Chapter Text
Eddie had been planning to propose.
There was a simple, elegant ring ensconced inside a plain black box which was hidden inside a basic navy pair of socks buried at the very back of his sock drawer.
(Eddie had spent a solid forty-five minutes agonising over where to hide the unassuming little box, panic slowly mounting as the clock ticked inexorably closer to the time that Buck said he would be back home after having brunch with May and then stopping in to see his parents.
Anywhere in Christopher’s room was out because the kid wouldn’t be able to hide anything from Buck if Eddie told him, and he would absolutely ask them both about it if he accidentally came across the ring.
Anywhere in the kitchen was out, because Buck regularly cooked and baked in there and also Bobby had a habit of dropping by with leftovers and Eddie definitely didn’t want this conversation with his (hopefully) future father-in-law precipitated by the man somehow finding the box nestled among the dark chocolate chips that were rarely used because they were generally a milk-chocolate household.
Anywhere in the laundry was out, because Eddie found his mind filled with the image of the box being tumbled into the washing machine by mistake and getting doused in suds. He was sure the ring would survive, but it was decidedly not worth the risk.
The living room had some potential, but was eventually dismissed as well – it would be easily found in the box of gaming console paraphernalia which was regularly used on weekends; nestling it innocuously behind the DVDs held the risk of it being knocked behind the tv unit and Eddie awkwardly having to fish it out; between the couch cushions just seemed to be asking for the little box to get lost.
The bathroom was definitely out – it just felt wrong to hide the symbol of his future in there. Thinking about hiding it in a pair of shoes he didn’t often wear garnered the same intense feeling of dissatisfaction.
The linen closet? Eddie stared helplessly at it for several long minutes, thinking about how easily the box could be hidden between towels or sheets.
But Buck would often unexpectedly decide to change their bedsheets because he liked the feeling when they were fresh and new, or Christopher would decide he wanted to curl up with one of their extra blankets while watching tv, and the box could easily get flung out and discovered on those occasions.
So it had to be the bedroom – but where? They didn’t generally care if the other borrowed their clothes, so he couldn’t run the risk of hiding it in a pocket. The underwear and sock drawer made the most sense, but Eddie didn’t want to run the risk of Buck spotting it when the drawer happened to be open so inside a pair of socks it would have to be.
He chose the plainest, simplest pair he owned, knowing that if Buck ever borrowed a pair of his socks it would be because he wanted a colourful or fun pair. As his boyfriend (future fiance?!) called out from the front door he had just walked through, Eddie shoved the now-bulkier socks in the back of the drawer and tried to school his expression to something that hid the way his heart was thundering.)
The only problem was that just because Eddie had the ring, it did not mean that he had an actual plan of how to propose.
He could do it at the firehouse, or he could do it at their home.
He could do it in private, just the two of them, or he could include Christopher so that their own little family were together, or he could include the whole team so that their entire extended found-family could be a part of the memory.
He could do a long speech, telling Buck in embarrassing detail about how the younger man had made his life better, or he could keep it short and sweet, a simple affirmation of Eddie’s desire to legalise the family that they had already built.
Usually when he was feeling this indecisive about something, he would seek advice from his crewmates.
Unfortunately, both his boyfriend and his (hopefully) future father-in-law happened to also be his crewmates so that made asking for advice on this particular occasion a tad difficult.
Eddie also still had to decide how to approach the whole thing in relation to Bobby – was it appropriate to ask for his blessing?
He had done that when he had proposed to Shannon, approaching her father on his own father’s rigid insistence.
The short, stocky man had looked stormy and had provided the blessing through gritted teeth, with a look on his face that suggested he was wishing he could throw a punch at the man that had impregnated his daughter instead.
It had not felt like an auspicious start to their marriage which, in hindsight, was in fact quite fitting.
Shannon had also considered the whole tradition to be a blight on her independence and the beginning of Eddie making decisions on her behalf without consulting her – would Buck think the same, or would he appreciate the sentiment because of how close he was with his dad and how much he cared about his opinion?
Would Bobby get offended if Eddie didn’t broach the subject with him first, like Ramon had insisted would happen with Shannon’s dad?
Eddie spent days googling ‘blessing gay marriages’, ‘proposing to bisexual guy should i ask his dad’, ‘asking boyfriend’s dad for blessing’, and ‘should i ask for blessing proposal two guys’.
