#*sighs

In my mind, there’s two sides to why he’s taking over Eddie’s lease:

He’s helping Eddie out, yes. But also he’s clinging to the main thing left in LA that is his connection with Eddie (outside of the 118). He’s trying to hold on to their friendship in any way he can. And he’s giving Eddie somewhere to return to. This is the more obvious one in my opinion.

Buck is also running from the good memories of Tommy in the loft. When he tried to get Tommy to move in with him, that was him trying to cling to Tommy. But after that rejection, (and lots of depression/denial baking) he’s done trying to hold on. He wants to forget about all of the good/bad memories he had with Tommy as a misguided attempt at moving on. It would be putting a bandaid on the wound instead of trying to figure out what went wrong or to get actual closure with Tommy. Plus the loft is wrapped up in the Ali and Taylor breakups too. So maybe instead of a “let Buck fuck” era, we see Buck focusing on himself and his friendships instead. But this whole second idea is probably just a delusional headcanon.

I think overall though, this could be a good time for an arc where Buck (FINALLY) figures out his identity outside of who he is to other people, like Tommy and the 118. We started to get a self-discovery arc with 6a and the lightning strike where he felt unsettled, but it was never resolved satisfyingly in my opinion. We got a part of it with Buck kissing Tommy, but again we haven't seen Buck sit with the impacts of his sexuality on his identity as a person.

To be clear, I don't think he needs to have a long drawn-out deep dive into queer history and labels or anything like that. If they do, great, but also labels aren't important for some people. In my mind, as an ally, he already did that anyway and that's why we haven't seen his typical research dive. But just have some kind of conversation with SOMEONE (Hen, Josh, or heck, maybe a therapist?) about how accepting his attraction (dare I say love) for Tommy has changed Buck and his perception of himself. Have him focus on the transition from ally to member of the LGBTQIA+ community.