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He is thinking that if only he could cut him open and peel him
back and crawl inside this second skin, then he could relive that last mile
again: reborn, wild-eyed, free.
Choosing joy means choosing life. That is to say, that by choosing joy, you choose both the good and the bad days. There will be loss, and traffic, and head colds — the same way there will be laughter, and exceptional steaks, and willing arms to fall into when you need it. It’s not about karma, or balance, or comeuppance—the Universe, or whatever you want to call it, operates arbitrarily. The best you can do, if you want to live — really live, meaning you actively make choices instead of simply letting life happen to you — is choose joy.
By choosing joy, you choose yourself. You learn how to focus on the good, and you stop telling yourself bad things only happen to bad people.
This does not mean that you escape the bad. Not entirely. Not forever.
Eddie was starkly reminded of this upon waking up in a foreign hospital room, somewhere in the sticks of New Mexico. The nurses had told him that he alone had been found at sunrise, pinned between the car seat and the steering wheel. Alone was what caught his attention. He had been alone at the hospital too, realising that Buck was missing, realising that Buck had been kidnapped, and then, rapidly coming to the conclusion that he was probably dead.
The following sequence of events brought with it a rush of lucidity.
It had awoken a part of Eddie that he had long since buried, something volatile and grief-stricken—and it had occurred to him, while he limped around an unfamiliar town, that he was preparing. He was preempting Buck’s death because he knew a part of him would stay here no matter what happened next, reliving this day for the rest of his life.
That’s what happens when you lose your great love: you lose your sense of urgency. Dinner will still need to be cooked, the post will still have to be collected, and none of it matters. None of it matters because there is no future to prepare for.
(This feeling does not last forever. Eddie knows that, deep down. But it’s impossible not to linger on the cusp of every hoarded memory, to revisit them all again and again until they’re worn thin, until you can’t distinguish between fact and fiction).
Grief does that. It swallows, digests, and discards your determination. It strips you raw. It takes and takes and takes, and you’ll realise, while sitting on your bedroom floor with a bat in your hands, that you are the most human you have ever been. The animal part of your brain will tell you they’re not here, and you will tell it I know. It will say they should be here. And you will say they will never be here again. It will not accept this, and you will remember. You will never stop remembering.
Memory is a fickle friend, nostalgia its faithful accomplice. Memory does not conform, twisting itself until it's ripe with impossibilities, turning the almosts into it wasn’t meant to be’s because you can swallow that, but you can’t swallow cowardice. You let it do this. You let it do this, and you focus on the good in your life.
This is impossible to do with Buck. Upon finding him, dressed in clothes that weren’t his own, Eddie had watched the colour drain from Buck’s face, had watched his legs fail him, had watched him hit the ground, and he had known. He had known in that blinding, agonising moment that he could not let this, the greatest love he had ever known, become an almost. Buck wasn’t an almost. He could not be an almost.
You look like hell, Buck had said, eyes barely open.
Bowled over by relief, Eddie had laughed. You should see the other guy.
I am the other guy.
I know, Eddie said.
I know, I know, I know. I know now.
Ten hours on the road post-kidnapping is a lot for anyone to commit to, but Buck insists. Despite his own wounds, Eddie agrees. The idea of taking in at a motel turns his stomach; he wouldn’t be able to sleep without Buck in the room with him. And he knows Buck and all of his idiosyncrasies, so he knows he would insist on getting his own room in some sort of backwards attempt at proving he’s fine.
So, driving it is. And the sooner they get home, the sooner Eddie can coordinate with Maddie, who took Chris in when Karen and Hen left for their impromptu birthday getaway to Napa.
New Mexico is a distant blip in the rearview mirror now, and the relief of having found Buck alive is as unyielding as Eddie is stubborn. He had found him, despite— everything.
Call him Buck, Eddie had told the (useless) chief.
My wife calls me Woody, he’d replied. Like Eddie was— like he was comparable to—
It’s a lot. Upon reflection, Eddie gets the feeling the entirety of New Mexico had assumed Eddie and Buck were… something. An item. Boyfriends, maybe. Or—husbands, probably, given their age.
Eddie hadn’t corrected a single person who implied Buck was Eddie’s partner. He’s extremely aware of this now that the danger has passed. He’s also quietly reckoning with the fact that he had assumed Buck had been taken and killed for his sexual orientation.
And on top of that, having everyone and their mother essentially assign Eddie as Buck's partner hadn't felt wrong. What had felt wrong was being persecuted for it.
