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Okay, look, Buck likes to think he’s a pretty good guy. He knows he is, even. Like, yes, maybe he’s gotten it wrong a few times, made a few mistakes (mistakes that’s he more than well aware of, trust him— he knows each and every one like the back of his hand, a memorized list that never really stops getting longer no matter what version of Buck he’s on), but he tries. He cares. He has a big heart, so big that sometimes it feels like it's pumping out of his chest, and the energy of a big, overeager golden retriever . Or at least that’s what Hen always says.
So, Buck is a good person. But even he can admit that the ethicality of this situation is…questionable.
But it’s not like he meant for it to happen.
He’s just tired, okay. They’ve been doing construction outside of his place for the past two weeks, and it’s hard to sleep when he’s too focused on when the next BANG is going to come, and not to mention that his refrigerator broke a week ago and keeps making these loud groaning noises like it’s gearing up to push out a baby or maybe just a really resistant piece of shit, and it’s just—really unsettling. And it probably doesn’t help that that instead of even attempting to sleep last night he had fallen into another internet research rabbit hole about vultures and their urinary habits. Which, worth it, because now he knows what urohydrosis means, and he’s willing to bet he might be the only one in the greater LA area.
The downside, of course, is that he’s running on maybe fours hours of sleep (if he’s being generous), and his chances of making it through the entire 24-hour shift are dangerously slim if he doesn’t take every opportunity available to catch a few minutes of shut-eye.
So that’s why he’s half-asleep on the loft couch now, eyes closed and head leaning back against the back of the cushion as the chatter of the rest of the team swirls in and out of his brain only half-comprehended. And, okay, maybe he’s setting himself up for failure because if he really wanted actually good sleep, he would’ve gone to the bunks (he’s always been bad at sleeping sitting up and the couch isn’t even that comfortable anyways), but the bunk room is sad and dark and, most importantly, completely and unaccepatably lacking of the presence of one Eddie Diaz.
Eddie was here, on the couch, and that was reason enough for Buck to forego the bunks altogether and plop down tiredly next to him. And the way Eddie had looked up from his book with soft, indulgent eyes as Buck murmured a tired comment about getting some sleep made the crick in his neck he would probably have for the rest of the shift more than worth it.
It’s not too bad, really—the couch. Not when he can feel the warm line of Eddie’s thigh pressed against his. He’s thinking about that a little bit as he drifts—Eddie’s thigh, or more accurately, how good and safe and nice it feels to be near him, to be touching him in ways more concrete than the passing pats on the shoulder they usually go for—but only in the noncommittal, lazy way you think about anything when you’re half asleep. He’s also thinking about refrigerator babies and whether urohydrosis would work for humans (no, he thinks it’s just a bird thing) and whether drinking your own piss could help you survive for longer if you’re stranded out in the middle of the ocean wtih no fresh water—which is really gross, but he’s too tired to even realize it.
But the trouble is that sometime in the midst of these thoughts, as he gradually sinks further and further towards sleep’s embrace, he’s started to lean. Closer and closer to Eddie.
And he might be pretty much asleep, but as soon as he feels his head make contact with the junction between Eddie’s shoulder and neck, he’s internally wide awake.
Oh my god. Oh my fucking god. Is he—yes. This is happening. He fucking—he’s currently half laying on top of his best friend. Distantly, he wonders what it says about him that his half-asleep subconscious state was pulled towards Eddie like that. Nothing he doesn’t already know.
He doesn’t know what to do. His body may still be lax, but internally, he’s frozen. Part of him wants to throw himself out of the loft window. The other part him wants to dig his feet further into the dirt, and nuzzle further into Eddie’s neck, and purr like a fucking cat or something.
Which, no. He’s not fucking going to do that.
And, look, it’s not like it’s the first time something like this has happened. They had always been maybe a little bit more tactile than your average male friendship—pats on the shoulder, hands sliding on smalls of backs, the occasional but not necessarily rare hug. And not to mention, back when they were holing up together in quarantine, there had been one or two mornings where Buck had woken to his body wrapped around Eddie like a clingy octopus. But that was—different. Then, they were two considerably sized men sharing a relatively small bed. Now, they are two adults in the broad daylight in a room that has many other much more appropriate sleeping spots.
