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Eddie’s always been good at this part - turning his back and running away. It’s a skill he acquired as a kid, sometime after his father called him too soft and his mother dragged him to a confessional right after Sunday mass when he was nine years old. A coping mechanism, Frank had told him, once, back when Eddie still held regular weekly appointments with him. He runs away because the weight of every word he leaves unsaid and every feeling he shoves under the proverbial carpet is just too much to look at. And it’s easy, almost, after all this time.
It just sucks a little extra hard this time, because he’s not running away from his father’s balled-up fist or his mother’s harsh disappointment, or the impossible pressure of their expectations, or the numbness of feeling like a failure as a son, a father, a man.
That would be easier, he thinks. After all, he’s been doing it all his life, in one way or another, the shape of his retreating steps fitting like a pair of well-worn boots. But this is different, and it hurts, somewhere deep in the core of him - because this time, he’s running away from Buck.
The woman is blonde, and older than them, and she’s pretty in a way that Eddie would have appreciated in an absent, automatic way a year ago, maybe, out of habit more than anything. Back when he still thought that there was a way to fix the part of him that made his eyes stray to Buck’s bare torso as they changed into their work clothes in the locker rooms, flushed and dry-mouthed and trying not to look, but looking anyway, a thousand stolen glances over their nearly decade-long friendship. Back when he could still excuse it as curiosity and nothing more, even when his heart felt like it would beat out of his chest and the heat would pool low in his stomach whenever his eyes would meet Buck’s across the room and he’d be on the receiving end of one of Buck’s toothy grins, his blue eyes crinkled at the corners, bashful and flexing his pecs teasingly, just to make Eddie huff an overwhelmed laugh.
Back when he decided to push all of that into a box in the far recesses of his mind labeled “DANGER”, dating beautiful woman after beautiful woman and feeling nothing for them, but refusing to think about it. Another form of running.
But he can’t run away from himself, no matter how hard he tries. No matter how much he wishes he could.
So, he tips his hat at her and manages a real-looking smile aimed in Buck’s general direction, eyes fixed at a spot somewhere over his broad shoulders, and he chokes out a gruff “Night, brother” for good measure before fleeing the premises like a bat out of hell, cringing at himself the entire way down the street.
And, look - Night, brother? Not his best work, he’ll admit. They don’t call each other that, it’s weird and macho and Buck isn’t like that, and Eddie hasn’t been like that with him since they shook hands in that parking lot. He’s called Buck’s name more times than anyone else’s, by a long shot, and he’ll call Buck “bud” when he’s feeling especially fond of him and choking on the word “baby”, and Buck will call him “Eds” or “Eddie”, or “Edmundo” when he wants Eddie to poke him in his side or ruffle his hair until it sticks up at a dozen different angles, always trying to rile him up and make him laugh.
They’ll walk so close their shoulders bump together with every step, and Eddie has permanent bruises on his hips because they press together so closely, always, a lasting reminder of Buck’s warm presence in his life and in his orbit, his own personal moon. Their legs slot together like the cogs of a grandfather clock in the back of the engine, and when Ravi takes a sharp turn Buck will tighten his thighs around one of Eddie’s so he doesn’t go tipping over into the window, the thick lines of muscle strong but tender around Eddie in a way that will unavoidably bring a thin sheen of sweat beading on the back of his neck, overwhelming and confusing but good. Always good.
And the thing is, Eddie knows, right? How could he not? He’s known for a long time, probably since forty feet of mud and rainwater came down on top of him and Buck’s was the first face he saw in the crowd of people looking for him in the dark, rainy field, dirty and soaked to the bone and so very relieved when Buck’s warm, warm hands found their way to his shaking body. And he certainly knew on that horrible day, years ago, as his eyes caught on the red flecks of blood - his blood, his own blood on Buck’s perfect, pale skin, on his pink lips and in his curls and all over his white button-down shirt. Their eyes had sought each other out, and Eddie remembers thinking “It’s okay, at least I have something beautiful to look at before I die”, and that something had been Buck. It was always going to be Buck.
So, yes, he knows. The hungry thing living in the deepest, darkest parts of him gorges itself on Buck’s easy affection and the tinkling sound of his laugh like windchimes in the breeze, every soft press of Buck’s body against his own, their hands brushing together and their shoulders bumping and their knees knocking like magnets. The way Buck’s mouth shapes itself around Eddie’s name like a promise, like he’ll always be there to say it, like Eddie will always have the privilege of being someone Buck knows.
There is a Buck-shaped indent in the far-left cushion of Eddie’s worn grey couch, and his clothes smell like Buck’s because they’ve been using the same fabric softener for years, bought together during their joint grocery runs, and Eddie keeps his pantry stocked with Buck’s favorite brand of muesli even though Chris says it tastes like sawdust.
All of this to say - he knows, and he runs anyway.
Because Buck is good in a way that so few people are, and he cares about Eddie in a way no one else has, not the parents who brought him into this world or the sisters he had to raise since he was six years old, or Shannon who was his best friend before she became a stranger who knew everything and nothing about him at the same time. Chris is his kid, and he’s the best kid in the world, but Eddie has failed him so many times and so spectacularly that the guilt is inexorably tied to the love they feel for each other.
Buck cares for him in a way that makes Eddie want to rip his own heart out and shove it into his big, kind hands, because he knows Buck would take better care of it than he ever could. He’d cradle it and press kisses as soft as butterfly wings to the surface of it, and he’d whisper kindly to it, and Eddie would be so happy. So impossibly happy.
But Eddie’s hands are not gentle, and his voice doesn’t shape itself around a whisper in the same kind way that Buck’s does. He is clumsy and destructive with the gentle things of the world, and he’s already left Buck more times than he can count, even though he promised he wouldn’t. He won’t break him in this way, too.
