There’s not much Eddie prides himself on, but he does on this:
He knows Buck.
The years between them may have done that, sure, but he’s known people his whole life that he still doesn’t feel like he knows.
Buck is not one of those people. Eddie would know Buck blind, senses him before he even lays eyes on him.
So when Buck’s hiding something, Eddie knows.
It’s not the good kind of hiding. That too, Eddie knows.
There are no whispered secrets when Eddie’s got his back turned, no gleam in his eyes, no secret smiles exchanged with Christopher over the table, no fidgeting with the holes in his shirts in an effort to not blurt it out immediately.
If anything, Buck’s eyes lack their vibrant blue — they’re dim, bleak, and staring off into a space where Eddie can’t follow him, supported by nothing but the growing shadows under them.
In all honesty, Eddie had shamefully forgotten how good Buck was at keeping things under wraps when he wanted to. After two years of dating, where Eddie had know every thought in Buck’s head, it’s hard to remember a time where they’d kept things hidden from each other — whether to avoid being too vulnerable, or to stop their own vices from touching the other, or for just being stubborn enough to try and carry everything alone.
So when Eddie starts clocking the forced smiles, the absently placating touches, the paleness of his face and the rarity of crinkles at the corners of his boyfriend’s eyes, it hurts more than he expects, but it worries him, too.
“Hey, coming home with me?” Eddie asks, leaning against the locker room door. He hears the undertone in his voice, and he knows Buck hears it too, if the way he stiffens up is anything to go by.
He’d been about to ask Buck to move in with him two months ago, before Buck started pulling away and the beams of sunshine that seemed to permeate the air around him started to dim. It had been that very night, actually, where Buck’s eyes had been trawling through every corner of the house as they ate dinner, knee bouncing restlessly as if he couldn’t wait to leave, that Eddie had realized that whatever Buck was hiding was something huge.
And the first tinges of fear began to creep up his spine. His appetite lost, he’d spent the evening carefully watching his boyfriend as he and Christopher played their video game, pushing the question he’d wanted to ask to the very back of his mind.
With Christopher, Buck was…Buck. Someone Eddie knew even more than all the parts that made up his boyfriend, because the parts of Buck that Christopher has are parts he doesn’t give anyone else. There’s never been any change there, even with Christopher in his too-cool-for-his-parents stage.
With Eddie, though…things were different.
Buck had kissed the corner of his mouth before leaving that night, a plea hidden somewhere in his eyes for Eddie to do…something. It was gone just as fast as it had come, and there hadn’t been enough time for Eddie to parse exactly what it was — he doesn’t know what.
Maybe it was not to push, or maybe it was something else, but he’s never seen that look again.
He can’t figure out what’s going on, because it’s only with Eddie that Buck’s not like himself with. He’s still smiling and laughing with Jee, making gross jokes with Chim and Hen, still playing games with Chris and Denny.
He’s just…quieter around Eddie — a fraction of the man Eddie’s so deep in love with that he can’t really see around it.
Three months later, Eddie’s still secretly waiting for Buck to tell him that he wants to break up.
So when Buck dodges his invitation for the tenth time in a row, it’s no surprise to him. “Um, not tonight. Rain check?”
What is a surprise is the swirl of hurt and anger that streams up in him, words escaping his mouth before he even realizes what he’s saying.
“How many rain checks do you want?” Eddie asks quietly, struggling to keep a lid on the pain that he knows will flood his veins if he allows it.
This isn’t the time or place to have this conversation, but the thought of Buck leaving him is…unbearable at best, debilitating at worst.
“I just need to do laundry and actually do the dishes. I’ll swing by sometime this week, I promise,” Buck says, something desperate in his voice.
Eddie stays quiet as Buck walks past him without a second glance, suddenly feeling unbearably lonely for the first time in years.
---
In the end, it’s Christopher who convinces Buck to come home, and Christopher who convinces him to stay.
Eddie tries not to look too closely at the glow of happiness in his chest when Buck nods with a bright smile directed in the kid’s direction, even when it shatters a minute later at the nervous look Buck gives him thirty seconds later.
