Archive of Our Own

There hadn't been anything notable about the day, or the shift, Buck will tell himself much later. It had started innocently enough, a couple routine calls, a decent amount of down time, a smattering of idle chatter and conversation. Certainly no reason to suspect the emotional turmoil and subsequent earth-shattering, life-altering developments that would cap the shift off in its final hours.

Buck's fresh out the shower, towel still ruffling through his curls, as he pads into the locker room. Eddie chances a sniff at his shirt, trying to figure out whether the stench of the garbage truck they had just rescued a woman from still clings to him. It doesn't, for the record, as Buck inhales a whiff of Eddie's fresh deodorant, a crisp scent that relaxes Buck by its mere proximity.

With four hours left on the shift, they're chatting about plans to prepare a simple dinner when the blackout happens. The lights flicker, the whole building seems to wheeze, and then, with a shudder, the power gives out. The firehouse is plunged into an unsettling darkness, and the faint whisper of held breaths and surprised inhales cascades across the bay.

"Look alive, 118, it's not our first blackout," Chim finally announces from his vantage point in the loft — not much of a vantage point in the darkness, but it allows his voice to carry, at least.

There's some shuffling, a little rummaging, and a scratch followed by a hiss, and finally, a soft glow starts emanating from the entrance of the supply closet. Eddie holds a match in one hand, and a candle in the other, the illumination casting soft shadows across his barely-lit visage. Buck looks at him, bathed in soft orange hues, and can't help but smile, mirroring Eddie's own bright grin.

"Uh, Cap," Ravi calls out from the entrance, a little panicked. "Our bay doors are motorized, right?"

Chim groans. "Please tell me that doesn't mean what I think it means…"

From where he's standing close to the locker room, Buck hears someone banging against metal, somebody else straining, and a long sigh that follows. "Welp," Ravi calls out, a little breathless. "The bay doors are dead…"

"So we're trapped in here, in the dark, till further notice," Chim finishes with some exasperation. "I'll call Maddie, tell her to take us offline, and to send an electrician."

The 118 look at each other, faces scarcely discernible in the dusk of the darkened firehouse, till Buck's voice rings out, loud and cheery, "What should we do to pass the time?"

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

"We're not in high school, Buck," Hen grumbles, a pint of ice cream sitting snug in her palms. They're seated, cross-legged, on the floor of the loft, each part of a circle formed by the rest of the 118 A shift.

Buck rolls his eyes, a gesture he hopes is visible thanks to the many, many (so many it's probably a fire hazard) candles he has set up around the firehouse loft. "Well, I didn't imply that we were," he says, lifting the lid off his own pint of ice cream.

Hen raises an eyebrow and drones, "And you think Never Have I Ever is a game that adults typically play?"

"Well," Buck retorts, passing spoons around the circle. "We can either sit here and finish eating these ice creams in silence, or we can play a fun game and get to know each other better!"

He notes that the pint in Eddie's hand has already started sweating condensation, his hands slick from holding it. Eddie gratefully receives the spoon Buck passes over, and sticks it into his pint of chocolate mint ice cream.

"I already know way more about you guys than I want to," Ravi deadpans. "No offense."

Buck pouts, and Eddie says with a slight chuckle, "I think offense was taken." Buck leans over to his left, letting his shoulder knock into Eddie's, by way of saying thanks.

"Alright, alright, let's not antagonize my brother-in-law further," Chim declares. "We're gonna finish all these ice creams before they melt in our dead fridge, and we're gonna do a fun team bonding activity courtesy of Buck." Then, after a moment of thought, he appends with his spoon pointed toward Buck, "Keep it workplace appropriate, though!"

"Aye aye, Cap!" Buck says with a tiny mock salute. "I'll start! Never have I ever… been married!"

Hen rolls her eyes, shoveling a spoonful of bright pink strawberry ice cream into her mouth. "Wasn't the point of this game to get to know each other better? You already know this," she argues.

"I can't help that I already know all of you so well," Buck says with an irreverent shrug, earning him eye rolls all around, as Chim and Eddie also dutifully take their mouthfuls of ice cream. "Besides, what if this is how we find out that Ravi's secretly been married before?" The quip earns an unimpressed look from Ravi.

