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Buck wakes up to the sound of a blender. Some part of his brain knows this is concerning, but he can’t remember why.
He blinks his eyes open and orients himself. He’s on the Diaz couch — normal. It’s morning — normal. Eddie must be making a smoothie — not abnormal .
Except, he’s remembering as he bolts upright, that Eddie isn’t here. Eddie left to go get groceries half an hour ago. “You’re on Chris duty if he’s up before I’m back,” he’d announced, too chipper for the early hour. Buck had grunted at him on his way out the door.
Which means…Chris is doing something with a blender?? He’s about to sprint into the kitchen when Christopher appears in front of him looking very proud of himself and holding a very large glass of… something greyish and blended.
“I made you a smoothie!” he announces, holding out the almost-overflowing glass of sludge.
Buck, hesitantly, takes it. It has…an aroma.
“Oh, wow! Thank you! Does your dad let you use the blender?” He asks, measured, casual.
Christopher shrugs.
“I don’t know, I never have before. It wasn’t hard though.”
Buck’s not sure what age kids normally start using blenders, but Chris is a smart kid, it’s probably fine. Eddie probably won’t ban him from ever watching Christopher again. Probably.
“Yeah. Yeah. I guess if you still have all your fingers, we’re good. I would’ve made you a smoothie, bud.”
“I didn’t want you to make me a smoothie. I wanted to make you a smoothie,” Christopher grins. “Try it!”
Buck looks down at the glass in his hands. There are a lot of words that come to mind. Edible is not one of them.
“It’s a very interesting color! What’s in it?”
Christopher rolls his eyes.
“Anything can go in a smoothie, Buck. Try it!”
The smoothie is looking at him. It’s taunting him.
“You’re not gonna try it with me?”
Christopher shakes his head.
“It’s not for me, it’s for you! And for dad!”
Buck accepts his fate. There’s no way out of this.
He takes a sip.
It’s disgusting .
It’s a culinary feat, in some ways, because it tastes bitter, burnt, too sweet, and… spicy? all at the same time.
“Oh, wow. I uh, I mean wow! This is - - there’s lots of flavor!”
Christopher grins. “Are you going to finish it?”
Buck just manages to stop himself from gagging at the thought of it.
“Yeah - - yes,” he nods. “I just - - I want to savor it.”
Christopher nods, but continues to stand there. “Okay.”
He’s looking at Buck expectantly.
“Are you…going to watch me?”
“Yeah. You should drink the whole thing.”
Buck opens his mouth to say something, he doesn’t know what yet, when he’s saved by the front door opening. Eddie walks in with a few bags of groceries, smiling like he doesn’t have a care in the world. He looks beautiful and light and happy. He has no idea that his son and a blender are about to ruin his day.
Buck, if he were a better friend, might have screamed at him to run. Run as fast as you can. Save yourself.
He doesn’t, obviously. He might be the unrequited love of his life, but if he had to taste this monstrosity, he’s dragging Eddie down with him.
“Dad! I made you a smoothie!” Christopher announces.
And the thing is, he and Eddie have a lot of experience communicating in high-stakes life or death situations. They can tell what the other is thinking, know what move the other is going to make next, have a full conversation with their eyebrows.
This conversation goes like this:
- Eddie smiles at his son, assumes he and Buck have made a smoothie
- Eddie clocks the greyish monstrosity in Christopher’s hands
- Eddie’s eyes shoot to Buck’s
- Buck grins
“By himself!” he confirms.
- Eddie’s face drops, he raises one eyebrow, asks …how bad?
- Buck lets his eyes fall closed at the memory and, almost imperceptibly, shakes his head
- Eddie’s eye twitches, accepts his fate, turns to Christopher:
“I didn’t know you knew how to make smoothies.”
Christopher rolls his eyes.
“It’s not hard, dad.”
“What’s in it?” Eddie asks.
“Just…normal smoothie things,” Chris replies.
“Oh, I have a fun idea!” Buck tries. “Why don’t we all go around and list normal things we think you’d find in a smoothie. Chris, why don’t you start!”
Eddie drops the groceries by the front door, and Christopher immediately shoves the second glass into his hands.
Buck watches Eddie get a sniff of it. Hides a laugh behind his hand.
“Here, dad. Drink it.”
Buck grimaces in gleeful anticipation. Knows the moment the smoothie hits his tongue by the way his brows shoot up and his hand clenches around the glass.