So, yeah, Eddie leaves, and he walks to the hotel in the middle of the night instead of calling an Uber to pick him up, hands tucked deep into his jacket pockets to keep the evening chill at bay. The steady sound of his steps echoes across the rain-soaked sidewalk, and Eddie keeps his eyes on the ground as he walks, one foot in front of the other.
Across the street, a door bangs open and the deep thrumming bass of a familiar pop song breaks the stillness, a few people drunkenly staggering out of a nightclub on their way to a cab. Eddie watches them for a moment even as he keeps walking steadily on. Two young men, arms linked together, bumping into each other with every step as they giggle and trip over their feet, and three women around the same age right behind them, walking on wobbly, too tall heels and laughing brightly at something one of the men says. Their faces are covered in sweat and glitter, and they look happy.
Eddie swallows, his throat dry and too tight. He keeps walking. He thinks of Buck, but then he’s always thinking of Buck, so the warmth of it is familiar. And then he thinks about Buck and the woman, about how they might have already left the club together, laughing and kissing, and has to pause to dry heave into a trashcan by the side of the road under a flickering streetlight.
The hotel lobby is a welcome reprieve from the cold evening air, and Eddie finds himself shivering in front of the elevator and rubbing his hands together to get some feeling back into them the entire way up to his floor. A warm shower will do him some good, and some room service. Maybe he’ll dip into the mini-bar since the trip is paid for in full. At least then he won’t be able to hear Buck when he inevitably stumbles across the hallway to his own room in a couple of hours, or, god forbid, Buck and the woman from the bar stumbling in together.
Yeah, the mini-bar is sounding better by the second.
In fact, Eddie’s so singularly focused on the idea of it that he doesn’t notice the figure sitting slumped against his door until he’s close enough to trip over its long legs, nearly faceplanting onto the hotel hallway’s ugly, beige carpet.
Buck’s startled eyes snap up to him, his arms already up and grabbing Eddie’s waist to steady him as though on instinct alone, and all Eddie can do is gape down at him.
“What,” he chokes out, eloquently.
Buck’s head tips to the side. His calloused thumbs are rubbing at Eddie’s shirt, right over his hipbones, the wide expanse of his warm hands tucked under Eddie’s jacket. His heart is beating so fast it feels like it might burst out of his chest at any second. Buck doesn’t move his hands, even though Eddie isn’t in danger of falling over anymore.
“You were at the bar,” Eddie adds, confused and cold and not altogether convinced that this isn’t some sort of twisted mirage. Maybe he fell over on the way here, and is currently passed out in a random alleyway in downtown Nashville while Buck fucks a beautiful woman in a bar bathroom.
He wants to sink down to the floor with Buck, lean against the door with him until their bodies are pressed together from shoulder to foot, knock his boots against Buck’s just so he laughs and pokes at Eddie’s middle with gentle, teasing fingertips.
“I left,” Buck explains, unhelpfully.
Eddie frowns, asks “Why?” even though he doesn’t really want to know, or at least he doesn’t think so. Knowing is a dangerous thing. Asking, even more so.
Buck’s eyes are big as they look up at him, blue and slightly red-rimmed from the late night hour and the drinking, and his hair is windswept and messy, damp where it sticks to his still sweaty forehead from when they were line dancing with the Nashville crew earlier. Eddie hopes that’s why, at least. He tries not to think about why else Buck would be sweaty, nearly an hour and a half after Eddie left the bar.
Buck’s long, long fingers spasm around his waist, and the next breath Eddie takes is sharp and ragged, stuttering in and out of him like a death rattle.
“I left, like, ten minutes after you,” Buck tells him.
His voice is pitched low in the quiet of the hallway, velvet soft and familiar from late nights spent on Eddie’s couch with Chris asleep in his room down the hall, hushed laughter and whispered conversations as they lean into each other’s space, sharing the same air. It’s a good thing he’s still holding onto Eddie, because his knees buckle slightly, like he really will sink down to the floor at the soft admission.
“Why?” he asks, again.
The alcohol in his system makes it difficult to resist asking, and Buck is looking at him with eyes that reflect the warm glow of the overhead lights in front of Eddie’s hotel room door. His hands are so big, and Eddie is tired. Of running, of being afraid, of not being good enough for someone like Buck. He’s so, so tired.
Buck’s hands slide off of his waist, and he feels like falling to his knees and begging for them to come back. Instead, he swallows down the acidic, sour taste of it and blinks down at Buck, his eyes stinging.
“Didn’t wanna buy her a drink,” Buck admits. He sounds mumbly and pouty and Eddie would tease him for it if he wasn’t feeling completely undone by the words.
“Why did you?” he asks, instead.
Buck shrugs, and his fingers pick at a loose thread in the hallway carpet. He’s not looking up at Eddie anymore. Eddie tries not to feel the absence of his attention like a punch to the stomach, but he fails miserably.
“She asked,” Buck mumbles, at last. His voice sounds small.
And you didn’t, Eddie’s brain fills in the blank. Buck didn’t say it, but he would have, if he thought it would matter. He didn’t say it because he didn't think it would make a difference. Like he’s already given up hope.
Eddie swallows, and it tastes like bile.
“If, uh-” he sniffs, and Buck’s eyes slide up to him again, “If I’d asked, would you-”
“No,” Buck says. He reaches for Eddie, grabbing onto his waist again.
The tender touch is a harsh contrast to his answer, and Eddie’s not sure how to interpret it, his mind slow like molasses and unable to form a concrete thought. All he feels is Buck’s thumb dipping under the fabric of his shirt, warm skin on warm skin. Still, Eddie nods, and his eyes sting again.
