50. “I need more time.” & 32: “Keep your eyes on me.”
The house is dark when Eddie lets himself in.
It’s dusk, the sunlight slowly giving way to shadow, dust motes swirling through the faint light peeking in through the curtains. They’re drawn haphazardly, as though someone ripped them closed in a hurry, but the sun is still stubbornly poking through the edges. There’s no sound from the kitchen, no TV or music playing, no warmth anywhere to be found. He knows where Buck will be.
He’s on his side, back to the door when Eddie quietly steps into the bedroom. He tiptoes around the bed so he can see him, make his presence known. His heart breaks all over again when he sees the face he’s been missing like a limb for months.
Buck is asleep, his face contorted with grief even in rest. His hair is a tangled mess of curls, pillow creases line his cheeks, and there are dark circles painted under his eyes. He looks so small, curled up on the bed with one hand tucked under the pillow and the other curled tight around his stomach, like he’d fallen asleep trying to hold himself together with his own hands.
Tears prick at Eddie’s eyes. He’s managed to put his own grief to the side until he could get back here, pushing it down to something manageable until it coiled like a snake ready to lunge in his chest. He’d focused all his attention on logistics and plane tickets and packing; on helping Chris navigate his feelings and endless phone calls to the Buck and the 118 letting them know he was there, he was right there with them, even from eight-hundred miles away.
Buck, it seems, has had no such luxury - he’s been feeling it all, the razor sharp agony and mind numbing emptiness of it all with no buffer, and this is probably the first real rest he’s had in days.
Eddie toes off his shoes and makes quick work of digging out a pair of sweats from his duffel, trading them for his jeans. He climbs into the bed and tucks himself against Buck’s back, noses into the warmth of his neck with a sigh. Something settles in his veins at the feel of him, the familiar scent of his shampoo. Buck doesn’t stir, not even when Eddie’s arm wraps around his side and his hand slips into Buck’s, gently prying his clenched fingers apart and smoothing them over his stomach. And for the first time since Buck called him to break the news, Eddie lets the tears fall, silent and warm into the neck of Buck’s shirt.
By the time Buck wakes, night has fallen and sunk the room into darkness. Eddie had dozed off himself at some point but only managed thirty fitful minutes of sleep; he’s spent a good hour watching the shadows play on the wall, and listening to the thunderstorm rolling in from the east. Rain patters softly on the window while Buck stirs under his arm - he’s sure that’s what woke him in the first place. Buck hasn’t been able to sleep through a storm since the lightning strike.
He doesn’t seem to register Eddie’s presence at first. He twists in Eddie’s arms and blinks blearily at him for a few moments, uncomprehending. His face goes slack when his eyes clear and adjust to the dark.
“Eddie?” he asks, voice like gravel.
“Hey, Buck,” Eddie says softly. His hand rests on Buck’s waist, and he squeezes gently.
“Thought you weren’t coming in ‘til tomorrow,” Buck mumbles, sleepily rubbing at his eyes.
“Changed my flight,” Eddie explains, and leaves it at that.
“He’ll be here in the morning, he understood that I needed to be here.” With you, he doesn’t say. “Adriana is flying with him.”
Buck nods, accepting his non-explanation easily. Buck looks down between their bodies, not quite pressed together but close enough that he can feel Buck’s breath puff against his cheek when it starts going shallow, when he squeezes his eyes shut.
“Eddie,” Buck rasps, wrecked in a way Eddie hasn’t heard in a long time, and that’s all he needs. Eddie pulls Buck into him just as he breaks, shuddering against Eddie’s collarbone. His hands twist in Eddie’s shirt as the sobs wrack through him, and Eddie presses his own tear stained cheek against Buck’s hair.
“Shhh,” Eddie soothes him softly, though he’s barely keeping it together himself. “I’m here, Buck, I’m here. I’m right here with you.”
His voice scrapes Eddie raw, makes his breath hitch on a sob that he tries to hide by pulling Buck closer. “I know. I know, baby, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
He holds Buck through it, combing his fingers gently through the tangles in his hair and rubbing his back while Buck shakes and cries. He doesn’t know how long it takes - time has a funny way of stretching and slowing after death until it feels meaningless. The storm outside reaches a peak just as Buck does, thunder shaking the walls as violently as Buck’s shoulders. Eddie holds on, lets Buck take what he needs, an immovable rock in the eye of the storm. Eventually, Buck stops shaking. His breathing evens out and he goes limp in Eddie’s arms, sniffling occasionally into his collarbone.
Just when Eddie thinks he’s fallen back to sleep, Buck says, “Athena asked me to ring the bell.”
Eddie tightens his hold, closes his eyes against the onslaught of tears that threaten to reappear. “He would want that too,” Eddie says gently, but Buck shakes his head and pulls back to look at him.
Even in the dark Eddie can see his eyes are bloodshot, dark circles more pronounced against his red rimmed lash line. He’s beautiful even in grief, devastatingly so. His chest aches at the look on Buck’s face, the guilt and sorrow leaving their cruel marks.
“Eddie, I don’t - I don’t think I can,” Buck admits, squeezing his eyes shut against fresh tears. “It’s - I can-can barely admit he’s gone, I can’t - I n-need more time, I can’t-”
“Hey, hey,” Eddie soothes. He lifts a hand to Buck’s face, swiping away the tears with his thumb. “You can. We’re going to get through this. All of us, together. I’ll be right there with you, okay?”
