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actualalligator · 2 months

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Okay I'll be nice. And only request one. (for now....)

“Well, I’m sorry I fell in love with you, okay? But it happened and I can’t do shit about it.” “You… What?”

Among all the things that felt right about the coma, there were a few that stood out the most as wrong to Buck. Yes, he finally had the parents he had always wanted, and he'd saved the person he'd been born to save, but it came at the cost of having to look at Doug Kendall's face knowing how he treated Maddie. It came at the cost of Jee-Yun, of Bobby, of Eddie, of Christopher. Hen and Chimney as strangers. Yes, he had the perfect blood family he'd been desperate for for as long as he could remember, but he didn't have the family he built, the family that saw him for everything he was and still wanted him.

He thought of Eddie. They were both finally in a good place. Or they had been. Eddie was back with the 118 where he belonged. He was doing well. Buck thought he was, too. Buck couldn't say how long he'd been in love with Eddie. It felt like breathing now, easy, part of his everyday life. He knew Eddie loved him. They were best friends. They were partners. But he wanted Eddie to love him. Like Buck loved Eddie. Like he could spend the rest of his life by Eddie's side and never need anybody else. How disaster bisexual of him to fall in love with his straight best friend.

Still, he'd rather stay his best friend, quietly in love, than live in any world without him.

There were a lot of reasons Buck couldn't stay with his parents and Daniel, and love motivated every one of them.

Two months into that relationship, it felt like he woke up, and he quickly learned he was somewhere he didn't want to be.

After, everyone treated Buck like he was delicate. "You died," they said. How many times did he have to hear it? He knew! He knew he died. And he'd felt strange since then. He felt different, but he couldn't articulate how. And it felt like everyone just wanted him to be that golden retriever of a man he'd always been. What if he didn't know how to do that anymore?

He clung to Natalia. She didn't know him before. There was nothing to compare him to. He got to be whoever this new him was, right? But she thought his death was cool. She asked questions at first, ones he didn't really want to answer. And she'd talk about it with some amount of reverance. Sometimes, he wanted to scream that it happened to him, not her.

He'd pulled hard away from his family, the one he'd come back for, and clung to this person who had no expectations of who he'd been before. But he was still that person. He was still Buck. And he realized that Natalia didn't really know Buck. She knew whoever he'd spent months trying to be. He'd stood in a graveyard and told Eddie that it felt like she saw him. But that wasn't true. No, Natalia didn't see him at all.

Buck broke up with Natalia. He knew he hurt her. She was upset and blindsided, but Buck couldn't keep pretending he was someone else.

He sat alone on the steps of his loft for a long time after that.

And then he got up and he went to work. Eddie started dating Marisol the same time Buck had gotten with Natalia. She was nice. They went on a double date about three weeks in but hadn't seen much of each other since then. She made Eddie laugh. When the music came up loud at the place where the four had met for dinner, she pulled Eddie to the dance floor and kept pace the whole time. And Eddie could dance. Buck had wished more than once to be his partner, but his body didn't move like that. He was a clumsy white boy with no rhythm, and Eddie looked like he was made to be out on the dance floor.

Marisol made Eddie happy. Buck had to respect that. After he broke up with Natalia, Buck tried to mend the bridges he'd started to let rot. His family understood. They welcomed him home with open arms.

"You needed time," Maddie said. "You went through something, and you needed time. We understood."

He joined the Diaz household for movie nights and for video games. They made pizza. They went to the zoo. But it was always a party of four now. Eddie and Marisol. Buck and Christopher. There were days that left Buck desperate for even an ounce of Eddie's attention. He would leave that house feeling angry, feeling lonely. And he realized he would need to move on from Eddie if he was ever going to be happy. Eddie was happy. Marisol made him happy.

Buck needed to find his happy, too. Right after he died, when he'd been clinging to Natalia and the freedom he felt she represented, Buck hadn't meant to pull back from his family. It hadn't been an active thing. It happened.

Pulling away from Eddie, however, that he was doing on purpose. He filled his time with other things. With other people. Jee, Maddie, Chim, Bobby, and Athena. He tried to do a weekly meal with Hen and Karen. He filled his life so there wasn't room to miss Eddie. He still missed him, but he never had to lie when he declined an invitation. He would jump at the chance to hang with Christopher whenever Eddie and Marisol wanted to do something, but he rarely spent time with all three of them. And it was fine. Or it would be. Buck would take the space and time he needed to get over Eddie Diaz, and then he could be a good friend again. "Hey," Eddie said in the parking lot. He had his bag slung over his shoulder. He reached out and laid his hand on Buck's arm. "Christopher is at a sleepover tonight. Come watch movies. You haven't been over in ages."

