Work Text:
Eddie sinks down into a chair at the station’s dining room table, his head soon dropping in exhaustion to rest on the cool wooden surface. They’re almost done — just three hours left — but the crash is starting to hit him. Hard.
Five or ten or hell it could’ve been thirty minutes later, Eddie smells the coffee before he hears the gentle thud of the mug being placed on the table next to his head. With a tired groan, he slowly sits up straight only to meet Buck’s gaze — his eyes so blue and soft that Eddie, in his exhausted state, wishes he could fall asleep in. He knows it doesn’t make sense, but he also can’t bring himself to care. Especially not as Buck places a strong hand on his shoulder, giving it one comforting squeeze, before nodding to the coffee.
It’s just what he needs. The extra sugar hits his tongue like an elixir, and Eddie already feels himself perking up after just one sip. He swears Buck is somehow magic, always making his coffee perfectly to his taste. But whenever Eddie’s joked about it in the past, Buck’s only ducked his head in a shy smile and waved him off with an, “It’s really not that hard to dump half a cup of sugar into your mug, Eds. I swear you’re worse than Christopher with the stuff.”
A content sigh escapes Eddie’s lips as he takes another sip and all Buck says in response is, “Can’t have you falling asleep on the way home.”
And because he doesn’t need Eddie to thank him — not that Eddie won’t thank him, once he’s back to somewhat functioning — Buck simply saunters off to plop himself in front of the tv. But instead of turning it on, he pulls out his phone and starts scrolling.
Which reminds Eddie, he needs to pick Buck up a new charger on his way home. His old one is lying with exposed wires somewhere in the bottom of his work bag. And it’s not like Eddie minds always having to share his charger, it’s just that he knows Buck will never actually get around to buying the replacement until his current one officially dies on him.
“I mean I guess there’s truth to it,” Hen says as she walks up the stairs, Ravi on her trail. “Karen hates taking the little safety tabs off new condiments, so I always do it for her.”
Eddie watches, confused, as Hen and Ravi make their way over to the coffee pot.
“It’s all everyone’s talking about online,” Ravi says. “I swear I can’t look anywhere without seeing it.”
And, okay, Eddie will never be the first to admit it, but god does he love gossip. So he can’t help but ask: “Seeing what?”
“Oh! It’s this new relationship theory,” Ravi says casually as he pours himself a cup of coffee, as if that’s the most normal possible answer. “They say that the best way to tell if your partner really values you is if they’d peel your oranges for you. The Orange Peel Theory.”
Eddie almost feels bad at the way Ravi’s smile twitches down slightly with the scoff that punches out of him in response. “Orange Peel Theory?” he asks skeptically. “So, if someone doesn’t want to peel my oranges they don’t care about me? What if I don’t even like oranges?”
“You don’t!” Buck shouts from the couch, visibly startling Hen and Ravi who hadn’t even seemed to notice him. He just looks back at them and shrugs. “What? He doesn’t.”
“See?” Eddie remarks, sitting up straighter in his chair.
“It’s not about the actual orange, though,” Ravi tells him. “It’s about the gesture. You know, would your partner go out of their way to do something simple just to make your life easier?”
Eddie thinks on it for a second. “But isn’t that just what a relationship is? If you like someone, you take care of them. There shouldn’t need to be a theory about that, it should be pretty obvious.”
Except the second it leaves his mouth, he knows he’s not exactly correct. Because now that he’s thinking about it — the way he always prepares avocados for Buck because Buck hates the way the mushiness feels in his hands, or the way he’s literally planning on stopping at a store to buy Buck a phone charger — shouldn’t Buck know about his feelings already? About the way his heart constricts with every look and plunges into his stomach at every touch? And Buck hasn’t necessarily done anything to show that he feels the same, let alone even knows.
But dammit, Hen’s right and Ravi’s stupid theory may actually have some truth to it. Because he knows that, if given the chance, he wouldn’t just peel Buck’s oranges, he’d plant an entire orange grove for him.
“Obvious, huh?” Hen asks then the two of them start laughing so hard that Ravi ends up cursing as some hot coffee splashes onto his hand. Eddie frowns at them as his eyes follow as they move to join Buck on the couch. He can’t help but feel as if they know something he doesn’t and the gnawing feeling only grows as he watches Hen seemingly ask Buck a question before he scrubs a hand down his face — one of his telltale signs of frustration.
Eddie’s frown deepens as he watches the interaction, and then scowls as the alarm goes off. He’ll just have to see what’s bothering Buck later.
He doesn’t get a chance to talk with Buck one-on-one before their shift ends, and by the time he’s showered and changed, Buck’s nowhere to be seen in the station. With a resigned sigh, Eddie simply heads out. True to his word, though, he stops by the store to pick up Buck’s new charger. And, okay, maybe he also stops and grabs his guilty pleasure fast food breakfast burrito.
In the future, when he inevitably retells this story, Eddie will refuse to admit that in the end it was a trash can of all things that made him realize it. A little car trash can that Buck bought for him after relentlessly teasing Eddie for his habit of just throwing wrappers on the floor of the passenger side of his truck.
