Chapter Text
The front door to Eddie’s house opened with a soft click, and Buck winced as Tommy gently guided him over the threshold, one slow, careful step at a time. His grip on the walker was tight, knuckles white against the cool metal. Every movement sent a muted jolt up his ribs, but he kept going, determined not to show how much it hurt.
“I’m fine,” Buck muttered through gritted teeth. “I don’t need to be carried like a Victorian bride.”
Tommy arched a brow but didn’t stop supporting him. “You’re not being carried. You’re being supported. There’s a difference. One’s romantic, the other’s orthopedic.”
Buck shot him a sideways glare. “Great. Love being described with medical adjectives. Makes me feel very desirable.”
“You should hear yourself snore with a nasal cannula,” Tommy deadpanned.
Buck opened his mouth to argue but didn’t get the chance. Inside, the scent of warm green chile and seasoned rice drifted through the air like a hug waiting at the door. The house was immaculate—pillows fluffed to absurd precision, throw blankets neatly folded at symmetrical angles. There were folded towels at the base of the stairs. A tray had been placed beside the guest room with bottles of water, painkillers, an extra phone charger, a small bell (which Buck would definitely never use), and a neatly stacked pile of medical paperwork.
Eddie’s love language, apparently, was battlefield preparation.
“I told you I could’ve stayed at my loft,” Buck muttered again, but with less conviction.
“And I ignored you,” Eddie called from the hallway, his voice drifting out with all the patience of a man prepared to win this argument for the next six weeks. “Like I’ll keep doing until you stop saying stupid things.”
Tommy smirked and gently kicked the door shut behind them. “He’s not joking. I watched him clean baseboards this morning. Baseboards, Buck. You think that was about dust?”
Buck frowned as he let the walker settle on the hardwood floor. “That’s not normal behavior.”
“He’s been fluffing pillows all morning. Just let him have this,” Tommy added under his breath.
“I do not fluff,” Eddie called, stepping into view from the kitchen with a dish towel over one shoulder and an unmistakably judgmental expression. “I arrange.”
Buck peered over at the couch, then the recliner, both of which were covered in symmetrical pillow stacks like modern art installations. “That’s a lot of arrangement.”
“Some of us prepare,” Eddie said coolly, walking over and giving Tommy a brief, wordless pat on the arm. “Guest bed’s ready. I aired out the room. There’s a full water bottle on the nightstand and extra socks in the drawer.”
Tommy glanced at Buck and then back at Eddie with something like fond amusement. “Thanks, man. Appreciate it.”
Buck rolled his eyes again, but didn’t protest when the two of them gently steered him toward the couch. He lowered himself into the cushions with a grunt, grimacing as his ribs objected. Every inch of him ached in some flavor of discomfort—stiff knees, bruised hips, strained muscles—but he forced a deep breath and leaned back slowly.
“I could’ve handled stairs, you know,” Buck muttered as Eddie handed him a glass of water.
Eddie just raised an eyebrow and leaned his shoulder against the wall. “Yeah. And I could’ve dropped you off at a Motel 6. But we’re doing things the smart way this time.”
Buck gave him a narrow-eyed look. “Since when do you get to decide what the smart way is?”
“Since you almost died,” Eddie replied without hesitation, his tone deceptively casual but with a weight behind it that settled in the air like gravity.
Tommy cleared his throat pointedly and picked up the hospital bag. “I’ll unpack. Keep bickering, it’s like background music at this point.”
Buck glared after him but didn’t push it.
The silence that followed lasted only a moment before a voice rang out from the hallway, full of energy and theatricality.
“Attention!”
They turned as Christopher appeared dramatically in the doorway, arms folded, chin raised like a miniature general. His grin was wide, the kind of grin that always managed to pull the edges of a room back into shape.
“Effective immediately,” he declared, “I am now Buck’s official rehab boss.”
Buck blinked at him. “You’re what now?”
“Rehab boss,” Christopher repeated, marching into the room with mock-solemn authority. “I’m in charge of exercises. And snack monitoring.”
“I don’t need—” Buck started.
