Archive of Our Own

“I’m just gonna take this,” Buck says, his voice sounding a bit sharper than usual, and the smile plastered on his face is definitely a fake one, full of pretence, because it doesn’t reach his eyes, as he yanks the patient chart from Eddie’s hands, “and make myself scarce.”

Eddie sighs, but doesn’t protest as Buck pushes the gurney, with their blood-covered, but very much alive, patient on it, with the chart past the nurses’ station towards the emergency room’s cubicles.

If he didn’t know any better, he would say the edge in Buck’s voice was due to jealousy.  

Eddie flashes a polite smile to Sandra, his biology lab partner from high school, who stands in front of him, in full scrubs and a doctor’s white coat, but he has a hard time looking away from Buck, who is quickly walking further away.

Eddie crashed into her, literally, only minutes ago, as he promised to take care of briefing the hospital staff of their patient's status, and get the patient into the hospital, with Buck, while Chim and Hen stayed behind to clean the ambulance. 

He guesses those few minutes were too long for Buck to wait for him. 

Eddie’s gaze is stuck on Buck, and the hospital lobby’s lights are harsh and bright, making Buck’s messy curls that have not been flattened by the helmet seem so light that it looks like there is a halo above his head. 

Even the letters that spell his name on his turnover coat seem blindingly bright yellow. There is a stain of dried blood on the hem of his coat, and Eddie makes a mental note to say something about it to him later. 

“Who was that?” Sandra asks, amusedly, as soon as Buck and their bloody patient disappear into one of the rooms.

Sandra has been following Buck with her gaze too and her thick brown ponytail swings as she looks back at Eddie. 

He hasn’t seen Sandra since the summer after high school graduation and their catch up has included mostly showing photos of their kids from their phones, before Buck interrupted them.

Her smile is radiant and she looks content, standing there, her hands tucked into the pockets of her doctor’s coat. Eddie cannot help but mirror her smile, even if the eighteen hours of their shift are starting to weigh in his limbs. 

“Buck,” Eddie says, sounding a lot fonder than he intends to, “my partner.”

Eddie would like to argue that it is the only word that comes to his mind at the moment, the only word that feels even partly accurate to start scratching the surface of what he and Buck are and are not to someone who doesn’t know them. 

He would also like to blame being in the gear for choosing a term that describes their professional relationship, instead of saying that they are best friends, but that hasn’t felt like the right word for them in a while.

The weight of his turnover coat on him has really nothing to do with the fact that he chooses to call him his partner.

Besides, Eddie loves calling Buck his partner. It is vague, but it describes the way they have each other’s backs, on and off the field, and it gives a certain thrill to say it aloud, especially to strangers, because it implies that they could be more. 

And maybe he has liked to imagine that possibility more and more since he got back to Los Angeles. 

The way Sandra’s brown eyes gleam makes it clear that she jumped into the conclusion Eddie wanted her to jump to.

To the conclusion that only reflects Eddie’s hopes, not what is reality. 

“Oh, good for you,” Sandra remarks, humming appreciatively while sparing a one more glance towards the room Buck is still in, but her expression grows softer as her eyes find Eddie’s. “I’m glad you have found someone after you know–”

He instantly knows that Sandra is talking about Shannon, and he presses his lips together. 

It has been years, but it doesn’t really get that much easier. It’s a loss that he always carries with him, in one way or another, and he knows that people mean well, but it always startles him when people who knew Shannon, but he has not told about her death to, know that she passed away. 

It reminds him of the life Shannon should have had, how much she left behind, not just him and Chris, and the sorrow that follows is always bone-deep and it takes days to shake off.   

“I–” Eddie starts, but he doesn’t get to finish the sentence because there is an ear-shatteringly loud explosion that booms through the lobby, and a ball of fire in the corner of his eye, and Eddie is ducking, instinctively and pulling Sandra down with him. 

When Eddie gets up, his ears are ringing and there is thick smoke filling the air from the back of the lobby. There are people shouting, fire alarms ringing, and sprinklers pouring water on them, but Eddie can only focus on one thing, and one thing only.

The room that Buck disappeared into with their unlucky patient is the one that no longer has a complete door, it has been half-shattered with the force of blast, and the glow of flames and smoke are coming from the same room.

Eddie swears his world stops in that moment, his heart drops to his stomach, and everything starts to move in slow motion. 

He breathes out, shakily, looking at the destruction, attempting to wrap his head around it.

Buck.

His whole world seems to revolve around that word echoing in his mind. 

He inhales sharply, and it only takes him a half second to start running towards the room, without even thinking about it. 

It’s pure instinct, coming somewhere deep inside of him, combined with a certain franticness of please God no , and adrenaline. 

Eddie is at the door in mere seconds, he wasn’t even that far away to begin with, and he kicks in the remains of the door, before stepping in. 

He knows he could wait for backup. He knows there is no way that Hen and Chim, and Bobby and Ravi in the truck have not noticed the explosion, but Eddie knows he isn’t going to do that. 

Not when it’s Buck, and he is right there, and he doesn’t know if he is hurt or not. 

No force on this earth could stop him from going in.

He fears that his worst nightmare might await him inside that room. That he has to relive the worst three minutes and seventeen seconds of his life, again. Maybe forever. 

The room isn’t even full of flames when he goes in, but there is a small fire in the back of the room and the oxygen output on the wall is like a miniature flame thrower, but it doesn’t seem to be igniting anything else.

Eddie is holding his arm in front of his face to protect himself from some of the smoke, and there are staff of the hospital behind him, rushing in to help the patients, but Eddie still has no room for any other thought in his head except Buck, Buck, Buck . 

His name has become a mantra in his head. 

Buck, Buck, Buck. 

The only concrete thing he can focus on. To find him, to help him, to save him. 

“Buck!” he calls out.

Some beam from the ceiling has come down with the blast, and Eddie uses his hand to leap over the beam to get further back in the room. Some of the hospital beds have moved, and Eddie pushes them away faster than he thought possible when he notices a familiar figure lying on the ground.

The fear turns into something icy in his veins and spreads all over his body. 

Before he even realizes it, he is on the ground, kneeling next to Buck. He is on his back, and Eddie thinks he can breathe for the first time when he sees Buck’s chest rising, unevenly.  

His own heart lowers down from his throat and he thinks he can think a bit more clearly, because Buck is alive and breathing. 

He can still help him. He hasn’t lost him, not yet. 

“Buck, are you okay?” The words are just glucking out of him, his hands are moving without any sort of conscious thought, all over his chest to check that none of the dark stains are Buck’s own blood.

He knows for a fact that Buck had some of their patients’ blood on him and there is soot all over the floor from the explosion, and it is on Buck’s face and neck too, mixing with blood coming from somewhere on his forehead, but his mind doesn’t give him a break before he realises that Buck is only bleeding from his forehead.

From the very small cut on his forehead. 

Eddie’s hands are mostly only black with the soot, not because of massive amounts of blood, and he thinks he is so relieved that if he wasn’t already on the ground, his legs would give out. 

“Ow, yeah,” Buck groans out, falling into a fit of dry coughing. 

“How’s your neck?” Eddie asks, looking around him, before placing his hands on both sides of his neck, feeling out if Buck starts to hiss out of pain or if anything feels funny. 

Nothing feels alarming, but Eddie notices that his own hands are shaking, just the tiniest bit, and he hopes Buck doesn’t notice. 

It doesn’t mean anything, it’s just the adrenaline buzzing in his body. Nothing else.

“Fine, I think,” Buck replies, while frowning deeply, and bringing his fingers to his forehead.

He looks dazed and confused, and now his fingertips are stained with blood, and Eddie hates everything about it. He needs to get Buck somewhere where he can actually assess his wounds and injuries. 

Buck’s gaze moves from his own hands to Eddie’s hands.

“Are you okay?” Buck asks, suddenly with clarity what wasn’t there before, and Eddie can see that he is using all of his strength to keep his eyes open long enough to study him, scan him for any possible injuries. “Eddie?”

“I’m fine, I promise. I wasn’t here,” Eddie says, softly, showing his hands to Buck, “this is yours.”

Eddie feels sick down to his stomach saying it, but Buck takes a shuddering breath, as if it would be a relief to him that Eddie’s hands are stained with his dark red blood. As if that would be acceptable in any world. 

Eddie sighs.

In a perfect world he would have a c-collar, but he thinks the priority is to get him out of there, out from the smoke, out from the danger. There could be another blast. He just wants him into safety.  

“We gotta get you out of here, bud,” he says, not even waiting for Buck to agree, before he slips his arms underneath the back of his knees and beneath his shoulders and just lifts him off the ground and stands up.

He could throw Buck over his shoulder, it would be more practical, but he doesn’t know where he is hurt, and to what extent, and carrying him in his arms feels gentler and maybe the fact that he can see that Buck is breathing is soothing a persistent part of his mind that is still being frantic with the possibility of losing Buck.

Buck is big, and he weighs even more with the turnover gear, and he is practically deadweight in his arms, because he is only raising his head, occasionally, but Eddie couldn’t care less about any of that. 

Eddie pumps the hospital beds with his hip, moving them away, and getting over the beam is less graceful with carrying Buck, who is strangely quiet and as Eddie glances at him, his eyes are rolling back slightly, and the mantra from Buck’s name turns into a mantra of move, move, move in his mind .

Half collapsed ceiling couldn’t stop him in any circumstance when it comes to getting Buck into safety. 

Move, move, move. 

Another wave of relief hits Eddie when the doorway is blocked with Hen, Chim, and Ravi, in full gear and holding the hoses. 

All of their eyes fill with worry when they notice and realize who he is carrying. Buck does valiantly raise the thumb of his left hand, trying to reassure all of them that he is okay, but Eddie’s worry levels are not decreasing.

Not when Buck always downplays his injuries, the extent of his pain. Not when he isn’t even protesting about being carried away from the fire and not trying to continue to do his job. 

