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The moment Buck saw the building collapse on top of Eddie, his whole world came to a violent halt. The dull, yet deafening sound of concrete crashing down bringing along a suffocating amount of dust made a stark contrast with the screeching sound Buck was hearing— ears ringing with unrelenting fury. It was his heart, pumping wildly in the desperate effort to keep him alive when his world was shattering. Or maybe it was his lungs, desperately begging to be filled with air, something so natural and yet so impossible in that moment, when Bobby kept screaming into his radio and Eddie kept not responding. He could only stand there, stock-still and completely frozen, certain that death had finally managed to get to him, after all. Because if a whole-ass ladder truck crushing him, a pulmonary embolism, and a goddamn lightning strike, with some other tragedies in between, hadn’t managed to take him out, witnessing Eddie Diaz die would surely do the trick.
But then his ears stopped ringing and his lungs stopped inflating. Everything in him stopped working when he heard Eddie’s voice on the radio. He was sure his knees would buckle, so he just went to sit, stealing the space on the steps of the ambulance, waiting for Eddie to be rescued, to get out of whatever heap of rocks had trapped him. Carefully listening to Hen asking for a list of possible injuries, he closed his eyes and finally, fucking finally, took a breath.
Breathing was a thing, breathing easily is a whole different concept though.
And breathing easily didn’t come in the truck, on their way back to the station, and didn’t come when they all went to shower and Buck simply sat in the locker room, all soot and sweat, dirt clinging to his body, sinking its claws into him like dread had done mere instants before, into his heart and stomach, when he thought he had lost his best friend, his everything.
Probably he should have simply asked to follow Eddie to the hospital. Bobby would have let him go, if the glances he constantly shot his way were anything to go by. Bobby knows. Buck has a feeling that he does. Like when you are well aware that your mom knows all your deepest secrets but everyone pretends to ignore the fact.
Buck didn’t ask. He didn’t beg to follow Eddie to the hospital like a stray dog would follow whoever gave him a scrap of food because something keeps echoing in his mind.
Are you?
In love with Eddie?
It wouldn’t be so crazy.
God. No. It is crazy. It is all sorts of crazy and something more. It is an absolutely, world-shattering, life-altering kind of crazy.
Because he is. Desperately, completely, insanely in love with Eddie. And he is terrified, scared to death that all it could take is a different frown on his face or a different kind of glance in Eddie’s direction and Eddie would know. He is downright horrified at the thought that Eddie could find out and leave.
And that is what brings him here, now, in his current predicament, rocking back and forth on his heels to avoid pacing the engine bay, waiting for Eddie to be back at the station. He wills his heart to stop thumping so violently, his hands to stop shaking, trembling. In the end, he simply hides them in his pockets and waits, waits, waits. He’s been waiting since Eddie himself texted him, saying that he got a clean bill of health, except for a couple of bruises here and there. It’s a miracle, if you ask Buck.
Buck hopes he’ll manage to breathe easily as soon as he lays eyes on Eddie but he soon finds out that that’s not the case.
When he sees Eddie get out of the battalion chief's car, a small, almost tentative smile creeps up on his face, but he still can’t find any semblance of peace.
“Hey,” he whispers, in a voice so small that Eddie only hears him because there’s so little space between them. Buck’s fingers twitch with the need to touch. The sky is turning dark behind his best friend’s dirty face and yet there’s a goddamn ball of bright fire expanding into his chest, making him feel warm and fuzzy, and breathless.
He feels like breathing is an impossible task when Eddie tilts his head and tiredly smiles— Buck yearns, tremendously. He wants to bury himself in the space between Eddie’s ribs, find a home in the cracks of his chest, all bruised and battered.
He lets out a shaky but relieved sigh when he hears the other man’s voice.
“Hey,” Eddie opens his arms, and there’s a fond look on his face which surprises Buck, “turns out I’m fine.”
God, Buck would love to smack him because he didn’t immediately flee the building when it was collapsing and kiss him senseless at the same time.
He decides to fall in the middle, placing a hand on Eddie’s shoulder and squeezing slightly, mindful of any possible discomfort. That’s usually the spot that Eddie’s hand tends to land on when Buck is the one in need of comfort. Even if, right now, Buck feels like the one who needs reassurance anyway, despite Eddie being the one who has brushed death’s door.