“Do you want to get better?” Christopher cut in, raising an eyebrow with Eddie-level precision.
Buck glanced around. Tommy had stopped in the hallway, grinning openly now. Eddie was suppressing a laugh, leaning casually with his arms crossed. Buck turned back to Christopher and sighed.
“I… guess?”
“Then you’ll listen to me.” Christopher sat beside him on the couch and settled snugly against Buck’s uninjured side. “First order: no grumbling about the walker.”
Buck opened his mouth.
Christopher raised a single, slow finger.
Buck shut his mouth.
Tommy burst out laughing. “Told you not to argue.”
Eddie’s lips twitched as he crossed the room and took a seat on the arm of the chair. His gaze moved over the three of them—Buck on the couch, Christopher pressed tight beside him, Tommy smiling from across the room—and something softened behind his eyes. A kind of quiet awe. Like he was watching a moment he’d imagined a hundred times, only now it was real.
They all laughed for a while, the sound rising and falling between them with ease. It wasn’t loud or careless. It was gentle. Earned. The kind of laughter that lingered in the spaces between healing wounds. Beneath the humor, there was still a thread pulled taut—awareness humming like background static. A silent knowing that things had shifted. That trauma didn’t end at discharge papers.
But no one said it out loud.
Not yet.
Instead, they let laughter carry the weight. Let closeness take the place of explanations. Let care—visible in every gesture, every cushion, every shared glance—fill the gaps that pain had left behind.
Buck sank further into the couch, letting his head rest against the backrest. Christopher leaned into him, and he let his hand settle gently over the boy’s. He glanced once toward Eddie and Tommy—his people, his constants—and felt something crack open behind his ribs that had nothing to do with injury.
And everything to do with hope.
The porch lights buzzed quietly above them, casting a warm amber glow over the worn wooden boards and the quiet stretch of grass beyond. The air had that stillness unique to Los Angeles after a long, dry day—when the city seemed to exhale with the drop in temperature, the sky holding the faintest scent of concrete dust and eucalyptus. In the distance, a dog barked once. Then silence again.
Eddie stepped out barefoot, the screen door creaking behind him like an old friend clearing its throat. His jeans were rumpled from the long day, the hem slightly frayed, and his plain white t-shirt clung loosely to his shoulders. There was a smudge of dried toothpaste on the sleeve from wrangling Christopher through his bedtime routine, but he hadn’t bothered to change. He hadn’t had the energy or the reason.
Tommy was already seated on the porch steps, spine curved slightly forward, elbows resting on his knees. He held a mug of now-cold tea between his palms, not drinking it—just grounding himself with the warmth that had already begun to fade. His gaze was fixed somewhere beyond the fence line, unfocused, like he was watching the dark settle in over the neighborhood.
Eddie sat down beside him with a quiet grunt, resting his arms on his thighs, shoulders angled slightly in Tommy’s direction but not quite touching. They sat like that for a moment, the silence pressing in—not tense, not uncomfortable. Just… present. Like the air itself was holding something between them.
“He’s out cold,” Eddie murmured eventually, his voice a soft rasp in the quiet. “Chris, I mean. Not Buck. Buck’s lying there counting ceiling dots and resenting his entire medication schedule.”
Tommy smiled faintly without looking over. “I set a timer for his painkillers. Figured he’d forget them out of spite.”
“Sounds about right,” Eddie said with a quiet huff of laughter.
The silence returned, but it felt lighter now—punctuated by the faint chirp of crickets, the whisper of a breeze shifting the trees just outside the yard. A single moth flitted under the porch light, dancing lazy circles around the bulb.
Tommy’s voice came soft. Measured. “You love him.”
Eddie didn’t stiffen. He didn’t pretend not to hear. His eyes stayed on the yard, but something in him shifted—tightened at first, then loosened, like releasing a breath he hadn’t meant to hold.
“Yeah,” he said simply. No elaboration. Just truth.
Tommy didn’t respond with surprise. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t offer sympathy or jokes to fill the space. Instead, his voice was even gentler when he said, “I do too.”
