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Eddie watches Buck’s chest rise and fall, and breathes with the rhythm. Rise and fall. In and out. Rise and fall. In and out.
In his sleep, Buck lets out a quiet noise, a sleepy snuffle as he presses his cheek further into the couch cushion. The sound echoes around the living room, catching on Eddie’s brittle ribs. It settles there, curling up like a fox with its tail over its face. Vulnerable. Small.
His eyes are scratchy from not blinking. Eddie’s scared that if he does, if he closes his eyes for that split second, Buck might disappear. He’ll sink into the couch cushions and dissolve between the cracks, a figment of nothing at all.
Spine straight against the back of the armchair, Eddie tucks his legs up to his chest, looping one arm around his shins. He props his chin up on his knees – clad in the soft cotton sweatpants he slipped from Buck’s room – and watches.
Rise and fall. In and out.
There’s a lamp settled on the floor, the only light in the whole house. It was long since evening when they discharged Buck from the hospital, and he flinched at every harsh light directed his way. The lamp was the only one that didn’t make his eyes squint, and now the living room is bathed in it, the dusky orange bulb turning pink through the thin shade.
The light licks over Buck’s face, settling in warm triangular shapes over his pale cheeks. It catches on the yellowing liquid in Buck’s IV bag, reflecting straight through the plastic. Buck’s arm is dangling off the couch, stretched out and slack so the IV doesn’t tug on his skin. Eddie swallows thickly at the sight of it all, of the subtle drip drip drip of the bag bolusing.
“Eddie.” Maddie’s voice is soft as she pads into the room, slippers sinking into the fluffy rug. She has her hair tied up loosely in a bun atop her head, her pajama trousers bunched up on one leg. “I’ve got him whilst he’s sleeping, if you want to go home?”
Her hand settles on his shoulder, gently squeezing the tense muscle. Eddie shakes his head, digging his fingers harder into his legs.
“No,” he says, the word cracking in his throat. “No, um, I think I’ll stay.”
He can’t let Buck out of his sight. He just– He can’t.
Every time he looks away all he can see is Buck’s panicked eyes, the yellow pill bottle, Buck hunched over the toilet as tremors wracked through his body, chest spasming.
Buck looked so scared. He looked so scared.
He kept mumbling apologies in the ambulance. He grasped onto Eddie’s hand, palm cold and clammy. He promised he didn’t mean to do it. That he took too much by accident. He begged for Eddie to believe him as his words grew clumsy, his eyes droopy.
“Okay,” Maddie says. She sighs as she perches down on the coffee table beside him, a waft of her apple shampoo filling his nose. “He looks so peaceful like this, doesn’t he?”
“Yeah,” Eddie murmurs.
He does; Buck’s face is slack and stress-free, the hard lines of his face rounding in the shadowed room. His fair eyelashes flutter against his cheeks, and his lips are squished and parted against the cushion he’s slumped on. It’s not the best for him to sleep out here when he’s recovering, but they were silently watching a shitty sitcom when Buck slowly began to drift, and Eddie didn’t have the heart to shake him awake.
“Do you–” Maddie clears her throat and shakes her head, a stray clump of hair escaping her bun. “Do you know how long this has been going on?
“No. I don’t know,” he says. Buck lets out another sleepy groan and his heart gives another pitiful clench. ”I thought maybe New Mexico, but they– these were pills for anxiety. Benzodiazepine. He could’ve been…I don’t know how long he’s been on them. How long he’s been dependent.”
The words stutter out of his mouth, weighted and unfamiliar. He doesn’t know how to talk about this, how to make sense of what the hell happened in the past twenty-four hours. Buck is sleeping, saline and thiamine soaking into his veins because he took too many pills, because he tried to tackle everything alone again, because Eddie was naïve enough to believe he was okay again.
Your fault, your fault, your fault.
Eddie runs a hand through his hair, tugging harshly at the roots. Maddie squeezes his shoulder again, fingers brushing his neck before she drops her arm back to her side. She seems to be mulling something over, chewing ferociously on her bottom lip as she stares at her little brother.