It’s a clusterfuck of revelations to sort through. Had he been five years younger, he might have taken the time to freak out about it. But present-day Eddie is tired, down to his bones. He’s been tired for a long, long time. And right now, with his good hand on the steering wheel, his best friend scrolling through his phone in the seat beside him, he has no desire to panic.
Buck doesn’t even know, is the thing. He doesn’t know Eddie’s found the words, and the bravery to say them in the privacy of his own mind.
He's just here. Alive. He’s Eddie’s best friend.
Eddie flickers his eyes over to Buck the same moment Buck looks up, and for a second, they lock eyes. He’s beautiful, Eddie thinks, heart skipping a beat. Sunlit and bright, smiling softly despite the heavy bags under his eyes. Comfortable, sitting here in a shitty car with Eddie, hand curled protectively over his bruised ribs.
I love you, Eddie thinks, wild with it. Buck’s smile morphs into something bigger, something more, and Eddie thinks some amount of what he’s feeling must show on his face to have elicited a reaction like that from Buck. Then again, Buck always smiles when Eddie’s smiling, like it’s reflexive.
Eddie has to turn his gaze back to the road ahead, reminding himself that he knows. He knows he’s got the courage to say it out loud.
And he will. He’ll tell him soon.
The sun has set by the time Buck startles awake. He had fallen asleep exactly two hours ago, tucked close to the car door, and hadn’t roused when Eddie had stopped for gas. Letting him sleep was the least he could do, after everything.
“Holy shit,” Buck mumbles, smacking his lips before yawning, mouth wide open. He looks kind of like a seal. “Fuck. Sorry. I didn’t mean to sleep so long.”
“You needed it,” Eddie tells him.
“‘Preciate it,” Buck says, peering out of the window. “We almost home?”
Eddie glances at his watch. “Twenty minutes out.”
Buck hums, stretching his legs out in front of him. Eddie forgets, sometimes, how big Buck is. There’s so much of him: long legs, strong thighs, a stomach Eddie realises now that he’s privately pictured grabbing and kneading (not unlike a cat) before, and hands that almost span the width of Eddie’s. Not to mention his biceps and the way they tense when he’s lifting something.
God, Eddie — who has never composed anything longer than a very thorough email in his adult life — could write sonnets about Buck. What his face looks like mid-workout, damp with sweat, pink with exertion, eyes bright and happy—or the way his thighs sometimes quiver when he’s pushing himself too hard, hauling bags of sand around. Or the way his hand feels, pressed to Eddie’s pulse point.
Beside him, Buck groans, long and satisfied, and falls back into the seat. Eddie decides he should probably try, at least, to be normal about Buck stretching.
He steals a glance anyway, watching the way Buck’s chest expands with a heavy sigh, fingers splayed over the ladder of his ribs. His cheeks are ruddy, eyes bleary, mouth soft and relaxed. Warmth blooms in Eddie’s chest, winding its way around the delicate muscle and bone beneath his skin.
Jesus. He’s going to be laughed at forever, but the truth is this: Eddie had never in his entire life let himself believe he wasn’t straight until he was literally, to his face, told that he was not.
It’s just— what Buck and Eddie have, it’s so big. So big that the rest sort of… fell away, over the years. His sexuality didn’t take precedence, even in moments it definitely, by all accounts, should have.
The thing is, thinking about it would have meant confronting Shannon’s memory. Nostalgia had played its part in their reunion, when they fell back into bed together. Even then, Eddie had wanted to reclaim something he had never had: easy partnership.
Shannon had always been smarter than him. In the end, she was braver than him, too. She had been willing to do what Eddie was not: give them both a chance to move on.
And then that chance had been taken from her. In a way, her death had robbed Eddie of that chance, too. Who was he to sully her memory by letting himself find love? Who was he to even consider it when he would have found that love with a man, and Eddie’s parents would ask about it, and everyone he and Shannon knew in El Paso would wonder the same thing Eddie used to wonder: had he just been stringing Shannon along?
He could spare her that humiliation, he’d decided. He could do what was expected of him, and find Christopher another parent. Not a replacement, but a support system bigger than Eddie.
And Eddie had tried. He had tried so, so hard to find it, to recreate what he’d had with Shannon with another woman. But how can you recreate something you invented? Because what Eddie had had with Shannon—it had been love. Deep, old love—the kind that made it easy to hurt one another, but also the kind that paved the way to compromises, once they had matured.
It was love. Plain and simple. But it wasn’t the kind they write books about. Because Eddie couldn’t love her the right way, the way she deserved. His foot had always been halfway out the door. He had spent their entire relationship workshopping excuses for why he had to leave, why he was running away, because deep down—deep down, he’d always known.
