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Eddie asks Buck out on Valentine’s Day, a bouquet of flowers—mostly roses, but also some pincushions and snapdragons that had been recommended to him by the first website that popped up after he’d woken up in the middle of the night and started worrying that his arrangement was inadequate—in hand, hair slightly wet from product, and a nervous grin on his face.
He starts off with a “Hey,” and Buck says “Hey,” back, a smile already starting to sneak its way onto his face like he already knows what Eddie has to say. Which, he probably does, considering it’s Valentine’s Day and Eddie’s wearing a suit. He only ever puts on suits for special occasions, because he sure as hell isn’t going to go through the trouble of visiting a tailor and getting something fitted unless there are going to be pictures and memories involved. Eddie thinks there will be by the end of this night. Hopes there will be.
Clearing his throat, he pushes the bouquet of flowers out towards Buck, and says: “Will you give me the pleasure of being your Valentine tonight? And, uh, maybe also your boyfriend?”
Buck takes the bouquet, smiles, and replies back with, “Yes and no.”
“What?” This certainly hadn’t been one of the many scenarios that he’d prepared for in front of the mirror, and then again in front of Christopher, so Eddie isn’t quite sure what expression is showing on his face right now, but it most definitely isn’t pleasant, “What does that even mean?”
And Buck has the audacity to roll his eyes, “It means , yes I’ll be your Valentine. No, I won’t be your boyfriend, not today at least. Ask again tomorrow.”
“I’m confused is—Is this a test? Are you planning on trial-running me?” Which, Eddie supposes makes sense, since they’ve never even officially been on a date before, but still, ouch.
Buck clicks his tongue, “Edmundo Diaz, my Valentine, my best friend of seven years, my wonderful not-yet-boyfriend, what have I told you about my feelings regarding getting together on a holiday?”
The furrow on Eddie’s brows goes even deeper, before—“ Ohhh .” Because, yeah, that explains it.
Buck has the idea that having relationship milestones on important dates is the worst possible thing that a pairing can do. Holidays, birthdays, other people’s anniversaries (that one Eddie actually agrees with), anything of the sort, he’s completely against. It’s something he’s ranted about hundreds of times. And, don’t get Eddie wrong, he loves listening to Buck’s rants, but he isn’t particularly superstitious, and this is one of those things that has always felt a tad bit, well, ridiculous.
“Buck, you can’t be serious.”
“Do you not want to date me?” Buck asks, raising an eyebrow.
“Of course I do!”
He opens the door to his loft even wider, motioning for Eddie to come inside. Eddie does, because he truly is completely and utterly whipped, “Then you’re going to give me thirty minutes to put these flowers in a vase, take a shower, and get dressed for our Valentine’s Day outing, and you’ll ask me to be your boyfriend tomorrow, February 15th.”
And again, Eddie does.
—
Eddie tells Buck that he loves him on Saint Patrick’s Day. Which, for the record, he hadn’t even realized that it was Saint Patrick’s Day when he said it.
They’re at a call downtown, attending to a patient who’d driven her car into a tree to avoid hitting a dog that had run into the middle of the road and was in shambles when they’d arrive, crying about how her legs were pinned so she couldn’t get out to check but that somebody had to make sure that her baby was alright.
Fortunately, he was, and Buck is carefully lifting him out of his seat and cradling him in his arms and smiling brightly and Eddie feels out of breath at the image and he can’t hold himself back before saying—“I love you.”
Suddenly everyone's eyes are on him because, right, they aren’t alone, and it definitely isn’t professional to drop the L-word to your partner for the first time in the middle of shift, so Eddie clears his throat, pretends he hears Bobby calling him from the engine, and starts to make his way over when Buck grabs his arm and turns him around.
“I’ll tell you tomorrow.” He promises.
Eddie pauses, “Why not today?”
“Today’s Saint Patrick’s Day, Eddie.” Buck shakes his head, grinning, “You know how I feel about—“
Eddie can’t help but mirror his grin, cheeks flushing with the knowledge that even if Buck won’t say it today for whatever mystical justifications he has, he feels it. Just like Eddie does. “—Relationship milestones on holidays. Yeah, I get it.”
