Chapter Text
Living with Eddie Diaz was easy. They worked together flawlessly, and in most cases had a perfect set-up for team work. Buck cooked dinner, and Eddie did the dishes. Eddie folded the laundry, Buck put it away. Buck worked out the financial jumble with the rent, and Eddie made sure the house maintenance was up to date.
Truly, Buck thought there would be no issues at all living with Eddie.
However, when you’ve lived alone for over two years, suddenly sharing your space with someone else can be jarring, and there’s bound to be a few conflicts.
The first conflict Buck noticed was centered around clothes. Or, in Buck’s instance, rather the lack of clothes. Because for some reason, Eddie was allergic to wearing a full outfit of clothing when it was just the two of them. Either, he was shirtless after a shower because he wanted to “dry off properly” or something else ridiculous. Or he would walk around in his underwear in the mornings because he slept like that and didn’t want to get dressed yet.
Of course, this wasn’t a conflict in itself. It only became a conflict when Buck realised that he found a half-naked Eddie Diaz quite distracting. And the whole “bi man living with his straight best friend” thing was something he was determined not to make weird.
And Eddie’s clothing habits proved this to be a little difficult.
The worst habit was when it looked like he wore a full outfit; there was a shirt on his upper body, and there were pants on his lower body, creating a perfect illusion of a full outfit. However, this was not the true reality, because really, he wasn’t wearing any underwear .
Buck found this out the hard way.
One evening they were doing what most families do when they have to watch TV: they were fighting for the remote.
“Please, Eddie, it’s just one episode of Hotshots,” Buck begged.
Eddie was half-lying, half-sitting on the couch, his back lounged over the side with his right hand high in the air, holding the remote. Buck was not far away, leaning over him as much as he could without outright sitting in his lap.
“No,” Eddie panted. “I told you, there’s a really important game for the Dodgers tonight. You can literally watch that episode any day.”
Buck moved closer, towering over Eddie, trying to cage him in so he could not escape. “But I promised Chris I would watch it,” he said.
“Too bad,” Eddie said. He did a quick manoeuvre out of Buck’s grasp and with a slight smirk he chugged the remote down his pants.
Buck made a decision in about one second. Looking Eddie directly in the eyes, he let his hand follow the remote into Eddie’s pants. He took a hold and… that was not the remote.
“Oh fuck,” Buck exclaimed and pulled his hand out as quickly as he could. “You aren’t wearing underwear?!”
“Nope,” Eddie said confidently, but there was a slight flush on his cheeks. He shrugged, “underwear is so constricting.”
Buck couldn’t help but laugh. He’d just touched Eddie’s dick. He’d just squeezed Eddie’s dick. A noise bubbled up in him that sounded like a groan but which he quickly turned into a snicker. He shook his head. “You’re sick,” he said, smiling widely. “Please wash it after your stupid game is done.”
Well, that was one way to win that fight.
+
Now in terms of conflict, the problem for Eddie was rather the opposite. One morning, Buck was putting away groceries when Eddie called from down the hallway.
“Hey Buck!”
“Coming!”
Eddie stood in the door to the bathroom, dripping wet and with a towel tied around his waist. His hair was drawn back and moist, a single droplet sliding down his neck. Buck followed it mindlessly as it ran all the way down his chest, puffed out and a little red from the hot water. He let his eyes drag over his pointed nipples, his perfectly toned abs and when they reached his happy trail they quickly snapped up again.
In his hand he held a piece of cloth so tightly that his arm flexed without him even trying. You could see the muscle lines creeping from his forearm and up until his shoulder.
Buck felt his throat tighten and he let his eyes fall back on Eddie’s face. It seemed that he was moving his lips, but no sound was coming out.
“Hey!” Came out of them suddenly, and only then did Buck notice the furrowed brows and disappointed eyes. “Did you hear nothing I just said?”
“Uh,” Buck tried. But no, he’d been too distracted to listen.
Eddie sighed deeply. “I said,” then he threw the piece of cloth right at Buck, who caught it instinctively. “Don’t leave your dirty underwear lying around on the floor!”
Buck folded out the cloth and sure enough, those were his underwear. He felt a heat draw into his cheeks and looked up sheepishly at Eddie.
“I’m sorry, I guess I forgot them.”
Eddie’s shoulders relaxed and the disappointment seemed to leave his face. “Just don’t do it again,” he said.
“No, of course,” Buck said bashfully. Eddie walked past him to head to the bedroom and closed the door behind him.