The porch light buzzed quietly above them. A car passed in the distance, its headlights sweeping briefly across the neighboring houses before disappearing again. The air held steady around them—warm, alive, honest.
Eddie turned the words over in his head, letting them echo in the space where he’d kept them locked away for too long. He didn’t need to ask if Tommy meant it. He did. That was the thing about Tommy—he didn’t say things he didn’t mean. Especially not about Buck.
“So now what?” Eddie asked after a while, his voice quieter now, almost tentative. Like asking the question out loud would change everything.
Tommy took a slow sip of tea—lukewarm now, almost bitter—and set the mug down on the step beside him. He leaned back on his hands, head tilted toward the sky, where just a few faint stars peeked through the light pollution.
“We ask him what he wants,” Tommy said, like it was the simplest thing in the world.
Eddie exhaled through his nose. “That easy, huh?”
“No,” Tommy replied with a crooked smile. “But it’s honest.”
Eddie finally turned to look at him. The porch light caught the angle of Tommy’s jaw, the soft furrow in his brow, the small scar near his hairline. He looked tired. Real. Good.
“You ever done something like this before?” Eddie asked.
Tommy chuckled, low and dry. “Been in a love triangle with a man recovering from trauma and his fireman best friend-slash-father of the kid who calls me ‘tea nerd’?” He grinned wryly. “Nope. This is a first.”
Eddie laughed—surprised, a little reluctant, but real.
“But I’m not afraid of hard things,” Tommy added. “I mean—look who I fell for.”
Eddie gave him a look. “Which one of us are you insulting there?”
Tommy shrugged. “Yes.”
That got another laugh—this one longer, eased from Eddie’s chest like a knot slowly loosening.
The laughter faded, but the warmth stayed.
“He matters more than he knows,” Eddie said, voice softer now. “Always has. Since the beginning.”
Tommy nodded, eyes still on the horizon. “I think he’s starting to believe it.”
Eddie looked down at his hands, fingers flexing against his knees. “You okay with this? With… whatever this is? However it plays out?”
Tommy was quiet a moment longer, and then his answer came, firm and full of quiet conviction. “Yeah. I am. I care about him. And you. And Chris. I’m not pretending it’s going to be easy. But if Buck feels even half of what I think he does… then we figure it out.”
Eddie nodded slowly, feeling that hum of something delicate and brave stretch between them again.
Another silence came and passed—but this one was peaceful. Steady. The kind that didn’t ask for filling. The kind that simply was.
The night wrapped around them like a blanket pulled just high enough to warm but not suffocate. Two men sitting on a porch, watching the world shift, not knowing what came next—but willing to meet it together.
The house was unusually quiet for midday. The kind of quiet that felt deliberate. Settled.
Tommy had taken Christopher to the grocery store, claiming it was to “hunt produce like noble men,” which really just meant distracting Chris long enough to let Buck have a nap without being poked in the ribs about his hydration schedule. Buck had smiled at that, grateful and a little overwhelmed by the way Tommy always knew what he needed before he asked.
Eddie had stayed behind. Partly to prep dinner. Mostly because… he couldn’t quite leave yet. Not with Buck still pale beneath his freckles. Not with the shadows still lingering beneath his eyes.
In the kitchen, the low hum of the dishwasher was the only sound. Eddie moved quietly, drying a cutting board with a dish towel, listening for any sign of movement from the living room.
When he finally peeked around the corner, Buck was sprawled on the couch, one leg propped on a pillow, a blanket barely clinging to his foot like it had tried to help and given up. A book rested on his chest, unopened for at least the past hour. His head had rolled to the side, cheek mashed against the armrest, lips parted slightly in the beginnings of sleep.
Eddie leaned against the doorway, arms crossed loosely, the towel still in one hand.
“You asleep?” he asked after a beat.
“Nope,” Buck mumbled without moving. “Just thinking.”
“Dangerous,” Eddie said, arching an eyebrow.
“Only when you’re involved,” Buck shot back, cracking one eye open.
Eddie gave a soft snort and walked to the fridge. He grabbed a bottle of water and leaned against the counter, twisting the cap idly. “You need anything?”
