Archive of Our Own ^beta

Buck decided to handle his latest identity crisis the same way everyone did: by getting a new tattoo. 

Although, he was pretty sure some people just cut their bangs. At least that’s what Maddie said. But Buck didn’t have bangs and he’d been staring at the blank spot on his ribs with a kind of itch that built up every time he caught his reflection in the mirror for days now. 

So, he booked an appointment. 

His first tattoo had been in Pennsylvania for his eighteenth birthday. Maddie had driven into town and the whole occasion felt like an act of rebellion. One that made them both smile a little wilder and giggle like maniacs even as Maddie took him to the grocery store afterwards and gave him a stern lecture on tattoo aftercare to avoid infection. 

It’d been one of his best birthdays. 

It may not have been his most meaningful tattoo but the one on his pec was still one of his favorites simply because it was a memory of Maddie he could hold close to his heart even after she stopped returning his calls. 

Now, on his… ninth? (Buck had to stop to count.) Ninth tattoo, he was practically vibrating out of his own skin waiting for the appointment. His normal artist had been booked solid for months, trying to play catch up after being gone for her maternity leave, and so Buck was seeing someone else on her recommendation. Not that Buck minded. He’d spent a late night in bed scrolling through Eddie Diaz’s Instagram and falling in love with each new tattoo he saw. His line work was impeccable but the shading was where Eddie seemed to really shine. He had a few tattoos posted in color but most were works in greyscale. The soft petals of the pressed tulips on some woman’s thigh looked real enough to touch but too fragile to try. Another picture of a wolf made the fur almost look like it was moving. Every piece was a masterpiece of fine line and shading that made them seem like a painting in a museum. 

Buck almost couldn’t believe he’d managed to book an appointment with him because the quality of his work would’ve made anyone think he’d have a waiting list a mile long. 

Maybe it was branding. None of the pictures had any captions or tags to follow. His hours of his small shop were odd for a tattoo parlor with him only going past five on Tuesday and Thursday with no weekend hours. 

But he’d responded to Buck’s DM in a timely manner and somehow managed to make it work so that Buck could get an appointment at the top of his four off. 

Buck just kind of wished he’d been able to see a picture of him before he arrived because Jesus fucking Christ! 

Some warning would’ve been nice! 

“Evan Buckley?” Eddie asked with a nonchalance to him as if he wasn’t the walking embodiment of every person on the planet’s sex dream. Eddie, it turned out, was just like his work. Hard lines mixed with the perfect amount of softness that Buck wanted to reach out and touch. Tufts of dark brown hair were styled to a hand grabbed point at the top  with closely shaven sides that faded down to his chiseled jaw. He had cheekbones that Buck couldn’t help follow to a soft mouth nestled in the center of stubble. Glints of metal highlighted piercings of a ring on his eyebrow and a small stud in his ear that made Buck ache just looking at them. His soft henley was a forest green that made every inch of his sun kissed skin seem warm and inviting but maybe that was just his small smile he was giving Buck as he caught him staring. 

Wait—

“Uh…” Buck said because he was the most intelligent person who definitely hadn’t been drooling over someone he just met. “Yes. Yep. That’s me.”

Get it together, Buck!

“People just call me Buck,” Buck said as he held out his hand like a totally normal person. 

Eddie’s smile ticked up onto the edge of a smirk as he took his hand and shook it. “I’m Eddie.”

The motion dragged the fabric of his shirt down low enough for Buck to see the impressive sleeve inked onto Eddie’s arm and Buck found himself getting lost in all the complicated twists and turns as one design bled into the other. It was seamless as one moment in time transitioned into another until Buck had to fight the instinct not to trace each design with the tip of his finger. 

“Like what you see?” 

Oh shit! He was still holding onto Eddie’s hand! 

Heat flushed all the way up into his hairline until he was sure he was bright red as Buck dropped his hand like he’d been burned. But Eddie only held onto his tiny smirk with lips Buck wanted to kiss more than anything and—

No. Stop it, Buck! You aren’t that guy anymore. 

The bitter taste of Abby’s abandonment burned at the back of Buck’s tongue and Buck shifted his weight as he managed to crash back down into a moment of clarity. 

Buck wasn’t that guy anymore. Even though Eddie was hotter than sin and Buck was so painfully alone that his skin had begun to itch, didn’t mean that Buck wanted to just throw himself at the first available person with pretty eyes. 

Even if they were very pretty eyes. With a freckle underneath one too. 

But even still. 

“Yeah,” Buck said, clearing his throat as he forced himself to get a fucking grip. “They’re… They’re really cool. Did you do those yourself?”

“Some,” Eddie said as he turned his arm for Buck to see the biggest piece on his forearm. It was a compass settled on a sea weathered paper that extended all the way down from his elbow to his wrist. “This was one of my first bigger pieces.”

Buck clenched his fists on the counter until his knuckles popped to keep from reaching out to touch. “It’s beautiful.”

“Thank you,” Eddie said, smiling up at Buck from the corner of his eye, making something in Buck’s stomach break free. He was pretty sure it was nerves but that was nearly impossible. “So, what are we doing today?”

The next half an hour was spent talking over the general idea of what Buck had wanted. He’d seen in one of Eddie’s photos on instagram someone with a feather and burning sage stick stamped under their bicep but what Buck couldn’t look away from was the way the smoke seemed so soft yet real. The nerves from before burned anew as Eddie just let Buck talk through what he wanted and where he wanted it, lifting his arm so he could show him the stretch of his torso over his ribs, before Eddie put him out of his misery with a considering nod. 

“Give me ten minutes,” Eddie had said before he leaned over an ipad and roughly sketched out what was going to become one of Buck’s most memorable tattoos yet. 

Maybe one of his favorites too. 

He’d been a little self-conscious about getting a tattoo so large but when Eddie had showed him his idea, all that worry faded away. 

It was perfect. 

The smoke was in greyscale with various shades darker as it crawled up his ribs and circled around the bolt of his shoulder and onto his back. It looked like a furious thunderstorm with the softness of an extinguished candle and Buck couldn’t have taken his shirt off fast enough if he tried so that Eddie could get the stencil on just right. They spent a few minutes trying to get the placement of the two just so and Buck tried not to think too hard about how Eddie was so close to his chest that his skin erupted in goosebumps by the fanning of his breath alone. 

Eventually, Buck was up on the table on his side, with a soft pillow under his head and his arm lifted so as not to smear the trace. 

A warm, gloved hand settled into the slope of his side and Buck’s skin hummed beneath the touch like he was a cat asking for pets. 

“Ready?” Eddie asked from above, his tattoo gun held in his hand and a smile that seemed to soothe all the lingering doubts and worries away with a simple caress of his attention. Buck swallowed again as he blinked up at him and nodded. “Good. Let me know if you need a break, okay?”

The sting that accompanied the buzzing sound of the tattoo gun wasn’t anything new but not entirely pleasant either. Buck had been moisturizing the space for the few weeks leading up to the session and the preparation helped ease the dragging burn just a little but he still felt his sweat dot at the small of his back as he forced himself to hold still. 

“So, why the smoke?” Eddie asked after he got through the first few lines without issue. 

“I’m a firefighter.” Buck gave Eddie the easy answer he’d been giving to everyone who asked. 

Everyone except maybe Maddie seemed to take it at face value but even she just pursed her lips and nodded. 

“A firefighter, huh?” Eddie said as he smoothed away one of the more burning lines with a swipe of his pinky. “Aren’t firefighters supposed to avoid smoke?”

“Actually smoke tell us a lot of things. Like slow, white smoke can tell us if there’s steam coming from somewhere and stuff like brown —”

Eddie’s hand pressed down firmly into Buck’s side to keep him still as a particularly spicy spot sparked with pain, making his breath hitch in his throat. 

“Smoke,” Buck kept going from gritted teeth. “Means that a collapse is coming. Thick black smoke means it’s an explosive environment.”

“Is that what your smoke means?” Eddie asked, smoothing some Witch Hazel with his pinky again. “Explosive environment?”

Buck couldn’t quite see his expression the way he was ducked down to Buck’s side and concentrating on the lines but he could feel the heat of his breath, the small huff of his laugh. 

It tickled and made Buck laugh a little too. 

“Not exactly.” They didn’t say anything for a few minutes after that and Buck didn’t know why he wanted to tell him. The admission burned at the back of his throat hotter than the needle at his side. It shouldn’t. Buck had written the letter, made his peace with it, and moved on. But the thought still lingered. It bruised at Buck’s back and made him stiffen as it twinged an old ache from stretching too far. It coiled around his throat like a leash as if he’d been tied to a tree and abandoned on the side of the road. 

Well, someone had brought him inside and Buck still felt like he was twitching from the cold; trapped. 

“You doing okay?” Eddie’s voice broke through a reverie Buck didn’t want to be in and Buck sucked in a shaky inhale of air as he felt Eddie slow his movements down. “Buck?”

“Have you ever felt like a ghost?” Buck asked and he almost couldn’t believe it when the words left his lips only to float in the air between them. They were just words but even admitting them out loud felt like he was uttering a sort of curse on himself. 

Eddie stilled for only a moment before he went back to tattooing the lines arching into the fatty part of his side. 

“How do you mean?”

It felt… oddly intimate being stretched out like that in front of Eddie, with his attention so focused on centimeters of his skin at a time. The skin that had felt stretched thin where his blood skittered beneath it ever since his world had shifted out from under his feet and left him unsettled. 

“Just… Sometimes, it feels like everyone you love and care about are just a million miles away. Like you’re trapped. You think the world is supposed to go one way and then… you turn around and it’s like people don’t even see you.” He’d been think a lot about his parents since he realized that Abby had left with no intention of ever coming back. Thinking a lot about the way his mom used to just stare right through him as if… “How sometimes it’s like you were never even there.”

Eddie said nothing for a beat too long, with his gun and the sting a constant stream like he was drawing a line of Buck’s pain to tether him to that spot where Buck was the lowest he’d ever been. Embarrassment made Buck’s heart dip in his chest and he shook his head against the pillow he was currently considering smothering himself with. 

“Sorry that was—”

Stupid. 

“No,” Eddie said, his hand firm as it pressed into Buck’s side and Buck went still beneath the pressure. 

It was like he was on the precipice of something he didn’t quite understand. He couldn’t see him, not without obviously straining to look, but he could almost feel every inch of Eddie’s focus on his skin. 

“No,” Eddie said again as he smoothed some more balm against the line burning in Buck’s side. It was almost, tentative. Like a gentle caress meant to comfort a deep ache. “That’s… That makes a lot of sense.”

Another stretch of silence filled the space as Eddie worked another long line on Buck’s side, creeping closer and closer to his ribs, before Eddie spoke again. 

