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Sahar Ahmad is 24 years old. 

She has a mother, a father who passed away when she was 12 and a family dog that probably should’ve died two years ago. 

She is a probationary firefighter with the 118. 

She gets off on the wrong foot a few times. 

She shows up anyway. 

——

To say the 118 doesn’t like her might be a bit of a stretch. 

They’re not cold or mean. They don’t haze or bully her. They just keep her at arms length. Which is fine, she isn’t exactly chomping at the bit to be included in their little inner circle. Probationary firefighters don’t always stay with the same station once they get certified. 

Sahar didn’t become a firefighter for some sentimental or noble cause. This wasn’t her calling, she wasn’t destined to help the greater good. She was just directionless, saw a flier announcing recruitment and thought “hey, I can do that.”

On her first day at the 118, she meets her captain who makes introductions to people whose lives will be in her hands and hers in theirs. 

Bobby Nash seems kind and firm, she thinks she’ll learn a lot under him. 

Henrietta Wilson and Chimney Han seem friendly and laid back with years under their belt. 

Ravi Pannikkar is a little older than her but feels like a peer. 

Evan ‘Buck’ Buckley and Eddie Diaz have her stumped. 

Buck, as he insists on going by, gives her a hazy smile and turns away while the others ask about her to stand pressed up next to Eddie. 

Eddie’s smile feels a bit more genuine but he also watches from the side, his gaze growing more and more far off until Buck says something quietly in his ear. 

So, all in all, it starts off in a very run of the mill, anticlimactic fashion. 

It begins to take a nosedive when they’re gathered around for lunch and everyone is doing a cross section of their personal lives. 

Hen talked about issues with adopting a child she was fostering, what her and her wife were arguing about, the concerns Chimney was having with his wife being pregnant and her history of post-partum depression, Buck’s run in with his ex that triggered his abandonment issues and Bobby’s house recently being burned down as a result of a past tragedy. 

She’d barely been on shift for 4 hours. 

It feels like too much too fast. She was a stranger to them, why would they reveal their deepest issues in front of her?  

Eddie mostly keeps to himself, she notices, and she appreciates when he looks up from his plate, catches her staring and just shoots her a smile. 

“Sahar, what about you? Are you originally from LA?” Bobby asks once the conversation dwindles.

She shifts in her seat when everyone turns their attention to her. “Um, no. We moved here when I was a kid though. Originally from Idaho.”

“Who’s we? Married? Kids?” Someone else asks. 

She doesn’t like this. She spent most of her training holding shit in. If people thought she was dating, they’d try hitting on her. Or they’d think she was on marriage track and about to pop out a bunch of kids that would have her out of work. There were plenty of female firefighters in her cohort but that didn’t mean it was easy to be one.

“Me and my mom.” She bites her tongue when her words come out sharper than she means. 

Chimney breaks the heavy air. “Just the two of you?”

Yes, just the two of us because my father died when I was 12 and my mother’s grief took up too much space that there wasn’t any room for me or anyone else.  

“Chris is thinking about coming back.”

The gasps and exciting exclamations fill the silence she had created. She looks over at Eddie and sees the stiffness in his smile, like he doesn’t want the attention either. Like he purposely forced the spotlight on himself to save her. 

Her grip on her fork loosens and she would’ve taken this as a win had she not realized that she had just failed a test. 

Trust in vulnerability. 

——

The 118 hasn’t had a probie since Ravi and that was a good few years ago. 

There used to be a time when firefighters would fight to death to join their station but interest has since waned. 

Bobby says it’s because there are a lot of good firehouses. Chimney says it’s because they’ve earned the reputation of House of Horrors for the amount of shit they go through on the job. 

Regardless, the 118 finally has a probie joining the team and Eddie is trying to figure out why Buck is being so weird about it. 

“I just don’t get it. You loved Ravi when he was a probie.” They’re sitting on the couches in the loft, mindlessly playing a video game without actually trying to win. Everyone else is scattered throughout the station with the probie in Bobby’s office doing paperwork. 

Sahar seemed fine. Serious, studious, crushed it in the academy, and fine, she kept to herself and wasn’t as chatty but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t fit in with the team. 

Buck clicked his tongue. “Yeah but that was different. Ravi blended in so well with us.”

“And you think Sahar won’t?” Eddie watches Buck’s face, the way his brows knit together, his eyes tight and his lips tense. 

He likes when Buck gets serious, he hates that it means he’s upset but there’s something so grounding to Eddie when he gets like this. 

“I think I’m just done with change. I wish we had more time keeping things the way they are.”

Eddie digs his thumb into the button and looks at Buck, “is this…a Tommy thing?”

Eddie had hoped Tommy was old news at this point. He was to Eddie.  

Buck’s face twisted in confusion. “Huh? Oh, god no, Jesus. I just feel like things are finally falling back into place with Chris coming home and this new probie might ruin that.”

It makes Eddie smile a bit and he lets his eyes roam over Buck’s face, the strong slope of his nose and the playful curls in his hair. Buck sees Chris’s return as a return to peace and normalcy and he wants to preserve that as much as possible. 

He gets it, once things return to their natural state, the timer resets for when they’re due for a new calamity. 

“Give her a chance, Buck. We were all probies once. We all threatened the group dynamic just by showing up to work, maybe she’ll fit right in.”

——

She fails another unspoken test when she goes out on her first call with them. 

Everyone chats on the drive in but Sahar just repeats the details of the emergency Bobby shared over and over and over again. 

Mass casualty event. 

Police have apprehended the victim. 

Emergency services on route to support minor fires and administer aid to victims, count unknown. 

She repeats it over and over like there’s some secret hidden between the words that will make sure her first call goes well. She needs to impress Bobby and her team to make it through the probationary program. 

Someone knocks their boot into hers and she jolts before looking at Eddie sitting next to her. He pulls his headset down and leans towards her. 

“It’s going to be overwhelming and a sensory overload the minute you step out. Just focus on the person in front of you. Do what you can to help them and then move on to the next. One at a time and we’ll get through this.”

She says nothing and just nods. She slips her headphones back on and stares out the window as they pull up to the site. 

The minute her boots touch the pavement, everything in her mind is wiped blank except what she trained for. 

She listens for Bobby’s instructions and begins putting out fires and administering first aid where she can. She’s not thinking about anything other than to flush out wounds with saline, that the streaks of gasoline on the road need to be neutralized with saw dust, and that Chimney is staring, motionless at the body of a deceased child hanging out of a windshield.  

This is where she fails. 

She grabs a sheet, brushes past Chimney and covers the girl’s body with it. 

She turns to him and doesn’t care if his eyes are still on the cloaked body behind her. 

“We only have two paramedics on our team until someone relieves us. You have to keep moving. We have to.”

Chimney finally looks at her and his eyes harden for a second before he walks off to the next victim. She turns to go back to where she was and finds all of the 118 watching her with various looks of disappointment. 

Right, where does she get off ordering around a  firefighter twice her age and seniority on her first day?

Her throat feels dry and she wants to look away but they’re in a stalemate and she can’t fold first. 

“Ahmad, with me.”

She follows the voice that calls her and focuses solely on the yellow DIAZ in front of her and not on everyone else. 

Eddie doesn’t say much other than to show her how to stabilize someone with a weak pulse. She isn’t sure why he’s showing her or how he even knows how to do this because she’s not allowed to do anything other than first aid but she likes to learn. She wants to know more, do more and accomplish more. 

“I can do more than most firefighters because I was a medic in the army but you’re right, we only have two paramedics on the team.” Eddie says quietly to her, “maybe you can train to become one too after you pass probation. I’ve been keeping an eye on you. You’ve done well. You’re good at this.”

Praise is not something she’s used to or asks for before. She can’t stop the bloom of pride in her chest. 

“The thing is, people who are good at this burn out fast because they don’t know how to compartmentalize.”

She frowns and feels defensive, “I know how to compartmentalize.”

Eddie gives her a half smile, he’s incredibly handsome if you were into men. “No, Sahar, you don’t. You think you know, I used to think I knew. Then I realized that bottling it up was not the same as compartmentalizing. We do it at work because in order to do our jobs well we need to put our emotions into boxes and shelve them so that we only focus on the people we need to help. But the goal is that once we’re done, we go back to the shelf, pick up the box of emotions we stored away and deal with them. You can’t just keep shoving it in a box and putting it on a shelf, eventually the shelf breaks under the weight. And then all you have is a mess.”

It’s weird, this feels like he’s teaching her a lesson but she doesn’t feel chastised. 

“Okay,” Sahar says, “Metaphor understood.”

Eddie snorts and shakes his head but it seems almost amused. “I think I gave you advice in the truck assuming you knew the life lessons that I didn’t learn until I was 30.” 

“Should I apologize to Chimney?” She asks nervously. She’s not good with apologies. 

Eddie shakes his head again. “He might actually thank you. Sometimes you open a box and realize you didn’t separate everything properly. Chimney has lost a lot of people. We all have. He’s got a lot on his mind and seeing a dead child isn’t easy on any of us especially when you’re a parent. You reminded him to pack it away, but you’re part of this team now, Ahmad, so you have to be there for him when he decides to open it up and deal with it.”

She nods, feeling a bit too big for her britches but Eddie grins, satisfied, and bonks his fist on the top of her helmet. 

“Let’s go, probie.”

——

The others watch her warily when they return back to the station. They pretend like they’re not but she sees them eyeing her, judging her. 

She gets it, this is her first day and she stupidly told a senior paramedic to essentially get his head on straight. Plus, the 118 are tight knit, so they’re protective of their own. 

Sahar knows that’s not what she meant, she knows that she was trying to stop Chimney from drowning but no one else knows that. Other than maybe Eddie. 

Chimney pulls her aside and apologizes for seeming out of it. He tells her it’s not going to happen again and thanks her for looking out for him. 

She can tell he’s still a bit frustrated both at her and maybe at himself, but she is in awe of him because most seniors wouldn’t give her so much as a second look. 

Eddie is the only one that doesn’t stare at her unless it’s to ask her if she wants coffee. She rushes to his side and follows him around like he’s a human shield from judging eyes. 

If he realizes what she’s doing, he doesn’t acknowledge it. 

She just sits quietly next to him and drinks her coffee while he scrolls on his phone. She hears footsteps bounding up the stairs and glances over just as Buck reaches the top. He freezes at the sight of her and glances at Eddie and the space she’s occupied next to him. He looks so lost that she almost offers her seat to him. 

Eddie must sense Buck’s proximity because he looks up from his phone and smiles at Buck. 

“Showered?”

Buck seems to snap out of it and grins cheekily. “Squeaky clean.” 

He sits on the arm rest of the sofa despite all the free seating around them. Eddie leans into him a little and shows him his phone. “The farmer’s market on Sunday is bringing back those antiques you love.”

“Oh god, yes. We have to go, we need to get a new coffee table.” 

Eddie scoffs but his lips twitch with a smile. “You say that now but I know you’re just going to buy a dozen trinkets we have no room for and forget all about the table.”

Buck begins bickering animatedly with Eddie over the value of his trinkets and Eddie just leans his head back against the couch, tilts his face up and smiles at him. Buck gets more and more worked up and Eddie looks like he’s soaking it all in, basking in Buck’s rant. 

She quietly stands and shuffles off to the kitchen to pour the rest of her coffee down the drain and rinse her mug. 

When she peers at them over her shoulder after a while, Buck is still perched on the arm of the couch. Eddie has now leaned his entire torso across Buck’s lap and Buck pressed his cheek against the top of Eddie’s head, humming and nodding as Eddie speaks. 

It’s kinda sweet. 

And like super gay. 

Which works out pretty well considering how super gay she is herself. 

She feels off kilter with this team but she thinks there might be a place for her here. 

Her thoughts are cut short when the alarm blares and everyone jumps into action, racing for the truck. 

It was a rough start but it can only go up from here, right?

——

Eddie gets it. 

He looks at Sahar and it scares him how much she reminds him of himself. 

Hell, she’s a lot more well adjusted than he was at 24 but he sees the way she draws into herself. The way she struggles to connect with other people and express her care. It wasn’t a lack of trying, it was a lack of understanding what the point would be. Why build connections when this was just a job?

That’s what he used to think until Buck showed him all the ways to melt yourself into someone’s life and make it better. 

So he keeps an eye on her, makes sure she’s good at her job, that’s she’s willing to listen and learn and when she does, he thinks maybe he could reach a hand out. 

When Chimney asks her if it’s just her and her mom he sees a look in her eye that reminds him so much of when people used to ask him if it was just him and Chris. 

So he shares an update on Chris even though the attention is a lot and hopes it helps her breathe better. 

He knows Buck feels defensive around her, he knows how unhappy he’d been when he heard her talk to Chimney, but he thinks it’s cause they just don’t get it. 

They don’t know what it’s like to feel like everything is a war zone, where if you lag behind, you get picked off. If you slow down for a second, you get lost to the horrors. 

And you start thinking about the horrors you inflict on others in the name of patriotism. 

They’re in the gym, jogging on the treadmills right next to each other as if they can’t spend more than a second apart. 

“She’s just finding her way around a team as close as ours, Buck.” He grabs his towel and wipes the sweat off his mouth without slowing down. 

“He was spiraling, Eddie. He saw that little girl and couldn’t stop thinking about Jee. And she just told him to get back to work. She’s a god damn probie!” Buck’s chest is heaving, he hates cardio, tries avoiding it in favour of weights unless Eddie forces him. 

Cardio is important, and if Buck’s pecs fight with gravity with every jog, if sweat drenches his curls and flushes his face a reddish-pink, well, a perk is a perk. 

Eddie hums and lowers the incline. “But he stopped spiraling after she talked to him, didn’t he? Do I think she should’ve said something to one of us first, yeah. But she’s a kid and she handled it well and she’ll do better next time.”

“You like her.”

It kind of sounds accusatory but also a bit hurt. 

“I think she could be a really good firefighter.” He doesn’t think he could tell Buck that after meeting her for one day he’s decided she’s a mini-him. 

Buck stays silent for a minute and then sighs. Eddie knows he won. It’s a power over Buck that he wields with great responsibility. “You said Chimney thanked her?”

“Mmhmm.”

Buck increases the speed on his machine as Eddie begins to slow. “Fine. I’ll cut her some slack.”

He scoffs fondly. “What great burden you are undertaking, my lord. We bow at your ultimate sacrifice.”

Buck rolls his eyes with a smile. “Anything for you.”

Eddie grins and uses his towel to whip Buck in the ass. “Thanks, cowboy.”

Buck laughs. 

Eddie soars. 

——

Hour 5

She didn’t actually think the whole ‘firefighters rescuing cats from trees’ thing would be a real occurrence. She thought it was just those over exaggerated things like how the Bermuda Triangle was a very real concern of hers from the ages of 8-11. 

But low and behold, she’s standing next to the firetruck with Eddie, Ravi and Hen watching Buck hug a branch of an oak tree with his hand outstretched cooing at the cat in question. 

“Orange cats are weird little freaks,” Ravi says as he slides a pair of sunglasses on. 

Hen snickers and crosses her arms over her chest. “Let’s see who wins, weird orange cats versus Buck’s disney princess tendencies.”

“Oh, oh, oh! Aw damn, he got her. I was hoping she’d try to swipe at him or at least run up a few more branches,” Ravi says with a click of his tongue. 

The cat is curled up in Buck’s chest, cozy and unbothered tucked in his coat. Buck is beaming, kissing it on its head before climbing down the ladder to hand the cat over to the distressed owners. 

She glances at Eddie who had been quiet and raises her brows when she sees a smile on his face that could only be described as besotted. His eyes are warm and fond as he watches Buck scratch the top of the cat’s head before waving at the family and bounding straight over to Eddie.

“Name?”

Buck scrunches his nose. “Princess Fluffles. Not my favourite.”

Eddie raises his brow, amused. “Looked more dignified. Viscount Fluffles?”

“Lord Fluffles?” Buck counters. “Do you think Chris would want a pet?”

Eddie rolls his eyes and turns to climb into the truck. “I know he put you up to this. Acting like it’s an innocent and clueless question to try to warm me up to the idea. You know he’s been angling for a dog and we are not getting one when he’s in school and we work 24 hour shifts.”

Their arguing fades as they both get in. They have such a bizarre dynamic, for a second she had thought they were some type of couple with the way they spoke about their lives. Honestly, she still isn’t certain they aren’t, but it’s clear that their relationship isn’t normal, probably bordering on codependent and she has barely known them a few hours. 

She turns to see if anyone else looks confused but gulps when she finds Hen already staring at her. Watching. Like she’s daring Sahar to say something. 

And look, she knows that she didn’t make a stunning impression with Chimney and even though he thanked her, she knows people are still icy about her. 

But she wasn’t about to point at Buck and Eddie and yell “Queers!” in a southern accent. 

She clears her throat and points dumbly into the truck. “They’re cute.”

Hen’s lips twitch, whether in a smile or scowl, she’s not sure. 

Hour 6

Sahar has to bite back a grimace every time she sees the woman’s arm, elbow down, stuck in her garbage disposal. She knows the disposal has been disconnected but the thought that her arm was so close to being eviscerated by a blade, gives her goosebumps. 

She hands Chimney the pliers when he asks for it and keeps her eyes on the woman’s face and nowhere near her arm. 

“Stupid right?” The lady’s laugh is dry and sardonic when she notices Sahar staring. “I nearly lost my fingers trying to grab my wedding ring when the bastard’s cheating.”

