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Sometimes, Eddie’s confused when he’s called rude— or on one memorable occasion; a motherfucking shitface —because most of the time he only wants to make other people happy. Sure, that’s not always healthy either, but rude? No. So whenever it happens, it puzzles him a great deal, never quite understanding exactly what was done or said wrong.
On this occasion though, he has no problems seeing how he’s at fault.
“Are you being an ass on purpose or is it for my benefit alone?” Ana spits, and he can’t really blame her for looking as if she wants to punch him in the face.
The thing is, he’s been meaning to end things with her for ages— since before the shooting six weeks ago —but he can never find the right moment. Or, rather, timing is right but the words get stuck in his throat, fire burning through all of them until nothing but ashes and a fresh smile remains.
The irritation he feels for himself bleeds through onto her, staining their conversations, all of them becoming stiff, sometimes as if two strangers talked. And he wants to get out of there, and he wants to stay with her forever just to bask in the easiness of it all, and he wants to kiss her to not have to say anything at all, and he wants her to end it so he doesn’t have to.
So when she took a stray potato from his plate and said, chewing, that maybe she should spend more time with Christopher in case Eddie ever had to work late, because that way she could help, and wouldn’t it be useful if the boy knew her better— well Eddie just lost his head completely.
“Why? Carla or Buck can do that.” He heard the tone of his own voice, the acid not quite coming through, and he had wished it did. The coward in him had made him frown down at the empty plate to avoid meeting her eyes, instead looking at the remaining sauce for the two pieces of potato he’d saved for just that. Ana had taken them without asking. It wasn’t a big deal, and he didn’t mind sharing his food, and he was full anyway— but damn it, he had wanted those last potatoes for himself.
She laughed at his words, soft and easily. “Is Buck honestly the best option? He seems reckless.”
And at this, something had flashed before Eddie’s eyes, red and dangerous, and the words tasted like bile even before they left his lips. “Buck is Christopher’s legal guardian if something ever happens to me.”
This sentence acted as some kind of catalyst for their first— and only —fight, vicious words thrown back and forth in a battle neither seemed to win, but both wanted to end.
So no, Eddie couldn’t blame Ana for calling him an ass. It’s also the very thing that casts him back into the correct plane of reality, a place where he prides himself in being a decent human being, someone his son can look up to.
He forces himself to meet her eyes. “I’m sorry.”
Her mouth opens and closes a few times. “W-what?”
“I said I’m sorry. For what I said and for not telling you.”
“I’m sorry too.” Her shoulders sag, and just like that this is the end between them and he knows he’s a coward for letting it be. “And for what it’s worth, you really should tell him.”
Abruptly, as if they’ve mutually agreed upon it, they go to the hallway where he reaches for the jacket he hung there an hour earlier. “I never wanted it to end this way.” This is the truth.
“Me neither.” He can’t tell if she means it or not.
“And I have told him,” he continues as he opens the front door, feeling the breeze from the warm night on his face. He’s about to let go of the handle when Ana’s hand closes over his.
“That’s not what I meant.”
She closes the door before he has the time to think of something to say— but honestly there’s nothing more to add.
Eddie doesn’t tell anyone about the break-up. Not immediately anyway. It’s not that he regrets it, or feels sad about it; he’s not even all that remorseful about the way it went down.
But almost a week later, it comes up when he and Chimney are alone in the kitchen, the others dozing by the tv.
“Hey, Maddie is feeling better so I thought that maybe you and Ana want to come over this weekend? You can bring Chris.“
“Ah.” He scratches himself by the ear to buy some time, which is probably what tips Chim off.
“Wait, are you not - ?”
Eddie flicks his eyes around the loft, but no one is close enough to overhear them anyway. “Nah, we broke up last week.”
“I’m sorry man.” Chim puts a gentle hand on his left shoulder and gives him a smile. “Are you okay?”
Eddie nods, because he is. “Yeah. It hasn’t been all that good since before the shooting to tell you the truth, and then we had a major fight after I told her that Buck will be the legal guardian of Chris if anything should happen to me.”
Almost a full minute goes by where Chim just stares open-mouthed at him, and Eddie doesn’t know what to do or say so he stays still, afraid of the gleeful surprise on Chim’s face.
Finally, Chim blinks a couple of times. “Can I be there when you tell Hen?”
“Why?” Eddie frowns deep, not at all what he expected Chim to say.
“Trust me. She can say what I can’t.”
“I don’t understand.”
At this, Chim gets a sympathetic smile on his face. “Oh, I know you don’t.”
And he goes to join the others.