He needs to touch Eddie if he wants to breathe, if even not fully, needs to know that his whole world is still there, up and spinning and so impossibly beautiful, dragging him down through some deep, soulful brown eyes.
“Never do that again.” It’s a plea, Buck knows how it sounds and knows that Eddie knows too, judging by the way his Adam’s apple bobs along his neck.
When Eddie nods, silently— because both of them know that nobody can promise full safety in their line of work, but they still need this— Buck lets go of his shoulder, with one last squeeze and allowing himself to brush along Eddie’s whole arm before releasing him.
“Won’t do,” Eddie promises anyway, just as much delicately, solemnly offering to keep fighting just for Buck, always for Buck. And Chris, obviously, but this isn’t about him now.
Buck is so terribly tempted to shove his pinkie in Eddie’s face and make him pinky promise but he stops when Eddie’s eyes dart behind his back, and when he turns around to look at what must have caught his friend’s attention, he realizes that the whole team witnessed their little sweet exchange.
Heat spreads across his cheeks unrelentingly. He doesn’t even try to fight the blush. Instead, he moves to plaster himself beside Eddie and places a hand on the small of his back, guiding him to the locker room.
However, his plans are disrupted when Bobby gets in the way, together with Hen and Chimney and Ravi, who just want to make sure that Eddie is okay, and Buck’s throat itches like crazy, burns with the desire to scream, because they might have been worried, but they didn’t think their whole world had come to a sudden stop. Their friends’ interception turns out to work in their favor though, as Bobby kindly informs them that they can both head home early.
Even if, Eddie would have gone home nonetheless, so implying that Buck will be going with him makes both of them blush furiously. Buck is glad they are both still covered in grime and soot, maybe that helps cover the pink on their cheekbones.
They take about ten minutes to gather their things, thank Bobby, say goodbye to the others, and head home for the next forty-eight hours, and when they sit in Buck’s car, Buck still struggles with his fingers. They are not actually shaking, but he feels the need to wriggle them, shake the adrenaline of the afternoon off of them. They feel taut. As he himself does, after all.
Still, he concentrates on driving, gripping the steering wheel as if it had personally offended him. Eventually, Eddie is the one to break the silence.
“Buck?” He offers, tapping some fingers on his own knee.
Buck has to clear his throat before speaking.“Yeah?”
What could he say?
“I’m sorry?” Eddie winces, both from the exhaustion and the admission.
Buck exhales, “Not really your fault,” concedes.
“Hey! You said not to do that again!” Eddie playfully accuses him, and is happy when the hint of a smile adorns Buck’s face.
He would go to hell to get that smile on his best friend’s face. He would go to hell just to have Buck, in every way possible. It’s something that came with the realization that he’s very much in love with the guy, sometime between Texas and Bobby’s presumed death.
Buck shrugs minutely, keeps driving, still agitated, unable to communicate to his nervous system that Eddie is okay, that he is safe and in this car, with him, and they are going home, together. They will still be here tomorrow, but Buck seems to be intrinsically worried about his friend’s safety.
Eddie lets him have his moment now that he is pretty sure that Buck doesn’t hate him. He was sincere, he is sorry for worrying Buck, but he also tried to break some of the obvious tension by cracking a little joke. Now, he lets him drive in silence.
Eddie always dreaded silence. With Buck, he doesn’t mind. It’s almost comforting, like a little hug on his tainted heart.
If he’s honest, as soon as they pull in the driveway, all he would want to do is lie on the couch, with Buck’s full body weight on top of him and sleep until Christopher gets home the morning after from abuela’s house.
Buck, however, has other plans. Or so it seems.
Eddie has barely switched the living room lights on when he closes the distance between them, and sounds all choked up, almost devastated when he speaks. “You good with the first shower?” He asks, so close to Eddie that Eddie can feel his body heat radiating from him and yet so far, eyes lost in the darkness of the house, breathing unevenly.
“Buck?”
The whole day has taken a toll on Eddie, especially if he thinks of the hours he’s had to spend in the ER, and yet Buck seems so tired, so utterly wrecked that it soon becomes his first and only concern.
Taking Buck’s wrist in his hand, Eddie encourages him to speak to him. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”
He feels Buck’s unsteady, erratic pulse through the skin of his wrist, hears and sees the breath Buck’s trying to take.
