Archive of Our Own

In the third grade, Eddie learns that the sun will die in five billion years.

He sits in the back of the classroom, teeth tearing at his bottom lip, a mix of panic and dread rising in his gut. He isn't able to shake the feeling for a while. 

Eddie doesn't sleep that night. He spends the hours sitting on the edge of his bed and staring out the window, watching up into the sky to make sure it didn’t implode.

His eyes become dry and strained, because he can only risk blinking so many times. Terror spreads across his chest with every airplane that looks too much like a falling star flickering past. The inside of his cheeks are gnawed raw, ready to turn into cold sores by the end of the week. His nails dig into the center of his palm, long enough they will leave indents well into the morning, if it comes. 

The rest of his life has sort of felt like that night. 

If Eddie isn't looking out, something bad will happen. 

A month later, Eddie’s abuelo has a heart attack. Eddie had gone swimming at the lake, and if he was with his grandparents instead, nothing would have happened. But he wasn’t, and it's his fault that his abuelo died. 

When Sophia trips during recess and scrapes her shin, it’s because Eddie is in middle school now and couldn’t watch over her. She wouldn’t have fallen if he was there. 

Adriana loses her last baby tooth play-fighting at a birthday party, and it’s because Eddie didn’t go with her, thinking she was old enough to go on her own.

Eddie’s helicopter goes down in Afghanistan because he isn’t checking to see if there were missiles coming at them. He gets shot because he’s too focused on getting his team out, unable to get an eye on any of the gunmen.

Shannon dies in the back of an ambulance because Eddie wasn't with her as she crossed the street, wasn’t able to watch for cars. 

Buck’s leg gets crushed because Eddie can’t see him as the truck flips on its side and he flies out the window. 

Buck and Christopher get caught in a tsunami because Eddie wasn’t there, wasn’t watching the ocean to make sure no massive waves formed. 

He gets shot, again, because he left himself exposed and open in the street, and didn't keep an eye out for a shooter. 

Buck gets struck by lightning after Eddie takes his eyes off him and the sky for a moment, and he dies because of it. He doesn’t stay dead, not because Eddie beats his heart back to life, but because he’s finally got his eyes back on him again.

Bobby dies—and stays dead—because Eddie isn’t there to look out for him, to make sure his equipment doesn’t get compromised. 

Now, Eddie’s not egotistical. He doesn’t doubt the abilities of the team, of Buck. He doesn’t think that there was one thing that he, and he alone, could have done differently, better, faster.

It’s the simple fact that had Eddie been there, nothing bad would have happened. There wouldn’t have ever been a car coming to hit Shannon, a missile in the sky to bring the helicopter down, a virus in the air to infect Bobby.

Eddie’s learned to deal with these thoughts over the years. To give into the urges pulling at the back of his head, to make sure the door shuts the right way, his clothes fold the right way, the stove clicks off the right way. 

If he can’t have his eyes on someone, he can poke at each individual tooth with his tongue, crack every knuckle in his fingers, retie his shoes until the laces are the exact same length, and they’ll be okay. 

Then, Buck and Eddie get in a car crash, because Eddie wasn’t looking in the rearview mirrors for trucks coming to run them off the road. Buck gets kidnapped because Eddie hadn’t been conscious and making sure there wasn’t anyone coming to take him. 

He doesn’t think that, had he been awake, he would have been able to fight him off. No. Eddie knows, feels it deep in his core, that there wouldn’t have been anyone there to begin with if he had just had his eyes open. 

In the hours it takes him to find Buck, Eddie can barely think. He keeps waiting for that moment to come, for someone to call him and tell him that Buck’s dead. He keeps waiting to be the one to find him dead himself. 

Buck’s eyes, glassy, unfocused, color fading, his skin pale and beaten from the crash, from whatever his kidnappers and assailants did to him, his limbs stiffening more and more the longer it takes Eddie to find him. 

Eddie can’t stop seeing those images in the hours it takes him to find Buck—sometimes in the following days, too.

He tries to shake his head, like he can physically knock the thoughts loose if he does it hard enough. Even when he does finally find Buck, he can’t stop seeing him dead. 

When Buck drops, Eddie rushes forward, uncaring what will happen to him for it. Because clearly it wasn't enough to just see Buck, he has to touch him too. Even if it’s just trembling fingers pressed against a pulse point, it’s enough to keep him safe. 

