Chapter Text
Eddie didn’t look in mirrors much anymore. Not really.
He brushed his teeth, washed his face, checked if his collar was straight—but that wasn’t looking. That was maintenance. That was necessity. That was survival. Actually looking, really seeing himself? That felt dangerous. Like catching the ghost in your own eyes before you could pretend he wasn’t there.
So he focused on the tasks. The routine. The rhythm.
It was Wednesday, which meant pasta night. Garlic, olive oil, a little lemon—Chris liked it that way. Eddie chopped the parsley like it had personally wronged him, then stirred the sauce one direction, then the other. The kitchen smelled familiar. Safe.
Behind him, the TV was on low. Christopher’s voice floated from the couch, narrating whatever game he was playing while Eddie moved through the same steps he moved through every week.
Everything was normal.
Everything was fine.
He set two plates on the table. “Dinner,” he called.
Chris bounded into the room, controller still in hand, socks sliding on the tile.
“Smells good,” he said, dropping into his chair.
Eddie smiled, tight at the edges. “Same as always.”
They ate in companionable silence for a few minutes. Chris talked between bites about a school project, something with popsicle sticks and glue. Eddie nodded along, answered where needed, but didn’t say much. He didn’t have to. Chris was used to filling the gaps by now.
“You okay, Dad?”
The question came out of nowhere, soft and curious, not heavy. But it still landed like a weight in Eddie’s chest.
He blinked. “Yeah, bud. Just tired.”
Chris nodded, satisfied. “You always say that.”
Eddie let out a quiet laugh. “That’s because it’s always true.”
After dinner, Eddie rinsed the dishes while Chris brushed his teeth. He stared at the water circling the drain, hands scrubbing mechanically, eyes unfocused. The pasta sauce came off in streaks. So did the parsley. So did the oil.
But the ache didn’t wash away with it.
Eddie lay in bed under low, amber light—the room quiet and still, as if time itself had pressed pause. He’d turned off most of the distractions, leaving only the soft hum of his phone on the nightstand for company. His eyes were half-closed, lost somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, when a subtle buzz pulled him back.
He reached out slowly, almost unconsciously, and picked up the phone. One new message glowed on the screen. It was from Buck.
BUCK: Hey. What’s your address again?
Eddie’s heart gave an unexpected lurch. The words were sparse, casual—nothing that screamed urgency. Yet, they carried the weight of years. For a moment, he remembered when texts from Buck were constant: quick check-ins squeezed between long, laugh-filled phone calls, a steady stream of banter that had bridged the gap of distance. Back then, words like this had always felt reassuring, familiar.
But things had changed the day Eddie left LA for Texas. Over the past two years, their conversations had thinned out to rare, measured bursts. At first, Buck kept the connection alive—sending selfies, or old pictures with Christopher, casual updates that showed he was doing okay. Then the messages started to taper off. Eddie let the gaps grow, convincing himself that distance was both inevitable and, perhaps, necessary. But even now, this one short message prickled at him.
He stared at the screen, the quiet of the room amplifying his racing thoughts. The absence of any follow-up word was as loud as a silence filled with unsaid things. What did Buck really need? Eddie’s mind darted between memories—the night Eddie left, Buck’s lingering gaze as the car pulled away, the unspoken words that had slowly died in the space between them.
With a hesitant breath, he typed:
EDDIE: Still the same. Everything’s the same.
Almost immediately, he added another line before second-guessing himself:
You okay?
He waited, the stillness in the room punctuated only by his shallow breaths, until the reply lit up the screen almost too quickly:
BUCK: Yeah! Just need to send you something :)
A slow smile crept onto Eddie’s face, fragile but real. The message was innocuous enough—a hint of something coming his way without a promise of what it might be. For a brief moment, hope stirred in him. Perhaps it meant Buck was planning a visit. Maybe there was something he wanted to share—a memento, a note, even a small reminder of the old days.