"Remember that you started this, Buck," Chim says with a devious grin, before flashing his teeth dangerously and saying, "Never have I ever had a pet rock named Dwight, who was tragically crushed by the school bus in fourth grade, whose death I cried over — non-stop, by the way — for three days and three nights."

Buck blinks, heat rising to his cheeks. Narrowing his eyes at Chim, he threatens grimly, "Maddie will pay for this betrayal." With some petulance, he stuffs a scoop of his own ice cream into his mouth, sulking the whole time.

Next to him, Eddie chuckles quietly. His voice is low, barely loud enough for Buck to pick out under the buzz of the station, as he drawls out, "Mine was named Rocky."

And Buck can't help but think of his first night in the Diaz house, when Chris had pressed a stuffed duck into Buck's hands and declared that its name — helpfully supplied by his dad — was 'Ducky'. Or the frog-shaped sponge holder that sits cheerily on the lip of Eddie's sink, that Eddie has often referred to as 'Froggy'. Or the call two weeks ago, when they'd rescued a litter of kittens from a small residential fire, and the thankful owner had asked the 118 for names for each of the kittens. Eddie had suggested 'Kitty'. Buck let's the ice cream coat his tongue with sweetness, impossibly endeared by the knowledge, solidified yet again, that Eddie Diaz is the least creative name-giver in the universe.

A smile cracks his cheeks, fighting through his pout, and he huffs a fond laugh.

"Never have I ever owned multiple properties," Hen announces, drawing Buck out from his silent musing. It's Ravi's turn to huff, pointing an accusatory finger at Hen as he swallows a generous mouthful of his dessert.

All eyes turn to Harry, next in the circle, and he's already wearing a grin on his face. "Never have I ever lived alone," he announces, smug.

There are groans all around, a stray jeer from Ravi, and the sound of near everyone scooping ice cream out of their pints. "You might as well have said never have I ever been a grown adult," Chim grumbles.

Buck slides his spoonful of chocolate swirl into his mouth, the icy chill sending a brief shiver down his spine, as he turns his attention toward Eddie. Eddie, who sits, looking a little stunned, staring a little too intently at his light green scoop. He blinks, eyes not quite focusing, before the scoop disappears into his mouth in a fluid motion.

Wait. Buck thinks. Eddie had gone from an eighteen-year-old living with his parents, to a nineteen-year-old army recruit, father and husband. When would he have lived alone?

Then, like a slight punch to the gut, the memory sharpens with definition. When Chris left for El Paso. Those few terrible months where Eddie haunted his quiet house a little like a lost ghost, padding through the hollow halls mirthlessly, peeking into Chris' empty room hoping for something, anything at all, to change. Eddie's affected expression now wills the memory to the forefront of Buck's consciousness.

Spoon still resting on his tongue, Buck leans over once more, bumping Eddie's shoulder. Eddie shakes himself out of his reverie with some effort, turning to Buck with a sort of tormented expression. Buck smiles, whispers despite the silverware hanging from his lips, "Does it count as living alone if I was in your house like… almost every night?"

"Shut up," Eddie says, but there's a slight smile replacing the sad creases across his face. When Eddie tugs the clean spoon from his mouth, the smile stays in place. Buck leans back, pleased at his handiwork.

Ravi is next to go, and he barely offers the statement much thought before he's saying, "Never have I ever… been pierced by a foreign object."

"Okay," Harry huffs from his right. "What does that even mean?"

"You know… Like I've never been stabbed, or shot, or had rebar through my skull."

Hen rolls her eyes. "What about needles? I'm sure you've been pierced by needles."

Ravi sighs, mildly exasperated. "This wasn't meant to be contentious. I just wanted to get all the people who've been stabbed and shot. And, for the record, it's crazy that that number isn't zero."

Buck leans in, wiggling his eyebrows, something devious now dancing across his face. "Well… what about… other foreign objects. Of the… human kind?"

There's a cushion being thrown at his head with great force, and the fabric thuds against his face suddenly, eliciting a muted 'oof' from his mouth. He whips his head up, sees Chim pointing right at him, warning flaring in his eyes. "Gross. Also not workplace appropriate."

Buck smiles sheepishly, biting his lower lip to hold his smile back. "Sorry Cap, my bad!"