“This next part is going to be a little harder. I’m going to be going over your ribs and you’ve been doing really well for being stabbed with a bunch of needles for over an hour.” Buck blinked up at him as if pulling himself from a trance. Had it been that long? A bead of sweat slid down from Eddie’s hairline and Buck zoned out as he stared at it, watching as Eddie pushed his forearm up to wipe his brow. He rolled his shoulders back and stretched his neck. “Do you want a break beforehand?”

Buck didn’t quite trust his voice not to sound breathless so he shook his head and braced himself for the pain.

The sting seemed almost intense from the anticipation alone but Buck slowly found himself drifting under the hypnotic way Eddie kept moving as he dragged the needle alone. Pain, a soothing pinky, the barely there scratch of skin. Pain, a soothing pinky, the barely there scratch of skin. Pain, a soothing pinky, the barely there scratch of skin. 

“How’s that?” Eddie checked in and Buck took a moment to lean into the pain. It wasn’t as bad as Buck had been expecting but then again he already had a pretty high pain threshold. 

“Good,” Buck said as the cool air of the shop made his skin feel raw like a sunburn. “I have a high pain tolerance though.”

“I noticed,” Eddie said and the soft rumble of approval made Buck hot all over. “But let me know if it gets to be too much.”

“I will.” And Buck quietly kept the fact that Eddie was only one of the few people Buck made that promise to and really meant it. 

Eddie pressed down harder on Buck’s side, trapping his waist with his arm with an impressive strength that made Buck feel pinned down and small. But in the good way. Like a flower you couldn’t bear to give up so you pressed it in a book. 

“When I got back from my last tour,” Eddie said after a while with an aloofness to his tone that felt like it was meant to be intentional for the bomb he’d just dropped. “It felt like everyone in my life wanted to speed by when I still felt like I was playing catch up. I think… they thought it was a way to help me move forward… to help me forget but…”

He leaned down so close that Buck felt his low exhales like they were his own.

“All it managed to do was make me feel like I never left that desert.”

It was a heavy confession nearly whispered into his skin, settling over him like a blanket to tuck Buck in. But it felt like a reassurance too. 

Like Eddie knew exactly what Buck felt and for a moment it made Buck feel less alone.

The pain turned bright in an instant and Buck sucked in a sharp breath as he flinched. Eddie’s hand tightened around Buck’s hip, pinning him down but not in a way that was suffocating. More grounding in the sharp intensity of the pain that manage to make Buck’s lungs stall in his chest. 

He needed to breathe. 

He’d been in enough pain in his life to know that. 

So, Buck, taking all the experience of growing up alone and seeking the attention even if it came at the price of a broken arm or a skinned knee, did what he knew would help. 

He exhaled slowly and melted into the table. 

“Good boy,” Eddie said and all of Buck’s thoughts went silent as the buzzing that had been under his skin stopped. 

Everything stopped. 

Everything went still. 

And Buck felt real for the first time in such a long time. 

Real and settled in his own skin and not like a ghost at all. The smallness caved in on him, folding up into tiny pieces until he felt like he could fit in the palm of Eddie’s hand. Buck wanted to shiver under that praise and push into Eddie’s touch. He wanted to whine for more and bask under the warmth of the first. But he wanted to be good even more. 

Something cracked open in his chest and sent the butterflies from before free again as he tried to be perfectly still for Eddie as he worked. 

If Eddie knew that he had somehow managed to stop Buck’s world from spinning out only to spin it in another direction, he gave no indication. Instead, he worked quickly to get through the worst of it and Buck was helpless to do anything but try not to press into Eddie’s touch like he was starved for it. 

Eventually, Eddie sighed and leaned back into his stool before rolling it so he could look down at Buck. His hand pulled away from where it’d been firmly planted against his skin as if they’d been melded together by the heat seeping off of them and Buck found himself missing the weight almost instantly. But Eddie’s smile was almost gentle in a way as it made his brown eyes sparkle beneath the lights. 

Buck would’ve put up with over a thousand needles stabbing into him over and over again if it meant getting to stay on that table for just a second longer with Eddie. But he was also feeling a little heavy, like he couldn’t pick up his limbs even if he tried. 

Eddie studied him for a moment before his expression softened. 

“Let’s get you some water,” Eddie said and he set down his gun, peeling his gloves off with expert precision before he was stretching into a standing position. He reached up and groaned as something popped but all Buck could do was stare at the sliver of skin revealed at the hem of Eddie’s shirt. 

Seriously, Buck? Not cool!

“Stay right there,” Eddie said with a soft hand on Buck’s hip that was gone too fast for Buck to really feel it. “I’ll be right back.”

True to his word, Buck only just barely managed to process that Eddie had left before he returned with a bottle of water and a capri sun tucked in one hand and a power bar in the other. 

“Be honest with me,” Eddie said as he dropped his haul and guided Buck’s arm down before settling his hand in the curve of Buck’s bicep. “If I sit you up, are you going to pass out on me?”

“No?” He didn’t mean to say it like a question. 

Maybe. 

Buck didn’t really know what he was feeling; hadn’t for months now.

“That’s what I thought,” Eddie said as he grabbed the capri sun and ripped off the plastic with one hand. “Drink this.”

Buck frowned as he stared at the drink but obediently sucked the juice from the straw with a single minded focus. 

The thumb sweeping across his skin with a firm press of his muscle made Buck stop as he looked up at Eddie. 

“Slowly,” Eddie amended and Buck nodded as he took another drink. 

The syrupy sweetness of the juice was thick on Buck’s tongue, coating his cheeks, and parching the back of his throat he didn’t even realize had gotten so dry. 

It wasn’t until he was finished with the juice before Eddie took his trash and tossed it aside. He helped Buck sit up and the sharp zip of the sting burned more as Buck settled upright. But before he could even consider a headrush, Eddie handed him the open granola bar and nudged him to eat with quiet prompting. 

“You did very well,” Eddie said, taking Buck’s wrist. Buck wanted to preen under that praise for the rest of his life. “Finish that.”

And Buck didn’t even realize he’d dropped his granola to his lap until Eddie was tapping a finger against his knuckles. Buck felt syrupy like the juice, thick in the sweetness like a fly caught in ember. Like hot honey drizzling out at a slow pace. 

But when he was done, with the food and the juice in system, Buck started to feel more like himself and with that came the flush of embarrassment. 

What the fuck was that?

It took him too long to realize Eddie was still holding his wrist and that two fingers were pressed into the soft skin where he was sure his pulse was fluttering at a wild pace. 

God what a mess. Buck sucked his lip between his teeth and pointedly looked over Eddie’s shoulder. 

“I uh… Sorry.” Buck cringed at the sound of his own voice, rasping like he’d inhaled smoke and was only spitting out fumes. “S-Sorry I don’t—”

“Hey.” The hand settling onto the nape of his neck made his heart threaten to break free from his chest. Eddie’s thumb rubbed a soothing circle into his clavicle, waiting until Buck was bold enough to meet his eyes. “Nothing to be sorry about. It happens all the time.”

Didn’t make it any less embarrassing but Buck couldn’t be sure if the heat in his cheeks was from that or the low blood sugar from almost passing out. 

“I mean it,” Eddie said and his smile almost made Buck feel better. 

No, not almost. 

It did. 

The last person to have that power over him was… Well, it’d been Abby. 

“You did good, Buck.” And Buck did shiver beneath that. But if Eddie noticed, he didn’t say. 

Buck left his session feeling wobbly yet solid— after promising Eddie he was good to drive and putting up with another round of pulse checking— and managed to keep his eyes open long enough to wash his tattoo with the warm water and non scented soap as instructed before he collapsed onto his bed and slept harder than he had in years.

Good boy. 

It hadn’t been the words, the way they slid over him like a warm palm mapping out his skin, even though they were words that Buck wanted to hear over and over again. No, it’d been the tone. The way Eddie’s voice went deep with the approval like it rumbled from somewhere he kept far away from prying eyes. Like Buck’s exhale, Buck’s surrender to the pain had been the key that unlocked it. 

There was no tone, Buck. 

There’d been no tone. He was imagining things. Trying to process the fact that he’d nearly passed out like a total novice that he was latching onto anything that would make him feel less mortified about the whole thing. Wistful thinking Hen would say. 

There’d been no tone. Just because Buck was so starved for physical touch, for… some glimpse of affection, didn’t mean that there had been a tone. One that was full of pride and admiration and something… else Buck couldn’t quite put his finger on. 

Good boy. 

But the words had been branded on him ever since that moment they were uttered into his existence and Buck didn’t know what to do with them other than hold them close to his chest like a prize. 

Even if there hadn’t been a tone, even if Buck had simply made it up, he didn’t want to give up those words just yet. He didn’t want to let them go to be lost. He wanted to bathe in the heat of the praise that came with them and go out to the coldest spot in the world just to prove that they would keep him warm for all of eternity. 

There’d been no tone but there’d been a discovery all the same. 

Something happened. That was the only thing Buck could think of that could explain the way he felt fundamentally changed. He spent the day after his tattoo feeling more settled in his own skin than he had in a long time. The jittery feeling in his fingers calmed to something more manageable the same way the inflamed skin on his side healed into something manageable. The weight of his turnout coat didn’t feel like it was going to tremble off his shoulders. It felt like it fit, worn in the spots where his shoulders pressed into the material, and less like Buck was just pretending. 

The others noticed too and Buck didn’t know where to even begin how to describe it; how the burn of the ink shot into his side with one moment he was hyper fixating on and had some how managed to soothe a pain in his heart he’d been nursing since the moment he saw Abby’s suitcases. 

Maybe even longer. 

But by the time his next session rolled around a few weeks later, Buck was practically vibrating out of his own skin again. He bounced on his toes as he waited in the front, torn between shoving his hands in his pockets or tangling them in front of him as he took in Eddie’s studio. 

It was a modest, small space with a warm waiting area seated to the side of a massive desk that looked like it’d come with the place. The small display of jewelry for piercings was nestled facing in to the studio rather than out to the windows so as not to tempt any wandering eyes. Tucked in the corner by the ancient cash register somehow connected to an iPad, was a gallery of art projects and drawings produced by who Buck suspected was an actual child rather than someone doing their best. 

Not that Buck had any room to talk. 

The stick figure of a little boy and Eddie on the beach were far superior to anything Buck would ever be able to draw. 

“Hey,” Eddie said as he walked to the front and honestly?

Not. Fucking. Fair. 

Eddie had added a tiny silver hooped nose ring hugging close to one nostril that looked like it’d been painted on his skin the same way his ink was dotted on his arm. But he’d swapped out the henley for a nice black v-neck that looked soft to the touch with whispers of ink peaking from the neckline and the olive green pants hugged his hips in all the right places. Buck’s mouth dried out instantly as he stared and the hardware in Eddie’s eyebrow caught the light as he arched his brow. 