Eddie set the phone down on the nightstand, not daring to reach for it again immediately, as if touching it too soon might shatter that glimmer of hope. In the quiet darkness of his room, he allowed himself to linger on the possibility of reconnection, wondering if this message might be the beginning of turning the silent gap into something more alive.
For now, he lay back, the message—a small spark in the long stillness—echoing in his mind as he tried to settle back into the rhythm of sleep, feeling just a little less alone.
~
The envelope came three days later.
It was tucked between a utility bill and a car dealership flyer, part of the morning stack Eddie pulled from the mailbox without looking. He didn’t notice it right away—not until he was halfway up the driveway, flipping through the pile with his thumb, more out of habit than curiosity.
Then he saw it.
Thick cream cardstock. Centered type. His name written in Buck’s handwriting.
Eddie Diaz
El Paso, TX
The return address was there in the corner—familiar zip code, familiar street—but Eddie didn’t need to read it to know where it came from. The moment he saw the loops in the “D,” the careful spacing of the letters, his stomach turned over.
He stopped walking.
Stood still in the middle of his driveway, sunlight burning into the back of his neck, the envelope gone heavy in his hands.
It wasn’t like Buck to send things. Not anymore.
They hadn’t exchanged letters in years—not even birthday cards. When they communicated now, it was texts, if anything. Quick, sparse. Functional.
This was… intentional.
This had weight.
He turned the envelope in his hand once. Then again. The paper felt expensive, deliberate. Like whatever was inside needed to last. Like it had been chosen for something important.
He could open it.
Right there, in the middle of the driveway, in his socks and sleep-rumpled T-shirt, sun already too bright for the hour.
But he didn’t.
He didn’t want to find out that it was something final. Or personal. Or—God forbid—honest. Because if Buck had taken the time to put words on paper, then Eddie would have to read them. And if he read them, he’d have to feel whatever they made him feel.
And he’d spent the last two years very carefully not doing that.
So instead, he slipped the envelope under his arm, walked the rest of the way to the door, and stepped inside.
He set it on the kitchen counter.
He didn’t open it right away.
He told himself it didn’t matter. That whatever it was could wait.
But hours passed. Chris was at school, the laundry was folded, the kitchen wiped down twice. The house had gone still in the way houses do when there’s no one left in them but your thoughts.
Eddie sat at the kitchen table, the envelope in front of him like it had grown heavier with time. He turned it once. Ran his thumb along the wax seal. Buck’s handwriting stared back at him—steady, unassuming, like it didn’t know what it was about to do.
For a second, he almost left it unopened. Almost let it keep breathing in that drawer like it wasn’t already rearranging something in his chest.
But eventually, he slid his thumb beneath the seal and cracked it open in one clean motion. The sound of tearing paper cut too sharp through the silence.
He pulled out the contents. Thick cardstock. Clean edges. Tactile weight, like intention could live inside paper.
He unfolded it slowly.
And then he stopped.
Stopped everything.
His heart. His breath. His thoughts.
He read the names once, then again, because he didn’t believe them the first time.
Save the Date: Evan Buckley & Tommy Kinard
May 17, 2027 — Los Angeles, CA
Formal invitation to follow.
He stared.
The letters didn’t blur, but something in his vision tunneled anyway. The room dropped into a kind of muffled quiet he hadn’t felt in years. Like standing at the edge of a blast radius.
It wasn’t a letter. It wasn’t a memory. It wasn’t an explanation or a question or an apology.
It was a declaration.
And all Buck had needed was an address.
Eddie sat with it in his hands. He didn’t move. Didn’t blink. He just… existed, like something caught between time zones—like the Eddie who had been Buck’s best friend in LA and the Eddie who had quietly stopped texting back in Texas had collided and left behind this shell, sitting at a kitchen table with something that looked like closure in his lap.
He thought, stupidly, of all the things Buck used to send him. Voice notes, memes, blurry firehouse selfies with Hen’s thumb in the frame. Back then, it had been constant. Easy.