“What happened?” Hen asks, her gaze darting between Eddie, Buck and the half-collapsed ceiling, and all the people who are still in the room, working on the patients. 

“Oxygen bottle,” Buck replies, his voice still hoarse, “someone’s electronic cigarette malfunctioned and– exploded.”

It does explain the sudden explosion and the destruction around them. He nods towards the rest of the room, he is itching to get moving, as if there is electricity under his skin, to get Buck further away from the flames and smoke.

“You got the others?”

Move, move, move. 

“Yeah,” Hen says, already gesturing instructions to Chim and Ravi, “yeah, take care of him. Cap is checking the other floors.”

That is all the permission Eddie needs, and as the rest of their crew starts to put out the fire, he pushes out of the room, trying his best not to step on the remains of the door and other debris that are spread out on the floor.

The lobby seems impossibly bright with the functioning lights and massive windows, and Eddie knows he could stop there, they are in a hospital, and get Buck checked out by a doctor in one of the functioning rooms, but something in him drives him to walk out of the sliding doors, into the ambulance bay.

Maybe the fact that their own ambulance is familiar, comforting even, and that he wants to know for a fact that Buck is alright, he needs concrete proof, and make sure it by himself. 

“You know I’m able to walk,” Buck mutters, when the gush of a warm wind hits them as he makes his way towards their ambulance.

Eddie resists the urge to roll his eyes. He isn’t sure if Buck is saying it because it’s what he is thinking or because he wants to reassure him. Both options are equally possible. 

Despite Buck’s half-assed protest, he isn’t doing anything to get onto his own two feet. If anything, he is still unmoving and deadweight in his arms, but at least his eyes are not rolling back anymore.

“Your ankle looked funny,” Eddie argues, softly, “and you're a little out of it. We aren’t taking any risks.”

It’s the truth. While he was laying on the soot-covered hospital floor with the debris and glass, his ankle was bent in a way that could indicate that something happened to it in the blast. It’s hard to tell while he is still wearing his gear boots.

And Buck is closing his eyes at every chance he gets, even if he doesn’t look as dazed as moments before. But Eddie doesn’t want Buck to try walking only to fall and possibly hurt himself even more. 

Buck is far too important for him to be taking any sort of risks. 

Buck sighs, but keeps his eyes closed. “You’re messing up your back.”

It’s a little bit endearing that Buck is worried about him, about his back, even when he is the one who got caught up in an explosion off-guard, but Eddie doesn’t let himself linger on that thought for long.

He has far more important things to focus on.  

“I lift more than you weigh,” Eddie remarks, despite the fact that they are already at the ambulance’s doors. “I can handle you.”

For completely self-indulgent reasons, Eddie loves that Buck is big, bigger than him. He looks good , and sometimes, when his judgement lapses, he loses that one bit of willpower he has, he lets himself look.

Look at the way his chest fills the dark blue LAFD shirts, the thickness of his thighs, and the sheer size of his biceps.

Maybe he stole one of Buck’s old sweaters when he moved to Texas, because it was big on him and smelled like him. But that’s something no one needs to know. 

Besides, carrying people into safety is his job, training for that comes with the job description, but maybe he has also made sure with some extra weight training that he can at least lift his partner if he ever needed to. For any reason at all. 

Eddie lowers him down to his feet, but he doesn’t let go of him. He doesn’t fully trust that Buck stays upright, so he keeps one arm wrapped around his waist while opening the doors of the rig.

Buck leans onto him, with almost all of his weight. 

“Clearly,” Buck says, almost under his breath, in a way that Eddie cannot completely comprehend. 

He decides it’s not the time to dwell on the tone of Buck’s voice, and he is almost glad that he has something else to focus on. He would still prefer that something wouldn’t be giving a medical examination to the love of his life. 

The fact that it’s not even a new thought to him, Buck being the love of his life, is something Eddie doesn’t have time to think about right now. He pushes it to the side, with the rest of his messy feelings. 

Eddie helps Buck to sit down on the edge of the rig. He leaps into the ambulance, pulling himself a pair of bright blue gloves and picks up the oxygen mask. 

Eddie gently places the mask on Buck’s face, carefully placing the elastic band behind his head to help the mask stay in its place. 

After he has managed to pull the gloves on his hands, his holds right index finger up. 

“Follow my finger.”

Buck rolls his eyes, but obeys. He follows his finger without any trouble and once he stops moving his finger, Buck’s gaze darts back to Eddie’s face. 

There is still something unreadable about the look in Buck’s eyes, something Eddie cannot quite place his finger on. All he knows is that there is intensity in his gaze and that he doesn’t want to look away from Buck. 

“I don’t think I’ve got a concussion,” Buck says, pulling the mask further away from his face to speak, “just a headache.”

Eddie ignores his argument completely. 

“Today’s date?”

Buck shakes his head slightly and manages to pull the elastic band away and just holds the oxygen mask in his hand instead of holding it against his face. 

“25th,” he replies, easily, and gives him a pointed look when Eddie hops back into the rig and starts to rummage through the cabinet for wound cleaning and dressing equipment, “Chris has a math test today.”

Eddie’s heart, honest to God, flutters in his chest when Buck brings up Chris and his test. Of course Buck remembers that. He helped him study for it, at their shared kitchen table, in their home . 

Of course he is using that as proof that he doesn’t have any concussion symptoms. 

Eddie gets out of the back of the rig as soon as he finds everything he needs. He places all the equipment next to Buck on the edge and uses his teeth to open one of the wet wipe packages. 

He gestures to Buck to put the mask back on before he starts to clean up the wound. The wound is straight above Buck’s left eyebrow, next to his birthmark. The birthmark is mostly covered in blood right now.

“Do you feel like you want to throw up?”

The wound is still bleeding, almost profusely, but as soon as Eddie wipes it with the disinfectant wipe, he notices that it’s actually kind of small and neat, and a wave of relief hits him yet again. It probably bleeds only because head wounds always bleed like nobody’s business.  

“No,” Buck answers, once again pulling the oxygen mask away, and there is curiosity and something else mixing with it, in his eyes, “who was that woman?”

Eddie snorts. “Is that what you want to ask when you’re bleeding?”

Maybe he wasn’t completely off the track to think that some of Buck’s weird reaction was due to jealousy, but Eddie cannot comprehend in what world Buck would have anything to be jealous over his biology lab partner from almost fifteen years ago. 

At least Sandra didn’t invite him to play basketball. 

Eddie places a simple dressing against Buck’s wound, pressing it there, just to see if he can stop the bleeding with the pressure. 

“She looked happy to see you,” Buck continues, that sharpness bleeding into his voice again, “and I can ask whatever I want when I’m the one bleeding.”

Eddie hums, still pressing the dressing against the wound, even though he can see that it is growing wet against his glove-covered fingers. 

“At least we can rule out the possibility of you having any sort of memory loss.”

Buck glares at him, spectacularly, but Eddie only grins at him, because at least he has the oxygen mask on now. 

“Her name is Sandra,” he says, changing the dressing against Buck’s forehead, to a clean one. “We went to high school together. I didn’t know she lived here.”

It’s the simplest version of the truth. He could tell memories of her, memories he hasn’t thought about in years, but he doesn’t think it is necessary. He trusts that Buck gets it. 

Buck nods, but pulls the mask away again, and Eddie sighs, exasperatedly. 

“Did you ask her out?”

Eddie thinks Buck is aiming for nonchalance with his question, with his tone of voice, but he doesn’t succeed. There is too much curiosity intertwined into his words, and he sounds almost uncharacteristically quiet. 

Eddie hates it. He doesn’t know if it is because there is something wrong with Buck, if it is because of pain, or because he is upset at the thought of Eddie asking someone out. He doesn’t like either of those options, he doesn’t want him to be in pain or upset. 

“No, she has a wife and three beautiful kids,” Eddie remarks, with a half-smile, still applying pressure against the wound. “You don’t have to maim my ankle this time.”

Sandra’s wife and kids are not truly the only reason he didn’t even think about asking her out. There are not that many people he would like to ask out for a date. Just one, he thinks. The one that is sitting in front of him, looking at him, in a slight surprise.

Also, Eddie would like to emphasize that he isn’t bitter about the ankle maiming. He is slightly bitter that Buck thought he would choose Tommy over him, that they would be even in the same category. There is no competition in Eddie’s mind.

Eddie might also be slightly bitter that Buck came to the conclusion that he wanted Tommy, not him, after all of that. Tommy, who never deserved any of Buck’s affection, attention and time, because he didn’t appreciate him, didn’t realise that he had won the jackpot. 

All of those are things he doesn’t plan on telling Buck, not now. 

“Oh.”

The moment suddenly feels surprisingly charged, and there is a lump in Eddie’s throat, because Buck looks considerably happier than before, and still slightly surprised, and Eddie’s heart is doing unfair things to him behind his sternum. 

“Yeah. Let’s look at the wound,” Eddie says, to get the conversation back on track, and moves the dressing. It isn’t as wet with blood as the previous one, but the wound is still dribbling with blood, “I’ll glue it.”

It might not be strictly necessary, but he doesn’t want to risk it, not when it’s Buck.

Buck makes a non-commital sound that could be a protest, another form of his protest that all of this is unnecessary, but Eddie chooses to ignore that, too. It doesn’t take him long to find all the equipment he needs from the back of the rig.

He takes another wet wipe and starts to meticulously clean up Buck’s forehead from blood, fresh and dried, and of the soot. He tries to be as gentle as he can, and Buck doesn’t look away from him.

It’s a surprisingly serene moment, and there is something soothing about doing something as simple as wiping his face clean, especially when it’s a face he knows like the back of his own hand. 

Each edge and curve, each wrinkle and tiny moles, the shape of his birthmark, the way the corner of his mouth moves when he smiles, and the exact shade of his eyes.

When he finally finishes wiping his face, and starts to open the package of the adhesive glue, opening the stubborn cork of the tube, a strand of his hair keeps falling on his face. 

Buck reaches to push a strand of his hair away from Eddie’s face, and Eddie doesn’t even startle.