Buck shifted with a small grimace, trying to stretch. “A new body?”
Eddie took a sip of water. “Sorry, fresh out.”
A silence settled again—not awkward, just familiar. Like the kind that comes with a well-worn friendship that no longer needed to fill the spaces with noise. The dishwasher hummed on, steady. A clock ticked softly from the wall.
Then Buck spoke, far too casually.
“So…”
Eddie looked over, one eyebrow raised. “So?”
Buck turned his head more fully now, eyes just a little too bright. “Baby?”
Eddie froze mid-sip. “What?”
“You know.” Buck’s grin was slow, teasing. “That thing you called me on the phone.”
The water bottle lowered slightly in Eddie’s hand. “You—you heard that?”
“Oh, I heard it,” Buck said, clearly enjoying this. “Clear as day. ‘Just hang on, baby.’ Real touching stuff.”
Eddie’s ears turned pink almost immediately. “That—was not—I didn’t mean—”
“Oh, you meant it,” Buck said, smug and amused.
“I was panicked,” Eddie shot back. “You’d just called after being gone for over a week. I was sleep-deprived and maybe not fully in control of my vocabulary.”
Buck held up his hands, laughing. “Hey, I’m not complaining.”
Eddie groaned and dragged a hand down his face. “Unbelievable.”
“I’m just saying,” Buck added, the humor softening out of his voice, “it was… kind of nice.”
Eddie dropped the dish towel onto the counter. The silence between them stretched—not uncomfortable, but heavier now, tethered to something unspoken.
Buck pushed himself up a little more, grimacing slightly as his ribs protested the movement. He settled back, eyes gentler now. “Hearing you say it,” he said softly, “even if you didn’t mean to.”
Eddie watched him for a long moment, then slowly crossed the room and sank into the armchair opposite him. The leather creaked quietly under his weight.
“I didn’t mean for you to hear it,” Eddie said, voice quiet but honest.
“But I did,” Buck replied.
Eddie ran a hand through his hair. “And I… I don’t want to complicate things. Not for you and Tommy. Not for us.”
Buck tilted his head. “You think it complicates things?”
Eddie hesitated, fingers curling around the armrest. Then: “I think it makes things real.”
Buck nodded slowly, absorbing that.
“It’s always been real,” he said finally.
The words hung in the air like gravity.
Eddie looked down at his hands for a second, then over at Buck—really looked. At the healing bruises still blooming across his forearm. The tired slouch of his shoulders. The little twitch in his lip when he was trying not to hope too loudly.
“You don’t have to take it back,” Buck said after a moment, his voice quieter now. “The ‘baby’ thing. If it slipped out, it slipped out for a reason.”
Eddie swallowed and leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
“I don’t want to take it back,” he said.
Buck’s gaze lifted to meet his.
They stared at each other across the living room, something fragile and long-overdue blooming in the space between them. A thread pulled taut, not ready to snap—but humming with possibility.
Eddie reached out first, slow and unsure, but deliberate. He let his hand settle over Buck’s, where it rested on the blanket. Buck turned his palm upward without hesitation, their fingers curling into place like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Neither of them said anything for a long moment.
Then Eddie exhaled and gave a half-smile. “Just promise me you won’t make me say it again when Chris is in earshot.”
Buck’s grin returned, smaller but no less real. “No promises.”
Eddie rolled his eyes—but let it go.
The sound of a car pulling into the driveway stirred the tension in the living room like a sudden gust of wind rustling leaves on still branches. It wasn’t loud—but it landed. A small seismic shift.
Inside, the house was quiet. Not the kind of quiet that soothes. This was the kind that held its breath.
Buck and Eddie sat on the couch, turned slightly toward each other, knees close enough to graze, while looking at the TV. Neither of them moved. They were still holding space like it was fragile—like one wrong breath could tip everything over. Buck had a faint smile, the kind that lingered on the edge of something bigger, brighter. The kind that knew exactly what it was doing. Eddie looked… wrecked, honestly. But softer, too. Like something in him had let go of the fight. He looked cracked open and grounded all at once.
And then the front door opened.