Effortless.
This wasn’t effortless.
This had been printed. Designed. Mailed.
This had been proofed.
And it was the first thing Buck had sent him in months.
Eddie’s thumb drifted across the gold foil, catching on the corner like it might bite.
His mind flicked—too fast, too bright—through images he’d learned to keep buried: Buck laughing in his kitchen. Buck asleep on his couch, curled toward the back cushions like he belonged there. The way Buck’s eyes softened when Chris spoke. The way they softened for him, too, sometimes, like—
No.
He pushed the thought away.
Whatever it was—whatever that had been—he had left it behind. Left Buck behind. Packed his things, said goodbye, and drove out of LA with both hands clenched on the wheel like holding on would make it hurt less.
And now Buck was getting married.
Of course he was. Buck was the kind of person people married. Bright, loyal, open-hearted. Eddie always knew someone would see that and never let go.
He just hadn’t realized how much it would hurt when that person wasn’t him.
He didn’t cry. He wouldn’t.
But his chest ached in a way that felt like bruised cartilage—tender to the touch, the kind of pain that flares worse when you pretend it isn’t there.
His eyes dropped to the bottom of the card.
A URL. A little line in tasteful serif font:
Let us know if you’ll be joining us!
Eddie stared at it. Something bitter curled in his throat.
He didn’t remember standing. Just that one moment he was seated, and the next he was moving—gripping the card too tightly, his hand shaking just enough to make the foil glint.
He opened the drawer by the stove. The one full of dead pens and things he didn’t want to deal with. He set the card on top of a takeout menu, next to a key he hadn’t used in two years.
Let it rest there. Out of sight, but not out of mind.
Then he closed the drawer with both hands.
And leaned on the counter like it might hold him up.
~
Eddie wasn’t going to open the link.
That was the plan. That had been the plan since the moment he tucked the card into the drawer like it could be buried with the rest of the clutter in his life—the things he didn’t need, didn’t want to deal with, didn’t want to look at long enough to admit they meant anything.
It had been sitting there for days now. The envelope gone, but the card still sharp-edged in his memory. He could see it perfectly without even trying—the cream cardstock, the gold lettering, the way his name had looked in Buck’s handwriting again after so long.
He kept telling himself it didn’t matter. That there was nothing on the website he needed to see. That showing up to that corner of Buck’s life would only make something worse. For who, he couldn’t say. Maybe for Tommy. Maybe for Buck. Maybe for himself.
But the thought wouldn’t leave him alone.
What if Buck was waiting?
Not for some grand gesture. Not for anything bigger than a checkbox. But waiting all the same. Watching the RSVPs come in. Noticing the silence from the one name he’d had to type in manually, because there wasn’t a partner name to autofill. Wondering if Eddie had seen it. Wondering if he cared.
Buck could spiral about things like that. Always had. Said he was fine and meant it until he wasn’t. Said “no big deal” about things that broke him.
And the thought of Buck pacing his apartment, checking the guest list, rereading Eddie’s message—Still the same. Everything’s the same.—and trying to figure out what the silence meant… it made Eddie feel like a ghost in someone else’s house. Still haunting the places he no longer had a right to be.
He wasn’t ready to look directly at the screen.
He didn’t want to see the pictures, or the names, or the neat little headers with words like Our Story or From Friends to Forever. He didn’t want to know how carefully Buck and Tommy had curated their history. How much of it was shared now. How much of it had been rewritten to make room for the ending.
But he didn’t want Buck waiting on him, either.
So that’s why he did it.
Not because he wanted to.
Not because he was ready.
But because Buck might still be looking for him. Just a little.
And Eddie—stupid, loyal, unfinished Eddie—had always shown up when Buck was looking.
Even if it meant burning alive just to stand in the room.
The website loaded slowly. Or maybe it didn’t—maybe it was just Eddie’s hands that felt heavy, his cursor hovering like it needed permission.
The screen brightened, and there they were.
