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The first time Eddie called Buck at six in the morning, it had been practical. Their shifts lined up, and Eddie had always been the kind of guy who woke up with his alarm, or a minute before it, and started his day without hesitation.
Buck, on the other hand, had a passionate, lifelong war with mornings.
So, Eddie called. A short ring, a soft "Morning, Buck," followed by some teasing and a reminder about the time.
Buck would groan, complain, and try to argue that sleep was sacred. But then he'd drag himself out of bed.
Somewhere along the way, that call became routine.
Comfort.
Even on mornings when they were already waking up next to each other, Eddie would sometimes roll over and call Buck from the next room just to keep the bit alive.
But on this particular morning, two years into their relationship and at least thirty-five consecutive 6 a.m. calls into the routine, Eddie wasn't expecting to be ghosted by his own boyfriend.
He held the phone to his ear, listening to the sleepy click of it being answered.
There was a rustle, a groan, before Buck finally spoke.
"Ten more minutes." he said, voice unmistakably still half-asleep.
And then silence.
"...Buck?" Eddie blinked.
Nothing. No breathing. No rustling.
Just the faint hum of an open call on speaker and possibly the muffled sound of Buck's face smushed into a pillow.
"Did you just snooze me?" Eddie sat up straighter on his couch, staring at the phone like it had personally offended him.
//////////
Buck didn't even remember answering the phone.
He woke up properly at 6:27, curled in a pile of rumpled blankets with his phone pressed face-down into the mattress and a bright green Call Ended screen glaring at him through the covers.
"Shit." He sat bolt upright, hair a mess, heart racing.
There were two texts from Eddie.
Eddie:
Did you just snooze me?
I'm not a clock, Buck.
Buck stared at the screen, horrified. And, okay, a little amused.
He dialed Eddie back while dragging himself into a standing position and stumbling toward the closet to find clothes that didn't look like they'd been wadded up in a ball for three days.
Eddie answered on the first ring.
"I can't believe it," he said. "You snoozed me."
"I didn't mean to!" Buck croaked, halfway through pulling a shirt over his head. "I wasn't even awake. I think I thought you were the alarm. I'm so sorry."
"You said ten more minutes." Eddie's voice was dry, laced with too much amusement for Buck's dignity. "To me."
"I would never do that on purpose." Buck replied softly. "I love your voice. It's my favorite alarm."
"Oh, so now I'm an alarm clock and your favorite." Eddie rolled his eyes.
"Eddie—" Buck groaned.
"No, it's fine. I'm honored. Humbled, even." Eddie said. "Next time I'll throw in a weather report and a traffic update."
"Please don't." Buck whined, grabbing his jacket and hopping into his boots. "Please never stop doing the call. I didn't even mean to snooze you, I swear. My brain was in sleep mode. It wasn't authorized."
"You're lucky I love you," Eddie said, but his voice had softened.
"I am. I know." Buck paused, jacket half-zipped, then added, "You know what would fix this?"
"I'm afraid to ask." Eddie replied.
"If you move in. Then you could just roll over and poke me." Buck smiled. "Problem solved."
"Oh, right. Poke the grizzly bear mid-hibernation." Eddie snorted. "Sounds safe."
"You could tame me." Buck laughed.
"Pretty sure I already did." Eddie smirked.
//////////
They were still teasing each other about it two hours later at the station, when Hen walked in on them bickering by the coffee machine.
"He put the phone down like I was a notification," Eddie was saying as he stirred his coffee. "Didn't even say goodbye."
"What did you do?" Hen raised an eyebrow.
"I answered his call and said 'ten more minutes' and then fell back asleep. I thought he was the alarm!" Buck explained, defending himself with a sheepish smile and two sugar packets.
"You snoozed Eddie?" Hen asked, incredulous.
"I was half-asleep!" Buck defended.
"And you still brought him coffee?" Hen turned to Eddie.
"Barely." Eddie handed Buck a cup.
"I owe you like, four kisses for every minute I accidentally snoozed you." Buck leaned in and kissed Eddie's cheek.