Eddie tries to loosen up on the ride back home. But he’s tense, trying not to jostle and irritate his injuries, trying to find a working percentage of time looking at the road and time glancing at Buck out of the corner of his eye. 

Because he has to watch the road so they don’t crash, check the rearview mirror for cars following them or gearing up to run them down. But he also has to keep an eye on Buck, so he doesn’t go flying out the door, or get kidnapped again, or fall asleep for too long with the concussion they definitely both have.

New Mexico blurs away fast, and all Eddie thinks is, My fault. Buck insists on driving through part of Arizona, and Eddie stares at him through half-lidded eyes and thinks, My fault. He takes back over once they reach California, his knuckles white around the wheel and he thinks, My fault.

My fault, my fault, my fault. 

But they get back without a hitch—crashed again, kidnapped again, presumed dead again—and time continues on. The world doesn’t end, it never does, even if Eddie feels like it is. 

Buck doesn’t talk about it for a while. Eddie tries not to push him too much. He wants to let Buck come for help when he needs it, but Eddie's barely been sleeping. 

He spends half the night staring up at the ceiling, tugging at his fingers in threes in some effort to get his mind under control, trying to convince himself that Buck isn’t lying facedown in a ditch somewhere, beaten halfway to hell and left for dead.

On the nights that his thoughts get bad, he paces the house, tiptoeing down the hallways. When it gets even worse, when his thoughts become all-consuming and nearly bring him to his knees, he slips into Christopher’s room and hovers by the edge of his bed, barely moving until he can see the steady rise and fall of his chest. 

The sleep he does manage to get is fitful, leaves him waking up in the early hours of morning drenched in a cold sweat.

He dreams of Buck's seatbelt failing, him flying through the window and the truck swerving to run him over. He dreams of the car flipped over, blood pooling in the shattered windshield from Buck's lifeless body. He dreams of getting himself out and the car engulfing in flames before he can get to Buck. 

He dreams of the men from the diner pulling Buck from the wreckage, beating him to death at some secondary location. He dreams of Buck chained up in some basement, starved and hurt. He dreams of never finding Buck for years, until someone reports a body discarded on the side of the road.

Two weeks—thirteen days and about seven hours—after what he’s been calling the incident, Eddie finally reaches his breaking point. He's barely slept more than three hours a night in a week, and he nearly falls asleep behind the wheel on the drive to Buck’s house. 

Eddie unlocks the door without knocking, and walks in without a greeting, Christopher hot on his heels. That’s been worrying Eddie too. Buck can push him away as much as he wants, but his near-refusal to see Chris is almost terrifying. 

The house is cold, silent, empty. So unlike Buck that it makes Eddie’s heart sort of ache. 

“Buck?” Christopher calls out. 

Eddie pushes the door shut behind him. The silence stretches on, and he almost reaches out to stop Chris in his tracks—something could be wrong with Buck, and he just walked his son right into it. 

Buck could be dead, for all he knows, lying beaten on the kitchen floor. He could be tied up in some hall closet, stuffed under his bed or in the bathtub. He could not be here at all, nothing but a bloody puddle left behind in the backyard, the living room, never to be seen or heard of again. 

“Wait here—”

“Chris?” Buck asks, materializing at the end of the dimly lit hallway. “What’re you guys doing here? I didn’t forget plans, did I?”

“No,” Eddie croaks. He winces and clears his throat, embarrassed that he let his fear get the best of him. Of course Buck isn't dead or kidnapped, again. “I just thought we’d come over. Haven’t had a sleepover in a while, have we?”

It is a bit presumptuous, to show up at someone's house, unannounced, and barge in, unannounced, and practically demand a sleep over. But Buck isn’t someone, he’s Buck. 

“Uh…” Buck mumbles. He scratches the back of his neck, and for a moment Eddie thinks he’s going to kick them out. He almost wants him to try, because even if that leads to a fight it would at least mean Buck’s talking to him. “I don’t think we have.”

Eddie smiles lightly at him, his panic somewhat fluttering away. Christopher brushes past them both, Buck patting him on the head as he goes through the doorway. 

Eddie eyes Buck up and down as he follows, catalyzing every little thing that seems off about him. His sweatpants and hoodie, no-doubt a couple days old, at least, the eye bags dark enough they almost rival Eddie’s, his curls flat and frizzy. 