He turns to Eddie to commiserate, maybe share a playful wink, but Eddie's looking at his pint distracted and somewhat deep in thought. "So, do we take a spoonful for each time we've been shot or stabbed? Because I don't know if my pint's surviving that," Eddie says, trying for a little levity, but his voice is shrunken, closed off.

Ravi thinks about it briefly, then declares, "Let's say yes. One spoon for each instance."

Chim shrugs and swallows two spoonfuls, once for the rebar and once for an untimely stabbing outside before his first date with Maddie. Hen places a spoonful on her tongue, thinking grimly of when she'd been shot as a child.

Buck turns quickly to appraise Eddie. His tongue is between his teeth, doing some mental arithmetic, trying to figure out the number of scoops he's meant to be consuming now, fingers flexing and spoon tapping against the pint. He blinks up at Buck suddenly, a slight laugh of disbelief emerging from his chest, as he says a little miserably, "I think I've got to take 5 spoons." Once for each bullet hole — his thigh, wrist, either shoulder — and once for the still-fresh stab wound in his side. Buck applauds himself for the mental restraint that he shows when he doesn't reach out to touch Eddie at each spot, wanting to run his fingers over the mended flesh, know that his best friend is still whole.

It's now Eddie's turn, and he sits up a little, his pint now much diminished. "Never have I ever… been to prom?"

Buck feels his own mouth twisting into a frown, a pang of sadness grabbing at something in his chest. "You didn't go to prom?" He asks, voice a little higher than he intends.

Eddie shrugs, shakes his head so imperceptibly that Buck almost misses it. "Shan didn't want to. And my parents were out, so somebody had to stay home and babysit Adriana," he says, a whisper-like confession, breathed so close to Buck's ear his ear hairs bristle with it. The pang in Buck's chest grows at Eddie's sad smile, tearing at something fragile close to his heart.

Everybody eats, save for Harry, who loudly whoops that being a high school dropout does in fact have its perks, before offering Eddie a high-five. Eddie reciprocates with some enthusiasm, though the gesture feels half-hearted to Buck when he sees Eddie slink back into his seat, a little deflated.

The spotlight is back on Buck, having traveled a full round around the circle, and Buck grins as he says, "Never have I ever skipped the octopus tank at the aquarium!"

"Buck!" Eddie yells, but there's an unmistakable grin tugging at the sides of his mouth. "That was one time. I was tired."

"Too tired for octopuses, Eddie? They have three hearts and nine brains and you don't cherish every opportunity to see them?" Buck tuts, but the smile on his face betrays that there's no heat behind his words. "For shame, Eddie."

Eddie rolls his eyes, lets his body lazily sag towards Buck in annoyance. Buck cheerily swats Eddie away, pointing at his ice cream. "Eat up, Eddie. See if you'll skip the octopuses next time."

"Nah, I won't. They're Theo's favorite now."

Buck scoffs, feeling his heart thumping so hard that surely, surely Eddie must be able to hear it, close as he is to Buck's chest. "W— Well," Buck chokes out, "He's four. He'll probably move on to seahorses in a month."

Eddie grins, absently licking his spoon clean.

The game continues at a comfortable pace after that, with a couple fun facts thrown about, and more than a few surprising reveals about the members of the 118.

"Never have I ever had a cat," Chim announces, and Ravi reveals that he's currently living with three (appropriately eating one scoop each for each cat).

"Never have I ever performed on stage," Hen says, and Harry reveals that he'd had a sizable role in his school play in middle school.

Nobody even blinks when Buck and Eddie immediately start blatantly abusing the game for their own agenda, making oddly specific, targeted statements.

— "Never have I ever ripped two pairs of pants in the same day."

"Okay, and you say I don't have an ass, Eddie."—

— "Never have I ever cried because I was afraid of Santa Claus."

"Buck. I told you that in confidence." —

— "Never have I ever tweaked my back because I was trying to prove to myself I could still do a backflip at the age of 34."

"Wait, is that why your back was injured in March?"—

"Never have I ever won a trophy in school," Harry declares, and Eddie groans a little, tries to hide his face as he mouths a spoonful.

Buck is delighted at this, his entire frame turning toward Eddie as he exclaims, not unlike an excited puppy, "What was it for?"

"Wow, Buck," Chim drones from his other side, spoon still sticking out from his mouth. "You didn't want to ask me about my track and field trophy win?"

