Work Text:
Taco night has devolved, as it often does, into a mess of half-eaten ingredient-filled bowls and dirty plates cluttering the coffee table, telenovela on cable, and Buck and Eddie arguing about some plot point of particular contention.
“I’m not saying it’s unrealistic, I’m just saying I think being with a woman and being with a man have got to be very different experiences!” Eddie says, pausing to take a sip of his beer. “Like, c’mon, not even on a societal level—I’m talking about sensorily, like, being with a dude with a whole ass beard has gotta be totally different from being with your average—you know, beardless—woman.”
Buck shrugs. “I don’t know what to tell you, man. When you close your eyes, it all feels the same.”
Eddie leans back against the couch arm, eyeing Buck skeptically. “I just don’t buy that.”
“Well,” Buck grins, “only one of us has experience.”
Eddie huffs, the lock of dark hair curled over his forehead fluttering slightly with the motion. “Well, that doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”
It’s not that Buck hasn’t talked about sexuality stuff with Eddie, but… he hasn’t, not really. Not post-coming out, anyway. Maybe it’s weird that the only times Buck can recall talking about men in a not-strictly-heterosexual way in front of Eddie were before he realised he was bi. Or maybe not. The thought unsettles Buck. He doesn’t want to think he censors himself in front of Eddie, especially not a part of himself Eddie so wholly, so immediately accepted, with literal open arms reassuring Buck that this changed nothing about who they are to each other.
Still, he reasons, if Eddie—who brought it up in the first place—is comfortable enough to have this conversation-slash-argument with Buck, then it’s not this taboo topic both of them are dancing around in their friendship. And if there has been a part of Buck unconsciously censoring any gay thoughts around Eddie—and there definitely could be gay thoughts around Eddie, the kind that Buck thinks is more humane for everyone involved if he does censor them, heavily—it’s entirely within his own control and not something he has to externalise—Eddie’s not bothered. Eddie’s the one adamant they talk about this.
So he sips his beer and tells Eddie, “Come back when you get your card punched, man. Until then, you’re talking out your ass.”
Eddie sputters at him indignantly for a moment before sipping his own beer, face settling into a scowl. He’s quiet for a moment, and then: “Well,” he says, sulkily, “where am I gonna do that? I don’t wanna go to, like, a gay bar and give some guy the wrong idea.”
Buck’s brain screeches to a halt, making a sound not dissimilar to the metallic shriek of train wheels on a railway track. It’s just—any and all conversations involving sexuality are either about their queer friends, Buck tangentially, or, like now, a fictional character or celebrity or—anyone but Eddie, really. Making Eddie the subject of—kissing men, apparently? Is that what’s happening here? Even as a hypothetical, it’s set fire to Buck’s neurons, his neck, cheeks, entire face burning with it, immediate flush a bodily traitor.
Some brave, strong part of his brain manages to get him to say, remarkably normally, “And what would that be? That he’s not gonna get to take you home to the parents and marry you on a beach in June?”
Eddie rolls his eyes. “Shut up. I meant the physical stuff.”
Buck chokes.
“I mean,” Eddie backtracks hastily, “that I probably don’t—uh, that I don’t want a hook up. Just the single, uh, kiss. For research.”
“Right,” Buck nods. “For research.”
Eddie gets up, pink and mumbling oh, the ice cream. He returns with two bowls and they turn back to the TV, sipping beers and spooning dessert, room quiet save for the telenovela playing. Buck, gun to his head, could not tell you who or what is on the screen right now. The brave, strong part of his brain has surrendered shamefully, white flag hoisted while the rest of his brain—stupid, stupid—hosts a skillfully imagined supercut of his best friend kissing men. It’s surprisingly new subject matter for him. What’s unsurprising is his distaste for every conjured scenario, discarding each indistinguishable stranger until the reel buffers on something more… familiar.
“Well—”
Eddie waits a patient minute for Buck to continue before asking, “Well, what?”
“I just mean—if it’s just a kiss, right.” Buck pauses. “You could, uh. You could try it with me.”
“With you?” Eddie echoes, sounding strained.
Buck shrugs, amazed at the nonchalance he pulls off. “It’s just a kiss.”
Eddie’s silent. Silent for so long Buck thinks he should say something else, change the subject, steer this conversation to friendlier waters. But then Eddie says, “Okay.”
“Okay?” Buck repeats, heart thudding against his breastbone so loudly the neighbours can probably hear it.
“Yeah, why not. It’s just a kiss,” Eddie says. “One that will prove me right.”
Buck has to wrack his brain to pick up the original thread of this conversation, an argument about the difference in kissing people of different genders, lost to him the moment the idea of proving it via physical demonstration arose.
“Okay,” he says, setting his beer down on the coffee table and turning to Eddie.
“Now?” Eddie asks, sounding a little panicked. He puts down his own beer anyway.
“You wanna settle this, right?” Buck says.
Eddie wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand, smearing the moisture from his last sip of beer. Buck follows the movement with his eyes, gaze flicking up to meet Eddie’s at the end of it. Eddie glances at the coffee table, Buck doing the same and—suddenly very aware of the pungent nature of taco fillings. Not the best flavour for a first—and only—kiss.
“Erm,” Eddie says, facing Buck again, hands gripping his own thighs. “Okay. How should we—”
“Let me just—”
Their knees bump as they try to resituate themselves on the couch, awkwardly caught in the uncomfortable twists of their bodies.
“Uh—” Eddie says.
“Maybe if we—” Buck starts.
Their elbows knock, Eddie’s calf caught under Buck’s knee and nearly sending him crashing to the floor.
“Okay, this isn’t—”
“Can you—”
Buck’s bad knee clicks when he tries to tuck it under himself, spasming a little when he stretches it back out and accidentally kicking Eddie in the shin.
“This is already different,” Eddie gripes. “I don’t think it’s this much effort to kiss a woman.”
“Can you shut up,” Buck says. “Just hold still.”
Eddie, surprisingly, complies without another word. He sits back against the couch, both feet solidly planted on the carpet. Buck twists his own body, drawing a leg up on the cushion to allow him to face Eddie comfortably.
Eddie wets his lips, an action that feels nervous. Buck can empathise. Still—he’s the one who suggested this, so he’s gotta be the one to see it through. He brings a hand up to Eddie’s jaw, cradling it as he leans in.
Neither of them has their eyes closed. Eddie looks a little like a wild animal, frozen upon confrontation, eyes bigger and browner the closer Buck gets. Now or never. Buck’s eyes flick to Eddie’s mouth, and he sees the flutter of Eddie’s lashes in his peripheral vision as he does. Eyes closed, heart thundering, he closes the gap.
Eddie’s mouth is soft, a little damp when Buck’s lips press against his. Buck adjusts the angle, mouth sliding over Eddie’s, trying to slot their lips together—he’s pretty sure Eddie doesn’t want Buck’s tongue down his throat, but giving him the full experience of kissing a man can’t be just this chaste press of mouths.
Eddie’s stock-still as Buck kisses him. And then Buck uses his hand on Eddie’s jaw to angle his head a little better and Eddie comes to life. He cups Buck’s cheek with his hand, sitting forward and leaning in, mouth wet and willing as he kisses Buck back. Buck drops his own hand, letting Eddie guide him into place.
He’s—God, Buck knew he would be, but it’s still a revelation to confirm that Eddie is, in fact, a really good kisser. He’s soft but insistent, the pressure there then gone, thumb gently—almost absentmindedly—stroking back and forth across Buck’s cheek. That tiny gesture has butterflies erupting in Buck’s stomach like candy from a piñata, bright and sweet and torrential.
Still, he makes no move to deepen the kiss, seems content to keep kissing Buck like this—already potentially longer than what plausible deniability might categorise a single, purely demonstrative kiss. And maybe it’s that, the laziness to end this kiss, that has Buck reaching for more. Eddie’s holding his face so gently, kissing him so soft and careful, any exploratory intent reined in by caution.