No one says anything but she can see Chimney and Hen watching her from the side of their eyes. 

She licks her dry lips. “Was it expensive?"

Hen and Chimney share a silent look. She’s figured out that they’re best friends in a very different and normal way than Eddie and Buck are. Hen and Chimney have wives and kids who have joint family meals once a week. Buck and Eddie presumably live together, co-parent Chris about getting a dog and act like wives whose husbands are off to war whenever they’re apart for more than 5 minutes. 

The lady looks at her like she’s insane. “Yeah it is. So I’m not stupid, just a gold digger? Is that it?”

Sahar shakes her head. To be stupid would be to throw the ring dramatically into a lake somewhere.  “You’re not stupid. Just sell the ring for cash before you file for divorce then lie and say you lost it. Keep the money, go to Spain. Eat fresh fish. Find a lover. Go dancing.” She shrugs and takes the pliers back from Chimney. “At least that’s what I’d do.”

The woman stares, jaw slack. 

“Oh my god, I love you.”

Sahar smiles politely. “Happy to help, ma’am.”

This time when Chimney and Hen glance at each other, they share a warm smile and an amused head shake. 

Feels like a win. 

Hour 7.5

Buck is harder to win over. Not that she’s actively trying to kiss up to her coworkers but she has some impressions she has to undo and Buck is the hardest to approach. 

He’s usually around Eddie who does most of the talking while Buck just stares at her. 

Or he’s with Bobby in the kitchen or reading with Hen or working out with Chimney. 

He’s a slippery bastard. 

It’s not until they’re called to a little boy who accidentally got locked in a car during a heat advisory that they interact. 

“Buckley grab the hammer, Ahmad try and maneuver this blanket through the rooftop window to cover him from the glass.”

She’s not particularly a warm and cuddly person, or if she was, no one’s ever told her. She’s not great with kids, is what she’s trying to say. 

So, when little Johnny starts screaming in terror when he sees her face pressed against the glass, she panics. 

“Calm him down.” Buck is waiting by the driver’s side with an axe in his hands. “Try not to look so threatening.”

“Right, uh — hey Johnny. Hey buddy, it’s okay. We’re firefighters, see?” She points at her helmet and the kids shrieks. 

“Fire? I’m on fire?”

She glances at Buck in panic and he looks incredulous. “Have you ever spoken to a child before in your life?”

“Evidently not!” She hisses before turning back to him. “No, buddy you’re not on fire. Everything’s okay. My friend is just going to smash the glass to grab you.”

“What?! No!” He starts bawling and frankly, she wants to do the same. 

“Ahmad, c’mon? Do we need to switch?” Buck asks impatiently. 

“Uh Johnny, what’s your favourite subject?”

Johnny rubs his ruddy cheeks and looks up at her. “Science?”

“Science, okay, cool. Did you know that a cloud could weigh over a million tons?” She blurts out. 

He immediately settles and peers up at her with wide eyes and the attention span of a fish. “That’s heavy! How are they floating in the sky?”

Oh, she doesn’t really know the scientific answer to this. She got the fact from under a Snapple lid. “Uhh—”

“The air under the cloud is heavier than the cloud!” Buck perks and his face lights up as he tries to clamber up the car while wielding the axe. She can hear Bobby’s sigh as Buck presses his face against the glass next to Sahar’s. “Clouds are soooo high up, right? And some of the air up there is heavier than the air we breathe down here!”

“Heavier than a million tons?”

“Yup!” Buck chirps, “Johnny, do you think you can take the blanket Sahar is holding and cover your face and body with it? I’m going to get you out and then we can talk all about our favorite clouds.”

Johnny nods shyly and Sahar breathes out in relief as she slides the blanket through the small opening. Buck is way better at this than she is.  

The rest is smooth, Buck cracks the glass, unlocks the door and carefully lifts Johnny out. Sahar gently pulls the blanket off him and shakes the glass fragments off. 

By the time she looks back, Bobby is chatting with Johnny’s parents about the insurance forms they can fill out and Buck is over by Eddie, their shoulders bumping, their heads nudged together as they walk back to the truck. 

It wasn’t the resounding win she was hoping for, but felt like a step. 

Hour 9

This one is bad. She doesn’t realize it at the time. Not when the little girl’s dad is sobbing and screaming for his daughter who fell into the water. Not when the diving team manages to find her. Not when Sahar finds herself pushing aside paramedics way more experienced than her to get to the girl. 

She only feels the little girl’s ribs under her hands as she tries to pump her heart back to life. She can only hear her own breaths counting out each compression and the sweat that drips off the tip of her nose. 

“Firefighter Ahmad, switch.”

She doesn’t, she can’t. If she stops, the girl will die. She has to bring her back. This father cannot lose his daughter. He cannot watch her die. 

Sahar feels the girl’s rib crack under her hands but doesn’t stop, she can’t stop. She doesn’t know how much time passes but probably way more than needed to know CPR is a lost cause but she keeps going. 

Finally, someone’s hand grips around her wrist and her rhythm falters. 

Her vision comes back into focus and she startles back at how grey and cold the girl looks now. She can’t hear the father’s cries or any of the other paramedics that were surrounding her. 

“Sahar, it’s okay. You can stop. It’s okay.”

She doesn’t move at first, she stopped compressions but she doesn’t want to let go of this girl. 

“You did your best.” Eddie’s voice slips through the cracks and she turns to find him next to her, looking at her with mournful eyes. “But sometimes it’s out of our control and we have to let them go.”

“I—I but—“

“Can you climb off the gurney for me?” His voice is calm and patient. She manages to crawl off and now she can’t stand the sight of the little dead body behind her. 

She turns her back to the little girl and looks at the closed ambulance doors blocking out the rest of the world. She’s not sure how long they’ve been standing there in silence but her breathing has slowed down to a less frantic pace. 

“I have a son, Christopher,” Eddie finally says. “And every single kid we can’t save feels like not being able to save Chris. There’s even been a time when I thought Chris was gone. So, I’ll give you the bad news first, it never, ever gets easier. Better accept that now.”

Half a sob escapes her throat and Eddie grips her shoulders to shake her out of it. “The good news? We give them a fighting chance. We do that. Us. And we keep getting up and trying over and over again to help as many people as we can and most of the time, we do. That’s what you fight for. To do for others what we couldn’t do for some.”

“You have a son, Christopher,” Sahar rasps out, repeating his words, “I have—had a dad, Hamza. I was her age when he died.”

She doesn’t say anything else because she can’t. She doesn’t know what she’d say, how she’d explain to someone who didn’t know her dad how much he meant to her, words aren’t enough. She needs to rip her heart out and show him memories of her dad but Eddie gets it enough. 

“And he’d be proud of you, kid. You gave that girl everything you had. He watched you do that.”

Fighting off a sob gets even harder but she refuses to have a full breakdown on her first day. 

“Okay.” 

Eddie smiles and squeezes her shoulder. “Take a minute and then come out, you did good but Bobby’s going to have to ream you out for disobeying orders.”

She winces and ducks her head. “Is he going to bounce me?”

Eddie tilts his head back and actually laughs. 

“Kid, I think you just managed to secure yourself a place on this team permanently.”

Hour 12

A lot can happen in one shift. 

You can lose patients, save patients, watch cats be rescued from trees and kids saved from hot cars. 

You can also lose a colleague. 

It’s too loud. 

She can’t think.

She can feel the dirt, ash and grime on her skin. She can feel her lungs burn with every gasp. She can hear the civilians talking amongst themselves and the heat from the flames licking at her feet despite standing on the other side of the street. Her eyes twitch every time the flashing lights on the fire truck hit her face. 

She can hear Bobby calling out for Eddie on his radio, ordering him to respond but all he gets is static. She can hear Buck yelling, his voice fractured and manic. She can hear Chim trying to calm him down but it only adds to his hysteria. She can hear Hen trying to talk to Bobby about ways to get to Eddie who is trapped under 4 feet of rubble when an aftershock took down the roof while he was still inside. 

It’s too much. 

She can’t think. 

She just stands there, on her first day as a probationary firefighter at a total loss. 

“Bobby! Bobby! Please, we have to go in there. We have to get him out. I have to go find him. Please!”

She doesn’t mean to wince at how loud and shrill he gets but he doesn’t notice, too focused on begging Bobby. 

“We will get him out, Buck but I need you to calm down. We cannot rescue him if I need to keep an eye on you.”

Buck growls in frustration, whipping his helmet off, his curls drenched in sweat as he stares off at the building where Eddie is both alive and dead. 

Schroedinger’s five alarm residential fire box. 

She thinks Buck sees it at the same time she does. There’s a gap in the south side of the building just big enough for someone to crawl through and enter the structure. But unlike Buck, she remembers what dispatch had said to Bobby earlier. 

“The south side is completely load bearing. I have no idea why it was built like this but the second it looks unstable you have to pull your team because it’s going to come down like a house of cards.”

She knows the minute that Buck attempts to squeeze through, the entire wall will fall on him. He will be crushed without doubt. He will die. And it would be next to impossible to get Eddie out in time. 

So when Buck takes off running while Bobby is frantically yelling at him to stop, her brain switches off and she just moves. 

She grabs Buck by the back of his turnouts just as he brushes past her and yanks with everything she’s got.

He chokes out a gasp and falls to the ground on his butt, skidding a few feet. 

Everyone falls silent and she feels her shoulders drop now that she can finally think. 

Buck turns his head slowly and the glare is so vicious and livid that she nearly lets go. 

She doesn’t know much about Eddie but she knows he has a son. She knows he’s raising him alone. She knows everyone thinks Chris is the best kid ever despite there being 6 other kids between the rest of the team. 

She knows what it’s like being a kid raised by a single parent. 

She doesn’t want this Chris kid to be raised by none. 

“If you go in through that south side gap, the wall will collapse on you and split your spine in half. The structure will collapse around you and it’ll no longer be a rescue mission, it will be a recovery mission.”

She can’t hear anyone’s voices, if they’re even talking, she just hears white noise as she turns to Bobby. “What did dispatch say about the west entrance? Isn’t that how Eddie got in?”

Bobby doesn’t answer at first, he doesn’t seem annoyed or angry, he just stares like he’s staring through her, assessing her, before he turns away. “That’s exactly what I was about to say. Buck and Hen enter through the east side and I want you to call out every time I check in. Chim, I want you on standby for when they pull him out. Ravi, Sahar I want you on crowd control, especially with those reporters. Let’s go.”

Buck rips out of her grip so roughly that it nearly tears her shoulder out of her socket but she lets go and turns robotically to Ravi who leads them to the crowds. 

They work in relative silence as they speak to onlookers and request reporters and their crews to take a step back. 

An apology is on the tip of her tongue but she doesn’t have it in her to apologize. Who would she apologize to and for what? For stopping Buck from getting himself killed? For not letting him feel immediately useful by making him wait until Bobby gave them instructions? 

She doesn’t know. 

“I’m sorry,” she says anyway after clearing her throat. 

Ravi glances at her from the side of his eyes. “For what?”

She shrugs, “because you’re relegated to crowd control because Bobby wasn’t happy with me and chose you to babysit me.”

Ravi stays silent as he hands out some water bottles and she is about to take it for the dismissal it is until he speaks. 

“I don’t think you did anything wrong,” Ravi starts. “It’s just that Buck and Eddie have always been super intense about each other. Like super intense. We joke that they’re codependent but I don’t know how much of that is a joke at this point.”

She furrows her brows because she’s not entirely sure what he’s getting at. 

“This isn’t the first time Eddie’s been in danger and this isn’t the first time Buck’s completely lost it because of it. I think Eddie dying keeps Buck up at night. I think if it ever happened, we’d probably lose Buck too.”

Her shoulders lock up. “So he thought Eddie was dead and wanted to run in there and join him?”

Ravi gives her a loose smile. “No, I think he just wanted to save Eddie.”

“And he would’ve died doing it. There was another way in. That’s all I pointed out. It’s not like I said we should just leave Eddie down there and go home. I just didn’t want you people to mourn two firefighters when you could just celebrate saving one.” She struggles to catch her breath and looks away when she notices a few civilians looking at her. 

Ravi stares at her, mouth open and it makes her skin crawl but before he can speak she hears yelling. 

They turn and rush forward when Buck, Bobby and Hen are carrying Eddie out on a backboard with Chimney keeping pace cutting him out of his shirt and checking him over. 

“I have a pulse but it’s thready. Lungs are weak, I think it might be punctured, trauma to the head, pupils non-reactive.”

She flinches when she hears the wailing sound of a wounded animal and for a second she thinks someone’s pet dog is trapped in that building until she realizes it was Buck. 

Buck trips his way up into the ambulance, his hand glued to Eddie’s, his other hand gently brushing his hair off his face, mumbling softly to him. 

Bobby quickly rounds the rest of them up and herds them along. “C’mon, the 133 is here to take over, not much left anyways. We’ll follow them in the truck.”

She climbs in the truck and sees everyone, head hanging low, distraught. 

She can’t get herself to do the same. Maybe it’s because she doesn’t know Eddie the way these other people do. Maybe it’s because she’s grown up compartmentalizing. You put your emotions away at work when you have a job to do, they’ll only cloud your judgement and slow you down. 

But Eddie told her that eventually she’d have to unpack it. 

She’s not sure she ever did. 

——

When they make it to Eddie’s hospital room, Buck is sitting on a plastic chair, holding his head in his hands with Chim and Hen on either side of him sharing worried looks. 

Her heart sinks. 

When Bobby calls out to him, Buck jerks his head up and his face crumples as he nearly collapses into Bobby’s arms, gasping. 

Suddenly, Sahar is 12 years old trying to understand what her mother is saying through her tears. 

“Baba isn’t coming home. Baba is gone. God took him.”

“Buck, Buck.” Bobby pleads, the unknown is suffocating him. 

Buck catches his breath and curls his fingers into Bobby’s arms. “He coded in the ambulance. Twice. I heard him flatline, Bobby, his heart stopped twice.”

She hears the sharp inhale Ravi takes behind her. 

Bobby’s face shatters and tears fill his eyes, “B-Buc—“

“He stabilized,” Hen says quickly as she stands. “We got his pulse back and they’ve taken him to surgery. We’re waiting to hear updates.”

Bobby’s shoulders don’t relax but he softens as he realizes that the worst hasn’t happened. 

Everyone moves around her to get to Buck, they crowd around him, murmuring supportive words the way her relatives had surrounded her mother when her father was in surgery. The way you handle a spouse who might become a widow. 

She doesn’t approach the group, it doesn’t feel like her place, she doesn’t have the bond with Eddie the way the others do. It’s not right of her. 

So she sits stiffly at the end of the rows of chairs and stares at the wall, her vision fading in and out as the exhaustion creeps at the edges.

She can’t be sure how much time passes but she sees Buck stand, muttering something about needing to call Chris. When he’s out of earshot, there’s a collective breath that everyone seems to let out. 

“How was he?” Bobby asks. 

Chim shakes his head. “As bad as you’d think. I shouldn’t have let him come in the ambulance. I did it twice, first with Shannon and Eddie and now with Buck and Eddie.”

“Stop it,” Hen chastised softly. “There is no universe where you could’ve separated the two of them.” 

Chim stared at the floor and squeezed his eyes shut. “I don’t think Buck will ever stop hearing the sound of him flatlining. I don’t think we ever will.” 

“Eddie is strong, he’s survived a lot. He’ll survive this and Buck will too.” Bobby’s words are final and everyone seems to settle until Buck storms in, his face tight with suppressed anger boiling to the surface. 

“Everything alright, kid?”

Buck scrubs his face as tears escape. “His fuc— his mother doesn’t think that Chris should fly out until ‘Eddie’s condition is more clear’. She didn’t ask how he was, or if they should come down or if he was even fucking alive. Fuck, she’s probably hoping he dies so she could take him.”

Bobby’s hand shoots out and grips Buck’s shoulder tightly. Grounding him the way Eddie grounded her earlier. “But she can’t. Because Chris has you and he trusts you. Let’s wait until he’s out of surgery and we can push the issue if you need him to fly out.”

Sahar has no idea where Chris is or why Eddie’s mom is holding him hostage. Either way, she sounds like she sucks. 

But she knows Buck is hurtling downward fast and if something happens to Eddie, he’s going blame h—

“You.”

She sees everyone turn to where Buck is glaring. She sees it in her periphery and holds her breath  before standing from her chair and facing him. 

Buck storms up to her and is in her face before anyone can stop him. “This is your fault. You stopped me, I could’ve gotten him out in time. Minutes! We wasted minutes that could make all the difference all because you stopped me from going to him.”

His eyes are so red that it makes the blue in them almost look inhuman. There is grief etched in every line of Buck’s face and she doesn’t know what he wants her to do about it. 

“You w—“

“No. You better pray Eddie comes out of this alive because if you make his son an orphan, if you make me lo—.” He screws his eyes tight and his voice drops threateningly low.  “If he’s gone, that’ll be on your head.”

“Buck!” Bobby’s voice booms and echos down the hall. Gone is the gentle father figure. Bobby’s face is dark and rigid, his gaze unfaltering as Buck stares him down, challenging him.

“Let’s take a walk,” Bobby grits through his teeth, he grips Buck’s arm and roughly pulls him out despite Buck having 20 pounds on him. 

She doesn’t realize her hands are shaking until she drops her helmet and the sound ricochets off the walls like a gunshot. She slowly sits back down and bends to pick up her helmet and place it on her lap. She sits poised with perfect posture, motionless like a statue. 

