#bamf buck

Despite the rancid feeling of shame that coated his tongue and made him want to lower his head like a kicked puppy, Eddie kept his eyes on the man in front of him. 

Buck was seething mad. 

Eddie had never seen his best friend look like this before. Eyebrows pulled together tight, a deep crease on his forehead, jaw clenched so tight that Eddie wondered if Buck would need dental work after this, the anger making his eyes blaze with a feral darkness. 

And he’d never seen Buck so quiet. 

It was soul-shattering, to be both the perpetrator and the target of Buck’s anger. 

Despite it all, Buck kept his touch gentle as Eddie sat on the counter in Buck’s bathroom. He hissed as the alcohol swab pressed into the wound on his torso, and even with Eddie’s body trying to shift away from the burn, Buck said nothing. Only a reprimanding swipe of the swab as he concentrated on his task. 

“Buck.” Eddie tried to get Buck to look at him, to look up from the task. His jaw clenched and loosened, throat working as Eddie’s voice pierced the heavy silence. 

“Not a word, Eddie.” Buck’s words were rough on the edges, hurting infinitely more than the bruises that littered his body.

“But just...” With a curl of his upper lip, Buck finally made eye contact with him. Eddie’s words died in his throat at the fire spitting from that normally-warm gaze. Buck’s face was unyielding, every inch the dangerous man Eddie had met tonight.

His best friend had gone cold with fury, and it was all his fault. 

“I don’t want to hear it.” Buck snapped. The statement left no room for any argument, so Eddie quietly looked down at his bruised and blistered hands. 

Tonight had been rougher than normal. All of his opponents had fought dirty, in ways Eddie hadn’t encountered in years, not even during his time in the army. As a result, the skin on his knuckles was bruised to hell, even with the protective tape. 

He’d only started using the tape to avoid the visible bruising he knew would be there. But the side effect of that was that the tape dug into the skin on his palms and wrists, leaving streaks of blistering multi-coloured lines that decorated his normally tan skin with arrays of purple, yellow, blue and red.

Just like the rest of his body.

Eddie felt put on display for Buck, a visible showing of all the pain he’d been burying deep inside him for years. It had nothing to do with Eddie leaning back against the wall half-naked while Buck tended to him. No, this vulnerability came from the embarrassment of Buck having to clean up his mess, once again. This came from the embarrassment of having been caught doing something that Eddie knew he shouldn’t have been doing.

Buck had dragged Eddie out of a street fight today. Eddie still wasn’t quite sure how he’d found him, but one moment, Eddie was pummeling his opponent, and the next, Buck was dragging him out of the fence with an ironclad grip on his wrist. 

The car ride back to Buck’s apartment was spent in total silence, Buck’s knuckles going white as he gripped the steering wheel like a lifeline. Eddie had been angered at being treated like a child, and shocked at how things had gone down. But one dark look from Buck had silenced all of his complaints. For a very long moment, Eddie had wondered if Buck would’ve decked him, too.

God knew he deserved it.

Whatever it was, Eddie’s anger over the lawsuit meant that he’d been treating Buck cruelly, even though a large part of him knew Buck didn’t deserve the coldness. And yet, Buck had come out to save Eddie from himself.

Now, Eddie looked at the man with an analytical gaze. Why had he done that? Why had he risked his life just to pull Eddie out of the foray? Why had Buck come for him even after Eddie kept hurting him? Why did Buck keep trying to save him?

While Eddie wound himself in knots with these questions, Buck kept himself busy by swiping away the rest of the blood and dirt that caked Eddie’s skin with a wet towel, his rare temper permeating the air around them.  

Normally, whatever hung between them was the prospect of something more. The prospect of being able to pull the other man close and hold onto him forever. A charged, intimate energy that seemed to follow Buck and Eddie. But now, this was a different kind of charged energy, almost tangible in taste. This energy left the bitter taste of self-loathing in his mouth. Buck had never been one to get this angry. Not as his girlfriend left him, not as his leg was crushed, not even when Bobby had stopped him from coming back. 

Eddie had never seen him this angry, ever.

Despite it all, Buck still tended to him as gently as he could, almost as if he couldn’t bear the thought of even first-aid hurting Eddie. What he failed to realize was that Buck’s silence was cutting Eddie the most. It’d been the entire catalyst to a chain of falling dominoes in the first place. Buck had kept the rope to his sanity firmly in his grasp, while everything else in Eddie’s life fell apart. 