“Good.” He winks at him, before walking around the front of the car and handing the baby to the mother who’s now resting on a stretcher and Eddie feels like he’s frozen in time before Hen clears her throat and breaks his trance, pushing him to move his legs and keep up with the rest of them.
—
Eddie asks Buck to move in with him on the Fourth of July while watching the fireworks together in the backyard of Bobby and Athena’s newly built house. The delicious, smokey scent of the grill is wafting through the air, their entire makeshift family is sitting there right beside them chattering away, Buck is looking absolutely beautiful, and Eddie knows he’d be an idiot if he doesn’t make sure that he can see this every single day. So, he does.
“Move in with me?” He asks, leaning in closer to Buck so he can hear him over the sound of the fireworks and Chimney’s nonsensical yelling over whatever topic the group is currently debating.
Buck turns towards him, skin flushed from the drinks he’s had so far and colorful from the red, white, and blue filling the sky at the moment, and asks, “Are you doing this on purpose?”
“What are you—“ And then Eddie remembers that it’s a Fourth of July party they’re currently having, “Oh, right. For the record, I am not .”
“So you just so happen to suddenly be overcome with the need to make everything important happen on a holiday?” He jokes, “What’s next, you’re going to start stealing anniversaries and propose to me at Chimney and Maddie’s baby shower?”
“Uh, we’re right here,” Maddie pipes in, “And I’d rather you not.”
Eddie scoffs, but he can’t fight the smile pushing at his cheeks, “Well, I wasn’t going to, but now I’m definitely considering it. Remind me what your ring size is again?”
Chimney’s yelling makes its way over to them, and he ruffles both Eddie and Buck’s hair with his hands, “We’re revoking your invitation, Diaz!”
“Yikes. Guess I’ll have to find a new plus one.” Buck teases, resting his head on Eddie’s shoulder for just a second, before getting on his feet and dragging Eddie to do the same.
They make their way to the cooler and Buck pulls out two beers, handing one to Eddie. Always in sync, they pop theirs open at the same time.
“But, seriously, you know the drill. Ask me tomorrow.”
Eddie mocks him, pitching his voice high to repeat his words in a way that he’s fully aware doesn’t actually sound like Buck, but Eddie knows that he will. They both do.
—
Eddie and Buck have their first fight on Halloween, and Eddie isn’t even sure if that actually counts as a milestone for Buck to get mad about or not.
He doesn’t remember how it even started, but he thinks it had something to do with the dishwasher, and they’d only just gotten off an extra bad shift an hour ago, and it was definitely just as much his fault as it was Buck’s, but now they’re yelling at each other in the kitchen just thirty minutes before they need to pick Christopher up from Karen’s house where she’d taken all the kids trick or treating and it doesn’t even matter anymore.
Buck says, “I just wanted to help,” and Eddie says, “Well, you should’ve asked and I would’ve told you,” and Buck says, “Why should I have asked if I’d done it a thousand times before and you never even said anything,” and Eddie says, “Well maybe I never said anything because I knew you wouldn’t have even listened,” and Buck yells, “Maybe you just don’t even want me around,” and Eddie yells, “Maybe I don’t,” and Buck’s storming out of the house and slamming the door shut.
Eddie knows that Buck isn’t going to go anywhere, because the lease for his loft ended last month, and he’d been moved into the Diaz household even before then, but he already feels the tell tale signs of guilt and panic and exhaustion creeping up on him and he suspects that Buck is feeling the same thing too.
Because of course he wants Buck around, he never doesn’t want Buck around. He love being able to just turn in bed in the mornings and see his boyfriend being hit by the sunlight, walking into the living room after one of those rare shifts that they didn’t work together and seeing Buck asleep on the couch, Buck at the stove cooking up a meal, Buck at the table helping Christopher with his homework, Buck in the shower, Buck in the patio, Buck . Even now, after they’d shouted at each other for an hour straight, he wants Buck with him.
