Archive of Our Own ^beta

Evan is one day old.

He’s just been taken to be tested, and he’s kicking and screaming and crying and he wants to be held by caring arms and be comforted by a soft voice but he doesn’t know what is going on. Doesn’t know that solace is not coming for him.

He reaches for a parent who is not there.

He just wants to be loved. That’s his whole purpose, isn’t it? He was created out of love, forged because of love. A misplaced love; a love wholly belonging to a different little boy. He was made so others would be happy, for others to live on, and that’s okay. That’s worthy, that’s just love, that’s –

That’s just the way it is.

Love. The Proto-Indo-European translation of Leubh. Meaning to care, desire, love. The Persian translation means “to be tangled;” the Latin “to please.” And that’s Evan Buckley. A tangled mess of care and desire and love; born to please.

But one day, maybe, when Buck is a little older, if you ask him what love is, he will tell you that it’s catching his sister in his arms and holding her close as she gasps for air. He will tell you it’s the deep brown eyes of a friend he will fall in love with. He will tell you it's in the way he is taught how to cook a recipe, how to help raise a young boy. He will tell you it’s being handed a flower by a little girl in a garden.

And he will also tell you about his dead brother, and his dead captain that is a dead father, and the grief he shoulders that never goes away. And you’ll be worried and scared, and wonder if love is worth it in the end, and Evan Buckley will say –

“That’s just love. Nothing you can do about that.”

Love is a noun. Love is gravity, a whispered name between two people, a tattoo.

Love is a verb. It’s having a meal together, a shared laugh in a crowded bar, a ghost in the bed you curl around. 

It’s a garden you tend to. It’s a well loved flower. A plant with roots that reach deep into the earth. 

“That’s just the way it is.”

***

Evan is one year old.

He doesn’t understand any better. It’s not his fault that it means nothing to him that a little boy in a hospital named Daniel died today. He lays in his bed, where his parents left him, and stares up at the plain white ceiling, waiting. Waiting for his parents to come back for him. They’ve been gone for hours. There are people talking downstairs. There are people crying all around the house. 

He turns his head and looks out the window.

A cypress tree. It’s lonely. Awful and tall and reaching up for something beyond the heavens outside Evan’s bedroom.

The name cypress comes from the story of Cyparissus; the tale of a boy who was turned into a tree from grief after he killed his beloved friend, a stag. A deer.

Some stories say it was a buck.

Cypress. A tree. Meaning death, mourning, despair. Sorrow.

The tree continues to grow outside the Buckley house. For years and years and years and years. Where it belongs.

Evan looks back up at the ceiling, and waits. 

***

Evan is six years old.

He’s at someone’s house, an aunt or an uncle or a cousin, he’s not too sure. No one told him. He asked, he asked a few times, but he thinks no one heard him because there wasn't a response. He just knows his parents told him to stop fussing around, to go get dressed and get out the door. Maddie helped him put his shoes on when the laces were too tight, and she smiled at him when he looked worried that they were taking too long.

They drove for a while until they pull up onto an unfamiliar driveway, being forced to hug strangers and sit down and told to stay there. Stay still. Be good.

Maddie sat with him, she always does. The adults shoved them to one side and he felt hot and clammy but Maddie was there, and she told him silly stories and poked him and it worked, it made the knot in Evan's chest loosen, made him laugh. It all came rushing back when their mother turned around in her seat and cut them a look when he giggled a little too loud, and he immediately froze. It didn’t matter though, Maddie held his hand and whispered to him and made him feel wanted. She’s always listened and smiled and been his whole world.

The adults started moving after a while, getting up and making dinner and serving drinks, and it's fine until it's not. Until Maddie’s being pulled away, to the kitchen, her eyes dim as she tells Evan she’ll be back as soon as she can, but their mother holds Maddie's arm so tightly that Evan thinks that's not true. So Evan sits still again. Sits alone, by himself. No one comes over to talk to him. His stomach flips, a burning sadness stuck at the bottom of it, and he wants to leave. There’s a vase of dying roses on the fireplace, and a petal falls to the ground while Evan looks at it. No one pays any attention. Evan just wants to go back to his room and lay his head on Maddie’s lap as she reads to him and pretend everything it okay. He wants his parents to brush hair from his face and smile at him when he tells them a story and ask if he's happy or upset or scared.

He goes up to his mother a long time later, when it's already dark outside, pulls at her hand to ask if he can go to the bathroom, and there's only silence as they walk down the hall together. There's no hand in his hair, no smile, no questions. He washes his hands and tries to be good. He sits down again and doesn't say anything else the rest of the night. 