He’s gay.
Eddie Diaz: father, veteran, firefighter, gay. It’s that easy. A descriptor, a word that Eddie’s spent his entire life running from.
It’s a fucking relief to realise now that he’s stopped running. The burn in his muscles will linger, but it’s okay. It will serve as a reminder of how far he’s come.
Beside him, Buck huffs a laugh. “I can’t believe you did a honky tonk dance.”
Eddie laughs, startled back to the present moment. “I can’t believe you didn’t. You were the one who wanted to go out.” Recalling how surprised Buck had looked when he’d effortlessly fallen into step with the other dancers, he tuts. “At least I committed.”
Buck squawks weakly. “I got kidnapped!”
“The next day. In New Mexico.”
“I could sense it,” Buck insists.
“You could sense that you were going to be kidnapped?”
“Yeah.”
Eddie bites his lip around a grin, relishing in the familiarity of this. Most conversations with Buck are playful, even with the ever-present sincerity skimming the edges of each joke exchanged. It used to scare him a little, how earnest Buck is. “Bullshit.”
“Nah, man.” Buck readjusts, wincing. “My intuition’s crazy good.”
“Said no one ever.”
“Dixie said I was sharp,” Buck defends.
Eddie ignores the way his chest twists, keeping his eyes on the road. “Did Dixie dance with you?”
“Oh. Um.” Buck’s hands twitch in his lap. “N-no. No, I left a couple of minutes after you did.”
Eddie’s eyebrows fly up.
This is news to him. He had asked Buck how it had gone the next morning, and Buck had smirked. You don’t smirk unless you got laid, that’s just— that’s common sense. Smirking, in this case, would have been straight up lying.
“Why?” he asks, curious and confused in equal measure.
Buck shrugs, a cagey look on his face. “Guess she, uh—she just wasn’t what I was looking for.”
A long second ticks by. Eddie flicks the indicator, steering the car off the freeway. Then, clearing his throat, he asks, “What are you looking for?”
Drumming a pattern into his knee, Buck shrugs again. “Someone to dance with.”
“Well, I tried,” Eddie teases, even as his heart stumbles.
He stops at a red light, sensing Buck’s eyes on him. He keeps his gaze trained on the road.
I mean it, he wants to say. I’ll dance with you, for however long you want. However long you’ll let me.
Clearing his throat, Eddie eases off the break, waiting for the yellow to turn green. When it does, he takes a right.
“Eddie,” Buck says, voice soft. “We’re going the wrong way.”
The wrong way to Buck’s house, he means. He’s not wrong about that, but Eddie has absolutely no desire to increase the distance between them whatsoever. Not ever, but especially now, so soon after getting Buck back.
Eddie gives a gentle shake of his head. “We’re not.”
The moment stretches between them, and then, barely audible, Buck says, “Oh.”
They drive the rest of the way to Eddie’s house in silence.
When Eddie pulls into the driveway, he feels his shoulders slump. They’re here. They’re here, and tomorrow they can pick up their kid. And Eddie can decide how and when to spill his guts to Buck.
Unbuckling his seatbelt, Eddie reaches for the door.
“Just—one minute,” Buck says in a rush.
Eddie turns to look at him, relaxing back into the seat. Softly, he says, “Okay.”
He wants to give Buck time to sit with it—whatever impossible thing is on his mind. He’s been through hell; he deserves to take a beat.
But Eddie thinks he understands. A little, at least. He had overheard (on account of standing right next to him, hand on the small of Buck’s back) Buck recounting what had happened to a police officer. How Buck had been forced to play along, how he’d had to become someone else to survive. Another person’s almost-son. An almost-someone’s.
Inhaling shakily, Eddie says, “I thought you were dead.”
Next to him, Buck turns his head to look at him.
“When I was out there, I mean.” Mouth trembling, he meets Buck’s gaze. “I wasn’t looking for you. I was looking for your body.”
Buck’s face, previously curious, rapidly turns pale. “E-Eddie— I didn’t—“
“I know,” Eddie breathes. “I know.”
Swallowing, Buck nods, short and tight—keep talking.
“I was scared out of my goddamn mind,” Eddie says, voice hoarse. “And I thought—I thought it was my fault.”
Buck makes a disbelieving noise. “How could it have been—”
“At the diner,” Eddie interrupts, shoving the residue fear down, down, down. “That— the guy, I thought he—”
Exhaling, he scrubs a hand over his face.