But Eddie doesn’t judge him; he probably doesn’t look half-better. 

He hovers by the table while Buck breezes into the kitchen, swiping old take-out containers into the trash and dirty dishes off the counter into the sink. Eddie’s willing to pretend he never saw them. 

“Are you guys hungry?” Buck asks. 

He opens the fridge, a few cabinets, frowns, opens the fridge again like something has changed. Most of the shelves are empty, there's a wilting head of lettuce, an almost empty carton of milk that expired a couple of days ago, and a singular bruised apple. 

“I’ll order pizza,” Eddie says, already pulling his phone out of his pocket. 

“Thanks,” Buck sighs. “I keep forgetting to get groceries.”

He turns to the fridge for a third time, pulling out the water filter that is always one day away from molding. He pours three glasses of water, handing one to Eddie and taking the other two to the couch for him and Christopher. 

“We’re getting Hawaiian, right?” Chris asks. 

Buck grins. “Don’t you know it.”

“Ugh,” Eddie groans, nose scrunching up in fake disgust. “You two have horrible taste.”

“Sorry, Eds, I think you might be the one with horrible taste.”

Eddie rolls his eyes and orders the pizza in the hallway. He almost gets two, so Buck can have some more food in the fridge, but he might just go grocery shopping for him. It’s healthier, anyway. 

They play cards while they wait. Eddie tries to play subtly enough that Chris doesn’t notice how he’s going easy on him and hard on Buck, and Buck is bad enough at the game that Chris thinks he’s the one going easy on him. 

Both Chris and Eddie win a couple games, and they eventually make the unanimous decision to let Buck win at least once, and he pretends that he doesn’t notice what they’re doing. 

Eddie picks the ham and pineapple off his slices when the pizza comes. He disperses them evenly to Buck and Christopher’s slices. Buck smiles at him, and Eddie has the dangerous thought that he would do anything for him. 

He focuses on his pizza instead, trying not to fall apart at Buck’s table over an upward tilt of the mouth. 

Christopher picks out a movie to watch while him and Buck clean up. They watch the trailer, and Eddie can feel his stomach roll as it shows some end of the world kind of thing. He smiles stiffly and agrees to watch it. 

He tries not to take it as an omen. When Eddie can’t convince himself it isn’t, he watches Chris and Buck out of the corner of his eyes, pretends to crack his neck every five minutes so he can look out the window and make sure the sky isn’t falling apart. 

By the grace of God, they make it to the end of the movie without the real world ending too. Eddie lets out a long, suffering breath, and Buck glances over with a look. 

“Alright,” he announces a little too loudly, “bed time.”

“It’s the weekend,” Christopher groans.

“Healthy sleep habits don’t end on Friday.”

Eddie chooses to ignore Buck’s soft snort. Christopher groans again as he gets to his feet, even though Eddie knows it’s all for show and he’s going to spend at least the next hour on his phone, rotting his brain. 

He gets up too, wrapping Chris into a hug and planting a kiss to the center of his forehead before he can pull away. “Goodnight, mijo. I love you.”

“Ew, Dad,” Chris groans, wiping at his forehead. Teenagers. “G’night. Love you.”

Buck shoots up suddenly, wrapping one arm around both of their shoulders. Christopher’s head thunks against his chest with an oof. 

“Aw, guys, you love me, too?”

Chris laughs, because he saves all of his teenage attitude for Eddie. “Yeah, Buck, love you, too,” he says, and then hits him in the shin with his crutch. Maybe not all his teenage attitude. 

Christopher slips out of their hold and takes off for the guest room. Eddie laughs in Buck’s face as he does.

“Night, buddy,” Buck calls down the hallway. He turns to Eddie with an amused look. “Don’t laugh at me.”

“I’m not laughing,” Eddie says, face still split into a smile. 

Buck smiles back, but his face drops in pain as he takes a step. Eddie's smile is ripped away as something akin to terror works its way up his spine.

“You okay?” he asks, with a forced evenness as he tries not to let his panic show.

“Yeah, I'm good. Ribs just still hurt a little bit, I think.”

“You sure?”

Buck sighs quietly, irritation flashing across his face for a moment. “I’m okay.”