There’s no excuse for this, besides the big one. That Buck is stupidly, recklessly in love with—
He should move. He really should. He’s awake now. Leaning towards Eddie in his sleep can be passed off as a harmless accident, but staying there? That would be purposeful. That would be the— bad thing to do.
But he can’t bring himself to move. He can’t bring himself to blink his eyes open, pull himself up, and laugh it off before heading to the bunks and probably just dying of embarassment rather than sleeping, even though he knows that’s exactly what he should be doing. He just—he can’t .
It’s gravity.
Under him, Eddie makes a low humming sound, deep in his throat. Buck momentarily loses his sanity trying to come up with what that could mean— is that a good or a bad hum? Do good and bad hums have different inflections? It sounded pretty neutral, but —
But then Eddie pulls his arm—the one that Buck’s subconscious had apparently decided to smoosh so so so stupidly—out from under Buck, and for a moment Buck thinks he’s going to use it to push him off, but Eddie just wraps it gingerly around his waist instead, regrabbing his book with both hands, forearms resting on Buck’s stomach as he holds its pages open. The movement encasses Buck in his arms— what the actual fuck —and shifts him so that instead of just merely overlapping shoulders like before, Buck’s entire upper body is now firmly resting over Eddie’s. Like, he’s one step from being fully in his lap, and, god, his head is resting half on his shoulder and half on his chest, and—Buck can’t actually see, but he’s pretty sure that Eddie is looking down from over his head to continue reading his book.
Distantly, someone coughs pointedly. Buck thinks it's probably Chimney.
He must’ve died. He must’ve died without knowing and ended up here because there’s no actual way in fuck that this could be happening right now.
And, great, he only has one impossible short second to adjust to being literally held by his best friend who also happens to be the love of his life before Eddie is—he can’t even make this shit up—tilting his head and brushing his lips for maybe two brief seconds into Buck’s hair, skin probably getting tickled by the soft strands, a singular breath away from a kiss.
And beneath the confusion and disbelief, Buck—he just melts. And that tender, painful ache he’s grown familiar with spawns itself around his heart, but times a thousand, and he wants—he needs to paw at his chest and claw it out because it’s simply too much to live with, too much to feel all at once.
Because—this is everything he’s ever wanted.
It’s not like it’s the first time Buck’s realized how much he wants this with Eddie. He’s known with absolute certaintly that Eddie was it for him—his greatest and last love—for a long long time. He’s known that there was no getting over Eddie Diaz, that when Buck died and they performed his autopsy, they would probably find his love sitting there in his still heart, unchanged and impossibly alive . He’s known, and he’s known and he’s known, and has somehow managed to quietly live with the knowledge as if it wasn’t the loudest thing he had ever felt. He wouldn’t even be able to count how many times he’s been overcome with his love for Eddie, rendered speechless by its weight, bigger than any tsunami wave, but—it had never quite hit him as strong as this.
Because for the first time Buck fully understands how much want he holds inside of him, unfurling and untameable, and infinite. Buck used to think he knew want, back when he was a punk kid whose desire was as simple as an itch to scratch, easily alleviated, at least for a little bit. Buck used to want with his body, and then with his heart when he meant Abby. But even that, his occasional heartsickness for Abby was an ailment easily curable. He missed her, so he would talk to her, and then he could forget about her for a little bit. Back then, love was a muscle he used when he needed it, but he’s not sure it kept beating even when he wasn’t thinking about her. And when she had been gone for long enough, his love for her slowly withered away too. But this—this is nothing like that. There was no cure for this, no bandaid fix, no drought that could dry it up.
For the first time, Buck understands—with Eddie, love is just something he does or feels. Love is something he is . The singularity, at his core, the rest of his body and soul wrapped around it. Loving Eddie is his center.
And he’s having a very hard time trusting that he’s not going to explode right now and get his bloody entails all over the loft because there’s absolutely no way it's safe for this much love to be contained inside a singular person.
And it hurts—because no matter how much Buck wants, this isn’t their future. This a moment, a blip, soon to be a memory. Eddie’s arms may feel like home around him, warm and safe and secure, but there’s no permanence to this. If Buck hadn’t shown up to work with circles under his eyes, Eddie wouldn’t be doing this. If Eddie had known Buck is awake—
Oh god. Eddie think Buck is asleep.