When they are finally able to leave, hours and hours later, Maddie takes his hand to walk out the door but his parents nudge him back, reminding him of his manners. He ducks his head and performs like a circus animal. Mumbles under his breath.

Goodbye. Thank you for a lovely time.

***

Evan is ten years old.

He’s sat in a car and his whole world is slowly slipping away.

“You’re leaving?”

Make her stay, you have to, come on, make her stay, please, Maddie, stay –

The trees have all lost their leaves. There’s snow on the ground and there’s wind in his hair and it hurts, it hurts Evan so badly, because Maddie’s gone and he’s alone and he’s just unbearably sad, all the time. His nose is red in the cold air as he walks home from school, passes by the cypress tree, opens the front door to their house. Hears no response as he calls out. 

Evan shakes off the snow, wipes away the wetness from his eyes, and slowly walks up the stairs. There's quietness bleeding from everywhere inside their house.

He walks past his bedroom, cracks open the last door on the left instead, and carefully steps inside. He looks at the walls around him. 

Maddie wanted to paint her room dark green for her birthday last year. Their parents told her no, they would redecorate later, they didn’t want to make any rash decisions, so Maddie did it herself. Got a bunch of paint, handed Evan a brush with a smile and wink, and they spent a whole day painting.

Evan sits down on the floor, his back pressed up against the wall, and he brushes a finger along the baseboard, where he painted daisies for her. 

“They’re your favorite, right?”

Maddie smiled so wide, it was impossible for Evan not to copy her. 

“That’s right, thank you, Evan. I love them.” 

Evan presses the tips of his fingers against the petals now, the paint flaking away a little. The daisies are losing some of their brightness, some of their light, now Maddie’s gone. 

He sits there, for a long time, until someone calls his name from downstairs. He gets up, legs stiff, and closes the door behind him.  

***

Evan is twelve years old.

He hates his name. Evan. He hates the way it sounds coming from his parents, shouting from another room for him to hurry up, sighing when he comes home with another lackluster report card, muttering under their breath when he talks a little too much at the dinner table.  

He hates his name. Hates it down to the root. 

They were doing a school project, all about words and their meanings, and Evan liked that. It was interesting, it was cool, everything was connected and meant something and mattered. Nothing was really alone; every word in the world came from something before it, even if it was from centuries or miles away, it all came together somehow. 

He looked up Evan. It meant “born of the yew tree.” Evan found a book in the library about plants and trees and flora so he read it cover to cover, inhaled it, traced his fingers over the names and pictures and tried to memorize all the fun facts he learnt until he finally got to the end of the book. Saw what yew meant.

Yew. Sorrow. 

Right there, in his very name, right down to the roots.

Evan. Sorrow.

When he returns the book to the library a week later, the friendly lady at the front desk asks if he liked what he borrowed. He watches as she scans the book, his name flashing on the screen for a moment.

***

Evan is eighteen years old.

He leaves. He packs a bag, he gets into his car. He leaves.

It never really was a home, in the end. Not since Maddie left it. Evan stood outside the front door, said his short goodbyes, and lingered by the cypress tree. Pressed a hand to it, and then he was gone.

His mother kept creeping myrtle in the house. Soft purple flowers, a beautiful bloom of them in the kitchen window. She took care of them more than she did Evan. They were fragile, needed light and love. Evan looked up the meaning of them one day.

Creeping myrtle. Love in absence. Home.

No, that's not quite right. This isn't a home. Evan dreamt of ripping the flowers out of their soil, of plucking each petal and crushing them in his hands, of ruining something so special. He doesn't do that. Instead, he waters them, one last time. 

Evan leaves.

***

Evan is twenty-five years old.

Wait – they’re calling him something else, now.

Buck.

Buck is twenty-five years old.

He thinks he likes it, the name. Maybe there won’t be any more sorrow, if he goes by Buck from now on.

But there's the sting of Maddie, long gone and lost from him, that makes him think that's impossible. Sorrow is in his bones. Sorrow is Evan; Evan is sorrow. 

But for right now, there's also Buck. And Buck gets a random tattoo the day he graduates from the fire academy, after he goes out with some of his friends and drinks a little too much, stumbling into a parlour and picking any design he finds on the wall. Half of his friends try to get him out of there, the other half egging him on, but Buck thinks nothing of it, settles into his seat and barely feels the ink etching onto his bicep. 

It ends up being a little flower, perfect and silly, but it’s fine, it doesn’t mean anything. He likes it, though. Buck likes it. He’ll probably look up the meaning of it one day.

***

Buck is twenty-six years old.

He tried, but he’s still just a fuck up, and now he’s fired, because he’s an idiot – and he’ll be all alone, again. He wants to stay - please, let him stay, he can work hard and he’ll prove himself and and and –

Buck pleads. He begs.

