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The day Eddie calls him that for the first time, Buck’s tearing through the hospital at top speed, narrowly avoiding mowing down nurses as he stumbles toward Eddie’s room.
He’s okay, Buck knows he’s okay, he’s just here on concussion watch and because he needed a doctor to reset his shoulder when it was dislocated at the house fire earlier. He’d been talking and coherent when Hen and Chim bundled him into the ambulance, reassuring them all that he felt fine, terribly unconvincing given the grimace, but no cause for major worry either.
Still, Buck couldn’t ride with him to the hospital, having to finish their shift and wash off an inch of soot before hurrying to pick up Chris from school. Even rushing through his shower and haphazardly pulling on his civvies so not to alarm Christopher didn’t feel fast enough, and when Chris had started to kick up a fuss about being dropped at Pepa’s instead of coming with Buck to the hospital, he’d nearly torn his hair out.
He’d placated Chris with the promise that he’d try and get Eddie released this evening, happy as ever to volunteer to spend the night keeping watch at the Diaz house. Thirty minutes and several agonising red lights later, he’s here, barging right into this hospital room before any orderlies can stop him.
Hen blinks at him from her seat beside Eddie’s bed, eyebrows raised.
“You’re loud enough to wake the morgue,” she informs him, sipping her paper cup of coffee. “Bull in a goddamn china shop.”
Buck frowns at her good-naturedly, rounding the bed to Eddie’s other side.
He’s sat up against some pillows, bleary-eyed but smiling at Buck. “You came.”
“Of course I came,” Buck huffs, squeezing his arm gently.
“You always come,” Eddie agrees. His eyes are glassy from the mix of pain and painkillers, voice slurring ever-so-slightly. “Mi patito.”
Hen chokes on her coffee, coughs turning into laughter. “Your what?”
Eddie’s lips turn down at the corners as he looks at her, pouting. “He’s got the little tail, look.”
He gestures at Buck’s ass, and Buck cranes his head back to see what he’s pointing at. His shirt isn’t tucked in properly at the back, sticking out of the waistband of his pants in an upturned fold of fabric.
“Patito,” Eddie says again, nodding. “Little duckling.”
Hen snorts, dissolving into laughter as she doubles over in the tiny plastic chair. Buck shoves the hem of his shirt into his trousers properly, disgruntled by their amusement.
“Duckling, huh?” Hen grins. “I guess he does follow you around enough.”
“He followed me into the house today,” Eddie says, leaning back heavily into his pillows. It’s true—Buck had ignored Bobby’s shouts to stay put and raced back into the burning building after Eddie’s pained grunt had come through the radio, a badly-secured beam glancing off him as it fell. “Stupid as hell, but would’ve had a lot worse than a fucked shoulder if he hadn’t.”
Buck’s not sure if that’s a compliment or an admonishment, but it’s absolutely soaked with affection, so he doesn’t let himself dwell on it, smiling wryly back at Eddie.
Eddie’s studying his face, serious even if the corner of his mouth is tugging up on the right, smile inevitable.
“He’d follow me anywhere,” he says, confident, to Buck or to Hen or just the room at large. “Patito.”
Buck feels a sudden wave of embarrassment, caught out and called out on this thing that was never meant to be a secret but he hadn’t planned on saying out loud anyway, hoping no one would draw attention to the bottomless well of devotion he houses for Eddie. That he’d do anything and everything if only it meant he’d be beside Eddie for it. He’s scraped raw, naked under fluorescent lights for everyone to see.
Hen, perceptive to a fault, stands, ignoring Buck’s flaming cheeks and whatever shame is rolling off him right now.
“M’gonna check with the nurses about when he can be discharged,” she murmurs, leaving the room quietly.
Buck swallows, ducking his head as he sits. He doesn’t look directly at Eddie, instead fiddling with the scratchy blanket on the bed.
“Buck?” Eddie asks. Buck doesn’t look up. “Did I say something wrong?”
“No, ’course not,” Buck says, shaking his head and smoothing out the blanket. “You’re right, I-I do follow you everywhere.”
“Okay,” Eddie says carefully. “Is that bad?”
Buck huffs a laugh. “No, no, it’s not. Just—revealing, I guess.”
Eddie’s silent for long enough that Buck chances a glance at him. His brow is furrowed deeply, and he’s frowning at Buck.
“I would follow you anywhere too, you know,” he says.
Buck’s heart flip-flops. He does know this, and it’s nice to be told, but he thinks all his endless adoration, the entirely unshakable loyalty with which he follows Eddie, comes from a considerably different place than Eddie’s. The roots of his wanting wrap around his heart and clench tight in ways Eddie’ll never be familiar with, steadfast friendship being the only thing he’s ever wanted from Buck.