Hen comes next to her and she wishes she wouldn’t. She wishes everyone could just pretend she didn’t exist. 

“He was out of line. You have to understand that he’s hurting so badly, he is living his worst nightmare but that doesn’t give him the right to put that on you.” She’s so kind that Sahar hates it. She couldn’t offer Chimney the same grace when he was staring at a dead body yet his best friend is comforting her. 

She just shakes her head and continues to stare straight ahead, her mind floating away from her body. Disconnected. 

Hen continues and says, “if this was anyone else. Anyone else, he’d be the one pulling you aside telling you not to blame yourself. But Buck and Eddie are—“

“Intense?” She manages to croak out. 

Hen huffs out a laugh. “Yeah but that isn’t an excuse. You saved Buck’s life and unfortunately, that’s why he’s angry. If the worst happens, he’s angry that he’s going to be alive without Eddie. He had the chance to die with him and didn’t.”

“But the worst won’t happen.”

Hen smiles. “Right and Buck’s going to realize fast that if you hadn’t saved him, Chris would be stuck with Eddie’s parents. He’s going to realize that you stopping him is the reason why Chris won’t be an orphan. And when he grovels at your feet apologizing, do me a favor and make him work for it.”

That makes Sahar laugh but it dies quickly when Buck and Bobby come back. 

Buck doesn’t look at her but the building tension in his body is gone at least. 

Before anyone can speak, the doctor comes. 

Eddie is stable. 

He’s okay. 

He needs time to rest and recover because the surgeries were extensive but he’s alive. 

He’s alive. 

He’s alive. 

Baba is gone. 

He’s alive. 

——

Sahar sneaks off when everyone crowds into Eddie’s hospital room and calls herself an Uber. 

The Uber driver is bewildered to see her in full turnouts but dutifully drops her off at the station. 

She breaks into Eddie’s locker, promising to replace his lock, and grabs his clothes and shoves it in his gym bag. She checks to see if there’s anything else, she grabs his keys and wallet, and sees a plastic back tucked in the corner with a necklace in it. 

She’s not sure what it is but it looks religious, Catholic or Christian maybe, figures he might appreciate it and shoves it in the bag. 

She takes her car and drives it to the hospital. She’s on autopilot. She can’t think about anything other than how it’s $20 for overnight parking and that feels like a class action lawsuit begging to happen. 

When she gets to Eddie’s floor, Buck is the only one sitting outside his door. He looks up when he hears her footsteps but doesn’t move. She drags her feet and places Eddie’s gym bag next to him. 

Buck blinks at it before frowning. “How did you get this?”

She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a ten and shoves it at Buck. “That should cover the lock I broke.”

Buck stares at the bag and reaches in to pick up the necklace. He thumbs the pendant reverently and then looks at her, his face blank. 

When it’s clear he isn’t going to speak, she shrugs. “I brought my car, I’ll wait in the lobby if anyone needs a ride.”

Buck collects Eddie’s bag and when he speaks, his voice sounds like a man who nearly lost the will to live. 

“Go home, probie.”

——

So much of it is a haze until he is lying back in his bedroom with Buck hovering over him. He can piece together flashes of being told he can be discharged but with the meds and his injuries, shouldn’t be on his own. He vaguely remembers Buck filling out paperwork and helping Eddie into clothes he doesn’t remember bringing. 

He remembers clinging onto Buck’s body as he helps him into the back of his truck, cocooned in thick blankets. He doesn’t remember getting home and being situated in bed but he’s grateful for it. 

The meds are starting to fade and the aches are back. 

“How are you doing, big guy?” Buck asks, running cold fingers through Eddie’s hair. It feels so nice, he tilts his face to nuzzle into Buck’s wrist. 

It’s kinda nice that he missed all the awful parts and just gets to purr while Buck dotes on him.

“M‘tired.” 

Buck pulls away and it feels worse than the roof that fell on him. 

“That’s not funny.”

Eddie forces his eyes open and realizes he may have said that out loud.

Buck looks upset and Eddie’s heart thuds. “M’sorry. Cm’back.”

“Eddie, you nearly died. You actually did twice before Hen brought you back.”

Eddie lets out a wounded sound and tugs on Buck’s wrist. “M’sorry, sweetheart. Cm’here, I’ll make it’better.”

Buck’s face twitches before he shakes his head. “Let me get your meds. Take it and then you can nap.”

“With you?” Eddie doesn’t know why his eyes are watering at the thought of laying here hurt and alone. He’s done it before but he can’t do it again. This house is too big, too quiet without Chris. 

Buck is unmoving by the door, he’s staring at Eddie and his face looks flush. He wonders if Buck got hurt. If it’s an infection. 

Buck rolls his pretty blue eyes with a smile. “Not an infection. I’ll bring your pills and we’ll nap together, okay?”

Eddie shoves his face into a pillow and smiles crookedly. “Yay.”

He falls asleep between the time Buck gets his medicine, a glass of water and is gently shaken awake. Buck helps him sit up to take the pills before he lays him back down. 

Buck disappears down the hall and Eddie tries his best to stay up but inevitably falls asleep. He’s only woken back up when Buck climbs in next to him, warm and damp from a shower. He wants to press his face into his chest so badly. 

His injuries are so that Buck can’t really touch him so he just curls up by his side and watches him. 

“Thank you for coming back to me.”

Eddie moans out a weak sound. “Thank you for waiting for me.”

About 24 hours later, Eddie is much more lucid and far, far angrier. 

“You said what to her?”

Buck rubs his face and paces at the foot of his bed because he knows Eddie’s too injured to do anything other than cross his arms over his chest. 

“I was scared Eddie. I thought you were going to die and I thought, in the moment, if I had got to you faster, you’d have had a better chance.”

Eddie feels his head pounding. That poor girl— struggling to balance her trauma with her work on her very first day and had to deal with a feral Rottweiler Buck snapping his teeth at her. 

“But you do realize that she was right? If you went in, the wall would’ve crushed you. If anything, she bought me time. If you were crushed we both wouldn’t have had a chance.” 

Buck looks distraught and Eddie’s heart breaks. He knows Buck. He loves him. Buck gets territorial and fiercely protective but he never wants to be cruel. “Alright, come here.”

He pats the spot next to him and Buck immediately shuffles forward and drops his body next to Eddie obediently. He looks at Eddie with this scolded puppy dog look that he isn’t strong enough against. 

He reaches out and threads his fingers through his curly hair. 

“If you died, Chris would probably only be in LA for our funeral and that’s it. My parents would be the ones to keep him and they’d never let him set foot in this city again. He’d never be able to visit his mom or his dad or his Buck.”

Buck digs his teeth into his lip and Eddie so badly wants to wrap himself around Buck like a boa constrictor and wring the pain out of his body. 

“I know,” Buck whispers. 

Eddie carefully shifts his body so that he’s laying down flat on his back next to Buck. “I know you were scared. I would be too. I would’ve been angry at everyone, even myself if something happened to you because I couldn’t get you out fast enough. Are you mad at yourself?”

“A little,” Buck says as he closes his eyes. 

Eddie leans forward as best he can and pressed his forehead against Buck’s temple. “Do you feel better knowing that you would’ve raised Chris? That you would’ve fulfilled the one thing I wanted in death by staying alive?”

Buck’s face scrunches up and a tear slips out like it pains him to hear it. “Yes.”

“So maybe, you should thank the probie. Hell, I know I’m going to. Because she kept you alive, because if I lived and found out you died trying to save me, I’m not too sure what there would be left of me.”

——

Buck is off work for the entirety of Eddie’s medical leave of absence. 

No one questions it. No one asks why someone’s best friend is taking Caregiver Leave for them. 

In fact, before anyone even announces Buck’s time off, people are telling Bobby they’ll donate their PTO to Buck if he needs it. 

Without Buck and Eddie, A Shift has some new faces. According to Ravi they rarely swap shifts so it’s a bit of an adjustment. They get along well enough. 

Hen spends some more time with her. She sees the small enamel lesbian pride flag pin on her bag and talks to her about it. She tells Hen about the state of the Gen Z dating scene. She doesn’t tell Hen that she came out to her dad at the age of 11 and he hugged her and kissed her cheek and then to her mother at the age of 19 who shook her head and told her that she wouldn’t be this way if her father was still around. 

Ravi and Chim don’t really spend a lot of one on one time with her but they smile when they see her, offer her a cup of coffee when they go to make theirs and ask about her weekend plans. 

She thinks it has less to do with her and more to do with the giant holes missing in their team. 

Because when Eddie is finally cleared for active duty, the energy in the station shifts. 

There’s a cake and laughter and Buck looks like an entirely different person. He is literally glowing like a blazing sun. He bounces from person to person but his gravitational orbit is always centered around Eddie. Eddie who looks happy and steady on two feet despite having an entire roof collapse on him. 

It brings her to stop and her jaw hangs open at the sight of Buck beaming at Eddie, fluttering around him like an enamored butterfly. Buck even grins at her, hands her a slice of cake and is flushed red when Eddie squeezes his arm.

Jesus Christ. 

——

She’s in the locker room at the end of shift when Eddie turns the corner, she shoots him a polite smile and goes back to zipping up her sweater when she feels a hand on her arm. 

She tenses up by habit but the hand drops away when she faces him. 

Before she can make eye contact, Eddie Diaz is hugging her. 

Her brain short circuits, she isn’t sure what the hell is going on so she just stands there with her arms limp by her sides as Eddie gathers her close. 

“Thank you,” he whispers, his voice thick with tears. 

She’s so fucking confused. 

She’s pretty sure Buck can barely stand her and Eddie and him share a hivemind so she figured he’d feel the same. 

“Umm…”

Eddie sniffles wetly. “I’ll never be able to repay you for stopping him from running to his death to save me. Thank you.”

She swallows the lump in her throat, Buck and Eddie are intense. Ravi was right. They love each other in a way that feels so heavy, like it bears the weight of each of their bodies. It feels too sacred to acknowledge. 

“I don’t think I did all that much.”

She feels him shake his head. “He told me what he tried to do and how you stopped him. I was in the building, Sahar. I knew what would happen if someone came barging through that wall. I can’t  thank you enough.”

Sahar reaches out and pats him gently on the back. “Well, I’m glad you're back.”

“Oh…am I interrupting?”

The voice is trying to be cold but comes off more nervous and awkward. She fights the urge to roll her eyes because Buck isn’t as intimidating as he once was. He’s just the guy that’s always around wherever Eddie is. 

Eddie pulls away but doesn’t seem to notice Buck’s tone, he just beams at his friend and it’s like a stop motion film the way Buck’s face melts into something soft and candy sweet. 

“Just apologizing to the probie for giving her one hell of a first day.” 

Buck’s smile is wry as he cuts a look at her. “Hen’s calling. She wants to get a photo of you with the cake, although there’s only like a third of it left.”

Eddie laughs with one last squeeze of her arm and walks away in search of Hen, leaving her and Buck alone. 

“So, I almost died.”

Sahar is digging her teeth into her cheek to stop herself from laughing at the absurdity of this conversation. “I recall.”

“And the only reason I didn’t is because of you.”

Uh oh. 

Buck’s face is doing the Eddie Thing. The thing he only does around Eddie. It looks earnest and desperate and so, so eager. 

This is like the second day she’s met him. 

“Eddie reminded me how bad it would’ve been if I died.”

She could not begin to unpack that sentence. 

That was something he needed to be reminded of?

Buck shakes his head. “I’m so fucking sorry about how I acted and god, the things I said. You have to know I don’t believe it, that—that if we really did lose Eddie, it wouldn’t be your fault. You’d be the reason Chris still has a legal guardian,” he blurts out. 

She gapes, the emotional rollercoaster she’s on is giving her whiplash. Also, Buck would be the sole guardian of Eddie’s kid? “It’s okay, Buck. It was a hard day.”

“It was your first day,” he says, devastated. 

She looks away and shrugs. “And hopefully it won’t happen again.”

Buck nods eagerly. “It won’t.”

Silence ticks by and she feels like she’s going to suffocate. 

“So, uh, I think I’m going to go.” She sidesteps him and rushes out of the locker room and nearly eats shit as she runs to her car. 

She has never been so happy to be going home. 

——

Eddie doesn’t intend to take Sahar under his wing. 

He really doesn’t. It doesn’t feel like something he’s allowed to do, anyways. He isn’t the captain or the most senior firefighter. Ravi had always felt like a friend or little brother and through traumatic hazing, imprinted himself on Buck. 

He just finds himself wanting to teach Sahar things the way he would Chris. The way he wished Ramon would’ve taught him. 

When he and Buck head to their cars after shift, he sees her bracing her hands on her hips, ducking her head under the hood of her car. 

“You good, Ahmad?” He calls out. Buck cranes his neck to catch a look. 

She jerks her head and nearly smacks it on the hood before spotting him. “Yeah, just some car issues.”

He hands Buck his bag and walks over to her car. He pokes around before lecturing her on getting her oil checked more frequently, she tells him it’s expensive, he tells her to call him and he and Buck will come and do it. It was one of the first things he learned to do when he got his first used busted up truck at 17. 

Buck says nothing when Eddie volunteers him, just hums in acceptance with an easy smile. He really doesn’t need to do it with Buck, it’s a one person job, but he likes Buck’s company, sue him. 

He shows her how to rotate her tires since they’re already there and he’s half under her hood when he hears Buck telling her about the time Eddie removed a tire boot in under 5 minutes. 

“Why did they boot your tire in the first place? Do you not pay your tickets?” 

Buck gasps, affronted. “Eddie, cut her brake wires.”

He smiles and closes the hood of her car before taking her keys and getting in the front seat to turn it on. 

It revs like a dream and the relief on her face is palpable. 

“Seriously, don’t ignore your oil lights. You call me or Buck, next time, okay?”

She nods and Eddie goes to take his bag from Buck who just moves them to one hand and swings his other around Eddie's shoulder as they walk to their cars. 

He’s warm and solid and Eddie is still dealing with the fact that he might be a little in love with his best friend. 

“Did anyone ever tell you how attractive you are when you roleplay a mechanic?” He purrs in his ear. 

Eddie wants to melt through the cracks in the cement. Buck doesn’t know that he’s been spending a lot of time working out why his marriage with Shannon was the way that it was in therapy. 

Well no, Buck does know that. He doesn’t know that the breakthrough came in the form of Eddie realizing that maybe if Shannon was a Steven, their marriage maybe would’ve been salvageable. 

When his therapist phrased it like that, Eddie nearly jumped out the window. 

But the end result was the same, Eddie is gay. 

And in love with his best friend who still thinks he’s straight. 

So, when he does things like this, touching him warmly, flirting with him harmlessly, Eddie gets a little dizzy. 

His therapist asked him why he doesn’t at least tell Buck that he’s gay. Eddie doesn’t have much of an answer other than not wanting to. 

Because if Eddie is straight, Buck wouldn’t think twice about him romantically. 

If Eddie is gay, their sexualities become compatible and after 7 years of platonic friendship, there’s now a new dynamic they won’t be able to ignore. 

Eddie becomes an option for Buck. 

And if Buck doesn’t pick him, Eddie's not sure what he’s meant to do with his life. 

“I wasn’t role playing, I did fix her car!” 

Buck laughs, low and deep before pulling Eddie away from his car and towards Buck’s. That usually means Buck is staying over and they’ll drive to work together in the morning. 

“Should I be jealous? I thought you only pulled out your fancy car repair tricks for me.”

There’s something in his voice, something sharp that Eddie can’t pinpoint. He fights the urge to roll his eyes. Maybe he should come out to Buck just to get him to stop assuming he’s interested in every woman who breathes next to him. “Oh yeah, that’s my type, 24 year old probies I work with who don’t know how to change their oil.”

“She’s pretty and a lot more mature for her age than I was when I was dating Abby.” He says it lightly like it's not a big deal but he’s not making eye contact and he brought up Abby for god sake. 

“Are you…trying to convince me to make a move on our probie? You’re actually actively encouraging me to do that?” He’s dumbfounded and can only gape at Buck. “You think after nearly blowing up my life because of my fucked up relationships and working my ass off to make things right, the only thing on my mind is to be with someone almost ten years younger than me who’s barely certified? You think I’d be that careless?”

Like, if Eddie wasn’t a gay gay homosexual gay super gay man, it would still be an insane thing for Buck to say. Every decision Eddie makes has been with the utmost care after things fell apart with Chris. He’d rather spend the rest of his life single than have that happen again. 

Buck frowns. “Of course I don’t think that. And you didn’t blow up your life and your relationships weren’t fucked up. You were dealing with a lot. I don’t like when you talk like that.”

Eddie groans and shoves Buck away from him so he can turn and face him full on, “Buck, what the hell is going on? I can’t be friendly to the literal kid that’s joined our team without you thinking I have ulterior motives. Is that what you think of me?”

“No no! It’s not, fuck, it’s not about you. I know you wouldn’t. I know it. You’re just so attentive with her. You…you treat her like you treat me. It’s just weird to see, I guess.”

Eddie can’t begin to understand that because if he was treating her like he treats Buck that means he’d be staring at her ass and watching her workout like a dog in heat. And if Buck thinks he treats them the same, why would he interpret that as him being interested in her? 

Because wouldn’t that mean that Buck thinks he’s interested in hi—

“Buck, look at me,” Buck lifts his gaze and it’s warm and scared and blue and Eddie is so so in love. 