Tommy’s voice floated in ahead of him, light and teasing: “I left the snack boss in the car to finish his ice cream cone, so I could—”
He stopped.
Just inside the doorway now, Tommy blinked, taking in the scene with surgeon-level precision. The space between them. The way Buck’s hand hovered close to Eddie’s. The expression on both their faces—half-caught in a moment they weren’t quite done having.
Tommy’s eyes lingered for just a second too long before he spoke, and when he did, his voice was quiet.
“Oh.”
Buck straightened a little, chest tight. “Tommy—”
Tommy lifted a hand—not in anger, not to silence him. Just gently, like he needed a second. “No. It’s okay. I just…” His eyes dropped to the floor for a beat. “Give me a second to catch up.”
Buck’s hand twitched where it lay against his thigh. The weight of the moment settled on them like warm rain—uncomfortable only because of how much it revealed.
“Can we talk about this?” Buck asked, his voice low and careful. It wasn’t a demand. It was an offering. An invitation.
Tommy exhaled through his nose and nodded, slow and deliberate. He stepped further inside, shut the door behind him. The soft click echoed. “Yeah. We probably should.”
He crossed to the armchair that Eddie had sat on but a little while ago and sat down like someone preparing to get their heart examined. Elbows on knees. Shoulders squared. Eyes scanning both of them with quiet intensity.
Buck swallowed. “I love you.”
It landed in the room like a stone dropped in still water. Not explosive—just irreversible. Expanding.
Tommy’s gaze flicked up, but he didn’t say anything.
“I love both of you,” Buck added, voice steadier now. “I’ve tried to make it make sense, and it doesn’t. Not the way love’s supposed to look. But it’s real. And it’s true.”
Eddie’s jaw tensed. He rubbed a hand over his face, trying to find the right shape for his guilt. “I’m not trying to come between you.”
“I know,” Tommy said softly.
“I didn’t plan this,” Eddie said, words nearly crumbling. “It’s just… always been there. And after the tsunami, after not knowing if you were alive—I don’t know. Something cracked open, and it didn’t close again.”
Tommy nodded, slowly. “I felt it too.”
The room was so quiet, even the distant hum of the fridge sounded loud. Time didn’t move—just paused and looked at them, waiting to see who would blink first.
Buck was the one who broke the stillness. “So what do we do?”
Tommy sat back, fingers steepled for a beat as he searched himself for the answer.
“If I’m being honest?” he said at last. “I’d open my life to this. To both of you. If it’s real. If it’s what we all want.”
Buck looked up, stunned. “You would?”
Tommy didn’t blink. “Yeah. I would.”
There was something unbelievably brave in that. Not romantic bravery. Not the kind sung about in bad country songs. Just… human. Wholehearted.
“I’m scared,” Eddie admitted, like a confession he couldn’t keep in.
Tommy smiled, soft and sure. “Me too.”
Buck looked at them both, emotion stretched tight across his features like a wire pulled too far. “But I want this. If it’s possible. I want you both in whatever way you’ll have me.”
And then—a sound.
A creak, light and fast.
They all turned toward the hallway just in time to catch a small shadow dart around the corner. Christopher.
Tommy let out a breath of a laugh. “He’s so nosy.”
“He’s also way too invested in our love lives,” Buck muttered.
“Wonder where he gets that from,” Eddie added, mostly under his breath.
Their laughter came too easily—like a match lit in the dark. Small, warm, flickering with something hopeful.
But even after the laughter faded, something lingered. Not fear. Not doubt. Just the rawness of three people standing at the edge of something uncertain.
Can this really work?
They didn’t ask it aloud.
But they all sat with it.
And none of them said no.
The quiet that followed wasn’t awkward—it was electric. Charged with new air.
Tommy leaned forward in the chair, eyes locked on Eddie’s. Slowly, he reached out and placed his hand over Eddie’s, fingers warm and steady. Grounding.
Eddie didn’t pull away.
Instead, he looked down at their hands for a long, suspended second. Then up—first at Tommy, then at Buck, like he was finally allowing himself to see what had been there all along.