Buck and Tommy.
Standing on a hiking trail, wind in their hair, sun on their cheeks. Buck’s arm around Tommy’s waist, Tommy’s hand resting lightly on Buck’s chest. Buck wasn’t looking at the camera. He was looking at him.
Like he couldn’t imagine wanting to look anywhere else.
Eddie’s lungs felt tight. Not in a sharp, breaking kind of way—but dull. Compressed. Like the breath had been slowly sucked from the room without him realizing it.
The road to forever, the caption read.
The words sat beneath the photo like they belonged there. Like this had always been the story. Like Eddie had never stood in the middle of it.
He scrolled down.
More pictures—Buck and Tommy at a rooftop party, mid-laugh, a Polaroid of them holding hands in front of a neon sign that said found you. One of them in matching jackets, cold breath visible between their smiles. Another where Buck was holding a sparkler, his head thrown back, Tommy pressed into his side.
Eddie couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Buck that happy in a photo.
But worse—he couldn’t remember the last time he had made Buck laugh like that.
It was like looking into a mirror where he didn’t cast a reflection anymore.
He pressed his knuckles into the edge of the table, grounding himself. The screen in front of him kept glowing. Kept insisting. Look. Look. This is what you missed.
He clicked to the About Us tab.
There were more words now, tidy and warm:
We met on a shift neither of us were supposed to be on. Fell in love by accident and stayed there on purpose.
Sometimes love is timing. Sometimes it’s choosing each other again.
This is our again.
He remembered the first time Buck and Tommy started dating—back when he was still in LA, still pretending he didn’t care. Tommy had been nice enough. Smart, composed, kind to Chris.
But Eddie hadn’t liked him.
There was something too polished about Tommy, too easy with charm, too quick to smooth things over when Buck was spiraling instead of meeting him where he was. He always seemed like he wanted Buck to be lighter, less intense. Easier to manage.
And then he’d dumped him.
Out of nowhere.
Eddie remembered Buck showing up to his house with a tight smile, a six-pack of beer, and red eyes, saying he was fine. Saying it didn’t matter. Saying it wasn’t serious, anyway.
Eddie had believed none of it.
He remembered sitting beside Buck in the locker room after everyone had cleared out, offering a bottle of water like that could fix something. Buck hadn’t taken it. He’d just looked down at his hands and said:
“He said I was too much. That I feel everything too hard. That he was only my first, not my last.”
Eddie had said something then. Something stiff and hollow, like “you deserve better”—but what he really meant was you deserve someone who doesn’t make you apologize for being who you are.
He just hadn’t been brave enough to say it.
And now?
Now Tommy was smiling in photos and writing captions about second chances, like they were something you could just choose. Like everyone got one.
Eddie sat in his kitchen, elbows on the table, blinking hard against the pressure building behind his eyes.
He didn’t resent Tommy for getting another shot. He just couldn’t imagine anyone ever offering him one.
Not after all the things he’d run from. Not after everything he’d refused to say.
He didn’t mean to click on the “Updates” tab.
Didn’t mean to read the whole story like it mattered.
But his fingers hovered, and then they clicked, and then it was open in front of him—laid out in neat paragraphs beneath a photo of Buck and Tommy seated at a bistro table, all soft lighting and wine glasses and smiles so wide they looked rehearsed. Eddie stared at it like it had teeth.
We found our way back to each other after some time apart. Sometimes love needs distance to grow.
After reconnecting during a rescue call in May 2025, we rebuilt what we had—stronger, steadier, and more honest.
I proposed in October 2026. He said yes immediately. He still claims he blacked out.
Eddie stopped reading.
His hand dropped from the mouse. His jaw went tight.
He didn’t need to be reminded of May 2025. He could still hear the dispatch feed buzzing through his speakers, voice after voice reporting chaos from a collapsed lab in LA—some new virus, unclear exposure, possible fatalities. Bobby had been trapped. Buck had been inside.
And Eddie had been in El Paso.