"Yeah, yeah, long jump, you only brag about it every other month," Buck says dismissively, eyes still blinking up at Eddie. Eddie averts his gaze, eyeline trailing the cracks of the concrete floor, nose moving into an adorable scrunch. "I wanna know what my super modest best friend won a trophy for and why he's never told me about it."

"Ballroom," Eddie murmurs into the silence of the loft. Buck's breath hitches for a moment, before he feels his smile grow a hundredfold. Eddie, eyes still turned downward, says with a little more enunciation, "I used to do ballroom dancing."

Hen coughs. Ravi chokes on water. Chim yelps. Harry guffaws. And Buck? He has to grab Eddie by the shoulders and give him a slight shake. "How have you never told us this? Oh my god. Are there pictures? Are there videos?" He sees the redness burst across Eddie's face, painting him an incredible shade of pink, shyness blooming across his lifted cheeks.

"Please don't make a big deal out of it," Eddie mutters, trying to shield his face with his hands. Impossibly, his long fingers are also tinted pink.

With the cadence of a man who is absolutely about to make a big deal out of it, Buck says with thinly-concealed glee, "Eddie! It's a big deal! You're a professional dancer."

"It was two competitions, and I was thirteen. Hardly professional," Eddie says toward the floor, but Buck is undeterred. He winks at Eddie, letting their shoulders press against each other once more, and makes a mental note to go on an internet deep dive to find videos of one specific talented ballroom dancing kid from El Paso circa 2005.

There's a little more playful ribbing, and a couple more quips, before everyone's attention quickly moves on with the game. Hen reveals she used to be in a band (playing bass because she had a crush on the keyboardist), Ravi reveals his parents tried to get him onto a Math Olympiad program (before realizing he had zero talent for numbers), and Harry reveals that he's afraid of clowns (Hen smiles knowingly, recalling the way Harry had cowered at Denny's seventh birthday party). And before long, it's Ravi's turn again.

Buck hadn't started the day with murderous intent — honest! But suddenly, the prospect of slowly choking the life out of one Ravi Panikkar and methodically dismembering his limbs becomes far too enticing. Maybe, Buck thinks, he had the right idea with that chainsaw 4 years ago.

Because Ravi opens his mouth and declares, "Never have I ever hooked up with an ex." And he has the gall, the audacity to look straight at Buck expectantly, mouth turned up into a half-smile, eyebrows wiggling. Buck has half a mind to singe those brows right off.

And to his right, boring holes into the side of Buck's head with the intensity of his gaze, is Eddie. His brow scrunched and head tilted, like he's trying to piece a puzzle together. Probably the who, when, where, why and how of Buck sleeping with an ex.

Hen groans, reluctantly scooping some ice cream into her mouth, and mumbling to everyone with her mouth full, "I don't wanna talk about it." But Buck doesn't even have the presence of mind to focus on that. He feels his hand mechanically reach into the pint, gather a round lump of ice cream onto the spoon, and shove it into his mouth. The cold of it shocks him a little, drawing him out from where he's lost in thought, but it does nothing to soothe his frayed nerves.

He wonders whether he'll get away with saying he doesn't want to talk about it, but when Eddie's eyes are big, round, and pleading, Buck finds himself completely powerless to refuse. Eddie, lip turned down and frown etched into the lines of his face, whispers in a slightly wounded voice, "Who?"

Buck folds immediately. He feels the fight drain out of him completely, as he sags back, a sigh primed on his lips, and the confession that comes with it. "Tommy," he says, to varied expressions of horror and disgust around the circle. "Look, it was when you were in Texas, and I was lonely, and it was mostly Ravi's fault," he adds that bit with a bit of a snarl and a glare toward Ravi, who simply shrugs. "And then he was a dick the next day, so it doesn't matter."

Impossibly, Eddie looks even more bereft after Buck's admission. "Wh— What did he do the next day?"

Buck turns his eyes from Eddie, willing himself not to look, not to fall prey to his large, doe-like eyes again. "Nothing much, he just said some shitty stuff, I kind of yelled at him, and that was it."

There's a small tug at his sleeve, a warm press against his bicep, and when he turns around, he gets lost in Eddie's gaze, searching and slightly frantic. "What did he say, Buck?" Eddie says, tongue curling itself carefully around every word, his voice not wavering.