“You’re not going to faint on me again already, are you?”

It was a tease but Buck flushed hot in embarrassment anyways. 

“Sorry! That shouldn’t… I’m fine!” He tore his eyes to stare at anything else and landed on the drawings instead. Eddie followed his gaze and a soft smile spread across his face as he saw what Buck was looking at. 

“My son,” Eddie said and— damn. 

Damn. 

Buck should’ve known better than to be attracted to the hot tattoo artist who seemed too good to be true. 

“You have a kid?” Buck asked before he could think of anything else to say. 

Eddie’s smile on brightened as he pulled out his phone and showed Buck a picture. 

Buck’s heart did another funny kind of flip as he stared down at the picture. Eddie had his arms wrapped tight around a little boy with wild curls that spilled over into his eyes. They had the same smile, wide and bright, and it was infectious even in a picture. 

“He’s adorable,” Buck said with a smile of his own stretching into his cheeks. “I love kids.”

“I love this one,” Eddie said as he took back his phone only to stare at the picture for a second longer before he pocketed his phone again.

“Is that why you don’t work on weekends?” Buck didn’t mean to pry but the odd hours Eddie kept made sense. 

Eddie bit the inside of his lip, making his smile smaller but no less brighter as he tipped his head. “Yeah. I’m all he’s got and there’s only so many evenings I can leave him with my abuela.”

Oh. 

“Oh,” Buck said like the genius that he was. “So, you’re…”

Eddie lifted both his brows as Buck let the end of that sentence falter away.

“Single?” Eddie filled in with all the confidence Buck wished he could pretend to have. “Yes.”

Again, what was wrong with him?

It was like Buck lost any and all understanding of how to function as a person when he was around Eddie. 

Eddie watched him as his smile dipped up into the smirk that was definitely not a vibe just like there hadn’t been a tone and Buck ducked his head as a nervous laugh bubbled out of him. 

“Sorry,” Buck said, rubbing his hand nervously against his leg. “That’s… none of my business.”

“I don’t mind,” Eddie said and Buck braved a glance up at him as he prayed he wasn’t bright red. Eddie’s smirk disappeared into his cheek and a different kind of heat purred deep in Buck’s belly. “You ready for your next session?”

It was an out where Eddie was practically holding open the door for him and Buck couldn’t walk through it fast enough. Buck dropped his things where he’d put them before and then reached back to pull off his shirt with ease. 

“Let’s take a look,” Eddie said as he flicked on his light and lifted up his stool. Buck raised his arm over his head as Eddie rolled over to him. 

Eddie’s touch on his skin sent a shock through every one of Buck’s nerve endings and spread like a wildfire across his torso. The heat of his fingers, gentle as they were, sparked like volts of lightning that made Buck bite down on his lip to keep the stuttered breath from slipping out before he embarrassed himself even more. 

Eddie rumbled in approval and Buck’s knees almost wobbled out from under him. 

“You healed up nicely,” Eddie said as his fingertips skated over Buck’s ribs like a tease. “I was expecting some touch ups given what you do and the layers rubbing against it but you did well.”

Buck wanted to hear it again. It was a realization that couldn’t have come at a more inappropriate time. But he wanted to hear those two simple words over and over again until they were painted across his skin. 

“The shading’s going to be a little harder but I’ll try to be quick.”

“I can take it.” Buck pushed out, each word feeling like a challenge to get out, and he grimaced. It wasn’t a challenge and he knew better. “I promise I won’t faint on you again but I should be good.”

Say it. Please…

Eddie hummed as he rolled back, putting distance between them so Buck could get comfortable, and Buck almost rocked after him.

“Don’t worry. If you squirm I’ll just pin you down.” 

And something in Buck screamed Yes! Yes! Please! I want that! I need that! It was alarming how much so. How one teasing little assurance was enough to make Buck want to claw out of his own skin with how much he wanted it. 

Eddie glanced at him from the corner of his eye and the smirk was enough to knock Buck out of the spin cycle he found himself in if only for a moment. 

Did Eddie know what… 

“I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said,” Eddie said as he busied himself with his ink, checking his needles. Buck licked his lips as he sat— collapsed— onto the table, positioning himself until he was on his side again like he was displaying himself on an alter. A self-sacrifice for whatever torment Eddie had planned for him. “What you said about being a ghost.”

The pain twinged in Buck’s chest as he remembered that confession. A confession he hadn’t said to anyone else except Eddie. 

Eddie turned to him with his hands poised. 

“You ready?” Eddie asked and it felt like he was asking him to jump rather than brace himself for pain. 

Wordlessly, Buck nodded. 

The burn of the needles stretched like a sunburn as Eddie started to shade and Buck pushed out a slow breath as he settled in for a long session. 

“Doing alright?” Eddie checked in almost immediately and Buck nodded again only to realize Eddie probably couldn’t see him. 

“I’m good,” Buck said, his own voice sounding faraway even to his own ears. 

The shading wasn’t too bad as Eddie got through some of the more meatier parts of Buck’s side but when Buck felt his hand creep up to his ribs, Eddie spoke again. 

“You know what also comes from smoke?” 

“Lung cancer?” Buck quipped before he could help himself, needing the shielding from how flayed open he felt. 

The hot puff of air from Eddie’s huff of a laugh made Buck shiver all over again. 

“A phoenix,” Eddie said as he pressed down with a firm hand and shaded over a sensitive rib. “They rise from the ashes and learn to fly again.”

The pinpricks of pressure behind his eyes was unexpected but so was the flooding of comfort that came from Eddie’s words. It rippled from his heart like a stone being tossed into too still water and made Buck feel so incredibly seen in an instant. 

“Maybe you felt like a ghost once, Buck,” Eddie said like a near whisper. “Maybe we both did. But that doesn’t mean we have to stay that way.”

Eddie swiped his pinky over to soothe away the sting before Buck even realized it was there. 

“To stay a ghost,” Eddie said and Buck hung over every word like it would be his last. “It just gives them more power over you.”

“Is that what you did?” Buck asked, his breath hitching as Eddie shaded a particularly brutal spot but Eddie’s firm touch remained grounding like an anchor point. “Took their power away?”

“I’m trying,” Eddie said as he leaned back to switch out his ink. “But I just found someone worth giving that control over to.”

“Who?”

“Me.” Eddie smiled down at him and Buck wanted to stretch under it like he was basking under the sun. “My son. I stopped letting everyone dictate what and who I could be.” 

And maybe that was part of the problem. Maybe that was why Buck hadn’t felt like he fit in his own skin anymore. Abby had seen a version of Buck that he didn’t even know possible about himself but even that version hadn’t been enough; hadn’t been real. It was like a shirt that fit too small now and one wrong move would pop a seam. 

Abby was gone. 

Buck had left. 

But maybe he was acting like he was still waiting for her to come back. 

Abby wasn’t coming back. 

And Buck needed to stop looking over his shoulder, hoping to see her there. 

Eddie let Buck drink his juice sitting up that time which, if you asked Buck, came from a place of over abundance of caution. 

Buck would also shy away from anyone who tried to take back the capri sun clutched in his hands with an audible hiss at the same time. The fruity sugary juice made Buck’s insides feel like honey again, warm and syrupy as he took in the surroundings of Eddie’s studio for what felt like the first time. Watercolor paintings and charcoal sketches were framed, hanging up on the wall with the precision of someone who had a level and a ruler. 

“Did you do these too?” Buck asked, staring at a painting of a willow tree that looked caught in an evening storm. 

“Uh,” Eddie said as he followed Buck’s gaze like he’d forgotten they were there. A bashful grimace twisted into Eddie’s smile. “Yeah. I have an art studio upstairs.”

“They’re incredible.” Buck didn’t know much about art but he knew just from looking at them that they were stunning. 

Another drawing caught his eye, this one made with fine charcoal and the pad of Eddie’s fingertip. It was a figure that much Buck could tell but the limbs were bent in a way that seemed almost held as if…

Buck’s mouth went dry as he saw it in full. Of the delicate shadows of knots and rope pressed into the arms. Of the complicated twisted braid of ties criss crossed on the shoulders. Of the almost coy submissive dip of the chin. 

Buck felt the heat of Eddie’s gaze on him and it was only because he almost dropped his juice box that he’d been able to tear himself away. 

Eddie just watched him; studied him. 

And Buck?

Buck wanted to know what it felt like to be a subject of one of Eddie’s drawings. 

But that didn’t feel like something you could say to a person without sounding like a nutjob so Buck took the tiny straw into his mouth and sucked the pouch dry as he looked around some more. His eyes landed a small flier taped to the wall, the corners wilting as it curled past the scotch tape. 

The words were simple and to the point without drawing attention to the subject. 

“Do you really tattoo over trauma scars for free?” Buck asked as his idea formed in the forefront of his mind like a spark. 

Eddie hummed as he nodded. “Yep. Vets, first responders—”

“Abuse victims?” Buck asked before he could help himself. He watched Eddie’s eyes widen with alarm as the corners of his mouth twitched down into something worried and Buck almost choked on the juice still in his mouth as he held out his hand. “No, no not for me! I just… know someone who might be interested.”

And that was a bit of a stretch but Buck also knew that Maddie hated the physical scars Doug had left behind. She’d gotten through her marriage and then kidnapping with her life but she hadn’t been unscathed and Buck wanted nothing more than to wipe that monster’s touch on his sister away until he was nothing more than a distant memory. 

“Would it be from like your book or could she do something…”

“Anyone who can come out of battle like that earned any tattoo they want,” Eddie said seriously, taking Buck’s empty pouch away and tossing it. “Have her give me a call and I can fit her in.”

Getting Maddie to agree was surprisingly a lot easier than Buck anticipated. It wasn’t that Maddie shut Buck out when it came to Doug but she certainly shut down whenever he tried to broach the subject. She always did though, even before the attempted murder, and Buck suspected there were things she would never tell him. Things meant to protect him because she was always doing that: protecting him. Even if it meant putting herself and the grief of her trauma firmly on the other side of the door she closed. 

But getting Maddie to agree to getting a tattoo had taken no effort at all. 

Getting Maddie to stop teasing him, however, was an entirely different story. 

“Please,” Buck drew out as he pushed his Jeep into park. “Please do not embarrass me.”

“Me?” Maddie gasped, her offense failing to impress as her lips curved up into a wide mouth smile. He definitely shouldn’t have told her about his first session with Eddie. Or about his tattoos. Or his nose ring. Or his smile. Definitely not his smile. Maddie rolled her eyes as she grabbed the extra pair of shorts and her bag. “Would you relax?”