Oh god.
Oh god, oh god, oh god.
Eddie thinks Buck is asleep, but Buck is awake, and he’s—god—he’s taking advantage of his best friend.
His best friend who’s only trying to make sure Buck doesn’t get a crick in his neck by sleeping in an uncomfortable position. His best friend, who’s probably only tolerating Buck’s weight on top of him because he’s too kind for his own good. His best friend, who is unaware that Buck is stupidly in love with him and probably has never even gotten a boner thinking about Buck’s thighs in dress pants, and—
Buck is a terrible, terrible friend.
Mostly because he can’t bring himself to get up.
He just—he can’t. He knows it's bad, but he’ll pay his penance for it another day, because Eddie’s arms are fucking around him, and he just needs this.
So selfishly, he settles—awed at the fact that he somehow managed to process his shock without freezing and alerting Eddie of his awakeness—into the crook of Eddie’s neck and breathes in the scent of Eddie’s cologne and takes in the feeling of Eddie’s chin gently resting on his head. And he lets himself drift off slightly, and hopes preemptively that he’ll never ever forget what it felt like to be held by Eddie.
It’s been silent in the loft for a few minutes besides for the almost soothing buzz of the morning news on the TV. But then Hen speaks. “Are we going to talk about it, then?” she says, her voice amused.
Eddie turns the page of his book. “Talk about what?” he asks, his words a deliberate sort of quiet, as if he’s worried about waking Buck up. And God, if that doesn’t make the ache around Buck’s heart pulse.
“The 6’5 giant using your lap as a pillow?”
Okay, great. Now Buck is not only taking advantage of his best friend, but he’s doing it while eavesdropping on a conversation about him that they all think he’s too asleep to hear.
Eddie snorts. “He is not that tall.”
Which, hey . Like, yeah, maybe that’s true, but come on. Just let the overestimate stand.
“Not the point, Edmundo.”
“What is the point?” Eddie counters, and Buck can feel the way his chest rumbles with the words against his spine. He resists the urge to shiver.
“Just that this—“ there was a pause, as if Hen was waving a hand in gesture towards their tangled up bodies— “seems like a bit of a level up in your relationship.”
Buck isn’t stupid. He knows exactly where this conversation is going. And he can’t help but feel a little bit embarrassed. Look, it’s far from the first time their friends have dropped subtle (and some not so subtle) hints to Buck about what they thought their relationship was or should be, but it was natural. Buck’s feeling were obvious, so obvious in fact that he probably deserved to be made fun of for it. He just never imagined that they would have the balls to do the same to Eddie too.
He wonders—his stomach twisting uneasily—how awkward and uncomfortable Eddie must feel, having to endure the teasing and insisting and the scheming when he didn’t have those feelings for Buck.
But Buck can feel Eddie breathing in and out from under him, and it’s as steady as ever. If Buck had to guess, he would say Eddie probably hasn’t even looked up from his book yet. Completely unconcerned. “Did you see how tired he looked when he came in this morning?”
“Right,” Hen drawls. “And you’re the most comfortable thing in a ten-mile radius to remedy that, huh?”
Buck feels Eddie shrug. “I’m the one he fell asleep on. And he looks pretty satisfied with the experience, doesn’t he?”
“Yeah,” Hen says, and Buck hears a shift from the couch across, as if she has settled back into her seat. “Exactly. Don’t get me wrong, Eddie, this whole will-they-won’t-they routine was immensely entertaining—for, like, the first two years of it. But this girl can only withstand so many heart-eyes and moaning before she’s going to start banging your two fat heads together.”
Across the loft, Chim chimes in with a supportive “Amen, sister!”, the words muffled by the food he was in the middle of chewing.
“I’m just saying,” Hen continues, sounding pretty self-satisfied. “If you want to spare yourself and your favorite dumbass over there some injury, it seems like now would be a really , really good time.”
“And what.” Eddie says, slowly, removing one of his arms from around Buck to set the book down on the end table. Before Buck even has a chance to mourn its loss, it’s settling back around him, rubbing one straight line over Buck’s arm before coming to rest over his stomach. “Exactly do you suggest I do?” Buck can picture the face he knows Eddie’s making perfectly, and he kind of wants to open his eyes and give himself away all so he can see that he’s right. He’s had to have that same face directed at him like, at least five hundred times at this point.