He swallows the disappointment, like he’s been swallowing everything else, and can’t bring himself to be surprised. Buck’s hand squeezes his hipbone in admonishment, shaking him a little, and Eddie stumbles closer to him.
“Woulda called us an Uber,” Buck clarifies, blue eyes wide and earnest, the tone of his voice more sure, now. His pink, pink lips are tipped into a small smile, teasing, “You already had three beers.”
“Two,” Eddie corrects without thinking. His hand comes up to cup Buck’s over his hip, and Buck is kind enough to not mention the way it’s shaking, the way it’s probably clammy with nerves, with everything he’s trying to say but can’t find the words for.
Buck smiles, like he hears it anyway.
“Two,” he concedes, sounding fond and looking up at Eddie with stars in his eyes, “I had three.”
Eddie huffs a weak laugh, fumbles in his pocket for his room key. He rubs his thumb across the rough skin of Buck’s knuckle where their hands still press above his hip. Yesterday, he would’ve made a joke to break the fragile atmosphere around them, would’ve sent Buck to his room to sleep off the day before their trip tomorrow. He never would’ve put his hand over Buck’s, and he never would’ve asked.
He asks, now. Buck is looking up at him, and he’s always been the braver one between the two of them, but Eddie thinks he could learn to be brave, too. He could do anything, as long as Buck’s looking at him like this.
“Wanna order room service and watch shitty sitcom reruns with me?”
Buck’s laugh is too loud in the quiet hallway. It’s perfect. His hand squeezes one more time, and then he’s pushing off the floor and grabbing Eddie’s key to unlock the door himself.
Eddie orders their food while Buck showers, and he lays on the mattress still in his shoes and jacket, staring up at the water-stained ceiling and listening to Buck humming off-key over the sound of the water. He scrubs a rough hand across his face, but it does nothing to erase the helpless smile pulling at his mouth.
Their shoulders brush in the steam-filled bathroom doorway, and Eddie has to swallow roughly at the sight of Buck’s bare chest covered in stray water droplets from where he toweled himself off haphazardly. His skin is pink from the warm water, and there are freckles dotting the bare expanse of it like so many stars in the night sky, and his eyelashes clump together as he looks down at Eddie with a little smile.
Eddie leans his forehead against the tiled shower wall, allowing the water to pelt down against his bare back for a long, long time. He’s never been this scared, or this full of the kind of tentative hope that’s been so foreign for most of his life. He thinks he felt it as a kid, maybe, before his parents stomped it out like the first embers of a wildfire, before it could take root in his heart.
When he comes back into the room, he finds Buck laying on the edge of the bed with his legs splayed wide across the floor, his phone poised precariously above his face as he uses a thumb to scroll across the blue-lit screen of it. It illuminates the familiar shape of his pretty face in a way that makes the pink of his birthmark look darker than it usually is. Their food is on a tray on the little side table next to the bed, beneath a metal dome-shaped cover like in the movies.
Buck’s eyes flick to him, standing shirtless a few feet away, and the phone slips out of his fingers and lands with a dull thud on his chest, making him wince even as he keeps staring at Eddie. His pink lips are spit-slick and parted on an exhale, as though he meant to say something but gave up before any words could actually leave his mouth.
And he is so, so beautiful.
Eddie swallows and pads across the room with his heart thundering in his ears, feeling terrified and brave and a little bit like he’s going to throw up, or worse, cry. But mostly brave. He stands between Buck’s parted legs, bare knees pressing against the soft, worn fabric of Buck’s sweatpants where they crinkle loosely around his thick thighs, and he looks down at him uncertainly.
It’s a dangerous thing, to want in the way Eddie does. His entire life has been a careful exercise in not wanting, or wanting but doing nothing about it, pushing the hungry thing in him down until it curled up into a ball to protect its soft underbelly, afraid. He wonders if Buck can see it on his face as clearly as he can see it reflected on Buck’s, or if he’s managed to suppress it so far within himself that at some point it became so small and hopeless that it’s practically invisible now.
Buck sits up, and his eyes never leave Eddie’s own. The very tip of his pink tongue pokes out to drag across his parted lips, and Eddie’s entire body gives an involuntary shudder that makes Buck huff in disbelief, like he’s just as overwhelmed as Eddie is. Like he can’t believe they’re here, either.
His big, calloused hands settle on the bare skin of Eddie’s waist where he chose to forgo a shirt in a moment of insanity and, clearly, brilliance, and Eddie has to bite back the mortifying noise that claws its way up his throat at the feeling of Buck’s thumbs digging into the soft skin of his lower belly, his fingers toying with the waistband of Eddie’s sleep shorts where it settles just below the dip of his spine. He’s pulled in, slow and tentative, until Buck’s warm breath puffs across the goosebumped skin of his still-damp torso, abs constricting at the unfamiliar, thrilling feeling.
He’s still just breathing, looking up at Eddie like he’s waiting for him to catch up to a conversation they’ve been having the whole time and he’s just now paying attention to.
Molten heat pools in his lower belly, and Eddie reaches for him helplessly. His hands settle on the broad expanse of Buck’s freckled shoulders, and his thumbs caress Buck’s pronounced clavicles in a way that feels too clumsy, but Buck doesn’t seem to mind. He shivers beneath Eddie’s hands, and Eddie feels it run through his fingertips like electricity.
“I wanted to ask you,” he admits.
His voice comes out sounding ashamed at his own cowardice, quiet and shaky as Buck makes a wounded little noise below him. He looks at Eddie like he’s about to argue, tell him it’s okay, comfort him like he’s always done.
