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“You’re getting so good at this, mijo!” Eddie smiles, turning Chris around to crawl back towards Buck.
And it’s true, Chris has been pretty good at crawling recently. It took him a while to get here. Tummy time had slowly turned into shimmying and rolling around which had then slowly turned into what could be considered crawling. Chris is absolutely smashing the CP milestones. His dads couldn’t be any prouder.
‘Date nights’ more often than not were turning into ‘play with Chris nights’. Because it’s just so hard to resist hanging out with the cutest little angel ever. Buck and Eddie do still have alone time to themselves, but sometimes they just miss Chris like crazy. Once they’re done with all the activities they can’t do with Chris around, they just want to spend the rest of the night with him.
Which is ridiculous, right? Because they spend so much of the week with their son already, and when they finally get a moment away from him to breathe, they want him back almost immediately.
So, lately, they’ve been picking up Chris from Pepa’s or Charlotte’s or whoever he’s with earlier than normal.
Usually, you have baby fever before you have the baby, but maybe something about Chris starting to crawl is inducing it. Buck especially is susceptible to the baby fever. Almost as soon as he and Eddie have showered after whatever activities take place on date night, he’s ready to step out the door, eager to be reunited with his little buddy.
They spend hours of their ‘date nights’ sitting on a big baby blanket in Eddie’s dorm, watching Chris crawl around and play with his toys and reading to him. They’re sure the baby fever will come and go in waves, and they’ll be back to savouring every waking moment they get to themselves no matter how much they adore Chris. But for now, Chris is a crawling machine and Buck and Eddie can’t get enough of it.
On this night, like many others, Buck and Eddie sit across from each other on the floor while Chris crawls back and forth between them. And it has Chris so happy. It’s like every time Buck turns him around and he spots Papa sitting at the other end of the blanket, he’s astonished by seeing his dad and can’t wait to get over to him. The same thing happens when he sees Dada. He giggles and babbles and gurgles and gets a few cheery, nonsensical words out as he crawls back and forth.
They talk to him the whole time, encouraging him to speak. Even if most of the words are just “Dada”, “Papa”, and “oopsie” – which he’s picked up from Buck going “oopsie daisy” every time Chris loses his balance and falls forward.
“‘Oopsie’ is right, little one,” Eddie will go as he comforts a whimpering Chris who’s pouting from crawling too fast and faceplanting into the blanket. He leaves kisses all over his son’s face until he stops crying and gets his sights back on crawling to his Dada again.
Even after Eddie goes to bed early, preparing for a shift tomorrow, Buck will stay up and play with Chris. He reads to Chris in a whisper and lets Chris pull on his hair without a sound. He feeds Chris his nighttime bottle and tires him out until he’s ready for bed.
“Alright, sweetie,” Buck smiles, picking Chris up and holding him on his hip while he goes to pick out a onesie for Chris to wear to sleep. “You did some very good crawling today, you’re a rockstar,” he keeps his voice hushed as he talks, scared of waking his boyfriend.
But Buck’s unaware that his boyfriend is already awake. Has been awake this whole time, actually. His eyes are closed but he’s listening to Buck, loves listening to Buck, always, but especially with Christopher.
And to Eddie’s delight, Buck keeps talking while he changes Chris’s diaper and gets him in his pyjamas. Letting his inner monologue find a voice. Eddie gets it; there’s something oddly therapeutic about talking to Chris even if he can’t understand or answer. It’s obvious Chris is listening anyway.
“Next, we gotta work on walking, buddy. You’re gonna love it. Walking is gonna be so fun. And it’s so helpful too. Like, you’re gonna be the flower boy when I marry Papa, and you can’t be the flower boy if you can’t walk down the aisle, okay?”
Eddie holds back his scoff. But his heart melts. He and Buck don’t talk too much about getting married – it’s just kind of implied that when they get enough time and money, it’s going to happen. Probably after they graduate. But who knows.
