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"Is Buck your daddy too?" he hears from the kitchen and freezes, the glass in his hand slowly lowering to the countertop as he eavesdrops.
"Uh...no. Or...well...it's complicated."
Complicated?
"Compli-comp-complicated?" he hears Theo sound it out, and then Chris chuckles.
"It just means...in this context...uh...no he's not my dad by blood, but he's been one of my dads for 10 years. My dad and...Buck."
A long pause.
"You don't have to be related to people for them to be your family. I think of one of my best friends, Denny, like a brother, so he's my brother. Buck's niece, Jee-Yun, and nephew, Robby, aren't related to me, but we're cousins."
It really is complicated.
"You're my best friend," Theo's small voice states.
"Am I?"
"Yeah. Does that mean...are we brothers?"
Christopher hums, and Eddie can just picture his son smiling kindly down at the toddler.
"Sure. I've always wanted a little brother."
There is a happy squealing sound from the other room, and Eddie can't help the grin that crosses his features, imagining the toddler tackling his teenage son.
His heart melts at the thought: Christopher with a little sibling.
He'll have to ask him about that - always wanting a little brother. Christopher doesn't generally lie, so Eddie has reason to believe he was being honest.
And for that sibling to be the spitting image of his best friend, Buck?
It only takes a nudge in that direction for Eddie to mentally fall down the rabbit hole of...the Buckley-Diaz family.
But aren't we already a family? he thinks to himself.
And yes. They are.
They have been.
Watching Theo grow up with Buck by his side. Christopher growing older and moving away but coming back for breaks and then holidays. Getting married. Theo would be his best man because, of course, they would truly become best friends. And Buck, by his side for all of it.
"I'm hard to deal with," Theo blurts out, and Chris snorts.
"How so?"
"I'm not...normal. I get in trouble, and I break things."
"I'm not normal either, but I'm doing just fine. And since you're my brother I've got your back. You'll never be hard to deal with to me."
Would they all live together? he thinks. Would Buck stay...with me?
When even Theo outgrows their four walls, would Buck still be with Eddie?
Until we're grey and old, he assures himself.
Empty nesters.
Eddie lets out a soft gasp, eyes moving from the unfocused distance to the refrigerator where his schedule lives on a whiteboard - Eddie in green, Buck in red, Christopher in blue, and now Theo in purple.
All of their appointments, living together on the fridge, and surrounding it are pictures of their life.
Eddie and young Chris on the porch of Abuela's old house.
Eddie, Chris, and Buck, laughing their asses off at May's graduation party.
The only photographic evidence of Chimney's bachelor party, a blurry picture of Eddie and Buck, temple to temple making stupid faces and looking happily shit faced at an awkward selfie angle.
The picture of the 118 on Bobby's last Halloween.
Eddie has a brief flash of the future - maybe this Halloween or next. Theo is in a Spider-Man costume, pretending to shoot webs, while Chris stands by him dressed as Superman. Buck and Eddie are off to the side in a couple's costume-
Wait. A couple? This is a lot to unpack for a Thursday afternoon.
Eddie springs into action, his feet carrying him into the other room.
"Does that make me a Diaz?" Theo is asking, when Eddie stomps in, and both boys look up at him with startled expressions, surprised at his sudden appearance in the room.
"Is everything okay, Dad?" Chris asks him after a moment of awkward silence.
Eddie nods jerkily, pulling out his phone.
"Uh...yeah. I just want to get a picture of you boys."
Chris eyes him suspiciously, but Theo claps his hands excitedly.
"And you would be a Buckley-Diaz," he mumbles, right before snapping the picture.
+
A few days later, Buck is rummaging through the fridge for an after park snack, having been run ragged by Theo. He can hear the boy in the other room, laughing with Chris, who had largely watched from the sidelines and had played a game on his phone, and his heart melts, making the whole moment feel candy coated and full of sunshine.
After he grabs what looks like left overs made by Peppa (Eddie might kill him when he finds it gone, but finders keepers), he closes the door and is met with -
He cocks his head to the side, and then his eyes widen in realization. So continues the ooey gooey feelings of the moment, he guesses.
On the fridge, in the middle of all the pictures he's used to - of the Diaz boys (with Buck and others sprinkled in) - is a picture of Theo and Chris cheesing at the camera. He strokes the photo fondly, before tracking his eyes to other pictures on the door.
And he thinks to himself, Is it so crazy?
Buck pulls out his phone, ready to dial Eddie, but he realizes sadly that his phone is cracked in several places and won't turn on. Run ragged, indeed.
Before he can call out to Chris to borrow his phone, there's a knock on the front door, and Buck sighs, walking over in a few quick strides. What greets him on the other side of the door is unexpected.
"Hey, Evan Buckley, right?" asks the uniformed officer. She looks like she's trying to keep carefully neutral, but there's remorse right under the surface.
"Uh...yeah. What...what's this about?"
The officer shifts from foot to foot uncomfortably.
"Uh...well...there's been an incident at a local hospital. No one could get ahold of your cell phone, so I was sent to...collect you."
Buck frowns at her.
"Collect me for what? Who's hurt?"
"You're the next of kin of Edmundo Diaz, and he's in critical condition in the ICU," she recounts, and Buck's blood runs cold. "And...Sergeant Athena Grant is also in critical condition. Different incidents, but they're at the same hospital. We really don't have a lot of time, and I can explain more in the ride over. Are you able to come with me now?"
His ears are ringing, his blood pressure is so high.
Chris' voice comes from behind him, grounding him all at once.
"Buck? What's wrong?"