Eddie squeezes his shoulders and slides one hand up to cup his beautiful, familiar face, Buck’s warm cheek cradled in his palm, precious. Buck leans into the touch like a stray cat looking for the unfamiliar tenderness of human contact, and Eddie’s heart breaks, just a little, at the sight of him. The way his eyes flutter closed for just a moment, overwhelmed, before settling back on Eddie, hopeful and open and so, so pretty.
“You’re so beautiful,” Eddie mutters without thinking, and it’s not that he doesn’t mean it, because he does. He’s always meant it, from the moment his eyes landed on Buck in the locker room nearly a decade ago, the first thought Eddie ever had about him. And hundreds of times after that, until this moment, the first time he’s said it.
He should’ve said it before, he thinks. He should’ve said it every time he thought it, because the way Buck looks as the words register in his mind is something else. His lips part on a shaky exhale, and his pretty, blue eyes become so shiny it looks like the dim glow of the bedside lamp has been replaced by two lanterns placed in his irises by an invisible force, unguarded and lovely in a way few things in this world are.
His fingers dig into Eddie’s skin, and Eddie’s hand slides up into his hair at the same time Buck’s head tips forward, his forehead resting against Eddie’s lower stomach like he’s overwhelmed.
“Jesus,” Buck laughs, and it tickles across Eddie’s skin like the tiny flutter of butterfly wings.
He can feel Buck’s eyelashes fanning against his skin, and that tickles even more, but Eddie resists the urge to squirm away because the sight of Buck is overwhelming in the best way. His head tips back, the sharp edge of his chin digging against Eddie’s bellybutton as he looks up at him, a little bit dazed and his eyes half-lidded as Eddie’s fingers scratch against his scalp instinctively, trying to soothe him because he looks as lost as Eddie feels, now. In all the years they’ve known each other, they’ve never done anything like this, and it’s uncharted territory in an exciting, terrifying, life-altering way.
He thinks of being twelve years old, sitting in a stuffy confessional with a priest five times his age guiding him through an act of contrition. “In choosing to do wrong and failing to do good, I have sinned against you whom I should love above all things,” he’d repeated numbly. The day before, mama had seen him hug a boy named Dennis, his best friend from the baseball team, right after they had a really good practice game against an opposing team. He didn’t like Dennis that way, he thinks. He was only twelve, and they both loved baseball and chasing each other around the base markers after practice, sweaty and tired but laughing together all the same.
He thinks of being ten years old, and having to become the man of the house even though he didn’t know what that meant. He learned soon enough that it didn’t mean helping Sophia paint her nails, or braiding Adriana’s hair, or dancing with them in the living room while their mother made dinner. It didn’t mean gifting Abuela a bracelet made of braided daisies plucked from their back garden, or telling Pepa that her shoes looked nice. That one had gotten him a particularly lengthy berating from mama, and papa had stood in his doorway that night, dark and silent, for a long, long time, just staring down at Eddie with his lips pressed into a thin line like a ghost.
And he thinks of Chris, as he always does. And Buck, again, as he always does. The two of them sat on the bottom step of Eddie’s back porch, eyes glued to a video tutorial on making daisy chains, their fingers clumsy and fumbling but their laughter bright all the same. He thinks of Buck calling him over from where he’d stood frozen in the doorway, observing them from a distance but not daring to join in, and how Chris had been so excited to learn of Eddie’s talent of making the daisy chains within just a few minutes. He’d made one for each of them, and then another that Buck insisted was for Maddie, but he’d plopped it on top of Eddie’s head as soon as it was finished and batted Eddie’s hands away when he went to take it off.
Eddie found him in the kitchen later that night, Chris sound asleep in his room and the TV playing idly in the living room, hunched over a heavy encyclopedia, setting the chains between parchment paper and pressing them in the pages of the book to dry. To preserve them. To keep the memory of that day alive in more than just their minds and the handful of photos they’d taken and sent to Maddie and the 118’s group chat.
He looks down at Buck now, at his flushed, sun-kissed cheeks and the long eyelashes that flutter slightly as their gazes meet.
“You fucking terrify me,” he whispers, pulling slightly at the soft strands of Buck’s hair, his other hand still poised on Buck’s shoulder.
Buck nods against his stomach, a quick jerk of his head that forces his chin to dig deeper into Eddie’s skin. Of course he knows. Eddie wears his fear like an invisibility cloak, using it as a deterrent and a shield and an excuse. It’s always with him, always has been. Maybe from the moment he was born.
He thinks, maybe, it doesn’t always have to be, though.
“Fuck,” he says, voice ragged, and his hands move to cup Buck’s face, keeping it angled up towards him. “You know, right? How I - You have to know.”
Buck hums low in his throat, and Eddie feels the vibration of it in his stomach where Buck is still pressed against him, the long column of his neck stretching along the taut skin of Eddie’s lower belly.
“I know,” Buck whispers, and his eyelashes flutter again as he blinks up at him.
Eddie nods, swallowing past the lump in his throat. It would be easy to leave it at that, to let himself accept the kind way Buck allows him to wade through his fear and doesn’t push him to say more.
But this is Buck, who dug through a mudslide with his bare hands and who crawled under a ladder truck for him even though he, too, was terrified. Buck, who has taken care of the very best part of Eddie, his son, since the day he met him. Buck, who’s lived a life full of goodbyes instead of see you laters, and who thinks he’s not worth more, but he is. He’s worth so much more, and Eddie has the unique, wonderful opportunity to give it to him.
“I love you,” Eddie tells him.
Buck blinks up at him, and his eyes are very wide.
“Eddie,” he whispers, reverent.