Nothing gave him any particular insights, and then he found an article that just sent him into an even deeper spiral: should he be asking for Christopher’s blessing to permanently bring Buck into their life?!
Surely not – Christopher already considered Buck to be his ‘bonus Dad’.
Surely that ticked off that box.
Surely.
And all of that still didn’t even have anything to do with the actual proposal.
Eddie kind of wished for something to happen to distract him from the mass of spiralling thoughts, hoping that maybe if he didn’t think about it for a little while then the idea would just float into his head with a sense of ‘rightness’ like it had when he’d walked past that jewellery store.
The universe complied and provided him with a distraction, but Eddie definitely hadn’t meant or been expecting a global fucking pandemic.
—---
When the stay-at-home orders came to Los Angeles alongside the news that the schools would be switching to virtual learning, it felt sudden even though they had all known it was coming.
They had already had their discussions about mask wearing and being extra vigilant about adhering to their usual protocols. Bobby had been regaling them about his battles to ensure the station had an adequate supply of hand sanitiser and PPE amid the nation-wide shortages.
Buck had been keeping an eye on the news and had been informing them about developments in what was known about the virus and how case numbers were tracking in the US.
In the beginning, he would obsessively search for the case numbers across the whole country. But that quickly became too overwhelming, so then he switched over to focusing on numbers in the east coast.
Then he narrowed his focus again, to California.
By the time he had to start reporting back about the situation in Los Angeles only, they all realised the stay-at-home orders were imminent.
It was at that point that the members of the 118 started discussions of how they were going to create bubbles to try and mitigate the potential of bringing the virus home to their families.
“Cap; Karen, Chim, Maddie and I spoke last night and we agreed that Maddie and I are gonna switch living situations for a while,” Hen announced one morning, jaw rigid as she stalked into the station, violently pressing down on the bottle of hand sanitiser sitting near the entrance and rubbing it into her hands thoroughly.
“We’re a bubble,” Chim affirmed, heaving a sigh.
“I’ll make a note of it,” Bobby said, nodding in acknowledgement. “Daniels, Jensen, Rahul, and Mara have also decided to create a bubble away from their families; they managed to find themselves a decent-sized AirBnB reasonably close to the station.”
“How does the bubble at Hen’s house work, though?” Buck asked, frowning. “Doesn’t Maddie still have to go in to work in person?”
“She does,” Chim said, looking aggrieved at the thought. “But the call centre is able to implement a lot more precautions than we are and they obviously don’t interact with the public so Karen said she thought they could manage it.”
“Considering they’re on the phones, you’d think they’d be able to switch to remote working,” Eddie commented tetchily, shoulders tense and arms crossed. His face was mostly hidden by his mask, but Buck could still tell that he was scowling.
“It’s something to do with the security of the CAD system, I think,” Bobby explained, looking at Eddie with concern.
Buck shook his head at his dad lightly and went to get the attention off his irascible boyfriend. “Hey, Cap, you need a hand with breakfast?”
“Sure,” Bobby agreed. “Let me just make a note of our newest bubbles in my office and then I’ll meet you in the kitchen after you change into your uniform.”
“Does anyone else hate the word ‘bubbles’?” Eddie complained bitterly. “It makes it sound so goddamn innocent.”
“New vocabulary for unprecedented times, Eddie,” Hen told him dryly. “But for the record, I absolutely agree with you. ‘Bubble’ is far too innocent a word for something that means I’m not gonna be able to see my wife or kid for weeks.”
“Or months, if the articles from the scientific community are right,” Buck commented with absent-minded concern as they started towards the locker room so that they could all change for their shift.
“I mean – they might not be,” he corrected himself weakly, wilting at the unimpressed glares that were sent his way and rushing forward so that he could change and get upstairs quickly.
“Alright, kiddo, talk to me,” Bobby said as soon as Buck walked into the kitchen to help with cooking. “What’s going on with you and Eddie? You’re looking stressed.”
“What happened to avoiding the endearments at work?” Buck complained half-heartedly, giving his dad an unimpressed look that the mask probably ruined the effect of. At least there were no other firefighters up in the loft at the moment to overhear their conversation.
“Think of it as me asking as your dad, not your captain,” Bobby said lightly, pushing a knife and a pile of vegetables over to his son. Somehow, his mask had no effect on the expectant look he fixed Buck with.