“And I really, really want to marry Papa, so you’d better pick it up quick, mijo – hey, quit it with the kicking, I can’t get you dressed any faster if you’re kicking me – where was I…? Right, I can’t wait to marry your Papa. And you are an integral part of the wedding, okay? So you gotta promise to work on walking next. Can you promise me?” Buck puts his hand out as if Chris could shake it.
Of course, Chris doesn’t shake Buck’s hand. But he does grab his fingers a little and try to put them in his mouth. Which is agreement enough for Buck.
“Perfect,” Buck smiles as he gets Chris’ onesie all done up, carrying Chris over to his crib. “As soon as you can walk, I’m gonna ask Papa to marry me.”
Eddie’s eyes go a little wide. He definitely wasn’t supposed to hear that. But it’s so cute he almost doesn’t care. The idea of using Chris as a timeline for his proposal is such a Buck idea.
When Buck finally gets into bed with Eddie, carefully climbing into his arms so as not to ‘wake him’, Eddie can’t help but tease his boyfriend.
“I called dibs on proposing months ago, by the way” he mumbles into Buck’s neck.
“What? You– hold on– you were… you can’t just call dibs, that’s not how it works!”
“Too bad, already did.”
“Well, I don’t fucking remember that! And I woulda called dibs first if I knew I had to.”
Eddie strokes up and down Buck’s back, calming him, but also giving in, “We can both propose, Ev, it’ll be okay.”
“But now my surprise is ruined. Chris was gonna keep the secret for me.”
“You think I didn’t already know you wanted to lock me down?”
“ No , but I thought it would at least be a surprise, like, when it happened.”
“There are lots of other surprises you can pull on me,” Eddie assures him, leaving the rest of the sentence unsaid, knowing they both think about those milestones a lot already. Signing official adoption papers. Changing wills. Deciding to move. Choosing to have another kid. Getting a pet. These are all things in their future that Buck can surprise Eddie with if he really wants.
Buck sighs. Eddie’s right. And each getting a chance to propose and be proposed to sounds pretty nice, actually. “I love you,” he says.
“Te amo, mi amor,” and the Spanish – the pet name for fuck’s sake – will both never fail to either warm up Buck’s heart or wake up his dick. Sometimes both. This time, it’s both. Eddie totally knows what he’s doing.
Buck rolls completely on top of Eddie, legs either side of his hips as he props himself up on his elbow to look into his boyfriend’s eyes. It’s dark but he can still see the twinkle in them through the low light and sleepiness. He uses his other hand to trace patterns up and down Eddie’s chest, getting him just as riled up.
“Know you’ve got work in the morning. But do you think if we try real hard right now we could give Chris a sibling?” Buck smiles.
“Don’t think that’s how it works–”
“We could always try?”
Eddie chuckles, completely and irrevocably endeared by his silly and big-hearted and big-dicked boyfriend. He can play along for him.
“You would really want me to getcha pregnant during a quickie?”
“Hmmm,” Buck acts as if he’s pondering it, “as long as it’s with you, wouldn’t mind, actually. Think we could do it?”
“We’re really good at sex, I’m pretty sure we could do it.”
Buck laughs. They are indeed very good at sex. He feels bad for every couple who isn’t them – there’s not even a chance anyone else will ever get to experience the quality of sex he gets with Eddie. Must be a soulmate thing.
“Oh, is that how it works, Eds? The better we are at having sex the more likely you are to knock me up, huh?
“Yup, pretty sure” Eddie settles his hands on Buck’s thighs, “but there’s only one way to find out, right?”
Buck smiles like an idiot as he leans down to kiss Eddie, whispering against his lips, “only one way to find out.”
(Buck and Eddie, of course, do not end up miraculously conceiving a sibling for Chris. But in the far future, when they are ready for another, and they decide who’s gonna be the biological father, they’re sure they’ll figure out a fun way to get the sample – the closest they can get to physically conceiving together. Which is kinda sweet, when you think about it.
And in the nearer future – but still way before Chris starts walking – unbeknownst to each other they both have ring boxes shoved in the back of sock drawers and closets, ready for the day Chris obliviously decides it’s time for his dads to get married.)