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It happens naturally, is the thing. So, so naturally that Buck doesn't even notice it happened, at first, not until he's sitting at the table in the station, coffee in his hands, talking to Bobby. Obviously, the realization hits him in the middle of a sip and he inhales enough coffee to make him seriously consider never touching a mug again, while he's retching over the sink trying to get it all out.
It's not the most prominent thing on his mind though.
No, that is this morning, Buck making breakfast, as he always does when he's at the Diazes, while Eddie forces Chris out of bed. Them working around each other, Buck having Eddie's coffee ready for him and Eddie making Buck's To-Go cup while he got ready for work. The three of them eating together, Chris too tired to say anything, Eddie getting more awake with each sip, Buck chipper as ever.
Buck leaving the house, wishing Chris a good day at school when he ruffles his curls under the teen's protest, wishing Eddie a good day at home while leaning down, pressing a kiss to his lips, then walking out of the door.
Bobby is behind him, petting his shoulder as Buck comes back up for air again.
"You okay?"
Buck has the irrational urge to burst in tears at that, because he has no idea. None.
"Wow, Buck, what happened to you? You're looking a little pale there", Hen says, coming up the stairs, and this just keeps getting worse and worse.
"I'm fine", he croaks out but from the way both her as well as Bobby's brows rise, it doesn't sound very convincing. He doesn't have the capacity to spare any thought on that though, so he just takes his mug back and disappears towards the roof. He needs to- He doesn't even know. Process this?
Sure. Let's go with that.
-
He can't help but go through every interaction he ever had with Eddie. The worst thing about this? It makes sense. It makes so, so much sense and Buck can't deal with the fact that it took him this long to realize. That he thought that these feelings, this affection, wasn't what he has been looking for his whole life.
Hell, he can't believe himself that he thought his jealousy was over Tommy, of all people. Holy fuck, no one is ever going to let him forget that one.
Well. Assuming anyone will ever get to know about this. He should probably keep it down, if he thinks about it, there's no need to disrupt what they have. This is the most important relationship he has- No way that he will do anything to risk it, even if they would probably be able to overcome it.
The bell rings. He abandones his pacing spot on top of the station and joins the others in the engine.
-
He gets a few looks, but none of them say anything, even though Buck can see the curiosity in all of their faces. Knowing his brother in law, he'll probably get a call from Maddie later on, but that's a problem for future Buck.
Right now? He'll ignore it all and focus on the call. It's a pileup on a freeway, so he needs all of his concentration anyways.
-
Buck gets home in the next morning, after so many calls that no one even had the opportunity of asking what was up with him. It's not long before both Chris and Eddie will get up, so he takes the last rest of his strength he has, prepares their breakfast and faceplants into the couch afterwards. Absentmindedly, it hits him how much he loves the way it smells like home, but he's too tired to examine how long those thoughts have been going on.
He's asleep before he even manages to finish thinking that.
-
After that, it's both hard and surprisingly easy to live with it. Eddie wakes him up a few hours later with coffee and the offer of the Diaz waffles (the one thing Eddie makes that Buck could eat everyday, no matter what) and afterwards, everything is the way it normally is. Eddie gives him a few kind of strange glances, but he doesn't say anything, so it can't be too urgent.
Since Chris is out with friends, they make themselves comfortable on the couch. Buck is munching on his waffles and telling Eddie about his shift, Eddie is holding on to his own mug and listening. Somehow, their topic shifts over to Gravity Falls and when Eddie starts ranting, Buck can't look away from him. The glow in his eyes, the way his hands move while he gestures, the way his hair falls a little into his face and even the way his voice sounds like this. He could die and this voice being the last thing he would hear? He'd be good with that.
He realizes how this isn't any kind of new revelation and has the strong urge to bury his head in his hands.
How on earth did he not notice this sooner? What had he been doing while he should have noticed it?
Eddie looks over at him and freezes for the fraction of a second. Were Buck anyone else, he probably wouldn't even have noticed. But he is, in fact, himself, so when Eddie completely stops talking, he leans forward.
Eddie's grow wide and Buck is honestly getting kind of worried now.
"Hey, are you okay?"
Eddie stares at him. There's something in his expression that Buck can't read, but after a moment he just shakes his head at him.
"Yeah, I'm fine." His body turns a little bit away from Buck.
"What do you say, we watch another episode before Chris comes home?" And who is Buck to say no to that, especially when Eddie gives him that look? The one that more than shows that Buck belongs here, that it isn't even a question wether Buck leaves for his loft or not?
He says yes and enjoys every second of it. Even though he's not really getting anything from the TV- his eyes are more fixed on Eddie.
-
He takes it back. Every little thing he said about it being easy to live with? Fake. Lies. What was he thinking?
He doesn't think that he ever miscalculated anything the way he miscalculated that. Because now? Now he isn't just home with Eddie and Chris, overflowing with fondness that has always been there and he hasn't been afraid to show for a long time. Now, he's at work and god, did he forget how much muscular work they have to do on a regular basis.
And the suspenders.
And the uniforms.
And the fact that he has a thing for people helping others.
In summary, he's so, so screwed.
He runs into a streetlamp. He almost uses the jaws to open the wrong door, but first, he gets the saw instead of the jaws.
He has never been this out of focus before, and everyone notices. Including Eddie, who's gigantic, worried eyes are so not helping the case. He forces himself to stop looking at him at all, helps with the door they need to open and gets the victims out safely after all.
Only that now, he doesn't have anything to do anymore, while Chim, Hen and Eddie treat the family. Which means that he loses every bit of self control and starts looking again, which immediatly takes away everything else in his mind, because fuck.
