Archive of Our Own

Eddie often thinks of how his last real look at Buck was blurred in the rain spattered side-view mirror as he drove away, jaw tight and priorities set. He wishes it was a sunny day, that he took his time to really study everything about Buck before he had to go. The anxiety coursing through his veins, the way he lingered until he couldn’t anymore, the way he stuttered and seemed to bite his tongue on everything he really wanted to say. 

The service here is fine, but not as good as LA’s. FaceTimes are pixelated and hide Buck’s features in jagged movements. Sometimes Eddie will miss something he’ll say and have to ask him to repeat himself—which is ludicrous. Eddie doesn’t do that. He always hears Buck.

His house is just passable, too. When he said it was a fixer-upper he really meant that. The wood paneling on the floor is weak and groans under every step. The water pressure sputters enough to never make him feel truly clean after a shower. The walls are devoid of a color that isn’t stained wallpaper and beige, and he’s yet to put up any decorations, especially in his room. He has about seven pieces of furniture in the house including his bed. It isn’t exactly high class living. 

And being in Texas again is like he turned himself in after escaping and stepped behind the cell bars, throwing the key far out of reach. He’s still going home to an empty house, but now he knows no one else is coming. No one to barge in with breakup-induced baked treats or someone to find in his kitchen cooking breakfast encouraging him to go outside on his days off. He’s working odd jobs to get by, he felt like doing forty-eight hour shifts wasn’t going to get him any closer to Chris. He wants all the time he can get. But in doing so, he doesn’t exactly have a family to rely on like he did back in the 118.

The first two weeks were the equivalent of walking a mile on glass, just trying to convince his parents to be civil, that he’s trying his best to support Chris, he is not trying to ‘steal him back’. Eddie is here to be his dad. He refuses to be a parent from hundreds of miles away. 

Despite their eventual ‘acceptance’ of his existence, he’s still met with belittling remarks about nearly every step he takes. 

You shouldn’t be a firefighter here, it’s too dangerous and Chris doesn’t need that right now. Why aren’t you looking for a stable job? It’s too bad you couldn’t go to college, I’m sure this job thing would be much easier if you did. You couldn’t possibly think you’re capable of being a parent for him when you have no real income anymore. You can’t support him with this. Oh no, I didn’t know you were coming over, I only made enough food for three. Shouldn’t you be out looking for a job right now? You look really tired, you should probably just go home. I think you have too much free time. Chris is busy today, you can come back tomorrow. 

They don’t look at him like a threat now, but more like an inconvenience.  

Buck’s been supportive at least. It isn’t a facade to keep himself stable like it used to be. He really does want the best for Eddie no matter what, which makes his throat go tight and his eyes sting anytime he tries to think about it. It’s…it’s overwhelming, really. 

Oh the topic of overwhelming, whenever the two of them FaceTime, Eddie can see his own house in the background. Because Buck lives there now. For as long as he’d like. He’ll call to see Buck propped up against his headboard or in his living room—just with the wrong couch—and Eddie gets dizzy. He doesn’t know why, he’s never been weird about Buck sharing his space. He didn’t even have to bring a toothbrush when he moved in.  

Maybe it’s something like that. Buck being in his home feels so natural that it’s unnatural. Eddie should be there, too.

-

If Eddie could pick a superpower he’d pick teleportation. It makes sense to him, yearning to be anywhere he’s needed at any time. Or any place he needs to be. Yearns to be.

Sometimes the place he needs to be is his home in Los Angeles. To be able to stop by and see Buck, really see him, just for a few hours. Watch him from the kitchen table as he glows golden in the morning light, rambling about god knows what. Eddie could stay for that brief time then come back to Chris, the other half of him. He could do that. Unfortunately, Eddie doesn’t have this ability, so he’ll have to stick to hearing Buck’s voice through mediocre quality phone speakers. 

It’s not so bad. Buck likes sending him voice notes—and if Eddie’s honest, he doesn’t know how he does this, but he’s too embarrassed to ask lest Buck makes fun of him for being ‘two-thousand years old’. But he likes listening to Buck. At first they were little things he’d send while his hands were busy, cooking or at the gym, maybe, and he couldn’t use his hands to reply to a text. Eddie must have indulged him somewhere along the line, because Buck sends a lot now. Some are starting to reach twenty minutes long, and Buck always apologizes after in text. Eddie says don’t worry about it, then listens to all twenty minutes before replying again. Sometimes he calls to tell him what he thinks. Sometimes those calls last for hours, long enough that they fall asleep together.

That was probably where he indulged him.

Eddie can tell when Buck’s just woken up or is just going to sleep, voice gravelly and deeper than where it naturally sits. He can tell when Buck’s working out, because he’ll be out of breath or there’s the sound of a treadmill running. He can tell when he’s cooking by the sizzling or the clanging of metal or humdrum impact of a knife on a board. He can tell when Buck’s in a hurry, taking his time, watching TV, missing him.

Eddie has always been able to read Buck like an open book, he doesn’t even need his face—though he’d still like it.

-

It’s been about a month since Eddie came to Texas. Today he and Chris went out for lunch and managed a bit of a conversation. It’s slow, but it’s certainly moving along. They talked about school and his friends, how his chess club is going, how good the food is, and avoided the elephant in the room. Eddie isn’t sure how to talk to him about it yet, the situation is messy and complicated, and right now he likes Chris talking to him like this. 

With state boundaries, Eddie was sometimes entirely ignored, the equivalent of plunging knives between his ribs until he was bleeding out and there was no one to save him this time. Just a slow trickle that seeped into the hardwood floor where Eddie wanted to curl up on his side and go out that way. Sad and pathetic, alone.

Being with Chris feels like being basked in warm sunlight, where every word exchanged between them is liquid gold. Eddie will treasure every bit of it.

He eventually settles into bed and pulls up Buck’s contact to call—it rings once before he gets picked up. 

“Hey, what’s going on?” Buck’s voice greets casually, starting to tread into that sleepy edge. It drips into Eddie’s bones like honey.

Eddie smiles. “Hey, nothing much. Just had a pretty good day, actually.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Mhm,” Eddie lays on his side and gets a bit more comfortable. “Chris actually seemed to enjoy my company a bit. We went out, got some food. Kinda nice.”

“Oh!” Buck exclaims, and he can hear a grin. “Well, that’s great, Eddie, seriously! D’you have anything else planned yet?”

“Eh, not yet. Didn’t wanna push it since he looked like he was enjoying himself. Ruin the moment, y’know.” Eddie clears his throat, trying not to ruin this moment with his ever-present ability to say the wrong thing. “Anyway, uh—where are you?” 

He doesn’t know why he asks this, and cringes, there aren’t a lot of places Buck is going to be at ten o’clock. 

“In your bed, why?”

Right. There’s that. Buck likes to refer to the house like everything is still Eddie’s even when it isn’t. He’ll say ‘your bathroom’ and ‘your kitchen’ and ‘your bed’. It’s like a subconscious thing to make Eddie feel like he still has a home back in L.A if he ever wants it. He doubts it’s intentional, but the use of your bed with his tired voice makes his chest heavy. 

Eddie realizes he forgot to reply.

“Where are you?” Buck playfully teases. There’s some shuffling on the other end while Eddie looks around for something to say.

Not that it’s hard to talk Buck, not ever. He’s just…well…sometimes Eddie forgets how to interact with the human race. 

“I’m…I’m in my bed, too?”

“Mhm. What are you wearing?”

Eddie barks a laugh. “C’mon, Buck, stop it,” he says, though something is off. That’s not the way they usually joke with each other. Ever, really.

“Okay, okay, I’m kidding,” he chuckles, letting the silence filter in for just a few seconds. “Oh— I found this really cool thing today, I think you’d like it. It’s this animal that wasn’t even discovered until like nineteen-hundred, it’s called an Okapi—“

-

That’s how most of their calls go. Buck talks and Eddie listens and replies, because if there’s one thing Buck loves to do it’s talk. And if there’s one thing Eddie loves to do, it’s indulge him in anything he wants. 

If he’s out with Chris, there will be times he’ll start up a facetime and hand Chris the phone. He knows Buck has wanted to talk to him, but nearly never does unless Eddie connects them. He isn’t sure why Buck does this, and yet it’s thoughtful despite his lack of understanding. 

Eddie doesn’t think Buck should feel disconnected from Chris, they’ve always had something special that Eddie admires. A level of trust that allows him to trust Buck with Chris more than anyone else on the planet. 

The days he gets to talk to Buck and Chris at the same time are always the best ones, from the warmth in his chest to the smile on his face, it means a lot to him. His two favorite people. 

On the calls when it’s only the two of them, sometimes all Eddie really wants is for Buck to talk his worries away and keep his head from getting too busy. He tends to get these urges after his parents are just a little less tolerant of him than usual. When Eddie gets the swift and brutal reminder that he is the outsider here. He is the one barging back into Chris’ life after being walked away from. 

Chris never says anything of the sort, but Helena and Ramon certainly love to insinuate it. It all still gets to him. 

In Texas, Eddie needs everything perfect. Hair slicked back, tucked-in shirt buttoned up to his neck, back straight, stiff shoulders. He heads to his parents’ house feeling like he’s in the wrong body, but also like he’s doing the right thing. How his parents would sigh in disappointment at him if they saw how he looked on the days where they didn't want him there. Eddie hardly even wants to get up, save for if he has a shift that day. 

What’s his purpose if he isn’t working and able to be close to Chris? Eddie would be like a wave on the shore, crashing until he seeps into the sand, no longer anything at all but something to get stuck in someone’s feet. Eddie needs purpose, he needs work, and he needs Chris.

Right now, he hardly has any of them.

But if he buttons his plaid shirts high enough and makes himself as presentable and up to his father’s standards of a man as he can, maybe it will mean something. Despite the slight pinching against his neck, Eddie doesn’t mind the pressure. He’s always been good under pressure, and he can do this, too. 

-

One night after a long dinner of untouched food and passive aggressive comments which led to a snappy argument, Eddie’s drained. He falls into bed, stomach unfilled and head full as he wills himself to not think too hard about it.

He’s glad Chris wasn’t there to see…well, any of that. From his dad or grandparents. Despite their instigating, it wasn’t Eddie who berated them, it was quite the opposite. Helena found something new to dig into him with and Ramon backed her up while Eddie scrambled to defend himself. He couldn’t eat a crumb off that plate before him, he thinks his body would have rejected it.

After all that shouting, now it is just so… quiet. 

His hand reaches for his phone in seconds, far too upset to think about anything twice, including calling the one person he wants to hear from right now.

“Hey, Eddie!” Buck greets, likely with a smile.

He doesn’t know how to reply for a moment, voice caught somewhere in his chest.

“Eddie?”

A cleared throat and a shaky, “Hey, Buck,” is all he manages.

There’s shuffling, maybe sitting up. Eddie thinks being able to see him would help, but he doesn’t ask for it. 

“Everything alright?” Buck asks sweetly. 

He’s so sweet.

“Uh—yeah—“ Eddie tries, voice unsteady. But why lie? Buck already knows he isn’t telling the truth, and they’re eight-hundred miles apart. What’s the point? “No. Actually.”

“What happened? Something with Chris?”

“No, but I…I don’t wanna talk about it,” he mumbles, running his hand over his eyes. “I just…I called you cause I don’t wanna think about it. Kinda just want you to…”

Buck inhales slowly, audibly enough that Eddie can hear it across the line, three states away. He could stay on a call with Buck all night just to hear him breathe. “To…what?”

“I don’t know, anything,” he blurts. “Just to…just…help me out here, Buck. Please? Talk to me, y’know?”

There’s a short pause from the other side. For a moment, he fears he’s scared Buck away, freaked him out too much. Maybe his problems are too much for once and Buck isn’t sure how to deal with them anymore. Maybe Eddie deserves Buck telling him to stop coming to him for help and he’s sick and tired of having to hear him. Buck wouldn’t ever say that, but Eddie’s not exactly in a sound state of mind.

“…Where are you right now, Eddie?”

The tone of his voice deepens into something…different. Eddie isn’t sure he’s ever heard it before. It’s slow and sultry, melting warm and slow down his spine like molasses. He swallows.

“Uh—Buck?” He laughs breathily. “I mean I’m…I’m in my house.”

“Okay. Where?”

Eddie glances around, as if somehow he could get this wrong. And he couldn’t, but he just wants to make sure. “My…bed.”

Buck hums affirmatively. He can’t really tell if this is Buck trying to calm him down with those five things you can see methods, or something else entirely.

“And what are you wearing right now?”

Oh. It’s the latter. 

It has to be, right? Only, the last time Buck made a joke like this it was—well, it was exactly that. A joke. That didn’t sound like a joke.

Eddie inhales, heartbeat pounding against his throat. “Buck…” He exhales. “What are you doing?”

“You said you wanted anything so you don’t have to think, and it’ll help you relax,” Buck says, like Eddie’s so simple and easy. “Should I do something else?”

The distance between them is starting to make Buck seem less real, in a way. Because Eddie can’t bring himself to say yes since it isn’t like they’re going to see each other at work or be in each other’s physical space. Not to mention, Eddie doesn’t like guys. So his bisexual friend helping him out when he apparently needs it as a distraction doesn’t have to mean anything. It’s not like Buck’s here with him. He’s just talking. Eddie likes when Buck talks.

“No.”

A beat.

“So…I can keep—“

“Yeah.”

Another beat. Crickets chirp outside the thin walls and wind brushes against the window. Eddie’s breath lodges in his lungs like it’s too heavy for him to handle. 

“What are you wearing then, Eddie?” Buck asks again, voice back to that tone that had him feeling lightheaded. 

His head swims, floating along the dulcet tones of Buck’s words, ignoring the embarrassment that comes with speaking like this. “Just a t-shirt and boxers,” Eddie mumbles, face hot.

“Okay.” It’s quiet, tension like a rope pulled taut. “You should take off the shirt.”

Eddie realizes that’s not a suggestion, Buck’s telling him to. He knows Buck can’t see him, but he complies anyway, feeling as if there’s an audience watching him in the corner of the room despite being physically alone. The slightly cool air hits his bare chest. Eddie shivers and lays back down.

Like he really is being watched, “That’s good,” comes faintly through the phone. Eddie picks it back up and rests it against his shoulder. The glass is cool against his warming skin. “You should also put it on speaker, make it a little easier.”

Another thing Eddie should do that he registers as ‘you will do’. Buck seems to be settling into some kind of mindset, one Eddie is only slightly familiar with. The commanding tone and the way Eddie wants to play along with it. Sink into it, even.

“Okay,” Eddie complies, pressing the speaker button to make Buck fill not just his ear, but the whole room. As if he really is here. “Now what?”

There’s a light chuckle from the other end. “Well, what’s something you usually like?”

“I—“ Eddie groans, squeezing his eyes shut. “I don’t know, it’s been—a while. Just tell me to do something and I’ll do it.”

“Hey, don’t get feisty,” Buck commands—despite the obvious smile on his face. “How long has it been, then?”

“Buck.”

“I’m telling you to do something right now, Eddie.” It’s teasing in a way that has Eddie’s boxers tightening. “Tell me. Have you come once since you’ve gotten to Texas?”

“Jesus, Buck—“

“You haven’t?” Buck continues on, oblivious to what he’s doing to him. Or maybe it’s the opposite. Maybe Buck knows exactly what he’s doing. “That’s over a month ago—“

“A lot more than a month ago,” Eddie blurts, shifting around more to accommodate the blood seeping downwards. Slowly, carefully. “It’s a lot…a lot more than a month...”

“How about a rough estimate?”

He laughs quietly, head falling into the pillow. “Christ, I don’t even…I mean everything’s been so…so busy, y’know? It was…I had my problems with Marisol, then it was Kim and we never did anything, and then my life fell apart. Didn’t think I…”

“Mmh?”

“Deserved it.”

The line falls silent, Eddie worries he’s fucked it up and Buck’s going to start consoling him, telling him not to think so poorly of himself. Eddie just can’t help it.

“Aw, poor thing,” Buck coos. Eddie knows he isn’t really making fun of him. He still likes the sound of it, the fake pity to mask his real pity. “I’ll tell you what you deserve, sweetheart, okay?”