Buck sighed and addressed the chopping board as he blurted out an explanation in a rush. “We’re not sure what to do about Christopher. All the evidence suggests that his CP would make him really vulnerable to the serious effects of the virus so frankly he needs to be in a proper bubble where he can be isolated. But it’s not really an option for me and Eddie not to work, and Eddie’s aunt is already juggling looking after his Abuela, who is also vulnerable, and adding a seven-year-old to the mix just isn’t really much of an option.”
“That’s really tough,” Bobby said sympathetically, worry visible over the top of the mask. “I didn’t realise that the cerebral palsy put Christopher at additional risk.”
“Yeah,” Buck said glumly, trying to tamp down his own concern. He had been trying to keep it together for his boyfriend because Eddie really wasn’t handling the uncertainty of it all very well, but it was difficult because he absolutely loved that kid and had already dealt with watching him go through a near-death experience once.
“It… definitely wouldn’t be great if he got it. Eddie’s beginning to resign himself to the idea that he might have to send the kid to stay with his parents in El Paso like they’ve been telling him to do since the beginning of this whole thing but he’s really not thrilled about that option. Neither is Christopher, for that matter.”
“Christopher doesn’t enjoy being with his grandparents?” Bobby asked with a hint of alarm, looking up and searching Buck’s face.
“He loves spending time with you guys,” Buck corrected, a tinge of amusement entering his voice but quickly being replaced with distress again. “But from what Eddie has said, his parents are pretty overbearing about everything and they've never really supported Chris’ independence either. To be honest, from what I’ve gathered, they’re at least halfway to blame for Eddie and Shannon’s divorce being as bitter as it was because of how much they interfered when Eddie was serving.”
“That definitely doesn’t sound like a great environment for Christopher to be in, especially amid all of this uncertainty and fear,” Bobby agreed, sounding upset.
“I know. Believe me, I hate the thought of him being stuck with them and I hate the thought of him being so far away even more but I don’t know what other choice we have,” Buck confessed, frustration bleeding out in his voice.
Bobby hummed, but was otherwise silent. He seemed to be mulling something over.
Buck took the opportunity of the silence to take some deep breaths and try to let go of his frustration. It wasn’t helping that everytime he breathed in he could feel the mask getting sucked in and that just provided a tangible reminder of their predicament before the calming effects of the breathing exercise could take hold.
But it wasn’t going to help him support his boyfriend if he let his frustration override his logical brain, so he had to keep trying.
“What if Christopher moved to our house?” Bobby posited, stopping his chopping to focus his full attention directly at Buck.
“Huh,” Buck responded blankly, staring at him.
“He can move to our house,” Bobby repeated. “Athena won’t be able to go back to work for a few more months anyway and given her injuries I’ve been worried about her being more vulnerable to this thing as well. This will make it easier for me to convince her that I should move somewhere else for now and then she can keep their bubble a lot tighter.”
“Whoa, why are you moving somewhere, Cap?” Chim asked, frown audible in his voice even though they couldn’t see it. Eddie and Hen followed him into the kitchen, settling in at the table.
“Dad just suggested that Chris move to their place to stay with Mama and he’ll move out so that they can have a contained bubble,” Buck explained slowly, his eyes resting on a startled Eddie.
“I can’t ask you to do that, Cap,” Eddie protested.
“You didn’t ask, and if it will keep my grandbaby safe then I’m happy to do it,” Bobby declared resolutely, nodding to himself.
Eddie looked at Buck uncertainly, but Buck couldn’t provide him with reassurance because he felt just as uncertain.
Although Athena and Bobby had embraced Christopher as their grandchild right from the day that they’d discovered Buck and Eddie’s relationship, they had also been careful to build that dynamic at his pace and the little boy wasn’t at the point of actually referring to them as his grandparents just yet.
So while Buck and Eddie were essentially co-parenting Christopher at this point, this was a moment where he didn’t want to over-step by pushing for the boy to go to his parents over Eddie’s.
“It would make me feel better to know he was isolated but still in LA,” Eddie admitted hesitantly, his mask rustling a little bit. Buck was sure that he was chewing his lip under it.
“Alright, decision made. I’ll let Athena know,” Bobby said decisively, patting his pockets to try and find his phone.
“Use mine,” Buck said, rolling his eyes with fond exasperation as Bobby failed to locate his own.