"That's forty kisses," Eddie said, deadpan.
"Then I guess I'll need to pace myself." Buck smiled.
"Gross." Hen sighed. "I haven't had enough caffeine for this."
//////////
Later that night, after Christopher was asleep and they'd both collapsed on the couch, Eddie's head rested on Buck's shoulder, one of Buck's arms wrapped around his waist.
"Are you still thinking about it?" Buck mumbled, lips pressed to Eddie's hair.
"I don't know. It was a new experience." Eddie hummed. "Being rejected by my boyfriend before sunrise."
"I didn't reject you." Buck groaned.
"You said 'ten more minutes.'" Eddie reminded.
"I'll make it up to you." Buck promised.
"Oh yeah?" Eddie inquired.
"I'll set you as my alarm." Buck shifted slightly to kiss the top of his head. "That way, even if I snooze the call, I'll still get to hear your voice."
"Hopeless." Eddie chuckled.
"Completely." Buck teased.
He kissed Eddie again, this time on the temple.
"But seriously," Buck murmured, quieter now. "I love waking up to you. Even if my brain thinks you're an app."
"I love you too, dumbass." Eddie snorted into his shirt.
//////////
The next morning was a Saturday.
No shift. No alarms. No schedule. Just the promise of sleeping in.
Unless, of course, you were Evan Buckley, and your boyfriend was a petty, vengeful genius with a master plan.
At precisely 4:07 a.m., Eddie Diaz sat on the edge of the bed, phone in hand, volume up, and speakerphone on. Christopher was still asleep in the next room.
Buck was snoring into his pillow like a man completely at peace.
Eddie hit the call button.
Buck's phone, placed lovingly on the nightstand at Eddie's insistence, buzzed once, then rang.
And rang.
And rang.
Buck stirred. Barely.
Then, with the slurred grogginess of someone who absolutely should not be trusted with decision-making while unconscious, he reached for the phone and brought it to his ear.
"...Five more minutes," he mumbled.
And hung up.
Eddie stared at the phone in stunned silence.
"Wow," he muttered. "Even earlier and I still got snoozed."
Buck rolled over and promptly began snoring again.
"Oh, it's on." Eddie narrowed his eyes.
At 4:14 a.m., Buck jerked awake to the blaring sounds of Let It Go blasting from somewhere in the loft.
"What the hell—?!" He sat up in bed, wild-eyed, curls a mess.
He stumbled into the hallway, where Eddie stood in the kitchen calmly sipping a mug of coffee, Bluetooth speaker beside him on the counter.
Elsa belted out her high notes like a vengeful ice queen.
"Are you—" Buck blinked. "Is this a punishment?"
"Some people set gentle alarms." Eddie said as he took a sip. "I prefer Disney vengeance."
"You woke me up with Frozen?" Buck looked betrayed.
"You woke me up with ten more minutes," Eddie replied coolly. "I think this is fair."
"Why are you like this?" uck groaned and dropped his head on the counter.
"Because you're cute when you pout." Eddie smirked and leaned in, voice warm in Buck's ear.
"I'm not pouting." Buck lifted his head.
"You are absolutely pouting." Eddie smirked.
//////////
By the time Buck had properly woken up, showered, and eaten the revenge waffles Eddie made (which were shaped like skulls, thanks to a novelty waffle iron Hen had gifted them ironically), the three of them, Buck, Eddie, and Christopher, were sitting around the table like nothing was unusual.
Except that Christopher kept giggling into his orange juice.
"You snoozed Dad?" he asked for the third time.
"I wasn't even conscious." Buck buried his face in his hands.
"Did you really say 'ten more minutes'?" Chris continued.
"I said it to the phone, not your dad." Buck defended. "My brain didn't process who I was talking to."
"I've never been so personally offended by a boyfriend in my life." Eddie passed Christopher more waffles.
"You've only had one boyfriend," Buck protested.
"And still." Eddie continued. "Devastated."
