At some random point during the night, Eddie's entire mood and demeanor shifted. And now, sitting in the passenger seat of his truck, Buck can feel the invisible hands of this unprompted tension wrapped around his neck, and Christopher's absense —whom they dropped off at Hen and Karen's earlier for a sleepover— doesn't help the suffocating quiet that has fallen over the car after Buck's few attempts at striking up a conversation were met with frustrated, one word answers from Eddie.
Once they finally pull up in front of Eddie's house, he kills the engine and gets out without a word or a glance in Buck's way, heading to the door with quick strides as he fumbles in his pocket for the keys. It takes Buck a moment to shake off his confusion and the creeping anxiety and get out of the car to follow Eddie to the door, catching a glimpse of the slight tremor in his hands before he finally manages to shove the key inside the lock and push the door open. The only reason Buck came all the way here with Eddie was to take his jeep that he had parked right outside the door earlier that evening and go back to his own loft, but he never knows when to leave, so he doesn't. Instead he follows Eddie inside, watching his every anxious move as Eddie enters the kitchen, tossing his keys on the island before grabbing a glass and filling it to the brim with tap water, downing it in one big breath. Buck just watches in bewilderment as he feels his own anxiety claw at the inside of his ribcage, willing him to speak, so he finally does.
"E... Eddie— What is going on?" he blurts out as his eyes trace Eddie's unreadable side profile and move down to his arms and down to the way he grips the edge of the sink a little tighter.
"You've gotta talk to me, man. You... it's like you've been wanting me gone basically since... since 3 hours ago or something. Like you could barely stand being in the same car with me."
Buck shifts his weight uncomfortably, watching Eddie for a few excruciatingly silent seconds, waiting for a response before he decides he's not getting any and instead pulling the words out through the bile he can feel rising up in his throat.
"What... something happened back there. W... what happened? One minute you were okay, and the next it was like... What happened, Eddie? Did— did I do something? Did I say something wrong? You... you gotta talk to me."
Buck takes a cautious step forward, hesitating as he starts to reach out a hand towards the man in a half desperate move he's barely even thought through. "Please talk to me."
Eddie finally straightens up —a little too fast— leaving the glass on the counter where his other hand had been resting with a death grip around it and turns his body towards Buck but only to shrink away from him, taking a half step back before he can stop himself.
When Buck finally catches the man's eyes, his own breath catches in his throat as he takes him in: Eddie's eyes are like two reflective ponds, filled to the brim with tears that he refuses to let fall, wide and panicked and desperate and pained and scared and—
"I saw her." Eddie's shaky voice is barely louder than a whisper, but it's enough to pull Buck out of his spiraling panic and throw him into utter confusion.
"Wh— what? Who—" Buck stutters out, eyes still searching Eddie's.
"I saw Shannon." Eddie focuses every ounce of strength he has on steadying his voice, on keeping his throat from closing up again, just so he can get the words out before he can think better of it and stop himself, just so he can give Buck an answer so that he will stop looking at Eddie like that.
"I... I saw her, Buck. And— and she looked so beautiful. And she looked so... so real. And she..."
His eyes falter from the nauseatingly worried look on Buck's face, darting to a spot somewhere over his shoulder and then to the coffee maker on the counter and the kitchen door and his own hand on the kitchen island that has been fidgeting with his keys for god knows how long and he can feel his throat closing up again.

"She— she said... she said everything I need... is— is right in front of me."
Buck just watches him, anxiety swirling in his chest like a hurricane, trying to make sense of anything that's coming out of Eddie's quivering lips and failing.
"E— Eddie... What...?"
He watches as Eddie's trembling fingers finally give up on the keys in his grip, watches as he heaves a shaky breath into his lungs, as he shifts his weight, as he finally looks back up at him, a single teardrop escaping his eye before he speaks again, words coming out as nothing more than shaky whispers that Buck might as well have imagined.
"And then there you were."
Buck can feel his head start to spin, trying to put two and two together but too terrified of what answer his own wishful thinking would arrive at.
"Eddie... Wh— what are you saying?"
Buck's voice sounds unfamiliar to his own ears. Hoarse, restrained, choking on disbelief and confusion and a growing panic. Eddie's voice on the other hand has gained more stability once he speaks again, more volume, more determination.
"There you were, Buck. Where you've always been, with Chris and with... with me, and— and you were saying something and he was laughing and then you were laughing and—"
Eddie blurts out the words, barely catching a breath in between, as if he's scared someone will shoot him dead before he gets to finish.
"And it was like I could finally see you. Really... really see you."
He doesn't know when —or if— he took a step closer, but the distance between them is not nearly as much as he'd like it to be right now, the space between them feeling much smaller, almost claustrophobic. He searches Buck's face, the stunned, uncertain look in his eyes, the faint knot between his eyebrows, the way his mouth is hanging slighty open, as if to say something but not knowing what to say to any of that. Eddie thought he was making perfect sense, but the startled look on Buck's face is beginning to make him doubt it.
"Buck... say something."
Eddie almost pleads, the desperation in his voice making him cringe internally, but it's what pulls Buck out of his frozen state, confusion and disbelief still clouding his every thought as he tries to grab at any words he can think of.
"I... I don't— know what..."
He trails off as he feels his head spin faster and his thoughts spiral and his heart beat in his throat and he watches that pleading look on Eddie's face, so unfamiliar, so desperate, and he freezes as Eddie takes another step forward into his personal space, and he forgets to breathe as he follows Eddie's eyes as they glance down to his lips before looking back up at him again, and he actually sees the moment when the fear and desperation in his eyes give way to something laced with something that's half uncertainty and half determination, a half-hearted, terrifying decision before Eddie's hand leaps to grab the back of his neck and pull him into a kiss. The kiss. The one that Buck must have dreamed of a hundred times, the one that he's imagined a thousand times more. The one so yearned for and so, so long awaited that by the time his brain and his limbs finally catch up, Eddie has already pulled away before Buck has had the chance to return his kiss.
So he just looks, into the eyes of the man now so unbelievably close to him, his own hand that must have shot up at some point to rest on Eddie's chest, feeling his hammering heartbeat under his palm, his warm breaths on his face, taking in the look on Eddie's face with his parted lips and his wide, worried eyes and the blush coloring his cheeks that Buck can feel reflected on his own face and that look is enough confirmation for him to curl the fingers of both hands into the collar of Eddie's shirt, pulling him in with too much force and letting the momentum of their bodies knock his own back against the counter behind him as he finally, finally kisses him back.