A tear spills over his waterline, and Eddie is quick to wipe it away with the pad of his thumb before it has a chance to slide down the perfect, textured skin of his cheek. Eddie nods down at him, petting his soft hair and rubbing at the shadows beneath his lovely eyes, hands restless now that he’s allowed himself the words. It’s liberating, saying them after such a long time spent swallowing them down. Liberating and terrifying in the best way, like jumping out of an airplane with a parachute you know is going to carry you safely to the ground.
“Mhm. I love everything about you. Every single thing,” he adds, just to see the way Buck’s eyes go glossy again, “You know that, don’t you? You’ve always been just right, Buck. Not too much or too little, but just right. You’re perfect.”
His voice grows more sure with every word, and Buck looks up at him with stars in his eyes, disbelief and hope and the same tenderness that Eddie has seen directed at him for years. Years. He’s had it, all this time. They’ve been doing this the whole time.
Buck’s hands slide off of his waist and come to rest on his wrists instead, long fingers wrapped around the delicate skin above Eddie’s pulse, so tight he’s sure Buck can feel the hammering of his pulse even though he’s too kind to comment on it.
“Eddie,” he says again, and he sounds choked up and overwhelmed just like Eddie feels. “You and Chris are the best thing that’s ever happened to me. You just - I mean, I thought, sometimes, that you might… Tommy said I was in love with you.”
Eddie frowns, “What-”
“Maddie, too, actually,” Buck plows on, gripping onto Eddie’s wrists, his eyes alight now that the quiet spell around them has made way for an actual conversation. “I mean, I told Tommy you were a renter, ‘cause I was living in your house, y’know, and - and straight, and he, like, scoffed? Like he actually made a ‘pft’ noise.”
“Yikes.”
“Right? And Maddie - God, she told me the first time I even mentioned you. She called you my boy crush,” Buck groans. “And I denied it so hard, but then she was like ‘it wouldn’t be so crazy’.”
He laughs, “I mean, they were both right.”
Buck scoffs, eyes rolling petulantly, “Well, I know that now, obviously. I mean, the way you’re looking at me is crazy, man.”
Eddie’s not sure what his face does at the word man falling from Buck’s pretty mouth, but whatever it is, it makes Buck’s eyes light up in amusement.
“Oh? What’s that pout about?” Eddie grimaces in embarrassment and averts his gaze, but Buck pinches his hip and coos up at him. “You hit me with a ‘Night, brother’ but ‘man’ is where you draw the line?” When Eddie’s face twitches at the word again, Buck laughs in delight. “Yeah? What should I call you, then?”
“Buck,” he whines, but Buck shushes him with another pinch.
“Sweetheart?”, Buck implores, and Eddie glares down at him. “No? Babe?”
Eddie presses his palms into Buck’s cheeks so hard that it squeezes his lips into a comical shape, so his next word comes out mumbled and nearly unintelligible.
“Baby?” he offers at last.
And, look, Eddie’s a grown man, so it would be embarrassing - the idea of being completely undone by the word ‘baby’ falling from Buck’s lips and directed up at him, while Buck’s lovely eyes remain locked on him, assessing and teasing and full of the kind of affection that Eddie’s been starved of for his entire life.
And yet, that’s exactly what happens.
Again, he’s not sure what his face does in response to the word, but it has Buck melting against him, his face tipping forward into Eddie’s tense stomach and the cold tip of his nose rubbing across the fine trail of dark hair below Eddie’s bellybutton, and Eddie doesn’t think anyone’s ever touched him like this before. Like it’s something easy and fun, a familiar kind of teasing between best friends, but laden with the kind of rubber-band tension as they stand on the precipice of something else.
“Baby,” Buck mumbles against his lower belly, and his face is still squeezed between Eddie’s shaky hands, and it’s so ridiculous and so lovely that Eddie finds himself pushing Buck back onto the bed so suddenly that they both freeze for a second, staring at each other.
Before he can think about it too hard, Eddie crawls onto the bed and straddles Buck’s hips, feeling brave and reckless and hopeful with the way Buck stares up at him with stars in his eyes. He reaches for him, then, cradles Buck’s lovely face in his clumsy hands, and he relishes in the way Buck’s long eyelashes flutter as his eyes close for just a moment at the gentle touch.
And then he tips forward until their noses are just inches apart, the shocked breath Buck releases at the sudden proximity fanning across his face like a caress of its own, and he takes just a moment to look at Buck from this close, before everything changes between them.
There is a little white scar just across the bridge of Buck’s freckled nose, and his eyes are very blue but there are flecks of gold around his blown pupils that Eddie’s never been close enough to notice before. The splotch of pink on his eyebrow is dark in the dim light of the room, and Eddie wishes it was brighter in there, suddenly, just so he could see it better as his thumb strokes over the smooth skin like he’s dreamed of doing for a long, long time.
Buck’s eyes scan his face with short, fluttering movements, his mouth dropped open and his hands splayed wide across Eddie’s thighs where they rest around his hips, allowing Eddie to take his time because he’s kind like that.
So, really, what else could Eddie do but kiss him?
He closes the last bit of distance between Buck’s mouth and his own, and he allows their lips to press together in a short, fluttering peck. Just a fleeting moment of warmth, Buck’s lower lip pillowy and soft between his own, and then Eddie leans back. Or, well, tries to. Except he doesn’t get very far, because there is a big hand on the back of his head, and long fingers in his hair that force him back into Buck’s space.
Their second kiss is more of what Eddie never allowed himself to imagine.