Eddie is talking to the little girl, (since the universe hates him, apparently), which makes Buck want to spontaneously combust. He's kneeling in front of her, then she says something, he starts laughing so honest, so beautifully that Buck needs to turn away before he does something he shouldn't even think about while being on the job.
Of course, as soon as his back is to Eddie, he comes face to face with Bobby. Raised eyebrow, crossed arms, badly hidden grin on his face. He doesn't even say anything, just looks at him.
Buck groans.
"I know, I know. I will get it under control. Somehow."
Bobby loses his fight with his grin and is down to barely contained laughter.
"I should scold you, but I think you're punished enough. Maybe let Hen check out your head after that collision you had. I'd suggest Eddie, but…", he says and leaves for the engine with a pat on Buck's shoulder.
He wants to bang his head against the engine. Repeatedly.
-
Of course, all of them come to him over the course of their shift, telling him he can talk to them if anything is going on. Both Chim and Hen leave him cackling, Eddie leaves him with slightly furrowed eyebrows, but the promise that Buck will tell him if anything important is going on.
Because lying to Eddie is apparently also a thing he's doing now. Actually, at this point? He kind of hates this whole being-aware-of-his-feelings… thing.
-
It's another morning, it's another breakfast, it's another day where one firefighter is leaving for work and the other brings Chris to school. Except that their roles are reversed this time and Eddie still looks like he's half asleep when he presses a kiss to Chris and Buck's curls before he leaves.
Buck doesn't realize until after the door shuts.
Then, he proceeds to quietly have a breakdown while trying not to alert Chris.
-
It happens again when Eddie comes back in the next morning. Buck has spent about the entire last day doing stress-chores and he's is pretty sure he has never been in a house this clean.
He's got more than one weird glance from Chris for that, but he ignores them as good as possible. At this point, he has mostly convinced himself of the fact that Eddie wasn't awake enough to realize he kissed both of them. Like, his curls didn't even look that different from Chris, he's pretty sure that must have been it.
Then Eddie greets him with a kiss to the cheek when he comes home before he continues on to pass out in his bed, and that entire day of progress is gone in an instant. He can practically feel the holes Chris is staring into his back, so he does the logical thing- he flees from the teenager and proceeds to have his mild meltdown in the bathroom.
-
They're sitting on the couch, both a beer in one hand, talking about Eddie's shift (Buck is desperately trying to ignore more or less everything about his best friend, so that he doesn't randomly blurt out how much he wants to cling to him and never let go), when Chris appears in the doorway.
"I can't handle this anymore."
They turn over to him. Eddie puts his beer on the table, Buck takes his legs off the rest of the couch and makes space for Chris, who sits down.
"Can't handle what anymore, buddy?", Eddie asks and raises an eyebrow at Buck over his son's head. He just shrugs- he doesn't have a clue.
"You're both in love, dad."
Eddie seems to choke on nothing. Buck feels himself die a little, feels a wound slowly opening itself up in his chest as they simultaneously look away from each other, Eddie probably at Chris, Buck down on his lap.
"What? Chris, what-"
The pain that had started to spread in Buck's chest comes to a halt. Because Eddie's voice is shaking. Not from confusion, not from bafflement- there is fear in there. Which could be bad. Very bad. Or it could be really, really good.
"That you are in love and- and don't notice. Everyone knows it!" That shouldn't surprise Buck as much as it does, if he's honest. He just wants to say something, when Chris continues:
"And I thought you figured it- figured it out, but I saw your reactions! You just- you just kissed! Three times!"
Shit, okay, it makes sense that Chris noticed tha-
Wait, three? There- there had been two. The one yesterday morning, the one this morning, and the first one the day he realized-
Oh fuck. No. Fuck.
He is thrown back into the morning he first realized what all of this meant. Which he did because he kissed Eddie. Which he then-
"Oh shit", he says and when he looks at Eddie, he doesn't see a closed off face. He just sees apprehension. "What have I done? I-", he stops. Fuck, he is so, so sorry. How the hell did he do that? "I forgot about that." He doesn't know where to look.
A startled laugh breaks out of Eddie and when Buck looks over at him again, his expression is half amused, half incredulous.
"Excuse me?"
"I… might have forgotten the first kiss? Because I realized I was in love with you and that overshadowed everything else." Eddie stares at him for another moment. Then, he breaks out in a laugh that feels a little unjustified in it's intensity, but Buck is never going to complain about a laughing Eddie, so he doesn't say anything.
Chris gets up again, tells them he's going back to his room and murmurs something under his breath that sounds a lot like "Fucking finally".
Buck would normally say something about his language, but right now? His focus is somewhere a little else. Just looking at Eddie normally makes Buck's heart stutter, so this? A laugh that is full of joy, a look out of deep brown eyes that sparkle with affection? Buck's heart is going to give out. He's going to die because of Eddie Diaz, and it will have been completely worth it.
Eddie manages to calm down a little, and moves closer to him. There is a soft smile on his lips, and- Buck can't remember the last time he looked this happy.
"I love you too, Buck. Even after you forgot our first kiss."
Buck half groans, half laughs. Yeah, he's not going to live that one down either.
"Guess we'll just have to do it again", he says and tilts his head at him. Eddie's face is split by a breathtaking grin, before he leans forward.
"Guess we have to", he whispers, close enough that Buck can feel his lips move and then he kisses him.
Eddie kisses him, really, actually kisses him and it's- it's mindblowing. It clears away any other thought, any other feeling. It's the most at home, the most comfortable, the most loved he has ever felt.
Buck kisses him back.