Work Text:
+1, Kinda
It's just...
His interactions with Eddie had felt so normal. Because they had been normal. Absolutely nothing had changed between them upon Buck falling irrevocably in love with him, so of course he'd missed it.
At least, that's what he told himself about thirty minutes after he looked across at Eddie and thought 'oh' for the third (yes, third) time in his life, with this particular 'oh' having a distinct feeling of 'I've been an oblivious fucking idiot, huh,' to it.
It took him another thirty minutes to realise he'd never be normal around Eddie again, and that maybe there was something to say for obliviousness.
Maybe he should've noticed sooner. Falling in love was supposed to be a grand and momentous occasion, not a half-forgotten memory of your best friend's smile.
But realistically, Buck had been half in love with Eddie since that first shift together, and he'd never noticed that either.
He'd figured it out now, at least.
1
Buck fell in love with Eddie on a Tuesday. The fact that it took him several months to realise this fact was irrelevant.
Nothing really stood out about the day, in retrospect. They'd had far more dramatic days over the course of their friendship — hell, they pulled a live grenade out of a man's leg within a day of knowing each other, and that was tame for them — but even outside of that, it should've been a bit of a nothing day in Buck's brain. Despite that, it had stuck around at the forefront of his brain labelled as 'important', and he'd never been able to figure out why until now.
Because now, looking back, he was able to pinpoint the moment where he looked over at Eddie grinning widely at a joke Hen made, and some part of him went 'oh'.
He has no fucking idea how he missed it at the time.
Though, really.
Eddie is his best friend. Is probably the best friend he'll ever have. Is definitely the best friend he's had so far. So when he started feeling butterflies in his stomach when Eddie smiled at him, he figured that was just… how it went sometimes. And if his heart skipped a beat when Eddie tugged him in for a hug, well, wasn't that how everyone reacted to the firm embrace of their best bud?
It's not the first time that Buck had felt this way, is the thing. He'd learnt, over the years, that there came a point in a lot of friendships where the nervous fluster that surrounded you in the early days of getting to know someone new would return with a vengeance. Most of the time, another month or two would pass and things would go back to normal. Occasionally, though, it stuck around for a little longer, and Buck had long resigned himself to coming across as an awkward mess in those periods.
He'd just never considered that it might mean something before.
+0.25
Two weeks before Buck pulled his head out of his ass, Chris had basically invited him to move into the Diaz household.
"Hey, Buck?" He'd asked, staring at Buck from where he was flopped over off the side of the couch. "Why do you bother going back to the loft still?"
Buck had laughed, walking over to ruffle his hair gently.
"I do still live there, superman. Pay my rent and everything."
Chris' face scrunched up at that.
"Yeah, but like. Why? You should just move in here."
"Your dad might have something to say about that idea, bud," Buck said, smiling as Chris shook his head in firm denial.
"You're over all the time anyway, Buck, and he was frowning after you left the other night. I think he'd be happy if you moved in."
"There's not exactly an extra room for me to live in though, Chris. And your dad needs some privacy."
"You can just sleep in his bed like you usually do," Chris explained, rolling his eyes. "Anyway, you need to move in eventually because otherwise you can't get married. It's easier if you do it now."
(You'd think that Chris' casual assumption that he and Eddie were on a path towards getting married would've clued him in sooner. You would, however, be underestimating Buck's ability to just… skip his brain over things he didn't want to think about too hard. It was an art form, really.)
2
If he was being honest, he should've realised something more was going on the first time Maddie showed up at Eddie's house looking for him.
He'd opened the door to her knock, surprised to see her.
"Are you here for Eddie?" He asked, slightly confused. "Because he's gone to get groceries, it's only me and Chris here right now."
"What?" Maddie replied, equally confused. "Why would I be here for Eddie?"
"Because you're... on his doorstep?"
"Yeah, and?"
"I don't know about you, Mads, but that's usually what I'm after when I show up at someone's house."
She sent him another look, one that very much read as 'You're a dumbass, but I love you.'
"I needed your help with a surprise for Chim, Buck. If you want to let me in any time soon."
He rolled her eyes at her teasing, moving to the side as he gestured down the hallway in an 'after you' kind of way.
"I'm guessing you went by my loft and realised I wasn't there?"
Maddie looked back at him, bemused once more.
"It's a Saturday and you're off-shift, Buck. I came straight here."