Eddie’s head spins. “Yeah, okay,” he breathes. 

Buck is too kind to help him yet again. After all, he’s living in his house, taking it so Eddie wouldn’t have to worry anymore and so there’s a home for him to come back to if Chris ever wants it. Buck’s too selfless, really. What if Buck doesn’t even want to be helping him in this way and is just doing it because he knows Eddie wants it? 

Buck’s saying something to him, he realizes. 

“—Eddie, stop overthinking. Whatever’s going on up there, just listen to me instead. Got it?”

“Can you just tell me something, Buck?” Eddie rushes out. “Do you really want to be doing this for me?”

“I’m the one who started it, aren’t I?” Buck quickly replies. He doesn’t say it like a question either. “Just listen to me, I’ll help you feel good. Better. Don’t you want that? I think you deserve it.” 

He swallows thickly. “You do?”

“Yeah. I really do.” Buck lets that sit in the air for a moment. “You still with me?”

“…Mmh.”

“And you still have your boxers on?”

“Yeah, Buck,” Eddie whispers, impatience starting to dig into his skin. “Could you—Can I—“

Buck makes a noise of approval. “You can touch yourself, but don’t take anything off yet. I want you to take your time.”

Eddie sighs in relief, hand darting down to get a firm grip around himself over the thin cloth. His vision spins as he runs his thumb along the head, a low groan making it past his closed mouth. It’s not like he hasn’t gotten hard in the past few months, he has, but he’ll always hop in a cold shower or will it away by telling himself he can’t have it. 

But Buck’s telling him he can have this, and Buck seems to have the right idea about most things. Eddie will let himself have it. 

“There you go, already listening so well,” Buck praises, which doesn’t help with how hot he is. “With your other hand, get your index and thumb a little wet, ‘kay?”

Eddie nods, though Buck can’t see that. He briefly takes the two fingers into his mouth without question, pulling them back out and waiting for what Buck wants from him.

“Bring them to your chest and pinch your nipples, keep touching yourself.”

He feels as though he’s being moved by strings, Buck overhead commandeering his limbs while barely moving a muscle. So Eddie does it, immediately whining softly at the dual sensation. He’s never done something like this, it feels like…like he’s not meant to. Like Eddie’s made to focus on who he’s with, finishing knowing that he’s making someone else feel good. Not this. Eddie isn’t meant to put time and focus into his own sensations.

His knees come up and together as he tries to clamp down on his bottom lip to shut himself up. He’s been quiet in bed, always is. But right now he doesn’t have the distraction of anyone else, so it’s hard not to let things slip.

“God, Buck,” he gasps.

He hears a whispered shit coming through the phone. Eddie faintly wonders if Buck is getting off to him, and the thought makes another noise he isn’t familiar with fall from his lips.  

“Doing so good for me, Eddie,” Buck mutters breathily. “You sound so pretty, too. Can’t even imagine how you look.”

A fluttering thought passes by, and Eddie thinks about turning this into a facetime, or even taking a video. But they both immediately get dismissed within a second; the former means having to really see Buck and come to terms with this actually happening, and taking a video means ending the call and having to look at himself, feeling the need to perform. Eddie doesn’t want any of that. He wants Buck talking to him like this while his brain is foggy with need and he doesn’t want it to stop. 

He wets his fingers again and brings them to the right side of his chest, squeezing his eyes shut and pushing his back into an arch. Eddie should open a fucking window or something, he’s starting to sweat—but he won’t.

“Ah —Buck, I need—“ He spouts out shakily, starting to twist onto his stomach to get more friction. “Fuck…”

“You wanna touch yourself, baby?”

“Please.”

The name is lost on Eddie and does little other than let him sink further into whatever this is. This thing he hopes they never talk about again. 

“Go ahead.”

Eddie shoves his hand into boxers and stutters at just how—wet it is. He assumed that was a ‘girl only’ kind of thing, always needing to use spit or lotion to get off without it being too rough. Here, his hand glides easily, making him drop his cheek into the mattress to loudly moan out an obscenity. 

“Jesus, Eddie,” Buck breathes, and for a moment Eddie’s head clears enough to hear movements that don’t belong to him.

“Are you—are you getting off to me?” He says, half moaning around the words. 

“…Yeah,” he admits shyly. “Is—is that okay?”

“Want you to,” Eddie slurs, his face sticking to the sheets as he keeps his hand moving. “Fuck, god, is it s’posed to be this wet?”

“Oh, fuck—“ Buck breaks off into a whimper. It’s the prettiest noise Eddie’s ever heard. “If…if you feel really good, then yeah. I get that, too. You—you feel good, Eddie?”

Eddie whines, pressing up onto his knees, forehead smushed into the mattress. He tries his best to shove his boxers down all the way, but they get caught on his ankles and he can’t even bring himself to care. The slick noises along with his moans and Buck’s soft words only spur him further. 

“God, Eds how are you—how do you look right now?”

He can hardly focus on how he possibly looks, so he tries to keep it to simple terms. “Uh… oh god— face down ass up? Fuck…”

Buck makes another sweet noise in his throat. “Yeah, I bet you look so beautiful like that. Already look like you were made for it.”

Eddie can’t help the choked giggle that leaves him, even while he’s fisting his cock on a phone call. “You think about that a lot, Buck?”

“Mmh, you don’t even know.”

His legs begin to struggle holding his weight up, thighs trembling a little as he moans softly. “Any—anything else you think about?”

It’s Buck’s turn to breathily laugh now. “I thought I was telling you what to do.”

“Please tell me—please.”

Buck’s easy, too.

“Okay, if that’s what you need.” He phrases it in that same fake mocking tone that has Eddie shifting to use his free arm as a headrest. “I need to know what you taste like. How you sound when I get you ready that way, buried in that perfect ass. Have you…have you gagging for it when I’m done.”

Eddie’s legs start to give out and he quickly flips onto his back, speeding up the pace of his hand enough to pull a broken moan from him. “For—for it?”

“For me,” Buck strains. “Like you are right now. Want it so bad, huh?”

“I—ah—“ Eddie cries, hips stuttering into his hand. “Yeah fuck, I’d—oh god. Buck, I’m…” He cuts himself onto into another long whine. He’s never been like this in his life, and it’s a hand job. From himself. “Want it—I want you…can do whatever you want with me, you’d take care of me—you would.”

“Oh, I would, you know I would.”

Buck would be so good to him…

“I would, baby,” Buck exhales. Eddie must have said that aloud, but he can’t help himself, he’s devolved into a puddle of incoherence. “I’d fuck you so good I’d ruin anyone else for you.”

“Please.”

“Eddie—“

“Buck,” he gasps, unable to remember the last time he had his eyes open. “Buck, I’m gonna—please, please, I want it—“

“You can have whatever you want, whatever you need, Eddie, I told you. If you want it, it’s yours. You deserve it.”

Somehow, it’s enough for him. Eddie’s body tightens and he nearly sobs as he finally releases, his ears filling with cotton and leaving him without senses that aren’t the heat that burns his skin and the way it doesn’t seem to end. 

He slows his strokes as he comes back down, but doesn’t stop until he starts to twitch and hurt whimpers get caught in his chest. Eddie lets go, blinking his tired eyes open to see the mess he’s made. It's gross, but his head is too hazy to care.

For about…fifteen seconds.

Eddie’s safely returned back to reality, except reality comes with Buck still on the phone, breathing heavily from his own orgasm. Just the sound of him entirely out of breath over the phone makes his heart skip a beat or two. 

For one moment, Eddie wishes he got to hear Buck finish. In the next, Eddie realizes what the fuck just happened.

“Buck, I—I gotta go,” Eddie pants, reaching out with his shaky dry hand for his phone. 

“Uh…yeah. Yeah okay. See you, E—“

Eddie hangs up before Buck even finishes saying goodbye and hides it under his pillow. As if that helps. 

He’s still covered in sweat and his own spend, so it’s not like he can lay down and forget about it. Eddie pushes himself up, legs shaky, to quickly use the shower and rinse himself of the evidence. His head refuses to ground itself, and the fact that Buck got him like this has thorny branches of shame threatening to dig into him. Eddie’s never been like that, Eddie doesn’t beg. He doesn’t think he’s begged for a thing in his life, always taking what he’s given, which usually isn’t much at all. Not to mention, Eddie doesn’t think about Buck that way. Never has. 

So…what happened?

He can’t ever ask, that would mean bringing it up. Eddie couldn’t do that, because that means he’s still thinking about it. That’s weird, isn’t it? 

Buck was just doing him a favor. And Eddie…Eddie’s not into guys. Not like Buck is. This meant nothing, then, because Eddie isn’t like that. Even though Buck is, he was just helping him out. So everything is fine.

It’s not like Eddie has time to think about this once he wakes up in the morning. He’s got so much to deal with; getting him and Chris to a better place, keeping his parents both in reach and at an arm's length away, and his two jobs. He can just call Buck tomorrow and act like this didn’t happen, and he’s sure Buck will do the same. 

Eddie is very good at pushing things down to focus on what really matters: his son. 

-

Sometimes he wonders if Buck is dating anyone new. It’s been two months since Eddie moved away, and Buck never speaks about meeting anyone or going on dates. He doubts Buck’s gone celibate, perhaps he is just doing hookups. Eddie isn’t deliberately thinking about Buck hooking up with people, but he’s just. Curious. Though, it would be strange for Buck to sleep with someone in Eddie’s house and in Eddie’s bed…right? 

It makes Eddie feel gross, at least. Not in a homophobic way, Eddie is not homophobic. But it’s…his bed. Even though Buck’s been there for two whole months. And Eddie knows that Buck has jerked off in there before. To him. With him. That’s not the point.

They’re both at work right now, that he knows. Buck sends him his schedule as well as the updates every time he decides to pick up or drop a shift. Eddie decided he’d do the same for all his various jobs, just so they knew when they were free to call each other. They are not free today, but he really wants to call Buck anyway. 

For some reason, this is really bugging him. Eddie should call him. Yeah. Eddie’s going to call him.

He doesn’t pick up. 

Eddie sighs, slumping back into his chair to refocus his gaze on everyone around him. Currently, he’s in a cat shelter called Purrfect Paws listening to the sounds of meowing and cage scratching. He isn’t sure he likes this one, Eddie’s just sitting around waiting for someone to want to rescue a cat. It’s hard finding jobs that aren’t too labor intensive and time consuming that also don’t require a college degree. 

He meets people on these jobs, and they’re all relatively nice to him. There are a couple other workers at this cat shelter, two women, one a little older, the other much younger. Katie is about seventeen and wears hats with pointy ears stitched in and sweaters with cats knitted into them. She’s here less often because of school. The older woman, Judy, is sweet and likes to ask Eddie how his day has been, even though the answer he wants to give is usually bad. 

His favorite cat at the shelter is a sweet Birman girl named Opal, a slightly larger cat with thick white fur, blue eyes, and a tendency to wrap her body around his ankle during their ‘out of cage’ time. She doesn’t really socialize with the other cats, but she is inexplicably attached to Eddie. 

It’s been a challenge to get her adopted out since anyone who comes in to see her while Eddie’s working notices the way she curls around his leg like Eddie owns her. Judy even sets Opal upon him when it’s her socializing time because Eddie is the only one she’ll socialize with. If he’s on desk duty she nestles into the space and tucks her tiny black nose into her paws. Eddie just smiles at her and they coexist. Him and Opal. 

But Eddie works at Purrfect Paws and also as an occasional Uber driver when he’s got free time. That’s all he’s working with.

It’s difficult connecting with others. People in Ubers don’t want to talk, even though their lives are usually the most interesting to eavesdrop on, they don’t want to listen to him, he’s just their anonymous chauffeur. And at the shelter, Eddie finds most conversations gravitating towards cats for obvious reasons and Chris because he’s unsurprisingly the easiest thing to talk about. Of course, there is filtering involved or else he’d sound like:

Yeah, my kid’s my entire world. I did traumatize him by having an affair with a lookalike of his dead mother though, and I’m really really working on fixing it right now, so I try not to ask him to do anything and wait for him to come to me every time—with the exception of picking up my entire life and moving eight-hundred miles away from everyone who truly cares about me. I love him to death though, even though he doesn’t live with me anymore. How’s your day been?

He has made progress with Chris, though. Eddie isn’t going to pretend he hasn’t, two months of talking has gotten them to a good place. He apologized, explained himself as best he could, though he still isn’t entirely sure what the deal was himself, Chris said ‘okay, Dad. I don’t forgive you yet, but…I don’t know. Thanks.’ as sincerely as a fourteen year old can. And that was enough for him for now, though they’ll definitely have to work through it more later.

Suddenly, Eddie’s phone begins to ring on the desk, which he picks up eagerly.

“Hey, sorry!” Buck says, a little out of breath, flushed with an apron around his neck. “Bobby was having me cut up a bunch of tomatoes for lunch and so I couldn’t pick up the phone cause my hands were all slimey—“

“Buck, it’s okay,” Eddie chuckles. “I just wanted to talk to you, nothing big.”

“Oh, okay.” Buck does that little thin lipped smile that pushes his cheeks out. It’s cute. “Hi.”

“Hi.”

“So,” Buck says, “What did you wanna talk to me about?”

Oh, right. Eddie glances around, making sure no one’s listening in, though he doubts these cats are judgmental. “Well, nothing specific. Just…sorta wondering what you’ve been up to.”

“We call each other every day, man,” Buck laughs. “I tell you everything I do!”

“Everything?”

“Well not—not everything, obviously. But y’know. Most of everything. You probably remember what I ate for dinner yesterday even though I don’t.”

“Okay, but how do you not remember?” Eddie questions. “You were just telling me last night you were too lazy to make anything so you ordered takeout Chinese.”

“Exactly.”

Eddie huffs a breath, really trying to skirt around his point. “Okay, yes. We…we talk a lot. But I don’t know. I feel like…I mean. Is there anything new happening?”

“Mmm no.”

“You’re sure?” Eddie persists. He doesn’t know why he persists. “No…new events or…people?”

“Nope.” A beat. “Why, Eddie? You think I should start getting out again? Going to events and meeting…people?”

There’s a lilt to his voice and a slight smirk on his face that blares alarm bells in Eddie’s head to shout, he’s onto you. Buck sees right through him, doesn’t he? 

“Uhh…I don’t know, Buck,” he tries for casual. “Is that what you wanna do?”

“Not sure. Maybe I should try it out again.”

Eddie frowns. “Yeah. Maybe.”

He really hates the silence that follows. It just reminds him that there’s nothing they can do to fill it other than speak. No way to quietly communicate with their eyes or to give reassuring touches so they know they’re okay. It’s just… nothing.

“Ugh, sorry, I gotta go,” Buck says. “Bobby finished lunch, but uh…I’ll talk to you tonight, okay?”

“Yeah, alright. See you.” Even though he won’t. Not really.

“Bye.”

“…Bye.”

-

After that call, Eddie still has no idea if Buck has started seeing anyone. It’s not the top of his priority list, but it’s not the bottom of it, either. He just feels like Buck’s started not telling Eddie everything. He’ll abruptly end calls or say he’s got plans but not specify the plans. Eddie will text him and occasionally not get anything back for a couple of hours. At first, Buck was keeping him on the phone when he went to the bathroom. On mute, but the sentiment remains.

Suddenly, Buck feels like a mystery, and being as many miles away as he is, there’s no way for him to know what’s going on unless someone tells him. Eddie could be texting Buck while Buck’s buried in someone else in Eddie’s bed—and isn’t that fucked up? 

It takes a miraculous two weeks for him to cave and call Karen about it. He’s on the way to pick someone up as an Uber, who happened to be nearly forty minutes away. 

“Eddie, it’s been a while, how are you!” 

Karen immediately picks up, very sweetly. Eddie, on the other hand, instantly feels bad about using her to get intel on Buck. He decides he’ll usher in the topic a half hour into their conversation on everything else going on over there. Maddie’s pregnancy is still going great even after what she went through, Karen’s thinking of getting Denny an algebra tutor, they’re hosting a small get together since Bobby and Athena’s house is still being worked on—no mention of Buck.

