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Eddie’s got a list of things he wants to do before he graduates and has to be an adult in the real world. A bucket list, if he wants to call it something. He keeps the piece of paper folded in his pocket, trying his hardest to get everything done before the summer. It helps that he’s got the best friends to help him, his roommate, Evan Buckley, the two people on his course that hang out with them all the time, Henrietta Wilson and Howie Han and Buck’s sister Maddie. They don’t know about the list and he wants to keep it that way, but getting them to unknowingly help him is half of the fun.
- Steal a road sign
“Why are we doing this again?” Buck asks. They’ve been on a night out, and Eddie knows Buck gets all tactile and friendly when he’s drunk and wants to keep Eddie happy. He’s a bit ashamed that he’s using his best friend to help him with the first item in his list, but screw him, he needs help. And Buck is the strongest, loveliest person he knows. He has muscles on muscles. He may be the dreamiest roommate Eddie could have ever had whilst at Uni.
But tonight isn’t about admiring the muscles too much, it’s more a chance to put them to use.
“I just fancy trying to see if we can sneak it back into the halls. Come on, Buckley. You going to help me or do I have to struggle alone?”
They’re staring at a stop sign, on the quietest road Eddie could find, the two of them away from everyone else. Buck looks at him, his eyebrows raised, but obviously decides Eddie’s having some sort of crisis.
“Fine,” he eventually huffs. “I’ll help you if only to stop you from getting a strain. You’re too short to reach anyway.”
“You’re my hero,” Eddie says and tries to keep his tone dry so Buck doesn’t realise how close to the truth that is.
Hen and Chim come around the next day to find a large stop sign in pride of place in Eddie and Buck’s room. They give Buck looks that say they think it was his plan. When they find out it was Eddie’s idea they give him the lecture, one that Hen has never bettered, even if Chim later gives him a high five and asks if he could borrow the sign sometimes.
That’s the first thing off his list. He’s doing well.
- Get drunk before noon
Maddie meets Eddie in the student bar. He’s skipped a lecture, telling Hen he had an appointment that he couldn’t rearrange and begging for her notes. She had rolled her eyes but agreed to it and he knows he owes her one. Maddie is his choice of drinking partner, mainly because if he took Buck he knows he’ll struggle to keep his hands to himself and he doesn’t want to go back to their room alone again. Buck will join them later on, anyway, and by then Eddie won’t care because he’ll have drunk so much.
Maddie raises her eyebrows at the shots he’s already got lined up and the massive jugs of cocktails. “A special occasion?” she asks.
“Nah,” Eddie pours them both a glass full of whatever concoction is in front of him. “Just wanted to have a proper drink with my favourite Buckley.”
She mock scowls at him. “Now I know you’re lying, because Buck is definitely your favourite, I don’t even come close to him in your affections.”
“You hold your drink better?”
“Touché, Diaz,” she grins as she accepts the drink. “Bottoms up!”
He keeps an eye on the clock as he downs drink after drink. He manages to be completely drunk before noon, and when Buck and Chim turn up mid afternoon, he and Maddie are stretched on the sofas, alternating between giggling like mad at random things and sobbing over the fact that the barman won’t bring them fries. Even if the bar doesn’t serve hot food.
Buck takes one look at them both and sighs, removing Eddie’s drink from his hand. “Jesus, I take it these are my evening plans now,” he grumbles, but his touch is soft as he strokes Eddie’s hair off his face.
Eddie doesn’t mind too much, preening for Buck’s touch and ignoring Maddie’s knowing grin. He’s drunk. He can be clingy right?
- Get locked in the library. Deliberately.
Buck looks at him like he’s mental. They’ve been working all day, sitting around the computers in the library. Eddie’s got his final exams coming up and he needs to focus and work. And Buck is just being Buck and helping him out, keeping him on task. Not distracting him at all.
And it’s late, they’ve been working all day, Buck even slipped to the cafe and bought them sandwiches for dinner so they could carry on. So Eddie decides this is the perfect time to tick another item off his list. But when he mentions it to Buck, he gives him that look. “Why?”