He wonders how often she’s been in this position: feeling useless to help Buck when he’s hurt. To stand on the sidelines and watch her brother yank himself through whatever scrape has knocked him down that time. He wonders how much more of it she can take.
“He said it was an accident, right?” she asks quietly, arms twitching at her side. “The– taking that much.”
It's the first time Eddie can muster up the strength to turn away from Buck.
He twists in his seat, head snapping towards Maddie. Her eyes are big when he meets them, glossy with a sheen of tears. Eddie’s stomach twists violently, and he chokes back the bile that swirls to his mouth.
“Yes. He did,” he says because Buck’s babbling explanation in the back of that ambulance is seared into his mind forever. “Do you not think it was?”
“No,” Maddie quickly denies. “No, I do, I just…” She swallows, the scar across her throat whitening. “Buck, he used to get in a lot of accidents. As a kid. He did things and claimed he didn't realize the danger after he got hurt, but I– I always wondered why he was in that position in the first place.”
Eddie nods slowly, gaze sliding back to Buck. His eyebrows have drawn slightly together, a line beginning to knit between them. Eddie hopes he's dreaming okay.
“You’re asking why he even thought to take that amount,” he guesses wryly.
He can’t say it hasn’t crossed his mind. Ever since they admitted Buck into a separate hospital room and he was ripped away from Eddie’s side in the foyer, Eddie’s been playing through the events.
The amount of benzodiazepine Buck confessed to taking as Eddie knelt beside him in the bathroom. The way his hands trembled as they came up to clutch the front of Eddie’s shirt. The gleam of his cupid’s bow after Eddie stuck the naloxone stick up his nostril.
“I believe him. He didn't do it on purpose,” Maddie says firmly, cutting through his film reel of that day. “I'm just worried a– a part of him didn't care about what would happen. When he was nineteen he crashed his bike. He told me he didn't mean to but he knew, he knew he shouldn't have been going that fast on that road. And with everything this past year, with Bobby…”
Eddie lets his legs go, feet thumping onto the rug. He leans forward, propping his elbows up on his knees as he cradles his face, blinking rapidly. The scratchiness of his eyes subsides, replaced by the insistent prickling of a thousand tiny needles.
“He was finally doing okay,” he whispers. “And then I fucked it up in New Mexico for him. I drew Bonnie and Earl’s attention to us in that diner. If I just listened to Buck, if I ignored it and we left, then they wouldn’t have had the– the time to follow us. I should’ve just listened to him.”
“This isn’t your fault, Eddie.”
“I know,” he says, voice raising. He scrubs over his eyes, pressing the embarrassing swell of tears back inside the sockets. “I know it’s not. But I didn’t help. I caved at the first sign of normalcy because I wanted him to be okay so badly.”
Sniffing wetly, Maddie leans her head to the side, temple inches away from landing on Eddie’s shoulder. A universal sign of comfort. Eddie doesn’t know how to do that – to give that – when it feels so disjointed inside himself.
“We all did,” she sighs. “I thought he was doing better. Since Bobby. But I don’t…I don’t know if he’s really moved past that night.”
The words ring in his ears. It’s coming up on exactly a year since Eddie received the phone call. Since Bobby died. Since Buck watched him die. A whole year.
He’s about to reply when there’s a soft rustling, the tell-tale crinkling of a cushion compressing. Buck’s head bows a little before his eyes crack open, chin bumping his sternum.
“Eds?” he mumbles, barely audible even in the quiet.
The fridge thrums in the background. Eddie feels the vibrations of it right down to his toes.
He’s moving before he realizes it, picking himself up off the armchair to stumble the one and a half steps over to the couch. At the armrest by Buck’s head he stops, hand moving on its own accord to gently brush over Buck’s sweaty curls.
“Hey,” Eddie says delicately. “I’m here.”
Buck’s eyes slide lazily over to him. His arm, the one hooked up to the IV, makes an aborted move towards Eddie like he wants to reach out but doesn’t quite have the strength. His lips are cracked dry and parted as he sucks in a shaky breath.