Buck breaks the kiss but doesn’t move away, Eddie’s breath warm against his mouth. “Not complaining, because this is probably the most—but you don’t have to be so gentle with me.”
Eddie blinks, lashes casting a feathery shadow on the tops of his cheeks. “Oh,” he says, clearing his throat, “okay.”
He’s already leaning back in, this unconcealed eagerness that has Buck closing the gap so quick their noses bump, hard. Eddie’s still being gentle, a wet slide of lips against each other, before his hand, cradling Buck’s jaw, slides into Buck’s hair. He grips a fistful and tugs.
Buck gasps into Eddie’s mouth, an instinctive reaction, and Eddie opens him up, tongue bullying into Buck’s mouth like it has a claim to be there, sucking on Buck’s lower lip like he’s being paid for it.
Buck has to stifle a moan, trying to kiss back with equal fervour but held in place by Eddie’s grip on his hair. He sits there, more or less helpless to do anything but let Eddie devour him, reciprocating as best he can. Slowly, he finds himself being manoeuvred; Eddie’s other hand on his chest, pushing him back against the couch, mimicking Eddie’s original position. The hand in his hair is less careful than it began, a stinging tug shifting Buck into place as Eddie turns on the couch, pressing Buck against the back cushion with the firm palm on his sternum.
Buck has a moment to feel hot all over, manhandled like this, before Eddie’s swinging a leg over Buck’s hips, straddling him on the couch, all without breaking the kiss for even a second. Buck’s brain whites out, blood rushing south at the way he’s caged in by Eddie’s broad, firm body. He doesn’t have to worry about his half-hard dick digging into Eddie—he’s not sure he’d have the mental breadth to do so right now anyway—because Eddie’s sat on his lower thighs, a blessedly safe distance between their crotches.
Eddie’s hand on Buck’s chest fists the fabric of his hoodie, pulling Buck in toward his mouth even while his hand in Buck’s hair tugs him in the opposite direction. The resulting effect is Buck’s face being turned up to Eddie’s, bared throat being brushed tantalisingly by the very tips of Eddie’s fingers. The angle makes it easy for Eddie to work his tongue into Buck’s mouth, licking in, tracing his teeth, sliding against Buck’s tongue. Eddie shaved this morning, but his day-end stubble scrapes against Buck’s own like sandpaper, an almost-raw drag that only serves to fatten Buck’s cock.
Buck shifts, jeans suddenly uncomfortably tight, and the TV goes crazy, flicking through channels like technology possessed. The sudden cacophony of light and sound has Eddie separating from him, eyes wide and breathing hard. Buck pats around under himself for the remote and mutes the TV. He looks at Eddie.
Everything is wet—spit slicking down both their chins, mouths swollen-pink and shiny, jaws an irritated red from stubble friction. They stare at each other for a minute, breathing slowing.
“Um—” Buck starts, hands settling on Eddie’s hips where he’s still straddling Buck.
Eddie flinches so hard he actually does fall off the couch this time, a groaned fuck as he bangs his knee on the coffee table edge.
Buck winces in sympathy. “You okay?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Eddie grumbles, rubbing his leg and sitting back down next to Buck.
The silence is keen without the background noise of the television. Eddie seems to think so too, reaching for the remote and jabbing at the volume button several times. The cooking channel they’ve accidentally landed on tries to sell them a Le Creuset knock-off.
The air between them is—not awkward per se, they’re still sat close enough together for their thighs to be touching, and no one is flinching away like they’ve been burned, but still. Unfinished.
Buck clears his throat. “So?”
Eddie looks at him, eyebrows raised. “So, what?”
“Was it different? From a woman?”
“Oh,” Eddie says, scratching his nose and looking back at the TV. “Um. Yeah. That was different.”
Buck narrows his eyes at him. “And you’re not just saying that to win?”
Eddie snorts. “No, I’m not just saying that to win.”
“Hmm,” Buck takes a sip of his beer. “Agree to disagree, I guess.”
He feels a little hysterical, a little dizzy. He’s trying desperately to put the memory of the last ten minutes in a box, one that he can open as soon as he’s alone. Preferably in the shower, with his right hand. There’s no feeling of loss that this was an isolated experience, one that’s over and done with now. He’d never even dreamed he’d get it once—and now that he has, he has to be grateful he got it at all.
***
Five days later, Buck’s still struggling not to think about it. The thing is, you can miss something you’ve never had. But that kind of missing pales in comparison to missing something you did have, something you got a taste of once and never again.
Right now, it’s particularly on his mind because the woman they pulled out of her crumpled car on their last call was in good enough spirits to shamelessly flirt with Eddie through the entire extraction. She was more concerned with getting Eddie to blush in that rosy-cheeked way he does with her increasingly inappropriate euphemisms than the fact that they literally had to tourniquet her leg to stop her from bleeding out. She’d even insisted that Eddie take her number—she harassed Chim for a pen and paper the whole time he was trying to load her in the ambulance—and call her in a few weeks, when she’d hopefully be cleared for any and all exercise, wink wink.
Buck had to excuse himself to—rather violently—put the saws and jaws away, stuck on the image of Eddie politely pocketing the phone number. It’s just that—Eddie’s last two girlfriends were victims on calls they’d been on, and the pattern is just waiting for a third. Eddie’d kissed Buck. Declared it different than kissing a woman. Not good different or bad different. Just different. And Buck—he’s a man. A large, hairy, masculine one. Maybe he was always going to be different from what Eddie knows. Just because he got a chance to live out the fantasy while Eddie proved it to himself doesn’t mean anything’s changed. It happened. Eddie’s moved on. Buck needs to, too.
He's trying to convince himself of this rather miserably as he waits for Eddie by the Jeep. Usually, he loves that he and Eddie get to drive in to work in one car while they’re living together; it eases this ache for domesticity, like a dog finally getting someone to scratch that itch he can’t quite reach on his own, but on days like this, he really wishes he could just climb in and drive away instead of being caught in close quarters for as long as traffic decrees.
He'd been quiet on the ride back to the station, he knows, and then brisk about his shower and change into civvies. Eddie’d either not picked up on it or didn’t seem to feel like it was any cause for rush, because it’s been fifteen minutes and he’s still not emerged into the parking lot.
When he does, it’s with a leisurely stroll that he walks up to the Jeep. He looks so beautiful in the afternoon sun, the achey part of Buck notes, gold highlighting his hair and slanting in rays across his face. His shirt is a comfortable old number, threadbare cotton stretched across his chest, proof more of love than fashion indifference. Buck knows this because he borrowed it once, years ago, fresh out of a shower at the Diaz house, and Eddie had squawked in horror and demanded he take it off immediately lest he stretch it out with his, to quote, “King Kong on steroids proportions”.
Now, Eddie tosses his duffel in the back, climbing into the passenger seat and looking at Buck expectantly. Buck huffs, not even sure if his own irritation is genuine or put on, and gets in too.
“Wanna see if the Thai place on Washington is open yet?” Eddie asks him.
Buck nods curtly. “Can you check the timings online?”
Eddie digs into his back pocket for his phone, retrieving along with it a piece of paper. A piece of paper which he unfolds to reveal a phone number and a whole slew of x’s and o’s doodled underneath.
Buck huffs again, this time an involuntary reaction he’s helpless to disguise or redirect. He waits for Eddie to ball up the paper and toss it into the cupholder or crumple it and throw it into the backseat to join whatever detritus lives there. He does neither. Instead, he smooths it out on his knee, examining it with much more attention to detail than Buck thinks is at all necessary.
“That’s a lot of x’s and o’s,” Eddie remarks, not looking up from the slip of paper.
Buck grunts in response, keeping his gaze trained studiously on the steering wheel.
“You think she wanted to kiss me?” Eddie asks, voice so casually curious Buck considers beating his head against the steering wheel for even a moment of concussion-related reprieve.
“You know she did,” he says instead.
