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Chapter Text

The first time it happens is a week after Eddie and Chim had moved into Buck’s place for quarantining purposes.  Chim had been sleeping on the couch and Eddie had been sleeping in Bucks’ bed because, well the apartment wasn’t all that big, and what was a little bed-sharing between friends, anyway?  If Buck secretly liked going to sleep with Eddie within arm’s reach and waking up to Eddie’s snores then that was just a bonus of a necessary situation and it wasn’t anyone’s business but his own.

So the first time it happens is in the middle of the afternoon on their day off.  Chim had left for his daily walk a few minutes before and Buck and Eddie were lounging on Buck’s bed watching something on his laptop when Eddie nudged him with his foot.  So Buck nudged back.  And it escalates to the two of them rolling around on the bed, laughing and wrestling and trying to pin the other down.  Buck has his legs wrapped around Eddie’s waist and they twist together until Eddie has him pinned flat on his back, hands pressed on the mattress on either side of his head.  Buck grins up at him, out of breath.  He watches Eddie’s eyes track down, over his chest and lower, to where they’re pressed against each other.  When he looks back up he looks caught out, frozen.

Buck doesn’t think, just says, “Hey Eds, you wanna?”  Half to wipe that caught-out look off his friend’s face and half because, well.  Buck doesn’t not want to.  It would be fun, something to do to pass some time in the most stressful month of everyone’s lives.  

Eddie sits back so he’s between Buck’s thighs instead of on top of him and is slow to answer.  Buck waits, and finally, he answers, “Should we?”

And suddenly the possibility that this is actually about to happen slams into Buck and he wants it.  Images of Eddie’s hand wrapped around him, of Eddie naked in front of him, of Eddie coming apart because of him, flit through his head and he wants it.  Buck adjusts himself as casually as he can and says, “I want to.  No pressure, but I think…yeah, I want to.”  Eddie just looks at him for a few seconds, then looks down and places his hand on Buck’s thigh, slowly runs his hand up and down, looking almost fascinated at the image of his hand on Buck’s thigh.  They both stare, can’t tear their eyes away.  “Eddie…”

He looks up then, swallows, and says, “Yeah, me too.”

Buck watches as Eddie places a second hand on his other thigh and continues to move them higher and higher.  Buck lets him push them farther apart, almost wants to hold his breath he’s so scared of disrupting the moment.  Eddie reaches the hem of his shorts and he pushes his thumbs under, runs them over the dips between his legs and pelvis.  Buck has never been this turned on in his life, and right as he’s had that thought Eddie looks up to catch his eye.  “Will you…”  He doesn’t finish, but Buck gets what he wants.  He hooks his thumbs under his shorts and just dives straight into the deep end, pulling it all down at once.  Eddie watches him do it and Buck watches Eddie’s face.  

Buck feels like a live wire, wants Eddie to just touch him so bad, can’t stand floating in this limbo of being spread out before Eddie just…looking.  So he takes things into his own hands.  He’s half-hard already and Eddie’s expression as he watches Buck jerk himself off is making it so fucking good.  When he looks up at Buck again he seems a little lightheaded or off-kilter, or something.  Before Buck can check in with him again he’s leaning over Buck and kissing him, hand on his jaw and Buck moans into his mouth.

When Eddie pulls back Buck must look dazed because Eddie laughs and rolls his eyes.  “What, you can jerk off in front of me but I can't kiss you?”  And then, almost as an afterthought, he mumbles, “Want you to feel good.”

“Oh, sorry, my brain is kind of otherwise occupied right now,” Buck shoots back.

“You can’t multitask, Buckley?” Eddie teases, and then he’s pulling down his own shorts, and his hand stills on his cock, and okay maybe he’s not great at multitasking when his best friend is about to get his dick in his hand.  He can work on it.  “What about when I do this?”  They shift so that they’re lying facing each other, and Buck’s eyes are fixed on Eddie’s hand wrapped around his own dick.  He looks insanely good like this, of course, Eddie is so insanely hot in general it could be infuriating.

Buck attempts to scoot closer casually which at this point seems like a moot point but Eddie catches it and kisses him again.  Buck can feel Eddie’s knuckles brushing against his belly as he moves and whimpers into his mouth, breaking the kiss so he can look down and watch.  It almost feels like an out-of-body experience watching the two of them jerk off so close that if he wanted he could press them together.  Buck looks up to see Eddie watching them, too.  He kisses him hard, doesn’t know where to put all this pent-up everything, and asks.

“Can I…for you?” is what he says, breathing heavily.

“Yeah, yeah,” Eddie replies, and takes his hand off his cock and puts it on Buck’s hip, instead, like he’s not sure if he’s allowed, and buries his face in Buck’s neck.  When Buck wraps his hand around him Eddie squeezes his hip, hard.  Not that Buck’s really paying all that much attention, his brain is more focused on having his best friend’s dick in his hand.  And he might be kind of freaking out, a little, actually.

“Oh my god, dude,” Buck says.  He’s not sure he thought this through entirely.  Actually, he knows he didn’t think this through.  Eddie pulls back from where he’d been breathing into his neck and furrows his eyebrows at him.

“Are you freaking out?”

“Uh, I don’t know, maybe a little?  Are you freaking out?”

“Maybe a little,” he echoes.  They stare at each other for a beat.

“Should I - let go?  Or?”  They both look down and consider the situation for a second.  Eddie is warm and familiar in his hand and at this point, he feels like it would be weirder if he stopped now.

“Maybe I should do you…too?”  And that’s not what Buck was expecting.  Arousal slams into him again and instead of answering, he kisses him again.  Eddie gets the message.  And from there it’s quick, it’s the shock of feeling Eddie’s hand wrap around him.  It’s being knocked out of his own head and his own freak out by how good it all feels, it’s listening to the noises Eddie makes when he speeds up or when he swipes a thumb under the head of his cock.  It’s making a needy noise he thinks he should be embarrassed about when Eddie cups his balls in his hand.

“Close,” he manages.  His eyes are screwed shut, it’s all too much.

“Yeah, yeah, come on, want you to feel good,” Eddie says again, and that’s it for Buck, it’s so fucking good his toes curl and his wrist stutters to a stop before he pushes Eddie’s hand away.  He looks down and sees his come on Eddie’s hand, and that’s a fucking sight.  Eddie kisses him then and Buck gets a hand on his hip to pull him closer.  “Can I?” he asks, and Buck nods and shivers a little when he feels Eddie hard and wet against his stomach.

“God, you’re so fucking hot,” Buck says, and Eddie laughs breathlessly.  “I’m serious.”

“Uh-huh,” Eddie says, and then his rhythm stutters and he grips Buck’s hair and pulls him into a teeth-clashing kiss while he rides out the aftershocks.

“Well,” Buck says.

“Well,” Eddie replies.

“I’m feeling much more clear-headed, now,” Bucks says.  He can feel Eddie tense, so Buck wraps himself around him in every way he can, tangles their legs, gets his arms around his back, rests his chin over his shoulder.  “I think it was a great idea.  Upon reflection.”

“Upon reflection, huh?”  Eddie laughs and relaxes.  He’s quiet for a minute and Buck lets him take his time, runs a hand up and down his back in a way he hopes reads as soothing.  It’s certainly soothing him, if he’s honest this is as good as what they were doing.  If he’s honest he just likes being close to Eddie.  Sue him, he’s his best friend.  Eddie takes a deep breath and Buck waits for what he’s going to say.  “I’ve reflected and I agree.  Great idea.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.  But,” Buck tenses, “We uh.  We should maybe get up because of the whole, you know.  Chimney thing.”  Buck untangles himself and shoots up.

“Oh fuck, he’s gonna be back any second!”

Eddie’s already getting up and shooing Buck up and stripping the sheets off the bed, but he has a grin on his face.  Buck stands there stupidly until Eddie looks up at him.

“Well?  You should get a washcloth or something, I came all over you, man,” Eddie says as he balls up the sheets and darts down the stairs to the washer.  Buck feels like he’s buffering.  I came all over you, man.  That might.  Well.  That might be getting stored away to be turned over in his head approximately a thousand times later.  He mindlessly wanders into the bathroom and looks at himself in the mirror, is tempted to take a photo but that would be ridiculous.  Right?  Yeah.  His syrupy thoughts are interrupted by a distant Shit! And the sound of Eddie running up the stairs and scrambling into the bathroom with him and slamming the door.

“Really smooth, Eds,” he teases.

Eddie shoots a look at him, “Shut up, I grabbed our clothes.”

“I’m glad your brain is on, at least.”

Cleaning up and getting dressed side by side in Buck’s small bathroom is a different kind of intimacy that Buck forgot could exist, the kind of intimacy he’d never really thought about having with Eddie until now.  Eddie pulls his shirt over his head and turns to Buck.

“Good?”

Buck reaches up to fix Eddie’s still-messy hair and then gives him one last once-over.  “Yeah, good.”

“Okay, then I guess.  I’ll go out and hope he doesn’t see me coming out of the bathroom?  And go downstairs?  And then you come out in a minute?”

“Okay.”  They just stand there and look at each other for a second, not sure how to really end this whole thing.

“Okay,” Eddie says again, and then turns and leaves.

Buck looks into the mirror again and fixes his hair, and can’t stop himself from smiling.

Chapter Text

Buck spends the rest of the day in a sort of haze.  He and Eddie keep looking at each other and smiling and laughing and Chimney demands to know what the inside joke is and they insist it’s nothing, really.  He doesn’t believe them, but they don’t budge.

It’s just that everything Eddie does Buck is seeing in a new light.  He’s walking around the loft in the shorts he was wearing earlier and Buck cannot stop flashing back to Eddie on his knees, between his thighs, Eddie bare laying next to him.  Eddie kissing him.

They have tacos for dinner and Buck is extremely distracted.  He doesn’t think he hears a single word Chim says.  Instead, he finds himself fascinated with the way Eddie eats, the way he licks a drip of salsa off his thumb.  Buck cooked, so Eddie cleans up while Chimney goes to the balcony to call Maddie.  Buck sits on the island and watches him, watches his soap-covered fingers, watches the way the muscles in his back move as he washes.  Eddie turns and catches him at it and raises an eyebrow.  Buck just smiles and shakes his head, as if to say, What?  I wasn’t doing anything.

Eventually, Chimney and Eddie switch places so that Eddie can have some screen time with Christopher, and Chimney gives him a look.

“What?” Buck protests.

“You know what.  You still aren’t gonna tell me what’s going on?” Chimney asks.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, man,” Buck insists.  Chimney puts a hand on his hip and squints at him a little.

Finally, he says, “Fine.  But I’ve got nothing but time, Buckley.  And before you ask, yes, that is a threat.”  He jokingly gestures that he’s watching him, and then shakes his head and walks into the living room.

It occurs to him as his smile over Chimney’s antics wears off that he’s going to sleep in the same bed as Eddie in just a few hours.  Buck’s not sure why this hadn’t occurred to him before, especially given the fact that they’d been doing it for two weeks already, but.  Once again it strikes him that he hadn’t thought this through at all.  

He’d usually pop outside and say hello to Chris, but tonight he goes up to bed early in an effort to do some sort of detox before Eddie joins him.  He flops on the bed, spreads his limbs out like a starfish, and considers the ceiling.

It would be fine.  Even when things got a little weird during the sex they’d laughed, they’d worked it out.  It had been good.

Fuck, he’d had sex with Eddie.  The urge to laugh bubbled up so hard and uncontrollably he slapped a hand over his mouth to stop it.  He could hear the TV playing low just under him, where Chimney was making up his bed for the night.  Jesus, he’d had sex with Eddie and he’d had Eddie’s come smeared across his belly.  I came all over you, man.

Thinking about this was not helping with whatever detoxing he’d meant to do up here.  In fact, it was probably the opposite of helpful.  He should maybe just go jerk off in the bathroom about it, and then he could actually get somewhere.

He really considers it for a minute.

In the end, he decides what he actually needs is a distraction, and he grabs his laptop and puts on a playlist of some guy playing City Skylines and just zones out while he watches digital terraforming and road building and wind turbine placement.  Eventually, he hears Eddie creeping up the stairs to join him.

“Hey,” he says, keeping his voice quiet so as to not disturb Chim below them.

“Hey,” Eddie says in the same voice, pulling open the drawer where he’s been keeping his stuff to get ready for bed.

“How’s Chris?”

Eddie keeps his back to him while he changes.  “Oh, you know.  Still making the best of it.”  Eddie finishes dressing and turns around.

“That kid’s tougher than all of us,” Buck says.  Eddie smiles, but it’s a little watery.  Buck misses Chris, is used to seeing him a few times a week at least.  He can’t even imagine how Eddie is feeling.

“What are you watching?” Eddie asks as he climbs into bed and toward Buck.  He peers at the screen.

“Oh, just stupid video game videos.  They’re building a city,” Buck says, and goes to exit out of the video now that Eddie is here.

“No, let’s watch it.”  Eddie gets under the covers so Buck does, too, and he settles the laptop between them.  “What’d I miss?”  Buck knows that Eddie wants something to take him out of his head and to distract him from missing his son, but he appreciates Eddie’s interest in whatever he’s doing all the same.  Buck knows he actually wants to hear it, and that’s not something he’s always had.  It’s nice.

“Well, he downloaded this map that someone else made but then made some changes, like adding a swamp and all his own custom trees.  He says he wants to eventually give it a New Orleans vibe, and then build out along those islands, see?”  Eddie nods.  Buck hits play and they watch.  It’s soothing, watching someone build a fake world with fake people, to watch as their little digital problems arise and then get solved right then and there by a benevolent god.

They’d started sitting side-by-side leaning back against the headboard, but Eddie slowly slips down and ends up with his head in Buck’s lap.  He can feel how drained he is.  Buck briefly hesitates before carding his fingers through Eddie’s hair.  Why worry about this when they’d decided not to worry about what happened earlier?  It was silly to hesitate over simple friendly affection.  And anyway, it seemed like Eddie had fallen asleep.  So Buck paused the video and tucked away the laptop, and fell asleep with Eddie laying close.

-

They were on shift the next day, and it was a busy one like they’d all been lately.  Bobby had started planning meals that took less time to prepare but kept at it with teaching Buck.  Together they made pasta while Chim put together a salad.  Eddie and Hen sat at the table and they reviewed for her upcoming test.  As stressful as everything was, it was nice to be here, to have a tiny sliver of normalcy among it all.

Later, as they left in the dark hours of the morning, Buck hugged Bobby and Hen goodbye the way they’d all been doing since this whole thing started.  There were exhausted mumbles of See you later, and then Eddie, Chimney, and Buck piled into the Jeep to head back to Buck’s place.

It sometimes felt like they were in a weird cyclical dream that surely he’d wake up from any minute now.  Eddie fiddled with the radio on the way home in a way that made Buck want to tell him to knock it off, but he didn’t say anything.  They silently trudged up to the loft and Chimney just went to get his bed made up again without saying anything, so Buck and Eddie went upstairs to give him some space.

Eddie sat on the end of the bed and rubbed his face tiredly, before flopping back onto the mattress and sighing.  They switch off at the dresser, first Buck changing then Eddie, silently agreeing to just slip into bed.  The two of them stared at the ceiling.

“I don’t think I can sleep yet,” Eddie said.  Buck turned on his side to face him, but Eddie kept staring at the ceiling.

“Brain still wired?”

“Mmm.”  Eddie was wearing a white tee and the grey sweatpants that he always wore.  He looked bone-deep tired, but he wore it well.  He wore everything well, it was entirely unfair.  He looked over at him and smiled.  “Hi.”