His chest hitches with it. Rises and falls.
“Where ‘m I?” Buck says, and it’s clear he’s still groggy with exhaustion, still leaden tired after the day he’s had.
“At home. You’re back at home.”
Buck’s nose scrunches. “Be’ford?”
It takes a second for Eddie to decipher the slurred question. Heat seeps into him, curling up his spine to the tips of his ears, and he has to physically reign in the thick cloud of emotion that sluices over his brain.
“No, Buck,” he says gently, scratching dully over Buck’s scalp. “We’re at your house, not– not Bedford Street.”
“Oh.”
The utterance is wobbly, and Buck’s face twitches with it, expression contorting. His eyes drift, skating over Eddie to fix somewhere behind his shoulder. Buck lets out another shuddering breath, and his arm jolts again. This time, Eddie meets him half way. Their fingers bump together, tangling in a loose grip.
“Mads?” Buck asks. “You’re here?”
From behind him, Maddie sniffs loudly. It splinters through Eddie, and he glances over at her, lip tucked between his teeth. She’s standing now, arms wrapped around her own body as she watches them. There’s something indiscernible in her eyes, something that makes Eddie’s heart pang when she looks at him, eyebrows drawing upwards.
“Of course I’m here, Evan,” she says, in the way only she can. “Are you feeling any better?”
Buck shrugs sluggishly, his whole body jostling with it. Briefly, Eddie tightens his hold on Buck’s hand, thumb tracing over his pulse point.
“Don’t know,” Buck says. “‘M tired.”
It’s no surprise really. Eddie traces the pattern of one of his curls, letting the hair wrap around his finger before springing back into place. Humming quietly, Buck stretches on the couch again, tiredly rearranging his limbs to tuck back into himself.
“You can go back to sleep if you want to. We’ll stay right here,” Maddie promises, wiping a tear from her cheek.
Groaning slightly, Buck shakes his head, pressing his cheek further into the couch cushion.
“Bed?” he asks.
His fingers flex against Eddie’s. Eddie soothes the tendons over with his thumb, stamping down the urge to bring Buck’s hand to his mouth and kiss the tension away.
Crouching so he’s eye-level with Buck, Eddie carefully untangles their hands and moves his own from Buck’s hair to his shoulder instead.
“I’ve got you, bud,” he murmurs, and gently presses his palm to Buck’s shoulder to help him upright. “Sit up a bit for me? There you go.”
Buck grumbles but does so, letting Eddie manoeuvre him until he’s sitting on the couch, body tipping forward almost immediately. Eddie catches him easily, winding one arm around Buck’s torso to lock at his side. He guides Buck’s head out from where it’s lolled against his chest, stroking the back of his hand down his cheek.
“Maddie,” Eddie says once he’s got a sure grip on Buck, “can you get his IV please?”
Maddie blinks like she’s coming out of a daze. Brushing away the last of her tears, she nods decidedly, stepping forward to wheel the infusion stand out of the way. The banana bag continues to drip. Eddie turns back to Buck, whose eyes have begun to droop considerably.
“Buck,” he continues, nose bumping Buck’s temple with how close they’re pressed together. “Still with me, Buckley?”
A small smile tugs at Buck’s lips at that, drowsy and on the cusp of delirium. He nods heavily, his hair dragging over Eddie’s face in an action that resembles a cat brushing up against someone's legs.
“Here.”
Eddie reciprocates the smile, fondness clogging up his throat. “Good. You’re going to need to cooperate with me a bit, alright? Help us get you to bed.”
“I’m tired,” Buck repeats, syllables slurring.
“I know you are. I know.” He pushes his nose into Buck’s hair, purposeful this time, and steadies his breath. “Okay. C’mon.”
Keeping a firm hold of Buck’s hoodie, Eddie heaves them both upright, gracelessly hauling Buck up by the waist. On two feet, Buck sways precariously, listing heavily into Eddie’s side. His face twists, discomfort straining his features, and urgency suddenly floods through Eddie.