Eddie wants to call him on his bullshit, to shake him until his injuries are irritated and he’s forced to talk about them. Instead, “Okay.”

Buck nods. They stand in the quiet dark of the living room, bordering on awkward. “Do, uh, do you want sheets?”

Eddie shrugs, a bit helplessly. “No. I’m good.”

“Alright. G’night,” Buck says, and then he’s disappearing down the hallway. 

Eddie sort of wants to chase after him, to press a kiss against his forehead too, like it’s some magical end-all be-all that will protect him and Christopher from harm's way throughout the night.

“Goodnight,” he calls softly. 

Eddie lies back on the couch, stuffing a decorative pillow under his head and a throw blanket over himself. He stares at the ceiling for a while, trying not to count each and every miniscule crack working themselves across the house. 

Soon, his skin starts to get antsy, itchy like there are thousands of bugs crawling through him, waiting to chew their way out. Eddie has to get up as the sensation spreads up and down his legs and arms. 

He takes to pacing Buck’s house, making a loop through the kitchen, around the table and couch, down the halls, past Buck and Christopher’s rooms, pausing long enough to press his ear to the doors to try and listen to them breathing. 

The pacing works better than it usually does, maybe having everyone under the same roof helps. Eddie has just sat back down on the couch, his head tilted back so he can see through the window, up into the sky, when Buck comes trudging into the room.

“Hey,” Eddie says quietly. 

“Jesus!” Buck half-yelps, jolting dramatically and grabbing at his chest, nearly slamming backwards into the wall. “You scared me.”

“Sorry,” he says dryly, eyes flickering with amusement. 

“What’re you doing up?”

Buck abandons whatever middle-of-the-night mission he was attempting, and sits on the armchair by the couch, kicks his feet up on the coffee table. 

“I can’t sleep,” Eddie sighs. He rests his elbow on the back of the couch and settles his hand against his hair, which is just about broken free from the gel he slathered on it this morning.

He hates the gel, but it’s become a part of his routine, and if he switches it up now, who knows what will happen. 

“I think I have some melatonin?” Buck offers, already moving to get up. “I got tea—”

“No. I can’t sleep.”

Buck sits back down, eyebrows twitching together, head tilting to the side like a confused puppy. “What do you mean?”

Eddie considers taking back what he said, making something up, but there’s something about the night—the dark, the quiet, the emptiness—that makes him want to lay himself bare, to pull himself open and let it all come pouring out.

“I gotta…” he trails off, looking anywhere but Buck, eyes darting back to catch a subtle glimpse out the window. “Did you know that the sun is going to die in five billion years?”

Buck pulls a face, making a soft duh noise.

“Right,” Eddie sighs. “Of course you do.”

“So…You can’t sleep because the sun is going to die in five billion years?”

“No,” he huffs in frustration, pulling lightly at one of his fingers until it cracks. “I’m just worried that if I’m not watching, it’s going to happen now.”

It comes out somewhat easily, even for something he has never said before. The cover of night smoothes things over for everything he would never have the guts to say in the light of day. Buck being the one sitting across from him helps, of course.

It scares Eddie, sometimes, how blindly he trusts Buck. How easily he’s handed over his whole life to him like he asked for the salt to be passed. 

“Oh. Okay,” Buck says with an evenness to it, but his eyes are a bit wide, in the way they get when he’s in over his head and trying not to show it. 

“Something bad is going to happen to you if I’m not watching,” Eddie barrels on, secrets bubbling up beneath his skin and popping as they reach the surface, ripping through him and staining his face with his own blood. 

Buck sits up and leans forward, a small little frown spreading across his face. He puts his hand on his chest, and Eddie wants to crack him open and settle beneath his rib cage, just so he can always make sure his heart is still beating. “I’m right here, Eddie. I’m okay. 

His bruises have mostly healed by now, but Eddie can still see the faint splotches of yellow across his forehead, even now, in the soft light coming from all the way down the hall. 

“It’s my fault.”

“No!” Buck exclaims, eyes suddenly a lot wider. “No, no, no. Why would you think that?”

“Because it is.”

Eddie knows that it’s his fault the same way he knows the sky is blue, blood is red, as a completely, entirely undeniable fact. 

“If anything, it’s my fault. I got us lost, I made us stop, I caused a scene. You just happened to be the one driving.”