“Doesn’t seem like you have to do much,” says Bobby good-naturedly as he briefly walks past, and God, please don’t let Bobby be part of this conversation too. Please, please, please. “Looks like you’re already most of the way there.”
Buck wants to die.
“Have you ever thought about, I don’t know, telling him about how you feel?” Hen says, just to make everything worse, and if the feeling of being in Eddie’s arm wasn’t so amazing, Buck would probably be praying to any God he could think of that the ground under him would just mercifully swallow him up, right here on the loft couch. He would ask God to find a way to spare Eddie, though. Naturally.
Beneath him, Eddie tales a steadying breath. “He already knows that I care ab—“
“Oh, there it is again, that dreaded, dreaded C-word,” Hen interrupts with a scoff, and Buck vaguely feels like he’s missing a reference even as his stomach is crumpling in on itself. “Of course you care about him. We all care about him. The woman who does his dry-cleaning cares about him.” Eddie huffed. “The question is—do you love him?”
Oh my god. Please no.
“I don’t think that’s—“
“Eddie.”
There’s a silence.
This is it, Buck thinks. This is the moment he dies. Buck might’ve spent all these years knowing his feelings were unrequited, but that doesn’t mean he’s strong enough to handle hearing it out loud.
But when Eddie speaks, his words are achingly soft, and near, as if he was looking down on Buck. “Yeah.” A hand scraped tenderly through his hair. “Yeah, I do.” A breath, and then so simply, as if it was a truth he had long come into terms with: “I love him.”
And Buck can’t help it—he freezes.
The loft goes completely silent. The light tap of the knife on the cutting board as Bobby chops up vegetables for dinner, the laughter from across the room as two firefighters battle it off in mario-cart, the mindless chatter from the TV—all the sounds that shift so easily into the background—somehow just stop. The whole world freezes, and so does Eddie.
Buck can feel it under him, how the easy, relaxed line of Eddie’s body goes taut, muscles pulling together.
“—Buck?”
Fuck, what does he do? Is it too late to roll over and pretend like he’s asleep? To fall back into the inviting heat of Eddie’s arms like his whole world hasn’t flipped on its axis, like he didn’t just hear… that?
Buck doesn’t think that there’s any to save this. God, he’s not even thinking anything at all.
Eddie loves him. Eddie loves him? Oh my fucking god, Eddie loves him.
What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck.
He peeks one eye open and looks up at Eddie with a weak smile. “Um—hi?”
Eddie had been staring at him, eyes wide in horror, the hand that had been raking through his hair seconds earlier hovering frozen over his head uncertaintly. But now—with whatever confirmation he must see in Buck’s eyes—he shudders, eyes falling closed, the skin around them scrunching. It’s a painful expression, and if Buck wasn’t so disoriented he would’ve wanted to smooth it right off of his face. A singular shaky breath enters through Eddie’s throat, and then—he’s pushing Buck up, using the space to push himself off the couch and onto his feet unsteadily.
“I have to go—” he says, almost breathlessly, pointedly dodging Buck’s eyes. He makes a vague gesture to somewhere behind him as he swallows down a choking sound. “Shower.”
Which, of course, is bullshit. Their shift just started, they haven’t even dropped a single ounce of sweat—there’s no way Eddie needs a shower.
But. You know.
For a moment, Buck just stares after Eddie’s retreating back, his mind whirling unintelligibly like his stupid, broken refrigerator inside his head. And then, all at once, he realizes— Oh my fucking god Eddie just said he loves me and know he’s running away, he must think— and he’s scrambling off the couch, nearly falling on his ass in the process.
“Eddie, wait!” he calls as he runs to catch up, taking the stairs down the loft two steps at a time. “Eddie.” The other man doesn’t slow, the line of his back as tense as Buck’s ever seen it as he turns into the locker room. “Please, Eds, just let me—” he tries to grab at Eddie’s arm but is immediately shaken off.
Eddie turns as he reaches the door at the back of the locker room that leads into the showers, and it’s brief—but, God, Buck can see the heartbreak in his eyes.
And then the door closes in front of him, red-rimmed eyes replaced by white wood, effectively locking Buck out.
Buck leans back, shell-shocked.