“Hm,” Eddie says. “And you think it wouldn’t be any different kissing her than it was kissing you?”
Buck blinks. “Uh.”
“I mean,” Eddie says, this faux-innocence that makes Buck want to bite him—an urge more rabid than sexual—“I can imagine what kissing her would be like. Probably not so different than kissing Marisol.”
“Oh?” Why does he feel nervous? “And, what, you can’t imagine what kissing me is like?”
Eddie shrugs. “It was just the one time.” Except he doesn’t end the sentence all that definitively. And he turns to Buck.
It’s amazing what the human body can still do while in shock. For instance, while 90% of Buck’s higher cognitive functions are suspended, the remaining 10%, intrepid to a fault, opens Buck’s mouth and says the words, “Do you need a refresher?”
Eddie shrugs again. “Maybe. But even if I didn’t, I still don’t think it would be the same. You know. Kissing a woman and kissing a man.”
“Well,” Buck says, swallowing. “C’mon, then. Let me disprove that.”
Eddie looks at him, face unreadable. Then: “Okay,” he says, leaning forward across the console. “Do your worst.”
“Why would I do that?” Buck says—or, murmurs, face so close to Eddie’s now that he’s leaned in as well. “Only my best for you.”
At this proximity, he feels as much as hears Eddie’s sharp inhale through his nose, the way his eyes get noticeably darker even in the shadows of the Jeep’s interior. And then he’s closing his eyes, nose nudging Eddie’s as he slots their mouths together. It’s immediately wet—not the chaste presses that began the last time—Buck opening his mouth under Eddie’s readily.
He holds Eddie’s chin between his thumb and finger, coaxing him to let Buck slide his tongue in alongside Eddie’s. He lets Buck—it’s unclear who’s in charge of this kiss, a push-and-pull in taking and giving, a rhythm heady enough that Buck’s cock could be interested, given permission.
Eddie’s hand comes up to cradle Buck’s cheek, thumb doing that back-and-forth thing it did last time, except now—Eddie drags his thumb to trace the edge of Buck’s lips, stroking the soft skin before hooking his thumb into the corner of Buck’s mouth, stretching it open and allowing Eddie to kiss him harder, deeper, wetter, tongue making itself at home inside Buck’s mouth.
Buck makes a little noise of surprise at the stretch, the intrusion, the slightly salty taste of Eddie’s skin, and then, unable to close his mouth, is very aware of the spit that leaks down his chin, drool he couldn’t swallow.
Eddie stops tongue-fucking him for a second to lick the trail of spit down Buck’s face, a broad, flat sweep of his tongue, before going right back to kissing Buck, feeding him his own spit.
Buck moans, pressing the heel of one hand against his half-hard cock, and Eddie exhales shudderingly, kissing Buck so full-bodiedly he’s draped right across the centre console, plastic and leather digging into him in a way that has to be uncomfortable.
It’s like he’s trying to crawl into Buck, and the memory of him straddling Buck on his couch not even a week ago flashes through Buck’s mind. They’d probably fit—he could haul Eddie over the console, push the driver’s seat back, grind against him as they keep doing this.
Eddie’s hand is no longer in Buck’s mouth, instead wandering to the hem of his t-shirt—dangerously close to where he’s well on his way to being fully hard—slipping under the cotton to splay against Buck’s stomach. It inches up, and up, and then he’s running his hand over Buck’s pec, cupping it, an entire handful. It’s like he’s acting on muscle memory of going to second base the only way he knows how, hand caressing Buck’s tits on autopilot. Something about that, about him treating Buck the same he would a girl, has Buck dizzy with arousal. He shifts into Eddie’s touch, mouth and body pliant for him. Eddie moves his hand a fraction, thumbing Buck’s nipple, this lazy, purposeful rub.
Buck moans, hips jerking involuntarily; a sedan drives past the Jeep as it exits the station parking lot; Eddie snatches his hand back, leaning back, leaning against the door in a way where it’s obvious that that’s the maximum distance achievable inside this car.
It’s not even silence they sit in—it’s inescapable harsh breathing, righting their positions in their seats, inconspicuously wiping the spit from their mouths.
“Not the same,” Eddie says after a minute, faced forward and clearing his throat.
“Right,” Buck croaks. “Um—”
“Thai place is open,” Eddie says, already looking at his phone. “Should I order now and then we can just pick it up?”
“Um,” Buck says, shaking his head quickly before starting the Jeep. “Yeah. Yeah, that sounds good.”
“Extra water chestnuts? I won’t steal any.”
“You’ll steal some,” Buck says. “Extra.”
Eddie hums in agreement, fingers tapping on his phone screen. Buck inhales, closes his eyes for a second, and then backs the Jeep out the lot.
Once, sure, a true test of the experience. Twice—and initiated once again by Eddie? That’s either a real dedication to proving Buck wrong, or—Buck has kissed people who weren’t all the way into it, despite insisting they were when asked. Eddie doesn’t kiss him like that.
Eddie doesn’t kiss him like he’s—straight. Right? Buck’s definitely not making this up. Eddie kisses him like he wants to kiss him. Kisses him like he doesn’t want to stop.
His fingers clench on the steering wheel. An overwhelming barrage of conversations flood his memory, all at once. Tommy, accusatory. Maddie, skeptical. Taylor, confrontational. A Christmas elf, and a dozen strangers like her, presumptuous in a way Buck never makes himself correct.
This doesn’t change a thing. Buck can’t say the same, if what he thinks might be true is true. Could Eddie, anymore? Maybe it doesn’t change a thing, except for this. However long this lasts for. He’s done friends with benefits before but this is decidedly not that. He’s not sure there’s a term for friends who kiss solely to win a bet, and one of them isn’t even queer, probably, but would he even tell Buck if he thought he was, given his history of bottling complicated emotional and romantic feelings up, although never sexual ones, which is maybe why he’s down to kiss a man without any of the baggage that comes with it, and Buck is spiralling, a little, now.
He exhales, this deflation that has Eddie glancing over at him in his peripheral vision. He gives himself a little shake.
Buck can be go-with-the-flow. Buck is the most go-with-the-flow person out there. He’s easy, he’s casual, he’s so laid-back. If Eddie wants to—settle a bet, explore, whatever. Buck’s his guy, no questions asked.
***
For a while, Buck hated his birthday. As a little kid, with Maddie there to take him to the arcade, or go-karting, or pretty much whatever his heart desired, it was good. He felt—loved. Wanted. Like celebrating just coming into existence was something someone like him deserved, too.
Then Maddie left, and birthdays became generic Hallmark cards with a $100 bill tucked into them, a lifted curfew for him to do whatever he wanted outside of the Buckley house, and refreshing his email in hopes of a message from his sister. Some years, there was one. Not all, though.
Moving to LA, joining the 118, finding his family, in every way the word matters, gave him back some of that birthday magic. He’s had to work shifts on the actual day every year in the last eight, but he wouldn’t have taken the day off even if given the choice. Not when birthdays at the station mean Hen’s elaborate decorating, cheerful banner hung lopsidedly, Chim blowing on a noisemaker and insisting on calling him Birthday Buck all day, Eddie being even looser than usual with his already free-flowing physical affection. Maddie again, with a phone call and an actual, physical hug, regardless of whether they’re both on shift or not. It makes Buck remember his childhood wasn’t all loneliness. And Bobby? Bobby spends every year shooing them out of the kitchen, baking a massive red velvet cake slathered with cream cheese frosting and putting the full thirty-whatever candles on it for Buck to blow out—What’s the worst that could happen, kid? We need to call the fire brigade?
This year, they’ve been on shift again. Buck was cheerfully dog-piled in the bunkroom at midnight, and woke up to the decorations and fond alliterative monikers and Eddie pressed up against him on the couch all morning. It’s not quite perfect—only in that, Bobby’s not there. A nasty bout of laryngitis has had him out most of the week, and while Buck misses him and there’s a distinct lack of hair ruffles or birthday cake, it’s still a pretty great day.