“Hey, so how’s Buck doing?” Eddie asks, once again going for casual. 

Karen snorts. “Don’t you know better than I do? You two call like every day, right?”

His cheeks burn red. “Um. Yeah. But that’s…I don’t know. I just meant like any news. Gossip?”

“Oh, you want Buck gossip?”

“That makes me sound malicious.”

“No it doesn’t, don’t worry about it,” Karen assures, moving around the house by the sound of it. “I’ve got sprinkles of Buck gossip.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yep. Because apparently Buck told Maddie who told Chim who told Hen who told me—that Buck’s trying, key word trying, to date again.”

Eddie falls silent.

“And I was like thank god, because I was worried he was still hung up on Tommy, which would be ridiculous. There’s not much to be hung up on, at least to me. Hen used to tell me things and listen, I will hold a grudge for life even if she won’t.”

“Eddie?”

“Uh—yeah. Okay,” he clears his throat and blinks hard. Eyes on the road. “I mean. Okay. How’s…is that…is it good?”

She laughs at him, laughs. “Is it good? Is what good? The dating? I said he’s trying.”

Eddie should laugh. Eddie’s going to laugh about it. “Haha, yeah. That’s…he’s…he hasn’t told me about that, actually. Which is kinda funny,” he grits through his teeth, gripping the steering wheel.

“Oh, yeah. Why hasn’t he?” Karen questions, and it’s a very good question. “Also, are you okay?”

“What?”

“I don’t know, you sound…a little…off.”

“What?” Eddie repeats in disbelief. “I am fine. Trust me, Karen, I’m fine.”

“If you say so.”

Eddie rolls his eyes. “I do say so.”

-

As it turns out, Eddie can’t get normal about that fact. 

Buck’s trying to date. What does that mean? Is he just going on failed dinners? Is he bringing them home? To Eddie’s home? Into Eddie’s bed? Do they look around at the house and wonder where the two people in most of the pictures are? God—do they think Eddie and Chris died or something? Oh, fuck. Do the strangers Buck takes home think they died? Does Buck ever talk about them? He doubts Buck’s changed the look of Chris’ bedroom. What do they think about that? Do they ask?

He’s getting dizzy just thinking about it, because isn’t it so sick that Buck can invite other people into Eddie’s house and they can be doing anything? What if he cooked them something using the kitchen he always used to make Eddie and Chris meals? Or watched movies with them or shared a beer on the couch?

Eddie’s been away from Los Angeles for over three months, and he’s starting to wonder if the house even classifies as his anymore. The bed probably smells like Buck. The fridge is stocked only with the things Buck eats. The drawers are full of his clothes, shower tray holding his shampoo and conditioner. 

It’s not really his house anymore. Eddie really has to move on from this strange obsession he’s garnered about Buck in his house. Buck’s just trying to live his life, and he’s doing it in the space of one of the biggest favors he’s ever done for Eddie. He’d never felt so cared for. It was nauseating, filling out his chest making it hard to stay upright. 

He remembers standing there, body feeling as though one wrong tap could make him crumble, and he nearly did. He remembers his team, looking back, realizing they were still there and that he couldn’t just collapse and let Buck hold him for hours while he cried in relief. His skin yearns to be touched like that, all gentle and warm, full of love and understanding. 

Eddie shouldn’t be so ungrateful and weird about it all. If Buck wants to…do whatever he wants in the house he took off Eddie’s shoulders, then so be it. It’s not his anymore, anyway. 

-

“Hey, Eddie!” Buck exclaims three days later, the audio is considerably poor.

He pouts. “Where are you?”

“In my car, why?”

Eddie tsks, rolling to lay on his front. “Your car? It’s kinda late, you going somewhere?”

“More like coming back from somewhere.”

Be normal be normal be normal be normal.

“Oh, yeah? Like what a…a date or something?” He asks, tone a little harsher than he wanted. Hopefully Buck doesn’t catch on. 

Buck groans, hand hitting against either the wheel or the arm rest. “I guess so, if you consider having one beer with a guy before walking out on him a date.” He sighs. “I couldn’t do it, I even pregamed a little so I’d be able to do it! Not enough that I’m drunk, I’m just gonna wait here for like…another half hour til I feel better. Thought I’d call you.”

“Was something wrong with him?”

“No. Not really. I mean, he was fine I guess. But he took me to a sports bar and wanted to watch the basketball game that was on—let me tell you, bored out of my mind.”

The comment pulls a quiet laugh out of Eddie despite how much hearing about Buck being out with some guy who didn’t even appreciate him irks him to his core. 

“You should just start writing ‘I don’t like basketball’ on your forehead in Sharpie before you go out on dates. Maybe they’ll get it, then.”

“Mmh, maybe,” Buck mumbles. “Just annoying. Can’t seem to find anyone that works. I matched with this girl on Tinder, which already made me feel like I was twenty-three again, and the date was awful . Like negative chemistry. You ever feel negative chemistry from somebody? That’s what was going on.”

“Maybe dating isn’t for you, then.”

“…What?”

Eddie blinks once. Twice. He didn’t say that, right?

“Not—not like—don’t ever date again, that’s not what I mean,” he covers up with an incredibly stiff laugh. “Just like…maybe…you…need to find someone more authentically,” Eddie manages to land on. It feels solid. He likes that.

Buck makes a grumbly noise. “That doesn’t happen anymore, though. That’s movie stuff, I love me a good romcom, but Eddie. Meet cutes don’t exist.”

“Sure it does! I met Marisol in a hardware store. It was kind of meet-cute or whatever.”

“Yeah, and that ended great.”

“Buck.”

“No offense, sweetheart—but…uhhh…” 

The crickets outside the window are suddenly as loud as his heartbeat. It’s less like a quiet thump easily ignored, more like a drum making itself known in a busy street. There’s so much noise, but somehow the drumming overpowers it all. He’s transported back to a couple months ago, where Eddie’s head swam and Buck sweet talked him into the best orgasm of his life—despite how all he had was his right hand and a dream. He breathes deeply.

Buck laughs shakily, clearing his throat in a way that makes it obvious he’s trying to change the subject. “Uh, y’know what, Eddie? I feel totally sober, I’m definitely good to go home now. Kay, see you, bye!”

Eddie couldn’t even get a word in before Buck’s voice cuts out and leaves him in the hefty silence of crickets and with half an erection. From one word. Fuck, he’s pathetic, isn’t he? He never remembers being so easy and pliable, Eddie isn’t an easy person, never has been. He’s had three and a half partners and he didn’t exactly love being around any one of them. Maybe he could be considered ‘easy’ with Shannon sex-wise after they found each other again, but there was no ease to that situation. Eddie was being avoidant, if anything.

Whatever is happening to him now isn’t like that. Buck  and Eddie are both being slightly avoidant, yes, but it’s not like they’re falling back on what happened in that call the way Eddie had fallen back on sex before. It’s like they’re actively attempting to be as sex-less as possible, and any hint of it sends them scrambling. 

Hopefully Buck was genuinely sober enough to hang up and drive. He doubts Buck would willingly do anything that would put him in danger, so even if he hung up, he’d probably still wait until he was completely sure. He should call back soon to make sure, right? No. Just a text. Eddie decides to wait twenty entire minutes before shooting him a message.

Eddie

Hey, Buck! Just making sure you got back home safe 😊.

The response comes in almost immediately.

Buck

hii i’m at the house now sorry if i worried you :)

Eddie

You didn’t. Sorry your date wasn’t good.

Buck

eh

it’s not the first to go badly. it is what it is!

Eddie purses his lips and thinks very, very hard about what to say next. Does he push it? Buck’s probably not in the mood to be pushed, he already ended their call when it got too close to something Eddie doesn’t understand.

Eddie

How many have there been?

“Oh, god,” he mumbles quietly, running a hand down his face. He’d been going for casual. Somehow he always misses.

Buck

like…i don’t know

15? maybe

“Fifteen?!” Eddie chokes. 

Fifteen people. Buck’s been trying dating for maybe a month and he’s gone out with approximately fifteen people. That’s about a person every other day. 

Eddie’s head spins. Maybe it wasn’t fifteen people, but instead fifteen dates. Some could have earned the privilege of a second or even third date until it was a bust. Eddie is a terrible person for the revulsion he feels while letting his thoughts tread along both options. The second may be worse, though. Those people could learn more than just surface level ‘Buck things’. Maybe they know he’s staying in Eddie’s old house. Maybe they know Buck has been trying out a ton of new hair products ever since he realized he has curls. Maybe they know about his baking obsession that turned to sourdough because he gets to feed the starter like a weird pet. 

Buck sent him a twenty-five minute voice note the other day talking about his sourdough starter and how if he keeps it too long he gets attached to it and doesn’t want to bake it. It made Eddie laugh and shake his head in amusement. Of course Buck would make an emotional connection with yeast. 

And Eddie had assumed that this knowledge was special, just for him or maybe him and Maddie and the 118. His loved ones. The people closest to him, because Buck doesn’t talk to that many people. That’s just…a fact. 

But he has to talk about something after three dates, right? Eventually he must get to that damn sourdough starter. Eddie’s hardly special at all, in that case.

Buck

you still there or did you conk out

Eddie blinks. Right.

Eddie

Yeah, sorry. Had to deal with a thing.

Christ, he might be losing it. He has no friends over here other than his son who doesn’t bother to fake laugh at Eddie’s stupid dad jokes anymore, and even though that’s shockingly a good sign, he is still losing his mind. Eddie needs to get out. Be around some adults who aren’t his parents who somewhat tolerate him or Judy and Katie from the cat shelter who think he’s well adjusted. 

Buck

oh okay :))

i didn’t even ask how you were earlier, woops

everything going okay? 

Eddie

Yeah Buck, everything is fine. 

I feel like I gotta get out sometime.

Buck

out ?

Eddie

Yeah. Out. 

Buck

like with chris?

Eddie

No, like for fun. I don’t know. 

I think I need some friends.

Eddie watches his message be read, then waits as Buck begins to type. The little gray ellipses bubble disappears for a moment, then reappears, then does that two more times. 

Buck

sounds cool, man.

“Sounds cool, man?” Eddie repeats, squinting and holding the phone from afar. “The fuck…?”

Despite the mystery surrounding Buck lately, Eddie knows Buck doesn’t talk like that. The last time he did was probably on that stupid date with Tommy that Eddie didn’t know was a date. Picking up hot chicks or whatever he’d said at the time. 

Eddie

Yeah. Maybe you should get some rest, you seem out of it.

Buck

yeah. that’s prolly it. 

night eddie :)

Eddie

Have a good night, Buck. ☺️

Buck

thanks. goodnight.

Eddie

Bye Buckk

Buck

bye eddieee

Eddie decides it’s best he not reply anymore so they can actually end the conversation. Buck has a hard time with that—as in, letting Eddie go. Every time it seems like it takes genuine effort, other than his abrupt ending to their call earlier. 

He isn’t sure why he told Buck he was thinking about going out, he’s not exactly a party person.

Eddie is really only able to let loose after at least two, maybe three drinks depending on whatever he’s got going on in his head. Like at the bachelor party with Buck, his head was rather empty and he was loose from the get go. Now? He has got so much going on Eddie wonders how his brain nerves aren’t fried. It might take a little more to get him going.

He does have a little habit of disregarding the law under the influence, though, so maybe it’s not a good idea. Like breaking into Chim’s hotel room and swapping out Buck’s booted tire for his spare so they could see that basketball game Tommy paid for. Eddie sort of wonders how he is, sort of doesn’t. He stopped talking to him the second he dumped Buck, and it actually felt like a breath of fresh air. That man was such a downer, always giving him and Buck looks when they were all together. Calling him Evan.

Eddie settles himself in on his side and promptly passes out, he has a shift in the morning and those cats are waiting on him.

He doesn’t end up going out. Something about Buck’s tone deterred him. 

-

When Eddie dreams, oftentimes they’re not so much a visual experience as they are a conceptual one. He’ll wake feeling the imprints of hands; gentle hands, rough hands, hands that pull him open or sew him shut. Digging in and leaving crescents and detailed prints like carbon dust. Staining him.

Sometimes it leaves Eddie dizzied and so out of his own head all he can do is turn over and get himself off, muffling his bone-deep shame into his pillow. 

Other times he simply curls up and wills it all away.

There are dreams where he’s buried beneath a thousand of layers of silk. Killing him just by the sheer weight—but it is smooth and cool to the touch, fatal with its delicacy. Held in a way, but his lungs can’t reach any air.

Eddie hates when these melt into one full idea, almost a real image. 

The silk pulls him taut and holds him like a pinned butterfly on display. Then the hands, they’re relentless. Molding and stretching his pliant form while Eddie can’t escape it, but finds he doesn’t mind that fact one bit since he knows this touch. Would know it just by the warmth it radiates. The firmness.

But he hates it regardless, since recognizing this sets off alarm bells in his mind. He comes to and finds whatever he’s wearing is already soiled, like a teenager. It’s a sick thing. 

Eddie isn’t losing his mind. Maybe all these vaguely psychosexual dreams means he has to get laid. Buck seemed to think he needed it, calling him poor thing like Eddie was pitiful and small, yet it didn’t offend him in the slightest. 

But ‘get laid’ feels like a shitty and selfish thing to have on his priority list when he’s here for one real purpose. No matter what, Chris is the highest priority, and getting distracted by all these ridiculous urges that call to him isn’t helping. 

He spends day after day over in his childhood home, working with Chris and starting to really make it work. And it is working. It just kills him that his parents are still trying to push him out, keeping him an outsider in his own family. It’s lonely out here, exhaustingly so. His son gets along with his parents better than he ever did, they love him more, too. Chris deserves this love, but it doesn’t make the hurt go away. Why not Eddie, too? Do they not have enough to spare?

Eddie would take the scraps if they offered it.

But they don’t.

The only way for Eddie to be held is to dream.

-

Buck

hey how was getting out and making friends? u never told me

Eddie

Oh

I didn’t end up going anywhere

Buck

oh

Eddie

What’s up?

Buck

nothing really

was just wondering since we talk everyday and i thought you left it out or like…forgot. 

idk

Eddie

Oh, no I just changed my mind. I’m a little too busy for anyone else.

Buck

😄

glad we have still got each other :)

Eddie

Yeah. I’m glad I have you too, Buck ☺️.

Buck

free to call?

Eddie

Yeah!

-

Buck

> ~~~~~~~ 10:27

Eddie

Did you just send me a 10 minute voice message of you looking for your phone?

Buck

eddie i’ve been looking for it i can’t find it i’m serious why does your house have so many rooms

Eddie

Can you think about this

Buck

what.

Eddie

Buck.

Buck

????????

oh.

don’t tell anyone about this.

Eddie

Wouldn’t dream of it.

Buck

<333

Eddie

Okay Buck

-

“I miss Buck,” Chris sighs one day. 

They’re in Eddie’s house after setting up Chris’ PlayStation 4 and Switch they decided to lug over and keep situated here instead. Chris said his grandparents don’t like when he talks to his online friends because they think they’re old people pretending to be his age so they can kidnap him, even though they’re mostly from school in L.A. 

While Eddie was in his ‘skeptical of all things technology’ phase, he got nervous about it, too. But really, who else is going to sit with a fourteen year old for hours and hours on a call playing Fortnite or Mario Kart? 

The latter of which they’re in the middle of playing right now, Eddie using Toad and Chris using Bowser. They just finished a race where Eddie lost by eight whole places. 

Eddie looks over to him, expression softening. “I know, I could call him if you want,” he offers.

“Yeah, but it’s not the same, you know?” Chris lets his head fall back against the couch. “Like how when you came here, everything just felt different than when you were in L.A. You were more…real and…stuff.”

Eddie raises his brows, eyes settling into his lap. “Yeah. I get it. I miss him, too, bud. We could still call him, though, even though Buck can’t play. Just so you two can catch up a little.”

Chris smiles then looks around with narrowed eyes. “Don’t you wanna catch up with Buck, too?”

“Huh? Oh—I don’t need to,” Eddie mutters. “I um. We called this morning.”

“For…what?”

He shrugs. “Just cause. We…we call every day, y’know? To uh. Keep ourselves busy, keep in touch. We used to talk pretty much every day before we moved here, it’s not all that different.”