So Eddie takes a deep breath, presses down any leftover feelings of anger, and steps out to find Buck sitting at the front porch of the house.
“Hi,” he greets quietly, sitting down next to him.
“Hi,” Buck says back, sniffling.
“I have a question.”
“Go ahead.”
“Why don’t you like mixing relationships with the holidays?” Eddie asks, “You’ve never really, er, explained.”
Buck frowns, like he wasn’t expecting that to be the question that Eddie asks, but he answers anyway, “It’s not about luck. I don’t think that just because somebody gets married on Christmas that they’re always going to have bad luck or whatever, I just—It’s a me thing.”
“Well, I knew that much.” He jokes, and Buck lightly slaps him on the shoulder.
“I mean that, I guess I’m always expecting the worst in relationships. Even when I really love somebody, I don’t think it’s going to last. That you’re going to end up leaving me or—or that you’ll want me to leave. And I figure, if that does end up happening, if our relationship does end up crashing down into a big pile of dust and debris, and if we had gotten together on Valentine’s Day, then all I would’ve been able to think about on Valentine’s Day is our disastrous ending. Or on Saint Patrick’s the fact that we hate each other now. Or on the Fourth of July the fact that I’m not with you anymore. Why risk the chance of ruining those days?”
“So you push the moping back to the next day?”
“Yeah. Or just any not-holiday day.”
“Okay,” Eddie nods, “Well, let me be the first to say that that makes absolutely zero sense.”
Buck scoffs, “I hate you.”
“No, you don’t. You love me, and I love you, and I’m sorry I got mad earlier. But this isn’t the end of anything, and you won’t be moping on the fifteenth, the eighteenth, or the fifth either. I’m not leaving, and I sure as hell don’t want you to leave. Okay?”
He smiles wetly, nodding, “Okay. And I’m sorry too. I really do love you.”
“I know.” And Eddie can’t help but say, “Is Halloween going to be ruined for you now because we had our first fight today?”
Buck hums, grabbing Eddie’s wrist with his fancy watch on it and bringing it close to his face, before shaking his head, “It’s half past midnight, so technically it’s tomorrow. I say we’re in the clear.”
“It’s already past midnight?” Eddie gasps, “We need to go get Christopher from Karen.”
“Shit.”
—
Eddie is formally introduced to Buck’s parents—And vice-versa—On Thanksgiving. When he points this out to Buck, mostly to poke fun at him, Buck replies with: “You’ve already met them, and I’ve already met yours, so it doesn’t count.”
But it definitely feels like it counts as a milestone, because the Buckley’s, Diaz’s, and the Han’s are all at one table and this is probably the most tense moment of Eddie’s life, keeping in mind that he’s fought in a war and has been in multiple near death experiences.
Currently, his dad is saying something to Phillip and Margaret about “hard work” and “business” that Eddie can’t even fully comprehend, but Sang and his wife are chiming in with their own thoughts on the matter and he sneaks a peak at Buck, because, funny story, they hadn’t actually expected any of their parents to show up for Thanksgiving, and they hadn’t even gotten the chance to bring up the fact that they’ve been dating for the past nine months to either of their families before the dinner had started.
One would think that they’d connect the dots already, seeing as there’s no other reason for the Diaz’s to be at the table, but Maddie and Chimney’s excuse that Eddie and Christopher were invited because Bobby and Athena were doing a smaller dinner this year turned out to be enough of a sell.
Margaret lets the businessmen have their own conversation, looking across the table to ask Buck, “So what happened to the nice man you were dating? Um, what’s his name …”
“Tommy?” Buck asks, “Mom, Tommy and I broke up over a year ago. I told you over the phone.”
“Oh, yes, how silly of me to forget,” Margaret laughs, but her next question makes it clear that she’d been prepared for that answer, “So, are you seeing anybody?”
“Well, actually—“
“Because your father and I are expecting grandchildren from you as well! And, you know, of course we accept all lifestyles, but we weren’t necessarily sure that that was the right one for you.”