Then Buck closes his eyes. “I’m okay Eddie.” He tries to lie, Eddie immediately interjects.
“No, you aren’t,” he softly insists, raising his brows.
“I am fine,” Buck says through gritted teeth, “but you–” His voice quivers and his hands are on their way to another shaking bout. His Adam’s apple bobs manically before he can go on. “You almost weren’t, Eddie.”
Eddie’s eyes roam around Buck’s face, scrutinizing every inch of his face, trying to interpret every micro expression of his. Buck looks like he is on the verge of a breakdown and Eddie doesn’t know what to do. For the first time, Eddie doesn’t know what to do with his best friend.
He tries to be brave, even if he’s terrified, and takes both of Buck’s hands in his. “Try to breathe? Just breathe?” He suggests, tilting his head slightly to the right, trying to catch Buck’s eyes that keep darting around reminding him of marbles that go berserk in a pinball machine.
Observing the way Buck’s chest starts heaving with suppressed sobs, Eddie suspects that ever since he was trapped under that building remains, Buck hasn’t given himself the chance to react, to feel, to grieve. That breaks Eddie’s heart in two.
He can see that Buck is on the verge of tears, and he wants to stop that, to make him happy and put a smile on his face, perhaps making his chest shudder because of uncontrollable laughter, not repressed pain.
Buck shakes his head while trying and failing to properly take a breath, “I– I’m sorry, I’m gonna–” he retracts his hands, tries to get away from Eddie but Eddie doesn’t let him. Instead, for once, he decides to be brave, even if every fiber of his being is taut with the fear of losing Buck.
He grips Buck’s biceps, caressing them with a thumb. “Wanna shower with me?” He timidly asks, praying that Buck doesn’t flee the house horrified by the mere thought.
“Together?” Buck looks so blindsided by the question that Eddie thinks his eyes are going to fall out of his skull.
“Yeah, just– shower, together, so you,” Eddie gulps, suddenly so nervous, so immensely worried that he’s about to ruin the single best thing that life has given him (him, without the mention of his son). “You can see that I’m okay,” he eventually finds his voice again.
There’s a reason he’s offering this, besides the visceral need to always see a blinding smile on the face of the man he loves, and that is his own need to touch Buck whenever he has brushed death. There’s nothing that would calm him down like just holding Buck, hugging him, maybe without clothes between them, just some skin-to-skin contact, nothing sexual, just pure love flowing through bodies — alive, warm, present.
He hopes Buck will accept and find solace in that.
“You– uh, you don’t have to, I know you’re okay Eddie, it’s fine–”
Eddie cuts him off by dragging him to the bathroom, in silence. “Tell me to stop if you want, but I don’t mind,” he reminds Buck, before slotting his hands under the hem of Buck’s sweatshirt. “You’re so covered in soot, Buckley,” he chuckles, feeling his heart squeeze and swell when he spots a shy, boyish smirk on his best friend’s lips.
“So are you, Diaz.”
Well, two can flirt.
Is that what they’re doing? Buck is in love with his best friend and he is about to step into the shower with him because he’s losing it over a freak accident at work. What is he doing? What is happening exactly?
Eddie delicately leaves Buck’s chest bare in front of him, warmly relishing in the more relaxed look that Buck is now wearing. He tries his hardest not to look at the tattoos that adorn the other man’s skin, even if he would rather lick them with his tongue— No. He physically shakes his head, as though these thoughts could slip away through his ears maybe. This is not about him and it’s not sexual.
Then, Buck gets rid of his sweatpants in one swift move, and judging by the determined look in his eyes, he only wants to focus on Eddie. He wants to touch, to hold, to feel, with his own fingers, that he really hasn’t lost the love of his life.
“Can I– does it hurt?” He winces, trying to unzip Eddie’s hoodie and slip it down his arms.
Eddie shakes his head. Be normal be normal be normal. “It’s okay,” he smiles, voice small and sincere.
Then Buck’s hands still, all of a sudden, precisely as his movements were getting more determined, fingers steadier.
He spots the purple slash reddish blob on Eddie’s ribs and his throat constricts; breathing is hard again. Truthfully, Buck hadn’t even realized that he was properly breathing again until now, when seeing evidence of what happened, of what could have been, knocks the air out of his lungs.