Chris hums and nods in agreement. “I guess you’re right. Let’s call him anyway.”

Eddie chuckles, mumbling, “Right away, sir,” as he pulls out his phone to go to Buck’s contact. The next three hours are spent chatting away while Buck tries out making croissants and they play a few Mario Kart tournaments. It never gets awkward or quiet in a way that makes them wonder if they should hang up. It’s just easy. 

He wonders if that’s something he’s even meant to have.

-

Eddie

Hey. Call me?

There’s no text back, just an immediate flash of a FaceTime that makes a small smile grow on his face. Eddie has been in El Paso for four months, and today he is light, filled with helium and eyes dried from former tears.

“Eddie, hey! Is everything—uh—how’s it?” 

Buck’s in uniform, but at home, so he must have just gotten back from a shift. His curls have gotten longer and his birthmark is always that candy pink hue that matches his plush lips.

“Hi, Buck…” Eddie smiles shyly. “So um…not sure how you’re gonna take this. Chris and I spoke earlier today and…”

Did you miss me when I was here?

I missed you all the time, Chris. Of course I did. Did you think I didn’t?

Sometimes Grandma and Grandpa would say things and it felt like you didn’t want me anymore.

What?

Yeah…I just think…I wanna go home.

You wanna move into my house?

Well that, too. It’s…I like Texas, but…it’s not home.

“We’re coming back to L.A…?” Eddie lilts, shoulders bunching up as he grins.

“Wait—what?!” Buck exclaims, pulling the camera closer to his face. “Wait wait, Eddie, are you serious?”

He chuckles at the clear excitement in Buck’s voice and the sparkle in his eyes, like a dog wagging its tail. “Yeah, me and Chris. So…hope you don’t mind us crashing over there.”

“Well that’s…I mean you don’t…” Buck glances away and clears his throat. “This is probably the wrong thing to ask, but are your parents okay with that?”

Eddie scoffs lightly at the thought of them. “No, obviously not. They were up in arms about me uprooting his life again, but Chris made his choice. He wants to come home, and they’d never argue with Chris.”

He doesn’t let himself think about that fact too hard. All they did when Eddie was a kid was argue with him.

Buck hums. “And…how do you feel?”

“Good. Great,” Eddie sighs. But there’s no point in diminishing it. “Amazing, actually. Buck, I’m so relieved, you have no idea. I… god, I hate it here.”

“Finally letting yourself say it?”

“Yes, I fucking hate Texas,” Eddie complains, running a hand down his face. “My parents were actively trying to keep me and my son apart and I hate this house, the AC never works, the ceiling lets water leak in if it rains too hard, and one of the stovetops is angled and it makes it completely unusable because if I put a pan on it, it falls over! Shit, how do I even get rid of this place?”

The call is silent for about five seconds before Buck’s face twists with quiet giggles. 

“Don’t laugh at me, Buck.”

“I am not laughing at you, I’m laughing with you, there’s a difference.”

“Can’t be laughing with me if I’m not laughing,” Eddie mutters. He’s suddenly coming to terms with the fact that he’s going to have to sell the house right after he bought it. “Listen, Buck, I’ll let you know when all this gets sorted out, but just know. I’m coming home.”

Buck inhales deeply. “You know what? Surprise me.”

“Surprise you?”

“Mhm. That way it’ll be a little more exciting, right?”

Eddie laughs fondly. “You been watching those reunion videos again?”

“Uh…no…I don’t do that,” Buck lies. “Never done that before.”

His cheeks are starting to hurt with how hard he’s beaming, Buck is just so sweet. Like honey. “Yeah, okay. I’m gonna call you again later, alright? Just wanted to let you know that it is happening, even if it’s not right this second. I’m kind of excited to see how you’ve redecorated in person.”

Buck’s face flushes pink as he looks around. “I kinda…haven’t. I mean the stuff is different, but it’s not so different. I—I don’t know why I did that. To be fair, you’re the decorator, not me. The best I could do was put up my bike on the wall.”

“C’mon, I’m sure it looks great!”

“It’s uh…definitely on the wall.”

-

The whole ‘selling the house’ situation takes a lot longer than Eddie expected. It leaves enough time for Chris to finish out the semester while living with Eddie, getting used to seeing each other every morning and night again. That part doesn’t take much time at all, they’ve been together much longer than they’ve been apart, and within just a few days their natural rhythm has been restored. Eddie ruffles Chris’ hair and he whines about it, not because he’s sick of his dad, but because he loves him. 

He doesn’t get to tuck Chris into bed anymore since he’s fourteen, but he still kisses his forehead and tells him he loves him, knowing he’ll likely be on his phone for another hour before really going to bed. 

Buck still gets his daily calls, only it is now quite the effort to not spoil the surprise considering they’re coming back to Los Angeles in twelve days. Eddie can’t hide his big fucking grin. 

What’s so funny?

Uh…nothing. You.

Me?

Yeah, you.

Clearly, Eddie isn’t the best liar, but Buck had smiled shyly and changed the subject, so it worked out in the end. 

-

He wonders if Buck ever thinks about it. 

The sheets sticking to his damp skin, their sounds of pleasure echoing around the room, Buck telling him all the things he’s thought about doing to Eddie before. How Eddie would let him without question, knowing Buck would still take care of him even when given all the power in the world. 

What this means for himself is something that’s hard to bear thinking about. Giving everything he is on a silver platter and letting Buck feast. Eddie would hand Buck his being, and Buck would give Eddie what they both need.

He wonders if Buck thinks of the line they crossed, just as Eddie does. What that changes, knowing they both know, pretending like it didn't happen at all. Like Buck wasn’t purring sweetheart in Eddie’s ear, how it melted away all the tension in his muscles. How he yearns to hear that tone from Buck once more. 

God, Eddie wants.

For once in his life, he desires to take what he wants, and it’s a horrifying reality that just about sends him to his knees. How dare he? How selfish of him to want Buck to care for him in that way, to force unfamiliar noises from deep in Eddie’s chest and make him let go again. It’s simply not right of him. Buck helped him one time over three months ago, he’s likely forgotten with all of those dates he’s gone on. 

Two months of trying to date again could mean Buck has a new partner. Or at least some kind of fuck-buddy. Not to spiral about it all over again, but Eddie can’t help the claim he feels over his best friend. He was there first. Buck was his first. 

That’s not wrong to say, is it? There is no competition Eddie doesn’t come out on top of. They have met everyone they have ever seriously been with, he is the one who got Buck’s heart to beat again, Buck kept him from bleeding out—Buck lives in Eddie’s house, in his heart and ribs, in his marrow and bloodstream and synapses. He has his place there, just as Eddie has his place in Buck’s biological makeup. 

Just like that, all his envious thoughts of the past few months seem to dissipate. 

They are two halves of one whole, each other’s opposite and familiar. Eddie wants to give Buck everything he has. It’s only right, Buck deserves that.

Eddie wonders if Buck wants that, too.

-

It’s a long drive back from Texas, and with a kid in the car now Eddie feels more compelled to get off the road at rest stops. The trip there was nearly a straight shot save two bathroom trips he really tried to put off. He hadn’t thought of anything, not Buck’s face in the rear view, not the light rain slicking the roads, nor the deserts he’d driven through. Long stretches of flat empty land, only giving himself the pleasure of turning music on to make sure he didn’t doze off and crash.

He imagined it quite a few times, how long it would take for someone to find him if something happened. Not that Eddie’s never been alone before, he’s been physically and emotionally alone for many points of his life. It just felt different there. One long road East.

Now, Eddie lets Chris control the music so he doesn’t put on headphones and ignore him—at least for the first six hours—after that, Chris falls asleep, head bowed against his shoulder. 

Also, there’s a second companion in the backseat, held in a cage Eddie feels bad about. When Eddie put in his resignation at the cat shelter, he decided to say goodbye to Opal. It was like she knew, somehow, and had been whining and latching to him the entire time. Eddie couldn’t leave her. 

He hopes Buck doesn’t mind a fourth in the house. 

After the next two hours, Eddie pulls over to get them dinner at an In-N-Out on the side of the road, no real rest stops for the next fifty miles. The urge to call Buck is getting very real, he’s been texted about ten times today (of which he replied to all of them) and he could use Buck’s voice about now. Just three more hours. Three more until Buck’s face and voice is no longer filtered through a phone screen, he’ll be tangible and right there, right in front of him. 

It’s a beautiful thing, coming home. When Eddie parks the truck and U-Haul on the side of 4995 South Bedford Street, it’s like he never left. From the outside, the house looks the same. Buck upkept the orange trees rooted outside, he hasn’t painted the walls or added on a new room or something silly like that. It’s Buck’s house now, but it’s Eddie’s house, too.

The U-Haul can be unloaded later, the two of them are exhausted, quite frankly, and Eddie wants to lay down somewhere. Whether that be the couch or the bed, he isn’t sure yet.

“You ready, bud?” Eddie asks, practically half asleep. Opal’s cage sits right beside him on the porch.

“Mmmhm…” Chris hums, leaning into his side. 

He chuckles, rubbing up and down Chris’ shoulder before ringing the doorbell. His heartbeat accelerates as they wait, and in the ten seconds it takes for the door to open, Eddie wonders if someone else will be there. That’s ridiculous, right? Buck hasn’t said anything about anyone else, so Buck will be there to open the door. It’s late, and Eddie knows he’s off shift tonight. Unless he’s out at a bar, or at Maddie and Chim’s house, or on a date, or—

The door swings open. 

Buck looks freshly showered, hair curled in wet coils with fresh pink-tinted skin, warmed by the porch light and the shocked but soft expression taking over his features. 

It’s silent for a moment. 

“Eddie? Chris? Is—is that a cat?”

He’s got that one look on his face. Angled down with his brows drawn together ever-so-slightly, mouth unable to close itself. 

Eddie thins his lips into a smile and shrugs. “Hey, Buck,” he says. We’re home, he thinks, but he does not say it. 

“Hi, Buck, let me in, I’m tired,” Chris mumbles, scooting past a still-shocked Buck in the doorway. Before completely slugging over to his bedroom, Chris gives him a warm hug from the side. “Oh, wait, does my room still have my stuff?”

“Of course, I…didn’t move a thing.”

Eddie blinks at him, his hearing fuzzing up through Christopher’s little cheers. He didn’t move anything? 

When it’s just the two of them, Eddie isn’t so sure what to say. Four months of talking every single day, and suddenly he has nothing left. Buck is here and he’s beautiful. 

Something palpable lingers in the air between them, something thick and heavy that leaves him breathless. All Eddie can do is take two steps forward and pull Buck into his embrace, tucking his face into his neck—feeling Buck doing the same—and breathing him in. He…he smells like Eddie’s body wash. 

Eddie doesn’t point out this fact, but his face feels like it’s burning and he could go into cardiac arrest from how fast his heart beats. If Eddie went to the bathroom, he’d find that at some point Buck swapped out his own product for what Eddie uses. 

Eventually, they do pull away, hands lingering on waists and shoulder blades until Buck steps back to let Eddie in. He goes and places Opal’s cage down, opening it and letting her roam free in her new home. 

“So uh—I was gonna ask if you wanted a drink or something, but you look tired, so maybe not…also the cat?”

“That’s Opal, she’s great. Very chill. Also Jesus, Buck, you really didn’t change a thing.”

Despite all the furniture being Buck-owned, it looks like someone simply changed the swatches of the room, because everything is in the exact same spot. The couch perpendicular to the window, the coffee table before it, Buck‘s own attempt at a plant. Eddie’s decorating style holds more color to it, but looking at the full picture, it’s the same living room. 

“Uh…yeah. No, I just…I thought the way you had it looked good,” Buck excuses himself, rubbing the back of his neck. “You um…you look good, too.”

Eddie raises a brow at him and snorts out a laugh. “Thanks, Buck. Y’know what, I’ll take that drink.”

-

Under the thin sheet of fog being tipsy brings, Eddie ends up happily falling asleep leaning against Buck’s side on the couch. Everything is quiet other than the chirping of crickets he’s accustomed to and the occasional pass of cars. Buck tends to run cold, but he’s warm enough for Eddie to be nestled against. 

Eddie wakes up many hours later, expecting a crook in his neck or back, but finds himself laying flat on his side on a soft mattress. He peers over his shoulder through one squinted eye, finding the other side untouched and empty. He’d almost believe everything of the past few months was a dream if it wasn’t for the fact that these are Buck’s blankets and the frames on the wall aren’t Eddie’s either. 

He manages to get to the kitchen, though groggily. It definitely isn’t a dream, because Buck is unpacking the U-Haul and Chris is taking his belongings from boxes and bringing them back to his room. The glow in the room is a bright white rather than a golden of the early sun, it must be mid-day.

“Oh! Hey, morning sleepyhead,” Buck grins, hauling Eddie’s red armchair through the door with very little effort at all. “Thought I’d get started with this so you don’t keep the U-Haul longer than you rented it out. Is that. That’s okay, right?”

“Um,” Eddie says stupidly, blinking. “Yeah. That’s fine. Thanks.”

Something soft brushes up against his legs. Eddie beams, bending over to pick up Opal and let her rest over his shoulder. He leans in and makes a little ‘mwah’ noise into her fur. 

He refocuses his attention on the room, finding Buck smiling at him. His armchair has been placed beside Buck’s brown one. Like a set.

“I didn’t know you wanted a cat,” Buck comments, taking a couple steps closer to look at her. “Is she from the shelter?”

“Mhm. She really liked me and I didn’t wanna leave her.”

Buck’s smile grows even wider, wrinkling the corners of his eyes and flushing his face pink. He’s so pretty that way. 

-

A conversation Eddie didn’t even think would happen comes up later that day, far into the night while they’re cleaning up in the kitchen. Their comfortability moving around one another never ceased, and it makes him warm inside. He, Buck, and Chris spent the rest of the day unpacking and rearranging, choosing what they’ll keep out and put in storage. The couch and bed situation is a little difficult, the house isn’t big enough for two of each. 

Regardless, while doing the dishes together—Eddie finding that Buck sorted them all the same way Eddie had them when he left—Buck breaks their easy silence.

“Just so you know, I’ll definitely start looking for a new place soon. Won’t stay in your hair too long,” Buck mutters, rinsing out a used coffee mug. 

Eddie frowns. “You wanna move out?”

“Well, I have to, right? I mean…you and Chris get your bedrooms back, and—and I’ll take the couch for a while, for sure,” he continues, “But y’know, I need a bed eventually. For…pain…stuff…”

“Buck, what?”

“…What?”

He closes a cabinet and steps closer. “It’s been your bedroom for months now, I’m not just kicking you out. I…appreciate the… gesture from last night,” Eddie says, face warming at the knowledge of Buck carrying him to bed to sleep somewhere more comfortable. “But really, that’s your bedroom now. I’ll sleep on the couch.”

Buck turns to face him completely, expression playful somehow. “C’mon, you’re not sleeping on the couch. If you don’t get your full nights rest you turn into Oscar the Grouch. I’m not dealing with that every day.”

“I do not—“ Eddie huffs a breath. “I used to be in the army! I’ll sleep just fine on the couch, Buck. You’re making a big deal out of this, and I think it could be easily resolved. You: bed, me: couch.”

“No, no ‘you bed’, you bed!”

They’re dragging this out, but honestly, Eddie feels lighter than he has in a while. He could banter with Buck forever.

“Okay, how about this. We just…switch every other day.”

Buck’s lips turn downward in thought. “Hm. Okay. So you take the bed tonight and I’ll take it tomorrow, then.”

“Oh, for fuck’s—“

“You’re the one who suggested it!” Buck points out. “I want you to sleep on the bed.”

Eddie groans, stepping away into the dining room, hearing Buck’s footsteps following right after him. “Fine, y’know what? Fine! But you’re taking it tomorrow.”

“That’s perfectly okay with me,” he says, a bit too smug in his tone. 

Eddie narrows his eyes. “Do you have a shift in the morning?”

“…Don’t worry about it.”

“You do!”

