Work Text:
"You know," Eddie says. "I used to dance."
Buck hums into Eddie's shoulder. Eddie can feel it, the vibration against the fabric of his shirt, because they're pressed up against each other, here in the middle of Buck's kitchen. They have been for a while now, in what started as a hug. Somewhere around the second minute, Eddie stopped being sure what exactly to call this.
"Yeah?" Buck says.
His arms are wrapped tight around Eddie, one over his shoulder and the other coming around under Eddie's arm. Eddie's mirroring him: one arm up, one down. Hanging onto Buck, hands pressing hard into his back.
"Ballroom," Eddie says. "Years of it. Dancing around little studios and middle school gyms."
"What," Buck says. "Like this?"
He moves. It's a shift of the feet, left to right, sock silent against the tile. This close, Eddie doesn't have much of a choice: he moves with him. Sways an inch this way, an inch that way.
"Yeah," Eddie agrees. "Something like that."
They're close like this. All Eddie can feel is Buck. He's most of what Eddie can see, too: his shoulder, the side of his neck, the span of his back where Eddie's hands are digging into it. He can see a little of the kitchen, too--Buck's new one, where Eddie keeps forgetting which drawer to put the silverware in--and the window out to the backyard. The lights are all on, bright, harsh white bulbs Buck keeps saying he's going to replace, keeps saying he read a thing about the right color bulb for every room in your house. Two months and he still hasn't gotten to the hardware store.
It's a quiet night. It's been a lot of quiet nights lately. Eddie doesn't mind. Days turned to weeks turned to months after he and Christopher got back from El Paso, and Eddie's been savoring the feeling. The normalcy, seeping in around him, until he can almost forget that this was something he was missing. Life is settling into something he recognizes, going to work, going home. Being a dad, being a firefighter. It's routine, and the relief of that keeps surprising him.
Things got dicey today. There was a fire. It's always the fires, somehow, that end up like this: with Eddie's heart in his throat. An apartment complex, a kitchen fire, nearly everyone heard the alarms and got out but a few stragglers. They moved through it, cleared the floors, did their work. Routine. Easy.
Eddie still isn't sure, in retrospect, when the separation happened. Buck was next to him on the stairs one minute; the next, Eddie was downstairs and Buck wasn't. He didn't realize, somehow, until the message was crackling through on the radio, calm as anything, Buck reporting that the stairs down from level four were out.
It was fine. Maddie was on the line and on the blueprints, and the building was up to code, for once. It was barely even the kind of thing you could make a story out of. Buck got out fine. There was just a minute there, in the middle, where Eddie couldn't see Buck and could see a building's worth of fire and smoke. There was just a minute, where Eddie was scared.
He followed Buck home. After they got back to the station and stripped and showered off the smoke and changed, Buck got into his truck and Eddie got into his Honda Civic--he can't really remember, now, how he was parking anywhere in the city with his old truck--and Eddie turned out of the parking lot after Buck. Followed him to his new neighborhood, parked in his driveway, followed him inside.
Buck let him. It wasn't like this was the first time they had a tough call. It wasn't like it was the first time one of them didn't want to let the other out of their sight after work ended.
It hadn't happened in a while. That was all.
Buck headed for the kitchen when they got inside. Eddie followed. Buck started the coffee maker and Eddie took a cup from him when it brewed without asking if it was decaf. It felt good, holding something warm. Buck settled against the kitchen counter and Eddie against the island. They faced each other, drank their coffee. Didn't say much.
It was a familiar place. They had a lot of nights just like this. Only--since Buck moved, Eddie thought he could count the number of nights they'd had like this on one hand.
Eddie set his coffee down on the island. When he took a step in Buck's direction, Buck looked up. His eyes widened, just a little.
Eddie reached for Buck's shoulder. He went still immediately, looking back at Eddie. "Hey," Eddie said. "I'm going to hug you now."
It was there, tied up in the hug, that Eddie started thinking about dancing.
"Were you any good?" Buck asks.
It's a hug, not a dance hold. They're too close. If they were actually lining up for a waltz, Eddie would be able to see Buck's face. Buck's hand would be in his. Eddie figures he'd be the one leading, since he actually knows what he's doing, but Buck's got the height advantage on him. Eddie can't remember the last time he danced with someone who was taller than him. He thinks it might not have happened since he was practicing with his teacher, or his abuela when he was still littler than her, wearing circles in that old carpet in her basement while the record player spun.
"I won some medals," Eddie says. Buck makes a quiet ooh, his breath tickling the side of Eddie's neck.
Buck takes another little half step one way, then sways back into place. Eddie moves with him. "I can see why. You've clearly got moves."
"I do, actually," Eddie says.
He could show Buck. He could move them across the kitchen floor, practiced steps he still remembers. He could spin Buck. He could do something showy and stupid, or simple.
He's so tired.
There's a lot Eddie wants to says. Wants to do. He's not sure he knows what all of it is. There's this feeling, in the back of his head, that all of this would be easier if it was urgent. In a rush, like the flash of fear standing outside the apartment building a few hours ago. If it were something he needed to do.
Standing still in the kitchen with Buck, it's anything but urgent. It's slow and it's steady and there's nothing Eddie has to do, nothing Eddie has to say.
It's good like this. Holding Buck close to him. Knowing that Eddie wants to. Buck letting him.
Buck slides them to the right a few inches. The thumb on his left hand is rubbing a circle into Eddie's back, a tiny motion.
"I believe you," Buck says, and it takes a long moment for Eddie to remember what he's responding to. For Eddie to remember the pretense of why they're still hanging onto each other, in complete silence in the middle of Buck's kitchen, pantomiming dancing in the night.
Buck is safe. He's here. Eddie is too. Urgency is here, somewhere, if Eddie goes digging for it. He thinks he could do it: could dig it all up, the feelings he's been letting build up, sediment that's found places to settle somewhere in the depths of him. He wants to. He wants, with equal strength, to stay right here. To let this moment stand, a still thing.
Buck breaths. When he moves, another gentle sway to the silence, Eddie moves with him.
"You'll show me how to do it right sometime," Buck says into Eddie's ear. It's got the shape of a question, but none of the lift. It sits there, still on the kitchen floor.
"I will," Eddie says. "Soon."