“I am relaxed,” Buck said, only just stopping himself from pushing those words out into a whine because he was an adult. An adult who could communicate like an adult even if he was being mercilessly teased by his older sister. “I’m the most relaxed!”

If Buck was practically vibrating out of his own skin again knowing he was minutes away from watching Eddie do whatever it was from an outside perspective then that was between him and God. Was it serving his sister up on a silver plate? Sure! But it was for a good cause and no one could deny the truth about what was Maddie’s look of elation when Buck told her about Eddie’s offer; she was just as ready to be rid of Doug for good as everyone else. 

“So, relaxed.” Maddie mocked him while she got out of the Jeep he so graciously drove her in. 

Sure, it was hers first but whatever. 

Buck blew out a curse as he hurried after her before she did something like show Eddie the baby pictures of Buck she had on her phone that she so kindly shared with Chimney. 

Eddie was as gorgeous as ever with his forearms pressed onto the counter. He was focused on his ipad with his stylus twirling between his fingers and Buck did not stare at those fingers. 

He did not!

At the sound of the bell above the door, Eddie looked up and smiled that gorgeous smile that practically made Buck want to melt to the floor. 

“You must be Maddie,” Eddie said as he held out his hand and Buck pointedly did not acknowledge the not so subtle look Maddie threw his way as she returned the greeting. “I’m Eddie.”

“Hi, yes, Buck talks about you all the time.” Maddie ignored Buck’s glare but then Eddie was shooting him another one of those blinding smiles— the one that seemed to always catch him by surprise as it stretched across his face— so it didn’t really matter. “Seems you made quite the impression on my little brother.” 

Buck wasn’t above sticking his butt in her face to get her to stop talking like they were kids again. He really wasn’t. But Maddie just cocked her head to the side and hummed out a teasing sound as she hip checked him. 

“Something about a juice box?”

Eddie barked out a laugh as the surprise wrinkled his eyes. 

“Well, hopefully you don’t have your brother’s habit of nearly fainting on my table but for you? I’ve probably got a strawberry kiwi in the back.” Eddie did everything but wink at him with the tease and Maddie gave a bragging cheer as she clasped her hands together. 

Eddie turned the iPad towards her and pulled up the sketch he’d been working on. “I did kind of a rough sketch of what you were thinking just to give us an idea to start with but depending on the scar tissue, I can always adjust.”

Maddie gasped as she looked down at the sketch and pressed her knuckles to her mouth. 

The sparrow was the first thing Buck saw with its wings extended out as if in flight, going so fast that feathers were fluttering adrift in the wind. They twisted and turned into soft petals that moved across the space to three flowers nestled together. The two roses and an iris looked delicate and pressed as if squeezed between pages in a book to dry out so she could keep them forever. 

“It’s perfect,” Maddie said and Buck didn’t need to see the shine in her eyes to know she was crying. 

He’d been expecting the tears though. His big sister liked to act like she kept it together, like she was stronger than anyone who thought they could take her down, and she was. Maddie was the strongest person Buck knew. She loved him and protected him in a world where not many people would’ve bothered. 

Five years apart— three in silence— didn’t change that. 

But she was still a Buckley and no matter how hard they tried to deny it, they still wore their hearts on their sleeves and cried at the drop of a hat. 

“It’s perfect, Eddie.” Maddie said again, holding her hand over the screen but not touching. Just… letting herself hover in the moment. “It’s perfect.” 

It was. Every line, every shading of color was done with care and there was nothing “rough” about the sketch at all. 

“What do the flowers mean?” Buck asked. 

Maddie’s favorite were cosmos so the others had to mean something to get them instead. 

“They’re our birth flowers,” Maddie said quietly with that same patience she always had when she would explain something that should’ve been so obvious to him. “An iris for me and the rose for you.”

Buck was stunned as he stared at the drawing anew. Maddie tugged on Buck’s shirt until he leaned against her, her weight a solid source of comfort that he could never forget even as he passed her in height years ago. 

“A sparrow means freedom and loyalty and they can return home,” Maddie said as she dragged her finger to the flowers. “To you.”

And damnit… Maddie had him getting teary eyed too. There’d been so many times when he wondered if it would just be easier to stop hoping; if it would be easier to wake up and not check his phone to see if he missed her call, a postcard, anything to remind him that she was still out there. So many times wondering if the reason Maddie didn’t call Bobby back after he’d left a message explaining how a piece of bread had almost killed him, was because she didn’t care. But he’d spent the same amount of time shoving those doubts away. 

“You and me in the world,” Maddie said as she lifted a pinky Buck couldn’t help but wrap his own around. “Just like we always said.” 

He sucked in a breath and held it in his chest as he nodded, blinking back his emotions because he was so painfully aware that Eddie was still in the room and Buck didn’t want to break down sobbing like an idiot. 

The tattoo was perfect. It was the two of them. Maddie and Buck. 

Buck didn’t really know why there were two roses though. 

Eddie only spared them one confused glance when he took Maddie back and Buck immediately followed but Maddie waved off his concern with an easy flip of her hand. 

“He’s good. When he was four, he was terrified I was going to fall into the toilet so he had to hold my hand every time I went pee.”

All the warm fuzzy feelings burned away in embarrassment, his face flushing red as he glared down at Maddie again. But Eddie just snickered and oh… oh introducing the two of them was a mistake! 

“I had a nightmare!” Buck cried out but no one seemed to care as Eddie and Maddie downright giggled with one another. 

But all the teasing and the lightness in the air that had managed to appear from Eddie and Maddie’s laughter at Buck’s expense slipped away as Eddie ducked his head with a small slant to his mouth. 

“Whenever you’re comfortable,” he said and Buck watched Maddie stiffen. 

Stiffened like she was bracing herself for battle; to fight for her life all over again. 

To face Doug all over again. 

Buck’s stomach swooped as he remembered the way his foot slipped out from under him, his heel digging into the snow, while he screamed out for Maddie. Her name ripping from his throat and echoing in the open space of the trees and wilderness sending birds scattering at his cries. 

Seeing her stumble like a wraith trapped in the trees. 

His name from her own lips falling out with a pained sob. 

Buck having to carry Maddie in his arms up the embankment so they could get her into the ambulance faster. 

Maddie staring up at Buck through clumped mascara and tears as she tried to stay awake. 

A pit dipped into Buck’s stomach and churned until he almost thought he’d be sick. 

Maddie sucked in a slow breath and Buck found himself— as he used to do all things when they were growing up— copying her, taking a deep breath of his own. She reached up for the button of her jeans and only fumbled for a moment with the zipper before she was pulling her pants down. She stretched a hand out to Buck to steady herself and Buck took her trembling fingers in his own so she could step out of her jeans and turn so Eddie could see the scar. 

She didn’t let go of Buck’s hand.

Eddie didn’t react, his face just as soft and as kind as before, and Buck would need to remember to thank him for that. It was an ugly scar that puckered with every flex of Maddie’s leg. The knife had slashed into Maddie’s skin above her knee and arched up into her thigh from when she’d fallen. Eddie held up his gloved hands, telegraphing his movements as he rolled an inch closer. 

“May I?”

Wordlessly, Maddie pinched her lips and nodded. 

Eddie curled his hand around her leg as he stretched and prodded the scar from top to finish, checking for bumps and density of the scar tissue with a clinical but not unkind precision. 

“This shouldn’t be a problem at all,” Eddie said as he dragged his finger into a more puckered spot where the knife had driven in deeper. “Do you get any pain with it?”

Maddie swallowed as she shook her head. “No.”

Eddie nodded again as he rolled back and gave Maddie some space.

“Good,” he said before slipping his gloves off with the same ease Buck had seen Chimney and Hen. Maddie must have clocked it too because she tipped her head as she watched him but if Eddie noticed, he didn’t say anything. “Well then. Let me go get the stencil ready. I should be able to do this with the shorts on if that would make you more comfortable.”

Maddie breathed a sigh of relief and nodded. Maddie wasn’t exactly a shorts person to begin with and after the scar, she’d kept to pants or capris. But Buck had brought a pair of his running shorts for her to borrow and handed them to her to change into. The material practically dwarfed her in size as she pulled the drawstrings tight but at least she looked a lot less like she was facing a firing squad and a lot more like she could breathe without a tightness in her chest. 

“I see what you mean,” Maddie said, thankfully, low enough under her breath so only Buck could hear. “He’s very… reassuring?”

She said it almost like she wasn’t sure if that was the right word or not but Maddie didn’t even know the half of it. He had been, reassuring and unbelievably gentle with Maddie without making it seem like she was something fragile to handle. But Buck hadn’t known how to explain to Maddie how he ached to be touched by Eddie again. How he craved the pressure of his palm so Buck could yield to his push. 

He swallowed that back and nodded. 

The day wasn’t about him. He was there for Maddie. 

And his curiosity but mostly Maddie. 

Eddie came back with another stool for Buck to sit on and got the stencil just as Maddie wanted it before he was ready to begin. 

“Stop me at any time,” Eddie said to Maddie, who had captured Buck’s hand in her own again. “I’m pretty sure I can get this all done in one sitting but just say the word and we can be done.”

Maddie squeezed Buck’s hand but she was looking up at Eddie as she nodded. 

“Thank you,” Maddie said and Eddie gave her a quick jerk of his chin before he rolled down to her leg and started up his tattoo gun. 

It was kind of fascinating getting to watch Eddie work. Buck had seen people get tattooed before and had a front row seat to a few of his own. But watching Eddie work was like a whole other experience. He stared at his work with a singular focus that made Buck want to squirm just imagining being beneath it. His movements were confident and firm but the gentleness was as easy as breathing. Every flinch was met with a topic for distraction and every brace was rewarded with a swiftness of his lines. Maddie’s grip started to relax in Buck’s hand as she realized how painless it really was. More like a sunburn than anything. It wasn’t her first tattoo but it was her biggest and Eddie was stamping out the emotional hurt and echoing memory of physical pain with his needles, banishing Doug’s touch away with a sweep of his pinky. 

Eventually, Maddie lulled into the pain enough for her to unclench the last of her strength from her grip around Buck’s hand. 

“So, Eddie?” Maddie said and Buck narrowed his eyes down at her when he recognized that tone. 

Eddie hummed as he focused on getting the sparrow’s wing just right. 

“Buck mentioned that you were a vet.” 

Eddie shot Buck a quick glance from beneath his lashes before he dropped his gaze back down to his work. 

“Yes, ma’am,” Eddie said, a hint of a drawl creeping into the honorific, and Buck would be perfectly fine if the floor swallowed him whole, thanks. 

“Medic?” Maddie asked and Eddie huffed out a laugh as he cleaned the wing he’d been spending a meticulous amount of time on. 