He doesn’t know what Buck has to feel nervous about, but it becomes clearer when night falls, Christopher tucked away in his own bed, and Buck’s standing in the bedroom doorway, fidgeting on his heels.
Eddie doesn’t know what to make of it.
In a sudden jolt, he realizes that this is the first time in three months that they’ll share a bed. He doesn’t remember the last time Buck fell asleep in his arms, doesn’t remember the last time that Buck woke him with pressing kisses and a warm hand pressed over his side, doesn’t remember even hugging Buck in the past three months.
It’s the worst type of distance, to have the love of his life within arm’s reach, but…not.
“Do you want me to go sleep outside?” Eddie asks tiredly, flinging the covers up to get out. The rustle of clothes sounds, and there’s a surprised gasp in the air as Buck startles out of his trance, jumping to hover his hands over Eddie.
Over Eddie, not on him.
“What? No! Why would you do that?”
“You keep staring at the bed like it’s going to bite you,” he says, unable to keep the bite out of his voice.
“It’s not…you.”
It sure feels like it is, Eddie thinks, carefully not blurting that thought out. Instead, he stretches out onto his side, leaving more than half the bed open for Buck to get into, and closes his eyes.
The seconds painfully tick by, a metronome in Eddie’s mind as he waits for the opposite edge of the bed to dip with Buck’s weight, waits for the mattress to settle into the familiar form of Buck’s body as he lays down.
He wonders if the mattress even remembers him.
He can feel Buck’s eyes on his face as he counts the seconds, valiantly trying to ignore the tears pushing at the back of his eyes. Like this, his face turned towards Buck, eyes closed, he’s vulnerable in a way that Eddie doesn’t think he wants to be right now.
It takes 615 seconds for Buck to finally slide into bed with him, and in those 615 seconds, Eddie feels his heart crack into 615 pieces, then 615 more when Buck gingerly pulls the edge of the covers over himself without even a hair touching Eddie.
The foot of space between them feels like miles, and Eddie doesn’t know how to walk the distance to get his boyfriend back.
This time, when he turns his face into the pillow, his tears brim over, soaking into the pillowcase.
---
“Eddie! NO!”
A scream yanks Eddie out of his rough sleep, and he flips around to see Buck thrashing next to him, the covers kicked off of the bed somewhere. He’s crying in his sleep, and his face is screwed up into a grimace that speaks more of physical pain than anything else.
A thousand thoughts run through Eddie’s hazy, sleep-drenched mind, but he scrambles to sit up, calling Buck’s name as he goes.
“Buck? Buck, wake up.” He resists the urge to touch him, not knowing how he’ll react, but when he calls Buck constantly over the sounds of Buck’s screams, he knows he has no other choice. “Buck.”
Eddie shakes his shoulder once and Buck jolts straight up, blinking rapidly as he heaves breath after breath. His eyes dart to every corner of Eddie’s room as he struggles to pull himself together, and the sight is just as heartbreaking as it was the first time Eddie had pulled him out of a nightmare.
“Buck?” Eddie says, ducking his head to catch his boyfriend’s eyes.
Buck seems to register Eddie in front of him, because a rough sob drags out of his chest just before he flings himself into Eddie’s arms.
Eddie doesn’t know what to do with the choking emotion that wraps around his throat, but he cards one hand in Buck’s hair and the other around his trembling body, trying to hold him together as he cries and falls to pieces.
“I’m right here,” he soothes, pressing his lips to Buck’s sweaty forehead, smoothing back his hair. Buck shakes apart in his arms, fractured glass that pricks at all the places they’re touching, but Eddie would bleed himself dry if it meant putting Buck back together again.
The growing distance between them evaporates into nothing in this moment where Eddie’s seeing Buck’s nightmare like it’s his very own — and maybe it is, because seeing Buck like this is straight out of one of Eddie’s.