“Hiii,” Buck laughed a little and brought up his hand to squeeze Eddie’s shoulder.  The way Eddie was looking at him with his dark, tired eyes tugged at him.  “What?”

“Nothing,” he said, syrupy slow, but a smile still tugged at his lips.  Buck put his hand on Eddie’s stomach, because he could, because it felt good.  Eddie quirked an eyebrow up but didn’t say anything, and Buck felt the ever-present need to see how far he could push.  He slipped his hand under the t-shirt and Eddie still didn’t say anything, just watched, so Buck rucked it up so his stomach showed.  “What’re you doing?” Eddie asked, but Buck could still see that quirk in his eyebrow and hear the smile in his voice.

Now it was Buck’s turn.  “Nothing,” he said, as he ran his hand across the soft expanse of his stomach.  He really wasn’t sure exactly what he wanted here, not thinking it through again, but.  He thinks it’s nice to just be close to someone.  In some ways, this feels like another part of the dream he should’ve woken up from already, but at the same time, it’s grounding.  The world is maybe falling apart around them but here they are, alive and well.  This moment feels startlingly normal compared to the day they’d just had, to the rest of their rearranged lives.

Eventually, Eddie pulls the covers up and tucks Buck’s hand under his shirt, pressed against his heartbeat.  Eddie falls asleep first, having been lulled by Buck’s movements, and when he turns onto his side in his sleep Buck scoots closer and keeps his hand where it is, with his arm wrapped around Eddie’s waist.  He’s really too tired to do anything but think to himself, This is nice, and he quickly follows Eddie into sleep.

Chapter Text

Buck woke up the next morning with his face tucked against Eddie’s neck and his arm tucked against his chest, smushed against Eddie’s back where his shirt was still sort of rucked up from last night.  Buck slowly extricated himself, trying not to wake Eddie, and walked as quietly as he could to the bathroom since he couldn’t hear any sign Chimney was up yet, either.  When he came back out Eddie was waiting for him.  He was leaning back propped up on his elbows, and he’d pulled his shirt back down.  He was still blinking sleep out of his eyes.

“Morning,” Eddie croaked out.

“Coffee?” Buck asked, and Eddie just hummed his assent in response.  Buck pulled on a sweatshirt and socks because Eddie liked it colder than he was used to at night.  Which was all fine and good when they were under the covers but his usual t-shirt and shorts did not cut it when he actually had to walk on the cold floors.  

He peered around the stairs as he walked down to see that Chimney was indeed still sleeping, so he puttered around the kitchen starting the coffee and getting mugs out as quietly as he could.  He pulled out their mugs - blue stripes for Buck, red flowers for Eddie - and the half and half and oat milk from the fridge.  Eddie liked his coffee with no sugar and a splash of half and half, which frankly was disgusting.  But it was worth knowing Eddie’s disgusting habits to see him gratefully accept his coffee two-handed and drink from it with closed eyes as if it would restore him to life or something.  Once he’d had a moment with his coffee Eddie looked up from where he still sat in bed and smiled at him.

“Thanks, it’s good.”

“You say that every day.”

“It’s good every day.”

Something about the way he says that, the way he meets his eyes, makes Buck shiver a little.  Usually, Buck drank his coffee out on the balcony in an effort to give everyone space in the morning.  Buck kind of liked them all being on top of each other all the time, at least in the short term.  He would’ve been a mess without other people to keep him from anxious spirals about the current state of the world, but he recognized that not everyone liked what was starting to feel like a never-ending sleepover.  And Eddie wasn’t really a morning person, especially when Chris wasn’t around to get him up and going.  

Still, this morning Buck sits back down on their bed with his coffee, drawn in by whatever is in Eddie’s eyes.  He sits cross-legged next to him, his knee pressing against Eddie’s thigh.  They quietly sip at their coffees for a bit.  Eventually, Buck twists to put his mug down and wraps a hand around Eddie’s ankle, strokes his thumb over the angle of it.  He lifts his eyes to watch the rise and fall of Eddie’s chest and finds himself overly focused on his own breathing.  This is normal, his heart might be thumping a little harder than usual but he’s breathing steadily.  He bites the inside of his cheek and thinks too hard about how quickly or not he’s taking breaths.

“What do you wanna do today?” Eddie asks, and there it is again in his eyes, that thing that draws Buck in and makes him shiver.  Buck looks at him, then casually tucks his hand under his shirt instead to idly scratch his chest, exposing his stomach.  He pretends to think.

He lets his shirt fall back into place and leans back.  He shrugs, “I dunno.”

“Hmm,” Eddie hums.

“Hmmm,” Buck returns.  Now they’re caught in a staring contest, and Buck thinks maybe he can win if he just leans over and -

“Hey, do you guys want eggs?  I’m gonna make breakfast,” Chimney suddenly calls from the kitchen.  Their stares were broken, Buck hadn’t even heard him get up.

“Yeah!” Buck calls back, “There’s coffee in the pot.”

“Eddie?” Chimney asks.

It takes Eddie a beat longer than it should to answer, “Yeah, I’m coming!”

Buck can’t help but wiggle his eyebrows at him and they’re both laughing as they get up and make the bed, the tension broken for now.

It does not stay broken.

They all eat together on the balcony and Eddie might not be a morning talker but Chimney is, and he’s recounting last night’s dream - which is somewhat of a routine at this point.  Every single dream he’s told them has been extremely mundane, but apparently Chimney’s brain tends to sort of randomize the people in his life into a bit of a mix and match cast so he always talks through the weird cast of an unnecessarily complicated trip to get a can of special tomato soup or something.  

Bucks nods along but he can tell Eddie isn’t really listening this morning.  Mostly because he can feel him staring at him and it’s incredibly distracting.  Buck glances over to check and Eddie ducks his head and tries to hide a smile.  Then, he feels Eddie’s foot nudge his under the table.  Buck tries hard to concentrate on what Chimney is saying while Eddie runs his foot up and down his calf.  This is fine, he can be normal about this.  In fact, it is normal.

He’s so busy repeating this mantra in his head that he misses Chimney’s question.

“Huh?”

“Wow, somebody’s not awake yet.  He asked what you were planning to do today,” Eddie repeats for him, looking far too smug for ten in the morning.  Buck traps Eddie’s foot between two of his and Eddie simply puts his other foot on top.  Buck almost laughs, this is so stupid and joyful.

“Um, I dunno, I might just sorta veg.  Maybe start that puzzle Maddie sent.  What about you guys?”

Chimney idly rubs his head and shrugs, “At the very least a good ‘ol government-approved walk.  Do you think we’re still banging pots and pans tonight?”

Eddie groaned, “God, I hope not.”

Buck laughs, “Come on, Eddie, doesn’t loud nightly clanging make you feel appreciated?”

Eddie rolls his eyes and scoots his chair out, effectively disentangling their feet, and collects all of their dishes.  “I’m gonna call Christopher,” he says and starts making his way inside.

“Okay, I’ll come and say hi in a few,” Buck says.  Eddie shoots a smile over his shoulder.

Chimney leans forward and raises his eyebrows.  “Are you still not going to tell me what’s going on?  Or should I start guessing?”

Buck chuckles a little awkwardly and thinks his ears are probably red.  “It’s nothing, really.”

Chimney crosses his arms and considers him for a moment,  “Uh-huh.  Sure.  Just wait until I tell Hen how weird you two are being.”

Buck drops his jaw in faux disbelief, “There’s nothing to tell!”

“Come onnn, Buck, no juicy gossip?  This worldwide pandemic is getting boring, we need some intrigue,” Chimney jokes, and Buck laughs.

“A little homemade drama coming right up,” he says and gives him a little two-finger salute.

-

All morning Eddie watches him.  Eddie puts on a playlist and pours himself another cup of coffee and watches quietly while Buck dumps out the puzzle pieces and starts sorting.  Buck’s never felt so exposed while doing a puzzle, of all things.  He can feel Eddie’s eyes on the stretch of his back when he leans over to pop a piece in place, and he can feel Eddie’s eyes on his hands as he turns a piece over in his fingers.  He feels…on display.

The longer it goes on the more Buck wishes Eddie would just reach out and touch him already.  Buck works on the puzzle for longer than he usually would, addicted to the way Eddie is looking at him.  He’s so focused on his movements and the way Eddie’s eyes are tracking him that it takes a moment for him to readjust when Eddie stands and breaks the tension again.

“Want a sandwich?”  He looks at Buck so matter-of-factly, as if they hadn’t been engaging in some kind of silent…something all morning.

Buck blinks at him.  “Yeah,” his voice crackles from disuse and he flushes.  

Buck follows Eddie into the kitchen and watches him pull out things for their lunch.  Bread, peanut butter, jelly, two apples.  Eddie makes the sandwiches and then starts slicing the apples and Buck can’t help but be fond.

“You’re such a dad.”

“I happen to make an excellent peanut butter and jelly sandwich, thank you very much,” Eddie says archly, placing Buck’s food on his plate and handing it to him.  Buck gets up and grabs glasses for them.

“Do you want milk with that, or…?” Buck teases.  Eddie laughs and swats at him with the dishtowel nearby.

“Shut up!  Enjoy your food.  As if I’d drink your oat milk,” Eddie scoffed.  Buck laughs and fills both their glasses with water and hands Eddie his.

“You’d love to drink my oat milk,” Buck says, and Eddie slaps a hand over his mouth to keep from spraying water everywhere.

“I’m gonna kill you for that,” Eddie manages, not quite managing not to smile as he says it.

-

They while away a couple more hours watching a Chopped marathon with Chimney.  Eddie and Buck share the couch and they all yell at the contestants who decide to bake cakes in the dessert round and to give raw onions to the one judge who hates them.  They keep up a running stream of commentary about who they think is going to go home, who they think will win, if they think that pork got up to temperature in time, what they would make if they got those ingredients.

Also, Eddie’s hand is on Buck’s knee.

To be fair, Buck has his legs thrown over Eddie’s lap, which is not an uncommon way for them to sit.  But today Eddie has his hand sitting just above Buck’s knee, an unmoving, steady presence.  And Buck cannot stop thinking about Chimney taking his daily walk.  It must be any time now, he keeps thinking as Eddie’s hand burns into him.

Finally, after two and half hours of Chopped, Chimney stretches and gets up.

“Alright, I’ll be back,” Chim says, already scrolling on his phone to open the podcast he’d been telling Buck about for the past few days.

“See you later,” Buck says, very casually he thinks.  They listen to Chimney walk to the door, pull on his shoes, and then hear the door click behind him.

Eddie looks over at him.

“Do you wanna…” Buck starts.

“Upstairs?”

“Yeah.”

Eddie grins and grabs Buck’s hand, pulls him upstairs while Buck giggles at how eager he is.  Eddie flops back on Buck’s bed and looks for all the world like he belongs there.

Buck sits on his knees in front of him and looks at him for a minute, wanting him to feel as thoroughly picked over as he has all day.  Buck looks and looks and categorizes how the sunlight angles over the slope of his shoulders, the soft folds of his stomach as he slouches, leaning on his elbows, the soft rise and fall of his chest.  He takes Eddie’s hand in his and turns it over, strokes his thumb across the delicate skin of his wrist, admires the branching blue of his veins.  Buck pushes a hand on his chest and Eddie lets him move him, lets Buck lay him down completely on his bed and that leaves a little thrill in Buck’s stomach.  He moves Eddie’s arms out of the way, pushes his legs open so there’s space to sit between his thighs, and all the time Eddie just watches and lets him.  

Buck rucks up his shirt again, the way he’d been thinking about all day.  This time he pushes it all the way up under his armpits.  Buck brushes his thumbs over his nipples and Eddie shudders.  He smooths his hands over Eddie’s chest and then down his sides, cupping his rib cage, pausing to feel the way his breathing has picked up a little.

Buck leans down, nose pressing into the skin of his stomach, and takes a breath.

“What’s with you and my stomach?” Eddie laughs breathlessly, finally breaking the silence.

“What, you don’t like it?” Buck looks up.  Eddie runs his fingers through his hair and tugs a little.  Buck bites his lip.

“No, I like it.”  Eddie’s eyes are dark, cloying.  He tugs Buck up so he stretches out over him, so their faces are close.  They breathe each other in for a moment before Eddie leans up to kiss him.  

Buck sinks into it, loses himself a little in the warm, wet heat of him.  Eddie slips his hands under Buck’s shirt, cradles the dip of his spine for a moment, then tucks his fingers just under Buck’s waistband and pulls him further in.  Closer, closer, closer, they’re lined up and pressed together.  Eddie lifts a hand to Buck’s head again, runs his fingers through his hair before he’s suddenly tipping them up and over and Buck’s on his back and Eddie’s got his thighs bracketing his hips.

Eddie tugs at his hair and kisses his neck, his jaw, licks into his mouth.  All Buck can think is he’s not close enough.  Eddie sits back on Buck’s hips and it makes him groan, and still, all he does is strip the rest of the way out of his shirt.  Buck watches, enraptured.  Unwittingly, he thinks of the first time he ever saw Eddie, of him pulling an LAFD t-shirt over his perfectly muscled chest, the strong plane of his stomach.

“You know, I’ve always thought I was sort of jealous of you, at first,” Buck says.

Eddie snorts and pushes Buck’s shirt up, “You think?”

“Well, yeah, okay, I know I was jealous of you at first.  You just seemed so perfect!” Buck defends, all the while Eddie is coaxing his shirt off of him.  “I just.  I also think I was kind of angry at how hot you were?”  Buck’s voice lilts up at the end and makes it into a question, but it isn’t really one.  He just sort of…looking back now it’s clear in a way that it wasn’t before.

“And are you angry at how hot I am now?” Eddie asks, fiddling with the button on Buck’s jeans.  Buck swallowed.

“I don’t think angry is the right word for it,” Buck’s breath hitches as Eddie undoes his fly and drags his jeans down, carefully folding them and setting them aside.  Buck laughs.

“You’ll thank me when Chim comes home and you know where your pants are,” Eddie says.  Like last time, Eddie runs his hands up Buck’s thighs, steady and sure. His thumbs dip under his boxers and he strokes the skin there.  This time, Eddie pulls them down, puts a hand on his calf as he lifts them off and away.

He wants Eddie so bad he might start shaking with it.

“Eds, Eddie, c’mon,” Buck reaches for him, tugs him down and against him again.  He cradles his face, kisses him and kisses him again and licks into his mouth, and moans.  Buck’s fingers scrabble for purchase against Eddie’s back, and he thrusts up against him.  It’s so good after this whole day of looking to be touched, to be surrounded, and it’s got Buck so worked up he’s not sure he can stop - except he desperately wants Eddie naked against him.  

As always, they seem to be on the same page, Eddie murmuring, “Wait, wait, Buck, hold on,” and attempting to back off enough to rid himself of his remaining clothes.  Eddie kisses him hard and then sits up, keeping Buck on his back with a press of his hand on his chest and Buck makes a noise he’s not sure he could replicate.  Eddie strips down the rest of the way and then he’s back, kissing his cheek, his nose, his mouth.  

Buck slides his hands down from his back to his ass and doesn’t even have the capacity to marvel that he is literally grabbing Eddie’s ass.  Eddie thrusts against him, Buck feels his cock wet and hot against his, the friction shatteringly delicious.  “Yeah, yeah, keep going, don’t stop,” Buck hears himself saying.  Eddie lets out a breathless laugh and leans down to kiss his sweaty neck and Buck shivers.

“Not gonna stop,” Eddie says.  “You feel good?”

Buck’s thighs are shaking and he can feel himself losing the rhythm a bit, and he nods frantically.  “Yeah, yeah,” is all he can gasp out, just needs Eddie to keep going.

