ch. 18
buddie I 900 words I ao3
He’s drunk.
Not the blazing, head so spinny he could hurl if he stood straight, but in the hours after drunk that comes with a dry, heavy tongue and a slurred voice he still has some sort of control over.
Buck’s in the same boat, or—he thinks he must be, he doesn’t know, sitting criss-crossed next to him outside their hotel room door because they can’t, for the life of them, figure out how to put the key card into the door.
“Hey, Eddie,” Buck slurs, looking at him with slow, wide-lidded blinks. “Where’s—where’s Chimney?”
He draws out Chimney. Chim-ney.
Eddie shrugs. He can’t make his mouth work for the life of him. He’s pretty sure he saw Chimney two hours ago—before the music started? Or at least when he started singing Maneater with one of the Drag Queens.
Buck knocks a shoulder into his as he slips down the wall, the smell of his hair briefly sifting into his nose. He smells like gin and lemons, and a little bit of that fancy curl product he tresses up his hair with before every fancy event.
I know his hair product, he thinks loosely, tilting his head against the wall as he takes Buck’s weight. I know his hair product, and the way he does his hair before work. I know it all because he helps my son do his hair just the same way. I know it all because my son wants to be like him, so I have learned him, for my son. I know it all because I have learned him. I know it all because I have learned him, for me.
I have learned him. I have earned him.
“Does—” And Fuck, maybe he’s drunker than he thought. “Does Tommy know your curl?”
Buck hums, non-committedly. He hasn’t heard a word Eddie said. He tries again.
“Does,” he spits out. Doooesss. “Tommy.” Ttttommyyyy. “Know.” Know.
Buck lifts his head up and ends up tipping too much to the other side. Eddie grabs him by the forearm, tight. The action feels familiar in ways that Eddie, for the life of him, can't understand.
Buck blinks at him, bright blue eyes stupid dilated. “Does Tommy know what?” He whispers. He draws out his name, too. Tom-my.
Eddie looks at him and loves him.
He’s always known he loves Buck. For the first time in his life, though, he thinks—I love you. What does that make me?
Eddie opens his mouth. The back of his throat burns—maybe from all the tequila shots or the lemons hitting the rim of his teeth or the raw pad of his tongue from licking salt off of Buck’s warm palm.
Does he know what you look like covered in blood, Eddie wants to ask. Does he know what it looks like when you haven’t showered in three days because you’re so depressed you don’t know if water burns more than the sun. Does he know what it looks like when you’ve got ugly red eyes because you’re so sad you don’t even know how to hold it. Does he know what it looks like to see you shining, like a savior, in the worst of the worst, in the worst of your days. Does he know what it’s like to lose you, really lose you, and see you swallowed up by white sheets and a lightning scar across your chest. Does he know what it’s like to be loved by you. Does he know.
He thinks—I love you. What does that make me?
Eddie tries to take a breath but it feels like there’s something crawling up his throat, so he tilts his head back up against the wall and tries to take a breath.
“He’s coming to the wedding,” Buck continues, as Eddie stares at him.
Eddie nods. “Good,” he says. Good. Buck. “Tommy.” Tommy. Tommy.
He looks at Buck and thinks of the answer.
It makes him a dead man, this love. It’ll kill him probably. It has to kill him. It has to be like a disease you can’t hear or smell or breathe, and you have to be alone in the hospital with your blood running in circles beneath your skin. It has to be like a disease that kills you before you take your next breath. It’s killing him.
I love you. What does that make me?
It makes a fucking idiot, is what it makes him, because god he’s always too fucking late, running into stupid relationships after relationships after being too fucking late in the beginning of it all. He is too late. He is too late and he is in love and he is burning up right from the inside.
I love you. What does that make me?
He heaves. He can’t breathe. Buck puts his head back down on his shoulder, and all of a sudden Eddie has to learn how to breathe, or otherwise he’ll disrupt Buck’s rest. He can’t disrupt Buck’s rest.
“Buck,” he starts, opening his mouth. Buck sighs, half-heartedly, and tilts back. He looks at Eddie. Eddie opens his mouth.
“I love you,” he says. Nothing comes out. “What does that make me?”
Buck looks at him, confused. He blinks, like he's thinking it through.
“Eddie.” He draws out his name, slow. Eddie.
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idk if you're still writing the post-cemetry scene fic with pining eddie (idk if i'm describing it right) but i would love to hear more about it/see a snippet or too if you feel so inclined 👀
someone asking about angsty pining fic in the month of our lord april 2024? this was such a lovely surprise 😭 i'm gonna be honest with u anon i'm likely not going to publish 911 fic again BUT because you asked so nicely i'll give you a few older snippets from my draft:
Eddie sighs, breaking the stare. “You have a key, you know,” he says finally. “Feel free to come join me whenever you want.” He turns on his heel and walks back inside to finish his goddamn brownies, leaving Buck standing in the doorway.