Buck’s mouth plucks at his lips in short pecks that leave Eddie crowding closer to him, and he whines when Buck rewards him with the barest hint of teeth nipping at his already sensitive bottom lip. In a kind of feedback loop, Buck makes a hurt little noise against him and soothes the nonexistent sting with another string of short kisses, his pretty lips kissing Eddie’s own and then pressing up into the stubbled skin over his cupid’s bow before moving back down to kiss him properly again.
Eddie doesn’t know how long they stay like that, but he finds himself melting into Buck’s easy embrace like one would fall asleep, comfortable and warm and glowing from the inside out. He kisses the corner of Buck’s mouth and licks at the spit gathered there in a moment of delirium, but the noise Buck makes in response to the first touch of Eddie’s tongue against him is worth any residual embarrassment at his own forwardness.
Because Buck whimpers, and Eddie feels like a shaken-up soda can with how happy he is at this moment. He huffs against Buck’s cheek, and licks at the other corner of Buck’s mouth just to hear that noise again.
“Shut up,” Buck mumbles against his lips.
Eddie smiles, and Buck’s lips press against his teeth for just a moment before he shifts away for a second. “Didn’t say anything,” he whispers.
Buck huffs and pulls him back in with the hand still fisted in his hair, and his kisses grow more insistent now that he’s taken Eddie’s teasing as a challenge. He licks at the seam of Eddie’s lips with the tip of his pink tongue, a trail of warm spit that forces Eddie’s mouth to drop open in invitation like it’s already instinctive, though it’s the first time they’re doing this. Maybe his body knows, somehow, what to do with Buck underneath him, even when his brain is full of static and his ears feel like someone’s stuffed them full of cotton.
In any case, Eddie can’t find it in himself to complain. Because Buck’s warm, wet tongue is sliding past his parted lips and licking against his own, and Eddie becomes acutely aware of the fact that they’re tasting each other. The new taste on his tongue is Buck, and Eddie gets to fill in the gaps of his knowledge with these new sensations until he’s collected every part of Buck there is to have, and then he gets to learn more. Forever. And Buck gets to know him in that way too, in a way nobody else ever has and nobody else ever will.
“I love you,” he gasps into Buck’s open mouth, licking across the smooth line of Buck’s upper teeth and then feeding his tongue past his parted lips to swallow the noise that rises from deep within Buck’s chest at the words.
The hand in his hair tightens, and Buck’s other hand slides across the bare expanse of Eddie’s torso until it settles over the goosebumped skin over his ribs, his warm thumb settling just below Eddie’s nipple. He licks into Eddie’s mouth with a guttural noise, sucking on Eddie’s tongue and trailing his own across the roof of Eddie’s mouth until they’re left breathless and covered in each other’s spit.
And then, because he’s insane, Buck pulls Eddie away from his mouth with the hand in his hair and tips his chin up, mouth dropped open and tongue sticking out, waiting.
Eddie stares down at him in shock, and he wonders at what point in the last hour his brain decided to pack it up and leave him with absolutely no common sense, because he might just be insane, too. Because Buck is looking at him expectantly, his pretty eyes glittering in the warm lamplight, his skin flushed and and his lips spit-slick and swollen from Eddie’s teeth and stubble, and Eddie’s just a man.
So, he leans forward and lets a trail of spit flow from his tongue onto Buck’s, connecting them for just a moment before it breaks, and he watches in a daze as Buck’s mouth closes and he swallows with a pleased little smile.
“Jesus,” Eddie croaks. “You’re a freak.”
Buck grins, shiny and golden underneath him, “Takes one to to know one, baby.”
And then he’s pulling Eddie back down to kiss him again, except his hands are everywhere now. He grips Eddie’s shoulders and then slides a palm up to Eddie’s neck for just a moment, his gentle thumb pressed to Eddie’s Adam’s apple for barely a second before his hand trails back down to Eddie’s chest like he can’t keep still anymore. And Eddie feels like he’s about to buzz out of his skin with the feeling of Buck’s big, warm hands all over him, cupping his ribs so tenderly that it feels like he could float away like a helium balloon, gripping his hips when Eddie squirms against him, sliding up his back and leaving goosebumps in their wake.
At some point, Eddie realizes that his own hands have been gripping Buck’s cheeks as they kiss, which is great and he will definitely be coming back to that at some point, but there is a vast expanse of uncharted territory beneath him that is begging for Eddie’s attention.
He leans back and shudders at the wounded sound Buck makes at the sudden parting of their mouths, but Eddie feels lightheaded at the sight of him splayed out on the bed, his curly hair a halo against the white sheets, his flushed chest heaving and covered in a thin sheen of sweat, and his face. Jesus.
“You’re so beautiful,” he whispers, and though his voice sounds wrecked and breathless it’s okay, because Buck squirms under the praise and looks up at Eddie a bit helplessly, like he’s not sure what to do with the words or his own reaction to them.
Eddie grins down at him in delight, “Oh?”
Buck whimpers and reaches for him, and Eddie’s a weak, weak man because he indulges him with another long moment of kissing, wet and open-mouthed as they breathe into each other’s mouths, unwilling and unable to move away for a proper breath.
All too soon, though, Eddie remembers his previous objective. He sits back on Buck’s lap and smiles down at him, even as Buck pouts and tries to pull him back down to his mouth again.
“Hold on,” Eddie laughs and swats at his grabby hands, “I wanna look at you for a second. You’re so fucking pretty.”
Buck squirms, and whines out his name. “Eds, c’mon,” he croaks.
Eddie grabs his hands and laces their fingers together, resting them on Buck’s pink chest and allowing himself to feel, fully and unapologetically, the overwhelming fondness that courses through him as he looks down at Buck. Sweaty and flushed and breathless, staring up at Eddie like he can’t believe they’re here, either.