“I always take them inside,” Eddie had defended the last time Buck pointed it out, a cheeky grin on his beautiful face.
“I just can’t believe that you, Mr. Everything has to be Perfect, can stand having trash in his truck. Even for one day.”
Eddie had only huffed in response before leaning over and picking up the wrapper, balling it up and chucking it playfully at Buck who had easily swatted it away without batting an eye.
But as he now dutifully places his wrapper in the trash can attached to the center console, Ravi’s words from earlier practically scream in his head: “It’s about the gesture. You know, would your partner go out of their way to do something simple just to make your life easier?”
When he exits the parking lot, instead of taking the usual left turn to head home Eddie makes a right instead, towards Buck’s. His entire body feels electric, his heart burning for a confirmation of his feelings the way lungs burn for oxygen when they’ve been without air for too long. But when he finds himself stepping out of the elevator and walking down the hall towards Buck’s door, the burning has all but been extinguished by panic. Pure panic, which is the only explanation for what comes out of his mouth the second a very confused looking Buck opens his door.
“Have you been peeling my oranges?”
The dip of Buck’s furrowed brows deepens as he cocks his head to the side. “What?”
Eddie pushes his way past Buck and into the loft. “I know it sounds crazy but Ravi was talking about that… that theory earlier about people peeling oranges for someone they care about and I just — Here.” He stops his nervous pacing and holds out Buck’s new phone charger.
Pushing himself off where he’s leaning against the closed door, Buck steps towards Eddie. With his ruffled hair and pillow imprint on his cheek, it’s clear that Eddie's just woken him up.
“Well, that’s not an orange,” Buck deadpans. “Did you hit your head today, Eds?” There’s no actual concern in his voice, though. No, Buck is — Buck is smirking at him with that stupidly attractive cocky grin that Eddie loves so much. So, he’s not going to make this easy on Eddie, is he?
Eddie groans as he puts the charger down on Buck’s kitchen island. “Okay, yes, I know this isn’t an orange, Buck. It’s just that I always cut your avocados for you and pick up things from the store that I know you’ll unintentionally keep pushing off. You got me a trash can for my truck—” he’s rambling, he realizes, but the words just can’t stop flowing, “— and you always have coffee ready for me before I even have the chance to think about making a cup. And it’s always perfect, Buck. Always.”
“So… you’re asking if doing nice things for you is me—"
“Peeling my oranges,” Eddie confirms, severely regretting that this is the metaphor he’s stuck himself to. So he sighs and ducks his head in embarrassment but then suddenly, Buck’s standing right in front of him. Mere inches separate them, and when Eddie finally gives in and looks back up, he meets Buck’s eyes — wide and bright and pleading.
“Eddie,” Buck starts, reaching up and cupping Eddie’s face in his hands. “If you’re seriously asking if I’ve been doing nice things for you because of some Twitter theory, I’m not. I do nice things for you because I love you. And I’ll make your coffee or… or peel actual fucking oranges for you or whatever you want for as long as you’ll have me.”
With those three words, a mixture of emotions settles heavily inside Eddie’s chest. It’s the feeling of the last piece of a puzzle sliding into place; it’s the comfort of crawling into bed after a long day. It’s also pretty fucking disorienting, is what it is, and so while his brain tries to catch up, his mouth just slips out, “I don’t like oranges, remember?”
A beat of silence. Two. Three. Then Buck, with his hands still cupping Eddie’s face, laughs. “You come in here freaking out about the fact that we love each other, and that’s all you have to say?”
That seems to switch Eddie’s mind back online. “I never said I loved you.” Not out loud, at least.
Anticipatory heat swirls in Eddie’s stomach as he watches Buck bite down on his lip to keep from smiling even wider, a pretty blush painting his cheeks pink. “It was kind of implied in your little speech.”
“Well then,” Eddie breathes out, tilting his head up ever so slightly. His hot breath fans across Buck’s lips and he watches as Buck’s eyes flicker down to his mouth. “Just for the record, I love you.”
He barely gets the word ‘you’ out before Buck’s lips are on his, swallowing the rest of his confession.
“So did you know?” Eddie asks later, once they've settled on the couch after managing to get a few hours of sleep. Buck’s eyes flutter open from where his head rests in Eddie’s lap, Eddie’s fingers threading through his hair absentmindedly.
“That you loved me?” Buck asks and Eddie nods. “I had a feeling. I just didn’t want to say anything and, you know, accidentally push you into something when you weren’t ready. I would’ve waited, though. You’re worth waiting for.”
God, Eddie loves Buck. He loves Buck so much he doesn’t even know what to do with it all.
“And here I thought that maybe you just couldn’t see how I felt,” Eddie admits. “Guess I’m the one who wasn’t paying attention.”
Buck’s eyes flutter back shut as a smirk pulls up on his lips. “Thank god for Ravi and his oranges, then, huh?”
Eddie teasingly tugs a little rougher on Buck’s hair at that, eliciting a soft gasp that Eddie promises to himself he’s going to have Buck repeating later. “Ravi can never know that this is what got us together.”
“Oh no,” Buck disagrees, tone defiant. He squints one eye open to look back up at Eddie. “I’m buying him a fruit basket.”