Their shift is easy, even fun—birthday magic in action, maybe—and by the time Buck and Eddie tumble into their house, no one’s as desperate for a nap as usual.
“Gotta pick Chris up in, like, oh shit, now,” Eddie says, glancing at his watch. “Hey, uh, do you think you could do it? I have a mountain of paperwork to get through for the new insurance.”
“Yeah, ’course,” Buck says, stretching.
“I think he wanted to go to the craft store for some science project supplies, too,” Eddie adds, already distracted by the admittedly enormous pile of insurance paperwork on the dining table. “But I can take him tomorrow if you—”
“Nah, I love the craft store,” Buck grins, twirling his keys on a finger. “Maybe I’ll start a new project too.”
“No glitter,” Eddie says absently, flipping through the top few sheets of paper. “You’re banned from bringing glitter into this house.”
“Not even on my birthday?” Buck pouts, over-the-top with a grin threatening to break through.
That gets Eddie’s full attention. He looks up, points a stern finger at Buck. “Fine,” he says. “One thing of glitter, as a treat. But you’re vacuuming.”
“Deal,” Buck grins, swinging out the front door. “See ya.”
One thing of glitter turns into several pots of it, along with Chris’s own stuff. He’d presented Buck with a slightly crumpled hand-drawn card in the school parking lot, looking furtively behind himself like he was afraid his friends might see. The panicked self-preservation only increased when Buck fully teared up at the card, which depicted Buck and Chris as Han and Luke on the Falcon—Does that make your dad Darth Vader? Buck had asked, and Chris very seriously replied, No, he’s Chewie, obviously—and Buck had been ushered into the car before any gossipy eighth graders saw them.
The house smells like vanilla when they get home, the air thick and sweet with it. Music from the kitchen radio floats through the hall as they kick off their shoes.
“Eddie?” Buck calls.
There’s a clatter and a thump and then Eddie calls back, “Uh, hi! Fuck. Uh, in here!”
Buck walks into the kitchen to Eddie in Buck’s favourite apron, the stripey one, flour on one forearm, hair sticking to his forehead with sweat, and the wonkiest little cake Buck has ever seen on the kitchen island before him.
“We don’t have enough candles,” Eddie says apologetically. “And I don’t think it’s big enough to fit thirty-five anyway.”
The cake has sunk in the middle, cream cheese nestling in a little crater on top. The frosting is generous, on all surfaces of the cake, piped through a nozzle messily—Buck spies the makeshift plastic icing bag on the counter—and there are eight slightly used-looking blue candles stuck into the top. Paul Hollywood would probably have an aneurysm at the sight of it. It’s perfect.
“You made me a birthday cake?” Buck asks, stepping further into the kitchen.
“Ta-da,” Eddie says, sounding unsure. “Sorry, it’s not Bobby-level, but you gotta have a birthday cake on your birthday.”
“You made me a birthday cake,” Buck says again, hearing the unchecked adoration in his own voice and not caring very much. “Eds, aw.”
“It’s for after dinner,” Eddie says, fussing with the mess on the counter. “So save room.”
“Eddie,” Buck says, smile spilling over the edges of his name.
“What?” Eddie says, using a dish towel to mop up a spill of what looks like vanilla essence.
“Eddie,” Buck grins, “c’mere.” He wraps Eddie in as tight a bear hug as he can muster, face tucked into Eddie’s neck. He smells like vanilla, too.
“Oof,” Eddie says, a little choked. “Too tight, bud.”
Buck just holds him tighter, using his grip to lift Eddie a couple inches off the ground. Eddie yelps, then snorts, hugging Buck back once he’s on his feet again.
“Happy birthday,” he says, muffled into Buck’s hoodie.
Make a wish, Chris says, and Buck does. Then: the kitchen is clean, the cake is mostly eaten, and Eddie’s putting the last of the leftovers into the fridge. The remaining cake has been cut into convenient slices and placed in Tupperware. Buck grabs one last slice before handing the container to Eddie.
Eddie closes the fridge, turning around and immediately snorting.
“What?” Buck asks, swallowing a last mouthful of cake.
“You have—so much frosting on your face,” Eddie shakes his head. “Turning five or thirty-five?”
Buck, heart high off all the love of this day, just leans forward, presenting his face to Eddie.
“You want me to—?” Eddie sighs, put out. “Fine.”
He uses the pad of his thumb to wipe the frosting from Buck’s upper lip, but before he can pull away, Buck’s turning his face into Eddie’s touch, mouth pressed against Eddie’s thumb, not-quite-a-kiss.
“You know how,” he says, “birthday sex is different from regular sex?”
Eddie baulks, snatching his hand back. “W-what?”
“You know,” Buck says. “Birthday sex just feels different. It’s a whole thing, right? Like, people collectively agree on that.”
“Uh,” Eddie says, frowning. “Sure.”
“Well, by that logic,” Buck says, “birthday kisses should feel different than regular kisses.”
“Um,” Eddie says. “Okay?”
Buck grins. He feels mostly sure about this. The homemade cake. The, uh, enthusiasm with which Eddie participated last time. Settling a bet seems a lot further away, right now. “It’s my birthday.”
He can tell the moment it clicks for Eddie. A slight widening of his eyes, lips parted around an unspoken oh, the way his entire body sways forward.
“Well,” he says, stepping unnecessarily closer to Buck in the dim light of the kitchen. “It’s not my birthday, so I won’t be able to do the judging. Or does it feel different for both parties, even if one of them isn’t having a birthday?”
“Guess we gotta try it to figure that out,” Buck says softly.
Eddie has to tilt his face ever-so-slightly upwards to kiss Buck when they’re both standing on even ground like this. He’s no less assertive for it, taking the lead easily. Buck’s only just started to try and get Eddie’s tongue as far down his throat as humanly possible when he laughs into Buck’s mouth, pulling back.
“What,” Buck asks, listing after him, bemused.
“You taste exactly like standing in front of the fridge at 2am eating frosting out of the tub,” Eddie laughs. “Like, taste-memory of being twelve years old again.”
“Oh,” Buck smiles. “Good memory, I hope.”
Eddie shakes his head, but he’s smiling at Buck in that rosy, incandescent way. “This makes it feel like a good memory. You do.”
Buck doesn’t know what to say, or how to deal with the way his diaphragm suddenly feels kind of shaky, so he kisses Eddie again, pressing against his smile until he’s kissing Buck back, palm curving around the back of Buck’s neck in a way that feels less and less like kissing practice to settle a bet the more Eddie presses their bodies together, content to just lick the sugar out of each other’s mouths.
The dishwasher sings its little jingle, and while they don’t jerk apart—it’s a slow, sticky separation, Eddie’s lower lip catching on Buck’s—it does end the kiss. It’s not an awkward moment, though—Eddie hands clean plates to Buck and he stacks them away and the way everything feels so right, so safe and keepable, makes Buck think that the magic of birthday kisses might be real.
***
Buck’s drunk. It’s embarrassing, and his own fault for not eating properly before downing a cocktail pitcher on his own, but everything is neon bright and he’s having too good a time to feel anything but sparkly.
It’s one of those rarer occasions where most of their friend group is out together, significant others included. The bar is busy, karaoke going on at one end and a dance floor on the other. They’re currently participating in neither, crowded into a booth that just about fits them all, table sticky with sloshed drinks as they jostle each other to follow conversation over the music.
Eddie is plastered to Buck’s side, a line of heat somehow warming Buck both from the outside-in and the inside-out. He’s been nursing a beer all night, designated driver, but now he eyes Buck’s empty pitcher and asks, loud over the cacophony, “Another drink?”
Buck nods, scrambling out of the booth, unsurprised when Eddie follows. He, somewhat optimistically, orders another pitcher when they make it to the bar. There’s a girl leaning on the counter beside him, looking amused as he requests a crazy straw. Buck catches her eye as she shakes her head with a grin.