81 days, actually. Not quite three months. That's how long it had been since they hung out. He'd been at the Diaz house, but with Christopher almost every other week for date night, but he hadn't spent more than half an hour in Eddie's house with him in 81 days. Buck thought he shouldn't know that number, but he did.

"Can't tonight," Buck said, unlocking his jeep. He pulled from Eddie's grasp and tossed his bag inside.

"What the fuck have I done?" Eddie asked, following him.

Buck didn't look at him. "You haven't done anything. I have plans tonight."

"You always have plans with everybody but me. Hell, you make plans with my kid, but you won't make plans with me. It's really starting to piss me off, Buck. What did I do?" Eddie demanded.

Buck pinched the bridge of his nose. He still won't look at Eddie. "I told you. You didn't do anything."

"So you just decided to stop hanging out with me three months ago for what? For fun? What a good fucking friend you are." Eddie checked him with hard with shoulder and turned to walk away. "I deserve more than that. You should have been a better friend."

Buck rocked slightly on his feet, glaring at Eddie’s back. Months of pent of feeling, of anger, of sadness, and feelings of being left behind welled to the surface and exploded out of him before he could stop it. “Well, I’m sorry I fell in love with you, okay? But it happened and I can’t do shit about it.”

Eddie froze. “You… What?”

Buck should have shut up. He should have stopped, got in his jeep and left. But he didn't. "It hurts, Eddie. It hurts, and you're happy. I just need to be able to get over you so I can be your friend again, so I can be happy for you in your relationship without wondering why you can't love me." He stepped back, stumbling over his own feet and back into his jeep. He furiously scrubbed at his wet eyes with the sleeve of his shirt.

"Forget it," Buck said. "Forget it. Forget I said anything."

He climbed into his jeep and was quick to escape, leaving Eddie standing there in the parking lot. He didn't even get his seatbelt on until he was two blocks away from the firehouse.

When he got to the loft, he canceled his plans with Maddie and collapsed face first onto his bed. He cried a little. He dozed a little. He disassociated little. And then he felt someone sit down on his bed.

He groaned and buried his head in his arms. "Maddie, everything is fucked up and everything is bad, but I just need to wallow for one night. Let me wallow, please."

"I broke up with Marisol," said decidedly not Maddie.

Buck froze. He slowly turned his head so he could peek at Eddie. He was sitting with his hands folded in his lap, his head down.

"She made you happy." His voice cracked as he said it.

Eddie looked over. "You make me happy, Buck. Well, not recently, but usually. I only started dating Marisol because you sounded so serious about Natalia. She saw you. I thought I needed to move on."

Buck stared at him. "You love me?"

Eddie nodded.

"Since when?" Buck asked.

"Are you really sorry you fell in love with me?" And the question is scared in a way Buck isn't used to hearing from Eddie.

Eddie's shoes hit the floor with a loud thud and he pulled his legs up onto the bed. "Maybe after the tsunami. It's hard to tell because it went from this is my best friend to this is my person. But I knew the day you broke down my bedroom door. I just... I knew I needed to get my head right first."

Buck hid his face again. "Eddie."

Buck huffed out a laugh at that and shook his head. After a second, he took Eddie's other hand, holding them both. "I love you. I'm sorry I've been a shitty friend."

Buck takes a deep breath. He pushes himself up so he can sit facing Eddie. "I'm not. I just... watching you with her while I so desperately wanted your attention was too hard."

Eddie reached out and took his hand. "I know the feeling. Why do you think I hated Taylor so much?"

"It sucked, Buck. Not having you. Not having any idea why. But I get it. You'll still have to make it up to me," Eddie said.

"How should I do that?" Buck asked.

Eddie squeezed his hands and smiled a little. "You should start with a kiss. And then probably pack a bag so you can come over. You should also definitely cook for me."

Buck looked at him for a few seconds, his eyes darting between Eddie's eyes and his mouth. He leaned in and kissed him. He thought it would be quick, just one kiss for now, but then Eddie sighed into it and Buck suddenly didn't know how to stop. He dropped Eddie's hands to cup his face and deepened the kiss. When he finally pulled back, he felt like his lungs might explode, but it was worth it for that soft smile on Eddie's face.

Eddie nodded. "If you kiss me like that for 81 days in a row, I wouldn't be sad."

"A great start, but you have a lot to make up for. How long?" Eddie asked.

"81 days," Buck said.

Buck laughed and leaned in again. "Neither would I."

#tanis #buddie #911 fanfic #asks #prompts

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