“Eddieee…” Buck drags, then stops abruptly, giving Eddie a once over. He purses his lips in thought. “Okay, you know what—“

Buck begins to walk towards him, Eddie only managing half a step back before Buck gets to him, bending and bear-hugging his upper thighs to hoist him over his shoulder. 

His stomach swoops. Facing the ground, he yelps, “Buck—! Jesus, can you—I know where you’re taking me! I’ll just get back up!”

“Oh, no you won’t.” 

Buck’s voice is low and right against his ear. This combined with the ease at which he takes Eddie from the dining room to his bedroom makes him so hot all over he wonders if the blood in his body can rush to either end at the same time. 

He’s suddenly reminded of all his thoughts once had out in El Paso. Dreams of firm hands that now hold him by the thighs, being mostly at his mercy and allowing that for himself, allowing Buck to take him where he wants, put him in the place Buck wants Eddie to go.

His fight gives out by the time Buck’s getting him on the mattress, maneuvering his arms and legs under the duvet while Eddie takes it. Maybe Buck understands, which is only a little embarrassing to be read so easily. Eddie is not easy.

“There you go, all tucked in,” Buck beams, pulling back. Eddie rolls his eyes. “Comfortable?”

“…Yeah. But—“

“No, goodnight, Eds!” Buck sing-songs, rushing out of the room, shutting the door on his way out.

At this point, Eddie really is too tired to get up and argue anymore. It takes him finally shutting his eyes, curling up on his side and inhaling the scent of the bed to realize he’s almost fully hard from being carried around like he weighs nothing. Eddie is a full grown man, it shouldn’t be doing it for him, but the pillowcase smells like Buck’s shampoo and Eddie’s body wash at the same time. 

It smells like both of them. As if they just come as a set, inescapable even by scent. Where one goes, the other follows. 

Eddie faintly presses his thighs together for relief, but with his face still buried in the pillowcase, it worsens the situation. 

He couldn’t—Eddie couldn’t do this. Not in Buck’s bed. That’s shameful and something he dare not try. Eddie is not going to get off in Buck’s bed.

It’s interesting how the whole time he was in Texas the bed felt like it was his, but now it feels like it belongs to Buck. Everything in this room belongs to Buck, including Eddie. That thought doesn’t help him.

The urge to press his hips into the mattress is nauseatingly strong. It calls to him, this sick want. But not with Chris in the house, not in Buck’s bed.  

Eddie groans quietly and turns over, laying out on the bed like a starfish. He will most certainly deny himself tonight, Eddie’s better than this. By the grace of God, exhaustion manages to overpower the heady fire in his belly and Eddie catches onto a few hours of sleep.

That doesn’t mean he’s free from his want. 

-

A week into L.A, Eddie reapplies for his position at the station with an apology for doing ‘the thing’ again to Bobby, dooming him with more paperwork. He got the job back, of course, but he’ll start in a few shifts so things can be rearranged.

Chris’ spring break has ended, so he’s attending school again. Eddie doesn’t think he’s ever seen the kid so happy about that fact since he gets to hang out with all his friends in person again. Chris practically inhaled the breakfast Buck whipped up to get there faster.

As for that situation…well, the two of them are starting to settle into it. They take turns dropping Chris off at school, sometimes deciding to go together. They eat every meal together—unless Buck is at the station. 

They share dressers, sometimes mixing their clothes up by mistake. The three of them go out for fun, stay in and play video games, or watch movies. Sometimes when Eddie’s in the kitchen getting coffee, Buck will slide past him with a hand grazing the small of his back. He’ll get chills and neither of them will say anything about it. Buck will exit the shower with nothing but a towel on, rummaging through his drawer in the bedroom and Eddie will pretend like it doesn’t matter. 

Their bed agreement isn’t the worst. Eddie sleeps on the bed, then the couch, then the bed, and it goes on this way. They’ve brought back Eddie’s blue couch in exchange for Buck’s brown one, it just felt right. That’s their couch. 

As expected, Eddie likes his bed nights the most, but not for the obvious reasons. If the sheets haven’t been washed they’ll smell like Buck since he slept in there the night before, and now Eddie gets to fall asleep surrounded by Buck in every way except physically. 

After his first shift back at the station—where he’s given a very sweet party to welcome him back then promptly sent out on incredibly grueling calls all day—Eddie immediately passes out in the bed once the two of them get back, bed schedules be damned. His body isn’t used to all the physicalities anymore, meaning he definitely needs to go to the gym once he recovers. 

He doesn’t even dream while he sleeps, but when consciousness calls to him, he can tell someone’s in here with him. 

Eddie groans and peels his eyes open, finding Buck facing him, but not touching, face indelicately smushed into the other pillow. His breath catches, quickly realizing he was supposed to sleep on the couch today, but finding no problem with this. Buck’s arms look like they should be wrapped around something, and his lips are puffier and a little pouty like this. Not that Eddie’s never watched him sleep before, but this is different. More intimate.

He smiles faintly, sweeping a stray curl from Buck’s forehead before he gets up and dresses to go out and pick up Chris. Better let him rest a little longer.

-

After that, something shifts, Eddie can tell. When they say goodnight to each other for the next couple of days, it feels like Buck is on the cusp of crossing another line. Like there’s something stuck in his throat, but needs to work up the courage to ask.

He’s pulling on a tank top for sleep when Buck finally turns to him from across the room and says,

“Hey, should we just ditch the whole couch thing?”

Eddie glances up, eyes wide. “What do you mean?”

Buck shrugs, but he doesn’t look confused. “I don’t know, it’s just…it’s just a bed, y’know? It’s not like we’ve never shared a bed before.”

“What, like Covid?”

“Duh.”

“I mean, sure,” Eddie says, “That happened. But that was like…forced circumstances.”

Buck raises a brow. “And this is…?”

He opens his mouth to speak, but finds himself without words to describe what this is. It’s not exactly forced, but it isn’t… not forced. Buck and Eddie just live together now, and that doesn’t look like it will change anytime soon. 

To describe them in general, Eddie isn’t so sure anymore, either. They’re best friends who live together, have raised Chris together, work together, have saved each other’s lives multiple times, are legally bound, have had phone sex, and have now unforcefully slept in the same bed once. What’s a few more times? There isn’t much of a line left to cross by now. 

Eddie sighs. “I guess you’re right, there’s not much of a point in the couch thing. We can share the bed.”

“Oh, okay. Cool,” Buck smiles, though it’s awkward. 

Eddie returns it.

-

Three days.

Three days is how long it takes before they cross the line that Eddie didn’t think existed anymore. But hell, they fucking cross it. 

The first two days Eddie slept peacefully, comfortably. They kept to their sides of the bed, Buck on the left and Eddie on the right. Everything functioned the same way as before. For two days.

On the third day, Eddie dreams. He dreams of sweltering heat and being held so firmly he has nowhere to run. Sweat pearling on temples and skin flushing red. Hot breaths against his neck. 

Eddie wakes up in the dark, so hard between his legs he can’t think straight. It even takes him a minute to process the thick hand pressed into the softness of his stomach where his shirt has ridden up and the breaths against his neck.

He glances over his shoulder and discovers Buck has wrapped himself around Eddie like an octopus or maybe a koala bear or a burrito. He doesn’t know. And he doesn’t care. All he knows is that he needs to get out of this situation and slap himself silly to calm down or jerk off with the water running so no one else hears. It might end up being the latter, this doesn’t feel like it’s going to go away by pure will.

Through Eddie’s faintness, he tries to shift his hips away from Buck only to hear a gentle groan from the man. He freezes.

But oh, god, it’s hard not to give himself relief, this is torturous. Eddie tries to move again, resulting in him just subtly wiggling his legs and hips, utterly unhelpfully. 

“Mmh…” Buck drones, audibly inhaling against Eddie’s neck and pressing the tip of his nose into his nape. 

What does he do? Eddie glances around the room, trying to will something to fall loud enough that Buck could wake up to fix it and Eddie could scurry away into hiding. Unfortunately, Eddie doesn’t have telekinesis and his efforts are futile.

“D’you…d’you need help with that?” 

Eddie tenses. Buck’s mumbles are slurred, maybe he’s talking in his sleep. Buck is always so helpful and kind, perhaps his dreams reflect that and he’s doing a dream person a favor. It doesn’t mean anything.

“Eddie…?”

He exhales shakily, twisting his eyes shut and hoping this is a big nightmare. 

Buck rubs his thumb into Eddie’s stomach, moving to gently nose at his bare shoulder. “You’re all worked up, Eds,” he whispers. “You okay?”

Buck should not be talking to him in that tone right now, Eddie can’t take it. His blood flow doesn’t want to hit his brain, sitting low in his crotch. It makes his next exhale catch onto a whine halfway through. Eddie’s face explodes into heat, this is humiliating. 

“I’m fine,” Eddie breathes. Buck’s thumb on his torso is not helping his flushed skin or how the air around them is thick and difficult to inhale. “Um…sorry.”

“For what?”

“I’m making it weird,” he says, head going foggy with want from Buck being plastered to his back like this. 

“You’re not, I just offered to help,” Buck murmurs.

Eddie pauses. “With my…”

“Mhm.”

For some reason, the first thing to come to mind isn’t this isn’t who I am, or I don’t want help, that’s not something I ask for. It’s the fact that they aren’t alone.

“Chris is in the house,” Eddie quickly excuses.

“Well…yeah. But you can be quiet, can’t you?” 

Can he? Eddie thought he could until that phone call. The one they still haven’t spoken about.

Just Buck’s presence is convincing him to make this work, because Eddie could try. Though, like most things, he’ll probably fuck it up. Buck’s fingers skim the waistband of his shorts and all he can think is I can do it for you, I can do it I can do it. 

“I’ll be quiet,” he whispers so softly he almost can’t hear himself. 

“Yeah, you will,” Buck says into his warm skin. “And you’re not the only one with a…a problem that needs helping right now.”

“Oh.”

Buck chuckles, fingers tracing their way down. “Sorry to break it to you.”

He grips Eddie over his shorts. Eddie bites down on his lip, planning to keep his promise. He can do what Buck says. 

The knowledge that Buck is actually doing this only makes everything that much more overwhelming. Because this is Buck. The most important person he has—excluding his literal son—is behind him and thumbing at his erection. It turns to a slow rub, overtaking his senses in a way that automatically spreads his legs out, though a little difficult from being on his side. Buck’s socked ankle hooks under his knee and pulls Eddie back towards him until Buck’s hips are right against his ass—and he can feel him. 

“Shit, you weren’t lying about that…”

“Why would I do that?”

“I—I don’t—“ Eddie breaks off into a gentle whimper when Buck squeezes then lets go, bringing his hand up to Eddie’s face.

Before anything can even be asked of him, he gets it. Eddie spits into Buck’s hand.

Buck’s humming in approval against his shoulder, taking his newly wet hand and getting it past Eddie’s shorts and boxers. The moment he grabs a hold of his hard length, Eddie’s mouth falls open with a gasp.

“Shh.”

Eddie screws his eyes shut as Buck starts to work him up and down, thumbing along the head to collect the moisture already building up. His other hand manages to get under and around Eddie’s chest, pressing there and trapping him against Buck. This along with Buck’s hips starting to move on their own accord against him has Eddie hardly killing the sounds escaping his throat. 

“Sound so pretty, sweetheart, but you’re too loud,” Buck mumbles. He’s making tiny noises of his own, but they’re all breathy and manage to be quiet enough that Eddie can hardly hear them. “Y’know, considering the whole army thing, I thought you’d be better at this.”

Buck twists his wrist and speeds up, pulling an embarrassing whine from Eddie. The hand on his chest quickly clamps over his mouth while the other works faster. His back arches out, unsure if he’s trying to get more or push Buck away. It’s not like he could even if he wanted that, Buck has him entirely caged, two strong arms keeping Eddie exactly where he wants him all the while Buck grinds into the back of his thigh. 

Sweat beads on his face, strands falling over his forehead and sticking there when Eddie squirms against the pillow. He can’t think anymore, mind in a distant place while Buck has full control. 

“You’re doing so good for me, Eddie,” Buck pants in his ear. “So perfect like this, all mine.”

Eddie nods frantically, hips twitching. It all feels like his dreams of hands, that he now fully registers as Buck’s hands. How they held him, pulled at him, dug into him, molded him. Silk pulling him taut, gentle but firm—it was all Buck. His mind is something like a mantra of Buck Buck Buck Buck Buck as his poorly bitten back moans muffle into the man’s hand. 

Buck curls around him further, his grinding becoming deeper and sharper, face pressed into Eddie’s neck. “Y’know, sleeping in this bed without you was like a nightmare. All I could smell was you and me. But you weren’t there.”

He chokes on an apology that he can’t say, not like this. Eddie doesn’t even know why he wants to apologize, they agreed on it. 

“Not like I planned this, but— fuck,” Buck breathes. “Don’t you think you deserve to feel this good all the time?”

Using the hand on his mouth, Eddie’s head is tilted back, exposing the long curved line of his neck, curls brushing against his jaw. Eddie hasn’t opened his eyes in a long, long time, focusing so hard on being quiet and—and good. Even if he’s fucking up on the first part.

From the rustling of the sheets, the heat encasing his body, Buck murmuring praises and ‘ c’mon, give it to me’ in his ear, the darkness amplifying all of his senses, Eddie can’t take it. He claws into Buck’s arms and his thighs quiver, trying to close and open at the same time.

“That’s it, baby, I’ve got you. I’ve always got you,” Buck says. And that’s all it takes. 

Eddie tenses up so much he might have pulled something, nails digging into skin as he whines brokenly into Buck’s hand. His ears ring as they’re filled with cotton, the movements in his pants slowing but not stopping just yet, milking him for all he’s worth. Through all that, Buck’s stuttering hips and gentle bite against his shoulder as he releases with him still manages to be acknowledged. 

His shorts and boxers are ruined, Eddie can tell. He somehow doesn’t care in his floaty state, especially when Buck loosens his grip around him and tucks into him, clingy and sweet. He’s going to feel disgusting in the morning, but right now he drifts and drifts in Buck’s embrace, comforted by the knowledge that Buck has thought about that phone call, too. Eddie isn’t alone.

-

After that night, it becomes what Eddie would define as a ‘thing’. They don’t really talk about it, nothing has changed outside of the bedroom, but now they help each other out, per se. Buck gets to find out what Eddie tastes like one afternoon while Chris is at school, Eddie learns how to suck Buck off while lightheaded from hands softly tugging at his hair and a thigh between his legs. Regarding the former, Eddie had never felt anything like that and now whenever Buck asks for it all he can reply with is please.

It feels natural, normal, even. They do everything together, they might as well do this together, too. It also means Buck won’t be sleeping with or dating anyone else anymore, not when Eddie’s readily available and willing for him. Eddie likes that. No one gets Buck but him. 

He can tell Buck loves it, too. Like when they really do it the first time, Eddie wants to ride him—which turns out to be a poor idea since he’s never had any…intrusions before. He’d held Buck's chest for purchase but found actually moving to be a little overwhelming. 

He’d just gotten cooed at, mocked for being too fuck-drunk to think while Eddie tried to defend himself, repeating I can think, I can. Buck sat up and helped him through it, as he does. He said, ‘I’m the only person who will ever see you like this. Only person who has. How do you like the sound of that?’. To which Eddie whined, face tucked in Buck’s neck, because he doesn’t just like the sound of that. He loves it. He loves Buck being his and him being Buck’s.

All that time he spent in Texas worrying about Buck’s many failed dates, idiotically thinking he might not be important enough despite their daily calls, were for naught. Buck wants whatever this is, too. 

Weeks in, Eddie will stand before his mirror and press into the purpled fingerprints on his hips or waist, finding them weirdly comforting. They’re there to serve as a reminder that Buck couldn’t get enough of him, had to pull him in deeper. Falling into bed with his best friend is becoming something like an addiction. They get to feel each other closer than ever without having to think about what all of it means. 

Eddie definitely isn’t as straight as he thought considering he’s letting a man have his way with him most nights, but so what? Right? Buck figured himself out at thirty-three and it all went fine for him. Eddie can learn to live with himself, too.

If only.