“I’m sorry, kid.”

Bobby still leaves.

That’s just the way it is.

There's ivy climbing the walls of the fire station, and Buck traces his fingers over it, jealous, before he wipes his eyes and walks away.

Ivy attaches itself to anything, and doesn't let go. A symbol of enduring loyalty. Buck can only dream of that. 

***

Buck is… Buck is staring.

“Who the hell is that?”

Buck is still twenty-six years old.

This shouldn’t matter to him.

“Eddie Diaz.”

He’s still staring at him, the new guy. He’s tall, with soft-looking brown hair, a solid mass of muscle that moves gracefully as he turns to smile at Hen and Chimney, eyes bright and grin wide and –

Buck looks away. His heart lurches in his chest, and he bats it away.

Eddie Diaz.

It doesn’t matter. Nothing will come of this, he's sure. Buck turns away, strides over to the kitchen. Waters the peace lily Bobby keeps there, and fumes. 

This shouldn’t matter to him at all.

***

Buck is twenty-seven years old.

He’s running in the snow, as if he was still a little kid all those years ago playing in the freezing Pennsylvania winter, because he’s chasing his older sister. Only now she stumbles towards him, a terrifying red all over her palms and tears sticking in her eyes and Buck wants to disappear with her, wants to take all this pain from Maddie and keep her safe, keep her safe. Wants to go back and beg harder, plead better, make her stay, please, Maddie, stay –

His sister is etched onto his skin. Right over his heart. A tattoo of flowers pressing down on his chest. Daisies, her favorite. 

His sister is his saviour.

***

Buck is twenty-eight years old.

“And what are you going to teach me?” Bobby raises his brow pointedly; a wooden spoon aimed at Buck’s face. “I’m giving you nearly full access to all my recipes, I expect something in return for my services.”

“Is my charming presence not enough?” Buck winks at him, and Bobby thumps his head. “Hey!”

“Lesson number 1: do not use dirty utensils,” Bobby noted, dutifully putting the spoon he used to hit Buck with in the sink and grabbing a clean one. Rubbing his temple, Buck frowns.

Thinks about Bobby’s question. Doesn’t really have an answer.

“I don’t know. I’m not really good at anything. I mean, whatever I can do, you probably can do better already.”

Pausing in his step, Bobby turns back to Buck from the sink, watching him carefully. The station is quiet. Eddie’s not on shift, so Buck’s learning how to make Bobby’s version of Beef Wellington and mashed potato, so he can surprise Eddie and Christopher at dinner tomorrow. They keep watching Hell's Kitchen, and Chris has been asking to try the dish for weeks. Buck just wants to make sure it's extra good, so - Bobby. 

“That’s not true.”

Buck looks away, sighing. He itches at his chest, a lump stuck inside there.

“I don’t… I don’t know. I –” He pauses, weirdly shy and face heating, embarrassed at having the quiet part said so loudly, and Bobby steps closer.  

“You’re always telling us about the new things you learn about. What are you reading these days?”

Buck twists his hands under the countertop, feeling ridiculous all of a sudden. Like a little kid who needs attention. A little kid who wants someone to tell him he’s good, he’s wanted, he’s –

“Um, I was listening to this podcast. It’s random, just about floriography. Chris was asking about why clovers meant good luck and I was looking it up and found this natural history series and it’s, it’s about the language of flowers. I-It’s stupid, I don’t even –”

“Alright then, tell me what flowers have to say.” Bobby tips his head to the side, a light in his eyes.

And it’s as easy as that.  

They dice shallots and peel potatoes and discuss why each month has a birth flower associated with it, and Buck swallows the frog in his throat as Bobby grins at him.

“I’m August, what flower is that?”

“That’s poppy, or gladiolus. Poppies are prettier, though.”

Buck starts to boil water on the stove. Bobby gives him garlic to mince. 

“And what do those mean, then?”

Remembrances, peace. Integrity, strength.

Bobby asks if the flowers Buck has tattooed on him signify something, if he got them done because of their meaning. Buck mentions that some do, some don’t. How he didn’t always know what they all meant, that some were drunken decisions.

But he does have his and Maddie’s favorite flowers marked on his chest. Sweet pea and daisies. There’s a little gap in the middle, an awkward space left between them, but Buck thinks it looks okay. Maybe he’ll fill it, one day.

“You should plant a garden, Buck. I think you’d enjoy it.”

Buck dreams in flowers, that night. Thinks of sweet peas and daisies and poppies. Thinks of creeping myrtle, and dying roses, and a cypress tree in the front yard. Thinks of clovers. Thinks of soft-brown eyes, that soften as Buck takes dinner out of the oven as a young boy laughs so loudly their home expands with it.

