Archive of Our Own

Buck has been the proud owner of a Nintendo Switch for a while now. He even has a subscription to relive a bunch of SNES games he used to play when he was younger. And thus, the mine cart levels in Donkey Kong Country still remain his mortal enemy.

He also uses it to play games with Chris, who's the owner of his own — which Eddie sometimes steals so he can try to beat Buck at Mario Kart. Buck also has an Animal Crossing island. A neatly kept one with his favorite villagers, a beautiful firepit and flowers.

This time though, he's found himself playing Tomodachi Life. He doesn't have a lot of knowledge about the game. He was never the owner of a DS, or a Wii for that matter. So this is new for Buck, but it looks exciting. And it's a demo version so its not like he's spending any unreasonable money on something he might not like.

The first Mii he creates is himself, obviously. He has a little bit of a tough time trying to figure out his hairstyle. Nothing matches exactly, so unfortunately he'll have to do with ‘close enough’. The rest of the features are easy enough though, he can match his exact eye colour. Which is something he has to ask Eddie about first. Because he's not quite certain.

He takes Eddie's reply applies the correct colour and then moves through the rest of his features. The last part is face paint. His birthmark is easily made that way — red just above the eye.

Then, he has to assign himself a personality. Which feels rather difficult. He has half a mind to ask Eddie again, but decides against it because he doesn't want to bother him.

Then it's time to give his Mii the correct name, birthdate, sexual preference and he's done. His little me is dropped straight onto the island he decides to name ‘Station 118 Island’

The tiny version of himself is rather cute. It's funny when he ends up being the news anchor and grocery store clerk. And the little jumps of excitement when he levels up are very endearing.

Then — he's prompted to create an extra character. So who other to make than Eddie?

The process feels a little easier than it was creating himself. He finds the perfect hairstyle, the little strand that sometimes falls in front of Eddie's eyes included. He finds the exact shade of deep brown that are Eddie's eyes. And lastly, in the face paint mode, he makes the perfect little dot to replicate the mole under Eddie's eye.

For a moment, he considers adding the scar adorning Eddie's lips. He even tries out a few brush strokes. But nothing he does quite does it justice.

He's quick to go over the rest of little Eddie's settings, soon enough the Mii is ready to be dropped onto the island. Which makes their Mii versions neighbors, how cool is that?

Playing around a little Buck finds it's possible to pat Eddie on his forehead. It's a little addicting. He can swipe his finger over the screen and every time he's done little Eddie jumps in excitement.

Shortly after that its time for Buck and Eddie to meet. He drags the Buck Mii by its head and carries him through the air to drop right next to Eddie. It's time for them to meet. They start off easily. Buck prompts them to talk about firefighting — which is a hit, obviously.

The Mii's strike a quick friendship and Buck is more than happy to just watch as they seemingly talk about the most random things.

Once he levels up, he gives mini Buck a football which he then uses to play with Eddie. They pass the ball back and forth for a while which quickly improves their friendship status from friends to close friends.

The next time he drops Eddie forcing the two to interact, they don't actually strike conversation. But Eddie decides to sneak behind Buck. Seemingly wanting to go unnoticed. Mini Buck doesn’t look behind him, but does speak up after a little while. “I feel like i’m being followed.” No shit.

Aside from that, Eddie does a good job — until Buck stops in his tracks next to a tree and Eddie faceplants right into the grass.

Buck can't help the fit of giggles the comes out of him. Taking out his phone to share the moment with Eddie immediately.

The next day comes and Buck has his Switch packed and ready to go for dinner at the Diaz household. He packs his controller grip as well, just in case either Eddie or Chris want to beat him at Mario Kart.

As soon as he enters Eddie’s home he has his switch out, turning the game on and pretty much shoving it into Eddie’s face. Who looks surprised, to say the least — totally caught off guard as he was about to ask Buck if he wanted anything to drink.

“What is this?” Eddie asks, eyebrows raised as he squints his eyes to look at the screen that’s practically in his face.

“The game I showed you yesterday! I made both of us as characters.” Buck pulls the switch back and navigates into Eddie’s virtual home clicking on Eddie to feed him. “For some reason your Mii hates literally every food except butter cookies, but that’s not a good meal,” Buck sighs — taking Eddie with him to sit on the couch.

