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#hi meg ily angst as requested <3
renecdote · 1 year
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'it's their anniversary on sunday' + buddie 💗 ily
It’s their anniversary on Sunday. Two more days and they will have been married for a year—a whole 366 days—and it has gone by so quickly that it feels like no time at all.
In the grand scheme of things, it is no time at all. Not enough, certainly, although Eddie isn’t sure that’s much of a quantifier since forever wouldn’t feel like enough time with Buck. Which is... It’s funny, really, because forever was a concept he didn’t really believe in before Buck, but now it feels like the bare minimum, anything else impossible to imagine.
He’s trying not to do that now: imagine. Where he went wrong, what he could have done better, the conversation he’s going to need to have with their kids when he goes home.
“Eddie,” Bobby says quietly from behind him.
Eddie shakes his head. He knows what Bobby is going to say. He knows what the look on his captain’s face is going to be if he turns around.
Bobby comes closer, hand finding Eddie’s shoulder, his voice sure when he says, “It’s not your fault.”
Except—
”She’s going to fall.”
“And what if you fall?” snappy with adrenaline, with fear, the building trembling around them.
Buck’s gaze steady, steady, always trusting. “You’ll catch me.”
And Eddie didn’t. 
He was meant to catch Buck—was meant to have Buck’s back, always and forever, til death do them part and then some—and he failed. So it doesn’t matter what Bobby says, doesn’t matter how sure he sounds, it doesn’t even matter if Buck wakes up from surgery and doesn’t blame him either. Eddie will always blame himself.
“It’s our anniversary on Sunday,” he says, and his voice sounds numb and distant to his own ears.
“I know,” Bobby says, squeezing his shoulder. “Have you already got Buck a gift?”
“Socks,” Eddie replies, which sounds stupid and insignificant when he says it out loud, but. “His feet are always cold, he complains about it all the time, and they’ve got little fire emojis on them.”
They also say “hot stuff” on the soles, but Bobby doesn’t need to know that.
“He’ll love them,” Bobby says, smiling.
Buck will love them, Eddie knows that. He’s just not sure he’ll get the chance to see that familiar, delighted grin light up his husband’s face.
Eddie presses the heels of his hands against his eyes. He’s vaguely aware that he’s shaking, but he can’t work out whether it’s cold, or shock, or something else.
“Okay,” Bobby murmurs, and then he’s sitting sideways on the bench and pulling Eddie against his chest, arms wrapping around him in a tight hug. “Okay, I’ve got you. It’s going to be okay.”
Is it?
What if it isn’t?
“I can’t—” Eddie starts, but he can’t even bear to finish the thought.
The thing about grief is that it doesn’t get easier with practice. Eddie has lost more people than he can count, but none of it has come close to preparing him for the possibility of losing Buck.
“You can,” Bobby says, his voice steady.
Eddie knows he isn’t the only one who has been beaten down by grief before. He’s not the only one who has shied away from helping hands even as they dragged him out of the darkness. He’s not the only one whose heart will crumble, maybe fall apart completely, if Buck doesn’t make it through this.
He brings a hand up, holding tight to the arm Bobby has wrapped around his chest. He feels so old and unbelievably young when he whispers, “He’s going to be okay, right? Tell me he’s going to be okay, Bobby.”
“Eddie, you know I can’t tell you that.”
Eddie squeezes his eyes shut. He does know that, but. “Please.”
Bobby squeezes him, his voice rumbling through his chest and into Eddie’s bones when he answers: “Buck is going to be okay. I promise.”
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