i wish it was mine

Buck has spent months telling himself that as long as Eddie and Christopher were happy, he was happy for them. And they deserve to be happy, nobody deserves happiness as much as them. He could live with that. He never quite convinced himself that last part was true, but God he tried.

Then Eddie was reaching out to Buck across the asphalt from a growing pool of his own blood. And Buck's never felt so stupid in his entire goddamn life.

He should have told him. He should have told Eddie he's in love with him. Has been in love with him. Will always be in love with him. He should have told him and now it might be--

Well. He should have told him.

But he didn't. Buck kept that knowledge to himself, tucked up tight and safe, a secret constantly smoldering beneath his breastbone. And now somebody shot Eddie.

Eddie's been shot, again, and this time Buck had to watch. This time Buck was standing right there and there was nothing he could do but feel the hot spray of blood on his face and stare.

This is the second time in a year that he's had to watch Eddie almost die and not be able to do anything except hope. Eddie might still--

Anyway. Buck should have told him. But he didn't.

Buck didn't ever say a goddamn thing to Eddie about how he's so in love with him that sometimes he feels like he's losing his grip on reality. Eddie is his favorite person in the entire world and the only reason anyone else even comes close is because Christopher and Maddie and Jee-Yun exist.

But that's not the same kind of love at all. And he's known that for a long time. He would die for any of them, for anyone of his family from the 118, but he would live for Eddie.

Buck wants to be around Eddie all the time. Wants to swallow him whole. Wants to tunnel into Eddie's body and make a home there. Wants to hold his hand. Wants to hug him. Wants to kiss him. Wants to sleep with him, in every sense of the word. Wants to live with him. Wants to buy a house with a big yard out back with him. Wants to put a ring on his finger. Wants to adopt his son.

Buck wants to stand up in front of all their friends and say till death do us part and then he wants that death to be at the same time decades and decades from now when they're both old and gray and complaining about how their joints and old injuries ache when the weather gets as cold as it ever does in southern California.

Buck wants. Buck has spent his entire life wanting.

There have been times when he thought that maybe Eddie might feel the same way someday. Hands lingering a hairsbreadth too long, bodies moving in concert without a need for words, eyes meeting easily across a crowded room. So many times there had been a whisper of perhaps.

But this is real life, not daydreams. In real life, outside of his imagination, Buck rarely gets anything that he wants. Not the big stuff.

Not parents who love him, or a flesh and blood family to call his own, or someone who stays. People leave. Buck's left standing.

That's how life works.

And now Buck is standing outside the swinging doors at the hospital. They wouldn't let him go any further. He tried, still holding onto Eddie's hand as they got out of the ambulance, but they wouldn't let him.

Doctors aren't the same as first responders. The paramedics let Buck hold Eddie's hand the entire ambulance ride. They understood.

It's dangerous to separate partners.

But this is a hospital, not the 118 or a bullet-riddled street or the back of an ambulance. They don't care about partners here. The doctors and nurses rolled the gurney away and one of them paused just long enough to tell Buck they'd keep him updated, but it was a halfhearted afterthought.