Eddie's birth flower is an aster. Love, patience, renewal. They're often confused with daisies. 

Buck dreams in asters. 

***

Buck is twenty-nine years old.

He feels like he’s a little boy all over again, staring at a cypress tree through his window, and feeling all the sorrow in the world cover him.

He had a brother.

Right in his bones, in his blood.

Evan. Sorrow. 

***

Buck is still twenty-nine years old.

He’s sat in a hospital, beside his best friend, and it's okay because they're alive. Eddie’s alive, he’s actually alive, and that’s all that matters, in the end. It’s all Buck can focus on. Has been focusing on. In between tears and sobs and breaking down in front of Christopher, it’s been his mantra. He's alive. There's a heartbeat in his chest, keeping him going. Buck can breathe, he can move, he can feel, he can –

“Because, Evan –”

Buck likes the way his name sounds coming from Eddie’s lips. He’s never really liked hearing it before, it never quite fit him aside from when Maddie used it, but here and now, Eddie makes it sound beautiful. Makes it sound real, and wanted. Makes it sound like it means… love.

Like it’s worth something, all on its own.

They go back home, and Chris falls asleep as they watch an old nature documentary, The Private Life of Plants, and Buck's hands trace in his hair while Eddie smiles to himself, and Buck remembers he can breathe. There's still time. Not everything is broken. 

***

Buck is thirty years old.

They’re getting drinks, Hen is telling a story that has Chimney protesting vehemently is untrue, and Maddie’s smiling into her palm as she stares at her partner. Ravi is getting a round of drinks for them, Karen helping him at the bar, and Buck’s got a flush riding high on his cheeks as Eddie twists the hat on his head.

“There, that’s better,” Eddie announces, proud of his work as Buck rolls his eyes and shoves the birthday hat askew, just to see the flash in Eddie’s eyes. “Dick.”

Buck waggles his finger, and Eddie narrows his eyes. They’re all at the same table, but it feels like they’re the only two people there in that moment. The rest becomes… a murmur. A whisper. Eddie’s just so… loud, even in silence. He draws all of Buck’s attention. “Ah ah ah, you can’t call the birthday boy names. S’not allowed. It’s in the rules.”

“What rules?” Eddie frowns, a smile still flickering on the corners of his mouth, a distraction. Buck takes a swig of his drink.

Ravi sets a new beer and cocktail in front of them, Karen bringing mixed drinks for the others, and Eddie pulls the beer closer to himself, wrapping his lips around the rim as he stares at Buck. It takes Buck a moment to focus.

“The rules. Chim, tell him,” Buck calls out loudly, even though Chimney is barely a few chairs away, and it pulls Chimney's attention from his argument with Hen for long enough that Karen can steal her wife for a dance.

"Oh, right. Sorry man, Buck's right on this one. The one day of the year we gotta pretend to like him," Chimney shakes his head solemnly, Maddie scoffing and swatting lightly on his shoulder. Buck scowls at him.

Eddie snorts. “Sure, fine. Buck, I take it back. I’ll tell you tomorrow that you’re a dick,” Eddie sighs, the smile on his face growing ever so slightly.

Bobby finally returns from the bathroom, Athena suspiciously joining at the same time, and they thankfully interrupt. “Do I want to know what's going on here?” He asks, wrapping an arm around Athena’s shoulder as she tips her head back into him. Buck shakes his head, even though it makes him feel a little woozy, and he tries to ignore the envy in himself as he watches his friends so easily hold their partners. He stands up abruptly.

“We should all get matching tattoos,” Buck announces, and everyone groans. “Hey! Don’t be like that, it’s my birthday!” 

Maddie grabs his arm, gently pulling him down. “Evan, that’s a decision for when we’re all mostly sober, okay?” Maddie’s laugh sounds like wind chimes, so Buck says as much, and she smiles so softly at him he feels like a little kid painting daisies on the baseboards again. 

Eddie directs him slowly into his seat, a grin on his face even as he shakes his head. “And what would you even get? No, let me guess, you’d just let the tattoo artist pick for you, so they could enjoy it, too?”

“No,” Buck draws out petulantly, arms crossed over his chest. Eddie waits him out, patient as a saint. Bobby takes a sip of his lemonade and watches them. After a moment, Buck sags. “I’d ask to see their work and pick from their favorite drawings.”

It’s so nice, hearing Eddie laugh. Buck would like to tattoo that onto him, if he could. 

Flowers. That’s what Buck would want to get done. It would be nice to be covered in flowers.

Like a garden, just like Bobby told him to grow. 

Like a grave.