“There is no one I could ever replace you with. I wouldn’t even try to replace you in the first place. She’s a good kid and I think she’s alone a lot and I think I could help her. That’s it. You are my best friend. You are my favourite person second to Chris and that will never change. Got it?”

He hopes Buck gets it. There really is no one he loves more than him and Chris and Buck loves Chris so much that he doesn’t think he’ll mind coming in second place. 

Buck is his family, his partner, his ride or die. 

Buck licks his dry lips, in the dark his pupils almost look blown and he rasps out. “Got it.”

“I never thought you were replacing me with Ravi when you took a liking to him,” Eddie reminds him gently. 

Buck makes a face “Yeah but you’re way cooler than Ravi. You had no reason to be jealous of that dork.”

Eddie reaches out and skips his fingers across Buck’s temple. “Mmm, now you know how I feel, huh?”

There’s a moment of silence suspended between them as they share a long look. Buck’s eyes are wide and he looks shy under Eddie’s warm tone. Buck breaks their standoff when he takes Eddie’s hand and all but buckles him into the passenger seat. 

“Did Chris tell you when his flight is landing?” Eddie asks as Buck gets in. 

Buck shakes his head and presses his palm against the back of Eddie’s headrest and cranes his neck to pull out of the parking spot. It makes his knees a little weak. 

“No, he told me to ask you which was rude because he could’ve just sent me his itinerary in the time it took to type out that message.”

Eddie snickers, fondly. Buck is a bit lost when it comes to navigating teenage sass from Chris who had always been the perfect angel for as long as he’s known him. “We’ll go after shift together, he’ll probably have to wait for his luggage.”

When they stop at a red light, Buck looks at him, his blue eyes look almost navy under the night sky.  “You worked so hard to repair your relationship with him. You deserve this, Eddie.”

Buck had only spoken to Chris about the Kim stuff once since he moved to Texas. It had been long after Eddie and Chris had made up when they were talking daily but not yet touching the topic of returning to LA. Eddie handed Buck the phone during one of their daily calls and stepped out of the room to give them privacy. Eventually, Buck came out to find him and made sure he stared Eddie in the eyes while he spoke to Chris. 

“I’m glad you and your dad worked things out. You said he apologized a lot? That’s good. Did you apologize to him?”

Eddie’s eyes widened and he shook his head because Chris had nothing to apologize for. But Buck just ducked out of Eddie’s reach and planted his feet firmly. 

“Did you apologize for ignoring him and not letting him explain himself for that long?” Buck nods at what Chris’s saying, “I know, buddy, but maybe your dad would like to hear it from you even though he always knows how much you love him.” 

When Eddie got the phone back, Chris apologized, said he loves him and said, shockingly, that he realized while in Texas that if he had met Kim before Eddie did, he might’ve tried talking to her too. That he might’ve wanted to talk to her to remember what Shannon’s laugh sounded like and what her smile looked like. 

Buck held Eddie when he sobbed after they hung up. 

“I’m happy, Buck. For the first time in a while, my skin fits.”

——

It’s starting to get kinda funny. 

Because it was one thing for Eddie to teach her how to make his world famous slow cooked barbacoa. Or when she hurt her back and he made her go to Chris’s physical therapy sessions and stretch with his 15 year old son who kept roasting her bad form. 

(She gets why people think he’s the coolest kid and why Buck glared at her when he came to pick all three of them up and Chris wanted to add her on  Discord). 

It’s a completely different thing for Eddie to make Buck clean her gutters while the two of them have a glass of ice tea on her small porch. 

“Are you sure he’s okay with this?” She asks while peering up towards her roof where she could see Buck’s legs on a ladder rung. 

Eddie took a long sip of his drink and pushed his sunglasses up his nose. “Yeah, you gotta let him out of the house every now and then for an activity. It’s good for his enrichment.”

“Ha ha.” Buck calls from above them but quickly gets distracted, “Eddie! There’s a frog up here. That’s so cool! He’s so small!”

Eddie smiles to himself and shakes his head fondly. Sahar is pretty sure that if she asked Buck to clean her gutters he’d laugh in her face. Eddie, on the other hand, just said, “Oh, Buck can do that for you!” and Buck just nodded. 

“You guys live together?” 

Eddie freezes before shrugging. “No, Buck has his loft but he’s over a lot. It’s basically his second home.”

She toyed with how to broach this next topic. “And is that yours?”

Eddie looks at where she’s pointing. “The toolbag? Yeah. You need it?”

“Not the bag but the pin.”

The enamel bisexual flag pinned to the side of the bag. 

There’s a suspiciously long beat of silence before he answers. “No, I got it for Buck.”

She must make a face because he slides his glasses down his nose and pins her with a stare. “Is that a problem?”

“Yeah,” she says with a dramatic sigh, “now I’m forced to like Buck 5% more.”

Eddie’s shoulders drop with an easy grin. “Oh, come on, you’ve been warming up to him. I know it.”

“Whatever.” She rolls her eyes and while she and Buck aren’t texting each other memes or inside jokes on their downtime, his proximity to Eddie means she sees him a lot. 

And yeah, Buck is kinda hard not to like, even when he’s picking on her and then tries to make Eddie take his side whenever they fight about it. 

“He’s alright, I guess. I mean, now we sorta have stuff in common.”

Buck scrambles half way down the ladder and he peers at her through the rungs with wide eyes. “Bisexual?”

“Lesbian.”

“Rad.”

Buck climbs back up the ladder and a chunk of wet leaves plop on the ground. 

Eddie blinks. “What was that?”

“A temporary alliance.”

Eddie snorts and shakes his head. “Your mom take it well? You said it was just the two of you.”

She clenches her fists into her shirt and thinks about that conversation when she was 19. 

Her conservative Indian mother who didn’t care that she was lesbian but blamed her fatherless upbringing as the cause. Didn’t care that she dated women as long as she married a man. 

“She doesn’t get it,” is all she says. “She wasn’t exactly attending Pride or sticking a rainbow flag in our window.”

Eddie doesn’t tell her that he’s sorry or that it’s going to get better. He sits thoughtfully for a moment.

“Best thing about being an adult is that you get to pick your family. My family isn’t great. The one I made is perfect.”

She watches him watch Buck’s legs. He tucks his lips together and lets out a sharp whistle, “Buck come down, your knee’s about to lock up.”

Buck hops down the ladder like he’d do whatever Eddie says without asking a question. Eddie frowns up at him from his lounger. “I told you not to do it if your leg was aching. I could’ve switched with you.”

“Eh, I wanted to see how bad a renter the probie is. We may be in trouble the day she becomes a homeowner.” He grins wickedly before Eddie leaps up and chases him into her house to get a glass of water to take with his pills. 

When she steps off the porch to survey Buck’s work, she notices he’s installed a small motion sensor light. The one Eddie had recommended her when she mentioned how creepy her street could feel at night. 

Sahar loved her mom despite the things she’s said.

She thinks of Chimney calling Eddie a momma bird and Sahar his duckling whenever he spots her following Eddie around in the station. 

She thinks of Hen and her wife Karen inviting her to a queer book club. And of Ravi constantly trying to get her to move into one of the apartments he owns. She thinks of Buck who frowns whenever she shows up next to Eddie but always makes room anyways. 

Maybe picking her own family wasn’t the worst thing. 

The next time Buck and Eddie agree to drive her to work, she’s sitting in the back seat of Eddie’s truck. His toolbag is on the ground next to her and right beside the bisexual flag pin, is an identical lesbian flag pin. 

——

Buck is on a date. 

Eddie is totally fine with it. 

Because Buck is allowed to date. 

Admittedly, he was reluctant, seemed put out by the entire set up but still ultimately agreed when Josh said he had a friend, right in front of Eddie. 

Maddie kept glancing at Eddie the entire time with these worried little looks. 

Fucking Josh. 

But he thought maybe he could balm the hurt with a movie night with Chris but he naively thought that Chris wouldn’t have plans on a Friday night. 

“I book up fast.” His offspring, his blood, the light of his life, had said with a shrug.  

So one sleepover drop-off later, Eddie is walking into a gay club hoping to forget being in love with his best friend who’s on a date.  

It’s not a habit to go clubbing, especially with how tired he gets and how loud the music is but every once in a while, he goes out. It’s fun and likes to remind himself that he belongs here. He’s a few shots in, dancing with someone pretty whose face he couldn’t pick out of a lineup when he feels his phone buzz. 

He pulls his phone out thinking it might be Chris only to see something worse. 

Buck

hey lol

where r u lol?

did someone steal ur phone lol?

omg wait r u the thief? 

give my friend his phone back!

And right under his third text is a screenshot of Eddie’s location pinging him at a bar called Thrust. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” He whispers while fumbling to turn off location sharing. 

His dance partner slides his arms around Eddie’s waist and presses against his back. 

“Come dance with me,” they purr, pressing their lips to his ear and slipping their hand under his shirt. 

But Eddie feels sick. 

He feels unfaithful. Disloyal. 

He feels like a failed partner. A failed spouse. Like how he failed Shannon and failed Marisol. He feels the same sickening guilt he felt when he lied to Marisol. Now he’s lying to Buck. All he does is hurt people by letting them down. 

Eddie thinks he might be a bad person. And he doesn’t think blaming his later in life coming out is the problem. He thinks it might just be him and his rotten core. 

His vision is blurring and his hearing is muffled. He can’t breathe. His lungs can’t expand enough, he thinks he’s going to die on the sticky floor of a grimy club called Thurst. 

Suddenly a pair of smaller cold hands wrap around his wrists and pull him forward. He stumbles out of the first person’s grasp and falls forward into someone else’s. 

He can’t hear their voice but feels so outside his own body that he lets them drag him until the crisp night air hits his overheated skin. He feels the brick wall against his back and the muffled voice of someone talking fast and low. 

“—called box breathing. Do you know it? Just follow me, okay? Breathe in, hold, breathe out—-“

By the time he feels present, he recognizes the voice and lifts his head to find them. 

“Sahar? You look nice.” 

Her laugh is stunned, like she can’t believe he’s complimenting her while coming down from a panic attack. But it’s true, she’s wearing a pretty yellow dress with glitter all over her. She looks like a sparkly chickadee, like Adriana in her junior prom dress but for a 24 year old. 

“How are you feeling?”

He nods but can’t lift his head. “Better. Sorry about that, I’m not sure where that came from but I’m fine now. Go back inside, don’t let me ruin your night.” 

Her fingers are still around his wrist and she squeezes tightly. “Eddie, you didn’t ruin my night but…” Her words trail off and he finally lifts his gaze to meet hers, “do you know what this bar is?”

It feels like they’re in a vacuum. 

This one moment, Eddie gets to decide who he is, what he is and gets to decide how far deep he’s going to bury it. 

Or if he wants to bury it at all. 

“I’m gay, so yeah I do.”

Sahar purses her painted lips and it takes a moment for him to realize she’s fighting off tears.  “Am I the first to know?”

“Actually my therapist, so you’re technically second.”

She laughs watery and hugs him. She smells like thick floral perfume and normally he’d flinch away but it grounds him a bit more. “Thank you for telling me. I saw you and figured it wasn’t my business where you go or what you do but you were freaking out and I thought you might need some help.”

“Thanks, I did.”

Sahar pulls away and tugs on his arms until he’s leaned from the wall and standing tall. She narrows her eyes and squints at him for a moment before nodding to herself. 

“The world’s best overpriced tacos are a block away. Do you want to keep me company?”

——

Sahar loves Eddie Diaz. 

He might be one of her favourite people. 

Kind, serious, gentle, a good father, a good mentor, a good friend, understanding and gay.  The last one is her most favourite. 

“Sahar please stop sticking your fingers in my tacos.”

“You said you have the cilantro soap gene!”

“I’ll survive. You, on the other hand, haven’t washed your hands. I don’t want to die of dysentery.”

She grins and takes a bite of her taco. They’re sitting on the curb in front of the taco truck, Eddie’s leather jacket is draped across her legs to save her from flashing every poor passerby. They’re buzzed, not close to tipsy but a bit untethered. 

Turns out she was a lot hungrier than she thought and wolfs hers down in a minute before Eddie hands her his second one which she demurely inhales. 

He was still working on his first one when she began poking. “What happened in there? When you froze up, you were looking at your phone.” 

“Buck saw my location.”

Sahar feels her body sink and her heart fill with dread. Buck is bisexual, Hen is lesbian, she’s lesbian. There is no universe where Buck has a problem with Eddie’s sexuality. Hell, he’ll probably click his heels and do a little dance. 

But Eddie wasn’t ready yet and this certainly wasn’t the way he wanted him to find out. 

“Fuck, I’m sorry, what did he say?”

Eddie tosses his paper plate and wipes his hands with a napkin. “He asked me if someone stole my phone and then I turned off my location and went on airplane mode.”

“Hmm, quick thinking. You have plausible deniability if you want.”

Eddie looks at her confused so she continues. “You could lie and say it was stolen but you found it. He would probably believe you.”

Eddie nods but eyes her warily. “You don’t think that’s the right move.”

“I’m not sure, what set you off when Buck texted? The fact that he knew you were at a gay club?”

Eddie takes a deep breath. “Yeah, a little. It felt like I was going to have a speed up a difficult conversation but then the guy I was dancing with started touching me and I just felt…wrong. Like I was doing something bad. Like, like I cheated on Buck and all of a sudden every failed relationship I ever had was flashing in my mind with this big neon sign that said you fuck up all your relationships. You hurt people and you will hurt Buck. And I just couldn’t breathe.”

“Wow, yeah that would do it.” She whistles. That’s a lot to carry on a night out. 

“Yeah,” Eddie says with a dry laugh. 

She shakes her head because frankly Eddie is hurting himself for no good reason. “You’re not cheating on him. You literally can’t cheat on him because you two aren’t dating. You’re allowed to have fun and dance with a stranger while you figure out how and when you want to come out. And you’re not a bad person because your relationships failed. Like what’s that saying? You only have to get it right once? Well? Your one time is still out there, who cares if you mess up a few times? You learn from it. Isn’t that how you got here? Coming out to your probie outside a gay club?”

They share a quiet laugh and she leans into his shoulder. “You’re allowed to have a life that’s just yours where you do things that are just for you. Not as a dad or a son or a best friend or a firefighter but just for you, Eddie Diaz The Person. You’re allowed to find joy in people and things and places.”

Eddie sits with it for a moment before he speaks. “I don’t think I want to hide it. Not anymore. But I also want to do the right thing. Make a decision that doesn’t hurt people. I just don’t know what the right thing is because every time I think I’m doing the right thing I end up fucking everything up.”

She knows the feeling of wishing there was an all seeing powerful being that would tell her what would bring her the most happiness. But isn’t that what people turn to religion for? She doesn’t think God will help here. 

“I can’t tell you what the right thing to do is. Only you can know that, but I think if you felt awful that Buck might’ve figured you out, you’ll feel twice as bad the minute you lie to him about who you are.”

She wishes someone told her this. She wishes she had an Eddie to hold her hand when her mom dismissed her coming out. 

She reaches out and holds his hand. “You spent all this time and work to allow yourself to accept this beautiful part of yourself. You don’t deserve to lie about it now. You deserve to celebrate it. To be proud of it and I think the only people who will celebrate it as much as you will is your son and Buck.”

Eddie shakes his head, squints his eyes and looks away like he’s fighting off tears. “I’m in love with Buck. If I tell him I’m gay, he’ll know.”

Eddie loving Buck feels like an obvious statement but the way Eddie says it makes her think this might be the first time he’s said it out loud to someone who knows them both.

She knows Buck is incapable of being insane about anyone other than Eddie and Eddie is incapable of being insane about anyone other than Buck. They have to date each other otherwise they’re about to ruin the lives of single men and women across LA. 

“If you tell him you’re gay, all he’ll care about is being happy for you. You don’t need to tell him you're in love with him in order to tell him you’re gay. I mean, when he came out to you, did you assume he had feelings for you?”

He grimaces and shakes his head. “No, but in all fairness he came out to me because he told me he went on a date with this ugly loser dickhead that ended up breaking his heart 6 months later.” 

Okay, parking that story for further questions later. 

“But if he wasn’t on a date, if he just told you that he was bisexual?” 

Eddie blinks wetly and admits softly, “I would’ve told him that it changed nothing between us. That I love him and I’m happy for him.”

“So, maybe give Buck a chance to love and be happy for this side of yourself before you borrow trouble about confessing.”

Eddie nods and slowly pulls out his phone and takes it off airplane mode. His homescreen lights up with texts from Buck and she catches a few of them and they’re concernedly threatening and a little violent. 

She raises her brows. “Uh, what’s his problem?”

Eddie laughs wheezingly. “He thinks someone else has my phone and is now threatening them over texts.”

It takes a beat and she bursts out laughing, “Eddie, this is the guy you’re nervous won’t like you back?”

“You’re laughing but Buck thought I was trying to flirt with you and tried to encourage it because he thinks I’m straight.” Eddie says it with a laugh and the levity makes her grin. 

“Yeah well Buck clearly isn’t very bright when it comes to you.”

Eddie looks genuinely offended. “Hey! Buck is super smart, he’s really well read and loves learning and can retain all these super interesting facts. Plus he’s super sweet and giving but people think it means he’s naive but he’s actually super observant.”

“Lord, got it, Buck is super! Okay, so what’s the plan now?”