For a moment, it feels like the most natural thing in the world. Of course Buck is pushing his hair away from his face when it bothers him. It even seems that Buck doesn’t even realize what his hand is doing, and his mind catches up only afterwards. 

Eddie’s mind catches up a fraction of a second later than Buck’s and for a lingering moment, they just stare at each other, dumbfounded by the casual affection that the simple touch was. 

It feels as if the places that Buck’s fingertips grazed on his forehead are warmer than the rest of his skin.

Eddie tries to distract himself by finally opening the tube of adhesive glue and Buck clears his throat, and Eddie decides it’s better to think about all of it later, and focus on the task at hand.

He gets to work mostly in silence and he can tell that Buck is trying to make his job easier by trying to stay as still as he can, just breathing with the oxygen mask. But it’s obvious that he wants to move, and Eddie can only imagine that being caught in the blast of the explosion did not do any favors for Buck’s bad leg.

Eddie tries to be as fast as he can, while not messing up the way he brings the edges of Buck’s skin together. 

“If I get a scar, I’ll tell everyone it’s your fault,” Buck says, quietly, but there is amusement shining through his voice, and the corner of his mouth twitches into something that resembles a smile.

It is all that it requires for things to go back to normal, or at least start to feel normal. The awkwardness is gone and Eddie can treasure the memory of Buck wanting to push his hair away somewhere in the depths of his heart. 

“Yeah,” Eddie agrees, placing a clean dressing on top of the wound he just glued together, “because I dragged you out of there and made sure you stay alive, I’m the main reason you’ve a cut on your head.”

Eddie throws the opened packages and all other waste to the trash and picks up the monitors. Maybe he should have started with it, but Buck seems well enough, and he probably has spent more time breathing without the mask and than with it. 

He gestures to Buck to shrug the turnover goat away, and Buck obeys, without any protesting, letting the coat fall behind him on the rig floor. He is wearing a black LAFD t-shirt underneath and his forearms and arms seem so clean compared to the rest of his soot covered hands. 

“My hero,” Buck deadpans, as Eddie hooks the oximeter on his index finger.  

Eddie is just glad Buck isn’t trying to thank him for coming in to get him out of there. He never has to thank him for anything like that. He will always come for him, always find him, and try to save him when he needs it.

That is just how it is. 

It hasn’t been that long since he wasn’t there for Buck, on the worst day of his life, when they thought Bobby was dead, and when he came back from Texas, Eddie vowed to himself to never let Buck go through hell alone. 

He has every intention to keep that promise for the rest of his life. 

“This is unnecessary,” Buck adds, when Eddie wraps the blood pressure monitor’s cuff around his left bicep. 

The monitors make beeping sounds while Buck spectacularly glares at him, again. Eddie, however, only looks at the screens of the monitors decidedly. He needs that final reassurance that Buck is fine. 

The oxygen levels come to steady 96 and his blood pressure is in the normal range. Even his heartbeat is somehow, somewhat normal, 75 beats per minute. 

Buck peeks to look at the monitor and he doesn’t even need words to express himself. His expression says it all and Eddie can read it perfectly. It’s full of triumph and I told you so and he starts to pull the mask away again, but Eddie shakes his head.

He has sat enough times on Buck’s hospital bedside, next to him in the back of the rig, to know him, to know what his normal vitals look like. Normally, his oxygen levels are just a bit higher and his heartbeat slower.

“Just keep the mask on, Buck,” Eddie says, gentler than he intends to, as he rests his hands on his hips. “Besides your leg, does it hurt anywhere else?”

Buck’s face falls, but he doesn’t take off the mask, not until he speaks again. “How did you know my leg hurts?”

Eddie huffs. He doesn’t even know why Buck thinks that is a question that he should ask. This time, it is Eddie who doesn’t need any words to express his thoughts. He gives him a pointed look.

As if he wouldn’t know Buck, as if he wouldn’t know that his hip and leg hurt in cold weather, that he needs to move because staying still makes it feel uncomfortable in his iliopsoas muscles, that sometimes he cannot sleep when the pain gets particularly bad. As if he wouldn’t have bought him a heating pad for his leg for his birthday. 

“Does it hurt anywhere else?” Eddie repeats, studying Buck with his gaze. 

Buck doesn’t bother even moving his mask this time before replying and his voice comes out all muffled as he shakes his head. “Uh–no.”

Buck could hold a flashing neon sign that says I’m lying and it would be less obvious than his demeanour and answer right now.

Eddie isn’t even sure why Buck bothers trying to lie. Maybe it comes so easily for him, as an instinct, trying not to make himself something that people need to worry about, but Eddie hopes that Buck already knows that he will always want everything when it comes to Buck, all the good and the bad. 

He could never be a burden for him, hurt or not.

He knows Buck has the same regard about him. Buck has seen the ugliest parts of him and he is still there, still looking at him as if he is worthy of something good.

Eddie glares at him. “Buck.”

He sighs, deeply, and takes off the mask. He shifts in his seat, moving the ankle that isn’t injured as he tries to find a more comfortable position.

“Maybe a little bit to my chest,” Buck admits, not even looking Eddie in the eyes as he says it. 

Eddie wanted the truth, but it doesn’t mean that he would like the truth. That icy terror is back in veins, invading every bit of his cells, making worry engulf him whole. The guilt of not having checked his pain earlier, or what might cause it, is burning his whole body.

“Up we go,” he says, ripping the blood pressure cuff off of Buck’s arm, and helping him to stand, and get up into the ambulance and to sit down on the gurney. “Lie down.”

“Is this really necessary?” Buck protests, yet again, this time pulling the mask off and discarding it next to him on the gurney. “It’s probably just the force of the blast.”

“Lie down,” he repeats, because there is nothing else he can do. 

Eddie feels helpless, his mind is running all sorts of scenarios of internal bleeding, ruptured organs, all the signs he could have missed. 

“Okay,” Buck says, softly, after looking at him, “okay.”

Eddie guesses Buck can sense his worry, his need to make sure he is fine. That he hasn’t missed anything that would put him in harm’s way. 

He thinks of Shannon, in that car, him being unable to do anything to save her. He doesn’t want this to turn into a similar situation. 

He couldn’t survive it. Eddie thinks Buck might understand where his mind has gone, because there is still softness mixing with understanding, turning into sympathy, in his blue eyes.

Buck lies down, even making sure that he has the oxygen mask in his hand, before he does so, and puts it on his face, before he lifts the hem of his t-shirt, revealing his stomach.

Eddie presses his lips together and starts to examine his stomach. He cannot see any bruising and as he presses his hands against different points, he thanks the God above because his stomach is soft.

That rules out any massive internal bleeding. 

“I thought you’d at least buy me dinner before you had your hands all over me,” Buck deadpans, staring at the ambulance’s ceiling. He grins at Eddie when he huffs, but Eddie doesn’t look away from his stomach. 

Eddie knows he is cracking jokes for his sake. To ease his nerves, make the situation a bit more normal, to try and diffuse the tension away from his shoulders. 

He appreciates it, but he would rather take Buck’s pain away, if he could. 

“I’ll buy you dinner after this,” Eddie promises, murmuring, off-handedly, before he places his glove-covered hands near Buck’s belly button and applies pressure. “Does this hurt?”

Buck shakes his head after a moment, and Eddie believes him. 

Eddie moves his fingers further up, near the lowest ribs of Buck’s ribcage on the left side, because when Buck moved up to the gurney, he seemed to favor his right side. He presses them gently. “This?”

Buck’s face twists in pain and he inhales, sharply and suddenly. “Maybe a bit.”

Eddie pulls his hands away. He doesn’t want to cause any more pain to Buck, and he guesses that is the best admission of pain he is going to get out of Buck. It somewhat reassures his mind that his pain doesn’t seem to be an indicator of anything catastrophic.

That Buck is okay, that he will be okay, even if he is in pain now. 

“You probably fractured a rib or two,” Eddie tells him, nodding towards the hospital, “we could get a chest x-ray.”

It is probably the smartest thing to do, they are literally parked outside a hospital that has all the necessary equipment for it. 

“No need,” Buck says, decisively, as he sits up, holding his left side and Eddie instinctively lets his hands hover in case he needs help, but he manages to sit on the edge of the gurney,  “if you think it’s just the rib, I trust you.”

It doesn’t hurt to hear that he trusts him, even though Eddie knows it. Somehow, it makes him even more sure of his diagnosis. That Buck only got his ribs messed up, probably landed on the left side of his body when the blast hit him. 

Yet, there is a persistent part of his mind that is screaming and banging pots together, asking him how he is qualified to determine if Buck is out of the woods or not. How Buck can trust him to make a call that is important. 

Eddie tries his best to ignore that part of himself, to trust himself and his professionalism, as much Buck seems to trust. 

Eddie exhales and searches for Buck’s gaze. The ambulance’s lights are so bright and everything looks so sterile and cold, and Eddie hates seeing Buck in that sort of light. 

“You gotta tell me if anything starts to feel different,” Eddie says, seriously, placing his hand on Buck’s shoulder, squeezing it. 

Buck nods, and he looks like he is about to say something, but before he can open his mouth and any words leave his lips, Chim appears at the ambulance’s doors, knocking his knuckles against the door.

“Are you guys okay there?”

“Yeah,” Buck says, turning his head to look at Chim, and grinning at him, lazily, “Eddie is fussing over me, even though I’m fine.” 

Fine is a relative term, and Eddie knows that in their field of work, a little cuts and minor injuries can be counted as fine, but Eddie would rather like that when it comes to Buck, fine would mean uninjured. 

Eddie rolls his eyes and huffs. “He has fractured ribs, maybe a messed up ankle and a cut on his forehead, and he is on concussion watch. I’ll take him home after this.” 

Chim gives them thumps up and disappears somewhere on the other side of the ambulance doors. 

Besides, he still hasn’t finished his examination. He wants to check his ankle and possibly listen to his lungs, and give him painkillers, before he clears him out of the ambulance. 

