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Buck has been quiet.
He spoke some with Maddie, and answered questions at the hospital - with Eddie glaring at every single person in the room, because he is not letting this town's assumptions hurt Buck again - , but ever since they have gotten in the car and onto the freeway, he sort of…slumped.
Eddie can't exactly blame him. He is exhausted as well, but he can't even imagine what Buck went through. Eddie is bruised and battered and tore this entire place apart searching for Buck. He is sure it has not done any favors for his PTSD, traversing the desert, looking for a lost friend, half-expecting to find a body. Eddie shudders at the thought.
There was a moment where he truly expected to find a corpse. His best friend gone, taken, and all he’s left with is just a body, a shell that holds none of Buck's usual light.
A shiver runs down Eddie’s back, the phantom cold of the vacuum Buck would have left behind settling onto his bones, and he shakes himself slightly, focusing back on the road. They are nearing their first, and only, rest stop. Some higher-rate roadside motel that Athena found and throughout background-checked for them.
He steals a glance at his side. Buck has been dozing for the last hour, every bump of the road seemingly shaking him to his very bones, if the way he jumps, almost contracts in on himself, is any indication. There are lacerations on his face, bruising essentially all over his body, and most horrifying of all, faint Lichtenberg figures running up and down his neck. Eddie hoped to never see those figures again on Buck, and yet. He’s curled up in his seat, arms wrapped around his torso, hunched towards the window, knees drawn as close to his chest as possible in the small space and with his injuries.
It breaks Eddie’s heart.
Buck is big. Tall, broad, and strong, but also loud. He exists loudly, fidgets constantly, has enough energy to power a city, laughs booming and openly, loves as if he intends to make up for every time the world has lacked enough care. He wears every emotion on his sleeve, whether he is happy or angry or sad. He has always been like the sun, drawing people into his gravitational orbit and shedding light everywhere he can reach.
This Buck is small. Quiet and trying to take up as little space as possible.
Eddie hates it.
Eddie steals another glance at Buck before dragging his eyes back to the road. He can see the garish colors of a roadside motel in the distance and breathes a sigh of relief. They are close. Everything in him aches. He would not change a single thing he’d done to find Buck - finally pulling someone from the desert and saving them - but it does mean he escaped from the hospital after a severe car accident and aggravated just about every possible injury, and then gained a few more while fighting Bonnie. Everything hurts. He is very much looking forward to being horizontal for a while.
The sun has yet to leave the sky. Everyone agreed that they will not wait until the night to find a place to stop. Neither felt comfortable driving in the dark. They probably won’t for a while yet.
It’s only when they reach the exit for the motel that Eddie reaches over and gently prods at Buck’s shoulder. The garish neon pink of the signage leaks into the car.
Buck jumps at the contact. Never in all their time of knowing each other has Buck flinched away from Eddie, and while he knows it has nothing to do with who he is or their relationship or trust or anything, it lands heavy and sick in his stomach. He hates it, he hates everything about it, he wishes that they were already home just so he could tuck them both in bed and not have to move, ask someone else to get Chris home and tuck him between them, and just hold the two halves of his world until the pieces slot themselves back in place.
Eddie’s hand hovers in the air while Buck gets his bearings, looking frantically around the car, out the window, before his eyes lock onto Eddie. Only then does Eddie’s hand lower itself, gently brushing against Buck’s arm, since Eddie cannot take his eyes off the road for as long as he wishes to gaze at Buck.
“It’s okay. You are okay. We are just getting close to the motel. Wanted to give you a minute before we get there.”
Buck stays quiet for another couple seconds before nodding.
“Oh. Um- right. Thanks.”
Buck says nothing else. He just lays his head back against the window and breathes.
He still looks small.
With a sigh, Eddie pulls off onto the exit. The motel, while garish, at least does not carry the usual horror movie vibes most road-side motels do. It seems to be kept well, strong, sturdy, and surprisingly modern style-wise. It will do for the night.
They check in quickly. The woman at the desk gives them an odd look, for which neither can blame her, battered and bruised as they are, supporting each other to even walk upright. But she doesn’t question them overly much, and Eddie’s haywire instincts can’t decide if that is good or if it means that the place is far too used to seeing hurt people.
“Two rooms?” The lady asks.
“Just one.”
“I’m sorry, but all our twin-rooms are booked.”
“Okay.”
The lady stares for a long moment at Buck and Eddie. Eddie stares back at her.
“We’ll take a double,” Buck says, his voice quiet and raspy. Like he’s been screaming. The thought makes Eddie tighten his hold on him. Buck leans into him, in what feels like an effort to comfort Eddie more than it feels like Buck needing more support to stand.
“Right, my apologies,” the lady says, typing away at her ancient looking computer. Within a couple minutes she is handing them a key and directing them down a corridor.
