#this was sooooo close to being 911 words but it's 919 tragically Explore tagged Tumblr posts

[littlespoonevan]

and maybe, just maybe, i'll come home

some post-8x17 fic bc it got me thinking soft thoughts that were then further exacerbated by promise by ben howard (hence the title)

enjoy 💛

-

“Hey, scooch over.”

Eddie gives up the guise of trying to sleep and sits up in time to see Buck rounding the couch in the dark. He pulls his legs back just as Buck sits down on the cushion next to him.

“First he takes my house, now he’s taking my bed,” he grumbles – but it’s fond – as he rearranges himself, bracing his feet against the edge of the coffee table and yanking the blanket out from underneath Buck.

“S’my couch,” Buck quips back, taking the blanket from Eddie’s hands and draping it over both of them before he slouches a little in his seat.

It reminds Eddie of late nights at the firehouse when neither of them can sleep. The pang of longing at the thought is so fierce he clears his throat to force it away.

“Yeah, and it’s making me miss my couch. Yours isn’t as comfortable.”

Buck casts a sidelong glance in his direction, the silence stretching for a second too long until he says, “Yeah. I uh, I like your couch better too, honestly.”

It feels like he’s saying something else but Eddie isn’t going to pull on that thread. Instead he tips his head back against the back of the couch.

“It’s weird,” he says after a moment and Buck hums in askance.

“That you living here doesn’t feel weird,” he clarifies, picking his head back up again.

Buck’s expression doesn’t quite change but it almost seems like he’s holding his breath and Eddie feels like he has no choice but to continue.

“I don’t know…even though it’s all your stuff, I still feel like I’m-”

Home.

He doesn’t say it. Doesn’t finish the sentence because it feels too revealing. Buck looks like he knows what Eddie was going to say anyway.

Buck looks down, and away, and then back up again, the faintest smile at the corners of his mouth. “Tonight was good.”

It’s a subject change but not quite.

Sitting around the dinner table with Chris and Buck and Pepa. That felt like home too.

“Chris missed you,” Eddie shrugs. As if he didn’t lie in this same spot last night, stewing, until he’d called his son way past his bedtime and asked if he’d come back to LA for a little while to see Buck.

Chris has said yes before the words were even out of Eddie’s mouth and Eddie was booking him a flight as soon as he hung up the phone.

“I missed him too,” Buck says, pillow-soft as his shoulder pushes a little more firmly into Eddie’s. He’s playing with the edge of the blanket, where the hem is fraying just a bit.

And the thought is still itching away at the back of Eddie’s brain. If Chris would say yes to coming home just as easily. He doesn’t dare ask – too afraid of an answer he doesn’t want.

For now, he lets himself lean into Buck, arms overlapping and hips pressed together under the blanket.

“I’m sorry,” Eddie murmurs after a beat. He knows he’s effectively said it already but he doesn’t mind saying it again. Especially when it makes Buck look at him, eyes wide and vulnerable.

Buck breathes out a hushed, “Me too,” and then he’s moving, slouching even more to drop his head onto Eddie’s shoulder.

And it’s-

It’s different. Eddie knows he throws the selfish accusations at Buck but when it comes to this Buck rarely takes.

Eddie is usually the one to reach out, to get in Buck’s space, to find that same spot where the base of Buck’s throat meets his shoulder over and over again. Buck, who is so open with his affection, never asks for more than what he’s offered with Eddie.

That he’s asking at all now reminds Eddie what the root of all this is in the first place. It makes his heart twist inside his chest as he lifts his arm, dislodging Buck for just a second, until he can get his arm around him and pull him in more securely.

Buck’s breath is shaky against his neck and Eddie closes his eyes, turning to press his forehead against the crown of Buck’s head. Buck’s arm slides around his middle – hesitant at first and then in a vice-like lock.

“Can I make it about me for a sec?” Buck asks, the words half-muffled but still loud enough to make Eddie laugh.

He shakes his head, a reluctant smile tugging at his mouth. “Sure.”

“I don’t want you to leave.” As if to prove his point, his fingers twist where they’re gripping Eddie’s t-shirt. “Having you here- having both of you here…Feels like I can actually breathe for once.”

Keeping his eyes closed does nothing to stop them from stinging but Eddie tries anyway. His hand moves of its own accord, sliding from Buck’s shoulder and up so he can drag his fingers through Buck’s hair.

“Yeah,” he croaks. Rueful. Apologetic. “I don’t think I want to leave either.”

And it’s not a promise. It can’t be, not really. Not yet. Because he told Buck he refused to choose between him and Chris and he meant it but maybe-

Maybe it doesn’t have to be a choice.

Maybe it never really was.

Tonight, he lets himself sink into Buck’s warmth, lets their overlapping limbs hold him in place like a weighted blanket, lets himself feel something akin to peace for the first time in weeks.

He’ll hold onto home for home as long as he can.