#buckweek2026

So, he’s tired and he’s frustrated and his anxiety has refused to die down, and he’s rushing through another hospital because his best friend almost died again, only this one is in Texas, and this time he hasn’t seen him for months outside of a phone screen. 

So maybe he can be forgiven for the way he slams the door open. For the rise in his voice and the arms waving hysterically through the air, and the “Why the fuck am I still your emergency contact?”

Eddie looks up from his plastic cup of Jell-O with a startled look. Eyes wide and innocent like there’s nothing strange about this whole situation. Like everybody with family a fifteen minute drive from them would list their one, singular emergency contact as the best friend he left nearly a thousand miles away. 

“I mean, where do you get off?” Buck asks. Pacing and hysterical. “Do you know how fucking stressed I’ve been for the last five hours? I had to drop everything– everything– Eddie, I was on shift! And– and you owe me like five hundred bucks by the way because last-minute tickets are expensive as shit. And you– you know I fucking hate flying but I’m– but they called me and told me nothing except that you were in fucking surgery– and– you know, if you were just normal– just a normal fucking person they could have called–I don’t know–your mom! And I could’ve been told, ‘Hey, by the way, Eddie broke his arm but he’s fine!’ instead of thinking you were dying again! But no– no that would be too– too fucking– like that would make too much sense! So, here I am, I guess! Because by the time I knew anything real I had already bought my goddamn ticket! So, I’m here. In fucking El Paso. Are you happy with yourself?”

He finally slows down enough to notice Eddie smiling at him–smiling, that bastard–spoon of green Jell-O still not quite reaching his lips. “Want some?” he asks, holding the plastic cup out to Buck.

“Do I– what? No, of course I don’t want some!”

Eddie shrugs, and finally takes the bite. “Your loss.”

Buck’s arms fall to his sides. His chest still heaving as his breathing finally starts to settle down. “That’s all you have to say?”

“You would’ve come anyway,” he says, like it’s obvious–which, maybe it is. “Best to cut out the middle man, right?”

“No,” Buck insists. “That is definitely not how that works.”

Eddie sighs and looks down at the sad tray of food in front of him. Wiggles his head in the way he does when he’s deciding what to say. “You’ve met my parents,” is what he eventually decides on. “They’re not always great in an emergency.”

“They don’t have to– to administer the fucking CPR, Eddie!”

Eddie’s jaw tenses–clenches and unclenches–and that’s all it takes, apparently, for Buck to soften. When Eddie looks back up at him his eyes are still wide, but they’ve lost that teasing glint they had when Buck walked in here. They’re pleading now. Apologetic. “Sorry,” he says quietly. “You’re right.” He shakes his head. “I guess I just didn’t want to risk it.”

Buck frowns at that. “Risk what?” he asks– gentle this time.

“Didn’t want to risk you not being here. Not knowing you had to be–if you had to be.”

And that– that’s not what he expected. Buck lets out a breath and finally sits next to the bed. Drops his bag. Lets himself begin to relax. “Chris would’ve told me,” he assures him.

Eddie purses his lips. Opens them again to let out a resigned little sigh. “Yeah,” he admits. “Probably.”

And there goes the last of Buck’s anger–only it was never really anger. Frustration– confusion– combustible when they’re mixed with the thrumming of his anxiety. But now he’s here with him, and Eddie’s looking at him with this vulnerability that he almost never gets to see. And he’s alive and he was smiling before and he was making stupid jokes and for the first time since he picked up his phone this morning, Buck feels some real relief. So finally– finally, he asks, “How are you feeling?” 

“Oh, you know, it’s no bullet wound,” Eddie says with a small smile.

“Glass got you pretty good, though, huh?” Buck asks, nodding at the small cuts littering his face–the bandages across his cheek.

“Mm, might have to kiss my modeling career goodbye.”

Buck shakes his head. “I’d still buy what you’re selling.”

Eddie chuckles at that, before wincing and pressing a hand to his side. “Well, I might have to try,” he sighs. “Can’t exactly drive an Uber without a car. And don’t think they want me doing it one-handed either.”

“You’ll figure something out,” Buck assures him. “You always do.”

“I.. I don’t know, honestly,” Eddie says, his face falling again. He worries his lip with a force that can’t be comfortable, his teeth digging into the thin gash that’s running across it. “I don’t have health insurance. Or savings anymore.” He looks up at the ceiling and shakes his head. “You know, they have the guy, he’s supposed to pay damages, but that’s a whole…” he waves his hand vaguely. “I can’t wait that long. I could barely afford my mortgage as it was.” He scoops up more of the Jell-O. Sets it back down on his tray. “I’m finally making progress with Chris, and I’m just… I’m gonna have to leave him again.”

“What do you mean?” Buck asks, his fingers twitching towards laying a comforting hand across Eddie’s own.

“Bobby will give me my job back, right?” Eddie asks. “And I can sell the house to pay for all this and– and moving costs. I might even make a bit of a profit with how much I fixed it up, you know?”

“Eddie–”

“I mean, what else can I do, Buck? I don’t–”

“I can pay,” Buck blurts out. Before even he realises what he’s saying. Not that he would ever take it back anyway.  “I can– I can pay the hospital, okay? And– and the rest of it… I can cover that too. For– for a while, at least. Just until you figure something else out.”

“Buck, you know I’m not gonna let you do that for me.”

Buck shakes his head, indignant. “Then let me do it for Chris. Right? That’s who all this is about anyway. He needs his dad.”

“No, you can’t–”

“You’re not gonna talk me out of it,” he says. “You know me. You know you can’t.”

And Eddie is looking at him now with that look he had when Buck had told him he was subletting his apartment. That disbelief. That warmth. That deep, wet-eyed stare. 

“You’ll pay me back eventually,” he adds gently. “One way or another.”

And Eddie is still staring at him, still speechless. Only he’s not looking at his eyes anymore–at least, not entirely. His gaze keeps flitting down to Buck’s lips, and his tongue keeps flicking out to wet his own–and Buck has barely had time to register what that means, before Eddie’s hand is on the back of his neck and– oh. And he’s kissing him.

Buck’s hand comes up to cup his cheek, before he remembers the cuts all across it. So he laces it into his hair instead. Leans his elbow on the pillow next to his head. Folds himself over him. He’s not really sitting in the chair anymore, more hovering over it, all his weight on that elbow, all his focus on the feeling of Eddie’s tongue in his mouth, of Eddie’s fingers at the base of his skull. It feels like hours and it feels like seconds that they’re kissing and sighing and smiling and gasping and breathing each other’s breath–when Eddie finally pulls away. A soft grin still spread across his flushed lips. The cut across it is bleeding, and Buck only now notices the faint metallic taste on his tongue. Not the first time he’s had Eddie’s blood in his mouth. It’s a much more pleasant experience this time around.

Buck falls back into the chair, his cheeks sore from smiling, as Eddie’s fingers trace lightly over his features. “Okay,” he breathes. “Good, uh, yeah– that’s worth– yeah. I think a few more of those and we’ll be even.”