Do you still want to protect Shadow Milk after everything he has done, Pure Vanilla?

After seeing what he did to the world (not just once, but across every timeline) can you still look at him and believe there is something worth saving?

Buck thrashes himself awake so hard he almost falls off the bed. His legs are tangled in scratchy sheets and his back is damp with sweat. Not his bed. It's dark, but there's a glow around the edges of the thick curtains over the windows. Hotel room. He heaves a breath and then another, counting the inhale then the exhale until the air doesn't stick in his throat. It takes a while. His head hurts. He might be a little drunk still. Nashville. He scrubs a hand across his face and finds tacky tear tracks down his cheeks. Hotel in Nashville. The night after the games. Inhale. 

Exhale. It must be the unfamiliar room. He hasn't had a nightmare like that in a while. Or it could be the exhaustion from the games. Or how much time he's spent thinking about Bobby the last few days. Or nerves from the flight over, or nerves about the flight back. Maybe it's just that the room smells like industrial cleaner and the heater is broken, so it's a little too cold and there's a loud hum coming from something on the street outside.

It's probably everything. His hands are still shaking a bit, but he's breathing again without having to force his lungs to keep a reasonable pace. The dream is slipping. Fading into just abstract colors and lingering fear, but the fear does linger. He turns on the lamp on the bedside table. It takes a minute to get his body working enough to turn and reach out, and then he spends another minute fiddling with the unfamiliar switch in the dark.

The bulb glows dull, dimmed even more by a thick lampshade. The room suddenly feels too big, too empty now that he can see the shadows of every corner. It's stupid, the way it sends a shiver of fresh terror up his spine. He's awake. His dreams can't haunt him here, but they do anyways. He usually doesn't spend much time trying to remember them, it never does any good to dwell on it. Since the lab, all his nightmares are saturated in blue. They're claustrophobic and washed in a cloud of dark blue ink. They make his chest ache with just as much grief as fear. At least he wasn't drowning this time. Maybe he was, he doesn't really remember. 

He spends a while just looking around. At his open suitcase, dirty clothes thrown in unfolded. A half eaten bag of popcorn that Eddie abandoned here at some point. The hotel standard coffee maker. He runs a hand along the buttons of the TV remote. He thinks about turning the TV on, but flinches at even the idea of the bright lights and sounds of terrible late night programming. He finally bothers to check the time. 3:19. He'd only made it back to his room a couple hours ago, and he has to be up again early to get to the airport. 

He lays back down. Thinks about turning off the light. Doesn't. Thinks about closing his eyes again. Doesn't. He thinks about showering the now cooled sweat off. He can't even bring himself to do that. He's sore. It had been a long day, even by his standards.

He has a few different tricks for when he can't fall back asleep afterwards, but none of them are things he can do in a strange hotel room in a strange city. He usually likes to bake. A few times in the new house, he's found himself sitting out in his backyard and looking at the sky. Something to get his brain and his body out of the space they're stuck in. He used to do Wikipedia deep dives, but they tended to get dark when he felt like this. He would find himself trapped reading about serial killers or catastrophic disasters or ancient torture methods. It turned out to do more harm than good most of the time. 

The only other thing that has ever worked, well it's not an option either. Not anymore. Buck had a nightmare a few months after Bobby died. He pulled out his phone to text him before realizing and– well he'd like to never relive that again. He'd called Maddie that night. She had a newborn at the time, but she still stayed on the phone with him all night so he could try to get some more sleep. He didn't, but he was glad she was there. He couldn't do that to her again though.  

Buck is on his own here. 

Except he's not. Of course he's not. Eddie is just down the hall. Eddie has seen his share of Buck's nightmares, but never because Buck could help it. It was always accidental proximity. A shared bed during quarantine or side by side bunks at the station or a night on Eddie's couch. Eddie has talked him down, more than once, but Buck has never asked. 

He tries to imagine what Eddie would say. Something pragmatic. It was just a dream, you're safe here. Which Buck knows. Of course he does. It just doesn't feel that way. He takes another breath. Thinks about closing his eyes–

There's a loud bang from the street below and Buck is on his feet before he can process it. He's standing by the door, still tangled in the sheet that got yanked off the bed along with him when he jumped. He unclenches his fists enough for it to fall to the floor.  

“Fuck.” It comes out strangled, cracked, barely more than a whisper. 

He can't keep going like this. He can't stay here. He needs to get out.

And then he's knocking on Eddie's door. He's not even wearing a shirt. He left his hotel key and his phone in his room. He thinks about turning around, but he couldn't even get back in his room if he wanted. Eddie has the spare. 

Buck shivers, it's cold in the hallway. He runs a hand through his hair, yanking the mess of curls, once, hard. It doesn't help anything. He thinks about doing it again. 

Eddie opens the door a crack. He's squinting and hunched over, clearly still half asleep. He's wearing a pair of sweats and an old LAFD shirt that is worn out and stretched thin over his shoulders. He looks comfortable. Buck has the sudden urge to run. He's so tired. He's so scared. He's sure he looks like a complete fucking disaster. He's ruining things. Eddie didn't even want to come here in the first place. He only agreed because he felt guilty about Bobby. And now here Buck is, banging on his door in the middle of the night like he's being chased by a killer. But no, it's just him and his stupid brain and his endless inability to handle things himself.