“You forget I don’t have a home,” Buck remarks, almost off-handedly, as he shifts on his seat again, making the fabric of his turnover pants rustle. 

All that Eddie can do is to stare at Buck. If he hadn’t done the initial checks for a concussion, he would assume that Buck has hit his head so hard that he has forgotten seven years of memories, of intertwining their homes and lives, of the weeks they have been roommates since he came back from Texas.

He knows Buck has been searching for a new place. He has been to showings and he checks the listings almost daily. He even asked Ravi for help. Even though Eddie has told him repeatedly, time and time again, that he doesn’t have to move out. 

That he can stay. 

Eddie doesn’t know how to drill that through Buck’s thick skull. That he wants him to stay, that he is at home, that he means home for him and Chris. 

He also knows that Buck isn’t unhappy at their place, he doesn’t look like he is suffering or looking like he wants to escape, but still, he hasn’t let go of the idea of moving out.

It’s frustrating and Eddie doesn’t know what he needs to do to make Buck give up the idea of needing another home. 

“Yes you do,” Eddie insists, trying his best to keep the frustration away from his voice, “with me and Chris, you’ll always have.” 

“I feel like I’m in the way,” Buck says, pointedly not looking him in the eyes, “or preventing you from being like you were before all of it. Intruding.”

Eddie suppresses the urge to sigh. He is almost certain that anything that he or Chris has done hasn’t given Buck the feeling of being in the way or intruding on their everyday life. If anything, it has been a marvel how easily their lives have fit each other.

How easy all of it has been, how good it has felt, how normal and natural.

It is just Buck being stubborn, refusing to acknowledge that he is a part of their family, insisting that he was only subletting the house. 

“You’re not in the way,” Eddie reassures, as softly as he can, poking Buck’s jaw to make him look at him, instead of his gear boots, “me and Chris love having you, it’s not intruding. I’ll take you to ours .”

As soon as he says it, a very distinct sound of a heart monitor beeping fills the ambulance, and Eddie almost frantically tries to identify where the sound comes, until he remembers that Buck still has the oximeter in his finger, and it tracks the heartbeat, too. 

Something has made it spike, suddenly, out of the normal rhythm. 

Eddie doesn’t know if it is an illusion made by the bright lights of the ambulance or the fact that he has wiped Buck’s face with the wipes, but it looks like he is blushing. He looks borderline embarrassed and shrugs.

“Okay.”

Eddie considers it a win. That he isn’t trying to argue that he should go to Maddie and Chim’s, that he isn’t trying to get out his hair. That he is at least, for now, agreeing that he has a home. 

Eddie points at Buck’s feet. “Show me your ankle.”

Buck sighs, but he pulls the hem of his turnover pants up and lets Eddie examine his swollen ankle that turns out to be sprained. 

***

“I go to shower and you’ve already escaped,” Eddie murmurs, as a greeting, as he closes their backdoor behind him, and sits down next to Buck on the few steps that lead away from the door. 

The backyard isn’t big, just a patch of grass and a bunch of other houses’ back walls circling it, but it’s better than nothing, and Eddie has sat down on the steps on countless nights right after he and Christopher moved to LA. 

He would get Chris to fall asleep and he would just sit there, listen to the sounds of the neighbourhood, and think. Think about the future, the way he wanted their lives to shape out to be in the new city, whether he was making the right choice, and whether he could be enough for his son.

Eddie isn’t really surprised that he found Buck there. He has been buzzing with restless energy ever since they got back home, and not being able to move much without any pain, has seemingly made it worse. 

As if the restlessness would be an itch he cannot scratch. 

“I’d not call sitting in the backyard escaping,” Buck huffs, looking down on his sneakers, “I just wanted some fresh air.”

It has gotten dark already, but the air is still hot and still, as if the residue heat from the sunshine was still trying to linger a bit longer, stick on everything possible, the concrete steps beneath them, their clothes, their skin, the air.

Eddie hums, turning his head to study Buck underneath the yellowish glow of the backdoor lamp. “Does your head still hurt?”

Eddie is aware that it’s probably the fifth time he has asked him tonight. He just can’t help himself, because the expression written across Buck’s face seems pained, somehow. His frown is deep, he is squinting his eyes, and Eddie still thinks he looks a little bit pale.

Eddie wishes he could make it better with the snap of his fingers. To take his pain away. 

“Not as much,” Buck says, under his breath, but his gaze still doesn’t land on Eddie, but somewhere on the dark night sky above them.

Eddie wonders if he should ask if Buck wants to be left alone, but the words don’t manage to leave his lips. Asking for space from each other isn’t really their thing. It would make things– something more. To acknowledge that there might be something between them that requires space. 

Eddie listens to the sounds of the crickets and car engines from down the road as he nods. “Good.” 

“I even took my ice bag with me,” Buck murmurs, holding up a half melted ice bag in his hand, raising it from his ankle where he has been holding it. He stuffs the ice bag into his sock and picks up the glass bottle that has been sitting in between his legs, “and my drink.”

The drink is a half full bottle of orange juice and Eddie had argued with him for almost five minutes to get him to even attempt to drink it, and Eddie does consider it as a win that he carries the bottle with him.

Even if he has drank absurdly little of it within the hour that he has had it. He also suspects that Buck is carrying it around just to make him happy, not because he thinks he needs to hydrate after a possible concussion. 

“Good job,” he says, smiling tentatively, bumping Buck’s shoulder, ever so slightly, so that he wouldn’t hurt his ribs any further. 

They are sitting so close that Eddie can smell the scent of the citrus soap Buck used when he showered before him. He can see, if he really focuses on it, Buck’s heart beat on his neck, on the space above his clavicles. The slight scratch on the back of his hand, probably  marks from the blast. 

All that closeness is dizzying, intoxicating and addicting. 

“Do you have a favorite constellation?”

Buck’s sudden question almost startles Eddie, forcing him to come back from the depths of his thoughts and hide his embarrassing amount of yearning somewhere, pushing it to the side. 

Eddie instinctively looks up. But all he can see is blackness, no stars. There is way too much light pollution to have good visibility, they would have to be a lot further away from the downtown to see. 

It actually might be one of the few things he misses from his childhood, being able to see the stars. Watching them with Sophia and Adriana when they went camping with their parents.

He can still imagine the stars above them. 

“Not really,” he replies, quietly, shrugging slightly, “but a favorite star. When I was in Afghanistan, I used to tell Chris that we see the same stars. If he could find the brightest star in the sky, the north star, he would know that I see it, too. That I’d come home to him ‘cause I knew where the stars were.”

It’s a memory he hasn’t shared with anyone, really. He isn’t even sure if Chris remembers it. He should ask him about it someday. He wonders if he remembers it, whether or not he thought about it while they were stranded in two different states. 

Eddie has, instinctively, without even noticing it, started to rub the saint Christopher pendant with his thumb. 

He is entirely sure that his voice was so low and quiet, as he spoke of a memory that he has not thought about in a while, that it could have easily gotten drowned out with the sounds of cars driving past their house, but he knows Buck heard him. 

Buck is always listening to him. Paying attention. Even when he is injured. 

“That’s really– sweet,” he says, quietly, almost sounding like that little word is too big for his mouth. 

Somewhere in the distance, a dog barks. Eddie knows he could let the silence stretch between them. It wouldn’t be uncomfortable, but he doesn’t want to do that. If he has figured out anything after coming back from Texas, it is that there are too many unspoken things between them.

“Do you have a favorite?” he asks. “A constellation?”

Eddie lets his gaze rest on Buck’s face. His stubble has grown just slightly longer than it normally is, and Eddie cannot help but wonder what it would feel like, to graze his fingertips along it. 

If it would itch his skin. 

“The Lyre,” Buck says, easily, as if there would not be any other possible answer, “you cannot see it because of all the light pollution, but it’s supposed to look like the instrument, but the story behind it is the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Eurydice died and Orpheus went to hell to get her back.”

Eddie could listen to him talk for as long as he keeps talking. The names that Buck mentions sound distantly familiar, but Eddie’s mind is still wandering somewhere along Buck's jawline, even though he tries his damnest to think about something else. 

“I’d go to hell and back for you.”

The words just fall off Eddie's lips, without even thinking. He barely registers that it is his voice that speaks, so softly that it sounds like a confession. Despite all of that, Eddie knows instantly that he means it, from the bottom of his heart.

It’s the kind of thing that he doesn’t regret saying, not to Buck. It’s the truth, after all, and he hopes Buck knows it. 

“I know,” Buck replies, just as softly, looking at him, holding his gaze, “I’d do the same for you.”

Eddie’s heart decides to pound harder against his ribcage for some reason. Maybe it’s the intensity of Buck’s gaze, the way he looks at him like he is the only thing that matters in that dimly lit backyard and the softness of his voice.

He isn’t surprised by his reply, he guesses they have proved that to each other so many times without putting it into words. 

Eddie thinks of the time he tried to drag lifeless Buck up from the ladder after the lighting strike, with just his bare hands, Hen telling him that when the well collapsed, Buck tried to dig his way through earth with his bare hand to save him, all the countless times they have made sure that they both get out of massive fires. 

It’s the kind of devotion Eddie has never felt before. Not when it comes to someone else than his son. He doesn’t even always know what to do with all of the devotion he feels for Buck. 

It’s so strong, immense and almost feels holy. 

Eddie presses his thumb against his own palm. Almost forcefully, digging it in there. His thumb nail probably will leave a mark behind, but he doesn’t care about that right now.  

“I guess Eurydice and Orpheus didn’t get their happy ending?”

“No,” Buck confirms, with a rueful sigh, “he got her back, but the condition was that he couldn’t look backwards until they got back to earth, but he looked back, and he lost her.”

Eddie eases up the pressure on his palm, without even bothering to check how reddish his skin might be, as he inhales sharply. 

He cannot help but think about the way he doesn’t seem to be able to look away from Buck now that he is back in LA. How his gaze always finds Buck, at work and in their home. It’s an instinct. 