Both signs of being loved and cared for.

Eddie murmurs his name, a soft “Evan,” as they walk through the front door to his home, having waved goodbye to their friends and thanking them for coming back at the bar. Buck turns to follow Eddie's voice. He bumps into the hand Eddie raises, and watches with wide eyes as Eddie drifts his fingers carefully over Buck’s brow, stumbling down to his cheek, his jaw. “Happy birthday, Buck.”

Buck reaches for the echo of that “Evan” reverberating in his head later that night, lying on the couch as Eddie snores a world away, and remembers that in some ways, “Evan” is also a sign of being loved and cared for.

***

“No truth can cure the sorrow we feel from losing a loved one. No truth, no sincerity, no strength, no kindness can cure that sorrow. All we can do is see it through to the end and learn something from it, but what we learn will be no help in facing the next sorrow that comes to us without warning.”

Buck put down his book, and swallowed the dark pit in his throat. His hands shook as he slowly lifted himself up and staggered to the bathroom, heaving over the toilet.

***

Buck is thirty-two.

He has a broken bottle clenched in his hands, the jagged shards digging into his palm, accidentally cutting himself open and he starts to sob. It wrecks through him, and he can’t see through the tears as he tries to pick up the scattered pieces falling to the floor.

It slipped. The bottle slipped, and Buck’s just trying to clean it up, he’s just trying –

He sees him. He sees him everywhere. He sees him saying goodbye, sees him smile one last time, and Buck couldn’t stop it. Couldn’t save him.

Buck pleads. He begs.

“I love you, kid.”

Bobby still leaves.

That’s just the way it is.

Bobby’s phone doesn’t ring anymore. The connection doesn’t go through. Buck shakes as he puts the fractured glass in the trash and he stares at his hands as a red ugliness pulses from them, flowing down the drain.

Buck rubs raw at his chest, down to his ribs. Carves himself into pieces. He tries to trace the lines of Maddie’s flower tattooed on him, of Daniel’s creeping myrtle right next to it, looking down and looking at how they all intertwine together. Thinks about what loss looks like.

He remembers a conversation he had with Bobby a long time ago. He remembers how Bobby made him feel loved, feel wanted, feel heard. How Bobby gave him an idea.

Remembrances, peace. Integrity, strength.

None of it makes sense. None of it feels fair.

That’s just the way it is.

***

Buck is thirty-three years old.

He braids Jee’s hair, and poorly sings a lullaby to Robbie, and takes leftovers back from Maddie and Chimney’s home. He calls Hen and Karen on the weekend, watches bad reality TV with May and Harry, texts Athena a link to the true crime documentary he binged in a day, gets drinks with Ravi and loses pool with him, and he feels a little more whole each day.

He sits in Eddie’s armchair. He hugs Christopher, smells his shampoo. It no longer smells like watermelon and cucumber. It’s the same one Eddie uses. Smells like lavender. Pure, silence, devotion, serenity. Buck thinks that meaning makes sense, when it comes to the Diaz boys.

He twists his fingers, and listens as Eddie hums under his breath while he heats up dinner for them. He opens his mouth, but the words won’t come out. Chris is finishing his homework in his room, and Eddie’s about to plate their food, and Eddie's going to yell for Chris any moment, and Buck still hasn’t worked up the nerve to say it. To ask. To confess. 

It’s been weeks, months, really years, festering in his soul, his bones, his blood.

“Buck, grab the forks?”

He doesn’t know how to say it - if he should say it at all. It’s probably an awful idea. It’s probably one of the worst ideas ever, and Buck realizes that fact too late.

“Buck?”

It’s rushing up, out, like vomit, falling from him like gravity until it’s crashing at their feet around them. Clear and obvious and pure.

“I love you.”

It’s escaped. Just like that.

Everything Buck feels, in one moment. Handed to Eddie, suffocating in the silence that surrounds them. Eddie stares at him.

“I’m sorry, I-I know you don’t feel that way f-for me, and that’s fine. It is, I swear, I didn’t say this to make you feel bad or force you to say anything back, I just needed you to know. I needed my best friend to know, and now you do, and I can work on it, and we can go back to normal, but I think I need to leave –”

If Buck could take it all back and shove every emotion into a platonic devotion, he would. He would show Eddie how loyal and pious he is, how good he is, and all he needs in return is Eddie’s care, his friendship, and that would be enough.

Instead, Buck became hungry, greedy; started to feast on the way Eddie’s hair would fall over his forehead, how pink his lips were after he bit them, how soft his hands felt as they squeezed at Buck’s shoulder. He took something sacred and beat it into a bleeding, weeping creature. And here’s Eddie, so perfect and wonderful and all the good in the world, and he will handle this kindly, fairly, and it will be enough –

It's quiet, in the kitchen. Weightless. Still.

