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“Buck, come on, just order it.”
“No.”
“I’ll pay for it.”
“Absolutely not. It’s, like, $200.”
Eddie sighs. “It’s only $50.”
Buck throws his hands up, nearly launching his fork into the air. “That’s still too much for one dessert, no matter how cool it is that they light it on fire in front of you. Plus, our bill is probably already over $400! And it’s just the two of us, so that’s, like, $200 each for one meal.”
“One really good meal.” Eddie pushes his empty plate and utensils off to the side. “Buck, seriously, just order it. Every time a waiter walks by with one, you stare at it longingly.”
“I do not,” Buck huffs. He then proceeds to swivel his neck so fast Eddie gets whiplash. He follows Buck’s line of sight just as a waitress sets down a large chocolate pyramid covered in gold leaf in front of a family of five a few tables down. The waitress pours a small cup of liquid over it then strikes a match and drops it onto the plate. The pyramid catches fire, melting slowly to reveal a large slice of cake, some scoops of ice cream, fresh fruit, and marshmallows.
Buck turns his attention back to his own plate, his face flushing when he sees Eddie staring at him, a small smirk tugging at his lips.
“Shut up,” Buck mutters, but there’s no venom in his words.
“I’ve got an idea,” Eddie says, digging around in his pockets. “Just follow my lead.”
“What?” Buck’s eyes widen as Eddie stands and makes his way around their table. “Eddie, are we gonna dine and dash?” he whispers.
“What? No.” He pauses in front of Buck, fidgeting with whatever is in his hands. “Do you trust me?”
“You know I do.”
“Okay, then.” And Eddie gets down on one knee.
“Holy fuck,” Buck says.
“Evan Buckley,” Eddie says, his voice surprisingly steady. “We have been partners and best friends for over seven years, and they have been the best seven years of my life. Even though we spend entire 48 hour shifts together, that isn’t enough for me. I want to spend every waking minute with you, both at the station and at home. I want to fall asleep in your arms every night. I want to wake up every morning and turn around and see you in bed next to me.”
The tables around them are buzzing with excitement. One girl is frantically swatting her girlfriend’s arm, whispering, “Oh my God, babe, look!” Three waiters and a busboy are standing nearby, waiting to see how it all goes down before going back to work.
“You basically live with me already, so logically this is the next step.” Eddie holds up a ring between his thumb and index finger. “Will you marry me?”
“Yes,” Buck says, so soft Eddie can barely hear it. He shakes his head as if he’s clearing it like an Etch-A-Sketch before practically shouting, “Yes, of course I will!”
Their little corner of the restaurant bursts into cheers and applause. Buck and Eddie both stand, Eddie sliding the ring onto Buck’s left ring finger. He grins and looks up at Buck, who grins right back. And like it’s the most natural thing in the world, Eddie tilts his head up and kisses Buck.
Later, when he’s laying in bed and staring up at the ceiling, Eddie will ask himself why he did it. The second thing he’ll ask himself is why he didn’t even notice what he was doing at first, almost as if he was acting on instinct. The third thing he’ll ask himself is why it didn’t freak him out that he’s kissing another man (in fact, it feels good. Really good. Maybe even better than kissing a woman).
He’ll realize that the answer to all three questions is the same: because he loves Buck, is in love with him, and it’s just as natural to him as blinking and breathing are.
But for now, Eddie is just focused on the fact that his best friend is kissing him back.
Their hands are still clasped together from when Eddie gently took them to put the ring on. Eddie’s finger grazing against the metal, cold at first but made warm from Buck’s body heat, is what brings him back to Earth. He pulls away, his head a bit fuzzy, and laughs.
They both sit back down, everybody around them offering them their congratulations. They politely thank everyone, but Buck’s face lights up when a waitress comes by with their check, a bottle of champagne, and two glass flutes.
“On the house,” she says.
She’s about to uncork the bottle when Eddie says, “Actually, if you don’t mind, would it be alright if we got one of the Flaming Pyramids instead? My fiancé has been dying to try one for months and was about to order one before I distracted him.” He wiggles his brows on the word “fiancé”, and Buck averts his gaze shyly.
Their waitress smiles at Buck before turning back to Eddie. “Of course. I’ll be right out.”
Fifteen minutes later, Eddie has his phone out and camera on. Even though the fire and rivers of melting chocolate are supposed to be the showstoppers, Eddie can’t help but watch Buck’s expression of childlike wonder instead.