Eddie guesses he does it to reassure himself. That even though he messed up things in more ways than one when he had to leave for Texas, Buck is still there. A part of it might be because even though he is there, so close that he could touch him whenever, and despite the fact that Chim keeps telling them that they are now attached at the hip even more so than before, Eddie misses him. 

It’s a ridiculous feeling, truly. To miss someone he lives and works with. Eddie guesses it has everything to do with the fact that being outside the state lines made him realize how far in love he has fallen with Buck. 

All things he doesn’t like to dwell on, not before they can talk about it all. But Eddie knows he would turn the earth upside down if something happened to him. How those three minutes and seventeen seconds were the longest moments of his life. How he has never been able to look away when Buck has been hurt.

Whether unconscious after lighting strike, or stuck in a hospital bed with the boils, or this afternoon after he got caught in the blast and he was carrying him. He cannot look away from him. He needs that reassurance that he is okay. 

He couldn’t even stop himself from looking back when he left for Texas, even though he broke his own heart by glancing at Buck for one more time. Standing there, in the rain.

If he was forbidden to look at Buck while rescuing him, or under any circumstances, he would fail, miserably. 

The only time he has succeeded in it, while Buck was hurting, is when he has looked away to hide his own tears. 

“That’s–,” Eddie starts, but words fail him almost immediately, and he ends up sighing heavily, “I get it.”

Buck turns his head quickly, as if he didn’t expect that to be his answer. There is a deep frown forming in between his eyebrows.

“You do?”

Eddie knows they are heading towards dangerous and uncharted territories with this conversation, and they are not far from Buck figuring out that he is actually sitting in a pile of love for him, the kind of love that best friends don’t feel for each other, and the kind of love that threatens to form into a tsunami wave and drown him every time Buck does something his heart cannot take. 

“Looking away from the love of your life is hard, whenever, and I think part of love is that you would move heaven and hell for them, even if you know that it is pointless and ends up in your own suffering, because it’s them. They are worth it.”

Eddie thinks he is being far more honest than he has been in a while when he thinks about his love life. It is literally at the core why he still hasn’t opened his mouth and told Buck anything he realised while he was in Texas. 

He doesn’t want to cause him pain, he doesn’t want to make him uncomfortable. He, on the other hand, can suffer a little longer in the pit of yearning. 

“I haven’t thought about it like that,” Buck admits, shifting a little in his seat. The concrete steps beneath them are not comfortable or meant for sitting. 

Eddie doesn’t dare to look at Buck. His heart is way too raw and vulnerable to be able to do that. Instead, he stares at the sleeve of Buck’s black t-shirt. 

Eddie hums, “anything else you like about it?”

It is a desperate attempt to change the topic, but he truly and honestly wants to know. He sort of hopes that Buck has listened to a ten part podcast series about the topic and can ramble about facts he has learned until he is able to hide his feelings, again.  

“There’s this deepsky object in the middle of the Lyre,” Buck tells, looking up again to the black sky, “a planetary nebula, the remains of a sun-like star, but it’s still there. I like that kind of— permanence.”

Buck’s voice gets wobbly in the end, just slightly, as if the last word gets broken in half, but it is enough for Eddie to raise his head, quickly, almost giving himself a whiplash. 

He can push all of his feelings aside, or at least pretend to do so, if he even suspects that Buck might not be okay, and right now, his gaze is travelling along Buck’s body, making sure that he isn’t in pain.

At least the cut on the forehead isn’t bleeding. 

“Are you okay?” Eddie asks, softly, letting his heartbeat slow down, as he figures out that the reason for his voice breaking probably isn’t physical. 

“Yeah,” Buck murmurs, breathlessly, “I’ve been just thinking a lot about– home and belonging.”

Eddie isn’t surprised to hear it. The past half a year has been a whirlwind, with movings, Bobby dying and coming back, all of them questioning their place and role in life and in their crew. 

It would be enough to mess anyone’s head, but as long as Eddie has known Buck, he has struggled with the idea of home, and where it might be.

Eddie just hopes Buck could see, and believe, that it is right in front of him. 

“Mhmh.”

The yellow light above them flickers and before Eddie has a chance to say anything, anything eloquent or intelligible that could help, Buck is already speaking again. 

“Did you mean what you said earlier?” he asks, speaking some of the words so quickly that they are morphing into each other, “that I have a home with– you?”

Buck is fidgeting with his hands now, and for a split second Eddie is about to say something dumb, but he catches himself and he exhales through his noise, letting the corner of his mouth curl up into a lazy smile.

“From the bottom of my heart.”

Buck’s gaze lowers down from his eyes to his mouth, as if the half-smile could be enough of a proof that Eddie wants him around. 

Eddie wishes it would be that simple. 

Buck stays quiet for a while, as if he wouldn’t know what to say. He looks somewhere far away, maybe the street lights that loom over their home street. 

“I don’t drive you crazy?” he eventually asks. 

Eddie isn’t sure if he means it as a joke, something light-hearted, but it comes out the opposite of it. He truly asks it, truly wants to know if living with him would be something horrible.

Eddie isn’t sure how to put into words that he has seen Buck at worst, at the abysses of his life, and also at his best, at the highest highs, and that he always wants him around. And that they should have moved together ages ago already. 

“Not more than usual,” Eddie huffs, not even trying to suppress the smile that is fighting to spread across his face, “if anything, you make this house feel more like a home than before. The house in Texas didn’t feel like home, not even after I got Chris back under my roof, you know why?”

“Because it was cursed,” Buck deadpans. 

“No,” he replies without missing a beat with a roll of his eyes, “okay maybe, but because you were not there.”

Buck looks at him as if he would have said something unheard of, something earth-shattering, something epiphany worthy. Even though for him, it is the most simple thing in the world, something elementary.

“ Oh .”

Eddie taps his own knee and Buck’s, before gesturing towards the door, and the general direction of Chris’ bedroom, where he is probably already asleep. “You, me and Chris, that’s home.”

Eddie thinks it might be all he will ever need, all he will need to be happy. His little family, and under the same roof. 

“Yeah,” Buck breathes out, sounding suddenly relieved, and he is smiling as he looks down on his shoes, “it is.”

Eddie’s heart seems to grow tenfold at his words, suddenly being way too big for his ribcage. If that is all he will ever get from Buck, he will still be happy. 

Before Eddie can think better, he places his hand on top of Buck’s knee, cupping it with his palm, skin against skin, as Buck’s shorts don’t reach his knees. He gives it a little squeeze before letting his hand drop. 

“Does that mean you’re staying?” he asks. “Because I want you to stay.”

The crickets are singing loudly again, but Eddie thinks that the world could end in the distance, and he wouldn’t even notice, not until he hears Buck’s reply. 

Buck pretends to look thoughtful, as if he would still have to consider it, and he shrugs until a blindingly bright smile spreads on his face. “I guess it does.”

Eddie feels suddenly hot, and it has nothing to do with the still hot weather, but everything to do with Buck’s genuine smile, the kind that reaches his eyes and creates laughlines around them.  

“Great,” Eddie says, hoping that his voice doesn’t reveal the whole scale of the tenderness that is washing over him, and ends up clearing his throat, “and not just because we can split the rent.”

Buck rolls his eyes again, but his smile grows dimmer.  “But seriously, is there something I do that drives you up the wall?”

With anyone else, Eddie probably could give a list in an alphabetical order of all the things that get on his nerves. With Buck, it is more challenging. Buck can get under his skin, know which buttons to push, but all the everyday life things don’t bother him. 

And that is a pretty good indicator that he is in love. 

Eddie doesn’t know how he didn’t realise that he is in love with Buck when he turned out to be the only person in the firehouse who isn’t driven to the brink of madness with clipboard Buck. 

“Not really,” Eddie says, and it sounds a bit lame even to his own ears, but he needs to choose his words carefully. 

Buck, apparently oblivious to his suffering, glares at him spectacularly and mock-punches him in the thigh. “Don’t lie to an injured person.”

“I’m not,” he says, borderline exasperated, desperately trying to figure out a way to make sure Buck believes him, “even when you make us follow your complicated recycling system–

Buck lets out a chuckle, “It’s literally five boxes–”

“--and when you leave wet towels all over the floor and wake me up when you laugh so loudly at something Chris said, and when you eat that health-cereal that smells like shit, and when you hum underneath your breath while you cook, I’m just happy you’re there.”

Once again, the words seem to fall out of his mouth, his mouth moving quicker than his mind can scrutinize each of the words, to determine what they might reveal, but Eddie doesn’t feel the dread he expects.

Maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if his feelings got revealed. He is almost certain that it is not unrequited. Almost. 

The way Buck sometimes looks back at him, the facetime calls that went on for hours, the way they sometimes said something that could be counted as flirting but it felt safer when there were hundreds of miles between them. How many times since coming back to LA, there have been times they could have kissed, but one of them has broken the spell of the moment.

This time, Eddie thinks, he will not be the one to pull away. Today has been a reminder that nothing is guaranteed. 

Buck makes an unintelligible sound. “You make it sound like you–”

“Like I what, Buck?” he prompts, when Buck falls silent.

It’s as good as a dare. To name the thing between them. The pull that Eddie is convinced that they both feel. Have felt for a while already.

It feels like electrifying to be even referring to it. There is a hum of something that reminds him that he is alive, and it starts to grow to a buzz underneath his skin.   

“Like you love me– I mean love having me around,” Buck slips, some sort of panic flashing in his eyes, and the pace of his speech keeps accelerating, “ having , I meant having. Having .”

Eddie thinks no one has ever in the history of humankind emphasized one word that strongly as Buck is right now. 

Eddie bites the inside of his cheek and looks up to the sky. He can see a blinking red light in the sky, probably from a plane that is flying above them.

He could let the moment slip away, but he doesn’t want to do that. His heart is beating fast, but it isn’t an uncomfortable feeling, and he feels brave. 