“Was it the gloves?”

“I used to be a nurse,” Maddie said as she used the time of Eddie swapping his ink to stretch out her leg a little. “I know the move well.”

“Used to?”

“I’m a 9-1-1 dispatcher now.”

Eddie’s eyes lit up as he sat back and looked between Buck and Maddie. 

“Oh! So a dispatcher and a firefighter sibling duo. Well, now I feel lame. My sister’s just an accountant. But don’t tell her that or she’ll start lecturing me about math.” Eddie shook his head as he finished up the sparrow. “I actually thought about joining the fire department when I got back.”

“You thought about being a firefighter?” Buck asked, perking up in his seat at the new nugget of information. Eddie hadn’t mentioned that in their last two sessions. “Why didn’t you?”

Eddie winced and guilt immediately took hold like vines around Buck’s throat. 

“I got shot,” Eddie said, staring pointedly at Maddie’s leg and Buck’s apology was on the tip of his tongue before Eddie carried on. “They patch you up and pin a metal on you but when they ship you back home there’s still so much left to heal. I needed a little more help than I’d originally expected.”

Eddie adjusted in his seat, rolling his shoulder with a barely there grimace and Buck tried not wonder if that was where he’d been shot; if that was the reason Eddie’s sleeve crept over his clavicle onto his chest like he had a scar to cover too. 

“That’s why we came here actually,” Eddie said. “We needed a fresh start from El Paso. My son was young enough that he didn’t have roots that I’d be disrupting and with my tattoo career taking off, it was an easy choice.”

There was something more there that he wasn’t saying. A type of baggage he was intentionally not picking up but Buck didn’t call him on it. 

He didn’t have a right to and if Eddie wanted to keep that part to himself then Buck wouldn’t push. 

The rest of the tattooing flew by as Maddie took the shading like a champ and when she was done, Eddie rewarded her with the coveted strawberry kiwi capri sun. He tossed Buck the fruit punch with a wink that made Buck blush so deeply he was sure that his stubble would burn off. 

He sucked on his drink quietly while Eddie ran through the list of aftercare instructions but Buck was barely paying attention. He was too busy studying Maddie’s face, trying to see if she’d felt even an inch of the haziness Buck had felt the two times he’d been pinned under Eddie’s attention. 

But Maddie didn’t seem different at all! 

Eddie excused himself to go get some more Saran wrap and Buck pushed himself on his wheelie stool— yes, he had a lot of fun moving himself back and forth with a push of his toes— so he could stare into his sister’s eyes. 

“How do you feel?” Buck asked, looking for any sign of… something. He didn’t know what. But he’d know it when he’d see it. 

Maddie quirked a brow into an arch as she finished her drink. “I’m fine. Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I’m not looking at you like anything.” Buck argued. 

“Yes, you are.”

“No, I’m not!”

“Evan!”

Buck pushed himself back across the room with a sigh as he threw his head back. But Maddie, unimpressed, just waited. The space between her brows puckered as they furrowed and Buck knew that if he didn’t elaborate she would only push until he did. 

“You don’t feel… weird?” Buck didn’t know any other word to describe it. 

“Weird how?” Maddie asked. 

And Buck… didn’t know how to explain it. He didn’t know how to explain the way Eddie’s touch had grounded him into the moment like time itself had stood still. How those two little words caressed him in his dreams and made his skin warm to the touch. How that rumble of approval had made Buck feel settled in his own skin for the first time in ages. How Eddie’s praise, his tenderness, made Buck feel vulnerable in the rush of endorphins. 

Safe. 

He stuck the straw in his mouth and sucked the last of his juice instead of answering and Maddie’s eyes narrowed. But Eddie saved him from further interrogation by coming back in with the Saran wrap. 

Maddie hugged Eddie when she finally got to see the finished project and Buck tried not to lose himself in the way Eddie’s eyes widened in surprise before his face softened; like that was his first hug in a long time that had been given without prompting. 

A crime if you asked Buck if that turned out to be true. 

Buck’s skin still smelled like smoke. Even after three showers and washing his clothes, it still lingered on him with the tendrils of the smell cloying at his throat so there was nowhere to escape; to forget. 

Chimney, Bobby, Hen, everyone who told him that he would get used to losing people had been right. He did. After a while, Buck did get used to it. He got used to the way his heart dropped when he realized it was too late. When the devastated family members and loved ones let out the cries of agony when they caught up a moment later. 

But it never got easier. Never. 

Buck had tried to get some sleep before his final session with Eddie but every time he drifted off, he jerked awake with gasp and the anxiety he couldn’t shake tight on his chest like stones crushing his lungs until breathing almost felt impossible. His trembling was a symptom of the leftover adrenaline he thought he’d worked up an immunity to but even as he pulled into a spot, Buck couldn’t get his hands to stop shaking! 

He sucked in a deep breath and held it tight in his chest as he walked into the shop, curling his hands as his side. 

Eddie was signing for a delivery when Buck stepped inside but the smile he gave him was warm and infectious just as always and Buck found his own to be less forced in return. But most things were easier with Eddie because Eddie was, above all things, a good person. 

“Hey Buck,” Eddie said, his voice just as warm as the rest of him and Buck tried not to shiver under the sound of it. “I’ve got to take care of this but you can head back.”

Buck clamped his teeth on his bottom lip as he nodded and moved around the boxes to the space that felt a lot smaller than it had when Buck had been in it before. Small enough that Buck felt like he was one wrong step from knocking everything over and breaking it all. He shifted his weight on his feet, rocking onto his toes then his heels before he remembered what he was supposed to do. 

Suddenly, his shirt felt too rough on his skin. Like sandpaper rubbing on his back until he was scrubbed raw. He yanked it off and dropped it with the rest of his things but by then his chest felt impossibly tight again. 

Get a grip, Buck. 

He raked a hand through his hair, distantly remembering that he’d skipped the product because he just didn’t have the energy and… great. 

He probably looked like a cabbage patch kid. 

It wasn’t enough that he couldn’t act like a normal person around Eddie, he had to look like a weird one too and on his last session where he probably wouldn’t see him ever again. 

Great. Just… great. 

Buck latched a clawed hand into his curls and gave them a small yank so he could lean into the pain of it. The sharp tug on his scalp was enough to slow his heart rate down a touch but it did nothing to help the shiver that ran through him as the cold started to seep into his muscles. 

Why’d he take his shirt off so soon? Was he that much of an attention whore that he’d just thrown his clothes off the first chance he got? What—

“Sorry! I’ve been waiting for that shipment for weeks now.” 

Buck startled at the sound of Eddie’s voice, jolting back a flinch as he dropped his hands from his hair like he’d been burned. 

Eddie froze and some kind of humming picked up in Buck’s ears, burrowing beneath his skin to skitter into his blood until he felt like he was vibrating all over. 

“I—”

“—Sorry!”

They stalled again as their words stumbled over one another and Buck forced himself to chill the fuck out before he made Eddie think he was even more of a freak. 

“Sorry,” Eddie said carefully, ticking his head as his brown eyes raked up and down Buck with an assessing clinical gaze until they landed on the bruise peeking up from his hip. “I didn’t mean to startle you. Are you okay?”

Eddie crossed the distance between them with ease but it was too much, too fast with a comfort Buck didn’t quite believe he deserved. He stepped back and realized too late what that must have looked like when Eddie’s eyes widened.  

“I’m okay,” Buck said, forcing his smile to stretch across his face and fighting the urge to cover himself up with his arms. “Just got clipped on the job. It looks worse than it is.”

Which was true. Buck couldn’t even feel it beyond the dull ache of the impact where he’d fallen on the stairs as he evacuated. But he could feel the buzzing. It hummed at a frequency that made his fingers twitch and he curled them into fists at his side. 

It was fine. Buck was fine. 

But he knew it looked bad. 

He knew Buck looked bad. 

It should’ve been enough. It would’ve been enough for most people. But Eddie was looking dangerously close to concerned and that was not a side of Buck he wanted him to see. The messy part that wrecked things instead of fixing them. The one that wasn’t fast enough, strong enough, not enough worth staying for. 

So, he forced himself to hold up his smile and shifted onto his toes so he could press into Eddie’s space like it didn’t bother him at all. Like Buck hadn’t cowered away like a wounded animal. 

“I’m fine,” Buck said because if he said it enough times then it would come true eventually. “Promise. The tattoo is good too. My friend from work made sure to check for me.”

Eddie wanted to say something. Buck could see he wanted to say something. But for whatever reason, he held back and Buck didn’t know if he was grateful or if it was another blow to his already paper thin resolve which… wasn’t fair. Not to Eddie. Not when it wasn’t Eddie’s job to clean up Buck’s messes. 

The world is an uncertain place, Evan. You have to protect yourself. We can’t do it for you. 

No. No, he didn’t want to think about them. 

Buck twisted as he lifted his arm like he knew Eddie would ask and waited for Eddie’s approval. It was a sound he’d been craving for weeks. Just because he had a bad shift didn’t mean he still didn’t want it. And if this was to be the last time then Buck wanted to savor every moment. 

Buck held still for a moment, closing his eyes as he forced himself to even his breathing before he made Eddie think he was out of breath; heaving air into his lungs through his mouth like he’d run a marathon. 

Then the small rattle of Eddie’s stool filled Buck’s ears and Buck locked his muscles in a flex to keep from flinching again when Eddie’s warm hand curled around his hip. 

It felt wonderful. 

To Buck’s horror, pressure built up behind his eyes and he turned his face into his bicep to hide as a stray tear slipped out. 

But it was no use. 

“Buck.”

Everything collapsed like the structure fire he’d almost been crushed in earlier that day: fast and unexpected even if all the signs had been pointing towards it coming. 

Except the difference that time was that Buck was trapped inside. He didn’t make it out just in the nick of time with Bobby dragging him faster by the scruff of his turnout coat. Instead it was crashing on top of Buck and burying him underneath the weight of everyone’s disappointment. His own disappointment. Eddie’s disappointment. 

The one simple sound of his name on Eddie’s lip and Buck was threatening to shake out of his own skin. 

The sob fell out with a stutter and Eddie’s stool crashed back as he stood up but it was too late because everything was falling apart and Buck’s knees were giving out beneath him. 

Strong arms wrapped around his waist and helped him down onto the floor where he tucked his knees to his chest, starting to hyperventilate. The tears scalded hot on his skin as they fell in an endless stream down his face but he didn’t care. His eyes were still burning from the smoke. 

Eddie might have been saying something but Buck couldn’t hear him over the ringing in his ears, the heaving of his breath, the sound of his sobs. It was like being underwater and held there until he drowned. 