What the fuck just happened?
—
Eddie’s usually a five minute tops, in-and-out of the shower kind of guy, but, today, it takes about half an hour before he emerges again from behind the door.
Not concerning at all.
Buck waits outside the whole time, first pacing across the locker room floor window to window, and then sitting on the bench, running a constant nervous hand over his face and through his hair.
He’s a boiling pot of nervous energy, nearly vibrating out of his skin as he waits, trying and failing to think of something adequate to say to Eddie, half-trying to talk himself out of the truth he had heard in Eddie’s voice.
I do. I love him.
It replays in his head over and over again, until the words are practically tattooed on Buck’s heart. But Eddie can’t love him, can he? That’s—that’s something Buck would know, right? He would’ve known for sure. If Eddie had loved him this whole time. That’s not something he would miss. How could he have missed that? There’s just—
Buck’s brain is still a little broken, granted. And it doesn’t help that he can still feel the ghost of Eddie’s arms around him, a lasting warmth blanketing his skin, and even the phantom version of the touch is enough to calm him down, just a little bit.
He just—
He loves Eddie. And this can’t be real because Buck never gets that lucky.
But God, he really fucking wants it. He really fucking wants it to be real.
When the door to the showers creaks open, Buck scrambles up immediately, a thousands words ready to spill out of his parted lips.
And then, of course, the alarm rings.
Yes. Right. Bad luck is kind of his thing, as he was just saying.
Buck tilts his head back slightly, mouth still parted even though the words were long dead on his tongue, and drops his hands to his side, defeated. From the doorway, Eddie allows him a few split seconds of eye contact—enough for Buck to make out the redness that’s still clinging to his waterline, the way his adam’s apple bobs over the composed line of his uniform collar, and how his hair is decisively not wet. Buck’s mind flashes with the vague image of Eddie spending the entire thirty minutes staring at himself in the bathroom mirror, arms gripping either side of the sink, and his heart breaks just a little bit more inside chest.
He needs to fix this. He needed to fix it like—thirty minutes ago.
But Eddie is already pushing past him, grabbing his gear. Buck allows himself one more second of standing there dumbly before he follows suit.
The alarm waits for no man. And it sure doesn’t give a damn that Buck has just heard the words he’s been barely allowing himself to hope for come out of the love of his life’s mouth, and he hasn’t gotten a chance to say them back yet.
That’s a problem for when there aren’t any more lives to save.
--
A three-car pile up, a small kitchen fire, a heart attack in a moving vehicle, and an accident involving a pair of Louboutins. It all kind of fades out of focus in Buck’s mind.
He’s present enough to do his job and do it well, but all he’s really thinking about is Eddie. Who said that he loves Buck.
And is currently doing everything in his power to avoid him.
“I just—I wish he would just talk to me, you know?” He complains to Hen, not for the first time, as they roll up the hose together. His eyes go up to the loft, where he knows Eddie is. Accessible enough, except for the fact that as soon as Buck starts heading up the stairs, he knows Eddie will find a reason to come down.
The guy can’t even handle being on the same story as Buck for more than a minute.
“He’s scared, Buck,” Hen says, patiently, as she steps to the other side of the hose. “Besides his son, you’re the most important person in his life. He doesn’t want to lose you. And right now, he’s probably thinking that you’re the one that needs space more than he does.”
“But I don’t need space,” Buck says, and feels like he’s one step away from pulling his head out. He lifts up the hose with a huff. “And if he would just let me explain , he would see that.”
Hen sighs, leaning back on her heels to watch him as he places the rolled-up hose back in its department on the truck. “I know, Buckaroo.” Her voice is soft. Contemplative. Buck is glad she’s here, even if the first thing he had said to her after the whole incident was a half-serious This is all your fault, Henrietta. “But just give him a little bit of time, and I promise he’ll come to you. I bet you that boy won’t even be able to stay away for a day.”
Buck grumbled in response. He hated the idea of giving Eddie time, of letting him be embarrassed and scared for longer than he had to be. He preferred the idea of cornering him against the lockers until he was forced to listen. But Eddie was being—annoyingly—too smart to let that happen, and all cornering attempts had thus far gone thwarted. Buck really had only one option.
His least favorite one—waiting.