It’s silent for a few minutes. He’s in the middle of measuring a tablespoon of espresso powder when Buck steps into the kitchen and shuts the door behind him. Eddie feels the weight of Buck’s gaze on him as he folds the powder into his brownie mixture, but he doesn’t turn to meet his eye until Buck speaks.
“Is that…” Buck falters. He clears his throat. “Is that my recipe?”
“Yeah,” Eddie says gruffly. “Chris asked me to make it. Said he wanted to share it with his friends when they come over tomorrow for their playdate.”
Buck snorts. “Man, you can’t call it that. Chris nearly bit my head off last time I tried. Kept reminding me that ‘playdates are for kids, Buck,’ and that he’s not a kid anymore.”
Buck emphasizes that last bit with air quotes, and Eddie can’t help but grin at that. But his smile fades instantly, remembering the somber look on Buck’s face when he’d opened the door. He highly doubts that Buck came over just to commiserate about the trials and tribulations of watching Christopher grow up.
Eddie bites the bullet. “Why are you here, Buck?”
Buck shifts nervously. He shrugs and looks away from Eddie. “I — I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to answer that. You’ve never asked me that before.”
Eddie scrubs at his face. “I've never had to ask you that, Buck. Things are different now. You’ve been busy.”
+
“Wow,” Buck says acidly, all traces of heartbreak gone. “I’ve never heard that one before.”
Eddie frowns. “What?”
“Really, Eddie?” Buck’s voice cracks on the last syllable. He shakes his head. “Unbelievable. Just — unbelievable.”
“Buck — what are you talking about?”
“We were just trying to protect you, Evan," Buck mocks. "You were never supposed to find out. We kept it from you because we love you. Any of that sound familiar to you?”
Eddie’s breath hitches on the word love, because he doesn’t know, he can’t know, but then —
Oh.
Fuck.
+
Buck: We’ll get through this just like everything else. I promise. It’ll be okay.
Buck: Eddie, did you eat enough today? Should I come by and bring you some food?
Buck: You know you’re still my best friend, right? That’s never going to change, Eddie. Never.
He reacts with a thumbs up or a tap-back heart on most of the messages, too exhausted to do anything else. He replies with a thumbs down to the message about food, certain that he wouldn’t be able to handle seeing Buck so soon. He knows he’ll have to face him in person eventually, but his tired, broken heart just wants to postpone it as much as he can.
The last one, though, is a balm that both soothes and agitates Eddie’s burning, aching heart, and he taps out a brief, Thank you, you too. Always, in response. It feels like too much and not enough all at once, and Eddie wishes once again that he was a little better at resisting Buck, that he didn’t feel that need to reply to his every message lest Buck worry even more about him.
The only one he actually acknowledges is a message that comes in at 2:43 AM on Sunday. As he opens the message, Eddie absentmindedly wonders if Buck’s having a hard time falling asleep for the same reason as him. Probably.
It’s a link to a new exhibit at the Griffith Observatory, accompanied by a text that reads: Can I take Christopher here next weekend?
Eddie squeezes back tears as he replies with a brief, Of course, and puts his phone down, letting the darkness swallow him again.
+
Hen beats him to it. “What happened, Buck? I thought you really liked her. Weren’t you planning to introduce her to Maddie and Chimney next week?”
“Not anymore,” Buck mutters. “I broke up with her.”
“What?” Eddie snaps head snaps up. “Why?”
Buck doesn’t meet his gaze, his lip quivering. The rest of their team is watching them, eyes darting back and forth, and Buck blinks hesitantly before swallowing down a sip of coffee. He wipes the cream off of his upper lip and looks Eddie in the eye.
“You know why,” Buck whispers.
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At first Fabian refuses to interact with his and Fig’s new sibling but one day his mom is dealing with something in the other room and the baby is crying and so Fabian has to pick up the baby. So he picks up the baby, bouncing them gently, and says, “One day, eighteen years from now, I will fight you to the death.” Then the baby reaches up and curls their little hand around his finger and Fabian’s voice breaks, utterly in love with this tiny person, and says, “I will defeat you,” unconvincingly.
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does he love you better than i can?
buddie | rated T | 10.8 k | outsider POV | character study
Summary: He can’t fault them for that, though. Evan has known Eddie for the past six years. Tommy has only been in the picture for about a month, give or take.
Nothing has ever happened between us, Evan had insisted.
You have absolutely nothing to worry about, Eddie had told him unequivocally.
There’s no reason he shouldn’t take them both at their word, Tommy thinks, decisively.
or, buck and eddie insist that there's nothing going on between them. tommy wants to believe them.
he really, really does.
[read here on ao3]
tagging a few people under the cut:
@tawaifeddiediaz @bieddiediaz @athenagranted @therapized-eddie @911-on-abc
@chimchiminie98 @bucksbisexualawakening @edmundodiazz @caroandcats @akapotatogirl
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