Buck and Eddie love on fire

Struggles

TW : Mentions of suicide

A few days later Buck is still recovering in the hospital, Eddie has only stopped by a few more times, it's getting harder and harder for him to see Buck like that. Plus he has Christopher to worry about.
Eddie decides to take Chris to visit Buck.
He is still lost on this whole feelings for Buck thing. He keeps thinking back to the kiss, the butterflies that filled his stomach.
He quickly shakes off the feeling and focuses on driving.
"Dad," he hears Christopher call from the back seat.
"Ya bud," Eddie answers back.
"Why are you sad?"
"What Chris I'm not sad, I," Eddie says chocking back tears not sure how they got there, "I'm fine."
They pull up to the hospital, Eddie grabs Chris, and they walk into the building.
When they turn into the wing where Buck is, the rest of the team is sitting in the waiting room.
"Hey Chris!" Chim says excitedly.
"What's going on here?" Eddie asks just a hint of worry lingering in his tone.
"Buck gets discharged today," Bobby says standing up to greet Chris.
"Oh," Eddie whispers to himself, "that's good," he then announces putting a smile on his face.
Why had no one told him that Buck was being released? Why had Buck not told him?
A few minutes later Buck walks around the corner greeted with whooping and hollering from the team, and Chris of course.
Buck walks around receiving hugs and pats on the back. When he reaches Eddie he stands there hesitantly for a moment.
Eddie's heart is in his throat. Cmon Buck, he thinks.
Buck stands there a moment longer before grabbing Eddie by the waist, and the back of his neck pulling him into a tight embrace.
Eddie does the same grabbing Buck's waist, and lacing his fingers through his hair. They stay like that for a moment. It feels to Eddie as if no one else is in the room.
That feeling doesn't last long.
Eddie suddenly becomes very aware of everyone else in the room, he quickly tears away from Buck, and takes several steps back.
The team try and act as if they had seen nothing.
Buck with that dumb sad sheepish look on his face stares at Eddie before turning to Chris with a smile.

Later that day the team went to Bobby and Athena's to celebrate Buck's clean bill of health.
Eddie felt tense around Buck, not going too close to him.
Christopher however did not have the same plan. He wanted to be around Buck the whole time.

The night went seemingly well the dinner was full of laughter, and the swapping of stories. Chris had finally broken away from Buck after dessert to play with Harry.
Eddie helped Bobby clean up after dinner while the rest of the team continued the conversation.
"Ok spit it out," Bobby says placing a dish in the sink.
"What do you mean?" Eddie asked keeping a cool composer.
"First Buck acts all crazy then he throws you against a wall, then you run into a burning, collapsing building to save him." Bobby says slightly raising his voice, "and now you won't look him in the eye." he says this time in a hushed tone.
Eddie straightens up, "I would have run in there if it had been any of you."
Bobby sighs, "I'm just worried about you is all."
"No need to worry cap," is all Eddie says before returning to the table.

For the remainder of the night Eddie can't focus on the conversations, all he can do is think. He's not even sure what about. He steals the occasional glance at Buck regretting it every time because all he wants to do is - nope he is not about to go there.
He had only started to feel this way about Buck recently he knows Buck started feeling it sooner, he noticed it quickly. At first it made him uncomfortable, but then he began to feel something in a way he hadn't in a long time.
He flashes back to the time a woman said to him, and Buck that they had a great kid. Buck didn't realize that he heard him thank her, and not correct her. He remembered how that made him feel.
That was the first time Buck made his heart jump.
"Dad," he heard Chris call him out of his thoughts, "I'm tired dad, can we go home?"
"Ya bud of course," Eddie turns his body to talk to the team, "hey Chris is pretty tired so I think we're gonna head out."
He hears the team send him off with goodnight wishes for him, and Chris. However Buck said nothing, he just sat there with the same sad face. It hurt Eddie to see him like that.
"Goodnight," Eddie said a final time before closing the front door, and walking to the car.