“He did mean it in a—romantic way, right?” Buck finds himself asking, not for the first time, after a few moments of silence.
Across from him, Hen groans.
—
Buck packs his duffle bag and loads into the jeep with the full intention of going home after their shift and letting Eddie recuperate.
But then he’s standing in the cold, empty air of the loft, the refrigerator groaning insistently in front of him, and thinks what the fuck.
He walks right back out the door.
--
Eddie takes a deep, resigned breath of air when he opens to the door. “Buck,” he says, and his voice is neutral, except for the way he rasps over the words as if his throat is scratched, and Buck can’t help but notice that his eyes are puffy and red and a little bit tear-stained if you look closely.
He wants to engulf him in a hug and press his lips into the tender skin under his neck right there, but instead he shifts awkwardly on his feet. “Uh—hey.” He rubs his hands together. Despite the fifteen minutes he spent mindlessly tracing the route over here, he still hadn’t managed to come up with anything good to say. “Is Chris there?” he asks, peeking over Eddie’s shoulder, just to prolong the inevitable for a second longer, and because he doesn’t exactly know how to jump into the Hey, I love you too, by the way right away.
Eddie follows Buck’s gaze over his shoulder before turning Buck. “He’s—uh—I asked Abuela to take him for the night.”
Buck blinks. Eddie almost never gives up spending a night off with Chris.
Sensing his confusion, Eddie rolls his tongue over the back of his teeth, avoiding eye contact. “I, uh, needed some time to myself. Adult time, I told Christopher.”
Buck frowns. “Adult ti—oh.” He catches a glimpse off the six-pack of long-necks on Eddie’s counter and understand all at once. Eyes flitting back to Eddie, taking him in again with clear eyes, he asks, “Are you drunk?”
Eddie sighs, wrapping a hand around the raised wood of the doorframe and leaning a little bit of his body weight towards it. He looks worn-out, exhausted in a way that’s somehow different from his usual post 24-hour shift tiredness. “No.” He shakes his head. “I hadn’t gotten around to that part yet.”
Buck chews on his lip as he considers the implication—that Eddie sent Christopher away so he could responsibly get drunk over Buck. His eyes are puffy and he’s been crying because he’s heartbroken. Over Buck .
And Buck doesn’t know if his heart is currently breaking or pumping inside his chest with the force of all his love because Eddie loves him back.
He thinks, at least.
“Can I, uh.” He spreads his hands out into a half-pleading gesture. “Come in?”
Eddie takes a breath and sets his shoulders—an action maybe done with the intent of calming himself, but he comes back looking even more tense than before. “Yeah,” he says after a moment, voice resigned. Then he’s stepping back, allowing Buck to cross through the doorway, and he hears the door gently click shut behind him.
Buck pads through the entryway. He thinks about crossing the living room to sit on the couch but decides against it at the last moment, turning around heavily to face Eddie.
Eddie stands across from him, face set with a painful grimness, his shoulders stiff as if he was bracing himself for a blow.
It breaks Buck's heart, a little bit.
“Eddie—” Buck begins.
“I’m sorry,” Eddie interrupts immediately. And his shoulders fall, as if the words had punched the pretense of holding it together out of him, and now he was nothing but pure nervousness and fear. Buck remembers what Hen said, about Eddie being scared, and he sees it now, in Eddie’s wide eyes, the way his hand is clenching and unclenching, the way he’s breathing heavily as if this , this moment is what his entire life has led up to, his final crash-and-burn. “I’m—I’m sorry, Buck.” He runs a hand over his face and through his hair. “I just—it’s not—” Eddie groans, frustrated. “Look, I didn’t mean for you to find out like that. Hell, I didn’t mean for you to find out at all. But” —he spreads his hands out, face alighting with something slightly manic— “the cat's out of the bag now, huh?" The look is gone as quick as it came. "Just—Buck—just tell me what I have to do to keep you around, alright? Please. Space, time— whatever you need. It’s just—Christopher needs you. I need you, and—”
“Did you mean it?” Buck blurts, interrupting.
Eddie pauses, hand falling down from his hair. “What?”
“Did you mean it?” He repeats, taking a step forward as Eddie’s bewildered eyes follow him. “What you said today in the loft—did you mean it?”
Eddie laughs nervously. “Buck—I don’t think that’s—”
“Because I want it again.”