"He said— He said he wanted to try again. Now that the competition's out of the way."

Hen gasps from across the circle. Buck hears Chim mutter under a very brief 'what the fuck' under his breath. Eddie doesn't react as quickly. He blinks, looking a lot like he's recalibrating. Then, his eyes shoot up in a panic, gaze flitting about before settling on Buck's face.

"He's a dick," Eddie says, with thinly-concealed anger bubbling behind the words. His hand, still gripping Buck's bicep, tightens. He leans in, letting his voice drop to something of a whisper, but it's clearly for show, since his next words are loud enough for the rest of the circle to hear. "I'll kill Ravi for you, if you want. Tear each limb out individually after with a chainsaw or something."

It's oddly comforting to know their plans for the murder and disposal of Ravi's body are eerily similar. Buck shakes his head, looking at Ravi's quickly paling face with some glee, "Nah, it was kind of my fault too. I couldn't stop talking about you and Ravi got annoyed."

"Annoyed enough to condemn you to a night with that T-Rex?" Eddie huffs.

"Eddie!" Buck gasps, attempting to look affronted but secretly delighted. "Wasn't he your friend first?"

Eddie shrugs. "That just means I get first dibs on hating him. After Hen and Chim, of course." Then, his voice dips into a real whisper, one clearly only meant for Buck's ears, as he mumbles, "There was never any competition, you know that right? Not for me, anyway. You're my best friend. You're… it."

Buck reaches out to pat Eddie on the knee. When he pulls his hand back, his digits mourn the loss of the warmth of his best friend's contact.

Harry pipes up next, lifting his pint (still awfully full at this point), and proclaims, "Never have I ever had a crush on a co-worker!"

Chim looks at him, raises an eyebrow and says, "You guys are getting closer to crossing into workplace-inappropriate conversation, but I'll allow it."

The thing is, Buck thinks that on any other day, he wouldn't have even entertained the thought. He's slammed that particular door shut so many times, at so many people. He does not have a crush on his straight best friend because he can't. It would destroy them. Eddie is straight, obviously, so any hypothetical crush could never be reciprocated anyway. So he simply doesn't think about it because he can't.

But here Eddie is, breathing so close to him, his hair doing that ridiculous swoop thing where a little tuft falls adorably out to hang loose on his forehead, and he's growling into Buck's ear that there's no competition and the way the candlelight jumps off his skin makes him glow in a way that defies explanation and oh— Buck's hand has scooped some ice cream and delivered it straight into his mouth with exactly zero input from his brain. Panicked, breaths coming short, Buck lifts his eyes to glance at Eddie.

Just in time to see Eddie take a mouth of ice cream of his own. And that — that fries Buck's already misfiring synapses. Eddie had — or maybe has, his brain unhelpfully supplies — a crush on a coworker. He starts looking around, looking for the offending party. And obviously, obviously, Eddie is straight, so he lets his eyes glaze past all the men of the firehouse, which very handily eliminates a majority of their co-workers off the bat. If he then checks off members of the firehouse who Eddie barely exchanges more than pleasantries with, he's left with one candidate.

"Y— You have a crush on Hen? She's married!" Buck near screams.

"And also a lesbian," Ravi helpfully supplies. Buck appreciates the assist, but quietly notes that he will still be murdering Ravi later today.

Eddie looks stunned, hand tightening around the spoon he was in the midst of extricating from his mouth. He turns to face Buck, horror plain on his face. Buck watches it morph into confusion, bafflement, amusement, then finally, it turns into a laugh that coughs its way out of Eddie. "What the fuck, Buck," Eddie says, wheezing. "I do not have a crush on Hen."

Hen has also started laughing, and Buck is still short-circuiting. The math does not check out. He runs through every person they've ever worked with, double checks his list like he's fucking Santa Claus (hoping in jest that the resemblance won't make Eddie cry), and still finds only one potential candidate. There's something he's missing, he's sure of it, and if Hen's unimpressed glare is anything to go by, it's something big, obvious, painted in neon.

"I can't do this anymore," Chim says, exasperated. He throws his arms up in a gesture that distinctly reads as 'fuck it' and yells, "Never have I ever been in love with my best friend!"