Until it’s not.

Eddie storms over to him, all force and determination and Buck frowns, hands tense, stomach flipping, heart lurching to reach Eddie so he almost misses it when Eddie pulls Buck’s face into his own.  

Oh. His lips are as soft as Buck always imagined they would be. 

So this is what it feels like.

Buck’s in a daze. His brain’s become dust, and his synapses are begging him to pay attention, to wake up, but all he can see and feel and smell and hear is Eddie. His heart, too. Thump. Thump. Thump.

Ed-die. Ed-die. Ed-die. 

Eddie’s kissing him. It's the only thing that matters in the world. 

Chris walks in a little while later, asking when dinner will be ready, and the two of them part to find the food ice cold on the table, the timer beeping on the oven, Eddie’s hair a mess and Buck’s lips swollen and their lives completely changed.

Rolling his eyes, Chris grabs a slice of cucumber and bites into it. “Are you guys done yet?”

No. No, there’s a lot more to come, Buck’s sure of it.  

***

Buck is thirty-five years old.

He’s in a tuxedo, and his friends are surrounding them as they all cheer and grin and look misty-eyed and he knows he’s a little too close to tears himself, knows that Eddie can tell, but Buck takes in a deep, shuddering breath as he tips his forehead into Eddie’s and they kiss.

“I love you, Evan. Forever,” Eddie vowed, and Buck isn’t sure if he’ll ever get used to that feeling.

They dance in slightly uncomfortable shoes and eat cake and drink champagne and talk to old friends and kiss again and again and again. There was an empty seat in the front row when they exchanged their vows, and Buck tried not to let it get to him, but he felt the pang in his chest almost as sharply as the day they lost him. A tattoo beats on his heart, a bouquet of love. There’s a poppy on Buck’s shoulder, too, he carries it with him.

Maddie gives a speech, and Chimney cries behind Jee’s back while he claims it’s because of the flowers Buck had ordered for the day, sweet pea and aster, and Karen hands him a napkin with a smirk as Robbie babbles at them all. Hen takes a hundred pictures of them throughout the night, and Ravi makes sure they have a drink in their hands whenever they so much as look for one. Athena dances with Denny, then Mara, while May flirts with one of Eddie’s cousins as Harry somehow manages to take over the DJ’s booth before the night is over.

Christopher groans when he gets roped into yet another dance, yet another picture, yet another slice of cake, but he’s got a smile a mile long on his face, so Buck doubts he hates it as much as he says.

People start to trickle out, making their way home and wishing Buck and Eddie all the happiness in the world as they leave, and Buck turns to them with a smile on his face as wide as the world. He hands them a slice of cake as they go, making sure to tell them what flavor it is.

Lemon and elderflower. 

Protection, endings, rebirth, healing.

Buck waves to their friends as they leave. Maddie kisses his cheek and he hugs her close. Their children are all well, safe and happy.

Eddie holds him.

Goodbye. Thank you for a lovely time.

***

Buck is forty-nine years old.

He’s sat beside Eddie, the two of them waiting anxiously as the hospital doors remain stubbornly closed. He checks his watch, then his phone, then fidgets with his pant legs. Taps his foot on the floor. Eddie’s hands are clenching around nothing as he sits upright and rigid in his seat. Buck checks his watch.

Hours or minutes or days or seconds later, there’s Christopher suddenly bursting through the doors, the slam of it echoing on the wall beside them and he’s got tears in his eyes and he’s smiling so wide he’s almost shaking with it.

Eddie bolts to his son, his little boy, and Buck clings on to Eddie’s hand as they walk through the hallway and into the delivery room and –

There she is. Oh, there she is.

She’s tiny. She’s sniffling and bright pink and crying and Sam is lying there, exhausted, hair plastered to her face as she turns to grin at them both, while a little, wailing, perfect girl sits in her arms.

Buck pauses. Christopher takes his daughter from his wife’s careful hold, cooing at the baby in a voice they’ve never heard him speak with before, and then Eddie’s right at his shoulder, face so open and tender as he’s staring at the girl like she’s the answer to everything. Buck’s heart soars and fumbles and he rubs at Sam’s shoulder, her hand coming up to pat his, and then Eddie’s got the little girl in his arms, and Buck starts to cry and shake and he’s laughing and waving them off but it’s so perfect, it’s so lovely.

“This little one’s name is Amelia,” Sam introduces to them as Eddie walks over to Buck, holding little Amelia, and Buck reaches a hand out to brush her cheek softly.

