Work Text:
Eddie almost whimpered as he finished his trudge up the stairs to the lofted bedroom in Buck's apartment and saw that his air mattress had deflated since they had left for their twenty-four-hour shift that had turned into a twenty-six-hour one. It had not been the longest they had ever gone over, but it had been physically taxing, and he had been looking forward to passing out as soon as they had gotten back. Buck, he knew, was not going to be far behind him, but it was his turn to take care of getting their—Buck's and Eddie's—clothes in the washer before crashing out for a nap.
He could take the time to blow it up again, but without patching the stupid thing, it would just be deflated by the time he woke up, and he would, effectively, be sleeping on the floor. But just commandeering Buck's bed did not seem like something he should really do either. Buck, surely, would not mind, but it would just be awkward for them to share a bed. Shannon had always complained about how clingy he got during the night, having always woken up soaked in sweat from his body heat unless they had a fan pointed directly at them.
Then again, Buck ran cold most of the time. He lounged around his house in socks in Los Angeles, for crying out loud. And his thermostat was set higher than Eddie's too. In fact, that had been one of the first major arguments that had come up between the four of them sharing the loft apartment. While Eddie was, at least, slightly used to the temperature that Buck kept his place at, Hen and Chim had not previously known and had changed the settings without saying anything to Buck. Eddie had known almost as soon as they had changed it since the air conditioner had switched on but had been busy setting up his area. Buck had not been happy to come home to a cold apartment that day.
Buck stumbled up the stairs behind him and almost into his back since he had not been expecting Eddie to still be standing right where he was. One of his heavy hands clapped down on Eddie's shoulder with a considering noise. “C'mon,” he mumbled, guiding Eddie to the bed and shuffling him under the covers before sliding into bed on his normal side. He was out within several short moments and snoring lightly while Eddie was blinking up at the ceiling, trying to figure out what exactly had just happened. With a slow blink, he decided that it did not matter and was something he could deal with when he woke up. Their shift had been far too long and exhausting for him to really have the brainpower to figure anything out that might be trying to circle in his thoughts.
Hours later, when he woke up, his shirt was soaked in sweat, and he felt rather gross because of it, but the sleep he had gotten had to be some of the best he had ever gotten. Thinking about the reasons behind that, however, was not something he really wanted to visit. Buck was his best friend and had not shown any interest in men before, and Eddie himself did not want to even contemplate having a sexuality crisis at that time. There was just too much going on between quarantine, family separation, everything with work….
It took a couple of weeks for Hen to catch on to the fact that he was no longer sleeping on the air mattress, though all she did was raise an eyebrow at him over their morning coffee with a quiet comment about there being fewer sheets in their wash than normal.
He shrugged before replying, “It's not as awkward as I thought it'd be.”