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There were so many fucking things Eddie loved about his boyfriend. So many things he found irresistible. His smile. His laugh. His body. His intelligence. His eyes. His height. His humour. His touch. His athleticism. All of it. Every single thing that made him Evan Buckley, he loved. All the scary things too. All the things Buck hides from the world. All the things only Eddie knows about. His insecurities. His baggage. His childhood. His cute-as-all-hell reading glasses. His inability to have just one scoop of ice cream. His adorable sneezes which often sound like those of a princess. Eddie loves all of these things, because he loves Buck, and Buck wouldn’t be Buck without all his beautifully unique details.
One of his favourite things—which sort of falls in the middle of the Venn diagram representing ‘things Buck isn’t ashamed of’ and also ‘things Buck would kill Eddie for if he told anyone’— is how much he blushes. Buck, with his naive manor and incredibly British heritage, is especially prone to going rosy in the cheeks.
They’ve been dating for well over a year at this point but Eddie still makes Buck blush on an almost daily basis. Buck blushes when Eddie covers his face in kisses in the morning. And when Eddie smacks him on the ass on the way out the door. And when Eddie sends him silly texts, mostly about Chris, throughout the day. And when Eddie cooks him dinner. And when Eddie dirty talks him stupid during sex. And when Eddie whispers about how much he loves him right before they fall asleep.
Buck doesn’t blush every time one of these things happens. Buck used to sit awake at night pinching himself because he couldn’t believe this was his life with Eddie; now these events are often so integrated into their everyday lives that they don’t feel as earth-shatteringly sweet, more just like happy parts of their routine. Still, sometimes the sheer happiness that Buck is so grateful to feel for his boyfriend hits him all at once and his body’s only way of dealing with it is to heat up—show it on his face for the whole world to see.
Eddie finds it incredibly endearing, always.
And even though it’s sometimes mortifying for Buck how much Eddie makes him feel like a virgin schoolgirl, the fluttery sensation he gets when his boyfriend makes him blush is a rush like nothing else.
Eddie is in bed with Chris while Buck rushes to get his stuff together for the road trip. The football team is going to another school a few hours south to face off in a couple different games over the weekend. As much as Eddie would love to join him… his classes, his work, his baby son ; a bunch of different things restrict him from going.
“Where are my shoes?” Buck mutters to himself, pacing around Eddie’s dorm frantically looking for the worn out Converse All Stars he can’t let go of. Eddie’s place is only so big, they’ve gotta be here somewhere. “Where the fuck are my shoes?”
“Language, Evan,” Eddie scolds him playfully, covering Chris’ tiny ears.
“Where the frick are my shoes?” Buck corrects himself without missing a beat, still completely engrossed in his search.
Eddie is smitten with him.
“Have you looked under the bed, sweetheart?” Eddie asks, only a tiny bit condescendingly, really, he’s trying to be helpful.
But what a silly thing to suggest. Don’t you think if they were simply under the bed Buck would have seen them already? It’s not like he’s–
Yup. There they are. Boyfriend knows best.
“Ugh,” Buck groans, of course now is when he remembers kicking them to the side as soon as he got them off last night.
Buck sits on Eddie’s bed and ties his shoes (bunny ear bows, if you’re curious). He’s not bitter.
“Were they under the bed?”
“…No,” Buck lies.
Eddie chuckles to himself.
As soon as Buck has his shoes nice and tight, retying the first one to make sure it matches the other, Buck leans over and gives Chris a couple big kisses right over his chubby cheeks. Buck is so happy the baby fat is not going away anytime soon.
“Mwah, mwah, mwah!”
Chris then giggles as Buck blows a raspberry onto his forehead.
After, Buck crawls up the bed just a tiny bit more to get to his smiling boyfriend.
“I love you, Eds,” he whispers, even though the volume control is not needed. Something about saying it softly always makes it feel warmer though.
“I love you too, baby,” Eddie grins as he cradles Buck’s face in his palm, giving him the longest, deepest kiss he can while Buck is still frantic to get out the door. “See you on Monday.”
“See you on Monday,” Buck repeats back to him, getting up and grabbing his duffle from the floor, snatching his keys from the bowl by the coat rack.
He’s just about to leave when Eddie stops him.
“Ev!” He exclaims, “Evan,” Buck turns around, eyebrows up to his hairline as if to say ‘what now?’
“What are you gonna do?” Eddie asks.
“Babe–”
“What. Are you going to do?”
This is where the famous Buckley Blush comes out. Buck’s trying not to smile like a lovesick fool. He really tries not to every time Eddie makes him do this before away games. It’s only a little bit embarrassing. But Eddie loves to hear him say it. He needs it. And maybe Buck does too.
“Knock ‘em dead,” Buck recites, lovingly rolling his eyes. “Keep myself fed.”
“Yes…”
“Not hit my head…”
“What else?”
“…Come back to your bed,” Buck sighs happily with a sense of finality, blushing like a sunburnt flamingo.
“Atta boy,” Eddie beams. He then holds Chris’ hand in his own and waves it for him, “Say bye to Dada! Bye bye, Dada!”
Buck, cheeks even redder by now, can’t resist going back for one more kiss from his beloved boyfriend and ruffling their gorgeous son’s hair before finally departing—complete with his pretty blush, his fucked up Converse, and a sense of peace he can only get from the love of his life making him recite their mantra.
Yeah. There were so many fucking things Buck loved about his boyfriend too.