Braver than he has felt ages when it comes to love. Thinking about loving Buck doesn’t fill him with anxiety and fear, and it just feels right.  

“Would that be the worst thing?” Eddie asks, quietly, finally looking at Buck, and hoping that even his gaze could reveal half of the love his heart harbors for him, “If I did love you?”

Buck blinks, and stares at him as if he has said something completely out of the realm of possibility. As if he couldn’t have heard him right. As if Eddie couldn’t love him. Eddie hates it and he wants to prove him wrong, immediately. 

“Eddie–,” he starts, sounding almost desperate and pleading, “--don’t mess with me, not about this.”

If the dog in someone’s yard wouldn’t be barking again, Eddie is sure he could hear his own heart break, just because Buck thinks he could joke about something as big as this. As if loving him wouldn’t mean the world to him. 

“I’m not messing with you, Buck,” he says, softly, shaking his head, and because he needs Buck to believe him, he reaches to grab Buck’s hand in his own, “I’d never when it comes to this.”

Buck doesn’t pull his hand away, he still just looks at him with that deer in the headlights look, as if someone would have yanked the rug underneath him and nothing in the world no longer makes sense. 

Eddie, slightly clumsily, intertwines their fingers. Buck’s hand is warm in his. Both of their hands are calloused, but it feels right to hold his hand, the weight of it is surprisingly calming and grounding. 

Buck brushes his own forehead with his free hand. 

“Maybe I've got that concussion after all,” he mutters, looking at the dry grass. 

Eddie cannot help but laugh. It’s a freeing feeling to laugh, it makes everything feel more normal, more like them, and Buck almost joins in with a huff that sounds like laughter. Even that small sound resonates in Eddie’s heart. 

“I think we came to the conclusion that you don’t,” Eddie points out, biting down his smile, “you were very adamant about it.”

The thrill of being able to talk about his feelings isn’t subsiding. It’s like electricity travelling along his body and somehow, even though everything is at risk, he gets braver. Even though he isn’t sure if he is doing this right, if he should have waited for a better moment.

“I’m not entirely sure about that anymore,” Buck mutters, almost off-handedly, as if he is still unsure if he is hallucinating this whole situation.

But there is a ghost of a smile on his face. 

Eddie just wants to get through to him. 

“I didn’t know that me being in love with you is a tell-tale sign of concussion,” he starts, slowly, feeling his heart beat quicken again, “I fear all of our patients from now on will have a concussion, because I am.”

Eddie cannot even remember the last time he has said to someone that he loves them, romantically. To Shannon, maybe. He thought he might never be able to say it again, not easily at least.

And now, in their backyard, he can say it, with ease, and to mean each word of it. That is the complete truth.

Buck just stares but his other hand, his fingers, are moving along his own forearm. 

Eddie snorts. “Did you pinch yourself?”

Buck glares at him as if he would be asking stupid questions and pinching himself would be a normal and rational reaction. 

“Gotta make sure this is real somehow,” he says, softly, as he rubs the skin that he just pinched between his forefinger and thumb. 

It does unfair things for Eddie’s heart that just telling Buck that he loves him, that he is in love, requires him to check whether it’s reality or a dream. He hopes it is in the realm of dream and not a nightmare.

Eddie thinks of all the nights that he has dreamt of Buck. Especially in Texas, and when getting back to LA, he hopes that the yellow glow of the backdoor light is not enough to show his cheeks that suddenly feel burning. 

“It’s very much real,” he reassures, squeezing Buck’s hand tightly, “your ribcage and bad hip wouldn’t hurt this much if it wasn’t real.”

Buck moves his hand to the ribcage, on top of the ones that he suspects he fractured, and holds it there. “Good point.”

Eddie makes the mental note to make sure he takes his painkillers in a couple of hours. He still wishes he could take his pain away. 

Even though Buck is agreeing with him, it sounds like he is holding something back. That he is leaving something unsaid. He knows Buck well enough that there is something hanging above them. 

“But?”

Buck sighs, heavily with an edge of frustration, and he looks at him, straight into his eyes, and it seems as if he sees straight to his soul, and Eddie is almost sure that no matter what he says next, will break his heart more or less. 

“Are you sure? Because I can’t do this if not. I can’t risk all of this and not–”

It’s a simple question, only three words, and Buck’s voice sounds almost detached and defeated, as if he believes that Eddie really needs to think about it. As if he would take his words back.

As if he would not have committed and devoted himself to Buck before he even realised that he loves him. As if Buck wouldn’t deserve the world and more. As if he wouldn’t be second-guessing if he is even good enough for Buck. 

The question is the stupidest thing Eddie has heard in a while, and he is not having it. Not at all. 

He pulls his hand away, and Buck doesn’t even protest it, he lets his fingers slip away, with a little nod, but Eddie uses his hands to cup his face, both sides. 

This time he looks straight into Buck’s eyes, wanting to hold his gaze until he speaks, and for a fleeting moment, Buck avoids his gaze, before he can truly look at him. 

“How could I not love you?” he asks, as softly as he can, and his voice comes out a slightly stronger than a whisper, but he wants to make sure that Buck knows he isn’t joking about it. 

“That’s a very loaded question,” Buck says ruefully, glancing away, turning even his head away, and he inhales sharply, “with a lot of different answers.” 

Eddie’s heart might as well be in a wrench, being torn apart. 

“Not for me, never for me,” he says, without missing a beat, and slides his fingers along Buck’s jawline to his chin and turns his head back, making him to look at him again, “you’re you and– for me it’s that simple, been for a– long time.”

Eddie cannot pinpoint the moment he fell in love, he only knows that he realised it when he almost lost Buck by moving away from him, when it felt like he was missing a limb back in Texas.

It might have started on the first day they met, it might have started when he realised Buck would die if it meant Chris was safe, it might have started on one of those countless nights they have spent together on their couches, drinking beer and eating pizza, on any of their shifts together.

Whenever it started, the falling, it still feels like the words are not adequate to describe any of it, how all-consuming the feeling is, how natural it is, how easily it comes to him, like breathing. 

Eddie realises that his hand is still on Buck’s cheek. He brushes his cheek with his thumb and his stubble feels just as he expected, slightly rough and itching against his thumb, and he cannot look away from Buck.

Buck’s gaze falls from his eyes to lower and Eddie is starting to pull his hand away, and think of something to say.

“I– don’t you dare to move your hand,” Buck says, suddenly,  in a lower voice, curling his fingers around Eddie’s wrist to keep his hand in place, “‘cause I’m going to kiss you.”

Before Eddie gets a chance to say anything, anything that would resemble please, Buck’s lips are on his. 

It’s awkward in a way, first kisses always are, fumbling and learning the curve of each other's lips. Eddie can only focus on the softness of Buck’s lips and the way he distantly tastes like the orange juice he has been drinking. 

Eddie doesn’t hear fireworks, but everything suddenly makes sense, and his mind quiets down, even if his stomach is flipping in the best way possible, and his mind is never quiet, and he is suddenly floored with the realisation that even though their teeth knock against each other, he feels like he is at home.

This is what it is supposed to feel like is a thought he cannot ignore. He cannot help but wonder how he has never kissed Buck before, and that they could have been doing this for years. 

Buck moves closer to him, and he lets him. The kiss has been slow, but it is turning into something hungrier, more desperate, as if both of them were afraid that the other might disappear at any given moment. 

Buck eventually pulls away when they are both breathless, but he doesn’t pull far away, and he grins at him. 

Eddie thinks he has never looked more beautiful. 

“I know we’re having a moment and all, and I’m very into this particular moment, but this concrete step is killing my hip,” Buck murmurs, so close to him, that Eddie can feel the words against his own lips. 

Eddie thinks that being kissed by the love of his life, like that, is more than enough reason for his brain not to work properly because it seems it takes him a moment to realise what Buck means.

“Oh,” he says, immediately getting up on his feet, and offering his hands to pull Buck up, too, “yeah.”

Eddie opens the door and Buck limps inside. He wonders if he should ask Buck how bad his hip hurts and if he needs more painkillers right now, but no words come out of his mouth, and Buck is moving surprisingly well across the kitchen. 

Eddie closes the door and leans against it. It’s weird how it seems that nothing has changed, but everything has changed. The buzzing hasn’t disappeared anywhere from his body, and his heart seems to be overflowing with happiness. 

Buck is almost out of the kitchen door when he turns around and looks at him over his shoulder.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Eddie remarks, faking innocence, but the amusement is heavy in his voice and the smile that spreads on his face is stubborn, “you just haven’t said anything.”

He knows their conversation got cut short, and that he is only teasing him because he can. Because it feels like them, it feels normal, and maybe he just realised that he did confess his love on that concrete step more than once, but Buck merely bombarded him with questions. 

Buck stares at him, once again, as if he was not making any sense. Eddie stifles laughter. 

“I’m in love. With you. If it didn’t become abundantly clear with all of that questioning,” he says, slowly, as if each of those words would be a complete sentence on their own, and eventually his face breaks into a disarming smile. 

“I just wanted to hear it,” Eddie muses, taking the few steps that separate them, and in the doorway of the kitchen, they are reunited once again. 

Buck’s grin softens as he wraps the strings of Eddie’s grey sweatpants around his own fingers, and pulls him closer, and suddenly they are almost pressed against each other. 

It’s thrilling, and Buck is sliding his hand against his lower stomach, all the way to his hip.

“I’ll tell you as many times as you want to hear it,” he whispers, and his voice is so quiet that  if he wasn’t pressed against him, he probably wouldn’t even hear him. 

But Eddie hears it, and his heart sings. 

He places a soft kiss on Buck’s birthmark, just because he can do it. Because he has thought about it before, and he has stopped himself from doing it. So many times before and it is strange that he can do it, and that Buck seems to like it. 

At least he closes his eyes and sighs, and before Eddie has any chance to say anything else, Buck is already kissing him, again. 

It feels just as good as before. None of it was due to the novelty of a first kiss. This time it feels even better. 

