Chapter Text
If Eddie gets much more packed up, he’s not going to actually be able to live properly in his house while he works on finding a place in Texas.
Buck sidesteps the boxes as he makes his way towards the lounge. They have another zoom call scheduled, well, Eddie does, but Buck has invited himself along again because Eddie is in desperate need of a moderating influence to convince him not to break his budget looking for a place nice enough to tempt Christopher back into living with him based on amenities alone, nor to consign himself to a miserable little box of an apartment simply because it’s available and would get him back in Christopher’s life sooner.
When he finds Eddie, though, the laptop isn’t set up though and Eddie isn’t wearing the expression Buck has grown used to in the days since Eddie had announced his intention. Instead, he’s holding his phone and looking stunned.
“Eddie, hey,” Buck greets, warily. “Are you ready for our meeting with the realtor?”
Eddie shakes his head. “I just got off the phone with Adriana. She’s been offered a big promotion.”
“Oh. Uh… good for her?” He’s only met Eddie’s sisters in passing, doesn’t really know much about them, other than the vague impression that they’re closer to their parents than Eddie.
“The new role is based in Atlanta. They want her to start as soon as possible, but she just renewed her lease last month.”
Buck nods slowly. So, they’d been commiserating over moving woes.
“Her place is a nice two bedroom, because she wanted a home office. It’s a short drive from my parents, and Chris has visited her there a few times, so it’s definitely accessible,” Eddie continues. “We just talked it over, and rather than pay the fees to break her lease, she’s going to sublet to me. It means I can be in El Paso in time to spend the holidays with Chris.”
Oh. Wow.
Eddie’s got a place in El Paso. Just like that. All the effort Buck has put into helping him make a real plan, all his determination to make sure Eddie has something in El Paso that would be his own and free from the influence of his family, it’s been worthless.
He’s…
…happy for Eddie. So happy for Eddie that his jaw aches as he smiles.
“Congratulations!” he says, and then, turning sharply towards the refrigerator, “This calls for a drink—a toast.”
Buck grabs two beers, it’s really a shame that Eddie doesn’t keep anything stronger in the house, popping the caps off both and handing one to Eddie.
“To your new life,” he offers, holding his bottle up between them.
Eddie blinks at him, still dazed looking, then gives a shaky smile. He must be overwhelmed at things going so much easier than he must have feared.
“Right. To… family. And to… to making a home.”
Their bottles clink. Buck raises his to his lips and swallows long and deep. Because he’s so passionate about the toast, of course.
Securing Adriana’s apartment doesn’t mean there’s nothing to do. Eddie will still need to sort his job out, Bobby has been very accommodating about the prospect of him leaving with so little notice, but Eddie is applying to firehouses around El Paso and other temporary jobs to ensure he still has an income until he can get situated with El Paso Fire Department. He’ll need to finish boxing up his things, work out what he’s bringing with him, what he’s getting rid of, and what he might want to put in storage since Adriana’s place will come with some furnishings but Eddie might want his own versions of that stuff for when he gets his own place. There’s figuring out what to do with this house — Eddie had planned on selling in order to get the cash he’d need for the move, but that was going to be complicated and time consuming, especially if he’s doing it from out of state, and apparently when Buck had been busy elsewhere Eddie had ended up talking with Ravi of all people about the LA rental market and the possible value of keeping his house here and using it as a source of rental income to cover his costs in Texas with cash to spare.
Maybe Eddie doesn’t need Buck for his home in El Paso, but Buck can still help with the process of the move and so he makes lists and one beer leads to another and another and he’s far from drunk when he looks up from the list he’s writing out for Eddie, only to find Eddie watching him with an expression that makes Buck feel like the world is spinning off its axis.
“I wish we didn’t have to do this,” Eddie admits. “I wish I hadn’t fucked this all up.”
“What? No, no. Eddie…” It kills Buck, the way he’s taken all the blame on himself. Like there wasn’t so much tragedy that had brought Eddie to this point: from the fact he’d been rushed into marriage instead of choosing it as part of the natural progression of love, and the pain of losing Shannon and being left with nothing but a list of things unsaid and questions unanswered; to the mistake he’d made with Kim, yes, but the fact that she hadn’t accepted him breaking things off and instead pushed her way into his home and tried to play a part she had no right to or understanding of; to Eddie’s parents and the way they seemed to believe that supporting their grandson meant withdrawing all support for their son and undermining every bridge he tried to build. “Eddie, if there was anything I could do, anything I could give you—”
And then Eddie’s lips are on his, silencing him a tender press that knocks all the breath out of him.
It’s everything Buck has longed for since the moment he realised he could never have it, because there’s some part of him that is broken, only capable of giving this sort of love where he’ll never get it back, but for a few moments he has confirmation of all that it could have been, Eddie’s warm lips, his hand landing gently on Buck’s shoulder, the scent of his cologne wrapping around them both…
“I’m sorry,” Eddie murmurs, when they finally pull apart. “God, that was selfish. I just… I didn’t realise until it was already too late. And I thought for a while that maybe we could still get our chance eventually, but…”
But this is it. It’s over for them. Buck had thought they had at least until the new year, that he’d have more time to mentally prepare himself before Eddie was gone for good, but Adriana’s offer had snatched what little time he had left with Eddie away. He ought to be grateful, he knows it was going to be hell for Eddie not spending the holidays with Chris, had already been mentally making plans to keep him from wallowing too much, and Eddie getting to be with Chris is the best thing, he’d just thought they’d have a little more time.
Perhaps pre-emptive grief has destroyed all sense of reason; there are still things left to lose, they could still be friends, of a sort, with Eddie in Texas. But it will never be what they had, and they’ll never have what they might otherwise have built, and so he says, “You’re not gone yet.”
Eddie’s eyes widen, but he doesn’t pull away.
This time Buck is the one to lean in, and the kiss isn’t delicate but desperate. All the greed, the grasping, that he’s held back, he pours into Eddie’s mouth, pressing their bodies close, until Eddie’s hands rise to grasp at him, like Buck isn’t the only one who feels like they can never be close enough.
He’s spent so many nights here, making a home for himself on Eddie’s couch. He can have one night in Eddie’s bed, before he loses it all for good.