First Shannon, then his parents pushing for him to move back to El Paso, then the tsunami. His son was suffering in ways that he couldn’t even imagine, waking up screaming in the middle of the night. Sometimes for Buck, sometimes for him, and other times for Shannon.

Then slowly, with all the things life had thrown at the two of them, that rope frayed until it snapped too. With the lawsuit, Eddie didn’t have his remaining anchor, and suddenly, all the emotions he’d locked inside him burst. His temperament overwhelmed him, enough for him to land himself in a holding cell. 

Lena had been right; the street fighting was a great outlet once in a while. It wasn’t her fault that she’d introduced Eddie to it. Eddie had been the one to take full advantage of it, taking it ten steps too far.

When Buck came back, it was like all of that thrown right in his face. How badly Eddie had come to depend on Buck as a co-parent, as a companion, as a friend after years of traversing on his own. With all of that ripped away from him so suddenly, Eddie's insecurities got the better of him. As a result, he’d begun to push the man away in the only way he knew how to: through mean words and an even-meaner attitude. 

Once Buck had gotten most of the injuries on his torso patched up, he moved onto the one on Eddie’s head. It was a short, diagonal gash on his forehead from his hairline to the edge of his eyebrow. 

“Buck, I’ll do it.” Eddie approached tentatively. Buck just swatted his hand away and rose to his full height, tilting Eddie’s head backwards with two fingers under the chin.

Eddie stared up at him as Buck pressed cotton balls to the split skin. There was nowhere else to look; every bit of his attention was captivated by this man in front of him. 

The straight line of his jaw looked like it was cut out of stone as the muscle in his cheek jumped incessantly. The low sloping of his nose, the concern so clearly painted over his sculpted features, disguised by a mask of well-placed rage. His normally-grinning mouth now set in a thin line.

Eddie understood rage; it was his next resort when emotional shutdown didn’t work. And look how well that’d worked out in his favour. Eddie was constantly at war with himself on a good day. The uncaring way he’d treated his best friend meant that his hurt and anger took the steering wheel; enough that Eddie felt like he was watching his own body from a third person’s point of view.

He looked back up at Buck’s eyes only to jerk in realization as they shone a little too brightly under the white light. He peered beneath the mask of cold fury to find how scared Buck had been. How worried the man still was. 

Eddie had been so blinded by his own wallowing that he hadn't given a thought to what Buck was feeling.

“Buck.” This time, Eddie grasped his hand where it was swiping at the wound. Surprisingly, Buck was compliant as he looked at Eddie, swallowing around what was no doubt a lump in his throat. “I’m sorry.”

He didn’t have any words outside the whisper-thin ones he’d just uttered. Hell, he’d made Buck cry. Eddie would never forgive himself for that. He lowered his gaze, closing his own eyes.

“I can’t talk about this with you right now.” Buck began, twisting his wrist out of Eddie’s grasp, the naked emotion eerily gone from his rough voice. “I’m going to put this last bandage on, and you’re going to go upstairs to bed and sleep this off. We’re going to talk about this in the morning.”

Firm fingers stuck a bandage to the gash on his forehead. Eddie raised his head to look at his friend, feeling a wash of everything and nothing at once, after months of having denied himself this one thing. The one thing that completed him, the one thing that him and Christopher had always been able to depend on.

To have the rug yanked from beneath their feet with the lawsuit was like waking up drenched in ice-cold water.

As if knowing where Eddie’s thoughts had taken him, Buck took a step back and then another. He stepped out of the way of the door, his intention clear as his jaw worked, staring holes into the floor.

Eddie’s heart hurt with Buck’s distancing, but it was probably for the best. Both of them were too raw to talk reasonably about anything. He slowly slid down from the counter and walked out, his physical and emotional exhaustion overpowering his urge to explain himself.

Even so, he lay wide awake in Buck’s bed. Eddie could hear the other man shuffling about downstairs, probably too agitated to sleep. The apartment was far too quiet; not even the sounds of the city would approach them tonight.

He didn’t even know why he was enabling Buck’s anger. It was Buck who rushed to get back to work. It was Buck who collapsed after throwing up blood, scaring the living daylights out of everyone. It was Buck who still pushed to come back, and despite even a freaking tsunami, wouldn’t take a minute to rest. It was Buck who decided to sue Bobby and the department, dragging all their names through the dirt.