“But where will you stay?” Eddie jumped in determinedly. “I don’t want to make my boyfriend’s dad homeless.”
“But you’d be okay with making your captain homeless?” Bobby asked with faux-offence, and Buck felt a surge of gratitude for his dad’s attempt to keep the atmosphere light.
“If you were only my captain then I’m fairly certain we wouldn’t be having this discussion,” Eddie retorted, but his shoulders did look a little less tense.
“We could add an air mattress to my place, I guess,” Chimney offered, head tilted towards Bobby as he considered the options.
“It’s a pity you can’t just do a switch like me and Maddie did,” Hen commented idly.
They all froze for a moment.
“I mean… we would have Chris’ room free,” Buck noted cautiously, looking at his boyfriend.
Eddie looked like a deer caught in the headlights.
—---
“And look at the sheets that Athena got me,” Chris continued enthusiastically, the camera view shaking a little bit as he panned over the elaborate dinosaur-patterned sheets before flipping the camera back over to selfie-mode.
“Wow, those look awesome, buddy,” Buck enthused, eyes sparkling as he shuffled across the floor slightly so that he could be seen better in the laptop’s camera. Eddie shifted it slightly to make it easier for him.
“So you’re feeling okay about staying with Athena?” Eddie checked again, eyes flicking over to Bobby apologetically for asking the question for the third time.
Bobby waved him away, out of view of the camera and mostly focused on the scattered screws and large furniture pieces in front of him.
He knew what it was like to have to trust someone else with his kid’s physical and emotional safety, and the stress that accompanied thoughts of whether that trust was misplaced.
He also knew what intrusive thoughts and recriminations came up when it became apparent that they had not in fact deserved that trust, but at least he could be content in the fact that Athena would most certainly prove herself worthy of it.
But Bobby definitely wasn’t about to blame Eddie for not sharing his confidence just yet, especially given how unusual this whole situation was and the fact that this would definitely be the longest time that the man wouldn’t be seeing his son since he had returned from Afghanistan.
Bobby had struggled enough when Evan had taken off to Peru for a few months and they had also been stuck communicating purely by video-calls, and Evan had been an adult by then.
“Yeah, Athena says we’ll get to play games together and she can help me with my homework and Harry and I can set up our own work station in the living area,” Chris explained. He still sounded excited at the thought, but his enthusiasm certainly seemed to have dimmed a little at the reminder of the uncertainty of how long he would be staying separated from his dad and his Buck.
“You’ll have to send us pictures,” Eddie said, making a valiant effort to give his son a genuine smile and not show how affected his mood was by their separation.
“Oh, we will,” Athena said, coming into view of the camera. “And you’ll have to send us a picture of what Chris’ room is going to look like with his new bed.”
They all glanced down at the miscellaneous wooden pieces of various sizes and shapes that were dispersed across the floor and the meticulous piles of different types of screws that Bobby had directed Evan to organise for him (a tactic left over from the days of Bobby trying to distract his enthusiastic young boy away from the more dangerous aspects of building furniture).
The bed was the first snag that had appeared regarding their ‘bubble’ arrangement.
Christopher’s bed was still a child’s single, and Bobby was not a small man.
He had tried to insist that he would manage just fine, but then they realised that it could also very well be a weight rating concern and so they came to the conclusion that Bobby taking Christopher’s bed wouldn’t work.
Bobby had offered to pick up an air mattress that they could set up on the floor of the room after pushing the bed against the wall, but Evan had vetoed that idea instantly.
“You’re too old to spend months on an air mattress, Dad,” he said dismissively, leaning against the wall as he eyed the room contemplatively.
“Excuse me?” Bobby squawked, pausing his unpacking so that he could fix his son with an affronted glare.
“Well, what would you say if I said that Eddie and I would take the air mattress?” Evan asked knowingly, eyebrows raised.
Bobby scowled, but he admitted begrudgingly, “Absolutely not. But – I’m the guest here, I’m not putting my own kid out of his bed when an air mattress will do me fine.”
“You’re right, you are our guest so we should give you the best sleeping situation,” Evan noted cheerfully. “Eddie, we’ll have to get ourselves a big enough air mattress.”
Eddie was looking bemusedly between the two of them like he was spectating a tennis match.