“Buck?” Eddie's eyes go wide, or as wide as they can the way he's squinting into the hallway light. “Did something– are you okay?”

He opens the door all the way and lets Buck fall inside. Buck doesn't know where to go from there. He can't sit on the bed, Eddie is sleeping there. There's a chair by the window, it looks so far away. He just stands, arms crossed over his bare torso and shivers. Eddie shuts the door, but flicks on the bathroom light as he walks back into the room. 

Eddie tries again. “Are you okay? Are you drunk? Are you– hurt?” His hands are outstretched, but he doesn't touch. He's looking up and down Buck in a way Buck recognizes as clinical, diagnostic. 

“No.” Not a helpful answer, Buck knows. It's all he's got. 

“Sit down before you fall down.” Eddie points at the bed. Buck goes. “Were you with that woman, the one from the bar?”

Buck shakes his head. They'd had a few drinks, flirted. It was just some fun, that was all.

“Sorry,” Buck clears his throat, tries to find his voice. It's not even that big of a deal. Nothing happened. “Bad dream. That's all. Sorry.”

“Oh.” Eddie softens a bit. “Okay. I can help with that.”

“You can?” Buck knows he can. Even just being here is unwinding something that has been clenched tight in his chest since woke up. 

“Yeah, I thought you were– I don't know. You look–” Eddie shakes his head. “You had a nightmare?” 

Buck nods. Eddie rounds the side of the bed and drops back into the spot where the blankets are already turned down, he flings the covers on the other side down and pats the spot next to him. 

“C'mere.” 

Buck crawls over from where he's sitting at the end of the bed. He feels like a little kid trying to climb into his parent's bed. Not that he ever did that. Maybe when he was very young, but he doesn't remember. Maddie would always bring him back to his own bed and wait with him until he fell asleep when he woke her up.

“Sorry.” Buck says again. 

“You don't have to be. I'd rather you sleep here than not sleep at all. You're annoying enough to fly with as it is.”

Buck pouts. Eddie pulls the covers up over both of them. The light is still on in the bathroom casting a glow from around the corner. Diffused enough not to hurt Eddie's tired eyes, but enough to see by.

“Do you want to talk about it?” 

“I don't even really remember. Just woke up and felt–” he burrows a bit down into the pillow. “I don't know, scared I guess.” It's easier to say it like this. Under the blanket, laying side by side where he doesn't have to try and meet Eddie's eyes. 

“Do you want to try and go back to sleep?” 

“I know I should. We have to be up in a couple hours.” Buck feels better, but the idea of closing his eyes still sets his hands shaking. Like the moment he closes his eyes he'll fall right back in it again. Eddie's here now though. Eddie can wake him up if he needs it.

“I got a few good hours in, I can stay up for a bit.” Eddie props himself up on an elbow and tucks the comforter a little tighter around Buck. Buck can feel how heavy his limbs are getting. He's exhausted, but he's not quite ready to stop fighting it. 

“I didn't want to wake you up. I tried not to.” Buck mumbles into the bed. 

“Buck.”

“Yeah.”

“I'm glad you're here.” Is all he says.

“Me too.” 

Eddie sits up and props his pillow against the headboard. He leans back and looks down at Buck with big dark eyes.

Buck curls down into the bed again and breathes out all the air in his lungs. 

Eddie shifts a few times to get comfortable and Buck listens to the sound of the bed dipping and the headboard creaking. He listens to Eddie's steady inhale. It's warmer in here, Eddie's heater must be working. Buck can feel the tremors start to bleed out of him as he builds up some warmth under the covers. Eddie shifts again and his leg brushes against where Buck's hands are out in front of him. Buck flinches back and Eddie stills completely, but he manages to relax again and lets his hands fall back down until they are pressed up against the side of Eddie's thigh. Eddie breathes, Buck follows.

Buck closes his eyes and starts drifting. He surfaces briefly at the feeling of a hand in his hair. Blunt nails dragging lightly over his scalp, fingers twisting into his curls. He hears himself hum at the sensation before he fades out again. 

He startles at the feeling of falling. Eddie shushes him. He talks low, a string of steady noise that lulls Buck back down again before he even properly breaks the surface. 

In the morning Buck wakes up at the sound of Eddie's alarm. He thinks the whole bed rocks as Eddie moves to turn it off, but it doesn't take long to recognize that it isn't the bed underneath Buck's head but Eddie's lap. Buck is twisted sideways on the bed, head cradled between Eddie's thighs. Eddie is still propped halfway upright and he quiets the alarm quickly. Eddie groans and Buck starts to roll away, but Eddie puts a hand on his back. Buck stops, cheek pressed into Eddie's sweats. 

“We have some time, you don't have to rush.”

“Need to shower.” Buck says into Eddie's leg.

“Breakfast first?” Eddie counters.

“Okay.” Buck gives in easily.

“Sleep okay?” 

Buck just nods. He should move, get up, get off, but he's groggy and warm and loose limbed. He still has enough of the plausible deniability of sleep. He lets himself have a moment longer before he wakes up fully and has to be responsible for his actions. Eddie sits above him scrolling on his phone, seeming to pay no mind to the grown man curled up in his lap beyond the hand he has laid on Buck's back that is now brushing lightly up and down his spine. 

“Fuck.” Eddie says after a minute.

“What's wrong?”

She's real