Buck pushes against the urge to gag again as he watches Eddie swallow.
Eddie, wonderful, loving dad, Eddie, smiles through the pain.
“Mm mmm. Wow. That is - - really something!” He says to Chris.
Christopher lights up.
“I kept feeling like I was forgetting an ingredient so I just kept adding things to make sure it tasted good!”
“Right! Because that’s how it works!” Buck agrees. Eddie shoots him a glare.
“Buck! You didn’t warn me about just how good this is,” he accuses.
Buck grins, shrugs.
“I couldn’t find the words.”
Eddie narrows his eyes. What he means to say is, fuck you.
“I think my favorite part is how the flavor really stays with you. What is that - - is it something… spicy?”
“Candied jalapeños!” Chris chirps proudly.
“Right! Of course!” Eddie nods. “Thank you for this. I might drink my coffee first and then come back to it. Make sure I can savor this.”
“That’s what Buck said!” Christopher giggles.
“Oh I bet he did.”
Eddie wakes up to a mop of curly hair hovering about an inch from his eyeline. He blinks up at Christopher, who is…standing beside his bed, watching him sleep?
“How do you feel?” Christopher asks.
Eddie has no idea what is happening. His mind races through what he could be talking about, and halts to a stop when he remembers the smoothie. The smoothie and how weird Chris was being yesterday.
He loves his kid more than life itself but he cannot drink another one of his concoctions.
“A little… nauseous, actually,” he tries. “Might just have some coffee for breakfast.”
Christopher doesn’t seem phased by that. Doesn’t whip out a smoothie from behind his back.
“But do you feel any different?” he asks, eyes narrowing.
“…should I?”
“Hmm,” Chris sighs. “Maybe I did it wrong.”
“Did what wrong?” Eddie asks nobody because Christopher is already walking out of the room. Towards the living room, probably, because he had insisted that Buck stay over again last night.
Eddie follows him into the living room, where, sure enough, he’s set his sights on an unsuspecting Buck.
“Buck! You’re up! How are you feeling?” Chris is asking Buck.
Eddie watches Buck scan the room for a smoothie, visibly relaxing when he doesn’t see one.
“Um. Kind of full, actually. Might skip breakfast today.”
Eddie snorts.
“How does your heart feel?” Christopher asks.
Buck shoots a terrified glance at Eddie.
And, yeah, okay, it’s probably time he pulls the dad card here.
“Christopher, buddy. What is this about?” he asks.
Christopher spins around, eyes wide and guilty.
“Nothing! Nothing. I’m going to get some cereal. You should talk to Buck!” he says, hurrying away as fast as his crutches can take him.
Eddie turns to Buck. Narrows his eyes at him.
“What do you know?”
Buck gawks at him.
“What! I know as much as you know!” he shoots back, raising his hands up to convey his innocence.
“He told me to talk to you!” Eddie presses.
Buck crosses his arms across his chest defensively.
“I woke up, he asked how I was feeling, and then he started getting very ominous about my heart health. That’s all I know! What do you know?”
Eddie sighs, grips onto the back of the couch, leans his weight against it.
“He did the same thing to me. He said something about it not working. Said ‘ Maybe I did it wrong,’ then he came out here to interrogate you.”
Now Buck’s narrowing his eyes at him.
“Does he have any reason to want to poison you right now? Because I’m gonna be so mad if I get taken out by association.”
Eddie rolls his eyes.
“He’s 10! I still keep the bug spray locked up!”
“I don’t know, man!” Buck throws his arms up. “Maybe it was a prank? Maybe we drank, like, blended bugs or something.”
“Oh god. Christopher! ” he yells towards the kitchen.
He hears shuffling before a curly head of hair pops hesitantly around the doorframe.
“Yes?”
“Out with it, please. What was in the smoothies?”
Christopher sighs.
“I… can’t tell you.”
“You can’t tell me.” Eddie repeats.
Christopher nods.
“It won’t work if I tell you. Like a birthday wish.”
Eddie stares at his son while his brain tries to decode what that could possibly mean. Buck cracks the code first.
“It was a… potion?” Buck asks from behind him.
“Maybe..” Christopher says.
Eddie looks between the two of them. Feels insane.
“What kind of potion?” Eddie asks, eventually.
“Not a bad one, I promise!” Christopher replies.
Eddie sighs and turns to point at Buck.
“This is your fault somehow.”
Buck’s jaw drops open.