Eddie freezes, Christopher next to him loudly drops his silverware onto the plate, and Maddie and Chimney both look prepared to start doing Buckley damage control.
Buck is actually the only one at the table—Not counting the rest of the parents, who are still engrossed in their own conversation—able to keep a straight face as he asks, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing! Nothing at all. We never had any problems with Thomas. In fact, he seemed rather kind when we spoke to him. We’d just always hoped you’d end up married to a nice woman that you could have kids with, and we’re glad you’re not going to miss that opportunity.”
“Wow, Margaret, that’s not very awaken of you.” Helena chimes in, and Christopher leans over to whisper to Eddie, “ Does grandma mean woke ?”. Much to Eddie’s dismay, she continues, “I, for one, would accept Eddie even if he were gay.”
That’s actually pretty sweet, “Thanks, Mom, I’ve been wanting to say—”
“As long as it means he won’t start knocking up random women again, am I right? I mean, Shannon was just crazy , you should have met her.” And he spoke too soon.
“You shouldn’t speak that way about the mother of your grandchild,” Margaret fired back, “That’s so derogatory!”
“Well maybe you should be more accepting of your gay son.” Helena defends.
“I’m bisexual, actually, and—“
Sang is taken out of his conversation with Ramon and Philip, mentioning to the table that, “Evan is gay? Albert is gay too.”
“He is?” Chimney asks.
Albert nods awkwardly, and Eddie had forgotten he was even there, “Uh, yeah.”
“That’s nice!” Helena squeals, “Maybe you guys could go out together.”
“Don’t be gross, they’re basically brothers,” Margaret scoffs.
Ramon glares at Margaret, “Don’t speak to my wife in that tone.”
“Don’t speak to my wife in that tone.” Phillip retorts, standing up from his chair to point his finger in Ramon’s face.
“How about we all calm down?” Myungsoon suggests, and Ramon ignores her, standing up to meet Phillip eye to eye.
Sang stands up as well, “Do not ignore my wife.”
“Why are you even here?” Philip asks Ramon and Helena, “This is a family dinner, and, last time I checked, none of you are family. I have half a mind to kick you both out right now .”
“Uh, no you won’t,” Maddie stands, rushing over to get between the three fathers, “Because this is my house, and I get to decide who’s invited.”
“No,” Helena stands, grabbing her purse where it was resting against her seat, “He’s right, we’re not a part of this family and thank God for that. Eddie, Christopher, we’re leaving.”
“Whoa, whoa,” Chimney also gets in between all of them, fanning his hands, “Everybody take a deep breath, we don’t need to be hasty.”
Ramon scoffs, “ Edmundo . Get over here.”
Eddie stays in his seat, looking away from his parents. This is the point where it’d be good to say something, right? Before his and Buck’s parents kill each other?
He looks over at Buck again, making eye contact, and he’s fairly certain that he’s thinking the same thing.
Buck stands up, and so does he, patting Christopher’s shoulder to tell him to stay seated.
“Mom, Dad, I have something to tell you both—“
“Eddie, can’t this wait until we’re in the car?” Helena asks, Ramon nodding beside her.
“ No . It can’t, uh,” He takes a deep breath, “I’m gay.”
His parents freeze, and Margaret cackles beside them, “Oh, how the tables have turned.”
Helena turns back onto her, lifting her purse in the air like she’s ready to throw it, “Do you ever stop being such a bitch?”
“You do not call my wife a bitch.”
“My wife has the right to call her whatever she’d like.“
“Because shaming women is real classy—“
“ Eddie and I are dating! ” Buck shouts, silencing the argument between their parents. Maddie looks like she’s about to have an aneurysm.
Everyone’s looking at Buck, and he looks back at them, then sinks down back into his seat, “So, uh, yeah. Let’s eat.”
Everybody seems too shell-shocked to do anything but follow.
Tomorrow, Eddie will tell Buck that he never wants to do anything with their parents together ever again.