They hobble their way towards Buck’s bedroom, Maddie trailing close behind with the IV stand, making sure the tubing doesn’t catch on anything. It’s possibly the longest walk of Eddie’s life. Every step is colossal effort, every shuffle forward zapping more and more energy from Buck’s body until he’s being held up almost entirely by Eddie alone, letting out a litany of unhappy noises into the crook of Eddie’s neck.
Eddie only breathes once they get Buck into bed, his trembling body instantly sinking into the mattress. He exhales harshly, deprived lungs screaming at him, and watches as Buck’s eyes flutter shut, sleep drawing him under. The space on the mattress next to him leers at Eddie.
Tucking the IV stand carefully beside Buck’s bedside table, Maddie comes to stand next to him.
“Thank you,” she says after a moment.
He frowns, glancing at her. “For what?”
Maddie shrugs, smiling thinly. Her eyes sparkle with that look again, the one Eddie can’t understand.
“You take care of him,” she says.
“So do you.”
She doesn’t warrant him with a rebuttal to that. Instead, she turns to face the door, head tilting.
“I’m going to take the guest room, if you don’t mind,” she says. “I’m assuming you’ll stay here?”
Eddie wonders how transparent he is.
“Goodnight,” he tells her, cheeks flushing. “I’ll call for you if something…”
“I know,” Maddie finishes. She pats his clavicle, brushing past him. “Try and get some rest, okay?”
They both know how unlikely that is, but Eddie nods anyway. He waits for the bedroom door to click shut before letting his shoulders slump. Buck lets out a gurgling snore, his hoodie twisted awkwardly around his belly. Stepping towards the bed, Eddie fixes it up for him, hands lingering on Buck’s stomach for just a second. Warmth seeps into his palm. His chest rises and falls.
Moving around to the other side of the bed, Eddie climbs onto the mattress, duvet crinkling loudly. He settles back against the headboard, a pillow wedged behind his lower back. Buck’s shoulder presses into his hip, and Eddie latches onto the contact, letting it tether him.
The smell of porridge thickens the air of the kitchen, and Eddie cracks open the window to let it seep outside. He can’t stand the scent; it reminds him too much of rubber and stale bread. But Buck likes to eat it in the mornings, will often have it before a bigger breakfast of eggs and bacon, and Eddie can stomach the smell if it means seeing Buck smile at the beige sludge.
Despite his doubts, Eddie managed to get a grand total of three hours shut-eye, his watch pinging to tell him he eventually slipped asleep at 5 AM and woke up a little past 8. He doesn’t feel it yet. The exhaustion will hit later, when the adrenaline’s finally drained out of him and he doesn’t feel like he’s constantly dangling on the edge of something.
The sound of wheels rolling over waxed floorboards has Eddie looking up from the porridge he’s been ladelling into the ceramic bowl Buck loves so much – the one with the hammer-head sharks swimming around the rim. Trudging into the room, Buck blinks hazily at him, sleep rumbled hair sticking out all over the place.
“You’re still here?” he rasps, dragging his hand not hooked to the IV over his face.
The bag swinging from the infusion stand has almost dripped dry. Eddie needs to switch it out.
“‘Course I am,” Eddie replies. “What’re you doing out here?”
Buck frowns at him. “I woke up?”
His tone is blank, bored. Nothing like last night or the ambulance. It’s like Buck’s slipped the façade straight back on.
“You should be in bed,” Eddie says, and opens the cutlery drawer to stick a spoon into Buck’s porridge.
“Is Maddie here?” Buck asks, ignoring his poorly disguised chide.
“She was. Left about an hour ago to take Jee-Yun to school.”
“Ah.” Buck walks over to the fridge, leaning against it and knocking the magnet-pinned photos wonky. “You should too.”
The words fall flat between them. Eddie braces his hands on the counter, bowing his head over the porridge steam as he takes a breath. It didn’t even occur to him that Buck might still be defensive after what happened yesterday, that he might try even harder to shut Eddie out.
“What do you mean?” he says, knowing exactly what Buck means.
Buck fiddles with a green seahorse magnet. “I’m sure Christopher is waiting for you to come home. It’s okay. I’m fine here.”
