Z E D

“This doesn’t feel like a sit down conversation, it’s not a big deal, I’m just asking if you knew—”

“Eddie,” she cuts him off. Her smile is kind and gentle and Eddie gets the quick building feeling he should’ve stayed in the bunk room. “Sit down.”

He sits. 

Hen pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose and tilts her head a little as she smiles at him. The head tilt reminds him of Buck because he finds little pieces of Buck everywhere. He’s in the song on the radio in Eddie’s truck on the way to work and he’s in Christopher’s English homework because the stories Buck used to tell him when he was little enough to ask for them influenced his creative writing. He’s in Eddie’s kitchen even when he isn’t because Buck got him a set of rainbow silicon spatulas because they were a buy one get one free deal. 

A copy of Buck’s loft keys on Eddie’s keychain, his name in the calendar that he wrote himself take out w/ buck ! no skipping in his messy, nearly illegible scrawl. 

But Eddie can read it because he doesn’t think there’s a universe out there where he doesn’t understand Buck down to the chicken scratch. 

“I didn’t know, not for sure. It wasn’t ever something I thought about at length, either. I’ve mentioned it to Karen once or twice and there have been times where she’d shoot me a smirk from across Bobby and Athena’s backyard at something Buck said, but it’s not something I’ve ever discussed. That doesn’t feel right.” 

“But you knew?” 

“I wasn’t surprised.”

He fidgets with a rubber band someone left on the table. He wants to ask more. Needs to know what made her realize it in Buck. If she sees the same in him. 

Eddie’s never really thought about it. Or, that’s not quite true. He knows, in a way. That something’s never been quite right. That he’s never felt for women what he’s been told he’s supposed to feel. 

Dating isn’t supposed to feel like a performance, he doesn’t think. Nobody else seems to think it is. 

He likes the sex for the most part. Figured that was enough to carry it. Sex feels good but then again he’s pretty sure sex always feels good when both people want it. It’s not like it’s some sort of burden to eat his girlfriends out but there’s something missing. He likes making them feel good but he doesn’t like how high pitched their moans are of the soft sighs that spill out of their mouths. There are soft tits where hard chests should be and it doesn’t. 

It doesn’t feel right. The sex is good, it's fine, he'll take it, but—

Love shouldn’t be just about sex. Eddie doesn’t want it to be. 

“Did you ever assume something about—” he cuts himself off but Hen sees right through him anyway. Maybe lesbians have some sort of psychic third eye that lets them see beyond the performative exterior he puts on. He tries not to squirm as she looks at him. 

“About you?” she asks, and the world doesn’t stop spinning or start spinning backwards or tilt on its axis. Eddie thinks it should. It’s the least the earth could do, honestly. 

He swallows. 

“Yeah.”

Hen hums and Eddie can tell she’s trying to gather her thoughts and form them into sentences that won’t send him running for the hills. Being—this doesn’t feel like something to run from, though. Not so much anymore. Maybe a few years ago, maybe when he first got to LA and his parents' words and their bitterness were still stuck to his skin. When he still felt like he wasn’t good enough. Not for his son, not for Shannon, not for himself. 

He feels good enough now. And he thinks he’d like to fall for someone the way Buck seems to be falling for Tommy. Except he’s really fucking scared the person he’s falling for is—

Well. 

Buck. 

It shouldn’t come as a surprise, and it doesn’t, not really, it’s the kind of thought that sits quietly in the back of your mind and waits for you to uncover it. 

Buck came out and it uncovered itself. 

Buck is bi. Buck dates men. 

Buck could date him. And he isn’t.

That’s the crux of it all. Eddie was drunk and Buck’s arm was around his shoulder and he felt lightheaded, couldn't stop smiling so hard his cheeks hurt the next day. Bubblier than the champagne. Floaty. It wasn’t even a new feeling, not with Buck. 

He makes him so fucking happy. 

Even through hell, Buck makes him happy. That’s love, probably. Definitely. Eddie tries not to think about it too hard otherwise he might have to go see Dr. Salazar again, and he really doesn’t feel like explaining this to the woman who diagnosed him with repression. 

Getting an I told you so from his sisters would be one thing. 

“Do you want me to be honest?”

“Yes,” he says, far too quick and clipped and awkward. He smiles tightly. 

“Yeah. I thought you were, actually. When you got to the station, you wouldn’t talk about Christopher’s other parent. Even in the beginning, you barely talking about him. I figured an army guy from Texas probably wasn’t used to being out. And then you weren’t gay, so I assumed you were just being a scorpio and not letting anyone in. But you let Buck in.”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t—there’s no bet about it. About the two of you. I don't think anyone would be surprised, but no one talks about it. That’s not the kind of thing you gossip about. But, yeah. People were surprised when the mysterious partner you wouldn’t talk about was your wife, and not a husband.”

“Do you think I’m in love with Buck?”

“That’s not my place to tell you.”

“Hen. You’re my friend, and the only other queer person I know and trust enough to ask this to. I can’t exactly go ask him that question, and I don’t know who else to talk to. Do you think I’m in love with Buck?”

“Yes.”

Eddie’s exhale is shaky.