It might be because they are both smiling into the kiss, and Eddie’s heart cannot even attempt to contain the happiness, it is overflowing and spreading everywhere, into every inch of him. 

Somehow, very slowly and clumsily, they manage to make their way to the couch, without injuring Buck’s swollen ankle any further, while keeping kissing. Eddie tries his best to steer them away from the coffee table. 

Eddie thinks they are like teenagers who cannot keep their hands away from each other, and that it probably should be embarrassing, but he couldn’t care less, and they have waited for this for a long time. 

The back of Buck’s knees hit the couch first and he sits down, by half-falling backwards, and Eddie huffs, but sits down next to him. 

The couch is the same old couch he used to have before moving to Texas, and Eddie briefly wonders how many times they have sat on that same couch, the hours and feelings they have shared, and now the nights they have slept on it because they couldn’t have gotten their act together before and their house only fits one bed in the bedroom. 

“I guess no one needs to sleep on the couch anymore,” Eddie remarks, amusedly, as he leans into the cushions.

They are practically glued to each other, their shoulders and arms pressed against each other, and elbows digging into each other’s sides, and their knees are bumping against each other. 

Eddie, slightly hysterically in the back of his mind, thinks that their sitting habits have not changed at all. They have always sat like that, glued to each other, touching wherever possible, just because it has felt natural and right. 

As if an invisible magnet was pulling them towards each other.

“Ah, that was the real reason you wanted to do this,” Buck says, faking solemnence, as he nods, “not to sleep on this couch anymore. Fair game, this couch ruins your back.”

Eddie pokes him in the arm, and Buck finally gives in, and grins at him. Eddie thinks if he was standing, his legs might go a little weak and it would have nothing to do with having worked almost a full shift today. 

“You see straight through me,” Eddie deadpans, “I couldn’t have just asked you to share. Got to confess undying love.”

Buck chuckles almost soundlessly until his face twists in pain, and he holds his side. Eddie feels the sudden suffocating feeling of worry, but it subsides, when Buck breathes in deeply and smiles again at him. 

“I think I’ll sleep a few more nights right here,” Buck mutters, softly, as he places his hand on Eddie’s knee. 

He is still wearing his grey sweatpants, but it still feels like his skin would be on fire just because of Buck’s touch. He is embarrassingly gone, but he tries his best not to focus on it. 

Eddie frowns.

“Why?”

Buck half-shrugs and gives him a pointed look that really has no heat behind it. He looks mostly amused.  

“Someone glued my wound and told me not to sweat and take it easy for a few days, and I’ve used all my willpower until now not to do– anything, but now that I know that you– feel the same, I don’t trust my willpower that much.”

As Buck speaks, he drags his palm higher on Eddie’s thigh. He lets his fingers rest on the inside of his thighs, and Eddie thinks Buck is out for revenge for that adhesive glue. Because he is about to lose his mind if Buck moves his hand even an inch.  

Eddie rubs his own lower lip and says barely under his breath, “fuck.”

He knows that he didn’t confess his love to sleep with Buck. But he also doesn’t have to question if he is attracted to Buck. First of all, he has eyes, and second of all, he feels that attraction in the bottom of his stomach, almost painfully. 

He has always thought that Buck is good-looking. He feels like that is an objective fact. But it has maybe been a year or two when he has found himself looking at Buck. Checking him out. In random moments, moments when he has allowed himself to look, when he has been sure that Buck hasn’t noticed. 

At first, he thought it was because Buck got bigger, and he just noticed him more, but it took him a while to realise that he noticed him because he thought he was beautiful, and gorgeous, and he wanted him.

That realization only deepened when he got himself stranded in Texas, and all he could do was to stare at Buck through the phone screen when they were talking on facetime.

Buck had no concerns for him, answering to his phone whenever he called, whether he was dressed or just stepped out of the shower and still half-naked. Buck hasn’t made his life any easier since moving in together.

Eddie thinks he has no clue how good he looks when he wakes up, and there are pillow creases pressed in his face and his hair is a mess, or when he smiles at him after exhausting shift together, or when he has toothpaste smudged on his cheek.

He probably doesn’t realise how good he looks right now, in the warm glow of their living room, smiling genuinely and he has let go of some of the tension he was holding earlier, despite still having that one bandage on his forehead. 

“I never thought adhesive glue would be the one thing stopping us from– sleeping together,” Buck says, almost off-handedly, pretending that he doesn’t know what he is doing to him, as he does move his hand further up on Eddie’s thigh, but his movement is painfully and teasingly slow. 

“One probably shouldn’t confess love in concussion watch anyway,” Eddie mutters, regretting many of his life choices, as he inhales sharply.

Buck’s fingertips have reached the end of the inner seam of his sweatpants. 

“I don’t know,” he says, suddenly in a much lower voice, and his hand keeps moving up, until he is fully cupping Eddie through his pants, and letting his hand rest there, “because all of that fussing was unnecessary, but hot.”

Eddie thinks it’s ridiculous that he feels his cock getting hard just because the weight of Buck’s hand is on his groin and he is telling that he finds him hot. It’s borderline embarrassing, testifying just how gone he already is. 

He tries his best to think of anything else, but it’s impossible because all of his senses are just full of Buck.  

He smells him, feels the warmth of his skin, the weight of his hand, hears his breathing, and he cannot tear his gaze away from him. It is all too much, in the best way possible. But it also means he can only think about him.

“Really?” he asks, raising his eyebrows, and his breathing is no longer under control. 

Despite there being two layers of fabric between Buck’s slender fingers and his skin, he guesses Buck can feel the outline of his dick because he manages to stroke it, slowly, up and down.

“Well, the competence,” Buck clarifies, softly, barely above a whisper, “not the fussing.”

Eddie laughs, but he thinks two people can play this game. He moves himself, astride on top of Buck, on his lap, making his own knees sink into the couch on both sides of Buck’s thighs, and leaning against the couch’s backrest with his hand. 

“Have you thought a lot about it?” Eddie breathes out, his words morphing into laughter, mere inches away from Buck’s lips, “us sleeping together?”

Now that they are pressed together, it doesn’t take him long to realise that he isn’t the only one who is hard. It will be a long couple of days, but maybe it is nothing compared to all the years they have waited.

Buck is pressing his lips together, probably to stop himself from smiling and shakes his head furiously. “Not telling you.” 

“Cruel,” he remarks, deadpan, placing a series of kisses below Buck’s jawline, “I thought we were best friends, best friends tell each other everything.”

Buck rolls his eyes, but the smile is back on his face, even if he is smiling towards the ceiling. Eddie takes the opportunity and kisses his Adam's apple. Buck seems to shiver at that, and Eddie’s brain short-circuits. 

“As many times as you have thought about it,” Buck eventually says, tilting his head to the side, and catching Eddie’s gaze, daring and teasing him, “maybe more.”

Eddie feels his cheeks turning warm, and he can only imagine the shade of red that he turns into. Buck doesn’t seem to mind, judging by the way he still looks at him, but he still has to look away for a moment.

He has seen every inch of Buck in his dreams, and dreamt of the moments when he could touch him.

It is somehow a very overwhelming feeling, in a good way, that Buck wants him. It’s something he has imagined, but he didn’t dare to assume or believe, because even after coming out to him, Buck didn’t make a move on him. 

He didn’t do anything to even question if they were a possibility, and Eddie tried to swallow his slightly hurt pride, and reassured that nothing would have to change between them. That he was still Buck, his best friend. 

This time, Buck grabs his chin with his fingers and turns his head, making him look back at him, instead of spiralling about all the missed chances, all the chances they could have had to get their shit together, years ago, if they were able to talk about things, and recognize their feelings.

“But you’re sleeping in the bed, we can wait two days,” Eddie says, redirecting his thoughts.

Making him sleep on the lumpy and hard couch seems too cruel, especially when he is still hurt. Besides, just sleeping next to him, waking up next to him, are things he has dreamt of, especially on the nights and mornings when he woke up alone in his Texas house. 

Buck grins at him, all disarming and charming, making warmth spread behind Eddie’s sternum. “I’ll build a pillow wall.”

“Romantic,” Eddie murmurs, with a slight eyeroll, but moves against Buck, making them both aware that they are still hard against each other, “but maybe necessary.”

“It’s your fault anyway,” Buck laughs, all warm and genuine, moving his hand down to his ass, “you’re lucky you don’t have that mustache anymore.”

This time, Eddie sputters out a laugh, out of sheer surprise and he tries to fake being offended, but his lips don’t obey and he ends up grinning. “You wouldn’t have kissed me with it?”

“I’d have already jumped your bones,” Buck says, way too casually while shrugging, and his smile becoming slightly lopsided, “despite the adhesive glue.”

Eddie doesn’t even try to hold back the laughter that is forming somewhere deep in his chest. His body feels lighter than in years and he thinks he doesn’t want to deny or sideline his joy any more. 

Buck is his joy, and he wants to choose him.

“Maybe I’ll grow it back,” Eddie muses, only half-joking, as he rests his forehead against Buck’s.

Buck doesn’t close his eyes, but he breathes in deeply, as if wanting to indulge himself, reveling in their closeness, and Eddie isn’t going to deny him that.

He probably couldn’t deny him anything if it would make him happy. 

“Mhmh.”

“Your gratitude for saving your life is truly touching,” Eddie jokes, placing his thumb in the corner of Buck’s mouth, on his lips, and tracing Buck’s lower lip, slowly. 

Buck holds his gaze, intensively, as long as his thumb is moving. It gives Eddie a real chance to look at his eyes, again. 

The eyes that have become so familiar to him over the years. He thinks of all the emotions he has seen reflected in his blue eyes. The joy, the triumph, the relief, and all the heart break and fear. 

And now to see what Eddie can only describe as love, maybe adoration, to shine in his eyes, right back at him. 

It’s a lot, in the best way possible. Eddie thinks that maybe he has seen it before, in Buck’s eyes, but he hasn’t been able to, or dared to, recognize it as love. 

