a generation lost in space

through many sets of eyes

rating T | words 3,117

The silence stretches. He doesn’t dare glance over, scared of what he’ll see. He knows Hen won’t lie to him. He knows he can trust her, but he’s terrified. He’s more terrified than he’s ever been in his life.

“Buck,” is all she says, and he can hear it all in her voice.

“I would know,” Buck insists, leaning his head back on the couch, trying to swallow down the lump in his throat. “I would know if I’m in love with him.” He can’t breathe, not really. “I would’ve known.”

He knows she notes the tense change. “Have you talked to him?” she says, and Buck is so grateful for her, so glad that someone’s listening to him, that someone knows him enough to know where this is coming from.

“Yes,” he says, and he thinks of saying the words out loud.

“What did he say?” Hen asks, and the bubble of two expands to three.

“He said he was in love with me,” Buck says, easily, looking at the ceiling. He still can’t bear to look over. “He said he’s been in love with me for a long time.”

And he said it like a goodbye. Like it was okay to say because he was saying goodbye. That’s the part Buck can’t say out loud. It wasn’t any different than before, the phone call. They skipped hellos like they always do, talked easy, back and forth, and Eddie hadn’t said it any different than he said anything else. Said, “I think I’m going to be here for a while,” and Buck’s heart constricted, and then in the same breath, “and I think I’m in love with you. Think I have been for a while,” and it felt more like Buck was going to die. Like everything changed in one moment, and then as if nothing had happened, Eddie added on, voice wavering just once, “I tried that new recipe you sent me.”

Buck hadn’t even been able to touch it. “Did you like it?” he asked, barely breathing. And, “A while?” about coming back.

“Chris said it tasted like home,” Eddie said, quiet and warm, and quieter, “Years, I think.” Buck hadn’t known which one he was talking about, past or future, and he had been too scared to ask.

“Don’t wait for me,” Eddie said, firm and a little wistful, and Buck hadn’t responded so they kept talking about little nothings until Buck watched his phone go dark and sat on his couch staring into nothing until he thought he could stand up without his knees giving out from under him.

“Oh, Buck,” Hen says, and Buck loves her but he can’t bear to hear it.

His chest hurts so badly he has to put his hand to it, has to press. “I would’ve known,” he repeats, because he would’ve. How could he have missed something like that when he had Eddie? How could he be too late? He can’t be. He isn’t.

Years, Eddie said. Eddie had maybe been in love with him for years, and Buck didn’t know, and he didn’t realize he—he didn’t know he—

“I would’ve known if Eddie loved me,” he says, voice cracking, and that’s the heart of it. He would’ve known because he knows Eddie, because he worked hard on knowing him, everything about him, and if he had known, he would’ve loved him too because that’s what Eddie would have deserved and because it would’ve been easy loving Eddie back and because he would’ve been in love with Eddie too, if Eddie were in love with him. “How could I not know?”

He’s crying, he realizes through shaky breaths, and Hen wraps her arms around him. Buck slumps into her, puts his damp eyes on her shoulder, admits, here in a safe place, “He told me not to wait.”

“Sounds like he’s looking out for you,” Hen says, and Buck knows she’s right, but it’s the way she says it, sadly, like she knows it’s a goodbye too.

“I love him, Hen,” Buck says then because he couldn’t tell Eddie that on the phone, because he couldn’t torture them both. “I loved him.”

Buck doesn’t know how dinner turned out, considering he threw it together with whatever was in the house after he opened the door to Christopher and Eddie. He might have blacked out then. He thinks he hugged them. Thinks he remembers turning on the stove. Turning it off. He must’ve served everyone on muscle memory because they all have plates and they're sitting at the table. He can't remember how they got there.

There they were, on the doorstep, no warning, like a dream he’d had too many times to hope anymore.

He can’t eat. Christopher shovels food down like a teenager and then he slinks to his room where Buck helps set up an air mattress before he returns and the pasta is slipping off Eddie’s fork, Eddie who looks terrified, and exhausted from the drive, shadow on his jaw, who can’t looking at him and looking away, and Buck can’t stop staring, can't stop drinking him in.

“I know everything about you,” Buck finally says after they clean up dinner in silence. That's what he's been working on. That's where he fell short, before.

Eddie won’t look at him now, hands still where he’s drying a plate that doesn’t need drying anymore. “Not everything,” he says.

“I should know everything about you,” Buck corrects himself with a shrug, like his heart isn’t beating out of his chest. He doesn’t have any idea what the hell he’s doing, but he doesn’t think, taking the plate out of Eddie’s hands to put it away. He’s aware Eddie is watching him, though he isn't when Buck glances over.