“Okay, no, that is not happening,” Bobby declared firmly, now holding his hands on his hips and staring at his son reprovingly.
“Alright, so none of us are sleeping on an air mattress,” Evan concluded stubbornly.
“No, you aren’t sleeping on an air mattress,” Bobby rallied, just as stubborn.
“We could just buy a proper single bed,” Eddie cut in reasonably. “Christopher probably isn’t that far off from needing one anyway so it’s not like it would be a useless purchase.”
“Excellent idea,” Buck said, leaning forward to give his boyfriend a kiss and murmuring something to him quietly.
Bobby turned back to his unpacking so that the boys wouldn’t notice his amused smile at the way Eddie flushed at the casual display of affection in front of his captain.
He had stopped looking as self-conscious about displays of affection in other environments but it seemed that having Bobby in their own private space had re-ignited Eddie’s nerves.
Bobby had already resolved that he was going to do as much as he could to prevent his almost-son-in-law from feeling awkward about this arrangement they had found themselves in.
“I’ll grab my laptop and start looking for a place that does next-day delivery,” Buck proclaimed, seemingly happy that he had won the argument over the bedding situation.
“Take my credit card, sunshine, I’ll pay for it,” Bobby offered absently, rifling through his bag for the shirts that needed to be hung up.
“No, we’re paying for it,” Eddie said firmly. “It’s for Christopher, technically, after all.”
“And I definitely have no problem paying for something for my grandbaby,” Bobby insisted, turning to them with a hanger in hand.
“It’s fine, Dad, we got it,” Evan said brightly, sharing a nod with his boyfriend.
“Alright, fine,” Bobby conceded with a sigh.
(There were going to be easier ways to win the battle of finances.)
“Not sure if you’ll get that picture today,” Eddie said dubiously to the laptop, surveying the amount of as-yet-unused furniture pieces.
“We’ll manage, Dad is great at this stuff,” Evan said confidently, shuffling back to his former spot so that he could return to helping with the assembly now that the organising was done.
“We’ll definitely have it done by tonight,” Bobby agreed, glancing at his watch quickly.
“I should probably jump in and help,” Eddie said reluctantly, looking at the video image of his son wistfully.
“We were just about to get started on a batch of cookies as well; isn’t that right, baby?” Athena said swiftly, reaching a bracing arm around Christopher. She rubbed down his arm gently.
“Yeah, we’re gonna make triple chocolate chip cookies,” Christopher said, looking a little happier at the reminder of the promised sweet treats. He hesitated a moment before asking quietly, “You and Buck will call for bedtime, Dad?”
“Absolutely,” Eddie said resolutely.
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Evan added earnestly, leaning forward again to give Christopher a bright and cheerful smile. It dropped away as soon as the video-call disconnected, and Eddie’s expression also darkened.
Bobby’s heart ached for them both.
There was a part of him that was actually quite content at the prospect of being under the same roof as his kid again, even though he knew it would be entirely different than it had been since Evan was no longer a kid even if he was his kid.
He also appreciated the opportunity to get this insight into just how thoroughly Evan had been integrated into Eddie’s family, his own mind and heart settled and satisfied that his kid had already managed to find his place in the world.
But Bobby desperately wished that all of that hadn’t come at the cost of the two of them being cut off from their own child.
—---
Eddie was surprised at how well the three of them settled in at first.
Notwithstanding the issue with the new bed, there were no really serious arguments as they got used to living together.
Not about timings for showers, cooking or cleaning.
(It was very quickly mutually agreed by all that Bobby would be doing the majority of the cooking and Buck and Eddie were perfectly happy to take on more cleaning duties in exchange).
The discussion about finances got close to getting heated as Bobby insisted that he wasn’t about to force his own kid to pay for him and Buck and Eddie were equally adamant that they weren’t going to take money from him when he was the one making the sacrifice so that Christopher would be safer.
However, that situation was successfully defused by Athena during their next video call when she suggested the compromise that she and Bobby manage the expenses of Christopher living in their home while Buck and Eddie manage the expenses of Bobby living in theirs.
(“I feel like that violates the spirit of our compromise,” Eddie commented to Buck in an undertone as Christopher showed them the massive lego set that Athena had ordered for him. He had to pan the camera to do so because of how sprawling it was.
“It’s so that he has something to entertain himself with, other than video games, while Harry is staying at Michael’s,” Athena said serenely.