Over a month into their new dynamic, Eddie has a moment, just a little…slip-up. They hadn’t even gotten anywhere yet, but Buck had been hastily undressing him with an intensity in his gaze so strong Eddie didn’t just feel half-naked, he felt skinned. It was heavy and held more than just the typical lust-driven, ‘friends but something else, too’ stare. He just couldn’t take it. He told Buck to stop, and he did, of course. Then Eddie told him not to worry and that it wasn’t his fault, because it wasn’t. It was all Eddie.

He re-dressed and left to sleep on the couch that night, only to find that he couldn’t anymore. He tossed and turned and wanted the rapid beating of his head to give him a break. But it wouldn’t. Nearly two hours later, Eddie resigned and headed back to the bedroom, climbing into bed only for Buck to immediately turn and curl around him like a sunflower presented with the sun. His heart was pressed to Eddie’s forehead, he could hear and feel every thump right against his skin. Eddie bit down on tears, but he didn’t know why. While drifting off, there was a soft, warm pressure like lips on the back of his hand, but Eddie might have dreamt it. He’s only ever held so gently in his dreams, it’s not far fetched. 

When Eddie woke up, the bed was empty and he found Buck already in the kitchen like he’d been there for a long time.

The next day, Eddie sucked him off so Buck wouldn’t have to look at him and he wouldn’t think something was wrong. Not that there is, or that Eddie didn’t want to blow him, he did. But all of Buck’s sighing praises leaked into his head anyway, making him melt and feel dirty all at once. In the back of his mind, he knew they were just words. Buck doesn’t think he’s perfect, Eddie is so far from it that shame is starting to crawl up his spine whenever Buck holds him down and lies right in his ear. He loves it, but it isn’t true. 

It even gets to him from just regular compliments now. Bobby will tell him he had a good save at work with a pat on the back and Eddie will feel itchy. Or Chris saying ‘thank you’ when he helps him out, Eddie feels the need to tell him he doesn’t want to be thanked for things he does. 

It’s not too different from his mindset the first few months Chris was gone, which should be ridiculous. He has Chris now, and they’re back to how they used to be, just with more growth and understanding of one another. But it’s not about Chris, it’s about him. There’s still something wrong with Eddie, but there always has been. He’s not taken aback by this realization.

Eddie wants to feel like he deserves to feel good, to have his loved ones be near and think he belongs in the big picture. Buck loves to reassure him in and out of the bedroom that Eddie does deserve it, but he just feels like crying. 

He even does, one day. Buck picked up an extra shift and Chris is at school, so Eddie is all alone for hours. He does nothing but melt into his bed until he feels numb from it, pillow damp from silent leaking tears. Whatever Eddie has might be incurable the way it’s lasted this long in his life. Feeling so unworthy.

He had gotten up eventually to take care of things with Chris when he’d gotten home from school. It was nice, actually. Eddie made him a decent sandwich and they talked a little until he retreated to his room for homework and video games—as a fourteen year old does. It was so normal, but Eddie just feels like a fraud.

Not that he’d ever want to tell Chris about the nature of his and Buck’s relationship right now, not in a million years, but simply Eddie’s questioning of his sense of self. Eddie told him he never wanted to keep anything from him anymore, to not lie, but it’s all he’s doing. He can’t even tell the truth to himself, not when it complicates everything and rewrites his own history.

He keeps it all held close to his chest, instead, only allowing Buck to get near whatever lies within his ribcage, that loud, beating mystery. 

After a shift once, a difficult one full of losses and missed opportunities, Buck belts Eddie’s wrists together and manages to get him tied to the headboard. While there are days where the two of them are on equal standing, there are also times where Buck needs to give all he has and Eddie needs to lie and take what he’s given. Buck wants to feel trusted and Eddie isn’t someone who accepts things from others without feeling skeptical or uneasy, but Buck can make it so he doesn’t have to accept it. He can just take it. Mixing wounded words and declarations of worship until he’s mindlessly pleading to be given more. And Buck does. Almost makes him feel deserving of it all while he’s covered in spend and sweat and tears. 

His least favorite part is afterwards when Buck apologizes for the redness on his wrists then presses his lips there and to his knuckles. Eddie’s too tired to move, head too full of cotton as Buck cleans them up and says how perfect he is, how much trust Eddie has in him, how appreciated it makes Buck feel. Cradling him into Buck’s chest and rubbing his back in slow tender circles.

Eddie doesn’t know why he hates that part so much. Maybe it’s because he’s not being restrained, but is still taking things he’s not meant to have. Eddie isn’t supposed to have this, and he feels sick that Buck gives it to him like it’s nothing. Maybe it’s all the gentle touches that differ so greatly from the roughness of just a few minutes prior. A gentleness Eddie’s never known, is unsure if he ever wanted to know. 

You don’t truly yearn for something unless you’ve nearly had it once. Buck’s softness is the real drug. 

-

On a regular day, Buck and Eddie are still Buck and Eddie. They’ll make breakfast together, bumping hips and laughing during stories or rambles. They have joint ownership of Opal, who has come to love Buck almost as much as Eddie. She is a bit of an older cat, so she’s not jumping on countertops or pushing things off tables, luckily. She’s well behaved, and whenever Eddie catches Buck playing with her his chest expands with affection. 

They have been living together for two months now, and it’s all so normal. All of their laundry is done at the same time, causing them to have to not just sort Chris’ stuff out, but their own, too. Sometimes they don’t bother with their own and just take whatever is available, slight sizing difference be damned. Their prescriptions are kept in the same cabinet, and they reach for where theirs are kept like muscle memory. The fridge is stocked with all three of their favorite foods. They take one car to work now to save on gas. Their dishes look different, but get sorted into the same places. Whenever Chris brings friends over, the kids refer to them as ‘your parents’. 

Eddie can see why they think that. None of them ever correct them, not even Chris. What’s the point? It’s not like Eddie knows either. 

He’s living quite the double life with Buck right now, maybe even a triple life. Sometimes they’re best friends and coworkers, like at the station no one has suspected a thing since they move around each other like they always have. Sometimes they’re co-parents and roommates. Sometimes they’re each other’s sexual partners who have slept together enough that Eddie has lost count, but haven’t kissed. Not that he wants to, but he thinks Buck would be quite good at it. He’s good with his mouth and Eddie’s felt them nearly everywhere else. 

Does that change things? Blur the lines between friends and roommates and co-parents and sexual partners? Eddie’s wondering if the lines even exist anymore, and if it would matter if they did. What would change?

-

Somehow through all of this they manage to keep this a secret. They’re not that careful, it just seems their closeness isn’t anything new to people. Only a couple of times do they mess around at work. It’s unlike both of them, but there’s a time when they’re on a forty-eight and haven’t slept together in nearly two weeks because life has been too busy. Both of their libidos seem to have been reborn since this started, Eddie’s never had this much sex in his life. Of the three women he has slept with, he never got much personal enjoyment out of it, which must be the difference. Sure, he came. But he never felt as deeply satisfied or even just as willing to do it as he does now.

Buck is simply his favorite guy, Eddie was always going to gravitate towards him. As if they’d been dancing around this for years, and now even two months into their benefits situation, it still hasn’t been enough to make up for lost time.

Both of them couldn’t sleep, and had checked around for anyone else who was awake. This shift must have tired everyone else out since just about every bunk is taken.

They exit quietly and stifle their giggles on the way to one of the storage closets. After closing and locking the door behind them, Buck pushes Eddie up against the wall and drops to his knees.

“This feels very Buck 1.0-esque,” Eddie breathes while Buck pulls at his belt and noses at his length. 

He chuckles quietly, managing in seconds to get the leather off and open Eddie’s pants enough to pull him out. “Nah, you would’ve hated him.”

Eddie tilts his head and inspects Buck for a moment, his eagerness and the way he’s eyeing him like he wants to devour. He couldn’t hate any ‘version’ of Buck. He’s still the same person, still full of love to give. Eddie runs his hand through Buck’s hair.

“I don’t think so.”

-

The next time something truly feels different , it happens in the way Eddie probably should have expected: Buck’s putting him through the mattress.  

Neither one of them are saying much at all, Buck is too busy panting and putting in the work, hands pushing his knees to his chest tight enough Eddie’s sure he’ll be left with marks tomorrow, and Eddie is too busy on the receiving end of all that work. They’re both off shift and Chris is at school, giving them the go-ahead to be as noisy as they please. Eddie never thought he even was until Buck happened. Now it’s like he doesn’t know how to keep it down, not when Buck is so…perfect.

He makes it so good for him, and especially now. Eddie thinks he likes it better when Buck doesn’t make him feel worthwhile, talking to him like he’s any good. This way, Eddie just gets a symphony of Buck’s unrestrained moaning and gasping right in his ear.

If he told Buck the way this is making him feel—emotionally at least—he knows he’d take it down a notch, bring Eddie back to a place where he can feel like someone rather than something. But he finds being used sort of comforting. Like he’s good for something. Useful. Eddie’s brain can handle it better than all the focus being on making him feel. 

Buck peels his head off Eddie’s shoulder, but couldn’t go far if he wanted to. Their faces are suddenly close, too close. The air in their lungs source from each other, a constant feedback loop that quickly dizzies Eddie from the lack of oxygen. Like he’s standing at the top of a high rise looking down, vertigo spinning the earth below. He sways in the wind until he falls, plummeting downwards.

Something flashes in Buck’s eyes, a slight sadness. Why? 

Why why why. What’s wrong?

Within a moment it’s gone, but Buck is too, pulling out and getting up on his knees. 

“No, no, no—please,” Eddie cries out, legs weak. “Please, I was so close—“

Buck relents easily with a whiny groan. He flips Eddie over then holds him down by the back of his neck, face pressed into the pillow. He bullies right back into him, plastering to Eddie’s spine while his sweet sad noises clash against Eddie’s muffled shouts. 

Buck shouldn’t be upset, Eddie’s been so good for him. But he is, and Eddie can tell. He’s pressing his lips into the junction of his neck and shoulder over and over again, pulling Eddie back to reality. 

He’s not some plaything, Buck isn’t talking, but not because he wants to treat him like he’s nothing. Buck thinks so highly of him, too highly of him. He’s worshipping him silently, and somehow that is what’s upsetting him. 

Eddie wants to understand, but he can’t when he’s being touched like this, ungentle but still tenderly. The drug-like softness that is Evan Buckley. Who pushes him and pulls him, molding him and filling him up like he’s Eddie’s maker. Eddie comes feeling like the god and the creation. 

He wonders if Buck feels powerful this way.  

-

Seasons change, the end of a warm spring turns to the middle of a hot summer, and nothing changes other than Eddie realizing he’s entirely gay, paired with a casual coming out to Chris and Buck. The former replied ‘ cool, Dad’, and the latter said he was proud of him with a knowing smile, and that was that. Eddie thinks that works better for him, he’s never wanted to make a spectacle of himself. 

The realizing part wasn’t easy, but he supposes it has always been there, buried deep down that even sleeping with Buck for this long could barely pry it out. 

It’s freeing, though. Eddie always thought the weight on his shoulders had to be there, but it doesn’t. It explains…everything, really. Why dating always felt like pretending to be someone else, why he could never handle having a girlfriend for too long before panicking, why he had latched onto Kim as a last resort. After Chris’ easy acceptance, he decided to tell him about that last part, to finally explain what it meant now that he truly understood. Chris had forgiven him a long time ago, but now he knows the feelings Eddie had buried deep down during that time, too. His parents may never know, but he’s hardly in contact with them anymore regardless. Not after how they hurt the two of them. 

Today, Buck uses the fresh fruit from their orange tree outside to cut them into slices as a part of breakfast. The house is warm and the smell of citrus sharpens the air, which had lured him into the kitchen. 

It is hot today, hot enough that it’s reminiscent of Eddie’s first ever shift with the 118. Chris makes spontaneous plans to go to a friend’s house since they have a pool he can dunk himself in, leaving Buck and Eddie alone. 

Usually they take advantage of this kind of time—it doesn’t come very often—but neither seem to be in the mood for it. Buck’s gathering some bags together to go grocery shopping while Eddie throws in the white wash of clothes. 

“Hey, Eds, I’m gonna head out for some stuff now, you wanna come?” Buck calls out across the house.

“Nah, I’m okay!” Eddie shouts back. He smells like detergent and they’ve been falling behind on laundry. “Just uh—hold on, don’t go yet.”

He scrambles across the house and finds Buck in a tank top and shorts next to the front door. Eddie just wanted to see him, really. He looks gorgeous dressed down too, arms large and chest defined. Eddie swallows and steps closer, plucking the written list out of Buck’s hand. 

“What, you don’t trust my memory?” Buck chuckles, arms crossing. “I know what we need.” 

Eddie knows that. Still, he pushes his lips out and walks off to grab a pen and quickly scribble two extra things. “You didn’t put the granola bars Chris has been getting into. Also, I’m pretty sure Opal needs more food. Maybe your memory is starting to fade.”

Buck rolls his eyes, grabbing the list back and tucking it in his pocket. He opens the door, one foot outside. “Okay, whatever, I’ll be back soon. Love you, bye!”

“Wh—“

The door shuts quickly before Eddie can reply, and he’s turned entirely to stone. But not cold and alone, like a statue in the sun with greenery making a home in the crevices. His face flushes hot.

Buck loves him. 

Rationally, he knew that. Of course they love each other. They just don’t really say it aloud, even in perilous danger it hasn’t been said. 

Buck just said it on his way to get groceries. Eddie’s going to see him in maybe an hour. 

He’s sure that—well, Buck had to mean it platonically. When have they ever said they love each other? They’ve lived together for about four months now and it’s never come up. He must have meant it casually. Plenty of friends do that.

Eddie can do casual, he’s so, so casual. He’s so casual about it he flies through the laundry humming a made up song, spine so tense he worries it will snap in half. The humming is more so to keep himself sane than anything else. Eddie almost starts to think he is sane.  That is until the lock on the front door turns. He freezes up again, dried shirts in hand. 

It would be weirder for him to not greet Buck. They always put the food away together, and Buck would probably know something was off if Eddie avoided him. Eddie doesn’t even want to avoid Buck. There has never been a time where Eddie has wanted to stay away from him, even during their brief fallout years back, being apart was killing him. 

He walks into the kitchen while Buck is unloading the bags onto the counter. Buck glances at him and smiles tightly. 

“Hey,” Eddie says. Casually.

“Hey.”

They unpack and stock the fridge and cabinets diligently, the silence thick and tense, aided by the humid air infiltrating the walls. Whenever Eddie turns his back, he feels eyes on him. They pierce into him like how he was exposed down to his core just a couple of months ago. Eddie isn’t sure if they make him feel so ashamed this time.

While he’s putting the last of the snacks in the pantry, footsteps approach and Buck’s hand gently lands on his shoulder. Eddie glances back, the man’s face full of worry.

“Hey, maybe we should…talk…” Buck carefully suggests. 

That’s loaded. About what? There is so much they could possibly talk about that Eddie isn’t sure what exactly Buck is referring to. Usually when that statement is said, it’s about a breakup. Eddie would know. Only, they never even started dating. All they’ve gotten to be is oddly possessive friends with benefits who have acclimatized to living together in every sense of the term. Associating Buck with dating makes his heart mysteriously flutter, but the look in Buck’s eyes looks like he’s about to make a choice he doesn’t want. 

“Okay.”

 -

“We can’t do this anymore,” is the first thing Buck says to Eddie when they sit on the couch. 

Of course, it’s the breakup route. Eddie bites his tongue and glances off. 

Buck must have realized when he said he loved Eddie that it was even more than platonic, it was completely nonsexual. They couldn’t keep up their thing if Buck suddenly can’t feel attraction for him anymore. Maybe he found someone new and he had to tell Eddie that he’s being held back by him. Of course he wouldn’t want this forever, it’s stupid, right? Eddie shouldn’t have let this happen in the first place, should have denied Buck on the phone seven months ago and hung up to wallow in his own misery. 

“Okay,” Eddie repeats, unable to make eye contact. 

“And it’s not—not because of you! Not to do the whole it’s not you, it’s me, thing,” Buck continues, “But it is…a me thing. I don’t think with how I…feel…it’s gonna work the way you want it to. I’m sorry.”