“You thought he was the one who took me,” Buck finishes for him, voice soft.
“He said your kind, and I knew he meant— I knew what he meant.”
Your kind, the man had said.
Our kind, Eddie had said. Because Eddie is a part of that our. Just like Buck.
“I’m sorry,” Buck says, voice barely a whisper.
“No,” Eddie says, insists, his hand finding Buck’s forearm. “I’m sorry. Because—because he was right. About me. Just like the cop was. And I didn’t even—” his voice breaks. Taking a breath, he whispers, “I didn’t tell you. I've spent so long making peace with it, with—with myself.”
You could’ve died without knowing what you mean to me, is what he means to say.
Buck curls his shaky hands into fists, wide eyes flying all over Eddie’s face. “What didn’t you tell me?”
“That night at the club with Ravi,” Eddie swallows thickly. “The night you hooked up with the married couple.”
Buck makes a soft noise of protest, and Eddie shakes his head, fond and aching and desperate to get the words out now.
“I just— you weren’t right. About the chastity belt. But it was something. Something was going on with me. It was—”
Buck is looking at him, patient, waiting, expectant.
“It was—,” Eddie says, squeezing Buck’s forearm. “I already knew. Then.”
“Knew what?”
There’s nothing expectant on his face, nothing to say he wants or suspects that Eddie might do something he’s never said or done before.
“Why I stopped looking,” Eddie says, gaze firmly planted on Buck’s face. “For a relationship. For… for partnership.”
Something vulnerable shining in Buck’s eyes, Buck clarifies, “Why you gave up?”
“It wasn’t that I gave up,” Eddie tells him. He’s sweating now, palm damp where it’s pressed to Buck’s warm skin. “I just… I realised I already had it.”
“Partnership?”
“Partnership,” Eddie agrees. “An everyday kind of love. The kind you find in your living room.”
“E-Eddie,” Buck says, gaze dipping before it flies back up. “You’re gonna have to spell it out for me.”
“I’m gay.” Eddie says it slowly. It's an admission, not a bandaid, he reminds himself. He can't rip it off, or say it so quickly that Buck might miss it. It's who he is.
“O-oh,” Buck exhales. He looks, suddenly, like he's been hit by a truck. Which isn't actually all that surprising, given the last twenty-four hours. “You’re— Eddie, that’s— holy shit.”
"Yeah."
"I— Eddie." Buck fumbles out of his seatbelt, hands hovering in the air before he grabs Eddie's uninjured arm and pulls him into a hug.
A wave of relief washes through Eddie, burying his face in Buck's neck. He smells good. Even his sweat smells good. Familiar, and— okay, sexy.
Buck twists a little, before tensing.
"Ribs?" Eddie asks.
"Yep."
Laughing, Eddie pulls back, careful not to jostle Buck any further.
Then, weirdly shy, he looks up at Buck and smiles. Buck returns it, face a picture of disbelief. And joy. He's— God, he's happy for Eddie.
He’s so close now, to saying it. He just needs to do it right.
"I've got one more thing to say," Eddie tells him, before Buck jumps into asking what Eddie assumes is many, many questions.
Visibly recalibrating, Buck nods. "Shoot."
"Okay." Eddie exhales slowly, steeling himself.
A second ticks by. Another.
"It's just me," Buck says.
"It's you," Eddie agrees. Then, taking a deep breath, he looks at him.
“What I feel for you, Buck... It isn’t small,” Eddie starts, nervous fingers wrapping around Buck’s wrist. He lifts Buck’s arm, laying his palm flat over his chest, Buck’s palm pressed above Eddie’s heart. “It’s right here, always. You’re right here.”
“Eddie,” Buck rasps, eyes damp.
Laying his hand over Buck’s, says, “It’s so easy to love you. To choose you. I don’t know who I’d be if I hadn’t met you, Buck. I don't want to know. You… you ground me, and you call me out on my shit, and—you have my back. All I want to do, ever, is give that to you, too.”
“You do,” Buck says immediately, voice thick. “Eddie, you do.”
Something in Eddie’s chest unwinds. “Yeah?”
“You kept me,” Buck says, tears finally falling. He ducks his head, laughing wetly. “I— I know how this sounds, but— but Eddie, from the moment I saw you with Christopher, I wanted to stay.”
Bowled over by the sheer amount of emotion packed into that statement, Eddie laughs—relieved and so, so grateful. “So stay.”
“That simple?” Buck asks. His hand is still pressed to Eddie’s chest.