Eddie shakes his head. “No, Buck, it’s my fault. If I had just been awake when they took you—”

“Eddie. We were just in a car crash, you wouldn’t have been able to do anything to stop them.”

“No!” he says forcefully. “You don’t get it. If I had been awake, they never would have come at all.”

Buck’s face flickers through a range of emotions. His eyebrows scrunch together, pull apart; his eyes widen, flutter, go back to normal; his mouth drops open slightly, clangs shut with an audible click. “What?”

“Don’t look at me like that,” Eddie snaps. He feels like his heart has jumped straight from his chest, and now it’s lying between them, exposed and vulnerable, bloodying the rug. “I’m not crazy.”

Buck’s head shakes gently, fingers knotting together in his lap. “I don’t think you’re crazy. I just don’t understand what you’re saying.”

“Bad things happen because of me. Because I’m not looking,” Eddie chokes out. The world doesn’t immediately come crashing down on him, like he always thought it would. “Shannon got hit because I wasn’t looking at the street, you and Christopher got caught up in the tsunami because I wasn’t watching the water. I got shot because I wasn’t checking the buildings.”

“You still would’ve gotten shot even if you saw the shooter.”

Eddie almost flinches at the memory, at the blood splattered across Buck’s face and shirt, and how he had thought he was hurt, how he thought it was his fault.

“No,” he grinds out. “If I had been looking, there wouldn’t have been a shooter to begin with.”

Buck’s eyebrows shoot about halfway to his hairline with that statement, tongue darting out to lick at his lips nervously. “Have— Have you talked to anyone about this? Frank?”

Eddie shakes his head. Just him. Just Buck. 

“Maybe you should,” he suggests lightly. 

Eddie starts to tug on his fingers again, pulling harder until he’s cracked another two. He can tell Buck is watching, and it makes him want to cut his own hands off. “It’s just anxiety.”

“I don’t think it is. It feels like more, and I want to help you with it, but I don’t know if I can.”

Eddie scoffs and leans back. Buck’s a bit of a hypocrite, isn’t he? “I’ll get help when you do.”

“I’m f—”

“You’re not fine, Buck!” Eddie exclaims, cutting him off. “You got kidnapped and tortured. You’re not fine, and I’m so sick of you saying you are.”

Buck looks down at his lap guiltily, like a dog who got into the trash, left coffee grounds and banana peels strewn across the house. “I know.”

“And I can’t lose you,” Eddie gasps, eyes suddenly wet. He rubs at them harshly. “I won’t do it.”

“I know,” Buck repeats, sounding like it physically hurts him too. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too.”

Buck frowns. “For what?”

“I don’t know,” Eddie sighs. “Everything?”

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for,” Buck says, and Eddie wants to believe him. He’s not sure he can. 

Eddie leans into the cushions and lets his head hit the back of the couch with a thunk. 

“Do you still need to look?”
“Hmm?”

“Do you still need to look at the sky? That’s what you said, right?”

“Yeah,” Eddie says stiffly, shame making his cheeks hot.

Buck grins, his teeth a little crooked because his parents never took him to the orthodontist, a little yellowish off-white because he almost always forgets to brush them at night. “C’mon, I have an idea.”

Eddie follows him out onto the back porch, watching apprehensively as he pulls the hot tub cover back with a flourish. 

“I didn't bring a bathing suit, Buck.”

“That’s okay,” Buck says, tugging off his shirt and throwing it on a nearby table. Eddie bites his tongue so he doesn’t make a squeaking sound. “Boxers are basically bathing suits.”

“Right,” Eddie mutters. 

Buck’s sweatpants drop to his ankles, and Eddie nearly tilts sideways. 

He can’t help but let his eyes wander up Buck’s legs, the meatyness of his thighs, the patch of hair working its way down his stomach, disappearing into his boxers, his tattoo-covered chest, his thick arms.

The burns, red and circular, leaving behind small, singed patches of skin. Burns from a cattle prod pressed too long across his stomach. 

“Oh,” Eddie breathes softly, hand reaching out towards one of the wounds, but never actually touching. 

“It’s okay,” Buck whispers. His fingers press gently into the splotchy red. “Doesn’t even hurt anymore.”

Eddie should have been looking out for him. My fault, my fault, my fault.

“Oh, God.”

