save me edmundo eddie diaz

the thought feels like razor-blades on his skin, like a bullet lodged in his shoulder. eddie doesn't know how to, is the thing. the words aren't going to come out right. he's never known how to tell someone other than christopher that he loves them without poisoning them.

still. still. eddie looks at buck, the big, broad reality of him, the knowledge under his skin that buck could, if eddie just asked. that they could have a life that's even more beautiful than the one they're living now, together but unspoken.

buck deserves better than silence, eddie knows. buck has always deserved better than silence, and eddie has so rarely been able to give it to him. he can give it to him now.

on the couch in buck's house, eddie opens his mouth. closes it.

"what is it, eddie?" buck asks, because buck always knows when eddie wants to say something, is always watching.

i love you. i love you.

"nothing."

in the locker room, light carding through buck's curls; i want you shrivels in his throat. behind the engine, buck grinning as he flicks soapy water into eddie's face; i want us to be together turns to ash in his sternum. sitting on the back porch in buck's big backyard and watching his eyes soft and glowing; please, please, please kiss me until i forget my own name ties itself into knots on his tongue.

eddie can't say it, he realizes. the words are like an atrophied muscle, desiccated from disuse. he tries, again and again, to open his heart to buck. inside, the words are too weak to escape. hope remains at the bottom of the box. hope remains trapped.

coward, he tells himself. this voice sounds like shannon.

maybe it wasn't meant to be, after all. if this is the best he can do, then what can he even offer buck? words that have died, a heart sluggish from disuse, a man who has ruined every home he's ever touched.

eddie looks at himself in his bathroom mirror, the lines beginning at the edges of his eyes, every smile line drawn by this impossible life that he'd never thought he'd be able to deserve. how selfish, to want something more, despite it all. how foolish, to think that he would be capable of it.

he's almost startled when he sees the tear rolling down his jaw. the next one. one by one, dripping onto the countertop. he can feel a pressure in his throat, a decade of words dissolved into wastewater and rot inside of him. he clenches his teeth, but something like a sob escapes him anways.

"eddie?"

he presses his knuckles to his face in a futile attempt to hide it, but he can hear buck's footsteps inside the tiled bathroom. he hadn't even heard his front door open. or maybe he had, and it is just that buck is so integral a part of his home that it did not register as notable in his mind.

"eddie, what's-- what's wrong?" there's a frantic edge to buck's voice, another step closer. eddie steps back. the footsteps go silent.

"eddie," buck says, heartbroken. eddie lets out another, helpless sob. he's never been a pretty crier.

a rustle, then gentle, tentative touch. eddie wants to flinch away from it. but, the thing at the bottom of the box. he trembles, instead.

"please," buck says. "you have to tell me what's wrong."

"i'm in love with you."

silence. and, oh. eddie was right. he really only knows how to wield love in a way that hurts.

"you--" buck's voice shakes. his fingers, on eddie's elbows, are shaking too. "you-- what?"

"i love you," eddie's voice quavers. "i'm sorry. i didn't mean to say it like that."

silence, then: "how did you mean to say it?"

eddie presses his knuckles deeper into his eyes, hiding. "i don't know. not like this."

"but you were going to tell me?" there's a strange note in buck's voice.

"i was trying." bitter, trembling from his lips. poison is so much easier to spill than anything sweet.

fingers on his hands. eddie struggles, but only nominally. buck tugs his hands down, and eddie blinks away the blur of his vision, looks at the gentle hold that buck has around his palms. he wants to tell him to hold on tighter. he knows he does not have that right.

"eddie," buck breathes out. "you were-- you were trying to tell me that you love me?"

"i couldn't."

a pause, then a soft laugh, so dissonant with eddie's mood that it makes him look up. buck is smiling at him, eyes red-rimmed, bright, smile luminous.

"you did," he says. "i-- oh, that's what you meant. i've been trying to figure it out."

"you-- what?"

"you were being weird lately!"

"you're weird," eddie says, instinctive. buck laughs, head tilted back, looks at him like eddie did something incredible, instead of this fumbling, awkward thing.

"you are so--" buck's eyes sparkle, and eddie startles as his hands cup eddie's jaws, thumbs wiping away his tears. "i'm sorry i didn't hear you."

"i should've been able to say it out loud."

"you did," buck repeats, marveling, sure, hopeful, and kisses him.

(after, curled up in bed together, eddie in buck's LAFD tee and buck curled around him like a question mark, answered, eddie mumurs all the things that had been so stuck in his throat. all the softest words that he'd been unable to dislodge. buck trembles at every one, and eddie gets to wipe his tears away, this time.