He can’t help the retort from punching out. “Oh, you are?”
“Yes,” Buck says. “Look, I– thank you for staying last night, man. I needed the help. But I don’t anymore. So.”
“So I can leave?” Eddie finishes.
He looks up at Buck, cocking his head. Buck squirms, eyes flitting about, settling anywhere but on Eddie.
“I’m fine,” Buck reiterates. “You don’t need to be here. There’s nothing for you to do.”
Pushing the bowl of porridge out the way, Eddie turns so his back presses against the edge of the counter, digging into the gap of his spine. He crosses his arms, the crewneck he stole from Buck baggy on his frame.
“What are you trying to do here, Buck?” he asks, forcing himself to speak calmly. Buck doesn’t need accusations right now. “I know there’s nothing I need to do. That’s not the point. I want to be here.”
“Why?”
Eddie stares at him. There are many answers to that question, but they all have the same root, they all stem from the same place. The same specific feeling.
“I want you to be okay,” he says, choosing the simplest explanation.
Buck huffs an unamused laugh. “Eddie, I already told you. I’m fine.”
“Yeah, and I don’t believe you,” Eddie hisses, patience fraying.
“Gee, thanks.”
“You swallowed a bunch of pills, Buck.”
Hardening, Buck sets his shoulders, gaze finally drilling into Eddie. His nostrils flare, jaw setting. The muscle there ticks.
“It was an accident,” he snaps.
“I know that,” Eddie snaps back. “But it still happened, and you’re still hurt from it, and I just want to help you. Let me help you.”
His words trail off into an embarrassing plea. Buck plucks the seahorse magnet off the fridge and then slams it back onto the metal, containers inside rattling together. He looks angry, cheeks flushed dark with frustration, but Eddie can see right through it. The look in his eyes is the same one from yesterday. Scared.
“Contrary to popular belief, Eddie, you’re not my fucking boyfriend,” Buck spits clumsily, a wounded thing lashing out. “I don’t need you hassling me about this.”
It slashes over Eddie’s skin, a dull cheese grater ripping layers away over and over. He shakes away the hurt, stepping towards Buck.
“Well contrary to your belief, apparently, I care about you,” he says, and watches as Buck’s face falls a fraction, a fissure splintering down the mask. “I want you to be okay. I– I need you to be okay.”
He stops in front of Buck, close enough to reach out and touch, but far enough away that Buck could easily slip away from him. Buck does neither of those things. He just stares at Eddie.
“What do you want, Buck?” Eddie whispers, because he knows what Buck needs, he knows what Buck says he wants, but he doesn’t know this.
Buck shakes his head, chewing on the inside of his cheek. His eyes have grown watery.
“Buck,” he continues, lifting his hand. He settles it on Buck’s forearm, fingers looping around the tattooed ring hidden beneath his hoodie. “It’s just me.”
Just me.
It’s both an incentive to stay, and motivation to move away. He’s not certain which one Buck will choose.
Buck blinks, eyelashes darkening as they gather tears, clumping like the bristles of a hairbrush. His lips part, a shaky breath fanning over Eddie’s cheek.
“I want to feel normal again,” Buck whispers. “I want to be normal. I want– I want Bobby.”
And then he’s bursting into great, heaving, ugly tears. Eddie catches him as he staggers forward, sagging into Eddie’s arms like all the thin threads of string holding him together snap at once. Buck’s face burrows into his neck, nose cold as it digs into his skin, crewneck dampening as Buck sobs against it.
Eddie squeezes him, knowing the tight pressure helps calm Buck down, and runs a hand over his back.
“I’ve got you,” he says into Buck’s hair. “I’ve got you. We’re going to get you help. You’re going to be okay.”
Buck cries harder, body shuddering and seizing with the effort. He feels so unnaturally small like this. So unlike himself. Eddie brushes his lips over Buck’s temple and rocks them gently. They move in sync, swaying together in the porridge-filled kitchen, the IV drip pressed uncomfortably between them, and Eddie feels Buck’s chest move against his.
Rise and fall.