Later that night he lay awake continuing his thoughts from earlier. He knew how he felt about Buck, and he knew it would never work. They were not only two men, but two men who are firefighters. He knew what happened to guys like him, and Buck, and he wasn't about to ruin both their lives.

The next day was Buck's first day back at the firehouse. Hen obviously made a big deal about it hanging banners and such. It was kind of her thing.
Eddie laughs to himself seeing the ridiculous banner Chim, and Bobby are struggling to hang.
"Surprise!" Hen yells catching all three of them off guard. No one had noticed Buck walk in.
"Oh you guys didn't have to," Buck said sarcastically enjoying the attention.
Eddie controlled his heart beat, and wandering eyes remembering the promise he had made to himself.
He sees as Buck breaks away from the rest of the team and walks towards Eddie.
"So," Buck says.
"What?"
"Ummm I guess we should talk about it"
"I don't know what you mean."
"Eddie come on you, you know what-"
Eddie quickly cuts him off, "we should-"
"Don't you dare say forget about it, you already said that to me once, please Eddie."
"I'm sorry Buck, but we can't," Eddie turns around, and walks off.
Buck stands there dumbstruck for a moment before returning to the team.
Not too long after the alarm rings, the team rush to the rigs and they're off.
They pull up to a road rage accident, the cops still trying to separate the men.
"You rear ended my truck you dumb ass!" One screamed.
"You stopped in the middle of the road!" The other retailed.
The officers finally stop the two, but not before the truck driver got a good punch in.
Bobby orders Hen, and Chim to asses the truck driver. Eddie and Buck are stuck together working on the victim of the punch.
They stand there and look at each other slightly glaring before heading over to the man.
The two men do head trauma protocol, coming to the conclusion that the man has a concussion.
They load him into the ambulance, while the other man is cuffed and put into the back of the cop car.
Buck sends Eddie one final glare before climbing into the ladder car. This glare was different though, Eddie could see the pain in his eyes.
He sighs, this is the right thing to do isn't it, he says to himself.
He feels a hand on his shoulder, it's Hen. She doesn't say anything just leads him to the ladder car, and the two get in together.

Eddie catches the team giving him weird looks throughout the day. He tries not to let it get to him.

The alarms sound again, this time the team pulls up on a man threatening to jump.
These calls are never easy.
Bobby sends Eddie up for this one because the man in question is an ex-veteran.
Eddie takes a deep breath, and begins climbing the ladder.
"Sir," he calls out, "sir , what are you doing up here?"
"What does it look like?"
"Hey I hear you are an ex- veteran, I am too," Eddie says trying to reach the man.
"So you think you know, what it feel like?, you have no idea!"
"No I do I do I know the memories that haunt you, that keep you up at night"
"No you don't!" The man yells back through tears,"did you watch the love of your life get shot down, not being able to mourn properly because it was frowned upon? Huh?" The man takes a step closer to the edge.
Eddie stands there for a second realizing what the man on the edge meant.
"Wait! I do know what you're talking about," he pauses, "I love someone I shouldn't, and I watched them get hurt." Eddie takes a deep breath. "I know what you feel"
The man turns around looking at Eddie, giving him enough time to grab the man.
As the man was loaded into the ambulance he looks to Eddie and says, "did you mean what you said, about loving someone you shouldn't?"
Eddie looked around, seeing no one on his team was in earshot, and nodded.
"Is it him?" the man says pointing to Buck.
"How did you-?"
The man doesn't have time to answer before the door of the ambulance slams shut, and it drives away.
Eddie not quite sure what just happened, is suddenly overcome with emotion. The tears fall silently down his face. Love?, he thought to himself, did he really say love? He looks over to see Buck smiling, and laughing with Chim. Eddie smiled to himself, wiping away the tears, ya he did love Buck, that's why he couldn't be with him.
The man on the edge tonight was proof, proof of the challenges. He and Buck could never be together.

Ok so I'm kind of dragging it out now, their story is going to be more complicated than I originally planned. I'm very excited, and I have many ideas for these two. If you have any preferences about what direction this story goes please let me know!
Thanks for the support xx