“ Me?? ”
Eddie nods. Crosses his arms across his chest.
“You’re the one who believes in curses and hexes! Now my kid is putting them in my blender!”
“Stop!!” Christopher shouts.
They both jump, snap their heads to look at him.
“You weren’t supposed to start fighting!” Christopher sighs. “You were supposed to get married!!”
And, well, no one knows what to say to that. Eddie stares at Christopher. Christopher stares at the floor. Eddie doesn’t know what Buck’s doing because he can’t bring himself to look.
Chris’s words echo around the room for who knows how long before Buck finally breaks the silence.
“It was a love potion , ” he whispers.
Chris takes a shuddery, frustrated breath.
“Yes. And now it’s never going to work!” he cries.
And Eddie , Eddie needs to do something. His kid is upset and he needs to do something.
“Okay. Okay. With me,” Eddie says, nudging Christopher into his bedroom and shutting the door behind them.
Christopher drops onto his bed with a huff. Eddie sits down next to him.
“Christopher. Chris. Why - - what - - Buck is my friend. Why would you think we’d get married?”
“Because!” Chris groans. “Skye’s parents were going to get divorced and then she made them a love potion smoothie and then the next day her dad moved back in!”
Eddie scratches at the back of his neck.
“Okay. That’s - - so, we can talk about what a coincidence is later. I still don’t understand. You want me and Buck to get married?” He’s trying for gentle, but even he can hear the shake in his voice.
“Yes!” Chris confirms, loudly enough that Eddie’s pretty sure Buck can hear this entire conversation. “You basically are already! And if you don’t marry him soon he’s going to get another girlfriend or boyfriend and marry them and he’ll leave us!”
Eddie, suddenly, is filled with a deep resentment for Past Eddie who didn’t take the opportunity to soundproof every room of this house.
“Buddy. Buck will always be in our lives, no matter what. He’s our Buck, right?”
Christopher groans.
“No! No! It’s not the same!” He collapses back on his bed, turns away from Eddie. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
Eddie reaches out, puts a hand on his ankle. Chris shakes him off.
“Maybe if you heard it from Buck - -”
“No. I don’t want to talk about it.”
Eddie sighs. “Okay. I love you.”
He takes one more look at his son, curled up and angry — feels the weight of another thing he’s done to let him down. Because he knows, can admit to himself now, that Chris isn’t seeing things. He’s picking up on Eddie’s ridiculous unrequited crush, and he’s making Buck drink horrific smoothies because of it. God, he wishes there was a chapter about this in the parenting handbooks.
He heads back out to the living room, finds Buck pacing back and forth in front of the couch.
“Did you, uh. Hear that?” Eddie asks, even though he already knows the answer.
Buck stops in his tracks. He nods.
“Most of it, yep.”
Eddie sighs, runs a hand through his hair and pulls .
“I’m so sorry,” he says, quiet enough not to carry. “I don’t know what’s gotten into him. And I’m sorry you had to drink that abomination of a smoothie.”
Buck huffs out a small laugh. Steps closer. Probably just so Christopher won’t hear them.
“Eddie.”
“Yeah?”
Buck takes a deep breath. Looks Eddie right in the eye.
“I don’t need another family.”
Eddie offers up a smile. It’s not supposed to be a sad smile, but as much as he tries for anything else, it feels like a sad smile. He feels split open, because he knows that Buck sees it, too.
“I know. I told him that you’ll always be here. I know that, Buck.”
Buck shakes his head, steps closer again.
“No, I - - I mean. I can keep looking, try to find someone who even comes close to coming close to what we’ve built, or I - - could not. Do that.”
He doesn’t miss the way Buck’s voice cracks. How his eyes search Eddie’s face. How his breathing speeds up.
“You… what do you mean?”
Buck looks at him. Has he always looked at him like that?
“You know what I mean.”
Eddie sucks in a breath but it gets caught in his throat. It escapes his mouth with a sharp laugh. This must be part of the prank. This whole thing must be a prank.
He waits for Buck to break, to start laughing, but he doesn’t. He looks at Eddie like he’s handing him his heart with one hand and a dagger with the other.
“You can’t mean that. You’re - - you - - Buck , you want kids.”
Buck doesn’t flinch.
“I already have one, don’t I?”
Eddie snaps his mouth shut.
“Of course you do. That’s not what I meant.”