“Can you come like this?”

He squeezes his eyes shut and nods.  Eddie ducks his head against him and takes them to the edge, keeps thrusting against him as he comes until the oversensitivity comes curling in.  Buck pushes against his hips and he backs off.

“Buck,” Eddie whines.

“I got you,” Buck says, and pushes him over on his side to face him.  Kisses him hot and clumsy while he reaches down and wraps a hand around him.  Eddie moans into his mouth and thrusts into the tight hot heat of his hand and then he’s spilling over it.  Eddie has Buck’s arm clenched tight in his hand and his mouth open in a silent oh, his brows furrowed so prettily.  

Buck kisses him again and it flows into the next and the next and the next, the two of them slowly coming down.  It’s addictive, Buck thinks, this part.  Soaking in the moment with Eddie, this naked closeness as an end in itself.  Buck almost wishes they had a little more time to just…have this.  He’s not always been a big fan of lingering in the afterglow but this was different.  It was Eddie.  Buck was running his fingers over Eddie’s bicep, just enjoying feeling the curves and strength of him, when Eddie sighed.

“We gotta get up.”  Buck pouted.  “Don’t look at me like that, it doesn’t work on me.  I’m immune.”

Buck sat up and poked at his chest imperiously, “That’s a lie.  How should I list the times it’s worked on you, alphabetically or chronologically?”

Eddie rolled his eyes and smiled, “Ha-ha.  Come on, I think these sheets are worse than last time.”

“Well I think it was mostly on me last time,” Buck shoots back, but gets up so Eddie can tear the sheets off the bed.  This stops Eddie in his tracks, and he looks at him a little shell shocked.  Pleasure curls in his belly for putting that look onto Eddie’s normally unflappable facade.

“Jesus Christ, Buck.”

“You’re the one who said, ‘I came all over you, man.’  I think you gave me a complex, I’ll be honest.”

“Well, if you want me to come on you all you have to do is ask,” Eddie says with a measured sweetness that suggests Eddie knows exactly what he’s doing to him, and now it’s Buck’s turn to gape at him.

Then, Buck hears the wiggle of the front door’s lock and they’re not even close to dressed.  “Shit,” Buck whispers and gathers up their clothing and heads to the bathroom once again.  Eddie shuts the door behind them.

“Aren’t you glad I folded those?” Eddie asks smugly.

“You managed to fold one out of like six articles of clothing, you idiot,” Buck laughs.

“We can circle back to the come thing,” Eddie says as he pulls on his shirt.

“Oh my god,” Buck mutters, struggling into his own clothing.  “Okay, we’ll pencil it in!” he says wildly.  This is so different from the first time they were in here in this exact same situation a few days ago that Buck doesn’t even know what to do with it all.  Certainly doesn’t know what to do with an Eddie who is being rather communicative about the sex he wants to have with Buck.  He has to assume it’s some kind of post-orgasm high that’s giving him the confidence.

“You should go out first this time,” Eddie suggests.  Buck checks his hair, decides it’s as good as it’s gonna get right now, and then before he walks out Eddie leans over to give him a peck on the lips.

“What was that for?”

Eddie shrugged.  Buck shrugged it off.  In the grand scheme of things, what did a kiss mean after you’d just had sex with someone?  For the second time.  And discussed having sex for a third time.  They’d always been tactile, anyway. Honestly, Buck wasn’t that surprised the kissing was carrying over from the rest of it.  It was nice.

Buck smiles at him, gives a sloppy two-finger salute, and walks out.

Chapter Text

The thing about hooking up with one of your roommates, especially when all you can do outside of work is hang out with them, is that you can get extremely tactile extremely quickly.  Buck and Eddie had already been pretty affectionate friends, and now - well now it just seemed silly to hold back at all if they were going to jerk each other off later, is all.  

So yeah, maybe when they sat and watched a movie and Eddie wrapped an arm around him, Buck didn’t hesitate at all to melt into it.  And maybe Eddie kept playing footsie with him under the table at breakfast.  And maybe Buck leaned into being a clingy sleeper and liked to be wrapped around Eddie when they went to bed.  And maybe at work between calls, they’d sit on the couch with their thighs pressed together.

Maybe they did all of that and Buck still didn’t feel satisfied.  Didn’t feel close enough at all.  The feeling takes him a bit by surprise, but Eddie seems to feel the same.  They spend a few days where Buck feels like they can’t catch a moment alone outside of the ones they spend falling exhausted into bed after their shifts.  And the thing is, Buck desperately wants more.  He thinks it should alarm him how addictive this thing with Eddie is, but he can’t bring himself to care.  He wants him.  And the way Eddie sometimes looks at Buck, when no one else is looking, makes him think Eddie wants him, too.

The days seem to drag and every time Eddie lets his touch linger, Buck’s heartbeat picks up a little.  He can’t help but imagine what they might do later.  He spends much, much, too much time thinking about Eddie saying, We can circle back to the come thing.  He thinks about Eddie’s hands on his thighs.  He thinks about the way Eddie said, Want you to feel good .  He thinks about dragging Eddie into a closet and getting on his knees.  Buck thinks about blowing Eddie and how he might feel in his mouth and how Eddie might grab his hair and mostly, he thinks about how that would mean Eddie would be inside him.  And he feels like he might explode.

He thinks he might give himself a heart attack, at this rate. 

Finally, they wake up late one morning to find that Chimney has already gone.  There’s a note on the kitchen table that says he’s gone to grocery shop for Maddie, and to text him if they need anything from the store.  Buck sees it as he walks into the kitchen, wiping sleep out of his eyes.  Eddie, for once, had made it downstairs before him and, it seemed, was already texting Chim.

“Will you tell him -”

“Peaches and butter, yeah,” Eddie says, not looking up.  “Do you need anything else for that recipe?”

“Uh, no, that’s really it.”  Buck pauses and full-body yawns.  He’s about to say something else about the galette he’s planning on making when he sees Eddie’s smile.  “What?” he asks.

“Nothing.  You’re just a good yawner.”

Buck laughs, “A good yawner?”

“Yeah, very dramatic performances across the board.  Ten out of ten, would watch you yawn again,” Eddie teases.

“You think I’m cute,” Buck accuses.

Eddie scrunches his nose but can’t help his smile, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I am cute.  I wouldn’t have a ten out of ten if I wasn’t,” Buck says, poking at Eddie’s shoulder.

“You think the yawn judges are that superficial?” Eddie demands, with all the faux-seriousness his role requires.  Buck wants to kiss him.

“I dunno, are they?”  Buck takes a step forward and Eddie pockets his phone and tilts his head.

“Maybe,” Eddie says.  His eyes are soft as he says it.  Buck takes another step closer.

“Maybe what?”

Eddie fondly rolls his eyes, “You’re unbelievable.”

“It’s one of my many qualities,” Buck agrees.  Eddie’s looking at him again, in that way he does lately when no one is looking.  In that way that makes Buck feel like he’s on fire.

“Buck.”

“Yeah?”

“Let’s go back to bed.”

“Yeah,” Buck says, and Eddie grabs his hand.  Buck’s not sure if he should feel silly that someone leading him to his own bed makes him feel like goo.

This time, instead of getting on the bed, Eddie turns and kisses him.  It takes Buck a little by surprise, but everything about the way Eddie kisses him makes Buck’s head spin from how quickly he gets lost in it.  Eddie runs his hands up and down Buck’s back, following the dip of his spine and finally lingering on his waist.  The heady feeling of being wanted back threatens to overwhelm him when Eddie pulls back, looks at him for a moment, and kisses his cheek.  It makes Buck’s hands tremble as he holds Eddie’s hips.

“What are you thinking about?” Eddie asks.  Buck flushes and ducks his head.

“How good you make me feel,” Buck answers honestly.  Eddie kisses him again, an overwhelming, clashing thing this time, and Buck shivers into the feeling of heat sparking across his skin.  He pulls Eddie closer and pulls at his shirt.  When they break the kiss Buck pulls it off him and then says, “C’mon,” tugging him down onto the bed.  

Buck wastes no time in getting him out of the rest of his clothes and takes his time admiring Eddie all laid out for him.  It still doesn’t quite compute that he gets to see Eddie like this, to see how hard he is against his stomach, to see how his blush extends prettily down his chest.

Eventually, Eddie shoves at Buck with his foot, embarrassed.  “Buck, come on.”  Buck smooths his hands up Eddie’s thighs and his eyes flutter shut.  But Buck just leans back.

“What?  I’m simply admiring your many qualities,” Buck says, grinning, and then wraps his hand around the base of his cock.  Eddie rocks up into his fist with a moan, his thighs trembling.  “You look so good when you’re annoyed with me,” Buck says breathlessly, laughing.

“I’m gonna kill you,” Eddie says, but his eyes are still closed and his fists are clenched in their sheets.

Buck loosens his grip and Eddie whines.  “I could stop -” Buck teases, and Eddie cuts him off.

“Buck, I swear to god,” Eddie says, and - well it really was something.  To see that familiar annoyed look on his face while he chases Buck’s touch.

“Okay, okay,” Buck says, “Serious business this time, I promise.”  Buck’s heart hammers in his chest as he leans down and kisses the head of Eddie’s dick.

“Buck, oh my god.”

“Okay?” Buck asks, and Eddie is nodding as he says it.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s - good, yeah,” Eddie gets out.

Buck leans down to kiss his stomach, and then says, “That’s what I’ve been thinking about.”

“Yeah?” Eddie answers, rather breathlessly.

“Yeah,” Buck says.  “Thought about blowing you at work.”

“Jesus, Buck,” Eddie says, and it’s never going to get old, pulling these reactions out of Eddie.  Which is why he says what he does next.

“Want you inside of me,” Buck confides, and dares to look up at him.  

“Buck,” is all Eddie says, and tugs on the hoodie Buck’s still wearing to get him close enough to kiss.  Buck goes willingly and moans into the kiss, trembling as Eddie’s fingers soothed down his spine.  He gets a little lost in it before he backs off and sits back again.  Eddie is hot and heavy under him.  Buck is entranced by the way his chest rises and falls.

He rearranges Eddie’s legs so his feet are planted on the bed and when Buck leans down, gets Eddie in hand, he’s surrounded by his thighs.  He kisses the head of Eddie’s dick again and Eddie breathes out harshly like he’d been holding his breath.  Buck kisses down the length of him, licks his lips, feels his heart pound.  

Eddie cards a hand through his hair and Buck squeezes his thigh with his free hand.  Buck closes his eyes and takes him into his mouth, taking in the weight of Eddie on his tongue, filling him up.  He dips lower, takes more of him in, tries to remember to breathe through his nose.  Buck takes a moment and then starts to move, and Eddie lets out the most broken whine and tightens his grip on his hair.  Buck hums and he can feel Eddie’s thighs tense around him.

He gets into a rhythm and wonders what he looks like, what Eddie sees looking down at him.  Buck moans at the thought, at the way Eddie is watching him do this for him.  Unbidden, Eddie’s words from last time bounce around his head.  If you want me to come on you all you have to do is ask.  He pulls off and presses his hand to his own leaking cock.

“Fuck, Eddie.”

“Good?” Eddie manages.

“So good,” Buck says and slides back down again.  He can feel Eddie twisting his other fist in their sheets and he can feel the way his thighs are trembling.  Anything Buck imagined didn’t hold a candle to the real thing, he wanted it but didn’t know just how much he’d like it.  Eddie’s thumb strokes at his bottom lip, stretched around Eddie and that’s -

“You feel so good, you’re so good at this,” Eddie says, and fuck.  Buck looks up at him and it’s - well, it’s unbelievable how beautiful he is.  Buck knows he’s getting sloppier but he doesn’t care, he knows Eddie is close and wants to feel him come for him.  He runs his hand up Eddie’s thigh, and Eddie’s hand is back in his hair again.  Buck feels him tug in warning.

“Buck, Buck,” is all he says, and the pride Buck feels seeps into arousal and pools in his belly.  He has plenty of time to draw back, but he keeps going, letting Eddie come in his mouth because he needs to know.  Buck likes it more than he expects, thinks it’s the same as the thing that makes him shiver to think that Eddie was inside him.  “Jesus, Buck,” Eddie says, entirely out of breath, giggling a little.

“Good?” Buck asks, crawling up to him.

Eddie laughs, “You’re kidding, right?”

“Eddie,” Buck says.  Eddie wraps a hand around the back of his neck and draws him in, licks into his mouth.  Buck moans and chases after the kiss when Eddie backs off.

“It was extremely fucking good, Buck,” Eddie says.  Buck ducks back in to kiss him and Eddie pushes him off.  “Wanna see you, c’mon.”

Buck didn’t need to be asked twice, pulling his hoodie over his head, leaving him in just his sweats, that Eddie was already pulling down and off.  Eddie wrapped a hand around him but didn’t move, just looked.

“Eddie,” Buck whines.

“You’re so hard,” he says, almost in wonder.  He strokes his hand up and down, his hand slick with Buck’s precome.  Buck screws his eyes shut and moans.

“Yeah, for you.”

“Yeah?”

Buck nods.  “Please, Eds,” he whines.

Eddie kisses his chin and nods, “Okay, okay, I got you.”  Eddie’s rhythm picks up and Buck sways forward to press his face into Eddie’s chest, gasping.  With his other hand, Eddie cradles Buck’s head against his chest, and it’s embarrassingly easy for Buck to tip over the edge like that, eyes clenched shut and breathing in the deep, satisfying scent of Eddie.  When the high passes, Buck sits back, supported on shaky arms.  He looks at Eddie and they both laugh, giggly and winded.

“Wow,” is what he eventually says.

“Literally,” Eddies replies - and that sets both of them off giggling again.  Eddie gathers Buck up in his arms to hold him tight for a moment before pushing him onto his back and flopping on top of him, burying his face in his neck.

“You’re squishing me,” Buck complains.

“Am not,” Eddie grumbles.

“No galette for you, for crimes of squishing the chef,” Buck announces, which makes Eddie pop up with a faux-gasp and roll off him.

“Are you going to make us call you Chef Buck if we want galette?” Eddie asks, scrunching his nose at the idea.

Buck shoots him a shit-eating grin, “Only you.”  Then, very sweetly because he can’t help himself, “For your crimes.”

“Do my crimes not get canceled out by the amazing orgasm I just gave you?” Eddie asks, poking his side where he knows Buck is ticklish.  Buck laughs and squirms away.

“So you admit you’ve committed crimes!”  

It’s at this point that Eddie whacks him with a pillow and it devolves a bit into them rolling around trying to pin each other down.

A few minutes later, Eddie, feeling triumphant in his loss with his hands pinned over his head and Buck on top of him, asks, “What even is a galette?”

-

The other thing about hooking up with one of your roommates when three people are staying in a one-bedroom loft is that it’s just a matter of time before the third person finds out.  Buck was never that great at lying or sneaking around anyway, and about two weeks in Chimney catches them.  Not in the act, thank god - at least he thinks - it’s just that he’s known something was up from the first day and when they’re all sitting at breakfast out on the patio one morning Chimney breaks off recounting his dream mid-sentence with an, “Oh my god.”

Buck looks up from where he’d been dragging his finger through the syrup on Eddie’s plate to Chim’s accusatory expression.  Buck’s finger was frozen in the syrup while they all waited for Chimney to go on.

Finally, Eddie says, “Uh.  What?”

“You two finally got together.”  It wasn’t a question.

“Uh,” Buck tries.

“You’ve both been acting weird.  Admit it!”

They look at each other, then at Chimney, then back at each other. Buck licks the syrup off his finger.  Eddie watches.