His fingers tremble again and his chest shudders and Eddie decides to get rid of pants and underwear himself, in one confident motion. “I’m fine,” he repeats, partly because he’s stark naked in front of Buck, completely exposed, and doesn’t seem to be able to decipher his friend’s thoughts, partly because he wants to remind Buck that he really is fine — doctors cleared him.
Buck swallows nervously, nods — totally unconvinced. But still.
Eventually, he gets rid of the rest of his own clothes and shudders as soon as he realizes that they are both completely naked now. There’s nothing between them except the notion that today could have been the end.
The first one to move is Buck, in the end. He is fueled by the sheer necessity of touching Eddie. His fingers find their way to the giant bruise on Eddie’s ribs, and he feels his legs are about to give out. Their eyes are locked, neither of them daring to look away, even if their hands are about to start a journey of their own, roaming around their respective bodies.
“Let’s– I’m gonna– come here,” eventually Eddie just grips Buck’s hand and drags him to the shower. “Water okay?” He checks, after fiddling with the shower knobs, trying to find the perfect temperature.
Buck nods, steps under the hot spray, and immediately relaxes under the warmth of the water cascading down his body. Then, he realizes he has closed his eyes and right away opens them, scanning his surroundings until they land on Eddie. Eddie who’s simply watching him with a tender, soft, almost loving expression. Some droplets of water have splashed his chest and the dim light of the bathroom is creating weird hues around his ribs.
And suddenly Buck is back in that fire, stuck in his memories, stuck outside the building that almost took the most important person away from him. And his chest heaves and he feels like he’s going to be sick, maybe vomit all over Eddie’s shower, if he doesn’t—
Eddie steps closer and hugs him.
Their world stops.
They are both naked, under the unrelenting pressure of the warm water, and Eddie has both of his arms around Buck’s neck, dragging him in, closer, closer, impossibly closer.
Buck needs a moment or two to recover, to get back to the present moment, to finally give in and pull Eddie into a bone-crushing hug.
Eddie’s arms tighten around his neck, and Buck can’t help but sink deeper and deeper into the hollow of his best friend’s neck. If he could, he would crawl beneath Eddie’s ribs, make a house in there, a home, warm and solid. It’s a recurring thought.
As he can’t, he envelops Eddie with his arms, while Eddie keeps him upright. His fingers dig into Eddie’s back, as if trying to hold him closer, then both hands are splayed against the wet skin, gripping the man like an anchor. And that motion, alternating between relaxed and taut, keeps going on for some time, until Eddie moves one hand and brings it into Buck’s wet curls.
That breaks Buck. His resolve crumbles, his whole body shivers, his knees threaten to give out. He starts to sob. Frantically, heavily. His broken, trembling cries hit Eddie’s chest more heavily than any piece of concrete ever could. The pain he felt during the fall beneath the collapsing building is nothing compared to what he is experiencing now.
“No,” he whispers, squeezing Buck’s head and neck. “Hey, Buck– hey, shh,” he pleads, in the face of yet another desperate whimpering sound coming from Buck’s lips.
He presses closer, ignoring that in any other circumstance, he’d be rock hard, from feeling Buck’s naked body so perfectly plastered against his, so perfectly slotting into all the right places of his, like a giant puzzle.
Buck’s chest is one with his. Eddie prays that by feeling the normal rise and fall caused by approximately even breathing, Buck will eventually calm down. “I got you, I got you, bud,” he vows, tender and reverent.
They’re still tangled in one another, arms still tightly wrapped around each other; the only difference is in the way Buck is frantically searching for more skin to touch, more of Eddie to hold.
“I’m sorry.” Buck seems to find his voice after what feels like an eternity, to Eddie.
And Eddie would really, really look in his eyes for this but he doesn’t dare move away from Buck’s hug. “Don’t be, it’s okay.”
“I was scared. Sorry,” Buck mumbles in response, even if his words are muffled because he’s speaking against the wet skin of Eddie’s neck.
He feels flayed open, vulnerable, like all of his deepest secrets have been revealed all at once, but he thinks of the call, of the building collapsing while Eddie was still inside and every coherent, rational thought flies through the window.
Eddie’s hands start tracking some nonsensical pattern on his back, stroking softly the warm skin. “It’s okay, I understand, Buck, I really do,” he reassures him.