Yup. This is it. The moment where Buck dies. Because his heart is jackrabbiting in his chest, his vision is swimming, and his palms are clammy. He tries to avoid Eddie's gaze, but finds that his eyes are always drawn to him. Even with conscious effort to avoid looking, he knows from his periphery that Eddie's taking a scoop of ice cream.

Which — yeah. Buck gets it. Eddie has described Shannon as his best friend multiple times. They'd been inseparable. There's something that looks like melancholy in Eddie's soft, slight smile that tracks. Eddie's reminiscing a time when he was in love with his best friend Shannon and Buck is being a bad friend for not being there to comfort him. Instead, he's sat not two feet away having his own internal crisis about the fact that everyone has been so, so right.

Because holy shit, Buck's in love with his best friend. Plausible deniability out the window. He looks at Eddie and his heart sings like a fucking caged bird finally set free. Sure, he fessed up to having a crush on his co-worker, but there's something about the depth of affection that blossoms in him when he thinks of Eddie that makes crush a wholly inadequate word. The way something had settled that night when he'd first given voice to the little, intrusive thought that pokes at the back of his mind constantly.

In love with Eddie?

Fuck. This is bad, he thinks, as he eats a spoon of ice cream (sue him, he's upholding the integrity of the game). Because he knows now that the shoe fits. He's undeniably, irrevocably in love with his best friend. His best friend who's looking at him, just a smidge of bemusement on his face, as he slots the final scoop of ice cream from his pint into his mouth.

Turning his empty container over, Eddie muses, "I— uh think I won. Done with my pint." He stands up. "Go on without me, I'm gonna go get a bit of rest."

And then, Eddie is gone, disappeared down the stairs. Buck blinks, the world shifting and reconstituting around him. Readjusting to this new reality where he's hopelessly pining after his straight best friend, and he still has a quarter of a pint of ice cream and a half-finished game of never have I ever to get through.

The game kind of loses its appeal a little after that.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

Later, with the ice cream finished, trash tucked away, and less than an hour of the shift left, the team finds themselves draped across the loft couches. Buck bounds up the stairs, sweat starting to pool around his joints, and scans the loft with a slight pout.

"Have any of you guys seen Eddie?"

He hasn't seen Eddie since his unceremonious exit from the game, following which Eddie had left down the loft stairs. Buck has, however, found no trace of Eddie in the bunk room, bathrooms, or the locker rooms.

Hen barely stirs from her comfortable position, slouched against the arm of one couch. "I saw him earlier, he said he needed some space to clear his head. I think he's hiding in the supply closet."

Chim snorts a laugh, but elects not to elaborate on what about the statement he finds funny.

"Got it, thanks Hen," Buck says, turning to head back downstairs.

He raps on the door of the supply closet, and hears slight shuffling and a hoarse, "Yeah?" coming from within, which he takes as sufficient invitation to enter. The air is slightly cooler in the darkness of the small room, and he steps in, closing the door behind him.

And that's when there's a loud click, sounding suspiciously like a door locking. He pulls at the door handle, and finds it doesn't budge. He can hear muffled snickering on the other side of the door.

"Um, guys?" Buck calls out, a little hysteria bleeding into his tone. He knocks on the door in time with the hammering of his heart, letting it get increasingly frantic. "This isn't funny, guys. Let us out."

"No can do," Ravi says, sounding awfully smug for someone that Buck has decided he'll definitely chase with a chainsaw once he's back out there. "You wanted high school drinking games. So you're gonna play seven minutes in heaven."

"Enjoy heaven!" Harry yells, sounding slightly more distant. Buck swears he hears the smacking of hands in a high five, and fading laughter. He slumps against the door and sighs, deep and long. Lifting his gaze, he spies Eddie in the dark, crouched against a corner, eyes slammed shut and barely moving.

He stalks over gingerly, letting his calculated footsteps be heard. After a tense second, he finds himself right in front of Eddie, and plops himself down onto the floor. "Hey Eds," he rasps.

Eddie sighs, letting some tension drain out of his shoulders, but he still looks like something wound tight, strain in every muscle. "Hey," he says in response. "How'd the rest of the game go?"

"Not as much fun without you there," Buck admits, and he finds that it's not a lie. Half the fun he'd found was in playfully teasing Eddie, revealing endearing facts about his best friend, seeing the rosiness in Eddie's cheeks and feeling satisfied that he was the one that colored them in.