“What?” he asks, also grinning.
“You must be awfully secure in your masculinity,” she says.
Buck laughs. “Do I have a reason not to be?”
She turns to him fully, eyes raking up and down his body. “No, I guess not. Just never seen anyone who looks like you order a drink like that.” She inclines her head to where the bartender is setting down a pitcher of bright pink alcohol, glittery purple crazy straw included.
“Someone who looks like me?” Buck says, smirking.
The girl rolls her eyes, still grinning. “You know exactly what I mean.”
“Maybe I want to hear you say it,” Buck says, swaying closer, alcohol in his veins taking the lead.
She bites her lip, eyes sparkling as she looks at him. Her gaze shifts, minutely, and then the smile vanishes, and she looks—apologetic? Alarmed?
“Sorry, I didn’t realise—” She nods over his shoulder.
Buck twists around, briefly—to be fair, drunkenly—having forgotten Eddie’s been behind him this whole time. “Oh, yeah,” he says, grinning at Eddie, whose face is schooled into this very strange, neutral expression. “Hi, Eddie.” He turns around fully, abandoning his conversation with the girl in absolute totality.
“Hi, Buck,” Eddie says, lips twitching with amusement. “Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt you.”
“Interrupt?” Buck frowns. “Interrupt what?”
Eddie inclines his chin in the direction of the girl, but when Buck turns his head back, she’s moved on, back to her friends elsewhere in the bar. “Whatever that was.”
“Oh,” Buck blinks. She seemed nice. Eddie’s here, though. Eddie’s nicer. He tells Eddie exactly as much.
Eddie snorts, picking up Buck’s pitcher for him when Buck sloshes it a little too uncoordinatedly. “Do you—” He stops, quiet as they make their way back to their booth.
Buck manages to hold that thought in his otherwise floaty head. “Do I what?” he prompts, once they’ve sat down.
Eddie looks surprised, like he hadn’t expected Buck to hold onto the thread of conversation. “Um,” he says. “I know you said it’s basically the same, kissing guys and girls.”
Buck nods, an enthusiastic bob of his head.
“I guess what I wanna know—do you ever have a preference, then?”
Buck feels his brow furrow.
“Like,” Eddie continues, voice quiet enough at their packed table that Buck has to lean in close to hear, “on a night like this. With that girl. Like, do you come out to a bar with a, you know, preference for who you wanna go home with that night? Like, um. Do you have nights out when you wanna take a guy home instead of a girl?”
Oh. Buck thinks about it for a second. “Not really,” he admits. “I’m an—equal opportunity kinda guy, I think. If the person’s hot, and we’re vibing… Yeah.”
Eddie nods, taking a sip of his beer.
“Well, in theory,” Buck amends. “I haven’t really slept with anyone since Tommy. Except for, you know, Tommy. And it was always women before that. But, like, I’m not here thinking oh I wanna fuck a dude tonight, you know? I don’t think it would matter.”
Something in Eddie’s face tightens. He nods again.
Buck studies his face for moment before sliding out of the booth. “Gotta take a leak,” he announces, making a beeline for the bathroom.
The door opens behind him just as he’s tucking himself back into his pants. Eddie makes no move to piss, instead leaning companionably against the wide sink as Buck washes his hands.
“What if there’s opportunity for both?” Eddie asks suddenly, apropos of nothing.
“What?” Buck asks, confused.
Eddie chews on his bottom lip. “Like, if you have a shot with a dude and with a woman. On the same night. And you had to pick.”
Buck snorts. “It’s less about the gender and more about the chemistry.”
“Right,” Eddie says slowly, nodding. “So, what would make it different—or better, if not different—is having superior chemistry.”
Buck thinks that’s what he meant. His brain is moving too syrupy-slow to confirm it. “Yeah.”
He turns to leave, assuming Eddie will follow, but he’s grabbed by the wrist instead, tugged back towards where Eddie is still leaning back against the sink. He goes easily, body loose and pliant.
“So right now,” Eddie says, “here, tonight. If you had a choice. Would you rather kiss that girl at the bar? Or—me.”
Buck blinks in surprise. “Do I?” he manages. “Have a choice?”
“Sure,” Eddie shrugs, casual. “Do you think it would be better with her—mmf—”
Buck essentially throws himself at Eddie, mouth landing off-centre, more on Eddie’s chin than anywhere else. He moves to adjust it, teeth clacking—accidentally biting Eddie—and smearing spit. It’s the sloppiest Buck’s ever kissed Eddie, the most eager he’s ever kissed anyone, probably, and objectively in the bottom three kisses of his life, technical skills-wise.
Eddie, miraculously, hasn’t complained, laughed, or drawn back to break the kiss. His hands are fisted in the back of Buck’s shirt, and his mouth parts under Buck’s, letting him lick messily inside. The sugary residue from his cocktail coats his mouth, and he wonders if Eddie can taste it.
He can taste the beer on Eddie’s tongue, slight bitterness not deterring him from trying to make this the wettest kiss of his life. Eddie seems to pick up on this, happy to trade saliva back and forth. He walks Buck backwards, pushing him into an empty stall. The backs of Buck’s calves bump into the toilet, and Eddie unfists a hand to slam the seat cover down, pushing Buck to sit as he does.
Breaking the kiss, Buck looks up at him, mouth parted and breathing heavily.
“Open your mouth,” Eddie says.
Buck obeys without question, head tilted back. The ceiling is wheeling above him, a little, but everything is shining. Eddie, above him, glowing.
He grips Buck’s chin between his thumb and finger, tilting it up. And then he spits in Buck’s mouth.
Buck whimpers, arousal blazing through him. The look on Eddie’s face when he swallows is going to be seared into his memory like a brand. His thumb runs across the wet edge of Buck’s mouth, a slow sweep. And just like that, the gentleness snaps, and he’s hauling Buck up by his collar into a biting kiss, shoving him against the stall wall as he licks into his mouth, again, again, again.
The bathroom door swings open and they break apart, breathing hard. The stall door is open and there’s no time to close it, so Eddie runs the back of his hand over his spit-slick mouth and stumbles out, letting Buck follow incriminatingly close behind.
The man gives them a surprised look, obvious when he clocks their swollen pink lips, tousled hair, dishevelled shirts. He only smirks at them, turning to the urinals without a word.
For a moment Buck thinks Eddie might ask to stagger their return to their booth, all these kiss-guilty factors only implicating them more in the face of their friends. But he just smooths his hair down in the mirror before smiling at Buck and heading for the door. It doesn’t quite reach his eyes, Buck notes, even in his inebriation. Kiss-drunk, regular drunk, he touches a finger to his mouth once before following.
***
Buck’s head is throbbing, and he clutches at Hen’s arm as she helps him out of the back of the ambulance.
“Careful,” she admonishes. “Need to change the bandage, you’ve bled through.”
Buck instinctively reaches for the wrapping around his head, wincing at his own touch and then wincing again when Hen smacks him.
“Don’t fiddle with it,” she says. “Here—sit down.”
Ravi, man behind, is jogging up to them, worry creasing his forehead. “What happened? Is everyone okay?”
“He will be if he stops touching it,” Hen says, flicking Buck hard again, making him drop his hand.
“What happened?” Ravi asks again. “Where are the others?” He glances at the conspicuous absence of the engine in the bay.
“Part of his harness snapped,” Hen sighs, when it becomes clear Buck is too preoccupied to answer. “Doing a rope rescue. Hiking accident. Just banged himself on a cliff—he’s lucky it wasn’t worse.” Buck doesn’t feel very lucky. “Gave his helmet to the kid. Sliced open his forehead.” She gestures at Buck’s predicament. “Probably not a concussion. Bobby offered to take the victims to the hospital in the engine because there were no injuries.”
Chim saunters around the back of the ambulance. “Well, no injuries other than Buckaroo.”