“Okay…” Buck sniffles again and again, but he’s calming down. He’s finally breathing for the first time since he saw Eddie walk into that fire all these hours ago. He even nods, between the post-sobbing tremors that are still tearing him apart.
“This is embarrassing,” then he mutters, trying to slowly pull away from Eddie’s embrace, even though he doesn’t completely move. He just shifts a little, letting some inches of space separate them. He’ll probably need to split Eddie’s water bill after this. He also doesn’t care about that.
Eddie shrugs the shoulder he is not leaning on. “It’s just us.”
“Yeah,” Buck chuckles, moving his hands until they find Eddie’s hips and placing them firmly there. “I couldn’t breathe,” then he admits.
Eddie stays quiet so he goes ahead. “I– I kinda wanted to come to– to the hospital with you.” Buck’s stutter is the cutest thing Eddie has ever heard but he doesn’t think he’ll ever tell him.
“And all the t– time,” Buck pauses, worries for a second that this is all too revealing, but then again, they are pressed into one another while completely naked, so… “I couldn’t breathe.”
“And then we were here and–”
“Are you, now?”
“What?”
Buck’s train of thought is a little slow, compromised by the size of Eddie’s hands which are playing with his wet curls at the base of his head. How hasn’t he noticed how big Eddie’s hands are before?
“Are you breathing now?” Eddie asks, solely focused on the man in his arms.
“Oh,” Buck’s small voice is enough to tell that, yeah, he is back to breathing normally, but still, it’s nice to hear it.
“Ye– yeah, I think so.”
Eddie nods, lets out a deep sigh, then relocates his grip so he can hold Buck’s sides, feel his ribcage when he squeezes the soft flash encasing the love of his life, so Buck finds himself encircled by Eddie’s arms completely, and decides he’ll just rest his chin on the other man’s shoulder, eyes closed and heart full.
Eddie’s warmth, the softness of his skin, the rhythm of his caresses, and the hot water splashing on his broad shoulders are about to lull him to sleep. His breathing slows down, his chin sinking into the silky skin of his friend’s shoulder. But then, then he jolts awake, every cell of his body immediately on high alert.
“I love you,” Eddie tells him. In one breath, secure, steady. No room for fear or doubt.
Buck is definitely not breathing now, and as if it’s some sort of sick joke, the first thing he blurts out is exactly that. “Well, now I’m not breathing, again.”
Eddie cackles against the right side of Buck’s face, where he is carefully and gently pressing his own nose now.
He doesn’t know what possessed him, what brought him to spill his guts, to confess in a split second what he’s been keeping close to his heart for a while now. But Buck’s reaction to his possible death was probably what made him cave in. Maybe this would have happened regardless of their awareness of their respective feelings if either of them had been awake every time something terrible happened to the other. However, this is now, and right now Buck is still in his arms, despite the fact that he claims to be breathless, in all likelihood scared shitless of his words.
“Sorry, I just had to tell you,” he ends up adding, even if Buck doesn’t seem to mind in the slightest. In fact, Buck goes back to completely bury his face in Eddie’s neck and Eddie finally relaxes, after years, decades of anguish. Because he can have it, he can have Buck, he can finally love, and be loved in turn.
He laughs a little, just because he is so happy he could burst.
Breathing has never been easier. Loving Buck, and knowing (despite the absence of actual words) that Buck loves him back, makes Eddie feel like someone has unlocked some more space in his chest cavity for his lungs to expand. What Buck has unlocked is his freedom.
“Buck?” He asks, swaying a little in the direction of the body wash shelf. They have to get clean, after all.
Buck doesn’t budge, grunts a little too, and that makes him smile. “Okay,” so he murmurs, chuckling while moving them both and then squeezing some shampoo into his hands.
He reaches Buck’s hair and that forces Buck to finally pull away. While Eddie is busy lathering his hair, Buck studies him. He catalogs Eddie’s features, the rosy cheeks and the content sighs that escape him from time to time while deft fingers work around his curls, and how subconsciously he tilts his head in concentration.
This is the man who loves him. Wow. How did he get so lucky?
Buck’s eyes are red-rimmed and a bit puffy from the tears, but still the best thing Eddie has ever seen. He wants to worship this man, maybe that’s why he’s spending so much time washing his hair, softly unraveling the matted curls, making sure that all the soot is washed away.