A crease forms between Eddie’s eyebrows. “You—what?”
He takes another step forward. “I want it again,” he says. He looks into Eddie’s eyes, looks at the man who he loves so much that it completely redefined what love meant to him, redefined his entire existence, and thinks— this is it. Everything in my life has come to this. “I want to fall asleep next to you again. And I want you to wrap your arms around me and kiss my head and read your book while I doze off on your chest again.” They’re nearly chest to chest now. So close that Eddie must be able to hear how hard Buck’s heart is beating, working overtime to bestow his body with the copious amounts of overflowing love he's currently experiencing, all directed in on place. “And—" He takes a breath, and lets the love spread to the tips of his fingers on the exhale. "I want to hear you say it. That you love me. Again.”
Eddie’s lips have parted, and his eyes are flickering in between Buck’s. But then the disbelief softens. “Buck,” he breathes out. His hands rise slowly to his face, gently cupping both cheeks in his warm palms. And Eddie holds his face in between his hands and looks at him the way Buck’s seen him look at Christopher a thousand times—like the simple fact of his existence is the greatest gift Eddie has ever received. “Buck,” he says again, with so much tenderness held in his voice that Buck’s knees almost give out. “I meant it.”
And then he’s kissing Buck.
Buck’s hands go to Eddie’s waist and then around his back to clutch at the loose fabric of his t-shirt, and—this is everything he’s ever wanted. Eddie’s lips are pure silk under his, and his skin is warm against his cheek, and Buck’s heart feels like it’s going to explode again, but for the first time, he isn’t worried. He isn’t worried because there’s no explosion that they can’t get through together, no mess bloody enough that they can’t clean up, no sickness that Eddie doesn’t have the antidote for.
After a moment, Buck pulls back to catch his breath, hands wrapping around Eddie’s neck as he rests his forehead against Eddie’s. They just stand there, swaying lightly in the junction between Eddie’s entryway and living room and share the same air for a moment, and Buck—he vaguely has the thought that he wants to share everything with Eddie—the house and the kid and the bed and their lives and even his own damn name—until there’s nothing of his that doesn’t have Eddie’s fingerprints on it.
He finds himself kind of hoping, a little bit unrealistically (because at the very least he'll need to get his stuff), that he'll never have to go back to that too-big apartment with the groaning refrigerator ever again.
“It’s probably a good time to tell you,” Buck rasps out after a moment, still a bit breathless. “That I love you too. You know, just to—avoid any further confusion.”
Eddie laughs, full of joy, and Buck kind of wants to capture the sound forever and find a way to store it in a little bottle next to the spices in their kitchen, next to all the other seemingly little things that always find ways to turn something bland and dry into something worth remembering. “You’re an asshole, you know,” he says with a pinch to the skin of Buck’s forearm, but there’s absolutely no way he means it. Not with the way he’s smiling, like the giddiness is overflowing out of his heart and physically pulling his cheeks up. “Letting me mope around for an entire day when you could’ve just said that from the beginning.”
“Hey!” Buck protests with a grin of his own, rubbing his hands up and down Eddie’s side. “I was trying, okay. You were the one being impossible.”
Eddie raises a single shoulder into a sheepish shrug, a silent You got me there. Then he’s leaning in to place a soft kiss on Buck’s birthmark, eyes glittering as he pulls back. “I love you, Evan.”
And Buck hopes they both live a really, really long life, just so he can hear Eddie whisper that into his skin for every day of it.
“Hey,” Buck says suddenly. He drums his finger on Eddie’s hip bone. “Did I hear you say this house was going to be empty for the night?”
“Completely absent of all pre-teens,” Eddie confirms, mindlessly tracing his finger over a vein in Buck’s neck.
Buck hums, long and pointed, and then promptly spends the next thirty minutes kissing Eddie with the force of every unfulfilled inappropriate dirty thought and corresponding boner he’s had about his best friend behind it, and then some.
It’s just—it’s been a long time coming.
--
Once they’re done falling into each other, Buck buries himself into the crook of Eddie’s neck, and learns what it really means to be home. They stay awake for just a little bit longer, trading sweet nothings into each others’ skin, content to let the hours slowly slip away. And Eddie—he tells Buck that he loves him.
Again and again and again and again .