Eddie nods quietly, defeated. He’d given Buck too much, right? Or asked for too much. No one takes care of him without getting tired of it, he doesn’t even blame Buck. He couldn’t. 

“Actually, I know I just said it’s not you, but it is…a little. Like sometimes when we’re sleeping together you just, um…” Buck trails off and furrows his brows, really looking at Eddie. “You’re thinking about something, what’s going on up there?”

He glances to the side, and Buck’s searching for him, in a way. Concern lines his features. Eddie twists his mouth and inhales deeply.

“Nothing, really,” he lies. “Just…I get it.”

Buck furrows his brows. “You get it?”

“Yeah. I mean, if there’s someone else, or you’re not into it anymore I get why I would be a bother. It’s…it’s fine,” Eddie smiles, or tries to. “I’ll uh…take this burden off of you and you can get out there again.”

“…What?”

“What?”

Buck frowns, staring at him harder. “What are you talking about? I’m not seeing anyone.”

“Maybe not, but now you can.”

“Do you want me to see someone?”

Eddie shrugs, glancing away again. “I didn’t say—I don’t know. It’s not really about me, I thought. You said it won’t work because of your feelings, because of me, which I said that I get.”

“I…think you’re misinterpreting what—“

“No, it’s okay, really. We can just do the normal friends thing like we used to, and if you even wanna…wanna move out, that’s your choice and that’s fine. I mean is it embarrassing for me that you’ve seen me all…? Yeah, it is. But we—we can move past that, I can move past that. Everything’s fine.”

Eddie attempts another smile and discovers that Buck isn’t even looking at him anymore, eyes squinted and mouth open like he’s trying to solve a difficult equation in his head. 

“Uh…” Eddie clears his throat. “Are you okay?”

Buck raises a brow at him. “Are you okay?”

“I said I’m fine.”

“Um. Respectfully disagree.”

He scoffs quietly. “Okay, well I am. No matter what you have to say about it—“

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but just stop talking for a second,” Buck huffs, scooting closer and taking a composing breath. Eddie decides to listen, he’s gotten pretty good at that with Buck, anyway. Which only makes this ‘break up’ feel like he’s being left high and dry. 

“Because of how I feel, it’s making this arrangement a little difficult for me. Cause I look at you and it’s like…I shouldn’t. Not when we’re on different pages.”

Eddie tries to make sense of that statement. It’s difficult when Buck looks the way he does right now. “So you’re ending it…why?”

“Because I won’t be able to handle it when you wanna move past it. Because you will eventually, you just…you look sad sometimes, Eddie. I know you’d tell me to stop if you wanted that because you have, but I don’t want you to get some…wrong idea about me,” Buck explains, devolving into a ramble. “I don’t need it, y’know, and I don’t feel like I’m helping you because when I do, you look so sad and guilty after and even beyond that, I feel things that I know you don’t, so I just. We shouldn’t do this.”

He can’t control the way his lips pout and eyes go wide and upset. “So you’re assuming things about me and hurting my feelings to save your own? Seriously?”

Buck’s face drops. “No—no, no, no! I don’t want to—am I hurting your feelings?”

Eddie stays quiet for a moment, eyes on his lap. “I do feel guilty, Buck. But that’s just who I am, it has nothing to do with you.”

“So why does it feel like I’m making it worse?“

“I—“ Eddie huffs a breath in frustration that he just doesn’t know how to say it all aloud. “I’ve never had someone who puts focus on me like you do. I feel like I should… man up. Grit my teeth and put in the work like you do, or else I’m just. Useless. What’s the point if I don’t have a purpose?”

Buck visibly tenses beside him, eyes wide. “Eddie, you should’ve told me that you weren’t okay with it! I—I would’ve let us try something new or—or maybe I’d have stopped this sooner or—“

“No Buck, it’s not like that,” Eddie interjects quietly. “I’m okay with everything we’ve done, I mean that. It’s only that whenever you take care of me, it’s a lot. No one just does that for me. I…I feel too much and I don’t know what to do with it. Where to put it. I always end up feeling guilty about it.” He frowns deeply. “It’s not mine to take.”

He didn’t plan on carving himself open this afternoon, but Buck manages to find a way to make him feel safe when he’s pulled apart. It’s clear that Buck had planned for an entirely different conversation, yet he moves with the changing of the tides anyway. Steady and anchoring in a way Eddie doesn’t get. He always feels like he’s drowning, or buried alive.

“Eddie, you…you don’t have to be putting in the work all the time,” Buck says, eyes pitiful. “I want you to feel like you can relax and let someone else take the wheel for a little. If you want that, you can have it. You shouldn’t beat yourself up about that. And with how we’ve been doing this, neither one of us is ‘more of a man’ than the other. I don’t know if there’s anything I can do or say to make you believe any of this.”

Eddie shrugs tiredly. “It’s not like it matters, you said we’re done doing this because of how you felt anyway. I’m not gonna force you to do this for me, especially when I’m so...me about it.”

“I still feel like you’re really misinterpreting what I meant with that…”

“Mind actually explaining it, then?”

Buck blinks rapidly, biting his tongue. “Um. Okay. When I said feelings, I didn’t mean—I wasn’t trying to say that there was…a lack of them,” Buck explains slowly, eyes wide and a little frantic. “The problem is I feel things too hard, too, and I get attached.”

“Like…your sourdough starter?”

Buck pauses. “Yeah. Like. Like the sourdough starter. But Eddie, you are a lot more than a sourdough starter.”

“I’d hope so.”

“Okay, well the point wasn’t the sourdough, just. Hold on,” Buck holds a hand up to compose himself. “I had stuff I wanted to say, but now I’m not sure after what you said.”

“After what I said?” Eddie mutters, shoulders tight. 

Buck nods. “Well, communicating a little will do that. I didn’t know you felt that way, so…it changes things.”

“Like?”

“Like how you apparently think you’re unworthy of anything good in your life,” he states, words true in a way that doesn’t help Eddie’s shame. How is it he’s ashamed of being ashamed? 

Eddie curls into himself, emotions running high and denial settled into his head. “You make me sound terrible,” he mumbles. “It’s not like that. I…I like having you here. I like when you—when you know what I need. I feel…I don’t know. Cared for, I guess. I’ve always liked how you are with Chris, and now the cat. I like—I just like this. Y’know? It’s good. I know it’s good, the life we have. Sometimes I just can’t feel it.”

Buck’s chewing on his lip, silently waiting for him to finish. “The life we have?”

“Isn’t that what it is?” Eddie questions. “We take care of Chris together, we live together, we work together, we go everywhere together, we sleep together, we—we have a joint grocery list and I know which of your clothes shouldn’t go in the dryer so they don’t shrink without looking at the labels! I mean—“ A laugh tumbles from his mouth, “Is this not a life, Buck?”  

“I didn’t—I didn’t know you—“

“Buck, I’m driving myself insane here! I don’t know how to act around you anymore because I don’t know what mode I’m supposed to be in. Just tell me so I can know where to draw the line because I have been trying, but I don’t know what the line is!” He recognizes flickers of anger that he’s never been able to spark to life in these months. Always withering away into a deep sadness that made him want to curl around Buck and hold him there forever. “Is it just…are we friends? Friends with benefits? Coworkers? Roommates? Co-parents? I don’t know!” Eddie freaks. “I don’t know, and maybe that’s also why I feel like this all the time, I just want something I can understand. Something… stable.”

Eddie takes a shuddering breath, continuing on. “I kept feeling like if we talked about it, everything would fall apart. Or maybe you’d say something to me that would make me realize you didn’t mean all those things you say when we’re—y’know. And I wanted you to mean them, even though I don’t think they’re true. You say such nice things to me and we have this life that I don’t want to lose, I just…I need to know what you think this is before you tell me you want it to stop.”

He finally looks over at Buck again, though he’s blurred from the dampness in his eyes. It reminds him of his last glimpse of Buck in the wet side view mirror as he drove off to Texas, only he’s not driving away this time. He’s looking right at him, and Buck looks so in awe of Eddie. 

Buck moves to sit closer and gently grabs Eddie’s hand, pulling it up to his lips to press a soft kiss into. His eyes are sad, yet sparkling from the sunlight through the window. Eddie recognizes this feeling now, he’d thought he was dreaming once. But Buck does it now as a reminder and a way to hold him steady. Anchoring him.

“I think…” Buck starts, voice wavering just a touch, “that you’re in love with me. And I’m in love with you. And we are both being…really…really stupid.”

Eddie turns to stone once again, heart stuttering and hands turning clammy. But flowers are blooming in his chest, spreading out and taking up all the space inside of him. Buck is in love with him. 

Of course, Eddie must be feeling that, too, for that sentence to affect him in such a way.

Buck and Eddie are just two sunflowers that mistook each other for the sun. They’ve grown reaching towards each other, because of each other. Separating would wilt both of them because they’d lose their light. Buck doesn’t want to leave him, to end this, he’s just worried Eddie would be able to live on without him. As if the real sun is enough for him. It never could be.

Eddie smiles. He loves Buck.

“Am I right?” 

Eddie’s still beaming, cheeks likely red with how that statement makes him feel. Eddie is in love.

“I do love you,” he says simply.

“I…” Buck scans him, breath catching. “Oh god. You really do?”

“Buck,” Eddie frowns. “Yeah.”

Buck practically pounces at him for a hug, maybe not realizing he’s forceful enough to make Eddie land flat on his back on the couch. Eddie yelps and grapples at Buck’s shoulders to stabilize him.

Who was Eddie kidding? Of course he wants to kiss Buck. He’s rambling, “Thank god, I was so nervous I was wrong and I felt so crazy because sometimes it felt like you did and I wasn’t sure and it was driving me insane because I want you so much all the time, like seriously, even while you were in Texas I was losing my mind—“

“In Texas?” Eddie breathes, overwhelmed.

“All those dates I went on, I couldn’t even do them because I just kept thinking about you.”

“Okay, well I didn’t want you on those dates either,” he just has to mutter.

“Of course you didn’t,” Buck teases, grinning all pretty and gorgeous. 

Eddie rolls his eyes. “Don’t point out my jealousy problems. You’re a hypocrite, you almost broke my ankle once, you’re crazy . As if Tommy was ever a real threat.”

“I…okay.”

He smiles again. “We’ve both got problems, now kiss me, please.”

Buck does, and though he’s felt his lips on his skin for months now, it’s never been here. It’s new, it’s perfect. Eddie brings a hand up to hold him by the cheek and deepens it a touch. Kissing Buck is easy actually, it’s like breathing and loving him. They move together, soft and gentle, like silk. 

Buck pulls apart just enough that their lips are still brushing. “Y’know that date I went on with that guy at the sports bar?” He mumbles. “Where I called you after?”

Eddie grumbles in his throat as yes, unfortunately. 

Buck reconnects them for a moment. “I didn’t just leave because of the basketball,” he admits quietly, but not shamefully. “I left because he wasn’t you. Because I knew.” Buck kisses him long and slow. “I knew I still wouldn’t have given a shit about the game, but at least I’d have you there. I would’ve stayed if it was you.”

“Buck—“

“I just wanted you.”

Eddie wraps a leg around Buck’s hips and licks into his mouth, quickly changing the mood. It’s awful that he can’t speak and kiss Buck sloppy at the same time. 

“I couldn’t stop thinking about you, either,” Eddie says quickly, groaning when Buck presses a knee into his crotch. “I dreamt of you.”

“Mmhm?” Buck starts kissing down his jaw, nipping below his ear. 

“Felt like a stupid virgin, I just wanted you all over me.” Hands grip his waist and pull him onto Buck’s thigh harder. Eddie bites back a moan, tilting his head back to give him neck room. “Sometimes I—I wouldn’t even have to get myself off. I’d wake up finished because I just wanted you to…to have me.”

“You have me, baby, you have me,” Buck breathes. “All of me.” He kisses back up Eddie’s neck up to his mouth and recaptures him, deep and wet as the thigh starts to move. He already feels light, held and hot. The sun is still high in the sky, the air already humid and thick. Eddie can hardly breathe, but he loves it. Buck pushes his shirt up, disconnecting to throw it somewhere in the living room. “You always had me. Sometimes it was like torture, though, fucked you so many times, never even got to kiss you. It was killing me.”

He’s right. They’ve done this dance plenty of times before, but never like this. It feels so real now, it has him wondering…

“So— if you’ve been in love with me this whole time, did you mean all those things you’d say when you—y’know?” He gasps as Buck nips down his chest.

Buck glances up, eyes hungry. “Were you lying all those times you were saying I made you feel good? All your ‘right there, Buck’s, telling me I’m so good to you? Making me feel like I’m doing everything right for you?”

Eddie swallows. “No.”

“Then why—“ Buck tweaks one of his nipples, making Eddie arch up and gasp. “—would I be lying to you? You’re perfect, and you’re so beautiful.”

“I…I don’t know.” His head swims. “Didn’t think I deserved any of it.”

Buck frowns, moving to kiss him softly. “I want you to know you do. You shouldn’t feel useless, you’re everything I’ve ever wanted. Ever needed,” he mutters against his mouth while rubbing his thumb into his nipple. “I’ll show you exactly what you deserve, sweetheart. Okay?”

“Fuck, how much have you been thinking about that phone call to remember that?”

“You don’t wanna know.”

“I do.”

A playful smirk stretches across Buck’s face. He pulls off his shirt and throws it aside. Eddie’s eyes can’t help but wander, even though he’s seen him like this plenty of times, he’s just gorgeous. Soft fat over a bulk of muscle that Eddie loves biting all over. Now that they’re allowed to kiss, he knows he wants that too. 

“Thought about it so much,” Buck says, getting his knee back in its spot between Eddie’s legs. “Most of the times we called I’d have a moment where I’d remember how you sounded. Never heard you like that before, I almost thought I made it up after a while.”

“Oh, well—ah, fuck,” he moans softly, breath catching. Buck grabs him by the hips and moves him on his thigh. “I was…driving myself so crazy wondering if you thought about it like I did. But I was just. I mean I was so—oh—so busy. So. Worried. Didn’t wanna ask…”

“Uh huh?” Buck teases. His cockiness and the way Eddie can hardly think straight already has him whining softly. 

“Mmhm. Like when you—“ Eddie manages to flush deeper, he can see how red his chest is, he can’t imagine what his face looks like. “When you called me sweetheart then hung up. I wish you didn’t go.”

Buck hums out an ‘mmmh’ to show he’s listening while his hands slide closer to his ass and pinkies dip into the waist of Eddie’s sweatpants. Eddie would think he’s almost disinterested if it weren’t for the way his eyes shimmer and his cheeks are the same color as his birthmark. He’s not just interested, he’s enthralled. 

“You would’ve gotten yourself off on the phone again?” Buck questions, almost hopefully. Eddie bites down on his lip and nods. “Oh, you are so desperate for it.”

“For you.”

Buck grins and kisses him again, full of love and the promise of forever with a heavy touch of passion. He lets go, the pressure on Eddie’s erection is ripped away from him and he whines on instinct, embarrassingly. He gets up, pulling Eddie along with him until they’re going from wall to wall kissing with a fervor of two starving men given a feast. They should have been doing this all along, because neither of them can get enough of it. But maybe Eddie likes it more that they waited so long. Neither of them have kissed anyone else in at least four months, meaning the skin of their lips hasn’t touched anyone else’s. Ever. 

Eddie grins, letting himself be pushed onto the bed and undressed, laughing to himself just at the thought.

“What is it?” Buck questions, hands busy undoing his belt.

“You’re all mine.”

Buck raises an amused brow, pulling his jeans down and kicking them off the bed. “Oh yeah?” He smirks with a tilt of the head. “What does that make you?”

Eddie shifts, dragging his gaze from the bulge in Buck’s boxers all the way up to his pretty pink birthmark and curls. “All yours,” he says softly. 

The air seems to change, then. Buck’s smirk becomes something sweeter and kinder as he moves on his knees towards him until Eddie’s leaning back into the pillows. 

