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The thing is - Buck has never had a best friend. Not even when he was little, he remembers elementary school and he's had a group of friends, his classmates were usually friendly, but he can't say that anyone stood out. He would go to birthday parties of one friend or another, even would be invited to sleepovers, but there were usually at least two more kids with him as the guests.
He started dating young, in a kid kind of way, even when he was nine, he would send sticky letters to the pretty girls in his classes, asking them to be his girlfriends. Pink glitter pens marked Yes on the paper made their way back to him, and he liked it. He liked that he was chosen by someone. He didn't really know what to do with the girls who would mark Yes, but sometimes when he waved at them across the playground during the recess, he felt a flutter when they waved back. He would come back and tell Maddie about it - I have a girlfriend!
By the time he was twelve, already he knew that dating meant going on dates, walking the girls home, he held their hands, and they texted all day long. And meanwhile, all around him, there were friends. And somehow, Buck was never someone's best friend. He guesses that he was always too focused on romantic relationships is what he's saying. He was aware that some people in the group were closer to others than they were to him, and in fact it seemed like pretty much everyone has had a friend who was closer than those others, but not him. This just how it was. Even when he joined 118, immediately he was aware that Hen and Chim, while quickly became close and dear to him, somehow had a closer bond with each other, and he wasn't invited in it.
Until Eddie.
Eddie is his first best friend in life.
It sort of just happens - first shift together, and by the end of it, already they were close, and in the same way, fast, they simply become best friends. Buck is pretty sure that it isn't even two months later that he already is staying on Eddie's couch, after they've had a dinner all together - he, Chris and Eddie, that Buck made.
It is Eddie, too, who spells it to him what they are, because, shit, Buck is so lost that he would've never understood it himself.
He and Eddie were staying up late, just talking, Chris in bed, and they've had the day after free, so they weren't worried about needing to wake early. It was so early into the relationship, and they were just getting to know each other, and Buck asked something along the lines of how Eddie was adjusting to the change.
And Eddie said something about Los Angeles, the humidity, and then said, "The dynamic in the team is also different to what I've been used to, you know. It's like in your team everyone... are together, I don't know how to explain. It's like you're more of a family."
And Buck didn't get it, felt a pang of worry, "What do you mean? Weren't you friends with your other teams?" Meaning both the academy and the army. He didn't want to think that maybe Eddie wasn't always in the good environment, socially.
"I mean. It's just. Okay, usually, you know, I'd have one best friend. And so I'd be focused on that. I've always had that - one person, you know, to talk to and all that. Like even back in school. I mean, not that I don't have it here, obviously," and Eddie nodded to the space between them. "It's just that now I'm also in a group of friends, and that's a bit unusual to me. To be honest, maybe even overwhelming. But, hey, you help. Keep me grounded. Like with you, it's easy, I know what's going on." And Eddie smiled, easy and not like he said anything groundbreaking.
And Buck was looking at him, and he thought - oh. Oh, that's what is going on.
He and Eddie are best friends.
And Buck just thinks - wow. Wow, this is something else. Apparently all around him, people were walking around while they've had this? While they've had a best friend, and Buck was just walking blind without knowing what he was missing?
It's like... Buck can't even explain it properly. It's like a golden ball in his hand. It's like... if he knew that this was something he was missing, he would've dedicated his life to finding this, but he didn't even know.
Of course, he loves being Eddie's best friend. It is the best feeling in all the world, it is the greatest honor that Buck ever received in his life.
It's just that... Well, Buck is aware that he is new to all this. He's never had a best friend before, after all. He doesn't really know what can be done, and what can't. He doesn't know which of his impulses are welcome and which are too much, he knows that he can be too much.
The absolute last thing he wants is to in any way overwhelm Eddie, or disappoint him, or prove inadequate to the task at hand.
Thank God that Eddie knows what is going on. Eddie has had best friends before, Eddie knows they should act like, and so Buck lets Eddie set the boundaries and the pace. He observes and analyses Eddie's moves and this way he starts to draw a map of this uncharted territory.
Sometimes Buck thinks that this is such a good arrangement - Eddie showing him the way, teaching him almost, Buck only has to follow his footsteps, it is easier, doesn't let Buck get lost in his head. And also, sometimes Buck thinks, that this is good... Well because. Because every human has their limit, their needs, and with this arrangement Eddie can establish what he wants from Buck, show Buck what he wants exactly, and Buck can be it, without any baggage or his own expectations or rules from any history.
Sometimes, when Buck lays on the couch in Diaz' house, and his everything is thrumming both with happiness at being so close to Eddie and to Chris, being welcome in their home, and also with the need, tense need for Eddie that doesn't abate even when Buck is so close to Eddie, and only seems to get worse at nights, Buck thinks that it really is so good that Eddie is his best friend. Eddie draws the lines, because he knows that Buck needs them. It even feels good here, lying like that, feeling this magnetic pulse for Eddie, and to be denying himself, to know the line that he cannot cross. It's good for him, Buck clenches and unclenches his fist, feeling the tension in the muscles of his arm, a willpower tested and strengthened.
Buck imagines sometimes that this is the pleasure that, well, people in history would understand better than modern ones. Like a monk who subjugates his body in the service of God, denying himself earthly pleasures. A good pain, a good denial - in the service of something grander. He would never admit it to Eddie, but he thinks about a knight and a princess - and the knight stands vigil over the princess while she sleeps, and he doesn't touch her, he is protecting her. Buck lies on the couch in Diaz' house, and he watches the door to Eddie's bedroom and he thinks about that knight and that princess.