“I know,” he says anyway, moving one hand to grasp Eddie’s briefly. “I know, Eds.”
A nurse bustles into the room, patient chart in hand.
“Alright,” she says, “hello there. Are you Mr Diaz’s partner? Will you be taking him home today? He needs regular monitoring tonight, but Firefighter Wilson mentioned your line of work, so he should be good to be looked after at home by his significant other.”
“Oh,” Buck says. “Um, yes. And no. Yes, I’m taking him home. No, I’m not his significant other—I’m just his, uh, work partner.”
“Oh! Sorry for the misunderstanding,” the nurse says cheerfully. “Shall we go over the concussion protocol before we get him discharged?”
Buck lets her run him through what to do and what to watch out for, well-versed in this rodeo but nodding in all the right places anyway. When she leaves to sort out the paperwork, he turns back to Eddie, who’s be quiet for this whole exchange.
“Actually, speaking of,” Buck starts, pulling the words out of his throat like barbed wire, “do you want me to call Marisol and, uh, let her know what happened?”
Eddie scowls at him. “Marisol? Why the hell would you call her?”
“Because she’s your actual significant other?” Buck says, frowning at the unreasonable amount of derision Eddie’s throwing his way. “And she might like to know that you were hurt?”
“She is not my significant other,” Eddie says, looking deeply unhappy.
Buck blinks. “What? Since when?”
“Since…” Eddie screws up his face as he thinks, and then screws it up in a different way when the pull of his muscles must aggravate the headache concussions so generously come with. “Since two Thursdays ago. The 14th. The day we had the fighter jet call.”
“Oh,” Buck says.
His heart isn’t sure what to do—glow bright at the thought of Eddie’s relationship crashing and burning, because Buck’s not as good a friend as he wishes he was, or sink even further at the fact that Eddie, even hopped up on heavy-duty drugs, can pinpoint with such precision the exact day they ended things, his unhappy face only further proof that the break-up was probably not his decision, if he’s so cut up about it. Which—
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Buck asks. “I’m sorry, man.”
Eddie shakes his head. “Don’t be sorry. Why are you sorry? Also, you didn’t tell me when you broke up with Natalia, so…”
“I did,” Buck protests. “I told you that day in the locker room, that day that—”
He cuts himself off, breathless for no reason.
He did tell Eddie in the locker room, the day that they had the fighter jet call. The 14th. Two Thursdays ago.
“Eddie?” he asks.
“I texted her from the station parking lot,” Eddie confesses. “After Chris’s date went home, I, uh. I went over to her place and broke up with her.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Buck asks again, infinitely more hushed.
“’Cause you’d follow me anywhere, patito,” Eddie says softly, and his voice is so brimming with sadness, Buck’s chest aches. “Didn’t—didn’t know if this would be something you’d—actually want, or if you’d try anyway just because I asked.”
“Eddie,” Buck breathes, a quiet and desperate thing. “Eddie, you have to know—”
“I know you love me, Buck. And—whatever way that is, I’ll take it. Okay? I just—I couldn’t pretend that that thing with Marisol was anything more than me trying to—trying to—fill some gap while you were with Natalia. And I was a dick, but—you broke up with Natalia and I’m so tired of pretending. I’d follow you anywhere, patito, but I—I wish you’d follow me home.”
“Okay,” Buck nods, heart whirring with this new revelation and taking upon itself to glow, not in petty vindication, but with sweet, sticky happiness, honey-gold and sun-warm as it spreads from cell to cell, his whole body alive with it. “Okay. I’m following you home.”
“I know you are now,” Eddie frowns. “You have to make sure I don’t die in my sleep.”
“Jesus, Eddie, first of all, dark,” Buck laughs, “and, secondly, no, I mean I’m following you home. I mean I love you in every way. I mean I broke up with Natalia because everything was always about death and I want things to be about life and—that’s you. It’s been you for a long time.”
“Oh,” Eddie says, still frowning. “Does this mean you’re not sleeping on the couch tonight?”
“Do you want me to sleep on the couch tonight?”
Eddie shakes his head. “No, I’ve never wanted you to sleep on the couch. You’re always falling asleep on that damn couch. I want you to fall asleep in my bed.”
Buck laughs again. “I think we can make that happen.”
The nurse comes back in with discharge papers, Hen at her shoulder, and Eddie asks, “Hey, what’s the medical advice about making out with a concussion?”
Hen says, “Oh, for the love of God.”
And, Buck thinks, if you’re hand-in-hand with someone the way the two of them are, who’s following who doesn’t really matter, because they’re getting there together.