was @still-watching

And then we actually spend some time with that.

Buck struggling through rehab. Buck being furious and scared and stubborn and pretending he’s fine (he's completely fine you guys) in ways that are deeply, obviously not fine. The 118 trying to carry on without him. Someone like Bosko coming in as a temporary replacement, and Buck being totally normal and chill about that. Obviously.

And then Buck gets a super cool firefighting prosthetic and we get a whole storyline (let's be real, one episode) about him training to recertify, learning what his body can do now, meeting other amputees and firefighters and athletes with prostheses, and fighting his way back to the 118.

It’s triumphant. It’s emotional. I’m crying. You’re crying. Bobby's in the background looking proud.

And all the while Buck's been living with Eddie and Chris because of course he has. He can't be in the Loft by himself with that kind of injury and Eddie knows how to be a caregiver to someone with mobility issues and beside, he's a paramedic. And he's Eddie.

And Buck bonds with Christopher over disability and mobility and frustration and adaptation, but coming at it from different angles – being born with disability vs. coming to it at a later age. Both of them understanding something about each other that nobody else quite does.

Meanwhile Eddie's fully slipping into husband mode without noticing. He’s managing meds. He’s driving Buck to appointments. He’s making Christopher do his homework at the kitchen table while Buck does PT exercises in the living room. He’s saying things like “our house” and “we need more space” and somehow not hearing himself at all.

And by the end of the season Eddie's fully house hunting for a 3 bedroom accessible house because they need more space and the 118 is side-eying them all so hard they're getting migraines.

Buck and Eddie in 4x13 / 4x14 vs 9x13

It’s almost like — like Buck’s holding a possible thing in his hands, fragile and fledgling, born too early. It’s not the first time he’s felt this way, with Eddie. It’s happened before, mostly in kitchens.

It’s not like it hurts any less.

8) thighs wrapped around a waist

It's quiet for just long enough for Buck to start panicking.

It feels more intimate, now, warm air exhaling from one of their lips in one breath, inhaled by the other in the next. Slow, instead of ragged. Deliberate, instead of desperate.

Scared, instead of sure.

"I--" he says, because he's always been incapable of leaving things well enough alone. He watches Eddie's chest, bare and golden. He doesn't let his eyes fall lower, doesn't let himself take in the way Eddie's waist looks against his fingers, the curve of his thighs over Buck's hips. He can't let himself remember this. He's fooling himself if he thinks that it's not seared into him already. "We just--"

"Yeah," Eddie says, when Buck can't quite bring himself to complete the sentence.

"And you--"

"I know," Eddie says. And there's a little tremble in his voice, something that's already beginning to retreat. Buck wants-- Buck can't-- Buck has to--

"Eddie," he says, and the word still feels shiny and new in his mouth, even after all these years. Even after tonight, when he must've used up a lifetime's worth of Eddie's, murmured and moaned and tucked into secret places.

"Buck," Eddie says, and there's something caught there, too. There's a hitch of air over Buck's lips, like Eddie wants to say something else. He doesn't.

For a moment, it feels like that's it. The glass fractured between them falling back into shape. Buck can't look into his eyes. Eddie can't say it out loud. Nevermind the come on their stomachs, their swollen lips, the bruises they won't be able to hide.

Buck thinks, believes, tells himself that they can still come back from this. It's them. They have to.

Then Eddie's thighs shift slightly, and Buck's fingers tighten involuntarily.

He doesn't mean to. He needs to let Eddie go. If Eddie can't-- if he's not-- Buck can't do this halfway, can't be the anchor on another sinking ship. Not anymore, and especially not with Eddie.

But his hands don't listen to him. They press into Eddie's sides, the divots of his hips. If Buck looks down, he knows he'd be able to map out the bruises they're going to leave. He doesn't. He can't. He watches the St. Christopher against Eddie's sternum instead, trying to force himself to relax, to let go, to say something easy and funny, something to make Eddie laugh, to forget all of this.

But Eddie gets there first: fingers against Buck's jaw, and Buck wants to close his eyes but it's Eddie. It's Eddie. It's always been Eddie.

It's Eddie, brown eyes looking down at him, something awed in his gaze. It's Eddie, muscles relaxing under Buck's grasp, going liquid and soft and letting Buck hold onto him. It's Eddie, a smile cresting his face like sunrise after the longest night of the year: slowly, then all at once.

"Buck," Eddie says again. And, oh, Buck can hear him, now.

"Eddie," Buck replies. Eddie's legs shift again, but only to wrap themselves tighter around Buck's waist. Buck's hand go loose, but only so he can run them up Eddie's sides, cup his face.

He can feel Eddie's cheeks shift under his fingers, the soft swell of his smile running through his fingertips and directly into his heart.

"Hi, Buck," Eddie says, something other than fear in his voice.

Buck laughs, startled, wondering. "Hi, Eddie."

Buck's voice is a soft hum in the evening air--breaking the comfortable silence like the low buzz of a power line when you step close. Eddie wants to reach a hand out to touch it--thinks it'll kill him if he does.

Buck is stretched out on the grass of his backyard, staring up at the blushing sky. Dirt from his garden under his fingernails, rogue flour from hours before still settled into his shirt sleeve.

It's a lazy Saturday. He'd brought Chris over for no real reason. Had spent the day harvesting Buck's small crop of strawberries, adding the ones they didn't eat to the farmer's market basket, piling them onto fresh-baked shortcake, wiping whipped cream from the corners of their mouths.

Now, Eddie is on the patio, half his gaze on Buck, the other half on Chris and Theo playing Go Fish in the living room. A mug of chamomile warms his hands--not that they need warming in the late spring air. Still, it grounds him somehow.

"Coevolved?" He asks, and Buck nods, his gaze still fixed on the sky.

"Mutualistically of course."

Eddie chuckles lightly, and he watches with delight how Buck's smile stretches at the sound. "I'm gonna need a bit more than that, bud."

Buck's gaze finally shifts, offering Eddie a grin--soft and sunny like the hazy sunset--before turning back to the wispy, pinking cloud that's been drifting slowly over the yard.

"It's where different species adapt to each other's traits," he explains. "Plants and pollinators mostly." He picks at the grass under his hand, rolls it gently between his fingertips. "Like, Darwin's orchid and the sphynx moth. The orchid has a long nectar tube to force the moth to touch its reproductive structures when it eats. The moth is the only one with a tongue long enough to get to the nectar. They think it wasn't always like that, but one got longer and the other adapted to match it and on and on like that. Now the orchid has a reliable pollinator, and the moth has a source of food that it doesn't have to compete for."

The grass falls absently from his fingers. "They evolved to survive together, you know?" The deepening sunset casts a warm glow across his face. He turns his head, his gaze falling to Eddie again. This time it settles there. "Can't live without each other anymore."

The electric buzz courses lightly through the air between them. Eddie can't avoid it this time.

'I Knew It, I Knew You' is co-written and co-produced by Taylor Swift and Jack Antonoff.