“Uh-huh, and what about the telescope, Mama?” Buck asked sceptically.
“Oh, that was from Michael. He got one for both the boys so that they could star gaze together,” Athena explained airily.)
(“This definitely violates the spirit of our compromise,” Eddie said, staring at the power bill which was telling him that they suddenly had several hundred dollars in credit in their account.
“Dad,” Buck growled, scowling and snatching the bill out of Eddie’s hand and stalking to Christopher/Bobby’s room and barging in.
Eddie realised that he shouldn’t have let his boyfriend take the lead on that because Bobby easily and unrepentantly distracted his kid by asking about Buck’s most recent research spiral instead.
Eddie thought he would do better when the water bill also came in with an unexpected credit, but Bobby just as easily distracted him with an impromptu cooking lesson.
At least Eddie could now confidently say he could make a basic roast chicken, but he had no idea where the hell that water bill had ended up.)
No, their first major argument was about grocery shopping of all things.
“I’m the one doing the cooking, it makes sense that I should just go do the shopping as well,” Bobby insisted, gesturing at the breakfast that they were all eating for emphasis.
Eddie thought that sounded quite logical, actually, but he could see that his boyfriend was gearing up for a battle so he decided to just keep eating his middle-eastern egg bake quietly.
“The research says that males over 50 should be particularly cautious, which means that you’re the one who is most at risk of this stupid virus of the three of us – it absolutely does not make sense that you should go out to a crowded grocery store when you could write a list for one of us to take,” Buck protested, glaring at his dad.
“I’ll wear a mask and make sure to stay distanced from other people,” Bobby said dismissively.
“That’s all well and good for work, but why should you take the extra risk at the grocery store when you don’t have to?” Buck continued doggedly. “I’ll wear a mask and stay distanced and buy whatever you tell me to buy.”
“Absolutely not,” Bobby responded immediately, his voice resolute and stern. “Need I remind you that you have a history of pulmonary embolisms which is a far more serious risk factor than just age.”
Eddie looked up from his food at that, and saw Buck’s face go grim and his posture square up rigidly as he met Bobby’s determined expression head-on.
“It has literally been years, Dad,” Buck hissed at Bobby, clearly working very hard not to raise his voice.
Eddie knew that ever since Buck had gone through the debacle of secretly completing the entire fire academy course without saying a word to his dad, which had somehow also resulted in secretly dating one of his dad’s firefighters with no one the wiser (including the two firefighters in question), he and Bobby had made an active effort to see each other’s points of view in matters relating to Buck’s health and his past injuries.
They had done a fairly good job of it, with just the occasional minor setback during particularly dangerous rescues, and Eddie had never been witness to one of the epic fights that Bobby and Buck could apparently get into when matters of Buck’s health were concerned.
Going by the way the atmosphere in the small kitchen had shifted, he had a feeling that might be about to change.
“Time doesn’t just erase it from your medical history, Evan,” Bobby pointed out steadily, his gaze unflinchingly firm in a way that Eddie had only really seen at conflict-ridden scenes.
Eddie could see both his concern and his stubborn will not to lose this argument etched on his face.
And the thing was, he wasn’t wrong.
Buck’s medical history did put him at greater risk of complications if he contracted the virus no matter how much he might want to deny it.
Eddie couldn’t even deny that he’d had similar concerns.
But he also knew that there was too much history surrounding Buck’s injuries and the aftermath at play for Buck to accept that concern at face value.
So Eddie hadn’t been obvious about his own worries for his boyfriend – he would remind Buck to use the sanitiser at work more often, and he had been very particular about teaching his boyfriend the proper protocol for masking up and donning other protective gear back when this whole thing had first started.
(“I’m a first responder, I do know how to do this, Eddie,” Buck said, a little amused at his fussing.
“Humour me,” Eddie insisted flatly, hands on hips next to the laptop bearing the information video from the World Health Organisation about mask-wearing.)
They were all things that Buck would chalk up to Eddie’s general concern over the situation, and he was content with letting his protective concern be a quiet undercurrent to their wider feelings of unease over the entire pandemic situation.
It wasn’t in Bobby’s nature to be quiet or reserved about his desire to protect his son.
However, it also wasn’t in Buck’s nature to accept that protection quietly or reservedly.