Eddie huffs, looking a little more deflated. "I hate drinking games," he admits.

"Wasn't aware you played them very much."

"You know," Eddie says, opening his eyes at last. Even in the dim of the unlit supply closet, there's a sheen in them, sparkling and gorgeous. Enough to steal Buck's breath away, just for a moment. Buck lets his eyes trace the light glow that surrounds Eddie now, soft and faint. His eyes pause at Eddie's mouth, as he marvels at how it shapes itself around his next words. "My first kiss with Shannon was during a drinking game."

"Y— Yeah?" Buck says, tearing his eyes away from Eddie's form. Flicking his eyes instead to the far corner of the closet, he vaguely muses at the futility of the action — he's already memorized every curve, every contour of Eddie's face. Even in the near darkness, he knows how Eddie's frown yanks at his lips, how his brow furrows, how the sides of his eyes wrinkle.

He knows exactly how Eddie looks as he responds, "Yeah. Spin the bottle. I spun it and it landed on her, and she crawled over across the circle to give me a peck on the lips. Our first kiss." He raises his hands to give a half-hearted gesture of jazz hands. Jazz hands. Buck is so endeared.

"And uh— and it was a good kiss?" Buck prompts. He thinks of the way Eddie had given a small, half-smile at the thought of being in love with his best friend, had easily placed the spoon into his mouth. He wonders if Eddie had pictured Shannon, how her lips tasted that night, surrounded by whoops and whistles from their high school friends as she pressed her mouth hot against his. As fireworks exploded around them. Desperately, he tries to push down the green-eyed creature in his gut threatening to stake its claim.

"God no," Eddie says with a laugh, breaking the illusion. The admission hangs heavy in the thick, dusty air for a second, the staleness of the supply closet making itself known with some force. Distantly, Buck notices that Eddie is holding his breath, almost as if bracing himself for what comes next. When he exhales, it comes with his next confession. "Then, seven minutes later, my best friend Tyler's bottle landed on me. And he crawled over to kiss me too."

"And uh— that kiss?"

"It was like magic," Eddie says, sounding a little light-headed, almost breathless. "Like something inside me clicking. Like fireworks, butterflies, fire… all the stupid clichés and metaphors that I thought couldn't be real all happening inside me at the same time."

Buck doesn't say anything. He finds he can't really, not when there's something small and broken in Eddie's confession. Something that still sounds like fear, or shame, or regret. He simply looks at Eddie, eyes wide, lips pressed into a reassuring line, nodding slowly.

"Then I opened my eyes and I saw how afraid he looked. And it was almost like looking into a mirror," Eddie whispers, shoulders shrinking in on himself. "So he laughed. Then I laughed. And it became a stupid story about a drunken shenanigan we'd tell for years after."

The next bit croaks out of Eddie's mouth, a little like a sob, "And later that night I pulled Shannon into the back of a closet and kissed her again. And again. And then I just… didn't stop. I don't think I could. Or else—"

Buck lets the moment sit between them for a bit, his own breath held now. In the darkness, he swears he sees Eddie's jaw flex, his teeth grind, his lips pursed with tension. He lets his foot knock into Eddie's as he huffs, "The back of a closet is a little on the nose for a metaphor, huh?"

Eddie lets out a sort of strangled laugh, eyes flashing at Buck with fondness, and just a hint of incredulity. He gestures at the room they find themselves in, the supply closet, and exhales in a slightly steadier laugh. "I can't believe I'm back in here," he says, voice smaller than Buck's ever heard. "I can't believe I never left."

And that nearly destroys Buck, hits him like something sharp, piercing, angled straight at his chest. A bit like a sudden, throbbing ache in his sternum. "So uh— when you said you've been in love with your best friend."

"It wasn't Shannon," Eddie answers too quickly, his throat too scratchy, voice too shaky. "I loved Shannon, and she did become my best friend. But I don't think I was ever in love with her. That first time… I was thinking of Tyler."

"F— first time?" Buck stutters out, something unnameable swelling in his chest.

"Buck," Eddie says, eyes catching Buck's eyeline and holding his gaze. "I ate two scoops of ice cream at that statement."

Buck gulps, trying to replay the memory. Sure enough, as if playing on the world's most damning monitor in the forefront of his brain, he recalls Eddie finishing one spoon, and immediately going in for another, trying to pass the action off as casual. Buck had been a little too distracted by his own ongoing crisis to read into it.