To his credit, Chim doesn’t appear to tell Hen what he and Eddie discussed. Unfortunately for Eddie, this means that he doesn’t get a chance to understand what Chim meant. Well, technically, he could just tell Hen and find out for himself, but he did keep this quiet for more than a year— and it was never an active choice, he just didn’t feel as if someone else needed to know, not even Buck at first (which, looking back, might’ve been an oversight on his part)— so speaking up about it now, without being prompted, seems strange, the words falling flat on his tongue.
However, not even three days after telling Chimney, the moment presents itself in the form of Buck.
Eddie, Hen and Chim are eating, their shift about to start, when Buck practically throws his entire body towards an available chair, slamming his ankle into one of the table legs, followed by some loud cursing.
As Eddie practically hears the collective eye roll from Chim and Hen, he chuckles. “You know, some of those words are illegal.”
“Ha ha,” Buck groans in response. “Don’t worry, when I have to raise Chris by myself, I’ll make sure he knows them all. I take my guardianship very seriously.”
There’s a thump, and Eddie looks at Hen; the fork is dangling in the breeze of her open mouth, the food that was obviously just on it lying in the middle of her almost empty plate.
“Say what now?” One of her eyebrows is dangerously high up on her forehead.
Buck looks comically from her, to Eddie, to Chim, and back again. “Um, yeah,” is all he replies.
Sadly, this means Hen turns to Eddie instead, and he really wishes it weren’t so but he can feel himself shrink under her gaze. “Are you telling me you made Buck the legal guardian of your kid if something happened to you?”
“No, Buck told you that,” he jokes, but not a muscle in her face reacts. “Yes, that’s what’ll happen if I die.”
She looks thoughtful— scarily so —as her eyes flits between him and Buck; Eddie can almost feel Chim vibrating in the chair next to his own.
“I should’ve caught on sooner,” she says eventually.
“What?” Eddie’s dry mouth asks even though he doesn’t want to hear the answer. Buck, apparently, is more interested in eating than this conversation and starts picking stuff from Eddie’s plate. Somehow, Eddie doesn’t care.
Hen smirks, and points a finger between him and Buck, and Eddie can feel his eyes bulging, feel the strange beating of his heart in his own ears, the sweat starting on his palms, and Hen’s smirk turns into an actual smile.
She doesn’t elaborate, and when Buck looks up from the platter less than a minute later he seems oblivious to the exchange that has happened.
As the bell goes off and they head toward the truck, Eddie dries his hands on his thighs and drowns out what’s going on inside his head; he’s too scared of all those things he already knows to be true, almost spoken out loud in words he does not yet have.
By the time they get back to the station, Eddie has already figured out he needs to tell Bobby about this; it’s only a matter of time until someone slips up and Eddie really wants to be the one to tell his captain this. Not that he thinks it’s a big deal, but he’d feel weird about it if Bobby heard it from the probie.
He knocks twice on the doorframe to Bobby’s office. Both of them have taken a shower and had something to eat, enjoying the blissful quiet between calls.
Bobby looks up at Eddie over the brim of paper he’s holding. “Eddie! What can I do for you?”
Eddie, not knowing what to do with his hands, puts them in the pocket of his pants and takes a few steps into the room, making sure the door is closed. “I - uh, I wanted to talk to you about my will,” he starts.
Bobby nods, opening a cabinet next to the desk to look through some folders. “Have you changed it again since last year?”
Eddie just gapes. “What?”
“I have the copy in here somewhere,” Bobby mutters to himself. “Aha! There it is.” He presents the paper to Eddie, who accepts it. Sure enough, there’s a copy of the will he wrote after the last accident.
“I didn’t know you had this.”
“Your attorney sent it to me. He figured since you gave me the old one, you’d want me to have the new one as well.”
Eddie nods.
“What did you want to tell me about the will?” Bobby looks so concerned that Eddie can’t help the huff of laughter that escapes him.
“Nothing. I wanted you to know about Buck, that's all.”
“Ah.” Those soul gazing eyes locks onto Eddie and he squirms. “I already know.”
Lost for anything to say to this, Eddie sinks down to the closest chair and they sit together in silence until he no longer feels as if those carefully constructed walls he built to contain all he has inside for Buck is crumbling down around him. Soon he’ll be standing in the ruins of a former fortress and the only one left to tell is Buck. Eddie’s just not sure he has the courage.
Chris was the first one Eddie told, before he even signed the papers or anything. It just didn’t sit right with him to take this decision away from the boy. For weeks and weeks Eddie thought about the best way to bring it up, trying to come up with replies for all plausible scenarios.
It was a Wednesday when he finally took the plunge.
“Hey buddy, can I ask you something?”
Chris had nodded happily. “What Dad?”