“See!” Chimney exclaims, pointing an accusatory finger.  “See what’s happening here!”

“What?” Eddie tries.

“‘What,’ he says!”  Buck swears Chimney is going to leap out of his seat at any moment.  “Something happened last week because I know what Buck’s lying face looks like.”  Buck goes to say something but Chimney cuts him off before he can, “See, there it is!  Right there!”

“I do not have a lying face!” Buck lies and looks to Eddie to back him up.

Eddie, the traitor, shrugs, “You do.  It’s kind of cute.”

“Being a bad liar is a virtue,” Buck defends.

“And it is fun for me, personally,” Chimney adds.

Eddie groans and buries his face in his hands - rather dramatically, Buck thinks.

“Look what you’ve done to Eddie,” Buck laments, and squeezes his shoulder.

“I’m fine,” Eddie says.  Buck rubs his back, once, twice, and then lets his hand linger there.  “This is just a lot for breakfast conversation.  My limit is interpreting your dreams,” he says to Chimney.

“You know, they say reflecting on your dreams in the morning is a good way to work out what’s going on in your subconscious,” Chimney says.

“Are you implying that your dream about you and J Lo being enemy tennis instructors was actually your subconscious telling you Buck and I are together?” Eddie asks.

“That’s exactly what I’m implying,” Chimney says archly.  Then he stands, gathering his dishes, and pronounces, “Never underestimate the power of dream interpretation,” before walking inside to the kitchen.  The sliding door closes and Buck sighs.  Eddie leans back and Buck takes his hand back.

“He’s been asking all week what’s up with us.  I think he just, you know, wants something to focus on other than,” Buck makes a vague gesture that encompasses the current state of the world, “All this.”

Eddie rubs his chin, and then says to the sky, “He wanted to know if we finally got together.”

Buck’s not sure what to say.  “Yeah.”

“Finally,” Eddie repeats.  Ah.

“Yeah,” Buck repeats.  He’s quiet for a moment, for once not entirely sure of Eddie’s feelings in this area.  “I mean, it’s not like…the first time.  That people have, you know, wondered.”  The way Eddie looks at him makes Buck think this was not the right thing to say in this moment.

“It isn’t?  Are people just constantly asking you if we’re together yet?”  There’s a look in Eddie’s eyes that’s similar to the caught-out look he’d had when he realized Buck had seen him looking.  It twists at his heart to see it there again.  Whatever Eddie sees on Buck’s face makes the thing behind his eyes shutter, and in the next moment, Eddie’s face is carefully blank.  “And why does no one ask me?”  It’s clear to Buck it’s supposed to be a joke, but it just falls flat.  Buck leans closer while Eddie looks determinedly at a blank spot on the table.

“No, it’s not like that.  Just, like.  I dunno, one of the elves that time we took Chris to see Santa, remember?  She just said, like, you have a cute son.  Stuff like that.  Not like, um.”

“Not our friends, just random strangers that assume?” Eddie finishes.  Buck doesn’t know if that’s better or worse, to Eddie.

“Yeah.”

“Hm.”  Eddie is quiet, and Buck waits.  He wants to reach out and take Eddie’s hand, but refrains.  Finally, Eddies turns to look at him.  “Why’d you never tell me that?  About the elf?”

“Um,” Buck says, and looks up at the sky.  It’s blue, it’s always blue here.  Eddie’s question bounces around in his head, and he just.  Never considered it before.  Why hadn’t he told Eddie?  “Well, I guess…I don’t know.  We hadn’t known each other for that long, so I just…” Buck shrugs.

“What?” Eddie presses.  And that’s a thing he doesn’t always do.  So Buck sighs and tries to really reflect and give Eddie an honest answer.

“I, um.  Thought you might think it was weird?  Some people would.  I mean, now I wouldn’t think that, you know, I know you, but.”  Buck pauses, and Eddie waits for him to finish, because Eddie can tell there’s more.  Buck scratches the back of his neck, looks up again.  “And I said thanks,” he shrugs again.

“You said thanks,” Eddie repeats.  Then he leans an elbow on the table and rests his head on his palm.  He looks at Buck, considering.  Buck feels like he’s waiting for a verdict.  “I don’t think I would’ve told you, either.  For the same reasons.”

“You would’ve said thanks?” Buck asks.  This feels significant, for some reason.  Eddie doesn’t pause or consider this time.

“I would’ve said thanks.”

Eddie meets his gaze levelly, his eyes clear once more, and for the first time Buck wonders at the things Eddie says in that tone and their deceptive simplicity.  He would’ve said thanks.

Chapter Text

Eddie ends up calling Christopher, like he does on every morning they have off, and asking what he’s up to that day.

“Abuela is making pozole for dinner!  She said she’s gonna make a ton because it’s your favorite.  So we can both have pozole for dinner!” Christopher exclaims.  Buck watches any of the lingering emptiness on Eddie’s face clear and watches his eyes soften as he listens to his son.

“Oh yeah?  Is Pepa bringing it over?” Eddie asks, Buck knows so that Eddie can text her in a few minutes and tell her that she doesn’t have to do that.

“Yup!” Christopher confirms.  Buck leans over to get in frame and Chris waves, “Hiiii, Buck!”

“Hey, buddy!  Tell Pepa there’ll be dessert waiting for them in front of the door.”

“Ooo, what dessert?”

Buck shakes his head, “Not telling, it’s a surprise.”

“I bet I can guess,” Christopher announces.

“I bet you can’t,” Eddie says.  “I didn’t even know what it was until Buck told me.”

“I know loads of things you don’t, Dad,” Chris points out, and Buck and Eddie both laugh.

“He’s not wrong,” Buck says, and Eddie shoots him a faux-shocked look.

“Hey!” Eddie exclaims, and Christopher laughs.  Buck stands and gathers all of their remaining dishes and leans into the frame again.

“See you later, buddy.  Miss you.”  He can feel Eddie looking at him and the conversation they’d just had still lingered in the air.

“Miss you, too, Buck.”

Buck leaves the Diaz boys to it, shutting the sliding glass door with his foot with a lingering smile on his face.

-

Later, that afternoon, Buck is in the kitchen with his laptop open to his crust recipe so he can reference it without smearing flour all over his phone.  He has a proto disco playlist on, which he’s started listening to in the last month in an effort to produce as many good vibes as he possibly can.  When Chimney walks into the kitchen his hands are covered in flour and he’s squishing butter into his flour the best that he can.

“You make pastry now?  Impressive, Buckley,” Chimney says, grabbing a stool across from Buck.

Buck huffs a laugh, “First time for everything,  It doesn’t seem that hard.  I guess we’ll see, though.”

It’s quiet for a minute, but Buck can tell Chimney wants to say something.  He waits, continuing to work.

“Listen, Buck,” Chimney clasps his hands together like he always does when he’s being serious, “I wanted to apologize for this morning.  I got carried away, I wasn’t thinking about how sensitive of a topic it could be.  I’m sorry.”

“Oh,” Buck says.  He continues working on the dough, pleased to have an excuse to do something with his hands while he takes in Chimney’s words.  Butter squished between his fingers and Buck felt an almost guilty tug thinking back to this morning.  He’d been a little surprised but not uncomfortable.  He hadn’t felt the way - the way Eddie had.  “Uh, thanks.”  Buck flours the counter and plops the dough out on top.  He starts rolling just as Everlasting Love starts to play.  “Have you talked to Eddie?”  Buck glanced up.  Chim rubbed the back of his neck, looking somewhat bashful.

“Yeah, I did.”

“All good?” Buck asked.

“Yeah, yeah we’re good,” Chimney says.

“Good.”  Buck cleared his throat a little awkwardly, not knowing what else to say.  Thankfully, Chimney stepped in.

“That looks like an actual pie crust, very impressive.”

Buck smiled, “You say impressive but you sound skeptical.”

“If Bake Off has taught me anything, it’s all about the bake.  Who knows if that dough is properly laminated or whatever.”

“Well I haven’t folded it yet so it’s definitely not laminated at all,” Buck laughed.

“I’ll leave you to it, then.  I’ll be bringing my best Mary Berry impression tonight though, so be prepared,” Chimney says.  Buck gives him a lazy salute and starts to turn back to his recipe, but he lingers and Buck looks up.

“What’s up?”

Chimney rubs the back of his neck, looking somewhat bashful.  “If you ever do want to talk about, you know…whatever.  I’m bad at secrets but a good listener to make up for it,” he says.

Buck smiles, “Thanks, Chim.”

-

They do the galette-pozole exchange and Buck thinks it’s exactly what they all needed.  Eddie had been upstairs most of the day, and Buck had tried to give him some space.  He’s lured down by the smell of the pozole reheating on the stove and pulls out a stool where he hunches over the island and watches Buck pull out bowls.  He looks like he’s been sleeping, pillowcase marks on one cheek and his hair a bit ruffled.  He sits there a little squinty-eyed until Buck gives him the first bowl and he comes to life, unfurling.  It’s beautiful.

Eddie sighs.  “I miss them.”

“I know.  Me, too,” Buck says, and goes to clasp a hand on his shoulder when Eddie stands up instead.  Buck’s hand drops and he shoves it in his pocket as if that was remotely what he was planning to do.

“Chimney’s decided we have to watch Bake Off in honor of your triumph,” Eddie smiles as he says it, eyes crinkling in a way that loosens the knot that’s been in Buck’s chest since this morning a little.  Buck rolls his eyes but does not object when they all settle in the living room to do just that.  They watch pie week in a season where the contestants were asked to make American-style pies, and they all yell at the contestants and the judges the entire time.  They yell at their disgusting pies and Eddie yells that if Paul just doesn’t understand the appeal of a good American pie then he shouldn’t be judging them.

They’re in their usual setup, Buck and Eddie on the couch and Chimney in the armchair, but it’s different.  The other day Eddie had hooked his ankle around Buck’s while they sat on the couch and now he seems to be carefully monitoring whether or not their thighs touch.  It sours Buck’s mood and sets his mind racing through all their interactions that day, all the times Eddie moved away from him.  For the rest of the night, Buck is an endless churning cycle of worried thoughts, magnifying the moments from the day each time they come around until they’re strange and stilted.  Was it all in his head or had everything really changed?  As going up to bed with Eddie drew nearer, Buck grew more restless, half-convinced Eddie was going to turn to him and say he didn’t want him around anymore.  

Finally, at nine, he decides to go for a run.

“Now?” Eddie asked as Buck pulled on his shoes.

“Yep, I’ll be quiet when I come in, don’t worry,” Buck said.

Eddie didn’t say anything as Buck continued his rush out the door.

Maybe he was a coward, but he couldn’t take the possibility of Eddie even turning away from him in bed tonight.  Better to join him later, hopefully when he was already asleep when Buck could put off whatever was coming for just a little bit longer.

Eddie was not asleep when Buck came upstairs after carefully closing the door and toeing off his shoes as quietly as possible.  Eddie still didn’t say anything, but Buck could feel his eyes on him as he grabbed fresh sweats from the dresser and made his way to the bathroom to shower.  

He attempted to get a grip, standing there under the hot water.  It was possible he was blowing things out of proportion.  He tried taking deep breaths and emptying his brain, but it was rather unsuccessful.  Finally, instead of replaying Eddie stepping away from him before dinner or putting distance between them on the couch, he replayed their conversation on the balcony.  

Not for the first time, he thinks that he really just jumped into this without thinking all that much about what it meant.  It felt good, it made Eddie feel good.  He’d just wanted - things had just been so shitty.  Maybe with anyone else or maybe a few months before he wouldn’t have done this with the shiny new version of himself.  But it was Eddie and it was them.

Maybe this was just another way to be reckless.

But Buck dismisses that thought as soon as it surfaces.  There was no one in his life he trusted more than Eddie.  This - it was surprising, but it wasn’t risky.  He loved Eddie and this didn’t change that, he was so sure they were stronger than that.

Buck stands in the shower and thinks about how he doesn’t know any of Eddie’s romantic history outside of Shannon.  He wonders…he just wonders.  He stands there for long enough that the water threatens to turn cold.

Eddie is still awake when he opens the door.  He watches Buck silently until he peels back the covers and climbs into bed.  Eddie is curled toward him on his side, and Buck mimics him.

“Good run?” he whispers.  His dark eyes search Buck’s face for something.

Buck hums in agreement.  He rests his hand on the mattress between their chests.

Eddie tucks himself a tiny bit closer, presses his face into his pillow.  “Good,” he whispers.  He waits for Eddie to say more, for Eddie to bring whatever this thing is to its inevitable end.  Buck’s heart pounds and he feels like he’s bracing for a fight for some reason.  And Eddie continues to just…look at him.  Buck doesn’t know what he’s looking for but finds it hard to look away.  Finally, afraid to shatter whatever is happening, Buck closes his eyes and pretends to fall asleep.  He lays there for a long time, unable to calm his racing thoughts.  Finally, after a long, long stretch of drifting darkness and counting his breaths, he drifts into an uneasy sleep.

In the morning, Eddie is on the other side of the bed, turned away from him.

-

Eddie stops nudging him under the breakfast table and stops throwing an arm around him when they’re sitting on the couch.  At work Eddie hovers around Hen in a way that Buck can tell makes her tense because he’s not saying anything, just silently reading next to her during their downtime instead of Buck, or quietly helping her restock the ambulance after telling Chimney not to worry about it.  She shoots Buck a Look on the second day and he has to shrug and shake his head because he thinks he knows generally what it’s about but…well, it’s not like Eddie’s talking to him about it either.  And as he was reminded recently, as much as he’s the one person in the world that knows him best he still doesn’t know what Eddie is thinking, sometimes.  It makes him feel unsteady, warped like he’s underwater staring at waves he can’t make sense of above him.

He hopes that Eddie talks to Hen because he won’t talk to Buck - he’s tried.  All Buck ends up with is a deflection or a change of subject or the unsettling quiet that lives between them in bed.  They keep falling asleep curled toward one another on their separate sides and Buck tries to be grateful because he knows Eddie is working through something - it’s how he always gets: withdrawn, following someone - usually Buck - around and not talking about it until he breaks and finally says the thing he’s been thinking.

Buck knows all this but he still can’t help but turn their interactions over and over in his head, picking them apart and worrying about having done something wrong.  At the same time, he knows that if he just told Eddie that he was worried, Eddie would tell him that he shouldn’t be.  But how was Buck supposed to believe him?  And how was he supposed to bring it up when Eddie wouldn’t talk about his stuff and Buck was pretty sure it was the same stuff.  At least overlapping stuff.  It all felt extremely precarious, like things could decide to come toppling down at any moment.  

But mostly, Buck just missed him.  He was right there, and Buck missed him.

-

Their next day off is a Thursday, and it’s a weekend that they’d both been looking forward to, before everything.  Christopher had the upcoming Monday off for Teacher’s Institute, a fact Buck had come across while Eddie was planning out his spring one day.  He wasn’t normally so ahead of things, but it had been early in January so he’d still been on his New Year’s inspired organization kick.  

Buck had come upon him with a fresh calendar laid out on the table in the firehouse loft, and he’d sat down to join him.  And to tease him about how there were much easier ways to do this online.  Eddie had just glared at him and kept going, carefully color-coding his schedule and Chris’ and when he’d need Carla.  Buck stole the calendar for Chris’ school and idly looked through the dates while Eddie carefully highlighted.

“Chris has a three-day weekend in April,” Buck pointed out.

“Hm?” Eddie said and looked where Buck was pointing.  “Oh yeah, they always have one of those a semester.”

“We should do something,” Buck said.

“I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to see the pandas, he’s been obsessed lately.  Did you know that bamboo is not a great source of nutrients?” Eddie parroted.