“When the explosion happened,” Buck starts, slowly, as if he would have to think and choose each of his words, “I was happy maybe for the first time that you weren’t there.”

Eddie just hums, understanding.

They are partners. Eddie always feels more sure of everything on calls when he works with Buck, because there is so much trust between them, and they can read each other without speaking, knowing what the other will do next. 

He knows Buck will have his back through everything, and it’s comforting to know that Buck would move heaven and hell to get him to safety, as he would do with Buck, but sometimes when all goes wrong on a call, he sometimes hopes that Buck wouldn’t be there. 

Because he hates when Buck gets hurt. It rips his whole world apart, just like this afternoon, and he understands why Buck didn’t want him caught in the blast. But in the moment, Eddie would have done anything to switch their places.

Eddie guesses that it is love, in one of its purest forms, and he is too tired to even feel an ounce of the guilt that his church probably would want him to feel. The guilt that has become so familiar to him. 

Buck smiles at him, a little ruefully, probably knowing right where his mind is going. He has always been good at that.

Eddie thinks none of the words that come to his mind are any way eloquent or adequate, so instead, he just kisses him, again. 

Buck smiles into the kiss, and at first, it is slow and a replacement for all the words they cannot find at the moment. It’s loving and sweet, and packed with emotion, and none of that disappears when that one kiss turns into a series of kisses.

They end up making out on the couch, and kisses become indistinguishable from one another, and the kisses become more heated, hungrier and more intense. 

Buck’ tongue is deep in his throat, moving across his tongue, and he is squeezing his ass, and Eddie presses himself against Buck even harder, and his hands are in Buck’s hair, his fingers getting entangled in his curls and scraping against his scalp.

Eddie fully believes that outlines of them start to blur. As if he wouldn’t know where he starts and Buck ends, and that both of their wants morph into something that is one, and it is an intoxicating feeling.

Eddie finds out that they are still in sync, that their connection carries through to love too, and he tries his best not to let his thoughts wander to anything beyond kissing, but it is nearly impossible. 

The way he can almost predict what Buck will do next, where his hands will go, the way he doesn’t even have to say anything when Buck’s thumb is sinking a little painfully into his skin, right above his hipbone, for him to move it almost immediately. 

He thinks they both get lost in the kiss, in each other, and lose track of time and place. Nothing else exists except them and the crappy couch in their home. Their little home on South Bedford Street contains a whole galaxy, right there and then. 

There is a thought, nagging in the corner of his mind, and it is stubborn enough to break through everything and Eddie suddenly remembers Buck’s fractured ribs, and that Buck is currently pressed between the couch cushion and him. 

That thought alone, that he might be causing pain to Buck, is enough to bring him back in the moment, and pull away from the kiss. 

“Don’t stop,” Buck murmurs, right against his lips. 

“I’m not stopping,” he replies, all breathless, adjusting his hand back on the backrest of the couch, making sure their chests aren’t touching, and grins, “I’m just trying to make sure I don’t crush your broken ribs.”

At the same time it is an indirect way of asking if he is okay, if his ribs got already crushed by him, and Buck seems to understand it because he shakes his head. 

“I don’t think you crushed them,” he replies, still grinning, “if anything kissing helps with the pain. It’s science. Oxytocin and all of that, you cannot argue with science, Eddie.”

Eddie laughs, because Buck has got some sort of point with his argument, but he has never been convinced to kiss someone just to act as a painkiller. Besides, he doesn’t need to be convinced to kiss Buck. 

He would do it anyway, now that he knows he can do it. That it won’t ruin and destroy anything. 

Eddie has every intention to kiss him again, but the doorbell rings, sharply and suddenly, and it reminds him that there is a whole world outside of their little bubble, and that they are still, technically, on concussion watch.  

“Our food is here.”

It feels as if a small forever has passed since he placed the order to a small burger place near the firehouse. He probably paid enough delivery fees to bankrupt himself for the month, but he knows Buck has a soft spot for the place for some reason he cannot comprehend. 

In his opinion, all of the food from that place tastes like grease and salt, and nothing else. But he wanted to cheer Buck up and make sure he eats at least something tonight.  

“We can leave it there,” Buck remarks, as soon as Eddie tries to move away from the couch, move away from him, and places his hands back on his hips. 

It’s tempting, and Eddie is pretty certain that the delivery guy has already abandoned their order at the door, and there isn’t any real kind of rush. It isn’t even that late, but the thought of making sure that Buck is okay is stronger than anything else. 

“Mhmh, no,” he still insists, shaking his head, stretching his leg and finally letting himself fall against the couch cushions next to Buck, “you gotta eat.”

Eddie tries to make his offer more tempting by placing a kiss on Buck’s temple as he tries to get up from the couch. He almost gets up, but it seems that his leg is on the edge of falling asleep and Buck grabs his wrist.

“I’ve been waiting for years for this,” Buck says, almost softly, intertwining their fingers, “the food can wait.”

There is a teasing edge to Buck’s voice, but his words still make Eddie stop dead in his tracks and his gaze falls to their hands. 

“Years?” Eddie echoes, disbelief woven deep into the small word. 

It hits like a ton of bricks, all of a sudden. That he has seen Buck at his worst and at his best, but it goes both ways. Buck has seen him below the rock bottom, seen him mess up, make mistakes and just be himself, and he has still decided that he is worthy of his love. 

That he has seen everything, the good and the bad, and still his heart has been that’s the one and Eddie guesses that it is a small miracle, really. That anything he has done hasn’t put Buck off.

That he hasn’t decided that he isn’t worth the wait or the effort. 

Because Eddie knows that love is something one cannot control, but one still has to choose love, every day, to make it work, to keep it alive. 

He feels more seen than he probably ever has before. Because with Buck, he doesn’t have to pretend, he sees him for who he is, and that makes him feel incredibly loved. 

Even now, Buck is looking at him impossibly softly. Eddie has to bite the inside of his cheek, because the back of his eyes are burning. 

“Yeah,” Buck reassures, squeezing his hand, “that long.” 

Eddie squeezes his hand back. He is terrified out of his mind that he will mess this up too, that he does what he always does in a relationship, but he doesn’t want to mess it up. But maybe being terrified isn’t the worst thing. 

Maybe it just means that he has a lot at stake, and he values it. 

“Uh, me too,” Eddie says, because it probably has been years, his mind caught up on later to what his heart had been doing for ages. He smiles at him and places another kiss, this time to his forehead. “But I’m not going anywhere, so we can eat first.”

Buck rolls his eyes, but nothing but fondness comes out of it. 

“Fine.”

Eddie makes his way to the door and picks up the wrinkled paper bag. It smells slightly burnt and of onions, and Eddie tries his best to ignore it as he walks back to the living room. 

Buck has already moved the coffee table closer to the couch, to the place it always is, when they eat take out. Eddie glares at him, because he is not supposed to move any furniture with fractured ribs and sprained ankle, but he is sure there is no heat behind it. 

Buck beams at him. 

“Does this count as our first date?”

Eddie’s heart is doing something weird again, but it is a surprisingly pleasant feeling. He could get used to it. He pulls the bag of fries out of the paperbag and hands them to Buck. 

“I was thinking of something more– romantic, but I guess it can be.”

Maybe the notion of a first date is a little silly for them. Or at least making it something huge and monumental when it can be something normal and something they have done hundreds of times before. 

The place or the degree of fanciness doesn’t matter. What matters is that it is them , and that they are having fun, and that they get to decide what is their first date. They get to make it as special as they want it to be, even if it is burgers and fries in their living room.  

“The place at least is nice,” Buck hums, letting his gaze fall on Eddie, “not so sure about the company yet.”

Eddie throws a fry at him. It hits Buck on the cheek and falls somewhere between them on the couch. Neither of them bothers to look for it and Buck is shaking with almost soundless laughter. 

“No one else I’d rather be here with,” Buck manages to say, apparently aiming for deadpan, but failing spectacularly. But he picks one of the fries up and throws it at Eddie’s direction. 

It lands on his knee. Eddie picks it up and eats it while mirroring Buck’s brilliant grin. 

“Then stop throwing the fries.”

Eddie thinks of Eurydice and Orpheus, again. He wonders if everything was this easy and light between them. If they were each other’s person and partner. He at least cannot look away from Buck even now when things are good. 

It’s like a small reassurance, to look at him. To make sure that he is really there and none of this is some sort of hallucination and that Buck really is as happy as he seems to be. Besides, Buck looks gorgeous. 

His curls are flattened by the couch cushion and he has dark circles underneath his eyes and that bandage still covering the wound he glued earlier, but Eddie still finds him so beautiful.

He seems just– lighter and he isn’t holding tension in his body, and he seems to glow with happiness and his smile is so dazzling that Eddie feels his heart swell just by looking at him, and knowing that he might be the cause of that smile.

“You started it,” Buck argues, with a huff, but his expression softens, “besides, maybe it was I-hope-this-is-my-last-first-date fry.”

Eddie’s heart skips a beat.

Mostly because he adores the idea of that. That they could be forever for each other. That Buck wants it, too. Logically, Eddie knows that. They wouldn’t have dared to do anything, to risk their relationship, if they couldn’t see being in it for the long haul. Buck wanted to be sure of it.

It’s still different to hear Buck say it.

Eddie anticipates the wave of anxiety that usually arrives when it comes to relationships and commitment, but nothing comes. He only feels the same comfort, happiness and safety as before, and he thinks it’s a good sign. 

He places a kiss on the corner of Buck’s mouth and steals one of his fries, again. He hopes the grease and salt of the fries will taste better from Buck’s lips later.

“I can live with that.”

Maybe, love at its core, is looking and being looked at. Being perceived and letting the other perceive oneself, as one is. With faults and all. Eddie thinks he can do that with Buck. 

Easily. 

***

The next time Eddie throws a french fry at Buck is five months later, in their kitchen, during another take out dinner. The throw is followed by getting down on one knee with the ring box, and a yes from Buck before Eddie even gets around to asking anything.