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In all of Buck’s years at the 118 -- all of his moments of total embarrassment -- this has to be the worst.
He’s playing a harmless game of poker with Eddie, Chimney, and Ravi to kill some time; at least, harmless until it turns into ‘winner dares loser.’ Buck, having never actually learnt how to play poker, loses. Tragically.
“You cheated!” he whines, trying (and failing) to avoid being dared. Eddie’s the winner, to nobody’s surprise, and he has too many ideas in his brain just waiting to be Buck’s punishment.
“I did not cheat, you’re just bad at hiding your tells.” This earns a light punch in the shoulder from Buck accompanied by an overdramatic eye-roll.
“Pay up, Buckaroo,” Chimney says, leaning back in his seat in an attempt to stifle a laugh. As soon as he and Ravi lock eyes they can’t hold it in anymore.
“Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up.” Buck crosses his arms and faces Eddie. “Lay it on me,” he sighs.
“There’s no way in Hell I’m doing that. In the women’s room, too?!” Embarrassment is one thing, but utter humiliation? Buck will never hear the end of it, not if Chimney has anything to say about it -- and he has plenty.
“What? Big, tough, sex addict Evan Buckley doesn’t wanna show a little skin?” Eddie teases, a smug smirk plastered on his face.
“Ex sex addict,” Buck corrects. Which you shouldn’t even know about.
He caves when he sees Eddie’s pouty face. “Fine! Fine. But you owe me, Eddie.”
“Win a round and maybe then I will.” He gestures to the women’s bathroom and doesn’t get rid of his stupid smirk that, in any other situation, Buck would find quite charming.
Buck undresses and hesitantly steps into the bathroom, quietly thanking whoever for making it empty.
“Are you satisfied?” He calls out with a hint of annoyance evident in his tone. He’s about to make his exit, whether the others say he can or not, when he hears a familiar voice.
Oh, crap.
“Why are you three--” It’s Hen’s voice, and it quickly switches to that of a disappointed older sibling. “--where’s Buck?”
“Nowhere!” Buck yells, though it gives away that he is, in fact, somewhere. Unfortunately, that somewhere is where Hen needs to go.
The door creaks open and Buck hurries to find something -- anything -- to cover himself and save them both the everlasting trauma.
He’s too late.
“Why are you naked?!” Hen slaps a hand over her mouth to compose herself, which doesn’t work. She cackles and it echoes throughout the entire firehouse, making Buck turn a bright shade of red.
“I- uh… This isn’t-” he’s about ready to throw Eddie off a cliff. “I lost a bet,” he explains with a nervous chuckle.
“Not a bet, Buck. You just really suck at poker!” Chimney hollers.
“Thank you, Chim!” Is the sarcastic reply. “Can we just agree that this never, ever happened? Please?” He flashes an anxious smile.
“I think that’s up to them.” Hen looks back to where Chimney’s in tears, Ravi’s walked away (thankfully), and Eddie’s looking on, half sympathetic, half amused.
Buck catches the towel thrown at him and wraps it around himself, nodding a thank you to Hen and escaping to get clothes from his locker. As if by some miracle, the alarm goes off, saving Buck from having to deal with whatever crap he was going to get and allowing him to just focus on the job.
Eddie can always tell when something’s clinging to Buck’s brain, repeating over and over again just to rub it all in. He feels guilty, of course, since he’s the one who made Buck do it.
“You know,” he begins, sitting on the couch beside Buck with a couple of beers, “you’re not actually terrible at playing.” Eddie hands him one of the beers and sips his own.
“Try telling that to Chimney.” He sighed heavily and cradled his drink, not touching it other than that.
“Stay right there, I’ll be back in a second,” Eddie says and walks down the hallway, silent so as to not wake Christopher up. He returns moments later with a deck of cards.
“Eddie-”
“I don’t want to hear it. You said I owe you, and you’re right. So,” he sets the cards down on the table. “Here I am, making it up to you. I’ll show you all my tricks so that next time, Chimney’s the one who can have an earful.” Buck tries to hide his smile as he finally takes a swig of his drink and puts it down.
“You’re on, Diaz,” he challenges, following it up by saying, “you’re lucky I like you.”
“Like?” Eddie questions. “Is that really the word you’re going for here?”
“Yup. If you’re nice to me I might be able to bump it up to like-like.”
The couple gaze at each other, their affection for one another being let loose after a long day of keeping it under wraps, before Eddie leans forward and plants soft kisses from Buck’s jawline to his lips. “How about now?” he asks, pressing their foreheads together.
“Apology accepted.” They separate and Eddie begins explaining the basics of poker.
Buck listens intently the entire time, as he always does when Eddie speaks.