddie but still looking, always looking.

Chim and Hen, but also Carla and Pepa are roasting him, all questions and comments about their new living arrangements, every now and then Karen tries to save his ass, but his parents are there to do the same, in an unusually supportive way. It’s good, it’s something he didn’t want he needed, he wanted maybe, but now it’s real and perfect.

And he’d be lying if he said that when he saw Buck pick up his niece for the first time and start talking to her in that adorable, sweet, silly tone, his heart didn’t take that stupid, almost embarrassing leap in his stomach. The wide grin he has is something Eddie hadn’t even thought was possible a few hours back, last night, or thinking about a few months ago.

He’s lost so many things over the past few months, even Chris’ birthday, that went smoothly, wasn’t a happy moment in his clouded mind. Not to mention all the other parties that took place there, or at someone else’s house, he wasn’t enjoying himself like this in a long time.

The noise is pleasant, the station is back all alive and loud, full of family feels and happiness. It vibrates with something that now as the taste of happiness, of everyday, of normality. And Eddie has concluded that even Nate, the too much happy-go-lucky substitute, is not so terrible if you exchange to words with him.

.

At some point, after cleaning up the table, he sists near Buck still engulfed by May, Henry and Denny, Nia almost sleeping on his lap, and Chris talking about the next movie they are all going to watch with Buck, Maddie’s daughter back in her carrycot, sleeping her blissful, full-stomach sleep.

He waits for the kids to leave Buck be for a moment, and then shifts closer.

“My day off is your doing, right?” he murmurs softly, it isn’t an accusation, he is just stating a fact.

“Yep,” he pops. “I wanted this to be good, and you had to enjoy yourself a bit, with your parents and family, and all the crew it’s good the alarm hasn’t rang yet” Buck murmurs. “I wanted to celebrate life, and not my work slipping away. Work is not everything I have.” he adds softly, burrowing in his side, his head bent enough to rest on Eddie’s shoulder. “I have a family, here. And that’s not gonna end if I stop working here. Something the old me didn’t know”.

“New you is a very wise you.” Eddie murmurs brushing his lips over the edge of his forehead. “And I love you so much I almost feel repetitive”.

“You are terrible at this for this reason. I don’t need to hear it. I know you do. And I do too. Your actions speak louder than words, remember? And the way you make me feel… that’s a lot to take…” Buck snorts softly.

“Can we do it now, Bucky?” he hears Chris ask, next to Ramon all intent on beating Chim, Albert and Michael’s asses at the pinball.

“Oh, yeah sooner the better! Eddie you should really see your dad how good is at that, he is a master pinball champion!” Buck murmurs moving from the couch to where Maddie, Karen, Athena and abuela are talking. Eddie’s mom seems to have the best time of her life laughing hard, they are clearly talking about some weird stupid thing either Buck or Eddie himself did. “Hey now, don’t make me look bad in front of my soon to be suegra”.

And that catches Eddie’s attention, while he moves closer to the pinball, more than his dad’s score blinking in red on the machine. But due to the noise around him now, he can’t hear Buck bickering with Athena and Maddie about it. He may have misheard.

But then his dad decides to let the ball, which just sprinted through the ramp, roll over the side of the flip and fall, not redirecting it back into the playfield. And everyone stays silent for a second.

His dad looks over at abuela and his mom, and Eddie’s gaze moves there too, just to find Buck moving closer his hands fidgeting around something that looks like a little box. And it takes Eddie off guard, and something in the back of his head clicks.

“Better doing it now, before the bell rings” Buck murmurs under his breath.

“Go for it!” Hen yells.

Eddie looks around. All those people around them, it can’t possibly be the case, can it? “Are you trying to woo me?”.

“Oh, shut up Diaz I already wooed you a long time ago” Buck says. “This is a bit different”.

“No hot-air balloon for you Eddie!” Chim peeps and Maddie rolls her eyes.