“Eddie. I’m okay, I promise you. I’m right here, I’m safe.”

Eddie feels the urge to vomit. He gnaws at the inside of his cheek, cracks a couple more knuckles, pokes at his teeth. 

“Do you want to go back inside?”

“No.” Eddie takes his pants and t-shirt off with shaky hands, ignoring the concerned looks Buck’s sending his way. 

He sort of pushes past him, stepping into the hot tub and forcing himself all the way in before he can adjust to the heat. He settles himself down into the water, tucked away into a corner.

Eddie tilts his head back, staring up at the sky like if he does it hard enough, long enough, it can undo Buck’s pain. He listens to the soft sloshing of the water as Buck gets in, tries not to combust into a million different pieces. 

There aren’t too many stars to see. That was one of the few things Eddie liked about the deserts of Afghanistan, the way the sky was devoid of light pollution, the stars that shone bright across its expanse.

The traffic is quiet, at least, this late at night, and the neighborhood isn’t too busy during the day anyway. The air has a bit of a chill to it, not that he would ever say it out loud and face Buck’s teasing about real beginning-of-springs. Pennsylvania apparently gets all seasons, who knew?

He risks looking over at Buck, and finds him leaned back, watching the sky. Eddie’s eyes burn at the sight. 

“You don’t have to look too, Buck.”

“I know,” Buck says simply, head still tilted back and eyes flickering to look at him down the slope of his nose. “But four eyes are better than two, right?”

And Eddie loves him so much it makes his chest ache, his stomach hurt, his head grow foggy and stupid. 

He slides across the hot tub, climbing into Buck’s lap before he can think too much about it and lose his nerve.

“What’re—”

Buck’s lips are soft. He tastes faintly of pineapple and ham—he forgot to brush his teeth, of course—and like the vanilla chapstick he’s been carrying around for months. It’s truly a miracle he hasn’t lost it yet. 

Buck lets out a soft noise, his hands moving up to settle against Eddie’s waist. He leans into the kiss, tongue darting out to lick across Eddie’s bottom lip, working its way into his mouth, pressing up against his sharpest canine.

Eddie sort of wants to crack his jaw open, to let Buck in and have him poke and prod at each and every one of his teeth with the tip of his tongue. Make sure they’re all there, and that everyone will be safe because of it.

He groans into the thought, lungs going sort of breathless, hips twitching in Buck’s lap. Arousal pools heavily in his gut, and he wants, so badly he might pass out if he doesn’t get it. He pulls at the waistband of Buck’s boxers. “I need you.”

Buc’s head twitches as he pulls away. His eyes are blown wide, lips swollen, cheeks pink, birthmark blushed a dark red. Eddie could get hard just at this image of him, if he wasn’t already. 

“Eddie, I— I’m not going to have sex with you if it’s just a distraction.”

“It’s not,” Eddie says instantly, a quick shake of his head. His stomach sort of sinks at the idea Buck would think that. “It’s not, Buck, I want this. Please,” he adds a little desperately. “I’ve wanted this for so long.”

“Yeah?” Buck asks, suddenly all confidence and smug smiles. Eddie likes it when he gets cocky. “How long is so long?”

“I dunno,” he hums. “A year? Two?”

“A year,” Buck repeats incredulously. “You mean that we could’ve been doing this for a year?”

“What, have you wanted to for a year?”

“Yes,” Buck groans. “And I’ve been trying not to lose my fucking mind over it. You asshole, why didn’t you say anything?”

Eddie raises an eyebrow. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because I’m stupid.” Buck smiles and grinds his hips upwards, rutting against Eddie’s ass. 

He kisses him again, soft at first, then getting hungrier and hungrier. His hands wander down Eddie’s side, find purchase on his thighs, the tips of his fingers settling beneath the fabric of his boxers. 

Eddie shivers despite the heat emanating up from the hot tub. He doesn’t bother pretending it’s from the light breeze blowing past them.

“You wanna—?”

“Yes.”

Buck lifts him up slightly with one hand so he can take his boxers off, they land somewhere to the side with a wet thump. His cock springs free, long and hard, thick. Eddie swallows, and Buck gets a boastful grin. 

Eddie tilts to the side and takes his own boxers off. Buck takes that as an opportunity to duck his head down and kiss at his chest and stomach. 

“Fucking eight-pack,” he mutters. 