He was drowning; turning into a real ghost even after everything. He wasn’t good. He didn’t do good. He was a mistake. A failure. A useless piece of—

“Buck!” Eddie said his name like he’d been saying it a bunch and Buck had only just heard him. But he didn’t know what he was supposed to do. Reach out and see if Eddie would save him? What if he didn’t? What if he saw the Buck everyone else did? 

The air was becoming thinner and thinner as everything started to go dark. Eddie grabbed onto his face and he was saying something else Buck couldn’t understand. But there was a question there. He could see it in the way Eddie’s eyes were pinched in concentration. Like he’d asked something and Buck had missed it. 

So, he guessed. He nodded, small in movement, as he scrambled to try and find the surface to breathe. 

Eddie grabbed Buck’s wrist and pulled his hand to his own chest, pushing aside his collar so that Buck’s palm could flatten on the smooth surface of his warm, warm skin. Eddie’s breathing was exaggerated and controlled in comparison to Buck’s hyperventilating and Buck’s hand felt like it was caught in chaos. The touch was too much; too unbearable. Eddie’s chest was soft and smooth and Buck’s palms felt like glass shards were embedded into his skin to wreck everything he touched. 

Then Eddie’s other hand cupped the nape of Buck’s neck. 

Everything went still. Absolutely still. 

The solid grounding weight of Eddie’s hand on the back of Buck’s neck unlocked something in his chest and made Buck stutter in an inhale that he hadn’t been able to do prior. 

“That’s it, Buck,” Eddie said, his voice still so faraway but right there in Buck’s ear, guiding him back onto solid ground. “Just breathe. You’re okay. Breathe.”

He felt the rise of Eddie’s chest as he inhaled, taking another exaggerated breath that Buck tried to mimic. He didn’t succeed, the breath hitching in the back of his throat and threatening to choke him. But before he could spiral back into the pit of shame, Eddie’s hand on his neck was guiding Buck over into his space. 

“Just breathe. You’re okay. You’re okay. Breathe.” 

His voice was like a guiding line in an out of control inferno. Solid and real when the smoke was too hazy to see through and coating his lungs until he couldn’t breathe. But he could breathe. He was breathing. Just in too short bursts in comparison to Eddie’s own slow, even breaths.

Sweat pebbled his too cold skin which didn’t make a lot of sense but the slide of it into the small of his back made it feel like something was crawling on him. He was overstimulated, overwhelmed, and under prepared to be able to pull himself out of the swamp of his panic attack. The drop from before still lingered like a threat beneath his feet, making him terrified to fall again, but Eddie was there. Eddie was there listing off a litany of instructions and praises with each and every inhale Buck managed to make without catching on a sob along the way. 

“Good, Buck. Very good. Try again. Just another one.” 

Buck sucked in a breath and held it tight in his chest, until he released it slowly for the first time in what felt like years. 

“Good.”

Buck bit down on his lip as he whined, chasing after that rumble of approval until he was shoving even further into Eddie’s space and pressing his ear against the hollow of his throat, listening for it. 

He wanted it. 

He needed it. 

But he didn’t know how to ask for it or what to ask. 

He felt Eddie stiffen in surprise, his grip on the back of Buck’s neck going slack but the moment Buck felt it slip, another cry fell from his lips as he tried to push back into the touch without dislodging himself from where he was curling into Eddie’s side. 

“Okay,” Eddie said and Buck went limp as that hand on his neck gave him a squeeze and stayed there. It made everything slow down; go completely still. It made Buck still. “Okay, I’m not going anywhere. I’m right here.”

Buck sighed as a fresh wave of tears, still hot but less urgent, fell from his lashes and dotted into Eddie’s throat like Buck was trying to water seeds and hoping they would take root. 

Hoping that for once, he could stay. 

Buck didn’t so much as wake up as more like he came to at a crawl. Consciousness seeped into him more and more with every slow blink of his eyelashes that were sticky and clumped together from dried up tears. His aches and bruises from before throbbed all the way down to his bones and every limb felt too heavy to even move let alone pick up. He felt heavy but also so thin that even a gust of wind could make him flutter away and so wrung out that it was taking everything in him not to settle back into sleep. 

What had… where was he?

The couch he was on was lumpy but comfortable with a warm spot beneath his hip he wanted to curl up in and never come out. The pillow beneath his head felt like it’d taken a couple of punches too many but it smelled like cloves and a shampoo that he didn’t quite recognize. It was a comforting scent that washed over him with the blanket that had been drawn up to his chin. The weight of a second blanket settled over his hip was almost too much but Buck was too cozy to dislodge it. 

“There you are.”

Buck didn’t have the energy to startle but his eyes narrowed down the length of his nose. Eddie was on the floor with his legs crossed but his hands stretched out over him. It took Buck too long to process the hypnotic sweeping pulse was Eddie’s thumb on his brow, petting his birthmark, and his other hand…

Buck’s knuckles ached from how tightly he’d been holding Eddie’s hand to his chest. 

The embarrassment flooded him in an instant and he let go over Eddie’s hand like it had burned. 

“I…” 

What? He what? How did he even begin to explain what had happened without sounding like a complete mess. 

“Hey,” Eddie said, leaning close until his chin was on the cushion of the sofa. The light from the kitchen caught on the hoop in Eddie’s eyebrow. “None of that. Just come back to me slowly. Close your eyes if it’s too much.”

Buck did almost immediately. 

“That’s good,” Eddie said, his sweeping thumb almost enough to distract Buck from the rumble of approval. “Just breathe. Unclench your jaw.”

The thumb curved down from Buck’s brow to the bolt of his jaw and pressed into it until Buck loosened his clench. 

“Good,” Eddie said again and Buck shivered under the heat of that tone. “That’s good, Buck.”

Breathing was a lot easier than it had been minutes… no. No, that wasn’t right. It was darker than it had been before but he also didn’t remember Eddie having a couch either. 

“You’re in my upstairs studio,” Eddie said as if reading Buck’s mind. “You had a pretty bad panic attack but you’re okay. You’re safe. Just breathe.”

Safe. 

Buck did feel safe. 

He swallowed past the lump of emotions in his throat as he opened his eyes to stare up at Eddie from beneath the swimming tears filling his vision. 

“You’re okay,” Eddie said, his fingers reaching up to card through his hair. “You’re okay.”

Buck pressed up into the touch and dropped his gaze to take in what he could of the room. A blank canvas with charcoal hand prints on the corner of the pages was pushed to the side with a shelf of paints and brushes and all other kinds of messy stuff artists somehow knew how to use. There was a folded up mat tucked up against the wall with a trunk closed from view that Buck wished he had the energy to investigate. A small kitchenette and bathroom looked lived in with one of the only sources of light coming from the stove top. Canvases were everywhere giving the clutter an almost manic feel even though otherwise the studio was meticulously organized. 

Everything about it screamed of Eddie. 

It was his space.

And Buck had all but barged his way in. 

The embarrassment and shame from before returned tenfold. 

Buck curled in tighter, dragging his knees up to his chest as he squeezed his eyes shut. “You must think I’m a total freak.” 

“I think you’re insanely touch starved,” Eddie corrected him. He slipped his hand back down the base of Buck’s skull and settled onto the back of his neck to squeeze. Buck released a breath as he went limp beneath Eddie’s hand. “And might possibly have some form of anxiety but that’s nothing.”

“Sorry,” Buck said anyway, sniffing as his nose clogged up from the fresh wave of tears he was fighting back. 

“No, Buck,” Eddie breathed as his thumb swept a trail at the soft skin behind Buck’s ear. “Look at me for a second.”

Buck forced his eyes open again and watched as a complicated array of emotions crossed Eddie’s face before he settled on one: remorse. 

“I’m the one who should be sorry.”

Buck frowned as he shook his head but the movement dislodged Eddie’s hand and he had little control over the wounded sound that fell from his lips when the pressure of his palm went away. Eddie returned his hand and squeezed again until Buck relaxed under the pressure. 

“We’ll talk about this more when you’re on steadier ground but I am sorry, Buck. You were verging on the point of passing out and I didn’t know what else to do. But you weren’t in the right mind to consent to this.”

He squeezed his hand again as if to emphasize his point and Buck turned to press his nose up into the spot on Eddie’s wrist where his pulse was fluttering beneath the skin. 

“Helps.” Buck could only muster enough energy to say. 

“I know,” Eddie said and he went back to moving his thumb so that Buck knew he wasn’t going anywhere. “But you still deserve an apology.”

Buck made another protesting noise at the back of his throat before Eddie shushed him. 

“We’ll talk later. Just get some sleep. I’ll be right here.”

Buck woke up the second time with a heaviness to his limbs and a headache pounding behind his eyes. But the heaviness helped if only making Buck sure he wouldn’t float away if he unclenched. 

He grimaced, his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth and his shirt and blanket sticking to various points of his body where the sweat made his skin tacky to the touch. 

“Hey,” Eddie said from across the room, his back to Buck as he finished painting a nighttime forest scene from memory. Maybe his imagination. Buck didn’t really understand art but he knew that it looked beautiful. 

Serene.

Buck pushed up with a groan, frowning at how much harder it was than it should’ve been, and scanned the dark room with a blurry gaze for his phone. 

“What time is it?” 

“About two,” Eddie said as he dropped his brush in the water. 

Buck’s stomach lurched. Two? As in two o’clock in the morning? Holy shit Maddie was going to be—

“I texted Maddie,” Eddie said, turning on his stool with a rag tangled up in his hands as he cleaned them. “Let her know what happened and that you were okay. Your phone’s on the side table there.”

Buck followed where Eddie’s nod pointed and spotted his phone sitting face down. He snatched it before he could think better of it. The light made him wince, flaring his headache right up behind his eyes, and he moved to turn the display lower as he scanned his texts. 

Buck responded to the texts from Maddie as Eddie quietly cleaned up. 

“You can shower if you want. There’s a spare set of clothes and a towel. Think you’d be up to eat something?” Eddie asked. Almost immediately Buck’s stomach grumbled in protest at the hollow emptiness and Eddie chuckled. “I’ll throw something together.”

And as much as a shower and food sounded like heaven, Buck’s stomach still dipped with the humiliation that was creeping up his spine. 

“I should go,” Buck said and Eddie stopped. “I’ve already… You… You have a kid and I’ve—”

Eddie sighed and Buck cringed at the hiss of breath; wanted to do whatever he could to make up for it. But he’d overstayed his welcome and kept Eddie from going home because one bad shift had turned him into a clingy, needy mess. “You don’t have to stay but I would prefer if you ate something before you left.”

It wasn’t a request even though there was space for Buck to refuse and it was an odd thing to realize. That the demand wasn’t so much a stipulation but an expectation and Buck didn’t really know what to do with that. 

He dropped his gaze to the floor and gnawed on his lip. 

