#i can't do it for all of them fdsajlkfslka

[fcntasmas-archive]

Buddie & 29: Wedding fic + 100: Accidentally Saving the Day ??? I'll have you know the romantic in me just wanted to do wedding and flowers but you know plot is probably good lmao also Idk if I did this right but

FOR YOU MY LOVE???? i would have done it. i would have, ok. and i woulda found a plot somewhere in there, too, unlike this mess you allowed me to write: ok. so. i feel like around october 2021, maddie and chimney finally decide to get married. it’s long overdue, yadda yadda, they’ve heard it all. but they’re happy with the road they’ve taken — however long it’s been, it’s theirs, and theirs alone. their relationship was built on patience and understanding, after all, and after a long and unified treatment of maddie’s postpartum depression (with extensive therapy and medication as needed) for the rest of the year, they feel like they’re finally in a place to throw this big and beautiful party they feel like they’ve definitely earned. buck and eddie, on the other hand. eh. things are not progressing as we would hope. don’t get me wrong — after eddie confessed to buck that he’d changed his will to make buck christopher’s legal guardian, he’d felt — not — something had shifted, and buck had simply assumed that was their friendship growing stronger, and he was right, for the most part — their friendship was stronger than ever. buck spent a lot of time with them, he was more cautious out on calls (if eddie doesn’t want his kid to end up with his parents in case of his death, it’ll be pretty fucking hard to prevent that if buck is also dead, after all), he was just — grateful. aware of what a gift every day is. yeah, he’s dating taylor, but he’s doing a good job of balancing his relationship and this new role he’s found in the diazes’ lives (i mean. so he assumes, but taylor’s been left on read by him enough times to know something’s gotta give here). and eddie is— he’s going crazy, okay? he’s going insane. because when he got shot, the last thing he saw was buck’s face, and so when he woke up, the first thing he expected to see was buck’s face because it felt like a second had passed but instead he saw ana’s and there was this deep, gut-wrenching disappointment when it happened and he didn’t mean for buck to be the first person he asked after, but last he’d remembered there was blood all over him and he just wanted to make sure he was okay— and it was this big, monumental thing for him, to realize that buck was — buck is — the best decision he’s ever made in his life. because that’s what buck is — a choice. he chose buck — everything good in his life has come to him through blessings or coincidence. he loves his son with all of his being, but even he was a surprise, a surprise he welcomed with open arms (and fears that formed into an escape but he got back, somehow. he found his way back to him, like he always does). buck, on the other hand, was a man who hated him for approximately twelve hours, then smiled at him and told eddie he could have his back any day. he’d tentatively offered himself in eddie’s life as a partner, a friend, a confidant, and eddie — eddie chose to let him in. eddie, notorious for keeping as many cards as possible close to his chest, allowed him into his life to fill all of these roles, and eddie hasn’t regretted it a single day of his life. trusts him with his entire world more than anyone — and god, if that shouldn’t have said something to him sooner. so. he’s kind of stupidly in love with buck, who is kind of dating taylor kelly, and it’s fine, he’s fine. (except for the part that he feels like every single tendon in his body is slowly and painfully snapping out of place, threatening to leave him a crumbled useless mess on the floor any day now. but that’s, like, fine.)

it doesn’t get any easier. mostly because buck’s place in his life doesn’t diminish despite him dating taylor and especially since eddie breaks up with ana. he’s there for all the big stuff — christopher’s birthday, abuela’s birthday, tia pepa’s retirement party, eddie’s extensive physical therapy, at three in the morning when eddie wakes up from a nightmare and all he can do is seek out the comfort of buck’s voice, quiet and alive in his ear.

it’s infuriating because he’s always there, in the months that follow the shooting, the same way he’s always been, so instead of shoving the feeling down eddie is forced to confront it every single day in the way buck smiles at him, in the way he reaches out and squeezes him arm in comfort when he’s far away, in the way he makes christopher breakfast and answers his endless array of questions, in the way he greets his grandmother with a kiss to the cheek and dutifully allows her to make the sign of the cross over him before he leaves despite not being religious in the slightest, in the way he subconsciously reaches out to eddie after every call as if to make sure he’s still there, it’s in every single part of buck and buck is in every single part of him and so he cannot — even if he wanted to try — shove the feeling aside when it’s so fucking alive in him every single day.

and it’s why, a day before the wedding on a december evening, when buck leaves one of his many jackets behind at their house and eddie picks it up to move it from the couch to the entrance to remember to give it back to him, he feels like his soul leaves his body when he sees a small black box fall from the pocket and onto his floor.

it’s a ring. it’s obviously a ring.

and he spends the rest of the night staring at the box in his hand, terrified of opening it, not wanting to know what it looks like. because what would taylor kelly like, in a ring? eddie can’t imagine it wouldn’t be something extravagant. buck probably knows. he has to know, if he’s picking one out for her. if he’s so sure about her he’s going to propose.

and that’s just — is it chim and maddie? has it gotten buck thinking about the future? should eddie ask? because buck shouldn’t — he shouldn’t. it’s only been months, for fuck’s sake. he’s just gonna — and when does he even find the time—

he is desolate. he doesn’t even call buck that night, after he wakes up from a nightmare, because this one is shaped a lot like the black box he refuses to open sitting on his end table, and he can’t really explain that one away to buck, can he?