“Jealous?” Eddie teases. He likes the small pouch of Buck’s stomach from his bulking, dreads the day it’ll turn to muscle. He likes the way it sort of makes him lightheaded whenever he sees it across the locker room, the way he can’t forget it every time he showers. 

“Hmm,” Buck hums. He bites gently at one of Eddie’s nipples, one hand splayed across his chest, the other grabbing at his lower back. 

His fingers creep down, one slowly slipping inside of him. Eddie feels a surge of bravery suddenly, and he leans down to whisper into Buck’s ear, “Sometimes I finger myself thinking of you.”

Buck chokes, and he has to cough several times before he can breathe properly again. “Eddie! You can’t just say stuff like that.”

“Why not? It’s true.”

Buck’s finger slides the rest of the way in, and he starts slowly thrusting it in and out. His free hand slips around to Eddie’s front and strokes his dick lazily once, twice. 

Eddie rests his cheek against Buck’s shoulder as he adds another finger and scissors him open, fingertips reaching out to brush against his prostate. Stars literally and metaphorically shine bright in his eyes. 

Soft noises are punched straight from his chest as Buck adds a third finger. He has to force his hips not to rock backwards in an effort not to cum. 

“Buck,” Eddie whines.

The fingers pull out of him, and Eddie almost sobs at the loss. The thick, blunt head of Buck’s cock replaces them, pushing inside of him and making his vision white out.

Eddie sinks down onto him inch by inch, breathing becoming heavy moans the further he goes. Buck rubs up and down his sides soothingly. 

“Okay?”

“Uh-huh,” he sort of gasps. He gives an experimental grind of his hips and slaps a hand down against the edge of the hot tub as pleasure coils up his spine. 

Buck kisses along his collar bone. “You’re gonna give me an ego the size of Texas.”

“Like you don’t already,” Eddie scoffs. 

Buck’s hands guide his hips, grinding him down onto his dick. He kisses messily across Eddie’s jaw, settling at a slow pace as he ruts up into him. 

Eddie kisses him, nipping gently at Buck’s bottom lip as he pants into his mouth. He sort of wants to tear into him, like he’s some sort of man-eater. Buck told him all about some bug or spider that eats her mates during intercouse.

Buck hits his prostate again, and Eddie’s head drops down to his shoulder with a moan. When his eyes finally flicker open again, one of the burn marks is right in front of him. He whines in a panic, horror sinking in his gut, and tries to pull back so he can look at the sky.

If he can’t save Buck from being kidnapped and tortured, then he can at least save him from the sun slamming down onto them. 

Buck’s hips still. “Woah, hey. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Don’t stop,” Eddie begs. His cock throbs in anger.

“No, you’re upset. I can stop—”

“No. I just—” Eddie cuts himself off with a frustrated groan. He stares down at Buck’s chest, vision blurring until he can see nothing but the red of the burns. 

“Hey,” Buck whispers. His hand grabs Eddie’s and settles it over his chest. “I’m okay.”

Eddie stills and focuses all his energy into feeling the soft, elevated thump of Buck’s heart. “You’re okay,” he says mostly to himself.

Buck nods. “I meant what I said, though, we can stop.”

“Absolutely not.”

Buck snorts. “Okay. How about I lean you against the edge so you can be on your back?”

Eddie shakes his head lightly. “I don’t wanna move.”

Buck shifts his hips up, cock twitching inside of him. “You like ridin’ me, huh, cowboy?”

“Shut up,” he mutters, swatting lightly at Buck’s shoulder and hoping his blush doesn’t show.

“How about I look for you? Is that okay?”

“Mmhmm,” Eddie hums, eyes wet and chest aching. 

Instinctively, he trusts Buck, a pull in his gut dragging him closer to tuck his face against his neck. 

“I got you, baby,” Buck murmurs, hand against the back of his head.

Eddie makes an undignified keen-like noise. He hopes the lapping of the water covers it up, and he winces internally when he can practically hear Buck’s mouth split open into a grin. 

“You like that? Me calling you baby?”

Eddie bites softly at the flesh of Buck’s neck, grinning triumphantly as his hips thrust upwards and a groan is pulled from his chest. 

“Eddie,” he says dangerously, voice deep and rough, eyes probably half-shut. 