"You're on my side, right, buddy?" Buck glanced at Christopher for support.
"Nope." Christopher shook his head, grinning. "I think Dad wins."
"You bribed our child." Buck turned to Eddie, scandalized.
"It's not bribery if it involves waffles." Eddie smiled innocently.
//////////
The next shift day, Buck set his alarm for 5:55 a.m. just to prove a point.
When the phone rang at six on the dot, he was ready.
Sort of.
He answered on the first ring with a dramatic yawn and said, "Morning, love of my life, caller of my dreams, destroyer of sleep."
"You rehearsed that." Eddie snorted.
"Maybe." Buck replied.
"You still sound half-asleep." Eddie pointed out.
"Because it's six in the morning and I'm a human being, not a machine." Buck yawned again.
"Yeah, well, this human being now has a backup alarm." Eddie smiled.
"I'm the backup?" Buck questioned.
"No," Eddie said with a smirk that Buck could hear through the line. "Christopher is."
On cue, there was a loud knock on Buck's bedroom door.
"Wake up, Buck!" Chris's voice rang out. "Don't snooze my dad again!"
"I am never living this down." Buck groaned and flopped back against the pillows.
"Nope." Eddie hummed.
//////////
Over the next couple of weeks, the 6 a.m. calls continued, but Buck put his full effort into not accidentally treating his boyfriend like an alarm app.
He started answering with increasingly absurd greetings.
Some highlights included:
"This is your Buckleberry wake-up hotline, how can I direct your snuggles?"
"Good morning to the handsomest man alive who I definitely didn't snooze with this time."
"Operator, please hold while I connect you to someone with a bedhead and bad choices."
Eddie recorded all of them.
Hen found out about the recordings and insisted they create a 'Snoozed and Amused' compilation.
Chim volunteered to mix it with background music.
Buck begged them to stop.
They didn't.
"You're all menaces," Buck declared one morning after hearing a preview.
"You're the one who created the genre," Hen replied with a straight face. "This is your legacy."
"You could've invented the wheel," Chim added. "You chose to snooze Eddie."
//////////
One night, curled up together on the couch, Buck sighed against Eddie's shoulder.
"I really am sorry, you know." he said.
"For what?" Eddie glanced at him.
"For snoozing you. Even if it was funny. I didn't mean to, but—" Buck began. "I know how much those calls mean. To me, too."
"Buck... you being half-asleep doesn't offend me." Eddie softened. He reached up to brush a curl off Buck's forehead. "I just like talking to you before the day starts. I like knowing your voice is the first thing I hear."
"It is for me." Buck nuzzled into his touch. "Always."
They kissed softly, the kind of kiss that didn't need teasing or banter.
Just warmth and understanding and maybe a little apology, quietly folded into it.
"If you ever snooze me again, though..." Eddie pulled back just enough to whisper.
"What, more Frozen at 4 a.m.?" Buck grinned.
"Oh, worse." Eddie grinned. "I'll make you sing it."
"You're evil." Buck laughed, loud and bright, pressing his forehead against Eddie's.
"I'm efficient." Eddie smirked.
//////////
It had been three weeks since the Great Snoozing Incident, and Buck was still living under affectionate scrutiny.
Any time he so much as yawned around the team, someone, Hen, Chim, Bobby, or, worst of all, Christopher, would dramatically glance at the time and ask if they should give him "ten more minutes."
Once, Athena handed him a sticky note that just said 'YOU SNOOZED HIM'.
But Buck had been planning something.
Something gentle.
Something sweet.
Something entirely unrewarding for anyone hoping for more public humiliation.
It was Eddie's birthday.
They weren't on shift. Christopher had been roped into an overnight stay at Denny's with Hen and Karen, who'd sworn on their lives that they had "top-secret plans" involving pancake art and movie marathons.
So the house was quiet, and Buck had slipped out of bed at 5:30 a.m., well before his usual groggy threshold, to set the scene.
The coffee was brewed.
The morning sun was just starting to lighten the kitchen.