—
Eddie proposes to Buck on Christmas Day. The two of them are alone in the station loft waiting for Christopher to wake up so that they can all face-time before the shift starts to get busy, Buck is humming to himself and shimmying his hips as he mixes them both some coffee, and it just slips out.
“We should get married.”
Buck freezes, looking at Eddie from across the kitchen Island.
“I mean, not right now, because I know you’d definitely want to do a ceremony and I don't want to rush anything, but, y’know, we could be engaged? I don’t know about you, but I like the sound of fiancé way more then boyfriend—“
“Stop.” He lifts his hand into the air, and Eddie cuts himself off, “Eddie Diaz, please tell me you are not proposing right now.”
Shit . “Right, it’s Christmas, sorry. I forgot about the holiday—“
“I don’t care about the holiday thing, Eddie.” Buck pauses, then, “Well, I do, and I sure as hell am not getting engaged on Christmas. But I care way more about the fact that you’re proposing without a ring. I mean, you aren’t even on one knee right now.” He clicks his tongue, “Get all of that, and then I’ll say yes to you.”
“So not tomorrow?”
“If you can get the ring by tomorrow, then sure.”
Eddie’s phone buzzes, Christopher’s contact icon popping up over the screen, and the topic is dropped.
—
Eddie does not propose to Buck on the twenty-sixth. He does , however, go to a jewelry store. Then he realizes he doesn’t actually have Buck’s ring size, so he takes one of the strips from the store and measures Buck’s finger in the middle of the night, feeling both vaguely creepy and extremely grateful that Buck is a heavy sleeper.
—
Eddie brings Buck to the party at Bobby and Athena’s house on New Year’s Eve. Much like the Fourth of July, everyone’s in the backyard, looking up at the sky in wait for the fireworks.
Unlike the Fourth of July, Chimney, Christopher, and Denny are all carefully setting up a tripod, locking the new phone that Hen and Karen bought him for Christmas on top and pressing the record button.
Bobby’s pulled out the TV from the living room, setting it up and attaching it to an extension cord so that they can all watch the countdown broadcast.
The newscaster is making some joke on screen, and the tiny countdown in the corner starts to get bigger as it hits a minute and thirty.
With shaky hands, Eddie pats his pockets, feeling the box inside, before standing up from their blanket on the grass and pulling Buck to do the same.
“What’s this?” He chuckles, “You wanna dance to a wasted Anderson Cooper’s end of the year monologue?”
Eddie laughs, shaking his head. In the background, Bobby and Athena are passing around champagne flutes to everybody, Christopher, Denny, Mara, and Jee all getting sprite filled glasses instead.
“Nah,” Eddie smiles, “I want to ask you to marry me.”
Buck gasps, and he quickly gets down on one knee, pulling out the velvet box from his pocket and popping it open to reveal the ring inside.
“Buck, I love—“
“You’re proposing to me on New Year’s.” Buck scoffs, trying to sound annoyed, but his eyes are teary and his grin is too big for it to be convincing.
“Uh, no, actually. I’m proposing to you the day before New Year’s, and,” He makes a big show of checking his watch, “You have thirty seconds to say yes.”
“You realize that New Year’s Eve is still a holiday, right?”
Eddie raises an eyebrow, “Do I get to do my speech?”
“ Fine .”
“Evan Buckley, from the moment I’ve met you, you’ve changed my life. You’ve made me happier with your silly jokes, smarter with that giant sexy brain of yours,—“ Christopher and Chimney both interrupt with an “ Ew !” “—and more confident than I ever thought I could be. Time and time again, you’ve—“
“Hate to cut you off,” Bobby steps in, “But you’ve got ten seconds.”
Everyone starts to countdown alongside Anderson Cooper and the crowd on the TV:
“ Ten!”
“Buck,”
“ Nine!”
“Will you marry me?”
“ Eight!”
“ Seven!”
“I can't exactly say to ask me tomorrow, can I?”
“ Six!”
“Five!”
“Four!”
“No. And for the record, that would be very mean.”
“Three!”
“Two!”
“One!”
Buck gets engaged to Eddie on New Year’s Day.