“Buck,” Eddie breathed out Buck’s name and Buck wanted to fold underneath the heat of it. “Look at me.”

It wasn’t lost on Buck that Eddie had stayed on the other side of the room the entire time. That he’d been so close that Buck could still remember the hypnotic way his thumb drew lazy figure eights into his skin and now it was like he was on the other side of the world. 

The back of his neck felt exposed; the hair on the nape of his neck standing tall. 

But Eddie was too far away and Buck didn’t know how to ask for him to come back. 

He didn’t know what to ask, to be honest. 

Buck looked up and Eddie’s arms were wrapped around himself. He’d changed into a pair of sweats and stretched out t-shirt that exposed even more of the tattoos on his chest. 

He looked cozy, soft in all the ways Buck wanted to touch. 

He tangled his hands in his lap instead. 

“You have nothing to be embarrassed about,” Eddie said, hitting the nail right on the head even though Buck begged to differ since he’d cried all over Eddie in the middle of his work day. Something about it must have shown on his face because Eddie arched a brow as he tipped his chin. “I’m single father in my thirties with a nose ring and PTSD, Buck. You have nothing to be embarrassed about.” 

“I think the nose ring is hot.” Buck blurted out because his dignity was already somewhere downstairs in Eddie’s booth. 

The corner of Eddie’s lips quirked up into a small smirk. “I know.”

Figured. Buck wasn’t exactly known for being great at keeping a secret. 

“Go shower,” Eddie said with a jerk of his chin towards the bathroom. “I’ll be here when you’re done.”

It was a reassurance that warmed Buck’s skin for an entirely different reason and settled like a bloom in his stomach. He carried it with him into the shower and practically melted under the warm spray as it washed away the tackiness of the sweat and tears from his skin. 

He smelled like Eddie after using his soap and shampoo and the scent washing over him unclenched something else that had been tight at the base of his spine. 

Eddie had left him with a pair of cut off sweats and a shirt that looked like it’d been stretched in the wash one too many times.

It was kind of ridiculous how the innocent pair of socks rolled at the top of the clothes almost made Buck swoon but he slid them on and sighed as his cold feet were covered. 

Eddie was just finishing plating dinner when Buck emerged from the bathroom. 

“It’s not much,” Eddie said, holding up the plate of peanut butter and jelly cut down the middle with some slices of apple to go with it. “But it should settle your stomach.”

It was perfect and Buck’s stomach growled in agreement as he followed Eddie to the small round kitchen table off to the side. 

The first bite was like an explosion on Buck’s tongue. He may have underestimated how hungry he was until then and it may not have been much but it tasted like a four course meal against his hunger. Peanut butter stuck to the roof of his mouth as he savored the strawberry jelly, biting into an apple slice before he swallowed. He hummed as he dove in for another bite. 

Eddie huffed out a laugh as he shook his head. “Slow down.”

Buck obeyed only because he didn’t want to add choking to his list of embarrassing moments with Eddie on top of everything else. He’d already done that on a date, thanks. 

The thought of Abby came out like a twinge at Buck’s side, nestling between his ribs to get at his heart. 

He hadn’t thought of Abby in a while and Buck… 

Buck didn’t know how to feel about that. There’d been days where he couldn’t stop thinking about her, wondering where she was, what she was doing, and now he couldn’t even remember the last time he thought of her name. 

It was in that realization that Buck understood that he was never going to hear her voice or see her face ever again. Sure, he’d written the letter, moved out of her place, started to build a life for himself. But he hadn’t really understood what that meant. 

What it would feel like to be whole again even if he was still struggling to fit the pieces of himself back together. 

That realization wasn’t as heavy as he thought it would be. Even if that meant accepting that he would never get an apology. 

I know. But you still deserve an apology.

The back of Buck’s neck tingled with the emptiness left in the imprint of where Eddie’s hand had been. It was a charged space; volts of tiny lightning bolts jetting down his spine until he shivered in the phantom shock. 

Eddie was watching him, eating his own apple slices with a carefulness to his movements. Like Buck was an animal he didn’t want to spook. 

“What’s…” Buck bit down on his lip. How did he ask? He cleared his throat and waved his hand up to the slope of his throat but Eddie remained silent, waiting until Buck pieced it together himself. “What is this?”

It was inadequate but it felt like an exhale all the same. 

“Why… do I feel this way when I’m with you?”

“What way do you feel?” Eddie asked, just as careful as before with an assessing detachment in his gaze. Buck wanted to whine for the warmth to come back. 

“Safe,” Buck said, the answer easy on his tongue. The rest took a moment to follow but Eddie just waited for him. “Whole. Like… I can be still. Like I can be good. ”

Eddie sighed as he dropped his gaze to his plate and Buck’s stomach dipped in a flutter of panic. He’d said something wrong. He’d done something wrong. And after everything Eddie had done for him—

“Shit,” Eddie said as he pushed his fingers into his eyes and rubbed. Buck braced for the impact of rejection. But then Eddie looked up at him and the guilt was heavy in his gaze. “I’m so sorry.” 

Buck chewed on his lip until it was raw and nodded as he looked away, trying to fight back the tears again. But it was difficult and his grasp on his emotions was still shot to hell from his earlier loss of control. 

“I didn’t realize,” Eddie said and—

Wait what? 

Buck looked up at him with a frown. 

“That sort of slipped out.” Eddie continued like Buck wasn’t practically buzzing to life. “I would never without your consent and before I knew what was happening you almost passed out.”

Good boy .

Buck’s whole body lit up like a Christmas tree as he remembered those words. That tone. 

There’d been a tone. 

There had been a tone! 

All that time spent talking himself out of it and there’d been a tone. 

But Eddie wasn’t finished. 

“Fuck and then I asked you if you were okay with me trying to ground you but I don’t think you even knew what day it was let alone what I was asking you and I just—” Eddie bit off as he raked a hand through his hair, dragging it down his face. “I’m sorry, Buck. This wasn’t how this should have gone.”

And Buck was still reeling on the fact that there had been a tone to fully follow along with what Eddie meant. 

“How what should’ve gone?” Buck asked. 

Those warm hazel brown eyes zeroed in on Buck with a laser focus that made him freeze in his seat. He wanted to get lost them; simper beneath the heat of them. They bathed him with a warmth that made him want to take root and bloom to the best he could be just to hear that rumble of approval all over again. 

“My life is…” Eddie drifted off with a faraway look that Buck had only seen him carry once or twice before. Eddie’s bottom lip stuttered as he took two quick breaths before whatever he was holding was let go with the tension in his shoulders. “My life is clockwork. Routines. Schedules. They help with… they help me. They help me feel in control.”

Buck nodded as he listened, chewing on another apple when Eddie tapped his knuckles with his finger. The jerk waited until Buck’s mouth was full before he continued. 

“But you were a surprise.” 

There it was. That lingering rumble of thunder that came when Buck did something good. It made him want to preen for more; to tip his chin up with pride until he could hear it again. 

But if he was a surprise then that meant he had been a disruption in the routine, right? Buck didn’t know a lot about PTSD. He knew Maddie probably had it— not that she would tell him and Buck didn’t pry— and to an extent all of them in some way or another. 

But Eddie had been to war. He’d been shot. He couldn’t have been more than a few years older than Buck but Eddie held himself as if he had a thousand lifetimes on his back that he shouldered without complaint. 

And Buck was stumbled and wrecked everything like always. 

“Hey no,” Eddie said quickly because some of Buck’s doubts must have crept up onto his face. He reached out and curled his fingers over Buck’s hand. “You were the best kind of surprise for me. I’ve never felt more comfortable with someone until I met you. But that’s still no excuse and I’m sorry.”’

There he went again. 

Buck’s brow furrowed in confusion as he tried to get his brain up to speed so he could follow what happened that Eddie kept having to apologize for.

“No excuse… for what?” 

Eddie blinked at him. “What?”

“I don’t understand what your apologizing for.”

For the first time since he’d known him, Eddie seemed thrown off kilter. Like he hadn’t been expecting Buck’s confusion and in an instant he watched as all of Eddie’s confidence flutter away. 

“You know what happened right? What I did with my hand when you were having your panic attack?”

Buck just stared at Eddie expectantly. 

“I dommed you, Buck,” Eddie said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. 

Which it… wasn’t because look, Buck had dipped his toe into kinky with a few of his partners before but he was pretty sure he would’ve noticed having sex with Eddie. 

He definitely would’ve noticed. And Buck knew he had a praise kink. That much became abundantly clear one late night binge google searching while he was lying in bed. But it was something different when he was Eddie.

He worked his jaw as he shook his head but Eddie kept going. 

“You relax under my touch,” Eddie explained when Buck just sat in his confusion for even longer. “You… respond in a way that I didn’t understand until now but when you couldn’t breathe I couldn’t just— I couldn’t—”

Eddie’s breath hitched at the back of his throat. Buck had been so wrapped up in his own embarrassment, he hadn’t even considered what it must have looked like on the outside. What Buck must have looked like gasping for air and so out of it he couldn’t even respond to his own name. 

Buck turned his hand in Eddie’s palm, tangling their fingers together, and Eddie breathed like something released in him too. 

“I couldn’t stand by and do nothing while you were hurting,” Eddie confessed, whispering down at their hands until Buck felt the words seep into his skin and made an army of goosebumps blossom. He sucked in a breath and Buck could only watch as Eddie steeled his resolve, pushing back that vulnerable state he’d been to something more solid and completely unnecessary. A survival technique if Buck had ever seen one. He would know. He had many of his own. “But that wasn’t my decision to make and you weren’t in your right mind to consent so for that I’m sorry.” 

Eddie pulled his hand away and Buck only just managed to swallow his noise of discontent as he resisted the urge to hold on. Eddie slid his hands into his lap and looked back down at his plate.

“I’d understand if you want to go to someone else to finish your tattoo. I can recommend—”

“If you think for one second I wouldn’t drop to my knees for you in a heartbeat then you’re insane.” The words were out before Buck could catch them but the moment they fluttered free, he didn’t regret them. 

Not in the slightest.

Eddie’s eyes widened and Buck could kind of understand because he barely recognized his voice to his own ears. They were firm and solid with a weight to them that felt like fixing himself to that moment in time. Everything went still, quiet, as Eddie stared at him and Buck wasn’t about to leave Eddie in the ashes. Not when he’d done what he could to pick Buck up out of them. 

“I’ll be honest,” Buck said, reaching back to rub at his neck where he could feel his hair curling. “I don’t really understand what you’re talking about and all I know about domming or being a sub or whatever is some of the crazy shit in porn. But what I do know is that when I was spiraling, you were there for me. You’ve made me feel more like a person than I have in… I don’t even know how long. And yeah, I hear what you’re saying about consent and I accept your apology but I meant what I said. It helped.”