Buck steps forward again. He’s so close now, Eddie has to look up to catch his eye. Buck’s looking him right in the eye when he says:
“I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather raise a kid with.”
Eddie lets out a breath. It feels like one he’s been holding for three years. Still, he grabs the metaphorical dagger and turns it on himself.
“Buck - - you can’t just…settle. You deserve to fall in love. You deserve to have blue-eyed, birthmarked babies that are all the best parts of you and the person you love. We can’t give you that. There are people who can give you that,” he begs Buck to understand. Begs him to push the dagger in.
He doesn’t. He never would.
“I don’t care. I don’t care about that. We could use a surrogate, or adopt, if we wanted to. But it could just be the three of us for the rest of our lives and I’d be so happy, Eddie. I don’t need anything else.”
Eddie takes a breath. Lets it out. Lets the dagger clatter to the floor.
“I need you to be really clear about what you’re saying.”
Buck huffs out a laugh.
“I don’t know how much clearer I can get. I want to have your babies.”
Eddie looks at him. Tries to find the answers on his face.
“Like, platonically?”
Buck rolls his eyes, raises an eyebrow.
“Eddie.”
“I don’t know! People do that!”
Buck laughs. He knows he’s laughing at him but it doesn’t feel cruel. It feels warm. It feels like love.
“No. No, platonic is not what I was envisioning.”
Eddie lets that sink in. Tries to rewrite the narrative in his brain. Tries to come up with something to say because Buck is just looking at him , and smiling, and waiting .
“Me?” he says eventually, like an idiot.
“Yes, you,” Buck laughs. “Of course, you. Chris wasn’t wrong, you know. We kind of already act like we’re married, just without the - - sexy parts.”
Eddie blinks.
“You want the sexy parts?”
Buck cocks his head.
“Do you want the sexy parts?”
Eddie buries his face in his hands. His face is burning hot.
“I’d like us both to stop saying the words sexy parts ,” he admits, dropping his hands and braving a glance at Buck. “But, uh. Maybe? I - - think so? I’ve never - - but I have, um. Thought. About it. You. I’ve thought about you. Like that.”
And Buck, he - - melts. Eddie watches the tension drain out of him in real-time. Like this is the last piece of the puzzle he’s spent his whole life trying to shove together.
Buck smirks.
“Oh yeah? Good thoughts?”
“Buck.”
“What! Give me a break, I just found out the guy I’m in love with has been thinking about my sexy parts.”
Eddie’s face could not be redder if it tried.
“I cannot believe you just said that out loud.”
“Which part?” Buck laughs. It’s full of false confidence and Eddie sees right through it. He grabs at Buck’s hip. Buck gasps at the contact. For how close they’ve been standing, they haven’t actually been touching until right now.
“Both parts,” Eddie whispers. “One of them because it’s a phrase that is going to be banned from here on out, and the other because you’re going to make my kid believe in magic potions.”
Buck slides his hands up Eddie’s chest, looping around his neck.
“I think it only counts as a successful potion if it works on both of us,” he says.
Eddie nods, pulls Buck in by the waist.
“Yeah. Like I said. You’re gonna make my kid believe in magic potions.”
Buck’s smile is so big and bright and honest.
“Really?”
“Yeah. I mean - - I think we should probably wait on the marriage thing, but yeah. Yeah.”
Buck tilts his head down, lets their noses bump against each other. Gives Eddie time to say something or stop him, ghosts his lips over Eddie’s, breathes - - and Eddie can’t take it, he closes the imperceptible distance and slams their mouths together.
Eddie gasps into it, because it has never felt like this. Never felt like coming home in the way it does right now. He kisses Buck with everything he has — tries to kiss every promise, every vow, against his lips, sweeps it across his tongue.
“ It worked! ”
Eddie pulls away, forgets where he is, finds blinking blue eyes and a grin. Turns towards the voice, finds his 10 year old genius, beautiful, perfect boy grinning up at him. He’s flooded with love and happiness and belonging.
“I have to go tell Skye!” Chris announces, turning on his heels and shutting his bedroom door.
Eddie’s brain comes back online.
“ Wait! Chris! It was not the smoothie!! Chris! It was not the smoothie! ”
Buck, the traitor, presses his giggles into Eddie’s neck.
“It might’ve been the smoothie,” he supplies unhelpfully.
Eddie sighs. Turns his head, presses a kiss into Buck’s morning curls.
“ It wasn’t the smoothie. ”