Softening, Eddie loosens his hold on Buck’s wrist, sliding his hand up to Buck’s neck.
“I think we deserve simple,” he says, meaning every word of it. “We’ve spent years being difficult.”
Eyes crinkling, Buck smiles. With his free hand, he swipes at his wet cheeks. Then, quiet and uncertain, Buck says, “You want me?”
Feeling lighter than he has in years, Eddie nods. “I do.”
“And this—” Buck flounders, fingers tensing against Eddie’s chest. “This is real?”
“What do you mean?”
“Is this it?” Buck hesitates, eyes wide and pleading. “Are we— are we doing this?”
Oh.
“Us?” Eddie asks, skimming his thumb over Buck's neck. He's got stubble coming in, coarse beneath Eddie's fingertip.
“Y-yeah. Us,” Buck says.
The two of them have been a unit for years, is the thing. A decade dedicated to raising Chris, and hosting barbecues, and lazing around on one another's couches. Eddie's lost count of how many times Buck's spent the night on his couch, sneaking into the kitchen in the morning to make breakfast while Eddie and Chris slept. Or how many times Eddie's driven an extra fifteen minutes to pick up some ultra-specific delicacy Buck's decided is his favourite thing in the world, just to see his face light up upon presenting him with it. They've done all of it. They've built a life here in Los Angeles. Together.
“I’m all in if you are,” Eddie says, smiling.
“I'm in.” Buck nods quickly, clearly overwhelmed. “I'm— Eddie, I'm in."
"That's good," Eddie says. He thinks he might be glowing.
"Wow." Buck keeps staring, mouth half-open. "This is— wow. Eddie.”
Eddie’s smile grows into a grin, warm all over. “That’s me.”
“It’s you,” Buck agrees, moving his hand from Eddie’s chest to Eddie’s cheek. Eddie leans into the touch, and it feels so right that he thinks, for a second, that he might start floating.
Buck watches him, mouth parted.
Eddie gets it. He’s sort of in shock, too. Delighted shock, sure, but shock nonetheless.
Still, he asks, “You okay, bud?”
“I’m good,” Buck assures him. Then, shyly, he adds, “I— I love when you call me that.”
“Bud?”
Abashed, Buck nods.
Eddie lets the flicker of excitement nestled behind his ribs grow into a flame. It’s nice, knowing that things Eddie’s done over the years have had an effect on Buck. Leaning a little closer to him, gear shift pressing into his stomach, he says, “You wouldn’t prefer… baby?”
Buck blinks. A moment later, his cheeks go bright pink.
“Sweetheart?” Eddie tries, swaying toward him.
“E-Eddie,” Buck exhales, eyelids fluttering shut.
God, he’s so beautiful.
“Mi amor?” Eddie murmurs. “Mi corazón?”
Eyes still closed, Buck’s mouth twitches into a smile. “Yours?”
“Mine,” Eddie agrees, lips ghosting over Buck’s. He bumps his nose into Buck’s, tilting his head before — finally — slotting their mouths together.
Eddie’s heart flips at the first contact, before stuttering into a rhythm so fast he gets dizzy.
Sucking in a breath, Buck kisses him back, thumb brushing over Eddie’s cheekbone. Mindful of the scrapes on Buck’s face, Eddie leans into him, keeping the kiss soft and sweet. They’ll have time to learn the shape of each other’s mouths and bodies. This — as revelatory as it is — is only their first kiss. A greeting, a question, finally answered.
Pulling back, Eddie presses his forehead to Buck’s. He can’t help but duck down again immediately, kissing the corner of Buck’s mouth, and then his lips, and then his cheek. Buck laughs breathily, and a million butterflies erupt within Eddie.
“I love you,” Eddie exhales, lips brushing Buck’s.
“God, Eddie.” Buck's eyes flicker open again. He doesn’t pull back, grinning. “I— I love you too. Seriously. It’s— it’s crazy how much I love you.”
“Ditto.” Smiling so wide his cheeks hurt, Eddie nuzzles closer to him. “And I’ll tell you for the rest of our lives. I’ll keep saying it. Until it stops sounding real.”
“I love you,” Buck says again, and then, in the same breath, “Semantic satiation.”
Eddie laughs. “What?”
“Semantic satiation,” Buck repeats, pressing the softest kiss Eddie’s ever received to his cheek. “‘S that thing, when you say something so many times it stops sounding real.”
“Think it’s always gonna sound real to me,” Eddie says.
“Yeah,” Buck breathes, turning his face into Eddie’s neck. “Same here.”