“No, I mean, we should go somewhere.  We have that weekend off, too.  We could get Thursday off and do a whole weekend getaway thing,” Buck said, already considering possibilities.  Eddie tilted his head the way he did when he encountered new possibilities.  “We could get a cabin on a lake somewhere, up in the mountains,” Buck suggested.

“That actually sounds fun,” Eddie said.

“Don’t act so surprised, I have good ideas all the time,” Buck shot back, grinning.

“I don’t have to be reminded, there’s a nine-year-old I know that won’t let me forget it,” Eddie replied, and they both laughed.

Later that week the two of them had sat at Eddie’s dining table and booked a cabin up in Mammoth, after eating the mixed results of Buck’s first attempt at penne alla vodka.  (Eddie had assured him it was delicious and had eaten every last bite - which he did with everything, a product of both his childhood and the military - but Christopher had patted his arm and told him that his teachers said there was always room for improvement.  Buck had thanked him and said that honesty was the best policy, looking meaningfully at Eddie, who promptly went back for seconds.)

And today is Thursday, the day they’d planned to get an early start.  Buck was going to go stay over at the Diaz’s the night before and they were going to get McDonald’s breakfast and Christopher was going to be in charge of the music.  Buck was going to teach Chris how to fish and Eddie was going to pretend to know how already even though Buck knew for a fact he’d never fished a day in his life.  They were going to bring a box of Swiss Miss and a bag of mini marshmallows with them and Eddie was going to make a fire in the stove.

Today is Thursday and Buck and Eddie haven’t seen Christopher in person in three weeks, and nothing was like it was supposed to be.  Buck sighs and gets up and walks downstairs to start the coffee like he does every morning.  

As the machine makes its bubbling coffee noises he hears Eddie huff and turn over upstairs.  He’d been doing it all night.  Buck wasn’t sure how much actual sleep he’d gotten between all the restlessness.  He poured his oat milk and Eddie’s half and half in and made his way back upstairs.  Despite his uncertainty lately, today he knew where Eddie’s head was at because he was there, too.

Buck gingerly climbs back into bed and tucks his knees up against his chest, clutches the hot mug in one hand and his ankle in the other.  He knows Eddie is awake, just hoping to fall asleep again if he keeps laying there with his eyes closed long enough.  Buck wouldn’t usually wait for him like this, but today sucks already so he gives himself a pass.  He drinks his coffee and thinks about this limbo they’ve found themselves in.  Eventually, Eddie wordlessly stands and walks into the bathroom.  He opens the door rubbing his eyes, fists falling to reveal dark circles.

“How long have you been up?” Eddie asks in his gravelly morning voice.

“Like half an hour,” Buck says.  Eddie yawns and runs a hand through his hair, all spiked at weird angles from sleep.  He’s wearing a long sleeve t-shirt and he’s got the sleeves pulled down over his palms and Buck just wants, and wants, and wants.  Eddie pads over to where his coffee is waiting and takes a sip, wrinkling his nose a little.

“It’s good,” he says and goes downstairs with it.  Buck hears the microwave running.  He opens his phone and scrolls mindlessly, can’t just sit here looking like he’s waiting for Eddie to come back and sit near him.  Buck only looks up again when Eddie sits back down on his side of the bed.  Buck waits, but he knows Eddie won’t say anything.

“Eddie,” Buck says, but maybe he doesn’t know what to say, either.  He reaches out a hand toward Eddie’s arm instead because that’s just what he defaults to at this point and Eddie tucks his arm closer, away from him.  On top of everything else, it makes his eyes burn.  “This sucks,” Buck says, and then sloshes hot coffee all over himself.  “Fuck, fuck.”

And finally, Eddie is there.  Eddie’s gently taking his mug from him and coming back with a hand towel and cleaning him up the best he can.  Buck just sits there and tells himself not to cry while Eddie makes sure to wipe up the coffee ring the mug has made on the nightstand.  Eddie throws the towel in Buck’s hamper and sits down next to him.  Buck wants to reach for his hand but stops himself.  He sighs.

“I’m sorry, I’m being clingy lately,” Buck says, because if he says the truth first it won’t hurt so much to hear Eddie agree.

Eddie shakes his head and looks at him, eyes clear and sad.  He sighs, “No, I’m sorry.  I’ve just been…in my head, lately.”  He rubs his hands down his face, as if to wake himself up, then hangs his head.  “You don’t deserve that.”  It’s quiet, but he reaches over and squeezes Buck’s hand like he’s a mind reader, and the knot in Buck’s chest unfurls so quickly he feels breathless with it.  Buck squeezes back and Eddie gives him the tiniest smile.

“I missed you,” Buck says.

“I’m right here.”

This thread between them feels tentative so Buck doesn’t say, Not always.

-

Eddie stops pulling away, but Buck tries not to push it.  He doesn’t know where any of the lines are supposed to be anymore, they’d gotten so blurred between the sex and spending their days and their nights together.  He forgets what their old normal was like.  Buck laid next to Eddie that night with his toes pressed to his calf and thought about how he felt a little bit like he was in a pressure cooker.  There was something about the way their universe had narrowed these past few weeks that made Buck think things got heightened.  Like the waves of a tsunami finally surfacing, sudden and terrifying on shore.  He rubbed at his eyes and wondered what was washing up.

They fall back into their old patterns - or maybe it’s their new patterns, Buck doesn’t really know anymore - until one night Eddie wanders into the kitchen and asks if he wants any help with dinner.  The last golden rays of sunset filter through the kitchen, giving him a fiery halo.

“You don’t even know what I’m making,” Buck says.

“That's why I’m asking, Buckley,” Eddie says.  “Come on, give me something to do.  I can chop things.”

“I’ve seen your onion-chopping skills, they’re very tear-forward,” Buck teases.  “You have many talents but that is not one of them.”

Eddie rounds the island and pokes him in the ribs where Eddie knows he’s ticklish.  Buck huffs out a laugh and tries to squirm away, but Eddie backs him into the countertop.  “Fine, not chopping, then.”  Eddie is close in a way he hasn’t been in days and Buck is a little stricken.  This close Eddie has to tip his chin up just the tiniest bit to meet his eyes and it makes Buck want to lean down to close that space and kiss him.  He thinks about it, thinks he might do it, and then he hears Chimney walk in the front door behind them.  Buck freezes but Eddie - Eddie just leans one arm on the counter next to Buck toward Chimney, and says, “Buck thinks I’m inept.”

This pulls Buck out of the gut-twisting moment of feeling caught out, and Buck turns toward Chimney, his hip pressed against Eddie’s.  His heart beats a little faster but Eddie doesn’t pull away, doesn’t act like anything out of the ordinary is going on at all.

“Eddie, I hate to tell you this, but I saw what you did to that box of mac ‘n cheese,” Chimney replies, raising his eyebrows meaningfully as Eddie cringes.

“Hey, in my defense -”

“Ah!” Buck exclaims, fishing around in the drawer for what he wants, and then presents to Eddie a large wooden spoon.  “You can stir.”

“Really, Buck?” Eddie asks, unimpressed.

Buck feels Chimney watching them, a fact he shouldn’t be bothered by let alone be thinking about.  He feels like he’s performing his lines for the first time, or something equally as silly in the face of a simple conversation he was having with two of his closest friends.

“It’s literally the most important part of a risotto,” Buck says, and Eddie rolls his eyes and snatches the spoon from him.

“Yes, chef,” Eddie shoots back, and Buck can feel the tips of his ears turn red.

“I’m rooting for you, Eddie,” Chimney says as he walks out.  Eddie turns to fiddle with Buck’s speaker, trying to connect his phone.

Buck is left with the strangest combination of guilt and relief as Chimney shuts the balcony door behind him.  He turns to the cutting board where an onion and a few cloves of garlic sit waiting for him, a little off-kilter about the way he feels like Chimney walked in on them.  About the way it felt like a spotlight, when it was just their friend.

He focuses on peeling the garlic and onions, tucking his fingers, methodically dicing them.  As he starts dicing, Eddie grabs Buck’s phone off the counter and puts in the code, apparently having given up getting his own phone to connect.  He puts on the proto-disco playlist.  Buck smiles, tucks whatever that was away for later, and asks Eddie to get out the olive oil.

-

Later, when it’s dark and they’re in bed curled up like commas again, facing each other,  Buck is tracing the lines of Eddie’s palm.  Eddie just waits, he can feel Buck has something to say.  He’s right, of course, but Buck doesn’t really know how to bring it up.

“Earlier…” Buck starts, “In the kitchen.”  He swallows.  Why is this so hard to talk about?  

Eddie squeezes his hand.  “Yeah?”

Buck sighs.  It feels so stupid to bring it up, it was such an insignificant moment.  But it’s dark and it’s Eddie and they’re under the covers in the bed they share so maybe he can just put it out there, even if it makes him feel stupid.

“When Chim walked in,” Buck finally says, “It made me - I don’t know.  Nervous.”  He flips Eddie’s hand over and lays Eddie’s fingers flat against the mattress one by one, not looking up at him.  Eddie lets him.

“Because he saw,” Eddie says, and it’s not a question but Buck nods anyway.

“I don’t know why, I know he would never, like, I know he doesn’t care.”  As he says it Buck feels a tug of guilt in his stomach for feeling that way because he knows Chimney, and it wasn’t a big deal anyway.  And yet, here he was.

“Still,” Eddie echoes, seemingly from Buck’s thoughts.

“Still,” Buck agrees.  Buck smooths his thumb over Eddie’s wrist.  “You didn’t seem nervous.”  He hadn’t.  He hadn’t backed away or done the blank face thing the way he’d been doing in the few days before.  Eddie didn’t answer for a moment, and Buck turns his hand back over and presses his thumb to his pulse.  It’s steady.  Buck finds comfort in that.

Finally, Eddie whispers, “I was.”

And there’s something about that.  The way he’d hidden it so well, the way he’d been nervous and didn’t change a thing.  It squeezes at Buck’s throat.  He looks up at him.

“You never told me about you,” Buck says.

Eddie takes a beat and looks down, laces his fingers with Buck’s, and then says, “I never told anyone.”

“ Eddie,” is all Buck can say.  Eddie meets his eyes again and Buck feels like he could fall in.  He wonders at how they’re glittering like that, reflecting back the city lights that manage to sneak in through the curtains.

“You never told me, either,” Eddie says.

Buck shrugs a little.  “I don’t know.  I haven’t thought about it that much.”

Eddie huffs out a humorless laugh and says, “God.  I wish.”  He sounds exhausted in a bone-deep sort of way that Buck doesn’t know what to do with.

“You thought about it a lot?”

There’s a beat of strangled silence and Buck can see Eddie bite his cheek.  Eddie’s eyes glisten as he looks somewhere past him and Buck’s hand shakes with how much he wants to hold him.  But he doesn’t move an inch, too afraid of shattering this moment.  Eddie meets his eyes again when a tear escapes and Buck can count on one hand the times he’s seen Eddie cry.  It’s awful, Buck feels like he’s free-falling.

“Yeah,” Eddie says like it’s being torn out of him.

Buck’s eyes burn and he gathers Eddie to his chest, he can feel him press his face into his neck.  Buck runs a hand up and down his back and thinks about Eddie.  Eddie last week and three years ago and Eddie as a soldier.  Eddie as a kid.  All of them, silent.  Now, Eddie sucks in a shaky breath against his skin and the hurt seeps out.

“We don’t have to talk about it tonight,” Buck says.

Eddie nods and stays where he is.  He’s tucked his fists against Buck’s chest, fistfuls of his shirt clenched in them.  It’s quiet again, but he’s listening to Eddie’s unsteady breathing and Buck can feel it bubbling up in him, that truth he tries not to look at.  This bit of him that’s been washed ashore.

“I thought…I guess I thought it was for other people.  Not for me.  I don’t know why, I just.  It just…was something other people could have.”

Eddie sniffles and extricates himself a little, so that he can look at Buck.  Even in the dark Buck can tell his eyes are puffy, but he looks - determined, almost angry.

“You could have it,” Eddie tells him.

“Yeah?” Buck asks, a little bemused at the conviction in Eddie’s voice.

“You deserve to have good things, Evan,” Eddie says in the same voice.  Buck is struck sort of speechless for a minute, and Eddie stared at him intently as if he was trying to drive the message into his brain by force.  He says it like it’s a simple, self-evident truth.  He says it like he might twist apart with his bare hands anyone who would make him think otherwise.

“I - Eddie,” Buck says, and scrambles to give something back to him, “It is a good thing.”  Buck cups Eddie’s jaw in his hand and feels it in his chest, blooming, “You are good.”

Buck watches him freeze.  In one moment he’s flinty, determined, and in the next, he’s cracking again.  He opens his mouth like he’s going to say something and nothing comes out.  He furrowed his eyebrows at him and his lip wobbled.

“You are,” Buck insists.

Eddie wipes at his eyes and says, a little shakily, “You can’t just say stuff like that.”

“Why not?  You started it.”  Buck rolls onto his back and tugs Eddie to lay his head on his chest, tucks him under his arm.  Knows he’s embarrassed about the tears that are still falling, so Buck looks up instead.  “You’re my best friend.  You’re the best person I’ve ever known.”

Eddie squeezes his hip in reply and leaves his hand there so that he’s wrapped around Buck.  Buck cards a hand through his hair.  Buck knows he’s drained, but he just needs him to know.  Even if he doesn’t believe him.

They fall asleep like that, all twisted up together.

Chapter Text

In the morning, Buck drifts awake with Eddie’s arms wrapped around him and his face smushed into Buck’s shoulder.  Eddie stirs against him, nuzzling into his warmth and humming into his skin.  There’s a fat sunbeam stretched across them.  Distantly, Buck wonders how late they’d slept.  That’s something he missed about the old places he’d lived, that he could leave the windows open and hear the birds chirping in the morning.  It was one reason he liked spending the night at Eddie’s house.  The thought is a little bittersweet, and he tries to linger on the sweetness as he carefully extracts himself from Eddie.  The man swore he was a light sleeper, but the persistence with which he would turn over and attempt to drift back to sleep made Buck fond.  As he stood he watched Eddie grumble and turn and burrow his face into the pillow where Buck had been.  Buck smiled.

Downstairs, the clock on the microwave said it was eleven, and when Buck glanced into the living room and onto the patio he saw that Chimney was nowhere to be found.

He feels almost hungover from the night before, from the conversation and laying himself bare.  He rubs a hand over his face and leans against the counter, just thinking.  He doesn’t know quite what to do with himself today.  He feels like it should be something, like there should be something to mark this shift in his chest, something to mark how big this moment still felt in his body.  He’s not sure how long he stands there, but eventually, Eddie comes yawning down the stairs.  Eddie walks into the kitchen stretching, his brow furrowing at Buck.

“No coffee?”  Buck swears he pouts, and it’s deeply unfair.

“It’s almost noon,” Buck points out.

“So?  We drink coffee at all sorts of weird times.”  Eddie rounds the island to stand in front of him and mirrors his pose, considering him.  “What are you thinking about?”  Eddie searches his face the way he does sometimes, which makes Buck feel transparent.

“We should go somewhere today,” Buck answers.  He needs to be in the sunshine, he thinks.  “We can go get coffee at the place with the espresso that you like.  Maybe get lunch and go to the park.”

Eddie nods, running his hand through his still sleep-ruffled hair.  His sweatpants are slung low enough that a sliver of skin at his hip peaks out.  Buck lets the wave of want wash over him.