Buck scoops up some cake, making sure to get a little bit of ice cream, fruit, and marshmallows as well. One hand underneath so he doesn’t stain the white tablecloth, he reaches over until the tip of the spoon just barely touches Eddie’s lips. Eddie takes the spoon from him and eats the whole thing in one bite, his face scrunching up like a kitten when the cold ice cream hits his teeth.
In the meantime, Buck has grabbed the other spoon, his own perfect little serving waiting to be eaten. Eddie digs into the cake, and they clink their utensils together before eating.
“Here’s to us, and whatever marriage has in store,” Buck says.
🩷🩷🩷
Buck is passing Chimney a steaming mug of coffee after a particularly cold call involving a chef getting locked inside his own walk-in when suddenly Chim gasps and points at the mug.
“What’s wrong with it?” Buck asks, holding it up to inspect it.
“Not the cup,” Chim says, “your hand!”
“What’s wrong with my- oh.” Buck looks down at his left hand. The silver band from a few nights ago is still there.
Ravi turns away from the vegetables he’s chopping and says, “No way,” before setting down the knife and walking around the counter towards Buck.
Eddie and Hen look up from their books. Hen gasps, and Eddie mutters, “Oh, fuck.”
The commotion is enough to drag Bobby’s attention away from the chicken he’s coating in eggs and flour. He wipes his hands on his dishtowel, slings it over his shoulder, and makes his way to the table. Once he sees the ring, he sighs.
“Buck, you know the rules. While on the job, you need to wear one of the department issued silicone rings. I’ll grab you one once I’m done with the chicken.”
“Fuck the rules,” Chim exclaims. “Since when have you been engaged, Buckaroo? We didn’t even know you were seeing someone.”
All eyes are on Buck, but his are glued to his boots. When he finally looks up, the back of his neck and cheeks are a light pink.
“Sorry, Cap,” he says sheepishly, “I forgot I had it on.”
“How do you just forget you’re wearing an engagement ring?” Hen asks.
“I don’t know; I just did. I haven’t been wearing it very long.”
“Again, so not the point,” Chim says. “Who is this mystery person? I swear to God, Buck, if the next words out of your mouth are ‘It’s Taylor Kelly’-”
“-God, no!” Buck all but shouts. “No, that will never happen. Third time is not the charm.”
“Then who is it?” Hen asks, closing her book and setting it on the couch next to her so that Buck can have her full and undivided attention.
Buck spares the briefest of glances at Eddie, and before Eddie can subtly shake his head at him, everyone’s eyes are on him.
“What?” He asks.
“You’ve been awfully quiet, Eddie,” Ravi says in a lilted voice.
“So?”
“So,” Hen says, “you obviously know who it is, given by your reaction. Or lack thereof.”
Eddie glances at Bobby, who nods his head in a “well, do you know?” sort of gesture. He turns his attention to Buck, who has started nervously twisting the ring around and around his knuckle.
Realizing neither one is going to bail him out, Eddie sighs, throws his book aside, and says, “Yeah, I do.”
“Spill. Now,” Chimney demands.
Eddie sighs again. “It’s my ring. I gave it to him.”
The room is silent for all of ten seconds before everyone starts bombarding the happy couple.
“I knew it! Athena owes me fifty bucks!” Hen pulls out her phone, no doubt texting Athena and telling her to pay up.
“I’m so confused. I thought you two were already married,” Ravi says.
“How long have you two been dating? Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t Maddie tell me?” Chim asks. He cocks his head and stares up at the ceiling, almost as if he’s replaying every interaction Buck and Eddie have ever had, trying to see if he missed any glaring details.
“You two do know we’ll have to talk about this, right?” Bobby says.
“Oh, that won’t be necessary,” Buck tells him. “We aren’t actually engaged.”
Hen’s head whips up from where she’s staring at her phone. Chim and Ravi are wearing matching confused expressions. Bobby raises an eyebrow at Eddie.
“What do you mean you aren’t actually engaged?” Hen asks.
“Well-” Eddie starts, but Chimney cuts him off.
“Did you get down on one knee?” he asks.
“I did,” Eddie responds.
“Did the words ‘will you marry me?’ come out of your mouth?”
“They did.”
“And did Buck say yes?”
“He did.”
“So, you’re engaged,” Hen concludes.
“Again,” Ravi says, still multiple steps behind everyone else. Eddie makes a mental note to pull him aside after their shift and clear up every misconception he has about his and Buck’s relationship.
“It wasn’t like that,” Buck protests weakly, the apples of his cheeks so pink they match his birthmark.
“We faked a proposal to get free dessert at this really expensive restaurant,” Eddie tells everyone. He deliberately leaves out the fact that they kissed even though they really didn’t need to because he knows they’ll never let them hear the end of it. “So no, we are not really engaged.”