Eddie flounders. He doesn’t want to tell Buck why, not when he knows what the last thing in the list is. “Because I always wanted to pull an all-nighter and I guess it makes sense to do work at the same time, to help keep me awake?”
Buck still doesn’t look convinced, but Eddie gives him that pouty puppy eye look he knows Buck is susceptible too. And sure enough, he heaves a sigh and nods his head. “Fine, but you owe me breakfast.”
“We’d better hide then,” Eddie suggests and even though Buck rolls his eyes, they find a closet to hide in.
They’re pressed so close together, Eddie almost forgets everything else that’s on that damn list. He can smell Buck’s cologne, he’s sure he can feel his heart pounding. All he would have to do is tilt his head upwards and have the courage to do what he’s always wanted…
But then Buck inches the door open and the library is dark and closed and they’re still inside. He gives Eddie a massive grin and that’s it, the moment is broken.
They do all the stupid stuff first, grabbing the book trolleys and having a race along the aisles, climbing the bookshelves to the very top, having play fights on the beanbags. They change all the books in the literacy section around so they’re no longer alphabetised and play a find the book scavenger hunt using the computer system.
Eddie does do some more work, but he ends up falling asleep draped over Buck. Buck snores lightly, a little pool of drool on Eddie’s shirt.
He buys him breakfast in the morning when they sneak out once the library has been opened up. Eddie is so busy checking the next thing off his list that he doesn’t notice the way Buck stares at the piece of paper he’s hiding in his pocket.
- Do a bar crawl
Chim gives him a look, like he’s going crazy. “You want to try to drink in every single bar? In Los Angeles?”
“Don’t be silly, Chim, we’ll be doing that until we’re old,” Eddie huffs out as he grabs Chim’s arm, pulling him towards where he wants to go first. “But every bar on University drive? Yes please!”
“There’s still like thirty bars. How drunk are we going to be? Alcohol poisoning is real, you know,” Chim sounds nervous, but Eddie can see his grin starting to form on his face. He knew Chim would be the best person to get to do a bar crawl with.
“Come on, it will be fun,” he says as he holds the door open and Chim sighs and slips inside.
They manage twenty bars before they get chucked out of the next one for being too drunk, sitting on the curb and laughing at each other. Chim drunk dials Maddie to pick him up which means Buck shows up too, rolling his eyes fondly as he slides his hand through Eddie’s arm to help him stand up. “You’re pretty,” Eddie slurs and Buck just laughs and gets him into bed in their room. He’s sure he pats the bed next to him and pouts and Buck laughs again, soft and fond as he leaves water, a bucket and paracetamol next to his bed and then leaves him alone.
Eddie’s almost sure he remembers a soft brush of lips against his forehead when he wakes up the next morning with the hangover from hell, but maybe it was just an alcohol induced dream?
- Prank roommate with sticky notes
He waits until a day when he knows Buck has lots of classes. He meets Maddie for lunch on this day as well, so he won’t be back into the room until much later. Eddie pulls out the box of supplies from under his bed, grinning at the pile of sticky notes he’s managed to collect over the last few months. Buck is going to hate him so much.
He starts in their room, after sticking a line down the centre so there’s nothing on his half, and then moves to the bathroom and the kitchen. He’s sitting on a yellow note covered chair, his feet on the table, sipping a beer, when Buck walks in. He drops his bag and his mouth drops open. “What the actual fuck, Eddie?” he says as he stands and turns full circle in the kitchen.
Eddie hides his smile as he gestures around. “Would you believe me if I said aliens?”
Buck grumbles under his breath as he locates the fridge and peels some of the notes off so he can get in, then complains louder when he has to unwrap his smoothie jar. His noises get louder when he ventures into the bathroom and he gives Eddie a filthy look on his way out.
“Edmundo Diaz, I'm going to kill you!” echoes through their house when he gets into their shared room and sees the mess of notes over everything he owns, his bed, his laptop, his wall, his floor, everything.
