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It’s a normal afternoon on a relatively boring 24-hour shift — as normal as it can be with Bobby still advising for Hotshots, Gerrard in the hospital after Buck maiming him, and Hen slaying her role as interim captain.
And, of course, that.
Buck is seated opposite of Eddie at the dining table during a very belated lunch, and it gives him the perfect view of the thing that has been distracting him since he arrived at work this morning.
And, eventually, Eddie catches on.
“Okay, all this staring is getting a bit creepy, Buck.”
Personally, he doesn’t think he’s staring enough.
“It’s just— Why is no one talking about it?” he demands, throwing accusatory glares at his teammates around the table, as he feverishly waves his hand in the direction of Eddie’s face.
Chimney stops chewing. “What do you mean? I talk about that Lip Rug twice an hour.”
“No! Not the mustache — that’s old news,” he huffs. “I mean, that.”
He makes sure to point this time, right at the spot beneath Eddie’s left eye.
“I still don’t get it,” confesses Eddie.
“That mole!” Buck shrieks. “You never had that mole! It showed up, like, overnight.”
Eddie licks his spoon clean and takes in his reflection from it, moving his neck to locate said mole. Buck is still stuck on the way his tongue swirled around the spoon, when Eddie speaks again.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Is this a prank? Is everyone screwing with him again?
“You haven’t noticed the mole that has randomly materialized under your eye?!”
The Mole-Bearer blinks in confusion. “Buck, I’ve had that since birth.”
No, he hasn’t?
“No. You never had that. I would’ve known if you had that mole. I’ve been staring at you for six years straight!” It flies out of his mouth before he realizes what it sounds like. Buck feels his cheeks heat up at the amused glances thrown his way. “I mean, not, uh, staring. Looking at you. A normal, platonic amount.”
Which is a total lie, but whatever. He’s not about to confess the overwhelmingly embarrassing feelings he’s harboring for Eddie in the middle of lunch, on shift, with everyone strapped in.
“I’ve always had that mole,” Eddie insists.
Buck groans. “Stop lying!”
“Why on Earth would I be lying about this?”
“I don’t know! If I had such an adorable mole, I would be boasting about it endlessly.”
It’s Eddie’s turn to grow pink in the cheeks, a sight Buck cannot handle without a fluttering in his stomach, for it highlights that beautiful, earth-shattering, kissable mole ever the more. He’s screwed.
Loudly, Hen drops her spoon into her bowl of ramen.
“This is officially getting weird, Buck. Even for you,” she emphasizes. “It’s just a mole.”
“Did you know Eddie had it?”
“No.”
“See, I told—!” starts Buck, but Hen interrupts him at once.
“No, because you’re probably the only person who spends enough time staring at Eddie’s face to notice that miniscule, insignificant mole, which, by the way, is one of the strangest topics of conversation we’ve had at this table.”
“And we talk about truly weird stuff,” agrees Chimney. “Remember that time—”
He travels down a memory lane of the funniest conversations the loft has heard, completely freaking out poor Ravi, and everyone moves on from the mole. Buck excluded, of course.
Because that mole—! He won’t rest until he gets to do something about it.
The patient’s name is Oliver Spark. He’s an attractive guy, sort of, if you’re into that mysterious, slightly dark-academia vibe on top of nearly every inch of his arms covered in line-art tattoos.
And, if you don’t mind that his fingers have melted into the keys of his typewriter.
Oliver is a novelist, Buck quickly realizes. He’s old-fashioned too, considering the emergency at hand, and his library mostly consisting of books written in Anglo-Saxon. Buck never has the attention span for those.
“What were you doing when this happened?” Chimney asks the patient as he and Eddie start working on him. Buck stands aside, feeling kind of useless as he does at every medical call, watching over the scene.
“I was in the middle of writing a character description,” says Oliver, calmly and completely unbothered about his sticky situation. “Name’s Anthony. He’s this broody man who owns a bookshop in 1950s SoCal—”
“I mean, how did the melting start?” Chimney cuts in.
“Right,” says Oliver. “I have this genetic condition, where my body heats up an abnormal amount. Believe it or not, this is the fifth typewriter I’ve ruined because of it. And these things cost a fortune, so I’m not happy.”
“Would you say you’re broody about it?” asks Buck.
Everyone ignores him. Well, except for Eddie, who shakes his head and smiles at his feet, his cheeks rising from the attempt to hold it back. For the hundredth time that day, Buck hones in on the mole.
And he gets an idea.
“Hey, Oliver,” he starts, and the novelist meets his eyes. Damn, that’s an intense pair of blue. “If he—” He points at Eddie. “—was a character in your book, how would you describe his physical appearance? His face, specifically.”
