Work Text:
The weak morning sun filtered through the slats in the blinds, enough to stir Eddie from sleep and into the dreamy trance of a rare alarm-less lie-in on the second day of a 96-off.
His back was cool where the sheet had fallen off, but his front was warm, a wall of heat pressed against him.
He didn't know what day it was, or where he was, only that he was comfortable, and had nowhere to be. Pushing his head further into his pillow, Eddie nuzzled his nose into the soft shirt of the person he was holding.
It could have been five minutes or an hour later when Eddie next floated up from sleep, this time jostled by the movement of his personal heater shifting onto his back, pushing him over toward his side of the bed.
A wordless grumble of protest left Eddie's throat as he scooched forward in search of the missing warmth, tucking his nose into the divot between shoulder and neck, breathing in the smell of sleep-warmed skin against his cheek. He flung an arm around the broad chest beside him for good measure.
"Eds," a voice cut into his bubble of warmth.
He grumbled in response, pushing his face in further, away from the light.
His pillow stiffened. That wasn't nice.
"Eds," he heard again, and this time he grumbled with a bit more communicative intent — questioning.
"We should get up, that new brunch place you said we should try will get busy if we wait too long."
Another grunt, and he could feel the restless energy already buzzing through the body under him.
"Eddie."
Resolved to bring himself into the land of the living, Eddie reluctantly pushed himself up on one arm, just high enough to see over Buck's head to the clock on the side table.
"Fine, fine," he said, his first words of the morning, "I'll put the coffee on."
It was Eddie's job to make the morning coffee while Buck made breakfast. That was the routine, and routine always woke up first.
Levered up from his spot on Buck's shoulder, Eddie's face hovered a few inches above Buck's. In detail, he could see the stubble shadowing Buck's jaw, the birthmark framing his eyebrow, matched perfectly in colour with his lips. He leaned down and planted a quick kiss to those lips, then rolled over, got out of bed, and went to start their coffee.
It was only once he had the kettle boiling and was scooping grounds into the filter, confused at hearing no sound of Buck getting up to use the washroom, that he realized he had disrupted the routine.
Kissing Buck good morning was not routine.
Eddie froze, ice dripping down his spine, coffee scoop held midair.
He… forgot. Waking up curled around another person — around Buck — was not an uncommon occurrence. They'd been sharing the bed for a few months now, as they had back during covid, and would wake up tangled together sometimes. It was normal. It was routine. But this morning, he'd forgotten.
Eddie had woken up warm, comfortable, content, smelling that particular smell that came only from the warm skin of a person asleep, and his slowly waking brain had filled in the missing pieces it hadn't processed yet, signalling his motor cortex to lean down and kiss Buck. Routine.
He'd forgotten.
Realizing this, Eddie was suddenly, vividly, completely, awake. The hand holding the coffee scoop did not shake — he was a first responder, after all. Adrenaline honed his senses instead of hindering them.
His senses told him that Buck still had not moved.
Eddie was standing in his kitchen, making coffee like it was any other goddamn day, while Buck was presumably frozen in bed, exactly as Eddie had left him after he had kissed him.
It was just a peck, here and then gone, one of the many steps of a domestic morning routine. The only step, really, that BuckandEddie didn't already do.
Eddie lowered the scoop back in the canister.
What the hell does he do now?
He kissed Buck.
Buck had not come out of the bedroom.
(Their bedroom.)
At some point, Eddie would have to go back in there to get dressed, or Buck would have to come out here for food.
Eddie is going to have to face his best friend. Who he kissed. Casual as anything. In the bed.
(Their bed.)
He had no idea what he would say. No precedent for this situation. No story to fall back on.
He had woken up in bed with his best friend and assumed that he should kiss him. There was really no coming back from that, was there?
It was the idea of Buck, alone, freaking out, as he was prone to do, that spurred Eddie into action before he could so much as come up with step one of the game plan.
He couldn't leave Buck alone.
Before he realized he'd crossed the distance, he hand was pushing open the bedroom door.
Buck was sitting at the end of the bed, staring at the floor, completely still. He didn't look up until Eddie said his name, and the look on his face almost took Eddie out at the knees.
Those blue, blue eyes met his, a vortex swirling in their depths. Unmoored. Uncalibrated. Shocked.
Eddie's feet carried him over until he sat down next to Buck, the dip of the mattress closing the distance between them, making them slide into each other until they were sitting hip to hip.
"Buck," Eddie said again, as Buck was still looking over at the door where Eddie had been standing before.
Buck swallowed. Looked at Eddie. Then swallowed again.
"Eddie," he responded, sounding the same as he looked, which was wrecked.
Eddie had no explanation other than the truth.
"I forgot," he said.