Buck left out a breath when he started to realise what had just happened. That would have to be a one time thing, he told himself. No more ogling Eddie coming out of the shower. The underwear though, he’d have to try to remember.
Okay, so Buck had a problem leaving his clothes lying about, and Eddie was a free soul who did not care for Buck’s inner conflict about how to appropriately live with your hot, half-naked, straight best friend.
He decided he could live with this for the time being. This was until he learned that apparently Eddie was Team “sharing is caring” when it came to clothing.
The first time he met this side of Eddie was when he was looking for his favourite workout shirt. A blue one that was especially tight around his biceps. He had taken it out of the closet one time and then changed his mind and put it back. Except… maybe he hadn’t. Because the moment he decided to give up looking for it, Eddie came marching into the bedroom, wearing Buck’s favourite shirt.
“Nice shirt,” Buck said, trying not to let the annoyance show. “It suits you.”
“Thanks,” Eddie winked. “It does fit me well. Which is funny because we’re not the same size, so how on earth does it fit you?”
Buck rolled his eyes. “Ha ha,” he said. “It fits me just fine.”
“Oh yeah,” Eddie said, faking a revelation. “The smaller the shirt, the bigger the muscles?”
Buck gave him a look.
It kept going like this: Eddie would find a piece of Buck’s dirty laundry on the floor, scoff at it loudly until Buck got the memo, and then the next day Buck would find Eddie wearing that same piece of clothing.
Well, not when it was underwear. He wasn’t that weird. At least that Buck knew of.
Again, Buck learned to live with it. It was, after all, his own fault. He tried to do better; he started to always look at the floor of a room before leaving it, making sure nothing was left behind.
He thought he was doing a great job, until he wasn’t.
It all came to a head on a beautiful day off when Buck had plans to snuggle into his pink, fluffy cardigan and read a good book. The problem was that he couldn’t find said cardigan.
“Eddie, have you seen my … Pink cardigan?”
Which was right there in front of him, cozily hugging Eddie’s body. Because he was wearing it.
“Hmm?”
“My pink cardigan, why are you wearing it?”
He had been 99% sure he had not left the cardigan lying around. It was expensive, and it got dirty or ruffled very easily, so he always put it neatly away after use. In fact, he was almost sure he had put it out to wear yesterday like he always did before bed.
“Oh, is this yours?” Eddie said as if it wasn’t the most obvious thing in the world. “I just found it lying around, like it had no owner, and I decided to wear it.”
Jerk.
He was about to defend himself when he noticed that Eddie was getting dressed for something. He was wearing a nice cologne, his good jeans, and the pink of the cardigan accentuated his features very nicely. “Uh, are you going somewhere?”
Eddie looked up at him and quickly drew his eyes away. “Uh, yes,” he said, a little nervously. “I’m taking Chris out for the day.”
“Oh,” Buck said, not having expected it to be something so mundane. “Where are you going? If you can wait ten minutes I can be ready, I just need to–”
“Uh, Buck,” Eddie stopped him. “ I’m taking Chris out for the day. We’re just doing some father-son activities. Bonding, you know.”
“Oh.”
Eddie blushed awkwardly. He walked towards Buck and rested a hand on his shoulder, said softly, “I’ll see you later, okay?”
“Yeah, of course, see you,” Buck muttered.
Living with Eddie was easy. And sure, there were moments where they argued, or got irritated with each other, or needed space, but now that Buck sat on the blue couch, his feet up and no other sound but the TV to distract him, he kind of felt like he was missing something.
Firstly, he went through every interaction they’d had in the past few weeks to see if he could find anything he could have done to offend Eddie. Maybe Eddie was tired of living with him and he should finally start finding someplace else?
Was Buck really such a bad roommate? He blamed the pink cardigan, it had always been up to something, Buck thought.
Just when he was about to start a new recipe of sponge cake, the door opened and Eddie and Chris came crashing through.
“Hey,” Buck greeted. “I thought you were gonna be out all day?”
“We changed our minds,” Chris said. “It wasn’t the same without you.”
“And we brought back lunch,” Eddie smiled and put a takeout bag on the counter.
Buck felt a warmth rise in his chest as he took in Eddie and Chris setting up for lunch. His eyes fluttered at the thought that this was his life. A life he would give anything — even a stupid cardigan — to keep forever.
So living with Eddie Diaz was easy, to a point. There were just a few stipulations that made Buck truly learn the art of compromise. In the end, it was all worth it.