“Okay, let’s get dressed,” Eddie says, pushing off the counter to head back upstairs.  Over his shoulder, he says, “Don’t forget the sunblock, you’ll burn.”  Buck lingers in the kitchen for a minute, a little unsure of how to piece all the parts of the last day together to make sense of it all.  Then Eddie calls down from the bedroom, “I know you only want to go to that cafe because you like their lavender lattes, by the way.  You can’t fool me.”

Buck laughs and starts up the stairs.

“You just don’t like new things,” Buck teases.

“Not true!  It’s not my fault the classics are better.”  Eddie shoots him a look as he buttons up his shirt.  “But for you, I’ll expand my horizons.”

Buck can’t quite read the expression on Eddie’s face, other than a sparkling glint in his eye that Buck’s only seen there lately.  It makes his heart pound.

Instead of doing anything about that, Buck turns to get dressed.

-

They pick up their coffees and food and lay out a blanket Buck has in his Jeep because of the number of times he’s done this with Eddie and Chris before.  Eddie asks if he remembered to put sunblock on the tips of his ears and gives him a face when he says no until Buck relents and digs out the sunblock to appease him.  

“Happy now?” Buck asks.

Eddie smiles big at him, “Yes.”

They’re quiet for a bit, as they eat and as Eddie’s coffee revives him.  It’s comfortable to sit there with Eddie in the sunshine, but Buck feels a little unbalanced as he tries to mesh this moment with the whispered conversation from the night before.  It would probably do him good to bring it up again now, but something in his throat feels stuck.  It was just easier to put out into the world when the world was just the size of the bed they shared, when the sun wasn’t lighting up every corner of their world.  

Buck buries the bubbling desire to take Eddie’s hand and leap over the cliff with him and instead leans over and steals Eddie’s pickles.  Eddie smacks his hand a little but lets him, smiles that crinkly-eyed smile that fills up Buck’s heart.  Eddie gets mustard on his lips, which Buck gestures at until Eddie finally gets it with his thumb and sticks it into his mouth to suck it off.  Buck’s insides do a complicated dance.  He wants to kiss him.

Eddie looks at him with his eyebrows raised expectantly, “What?”

Buck smiles, “Nothing.”

Eddie squints his eyes at him for a second before he shrugs and flops backward on the blanket, the midday sun beaming down at them.  After a minute Eddie, with his eyes closed, says, “You’re staring.”

Buck swallows.  He’s right.  Buck just hums in agreement and keeps looking and Eddie doesn’t seem to mind all that much.  His cheeks are pink from the warmth, his hair is messy and unstyled from Buck dragging him out of the apartment without coffee, and - he thinks that actually, that’s his shirt.  Buck had been distracted by Eddie rolling up the sleeves so his arms looked like that , but -

“You’re wearing my shirt,” he says.

“Yeah,” Eddie agrees easily.  “I need to do laundry.  Also,” he peeks an eye open to peer at Buck, “All your shirts are too small for you.”

“Hey, my shirts fit,” Buck argues

“They are extremely fitted,” Eddie says, looking at him full on now with his eyebrows raised meaningfully.

Buck feels himself get a little pink and sticks his tongue out.  “Whatever, it works for me.”

Eddie smiles and closes his eyes, turning his face toward the sun again.  “Yeah.”

Eddie’s words make something flutter in his stomach as he lays down next to him.  It’s quiet for a while, so Buck pokes his foot into Eddie’s ankle to make sure he’s still awake.  Eddie just responds with a hum.

“When this is all over, we’ve gotta go up to that cabin that we were going to, with Chris,” Buck says.  He sticks his legs out and leans back on his elbows.  Eddie squints one eye up at him.  “He’s never been up in the mountains, has he?”

Eddie shakes his head, “We’re not really camping people.  Or cabin people.  I’ve never even really, uh, been camping.”

“What?” Buck exclaims.

“Why sleep rough for fun when I have a perfectly good bed?” Eddie asks.

Buck sputters a little, “It’s about the whole experience.  You know, s’mores, campfires, roasting hot dogs, seeing the stars.  And there’s nothing like waking up early in the morning in the middle of nowhere and frying up some bacon and making cowboy coffee.  It just tastes better.”  Buck remembers doing exactly that, years ago, by himself, surrounded by mountains and the big, empty sky.  Nostalgia tugs at him.  He wants to give his memories to Eddie, wants him to feel that kind of boundless freedom.  Buck would do anything to give him that.

“What is ‘cowboy coffee’?” Eddie asks.

“You heat up the grounds in a pot of water and wait for them to settle before you pour.”

Eddie makes a face, “So French press without the filter.”  He rolls to face Buck with a glint in his eye.  “Would you make it for me?  Get up and put your cowboy hat on to make us coffee and breakfast?”

Buck stares, finding himself speechless, so he just nods.

“Bet it would be good, it always is,” Eddie smiles.  He pokes Buck’s arm and says, “Okay, I see the appeal of camping, now.”

“Yeah?”

Eddie nods, “Yeah.”

And Buck wants to kiss him, but he doesn’t.  He doesn’t know where they stand after the past few days, how to categorize all these conversations in his head, how to parse what he wants from what Eddie wants.  Buck’s want is so big it’s consuming him, and he has no idea how to interpret anything outside of it.  So he does nothing, but continues to watch Eddie as he turns his face again to the sun.

-

Later, Buck sat out on the balcony alone.  The apartment was empty other than him, for once, and it felt weird after living on top of each other for a few weeks.  It was funny how quickly you could get used to huge shifts like that.  Buck propped his feet up on another chair and tipped his head back.  He closed his eyes and just enjoyed the warmth of the sun.  The world was so beautiful and it was so deeply fucked.  And in the midst of it all he’d found himself here, with Eddie.  He’d never really seriously pictured what it might be like, him and Eddie, together.  But if his thoughts before all this had strayed anywhere near this thing they were doing now, he’d imagined the two of them at Eddie’s house.  He’d imagined coming home with Eddie and waking up to cook for Chris and sliding a cup of coffee to a grumbly Eddie.  Thanks, it’s good .  This past month has been a twisted version of the way it should have been, Buck thinks.  

And yet, this thing between them is still happening and Buck wouldn’t stop it happening for anything in the world.  All he wants is to be close to Eddie and he’s ready to admit it never feels close enough.  He’s finding it a little difficult to think past the current situation they’re in, but what he knows is that it’s going to be hard to backtrack any of this.  He doesn’t want to stop sleeping in the same bed as Eddie and he doesn’t want to stop having sex with him and he wants to fucking kiss him all the time.  

Buck wants to kiss him now, he wants to stand up and find him just to kiss him, wants to cradle his face in his hands, wants to press himself into him and make a home there, wants to wrap his arms around his waist just to hold him.  He wants it so much it makes his hands shake.  It’s magnifying the feeling that he sometimes has of wasting time, of everything rushing by without him.  Every moment he’s not making Eddie smile the crinkly-eyed smile he reserves for the moment that he’s a little surprised by how happy he is, is a moment wasted.

Buck stands up because he’s so full of nervous energy about it that he has to do something, has to go find Eddie - except for Eddie is at the grocery store.  Buck briefly thinks about driving to the grocery store and finding him and doing - something.  Instead, he just stands there on the balcony flexing his hands open and closed, listening to the distant honking of car horns far below him.  He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do with all of this, it feels like he curiously tugged on one scarf peeking out of the hole in his chest and now he just keeps pulling.  It’s infinite, like magic, the way he loves him.

Eventually, when Eddie comes home, Buck meets him down at his truck because he’d been pacing outside for twenty minutes and had known it was Eddie texting him, asking him to help carry up the bags, before he even looks.  Eddie smiles when he gets out of the truck and asks him to get the milk, please.  He does and then waits there for whatever else Eddie has for him, so Eddie piles two full paper bags into his arms.

“Got it?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Buck replies, mouth dry.  Eddie gets the remaining bag and a net bag of oranges and locks the truck.

“I’ll get the doors,” Eddie laughs, looking a little chagrined at letting Buck do all the heavy lifting on purpose.  And Buck knows his face is pink and he’s smiling stupidly and he doesn’t know what to say - he came down here because his heart was going to burst and it’s bursting now so he doesn’t know what to say.

“Okay,” Buck says, and follows him up.

-

In the wake of his little realization on the balcony, Buck tries not to be hyperaware of everything Eddie says and does, and he fails immediately and spectacularly.  He can’t stop staring when Eddie does any mundane thing - whether it’s watching tv, washing dishes, eating a snack, folding his clothes, anything.  Everything.  And it wasn’t like he hadn’t looked before, he had, he definitely had, but the whole thing was really ballooning out of control and on top of that he knew he was being extremely weird about it.  It felt like everything he did might give him away.  And while, on the one hand, they were - or at least had been, Buck wasn’t sure if they still were - hooking up, for Buck it had suddenly taken on a new shape in his head.  And the thing was, he had no idea what the shape of it all was in Eddie’s head.  

And so he was being weird, especially with a man whose dick he had sucked just a week ago.  He kept doing things like letting dishes slip out of his hands when Eddie handed them to him to dry them and their hands brushed in the process.  Or tucking his feet under his chair at breakfast so there wouldn’t be an accidental footsie incident.  Or sitting across from him in the truck rather than next to him because he wasn’t obsessed and this would prove it - right?  Buck thought the looks he got from not just Eddie but the rest of the team proved that was very much not the case. 

If Buck really thought about it, he thought that the whole thing was a swirling mess in his brain of his heart pounding when he made Eddie smile, the sudden reminder that Eddie hid huge, important things even from Buck, and the pit of fear that made a constant home in his stomach.  The one that told him that his place in everyone’s lives was temporary, that he was only allowed to stay as long as he was useful.  Which, well.  He knew was irrational, he knew that.  He knew that Eddie didn’t think of him that way, that the people in his life now didn’t think of him that way.  But it was one thing to know it, and it was another to feel it.

And so when Eddie sits next to him on the couch Buck freezes, because all he wants to do is reach out but if he does then - Buck isn’t sure, but it has the quality of standing on a cliffside, and he maybe just needs a little time to get used to the height before he takes the plunge.

In the meantime, Eddie keeps giving him looks.  They’re a little confused, sometimes a little sad, and still Buck can’t toe closer to the edge.  The enormity of it is lodged in his throat.  At night, when they’re in bed, Buck shoves his cold toes against Eddie’s legs and thinks of a million things to say, a million ways to say it.  Sometimes, Eddie looks at him like he’s going to say something, even opens his mouth like he’s going to, and Buck thinks, this is it -

“Goodnight,” he says.  It’s always goodnight.

-

On their next shift, Eddie is still trailing after Hen.  It makes Buck itchy, that Eddie has something to say that he doesn’t want to say to him, but he tries to be an adult and let it go.  He tries to remind himself that he can’t be all things even to Eddie.  He tries not to think about how desperately curious he is about what exactly is on Eddie’s mind.  It goes on all day until the two of them disappear after dinner - not that Buck is paying attention - and then suddenly half an hour later Eddie is flopping down on the couch next to him and Hen is back at the table, studying unencumbered by an Eddie with a hang-dog look on his face.

Buck doesn’t say anything to Eddie, just lets him press close on the couch and silently wonders what this means.  Wonders what Eddie needed to talk about with Hen that he couldn’t talk about with Buck.  When Eddie nudges his ankle and shoots him a tiny smile it’s easy to forget about it for a while.

But later, as a call is wrapping up, Buck is helping Hen transport one of the last patients to the ambulance and asks her if Eddie talked to her, as casually as he can.

“I talk to Eddie all the time,” is what she responds, perfectly casual in a way that Buck clearly was not.

Buck sighs, “You know what I mean.”

Hen shoots him a look that says both, We’re literally on a call right now and, You know I did but I’m not about to tell you about it, ask Eddie .  She has very expressive eyes.

Buck sighs once again.  “Fine.”

He does not ask Eddie about it.

It’s just that it feels to Buck like there’s something just out of reach that they’re moving towards and it’s becoming increasingly clear that Eddie has something to say and won’t say it.  Not that Buck will ask.  Ever since the day of the picnic, everything has felt extremely high stakes to Buck and the fact is, if he asks he’ll get a definitive answer.  Which, on the one hand, could be extremely, heart-burstingly good.  It could also make this whole the three of them living in Buck’s loft on top of each other even more uncomfortable than any of them could imagine.  So Buck lets Eddie not say whatever it is he’s clearly not saying, and Eddie lets Buck do the same.  Even in a standoff, they’re in sync.

The last time something maybe happened between them was the kitchen, but ultimately Eddie had just been teasing him, just playing around.  Though Buck vividly recalls wanting to kiss him, he thinks he’s maybe possibly coloring his own memories a bit with his own feelings.  It was just all so addictive in a way that makes him think about five years from now and ten years from now and lifetimes, maybe.

Buck thinks this whole thing might have been easier to figure out if they’d gone in order.  If he had been able to put all the pieces of the way he felt about Eddie together in his head before this whole thing.  If they had just started from the beginning where they should have.  But then, when had they ever gone in order?

-

In the standoff, Buck breaks first.  Of course.

In bed that night, Buck turns to Eddie with his heart in his throat.  He looks into Eddie’s soft, open eyes and says, “Lately, I feel closer to you than I’ve ever been, but sometimes I feel miles away.  Sometimes I can’t tell what you’re thinking or how you’re feeling and that terrifies me.”  Eddie looks back at him for a moment, and then down to where he starts playing with the hem of Buck’s shirt.

“What changed?”

“I don’t know,” Buck lies.  And Eddie looks up at him again with an arched brow because Eddie doesn’t need to see his lying face to hear that one in his voice.  Buck sighs.  Eddie waits, until eventually, he says, “I thought…I thought this thing between us wasn’t a big deal, but it is.”  Before it’s even fully out of his mouth Buck wants to take it back, “I didn’t mean - that came out wrong.  I just meant, it is a big deal and we didn’t really, like, talk about it at all, and…maybe we should have.  I guess.”  Now, Eddie is very still and his eyes suddenly have that blank quality to them that Buck hates more than anything.  “I just feel like I don’t know what you’re thinking,” Buck says, a little desperately.

And Eddie answers, “I don’t think you do.”  His voice is absolutely inscrutable in a way that only further underlines his words, that only increases the sinking feeling in Buck’s gut.  Eddie is absolutely still and absolutely silent and Buck can feel ice water seeping down his spine.  Buck sits tense beside Eddie and feels it bubbling up inside him, that acidic, ever-present fear that he’s overstayed his welcome, that he’s an extra, unwanted piece that doesn’t fit in anyone’s life, in the end.

“It’s okay if you don’t want me anymore,” Buck whispers, finally.  He winces.  He’d meant to say if you don’t want this anymore .

Eddie turns toward him and there is a sadness in his eyes replacing the carefully constructed mask he’d put on.  “ Evan .  You’re my best friend.”  Eddie reaches out and wraps his fingers around Buck’s wrist, presses a thumb to his pulse.  Buck swallows.

“You’re my best friend, too,” is all Buck can respond.  It’s a little teary because he can’t help it when Eddie is looking at him like that when Buck had just ripped his chest open in front of him, when Eddie is swiping his thumb back and forth comfortingly like he knows him down to his bones.

“I’m sorry,” Eddie brings his wrist up and tucks it against his chest, against his heart.

“No, I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to say it like that, I just…You don’t have to apologize, it was me who did something wrong,” Buck says.

“No, Buck, you didn’t.”  Eddie’s words are steady, insistent.

“God, Eddie,” Buck whispers, heart in his throat, “You’re so important to me and the first time I didn’t think about it because - because I wanted you, and I just -”

Eddie cuts him off with a kiss.  He cradles Buck’s jaw in his hand, stroking his thumb across his cheek, and Buck swears he’s not going to cry.