He wasn’t with the 118 anymore. Not on shift. Not on the scene. He’d already left. He had sat in his kitchen in Texas, helpless, listening to the same scratchy audio from LA County dispatch over and over until it felt like punishment. When Buck’s voice finally came through—tight, controlled, terrified—he nearly collapsed.
Later, when it was over, when everyone made it out alive, Buck texted him.
Tommy was there.
That was it. No lead-up. No context.
Eddie had stared at the screen like it was a misdial.
He helped with the rescue, Buck added. We worked the second entry team together.
Tommy had always been in LA. Still worked nearby, still responded to mutual aid calls when needed. Eddie knew that. But something about the timing felt… pointed. Like the universe had made a decision on Buck’s behalf.
They’d gone to dinner. Eddie didn’t ask. Didn’t pry. Didn’t let himself wonder why his stomach turned over.
Things got quieter after that.
Buck didn’t stop calling exactly—but Eddie started answering less. Stopped initiating. Let the gap between them fill with static.
He told himself it was the distance. Their lives had diverged. Buck had LA. Eddie had El Paso. Christopher was settling in, Eddie’s job was demanding, the time zones didn’t help. Normal things. Grown-up things.
Except it didn’t feel normal, losing Buck like that. Letting him slip away one unanswered call at a time.
And if Eddie had wanted to stop it—really wanted to stop it—he would’ve.
He didn’t.
The RSVP button sat at the top of the page like a dare.
Centered in soft gold script, barely visible unless you knew where to look.
Eddie hovered over it for a long time. Maybe minutes. Maybe longer. His hand didn’t move, but his pulse did—flickering under his skin like a live wire.
He wasn’t even sure why he was still on the site. Why he hadn’t closed the laptop and gone to bed and forgotten this whole thing like he forgot to fold laundry or return calls. Why he hadn’t just chosen the safe answer—the obvious answer—and walked away from this clean.
But he knew.
Of course he knew.
Because Buck was probably waiting. Watching his inbox for a response. Wondering if Eddie had seen it, if he cared, if he’d show up.
And Eddie hated the idea of Buck spiraling over silence. Hated even more the idea that Buck had to ask.
So he clicked.
The RSVP form opened with a soft fade-in, obnoxiously elegant. More gold. More cursive. Please join us in celebrating Evan & Tommy.
He stared at it.
His name was already typed in the Guest field, like Buck had filled it out for him.
Just waiting for Eddie to say yes or no.
Christopher’s name was already typed into the field, too.
Buck hadn’t just invited him. He’d invited them.
Like nothing had changed. Like they were still a unit. Like Eddie hadn’t left.
He didn’t touch it.
Instead, his mind wandered—ripped backward like a tide.
He saw Buck on the firehouse couch, stretched out with one arm thrown over his eyes, grinning when Eddie walked in late.
He saw Buck on Eddie’s porch with beers and a grin that didn’t match the sadness in his eyes. “I think I just needed to be near someone who doesn’t ask me to be anyone else.”
He saw Buck with Chris, laughing in the sun, helping him ride a skateboard that Eddie never thought he’d be able to.
He saw Buck after the lightning strike—skin pale, body still, eyes closed in a way that made Eddie feel like the earth had stopped spinning. He remembered the way his hand hovered over Buck’s chest in the hospital, just to convince himself it was rising and falling. Just to feel the proof that Buck had come back. That Eddie hadn’t lost him. Not for good.
He saw the night he signed over the lease—Buck sitting on the floor of the living room, surrounded by boxes and empty beer bottles, joking about how he was going to replace all the lightbulbs with the “wrong” wattage just to piss Eddie off from afar. Eddie had laughed. Had let himself laugh.
He saw Buck helping him pack—folding Eddie’s clothes with way too much care, slipping photos of Chris into protective sleeves like they were made of glass.