It was Buck who left him.

As soon as he thought it, he knew he was wrong. His own anger stemmed from nothing but personal biases that he had no right to let cloud his judgement. Buck had been wrongfully terminated, and the way they’d all treated him when he’d first came back was more than enough grounds for him to fight for his rights. He could’ve even lodged complaints against them about that behaviour. God knew that anyone with two cents of self-respect would’ve done the same thing in his position.

Either way, seeing Buck back around the station only brought back the stark fear he’d felt when Buck collapsed on Bobby and Athena’s porch. It brought back the abandonment he’d felt when he’d woken up and was faced with the fact that he couldn’t talk to Buck and by extension, neither could Christopher. It brought back the betrayal he’d felt when the lawyer threw his personal business back in his face.

After their grocery store argument, Eddie knew that it was a cheap shot to use Christopher as a cover for his own hurt. Essentially, he’d thrown his kid in the line of fire, knowing that was what would make Buck hurt the most. And he’d hit his target. He’d known what he was doing the entire time, and he hated himself for it. 

He was also aware that Buck had made it a point to call Christopher through Carla at least once a day, but yet kept his and Eddie’s strained relationship out of the mix. He could tell because his son was happier these days, and had stopped asking him about Buck altogether. Carla’s disapproving glares only confirmed his suspicions. 

Buck loved his son with everything in him, and his love for Christopher had always been independent of his relationship with Eddie. Which was a feat that even Shannon couldn’t achieve.

It wasn’t fair for him to compare Buck and Shannon, but yet, he couldn’t stop thinking about how different it was. Shannon had let Eddie’s faults cloud her relationship with Christopher, but Buck hadn’t. In all the years he’d been married to Shannon, she’d never made an effort to support the horrors he’d seen, or to support how hard it was to adjust to civilian life. Hell, it was hard even nearly five years after the fact.

Buck understood that adjustment. He’d easily slotted into place in the Diaz home, picking up whatever slack Eddie couldn’t carry alone. He’d been first to help Eddie with anything he needed, including Carla. He’d been the first to acknowledge that Eddie had atoned for re-enlisting, and had helped him work past that guilt. If anyone’s love for Christopher rivaled Eddie’s own, it was Buck’s.

Buck used his whole heart in anything to do with them, and this was how Eddie had repaid him.

His mind raced too fast for him to fall asleep. He lay on his back, arm over his eyes as he replayed the night in his head over and over again. With each new thought, his battered body sent pangs of soreness through him, as if reprimanding him.

Eddie stared down at the sixth opponent he’d just beaten as thunderous applause roared around him. The man spit blood out onto the dusty floor, groaning in pain. A feral grin took up residence on his face, the beast of rage quieting temporarily inside him. 

As two people dragged the now-delirious man out of the circular ring, Eddie looked up only to freeze at the sight of very familiar blue eyes.

Buck.

His back went ramrod straight at the aura the younger man was projecting. Buck was staring at him with a myriad of emotions; disbelief, terror, wrath, sadness all warred as his expression shifted to the drunken crowd around the fence. cheering Eddie on. Eddie watched as he took in the thick wads of cash many people were carrying, the broken glass that littered the floor, the splatters of blood that decorated the floor of the match grounds.

Suddenly, Buck settled on the emotion of wrath as he started weaving through the crowd. His approach reminded Eddie of a predator prowling for his next hunt. Eddie’s eyebrows furrowed as he tracked Buck all the way up until the other man was standing in front of him.

“What are you doing here?” Eddie hissed. Buck offered nothing but a sneer as he clamped his large hand down on Eddie’s wrist and started dragging him towards the exit. He dug his heels in the ground and thrashed around Buck’s grip, as much as he could without hurting him, but it was all futile. Buck’s anger had given him a vice-like strength, one that Eddie didn’t think was smart to test. It wouldn’t bruise, but it sure as hell held him captive where he was.

“Hey, where you taking him, man?” His sponsor, Jordan, skidded to a halt in front of them. “We’ve placed bets on Diaz, you can’t take him.”

“I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll pay him off, provided that he never comes back.” Eddie would’ve been bothered by the statement if the tone of voice hadn’t shocked him. He had never heard Buck speak in such a gravelly, dangerous tone before. 