This is the best thing that has ever happened to Buck in all his life, he will not mess this up.
And he knows that he can mess this up, and he frequently does, but Eddie, Eddie is always there to show him, to tell him, and, most importantly, to never give up on him. Buck knows that he is so clueless, and lost, and it gets exasperating guiding a grown man, but Eddie doesn't give up on him, he stays, and for that alone Buck would do anything for him.
So when Eddie tells him that he fucked up, because he wasn't there, he wasn't there for Chris, or he wasn't there to bail Eddie out, Buck isn't just petrified that he really did fuck up, but also a part of him almost delights in this - now he knows a new boundary, now he knows a bit better of what Eddie expects from him, Eddie tells him what is expected of him, and he thinks - Yes, that's right, even in his consciousness immediately understanding that the truth is on Eddie's side, Eddie is right and correct, and Buck only wishes that Eddie would know how much even his deepest instincts are on Eddie's side. He gets scared that maybe this time, he torched it between them for good, dried out Eddie's endless patience with his cluelessness, but they come back from this, Eddie lets them get close again, lets Buck fix it.
He is helping Christopher pick a present for a girl he likes in his grade ("Why didn't you ask your father to help?" - "Ugh, Dad always seems like he is about to cry when it comes to me dating girls, it's not that big of a deal," and Buck would argue otherwise, but he doesn't want to lose points with Chris) when he notices the wall with BFF pendants.
Most of them are the kind of necklaces in which two parts form a heart on which "BFF" is spelled. Buck touches a golden line and thinks that it would feel cool and light against the skin, and they could hide it under the shirts.
He imagines touching it, a perpetual reminder of Eddie, close to his skin. He thinks that he could even get them engraved on the other side of the half of a heart. His would say "Eddie", and the other would spell "Buck", and he longs.
It would be... kind of like a claim. And Buck is claimed through and through by Eddie, he wholly and fully belongs to Eddie, and, hell, he would be even without the reminder if he must. But. But, shit, it'd feel good to know that Eddie wore something like this.
But then Buck thinks how embarrassing that is, who does that? They are not thirteen-year olds, Eddie wouldn't get it, he'd do it to appease Buck, but... But.
Buck steps away from the wall, joins Christopher where the boy seems to decide on some fun earrings.
If he did it, Buck would've wanted Eddie to wear it so that everyone could see, and immediately understand. He wishes everyone could see, and know that Eddie was not to be their best friend, he already was Buck's. Like a claim, like ownership, like possession.
Buck fucking hates Tommy. He doesn't exactly know the guy, but he watches at those words on Eddie's fridge, under the take-out menu, "B.B.P.U. w/Tommy" (Circled!) and he seethes. What a dick.
Who even flies another person to Las Vegas anyway?
And why didn't Buck think to do it first?
This is his, he almost wants to scream, it is his basketball game to which He was invited first, even if he never went. And it is his... Chris, but now Chris thinks that Tommy is "so cool".
And then, last fucking drop that really is about to break Buck, is when he is working out, and he really is pressing those weights, sweat is coating his skin, and Eddie isn't even looking at him! Noooooooo, he is on the phone with Tommy, laughing and giggling, and Not Looking at Buck!
This is Buck's. Like this is his, working out time is something that is really important to him. He and Eddie help each other with the weights, they discuss new working out routines, they watch each other, compete some. Buck takes the place under the weights while Eddie spots him and rests, and Buck feels it - the gaze of Eddie on his arms, on his chest, he feels his body better when he knows that Eddie notices it, he likes it better because Eddie watches Buck's body, how he moves, how the muscles strain.
And then, Eddie's turn will come and so Buck will be allowed to watch and observe, gentle undulations of muscles under the tight fabric, the skin that shows, sometimes Eddie even takes the shirt off, so that Buck would be better able to see Eddie's pack, he loves the surprisingly tender hidden muscles under the arms - obliques, serratus, their form pronounced with every breath that Eddie makes. He is allowed this, he is allowed, encouraged even, to appreciate the perfection of the form that Eddie creates out of himself.
Buck doesn't know which he likes better though - to watch Eddie work out, or to be watched. He swears when Eddie takes off his shirt, same as it happened the first time he saw him, "Whatta Man" starts playing and the world seems to move in slow motion, but, shit, being seen, observed by Eddie - that's a whole other kind of drug.
It's like a power, power that Buck has over Eddie. He works out, settling into his body, moving it, feeling it, and he can feel Eddie watching it all, which in turn only makes Buck work out harder, more, because it is like the more he pushes his body, the more lost Eddie gets in watching him.
Except now Buck is about to tear something because he almost doubles his average weights, all for Eddie to take notice of him, but, no, Eddie is still on the phone with Tommy!
Like what is there even to be done, Buck reasons, except for him to crash that basketball game?
When Tommy kisses him, it seems a though a thousand of tiny details suddenly become a cohesive whole, and he can see the picture before him. And he understands that, shit, absolutely, he is bisexual, there is no way around it.
And he looks at Tommy, who is hot, who is tight, kind of dark, a man, and he thinks that Tommy isn't looking to be Eddie's best friend. He's only looking to dating Buck. Like, whew, Tommy wouldn't have the time to be Eddie's best friend.
After he comes out to Eddie and they spend a day together, Buck at times wants to tell him how he likes licking, just touching with his tongue the muscles of a man, trace them, salt skin making the saliva flow, across abs, to the side, under the arm, raise it, trace external obliques, small bumps of serratus, smell intense, like after a work out. But he knows that it is Eddie who draws the lines, and Buck never steps beyond them.