While Chimney whines, Oliver has a thinking face on.
“I’d say he has a strong jaw,” he says, squinting at Eddie rather appreciatively — which Buck doesn’t appreciate. “A nice, full pair of lips — if he were a love interest, I’d say kissable. The mustache would be a big factor, for sure.”
“I’m going for a Freddie Mercury look,” cuts in Eddie, as he’s untangling a bandage.
“Well, it suits you,” says Oliver, winking at him. “Oh, and his eyes — kind of cow-like.”
At this point, Buck’s lost his patience.
“Yeah, yeah, Eddie’s hot — everyone with eyes knows that,” he complains, so aggravated that he doesn’t notice his best friend’s cow-like eyes flying out of their sockets. “But what about his mole? You still haven’t mentioned it.”
Oliver finally shifts his attention from Eddie to give Buck a strange look.
“What mole?”
Buck groans in frustration.
“Did you know that people with moles on their forehead are destined to become rich? And, on top of that, they somehow remain helpful and kind to all.”
Nighttime has rolled over Los Angeles, but none of them can sleep after a tough call resulting in a casualty, so the one-eighteen have gathered on the rooftop with mugs of hot cocoa. To lighten up the mood, Buck has veered the conversation into fun facts territory.
The topic of said facts? Moles on people’s faces, obviously.
“What about a scar from a traumatic rebar injury on my forehead? Will that make me rich?” wonders Chimney. “Because my accountant told me I’ll need to live fourteen lives to pay off my mortgage with my current salary.”
“It doesn’t say,” Buck helpfully supplies. “Maybe you have a mole over your eyelid? That also gets you famous, not just rich.”
“I have a mole over my eyebrow,” says Hen. “What’s that mean?”
Buck scans the article open on his phone. “That you’re creative.”
Hen sighs. “So, basically, they’re calling me broke. Lucky me.”
“Hey, art is more important than money! And yours is great.”
“Thanks, Buck.”
Almost simultaneously, everyone takes a sip of their cocoa. Everyone but Eddie, watching Buck in anticipation. He tilts his head in question.
“Well, I’m dying over here!” announces Eddie, flailing his arms. “All you’ve talked about today is my mole, yet I’m not hearing anything about what the coordinates of it mean. So, please,” he adds, leaning forward to get distractingly close to his face. Buck can smell his cologne and count his freckles, feeling hot all over.
“I don’t think you want to hear it,” he confesses, a little breathlessly.
Eddie smirks. “I’m a tough guy. I can take it.”
Buck tries to shoo away any other thoughts of what else Eddie could take.
“Fine,” he answers, recovering. “It says that if the mole is below an eyelid, the person spends money without thinking of the future and ends up without savings.”
Eddie lets out a chuckle. “It’s not even that bad. I thought you were gonna say I’ll end up dead in a ditch in the near future.”
Buck shrugs. “It’s not an exact science, so be cautious around ditches, I guess?”
A soft smile develops across Eddie’s cheeks.
“Since I’ve got you looking out for me, I’m not worried.”
Their gazes meet — and with Eddie still hovering awfully close, it feels intimate. He forces himself to look away, only for his eyes to simply trail down to that mole. His brain goes offline, except for want, want, want.
Hen clears her throat.
“Any other fun facts about moles, or should we move onto birthmarks? For example, are people with a birthmark around their eye considered to be lovesick fools?”
And— Hey!
By the end of their shift, Buck has gotten approximately an hour of sleep, which mostly consisted of fever dreams concerning The Mole, the most memorable being the mole increasing in size until it swallowed Eddie whole. That’s a ditch Buck couldn’t get him out of.
It’s just… He wants. He wants Eddie, wants him carnally, wants him so desperately that he’s become addicted to also wanting to plant the softest, most loving kiss on top of a random skin pigmentation, merely because it’s Eddie’s skin pigmentation. What the hell is wrong with him?!
When he arrives at the loft, he falls into bed and unpockets his phone.
Chris :D
—
10:03 AM
did you know your dad has a mole under his eye?
Christopher responds almost immediately.
no
why
is it cancerous?
I don’t think so? I hope not
I just noticed it yesterday, is all
okay?
it’s kinda cute
idk what u want me to say to that, buck
have a good day? weirdo.
Buck doesn’t even argue with that. He is a weirdo.
It all comes down to Buck’s exhaustion from the long shift and the lack of proper sleep — mostly impacted by his latest Eddie-related obsession. That’s what he decides to blame it on, anyway.
