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They’re carpooling home, Buck driving, like they always used to. It doesn’t feel natural.
Buck used to drive Eddie because that was what they did, it was habit, and they both liked it that way, and now it’s more like – well, that’s what we used to do, so that’s what we should still do. It’s not easy. It’s not comfortable. When Eddie puts music on, it always ends up being something that irritates Buck, and he’s trying to keep a lid on it, but he’s not used to hiding annoyance from Eddie, or anything from Eddie, and he’s not used to being annoyed with Eddie, not like this, where everything he does is grating and Buck legitimately has the thought – I’d rather be alone right now. He shouldn’t, he can’t, he absolutely cannot have that thought about Eddie.
Buck swears and smacks at the stereo until the music turns off. Eddie’s staring at him, but Buck doesn’t acknowledge him. He swipes a hand furiously through his hair, staring ahead at the road.
"Tell me how you really feel," Eddie says after a moment, mild and dry. So Eddie, so very Eddie. Buck wants to scream.
"I think driver ranks passenger," Buck says, not mild or dry. More like he’s a second away from boiling over.
Eddie laughs like he’s surprised. A moment is taken up with loving Eddie’s laugh, and then Buck’s twice as annoyed for it.
"Is that what you’re stewing about?"
"I’m not stewing. About anything."
"Yeah, you look it," Eddie says with something manic in his voice, forced energy or forced cheer.
The tires thud over the road. Buck’s got no idea where they are, and he can’t feel his hands. He focuses on breathing. His head is a jumble. He almost says Eddie, almost says I can’t do this anymore, it’s not working, it’s not you, it’s –
But they can’t break up if they were never together, and their friendship can’t be over or Buck’s gonna go crazy.
Buck’s hyperventilating. Eddie’s hand grabs the steering wheel between Buck’s, at noon, and he says, in his smooth, calm work voice, "Slow down, Buck. Just pull over for a second."
He’s pushing ninety. Buck nods, the only sound he can make a squeak, and lifts his foot off the gas in infinitesimal increments. Lets Eddie guide him to the side of the road. When they’re stopped, Eddie cranks the emergency brake with a quick, efficient movement.
Buck turns the car off, slumping in his seat, gasping for breath.
"You’re scaring me," Eddie says. When Buck flits a glance at him, he sees it’s true, Eddie’s eyes big and dark and afraid.
Buck tries to speak. To say what, he doesn’t know, and he can’t speak anyway, can’t get the words out. So he just flails a hand in Eddie’s direction. Eventually he can breathe again.
Buck has no idea what to say, now he has the breath. What comes out is, "Why are you so fucking obsessed with chain of command?"
"I’m really not," Eddie says. When Buck just looks at him, he stiffens, crossing his arms. His hands cup his own elbows. "You’re telling me this is what’s on your mind. For real?"
Buck doesn’t know. He nods anyway.
Eddie scoffs and sighs and says, with the tone of someone who finds their point dissolving into mist the moment they try to argue it, "It’s just – it’s the way things are. Sure, it’d be great if everyone had a vote. In our job we can’t do things like that. Someone has to make a judgement call."
"Yeah. Because you always go where you’re told."
Eddie pauses, frozen mid-breath for a second. "What’s that supposed to mean?"
"You know," Buck says, words rising like vomit in his throat. "You care about who’s in charge until you wanna do something."
Eddie tries to speak. Color is in his cheeks, put on the spot, getting angry. Buck talks louder, doesn’t let him get a word in.
"When you were unfit for duty you didn’t just take it with a smile."
"I wasn’t - "
"You decide it’s time to risk your life, you do it. You decide to leave the state, start a life somewhere else, you don’t even tell a soul."
"You’re seriously making it about that again."
"If you thought Bobby was wrong, you told him to get fucked – same for Chimney - "
"Buck."
"If I were captain when you left you still wouldn’t have told me willingly. That’s how much respect you have for chain of command. It’s – it’s bullshit."
"Fuck’s sake!" Eddie slams a hand on the dashboard. "What is this, a performance review?"
"I fucking hate you sometimes," Buck says. Blinks tears out of his eyes in time to see Eddie take a sharp, hurt breath, and Buck hates himself instead. He doesn’t even know what he’s saying, just that he wants to yell at Eddie, wants to hurt him, and now he has.
"What do you want from me?" Eddie says, his voice gone dull.
Buck’s crying now, really crying. Eddie isn’t much better, his eyes shimmering. He won’t look at Buck now, staring forward out the windshield. "I don’t. I don’t hate you. I’m just so mad at you."
"No shit," Eddie says.
They’re both quiet. Buck lets himself cry for a minute until the tears slow. Next to him, Eddie takes little breaths, shaky, but doesn’t ever quite cry with him.
