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It's been unseasonably cold. Most of LA has decided not to leave their homes, with only one call in their precinct so far, on account of a wood heater incident. It also explains why Buck and he have been pressed against each other's sides all day. For warmth, that’s all. It's practical.
He's just woken up with a start after a mega nap in the bunk room. He’s rubbing the sleep from his eyes as he climbs the stairs, finding Buck on the couch; he plonks down un-gracefully in his personal space.
So he’s still half asleep when Buck turns to him with one of those soft smiles that make him want to melt into a puddle on the floor or turn into an ice cream ripe for licking.
Buck frowns, as his eyes sweep over him. “You had another dream?”
He hums non-committally as Buck shifts to wrap an arm around him, wriggling and pressing them together from knee to shoulder. He tucks himself into the curve of Buck’s neck and closes his eyes.
“Knew I should have come down there with you,” Buck whispers into his sleep mussed hair.
It’s moments like these that he can hardly believe that they aren’t more than best friends. That Buck can take one look over him and know that he’d been jerked awake by his demons; well, he’s never felt so seen.
He blinks up at Buck, finding Buck smiling down at him, and they’re so close, and he smells so good. Buck’s thumb brushes tenderly over his cheekbone; his whole focus fixed on him. He leans in and kisses Buck.
It’s a soft peck, the start of something bigger, the beginning of something that he desperately wants with Buck. Only Buck’s mouth has dropped open in shock.
“You had an eyelash,” Buck chokes out, slowly bringing his thumb up into his field of vision, offending eyelash sitting delicately there torturing him.
“Shit, I’m sorry,” he hears himself say, pulling away from Buck and walking as quickly as he can away from him, eyes downcast as he passes an equally shocked looking Hen. He needs to hide, he needs to scream, but most of all, he needs a fucking time machine.
~
He's surprised. Well, a surprise is a bit of an understatement, but it’s a pleasant surprise. Never in his lifetime did he presume that Eddie, his best friend that he’d been crushing on for over two years, would kiss him. Would want him like that. And at work, in the middle of a shift.
Fuck! He can’t even think he’s that blown away. Only in his shock, Eddie had disappeared, and he can’t move. It feels like he’s a dead weight cemented into the couch as a mass of emotions crash into him.
He manages to look over to see Hen at the table, one eyebrow raised and the other somehow looking cross. It's her patented, ’really, Buckley?’ look.
“I..” He tries, words still working against him.
Hen’s eyebrows shoot further up.
“What? I didn't do any- I was only..” he holds the eyelash on his thumb out to her as an explanation, like that proves his case beyond a reasonable doubt. He doesn't really have anything else intelligible to add with his brain unhelpfully repeating ’Eddie kissed me,’ on a constant loop. By Hen’s expression, it doesn't seem she’s the least bit convinced of his innocence.
”Buck,” Hen warns, ”Go fix it.”
Fix it. Right, yes, he can do that. Wait, did he break it? Is Eddie mad? He says the last part out loud.
“Buck, he just kissed you, and you showed him your goddamn thumb! Me, Bobby and pretty much every single person in this station knows how you feel about him, but Eddie doesn’t.”
He frowns at the implication that everyone knows, and Hen rolls her eyes at him.
“Go get your man.” This time she says it with a grin that has him springing up off the couch in a flash. His man, yeah, that sounds good.
Hen whacks him playfully on the thigh with her MCAT textbook as he walks within her arm span.
“All right, I'm going,” he surrenders, skipping out of her reach and down the stairs to find Eddie. Not that it’ll take long. Eddie’s favourite place to hide is out back.
~
As suspected, Eddie’s sitting on the far bench underneath one of the planter trees.
“Well, that was a pleasant surprise Eds, wanna tell me how long you've been thinking about doing that?” Buck teases, coming up behind him.
Eddie groans into his hands. He knows Buck. There was no way he wouldn't want a follow-up conversation about this, but Eddie still hasn't quite come to terms with his own stupidity. Quite frankly, Eddie didn't think he’d be the first of the two of them to make a move, let alone at work.
“Because,” Buck continues undeterred, hands wrapping around Eddie's biceps and pulling him to his feet, ”I've been thinking about doing that to you, for two very sexually frustrating years.”
Eddie blinks at him, a slow, shy smile settling on his face. “Yeah?”
“Hmm, definitely,“ Buck replies, grasping Eddie’s face reverently and pressing a soft peck to his lips. “And if we can just get through the rest of this shift, I can name you a few hundred other things that I’ve been thinking about doing.”
Eddie outright shivers, as Buck’s hands slide down his arms to link their fingers. Yeah, it’s going to be one long, frustrating wait until they’re behind closed doors.