“If I didn’t come home one day, if something bad happened to me, how do you feel about Buck taking care of you?”
Chris didn’t even think about it. Instead, he frowned deeply. “If you’re not here, why wouldn’t I live with Buck? He always takes care of us.”
Eddie had almost laughed with relief, not having foreseen this easiness at all. He ruffled Chris' hair and said, “No, you’re right. I agree.”
They didn’t talk about it again.
It’s been almost three weeks since his break-up with Ana, and he still hasn’t told Buck. By now, he’s probably the only one that hasn’t figured it out, but Eddie doesn’t mind. In fact, he steers clear of relationship talk when they hang out; he doesn’t want to hear about how fantastic Taylor is, or what new adventures they’ve been up to.
Strangely, it’s Bobby of all people that tells Buck. Or maybe Bobby tells Eddie, he’s not really sure.
They find Bobby cooking when they start a long shift, all of them gliding towards the whiff of glorious food.
“What’s the occasion?” Buck asks as he steals a green bean.
“Nothing really. Just a happy meal with family.” Bobby stirs the giant pot and adds some spices. “With all the break-ups happening around here, I’m almost worried it’s contagious so I figured we needed an easy dinner together.”
Eddie stiffens, but curiously enough so does Buck, shoulders rigid and face neutral. Instead, it’s Chim that speaks next. “What do you mean? Who else has broken up?”
“Well, Pannikar and his boyfriend, Eddie and Ana, and now Buck and Taylor,” Bobby says, gesturing towards each of them in turn. Everyone nods, as if nothing he said is brand new information.
“You and Ana broke up?” The words are almost as quiet as a whisper, meant for Eddie alone while the rest set the table.
Eddie nods. “You broke up with Taylor?”
“Yeah. Or we both did, I’m not sure.” He gets a deep frown between his eyebrows and the tips of Eddie’s fingers itch to smooth it out. He doesn’t. “We’re still friends though.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Why didn’t you tell me ?” Buck tilts his head a little bit to the right, gazing at Eddie as if he’s a riddle to solve.
Eddie shrugs. Of course, he knows very well why he didn’t say something to Buck but he can’t tell his best friend that— or can he?
Acting on pure impulse, he takes hold of Buck’s hand and drags him away from the kitchen, down the stairs and into their bunk room. He closes the door behind them, leaning on it, and turns to look at the other man; Buck is standing just out of arm's reach. In Eddie’s stomach someone is dancing the conga in circles, begging him to get the hell out of there before he says too much and ruins it all. He ignores this, swallowing hard.
“Here’s the thing. I’ve been waiting for the right words to come to me, to figure out how to tell you what is apparently very obvious to everyone else. I mean, if I just mention how I changed my will, they all get this look in their eyes, and I know they know. And I don’t understand how you still don’t when I feel as if it’s written on my face.”
Buck is silent, and Eddie can’t even be sure his ramble made any sense whatsoever. He rests the back of his head against the door, waiting for Buck to say something, anything. The urge to get out of there is overwhelming, but the sound of Buck’s breathing is as well— harsh and quick breaths, shallow and full of emotions Eddie can’t place.
“I broke up with Taylor because I think I’m more into you than her,” Buck blurts suddenly, his eyes widening as if he never meant to say any of it.
An urge to laugh bubbles up inside him, but he presses it down. “Buck.” The other man’s eyes snap to his. “I made you the sole guardian of my kid if I die.”
Eddie can’t tell who moves first— maybe they drift at the same time, two planets on a collision course — but somehow they meet in the middle, lips crashing together until it feels as if they’re fused together as one. He nibbles gently at Buck’s bottom lip, a gesture that makes Buck practically purr in response; Eddie can feel the vibration of it underneath his fingers, lying in a soft grip around Buck’s throat.
In retaliation— reward? —Buck shuffles them back until Eddie hits the wall with a soft thump, and the quiet groan that escapes him is out of his control honestly. He can’t believe he ever thought that what he had with Ana was enough, not when this has been here the whole time, just waiting beneath the surface for someone to make the first move.
When the alarm goes off, they don’t separate immediately; instead they sigh apart, Buck letting his forehead fall until it meets Eddie’s.
“We really should talk about this,” Buck says, and he’s so close that his breath sends shivers across Eddie’s body.
“Mhm,” Eddie agrees, opening his eyes to meet Buck’s. “But there will be plenty of time for that later.”
(When they get to the truck, Hen smirks at the pair of them when they get in. Eddie pointedly ignores her, but when his gaze lands on Buck he has to bite the inside of his cheek so as not to smile wide enough to crack his head in two.)
(They get around to talking. Later.)