He saw the last hug before the drive to Texas. Buck smiling like he wasn’t scared. Eddie pretending he wasn’t either. Their hands clapped each other’s backs, strong and familiar, but it lingered longer than it should’ve. The silence between them said everything their words didn’t.
He’d told himself it was just a chapter closing.
But God, it had felt like an ending.
He saw all the almosts. The brush of fingers. The late-night talks. The sleepovers that weren’t really about sleep. The way Buck’s eyes found his in a crowded room like they were orbiting something only they could see.
He remembered every time he could have said something.
Every time he didn’t.
The feelings came slow. Like fog on the highway.
They crept in around the edges, barely noticeable at first—just the chill in his spine, the sting behind his eyes, the ache in his hands from gripping too tight.
He’d spent years telling himself it was nothing.
That Buck was his best friend. His brother. His partner in all the ways that mattered. That anything else he felt was some kind of emotional bleed-over, misfiring neurons from years of trauma and war zones and firefighting adrenaline.
But sitting there now, staring at Buck’s name next to someone else’s—next to Tommy’s—he couldn’t hold the lie steady anymore.
He was in love with him.
Had been for years.
And maybe love wasn’t even the right word. It was too small. Too clean. What he felt for Buck was messier, older, haunted.
It was built from the inside out.
It was every moment he hadn’t said anything. Every second he’d chosen silence.
It was the look in Buck’s eyes the last time they hugged goodbye, the one Eddie had never been able to forget.
The look that lived under his ribs like a ghost.
~
He clicked No.
The cursor hovered for a moment—just long enough to wonder if there was still time to change his mind—then settled. A dull click, one he barely heard over the rush in his ears.
No fanfare. No pop-up. No confetti. Just a clinical little line of text at the top of the screen:
“Thank you for your response.”
That was it. A thank you. Like this was just another checkbox. Just another RSVP.
Like it wasn’t the hardest thing Eddie had done in years.
His chest felt hollow. Not broken—no, that would be something loud. This was quieter. More familiar. Like walking into a room and forgetting what you came for, only to realize it was never yours to begin with.
It was cowardly, maybe.
But it was honest.
Because the truth was—he couldn’t be there.
He couldn’t sit in a pew while Buck promised forever to someone else. Couldn’t be a name on the guest list, a handshake in a receiving line, another shadow in a room full of people who got to witness Buck’s next chapter. Couldn’t smile and clap and pretend like he didn’t feel every vow slicing through him like glass.
He couldn’t see Buck in a tux, standing at the altar, looking like a man who’d found everything he’d ever wanted—because that image had lived in Eddie’s mind for years.
Except in his version, it was him standing across from Buck.
It had never been real. He knew that. But that didn’t make it hurt less.
He closed the laptop slowly. Carefully. Like maybe if he moved too fast, the moment would shatter. Like maybe if he was gentle enough, he could pretend this wasn’t the end of something he never had the courage to name.
His fingers lingered on the lid before pulling away.
It was done.
And somehow, it still didn’t feel over.
~
The next morning, Eddie brushed his teeth with automatic motions, like muscle memory could be enough to hold him together.
The mirror had fogged up from the shower, a milky blur swallowing his reflection. Only the outline of him remained—shoulders hunched, head bowed. Half a man, lost in vapor.
He wiped the mirror with the heel of his palm.
And startled.
Just for a moment, he thought he’d see someone else. Someone younger. Someone braver. Someone who hadn’t waited too long.
But it was just him.
Eyes tired. Jaw tight. A version of himself he didn’t recognize.
There was something haunting in his expression. Something he’d seen once before.
Buck, across the rig. The hum of the engine under their feet. A quiet lull between emergencies. Buck had looked at him like he knew. Like he was about to say something that would change everything.
He hadn’t. Neither of them had.
But the look lingered.
It had lived in Buck’s eyes.
And now it lived in Eddie’s.
A ghost, staring back at him from the glass. Unspoken. Unspent.
He dropped his hand. Let the fog creep back over the mirror, swallowing the ghost with it.