“This is so embarrassing,” Buck groans, regretting it when his head spins. “Literally everyone saw me smack face-fucking-first into a cliff.”
“They did,” Chim says sympathetically. “They really did.”
“Does someone need to drive him home?” Ravi asks. “Uh—should we wait for Eddie?”
“Cap said to keep him here,” Hen says, carefully rebandaging Buck’s head. “So someone can keep checking on him in case it is a concussion. Alright, let’s get you lying down. C’mon, we got you.” She and Ravi flank Buck as he stands a little shakily, feeling dizzy already. This might in fact be a concussion.
The engine pulls into the bay as they’re stood there. Eddie’s jumping out before it even comes to a halt, striding over to them with an urgency in his expression Buck’s only seen a few times, usually towards Chris.
“Why are you still standing around here?” he asks, frowning. “You should be lying down.” He turns to Hen, somewhat accusingly. “He should be lying down.”
“Yes, thank you, Eddie,” Hen says dryly. “We were just loitering by the stairs for fun.”
Eddie opens his mouth, still frowning, so Buck interjects with an, “I’m okay. Gonna lie down now. Wake me up for dinner, okay?”
In his peripheral vision, he sees Hen roll her eyes at Eddie and exchange a look with Chim.
“Alright, let’s go,” she prompts, and Buck lets himself be led to the bunkroom.
He’s there for maybe ten minutes, eyes open in the dark, when Eddie sneaks in. Buck’s not sure why he’s sneaking, but there’s definitely something furtive about his approach.
“Buck?” he says softly, soft enough not to wake him if he was asleep.
“Yeah? Eddie?” Buck gingerly manoeuvres himself upright.
“Can I just—uh.” Eddie scrubs a hand through his hair, looking back out of the bunkroom door. “You really feeling okay?”
“Just a bruised ego,” Buck huffs a laugh. “Yeah, Eds. I’m okay.”
Eddie suddenly strides across the room, making it to Buck in a handful of steps. Buck sits on the edge of his cot. Eddie pauses between his splayed legs, looking down at him.
Buck thinks, head aching a little, that this position feels right. That maybe the whole reason he was made was not to save a sick little boy, but to sit like this at Eddie’s feet.
Eddie nods and Buck wonders for a second if he said that out loud. But then Eddie’s cradling Buck’s face between his hands, thumbs stroking across his cheeks, once, twice, before he leans down and kisses Buck, so, so gently.
It’s even gentler than their first kiss started. Or—maybe just as gentle, but infinitely more tender. Buck can feel the way Eddie’s thrumming with something, keeping it all inside himself as he kisses Buck as softly as he’s ever been kissed.
Eddie kisses him in the bunkroom like this for what feels like hours but may just be minutes. He only stops when Buck starts swaying, held upright only by Eddie’s hands on his jaw.
Eddie breaks the kiss, still cupping Buck’s face, and says, “Okay. You should get some rest.”
Buck wants to protest, but honestly, his head kind of hurts and a nap sounds nice right now.
“Eddie?” he says, this sudden neediness rearing its head.
Eddie leans back in for the briefest moment, brushing his mouth over Buck’s in a mostly dry press, a kiss just to kiss.
“You gonna go?” Buck asks, letting Eddie help him lie back down slowly.
Eddie glances over his shoulder, contemplating for a fraction of a second. “Nah,” he says, sitting on the cot next to Buck. “I’ll stay here ’til the alarm goes, okay?”
“Mm,” Buck agrees, eyes already drifting shut.
Every time he’s woken up, concussion protocol, Eddie’s still there. Buck doesn’t know if he’s there the whole time, or if he left and came back, but he’s still there, two feet to the right of Buck, settled like there’s nowhere else he’s meant to be.
***
He’s thinking about this a week later, how it was the closest they’ve come to kissing in bed—or in a bedroom. Buck’s still been taking the couch, all these weeks later, happy to when the trade-off is living with his two favourite people.
He’s in the kitchen, reading an article on sourdough hotels when the front door slams shut. Eddie’s due back from therapy, so that’s not a promising sign. Buck pockets his phone and gets up to meet Eddie, bumping bodily into him in the living room.
His bad mood is an almost visible black cloud settled upon his shoulders, face like thunder when he steps back from Buck.
Buck doesn’t have a chance to ask him anything before he’s in Buck’s space, pressing him against the wall, kissing him aggressively. Buck lets him for a few moments, lets him get whatever pent-up frustration he’s housing out—and it’s not like it’s a hardship for Buck to have Eddie kiss him a little roughly.
It doesn’t taper off, though, and the kiss is nearly bruising—again, he’s not complaining about that. Buck only hits the brakes when Eddie’s knee bullies its way between Buck’s thighs, knocking his legs apart. Eddie’s hard cock digs into Buck’s hip and he makes no move to do anything but press against Buck harder.
“Woah, woah, woah,” Buck says, voice a little shot. “Slow down. What happened?”
Eddie kisses his neck in answer, hot and sloppy and nearly certainly leaving several marks.
Buck lets him. “Rough therapy sesh?”
“I don’t wanna talk about it,” Eddie growls. He grinds his hips against Buck’s in small, delicious circles.
“Okay, that’s fair,” Buck allows. “But, uh. I don’t think we should be doing—this, either.”
Eddie pulls back. “You don’t want to?”
“No,” Buck laughs, a surprisingly unhappy sound. “I really do. But not like this. I don’t want—you’re obviously mad about something and—I don’t know. Eddie.”
“How is it different than any of the other times?” Eddie asks, uncharacteristic petulance in his voice. He worms a hand between them, cupping Buck through his jeans and squeezing.
“Well,” Buck says, every cell in his body protesting as he places his hands on Eddie’s hips and gently pushes them away from his own—ignoring how he is also all the way hard from the last few minutes of Eddie’s dry humping. “I don’t know if this is still just—I don’t know. It feels like a step we can’t take back.”
“What if I don’t wanna take it back?” Eddie asks, mulish.
Buck blinks. He doesn’t think Eddie means—but what else could he—?
“Well, uh,” he says, “what are you saying? Do you want to, uh…”
“What?” Eddie asks, gaze trained on what Buck hopes is a hickey he’s left on Buck’s neck.
“If we, uh,” Buck tries to collect his thoughts. “Keep doing this. Fuck, Eddie, I don’t even know what we’ve been doing.”
“Settling a bet?” Eddie offers, wincing minutely like he knows how weak that answer is.
“Settling a bet for what?” Buck laughs unhappily again. “For when you decide you want to be with men? Date them?”
Eddie flinches visibly. “No. That’s not—I don’t want—”
“What do you want, then?” Buck asks, a little desperately. “Because I don’t know where the hell you stand right now and it’s killing me because all I want is y—” He snaps his mouth shut.
Eddie takes a step back, some shade of surprise splashed across his face. “Buck, I—”
“If all of this has just been for—if it’s really been practice and you want to, I don’t know, go out and—you know. I just need you to tell me. And it’ll be fine. We’ll go back to how things were. I promise. But I can’t—Eddie, I can’t keep doing this.”
“I don’t want to do this with anyone else,” Eddie says quietly, like it’s a confession.
Buck swallows, pulse off-rhythm. “Do you want to be with me? Is that. Is that something you want?”
His heart is already breaking in the moment before Eddie, who can’t quite meet his eyes, shakes his head.
“Right,” Buck says softly. “Okay. We can—it can just go back to—”
“It’s not that I don’t—” Eddie stops, tries again. “It’s not that I don’t want you.”
Buck’s head hurts. His heart hurts. “You just don’t want to be with me.”
Eddie doesn’t correct him. Buck’s whole body is an ache.
“Right,” he says again, swallowing. Feeling 26 and only as good as his body performs. He crosses his arms across his chest, hugging them to his body. “Okay. I just—I can’t keep doing this, Eddie. If you want something casual, I’m sure there’s—I just can’t.” He nods once, definitive.
