Work Text:
Eddie swats at the hand shaking his shoulder, grumbling incoherent protests into his pillow. There’s no way it’s a reasonable time to be awake, especially not on a work-free Monday, which happens once in a blue moon.
“Come on, Edmundo.” It’s Buck, of course it is. No one else puts that much emphasis on his full name. “Me and Christopher spent four hours making everything perfect, do you really want to disappoint your own kid like that?” He doesn’t open his eyes but he can feel the smug face Buck’s making, and he knows ‘four hours’ is more like one hour.
“Which kid, Chris or you?” He retorts, to which Buck laughs. When he looks at his alarm clock, it reads 6:21am. If he can just stay in bed for five more minutes he can—
“Don’t even think about sleeping through this.” Hands grasp his wrists, pulling him out from the covers and into a vaguely upright position. “See? That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
“You’re on thin ice, Evan Buckley. Paper-thin.” Before he can think of any real threats, Eddie’s being guided into the living room with hands covering his eyes. The soft clacking of crutches on hardwood floor tells him that Christopher is here, too, likely about to explode with excitement. His vision is still obscured and he pulls Buck's hands away. The living room décor is definitely something; their freshly set up Christmas tree clashing horrifically with a birthday banner and streamers which were absolutely not there last night.
Buck's phone rings out, declaring that it's 6:23am, the exact time at which Eddie was born (obviously Buck has it memorised, he once spent five hours reading about zodiac sign comaptability—down to the minute—on a whim).
"Happy birthday, Dad!" Chris wraps his arms around Eddie's torso, smiling up at him, and Eddie plants a kiss in his hair. "I woke Buck up extra early today to help me." Eddie looks up and makes what's supposed to be an annoyed look at Buck, for doing all this for him, but ends up smiling at him instead. His smile stays even after he and his son let go of each other.
"I'm sorry, who woke who up?" Buck challenges, tickling the boy. "You were snoring louder than a tractor when I came to wake you up." Christopher breaks out into a fit of giggles, trying his best to escape.
“Tractors don’t snore, Buck!” Chris manages in the midst of his laughing. “They don’t breathe.” Eddie rolls his eyes fondly at them, crossing his arms and pretending to be upset about being ‘ignored’. Buck notices and lets Christopher go, pulling one of Eddie’s hands down and interlocking their fingers.
“Come on, birthday boy. You’re not against cake for breakfast, are you?” Eddie makes a loud hmm before saying,
“Well, I wouldn’t want to spend an entire day with you on an empty stomach.” Buck huffs a laugh and follows behind Christopher as he makes his way to the kitchen—which, Eddie notes, is also littered with birthday decorations. Neither of them lets go of the other’s hand until Buck has to get said breakfast cake out of the fridge.
The cake looks like something out of the Cheesecake Factory, but Eddie recognises the sponge layers and cream filling, topped with strawberries and unwrapped Hershey’s Kisses, as pastel de tres leches. Just by looking at it, he can tell it’s made from his abuela’s famous—to the Diaz family, at least—recipe.
“How did you manage this in an hour? I know you’re a good baker but you’re not magic.” Buck and Christopher share a look that Eddie is extremely familiar with, giving him the idea of how exactly they pulled this off. “When you picked Christopher up yesterday—”
“Abuela did most of the work, since I can’t translate Spanish off the top of my head, and Christopher and I did the rest.”
“We’re really good liars, Dad. You didn’t even know!” Buck ruffles Chris’ hair, wide grins on both of their faces.
“Yeah, you didn’t even know.” Arms are wrapped around Eddie’s waist, and Buck pulls him in for a chaste kiss, so as to avoid any scrunched up faces and fake throwing up from their 11-year-old.
“I cannot believe you two,” Eddie comments lightheartedly, shaking his head. “You’re a bad influence, Buckley”—he gives Buck a light smack on the shoulder—“Encouraging my own son to lie to me.” There’s no heat behind his words, and he sways into Buck, knocking him slightly, before sitting down at the table, Christopher right behind him. Buck brings the cake over and sets it down, bringing his phone out to take videos and pictures as Happy Birthday is sung obnoxiously loud by him and Chris.
“Make a wish!” Christopher tells Eddie as he’s about to blow out the candles sitting on the table; birthday candles make a mess and get wax on the food, so the Buckley-Diaz trio lights regular candles to blow out instead.
Eddie makes his wish, the candles are blown out, and the three of them eat the masterpiece that is Eddie’s birthday cake. Buck and Chris, of course, smear whipped cream onto each other’s faces, thankfully making less of a mess than they could.
Seeing his two favourite people enjoying themselves is more than Eddie could ever ask for, could ever wish for, and he’s filled with a warmth he can only describe as adoration.
Adoration for his little family, who never fail to bring joy into everything. Adoration for his home, which is not a place, but a people.