"Oh," is all he manages.

"Yeah," Eddie says, a laugh loosing itself from deep in his chest, a resounding noise that shakes Eddie's shoulders with it. "Oh."

"So uh—" Buck tries again, silently begging his tongue to form words despite how out of his body he feels. "When you said you've had a crush on a coworker…"

"It wasn't Hen, obviously," Eddie deadpans, and Buck can see the way Eddie's features slacken, lose tension, as he allows an easy smile to creep its way onto his face again. "And it's very much an ongoing thing."

"I uh— I took a scoop at that statement too. At both those statements," Buck says, feeling a little shell-shocked.

"I know," Eddie says effortlessly. There's something strange and new burning just behind his eyes. Licking his own lips, letting himself tilt toward Eddie, Buck recognizes it. Because he also feels it burning acutely behind his lids. Immense, intense want.

Buck draws closer to Eddie. "Is uh— Is this okay?" He winces a little, as if afraid Eddie will push him away, say something that reveals he's vastly misunderstood the situation, tear Buck's heart into a million pieces and laugh about it over pints of ice cream later on.

Eddie bares his teeth slightly, and Buck is a little too close to see, but he knows that Eddie's smiling. His canines flash, the light reflecting off them shuddering in the low visibility. "Well," Eddie's voice drops low, raspy, and god, it's doing something to Buck's insides. "They wanted us to play seven minutes in heaven."

And it's enough to convince Buck. Because before his conscious brain can lay out the pros and cons of his next course of action, he finds himself closing the gap and crashing his lips against Eddie's. Everything in his brain zeroes in to focus on this point of contact — their lips, wet against each other. He's so focused that he barely registers when Eddie's hand rises to cup his chin, thumb absently stroking the side of his face.

It's hungry and tender all at once, and Buck thinks, somewhere in the back of his mind, that Eddie had been on to something when he mentioned feeling every cliché at once. Because there are fireworks going off in every part of him, butterflies fluttering impossibly through his gut, and that warmth, like a fire, no, the sun, burning through him, radiating from every inch of his skin. They kiss like it's an exhale, like releasing a breath held for eight years, all the sharpness and tension and pressure sighing out with it.

Till there's nothing left but him and his best friend smiling at each other.

Then, almost like magic, the whole building whirs to life. Lights flicker back on overhead, and the steady hum of air conditioning kicks in. In the distance, they hear the bay doors cranking, finally freeing the 118 from their concrete prison. Before too long, there's a click at the supply closet door, and Ravi and Harry are peeking round the opened door.

"Just checking that you're both still clothed," Ravi says, a grin on his face.

Buck rolls his eyes, flipping them off, as he scrambles off the floor, offering his hand to pull Eddie to his feet as well. Eddie lets Buck haul him up, pressing their bodies close for a moment when he stands, leaning his entire body weight into Buck. It's nice, and Buck lets the warmth of Eddie's touch buoy him forward as they leave the supply closet.

At the threshold of the closet, Buck leans in toward Eddie to whisper gently, "I think it's time to leave." And the smile on Eddie's face tells him that he's ready.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

They trail Ravi and Harry as they re-enter the loft. Buck wonders if it's written on his face, announcing for the world that he'd just been sucking on Eddie Diaz's lips. If they can tell how much pride and joy threatens to spill out of him. His lips feel swollen, cheeks feel warm, brain feels foggy.

Hen takes one look at the both of them, and smiles, nudging Chim with her elbow.

Chim coughs, then, with some playfulness offers, "Never have I ever made out with someone at work in a storage closet?"

Buck freezes, feeling blood rush to his face, and tries to duck his head down. But Eddie simply grins, interlaces his fingers with Bucks, and says with a laugh, "We're out of ice cream, so I'm going for the next sweetest thing."

He leans in to give Buck a chaste peck on the lips, to whoops and whistles from their co-workers.

"I can't believe it worked!" Buck hears Chim say, leaning back into the couch next to Hen.

As Buck turns back to look at his family, beaming faces of approval all around, he sees Hen smiles in a mixture of fondness and exasperation, shaking her head slightly as she whispers back to Chim, "Well, it's a classic game for a reason."