“I’m sorry, you two faked a proposal to get free dessert?” Bobby asks.
“You’ve never done that?” Hen shoots him a look.
Bobby shakes his head. “Do you and Karen do that?”
“Sometimes, and we aren’t ashamed of it,” Hen says very matter-of-factly.
“So we’re all just going to ignore the fact that one of you just so happened to have a ring handy?” Chim narrows his eyes at Buck suspiciously.
“What makes you think it was my ring?” Buck asks. “Do you think I just go around LA faking proposals?”
“It was your ring?” Hen asks, pointing at Eddie.
“Yeah.”
“Why do you have one if you don’t even wear it?” Ravi asks.
“I bought it that same day,” Eddie explains. “Buck and I took Christopher to this gem and mineral show they’ve been wanting to check out for months. They had already gotten their souvenirs and they decided that I couldn’t go home empty handed. One of the vendors had some rings on sale, and they both picked that one out for me.”
Buck holds his hand up so everyone can get a closer look. It’s a simple titanium band with a thick band of obsidian running down the middle. While everyone admires it, Eddie continues his story.
“I was planning on adding it to the chain my St. Christopher medal is on, but we had to rush home to drop Christopher and his stuff off at home so he could finish his history report while we went to dinner, so I just forgot.”
Eddie goes to meet Buck’s eyes but stops when he sees the look on his face. It’s… well he doesn’t exactly know how to describe it. Nervous? Awestruck? Like he just had the wind knocked out of him?
“You were going to wear it on your chain?” Buck asks, his voice the softest Eddie has ever heard it.
Eddie nods. “Of course. You two picked it out, and I know I can’t wear it on shift, so this made the most sense.”
“Okay, but do you see how that’s almost as gay as if you had actually proposed to him?” Ravi says.
Bobby gives Ravi a look. Ravi holds his palms up in self-defense, and everyone has turned to face them.
Everyone except Buck.
Eddie can feel him staring at him more intensely than usual, so he turns away from Ravi and Bobby and looks at Buck.
Buck is still wearing the same expression that Eddie can’t quite name. He raises his eyebrows at him, a silent “you okay?”. Buck clears his throat, arranges his face into a neutral expression, and nods.
“Okay, you don't have to fill out any paperwork for a fake engagement,” Bobby says, “but take the ring off. Or at least wear a silicone one if you insist on having something on.
Buck slips the ring off his finger and tosses it towards Eddie. He catches it easily and makes to put it in his pocket but decides to put it in his bag instead, remembering what happened the last time someone from the 118 tried to put an engagement ring in their pocket during a shift.
🩷🩷🩷
Eddie is putting pretzel sticks in a little Ziploc bag for Chris’s lunch when he hears the front door open and close.
“In the kitchen,” he calls, and Buck walks in and plops down into the chair across from him ten seconds later. Even though he won’t look at him, Eddie can tell something is weighing on him by the way he’s fiddling with the zipper on Chris’s lunchbox.
Knowing Buck will talk to him when he’s ready, Eddie keeps preparing his son’s food. He’s just cut a turkey and swiss sandwich in half diagonally when Buck asks, “Did you mean it?”
“Mean what?”
Buck’s head is still bowed, his eyes still locked on the zipper between his fingers when he says, “What you said about wanting to wear the ring on your chain.”
Eddie nods, realizes Buck can’t see him, and says, “I did. It means a lot to me.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“You and Chris picked it out for me,” Eddie says simply, like that explains everything. It does to him, at least. He doesn’t know how else to tell Buck that he wants to carry the two most important people in his life on a chain around his neck and keep them close to his heart without outright saying it.
Buck nods slowly. “What about what you said that night? You know, when you… proposed?” The finger quotes he adds around the word “proposed” make Eddie smirk as he puts the Capri Sun box back in the pantry. “Did you mean that, too?”
Eddie takes a second to remember what he had said at the restaurant. When it comes back to him, his face flushes. He hadn’t been thinking that night; he had simply gotten down on one knee, looked up at Buck, and the words started pouring out.
“Of course I meant it,” he finally replies. “Why wouldn’t I?”
Buck doesn’t answer. Instead he asks another question: “And what about when you… when you kissed me? Did you mean that, too? Or was it just for show?”
Silence fills the space between them, but it isn’t the usual comfortable silence that sits between them on the couch or in the fire engine. This time it’s charged, so much electricity crackling in the air that Eddie thinks the room would explode if someone lit a match. He wonders if Buck feels it, too.