Abronia Ameliae. A flower, also known as Amelia’s Sand Verbena. Some call it “heart’s delight.” A symbol of resilience. A bright pink flower, the color of Eddie’s blush; a plant found in Texas, where Chris was born. But Chris and Sam didn’t name their daughter after any of that. It’s a pretty name, and they just liked it. But Buck thinks it makes complete sense.

Evan. “Born of the yew tree.” Buck never liked that meaning, but he thinks here, with Amelia’s face scrunched up in front of him, that he might finally come around to it. He likes how they make sense together, both side by side, Evan and Amelia.

A tree and a flower, growing, growing, growing.

“Well hello there, sweet pea,” Eddie murmurs softly, and Buck takes a deep breath, his heart skipping a beat. 

There’s a bellflower tattooed on Buck’s bicep. A thoughtless, last-minute decision he made as a kid who never thought of the consequences of his actions, the night of his fire academy graduation. Bellflowers are a symbol of unwavering love, translated into the phrase “a constant heart.” Buck looked up the meaning a while ago and thought it was a funny coincidence. 

Unwavering love.

He thinks about adding another flower to grow beside it. Heart’s delight.

***

Buck is fifty-five years old.

He’s sat beside Eddie, lounging in the grass, the two of them in their own little world as Christopher yells through the kitchen window. He’s telling the kids to put on their jackets, even though it’s barely October in Los Angeles. The children cackle in the garden, red noses, barefoot and wild.

Their granddaughter drops a flower plucked from the bushes into Buck’s waiting hand and waits for his assessment.

“Do you like it?” She worries sweetly, as if Buck would say no, and so he brings the flower up close to her face so they can look at it together. Eddie tips his head to rest carefully on his palm as he turns to watch them quietly.

“I do, it’s one of my favorites,” Buck tells her, and she brightens like sunshine. “It’s called Meadowsweet,” the white petals are small and dainty, and Buck twists the stem in his fingers. Their grandson stumbles to them, bored now he’s been left to his own devices, and he leans in to smell the flower. Buck holds it out so it's easier for him to reach. “It means beauty, peace, and happiness.”

The little boy frowns at him. “How do you know? Flowers can’t talk.” Eddie huffs a laugh and ruffles the boy’s hair, who takes the opportunity to climb into his lap and twist to stare up at Buck, accusatorially. Their granddaughter follows suit, tucking herself tight next to them, knees bent and tiny legs squatting as she waits for his answer.

Carefully, Buck tucks the flower behind Eddie’s ear. He catches the blush settling over his husband’s cheeks, suddenly shy as he looks away for a moment, as if they were on their first date again. Buck smiles. “That’s just the way it is.”

The children don’t seem satisfied by his answer, and fuss loudly when Eddie turns to Buck, eyes bright as he leans over to peck Buck’s lips. The boy squirms and fumbles away in an instant, his sister hot on his heels as they chase one another again, their grandparents already forgotten.

The back door slams open, shuddering against the house as Christopher walks outside and he grumbles at them both. “You guys couldn’t get them to put on a jacket, really?” He demands, pointing to his gleeful, screaming kids.

“They’ll be just fine, son,” Eddie reassures, and Buck turns to stare at him. Not at Eddie, but at Chris. He’s got some grey curls coming in, a few extra wrinkles at his eyes, and Buck feels his heart stagger heavily in his chest.

Back and forth they go, Eddie calmly reasoning that it’s seventy degrees out and Chris threatening to find his old scarves and gloves and hats from their storage boxes, so help him God, while the children refuse to listen to their dad as they keep on running and running and running and –

“Nothing you can do about that,” Buck murmurs, as Chris complains about how his children don’t listen to their parents anymore, that even Sam’s lost her edge with them and they would dote on her like anything just the other day. “That’s just the way it is.” He watches as Amelia hands Jamie a palm full of dirt, and then Eddie’s up on old knees to make sure no one eats it.

Chris gives up, sitting down beside Buck in a huff, and they watch as laughter chases itself around them in the setting sun, Eddie racing after them both. Sam walks through the door a little while later, food in hand as the kids bounce over to greet her, and after dinner Eddie remembers he promised Sam some of their old quilts, hand-me-downs from Abuela, and Sam traces a pattern over them, hugged tight to her chest as she thanks him hoarsely. Sam has no family heirlooms to claim, no family of her own at all. They bonded a little, her and Buck. No connection to their parents, growing up a little lost. But Buck has Maddie, and now, Sam has them.

She refuses to put the quilts down the rest of the night, and the kids fall asleep under them, tucked up against her.

It’s a lovely time.