“No can do. As much as I love money, all these people are itching for a fight.” Jordan gave them a filthy grin, sweeping his arms out to the crowd that was now demanding a new show. “I have far more coming from them than anything you could offer me, pretty boy.”

“Buck, this isn’t your scene. Just go home.” Eddie used the distraction to try to pull his arm out of Buck’s grip. “I don’t see why this matters to you anyway. Just leave.”

He ignored Eddie and leaned in closer to Jordan. “If I beat the next opponent in less than three minutes, you are going to let us walk out of here without another word, and I won’t call the police. Otherwise, you’re going to have worse problems than your star fighter walking out on you.”

His voice was lethal, low and threatening. Whatever he’d seen in Buck’s face was enough to make the man double-take. The self-indulgent smirk dropped from Jordan’s face as his mouth snapped shut, nodding quickly to the terms. Eddie, however, had his own set of issues with them.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” He exploded into angry whispers. “You have no right to just waltz in here like you own the damn place. We’re not even talking to each other right now!”

“You are not one to be lecturing me on right or wrong right now, Diaz." Buck stayed calm but his eyes glinted dangerously as he emphasized Eddie’s last name. “Don’t you dare move from here.”

The wild look on Buck’s face pinned him in place anyway, not that Eddie would ever let him know that. Surprisingly enough, he wasn’t scared of him, even instinctively knowing that this Buck could do anything to anyone. 

Buck climbed into the fence, looking out of place with his jeans and T-shirt but calculating none the less. Eddie’s eyes widened as he took in Buck’s opponent; this was one of the champion fighters of the ground. Even Eddie hadn’t fought against him, but Buck looked utterly unconcerned as he sized him up.

As soon as the whistle blew, the champion and Buck circled one another, the latter completely at ease with who he was dealing with. Eddie watched with his heart in his throat, fear pulsing an erratic rhythm through his veins. Three minutes seemed too little.

He watched as the hulking log of a man threw the first punch. Swift as lightning, Buck had his fist blocked in a hand and using the small element of surprise he’d gained, he twisted the balled-up hand around, disarming the champion immediately. Eddie watched with rapt shock as Buck moved with dangerous grace as he blocked every single punch and kick thrown his way. As the clock approached one minute, Buck leveraged a perfect roundhouse kick to the side of the champion’s head.

And down he went.

Buck wasn’t even sweating as the crowd quieted. In literally less than one-minute, Buck had picked apart the best fighter there was, with hardly any trouble, enough that the large man was wailing in pain as his bloodied, battered body crawled out of the ring. In pin-drop silence, he dug out a wad of cash from his pocket and threw it at Jordan’s face, who fumbled with the amount but stayed mum. He walked back to Eddie, his face closed off to any questions.

“Get your stuff and meet me in the car.” Eddie complied quietly, collecting his winnings and hastily leaving the locker room. By the time he came back out, there was already another fight in the works and the cheering crowd seemed to have forgotten about him altogether.

The car ride back to Buck’s apartment was suffocating. Eddie was bursting to the brim with questions and burning rage at the audacity of Buck to take this away from him too.

He didn’t have anything else.

Eddie gave up on sleep after running the night through his mind for the fifth time. A look at the clock told him that it'd been an hour since he'd come up here. Throwing the covers off, he gingerly padded to the balcony of the loft. His sock-clad feet made no sound on the wooden floor as he moved quietly.

Peering over the railing, Eddie could see Buck sitting in the armchair, head in his hands. A single lamp was lit, casting shadows over the rest of the room. A glass of water lay drained on the table, probably a failed attempt to cool down. 

The defeated pose made Eddie’s body twinge in pain. He was the cause of that. He’d fucked everything up with Buck single-handedly. Sure, Buck could’ve just talked to them about the lawsuit but communication was a two-way street and Eddie hadn’t upheld his end of the bargain.

Now wrapped in one of Buck’s sweatshirts and sweatpants, Eddie padded silently downstairs. It was stupid to be so apprehensive about approaching his best friend. Buck would never hurt him and Eddie believed that to his core. Even him thinking that Buck would hit him was stupid.

Eddie knelt in front of Buck, reaching out to place a gentle hand on his shoulder. Buck raised his head to look at him with red-rimmed eyes and down-turned lips. Eddie’s heart jolted in residual pain, and he could feel the familiar pressure burning behind his eyes. The shock of tears spread through the rest of his forehead too.