Buck smiled—crooked and a little breathless. “You already called me baby. Might as well commit.”
Eddie groaned, heat flooding his neck. “Are you ever gonna let that go?”
“Not a chance.”
“Oh my god,” Eddie muttered, dragging a hand over his face.
Buck reached out and gently pulled Eddie’s hand away from where he was hiding behind it.
“Hey,” Buck said, voice dropping. “It’s okay. You don’t have to be afraid of this.”
Eddie looked at him. And something in him clicked. Softened.
He leaned forward.
The kiss was slow, hesitant. Not a performance. Not an answer. Just a beginning. Buck startled slightly, then melted into it, hand coming up to rest lightly on Eddie’s cheek. There was a sharp inhale between them as they parted—an awareness.
Eddie looked at Tommy, heart visibly pounding in his chest. “Is this… okay?”
Tommy didn’t speak.
He stood. Closed the space between them with a kind of patient certainty—and leaned down.
The kiss he gave Buck was different. More familiar. Like anchoring a boat to a dock. When he pulled back, his gaze was steady and unreadable.
Then he turned to Eddie.
Eddie didn’t flinch. Didn’t second-guess.
Tommy leaned in and kissed him, too. Short. Firm. Honest. When he pulled back, he was smiling.
“See?” he said, like it was that simple. “Not that complicated.”
Buck let out a breathless laugh. “Speak for yourself. I’m emotionally concussed.”
“Not a real thing,” Tommy replied dryly.
“It should be,” Eddie muttered, dazed.
And then all three of them were laughing—too hard, too much. Not because it was funny, exactly, but because it was relief. Because it was release.
The tension cracked like a shell, and underneath was something whole.
The house was quiet in the way it only ever was when Christopher wasn’t home.
No cartoons playing in the background. No crutches tapping rhythmically down the hallway. No half-eaten apples on the kitchen counter or stray LEGO bricks underfoot. Just the distant hum of the fridge and the faint music playing from Eddie’s phone somewhere in the living room.
It was unnerving… for about five minutes.
Then it was kind of glorious.
Hen had picked Chris up that afternoon—he was practically vibrating with excitement about movie night and popcorn with Denny. He’d packed a backpack with at least six graphic novels, two spare sets of pajamas, and a bag of gummy worms he very pointedly told Buck that he takes them with him for safekeeping.
“Guard the house,” Chris had said solemnly, arms crossed. “Don’t burn anything.”
Buck had saluted. Eddie had muttered something about ‘no promises’ , and Tommy had whispered a “why did he take the gummy worms?”
Now it was well past dark. The air outside was warm, the windows cracked just enough to let in the scent of someone grilling two houses down. And inside, the lights were low, the takeout containers had been pushed to one side of the coffee table, and Buck was barefoot, stretched across the couch with his head in Tommy’s lap and one arm extended lazily toward Eddie.
Eddie took it without hesitation, sitting on the floor between the couch and the coffee table, his fingers threading through Buck’s like it was muscle memory.
“You know,” Buck said, eyes fluttering as Tommy’s fingers brushed through his hair, “if you keep petting me like that, I’m going to fall asleep mid-conversation.”
Tommy grinned down at him. “That’s fine. I’ll just carry you to bed.”
“I am not light.”
“You are when Eddie helps.”
Eddie snorted. “Please. I’ve been carrying this man—emotionally, mentally, sometimes physically—for years.”
“Hey!” Buck said, sitting up slightly. “That’s rude and mostly true.”
Tommy smirked and leaned down to kiss the corner of Buck’s mouth. “You’re adorable when you pout.”
Buck tried to pout harder, but it didn’t last long—not with the way Eddie was drawing soft patterns across the inside of his palm, or the way Tommy was now nuzzling just behind his ear like he knew that spot made Buck melt.
“You guys are bullies,” Buck muttered, grinning.
Eddie leaned in and kissed his knuckles. “You love it.”
“Maybe.”
Tommy shifted slightly, tugging Buck up until he was straddling his legs. He looked between them—Eddie, in his faded firehouse t-shirt, eyes heavy with quiet affection, and Tommy, in sweats and bare feet, grinning like this whole thing still surprised him a little.