“My pretty baby,” he whispers, and the absolute delight that washes over him at Buck’s reaction will be seared into his memory forever.
Because Buck’s mouth drops open on a moan so wanton that Eddie’s briefly worried they’ll get a noise complaint, but it’s hard to focus on that when Buck pulls him back down to smash their mouths together in a filthy, smacking kiss that leaves Eddie panting by the time they finally break away.
His lips feel numb and too sensitive at the same time, and there is sweat beading on his hairline by the time Buck’s grip on his hair and his waist finally eases enough to move away for a proper breath, though he doesn’t dare move too far from him.
Buck’s glassy eyes meet his as they catch their breath, and he shifts against the sheets with a pleading expression, his pupils blown so, so wide.
“Baby,” he hisses. “If you don’t get naked in the next five seconds, I’m gonna explode.”
It’s very dramatic, but Eddie realizes that he feels the same way as soon as the words leave Buck’s pretty mouth. It was easy to ignore the increasingly persistent pull in his lower belly as they kissed each other stupid, the tingly feeling in his spine more of an afterthought with Buck’s warm tongue in his mouth and Buck’s little noises in his ears. But now that Buck’s pointed it out, Eddie becomes acutely aware of the hard line of Buck’s dick nestled against his cheeks, as well as the absurd way he’s tenting his sleep shorts right against Buck’s stomach.
“Yup,” he croaks.
Eddie scrambles up to shed the offending garments so fast that he nearly faceplants on top of Buck at the sight of his naked body splayed out on the bed once Eddie’s ripped his sweatpants off. His long legs are splayed out and dusted with a fine layer of blonde hair and freckles darker than the ones on his face, and there is a soft layer of fat on his lower belly, just beneath his bellybutton, that Eddie’s teeth itch to sink into.
And then his eyes land on the curved line of Buck’s dick as it leaks precum into the dip of his bellybutton, smearing the hair of his happy trail with sticky moisture, the head flushed as dark as the birthmark on Buck’s beautiful face.
Heart in his throat and mind blissfully empty, Eddie falls to his knees on the ugly hotel room carpet and takes Buck’s cock so far into his mouth that he chokes on it before he even gets a proper taste.
“Fuck,” Buck yelps, his hands petting through Eddie’s hair frantically. “You - you can’t just - you’ve gotta pace yourself, baby, are you okay?”
Eddie glares at him but nods, embarrassed at both his enthusiasm and his inexperience, but Buck’s hands are gentle in his hair and on his face as they guide him back down slowly, so it doesn’t take him long to get over it. His tongue darts out to lick at the slit, drinking up the salty tang of precum and moaning as it registers that he’s tasting Buck in another new way, the last person who’ll ever get to have him like this, the first and last man he’s ever had like this.
He suckles at the flushed head of Buck’s dick and revels in the hurt little noise that escapes from Buck’s parted lips, his eyes darting up to catch on Buck’s own, glassy and dazed like he’s witnessing some kind of miracle. It gives him the confidence to slide his mouth further down, slow this time, making sure to keep his lips tucked over his teeth and giving an experimental suck that has Buck’s hips thrusting up momentarily, pushing his cock further into Eddie’s mouth and making him gag just a little bit before Buck pulls back.
“Fuck, sorry,” he gasps, petting at Eddie’s face soothingly and easing his head back with the hand laced through his hair, his eyes wide and expression guilt-ridden.
Eddie pulls off all the way and levels him with a glare even as his hand reaches out to replace his mouth, jerking Buck in a loose grip that makes him whimper and squirm against the sheets.
“I know I’m new at this, but you’re not gonna break me with your dick, Buckley,” he croaks, and, wow, his voice sounds… rough. Buck grimaces at the sound of it, still looking apologetic, so Eddie rolls his eyes and dives back in with a newfound determination to wipe that look off his face.
It takes him a minute to get used to the warm weight of Buck in his mouth, but he experiments a little to figure out what works best.
He lets his tongue lay flat against the length of Buck’s dick, right along the underside of it where a thick vein spans the entirety of it from base to the spongy head, and bobs his head in shallow movements that get Buck to make more of those little hurt noises. And then he sucks him further down his throat, allowing the spit to pool in his mouth and leak out of the corners on every upward movement of his head, wet and messy, throat clicking loudly every time he bobs back down.
The fingers in his hair spasm rhythmically every time Eddie leans up to lick at the sensitive head of Buck’s cock, which is leaking a steady stream of precum that Eddie laps up before allowing it to mix with his spit as he takes Buck back into his mouth.
“Baby,” Buck groans, anguished and trembling underneath him.
Eddie hums in response because he’s unwilling to stop what he’s doing for long enough to speak, licking a long stripe up the underside of Buck’s dick, right across the vein, before swallowing him down until he feels the head hit the back of his fluttering throat.
The hand on his cheek rubs across his skin in a soothing motion, though Eddie feels comfortable, now, used to the feeling and the taste of Buck in his mouth, the intoxicating, musky scent of him. Eddie’s nose brushes against his lower belly as he takes the entire length down his throat for just a second, allowing his throat to flutter around it just to hear Buck’s punched out moan, before easing back to suck at the head.
“You’re - Eds - baby,” Buck whimpers, pulling him off with gentle fingers in his hair and laughing breathlessly when Eddie whines at the loss.
Eddie glares, and it makes Buck laugh harder as he pulls him back up on the bed, allowing him to settle back down in his lap and hissing as his sensitive cock makes contact with Eddie’s own, untouched and leaking at the tip.
“I know you were having fun down there but I was like a second away from coming,” Buck admits, chest heaving and covered in a fine sheen of sweat, his arms trembling as he grips Eddie’s hips to steady him.