“Why?” Buck uttered a single, hoarse word. The pleading look on his face froze Eddie in place, blue eyes searching dark ones for answers that Eddie didn’t have.

“I’m sorry.” He parroted again, bowing his head. 

“That’s not an answer, Eddie.” Buck lowered himself down to the floor, probing Eddie for any clues. “Why are you doing this?”

The surge of anger that flared up in him took him by surprise as he locked eyes with Buck. “Because I have nothing else.”

The words were raw and vulnerable, hanging between the two of them like an omen. Buck didn’t look to be breathing as his face went pale, as if Eddie had struck him instead.

“Eddie…” Buck tried to get a word in but Eddie was on a roll now.

“I can’t be as open as you are, Buck.” His voice cracked.

“No one’s asking you to, Eddie. I’m just asking you to let someone in, to let someone take some of the burden you’ve been shouldering.” His friend implored, ducking his head to look Eddie in the eye. "To talk to someone about all of this stuff that's been eating you up."

“How can I expect that from anyone?” He whispered. Everything he’d kept buried for the past decade came flowing out, and Eddie didn’t know if he’d ever stop talking. “In the last ten years, my life has changed in ways that I would’ve never imagined. Shannon getting pregnant, me enlisting, Christopher being born, me re-enlisting, and her leaving. Then she came back and gave me hope that we could be a family again. She told me she was pregnant again, Buck.”

Buck sucked in a breath, rapt with attention. These were a few details he hadn’t shared with Buck, things that Eddie hadn’t completely realized he could trust his best friend with. Even with the lawsuit, Eddie knew that he could trust Buck with anything. It wasn’t his fault that the lawyer ended up being an asshole. 

“She died after telling me that she wasn’t pregnant and that she wanted a divorce.” The words sent the familiar vile feeling of not being enough through him, making him sneer his next sentence. “She left again. She was prepared to leave Christopher and I on our own again, her son who calls out for her every night, who doesn’t understand why his mom won’t stay. Then she died.”

“Then the tsunami happened.” Buck flinched. “Two of the people that mean the world to me were suffering, and I couldn’t do anything about it. I had to stand by and watch you jerk up in bed with nightmares. I had to stand by and watch my son battle with some evil in his head that I don’t know about. I have no idea what he’s seen in the hours you two were separated, but his fear is losing the people he loves, whether me, you or Shannon. I know you did your best to protect him where you could. But who helped you? And it was only a matter of time before the lawsuit shut you out entirely. Literally everything in my life slipped out of the rigid iron control I’d held it in, and I couldn’t do anything about it.” His words were now slurring together with how fast he was speaking, but he couldn’t seem to clamp his mouth shut. He was sure that he wasn’t making sense either.

Buck scooted closer and wrapped a comforting arm around his shoulder. When Eddie spoke next, the letters came out as a whisper into Buck’s chest.

“Then you left me too.”

Buck held him a little tighter at that, sorrow deepening every line of his body. Eddie closed his eyes and finally let himself lean on someone else. Buck took his weight willingly, any traces of the earlier fury gone.

“That wasn’t what I was trying to do. I was fighting to get back to you all, but somehow, I lost track. I didn’t realize what Chase had been trying to do.” Buck spoke heavily, voice weighed down with guilt.

“Why did you come for me today?” Eddie whispered, tears slipping free.

“I heard Bosko talking about you going to those street fights. I didn’t want to believe her, because I didn’t believe that you could be so stupid.” Buck accentuated his harsh words with another reassuring squeeze. “But the explanation made sense; all those bruises and the exhaustion. So I followed you there. I waited outside for an hour, thinking that I was trailing the wrong truck. It wasn’t until I saw you in the ring that I realized you actually could be that stupid. Eddie, you can’t keep doing this to yourself.”

Eddie wanted to protest. He wanted to fight Buck and tell him that he wasn’t the boss of him. That he’d do whatever he damn well pleased. But inside, he knew that if Buck hadn’t stopped him today, he probably wouldn’t have stopped, ever. 

It’d become an addiction, to harness the fire that burned inside him and vent it through fists and bruises.