Eddie hands over the towel when Buck’s hand is out, stares down like there's some sort of answer in Buck's hands. It may be simpler than the one in Buck's eyes. Buck can’t bear to look away completely, so he keeps Eddie in his periphery, drapes the towel over the oven door before turning back.

“You waited,” Eddie says, low and angry, and now he’s looking at Buck, finger coming up to point as he steps forward, poking Buck in the chest. “I told you not to wait," and it finally feels like the tension between them decompresses.

“How could I not?” Buck says, taking fistfuls of Eddie’s shirt into his hands with care, though his knuckles are white with how hard he’s holding on. He drags Eddie closer, until they’re nose to nose, and he knows Eddie wants a fight because it’s easier than everything else. He knows that look locked behind Eddie’s eyes, tucked behind the anger. He can see the relief, because he thinks Buck is finally going to shove him, because he’s finally going to fight him, the way Eddie knows is easier than talking.

Buck says, instead, “I’m sorry.” It's for many things, for before.

He watches Eddie swallow, and it hits him all over again that Eddie is right here, that Buck can hold him close. “I didn’t even know,” Eddie croaks, the edge of his anger already bleeding out, but he lifts his chin like he has to stand his ground. Not against Buck, Buck knows because he knows Eddie, and he thinks it and then he thinks of the months he's spent running his hands over every memory to try and figure out what he missed.

“Yeah,” Buck says, “but I should’ve,” and then Eddie sags in his grip, and his bottom lip trembles, and his eyes are wet where he can’t seem to look away from Buck.

Buck doesn’t think, looking at him like that. Just says, “I didn’t either.”

"Didn't what?" Eddie asks, one of his hands coming up and he touches Buck's cheek ever so gently, like he's not even thinking about it either. Buck leans into it anyway, fits his cheek in the curve of Eddie's palm, wonders how he can feel it like a bloom of warmth in his chest.

"Didn't know I loved you," he says, like it's simple. Like he didn't cry over it the first time and then so many times after that. Like it hadn't filled his entire body and overflowed and refused to stop. It still hasn't run dry, and a part of Buck thinks it never would have, that he could've moved on but he would've loved Eddie forever.

Eddie's breath hitches. He blinks and one of his tears escapes, and Buck doesn't think now either, leans forward and kisses the tear off him, licks the salt off his lips, and then Eddie turns his head just a little, and Buck kisses his mouth too, soft and slow.

He thought that might be it, just once, and it might have been enough, except Eddie's hand lands on the back of his neck and he keeps him there, and Buck can't remember why he'd ever thought he might stop kissing Eddie in the first place.

After that conversation with Hen, long ago, he couldn't figure out how he hadn't known. After he'd dug into the deepest places within himself, after late nights and heartbreak and loneliness, Buck had realized that he already gave Eddie everything he had to give. It was all there, when Buck figured out how to look.

"You missing me?" Eddie asked him only once, after a long shift, when his voice was worn with exhaustion, soft with affection.

hello and welcome to the silly little collage shuffle I made for my silly little hanahaki cot3 fic 🫶🏻🫶🏻 they are so special to me !! (fic summary and details below the cut)

you can read the fic here on ao3 !!

“Fuck. Off.”

“Davey, wait, jus’ let me—“

“I don’t wanna hear it.”

“I can explain—“

Davey finally whirls around, his eyes blazing.

“Which part of fuck off,” he enunciates clearly, in a voice like a knife’s edge, “was too difficult for you to understand?”

Jack swallows hard, faltering back a step.

“It’s not what’cha think,” he begs. “I swear it’s not what’cha—“

“And what the fuck would you know about what I think?” Davey asks with a derisive scoff. “I’ll tell you what I think: I think you’re a coward and a traitor and I can’t believe I was stupid enough to trust you when you’ve been lying to me from the moment we met. Tell me, Jack,” he says, his eyes glittering like shattered glass. “Were you playing both sides from the start? Or was Pulitzer’s offer just too good to refuse?”

you could call me a fool

Georgewood Secret Kissing Lessons 5+1 with eventual Cot3

“I’ve never kissed anyone before, okay?” Lockwood spluttered. “I don’t know. What if I’m not any good at it?”

Without looking up from his book, George shrugged. “You’ll be fine. It’s not hard, you just need practice.”

“What, are you offering then?” he joked.

George glanced up at him, an amused smile curling his lips that quickly dropped when he realised Lockwood’s expression didn’t entirely match his tone.

Was Lockwood… being serious?

[Or: 5 times George tries to teach Lockwood how to kiss better, and the 1 time he gets a lesson of his own.]