Chapter Text
“And that’s my cue to leave.” Eddie says, pressing a kiss to Buck’s cheek “Have fun babe.” His gaze moves to Hen and Karen “See you later “ He waves before moving in the opposite direction of Buck’s wedding suite.
He can feel Buck’s eyes on him as he walks away, he isn’t sure exactly where Chris and abuela would have went but the church was small enough he knew he’d find them soon enough. As he’s walking down the hallway he hears chatter coming from a room to his left. He steps inside being greeted by all of the kids apparently being supervised by Albert and Ravi.
“Uncle Eddie!” Jee cheers running towards him, “Look what I made for uncle Buck!” She holds up the piece of paper with a stick figure with a small stick person beside them with a heart sound then.
Eddie smiles “Oh I love it sweetheart.” He lifts Jee into his arme, his eyes scan the room he notices Chris and Denny watching something on Chris’ phone in one corner while Mara was sitting at the table with Jee colouring and then Albert and Ravi were sat at another table talking.
“What did you two do to get put on babysitting duty?”
“I’ll have you know we actually volunteered.” Ravi counters
“Ravi volunteered, my niece voluntold me” Albert clarifies, glaring at Ravi out of the corner of his eye
“She’s pretty convincing isn’t she.” Eddie laughs, bouncing Jee on his hip. “Also guess I’ll let you know, Buck is going to tell everyone else right now but the wedding is off. “
“Oh?” Albert questioned with a small frown, “I thought-“ He’s interrupted by Ravi jabbing his elbow into his side “Ouch?!”
Ravi just glared at him.
“Anyways, I just came to grab Chris but everyone else should be here in a minute.”
They both nod
“Is Buck okay?” Ravi asks.
“All good, thanks Ravi.” He smiles before turning his attention to Jee, “Alright sweetheart I’ve gotta go talk to Chris, why don’t you go make another picture for uncle Buck?”
She nods, smiling brightly. “bye uncle Eddie!”
“Bye Jee.” He smiles, setting her down, watching her run back over to Mara before walking over to where Chris and Denny are. “Hey bud, can we talk for a second?”
Chris furrows his eyebrows slightly as he looks up at Eddie, “Everything okay?”
Eddie nods, “Yeah, nothing bad.”
Chris nods, saying bye to Denny before moving to stand up, following Eddie out of the room.
“Dad, what's going on?” He questions as Eddie stops in the hallway and turns to face him.
Eddie sighs, rubbing his hand over his face. “Do you remember that thing you saw me writing for Frank that night?” He questions.
Chris nods slowly.
“Well it was something for — about Buck.”
Chris frowns, his eyebrows furrowing once again. “Buck?” He questions.
“Yeah,” He sighs, “It was about my — my feelings for Buck.”
Chris presses his lips together, nodding slowly.
“I love — I’m in love with Buck , which I guess means I’m gay, or well— I’m not actually sure.”
“That’s okay dad.” He says softly, “it’s okay if you don’t know.”
He gives Chris a small smile, “what I do know is that I love Buck and I love you and I just want to make sure you’re okay with it because if you’re not then — “ He starts to ramble.
“Dad!” He laughs, snapping Eddie out of his ramble. “I’m okay with it , more than okay with it. Truthfully I’m glad it finally happened”
It’s Eddie’s turn to furrow his eyebrows, “You knew?”
“I guessed for a while, it has always been me, you and Buck since we’ve been in LA , and I knew Buck loved us and you loved Buck but it wasn’t until Buck was in the hospital that I really saw the way you love him, “ He pauses, shifting on his feet for a moment before speaking again, “it reminded me of the way you were when mom died and I ….”
“Chris I didn’t..” His voice trails off.
“You didn’t know dad, it’s okay.” He smiles up at him. “I’m just glad you know now, you deserve to be happy.”
He smiles at him and he isn’t sure when he started crying but there’s now tears in his eyes. “And you’re positive you’re okay with it?”
“Dad!” He groans.
“Okay okay.” He says holding his hands up in surrender “I’m sorry” he laughs, “should we go find Buck?”
Chris nods, leaning into Eddie’s side as they walk down the hallway of the church, “Did abuela leave?”
“She said she was going to look for snacks.” He laughs
Eddie shakes his head slightly, a fond smile spreading across his face.
When they find Buck he’s talking to his grandmother and Eddie briefly overhears her say
“You’re in good hands now.”
Before walking past Buck and towards Eddie and Chris,
“You keep his heart safe okay?” She says softly
Eddie nods. “I promise ma’am.”
“Janie.” She says, smiling at him. “ You can call me Janie.”
He smiles, nodding slightly, “Sure thing Janie.”
As she walks away Buck moves to approach them and before Buck can even finish his sentence Chris is moving to hug Buck. Eddie smiles fondly as he watches the two of them, his chest filling with warmth as he watches the two boys, his two boys. He wanted to lunge forward and kiss Buck but he knew Christopher would hate him for ‘embarassing him’ and he wanted to give Buck and Chris their moment.
That is until he feels Buck hand grip the front of his suit jacket and pull him forward and what is he supposed to do, tell him no?
He moves towards Buck and Chris as he pulls him in, feeling Buck’s arm wrap around his waist once he’s stood near them. Eddie smiles, wrapping one arm around Chris and one around Buck and the urge to kiss Buck is even worse now and he could just so easily lean forward and capture Buck’s lips in his, and he’s allowed to that now, he is. But for now he settles on leaning down pressing a kiss to the top of Chris’ head with a ‘mwah’ before moving to press a kiss to Buck’s birthmark, his lips lingering there for a mooned and he feels like this will become a normal thing, kissing Buck’s birthmark, loving every piece of him.