His scowling face was set in the same stubborn expression as his dad’s, and he looked like he was readying himself for a fight as he opened his mouth to keep arguing.
“I’ll do it,” Eddie interrupted hastily, wanting to head off the argument before it could blow up into something epic.
He’d heard the stories from Hen and Chim about just how bad they could get, and he didn’t particularly want to end up in the middle if it escalated.
Especially considering they were stuck in the house and couldn’t just escape to a cafe or a bar for a break.
Bobby and Buck both turned to him, surprised.
“I don’t have either of the risk factors you two have, it makes the most sense for me to do it,” Eddie reasoned nonchalantly, shrugging.
Neither of them looked thrilled, but they begrudgingly agreed that it did make the most sense and Eddie patted himself on the back for stopping the argument from intensifying.
His satisfaction lasted until about a minute after he arrived home from his first solo grocery trip.
“Why would you buy this brand of almond milk, Eddie?” Buck asked indignantly. “It’s literally less than one per cent almonds. I might as well use water in my coffee.”
“That one was on sale, and the one you told me to get had three-and-a-half per cent almonds, so I figured that was close enough,” Eddie defended, reaching into the bags to find the items that needed to be refrigerated so that he could put them away quickly.
The cheese he was holding was snatched away by Bobby.
“Why are you buying this ridiculously over-processed stuff?” he asked, frowning at the packet like it had personally insulted him. “Please tell me you bought some actual, real cheese.”
“I wasn’t aware that Kraft cheese wasn’t real cheese,” Eddie said blankly, staring at it.
“Should I be concerned about what you’ve been feeding my grandchild?” Bobby said, appalled, now looking at Eddie like he was the one who had gravely insulted him.
Before Eddie could answer, Buck interrupted them. “You bought green apples? I thought I wrote red on the list…”
“You did, but there were people in front of the red apples and no one with the green ones and I figured that it wouldn’t matter much,” Eddie said warily.
He did know that Buck always preferred to eat red apples, but he hadn’t thought that switching to green for a little while would be a big deal.
“He doesn’t like green apples, he thinks they’re too sour,” Bobby informed him absent-mindedly, turning back to rummage through bags after putting the cheese away with a head-shake of disgust. “I’ve only ever managed to get him to eat the red ones. I even tried peeling the skin off them when he was a kid, but he always knew they weren’t the red ones and wouldn’t go near them after the first bite.”
Buck muttered something under his breath that sounded like it included the word ‘betrayal’.
“Right,” Eddie said, eyeing his pouting boyfriend.
He’d had no idea that something as simple as grocery shopping could inspire so many strong opinions.
“We can make an apple pie with them, sunshine, they’ll work well for that,” Bobby consoled his son, distracted as he searched through the bag which held the baking ingredients he had added to the list.
His gasp as he pulled out a small bottle seemed very dramatic, in Eddie’s opinion.
“Imitation vanilla essence?! Eddie, why would you do that?” Bobby asked, staring at the tiny bottle.
He’d bought it because it was two dollars as opposed to the ten that the supposedly ‘real’ stuff was priced at, but Eddie could already tell that it would be a terrible decision to admit that.
“It said vanilla essence,” he defended weakly instead, making a mental note not to trade Bobby’s ingredient’s out for cheaper alternatives in future even though he really didn’t see what the difference would be.
The fake stuff would still taste like vanilla, after all.
“Wait, this isn’t butter, it’s margarine,” Buck said, standing in front of the fridge and frowning at the small container he held in one hand.
“It’s spreadable butter,” Eddie corrected, but neither Buck nor Bobby were listening to him.
“I’m going shopping next time,” they both declared, and Eddie watched as the two of them appeared to prepare themselves for another argument.
He sighed, and gave himself his own mental dressing down as he searched through the remaining bags to find the packet he was looking for: he should have stocked up on more of his favourite chocolate mini-wafers.
(“I had no idea it was possible to have so many strong opinions about groceries, Hen,” he groaned to his co-worker the next day while they re-stocked the ambulance.
“I mean, you’re dating a guy who was raised by basically an amateur gourmet chef,” Hen pointed out reasonably, snickering at him. “What else did you expect? So how did the argument end?”
“I’m still the one doing the grocery shopping, but I need to video-call them while I’m in the store so that they can approve my choices,” Eddie explained, scowling at Hen when she had to stop organising bandages so that she could sit down and laugh at him.)