Eddie smirks as he picks the notes up, grumbling all the time, making Eddie help with blackmails of no more cooking. He stops grumbling when he finds the ones with words that Eddie wrote on them, sneaking glances over at Eddie instead. He’s sure he sees Buck slide some of them into his pocket.
- Master drinking games
Hen has a book of drinking games that she’s willing to lend Eddie. “It depends on what you want to get out of it,” she says as she flicks through it, pointing the more dog-eared pages out to Eddie.
“I want to get drunk,” he says with a shrug of his shoulders.
“Hmmm,” is all Hen says, but her eyes are fixed on Eddie and he wriggles uncomfortably where he’s sitting on the floor next to her bed. “Just drinking? Nothing to do with a certain blond haired, blue eyed Adonis that shares your room?”
“Of course not,” Eddie is quick to say but he tilts his head back and takes a deep breath. “Or, well, maybe?”
Hens grin is almost feral. “Well, let’s see what we can sort you out with? I’ll practice with you, but I have to say you’re really not my type.”
“That’s ok, you’re not mine either,” Eddie grins at her as she slips to sit opposite him.
They read through the book, finding games that Eddie thinks may be fun to play with Buck, practising some of them until he knows he can handle it. Flip cup is one of his favourites, as is quarters.
But Hen makes him also choose between never have I ever and truth or dare and he’s suddenly nervous.
The last thing on his list seems almost like he’ll never have the courage to do it.
- Do Buck
Eddie’s sitting in their room, his knees knocking against Buck’s. He’d suggested a night together, of drinking games and fun, and they’d started with alcohol but he’d soon swapped to cokes, because he wanted to be sober for what he has to do next, and so Buck had too.
They’d played the games he’d learnt with Hen and now he’s playing with his shirt, as he suggests playing Truth or Dare.
Buck gives him a calculated look. “Yeah, go on then,” he says. “I’ll have a truth first.”
“Will you miss me when I leave?” Eddie asks quietly.
“Yes,” Buck’s answer is immediate, his blue eyes full of longing. “I’ll miss you so much, more than I probably should. I know we’ll still stay in touch but it won’t be the same and I’ll never have another person that means as much to me as you do.”
Eddie rests his hand on Buck’s knee, trying to breath through the answer he’s just been given. “My turn then,” is all he says. “Truth.”
“What have you been doing these last months?”
“I have. A list of things I want to do before I graduate.” Eddie admits and Buck grins.
“I knew it, can I see it?”
Eddie hands it over, his hands sweaty. Buck reads it, a line at a time, his grin growing wider as he realizes just what Eddie has been doing. But when he reads the last line he freezes and just stares at Eddie, wide eyed.
“Do Buck? As in…”
“As in I love you and I want to kiss you and date you even when I’m not here. I want everything. If you want to, that is,” Eddie starts rambling but Buck stops him, his mouth open and working.
“Ask for a dare,” he says breathlessly and Eddie is hopeless in the face of him, hope and amazement shining on his face.
“Dare,” he says slowly and he sees the way Buck licks his lips and oh god, is this really happening?
“Kiss me,” Buck says, his voice low and Eddie makes a noise low in his throat and moves, cupping Buck’s face and kissing him like he’s wanted to for months.
They talk later, when they’re squished in Eddie’s bed, naked and sated and kissing again, slow and sweet. His fingers are tangled in Buck’s hair, Buck’s low on his back, and he can feel how likely they are to go again very soon. “I didn’t think you wanted me,” Buck admits between kisses. “But I love you, so much. I always have, since the day you rescued me from that dog on campus.”
Eddie smiles into the kiss, the way Buck’s fingers stroke lower. “I love you too,” he says, “since the day you walked into the kitchen and rescued me from my poor cooking.”
They’ll have a year where they’re separated, a long distance relationship, but Eddie knows it will work. Buck’s worth it. And for now, they have the rest of this year, kisses and more, as he’d wished.