They stumble down it slowly, occasionally tripping over their own feet and snorting at the garish carpet that lines the corridor, all striped and brown-yellow-begie, clashing horribly with the mostly lime green walls. It takes them one look at each to break down in giggles, exhausted and absolutely hysterical, leaning on each other and the wall.
It feels good to laugh.
By the time they actually make it to the room, they are breathless and lighter than they have been since they left Nashville. Buck fumbles with the key for a minute, leftover giggles still escaping him, before Eddie rolls his eyes fondly and steals the key away to open the door himself.
The room is fine. Same gaudy lime green walls and very questionable furniture color choices with absolutely nothing matching anything, but the bed looks comfortable, and right now, that is all they need. Buck gets deposited on the bed, Eddie’s hand staying on his shoulders for an extra moment before he leaves to grab their bags, or at least a change of clothes for tomorrow. He stops in the doorway once more, hand on the frame, looking over his shoulder, like he still thinks that the second he looks away Buck will disappear.
Buck gives him a wry smile and waves him off.
“Don’t worry, I’m staying right here. Gotta admire all the decor.”
“Oh yeah, just your style,” Eddie snorts, his shoulders loosening.
“I think I look particularly great in dirty yellow.”
“It’s green.”
“Is it? Wow. Just wow.”
Eddie shakes his head, laughing as he leaves the room.
Buck keeps smiling at the closed door for a couple more moments before the smile slips off his face. He flops down the bed, eyes tracing the ceiling. It’s plain white and the most pleasant looking part of the room.
He breathes.
Every part of him aches.
Buck is still a little surprised to be alive. He didn’t want to die, but the odds were not exactly in his favor. In a hole in the ground, already feeling like a tomb, helpless to do anything…it makes him shiver. How close he got to not being able to go home, to see everyone he loves ever again.
But Eddie came back for him. The thought almost makes the corners of his mouth twitch upwards. Pulled him from the desert and saved him, and Buck has a little glow of pride in his chest for him. He remembers the holes in the walls, feels close to making a few of his own. Even if it wouldn’t help, there is a strange weight in his chest he feels almost nauseous from. All of it feels too big.
Being kidnapped, taken as someone’s replacement son, again, the electricity, facing death and wondering if he at least gets to see Bobby on the other side.
Buck is so tired.
It’s been…so hard without Bobby. Buck has been getting better, but it has been so hard to hold onto the people he considered family after this new void in their unit. He loves them and they love him, he hasn’t doubted that in years. Still, Bobby’s loss ripped at him and he has struggled to find his footing in the after. Everyone was pulling away, grieving in their own way, in their own little units, and Buck…Buck was lost.
Finding his way back to something normal was a fight he went into kicking and screaming. Filled with arguments and desperate baked goods and ghosts around every corner. It was hard, but he was getting there. There is a latent anger brewing in his gut, under all the agony of the last couple days. He was just starting to like who he is again, in the after, with his family growing closer again, even deepening some connection, like with training Harry. They had fun at the Firefighter games, he and Eddie. He was finally doing well.
Just his luck to have it all ripped out from under him.
The door opens. Eddie walks in, a duffel hanging from his shoulder, and two steaming mugs in his hands.
“What have you got there?”
“Tea.”
“Tea?” Buck struggles a little to sit back up. “Where did you even get tea from?”
“The lady at the front desk. She pointed me to some small kitchenette off to the side, guessing that’s where we’ll be able to get breakfast tomorrow. It had mugs, tea, and some honey.”
“Fancy.”
Eddie laughs and hands him one of the mugs, shrugging the bag off his shoulder onto the small desk that’s in the room, ruffling through it, pulling out a couple shirts and shorts to sleep in.
Buck gazes at him for a while, just holding the warm drink. The care makes him smile, that Eddie went out of his way to get something soothing.
He takes a sip. His nose wrinkles a little and eyebrows run up his forhead.
“God, did you put an entire jar of honey in this?”
“No. Just…some.” Eddie shrugs. “Besides, you need it.”
Buck huffs gently, amused.
"Do I sound that bad?"
Eddie grimaces a smile. "Not bad. Just a little rough. Quiet. It can be expected," Eddie says gesturing to the wounds on Buck's neck. "No wonder I couldn't hear you." He mumbles absently.
"What?"
"When I got there. I, uh, called for you, but didn't hear you. And looking at your neck, well..."
Buck tenses. "I didn't call out."
And Eddie…
Eddie does not know what to do with that. Because what.
For a moment, he is angry. He is furious. It rips at his chest, takes over him like wildfire.
He was so afraid. All day. From the moment he woke up in that hospital room alone, and was told that there was no one else. Incorrect on all accounts, because there is no Eddie without Buck, so Buck simply had to be somewhere. He refused to accept it, regardless of police suspicion, pain, or lack of clues. He looked for Buck everywhere, tore both himself and the state apart looking for him, broke the law a couple times, and Buck didn't even call out where he was right there?!