“And I know I don’t need to tell you how wrong you were to take a step like that. I can feel you regretting it.” Buck pulled back to swipe cold fingers across his cheek, brushing a few tears away as he kept his voice gentle. “You didn’t even think about Christopher. You didn’t think that one wrong hit, one time being caught, and both of you would have been screwed. You didn’t think that he could take clues from the dad he looks up to as a hero. You didn’t think you could go to jail or lose your job.”

The humiliation of this moment swamped him again but Buck didn’t let him look away from imploring blue eyes. “I’m sorry about everything, Eddie, I’m sorry about the lawsuit but please. Let me in. Let me help you.”

“Why do you keep coming back to save me?” Now it was Eddie’s turn to search Buck’s eyes for answers. “Why, after how I treated you, the things I said to you, after keeping you apart from Christopher? Why do you keep coming back?

He needed to hear it from Buck. He needed to know that he wasn’t the only one that was struggling to rein himself in. He needed to know that he wasn’t imagining the love that blazed through Buck’s eyes, as if it wasn’t the same that burned through Eddie’s own.

“You’re not ready to hear the answer to those questions, Eddie.” Buck smiled sadly, his touch painfully gentle. “Maybe one day, but right now, your focus needs to be on how we can get you the help you need.” 

“I’ll talk to a therapist. I promise, I won’t go back.” Buck seemed to relax at the promise. “I still want to hear the answer to those questions. I need to know I’m not imagining things.”

Buck was quiet for a moment, red-rimmed eyes glowing in the dim light. Eddie intertwined their fingers and held on tightly as he waited for Buck’s answer. Eddie wanted to bury himself back in Buck’s chest but he needed to read the other man's face. Buck seemed to war with himself on what to say, his mouth opening and closing several times as he inhaled sharply.

“Because I knew you didn’t mean them.” Buck settled on, running his thumb in circles on Eddie’s skin, a nail tracing the scar the tape had left behind. “I knew you were lashing out because you were mad. Regardless, I’d be lying if I said the words didn’t hurt. But you were hurting too, and I could see that.”

“I came back because I’m in love with you.” Eddie’s head shot up from where he was watching the contrast of their hands. Buck smiled softly at him, eyes kind and warm. He looked like…

Like the Buck Eddie had fallen in love with.

“You don’t have to say anything, but you wanted an answer to those questions, and that’s what it is, plain and simple. I will always come back, because I love you.”

“I love you, too.” Eddie said automatically, with everything his heart could muster. And by the soft grin on Buck’s face, he knew it too. 

Obviously, despite everything that had gone down between them, their trust in one another hadn’t wavered. Now, Eddie was saddled with the urge to make up for all the distancing he’d put Buck through, all the baggage he’d unloaded with no explanation.

He owed Buck one now.

“I owe you an explanation for my behaviour.” Buck went to shake his head but one press of Eddie’s palm against his heart silenced him. Eddie focused on the heat emitting from Buck’s body as he tried to sort out his thoughts. 

“When you sued the department, it shocked me how much I’d come to depend on you as my partner. And not just at work.” Buck listened patiently, the two men wrapped up in each other’s arms as the words reverberated through the apartment. Eddie was determined to fix this. “When we were told that we couldn’t talk to you, I had half a mind to pick up the phone anyway. The rational part of me knew that it was your right to fight for your job, but the 118 is a family, Buck. We’ve all come to think of each other as much more than coworkers, and you’ve been there longer than I have. You know that.”

“Chimney, Hen, Bobby and I, we were all terrified to have you back so soon, even with the slightest chance that you weren’t at your 100%. It was only because we love you. Either way, it doesn’t justify our behaviour. I can’t speak for anyone else, but it doesn’t justify me shutting you out.”

“I’m only telling you this to tell you what was going on in my mind.” Eddie dropped his eyes down to their entangled fingers, holding them up. “This was all I really wanted. This was what I thought we were reaching for, but when the lawsuit happened, I thought that perhaps I’d just been imagining things. The irrational, insecure part of me took over and suddenly, I thought that Chris and I didn’t mean as much to you as I’d come to believe.”

“You and Chris have always been my family. Something that’s just my own.” Buck said softly. “I’m sorry if the lawsuit royally screwed things up between us, but it was never my intention to make you feel insecure.”

“I know.” Eddie said simply. "And I'm sorry, Buck. I'm sorry for all that I put you through, and I'm sorry I made everything worse."

"No, sweetheart. We just had an argument, but we're okay. We've always been okay." 