Eddie doesn’t respond to that just yet, frankly too confused to utter any words. In that silence, Buck speaks up again, “And when I give you too much butter cookies you complain you need variation. But you don’t like any other foods, how am I supposed to give you variation.”

“I’m not sure I follow,” Eddie utters, moving a little closer to Buck to look at the screen a little better. “Wait why did you make my hair look like that?”

“I gave you a slut strand.”

“A what strand?”

“When you don’t put half a jar of gel on your head, or when it sweats out you always have a little strand fall in front of your face. It’s the perfect hairstyle for your Mii.”

“I'll uhm-” Eddie's cheeks are a little flushed, “take your word for it.”

“Good.” Buck picks up Eddie's Mii carrying him over to where Buck is blowing bubbles outside. It drops Eddie right in front of Buck. And for a while, he just stares — seemingly entranced with what Buck is doing. After a while though, Eddie starts clapping, as if Buck blowing bubbles is actually the second coming of christ.

That does elicit kind of a baffled laugh from Eddie too.

Buck continues to play the game under Eddie’s watchful eye they share laughs as their Mii’s friendship status rises to best friends forever. There’s a point where they end up gossiping about human Buck which has Eddie giggle while Buck looks offended. Their Mii’s have the most random conversations about a bunch of topics.

Later, Eddie ends up drawing Buck’s face in the sand and then they shower eachother in praise. Which Buck thinks Eddie is quite deserving of when you consider the perfect portrait he just made in the sand.

Buck gifts Eddie’s Mii a ‘weak looking elastic cord’, which human Eddie argues is a terrible gift. Which it turns out to be — in the end. The rest of their playthrough Eddie ends up taking the plastic cord out every few minutes to try to ‘overcome his fear’. Which he frankly does not seem very succesful at. At one point he pulls Buck into it, which ends in both of them staring at the thing shivering with sweat. The game captions it as; ’It seems they're too scared to look at the weak-looking elastic cord alone so they're doing it together’

Before they can continue though, Chris enters the room.

“Dad, when are we eating dinner?”

“Oh fu-,” Eddie almost swears before covering his own mouth, “I was in the midst of cooking dinner when Buck distracted me.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault you got distracted!”

“It sure is. Which is why you’re helping me finish quick now.”

Thankfully, Eddie had actually not put anything on the stove yet. Which Buck supposes they would’ve noticed by the smell. With the two working together, dinner is served relatively quickly — much to Chris’ pleasure. They don’t play the game any more after that, much too occupied by dinner and the subsequent movie night.

✦

Buck doesn’t find much time to play the game in the next few days, which leaves him itching for more throughout his shifts. He’s glad when he finally finds the time to pull out his switch again..

Just like much of the gameplay Buck has had in the demo, he drops the two of them next to each other — ready for another interaction.

But, instead of the two Mii's starting a random conversation or a game something else happens. There's a big message on the screen saying ‘What's going on with Eddie Diaz?’

A cut scene starts.

It shows Eddie walking around, just a little oblivious — purposely so. Then, Buck comes into frame, walking straight into Eddie’s pathway. At that point it’s rather obvious what is about to happen. Buck walks straight into Eddie knocking him straight to the ground.

“Oof! Sorry. My mind was somewhere else,” Eddie says, looking up at Buck.

“No, it’s my fault. Are you OK?”

“Yeah. I’m fine.”

Buck walks away, leaving Eddie alone in the frame with the pink background behind him. Buck is still — a little confused. However it’s slowly starting to make sense as Eddie continues his dialogue.

“Buck is looking good lately. Like, really good. Wait… Is what I’m feeling for Buck… love?”

Two options pop up for Buck to make a decision, but he’s too panicked and has apparently already chosen something before he can process what any of the options here. The cutscene continues, roses forming around Eddie combined with what looks like fireworks behind him on the pink background.

Mii Eddie continues, “You’re right! What else could it be? I should ask Buck out!”

But this can’t be right.. Eddie’s straight and he's a renter so that can't be right, right? Or are Mii's homeowners? He has to Google this…

He grabs his phone from beside him and opens the search engine, ‘Are mii's homeowners in tomodachi life?’

He scrolls a little… but to no avail. There are no concrete answers. He could start a Reddit thread, but he's not quite sure the people on there would take this matter serious enough.