Then, without giving the action a second thought, Eddie brushes Buck’s hair away from his forehead and after sweeping the shampoo away with the back of his hand, drops a kiss between Buck’s eyebrows.
Goosebumps erupt from Buck’s skin, covering his body completely. And his lips twitch into a soft smile regardless of his will to show it, and it takes all of Eddie’s restraint not to lean in and kiss it off of his face, replacing it with a spit-slick grin. “Eddie,” he breathes out, almost like it’s a prayer, eyes huge and on their way to go completely black.
“Yeah? Gotta clean up,” Eddie retorts, still as soft, but like he’s completely unaffected by their current state.
Buck resigns himself to constantly feeling like his heart is about to burst and reduce his chest to a heap of red, heart-shaped confetti. He feels his pulse run wild and at the same time so calm it’s alarming. For a moment, he fears he’s going to fall asleep. Anyway, he won’t deprive himself of this, won’t lose the chance to be kissed by Eddie, so tenderly washed. The last time someone has actually washed his body, his hair, without any sexual expectation has probably been sometime between twenty and twenty-five years ago.
His whole nervous system is at peace, he distantly thinks that he’s never felt so safe and so completely at ease before. So it’s not his fault that he ends up slurring the words against Eddie’s shoulder some time later, after Eddie has cleaned his own body and hair.
They are just standing under the hot water, surrounded by a blanket of steam that has blurred pretty much every surface of the bathroom when he feels the words pour out of him.
“I love you so much. Fuck.”
He breathes them against Eddie’s bare shoulders, just some inches away from the bullet wound scar. One of his hands is tightly gripping his bicep, the other one is splayed across Eddie’s chest, so he feels rather than sees the breath that Eddie takes and he fights it at first but a huge, bright smile creeps up on his face regardless.
Then Eddie’s only reply is to squeeze said hand, so he feels brave enough to tease a little. “What? You thought I didn’t?”
“Uh,” Eddie mumbles, a bit red on the cheeks. “It’s just… nice to hear it, I guess.”
He shrugs and Buck feels the gesture against his lips, before leaning more comfortably on his best friend’s side, basking in the warmth of the moment.
“Bed?” Then he offers at some point, after a yawn that Eddie doesn’t succeed at hiding, even if he’d be happy to stand in this shower forever.
And Eddie nods, so that gets Buck to move. He goes to get a towel and wraps it around Eddie’s waist, before kissing his forehead. Then, as he’s about to do the same for himself, Eddie stops him and does that himself. He takes a smaller towel too, then, and envelops Buck’s upper body in it, making him laugh.
“Okay, now I feel like a burrito, Eds,” Buck informs him, and they both end up laughing their way to the bed.
Silently, they both choose to only wear boxers, each finding immense solace in feeling skin meet skin, and as soon as they lie down, their hands find each other.
As they lie on their sides, it’s Eddie who makes a move, by placing a loving hand on Buck’s cheek, stroking the cheekbone there ever so gently, and that seems to make Buck realize that he, too, is allowed to touch. Soon, a hand of his lands on Eddie’s side. “Does it hurt?” He asks, feeling his way around the bruise with a thumb.
Eddie shrugs minutely. “Not so much. You okay? Breathing again?”
Buck closes his eyes for a second, then feels his lips twist in a smile. Then thinks that he may die right away if he doesn’t immediately kiss Eddie.
Oh God. He gets to kiss Eddie Diaz.
He’s suddenly breathless again. For the best reason, though.
Probably Eddie clocks the exact moment Buck’s mind comes up with the plan, but Buck carries on anyway.
With his best puppy eyes and his most impressive pout, he aims for the highest prize.
“I feel some…” he vaguely points at his own throat, making a show of swallowing hard, before clutching his chest in a completely theatrical way. “Something must be wrong,” he adds and he quickly goes to touch Eddie’s shoulder to keep him from getting up. “You could help me!”
He flashes Eddie a huge, happy grin, pointing at him with a finger that makes him look stupid and cute, and that is all it takes to get a boisterous laugh out of Eddie.
Eddie’s brows graze his hairline while a grin splits his face into two when then Buck places one elbow on the mattress and comes closer, lying next to him, looking at him from above, propped up on his elbow.