The weight of Buck on top of him isn’t new, knowing he’s loved is. It was easy to go at one another in the living room, but taking it slow knowing they’re not going anywhere isn’t what they’re used to. But as Buck changes the pace into something syrupy and achingly sweet, Eddie simply melts beneath him, snaking his arms behind his neck while kissing him languidly. Buck’s straddling over his thigh and manages to get some relief from it, moaning right into Eddie’s throat. 

Eddie’s laid entirely bare with the love of his life holding him like he’s fragile and something precious. It’s hard to believe Buck could see him this way, someone worth being caressed and held. But he must, Eddie trusts Buck with all he’s ever known and Buck wouldn’t lie, especially not in a time like this. 

When it gets to the parts they’re familiar with, Eddie knows how to hand himself off, knows Buck loves making him feel good to the point where he gets off on just that. 

One, two, then three slick fingers pump in and out of him as Buck peppers his face and neck with kisses. Eddie feels like a pathetic mess, eyes struggling to stay open in both bliss and timidity while noises slip from him with no restraint. 

Buck is one hell of a talker during sex, and he loves to do it right in Eddie’s ear so he doesn’t miss a word of it—pressing his lips to his cheekbone and biting at his earlobe. Buck might have some kind of oral fixation, Eddie wouldn’t be surprised. Though, they’ve both got a bit of a biting thing. Regardless, Buck is rubbing on his prostate while murmuring filth and praise in his ear, and Eddie writhes, ending up with begs and pleads tumbling from his mouth. 

“Don’t worry, I’ll give it to you,” Buck answers. “I just want to hear you say you deserve it first.”

“Buck…”

“C’mon, Eddie,” he teases, fingers slowing their movements. “I know you do, but I need you to know it, too. Tell me you deserve to feel good and mean it.”

Eddie is already blissed the fuck out, eyes screwed shut, face half pressed into the pillow, his head is hardly even on straight. Still, the words manage to register with him and are immediately rejected. 

“M—no, I’m—“ Eddie groans through his teeth. “Please, just… please.”

A hand wraps around his jaw and carefully pulls his head up to where he can feel Buck’s exhales against his face. “Eddie, look at me,” he orders, tone still soft and sweet. Eddie’s always loved that about Buck. He’s so persuasive, but he never raises his voice to make a point to Eddie. He isn’t sure he’s ever heard Buck yell at someone. 

So, Eddie does what he says despite how the sensations coursing through his nerves try to force them shut again. Buck shutters into focus above him, cheeks flushed, birthmark and lips wine red while his eyes pierce through him. Eddie couldn’t turn his head away if he tried, Buck’s grip on him just the right side of unyielding. 

He’s entirely exposed. Eddie doesn’t regret telling Buck all that’s been plaguing his mind for months, but now Buck wants something from him. Three digits still move in and out of him, but he’s not giving it to him as good anymore. Purposely. He’d know if Eddie tried to angle himself differently, and he’d stop him. 

Eddie could always put an end to this like he had once before, when he’d felt skinned and eyed like he was worth more than he believed, but finds he doesn’t want to. Buck is everything to him, half his heart and the only person in the world he’d give himself up for like this. Eddie wants to feel deserving of Buck’s love and attention, always has. Only now, he’s finally going to allow himself to reach for it and keep it close to his chest, to let Buck have him and for him to have Buck. 

“Eddie, I need you to—“

“I do,” Eddie whispers. Buck’s thumb eases up on his jaw and his eyes soften. “I do deserve it.”

Buck seals it with a kiss.

He pulls out, using his other hand to stop Eddie from chasing after him. “Promise, I’ll be right there…” He pauses, glancing down at Eddie’s flushed form with a small smile, “…princess.”

He lathers himself up and whimpers from the sensation after going without touch for so long. Eddie had asked him about that once, why he always waits so long before giving himself any real pleasure even when he wants it so bad. Not in so many words, but Buck had said he had a thing for it. The…waiting of it all. Being pent up.

Eddie doesn’t think he could do it. Purposely, at least. He’s more desperate than he thought he was. 

He hardly even renders ‘princess’ in his head, and won’t until hours later when it’s all over. He couldn’t anyway, not when Buck lines up and presses into him, filling him while soothingly rubbing his thighs. Eddie goes boneless. The knowledge that for right now Buck is a part of him, being surrounded by Eddie in the closest way they’ll ever get, pulls that possessiveness he likes to pretend he doesn’t have right back out of his chest. Buck looks to be affected by it the exact same way, ogling their hips pressed together like it’s the first time they’ve done this. Eddie isn’t sure if he wishes it was or not. 

Maybe not, that’s a lot of memories gone that he’d like to keep. Even the less good ones. 

“You always take me so well,” Buck breathes, rolling his hips to make Eddie tremble. “Never met someone more perfect in my life.”

“I love you,” he gasps on instinct through shaking breaths. Eddie clutches onto Buck’s hand that spreads his thigh out, squeezing tight. “You’re so good—so good to me.”

Buck smiles, face flushing despite already being buried to the hilt. Of course Buck would blush at a time like this. “I love you so much…”

It’s sickeningly sappy, but Eddie’s always been a sucker for sweetness. He’s simply a nester, it’s what he does. For all his life he’s wanted to be someone’s, to love one person for all his life and never lose the spark until they die. For a long time, Eddie didn’t think it was possible for him, too full of cracks or just too sad to be able to see himself being loved forever. 

Eddie sees it now, with Buck making love to him deep and slow, yet more intensely than anything they’ve done before all at once. Fingers interlocked against mattresses and tongues tangling, praises sighed and an inability to pull away from each other. Buck’s hardly sliding in and out, just enough to massage the spot that makes him twitch and whine while Buck gasps open mouthed against his.

It’s a slow boil of a build up rather than one like electricity that shocks all of his nerve endings alight. It reminds him of a warmly lit home, a shared bed, being held and caressed until sleep takes you in its welcoming arms. 

It hits both of them at once, overwhelmingly hot and brain-melting. Eddie’s half-silent, back bowed as he’s worked through it, filled up as Buck releases with a whine. Neither of them move for a while—other than Buck slumping over him like a weighted blanket—and just breathe. Eddie’s vision is splotchy, ears ringing as his legs stay wound tight around Buck’s waist. 

The day hasn’t ended yet, the sun is relatively high. There’s still more time for them. 

Eddie finally moves to press his face into Buck’s hair and breathe him in. He smells a lot like sweat, but Eddie kind of likes that. He thinks he likes everything about Buck. 

“When do we have to pick Chris up?” Buck slurs out of exhaustion. 

Eddie estimates by the amount of sun in the room that it’s just before four. “Probably a couple hours.”

“Wanna shower?”

“Mmh,” Eddie agrees. “But not yet, I feel like jello.”

“It was that good?”

He scoffs. “Shut up, you know it was great. You’re always amazing. Even over the phone you had me…y’know.”

Buck laughs quietly, the sound seeping into his skin. “Yeah. Just wanted to hear you say it.”

“Of course you do,” Eddie groans, smiling into his damp hair. “Typical.”

He moves his fingers through Buck’s curls while feather-light kisses ghost his shoulder, right over the old pinkish scarring. 

“I wish we just like…talked to each other,” Buck mumbles. He still hasn’t pulled out yet, so Eddie isn’t sure if this is the conversation he’s yearning for. 

“I can’t believe you were saying all of those things to me on the phone and didn’t realize you had feelings for me.”

“You liked it and you didn’t know either!” Buck lifts his head and scrunches his brows. “When did you figure it out then?”

Eddie flushes. “Uh…when you said it.”

“Oh, wow.”

“Don’t take it personally, I have— problems,” Eddie sighs, grimacing when Buck shifts. “By the way, you are so…in me, still.”

Buck glances down, like he forgot. “Oh, shit, yeah.” 

Maybe he did forget. Regardless, Buck pushes up to hover over Eddie again, smiling tiredly. “I’m glad I could actually help you this time, by the way. I was…worried I was just hurting you.”

“No, Buck. Never,” Eddie frowns, resting his hand on the side of Buck’s face. “If anything, I was hurting myself. But I don’t wanna feel that way anymore. It sucks.”

Buck thins his lips out and nods slowly, eyes tracking over Eddie’s face. “Good,” his lips curl up sweetly. “Shower now?”

“Ugh. Okay.”

-

Despite all their talk of defining what they are, there still isn’t a definite label. Technically, they’re dating, but it seems they’ve done it all backwards. Raised a kid, then slept together, then confessed their undying infinite lasting love for each other. And yet, Eddie thinks he’s okay with that. They’re built off blurry lines and a red string of fate connected on three ends. But really, they should be married. 

They decide to tell Chris the next day, by the time they picked him up the night before, he was sporting sun exhaustion and a burn across his cheeks and nose. Eddie reminded him how reapplying sunscreen isn’t embarrassing, he’s just fourteen, then rubbed some aloe into it. 

It looks much better now in the early morning light where all three of them sit at the dining table with breakfast. Buck made pancakes while Eddie made eggs side-by-side in the kitchen, careful not to get too touchy before they even tell Chris.

“Hey, bud,” Eddie says to grab his attention. “Buck and I have got something to tell you.”

Chris licks syrup off his fork and nods to show he’s listening. Eddie shares a glance with Buck before tentatively continuing. 

“So…I know after we figured everything out in Texas, I told you I wouldn’t keep things from you anymore. Well, Buck and I decided to talk some stuff out and um…” Eddie taps Buck for his cue.

“We are dating,” Buck blurts bluntly, smiling in that cute way that pushes his cheeks out.

Chris looks between them, brows slowly furrowing. “I already knew that,” he says.

Eddie blinks. “What?”

“I’m confused. Is this new news?”

“Uh…yeah, Chris.”

Chris’ eyes widen and he places his sticky fork down on the table. “What?! I’ve told all my friends you’re dating!”

“What?!”

Buck’s jaw is practically on the floor. “Why are you talking about us to your friends?”

“Because they ask?” Chris says like it’s obvious. “Why do you think they were calling both of you my parents? Also we only have two bedrooms, and the couch hasn’t been used in a long time. Buck’s spare pillows and blanket in the closet have dust on them.”

Eddie presses his hand over his mouth to suppress a laugh at how ridiculous this is. All this struggle and confusion between them and their fourteen year old son was able to easily define it because the couch was out of use. Eddie’s life is a joke.

“Wait, so—“ Eddie huffs, trying to make sense of it all. “How long have you thought we’ve been dating?”

“Since…well I don’t know. You guys just looked at each other sometimes and I thought you were.”

“You didn’t question the lack of kissing or anything?” Buck asks.

Chris wrinkles his nose. “No, I didn’t, and eugh. I don’t wanna see that.” He sighs. “I thought I definitely knew once you came out,” he shrugs. “I just thought, yeah that makes sense. You’re dating Buck and now we can be a real family.”

A real family. Eddie smiles sadly, leaning over to rub Chris’ shoulder. “We’ve always been a real family, bud.”

Chris smiles. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. So you’ll stay forever, Buck?”

“You know it.”

-

In typical BuckandEddie fashion, they date for two and a half weeks before the label feels too juvenile for what they have. 

While they’re off shift and Buck isn’t following him around like a puppy, Eddie secretly goes out to buy a nice ring that won’t devastate his bank account. He lands on a golden band engraved with a sunflower, a reference Buck wouldn’t understand, but he’s sure he would love anyway. 

Buck made dinner reservations for a night out since the house will be kid free for the first time since they got together (two and a half weeks ago). 

Eddie has a plan. He’s not going to propose at the restaurant because even though Buck loves attention, he wants it to be just for them. Special and quiet, intimate. 

And the dinner is nice, it really is, but Eddie can hardly focus when his jacket pocket is full and Buck’s ankle is interlocked with his. Eddie thought Buck’s gaze would be more heady considering the house is empty tonight, but it’s just full of love and maybe even lost in thought. 

When the receipt comes, Buck’s placing his credit card and thirty bucks in the booklet before Eddie can even offer to split it, or pay it himself. Buck just smiles at him, saying he’s treating Eddie today.

Once they get home, they’re pressing soft kisses into each other’s lips, but nothing further. Eddie pulls back to speak.

“Hey, I’ve got something I wanna tell you,” he mutters.

Buck beams, though a little frantically. “Me too, please let me go first, I’ve been dying to tell you all day.”

Eddie chuckles. “Okay,” he says, because he loves listening to Buck talk.

What he doesn’t expect is for Buck to step back and start getting into a kneel, reaching into his pocket—

“No—!” Eddie gasps, mouth ajar.

Buck freezes, hand halfway in his pocket looking up at Eddie in fear. “…No?”

Shit.

“No, no no no—not no! Yes! Definitely yes!” Eddie breathes in disbelief. 

Buck still hasn’t moved. “Wait—I didn’t even get to propose yet. Let me…let me do my thing, don’t interrupt me!”

“I’m not, baby, I swear, but…” Eddie fishes into his own pockets and pulls out the closed case to present to Buck. 

Buck quickly gets back to his feet, finally showcasing his own ring box. “You little…copier…” He gasps. “You were going to propose after my dinner reservations?”

“Yes I was, Buck. I can do things, too!”

“I never said you couldn’t!”

Eddie pouts, looking down at his little velvet box. “I thought I was unique.”

Buck giggles. “Guess not. But really, Eddie, I…I feel like saying my whole speech is silly now. I was basically going to start with ‘maybe you think it’s too early’, but…I don’t think you do.”

“Nester, honey.”

“Right.”

Buck purses his lips in thought. “You know what…” He steps back and gets back on one knee, opening the box to reveal a gold band of his own. It looks like it’s engraved with stars. Eddie smiles fondly. 

“When I was a kid, Maddie would tell me that everyone becomes stars one day, that after we’re gone that’s where we go. Even though I’ve gone on about fifty different deep dives about stars in my life, something in me still believes in that.” Buck takes a steadying breath, eyes watering. “So when I got this, I thought that. That I want to love you even when we’re stars in the sky. There’s never been anyone else for me, and there never will be. And I—I can’t believe I don’t even have to ask, this is ridiculous,” he laughs wetly.

Eddie feels flowers all around him, as if they’re growing and spreading at his feet. Buck wants this beyond life, he wants it in death, too.

He reaches his hand out shyly, letting Buck slip on the gold band and kiss it. He stands again, looking at Eddie with so much love he isn’t sure how he failed to see it for so long.

“My tuuurn,” Eddie sing-songs, giggling as he gets down on a knee. Being down here with the ring in hand makes his stomach swoop, suddenly. The air seems to thin around him and words create themselves. 

“Actually…the first time I had to do this, I felt so wrong,” he admits quietly, but firmly. “It felt like the world was ending, but that’s not what it’s like, I get it now. You’re my first and only love, and I want us forever. We’ve grown so much together, we’re defying the laws of the universe and facing each other instead of the sun. We’re both sunflowers, but you’re my sun, and I’m yours. It’s cheesy. But I like it,” Eddie smiles. “I think I deserve some cheesiness.”

“Oh, I am gonna love being married to you,” Buck grins as Eddie fits the ring around his finger, kissing it just as Buck had.

“Good, you better,” Eddie says, kissing him lovingly. “Chris already knows, by the way.”

Buck sighs. “I know. I asked him, too.”

“…Oh god, he left knowing we’re both idiots.”

He gets a grimace in response. “I think he already knew that, sweetheart.”

“Definitely knows.”

More giggles burst from Buck’s chest while he kisses Eddie again, slow and sweet. They stay that way for a long time, swaying in the kitchen with wedding bands around their ring fingers. Their perfectly independent kitty, Opal, decides to nestle her body into the artificial porch light streaming golden rays through the window. Chris already knows about them. They’ll be okay. 

Eddie’s still working on himself, gaining the courage to fully leave the cage he’s kept himself in, especially when the cage is all he’s ever known. But he’s getting there, letting himself have things he felt undeserving of or territorial over in fear and insecurity that he wouldn’t be enough for them. But Buck isn’t going anywhere, his family isn’t going anywhere, the life they’ve made isn’t going anywhere either. 

They aren’t defined by a phone call and the distance between them, or the miscommunications and tears shed. Eddie wants to be defined like this. Joyful and in love, sunflowers and stars, strings of fate, friends and coworkers and parents and lovers and fiancés. They’re all of these things, and Eddie knows he deserves it. 

He’s earned it.

-