After a moment, Buck starts the car again, takes off the emergency brake, gets going.
"I don’t know what you want me to do, Buck." Eddie’s voice is thick with the tears he won’t let fall. "I’m back now."
"I know."
They’re almost to Eddie’s house. Buck had stayed on track the whole time, even as he panicked; the route might as well be imprinted in his skin.
When they get there, Buck follows Eddie inside without any discussion. Eddie gives him a beer, not looking at him, and leans his back against the fridge.
"So. Is this it? We’re just done being friends?" Eddie says. His mouth twists, eyebrows tugging pitifully.
"That’s not what I want," Buck says, and takes a shuddering breath of relief when he finds that he means it. Eddie looks like Eddie again, not the stranger he’s been for – Buck doesn’t even know how long.
"Feels like it is."
"It’s not."
"Then what, Buck."
"Tell me the truth," Buck says with something like desperation.
"I -" Eddie says. He looks at Buck. He’s so exhausted, Buck can see it in his face, and still close to tears, beautiful in his devastation. "I should’ve told you about Texas. But I didn’t. I can’t change that."
"Tell me something else." A well of affection in Bucks chest is filling, overflowing. The way Eddie’s wringing his hands, the way he’s looking at Buck like Buck can fix it all. "Tell me why you’re obsessed with chain of command."
"Buck." Eddie laughs wetly. "You’re the one who keeps bringing it up."
"Cause you get weird about it. Come on," Buck says softly. Want pierces him, a red-hot needle to the throat. He used to feel so close to Eddie. He needs that again. Whatever Eddie hides, that is what Buck needs to know, exactly that. "Don’t say what you think I want to hear. Just -"
"Tell the truth?" Eddie says wryly. He sighs. Wipes at his eyes and sighs again. "I think it’s good to have rules."
"Not that you pay attention to them," Buck says.
"Even if I don’t – if – then they’re still there – if I’m doing something wrong I know I am." Eddie seems to struggle with something, then gives a limp shrug. "I don’t know what…"
"Why does someone else need to say what’s right and wrong?" Buck says.
"I don’t…I just…Buck." Eddie huffs a laugh. "I don’t know, okay?"
"You’ve never been, like, passive. You make choices." Buck’s always seen Eddie as pure action. A force, inexorable.
Eddie shakes his head. "I don’t want to. I don’t want to decide. I don’t want to think." The words come slowly, like they’re hard to say. "I want to be, like." He swallows, a thin break in his voice when he says, "Um. Part of the…of the engine rig or something. Like the saws and jaws."
"Except when you go and do the exact opposite of what the plan is," Buck says.
"That’s not the same. I just know. I just do it, and…and I know it’s right. I don’t have to choose, I just, I’m just the tool."
The room’s gone hazy, clouded with Eddie’s intense, low voice. Strange, hot, tense. Eddie huffs another laugh that does nothing to dissipate it.
"I don’t even know what you’ve got me saying," he mumbles. "You fuckin’ freak."
Buck doesn’t tell Eddie that he’s the freak, since that’s obvious, and Eddie clearly knows it.
Eddie shrugs. Buck thinks of him as a deadly sharp axe in his hand, an arrow in a quiver. Pure action. Yeah.
"And then with you," Eddie says abruptly, like now the pump is primed he can’t stop talking. "It’s all – weird. Lately."
"I noticed," Buck says. He scratches at invisible dirt on the table. "Why is that."
Eddie paces a tight circle. Shrugs. Laughs, high and strange. "I…" He runs a hand through his hair, messing it up. "I don’t know. It feels like if I give you an inch, uh."
"I’ll take a mile?" Buck says.
"Maybe, or. Or I’ll just give you the mile too."
"Would that be so bad?"
Eddie opens his mouth, closes it, smiles a strange, sweet, closed-lipped smile. "I don’t know."
Buck swallows hard, audible in the silence. The shape of the air has changed. Everything feels as fragile as glass. Eddie has never looked at him like this before.
"Mm," Buck says, and, "Uh."
He sounds like an idiot. Eddie just exhales, kind of shaky, and keeps looking. And Buck, for a second, is in his memory, here with Tommy. He’d been excited by the thought of Tommy, being back together with him. It’s so pale, so weak compared to this, Eddie like the heat of a sun, still wringing his hands, looking at Buck with something like astonishment, something like bashfulness.
"I, uh," Buck says. Words always leave him when he needs them most. How is he supposed to think in a moment like this, though? "So."
The look Eddie gives him in unbearably sweet, trying to be long-suffering but too fond for that. "So."
"You don’t listen to me because you – because you want to."
"Well," Eddie says.
"Come here," Buck says. Eddie’s eyes go huge and luminous, that’s not how they talk to each other, not with that low intensity. He approaches with stilted steps. Leans awkwardly against the counter next to Buck. "Not much hustle there, Diaz."