“And how would I do that?”
Buck’s lungs go through a category five hurricane in a split second. Because— wow, Eddie has always been hot, but Eddie, half-naked in bed and flirting with him? Buck feels like he’s floating in molten lava.
He’s about to say that he should really, really get a kiss but maybe he takes a little too long because suddenly he’s losing his balance, falling completely on top of Eddie, lips on lips, with a gasp.
He’s kissing Eddie and— fuck fuck fuck, Eddie’s lips are so soft, moving against his as if they were made for that. A not-so-graceful oomph slips through his mouth when he fully realizes and that makes Eddie chuckle a little, at least until he reaches behind Buck’s neck and pushes him down further, kissing him like a man who’s starving.
Buck’s brain usually runs wild, thoughts racing around at such speed that he has no chance of catching them, getting them under some sort of control. So he is used to chaos and loud noises, to noise in general. And yet as soon as he parts his mouth to welcome Eddie’s lips and tongue, everything stops. A wave of unexpected calm envelops him, making the world a mellow and peaceful, and cozy place.
If he still possessed some semblance of cognitive function, he might go as far as saying that each sweep of Eddie’s tongue is healing the deepest cracks of his soul, those that hurt and sting. But Eddie is making these syrupy sounds, going all lax and pliant under his touch, and seems determined to touch every single inch of Buck’s body all at once so Buck can’t really think. Instead, he breaks the kiss only to find himself licking and sucking and kissing along Eddie’s jaw.
“What–” Eddie pants, in the milliseconds between Buck fleeing his mouth and attacking his jaw. And then “oh– ah, oh– kay,” splutters, making Buck’s insides boil.
“I love you,” he repeats between languid, hungry kisses, going down Eddie’s neck and then focusing on a spot beside his pulse point. “I love you so fucking much,” he breathes out softly, all sloppy and out of breath, and slowly all of his weight is pressed against Eddie’s body.
Eddie is completely stuck beneath Buck’s body and the impossibly soft mattress (Buck’s mattress— theirs) and there’s no place he’d rather be.
There’s nothing he has wanted more in his life than this. While one of his hands is pressing on Buck’s shoulder blades, pushing him down, down, down, and the other one is brushing over his lower back until some bold fingers sneak under the waistband of his boxers, until he’s touching Buck’s ass, cupping a cheek all in one hand.
But that makes Buck pause his ministrations, and pull slightly back. “Eds,” he begins, all out of breath, cheeks completely red and lips that match the pink of his birthmark, darkened tenfold.
And Eddie recoils, thinks he’s just ruined it all, that he has asked for too much. “Sorry, I–”
Buck silences shaking his head and then with a mind-blowing, fiery kiss that hopefully leaves no doubt. “No, no. If you keep doing that, then I won’t be able to stick to just kissing,” he explains, and he is physically moved by the way Eddie’s chest expands under his, taking a deep, deep breath.
They both end up chuckling, and just sharing their breaths, legs tangled together under a light blanket, until Buck rolls a bit off of Eddie’s body, but still staying plastered to his side. They’re sharing a pillow, and a heart, and all the love in the world feels concentrated in that room.
“I don’t know if I wanna stick to just kissing,” Eddie eventually says, voice low and gravelly, teasing Buck by faking his accent, before pushing a laughing Buck on the bed and tackling him with his body, in turn.
“Yeah?” Buck exhales against his lips.
“Uh-huh,” Eddie cheekily retorts, skimming Buck’s side with the tip of his fingers until he’s reached his underwear, at the front, this time.
“Do you?” Then he pulls a little bit back to meet Buck’s eyes. They are so big, so full of desire, lascivious and Eddie can’t believe that he made this.
“What?”
That, combined with the way Buck is shivering and squirming under his touch, makes Eddie laugh loud and bright and Buck immediately decides that he’ll take all the teasing in the world to hear that sound again.
“Stick to kissing? You want that?” Eddie asks, between kisses he’s leaving on Buck’s chest.
“Uh,” Buck murmurs, chest heaving with anticipation. “N– no, I– no.”
Eddie just smirks, moves up to whisper in Buck’s mouth. “That’s what I thought,” he taunts him, while a deft hand slips in Buck’s boxers.