Eddie frowns, eyebrows scrunched. “I don’t want something casual. I just. I can’t—with you.”
Talk about twisting the knife. Buck inhales, a shuddery breath.
Eddie softens. “It’s—Buck. It just wouldn’t work.”
“Why not?” Buck hates how pathetic his voice sounds. “You’re the only person I can see it working with.”
Eddie’s smile is sad, a little resigned. “Because you know me too well.”
Buck blinks. Whatever he was expecting, this wasn’t it. “And that’s a problem because—?”
Eddie shrugs. “I can’t—new relationships are supposed to be about, like, magic and surprise and—getting to know someone, right? You wouldn’t have that with me. There wouldn’t be a—a honeymoon period, and. I don’t know. You know all the messy things already. And—”
“And, what?” Buck prompts, disbelieving. “Eddie, how is that a bad thing? I mean, I—knowing each other already, all the bad, the messy, and—still being here, still wanting to—Eddie. That’s the magic. That’s the lo—”
“Buck, I know how I get in a relationship,” Eddie cuts him off, a little desperately. He gestures between the two of them. “This? It wouldn’t be the same. If I wanted to talk to you—and Buck, I always want to talk to you—I—I’m scared that I wouldn’t because… because you’d be my partner and not my best friend.”
Buck exhales. “First of all,” he says. “I’m already your partner and your best friend. It’s not different.” He ignores Eddie’s mumbled protest. “Second. What happens when you don’t talk to me now? Like, as a best friend. Because you don’t, sometimes.”
Eddie frowns at him. “It’s not—”
“Everything about selling the house? Moving to Texas? Or, even before that, having a fucking affair? Relationship anxiety? PTSD? What happens when you don’t tell me shit that’s going on with you?”
“I dunno,” Eddie mutters, looking away. “I make bad financial decisions? I singlehandedly fund Frank’s annual vacation?”
Buck groans, trying not to laugh, sure it would come out at least half-hysterical. “No, asshole. What happens is I’m still here. I stay. I annoy the shit outta you until you tell me what’s going on. And it sucks for a little bit, and then we talk about it, and it sucks a little less. But don’t you dare put me in the same bracket as any of your—exes. Maybe you’re right, maybe being your partner now and being your partner like that—okay, fine, they’re different. But it’s you, and it’s me, and Eddie. Eddie. I’m gonna be here, like it or not. So if you could get that through your beautiful thick skull before you make any decisions about—what we could be.”
Eddie’s looking at him with wide, surprised eyes. He blinks once, lashes long and dark, and exhales. “Hell of a lot to risk,” he says quietly.
Buck’s hand finds Eddie’s, tangling their fingers. “Hell of a lot to gain,” he replies, just as quiet. “But—I get it. I’m not asking you to just say fuck it and—you know. I just—I don’t think there are right reasons or wrong reasons. But whatever you decide, I need you to know. This—” he gestures between them with their joined hands, knuckles brushing their chests in turn, “—isn’t going anywhere.”
Eddie looks down at their clasped hands, brow furrowed for a taut minute. “Maybe there doesn’t have to be right reason for it to be right. Because you—this—” He meets Buck’s eyes, something sheepish about the duck of his head. “Uh. This is pretty much what Frank was—today. He, uh, had an opinion about me doing this thing with you, you know, casually, when I—when I feel—” He breaks off, chewing on his bottom lip absently.
Buck squeezes their joined hands; he’s here. They’re together.
Eddie closes his eyes for a second, then opens them, small smile dimpling his cheek when he looks at Buck. “Okay. For the record, I’m not saying fuck it. I guess I, um—I’m saying I’m not going anywhere either.”
“Okay,” Buck says, something fluttering to life in his stomach, tentative and hopeful. “Good.”
“And…” Eddie says, “when I don’t tell you something, which, I mean, that’s inevitable, you’ll—”
“Call you a dick and annoy it out of you?”
“Yeah,” Eddie says. “Promise?”
“Promise. And when I’m, uh, acting like a teenager because everything feels too big and I don’t even get it myself so I don’t know how to tell you—”
“I’ll make you tell me,” Eddie nods. “We’ll talk about it.”
“We’re gonna be so pissed off with each other so much of the time,” Buck says, sudden tendril of doubt curling around his heart.
“Well, yeah,” Eddie says. “That’s never really stopped me from loving you.”
With that, he sways forward, kissing Buck with insistent purpose. Buck unlaces their fingers, arms wrapping around Eddie’s waist and hauling him in. It feels like the sun on his skin, golden warmth leaking through at every point Eddie’s body touches his. This is still—messy. They should talk about it more, probably, before they— But Eddie’s mouth parts under Buck’s, a sweet invitation, and Buck accepts, deepening the kiss.
Kissing Eddie once, twice, a dozen times—Buck doesn’t think it’s going to stop being a revelation. They’re going to be seventy and arthritic and he won’t know if the weak-at-the-knees feeling is osteoporosis or Eddie Diaz’s mouth on his.
They break apart, breathing hard, and Buck laughs into the space between them.
“What?” Eddie grins.
“Just thinking about how you said there wouldn’t be a honeymoon period,” Buck says. “I think you severely underestimated what—what you do to me.”
Eddie’s eyes turn dark even as his grin spreads. “Oh?”
Buck knocks his head back against the wall, licking his lips and gazing at Eddie through half-lidded eyes. Eddie’s grip on his waist tightens.
“Knowing that you—know me, really know me—” Buck shakes his head, ducking forward to kiss Eddie again.
“Yeah?” Eddie says, mouth so close to Buck’s he feels the movement of his lips against his own. “What, like, you pretend you don’t mind mushrooms on pizza because Chris loves them and you never wanna ask for half-n-half?”
Buck blinks. “Well, if we get half-n-half he won’t have mushrooms on the leftovers.”
“Mm. Or that you have a specific saucepan to cook bolognese in and a specific saucepan to cook chili in and if I mix them up when I’m cooking it stresses you out?”
“You don’t mix them up that often,” Buck says, shifting under Eddie’s half-amused, all-warm gaze.
“Right. What about how you have to do the crossword in the weirdest order or you think it throws you off your game?”
Buck makes a noise of protest. “It’s just the most logical order—”
“It’s not,” Eddie says, voice brimming with affection. “No one does all the across and then all the down. That’s insane.”
Buck can feel his cheeks heat. He does the crossword on his own, mostly, so he didn’t really expect—
“How about,” Eddie says, “that Charli XXX was your favourite artist last year but you listen to her on my account at home so she doesn’t show up in your top 5 and you can maintain your street cred?”
“X-C-X,” Buck says. “She’s not a pornstar.”
“I don’t care,” Eddie tells him. “The playlists Spotify makes me are atrocious, thanks to you.” He brings a hand to the join of Buck’s shoulder, thumb brushing his throat.
“Sorry,” Buck says, warmth spreading from a very distinct point in the centre of his chest.
“Don’t be,” Eddie says, shaking his head. “I like listening to you sing in the kitchen.”
Buck ducks his head, not sure where this sudden wave of shyness has come from.
“And at the grocery store,” Eddie is saying, voice pitched low like he’s confessing something, “that you have a specific route through the aisles that you have to follow.”
“To maximise efficiency,” Buck says, hushed to match Eddie’s tone.
“And it does,” Eddie nods. “Shaves a good 12 minutes off a groceries run.”
Buck swallows, the steady way Eddie’s looking at him almost hypnotic. He shifts again, Eddie’s hand holding him mostly in place. He might’ve gone soft in the heat of their argument, but now… His eyes flit down instinctively, and Eddie’s follow.
“Are you fucking hard right now?” Eddie asks. His voice carries a note of amusement, teasing enough that Buck squirms under his gaze again, embarrassed. “Because of this? Me knowing you does it for you?”
Buck shuts his eyes, cheeks flushed with humiliation and arousal.
“Buck,” Eddie says, tipping his chin up with a finger.