The next time she'd shown up, Eddie was the one who answered the door. He hadn't even hesitated before telling her Buck was in the living room, helping Chris with his math homework.
Buck was now trying desperately not to read into either one of their easy assumptions about his place in Eddie's home.
+0.5
A week before Buck realised just how important Eddie was to him, they lost a patient on a call. A young one.
There weren't a lot of smiles around the firehouse that day. The mood was so bleak that even the B-shift picked up on it, the shift change happening more quietly than Buck had thought possible.
"Do you want me to leave you alone tonight?" He asked Eddie, rubbing his hand on the back of his neck when all he received in response was a blank stare. "Because I can just drop you home and head to the loft, if you want.
"What?"
"It— It was a hard one, today. I wouldn't blame you if you wanted to go home to hug Chris without worrying about me hanging around."
"Without... Buck, when have I ever not wanted you hanging around?"
Eddie still looked confused, and Buck had to fight the urge to shy away from him.
"I just— I don't want to intrude, that's all."
"You won't. Anyway, you need a Chris hug as badly as I do, and he might actually give you one without a fight."
(Chris did, in fact, give them both a hug, but only a short one each. Afterwards, Buck tucked himself into Eddie's side on the couch, relaxing immediately at the feel of Eddie softly stroking a hand through his hair, and again ignored any implications that could have.)
3
It wasn't just Maddie, though.
Buck drove Eddie in to work more often than not, which wasn't surprising considering how regularly he was crashing at his place.
But even when he'd spent the night at his loft, Buck would often pick up Eddie on his way. Eddie absolutely hated driving in LA traffic, and carpooling was better for the environment anyway, so Buck figured it was killing two birds with one stone.
So he really shouldn't have been surprised when Bobby pulled him aside one morning, concerned by the fact that they had arrived in seperate cars.
"You two haven't had a fight, have you?" He asked, voice low. "I know neither of you would let it affect your work, of course, but I can still pair you up with Ravi for the day if it would make things smoother."
"Nah, Bobby, we're okay. Chris is at a friend's house this afternoon and Eddie needed to get groceries for the week, so we're dividing and conquering."
Bobby smiled at him, placing a paternal hand on his shoulder.
"You know, Buck, I really admire the way you've stepped up for them over the years. Not many people would, not in the ways that you have."
Buck blushed, ducking his head in an attempt to hide it from Bobby.
"It's what anyone would do," he argued, and Bobby squeezed his shoulder once before letting his hand drop.
"Even still."
+0.75
The day before Buck realised that he'd fallen in love with his best friend, he'd crashed at Eddie's for their 48 off, like usual.
He was absolutely fucking exhausted, like usual.
Unlike usual, he was the only one who was, because they were coming off from the mother of all Q-shifts.
"Eddieeee," Buck groaned, slumping onto Eddie's bed face first. "Why the fuck am I so tired right now."
"Because you and Chim made terrible decisions last night."
"Not helpful," he grumbled, before burying his face further into the comforter.
"But true," Eddie pointed out. "Me and Hen both managed some lovely and mostly uninterrupted beauty sleep last night. It's not my fault that you let Chim goad you into playing Mario Kart all night instead."
Buck hmphed.
"No need to rub it in," he mumbled, already half asleep, and Eddie let out a quiet laugh when he realised.
"Come on, Buck, you gotta get your shoes off and head on the pillow at least. Budge up, okay?"
Buck shuffled up obligingly, before rolling over and peering blearily down at his shoes. He could've figured them out if it was any other day, he was sure, but Eddie's thumb was rubbing mindless circles into his ankle and it was weirdly distracting.
"Do you want me to take them off for you?" Eddie asked, gentle, and Buck nodded, lips pursed.
"Would you?"
"It's all good. I'll get your jeans off you as well, they can't be comfortable."
Eddie's touch was soft as he helped Buck with his shoes and pants, and Buck sleepily complied with his movements. Once Eddie was done, Buck heard him start to quietly make his way out of the room and let out a noise of protest.
"You all good?" Eddie asked, halfway across the room, and Buck hummed.
"Stay," he requested, grasping blindly in Eddie's direction.
"I—"
"Please?"
Eddie sighed, but it sounded amused, and he made his way back around the bed.
"Okay, I'll stay."
Buck felt the mattress dip slightly as Eddie got in, and rolled to bury his head in the crook of his neck before relaxing fully.