Eddie stares at her before looking down at his phone. He presses the call button on Buck’s name and puts it on speaker. She should probably stop him until he’s sober. 

Should. She doesn’t. 

Of course, Buck answers before the first ring ends. 

“Hey! Asshole! You think you can steal my best friend’s phone and get away with it? I know a police sergeant. I can ask her to do corrupt shit to you.”

Sahar has to lay down with her back on the gross pavement and her hands over her face to stop the ugly laugh threatening to burst out. Buck would fistfight the air if the wind knocked Eddie’s hat off his head.  

“Buck?” Eddie’s voice is barely held together with a laugh. 

“Eddie? Oh my god, I thought you lost your phone. Did you get it back?”

“Nope, never lost it.” Eddie tilts his head up and stares at the moon. She watches from where she’s laid out and feels warmth at the peace on his face. 

Buck clears his throat after every other word. “Oh…so, wait. You were at—“

“If I drop a pin can you come pick us up?” Eddie speaks so softly and tenderly that it makes her teeth ache. 

“Yeah sure, but uh, who’s us exactly?”

Eddie looks at her and winks. “I ran into a troublemaker tonight.”

“Hi, Buckley!” She cheers while sitting up. 

“Probie? Hey!” His voice seems notably happier and she isn’t stupid enough to think it’s because he’s happy to hear her. Probably just relieved Eddie isn’t bringing home a stray. 

Oh boy, this is going to be fun. 

“I got your pin. I’ll be there in 15,” Buck promises. 

12 minutes later Eddie is climbing into Buck’s passenger seat and Sahar is sprawling out in the back with Eddie’s coat draped over her like a blanket. 

“I brought you some water.” Buck’s voice is sweet and tender, his eyes are glued to Eddie. Eddie hums with a gracious smile and Buck looks pleased as pie to be of service to Eddie. He cracks open the lid as if Eddie doesn’t have two working hands and gives Eddie a crisp cold bottle. 

Sahar sits up. “Do I get one?”

Buck chucks a room temperature one over his shoulder at her without looking away from Eddie and she catches it with a cackle. 

“Let’s play some music!” Eddie says excitedly. He takes Buck’s phone, and to her horror, holds it up to his own face and unlocks Buck’s Face ID. 

Buck had Eddie’s face set up in his phone for Face ID? And Eddie really thinks Buck has room for someone else in his life?

Soft pop music starts to play as Buck pulls them onto the freeway.

“Probie, I’ll drop you off first, I probably won’t stop but I’ll slow down enough for you to just tuck and roll.”

Buck is a riot. He thinks she buys his whole asshole routine but he still brought her water. He makes her do the worst chores but always leaves a plate of food in the microwave at work for her before the others lick the plates clean. He doesn’t text her outside of the work group chat but called her an Uber Black when they went out as a team and Eddie was worried about her taking the train alone. She knows that Buck’s behavior can only be chalked up to Eddie liking her because if Eddie likes her, Buck will make sure nothing ever happens to her for no other reason than to make sure Eddie isn’t sad. 

Weirdly, it’s more comforting than Buck liking her voluntarily. 

Eddie drains his bottle and crushes it in his fist before wiping his mouth. “No, it’s late. Let her crash at mine. She can take the couch.”

Buck blinks and she watches his fists tighten on the wheel. “Sure, I’ll have to come in though. I left my stuff by the couch. I’ll pop in and grab it and head to the loft.”

Eddie looks completely offended at the mention of the loft. “What? What the hell are you talking about? No. We’ll share the bed, it’s fine. It’ll be like a sleepover.” He grins at the last part and probably doesn’t even realize he’s batting his lashes at Buck who looks like he’s stopped breathing. 

Sahar snickers, “yeah Buckley. A big ol’slumber party with the girls.”

“Wait,” Eddie sits up and looks at Buck. “What about your date? Oh my god, did I ruin your night too?”

Buck gets a distant look in his eyes before shaking his head. “No, it ended early. Wasn’t what I was looking for. I didn’t really want to go anyways.”

Sahar hums, pleased. She’s decided that Buck shouldn’t have a single good first date unless it’s with Eddie. “Usually the things you’re looking for are already with you.”

Buck watches her uneasily through the mirror but manages to get them all inside Eddie’s house in one piece. 

While Eddie washes up first, Buck goes into Eddie’s room and comes back out with a stack of linens for the couch and a set of clothes for her to change into. She picks up the sweater and holds it out. 

“Eddie is a Swiftie?”

“That’s mine,” Buck says and somehow that’s even better. “I want it back, Eddie got it for me when we saw her live.”

“Favourite era?”

Buck blinks and smiles a little. “Folklore.”

“Yeah, figures.” 

“You?”

“Reputation.”

Buck grins. “Yeah, figures.”

Eddie swings out of the bathroom and drags Sahar in to show her everything she can use before he leaves. 

She washes up and notices three toothbrushes in a toothbrush holder and the unopened one meant for her. She sees curl crème and serums for blonde hair stacked on top of scar creams and joint paint ointment. 

When she comes out, most of the lights are off. The linens Buck handed her are now carefully draped over the couch for her. There’s a glass of water on the coffee table and a bottle of Advil next to it. 

She crawls under the blankets and blinks away the tears. 

——

Eddie wakes up to a small headache but not the worst. 

He remembers last night. Remembers Buck crawling into the empty space next to him in bed. He remembers the space between them before he reached out and held Buck tightly throughout the night and nosed through his hair whenever he was half lucid. He can feel where Buck pressed his face into his neck, smushing his nose against Eddie’s collar. He remembers Buck’s hands loosely around him at all times, making sure he was always within arms reach. 

However, the bed’s empty now but the sound of laughter and clinking plates bodes well for him. 

He stumbles out of his room and sees Sahar sitting next to Chris arguing about the virtue of waffles over pancakes while Buck works diligently on putting together breakfast. 

By the time he brushes his teeth and washed his face, he has a cup of coffee and a plate of eggs waiting for him.  

Buck brushes his fingers along Eddie’s waist as he passes by. “I grabbed Chris from the Levenson’s so you could get some more sleep.”

“Thank you,” Eddie hums, watching the proud smile on Buck’s face like it’s his own personal sunrise. 

“Sahar said you’d probably be hungover, dad. Aren’t you too old to be partying on a weekday? What would people from church say?” Chris says in mock scandal, his hand dramatically placed on his chest. 

Eddie glares at Sahar and chucks a dish towel at her head. “Stop gossiping with my kid and we don’t go to church.”

“Don’t worry, I explained to Chris that the anti-Christ allows senior citizens to party after sunset.”

Eddie rolls his eyes and lets them duck their heads together and go back to whatever Chris was showing her on his phone. 

Buck takes a sip of his coffee, eyes Sahar and Chris before turning so his back is to them. He touches Eddie’s neck and keeps voice is soft and low. “Can we talk about last night? Like where I picked you up from? Would that be something you’re okay with?”

Eddie rolls the inside of his cheek between his teeth, and glances over Buck’s shoulder to where Sahar is likely listening and nods. 

“After work?”

Buck's smile is wide and beautiful, he’s just a goddamn heartthrob hunk of a man made just for him and Eddie is so lucky. “After work.”

——

Sahar rarely pays attention to Buck more than she needs to for work, but he’s been acting so weird since they arrived on scene. 

It was a massive pileup on the interstate that they had to call in a few other stations to help triage. Buck, admittedly, was good at dealing with victims and calming their panicked nerves but for some reason, he spent every interaction scowling and frowning. 

Eddie was better with his bedside manner but whenever he was between victims, he’d either be watching Buck, or scowling too. 

She sees Eddie stop and check on Buck a few times and even catches a bit of their conversation when she walks by. 

“—a moron. He can rot and I’d say good riddance.”

“No, I know. I’m not like, pining over him. Gross. I knew we’d cross paths, he just makes my skin crawl now.”

“Yeah…that might just be you coming to your senses.”

“Shut up, you dick. God, did he always look that ugly? Hen says it was the Baby Gay Goggles.”

Before she can piece more together, Bobby calls her over and she dives straight into the thick of it. She works next to Hen and Chimney, assisting them where they need extra hands. She triages others the best she can and drapes white cloths over the ones that they couldn’t save. 

By the time the chaos quiets, she feels sweaty, achey and like the stench of death is clinging to her turnouts. She quiets that part of her brain and focuses on the people she saved. It’s the best she can do. 

She sees the truck where the rest of her team is leaning up against and tries to run towards them. She needed to be off her feet yesterday. 

“Hey, you’re the 118’s new probie, right?”

Sahar bites back a groan and turns to the voice, praying she’s not going to get assigned with some grunt work task. It takes every moment of her fire academy training to stop her from full body recoiling at the gargoyle dressed as a firefighter that’s trying to talk to her. 

She leans her body away and tries not to grimace. “Uh, why?”

Look, Sahar’s a big ol’ lesbian but she understands that even though she’s not attracted to men, she can see why, aesthetically, some people would be. 

She gets why Buck and Eddie get hit on by civilians like it’s a national sport. She gets why Chim and Bobby managed to pull women the likes of Athena and Maddie. 

So her sexuality is not the only reason why she finds this man so repulsive. 

“I’m Tommy Kinard from the 217. Thought I’d swing by and introduce myself to the newest member of my old house.”

She blinks at him and starts to turn away. “Um…cool, I guess.”

Why was he acting like those college students who keep visiting their highschool after they peaked?

He sticks his hand out and has a dumb look on his face. “I’m sure you’ve heard a lot about me.”

“Excuse me?” She scoffs out. Who the fuck is this loser? 

“I mean, being the infamous Evan Buckley’s ex-boyfriend must come with some notoriety.”

Suddenly, she remembers Eddie’s drunken confession about the ugly loser who broke Buck’s heart.  

Now, you cannot blame Sahar for what she blurts out next. 

“Buck dated you?”

Because here’s the thing, if her tone was any different, she could’ve played it off as genuine curiosity. She’s a newbie, why would she know everyone’s dating history? But the horror and disbelief was so thick and her voice was so loud that Tommy froze and everyone, Buck and Eddie included, turned and stared. 

It bears repeating, you cannot blame her. 

Because in what universe, does Buck stare at Eddie’s face 18 out of the 24 hours in a day, and then pick that to be his boyfriend. 

Men really are a different breed. 

“Sorry!” She tries to do damage control, “I meant that, like, I’m just surprised he chose to date you and you broke up with him. I guess we all go through the Baby Gay Goggles phase, right?”

Oh, maybe that made it worse. 

“I’m going to leave.” Tommy deadpans and storms off, leaving Sahar standing alone. 

Everyone else goes back to what they were doing except Buck who is glaring at her, flushed red in embarrassment and Eddie who grins and shoots her a wink. 

She shuffles with her head down and makes her way back to the truck. Buck climbs in with a scowl on his face, Hen and Chim follow behind while fighting off snickers and Eddie just pulls her in and gives her a side hug. 

“I knew you were my favorite for a reason.”

——

Eddie could’ve thought of a million things that could’ve put a damper on the day he chose to come out to Buck. 

Someone could’ve died. 

They could’ve lost a patient.  

His parents could’ve showed up. 

Tommy Kinard making an appearance was not on the list. Largely because Eddie doesn’t think about him and has him blocked on every platform possible, including his phone. 

Buck had seemed rattled and for a second Eddie’s worst fears were creeping in. That was until Buck called Tommy gross and Sahar looked at Tommy like Buck must be blind to have dated him and practically said as much to his face. 

But there was still a part of Eddie that wasn’t sure if Buck remembered what they promised to talk about or if he was too distracted to care. 

He chews nervously on his lip as he walks up to his house, Buck trailing behind him. He unlocks the door and they both move in silence, kicking their shoes off and tossing their bags aside. 

There’s laundry to do and naps to take but Eddie is buzzing. Buck hasn’t mentioned anything on the car ride other than these organic vegan cookies he needed to add to Eddie’s shopping list and this TikTok hack he wanted to try the next time they had to fold a fitted sheet. He’s not entirely sure how tonight’s going to play out for him. 

“Water?” Eddie mumbles as he heads to the kitchen. 

He hears Buck groan as he drops his body on the couch, “Beer?”

Eddie hums and fills a water bottle before grabbing two bottles of beer from the fridge. Buck has his legs propped up on the coffee table and his head tilted back. 

His eyes are closed and Eddie just takes a moment to stare. Buck is undeniably beautiful, he’s not a guilty pleasure or an acquired taste, Buck is universally gorgeous. 

But Eddie’s ego whispers that there’s a facet to Buck’s beauty that’s only visible to his eyes. The softness, the peace, the contentment, Buck glows when he feels truly and wholly safe. 

And Eddie selfishly thinks that barring Maddie, he is the only one Buck lets see him like this. With a blind and an almost naive level of trust. But how can the trust be naive when Buck is right? Eddie would climb mountains, face the devil, burn down the church to protect Buck’s peace. 

He’s earned this. 

Bucks eyes flutter open and he tilts his head awkwardly back until they land on Eddie standing behind him. 

He lets out a soft little sound and holds his hands out for the beer. Eddie smiles and hands him both the water and the beer bottle. 

“You haven’t been hydrating. You’ll get a headache if you just drink beer.” 

Buck sticks his tongue out but dutifully chugs have the bottle before sipping on his beer. He glances at Eddie and gently pats the space next to him. 

Eddie holds his breath and carefully lowers himself down. He stares at the TV that’s been switched onto the weather channel and nurses his own drink. 

“Why are we watching the weather channel?”

Buck hums and slouches back and drapes his arm along the back of the couch, just behind Eddie’s head. 

“Pollen count’s going up this week.”

Eddie blinks and sits up before turning to Buck. “Did you stock up on your meds? Last time you had to call out sick because your eyes wouldn’t stop watering. Hang on, I think I still have some from last year but I’m not sure they’re still good.”

He goes to stand when Buck grips his wrist and keeps him in place. His eyes are wide and his pretty pink lips are parted and Eddie has such good taste in men. 

“Eddie, I’m fine. I was joking. Pollen count’s fine.”

He looks back at the TV where the weather lady is talking about the UV index. 

“Oh.”

“I thought something mundane would help keep us on topic. You know, in case you still wanted to have that talk after work.”

Eddie blinks and tilts his head at Buck. “We don’t have to do it today. I know seeing Tommy bothered you. We can talk about that if you want.”

Buck snorts and lets out a louder laugh. “It’ll be a cold day in hell when I want to talk about Tommy Kinard over Eddie Diaz. I’ll pick you every single time, no competition.”

Eddie warms at the thought and the fact that he’s never doubted it. As much as he hated Buck and Tommy dating, it never crossed his mind once that Buck would replace him or leave him behind. Strangely, he’d seen Buck even more during their relationship. 

“But only if you want to,” Buck says softly. “If you’re not ready to talk, I can talk about Tommy and how little I care about him and how weird it was that he introduced himself to Sahar as my ex. Or how after the embarrassment wore off, it was kinda sweet that she said she didn’t get how he could break up with me.”

Eddie pouts at the reminder. “Well, she was right. Sahar told me that you were a California Male Nine and Tommy was a Idaho Male Two. I don’t know what that means but Sahar used to live in Idaho, Buck, so I think she knows what she’s talking about.”

Buck laughs and taps Eddie’s bottom lip with his finger. “I’m flattered and I know she meant it because there’s no way she would voluntarily call me a Male Nine. Wait, why male?”

“Yeah, she said women operate on a different hotness scale because they’re all inherently hotter. Like a Woman One is equal to a Male Seven or something. I don’t know.” It was a very detailed explanation that Eddie only followed half of. 

Buck shakes his head with a laugh and shifts closer to Eddie, their thighs pressed up in a warm line. “All I’m saying is that there’s plenty we can talk about if you’re not ready to talk today.”

Eddie takes one last sip of his beer before setting it down. Buck follows suit and adjusts his body so he faces Eddie, ice blue eyes open and pinned on him. 

Eddie feels restless and picks at the fray in his jeans. It feels a bit surreal that he’s about to say the words out loud to Buck. He’s practiced it but his mind is blank now. “Right, okay. I’ve been thinking a lot about joy. About making an effort to find it for myself and making an effort of being honest about it especially now that Chris is back home and things feel right.”

Buck’s face, Eddie isn’t sure he’s seen him look like this before, like he’s about to puke or faint. 

“I had this conversation with Chris this morning after Sahar left and you were in the shower and he was happy for me. He said it felt right to him too and I seemed happier and that, I don’t know, made me feel complete in a way I haven’t in years. Like me being happy is what’s good for Chris and he and I can be happy at the same time. I didn’t even realize that I’ve been walking around with a part of me missing and I didn’t realize that this is how it’s supposed to feel like.”

Buck’s eyes look misty. “How what’s supposed to feel like?”

“Life!” Eddie laughs and he feels so goddamn free. “Okay, you know when you spend your whole life squinting at tiny font and blurry objects and one day a doctor tells you to get your eyes checked and then you’re putting on a pair of glasses for the first time and suddenly you can see the world clearly? You finally see what everyone else sees?” Buck nods like he’s in a daze. Like Eddie is driving a car at full speed off a cliff and Buck is strapped in next to him. “You can finally see things the way they’re meant to be seen and you can appreciate the beauty of things that you never knew the full extent of before?”

Buck licks his lips and Eddie can’t help but let his eyes follow his soft pink tongue and the shine on his mouth. Gay. Gay. Gay. 

“You want to be honest and find joy,” Buck says breathlessly. 