Because Buck completely forgets that he was supposed to hang out with Eddie today, and he’s disoriented for a good minute from the poking and prodding his cheeks receive as he scrambles his brain to wake up.
The first thing he sees, looming over him, is The Mole.
And Buck is only a man. He sees The Mole so close to his face?
He does the only thing a man would do.
He leans in to kiss it.
It’s a sweet, tender thing. Even in his sleep-ruffled state, Buck feels it — Eddie’s eyes falling shut, his long eyelashes tickling Buck’s skin and goosebumping the back of his neck. Buck’s lips have never been anywhere near Eddie, yet the moment they release his mole, it feels like they’ve always belonged there. Always meant to kiss Eddie, to get him—
Absolutely gobsmacked.
Buck’s eyes fly open in terror, as Eddie’s eyelids flicker and flicker until he finally manages to peel them back.
“What just happened?” croaks out Eddie, unmoving from the close proximity to Buck, perched on the edge of his bed in his attempts to wake him up from the nap.
“I’m— I’m not sure.”
A strangled noise escapes Eddie’s throat.
“I think you just kissed my cheek.”
“No. I kissed The Mole,” corrects Buck, because that is a crucial detail.
Eddie blinks at him once, twice, thrice. ‘Bamboozled’ comes to mind.
“Okay. Why did you kiss my mole?”
And he could just lie and say it was an accident. But he can’t hold it all in any longer.
“Because, Eddie—!” he nearly screeches, sitting up in his bed and tossing his blanket aside. Their eyes meet, Eddie’s — curious, Buck’s — probably fiery. “It’s the cutest fucking thing on the cutest fucking face I’ve seen in my life! It’s practically begging to be kissed!”
He’s breathless and psychotic, and he wants to kiss The Mole again. And then once more for good measure, because if you kiss a mole twice, you might as well do it three times?
“I—” Eddie tries, his lips parting a few times but nothing coming out. “—don’t know what to say to that. Since when are we in kissing moles territory?”
“We’re not,” realizes Buck. Jesus, he’s an idiot. He might’ve just totally screwed up his entire relationship with Eddie, over a fucking mole. “This is not how I pictured our first kiss, like, at all.”
He realizes his mistake only after Eddie speaks next, his question coming out stuttered.
“You’ve been— Picturing our first kiss?”
Oh. Oh, shit. There’s no way to backtrack that one, is there?
So, Buck tells him the truth, avoiding the look of Eddie as he confesses.
“Only every day for the past six or so years.”
Buck waits, and waits, focusing on a crinkle in his bedsheets. He waits long enough that his heart begins to crack in his chest, for the silence speaks volumes. If Eddie hasn’t said anything by now, he’s probably freaked out, trying to come up with ways to extract himself from this situation and never talk to Buck again.
But then—
“Okay,” Eddie breathes out.
Buck looks at him, and finds Eddie already looking back. His hands have clenched Buck’s bedsheets, as though trying to restrain himself from something.
“Okay?”
Eddie nods so faintly, he nearly misses it.
“Tell me about what you pictured,” he prods.
And Buck has never been able to say no to this man. So, he does.
“I’ve had a lot of time to come up with different scenarios,” he says. “I’m picturing, movie kiss. This dramatic falling together, perfectly in sync, in pouring rain in the middle of the street. But that one’s unlikely.” He lets out a weak laugh. “I’m picturing something lewd. Kissing you with so much need that I’m nearly ripping your clothes off. I’m picturing a big emergency, nearly losing you, and not being able to take it any longer. Grabbing you, looking at you for a good minute before leaning in. I’m picturing—”
“How about this?” Eddie cuts him short, his grip on the sheets nearly bruising. “Your bed in your loft after a long shift, with you looking so damn pretty as you tell me the same things that have been running through my head since the moment I laid my eyes on you?”
Buck gulps.
“Y—Yeah. That’s— I’d be fine. With that.”
So, Eddie does just that, not a heartbeat of hesitation longer.
Eddie kisses him softly, yet despite the gentleness, Buck is contused. A love like this, a love founded in pure devotion, built brick by brick, roofed with bulletproof shingles, strikes you like it’s an ache. To love so profoundly is the most wonderful curse. And Buck would rather the curse end him, than to be cured.
But if Eddie keeps deepening the kiss the way he is, capturing him whole, he might die anyway.
When he pulls back, his breathing heavy, Buck tries to tell him all the poetry flooding his thoughts, to affirm his feelings, to romance the shit out of his best friend turned more, but his eyes hone in on that mole again.
He worries his lip as he asks, “It’s not cancerous, is it?”