Buck thinks back on this moment a lot, afterwards. He remembers the fading sunshine on his face as Amelia shrieked when Jamie nearly stepped on a lizard, remembers the weight of Christopher in his arms as they hugged goodbye and Sam drinking her cup of tea in their armchair. Of the smell of Eddie’s hair in his nose as they went to bed curled around each other that night.

He misses it. Feels a yearning to go back and live in that moment forever. Time rushes on, it goes on and on and on and –

That’s just the way it is.

***

Buck is eighty-one years old.

It’s Jamie’s birthday. He’s flown back home from the East Coast and he’s spiralling a little over turning thirty and still being single, so Christopher’s taken him for a walk around the block to offer his sage advice. Sam shakes her head with an amused smile as she watches them go off, and then she is suspiciously announcing that she’s heading out to go pick up a special surprise for them all. Eddie asks if everything’s okay, worry still at the forefront of his mind all these years later, but Sam just winks at them. Tells them to sit down, presses a cup of tea into their hands, turns on a movie. It's a nature documentary. An old, familiar one. 

“We’ll be back before you can miss us,” she promises and then she’s gone out the door. Buck turns to Eddie. He’s furrowing his brow, the way Buck knew he would, his hands wringing a little until Buck reaches over and covers it with his own.

They wait for the others to come back, the TV humming and the lights dimmed low and their hands resting on one another’s, how they ought to be. Buck makes a joke about something shown in the documentary, and Eddie does his little snort, the one that huffs out of his nose, and it makes Buck smile widely.  

The door opens a short while later, enough time for them to put their mugs down and to settle a little more comfortably into each other’s arms, the peace wonderfully shattering with a cacophony of noise erupting behind them.

Sam rushes in, grin on her face and eyes bright, Jamie laughing loudly and walking backwards as he stumbles through the front door, eyes trained on the person still on the porch kicking off mud from their shoes, judging by the sound of thumps they hear outside, and then they finally hear Chris nudging someone inside ahead of him and Buck’s heart skips a beat.

Amelia’s got a small suitcase in her hands, faint pink lines etched on her face, like she pressed her skin into a pillow recently, and she turns to look for them both immediately. With a beam on her face, she throws her arms wide open and rushes over to hug them tight. Eddie holds her first, brushing a hand over her hair and getting tangled in it, going to kiss her head but landing on her ear, and Buck blinks rapidly as he pulls her in next. Breathes her in.

She kisses their cheeks, pushing her dark hair from her cheek. “For you,” she says, flourishing a bouquet of flowers from her bag. "Your favorite."

“Sweet pea,” Buck slowly takes it, the pink and purple splashing onto his hands.

“Blissful pleasures,” Amelia quotes, nodding proudly, though Buck shakes his head slightly as he admires them. “No?”

“You forgot the other meanings,” Buck tells her as Jamie grabs them a vase and Chris settles beside the fire, warming his hands while Sam plops herself onto his lap. Eddie lets a finger rest on the fine petal that grazes Buck’s wrist. “Goodbye. Thank you for a lovely time.”

That makes Amelia laugh. She takes the flowers from Buck and puts them in the vase that Jamie hands her, twisting it here and there to make it look pretty as she settles it on the table for them.

“Maybe I should keep them until I leave, then,” she jokes, and Eddie makes her sit down and tell them about her flight and her job and her friends, until he turns his focus to Jamie and tells him to stop worrying about things he doesn’t need to worry about, which makes Buck snort loudly. It’s obvious where Jamie gets that trait from, and Buck shares a look with Christopher while Eddie pouts at him, but it’s alright. Buck holds his husband’s hand and tells him how much he loves him, a poetic rant starting from his chest, built over a half-century of love, and the others pretend to groan but secretly eat it up.

It's terribly too soon when, only a few days later, they’re all waving goodbye after their long weekend together. Jamie and Amelia are headed to the airport to get on their respective flights across the country, Chris and Sam are promising to see them soon, at Jee and Alan’s wedding anniversary dinner next month, and Buck smiles softly as he sits back down in the armchair that’s worn through the years as they shut the door. In the armchair that Sam used to sit in when she would try to get little Jamie to sleep, where Chris sat to tell them he had met someone, someone he thinks they’d really like, where Eddie asked the furniture store employee how long the warranty would cover them.

Buck sits down, wrapped in memories. He’s still smiling.  

He does not know he will die in four days. Will pass away in his sleep, gently, peacefully. He won’t know anything about it.

Instead, Buck knows he has a family he loves, and Eddie calls to him from the kitchen, asking if he’d like a slice of cake. Buck would.

The flowers are on the table. Buck thinks about planting sweet pea in his garden next. Alongside the poppies and bellflowers and creeping myrtle and aster and elderflower already there.

Goodbye. Thank you for a lovely time.