Eddie beams, Buck is so good at following along. “So, in an effort to do that. I’m uh…I’m gay.”

Buck’s face immediately wipes clean and he sits up, alert. “You’re gay? That’s, um, that’s the thing that brought you joy?”

Eddie feels tears fill his eyes when he hears it said like that and lets out a wet laugh. “Yeah, it is.”

“Eddie,” Buck breathes out before tackling flat down to the couch and wrapping his limbs around him, “That’s amazing. I’m so happy for you.”

Eddie closes his eyes and sinks into Buck’s embrace. Buck is his favourite person in the world, second to Chris. Eddie couldn’t have fallen in love with a better person. He’s so happy to give his heart to Buck even if he never gets Buck’s in return.  

He breathes him deeply, feeling a sense of total calm wash over him at his familiar scent. Everything he could build a home, a future, off of. 

Buck nudges their temples together and squeezes him tighter, his eyes glittering. “I’m so proud of you.”

Eddie buries his face harder into Buck’s shoulder. 

“Only you and Chris know but I think I want to tell the others soon. I’m still working some stuff out but I’m done denying myself joy. I’m gay and I love who I am for the first time in a really long time.”

Buck pushes himself up over Eddie, the neckline of his shirt hanging low enough that Eddie could probably put his whole arm in it. Buck glows and beams. God makes no mistake. Certainly not with the way Buck looks on top of him. 

“Oh! And Sahar knows too.”

Buck’s face hilariously drops and pushes himself away from Eddie to sit up. “The probie got to know before me? Eddie, seriously I’m going to bury my whole body in sand and never come up, she hasn’t even been here a year. I’m in your will.”

Eddie booms out a laugh and pulls Buck back in for a bear hug. “It wasn’t on purpose. She found me drunk at a gay bar, Buck. It wouldn’t take a lot for her to put the pieces together but I told her anyway. It was nice to say it out loud to someone. She helped a lot. She’s a good kid, Buck. I was right about her.”

“Yeah, I guess she’s alright,” Buck mumbles into his neck. Eddie shivers and pulls Buck tighter into him like he could consume him into his chest right next to his heart. 

“You like her a little, don’t you?” Eddie teases because Buck can act aloof and puff his chest out but he is incapable of not caring. He isn’t wired to be mean and while his territorial schtick is lasting longer with Sahar than it did with Eddie, Buck’s softened on her in the way older brothers softened on their annoying little sister. 

“What I like is to not talk about the probie and focus on celebrating you. Eddie, I’m so happy for you.” Eddie wishes it was legal to spend the rest of your life laying on the couch with the man you’re in love with draped over you like a weighted blanket. 

Buck finally pulls away and Eddie wants so badly to pull him back. Instead, he acts like a functioning adult and sits upright. 

Eddie mulls over his words while Buck watches him patently. “I think…I think I want to do more things that bring me joy. Even if they’re small or self indulgent or generally seem like a waste.”

Buck holds his hand. 

“Nothing that brings you joy could ever be a waste.”

Eddie smiles and squeezes his hand. 

“Yeah…I think I’m starting to see that now.”

——

“What are you doing here?”

Sahar tips the brim of her hat up and tilts her head back to squint her eyes at Buck. 

It’s 6am and she should’ve expected Buck to open the door when she rang Eddie’s doorbell. 

“What are you doing here?” She fires back. Okay, not her best work, but again, it’s 6am. 

Buck scoffs like half his hair isn’t flattened with blanket creases pressed to his cheek. “You think I have less of a reason to be at Eddie’s place at 6am on a Sunday than you do?”

Sahar snorts, “Do you hear yourself? Girl, stand up.”

Buck mutters nonsensically but offers no retort. She rolls her eyes and peers over his shoulder. “Eddie, let’s hustle! We gotta beat traffic.”

“Coming!” Eddie calls out from inside the house, “Can you grab the cooler by the door?”

She sees the blue cooler and snatches it up before heading back to her car leaving Buck sputtering in the distance. 

“Hanging out with the probie is the thing that brings you joy?” He hears Buck ask Eddie. 

“Yup!”

She can hear Eddie’s smile in his voice. Small but proud and she hates that it makes her eyes burn.

He had texted her a few nights ago that he had come out to Buck and that it had gone well. When she said she was happy for him, his reply made her eyes burn again. 

Eddie:

all thanks to you :-)

She, of course, went out and bought a little enamel gay flag pin and pinned it to his toolbag right next to the bi and lesbian one, when he wasn’t looking. 

Eddie isn’t even ten years older than her but he reminds her of her father so much her heart aches. 

She shakes it off, this fishing trip is supposed to be about joy and fun. Their trauma will chase them around the rest of their lives, maybe for a few hours, they can forget and celebrate their rare wins. 

Eddie comes out of his house wearing a hat uglier than hers while Buck stands by the door, watching with the same look of confusion when she showed up. They’re talking about something and Buck nods before leaning and kissing Eddie firmly on the cheek. 

That’s…huh. Did she miss something?

Buck waves at Eddie before closing the door and stepping back inside. Eddie jogs up to the car and gets in the driver’s seat, out of breath but far too bright and alert for 5am. 

“I got this for you. To commemorate the first fishing trip of many.” He pulls her sunhat off and slaps a baseball hat over her head. 

She frowns and flips down the car mirror and stares at the hat in the reflection.  

It has an embroidered swordfish with the words “Women Want Me - Fish Fear Me” circling it. 

She looks at Eddie who smiles proudly at her. 

She thinks of her mom who barely calls her. 

“Lesbian? Beta, you don’t know what you’re talking about but do whatever you want now, at the end of the day you’re marrying a man.”

She thinks of the man raised by conservative religious parents with old school values who raises his son completely differently and is proud of becoming everything he was once told was sin. 

Sahar bursts into tears and reaches across the console to hug him. 

Eddie chuckles and coos, teasing her for crying. She pulls away and glares.  

“At least I’m not a boykisser. Why did Buckley kiss you anyway? I thought we were still in the pining phase?”

Eddie looks at her incredulously, “Buck didn’t kis—oh my god.”

No way. 

“Oh my god,” she groans back. 

——

He can feel Sahar boring holes into the side of his head. 

She passed out 15 minutes into the drive which gave him 3 hours to try and collect his thoughts. 

But by the time they arrive, take the boat out to the middle of the lake and set up their rods, his mind is still a mess. 

Buck kissed him. 

Buck definitely 100% certainly kissed him. 

“We’re probably going to have lunch but I think we’ll be back by mid afternoon.” Eddie checks his watch. Despite Sahar’s concerns, he doesn’t think they’ll hit traffic. 

Buck’s brows are furrowed together in thought. “Are you bringing sunscreen? Do you need a permit or a license to fish?”

“Yes and no. Sahar picked the place, apparently anyone can fish there.”

Buck squints, like he thinks Eddie is falling for a scam. “And we’re certain Sahar has done this before and isn’t just winging it?”

Eddie shrugs, frankly he wouldn’t be bothered if she was. It’s an adventure! “She said she used to go up there with her dad all the time when she was a kid. I think it was their spot.”

A beat passes and Buck’s face melts. 

“And she invited you?” His voice is so soft and tender that Eddie wants to float away.

“Yeah.”

Buck hums and looks over Eddie’s shoulder where Sahar is waiting. “You better take one of those dumb photos of you holding a fish.” 

“Promise. You’re okay staying here alone? Chris should be back a little bit before us. Pepa’s friend has a dog and now Chris is determined to come home covered in fur as a form of protest.”

Buck grins, slow and syrupy. “Yes, I’ll be fine and he’s going to wear you down, I just know it.”

“He doesn’t know just how stubborn and petty I can be. There’s leftovers in the fridge and make sure you lock up if you step out.”

Buck nods with a smile that feels dangerously fond, “I know the drill, have fun.”

Then he leans down and kisses Eddie on the cheek. 

This is a problem. 

What does it mean? 

Was it an accident? But how do you accidentally kiss someone you’ve never kissed before?

“I genuinely feel like you’ll try to jump off the boat and drown yourself and I really don’t want you to put a damper on my weekend like that.” Sahar is slouched with her legs spread and her fishing rod propped up. She stares at him through sunglasses and while he can’t see her eyes, he knows she’s judging him. 

He shifts on his heels. “Hypothetically, if your friend who likes guys, knows that you also like guys, and then kisses you on the cheek, do you think it means something?”

Sahar pushes her glasses down her nose and glares at him. “Hypothetically? Why are you acting like I didn’t have front row seats to your bullshit this morning?” 

“Never mind,” Eddie grumbles. 

Maybe Buck was just being flirty and jokey. It probably didn’t mean more than it had to. 

“Oh my god, stop pouting, you’re a full decade older than me. Come sit here.”

Eddie shuffles over as the boat rocks gently and sits down next to Sahar. “He’s always been affectionate and touchy but he’s never kissed me before.”

“He probably never felt like he could before.” She offers as she opens the mini cooler and pulls out two beers. 

She cracks both open and hands one to him. He takes a sips, the bitterness sizzling on his tongue. “So I come out and he doesn’t have to worry about having to say ‘no homo’ so he gets more touchy?”

Sahar snorts and nearly chokes on her drink. “Um, no. That’s nowhere near close to what I just said. I think Buck’s had some pretty big feelings about you that he’s kept bottled up because he thought you were straight. But now that he knows you’re not, he’s probably loosening his hold on those feelings and they’re slipping out in little ways.”

“In the form of cheek kisses?” His stomach is somersaulting between giddiness and absolute fear. 

“Yeah, man. If I had a friend I was pining over and after years of thinking she was straight I find out she’s into girls? You better believe I’m sneaking in kisses to try to shift our relationship into something romantic.”

Sometimes it hits him with a pang of sadness when he sees how comfortable and familiar Sahar is with her sexuality at such a young age and how different he could’ve been if it happened to him at that age. 

Would he have been happier sooner? Would he be struggling at 34 years old trying to figure out if his friend likes him or like likes him?

Eddie plays with the tab on his can and stares out onto the lake. He isn’t sure if fishing is for him but sitting out in the middle of a still lake with the occasional pull and sway to the sound of water sloshing. It’s peaceful. It’s the closest he’s felt to religion or ‘higher power’. Not by sitting in church pews but by sitting in nature. 

“You think he kissed me because he has feelings for me.” The words, while foreign, taste sweet on his tongue. The idea that Buck could feel the same silly rush of love and affection as Eddie feels makes him a little dizzy. 

Sahar snickers, “I think Buck kissed you on the cheek because he desperately wants to kiss you on the mouth. Make of that what you will.”

“I’ve never,” Eddie pauses and takes another sip, “I’ve never loved someone as much as him and I’ve definitely never had someone who loved me back the same.”

“Neither have I.” Sahar watches him, “What are you going to do about it?”

Eddie thinks for a moment. He could bottle it up and pretend he only feels platonic feelings and never bring it up again. “I’m terrified but I don’t think I could ever love anyone else like this. I don’t think I want to.”

Or…

“I think I’m going to be brave about it.”

Sahar nods, satisfied. “Good choice.”

Eddie needs to think about something else. Anything else. “You and your dad used to drive up here every weekend?”

She takes the topic change in stride. “We tried. Sometimes it was hard with his work but at least twice a month we’d be up here. He’d teach me how to hook bait and cast a line. It was fun. We barely ever caught anything because I couldn’t stay quiet for long enough but we always had a good time. My mom would wake up early and pack us coffee, juice and snacks.”

“Sounds fun.” He couldn’t imagine Ramon making an effort around his work to spend time with Eddie. And if Eddie was loud enough to scare the fish, Ramon would’ve probably stopped taking him. 

Maybe he should bring Chris out here once. He might like catching and releasing the fish and tracking all the species. 

Sahar goes quiet and Eddie settles in, waiting for a tug on their lines when she finally speaks. 

“I came out to him out here on the lake. I was 11, almost 12. I had a crush on my best friend and I knew pretty quickly what that meant. Out here, no one can hear you or judge you. It was our bubble. I thought if my dad gets mad, at least he wouldn’t yell because of the fish.”

That fear reminds him so much of Ramon. “Did he yell?”

“No,” Sahar smiles, “he hugged me, said it’s okay and that he loved me and then told me that I needed to learn how to catch a seabass if I wanted to impress a woman.”

He barks out a laugh and Sahar giggles uncontrollably. They’re probably way too loud to be fishing and he’s sure they’ve scared off every single fish in a 100 mile radius but it feels good. 

Something in his chest unwinds and he thinks maybe he can start inviting Sahar and Chris out twice a month to go fishing together. 

——

Buck’s coming over.

Buck’s coming over for movie night. 

Buck’s coming over for movie night even though he knows Chris is at a sleepover. 

Buck’s coming over for movie night even though he knows Chris is at a sleepover and Eddie thinks it’s going to be tonight. 

He’s going to tell Buck how he feels tonight and he’s going to ask him out. 

It’s been a few weeks since he came out to Buck and even fewer since Buck kissed him on the cheek and while they haven’t exactly talked about it, things have been different. 

For example, Eddie’s always been aware of Buck’s eyes on him but now when he looks up and finds Buck staring, his gaze feels darker, heavier. It feels like a touch. It feels intentional when his lids get heavy and his gaze starts from Eddie’s mouth and works their way up. 

And speaking of touching, Buck’s warm gentle touches from before just felt like what a tactile person would do. Now Buck lingers. When he passes Eddie in the kitchen, his fingers drag across his lower back in a slow pull. When he sneaks Eddie a granola bar, he squeezes his fingers. When Eddie gets sleepy, he draws his nails through Eddie’s hair and tucks his nose into his neck. 

All in all, Eddie had started to feel confident that maybe they were both ramping up for the same conversation. And soon he was less nervous and more impatient. What were they waiting for when they could just be with each other already?

He was done wasting time and letting this opportunity slip away. 

So, Eddie stopped by the expensive organic grocery store and bought the finest ingredients he could find and put together an elaborate romantic dinner from one of Abuela’s recipes. He’s set up the dining room table with nice linens, the good cutlery, and fancy tapered candles. He has a few long stem roses in a glass vase, he didn’t want to get too many, figured he save it for the real date. 

He dressed nice enough to feel special but not too nice that Buck would feel underdressed since it was supposed to be a chill movie night. He let his hair hang softly over his forehead and kept a bottle of wine chilling in the freezer. 

It was going to be perfect. 

Any minute now, Buck would walk through the door, see the set up and know exactly what was coming. He’d blush all pretty and shy and let Eddie take his hand and lead him to his seat. 

And Eddie would lace their fingers together, tell Buck how much he cared for him and how it was only a matter of time that care turned love and love turned into love of my life. 

Buck would tear up, they’d kiss and Eddie would take him out on a proper date. 

God, it was probably obvious how gay he was considering he never did anything like this for his exes but it was so easy and natural to want to do it for Buck. 

He is pulled out of his thoughts by a knock at the door. 

Buck’s early. 

Eddie quickly lights the candles and takes a steadying breath. 

Tonight is either going to end with Eddie getting to have the love of his life or a heartbreak so final that Eddie will happily spend the rest of his life single. And he’s feeling pretty good about the former. 

He opens the door to the rest of his life. 

And then realizes tonight might end in a secret third thing. 

Instead of Buck, he finds Sahar standing in front of him with streaks of mascara running down her cheeks. 

It takes Eddie’s brain a minute to reboot. 

“What the hell happened?” He guides her into his home and sits her down on the couch. He sits down on the edge of the coffee table in front of her and hands her a tissue to dry her tears. 

She claws her fingers into her hair and yanks hard twice. “Fuck! Fuck!”

He grabs her wrist and stops her from ripping strands out. “Hey, whatever it is, we’ll figure it out but I need you to stop hurting yourself.”

She whimpers and it sounds so broken that a shard of it pierces his heart. He tries to recall if she told him about her plans for today but nothing comes to mind. He’s never seen her this distraught before. 

“What happened?” He asks softly. 

Her face twists and the tears keep coming. She rubs aggressively at her face and it leaves her skin red and irritated. It reminds him how young he felt at 24 despite being a father and husband.  

“I’m dating this girl.”

Oh, Eddie’s never fought a twenty-something girl before. He isn’t sure he can. He might have to rope May into handling this. 

“Did she do something?” 

Sahar’s smile is so fragile as tears drip down her face. He then notices that she’s dressed up, a chic business casual dress and blazer. He’s never seen her this formal before.

“Yeah, she agreed to come with me to dinner with my mom.”

Eddie takes a sharp breath, he didn’t know much about Sahar’s mother but he knows she wasn’t thrilled about her lesbian daughter and that being a single parent meant that she was an emotionally distant one. 

Eddie has had his fair share of parenting mistakes, everyone does, but he can’t imagine ever not being present for your child, especially after the loss of another parent. Even working three jobs he tried his best to be there for Chris and make up for the years he’s missed. He can’t stomach parents who don’t even try. 

“What happened?” He prompts after she catches her breath. 

“We sit down and I notice four place settings instead of three. My mom is vague about it until some gentile 26 year old Indian boy sits down next to her and my mom wants us to spend time together to get to know each other for our future.”

Eddie’s eyes fall shut. “In front of your date?”

Sahar lets out another sharp laugh. “In front of my beautiful female, woman date, my mom is setting me up with some random man  

“Come here,” Eddie whispers before sitting next to her and pulling her into a hug, “I’m so sorry that happened.”