And Buck held Eddie's phone in one hand, his own in the other, both set to speaker.
He called Eddie's number.
From the kitchen, Eddie's phone rang on the nightstand.
From the kitchen speaker, Buck began talking softly, nervously, like he was narrating a movie trailer.
"Good morning, sleepyhead," he said, his voice low and warm. "This is a very special 6 a.m. wake-up call brought to you by the Evan Buckley Redemption Arc, in association with guilt, romance, and how much I love your face."
A muffled groan came from down the hallway.
Buck grinned.
"Today's agenda includes: breakfast in bed, excessive cuddling, and exactly zero chances of being snoozed. Because I, Evan Buckley, am now officially the one making the wake-up calls. Consider this a hostile cuddle takeover."
There was the sound of shuffling blankets.
"Are you–" Eddie began in a very raspy voice. "Are you calling me from our kitchen?"
"I am," Buck said proudly into the phone.
"And making announcements?" Eddie replied.
"I made coffee," Buck added. "With your creamer ratio. Which, by the way, is practically milk with a hint of coffee."
"You're lucky you're cute." Eddie appeared in the hallway then, rubbing sleep from his eyes, a pillow line pressed into his cheek.
"I know." Buck smiled.
"This is the weirdest wake-up I've ever had." Eddie padded over in bare feet and leaned against the counter, arms sliding around Buck's waist.
"Weirdest or best?" Buck set the phones down, then gently ran his fingers through Eddie's hair.
"Best." Eddie leaned in and kissed him, slow and sleepy.
They sat at the kitchen table in comfortable silence, sharing slices of birthday cake Buck had somehow made edible the night before and sipping coffee from mismatched mugs.
Buck had insisted that "cake before breakfast is tradition now," and Eddie, too tired to argue, too full of cake and love, had nodded like it was law.
"You really got up early for this," Eddie said, blinking lazily as Buck swiped a smudge of frosting from his cheek.
"I wanted to prove I could," Buck said. "You do it all the time. You take care of me. Wake me up when I'm being stubborn. I wanted to do it back."
"You've always taken care of me too, Buck." Eddie looked at him for a long moment, eyes soft and a little shiny. "Even when you were accidentally snoozing me."
"I still feel bad about that," Buck admitted, blushing.
"I know." Eddie smirked. "That's why I let Christopher put 'ten more minutes' on the birthday card."
"You what?!" Buck gaped.
Eddie pulled a folded card from his hoodie pocket and handed it over.
In glittery, slightly crooked letters, it read:
'HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!
Love you so much.
P.S. Never let Buck live down the snooze. ❤️ —Chris'
"Betrayal." Buck made a dramatic choking noise. "In glitter form."
"You deserve it," Eddie said, laughing, tugging Buck into his lap.
They stayed there for a while, warm and quiet, tangled together in the kitchen sunlight.
//////////
The next shift day, the phone rang at 6:00 a.m.
Eddie answered it on the first ring.
"Morning," Buck said softly.
"I was already awake," Eddie replied, but his voice was heavy with sleep.
"Yeah, but you like hearing my voice first thing." Buck teased.
"Debatable." Eddie made a noncommittal hum.
"Oh really?" Buck continued. "Then I guess I'll just let the voicemail get it next time."
There was a beat of silence.
"...I didn't say stop." Eddie said.
"Thought so." Buck grinned into the receiver.
"If I say 'ten more minutes', will you hold it against me forever?" Eddie yawned and curled deeper into the sheets.
"No," Buck murmured. "I'd just climb into bed next to you and say it back."
"That sounds nice." Eddie blinked, slow and fond.
"It is," Buck said. "Every day with you is."
They were quiet for a beat, the kind of silence that didn't need filling.
"Buck?" Eddie asked.
"Yeah?" Buck replied.
"...Don't forget the coffee." Eddie stated.
"Already on it." Buck laughed.
Eddie ended the call and smiled into his pillow.
Ten more minutes didn't sound so bad anymore, not if Buck was there for all of them.