“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Tommy said after a beat, voice low and full of something warm.
“What, sitting in a house full of leftover Thai food and too many feelings?” Buck teased, but his voice softened. “Yeah. Me neither.”
Eddie now kneeled behind him and leaned his head against Buck’s shoulder. “I like it. I like us.”
They all went quiet again—not because they didn’t have anything to say, but because sometimes, the best parts didn’t need words.
Still, Buck broke the silence first. “Do you think we’re doing okay?”
Tommy raised an eyebrow. “You’re literally being touched by both of us like a golden retriever who won the lottery. What part of this feels like failure?”
“I mean like... long-term okay,” Buck said, trying to find the shape of the thought. “We haven’t lived together yet. We haven’t really hit anything hard. What if this is just a really good dream?”
Eddie gently put his hand in Bucks cheek, turned his head and looked at him for a long moment. Then, gently, “Even good dreams come from somewhere real.”
Buck blinked.
Tommy nodded. “We’re still learning each other. But I’d say we’re off to a damn good start. You make us all talk about emotions, Eddie steals the covers, and I have unreasonably high standards for how dishes go in the drying rack.”
Eddie groaned. “You’re still on about that?”
“Babe,” Tommy said, dead serious, “ bowls go on the left. ”
Buck wheezed with laughter.
“See?” Tommy said, eyes dancing. “We’re fine.”
Eddie kissed Buck’s temple. Then turned and kissed Tommy too. “We’re more than fine.”
They made their way to the bedroom gradually, unhurried, like the night itself was stretching long just for them.
Buck settled in the middle without needing to be asked. It had become a quiet, natural thing—one of many they’d all started doing without thinking. Eddie on one side, warm and steady. Tommy on the other, always pulling Buck close like he might slip away if he wasn’t careful.
The lights were off, but the room wasn’t dark—just soft with spillover from the hallway, casting shadows in corners and silvering the sheets.
For a moment, no one moved. Just the rustle of blankets, the creak of the mattress, the slow inhale-exhale of comfort settling in.
Then Tommy leaned in, slow and sure, and kissed Buck.
Not a sweet, sleepy kiss. A real one—deep, unhurried, deliberate. His hand came up to cradle Buck’s jaw, tilting him just enough to get closer. Buck made a soft sound against his mouth, responding without hesitation.
Eddie shifted, eyes on them, and Buck barely had time to gasp for breath before Eddie kissed him too—rougher, firmer, his hand sliding up Buck’s chest, grounding and wanting all at once.
Buck melted between them, his hands gripping the sheets for a second before reaching—one finding the back of Tommy’s hand, the other curling into Eddie’s shirt.
The kisses turned messier. Hungrier.
Tommy pressed in along Buck’s side, leg sliding between his, while Eddie did the same from the other side. Sandwiched and surrounded, Buck arched instinctively, breath catching when hips rolled against him from both sides.
It wasn’t hurried. There was no rush. Just slow, careful rhythm and the warmth of skin against skin through too-thin sleep clothes.
Buck let his head fall back on Eddie’s shoulder, gasping when Tommy mouthed along his neck, when Eddie’s hand found the dip of his waist and squeezed gently.
They didn’t need to take it further. Not tonight. This wasn’t about release—it was about being wanted. Known. Loved .
And Buck felt it in every press of a kiss, every slow roll of hips, every whispered breath.
Eventually, things slowed again. Movements softened. Kisses gentled.
Buck was on his side facing Tommy,curled up tight against his front, arm draped low across his waist, lips brushing lazy patterns against his shoulder. Eddie buried his face in Buck’s curls from behind, hand still warm against his stomach.
Into three sets of limbs tangled in one bed, three breaths syncing in the dark.
And when Buck, already half-asleep and thoroughly undone, murmured “I love you” into the space between them, two voices answered him at once.
One from each side.
Soft. Sure.
“Love you too.”
This time, when Buck finally closed his eyes, there was no doubt, no fear, no flicker of drowning left behind in his chest.
Just warmth. Just home.