She falls into him and shrinks like a child finding solace, “I don’t even care that my date ran out and will probably never speak to me again. I just couldn't deal with coming to the realization that my mom doesn’t care about me, at least not as a person, in the middle of this stuffy restaurant. I’m just a box she needs to check. Marry her child off to a nice Indian boy so that her rowdy daughter is someone else’s problem. Who cares if he’s a stranger? Or if she doesn’t like him? As long as he’s a man.” 

He doesn’t speak, he doesn’t think she wants him to. He just rocks her back and forth like he did when Chris was small enough to carry. 

“I worked so hard. I did my best to be the perfect, uncomplicated child for her to raise. I endured so much and I think I came out pretty okay. I never dropped out, or did drugs, or got into trouble. I did everything right. My biggest flaw is that I want to marry a woman.”

He clicks his tongue, “That’s not a flaw anymore than you having brown eyes is a flaw. It’s who you are, she should be proud of the woman you are.”

Sahar shakes her head and wipes her snotty face against his nice dress shirt. “She doesn’t. I stopped being a person to her when I came out. I’m just a child raised without a father. I’m no better than an orphan to her.”

It’s not his place to tell her she’s wrong or convince her to repair things with her mother. He’s learned the hard way what happens when you keep letting in people who don’t see you for you into your life. He loves his mother but he doesn’t like her. He doesn’t think they’ll ever have a relationship extending beyond occasional visits for Chris. The decision to leave his parents out of his life unless related to Chris felt a lot less scary than he thought it would be. It wasn’t as final as going no-contact but he felt no filial obligation to tell them anything about his personal life. 

“I’m sorry things are painful with your mom but you’ll always have a family with the 118 and you’ll always have a home here.”

She collapses into her hands, holding her head as sobs break free. “She’s at my place, I gave her a key when I first moved in and now she won’t leave because she wants to talk after I stormed out.”

He takes her phone from her hand where her mom has been calling her and shuts it off before setting it on the table. 

“Then you’ll stay here and if she’s still there tomorrow, we’ll deal with it. But for tonight, you’re safe here.”

Sahar cries for a bit longer but Eddie coaxes her down and manages to feed her half his dinner and hydrate her before setting her up on the couch. 

She dozes off quickly from the emotional day and that’s when the door opens. 

Buck walks in looking beautiful and windswept, like he dressed specifically for Eddie to confess his feelings. 

“Sorry I’m late! There was an accident on the highway and traffic was backed up for ages. They closed like two whole lanes. It was a nightmare.”

Except he has a heartbroken 24 year old snoring on his couch. 

“Shhh!” 

Buck blinks and spots Sahar before looking at Eddie curiously. Eddie nods his head to the kitchen and they tip toe away. 

“Had dinner with her mom and the girl she was seeing, mom brought a guy for Sahar she wants to set her up with.”

Buck’s eyes widens at the information. “Fuck that’s awful. She okay?”

“Not really, I think she just tired herself out but there’s still a lot of feelings there. Her mom’s trying to ambush her at her place so she’s hiding out here.” Eddie fiddles with the dish rag hanging off his oven and does the math in his head. 

He and Buck are working nonstop until next Friday and then are doing alternating shifts until Monday to cover for someone on B Shift. 

That means the next time they’ll both be off at the same time would be over a week and a half from now. 

There goes his plans. 

“That’s nice of you to offer,” Buck says. “If her mom keeps bugging her, she can take my loft so she has some more privacy, I’ll stay with you.”

Something warm cracks through Eddie’s chest at the offer, like him staying with Eddie isn’t up for discussion. He turns to the pantry and roots around for some snacks to hide his smile.

“I’ll ask her. She might welcome the company but once Chris comes back tomorrow night, it might get too crowded for her. Sweet of you to offer.”

Buck laughs and his voice grows distant as he wanders into the dining area. “It’s honestly more for me than her, any excuse to crash with my Diaz boys. Did I leave my charger here? I couldn’t find it at work and had to buy another one.”

Eddie pours a bag of chips in a bowl and hums. “No I don’t think so.”

“Eddie?”

“Hmm?”

“Did you make Sahar a candlelit dinner?”

“Ha, no that was supposed to be for y—uhhhhh…”

Eddie feels his blood run cold. He forgot what he’d transform the dining room into. His feet feel like they’re made with cement as he slowly walks to where Buck is. 

He locks eyes with Buck who looks equally shocked at the near slip and the roses.  

“Um, it wasn’t for Sahar.”

He watches Buck’s throat bob and normally he’d daydream about getting his teeth on it. But now he can only brace himself. Looks like he wasn’t going to have to wait over a week to have this conversation after all. 

“You invited me over tonight.”

“Yeah, I did.” Eddie rasps. 

Buck turns back to table and stares at the candles melted down to the stub, wax covering the linens, flame out, and the carefully laid out meal, half eaten by Sahar. 

“I need to go!” Buck blurts before he rushes to the door. Eddie startles and feels his heart sink to the bottom and shatter on impact. 

Buck looks horrified. 

“Wait, Buck—”

His eyes are wide with this panic quality to them as they dart frantically around his kitchen, “Sahar probably wants some privacy. I’ll let myself out.”

No, no, no this is all wrong. It’s not supposed to go like this. Buck was supposed to be happy, excited.

Why is he running away?

“Buck, please! Can we talk first?” He pleads. “Don’t leave. Please.”

Buck nods but he’s looking everywhere but Eddie. “Yeah, yeah later! I really gotta go though. Bye Eddie!”

And like a whirlwind, he’s gone with the sound of the door slamming behind him. 

Sahar jerks awake from the sound and quickly passes out again. 

Eddie? He stands there for 5 minutes before he moves on autopilot, completely unblinking. He clears the dining table, tosses out the candles and roses and sticks the leftover food in the fridge. 

He walks to his room, changes his clothes, brushes his teeth in the bathroom and then crawls under his covers. 

He lays there for two seconds and it all comes rushing back at high speed. 

Without him saying a word, Buck realized that Eddie had invited him over for a romantic dinner. He is aware that both he and Eddie are attracted to men so there is no misunderstanding of his intentions behind the intimate dinner he set up. 

And knowing all of this, he left. 

He left before Eddie could tell him how he feels. Maybe he did him a favour, at least he didn’t get rejected after bearing his soul. 

No, his confession wasn't even worth listening to. 

Then, Eddie cries. 

——

Sahar can tell something’s wrong with Eddie when she wakes up. 

She hasn’t slept over since their clubbing night but she knows he’s a notoriously early riser, even on his days off. 

It’s 10AM and the house is dead silent. 

She had to check to make sure his wallet and keys were still here because it was so still she wasn’t sure he was home. 

By the time she washes up, powers on her phone and finds some fruit for breakfast, it’s closer to 11AM and Eddie finally emerges from his room. 

He doesn’t acknowledge her until he gets through his morning routine and finds her in the kitchen. 

He looks like hell. 

His eyes are swollen, bloodshot, and unfocused, his face is pale and dull, his movements are sluggish and clumsy. It’s exactly how she feels now except she spent most of last night sobbing. 

What the hell did Eddie spend his night doing? Did her life story make him that sad?

“You okay?” It feels like a dumb question and he looks at her like it’s one. 

“I should be asking you that. Did your mother call?”

“Not since you turned off my phone. I think she left by now, I’m going to head back to my place.”

Eddie nods and while he’s clearly hearing everything she’s saying, his mind seems somewhere else. 

“Are you sure?”

She shrugs, it’s not like she can avoid her mother forever. The woman is persistent, she’ll become a squatter if she needs to. “Yeah, even if she’s there, I have to deal with this eventually.”

“I’ll drive you.” He picks up his keys and puts his shoes on. 

“Are you sure? I can just Uber.”

He swings the door open and looks over his shoulder with a plastic smile. “I could use the fresh air.” 

She follows him out and they drive in silence, not even the radio plays. She kinda feels embarrassed showing up at his door sobbing like a runaway teen but she doesn’t regret it. 

It was nice to talk to someone who understood her and it was nice knowing wholeheartedly that she could trust that Eddie would. 

“Did Buck come over last night?” She vaguely remembers being asleep and hearing a few voices mumbling over her head.  

Eddie stiffens and his grip on the wheel tightens. “Uh, yeah he did. Fridays are movie nights.”

“Oh my god! I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to crash your plans. Ugh I feel so bad now.” She slouches in her seat. “Chris was probably pissed.”

“Nah, he, uh, he has a sleepover. I’m picking him up in the evening.” He clears his throat a few times but his grip on the wheel doesn’t loosen. 

She groans and squeezes her eyes shut. “You’re telling me you and Buck were going to be cuddling in front of a movie just the two of you and I just ruined it? He just went home?”

“Don’t worry about it. I think the night would’ve ended the same for me.”

He sounds…off. 

Quiet. Unfocused. 

“Thanks for not kicking me out.”

Eddie’s lips curled up at the ends. “Anytime, kid.”

Instead of filling the silence with mindless chatter like he normally does, Eddie drives her home in complete silence. 

Something is very wrong. 

When he pulls up to her driveway she kind of expects her mother to be waiting on the porch for her but her house looks still. 

She feels weird leaving Eddie when he’s like this and scrambles for something. “Oh wait, I think I have Buck’s charger. I needed it after shift and it was just laying there so I swiped it and forgot to bring it back. Why don’t you come in and wait while I grab it.”

Eddie hums and gets out of the car with her. They both walk up to her house and he waits for her to unlock the door and step in. It takes two seconds before she realizes they’re not alone. 

“Beta, who is this? A boyfriend?”

——

The temperature in the room drops instantly and Eddie can only watch Sahar warily from the side of his eye. 

Sahar’s mother is a short, middle aged Indian woman with sharp calculating eyes and hair pinned so tightly in a bun that it’s unbelievable she doesn’t get constant migraines. 

She gives Eddie a once over. “He’s a bit old for you, no? Not Indian either, but I’m so happy you’re taking this seriously.”

Eddie glances again at Sahar whose shoulders are tensed up by her ears. 

“He’s not my boyfriend, amma, he’s a friend from work. He was dropping me off. He just came to get something I borrowed. I’m still a lesbian,” Sahar says through grit teeth. 

Her mother ignores her completely and closes in on Eddie, assessing. “You work with my Sahar? What is your name?”

He can see Sahar fuming off to the side so he proceeds with extreme caution. “Eddie Diaz, ma’am.”

“Diaz! Oh good, at least you didn’t bring home some white boy from Pennsylvania or something.”

If this was any other circumstance, he would’ve laughed. 

“I didn’t bring anyone home, amma. He’s my senior at work. He’s just a friend.” Sahar’s body is wound tight, her shoulder bowed and her head low. 

Her mom tutts at her sharply. “Sahar show some manners. He’s very handsome, good choice.”

Eddie’s hands fist at his side. His parents don’t know he’s gay simply because they don’t deserve to know about his life. If they find out because of Chris or because of a photo online, he wouldn’t care. He wouldn’t answer their calls. 

But he knows their reactions would likely be volatile, not because they hate gay people but because they would be frothing at the mouth to use his sexuality as another reason to call him an unfit parent. 

He knows how to handle that but he’s a bit lost on how to handle this. A mother who isn’t necessarily vindictive or angry about it but who lives in delusion and denies reality. 

“What do your parents do?” She asks him sweetly.

Eddie blinks and his face doesn’t budge into a polite smile or cordial grin. “Retired. But maybe they work part time, I’m not sure, we don’t talk anymore.”

Sahar’s mother’s smile twitches like she’s fighting the urge to frown in disappointment about a man she doesn’t know anything about. “Oh, that’s a shame. You’re not close?”

“Not since they took my son away when I was struggling mentally and refused to let him visit when I was hospitalized. It’s okay though, my son’s back with me where he belongs.” He says plainly, taking joy from the way she can no longer hide her disapproval. 

She turns and grabs Sahar’s elbow, her long painted nails digging into her skin. “Is this a joke? You choose this man? He’s not close to his parents, a single father, mental issues? Are you trying to punish me?”

“He doesn’t have mental issues anymore than I do,” Sahar hisses, ripping her arm out of her mother’s grasp. “And I didn’t ‘choose’ him. I already said he’s a friend and I am not and never will date or marry a man.”

Her mother closes her eyes and takes a slow deep breath before turning to Eddie. “And what about your son’s mother? Where is she?”

“In a cemetery about 20 minutes away.” 

Most people would react to that in shock or sympathy. 

Sahar’s mom smiles instead. “Oh good, at least we don’t have to worry about an ex-wife. A widower is much better than a divorcee.”

“Amma!” Sahar shrieks, her face red. “How can you say that to him?”

Her mother slaps her arm to silence her. “This is the closest chance I’ve gotten to find you a man. Be quiet and let me handle this.”

“I’m not sure what good that would do,” Eddie finally smiles calmly, “I’m gay. And my late wife wanted a divorce right before she died.”

Her mother blinks at him before she scowls at Sahar. “Again with this gay, gay, gay! Is this all you do here? Don’t you have any other friends? No wonder you talk like this all the time.”

“These are my friends. This is my community.”

Her mother scoffs and rolls her eyes. “Beta, have some sense. This isn’t your community. These are strangers who don’t care about you. Your community is with me, with your relatives, with people who will actually take care of you.”

“You always do this!” Sahar yells, raising her voice in a way Eddie’s never heard before. “You don’t ever fucking listen to me. I am begging you to see me. To love me exactly like I am instead of trying to always change me and force me to do what you want. Do you really think I’ll be happy? If I marry a random man even though I’m gay, do you think I’ll spend the rest of my life happy? Don’t you care that your only daughter will spend the rest of her life unhappy!?”

Eddie feels his throat swell up. To hear a child beg for their mother to care, hasn’t he been there before? Hasn’t he spent Chris’s entire life making sure he never feels this way? 

Her mother looks unimpressed, as if watching an immature toddler throw a tantrum. It’s infuriating to watch her. “Life is not all about how happy you are. Don’t be selfish. Do you know how much I had to give up to make sure you were okay? That you were happy as a child? Now it’s your turn to make sacrifices. Happiness isn’t everything, Sahar, duty is.”

“Duty?” Sahar rasps out, “it’s my duty to marry a man to make you happy even though it means I suffer?”

Her mother stares her down, her stance and her gaze unwavering. “Yes.”

“I hate you.”

It’s not screamed, it’s not spit out, it’s whispered, resigned and tired. It’s not a declaration, it’s a forfeiture. She is standing on the precipice of walking away from this relationship entirely and he doesn’t think her mother understands the gravity of it. She just shakes her head with an exaggerated sigh. 

“Your father would be so disappointed in you.”

Sahar staggers back at that like she was physically shoved by her words. Her face is stricken with pain and grief the likes Eddie only knows in his nightmares and for years in the silence of his bedroom. 

He steps between her and her mother. “Can you go get that charger for me?”

Sahar blinks a few times like she’s struggling to come back to her body before she stares at him like he’s insane for asking this. And fair enough, it doesn’t seem like the time or place. 

“Come on, Buck’s been complaining about losing it. Hop to it, probie.”

She frowns but drags her feet nonetheless. He waits until she steps into her room and shuts the door behind her before he turns to her mother. 

He’s had a long and emotional day. He cried himself to sleep, heartbroken and alone, and is exhausted and emotionally spent. 

But he has energy for this. 

“I have a son that I raised on my own for the better part of 8 years. I have a son who lost his mother when he was younger than Sahar when she lost her father. I know what it’s like to sacrifice everything to make sure your child is happy, healthy, safe and set up for life.”

“Listen here—“

He cuts her off and steamrolls over her the way she did to Sahar. “No, I’m talking right now and you’re going to listen. I also know how easy it is to lose your child, to push them away, and to struggle to bring them home because you focused on providing them things they don’t need and sacrificing the things they want.”

Eddie steps in closer and towers over her. “Let me make something extremely clear to you - I’m so sorry for your loss but your husband has been gone for 12 years. Your daughter has been here, alive, the entire time and if you keep this up, you’ll lose her too. Except this time, it’ll be by choice and you will have nothing and no one except your ‘community’ that will gossip behind your back about your daughter who doesn’t speak to you anymore.”

He hears Sahar open her door and he steps back before saying one last thing. 

“And your husband would be so disappointed to know how you treated his only daughter.”

——

Sahar’s mother leaves a little after Eddie gets the charger back. He hesitates by the door, unsure about leaving Sahar alone but she insists. 

He figures she needs to lick her wounds in the privacy of her own home. 

Which means Eddie is forced to go do the same. 

Still reeling from the whiplash of Sahar and her mother’s argument, he’s fighting off Helena Diaz’s voice in his mind coupled with Buck’s face as he ran out of his house last night. 

Fuck. 

Eddie drops his head to the steering wheel as he waits by a red light. It’s been over 12 hours since Buck bolted and he hasn’t called or texted once. Buck texts at least every half an hour, but it’s been radio silence. 

Eddie lifts his head and taps his phone a few times and feels his heart drop. 

Buck stopped sharing his location. 

Ever since Doug took Maddie, Buck made sure he and Eddie were sharing locations. He’s never seen it turned off before. 

How did things turn out this way? 

How did he lose Buck so quickly by doing so little?

He blinks back tears and chews on his lip, this is his life, isn’t it? He’s cursed. 

Every time he gains someone, he loses someone else. 

He just got Chris back so now Buck is a million miles away. When he’s single, Buck’s charting out his life with someone else. Why can’t he ever have both things at once?