“Baby, I always want you,” is what Eddie says when he pulls back for a moment and leaves Buck breathless and empty of anything but Eddie.  He doesn’t wait for Buck’s response before he kisses him again.

It feels so good, after the past few days, to be held here in Eddie’s arms.  Like he’s meant to be here, like he belongs.  Buck chases after him deepens the kiss.  He lets his hands roam down the planes of Eddie’s chest while Eddie holds him steady at his waist, at his hips, until suddenly Eddie is flipping them over with a leg on each side of his hips.  Buck is beyond breathless.

On the one hand, Eddie breathing heavily with his hair all askew above him is so worth pausing to admire.  On the other hand, Buck might die if he doesn’t keep kissing him right now.  So he pulls him back down until his brain finishes processing what Eddie had said.  Buck breaks the kiss abruptly and looks at him for a second.

“What?” Eddie says.

“You called me baby,” Buck replies.  

Even in the dark, Buck can tell Eddie blushes, and he ducks his head.  “So?”

Buck shrugs casually, feeling decidedly uncasual about it, “I liked it.”

Eddie laughs, “Okay.”  He pauses.  Then, “Baby.”

“Shut up,” Buck huffs.

“I’m getting decidedly mixed signals here,” Eddie teases.  Instead of answering, Buck kisses him again.  And again, and again.

Eventually, Eddie rolls off him and pulls Buck into his chest, wrapping an arm around him.  Buck thinks there’s nowhere else in the world he’d rather be, except for maybe the two of them getting to do this in Eddie’s bed in Eddie’s house.  Eddie kisses Buck’s neck, and says, “Goodnight, baby.”

-

The next night during dinner, Chimney brings up When Harry Met Sally and when Buck says - of course - that he hasn’t seen it, Eddie and Chim both decide that Buck needs to watch it immediately.

“It’s a classic,” Chimney intones.

“Really, Buck, you have to start somewhere,” Eddie says.

“And why not with Meg Ryan?” Chimney finishes.

They clear their dishes and get set up in the living room in their normal configuration.  Eddie sticks his legs out and rests them on Buck’s lap, and Buck smiles.  He knows Eddie is doing the thing that he did in the kitchen, acting like it’s the easiest thing in the world even if he might be a little nervous.  It makes Buck’s heart want to burst, he cares about him so much.  Everything has been so much more settled today, the two of them falling back into the rhythm they’d been in before.

This morning Buck had woken up with Eddie’s stubbled cheek pressed against the sensitive skin of his neck, and when Buck had gone to move - after lying there for a minute thinking, I can really have this? - Eddie had made sleepy, grumbling sounds and tightened his arm around Buck’s waist.

When he’d finally woken up, Eddie blinked slowly at him and said, “Had a dream about you.”

“Yeah?” Buck asked, sparks on his skin.

“Yeah.  We were at a rodeo and you wouldn’t stop bringing me coffee at the gate for good luck.”

Buck had sat up, “Wait, you dreamt you were a bull rider?”

Eddie hummed in agreement.

“I would pay to see that,” Buck says.

Eddie scrubbed a hand down his face, “It’s so dangerous and stupid, I would never do it again.”

Buck’s mouth dropped open, momentarily rendered speechless.  “ Eddie , you’re kidding!”  Buck would never get the image out of his head actually, there was Buck’s life before this piece of information and after.  He was forever changed.

Eddie smiled a little, “I’m not, I was young and stupid once, just like you.”

Buck laughs and pokes him in the ribs, “Are you calling me young and stupid?”

“No, you’re very old and very smart now,” Eddie said, and then pulled Buck down to kiss him, which was as successfully distracting as he was sure Eddie had hoped it would be.

Eddie was nudging him to pay attention to the movie.  How could he be blamed when he’d had a morning like that?  Buck focuses back on the screen, where Meg Ryan is describing her very particular diner order to a waitress.  Buck tries to focus, but the weight of Eddie's legs on his lap and the way he can feel Eddie watching him watch the movie is incredibly distracting.  Buck wraps his hand around Eddie’s ankle and strokes his thumb back and forth, trying to focus on Meg Ryan arguing with the guy.

And then they become friends, and Buck gets sucked in.  On the screen, the two of them are rolling out a huge rug in the guy’s apartment and Buck looks over at Eddie and Eddie is already looking at him.  It thrills in his chest, the look on Eddie’s face.  Eddie reaches and takes Buck’s hand, and laces their fingers together.

When it gets to the New Years' party, neither of them moves .

The first time we met we hated each other.

Eddie squeezes his hand and Buck thinks he might do something silly like burst out into laughter, or maybe tears.

We were friends for a long time, and then we weren’t.  And then we fell in love.

Buck gets why Chimney brought it up.  He gets why in a way that makes his cheeks extremely, suspiciously, pink.

Chapter Text

It’s easy, the way Buck falls weightlessly, effortlessly deeper into Eddie.  It makes Buck feel infinite.  Boundless.  The boundaries between them blur even further and Buck finds it’s so easy to get wrapped up in Eddie and stay there.  Buck indulges again and again, and Eddie never pulls away, so he lets himself fall further and further and further.  It makes the falling so fucking exciting, knowing what’s waiting for him.  Eddie, always Eddie.

And listen, Buck knew what it was to consistently hook up with someone, knew that it only got better, knew that they get to just keep filing away things that the other likes - but it’s even better than it has any right to be, with Eddie.  He’s had friends with benefits before, and this is not that.  This is something else entirely, he knows, and he’s perfectly happy to let it play out.  He hasn’t quite gotten his words in order over it yet, but.  Buck feels it alive, between them, and it’s so fucking addictive.

Often, Buck glances over and finds that Eddie is already looking at him.  It sparks in his stomach, and he wants to drag him up to bed - or better, have Eddie drag him up.  Or push him against the counter, or crawl onto his lap, or slip his hands under his shirt.  And if Chimney isn’t around, that’s exactly what they do.  If Chimney is around, they keep glancing at each other in a way that Buck is sure is incredibly transparent until he goes out - and Eddie immediately drags him into a kiss as soon as the door closes.  

Eddie laughs at him when he stumbles over his feet in his haste to get upstairs.  Buck tells him it’s a compliment, so he should stop laughing, and Eddie smiles the crinkly-eyed smile and says, Never.  Eddie flops back on their bed and makes grabby hands at Buck, which Buck finds so endearing he can’t help but smile and keep smiling when Eddie pulls him into a kiss with both hands.  Eddie loves rolling them over so he’s on top, straddling Buck.  Buck loves to feel him do it, loves Eddie getting him exactly where he wants him, loves when Eddie presses a hand to his chest to get him to stay put while Eddie grinds down on him.  Buck is addicted to the sounds Eddie makes when he gets him in his mouth and the way Eddie is so fucking pleased every time when he sees just how hard Buck is from blowing him.

“You really like that, huh?” he’ll ask.  “Love when I’m inside you, baby?”  Buck is always trying to get closer, closer, and Eddie saying that to him makes him want to fucking explode.  Which Eddie knows, which is why he does it.  Which is why sometimes he ends with, “Love coming inside you, because you’re mine.”  It’s never a question.  Eddie says it as he doing the little twist of his wrist with Buck in hand that drives Buck fucking crazy and Buck has never cried during sex before but it’s a close thing in these moments with Eddie.

One day, Eddie asks Buck to use his fingers.

“What do you mean?” Buck asks.  Sue him, Eddie was naked and flushed and hard, so his brain was lagging a little.

Eddie blushes, and says, “You know.”  Then he stares at Buck very meaningfully.  Buck stares back for a minute until it dawns on him.

“Oh!  Fuck.  Yeah?  Yeah.  Okay,” Buck sits back on his knees and considers Eddie for a second.  “Yeah, we can definitely do that.”

Eddie’s face is still very red when he says, “I don’t know if I’ll like it, I just…”  He trails off and doesn’t continue.  He looks away from Buck.

“What?” Buck asks.  He stretches over Eddie to grab the lube from the nightstand drawer, also handily looking away from him so he doesn’t have to try and meet Buck’s eyes while he answers.

“I’ve just been thinking about it a lot,” Eddie admits.

Buck sits back on his haunches, bottle of lube in hand, and grins.  “In your free time, you think about new ways for me to fuck you?” Buck teases.  “Sounds serious.”

Eddie groans and shoves at Buck with a foot.  “Shut up , like you haven’t said you think about blowing me at work .”

“You say that like it’s the most scandalous thing of all time,” Buck laughs.  Eddie watches as he spreads the lube on his fingers.  It makes Buck’s heart pound.

“We’re firefighters, Buck, do you not have any respect for the job?” Eddie asks, a little breathlessly as Buck pushes Eddie’s legs further open and gently presses a finger to his rim, circling.  Eddie’s hands clench in the duvet.

“Yeah?” Buck asks.  Eddie nods but doesn’t say anything.  Buck keeps going, then says, “If you wanted me to blow you at work it would be very respectful.  It would be way better than banging pots and pans in your honor.”  Buck presses a finger in and Eddie lets out a sort of strangled laugh.

“You are so,” Eddie starts, then lets out a tiny gasp that goes straight to Buck’s dick.  He’s so pretty like this, Buck wants to memorize it and keep it forever.

“I’m so what?”

“ Buck ,” Eddie whines, so Buck presses in deeper.  Eddie grabs Buck’s shoulder and squeezes, so Buck stills for a second.

“Is it good?  Do you like it?” Buck asks.  

Eddie laughs again, all pink-cheeked and glittering eyes, and says, “Yeah I fucking like it, keep going.”

Buck does.  He keeps going and drinks in all the tiny breathless sounds that escape Eddie.  He sees the way Eddie’s cock lies hard and pink against his stomach, leaking and glistening in a way that gets Buck wrapping his hand around him and stroking him once, twice, then letting go to watch the way Eddie groans and throws his head back, his brow screwed up in frustration.  Buck presses in a second finger and Eddie writhes, a little.  Just before he speeds up and finally takes mercy on him, Buck says, “You look so fucking good, Eds.  I’d do this for you for hours.”

Eddie makes a keening noise.  “Buck, Buck, c’mere,” he begs, getting his hand in Buck’s hair and tugging him up.  Buck goes so that Eddie can drag him into a clumsy kiss.  Eddie mostly breathes into his mouth and wraps his arms around Buck to hold him close while he gasps, “Buck, please.”

“Yeah, sweetheart, I’ve got you.”  Buck presses a kiss to his mouth, to his neck, then gets on his knees again to watch Eddie fall apart.  This time when he wraps his hand around him he doesn’t stop.  When Eddie comes he almost looks surprised, silent with his lips in a perfect o .  He stares at the ceiling for a minute and takes huge, heaving breaths and Buck watches, can’t help but think he’s maybe the luckiest man in the world to get to see this.  Eventually, Eddie looks down at him.

“Your fingers are still in me,” he says, matter-of-factly.  It was true.

Buck laughs and takes it as his cue to slip them out, “Sorry, got distracted.”  By you , he doesn’t say, but Eddie hears it anyway and blushes a little harder.

“Shut up,” Eddie laughs.  Then he makes grabby hands at Buck, “Come here.”  Eddie pulls him into a much more coordinated kiss and rolls them to their sides.  “What do you want?”

As always, once Buck has started kissing Eddie he doesn’t want to stop, so he says, “Just like this.”  He can feel Eddie nod and grab his ass to pull him closer, lets him rut into the mess Eddie has already made of his stomach.  Eddie’s hands smooth up and down his back, hike Buck’s thigh up so he can hook his leg around Eddie’s hip.  Buck breaks the kiss to whine into Eddie’s mouth.

“Yeah baby, come on,” Eddie says, and that’s what pushes Buck over the edge, spiling between them.  Eddie holds him tight while his breathing slows.

“That was so good,” Buck says.  It’s the understatement of the century.  Buck can feel Eddie nod against his chest.  “You have great ideas, we should do all your ideas, forever.”  Eddie just laughs, kisses his chest, and snuggles a tiny bit closer.

After a minute he says, “We really have to shower,” in a way that says he really doesn’t want to get up but feels gross.

Buck squeezes him, “Mmm, yeah, you’re kind of a mess.”

Eddie shoves him back with a scoff and a faux-scandalized look on plastered on his face.  Buck grins.  “Well, who made the mess, hm?” Eddie arches his brow.  Buck wants to kiss him.

“Me!” he exclaims, smacking kisses on Eddie’s cheek, his forehead, his nipple, his stomach.  He pops up again to say, “And I would do it again.”

Eddie smiles and smushes his face against the pillow like he has to hide a little from how happy he is.  “Good.”

“Great,” Buck replies.  Eddie just looks at him, and the thing is, Buck knows exactly what he wants.  Buck rolls his eyes.  “Fine, I’ll carry you to the shower.”  Eddie looks like he’s won something.  Buck teases him until he closes the door to the bathroom and presses Eddie against it, kissing him until they’re both senseless, until they hear the front door open and close, a sure sign that Chimney was back.  Buck pulls back, sets Eddie down, and sees that Eddie is already laughing a little.

“We’re getting worse at time management,” Eddie says.

Buck shrugs, “Just gotta make up for it by being sneaky.”

Eddie levels a look at him.  “Like we’ve ever been sneaky.”  He slips past Buck to turn the shower on.

“Can’t help it, you’re just so…” Buck trails off.  Eddie is stepping under the water and reaching out to give Buck a hand to step in after him and it’s so easy.  The way Eddie rests his hands on Buck’s hips, the way Buck smooths Eddie’s hair back under the spray of water, the way Eddie raises his chin just a tiny bit to meet his eyes standing this close.  It hits him sometimes, in these moments, how big it is, how inadequate any words he could string together would be.  Eddie looks at him, and Buck swears he can see all of it, swears it’s being cradled right there between them in the place where their chests meet.

“What?” Eddie asks.

Buck looks at him and trembles.  Eddie runs his hands slowly up and down Buck’s sides, waiting.  Finally, Buck says in a somewhat strangled voice, “You know.”  Buck swallows while Eddie considers that answer.

Eddie kisses him.

-

At dinner that night, Chimney does not comment on the fact that Buck and Eddie had appeared downstairs fifteen minutes after he’d gotten back, both freshly showered.  He does not, however, hide his amused looks as the two of them bicker while they cook enchiladas.  Eddie keeps sarcastically saluting and saying, Yes, Chef Buck , every time he underestimates (though Buck would say: correctly estimates) Eddie’s skills.  It, again, makes Buck’s ears turn pink.  Chimney, upon witnessing this scene, says he thinks he’s going to set the table, promptly leaving them to it.  Buck thinks that’s fair.

Everything has settled back into a comfortable rhythm, including work.  Eddie is no longer following Hen everywhere she goes, Buck has stopped pretending he wants any seat besides the one right next to Eddie, and everything is the way it should be - except for, well, the world around them.  Still, Buck helps Bobby cook and Eddie makes sure coffee is on-hand for when they want it at weird hours.   Chimney loudly laments the fact that he misses Maddie and Hen enlists them all to help her study on slow days.  

Buck is so happy he doesn’t know what to do with himself.  So he mostly watches Eddie, who smiles so easily and looks so light these days.  Eddie looks back at Buck with an expression he knows is meant just for him.  Buck doesn’t know how it gets better than this.