Eddie knew there would be a long process of healing and mending the gap between them from this, but for now, this was enough. 

 Buck moved so he was leaning back against the armchair he’d been sitting in. Pulling Eddie back against his chest, he exhaled as he held Eddie against him. He tried to calm his racing mind, Eddie’s warmth helping calm him partially. The older man's head was tucked below his chin as the two lounged in their own thoughts.

The night had changed in ways that have only happened in Buck’s nightmares. He couldn’t quite comprehend the naked terror that had coursed through him at the sight of Eddie moving in the ring, nor could he comprehend what had happened next.

Buck had always known that he had a capacity for cold, unforgiving emotion. It was rare for Buck to let that part of him take hold, but he’d always known. It was part of the reason he’d signed up for the Navy SEALs to begin with. He knew he could handle that.

When he’d explained it to Bobby, he’d made it sound like it was a juvenile decision, one made out of arrogance. The truth was, he’d researched into it for weeks, looked into the option from every possible angle before he’d enlisted. 

The other thing he’d hidden was that he had finished the training. He’d just chosen to defer his deployment indefinitely, because he didn’t like the person in the mirror when he’d finished.

Sure, that man was swift, strong, mentally prepared for challenges but the man in the mirror had also become rougher, out of tune to human emotion. Buck couldn’t be both an openhearted, caring person and a ruthless soldier in the same moment, not for the rest of his life. There were only two extremes; either he was ruthless, or he was human. As far as Buck was concerned, that’s why he’d chosen not to continue.

It took a lot for that ruthless man to come out of him, and tonight had done it. Seeing Eddie in such a precarious position where despite swaying on his feet, he was still beating all his opponents had blinded Buck completely. Suddenly, the switch flipped.

Every detail around him had simultaneously blurred and sharpened. He could see the confusion flash across his best friend’s face, the slight embarrassment at being caught and the default defiance that Eddie seemed to resort to as soon as something was about to slip out of his control.

He’d come prepared with money, come prepared to call Athena, come prepared to do anything to get Eddie out of there. He didn’t think that four years later, his stone-faced look would still work, but he was glad it did.

“I’ve never seen you so angry before.” Eddie said softly, seemingly sensing where Buck’s thoughts had taken him. Seemed like Buck owed Eddie an explanation too.

He said as much. “All tonight has been is an unraveling of misunderstandings.” Eddie shook lightly with his laughter, but turned in Buck’s arms to look him in the face. Instead of pulling away, he scooted closer until his crossed legs were between Buck’s spread ones. Like lock and key.

Buck spared a grin for it anyway, the smile slipping at the dim light casting harsh shadows over the exhaustion that lurked in Eddie’s eyes. The bandage on his head shone, and suddenly, Buck was back in the bathroom, peeling off Eddie’s clothes to get a look at the injuries underneath.

“This was why.” He said quietly, lifting a hand to trace the bandage. Eddie looked tiny in one of Buck’s sweatshirts, but the flame of possessiveness flared a little higher at the look of him. Eddie leaned into the touch, still searching for answers.

“I’m protective of you, Eddie. I hate seeing you hurt, and to know that you went there on your own accord for multiple nights in a row without any regard for anything else, it set me off.” The darkest thought that ran through his head tonight was that he wanted to kill anyone who laid so much as a finger on Eddie.

“But that wasn’t just anger.”

“No, it wasn’t. The person you saw tonight was who I’d become during my SEAL training.” Buck explained. “It always takes me a while to crack out of that zone, which is why I knew it could never be a life for me. I can’t slip in and out of SEAL mode.” He told Eddie about the grueling training, how he’d gotten through it, and then how he’d ultimately opted out of deploying himself as a SEAL. 

“Your sponsor was itching for drama, and for a fight, and I knew that if I brought that side of me out to play, he’d shut up instantly.” Buck knew he looked haunted by the memory of having pulled out that side of him tonight, but as Eddie caressed the side of his face gently, he felt less like a monster.

“Well, I’m glad you pretty much barred my entry back there.” Eddie smiled, leaning forward to rest his forehead on Buck’s shoulder. It was a little awkward with Eddie’s legs between them but this was the kind of intimacy Buck craved. The two shared a few minutes of silence, letting their grounding touches speak for themselves.

Eddie spoke first. “I'm content to just lay here with you, but can we go upstairs to sleep?” Buck laughed but agreed.