Maybe he should just accept this and be happy with what he has. He has Chris, why would he ever be greedy enough to ask for more? 

As if reading his thoughts, Chris’s face flashes up from his phone. 

Eddie shakes out of it and pulls into a parking lot of a mall to answer the call. 

“Hey, buddy. Everything okay? I thought I wasn’t picking you up until later.”

“Is Buck okay?” Chris’s voice comes through crisp. 

He frowns at that. “What? Why are you asking?”

“His location sharing isn’t working. Did something happen to his phone?”

Ah. 

He didn’t realize he turned it off for everyone. Eddie isn’t entirely sure if that makes him feel better or worse but it hurts that Chris is caught up in it. 

“No, I think he turned it off.” Eddie admits as he picks at his nails. 

Chris makes a soft sound. “Huh? Why would he do that?”

Eddie hates himself sometimes. He’s gotten better at it but he backslides in moments like these. After hurting Chris through all his failed relationships, he felt confident that he never had to worry about that when it came to Buck. 

But he forgot, he’s Eddie Diaz, he has the opposite of a Midas touch. 

Anything he touches or loves is destined to shrivel. 

And now he has to tell his son and pray this doesn’t send him back to El Paso. 

“I was planning on asking Buck out last night, like on a proper date. I think…I think he knew what I was planning on doing and it spooked him. He just needs some space, Chris, I’m sure he’ll share his location with you once he’s ready.”

“He…wait, you asked him out yesterday? And he said no!?”

Eddie smiles softly at Chris’s outrage. Chris didn’t even seem phased that Eddie just admitted to wanting to date Buck. “Not exactly. Sahar showed up, had a bad day and crashed on the couch. Buck was running late but then he saw the romantic dinner I had laid out and I don’t know, he said he had to leave and bolted out of there.”

“You made him dinner?” Chris asks softly. “Did he say why he needed to leave?”

Eddie remembers desperately begging him to say but Buck was moving too fast, speaking too quickly. “No, I told him we should talk but he really wanted to get out of there.”

“M-Maybe he didn’t realize the dinner was for him.”

Eddie shook his head. “I don’t think so, kiddo. He asked and he put two and two together pretty quickly.”

“He just left you alone?” Chris’s voice cracks and his heart hurts. 

“He just needed space, Chris.”

“Has he texted or called?”

Eddie laughs softly. “No buddy, that’s what giving him space means.”

“Dad, if Buck rejects you, I don’t think I can hang out with him again.” Chris says firmly. 

Eddie never wanted his own issues to ever come between Buck and Chris. “Chris, come on. No matter what happens, Buck is my best friend and he’s not going anywhere. He won’t leave you. He won’t vanish like Ana or Marisol. I promise I won’t screw this up. He’s staying.”

“No, I don’t think you understand,” Chris says sternly. “You’re my dad. If Buck rejects you because he doesn’t love you like that or thinks he can do better, I don’t want to see him again. He can’t hurt you and then think I still want to do movie nights with him.”

Oh.

His kid. The heart of his soul who never fails to sees good in him. 

Eddie coos despite it all. “You can’t punish him for not returning my feelings, Chris. That’s not fair. He loves you.”

“No, but I can punish him for running out on you and not letting you explain or talk. I can punish him for hurting you. You’re my dad, I’ll always take your side and anyone who hurts you is dead to me. It’s not hard.”

Despite everything, Eddie’s heart blooms, maybe he isn’t cursed at all. “I love you, Chris.”

“I love you too, Dad. Say the word and me and Denny will steal Buck’s mail.”

Eddie laughs softly. This kid of his. “Go easy on him, Chris. I’m sure he’s hurting just as much.”

“Yeah, but it’s you, dad. You’re my favourite. How am I supposed to care about anyone else when you’re hurting?”

——

Eddie feels better after talking to Chris but still spends an hour driving aimlessly around the city before finally pulling up to his front door. 

He needs to shower and do laundry and stare hopelessly at his phone. A busy day. 

He kicks his shoes off, closing the door behind him and walks to his room without noticing the silhouette in the corner. 

In fact, it’s not until 10 minutes later after he’s changed and plugged his phone in to charge that he comes back out and freezes. 

“Hey, Eddie.”

Buck stands in the middle of his house with a large bouquet of tropical flowers in his hands and a cautious smile on his lips.  

He looks beautiful, god Eddie is so easy.

Buck is standing there with his hair curled and styled, in a crisp white shirt and a pair of jeans that hug his thighs so nicely. He wonders, distantly, if Buck would turn around to let him see if they hug his ass just as nicely. 

Eddie’s eyes drift over Buck’s shoulder to the dining room table that’s laid out identically to how he did his last night. The linen table cloths and fresh candles that look like they’ve just been lit framing a warm, mouth watering meal still piping hot. 

Did he get into a car accident on the way home? Is this some sort of coma dream, time loop that’s replaying the different versions of the same scenario? 

“Wh-what’s going on?” He chokes out. 

Buck’s smile grows with his confidence, his cheek creases into his dimples and he steps towards him, holding out the flowers.

Eddie takes them and stares at the burst of colors and explosion of fragrance. He looks back up at Buck, he can’t keep his eyes away for too long and takes in the golden way the light coats his skin. He looks lit from within. 

“I’m sorry,” Buck says. 

Eddie frowns, he shouldn’t need to apologize. “Wh—“

“And I’m in love with you.”

The flowers fall out of his hands and Buck smiles, soft and shy, his lashes fluttering as he bends to pick them up off the ground. 

“Buck, Buck, Buck, what the hell?” His hands are shaking so Buck places the flowers on the couch instead of handing them back to him. “What the hell is happening? Am I dying?”

Buck laughs, low and warm and steps into Eddie’s space. He feels his skin flush when he’s hit with the spicy amber scent of Buck’s expensive cologne that he only wears for special occasions. 

“No, honey, you’re very much alive.” 

Buck cups Eddie’s face with his large warm hands and his eyes flutter shut. He wishes he could sink into his hands and let his entire body weight be held up by Buck. 

He fails to bite back the whimper from the back of his throat. He feels the heat from Buck’s palms flood the rest of his body and warm him from his soul to his toes. 

“I love you, I’ll say it as many times as it takes.” He tilts his head forehead so they’re pressed against each other, “I’m sorry I left yesterday.”

This isn’t fair, Eddie can’t think straight with Buck touching him and speaking soft and slow. Eddie tilts his head and nuzzles into Buck’s palms. 

“I was an idiot. How could I ever walk away from you?” Buck says softly, pressing his lips into Eddie’s hair. 

“Buck, if you’re doing all of this because you feel bad about last night it’s fine. You don’t have to do all this and we don’t have to talk about it.” Frankly, it would probably hurt less. 

Buck laughed incredulously. “Eddie, you invited me over and made me a romantic dinner because you were planning on asking me a pretty big question, right?”

Eddie licked his dry lips. “Um, right.”

Buck nodded. “Right. But then I was late. And you spent so much time and effort making dinner and it was cold. The candles were burned out, and Sahar was asleep 100 feet away. I was dressed like a slob. I wanted to die.”

“I don’t understand. You left because it wasn’t perfect?” 

Buck pulled away looking frantic. “No! God no, Eddie you could’ve asked me out in the middle of drowning in quicksand and I would think it was the most perfect thing ever. But you don’t deserve that. You deserve a warm meal, burning candles and fresh flowers. You deserve to be asked out when it’s just the two of us in a home we’ve spent so many lives in together. You deserve someone to take care of you and make the grand gestures for you. The fact that you did it for me and I was late was unfathomable. The worst day ever. It was a moral failing on my part to make you ask me out. It has to be me, I need to give this to you.”

“You would’ve thought it was perfect?” Eddie was never good at saying or showing when it came to his past relationships. He wanted this to be different, he wanted Buck to never doubt how he felt. 

Buck smiles wide and tears pool in his eyes. “I think that about everything you do because you are perfect to me, Eddie. You deserve so much and all I’ve ever wanted was to be the one that gives it to you. To make sure you never break a sweat for the rest of your life. So stand there, keep looking pretty and perfect and like all my dreams come to life and let me take you out on a date.”

Oh, he’s definitely not cursed then. 

Eddie laughs and tears well up in his eyes. The relief and unfiltered joy is going to knock him out. “Take me on a date, Buckley. It’s been a long time coming.”

“Fuck,” Buck breathes out before colliding into Eddie and taking his mouth into his. 

It’s not tentative and chaste. 

It’s passion, frenzy and heat. 

Eddie lets out a cross between a moan and sigh as he opens his mouth and lets Buck lick into with a restless desperation that lights him on fire. It’s a hurricane of wet tongues and sharp teeth and Eddie just stands there and lets himself get caught in the wind. 

Buck’s hands are everywhere. 

He’s brushing Eddie’s cheek with his thumb, he’s gripping his neck with his palm, he’s sliding one hand under Eddie’s shirt and toying with the waistband of his pants with his other. 

“Fuck, Eddie, fuck, fuck,” Buck pants out before kissing down his neck before flattening his tongue and licking up the side of his neck, “God this is better than I imagined. You taste so good. Fuck.”

Eddie’s eyes slide close and he moans into the air in response. 

Buck somehow has them maneuvered so Eddie’s pressed into a wall. Buck uses the leverage to lay all his weight onto Eddie. He’s greedy with it. He’d suffocate under Buck if he could. “More, please.”

Buck moans and kisses him harder, wilder. He runs his hand under his shirt and strokes Eddie up along his spine. He can feel his shirt bunched up in the crook of Buck’s elbow. Eddie claws at Buck’s curls, slips his own hands up the front of Buck’s shirt and takes his time. 

Buck’s body is something out of a wet dream. His thick stomach, his firm pecs that have cushion when Eddie digs in. He wants his tongue to know every inch of him. 

He’s so warm and heavy and Eddie can lick beads of sweat forming at his neck. He wants him so badly that he feels drunk. “Couch?”

“No, can’t,” Buck whines before shoving his body harder against Eddie’s like he wants to fuse them together. He makes these soft little wounded noises as he kisses and it makes Eddie so hot. It’s the desperation, the uncontrolled, crazed energy Buck radiates when he tries to feel all of Eddie at once. Eddie is fucking obsessed with it. 

“Bed?” Eddie slurs as he hinges his jaw wide and stands motionless to let Buck lick fervently into his mouth. It’s sloppy and messy and it's weird that Buck wants to drag his tongue behind his teeth and along the inside of his cheek but Eddie is too blissed out to think about it hard. 

“No, worse.”

Eddie pulls back and frowns. Buck’s mouth is swollen and red, his eyes are black pits rimmed in blue and his cheeks are the prettiest pink. He’s like a fucking siren and Eddie wants to be led to his death. Buck lets out a pained sound and tries to get back inside Eddie’s mouth but he holds a hand out to stop him. “Why is it worse?”

“Eddie, baby, love of my life, if I get you on your back, I’m not letting you sit up until you’ve come at least twice and I was hoping to buy you dinner before I fuck you like an animal.” 

Eddie feels his mouth water and lust curl through him. Buck sinks his teeth into the side of his neck and Eddie’s eyes roll back. “Yes, yes, yes I want that.”

Buck shivers against him and wedges their hips together dangerously. It’s an endless stream of devotion that might undo Eddie on the spot. “Fuck, yeah me too, honey. I’ll give it to you, I promise. Whenever you want it. However you want it. You don’t even need to ask. I’ll make it so good for you. I’ll be the best thing you’ve ever had. I swear on it. I’ll make you feel so good.  You won’t need it from anyone else. Fuck, this is torture. I’m so in love with you. Just let me take you out somewhere nice for dinner first.”

Eddie is trembling as he claws his fingers in Buck’s shoulders. “There’s food on the table now. Does that count?”

Buck smiles against his neck and pulls back to look at him. He presses a slow, deep kiss to his mouth. “You’re going to be trouble, aren’t you?”

“You can handle it,” Eddie murmurs against his mouth. 

Their kisses turn into smiles pressed against each other. “Yeah, I can handle you, baby.”

“And now you’re seducing me, shame on you.” Eddie grins lazily.

”’M sorry. Love you.”

Buck sweeps his hand up the back of his neck and holds him firmly and draws kisses out of him. Some slow and lingering, others short and hot and most loving and sweet. 

“I love you, too.” Eddie says, “I think I’ve done everything but actually say it out loud.”

Buck looks like he’s run a marathon and couldn’t be happier. He tightens his hold around Eddie’s waist. “I know. You always made me feel it.”

“But I want to say it too.” Eddie brushes Buck’s hair back and presses his lips to his birthmark. “I love you.” 

Buck ducks his head with a pleased smile and takes Eddie’s hands and kisses his knuckles. “I love you. Please come have this meal with me and sit across this heavy wooden table from me.”

Eddie grins and lets himself be led. “Why is the heavy wooden table important?”

“I need something between us that would be hard to knock over so I don’t try to tackle you to the ground mid-bite.”

Eddie snickers and lets Buck pull his chair out for him. He pushes the chair in and leans down to whisper in his ear. “I want to do filthy things to you for the rest of your life.”

“Is that your proposal?” Eddie challenges just to see Buck flush. 

Buck shakes his head and walks over to his side of the table. He looks at Eddie from under his lashes and the candlelight makes him look like a god. 

“No, I already have that planned out.”

Eddie proves that he is an unstoppable force and the heavy wooden table between them is not an immovable object. 

——

6 months later  

“I am honored to announce that Firefighter Ahmad has successfully passed her probationary year and as of today will officially become a fully certified firefighter with the 118.”

The crowd whistles and cheers. Sahar beams when Bobby clips her shiny new shield onto her uniform and shakes her hand with a proud smile. 

Today is a good day.

Sahar looks into the crowd with a smile and feels like home is no longer a place where grief hides in corners. It’s here, with people who see her and love her. 

She walks off after taking photos and speaking more with Bobby and finds her mom standing next to Eddie and Buck chatting politely. Eddie’s face is neutral and lets Buck carry most of the conversation but he’s nodding along. 

She doesn’t talk to her mom as much as she used to but things have been different. She doesn’t badger Sahar about marriage or men, she once even asked to get lunch and bring her girlfriend along. Sahar went to lunch with her mother alone, but it felt like a start. 

Their conversations are still stilted and awkward from years of never really knowing how to talk to each other, but Sahar appreciates the effort. Eddie does too but she thinks he’s been burned by his own family so much that he isn’t as quick to trust. 

He spots her first and grins before hugging her off the ground. “Look at our grown up firefighter!”

“Pretty short for a grown up,” Buck snorts but he still comes over and pats her on the back. “How does it feel to not be a probie anymore?”

“A relief to never have to be called that again.”

“Uh, I don’t know where you got the idea that we’ll stop calling you that. You’re our probie until we get a new one.”

Her mom joins them before she can flip Buck off and squeezes her hands. “Congratulations, beta. Everyone on your team speaks very highly of you. This is a big achievement.”

It’s incredibly formal but it’s leagues better than what she would’ve said 6 months ago. Progress. 

“And I believe congratulations are also in order for the two of you,” Her mother says as she turns to Buck and Eddie. 

Eddie has his arm around Buck’s waist and tucks himself into his side. Sahar sees her mother looking at the matching silver rings on their fingers. 

An engagement, they quickly clarified when the team screamed in horror at the thought of them eloping. 

“I figured Eddie was too handsome to stay single for long.” Her mother says somewhat kindly. 

Eddie smiles proudly, squeezing Buck’s waist and winks at Sahar. “I found myself a pretty white boy from Pennsylvania and couldn’t let go.”

Buck blinks, evidently confused, but still blushes like the lovesick loser he is. 

Their romance was a whirlwind one. She was barely recovering from her fight with her mom only to get a text of a blurry picture of him and Buck kissing. 

They were exactly as intense, codependent and obsessive as they always were except now they didn’t have to pretend and could even kiss each other about it. 

It took a little getting used to but she really was happy for them. 

Now, when they got engaged a mere 6 months into their relationship, she approached Hen and asked if it was worrying how fast they were moving. 

She laughed until there were tears streaming down her face and said their engagement hadn’t happened fast enough. So she let it be. It was hard not to when they loved each other so fiercely and so loudly. 

To see her mom acknowledge and congratulate their relationship felt like a major milestone. One that she might reach one day when she finds the right woman. 

Her mother tips her head up to take in the mountain that is Buck. “I’m sure you couldn’t.”

She looks at Eddie, long and searching and while Buck seems concerned by the way his brows furrow, Eddie just stares back, waiting. Challenging. 

Her mother reaches for Eddie and pulls him down by the neck. He goes easily but Buck tenses like he thinks she’s going to try and snap his spine. 

Instead, her mother kisses Eddie on both of his cheeks and pats his chest. “Thank you for looking after her.”

Sahar looks away, embarrassed and emotional. Buck hides an amused smile and she hates that he’s witnessing this. 

Eddie shrugs. “She’s a good kid. Smart. You raised her well.” 

She knows it’s a stretch but he’s being generous. 

Her mother looks misty eyed before stepping back. “It’s reassuring to see she has a family here looking after each other. I know she didn’t always have the one she deserved.”

Sahar blinks in shock and fails to stop her tears. “Amma…”

Her mother smiles graciously and touches her cheek. “Come, show me your uniform. I want to see your name on the back.”

Sahar bites back her smile and nods shyly like when she was a child and would hide behind her mother’s leg. She takes her hand and leads her to her turnouts. 

It’s a start. 

And it’s a home.