Buck closes his eyes, a silence falling between them for a moment before he whispers, “ I love you.”
Eddie smiles, “Why don’t we go home?” He asks after another moment of silence between them.
Buck blinks his eyes open, his gaze moving to meet Eddie’s. “I should probably make sure everything is wrapped up here but then I’ll meet you there?”
He nods, pecking Buck’s lips. “I love you.”
Eddie feels Buck’s arm drop from around him and he reluctantly let his own arm fall from around Buck
“Can we get Chinese food?” Chris asks as he steps back from the embrace.
Buck laughs, “I mean, I could cook —“
And as much Eddie loves Buck’s cooking, he couldn’t ask him to do that after the day he had.
“You’ve had a long enough day,” Eddie smiles, “We’ll pick up dinner on the way home.”
Buck smiles, leaning in to kiss Eddie’s cheek. “I’ll see you two in a bit.”
Eddie nods,placing his hand between Chris’ shoulder blades, leading him down the hallway and out of the church, stopping in to find his abuela on their way out.
Once they’ve dropped her off at her place they stop to get Chinese food, Eddie ordering what he knew Buck would want. Once they get home they both go to their respective rooms to change. Once Eddie is changed into a pair of shorts and a cutoff tank top, he lays out a set of clothes for Buck, intentionally avoiding the stack of Buck’s own clothes placed in his dresser and pulling out one of his pairs of sweatpants and a t-shirt with a Texas college basketball team logo on it. He lays them on the bed before moving out of the room, going to the living room and flopping down onto the couch.
It’s only an hour later when he hears a car pull into the driveway, presumably Maddie. He definitely doesn’t jump up from the couch or jog towards the front door, and if anyone questioned him about it, he’d lie.
He steps out onto the front step, waving to Maddie as she pulls out of the driveway and breathing out a sigh of relief as his eyes land on Buck.
“What’re you doing out here?” Buck questions
“Was just waiting for you darlin’.” The word rolling off his tongue with a strong Texas accent, as he reaches out to run his fingers over Buck’s tie, it’s not that he had said it with the intention of intimating something but when Buck’s lips are suddenly on his in a heated kiss, who can blame him for filing that information away for a later date.
And now that he’s kissing Buck he doesn’t want to pull away, caught in the heat of his touch, Buck’s lips moving against his and he thinks he could fly with how good he’s feeling right now.
Buck is the one who inevitably breaks away from the kiss snd drags Eddie inside, retreating to the bedroom to get changed snd when he emerges from Eddie’s — their bedroom after changing out of his suit, Eddie can’t take his eyes off of him, scanning over Buck’s wide and muscular frame hugged tightly by Eddie’s clothing.
Eddie promised himself he wouldn’t let things go any further than a kiss today, Buck was supposed to be marrying someone else today and Eddie couldn’t let any more of their firsts happen on a day he was supposed to be marrying someone else.
Eddie’s fingers are lingering on the swell of Buck’s stomach just above his navel when Chris walks into the room.
Eddie can’t help but laugh as Chris tells Buck that they need to set some rules about them kissing while he’s around.
He shakes his head as he moves to get the plates out of the cupboard. “You’ll think differently when you have a girlfriend.”
“Which won’t be for a while right?” Buck questions almost panickedly, looking between the two of them.
Eddie laughs, “Well there is that one girl…”
“Dad, don't give him a heart attack, we just got him.” Chris laughs
Eddie laughs loudly, “okay okay,” He sets the plates down onto the table before grabbing the containers of food.
As they settle into their chairs and begin platting their food, they fall into an easy conversation about how school is going for Chris, and calls they’ve had in recent shifts. They’re about halfway through dinner when Buck looks at Chris, snapping his fingers, a Buck signature, alerting that he has something important to say or a fact to share.
“Your school project that we’ve been working on.”
Chris nods in response and Eddie vaguely knows the one, something for biology about photosynthesis.
“Well I was looking up info about photosynthesis and I found something super interesting.” Buck says, setting his fork down. “Did you know that plants can distinguish between other plants that are their siblings and ones that are strangers and they’ll treat them differently.”
“That’s not —“
“It is!” Buck urges, “there was a whole paper done about it at a university in Canada and it says that certain plant species will react differently when forced to share a pot with strangers of the same species but they’re accommodating when potted with their siblings.”
Chris’ eyes go wide, “that is so cool.” He says , taking another bite of his food. “We should plant a garden!”
Buck nods as he lifts his fork up again, “if your dad’s cool with it.”
And suddenly Eddie feels two pairs of eyes on him, one blue and one brown both giving him the same pleading puppy dog eyes.
“Buck, why did you ever teach him that!”
“I did nothing!” Buck argues.
Eddie shrugs, “Yeah do whatever you two want.”
They both grin and suddenly they’re both focus on each other again as Buck begins to list off what plants would be best for them to have and what other supplies they needed
Eddie pauses just listening to Buck speak for a moment, and watches how intently Chris watches him and Eddie realizes that he could listen to Buck talk about everything and anything for the rest of his life
It’s on a Monday at the end of October when he realizes that it had been Buck along, that he and Buck had been building a family over the last 5 years, through every up and down, every tear shed and every smile shared, they belonged to him and he belonged to them and Eddie was going to do whatever he could to make sure it always stayed that way.