"G'night," he mumbled, and Eddie brought up a hand to gently card through his hair.
"Good night, Buck."
(Yeah, this one was a little stupid of him. Especially considering they'd been sleeping like this for months now, even if they were both usually dead‐tired when it happened.)
4
One of his most oblivious moments was absolutely the call where they'd watched two lifelong best friends realise that, well, friends was probably not quite the right way to describe their relationship.
They had dropped the newly minted couple off at Cedars‐Sinai together, hoping to god that the heart scan Dotty was absolutely getting after that scare had promising results, and were just waiting for Bobby to clear something with the nurses before heading back to the station.
"Can you imagine?" Buck had asked, leaning against the truck next to Hen. "Being friends with someone for that long and only realising you're in love when it's almost too late."
Hen had stayed silent for a minute, eyeing him contemplatively.
"You know how we've talked about the universe screaming before, Buck?" She'd eventually asked, and he'd shrugged.
"Uh, yeah?"
"Have you ever noticed that sometimes our cases get... weirdly personal? Like, they're reflecting something at us that we should take into our own lives."
"You aren't thinking of leaving Karen for some old friend of yours, right?" He'd asked, ducking his head slightly to better meet her gaze. "Because I have to tell you, Hen, that doesn't sound like a great idea."
"Oh, no. I'm not talking about me here, Buck, don't worry. And even if I was, I sure as shit wouldn't be coming to you for advice. I'm just thinking out loud. Thought you might find it interesting to think about."
He'd only been able to blink at her in response, suddenly wrong-footed.
"Well. Good."
+1, for real this time
"I need to tell you something," Buck started, uncharacteristically nervous.
Eddie raised an eyebrow at that, but turned his attention away from the mail he'd been sorting through.
"You good?"
"I— Yeah. I just. I was thinking earlier today, about you. And me. And the way we've, well. Built a family together?" Buck's voice was coming out stiff and anxious, he knew, but he didn't know how to change that. Not for something this important. "And how much that means to me. And will always mean to me. And I realised— I realised a few things actually. Things that you should probably know? But I'm not expecting anything from you, and the last thing I want is to lose you from my life, so if—"
"I love you," Eddie interrupted. "I have for a while now. So you don't need to worry about losing me."
"You— What?"
"I love you, Buck. That was what you were building up to, wasn't it?"
Buck felt like he was going insane. He's spent the last 8 hours losing his mind over this new revelation, and here Eddie was, acting like it was basically a given.
"Marry me," he ended up pleading, almost feverish in his desperation.
Eddie laughed lightly at that, apparently not realising that he was being deadly serious.
"Buck, we haven't even kissed yet."
Buck darted forwards at that, pressing a short but bruising kiss against Eddie's lips.
"Marry me, Eds, please."
"We also haven't gone on a date yet, baby. I want to do this right."
"Date?" Buck asked. "What, so we can get to know each other better? Eddie, I'm co-parenting your kid. I've spent more nights in your bed this past year than I have in my own. You just told me you love me, and you think there's any way we can do this that isn't right?"
Eddie visibly softened at that, pulling Buck in for another kiss.
"Ask me again tomorrow, okay? If you still want to. You said you only figured this out today, right? Just... Ask me again tomorrow."
"First thing in the morning," he swore. "And Eddie?"
"Yeah, Buck?"
"I love you too."
The next morning, it took Buck a couple of minutes to remember how things had changed the night before.
Everything felt completely normal, from the way he woke up clinging to Eddie like an octopus, to the simple feeling of sheer joy that was spreading through him. He snuggled in harder, not wanting to have to confront the realities of being awake yet, and it wasn't till he noticed that Eddie's usual kiss to his birthmark was lingering that Buck realised that things were slightly different between them now.
The joy he was already feeling somehow deepened, and he opened his eyes to look at Eddie with a broad grin.
"Good morning, sweetheart."
Eddie grinned back, soft and sweet, before brushing another lingering kiss across Buck's forehead.
"Morning, mi corazon."
"I know I said I'd ask you as soon as I woke up, but I changed my mind."
Buck kept his expression playful, not moving an inch from where he was practically plastered against Eddie's chest, so Eddie only stiffened slightly underneath him when his meaning registered.
"Oh?" Eddie asked, and Buck smirked.
"It would be a pretty shitty proposal if I didn't have a ring for you, after all."