He bounces up and down on Buck’s cock a few times, before he takes over. Eddie kisses and licks and sucks across his neck, his throat, his collar bone. It will make him safe, for when Eddie can’t have his eyes or hands on him. 

A full body shiver racks Eddie’s frame, and arousal pools in the bottom of his stomach. Buck leans down and presses a kiss to his cheek. 

“Buck, you–fuck– you gotta–”

“I know, baby. I promise I’m looking.”

Eddie’s orgasm rips through him. His toes curl up, back stiffens, nails dig into the soft flesh of Buck’s back as his cum splatters across his chest. 

“There you go,” Buck coos. 

His thrust became sloppy and off beat a few moments later. His breath starts to hitch, getting needy and whiny. Eddie’s softening dick twitches lightly at the sound. 

“I’m gonna—”

“In me,” Eddie whispers suddenly. “Cum in me.”

“Oh, God,” Buck moans, hips stilling. He kisses Eddie as his cum fills him. 

His hands rise to cradle the sides of Eddie’s face, the touch so soft it almost burns. Eddie leans into it like he’ll die if he doesn’t.

Eddie settles his head on Buck’s neck, panting against his neck. Buck breathes heavily into his ear and rubs soothingly at his back. 

“You okay?”

“Mmhmm,” Eddie hums, energy zapped out of him. “You?”

“Yeah,” Buck laughs. “I’m good. Great.”

He lifts him up and slowly pulls his softened dick out. Eddie winces preemptively for the soreness he’ll feel tomorrow. 

“I guess I’ll have to drain the hot tub now."

Eddie laughs lightly, the noise coming out of him easily. He presses a soft kiss to Buck’s cheek and shivers as the cold finally gets to him, even with the lower half of his body still in the hot tub. 

“You good to go inside?" Buck asks gently, a quick look up at the sky, void of judgement. 

“Yeah,” Eddie breathes, and he actually means it. 

Buck helps him step out of the hot tub, grabbing a towel Eddie hadn’t even noticed and wrapping it around his waist. Eddie snorts as he gets another and slings it across his shoulders. 

Eddie pulls the towel tightly around himself, watching Buck as he gets his own towel, finds their boxers and wrings them out, pulls the cover back over the hot tub. 

Buck leads him inside and down the hallway, into the bathroom. Eddie shivers helplessly as the cold air-conditioning hits his damp skin. 

They leave a trail of wet foot prints behind them, and usually Eddie would be pushing down the urge to get on his hands and knees and crawl down the hallway with a towel to dry them. Now, he’s too focused on keeping his eyes open with every blink. 

Buck sits him down on the toilet seat then disappears for a moment, and Eddie misses him so much in those thirty seconds that his stomach hurts. Buck comes back with clothes, boxers, t-shirts, sweatpants. 

Buck dries off and changes a lot faster than Eddie does, and when he’s done, he turns and helps him pull a t-shirt over his head. 

It’s soft, a couple sizes too big, Buck’s. Eddie rubs his fingers over the fabric and he just barely stops himself from raising it to his nose and breathing in the scent. 

He runs a towel over his hair, even if it’s not really wet. He wants to shower, to cleanse himself of whatever chemicals are in the hot tub. But he’s exhausted, limbs sagging like a puppet with the strings cut, and he’s willing to take whatever inevitable disease the chemicals will give him.

Eddie follows Buck down the hallway and into his room, standing by the dresser while Buck goes around to one of the windows and pulls the curtain back with a frown. 

“Do you wanna— We can sleep outside, or I can move the bed towards the window if you—”

“No, I’m okay,” Eddie says wetly, chest clenching dangerously. He doesn’t realize there are tears in his eyes until Buck’s moving across the room, thumbs wiping at his cheeks before they can even fall. 

“What’s wrong?”

“I love you.”

Buck smiles. “Yeah?”

“Duh. Do you?” Eddie asks lightly, tries not to make it sound too desperate. 

Buck’s arms wrap around him, squeezes him tight, nearly bone crushing. “Of course I love you.”

Eddie loops his arms around Buck’s middle, fingers pulling at the fabric across his back. He stuffs his face into his chest. 

They stand there for a few moments, rocking quietly. 

Eddie flops onto the bed once they let go. Buck follows, draping himself across his back and protecting them both from the world, just in case the sky comes crashing down on them.