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It started small.
Buck didn’t mean to notice how much time Hen and Eddie were spending together.
They’d been paired up for the past few weeks, and every shift seemed to end with them laughing over something. Some shared joke Buck wasn’t in on. Some new inside thing. Some recent outing.
It wasn’t even about the calls, they just clicked.
Hen was Hen steady, smart, always calm. And Eddie… Eddie was laughing more, smiling in that easy way that made Buck’s stomach do weird, stupid flips.
Buck tried not to care. But the next time he saw Hen and Eddie leave the station together with coffee cups in hand, chatting like they’d been best friends for a decade, he found himself sitting in the locker room staring at his boots like they’d personally offended him.
“Okay, you sound insane,” Maddie said, stirring her tea on speakerphone.
“I’m not insane,” Buck insisted. “I just, he’s my partner. My best friend! And now he and Hen have their little buddy/buddy thing going on and I’m just… left out.”
“So you’re jealous.”
“No, I’m annoyed!” Buck ran a hand through his hair. “She’s stealing my okay, fine, yes, jealous. But not in a weird way!”
There was silence on the other end.
“Maddie?”
“Buck, sweetie,” she said gently. “You’re doing the exact same thing you did when Eddie started hanging out with Tommy.”
Buck froze mid pacing. “That’s not true. I wasn’t,”
“Oh please.” Maddie’s voice carried that big sister eye roll he could practically hear. “You sulked for weeks.”
“That’s because Tommy was...he was new! And he was,”
“You were jealous, Buck,” Maddie cut in, matter of fact. “But maybe not for the reason you thought.”
Buck frowned. “What reason would that be?”
“The one that starts with ‘you were never jealous of Tommy’ and ends with ‘you were jealous 'because you’re in love with Eddie.’”
Silence.
Then Buck, blinked and looked like a lightbulb went off, he said weakly: “…what?"
“Buck.” Maddie laughed, warm and teasing. “Took you long enough.”
“Shut up,” he muttered automatically, face burning. “That’s, that’s ridiculous.”
“Really?” she said softly. “Because you’ve spent five minutes ranting about who Eddie’s getting coffee with.”
Buck flopped onto the couch, groaning. “He’s my best friend. He’s straight. I can’t, Maddie, I can’t be in love with him.”
Her tone softened. “I know. But you are.”
He sat there, hand covering his eyes. “God, I’m an idiot.”
“Not an idiot,” Maddie said gently. “Just in love.”
“Same thing.”
That night, Buck stared at his ceiling until 3 a.m.
By morning, he had a plan.
He was going to get over Eddie Diaz if it killed him.
And if that meant bringing back Buck 1.0, then so be it. Only, this time Buck 1.0 came with a bisexual upgrade, or Buck 1.5 he decided.
If he couldn’t have Eddie, he’d at least explore his bisexuality for himself.
The 118 noticed immediately.
“Hey, uh,” Chim said, eyeing Buck’s tight shirt and newly confident grin, “what’s with the… sparkle?”
“Just living my life,” Buck said with a shrug, sipping his smoothie.
Hen raised an eyebrow. “You’ve said that every shift for a week.”
“Because I am!” Buck said, all innocence. “Living. My. Life.”
By the time Buck showed up to the next shift humming after a night out and looking like he’d slept maybe two hours, Hen and Chim were whispering in the kitchen.
“You think it’s about Bobby?” Chim asked. “Like, a grief thing?”
Hen nodded slowly. “A way to grieve?”
Eddie, silent at the table, clenched his jaw. “Yeah. Guess so.”
But he couldn’t shake it. The way Buck was… was different.
The flirty smiles. The new tattoos peeking out from his shirt collar. The fact that he’d mentioned his hookups, and with guys.
Eddie wasn’t sure why that part hit him hardest.
It got worse.
Buck flirted shamelessly at bars. He’d come into work with a half buttoned shirt, laughing into his phone, texting someone named “Alex"
Eddie tried to focus on calls, on Christopher, on literally anything else.
But every time Buck laughed with someone else, it scraped something raw inside him.
Finally, he cracked.
“Okay,” Hen said, sliding into the ambulance beside him during a slow shift. “You’ve been looking at Buck like he stole your car for three days. What’s up?”
Eddie hesitated, then muttered, “He’s… seeing people.”
Hen blinked. “Yeah, I gathered that.”
“And I just,” He trailed off, running a hand over his jaw. “I don’t know. It bothers me.”
Hen turned in her seat, smirking. “Bothers you how, exactly?”
He sighed. “I don’t know! He keeps… smiling at them. Flirting. He comes to work, and,”
“Eddie,” she interrupted gently, “do you have feelings for Buck?”
The words landed like a backdraft.
He froze. Blinked.
And then whispered, like it hurt to admit, “Oh… shit.”
Hen’s grin was soft but smug. “Welcome to the club, Diaz.”
Two nights later, Buck was in Eddie’s kitchen, eating leftover pasta while Eddie cleaned up.
“Okay, so,” Buck said, leaning on the counter, “I was thinking of maybe,”
Eddie turned sharply. “You have to stop.”
Buck blinked. “Stop what?”
“This,” Eddie said, gesturing vaguely. “The sleeping around. It’s not, it's not good for you.”
Buck frowned. “Eddie, I’m fine.”
“You’re not,” Eddie snapped, louder than he meant to. “This isn’t you, Buck.”
Buck crossed his arms. “You don’t get to tell me what to do.”
“I’m not,” Eddie exhaled, trying to rein himself in. “I just don’t want to see you hurt.”
“I am fine,” Buck said, the hurt leaking through despite his best effort. “You don’t understand, okay? I have to.”
Eddie’s brow furrowed. “Why?”
“Because!” Buck threw his hands up. “Because I can’t, because I’m trying to move on!”
“Move on from what?”
Buck’s phone buzzed on the counter. A notification popped up:
Grindr: You’ve got a new message.
Eddie saw it. His face went red.
“Are you kidding me?” he snapped, voice cracking with something raw. “You’re still talking to those guys?”
Buck stiffened. “What’s your problem?”
“My problem is I don’t want you sleeping with them!”
“Why the hell not?”
Eddie’s chest heaved. “Because it should be me!”
Silence.
Then Buck, breathless, “What?”
Eddie took a shaky step closer. “It should be me. I don’t...God, Buck, I don’t want to watch you fall into bed with random people when all I can think about is,”
Buck didn’t let him finish.
He surged forward, grabbed Eddie by the shirt, and kissed him.
It wasn’t soft. It was years of repressed emotion and confusion and stupid, beautiful gravity pulling them together until neither could breathe.
Eddie kissed back instantly, hands in Buck’s hair, pushing him toward the bedroom like he couldn’t stop himself if he tried.
Sunlight crept through the blinds. Buck laid tangled in Eddie’s sheets, hair a mess, body sore in ways that made him blush just thinking about it.
Eddie came in, holding two mugs of coffee. “You okay?”
Buck smiled sleepily. “Yeah. Better than okay.”
Eddie set the mugs down and sat beside him. “So… now what?”
Buck grinned. “Now you buy me breakfast.”
Eddie laughed, shaking his head. “God, you’re impossible.”
“You love it.”
“I do,” Eddie said softly, and Buck’s heart stuttered.