“Eddie, I don’t - you don’t get it, it’s my fault, I should have-”
“No,” Eddie cuts him off. “None of this is your fault, Buck, don’t do that. You know he would tell you the exact same thing.”
“You weren’t there, you-you didn’t see, I could have stopped it, I-”
It cuts like a knife, the guilt that cracks through his ribs. Buck is right - he wasn’t there, he couldn’t help, couldn’t protect Bobby or Buck or anyone. He knows he was where he needed to be, knows no one blames him for his absence, but it still crushes him a little to hear the thoughts that have haunted him for days from Buck’s mouth.
Buck must see some of that on his face, because he shakes his head urgently and grasps at his shoulder. “No, Eddie, I didn’t mean - you know I didn’t mean it like that.”
Eddie pushes his hand gently back into Buck’s hair, smoothly gliding through the curls now. “I know, Buck. I know. But this is no one’s fault, okay? It was an accident, just like we deal with everyday.”
Buck shudders and closes his eyes. Eddie traces his fingers over his face, brushes his birthmark with his thumb. Touching him this way crosses the line he’d so firmly held for so many years, but he can’t stop himself now. Doesn’t want to, either. He thinks he needs it as much as Buck right now, the closeness, the comfort of another person’s touch. Buck is always so cold, colder now in grief, but he’s warming under Eddie’s hands.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” Buck murmurs, eyes still closed. Eddie feels Buck’s hands move soothingly over his shoulder blades, has to swallow against the wave of emotion that tries to consume him.
“Nowhere else I’d be,” Eddie says, and presses his lips to Buck’s hair. He’s not sure Buck even notices.
They’re quiet again for long time. Long enough that the storm passes, leaves them suspended in the deadened aftermath, until Buck’s voice breaks the silence. “I don’t think I can do it, Eddie.”
Eddie leans back and meets Buck’s wide, terrified eyes. “No one will force you, Buck. Athena will understand if you say no, but I think - I think you’ll regret it, if you don’t.”
Buck looks at him for a long time, quietly contemplating his words. Eddie brushes a hand down his neck, feels his pulse racing against his fingertips.
“You’re right,” Buck says at last, so quiet Eddie almost doesn’t hear him. “I have to, I - for him. For - for Bobby.”
Eddie wonders if it’s the first time he’s said his name out loud since it happened, since he called Eddie and told him through splintering sobs.
“I’ll be right there the whole time,” Eddie promises, holding Buck’s face carefully with one hand. “You’re not alone, Buck. Just keep your eyes on me while you’re up there, if it’s too much.”
Buck nods, tears in his eyes again, and tucks his face in Eddie’s neck. Eddie’s shirt is damp by the time Buck has cried himself out, same as the pillow under Eddie’s cheek. He takes a peek at his watch and sees it’s barely 8:30, though it feels like it’s been hours since he first laid next to Buck.
“How long until you have to go back to El Paso?” Buck asks, and it shreds him to pieces.
“I don’t know,” he answers honestly. “I pulled Chris out of school for a week. But his spring break is the week after, so we-we have time.”
He doesn’t tell him that he’ll stay as long as Buck needs, though the words sit heavy as a boulder in his throat, aching to get out. He can’t promise that, even with everything in him screaming that he needs to stay. He can’t voice his suspicion that Chris might want to stay once he’s here, can’t tell him that he’s been hinting at wanting to move back for weeks. He can’t afford to give himself or Buck any false hope when they’re hanging on by a thread.
“Did you eat today?” Eddie asks quietly, changing the subject before he cracks.
Buck nods. “A little. Maddie and Chim brought lunch and stayed with me until they had to pick up Jee.”
“Why don’t I make us something?” Eddie says. “Maybe some soup, a sandwich if you can manage?”
Buck nods again, forehead knocking into Eddie’s chin. “Okay.”
Eddie gets up, expecting Buck to stay in bed while he makes the food, but Buck follows and all but plasters himself to Eddie’s back as he digs out two cans of chicken noodle soup and starts heating them on the stove. Eddie lets him, and leans back into Buck’s chest when he feels him hesitate to touch Eddie again. Buck rests his chin on Eddie’s shoulder while the soup heats; Eddie sits him at the table while he makes the sandwiches and switches on the lamps, suffusing the room with soft light. He finds one of Buck’s hoodies and helps him shrug it on, because he’s still so cold, even with Eddie wrapping himself around him every spare moment.
They eat on the couch, Buck almost in Eddie’s lap with how closely he presses against him. Buck manages to finish his soup and eats most of the sandwich, which Eddie counts as a win.
He doesn’t know what tomorrow holds. Doesn’t know how Buck will handle the funeral proceedings, how he will handle them. He’s lived with grief for years, sees her now as an old friend that won’t give up the ghost and leave him be, and now he has another lining up to haunt him. Another person he failed, leaving him with so much love and memory and nowhere to put it, waiting for the day it overflows and chokes him.
What he does know is that he has Buck - he has his son, and his family. That the love he has for the man pressed against his shoulder will still be there in the morning and for the rest of his life. That as long as there is breath in his body he won’t let Buck disappear, that none of them will. That tomorrow he will celebrate Bobby’s life and mourn with those who loved him best, that they will heal together.
Buck’s head falls heavily on his shoulder, and he knows they will be okay.