“Promise me, before we go, that we’ll learn to communicate better with each other.” Buck stopped Eddie from getting up, needing him to understand. “I’m not in this half-assedly, whether it’s being your friend, partner, lover, whatever capacity you’ll have me.” He brushed a stray curl away from Eddie’s forehead. “We can’t keep burying things and hoping everyone else can read our minds.”

“I want you in every capacity I can have you, and I promise, we’ll try to talk to each other. For once.” Eddie promised, chuckling lightly. “It’s going to be difficult to transition to that, but I promise I’ll try.” Buck beamed at him as they got up, the two men meandering upstairs. The promise of effort was enough for him.

Perhaps the two of them would learn a thing or two from each other.

 As Buck shut himself in the bathroom to prepare for bed, Eddie thought about the rope that he’d been imagining before. If the frayed rope had been a metaphor for the strained relationship between them, then what did that rope look like right now?

Probably like one of those braided ropes that hikers and campers used. One that would stand through wear-and-tear, and would bear the effect of any storm. One that would hold his weight as it anchored the two of them back to sanity.

As Eddie mused over this, another part of his mind mused over the turn the night had taken. That intimate energy was back between them, just as it had been before. It was almost as if the tension hadn't been there.

Despite all that, guilt still nestled between his bruised ribs, for the words he’d thrown at Buck, for the rash behaviour that Christopher had no doubt noticed over the past few weeks.

“Nothing you need to be concerned with.”

Eddie had flung those words in a moment of surprise at seeing Buck in front of him. Yet, the younger man had been concerned, probably even more so after Eddie snapped at him. Yet, Buck had come through for him.

“Hey, Eddie, you wanna give me a hand with all this?”

Buck’s voice had been so unsure, so unlike the confident man he’d come to love.

“Nah, you got this. You’re 100%, lawsuit proved that, right?”

His own words echoing in his head made him cringe. 

“If you think any harder over there, I think you’ll end up hurting yourself.” Eddie startled at the sound of Buck’s voice. The man was leaning against the bathroom door jamb, a knowing smile decorating his handsome face. “Eddie, I forgive you. It’s okay to forgive yourself. Yeah, you made a mistake. I made one too. We’re human, it happens.”

Buck came over to the other side of the bed, pulling out a tube from the nightstand. He sat down only to take Eddie’s hand in his own, slowly rubbing the ointment into his reddened skin. “The only thing that matters in the end is what we choose to do with our mistakes; either repent and learn from them, or forget them and lose a valuable lesson.”

Eddie wanted to cry again at the delicate care Buck was taking with him. Buck clearly wasn’t done saying what he needed to, because as he massaged the ointment into Eddie’s hand, he continued with more words that were guaranteed to make Eddie cry.

“When I said I’d have your back, I meant it. And I’m sorry I wasn’t there, and am probably doing a bad job of showing it but there hasn’t been a single moment in the past few weeks that I haven’t thought of you two. And I know that you have my back too.”

“How do you believe that easily? How can you just forgive it?” Eddie stayed fixated on that one point. “I was so cruel. I even kept you apart from Christopher.”

Buck remained quiet as he squeezed more of the ointment onto his fingers. “Cruel isn’t the word, Eddie. I think that maybe, this is something you need to talk to a therapist about, because you keep battling your guilt about this thing. Trust me, you couldn't keep me apart from Christopher if you tried. You’re not a monster, Eddie. And...despite my initial impressions, you’re not perfect either.”

The light remark made him laugh, a flashback to the day they met. “I feel like you’ve got an arsenal of wise things to say that you pull out of nowhere.”

“That’s probably true.” Buck agreed, mocking humility. “I will say, though, that you are perfect for me.” 

The cheesy line had him choking on his spit as his laugh reverberated through the loft. Buck grinned widely and slipped into bed besides him. He turned onto his side to pull Eddie into him, wrapping his arms where he knew Eddie wasn’t wounded. 

Eddie burrowed his face in Buck’s neck, the other man still holding him gently. Eddie, on the other hand, pressed himself as close as possible, uncaring about the bruises that were screaming in protest. Buck laughed at Eddie’s insistence that they be as close as possible, but held him tighter anyway.

For the first time in weeks, Eddie felt himself settle. With how the night had started, this wasn’t a bad way to end it.

There were still things to discuss and fix in the morning, but for right now?