“It’s so unfortunate” Athena retorts.

And Bobby nods. “But at least we are going to avoid rescuing your sorry asses from a hot-air balloon, or a moving helicopter, or whatever was Buck’s idea for this”.

“Better stay on solid ground” Karen says her thumbs up, so that Nia and Denny do the same.

And someone of those present, consent with a certain clamour, mimicking the thumb up gesture with a tiny nod.

Buck rolls his eyes, his ears pinkish, almost red, and looks over at all the people there, a stupid, fond smirk on his face. “Can I just, please ask him to marry me or are we going to do this for much longer? I have to know because I have to kneel at some point”.

A tiny, stupid sigh escapes Eddie’s lips. “No need to kneel, you already asked me”.

“That’s what I said!” Hen quips, and Karen just elbows her.

Buck groans.

“Go for it Bucky!” Chris chirps out loud.

“Go for it” Eddie murmurs, quieter, with a voice so soft he couldn’t even believe himself. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands, so he takes one of Buck’s so that they can be both anchored one to the other.

Buck squeezes his hand and scoffs a soft, mute thank you, before starting again. “No grand romantic gestures, no wooing in extraordinary ways, no extremely sickening cheesy speeches,” he says, his voice soft like his breath on his skin when they sleep together, and gentle like his hands and eyes, a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “I just wanted this to be ordinary. With the people we care about around us. Because that’s what we’ll have if you make me the happiest idiot in the world and marry me: each other and our family. I already asked Chris and your dad, so we have a green light, you know so…”.

And Eddie rolls his eyes. “You are such a sap and somehow I am the terrible one at this”.

All around them, their friends, their family laugh joyfully. But Eddie doesn’t even notice it somehow. They are there, but they are somewhere else, like that night before, everywhere and nowhere, at the same time.

“Bad habits rub off” Buck smirks, opening the velvety box revealing a simple metal, maybe silver, band.

“We have a lot of bad habits to share” Eddie nods, softly moving a step forward and leaning closer, to kiss Buck’s lips right then and there, in front of everyone.

“Yikes” he can hear from Henry, Chris and Denny.

Buck snorts and rolls his eyes unceremoniously. “It’s that your consent?”.

And Eddie nods, simply. Yet is loud and clear, and soft, and stupid. And everyone else are starting to clap, but the noise is just a drumming in his ears, while he looks over to Buck who high-fives Chris.

“Put the ring on it, Buckley!” yells Carla.

And Buck, always industrious, executes the order in no time, taking Eddie’s hand and slipping the ring on the finger, first the wrong one, his hand clammy and trembling, and then moving to the right finger.

Eddie looks over at his dad and mom, who smile at him, happy and then everyone sticks closer to engulf them in hugs and shake their congratulations.

It’s stupid, and soft, nothing big but perfect.

He looks over at Buck, who beams a smile back at him. “No eloping” he says under his breath.

“No eloping for now” Buck corrects him. “We aren’t in a rom com, yet”.

.

A/N:

It took me like 6/7 months but here we are! Sorry for the wait! at some point I was about to throw in the towel this chapter didn't really want to exit from my head.

But here we are so thank you very much for your patience and for supporting me with all the love you gave to this work.

If you reached the end of this mammoth chapter you are now my favourite person! I hope you liked this whole 27 pages/16k chapter-mess(???). I really can't English right now, so if you find something that makes your skin crawl, misspellings or mistakes of every sorts please let me know.

So now I'm bidding my farewell to this work I hope you enjoyed the trip so far and you'll follow the developments of the rest of this.

Yes, because this now has become a series! (somehow!!)It took me like 6/7 months but here we are! Stay tuned for more (i could take a month or two, or could take forever we don’t even know)

As always, stay safe and take care of you!

tagging @buckleystrand; @sparksfly-buddie; @chrrlees; @lieselfh; @themoonyloveenvy and whoever wants to be tagged!

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