Which is what it is, very serious.

So he exists Google and opens his messaging app.

Well that was a bust. He could ask someone else, like Maddie maybe. But he fears he might sound a little unhinged at this point.

He picks back up his switch, maybe it was a glitch in the game. Yes! that’s what it was — if he just.. makes them interact again they’ll stay best friends forever. So, he picks Eddie up again and transports him straight into Buck’s house.

Instead of a normal interaction, Eddie gets an exclamation mark above his head. His eyes go wide and a blush appears on his face. He gasps and then seems to panic and runs straight out of Buck’s apartment with flushed cheeks. He runs for a short bit before speaking up, “Buck, oh Buck… I love you more than words can say…”

Not a glitch in the game then.

Buck promptly shuts the game off — how does he process this? He could tell Eddie what happened, like a funny story — and how unlike them it is! Because Eddie doesn’t even like men like that, duh. That seems like a good idea, he does not trust himself to keep it a secret without being weird.

So, he jumps straight into the car. Ready to head straight to the Diaz house, without so much of a thought about the current time. The drive is quick. Buck doesn’t quite feel like he’s had enough time to truly rehearse the conversation. Maybe that’s a good plan though, not overthinking it. Just going in there and telling Eddie how it is.

He exits the car and softly knocks on Eddie’s door. Because obviously he has the courtesy to not just randomly enter Eddie’s house unannounced with the keys he has.

“It’s 2am what the hell are you doing here Buck?” Eddie opens the door, clearly dressed in his usual sleepwear.

Buck doesn’t give much thought to what Eddie says and pushes past him into the living room immediately starting off his monologue.

“So, I was playing that game I showed you last time. On my Switch. And our characters were just interacting right? Like normal friends do but then we ran into each other. And you, you fell in love with me.” Buck has sat down on the couch, leaving Eddie to stand, front door still in hand. “Because you’re straight, and a renter haha. Which is what makes it so funny,” Buck continues.

“I’m not straight though.” Eddie has moved to stand in front of Buck.

Buck does not know how to respond to that. Is Eddie okay? Does he need to check his temperature? Yes that seems like a good idea. Buck takes a step closer to Eddie raising his hand to hold the back of his hand to Eddie’s forehead. He’s a little hotter than usual, and flushed — those could be signs of fever.

“I am not sick Buck.” Eddie sighs fiddling a little with the hem of his shirt.

It takes way too long for Buck to catch up, stuck in his denial about Eddie’s sexuality. Eddie’s sweating because he’s nervous — because he’s coming out to Buck. And Buck is being an absolute idiot.

“Oh-” Is all he manages to say, which is a little embarrasing.

“Yeah,” Eddie mutters out.

It takes a while for either of them to say anything. Buck cards a nervous hand through his curls, lightly pulling on the strands to ground himself. There’s too much going through his mind to really make sense of it — but he needs to say something. He needs to comfort Eddie in some way, he needs to let him know he’s proud and he’s thankful Eddie trusts him with this. So he stands up and speaks up again, “So, not a glitch in the game?”

“I never said I was in love with you though.” Eddie’s mouth turns upwards into a smirk — which Buck doesn’t quite seem to notice.

“Just eh- just the fact that you could fall for a guy. I didn’t mean to—”

“I’m kidding, yes, not a glitch in the game. I like you.” Eddie’s gaze has turned soft. One Buck knows well, he realizes. He’s just never considered those gazes aimed at him meant anything but friendship. But now it clicks, Eddie likes him, likes him.

“Me too,” Buck smiles reaching out a hand to Eddie’s wrist. “I mean, I like you too Eddie.”

“I got that.” Eddie forgoes reaching out a hand and immediately pulls Buck into a crushing kiss. Their eagerness means it’s mostly teeth clashing until it turns into a softer kiss. One filled with emotion and want. They only break apart for a quick gasp of air before they’re back on each other again.

“Should I buy the full version of the game?” Buck asks a few moments later once they’ve settled back down on the couch.

“What?”

“It was only the demo of the game, we can’t actually confess to each other during it I’d have to pay.”

“So we should rewind on the kiss and wait until you get the game?” Eddie teases.

“Wait no—”

“I’m just kidding,” Eddie laughs reaching out to Buck again.