Eddie's mouth opens, even though he is not sure what to say, rage and betrayal coursing through him, but then…then he looks, truly looks at Buck. Buck, whose shoulders are drawn, whose back is hunched, who is trembling slightly, fingers white as they grip his cooling mug, unable to look up at Eddie. Buck who just went through something horrible. And as much as Eddie wants to be angry, as much as he is…it's Buck.
So he settles next to him on the edge of the bed. Takes the mug from his shaking hands and puts it to the side. Quiet support, as always between them. Asks: "Why not?"
Buck fidgets. Eddie stays.
“You…you have to know I fought, okay? I didn't give up. I tried, I-I fought Bonnie, before, I tried to get out, but…but I failed. I failed and…” Buck draws in a shaky breath. His eyes catch on Eddie's. “I already had a gun to my head. You were the last thing I could save.”
How could Eddie ever blame him for that? How could Eddie ever be angry for this unwavering devotion, this steadfast love that he managed to acquire by some miracle?
It breaks Eddie's heart more than he can express, because Buck had to make peace with death today, and yet, he thought of Eddie. His chest feels too small to hold all that. He stays quiet.
Buck continues, halting and soft and devastating. "I…They wanted their son back. So I told them I'd play along. If they sent you away. Told them about Christopher." The way Buck's voice breaks on the name makes Eddie want to crash to his knees. "I told them you're all he has."
Buck finally looks up at Eddie and oh.
Oh.
Eddie is crying. His face is set firmly, his lips pursed in the way they usually are when he is trying not to show emotion, but tears are spilling from his eyes at a steady rate, quietly and painfully.
Buck is wrong. Eddie has not been all Christopher has. Since the moment Eddie stepped foot into the 118, Buck has been at his side. First as an unexpected antagonist, even if only for a day, then as the closest friend Eddie has ever had. As his person. Since being in LA Eddie never had to learn how to be all Chris has. He has never had to do any of it alone. Buck has always been there as a friend, as a partner, as Christopher’s second parent.
Eddie has failed. It would be on brand for him. He had to have failed, because if Buck truly thinks that his life is a worthy sacrifice, that Eddie alone is enough for Chris, then Eddie has completely neglected loving Buck the way he deserved. Eddie has not affirmed Buck’s place in their lives enough.
He thanked him enough, surely. Told him he cares. Right? Sure, he has rarely found words for just how much he owed Buck, for all that the man before him saved his life. Eddie’s method of care has never been words. Eddie as always operated better with actions, whether it was an extra cup of coffee, brewed before Buck could ask for it, and invitation for movies and beer for when Buck seemed to be in his head too much, a hand on Buck’s shoulder and always, always having his back, in danger and in the everyday. Maybe that’s where the issue was. Maybe he simply did not say it enough.
Maybe this is just who Buck is.Selfless and stupid, always thinking with his heart, so full of his family he hasn’t left any love for himself. This is what Eddie gets for getting attached to someone who will never put themselves first.
Eddie can’t fault him, of course. If it came down to it, he would put Buck and Chris first too.
God, Eddie loves him so much.
“I’m not.”
“...What?”
“You were there with me. The whole time.” Eddie’s hand finds Buck’s and he grips it, gently, aware of every injury on both their hands. There is something holy about broken things cradling each other, something painful and something that feels safe and like home.
Buck shakes his head. “It’s not the same.”
“It is.”
They stay silent for a moment. Eddie keeps rubbing at Buck’s knuckles, softly, comfortingly while Buck attempts to breathe around the declaration held within two words.
There was an era in Evan Buckley’s life where the thought of anyone loving him, of considering family felt strange. Like an ill-fitting coat. Protecting you from the cold, but still clearly not yours. His parents resented his entire existence, which he now knows why, even if that doesn’t make all the years of neglect any better. He wore that resentment like bruises, every day spent pressing onto the blue and yellow and purple, falling off trees and breaking bones, earning attention at a cost.
He had Maddie, for a while. Wonderful, stronger than anyone he has ever met, Maddie. His sister and mother all in one, who loved him and raised him when no one else would, but still a child. He never blamed her for wanting to escape. He was hurt but never blamed her, though he has hated and still hates Doug with everything he has, hates how he stole his sister’s light for so long, for providing her with the escape she needed, for luring her away and hurting her and leaving Buck alone.
Then he found the 118. Where Buck could grow into his skin without pulling at it, without having to tear at it to justify his right to be in the world. With Bobby and Hen and Chim. Athena and Karen and May and Harry and Rav. All these people who looked at him and accepted him, even when he was still learning how to call some place home.