"You forgot?" Buck asked, the crease between his eyebrows deepening. "You forgot what?"
"That we don't do that."
Buck blinked. He had heard Eddie, but clearly hadn't put two and two together yet.
"Do what?"
Eddie shrugged. In for a penny… "Kiss."
Worst-case-scenario confirmed, Buck's own first responder functionality kicked in, his eyes focusing back to this plane of existence.
"You forgot that we don't kiss," Buck repeated back, and Eddie recognized the tone of strained politeness they all used on calls when confirming what ludicrous thing a victim had done to get themselves injured. It was certainly fitting here.
"Yeah, I guess so."
"You guess so." Buck repeated again, incredulous. "You forgot that we don't kiss."
"Well, yeah. I did."
Eddie really could have used that game plan, right about now.
"Why?" Buck was starting to sound upset. Eddie's brain screamed at him again, reminded him that Buck should never be upset. What a time for his brain to get with the program.
Eddie didn't know how to answer that. His gaze skipped between Buck's eyes, frantic. He didn't know how to answer that. But like it had when he was just waking, perhaps his motor cortex was a bit more clued in than the rest of him.
He reached up, cupping Buck's jaw in his hand, and stroked his thumb across his cheek, relishing in discovering the feeling of Buck's stubble rasping across his skin.
"I was asleep. And you were there beside me. And I wasn't awake enough to remember why I shouldn't kiss you when I so badly wanted to."
Buck made a sound like a wounded animal, closing his eyes for a moment, leaning oh so subtly into Eddie's touch. He looked up again, meeting Eddie's gaze. Were his eyes even more blue now? Was that possible?
"Why shouldn't you?" Buck asked, and it was only Eddie's years of practice that allowed him to hear the apprehension in his best friend's voice.
"Right now, I have no fucking idea," he answered honestly.
Buck surged forward and kissed him, desperately, one hand yanking Eddie to him by the small of his back, the other cradling the back of his head.
Eddie returned the gesture in kind, and yeah, his motor cortex had the reigns and knew exactly what it was doing.
He slid his hand from Buck's jaw to grip the back of his neck, at the same time breaking the kiss for one resentable second to climb into Buck's lap, knees straddling Buck's thighs and squeezing tight. He dove in again, twisting his free hand into Buck's sleep-rumpled curls, darting his tongue out to tease the seam of Buck's lips.
Buck fisted the back of Eddie's shirt in a desperate grip, moaning, (moaning!) and opening his mouth to Eddie, who answered with just as much vigor.
Moments — maybe minutes, maybe years —later, Buck pulled himself back, pressing a hand against Eddie's chest when he tried to surge foward, chasing his lips.
"Wait. Wait a second. One second," Buck panted.
Eddie nodded, his own breathing just as ragged.
"What's happening?" Buck asked, panicked eyes latching onto Eddie's — his port in a storm.
"We're kissing," said Eddie, unable to maintain eye contact when Buck's lips were red and kiss-swollen, right in his line of vision.
Eddie yelped as Buck pinched his side to get his attention back. "Hey!"
"Yes, I know we're kissing, Eddie. But what's happening?"
Eddie sobered at the seriousness in Buck's voice, at the way Buck's hands clung to him like he'd fly away otherwise. He stroked a hand through the hair at Buck's nape, flattening it from where he'd tugged at it a moment ago.
"What's happening is I'm in love with you. Are you in love with me?"
Buck's face crumpled, and like a marionette with his strings cut, he dropped his forehead to Eddie's shoulder.
"Of course I am, Eddie. I have been for… so long," he confessed into Eddie's shirt.
Eddie held Buck's head to him, running his hand in soothing strokes down his back.
"Then that's what we're doing. Being partners. Same as before. Just also with kissing," Eddie explained in a way that he thought was quite wise.
Buck snorted a laugh, then sniffled a bit, still into Eddie's shoulder. "That simple, huh?"
Eddie pulled Buck away from his shoulder, framing his face in his hands, brushing away the tears that had slipped from his blue, blue eyes.
"It is that simple," he said, "We've been loving each other this whole damn time. We live together. We raise a kid together. We've saved each other's lives. We're just catching up to what we've already started. Why can't it be simple to love each other after all that?"
And finally, finally, Buck's smile shone out, almost blinding Eddie despite the number of times he'd seen it before, despite the number of times it had been directed at him. (Maybe he had been blind every other time until now.)
"I guess I have no fucking clue why it can't."
Now it was Eddie's turn to laugh, throwing his head back, Buck squeezing his hips to keep him from falling backward with the force of it. Bright sunlight filtered through the blinds as they kissed again, and again, and the coffee was forgotten, and the brunch was too, and Eddie could forget everything ever except for this.