"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.