He opens his eyes a fraction, looking at Eddie through his lashes. The humorous lilt to Eddie’s voice is completely incongruous with the expression on his face: eyes darkened, half-lidded, possessive.
“You like that I know you better than anyone in the world?” Eddie says quietly, hand once again cupping Buck through the denim of his jeans. Buck’s hips make an aborted little jerk into his touch. “That I know you better than anyone else ever will?”
Buck moans, and maybe he’s not embarrassed to admit it’s more from Eddie’s words than the way his palm is rubbing back and forth against Buck’s fly-seam. His head thunks back against the wall behind him.
Eddie unbuttons Buck’s jeans, a quick, clean, one-handed movement, tugging down the zipper without ceremony. Buck’s leaked a sizeable wet spot through his boxer briefs, and Eddie presses his thumb to the dampness, pressure on the sensitive head underneath. Buck jerks under his touch. Eddie lifts his gaze from Buck’s crotch, meeting his eyes momentarily.
“How soon before I know this about you, too?” he says, as though musing to himself. His hand dips past the waistband of Buck’s underwear, wrapping around him and drawing him out. Buck is drooling, sticky strings of precome blurting out. “Jesus,” Eddie says, sounding awed. “You’re so wet. Are you always this wet?”
Buck makes a helpless sound, hips stuttering.
Eddie’s hand works the head in tight, merciless movements, slide made easy by precome. “I want to know everything about you,” he says, and it sounds like an admission. “I’ve wanted to know this about you for—Jesus. Longer than I even realised.”
Buck’s head is swimming, pleasure a heady thing. “W-when did you realise?” he asks, and it comes out slurred.
Eddie’s hand pauses for a moment as he seemingly weighs his answer. “Sometime after you started dating Tommy. When you were doing things with him you would’ve been doing with me.”
Buck laughs. “Not all things I would’ve been doing with you,” he baits Eddie, then nearly convulses with pain-pleasure when Eddie digs his thumbnail into Buck’s slit.
“All things you should’ve been doing with me,” Eddie says, and Buck doesn’t contest that. “I guess—I guess Tommy knows this part of you better than me,” he says, jealousy out in the open. He leans into Buck, something possessive about the way he sucks another mark into the pale skin of Buck’s neck. “For now.”
“You’re a quick study,” Buck says breathlessly. “Plus, it’s nowhere close to the same thing.”
“What is?” Eddie asks into his skin, somewhat distracted.
“Being with you,” Buck says. “Being with him.”
“Yeah?” His mouth is hot on Buck’s throat. “Why’s that?”
“He—uh, Eddie, fuck,” Buck gasps a little when Eddie nips at him, immediately soothing the spot with a wet kiss, “he didn’t know me.”
“No?” Eddie asks, and there’s a wicked delight to it. “After six months?”
Buck huffs a laugh, breath ruffling the top of Eddie’s hair from this angle. “Nah. I don’t think—I don’t think he even tried to know me. He bought me basketball tickets for our anniversary.”
Eddie snorts in disbelief, and when Buck doesn’t say anything, he pauses from his work on Buck’s throat to look at him incredulously. “You’re serious? He got you basketball tickets?”
Buck lifts one shoulder in a good-natured shrug. “Didn’t know me. You know me.”
“Damn right I do,” Eddie says, and kisses Buck firmly on the mouth. “Know you better than Tommy fucking Kinard ever did. Ever will.” His hand works Buck’s cock again, leaking and hard through this whole conversation. Harder when Eddie murmurs, “Can’t believe you fucked him in my house,” and Buck says, “Wasn’t your house,” and Eddie amends, “Can’t believe you fucked him our house.”
“Eddie,” Buck says shakily, trying not to thrust into Eddie’s wet grip.
“Know your Social Security number,” he murmurs into Buck’s neck. “Know your allergies. Know your cheat-day coffee order—and it’s disgusting, it’s literally 90% syrup.”
Buck laughs—quickly morphing into a moan when Eddie twists on the upstroke, other hand rolling Buck’s balls.
“Know your favourite Christmas movie. Know your dream dinner party guests—still not sure Elmo counts.”
Buck jerks forward, thigh jostling between Eddie’s legs. Eddie’s cock strains at the fabric of his own pants, hard and hot when it comes in contact with Buck. Eddie stutters, hips and breath, moving forward to grind on Buck’s thigh even as he strips his cock.
“Know—what kind of flowers you like,” he says, panting. “Know your favourite pasta shape. Know what songs you sing in the shower,” he grinds down on Buck’s leg, thumbing the head of his cock simultaneously. The wetness smears down his shaft, thick and sticky.
Buck’s insides feel molten. Leaning heavily back on the wall behind him is the only thing keeping him upright.
“Know what you look like—after I kiss you,” Eddie says, voice rough. “Know what you look like w-when—when you want to get on your knees for me. God, in that bar bathroom—” Buck moans, humping up into Eddie’s fist even as Eddie rubs himself on Buck’s thigh. “Wanna—Buck. Wanna know what you look like when you come.”
Buck shudders, head tipping forward to rest on Eddie’s shoulder.
“No, c’mon,” Eddie says softly. “Head up. Wanna see you.”
It feels like a Herculean effort to lift his head, body liquid below him.
“No one,” Eddie tells him firmly, “is ever gonna know you like I know you.”
Buck comes, spilling hot over Eddie’s fist. It feels endless, pleasure like lightning up his spine. He melts boneless into Eddie in the aftermath. He feels rather than sees Eddie try to undo his own jeans with one hand, the other holding Buck to him.
Partly desire and partly a current lack of structural integrity in his body, Buck drops to his knees. He pushes Eddie’s hand out of the way, yanking his jeans and underwear down in one motion and taking Eddie into his mouth as a seamless follow-up.
“F-fuck,” Eddie moans, swaying in place. His hands come to rest gently on Buck’s head, more for support than guidance. “Jesus, Buck.”
On edge for the better part of an hour, it’s over gratifyingly quickly. Buck relaxes his throat, lets Eddie fuck into the tight heat of his mouth for just a minute before he’s coming, Buck choking a little as he swallows.
Instead of pulling him to his feet, Eddie draws up his pants and sinks down to the floor beside him. They sit, breathless, knees knocking.
Buck shuffles forward, into the spread of Eddie’s legs, kiss tentative. Eddie wraps a large hand around the back of his neck and kisses back, sweet despite the taste of it. Buck loses track of time, of space, because then the late evening sun is turning Eddie’s eyelashes golden and they’re lying on the couch, mouths aching and swollen.
It’s at a point where Buck is just lying on Eddie, mouth pressed unmoving to his, feeling the warm breath through his nose on every exhale. Touching for the sake of touching. Kissing for the sake of a kiss.
“It’s different,” Buck says eventually, tucking his face into Eddie’s neck.
“Mm?”
“It’s different,” he says again. “Kissing you. How this all started. It’s different. You were right.”
Eddie exhales, a breath of amusement. “It is different. It was always going to be different. But—I don’t think I got it right. It’s not because you’re a man.”
“Yeah?” Buck asks, muffled into Eddie’s skin.
“Yeah,” Eddie says, pressing a kiss to the top of Buck’s curls. “It’s different because it’s you.”
“Oh,” Buck smiles. “Good.”
He wonders for a moment if Eddie is qualified to make that observation, the only man he’s kissed being Buck—how do you know if the difference is gender or love? But then Buck himself has a slightly more diverse roster of experience. He’s kissed in love and out of it, he’s kissed men and he’s kissed women.
But it’s never felt like this. Because this feels like getting to come home, really come home. Getting to keep it. Like laundry and taxes, an endless, if mundane, promise. Like something Buck can finally allow himself to trust, whatever happens.
The scariest thing is also the safest thing. It’s different, because Buck kisses Eddie, and he knows it’s every kiss he’s ever going to have.
Losing a bet is a pretty good deal when the consolation prize is forever.