Then Eddie. Eddie, who became his person within a day. Eddie who gave him Christopher.
Eddie, who saw him when he was jealous first and decided he cared anyway. Who became his best friend and then everything else, who Buck loves like he breathes. Involuntarily and instinctively. A simple fact of life. BuckandEddie. Having each other’s back, through fire, and tsunamis, and earthquakes, and snipers, and lightning and grief and kidnapping.
Eddie, who saw his mess, and stayed. Eddie, who let Buck into his life with almost no questions, and stayed, even when he physically left. Eddie, who tore the world apart to find him, even injured and in pain, who is always ready for a fight and yet is gentle now, holding Buck’s hand like he is still afraid Buck is about to disappear.
Buck is so grateful to this man, for this man, it feels like his body cannot contain it sometimes.
“I don’t want to lose you. Ever.”
Buck shakes himself out of his reverie. He takes a glance up at Eddie, whose eyes are still firmly set on the enclasped hands. There is a little furrow between his brows that Buck longs to press a finger to to smooth it out, but that would mean letting go of Eddie’s hand and he can’t do that.
“It wasn’t…I wasn’t giving up. It was just all I could give.” He squeezes gently at Eddie’s hand.
“I know. I know. I wish you didn’t. But I know.”
“I just wanted to save you.”
Eddie sighs. It feels so simple, that sentiment. Of course Buck wanted to save him. Evan Buckley had self-sacrifice written into his bones since the moment he was born, carved there for a brother he never knew, and smoothed down by the love his sister nurtured. He never was able to sit still where there was somebody to save.
It’s something that Eddie adores and hates about him in equal measure.
“I trust you with my life any day. I trust you with Chris's life. I'm just not sure I trust you with yours.” Eddie sighs, running a hand through his hair and down his face. “You give your life away so easily, you forget that we, the people who love you, want you to keep it.”
“...I didn’t want to die. I just didn’t want you to.”
“I know. You’ve never been able to love with anything less than your whole being. Even if sometimes I wish you were selfish with it.”
That is that. At the core of it all, Evan Buckley is love. Eddie’s love.
Eddie squeezes Buck’s hand in three short bursts. His other hand finds its home on Buck’s shoulder, thumb resting on his collarbone.
"Evan. I need you to listen. I'll always, always try to get to you. I wanted to save you too."
"I know. I heard you. But you had to get home to Chris. One of us had to."
"I know. Thank you. Never do it again."
Buck doesn't promise. He can't. Eddie knows. He wouldn't be able to promise it either.
They stay like that for a couple minutes in comfortable silence before Buck starts to flag. Eddie can feel the shoulder under his hand loosening and dropping, Buck’s eyes dropping, not from avoidance, but from exhaustion. He sways a little, and Eddie leans forward on instinct, until Buck’s forehead lands with a soft thump on his shoulder. They breathe together for a moment, the day and the emotion catching up to them and wrapping them in something soft and warm and a little fragile.
Eddie buries his face in Buck’s curls for a moment, breathing him in. He was so close to losing this. Never again. He won’t allow himself to lose sight of Buck again. Come fire, water, or crazy diner owners.
Buck breaks the silence first, his voice soft, and a little more broken than he would like.
"I want to go home."
Eddie doesn’t hesitate. His voice is sure and strong, and every bit of the soldier standing between danger and someone he loves.
"I am taking you home."
There is not much to say after that. They help each other change, winces shared with a few huffing laughs and grumbles about feeling old when a joint creaks here and there. Before long they are clean, in PJs, and ready to pass out.
Eddie helps Buck settle on the bed, then crosses the room for the little paperbag he left on the table that contains the meds their doctors let them leave with. Eddie pops his own quickly, before grabbing Bucks and refilling the cup. He drops the pills in Buck’s hand and hands him the water, watching as he takes them and slowly begins relaxing as the small tension of pain leaves his body.
Eddie smiles, and gently tugs the glass out of Buck’s slack hands. He sets it on the bedside table on his side of the bed, before tugging the blankets free and laying down. He stares at the ceiling for a couple seconds, trying to clear his mind as the military taught him, and get to sleep, when he feels a small tug on his sleeve. He turns his head.
Buck is on his side. He probably shouldn’t be, with his ribs and bruises, but after the last couple days, Eddie is feeling quite lenient. If Buck managed to roll on his side, Eddie would not tell him off. Instead, he just turns, scoots closer, and wraps his arms around Buck. The man lets out a deep sigh at that, and the last of the tension seems to leave him. He wiggles a little closer, slowly and carefully, until he can tuck his nose into the pulse point on Eddie’s neck. They are chest to chest. Every beat of one’s heart is reverberated in the other’s. Finally, Eddie’s mind truly calms.
They are here. They made it. Their hearts beat in tandem.
They fall asleep like that.