Eddie keeps rocking him, the bed frame creaking as they sway side to side. Buck’s practically huddled into Eddie’s lap now, curled under his chin like a wrestled ball of pain and anguish. He keeps his voice in a low murmur as his hands sweep patterns all over Buck’s skin, holding him close.
He shouldn’t be relaxed, but underneath all the worry for Buck, there’s a thin thread of relief for getting to hold him close again, braided with contempt and grief for the situation that threw them together like this.
He tries not to think about it, tries to focus on just where Buck’s sobs turn into sniffles, then hiccups, and then slow, even breathing. His heart cracks when he realizes that his boyfriend’s cried himself to sleep, nestled against Eddie’s shirt, but there’s nothing he can do about it now.
Carefully, Eddie lowers them into a more comfortable position, taking care not to jar Buck awake. The cover settles quietly over their shoulders, Buck’s face tilted towards him in sleep. His breath ghosts across Eddie’s damp skin, and the stubble growing on his jaw pricks through the wet spot on his sleep shirt.
It’s all so intimate that Eddie has to look at the ceiling for a minute, closing his eyes as a stray tear slips down the side of his face. His heart still hammers in his chest, even as Buck sleeps soundly with his hand twisted in Eddie’s shirt.
He’s stared at Buck countless times like this — more so in the two years they’ve been officially dating — but it’s never felt so fearful before. Five hours ago, he was scared of Buck — of Buck leaving him, of losing one of the best things to ever happen to him.
Now, he’s scared for Buck — for what it means for these nightmares to come back, for how quickly Buck’s shifty behavior over the past few months is adding up to an equation Eddie doesn’t know how to read without all the variables.
Eddie stares back down at his sleeping face, a furrow still between his eyebrows, and feels a swell of affection and loss so strong that it nearly knocks him off the bed.
He risks pressing his lips to Buck’s forehead, breathing in the scent of shampoo from his hair to center himself as Buck noses at his collarbone, settling more comfortably in his sleep.
The world could tear itself apart before Eddie let go of Buck.
---
“How long have you been having these nightmares?”
Buck flinches from the question.
The kitchen is weirdly silent this morning, Chris not here to fill the gaps between stilted sentences and awkward looks. It’s been silent for a while, too many failed attempts at conversation hanging between them.
Eddie and Buck have never struggled to sit in silence with each other before, but here they are, the weight of the secrets piling up between them stretching each silence into a tomb that leaves Eddie paralyzed most days.
“A while,” Buck answers eventually, his bottom lip clamped between his teeth. It’s a bald-faced lie, and they both know it.
Eddie waits him out, settling into his seat with his arms crossed to stop from folding Buck into them and refusing to let go until they fix whatever it is that has him screaming in the middle of the night.
The stubbornness pays out. “Three months,” Buck admits, his voice too quiet.
This is what Buck was hiding, Eddie realizes, his world flipping upside down as the equation comes into stark view. This is the variable he was missing, the last piece of the puzzle that makes the picture make sense — the timing.
“Is this why you haven’t stayed here? Why you go back home so often, refuse to stay?”
Buck nods, eyes fixed on the ring of spilled coffee on the kitchen table. “I didn’t want to keep waking you up during them. I didn’t want Chris to see me like that.”
Eddie stares across the space between them, searching Buck’s expression. Hope kindles in his chest, and flames higher when he sees the truth to those words, and suddenly—
“So you’re not breaking up with me?” he blurts out before he can stuff the words back down his throat.
Buck’s brow furrows in confusion as his head snaps up to look up at him. “Breaking up with — Eddie, what? Why would I break up with you?”
After the events of last night, it feels foolish to talk about something like this, but Buck’s looking at him all bewildered, and Eddie doesn’t want there to be more secrets between them.
“I felt you pulling away from me,” he explains quietly. “And I thought you were going to break up with me. That this wasn’t what you wanted anymore.”
Buck looks at him dumbfoundedly, guilt and fear and apologies flashing across his features as he scrambles to shove his chair forward so their knees are interlocked.