“But the panic—”

“It wasn’t you,” Buck said as he shook his head. “It wasn’t you, Eddie. I had a bad shift. A really bad shift and we lost someone. I wasn’t in the right headspace for whatever we’ve been doing and I was just a ticking time bomb at that point. It wasn’t you.”

He reached out his hand, extending his arm across the table with his palm up, and waited while he watched Eddie chew on the corner of his lip. Then Eddie lifted his arm, grazing Buck’s palm with the tip of his finger, but it was enough for Buck to take his hand and lift it to settle Eddie’s palm at the nape of Buck’s neck. 

He sighed as he let his eyes slip close and resisted the urge to place his head down on the table. That seemed like too much, too soon. 

“This okay?” He asked instead, opening his eyes into slits so he could watch the compilation of Eddie’s expression. 

Eddie’s hand squeezed and Buck shivered beneath the pressure. 

“Yeah,” Eddie said, his voice sounding wrecked and as exhausted as Buck felt. “Yeah, it’s okay.”

“I know there’s more to talk about and I’m sure I’ve got a bunch of offensive stereotypes going on in my head,” Buck said as he settled a hand on Eddie’s knee. “But I’m going to fall asleep into this sandwich. Do you mind if I crash here? Or we can go back to my place but you’re going to have to drive.”

“The couch can turn into a pull out,” Eddie said with a sweeping caress of his thumb that Buck was powerless to resist as he let out a quiet little moan. 

Now that he’d closed his eyes, Buck didn’t think he could open them up again. 

Eddie cleared away the dishes and moved about pulling the still too small mattress out from the cushions before he all but bullied Buck onto the bed. But when Eddie turned to step away, Buck grabbed his wrist and held him still. 

“Stay,” Buck pleaded. “Please.”

He couldn’t be alone. Not just yet. He could still feel the shakiness underneath his skin where the anxiety from before was skittering in his veins. 

Eddie made him feel safe; he made him feel whole. 

Buck didn’t want to wake up to find out that it had all been a dream. 

“Okay,” Eddie whispered and Buck fell asleep the moment he rolled onto Eddie’s chest, ducking his head into the hollow of his throat where only hours before he’d broken down. 

“Wait,” Buck said as he reread the paragraph again just to make sure he wasn’t reading it wrong. “So there are some people who like to be tied up or spanked or whatever just because?”

Eddie hummed as he focused on one particular spot that was really starting to sting from Eddie’s attention. 

“Why?” Buck asked, staring sideways at the picture on the website Eddie had directed him to. 

In truth there was nothing inherently sexual about the photograph. The model was fully clothed even as the miles and miles of rope coiled around their torso in intricate knots and twists. It was beautiful in a way. Like each knot told a story; each braid a chapter. 

But that didn’t stop the heat stirring in Buck’s gut at the wonder of what that chafe on his skin would feel like; what the powerlessness of being at Eddie’s mercy as Buck begged him to come would feel like. He’d dabbled here and there with scarves and a pair of handcuffs once or twice to know he liked the feeling of being tethered in place but this felt different. 

Eddie felt different. Different from all of the partners Buck had had before.  

“It’s a form of stress relief,” Eddie answered with ease as he spread some Witch Hazel on the spot he’d been working on and Buck sighed as he was given a small break while Eddie switched ink.  

Waking up to Eddie pressed behind him had been a dream. His eyes had been puffy and his tongue still tasted like copper but the skittering under his skin had settled beneath the weight of Eddie’s arm around his waist; his knees tucked up behind Buck’s. When Eddie had agreed to Buck buying him breakfast— reluctantly even though Buck insisted that pancakes and hash browns were a fair trade for Buck getting snot all over his shirt— it had been with the stipulation that he let Eddie finish his final session since they didn’t quite get to that part before Buck’s breakdown. So Buck had decided to use the time to satiate the curiosity that had been creeping at the back of his mind all morning. 

It turned out that his assumptions had been true— the world of kink was just as wild and as intimidating as it seemed— but also it was the opposite. It could be casual and quiet, intimate and simple. 

Kind of like Eddie in a way. 

“You’ve heard of deep pressure therapy? Or acupressure?” Eddie asked and Buck nodded. “Well it’s something along the same lines. It doesn’t have to be something explicitly sexual. It can almost be like a form of meditation. Permission to be still.”

Freedom. 

It sounded a lot like freedom. 

The revelation was enough to almost bring another fresh set of tears to Buck’s eyes. He muscled it back because despite what Eddie said, crying two days in a row sounded mortifying. 

“So, then what do you get out of it?” Buck asked, clearing his throat as the words caught on a hiccup. 

Eddie didn’t say anything for a moment, lost in his concentration as he fussed with one particular spot, but Buck waited with baited breath. 

It’d been something that he’d been wondering ever since he woke up. He stared at the drawing hanging so quietly on the wall and wondered what it would be like. To be suspended in a moment with just Eddie painting his picture. 

“When I… almost died in that desert,” Eddie said slowly, savoring each word like he was testing the weight on his tongue. “Everything just… felt so out of control. Then when I got back it was like being pinned down by gunfire all over again. I couldn’t… turn my brain off.”

Buck was no stranger to his mind racing while he tried to sleep, caught up in a whirlpool of thoughts he couldn’t swim out of to stop. But he couldn’t even imagine what it might have been like to have that same sensation but with the fear of actual drowning; of being unable to turn off the instinct in your brain that was constantly looking for a threat and wondering if that was it. 

He couldn’t imagine feeling that way somewhere he was supposed to be safe either. 

“My therapist had me start doing some art therapy,” Eddie said as his pinky swept across Buck’s ribs. “Which led to my career but then she suggested I give knot tying a try. I needed the PT for my hand anyway and I preferred a more tactile means for therapy.”

“You self soothe,” Buck surmised. “With a controlled environment.”

“Yeah,” Eddie said quietly like he was still fighting to allow himself to admit that. He went quiet again which Buck was quickly learning was Eddie’s way of wading through all emotions bubbling up in his chest as he tried to find ones worth putting into words. “Buck…”

Eddie chewed on the corner of his mouth as he sat back in his stool. 

“Sorry,” Buck said, locking his phone and setting it down with a grimace. “I didn’t mean to be annoying.”

It wasn’t the first time he’d gotten caught up in the excitement of his latest research binge to notice when he’d started to annoy someone. 

Eddie’s eyes widened as his mouth dropped before he shook his head. 

“No,” Eddie breathed. “Hey no. You’re not annoying me. It’s… nice to talk about this with someone. It isn’t exactly school pick up line conversation. It’s just…”

Buck would’ve bet that if Eddie’s hands weren’t in gloves, he would’ve been shoving his knuckles into his eyes to rub out the tension. 

Buck reached out and curled his finger to drag down the slope of his jaw. Eddie’s lips quirked into a smile that made Buck dizzy all over again. 

“It’s just that this isn’t… it isn’t a fling for me,” Eddie said before he grimaced. “That’s not the right word but you get what I mean.”

Buck nodded. He did. Whatever this was, it was something that Eddie took seriously. Otherwise he wouldn’t have twisted himself up so much the night before when he realized just how out of the loop Buck had been. 

Eddie’s brow furrowed until the space between his brows wrinkled together. “I am sorry that what happened yesterday went down the way it did. But I’m not sorry that it worked. I’m not sorry that it helped you. I don’t…”

Eddie pushed out a breath as he shook his head again. 

“I don’t think I could see you like that again and not do everything I can to help you so I guess I just want to know,” Eddie trailed off as he looked up to stare Buck in the eye. “I guess I just want to know if you would be okay with… doing that again? Obviously without the panic attack but you know… with me?”

Buck sucked in a breath as his heart flipped in his chest with some sizzling like excitment. “Right now?”

But Eddie shook his head. “No. No, we’d have to have a lot of conversations beforehand and your tattoo still needs to heal.”

Buck thought he should’ve gotten a reward for how well he kept himself from pouting. That was going to be weeks away and the promise for more made his head go fuzzy in anticipation. 

“This isn’t some kind of condition either,” Eddie said as he tipped his head down. “I’ll answer all of your questions gladly and I won’t be mad or anything. I just… If I have to go one more second not knowing, I might go insane.”

“Pretty sure I said yesterday I’d drop to my knees for you in a heartbeat and that was a sentiment I had since the first moment I laid eyes on you.” 

Eddie’s eyebrow ring caught on the light as he lifted his brow. “But…”

Honesty. 

That’s what Buck had experienced with Eddie from the moment he met him. Pure, unbridled honesty. 

It was refreshing to breathe in and it made Buck’s chest untighten with each inhalation. 

But he needed to know something too. 

“I think I like you,” Buck admitted and Eddie’s expression softened in an instant. Buck dropped his eyes to the floor as his cheeks went warm. “I think I like you a lot and I guess I’m just… Would it just be that or would you want to be—”

Eddie pushed back with his toes, sending his stool rolling away as he dropped his tattoo gun onto his tray. But before Buck could panic, Eddie was flicking his gloves off with ease and helping him sit up with a gentleness to his touch Buck could’ve gotten drunk off of. 

Eddie bullied his way in between Buck’s legs that he was only to happy to widen so that Eddie could be as close as possible. The heat of his body was a searing line that seeped into every inch of Buck, consuming him with every possible detail of Eddie. The freckle under his eye. The clean hole where his nose hugger ring was pierced through. The way green flecks glistened in the pools of brown in his irises. The calloused palms that were cupping Buck’s jaw as tender thumbs smoothed out the lines on Buck’s face. 

“I like you a lot too,” Eddie said, his voice deep in his chest where that rumble Buck was obsessed with lived. “And if you aren’t interested that doesn’t change the fact that I had every intention of asking you out on a date the moment this tattoo was done.”

“Then yes.” Buck said, throwing his arms around Eddie’s waist. “Fuck yes.”

Eddie threw his head back as he laughed and Buck wanted that sound to wrap around him and hold him tight. 

“Can I kiss you?” Buck asked, leaning his weight into Eddie’s hands the moment his relief soared in his chest. 

Eddie broke out into a smile as he huffed out another laugh before he nodded. “I would like that very much.”

So, Buck did. He leaned forward and shivered as the exhale escaped from Eddie the moment before Buck slanted his mouth against his. He moaned into the press of lips, melting towards the way Eddie’s mouth felt perfect against his own. It was a sweet, soft thing with a hunger that promised more as Buck sighed into it, opening for more. 

Eddie’s tongue flicked in and in the span of a heartbeat, he owned Buck’s mouth. 

It should’ve terrified him the things that Eddie could already do to him and they hadn’t even begun. 

But instead, it was simply freeing.