Eddie takes a deep breath, thinking to himself that it’s now or never, and says, “I did it because I wanted to. I still want to. I’ve wanted to kiss you for months, Buck.”
Buck finally looks up at him, his eyes as wide as saucers and mouth forming a perfect O. “But you’re straight!”
Eddie scoffs. “If I was straight I wouldn’t be in love with my best friend.”
Buck’s breath catches. His eyes have gone soft, softer than Eddie’s ever seen.
“You love me?”
“I’ve loved you as long as I’ve known you, Buck. Even when I thought we were just friends, I knew there was something… different about our relationship. At first I thought it was just because I’d never had a friend who has done as much for me as you have. But then I realized that the reason our friendship has always been different is because we were never really ever ‘just friends’. Not to me, at least. I put you in my will after a year of knowing you but just the thought of being married to another woman sent me to the emergency room. When you were struck by lightning, I counted every second that your heart wasn’t beating. Losing you felt like losing a part of myself.”
Buck hadn’t moved an inch since Eddie started talking. He would have thought Buck had frozen solid had it not been for the look on his face growing fonder and fonder with every word. Eddie, suddenly self conscious, rakes a hand through his hair, hoping Buck will say something soon. Even if it’s just to let Eddie down gently, he needs Buck to say something before the silence suffocates him.
“Buck?” Eddie prompts softly.
Buck doesn’t say anything as he stands, places his hands on Eddie’s waist, and pulls him in for a kiss.
Even though he had thoroughly enjoyed their first kiss, Eddie thinks it pales in comparison to their second.
Eddie’s face was warm and flushed in the restaurant, but in his kitchen? His entire body feels like it’s on fire, warmth spreading from his lips to the tips of his toes. When Buck nips his lower lip and soothes the sting right after, Eddie’s stomach swoops as if he’s just gone off the first big drop on a rollercoaster.
“I love you, too, in case that wasn’t clear,” Buck says when they finally come up for air. His fingers have started drawing patterns up and down Eddie’s back. Eddie swears he feels Buck write his name and an apostrophe s, like he’s claiming him.
“Anyone with eyes can see I’m yours,” Eddie assures him, “I have been since we first met.”
Buck smiles, but it’s nervous. It doesn’t reach his eyes, which are glued to Eddie’s lips. “You know, if you really meant everything you said that night, maybe we could…try it for real?” He says, his voice as shaky as his smile.
Eddie cocks his head. “You mean…get married? Get engaged, plan a wedding, the whole nine yards?”
“If you don’t want to, we don’t have to,” Buck says immediately. “I get it if you want to take things slow and date for a bit.” He gulps and bows his head. “Or if you…if you’re unsure about this. Us. Me.”
“Oh, baby,” Eddie says gently. He cranes his neck until he’s staring into Buck’s eyes again and gives his shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “Of course I’ll marry you. We don’t need to date or have a long engagement. Say the word, and we’ll go to a courtroom tomorrow morning. You’re it for me, Buck.”
“You’re it for me, too, Eds.”
Eddie takes a step back. Buck follows him, brows crinkled in confusion.
“I left the ring in my work bag,” Eddie explains. “I’ll be back; It’s just in the living room.”
Buck follows him anyway, right on his heels as usual.
When Eddie reaches for his fiance’s hand to slide the ring back where it belongs, Buck frowns. “Shouldn’t you be the one wearing it?”
“Why would I wear it if I’m the one that proposed?”
“The first one doesn’t count, and I am the one who brought up getting engaged for real just now,” Buck corrects him. “Plus, I bought it for you and you were planning on wearing it around your neck anyways.”
“I kind of liked seeing you wear it,” Eddie says.
“You can buy me one tomorrow,” Buck promises him. He holds out his hand, eyebrow raised. Eddie drops the ring in his outstretched palm, his left ring finger tingling as Buck slides it on and kisses the back of his hand. He takes one look at the lovestruck grin on Buck’s face and pulls him in, kissing him stupid.
Eddie’s smile when they break apart is so wide his cheeks hurt. “God, Ravi is gonna be so fucking confused when we ask Bobby for a silicone ring next shift.”
Buck raises an eyebrow. “Why would he be confused?”
“I might have pulled him aside a couple hours ago and told him that we have never been married, never dated, and probably never will do either.”
“I mean, technically you weren’t wrong about the dating part.” Buck holds up his left hand, his fingers wiggling suggestively, his brows doing the same.
Eddie rolls his eyes playfully and pulls Buck in for another kiss, just because he can.