The relief that lifts him could make him fly, Eddie thinks as Buck’s arms come around him. He leans forward to press his face into his boyfriend’s neck, feeling ridiculous for letting their conversation derail like this.
“No, never,” Buck breathes out, his words ruffling Eddie’s hair. “I’m sorry, I just…I knew that you would know immediately, and I didn’t want you to find out. I didn’t want to put this on you, and the only way I could think to do that was…”
Eddie exhales a long breath, taking in the warmth of his boyfriend’s embrace in return. He reaches up to curve an arm around Buck’s shoulders, keeping him as close as two men leaning forward in their chairs can possibly be.
“Buck,” Eddie whispers. “I thought we were past keeping things like this from each other. Then why…?”
The question trails off his lips as the answer slams into him, right with the memory of Buck’s scream for him last night.
The nightmares are about him.
“They’re about me,” Eddie half-guesses, his gut telling him that he’s right. “The shooting.”
Buck stiffens, drawing away from him as he scrubs his hands down his face. His eyes are back to being fixed on the table.
Eddie watches him carefully, twisting his own fingers into his shorts to stop himself from touching Buck.
It all makes sense — how tired Buck looks, avoiding any situation that would lead Eddie to find out. Buck would do anything to protect Eddie from remembering one of the worst days of his life, but unfortunately for him, they know each other a little too well.
“Tell me about them.”
“No,” Buck says, looking at Eddie with red-rimmed eyes. “I can’t—”
He chokes up and trails off, but Eddie leans forward then, giving up his fight with himself to press a palm against his boyfriend’s knees. “Evan, I’m right here, alive because you risked yourself to get me out of the street. There was nothing more you could’ve done.”
It feels inadequate. Eddie knows it’s not enough, but it’s the God-honest truth. They hadn’t known about the sniper until Eddie got shot, but there was no denying that Buck had put his life on the line to save Eddie.
“I see you die in my head every night,” Buck confesses, closing his eyes, face screwed up in anguish. “Every time I look at my hands, I see your blood on it, and even when you’re right in front of me, I keep thinking you’re a ghost. Like I’ll wake up and you’ll be gone. Like the past three years since then just…don’t exist.”
Eddie studies him for a second, then reaches behind himself to slip his shirt off. Curving his fingers around Buck’s palm, he brings it to his chest and flattens it against the scar.
Buck’s eyes fly open as he stares at the puckered skin in between the splay of his fingers. Eddie calmly waits, letting him see.
“Eddie—” Buck chokes out.
“There’s nothing more you could’ve done,” Eddie repeats. “But look. The scar is much less noticeable than it was back then, remember? You used to call it a mood ring.”
“Red when it hurt, white when it didn’t,” Buck murmurs, still wide-eyed.
Eddie huffs out a low chuckle. “Exactly. Now, it’s just scar tissue — proof that it’s healed over.” He lets his hand drop, but Buck’s stays there, warm and protective over Eddie’s bare skin. “We are never going to forget what we went through that day, but we’ve built ourselves past it. Why risk that?”
Buck sucks in a breath, eyes suspiciously glassy. Eddie cups his boyfriend’s cheek to keep his face turned towards him. “Buck, baby, I love you. I don’t want you to feel like you have to keep this hidden from me just because I went through it too. We’re partners, right? That’s what it means to have each other’s backs.”
“I didn’t want to remind you of it,” Buck whispers.
Eddie smiles ruefully. “It’s not something I ever forget, but I have you, and I have Christopher to remind me of being alive. These past three years...they exist, and they’ve been some of the best of my life because...because I finally got you after what feels like looking for you my whole life. I don’t want anything to take from us. But right now, I’m worried about why these nightmares came back for you.”
Buck shrugs. “I don’t know, but I don’t want to lose you either. I just...some days I look at you, and I see the smudges of blood on your face and it terrifies me.”
Eddie knows what he means, and it explains why Buck hasn’t looked him in the eye, but he can’t deny that it didn’t hurt. “Did you make an appointment with Dr. Copeland?”