-

One afternoon, on a day off, they drive up a bit to a trail in the mountains, to take their walk there instead of their usual round the neighborhood walks.  Buck makes them strawberry-banana smoothies as a treat and they set out.  The trail’s a little busy, especially near the beginning, but people eventually spread out and it’s nice, just he and Eddie out in the warm spring air.  Eddie’s talking about a TikTok spiral he had fallen down the other day - Buck’s fault, he says.  If he wasn’t living with him he would never have gotten dragged in, he says - and Buck suddenly has the strongest urge to reach out and hold his hand.  He misses whatever Eddie was saying about the frog side of TikTok as he considers it.  He thinks that - well he comes at it from two angles.  On the one hand, it’s not that weird to want to hold hands with your friends.  He and Eddie have just never been the type.  On the other hand, he’s planned outings like this as dates before.

“What are you thinking about?” Eddie asks when it’s become clear that Buck has gotten lost in his head.

“I’m just thinking - dating is kind of…I don’t know, it’s kind of weird when you think about it.  Like.  So many date things are just things you’d do with your friends except you make it.  I dunno, different?  It’s not really that different, you know?”

“Date things like going out to eat or going to the movies?”

“Yeah, like there’s nothing really date-like about them unless you’re there with, I guess with the person that makes them date things,” as Buck says this he feels a creeping revelation wash over him.  This feels like a date because he’s with Eddie.

Buck is extremely weird about this realization.

Honestly, he’s probably weirder about it than he should be, considering that he knows this is not a normal friends with benefit’s situation and he knows that he’s in love with Eddie, but.  But it’s one thing to think abstractly about getting his shit together and talking things out and it’s another thing to realize that conversation is going to happen just as soon as he can form words about it.  Which is probably going to be in the next hour.  It makes his hands shake, and it makes his laughter ring a little false - which he can tell because Eddie keeps shooting him looks that say, Are you okay?   Which Buck doggedly does not acknowledge, instead rambling at extreme length about algae and its many uses.  Eddie lets him, until the trail loops back around to the parking lot and he suggests post-hike milkshakes with what can only be described as a suspicious tilt to his eyebrows.

On the drive over Buck lets Eddie fiddle with the radio, flipping from station to station and not settling on anything until finally he scoffs and turns it off completely.  Buck, meanwhile, can feel the words bubbling up in him like a physical thing trying to get out.  He manages to keep the revelation to himself until they’re in the drive-thru line waiting for the milkshakes and he just - can’t keep it in any longer.

“Eddie.”  Eddie’s not listening to him, he’s pulling up to the window, rolling down his window, fumbling for his wallet, for a mask.  Eddie is putting a mask on one-handed and Buck needs to say it.  “Eddie, this feels like a date.”

The cashier is asking for the cards and Eddie is looking at him with an inscrutable look in his eye, half of his face covered in a blue and purple paisley pattern.  It was one of the masks Carla had made from scrap fabric.  “Jesus, Buck, hold that thought.”

Buck folds his hands in his lap and stares forward.

Eddie hands him his milkshake and both the straws, pulls forward into one of the parking spots, and gets out the hand sanitizer.  He offers it to Buck first, who shakes his head, and then uses it himself.  He takes off his mask, then turns to Buck.  “Okay.  Sorry.  You were saying.”

“Uh.”  Buck opens his straw and pops it in instead of looking at Eddie.  “This feels like a date?”  It comes out as a question this time.

“...Yeah?” Eddie says like it’s been obvious that this was, in fact, a date.

“What?”

“What?”

“No, my what first.  Is this a date?” Buck asks.

“Um…yeah?” Eddie says again, and Buck might reach over and strangle him if he keeps this up.  “I mean, kind of?”

“Eddie, what does kind of mean?”

“Are you mad?”

“Why would I be mad?”

“You just seem kind of mad,” Eddie says.

“Well, I just!” Buck exclaims.  He waves his hands around, attempting to relate just how much this whole thing is.  “Sorry, I’m just trying to figure out how we ended up on a date without me knowing.  Not that - not that I’m mad, it’s just.  I literally have no idea what’s happening in your head ever, anymore, and now we’re on a date and I didn’t notice until halfway through.  So.”

Eddie stabs the straw into his milkshake with more force than necessary.  Then he sighs and buries his head in his hands.  Then he looks up and takes a slow, deliberate breath.

“Sorry, sorry.  We wouldn’t be in this situation if I wasn’t such a coward.”

“Eddie, you’re literally the bravest person I know,” Buck says automatically.  Because it’s true.

Eddie shoots him an unimpressed look, “Buck.”

Buck shakes his head, “No, I’m not arguing that one.  And it’s beside the point, anyway.  If you’re a coward, I’m a coward.”

“What is this, The Notebook?” Eddie asks sarcastically.  Buck has no idea what he’s talking about.  “God I forgot you haven’t seen, like, any movie at all.”

“I think we’ve gotten a little off track,” Buck notes.

“Right,” Eddie says, and then turns his body toward him as much as he can in the front seat of Buck’s Jeep.  Buck copies him, and they look at each other seriously.  “Okay.  We’re -” Eddie pauses before he says it, like it’s stuck in his throat, “On a date.  You didn’t know this.  You’re not mad.  We’re both cowards.”

“Right,” Buck agrees, nodding.  Eddie looks like he’s waiting for him to go on, so he does.  “I just, I meant that I know we haven’t really been, uh, great at talking things through, recently.  And things have been sort of, evolving on their own.  And I knew that we should talk about it but I didn’t know how to bring it up.”  Buck pauses, and Eddie still waits.  Buck looks out the windshield, at the strip mall across the street.  He watches a woman walk out of a Great Clips to her red minivan.  Looking away, he says, “It’s just so - big.”

“Yeah,” Eddie says, a little breathless.  Buck looks back at him.  His left hand gripping tightly onto his knee and his right bending his straw back and forth, back and forth.  It’s quiet.  Buck waits for Eddie to speak.  Finally, he says, “I talked to Hen the other day.  I told her - everything.”

“Everything, everything?” Buck asks.

Eddie nods, “Yeah.  And um, one of the things we talked about is, well.  I’ve never…done this before?”  He asks it like a question, looking at Buck as if willing him to understand.  Buck just looks back.  “Like, any of it?  Obviously, I’d never told anybody that I was - that I liked men,” Eddie rushes through that part and Buck can feel his heart racing from here, so he reaches out to tug his hand closer, to lace their fingers together.  Eddie squeezes his hand back, then continues, “But, uh, I’ve also only ever been with one person - with Shannon - before this, and we started dating in high school, so it’s just…I don’t know.  The whole dating and hooking up stuff is - I don’t know, it’s a fucking mystery to me, at this point.  I don’t get it.”

“Oh,” Buck says.  He’s trying to process everything Eddie just said but he’s also extremely aware of where this conversation is headed in a way that makes his skin buzz and his brain fuzzy.

“Oh,” Eddie agrees.

Buck takes a breath, tries to clear the fuzz, and says, “This is a good date, Eds.”

Eddie looks over at him and he’s so soft and open.  He has the smallest smile and it tethers Buck so tightly to this moment, just how in love with him he is.  “Yeah?” Eddie asks.  Buck nods.  Eddie looks down and strokes his thumb back and forth on the back of Buck’s hand.  “So.  I was talking to Hen and I told her that it was easy to not talk about it because things were really good and the world is so fucking weird right now and we were -”  Eddie cuts himself off and rubs his other hand over his face.

“What?”

“It’s - embarrassing,” Eddie admits, not looking at him.

“Eddie, it’s me,” Buck says, giving his hand another squeeze.

Eddie swallows, then says, “Well, it was just easy to pretend that you and me were together for real.”  

Buck takes this in, flipping back through the last few weeks in his head.  Eddie asking, Should we?  Eddie kissing him after they’d re-dressed in the bathroom.  Eddie’s arm around him when they sat on the couch, Buck’s around Eddie when they went to bed.  I would’ve said thanks.  Buck remembers how it had kept ringing in his ears when Eddie said it.  Buck’s whole world is Eddie’s hand wrapped around his and the thudding of his heart.  Now, Eddie does meet his eyes.  Buck’s taken in, couldn’t look away for anything in the world.  

“And I didn’t want to say anything that might mess that up because I like going to sleep with you every night and I like when you bring me my coffee in the morning and I like watching you cook and I like making you come,” Eddie says it all in one determined breath.  His eyes are so intense, like they were when he told him that he deserved good things.  Like he’s nervous and pushing past it because he’s so determined to tell Buck everything, even the stuff that’s hard to say out loud.  “And I even like the way you won’t stop playing that fucking disco playlist and I want you to come home with me when all this is over and I want to do all those things, there, too.  And I’m in love with you and it was easier to convince myself that you maybe loved me, too, and just live like that instead of asking because none of it feels real, and all of it feels too good for me.”

“Eddie,” Buck’s voice cracks, “I’m so in love with you.”  Buck uses the hand that’s not laced with Eddie’s to drag him in by his collar and kiss him hard, trying to pour everything he feels into it with a single-minded focus that leaves Eddie gasping.  Buck leans back, cradling Eddie's face in his hands, and tells him, “I want all of that, too.  I want to be yours, I want to come home to you and Chris, I want it all.”

Eddie’s eyes crinkle and he says, “God, I love you,” and then he’s kissing him again.  A minute later, he’s laughing and pulling back.

“What?”

Eddie looks at him and Buck wonders how to tell his brain that this is a profound moment that he needs to remember every detail of.

“I, uh, told Chris the other day.  That I was taking you on a date, and that I loved you.  You know what he said?”

“What?” Buck asks again.

“Duh, Dad,” Eddie says in an excellent and extremely funny impression of his son.  Buck and Eddie dissolve into giggles.

Catching his breath, Buck says, “He’s too smart and funny for his own good, he’s gotta leave some for the rest of us.”

Eddie laughs, “We clearly need it.”

Buck shakes his head and kisses him again because he can.  It’s slow this time, languid in a way that promises a whole life laid out in front of them.  

“Wait,” Buck says suddenly, as something occurs to him, “Why did you think I knew this was a date?”  He leans back to get a good look at Eddie’s face.

“Buck, I hate hiking.”  He says it matter-of-factly, like it should have been obvious.  “And you’re always talking about these strawberry milkshakes.”

“Oh,” Buck says.  His heart feels so full he’s surprised it’s not beating out of his chest.  “You’re so good to me.”

Eddie smiles, “Always.”

-

When they walk back into the loft, they’re holding hands.  Chimney is standing in the kitchen and sees them immediately.  The three of them stop and wait for someone to say something.  Chimney looks between the two of them, seemingly very carefully not reacting, until finally, Eddie clears his throat.

Buck and Chimney both look at him and his extremely red face.  “We, uh…finally got together,” Eddie says.  Buck squeezes his hand.  Eddie looks at him and smiles like he can’t help it.

Chimney cheers and then rushes over full speed to hug them.

“I’m so happy for you guys!” he exclaims.

He squeezes them both with such ferocity that Buck has to eventually choke out, “Chim, air.”

Chimney steps back, a hand on each of their shoulders, and considers them.  “This is great news - the best news.  Wow.”  Then he leans forward and looks at them very seriously, “Is it a secret?  Can I tell Hen?”

Eddie ducks his head and rubs the back of his neck.  “Uh…”

Chimney’s mouth drops open, “Oh my god, she already knows?”

Eddie nods, a little bashfully, “Yeah, kind of.”

“Damn, I should’ve known that’s why you were following her around like a lost puppy.”

“Hey!” Eddie exclaims, “I have never acted like a lost puppy.”  Buck and Chim both level looks at him.  “What?”

“Eddie, I hate to tell you this, but you excel at acting like a lost puppy,” Buck says.

Chimney nods, “Your boyfriend’s right, Diaz.”  At boyfriend Buck and Eddie look at each other with matching expressions of excited disbelief.  Chimney laughs, “God, and I thought you two were insufferable before.”

“It’s been a long time coming,” Buck admits, trying not to sound too sickly sweet while not being able to tear his eyes away from Eddie.  Buck thinks he fails.  He’s okay with that.

“No kidding,” Chimney agrees.

“Hey, we got there,” Eddie says.

Eventually, Eddie and Buck end up alone upstairs.  They can hear Chimney in the kitchen, cooking them a “celebratory dinner”.  Buck has a sneaking suspicion that means whatever he was already planning to cook, plus a bottle of wine.  Eddie tugs him into another hug, resting his chin on Buck’s shoulder.

“You’re my boyfriend,” Eddie says.  It makes butterflies dance in Buck’s stomach, it makes him smile so hard he has to bury his face in Eddie’s shoulder.  “I have a boyfriend,” Eddie says like he can’t believe he gets to have one.  Buck gets Eddie’s face in his hands again so he can kiss him, and kiss him, and kiss him.

“You’re my boyfriend,” Buck says after, grinning.  Eddie smiles and ducks his head.

“Yeah,” he says, “I’m yours.”  Eddie kisses both of Buck’s cheeks, then says, “Come home with me, when I go back.”

Buck nods, “Of course, you know I can’t stay away from the Diaz house.”

Eddie shakes his head, “No I mean, come home with me.  And stay.”  Eddie’s voice is small when he says it, looking up at Buck so honestly, it feels like he’s rearranging the very fabric of Buck’s being.

“Oh,” Buck breathes.  “Yeah, I want that.  So much.”

“Good,” Eddie smiles and kisses him again.  Buck can’t get enough, he can’t believe he gets to have this.

“God, we’re so lucky,” Buck says.  Eddie shakes his head.  “No?”

“No,” Eddie agrees.  “We might have stumbled our way here, but I love you on purpose.”

Buck is struck absolutely speechless for a second.  “Oh,” he says.  Eddie just looks at him and Buck lets himself be overwhelmed by just how much Eddie loves him.  Eddie loves him.  Finally, he says, “You say the most romantic things I’ve ever heard in my life so easily, is that what watching romantic comedies gets you?”

Eddie blushes and shrugs, “That’s just my brain on Evan Buckley, so.”  Before Buck has a chance to react, Eddie kisses him.  Admittedly, it’s always a successful distraction technique.

-

Later, Chimney calls them down to dinner and surprises them with a bottle of champagne.  He subjects them to an impressively long and cheesy speech which Hen is present on FaceTime for, ending in a formal plea for Buck to tell Maddie.

“As you know, I do my very best with secrets.  However, Maddie is the love of my life, the mother of my child, my best friend, and this is the biggest news there’s been since my impending fatherhood and so -”

Buck cuts him off, “Chimney, calm down.  I’ll tell her right now.”

He takes out his phone, slides open the camera, and pulls Eddie in for a kiss.  Chim and Hen both whoop while Eddie kisses back.  Buck breaks the kiss, then tilts the phone so Eddie can see the frankly terrible photo of the two of them kissing.  Eddie laughs.

“She’s going to kill you,” Eddie says.

“So I should do it?”

“One-hundred percent, yes.”

Buck sends the photo.

Eddie and Buck watch as the message goes from delivered to read, and then watch while Maddie types.  She sends three messages in quick succession.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

EVAN

I’M CALLING U RIGHT NOW

And then she’s calling, so Buck picks up the FaceTime and says, “Surprise!”  Eddie leans into the frame with a huge smile as he says it.

“Oh my god,” she says, “I can’t believe that’s how you told me.  Okay.  I need the whole story, right now.”

“Actually, it’s kind of funny,” Buck says.

They end up setting up Chimney and Buck’s phones both on the table so that Buck and Eddie can recount the events of the day for everyone.  Eddie holds Buck’s hand.  

Buck can’t stop glancing over at Eddie, his face all alight, and it really sinks in then, surrounded by all their friends and family.  They get to have this life together because they chose it for themselves.  For each other.

Eddie looks back at him and smiles.  “What?”

Buck smiles and shakes his head, “Nothing.  I just…I love you on purpose, too.”

Buck kisses him.