"What," Eddie says. He’s so close. His laughing eyes, the scruff of stubble on his face.
"I was just thinking, uh. If I really did rank you. If I was, like, your captain. Then you’d have to listen to me."
Eddie’s eyes track between Buck’s.
"Because then it would be the rules."
Eddie swallows at that. Nods.
"God, Eddie," Buck says fervently, and then collects himself. He doesn’t stop to think, just breathes and says, "Firefighter Diaz, you have five seconds to kiss me."
"I think, uh, this is probably sexual harassment. Captain." Eddie doesn’t manage more than the ghost of a joking tone. He’s turning towards Buck, like a flower to the sun, he’s looking at his lips, Buck is flashing hot all over. All over.
"It’s not your job to think," Buck says, decides he’ll never tell Eddie that he’s slightly channeling Bobby right now. "It’s your job to do what I say."
Eddie gasps. Quietly, but they’re so close that Buck can hear it. His face is flooding red. His hand closes on Buck’s wrist, and Buck nearly sighs with the relief of his touch, the tension right now is so delicious but Buck can’t take much more.
"Five," Buck says, hoarsely. "Four. Three."
Eddie catches his waist before he gets further, and Buck absolutely gapes at him like a moron, and then Eddie kisses him. Buck can’t make it make sense, that this is possible. Of course Eddie can kiss, he’s done it before, Buck has seen him give girlfriends a quick peck. But that it’s happening between the two of them. That Eddie is kissing him, and it is Eddie, because Buck would know his hands anywhere, his smell, he’s worn the shirt Eddie has on, knows the fabric as he bunches it in his hand at Eddie’s back. Buck hadn’t known they could do this together. How could he not have known?
It ends, Eddie’s forehead against Buck’s, Eddie breathing tremblingly. His big hands holding Buck’s forearms. Buck wants to tuck Eddie into his pocket for all time.
"Kiss me," Buck says again.
Eddie does. The miracle of his lips on Buck’s, the warmth of him. Buck remembers then, that Eddie doesn’t just have lips and hands but a body, and Buck grabs his hips and drags him in, pressing Eddie to him all over. It makes Eddie moan, the sweet sound dropped right on Buck’s tongue. Buck moans too, an embarrassingly desperate sound, but he’s not embarrassed about it, honestly. Anyone in his position would sound the same, or worse, with Eddie all over them, feeling his body, his chest expanding with breath, his hardness against them.
Eddie’s trying to shift away, he wants to take his shirt off, but Buck can’t spare him for the time it would take. He clutches Eddie close and rolls their hips together. Sparks run down his spine at the pressure and Eddie, making a shivering sound, seems to forget all about his shirt, melting into Buck. He’s heavy; Buck takes the weight happily, settles his hands on Eddie’s ass for better leverage. What little air between them is hot, humid. Their breaths tangle, and Buck aches, and this would be better out of their clothes, more comfortable, but they’re starting to get a good rhythm, the kind that makes Buck’s hips seek it out on their own. And Eddie’s moaning, enough that he stops kissing Buck and hides in his neck instead, making wrecked sounds against his skin, arms wrapped tight around Buck, almost like a hug if they weren’t both hard and moving against each other.
Buck slides a hand down, down, hikes Eddie’s leg up by the thigh, hitching it up around his waist. Eddie makes a wild, muffled sound and then Buck gasps at the sharp sting of his teeth, right at the crook of his neck. Eddie’s going kind of crazy now, moving jerky and out of control and Buck’s so overheated, his pulse pounding loud in his ears. He’s sweating. He has to kiss Eddie, and he mouths at his cheek and his neck and eventually has to slide a hand into his hair and drag his head up for access. Buck only gets the briefest glance at Eddie’s heavy-lidded eyes, his flushed cheeks, and then they’re kissing again. Sloppy, messy, out of control, and Eddie gasps and sighs, and Buck figures out from the shake of his hips what’s happening, and he comes in a rush, so fucking fast his hearing goes distant.
They stand there. Buck doesn’t want to move. Not when Eddie occasionally shivers, with a little flex of his hips, not with Eddie’s arms twined firmly around him.
"You still mad at me?" Eddie says after a long while. He sounds out of it, half asleep or maybe more.
"Not, uh. Not that I can tell," Buck says. "You?"
"What?"
"Mad at me? I kinda, you know. Was a dick."
"I don’t remember that," Eddie says, and yawns.
"’kay, we’ll, uh. Talk later." Buck says, and laughs when Eddie gives him a gentle punch to the ribs.
They should go to bed, Buck thinks, or maybe a shower first. But for now, for just one more minute, they can stand together, wrapped in each other’s warm arms. Swaying together. Just one more minute. Just one more.