he thinks about it the entire morning of, when he doesn’t hear from buck. he doesn’t expect to, obviously; he’s busy being maddie’s best man (something about not conforming to the norms or whatever) and he has to be at the reception way earlier than any of the guests have to be and so eddie is left pointedly ignoring the box on his end table as he gets himself ready, carla being the angel that she is and helping get chris ready.

when he has nothing else to distract him, he kneels in front of his end table and glares at the box until he realizes he’s being really fucking ridiculous. he should just — give the box back to buck, and ask zero questions — or, congratulate him, because that’s what a good friend would do, right? a good friend who is not in love with him would most definitely give him the ring back and joke about his commitment issues because, ha ha, you sure play fast and loose with the one object meant to represent your eternal love for her, dude!

christ. he’s a child.

he pockets the ring and pretends it’s not burning a hole in his coat pocket the entire hour-long ride to the reception.

it’s here where he runs into a panicked-looking buck in the middle of the reception lobby, tie askew and eyes a wild shade of his usual blue, and eddie has to steady him and take him outside in the cold before he passes out in the middle of all the people lounging around. buck is having trouble breathing, saying something about i lost — i lost—

and eddie can kind of fill in the blanks here, stomach swooping with guilt when he reaches into his pocket and pulls out the one object that’s been killing him slowly all day.

buck blinks at the box for a second. silent. awed. then he looks at eddie and tells him he could kiss him, holy shit, and he takes the box and it’s actually one of those boxes that opens from the middle, which, huh, eddie hadn’t noticed, and when buck opens it (and there’s a moment where eddie considers running away from the sight, he’s not gonna lie) there are—

two wedding bands.

oh.

“holy shit, ed, you just saved my ass,” he tells him, pulling him in for an embrace that does nothing to settle eddie’s super mature yearning. “i thought i’d lost them! i thought maddie was going to have my entire head.”

of course it’s not an engagement ring, of course it’s not. they’re chim and maddie’s wedding bands, and actually, eddie should be a little more concerned at how easily buck had forgotten them at eddie’s, but he’s too busy feeling the relief flow through him like an antidote to the veins, and he realizes right here, right now, that actually, he doesn’t think he could ever handle buck marrying anyone. not taylor, not the next girl, or the next.

buck freezes against him, and eddie realizes a little belatedly he just said that out loud. 

he pulls away immediately and coughs into his hands and starts muttering incoherently about a game he’d seen last night on the tv and how he has to go to the bathroom and he’s, uh, actually gonna go, glad he could be of help, glad he could save buck’s ass—

buck looks at the rings and back at eddie and asks if eddie thought this was for taylor, and eddie makes a noise that sounds like “alilbit”, and buck shakes his head in disbelief and tells eddie he broke up with taylor, like, two weeks ago, and eddie is shocked because what? when? why didn’t he say anything? and buck shrugs and admits he didn’t want the focus to be on whatever he is or isn’t feeling so close to chim and maddie’s wedding and eddie says, right, but, no offense to them, but he comes first to eddie, and he would be wondering that anyway, and buck looks at him for a second and he asks eddie, point blank, “you didn’t want me to marry taylor?”

or anyone, eddie doesn’t correct. he tries to come up with a flimsy excuse — just thought it was too fast, blah blah — but then he looks into buck’s eyes, one of his favorite sights to lose himself in, and he blurts out: “no. no, i didn’t. i think i was gonna ask you not to, actually. because the thought of you marrying anyone who isn’t me fills me with dread and despair, so i also think i was going to confess i’m stupidly in love with you.”

and buck looks indecipherable, for once. eddie is shifting his weight both in a nervous gesture and in an attempt to keep warm because it’s cold, alright, it’s cold for LA and he’s also from texas so he’s not good at handling any kind of cold—

and buck just closes the box in his hands and then waves his hands in the air like he’s trying to get eddie’s attention and eddie’s super confused but then buck’s like what the fuck, eddie, and he starts pacing back and forth ranting about how long he’s been wanting to hear that and how much sleep he’s lost trying to come up with the right way to tell him and eddie just shows up, saves the fucking day, and confesses? just like that? it’s so fucking annoying how easy he made it look, like buck hasn’t been shitting his pants any time the words even try to make it past his lips, and also, also, on maddie’s wedding day? how is he supposed to think about ANYTHING ELSE now? he’s supposed to walk around like he doesn’t know the man he’s been in love with for years loves him back? 

and he keeps going on and on about how actually this is the worst-best thing that’s ever happened to him, but all eddie can hear are the ones where buck confesses to being in love with eddie for years, and it takes them a moment to settle in his veins, push past the insecurities, and reboot his entire body until finally, finally, he interrupts buck in the middle of a sentence (“and then you did that thing that one time with your mouth—”) by pressing his lips against his, and it’s like the cold around them exists no more.

eddie’s never felt warmer.

buck is right, in the end. he seems to find it exceedingly difficult to keep his eyes off eddie during the ceremony, enough so that eddie has to force himself not to blush, and when the vows are said and wedding bands are exchanged and the groom has kissed the bride — when the night gets started and everyone starts mingling and no one spares him a second glance, eddie finds out that coat closets are, in fact, not as soundproof as buck promised him they were, and he also ends up owing denny fifty dollars so he never, ever tells his mom he caught him sucking on buck’s face like a teenager when all the poor kid had wanted was his coat.

(worth it, though.)