Buck slowly shakes his head, his fingers shifting over Eddie’s skin to trace patterns. “No.”
Eddie sighs. “You know you have to.”
“I know, I will,” Buck says, hesitating for a second, an apology printed over his face. “Eddie, I promise I was never going to break up with you. You have to believe me, I promise.”
There’s a type of desperation that lines the words, for Eddie to understand him, and he does. The space between them feels less heavy with secrets now that they’ve put it all out in the open, but maybe last night, Eddie wouldn’t have believed him.
But this morning, with the reminder that the trauma they’ve gone through in the past few years could come back at any minute, Eddie doesn’t think there’s anything to do but believe him. The tsunami, the well, the shooting…everything they’ve been through has taken away chunks of their lives — Eddie refuses to let them take away Buck, too.
The distance of three months still smarts sharply in his chest, but that’s for them to get through together. He doesn’t want there to be another moment of misunderstanding.
“I believe you,” he says, leaning forward to tip his forehead against Buck’s. “Just…don’t do that to me again. I don’t ever want to lose you.”
“I love you,” Buck says, tilting his head to connect their lips in a soft kiss. “I’m sorry.”
Eddie hums and drags him closer, Buck’s chair tipping forward. Buck laughs quietly and abandons it to straddle Eddie instead.
Something in Eddie’s chest calms under Buck’s weight, from holding his warmth close after months of feeling cold. He slips his hands under the hem of Buck’s shirt, pressing his palms against the slopes of Buck’s back to keep him pressed close. He’s not ashamed of how needy he feels right now, just as desperate to quiet that sinking feeling of loss in his gut.
Buck stays quiet as Eddie explores him, gets reacquainted with the knobs of his spine, the dip at the small of his back, the warmth of his skin. Buck explores him the same way, fingers carefully curving around his arms, then across his shoulders.
There’s no expectation for more at this proximity. It’s just them getting to know each other again, to say hello and leave their marks in all the places where they might have disappeared.
Eddie thinks that Buck’s a part of him that he would never be able to erase, even if he tried.
“I missed you,” he says quietly, tipping his forehead against Buck’s collarbone. Strong, familiar fingers card through his thick hair, scratching lightly as the other traces Eddie’s bare shoulders.
“I missed you, too,” Buck returns instantly, the conviction in his voice bringing a smile to Eddie’s face. “Want to go back to sleep for a while? Can you…can you just hold me?”
Eddie nods, even though he’s comfy enough to never move again. “Yeah. Yeah, let’s do that.”
Exhaustion seems to weigh Buck down as he heaves himself off Eddie’s lap, but there’s nothing less than eagerness when he pulls Eddie out of his chair, guiding them to the bedroom.
“I’m sorry,” Buck whispers again, when Eddie’s got him wrapped tightly in his arms, their legs tangled together.
“I know, it’s okay,” Eddie shushes him, moving to press a kiss against the crown of his head. “Just get some sleep, I promise we’re okay.”
Buck twists in his grip, flipping until they’re face to face instead. “I love you.”
There’s a hint of that vibrant blue in his eyes again, and Eddie smiles when Buck kisses him, then kisses him again.
There will be another healing period, but right now, in this bubble with Buck where his boyfriend’s hands ghost across his skin, Eddie can’t think of anything that he wants more than this.
[Image ID: four rectangle gifs of Varun Dhawan and Kiara Advani as Kukoo and Naina from Jug Jugg Jeeyo. They are sitting in divorce court:
GIF 1: Kukoo and Naina look up as their case number is called, their brows creased in concern for their relationship.
GIF 2: Nainaa's eyes are brimming with tears, but she quickly collects herself while Kukoo looks more and more miserable, closing his eyes in an effort to push back his own tears.
GIF 3: Nainaa gets up to come forward in front of the judge, leaving Kukoo sitting on the bench, squeezing his eyes shut as emotion overwhelms him.
GIF 4: Kukoo bursting forward with "Nainaa, I'm sorry", his expression fear-stricken and miserable.