A wave of pride washes over Eddie at the words, and he almost asks Buck to let him suck his dick until he comes in his mouth, just to see if it’s as good as he imagines it is, but Buck’s hips grind up and he is suddenly acutely aware of the dull throbbing of his own dick, so hard that it hurts and the head flushed a red so deep it looks almost purple. Jesus.
He’s never felt like this before, and it’s almost terrifying how out of his mind he is from just kissing and having Buck’s dick in his mouth. Eddie shivers in anticipation.
Buck’s eyes flit over his face and his mouth tips down in a little frown, his fingers caressing the flushed skin of Eddie’s waist, up to his ribs and then back down to settle on his thighs.
“Are you sure -”
“Yes,” Eddie tells him breathlessly. “Please.”
Buck’s chest stutters and he closes his eyes for a long, long moment, nostrils flaring and fingers spasming against Eddie’s thighs like he’s in physical pain. Eddie frowns.
“Are you -”
Buck nods frantically, his eyes snapping open to stare up at Eddie with pupils blown so wide it’s impossible to catch even a hint of the blue of his irises. His hands are very gentle, and very warm, and he rocks up into Eddie just a little bit before he leans up on his elbows to lick into Eddie’s mouth and soothe them both.
Eddie cups the side of his neck in one hand and cards the fingers of his other in his sweat-damp curls. He sucks on Buck’s tongue just to hear him whimper again, and he allows Buck to lick into his mouth and pull the same noises from him as well, a feedback loop that has them rutting against each other within seconds, frantic and wet and clutching at each other as Buck lets his arms give out so they topple back onto the mattress with Eddie on top of him.
“I want,” Eddie mumbles against Buck’s mouth, trailing off as Buck nips at his lower lip and soothes the sting with a little peck and his tongue.
“What, baby?” Buck whispers, and his mouth moves to trail kisses across Eddie’s flushed cheeks, lingering on the left one, the little mole he thinks Buck likes, if the amount of time he’s spent touching it is any indication, just underneath his eye.
Eddie grinds down against him, forcing another moan out of Buck’s open mouth.
“Want you to - I need you to fuck me, baby, please,” he gasps, swiveling his hips in little figure eights that force their hard cocks to rub together deliciously, the wetness from Buck’s tip smearing against his own stomach and vice versa, marking each other. “Please, Buck,” he whines.
Buck’s hips stutter underneath him and he hisses, holding Eddie’s waist in a tight grip that forces him down harder for just a second before he lifts Eddie back up again.
“Okay,” he croaks, “Okay, yeah, I - Can you grab my wallet? In my jacket pocket?”
Eddie frowns for a second, dazed and horny out of his mind, and Buck rubs little circles on his hips with the pads of his thumbs patiently as they stare at each other with equally glassy eyes and messy hair and lips so swollen they might be bruised tomorrow. God, Eddie hopes they’ll be bruised tomorrow.
He tips down to nose at Buck’s throat, trailing wet, open mouthed kisses against the fluttering pulse he finds there. And when Buck squirms underneath him again, Eddie allows himself just a moment to suck the skin between his lips, nipping at it and then soothing the sting with his tongue and a parting kiss as he leans back up.
There, on the pale, flushed skin of Buck’s throat, a little red mark blooms like a flower.
Buck stares up at him with his mouth slack and eyes wide, looking a little bit lost.
“I love you,” Eddie tells him.
Buck swallows, petting his thighs with warm, tender palms, “I love you.”
The few seconds it takes to rummage through Buck’s jacket are excruciating, but Eddie perseveres. He waves Buck’s wallet triumphantly as he settles back on top of him, and Buck looks up at him with a fond little smile as he takes it from him and pulls out two packets from the little coin pouch.
“You keep condoms and lube in your wallet?” Eddie asks incredulously.
Buck sputters, fumbling with the lube packet so hard that it falls onto his chest, “I just - it’s a habit! I don’t - I didn’t plan -”
Eddie grins down at him, pinching the rosy apple of his cheek with such an overwhelming wave of fondness in his chest that he finds it a bit difficult to breathe for a second. Because this is Buck, his best friend in the entire world. The best human being Eddie’s ever known, save for their son. His person.
“I’m gonna love you forever,” Eddie whispers, grinning harder when Buck fumbles with the packet again at the words.
He looks up at Eddie with stars in his eyes, a hesitant smile on his pretty lips.
“Yeah?” he asks breathlessly.
“Mm,” Eddie hums. “Until we’re old and wrinkly and popping so much Viagra that our dicks go numb.”
“You have such a way with words,” Buck tells him, finally tearing open the packet and slicking his fingers up. He smiles up at Eddie, a small, tender thing, and raises an imploring eyebrow.
“I’m good, go ahead,” he smiles back. “I trust you.”
Buck’s eyes get a little misty at that, even as he reaches out to trail gentle, slick fingers across the fluttering skin of Eddie’s rim. “Thank you,” he whispers, and eases the tip of a finger inside with just the slightest bit of resistance before Eddie relaxes into it.
Although Eddie tries to urge things along by grinding down, Buck keeps a tight grip on his hip with his free hand, working Eddie open slowly and methodically with one, then two fingers. He scissors them inside of Eddie and adds more lube every couple of minutes, ignoring the way Eddie glares down at him whenever he stops him from grinding down harder and keeping up a steady stream of whispered praises as a way to appease him.
“Don’t pout, baby,” he coos, slicking up a third finger and teasing it in slowly. “I’ll give you what you want, promise.”
Eddie bites into his bottom lip and trembles in his hold, his thighs straining against the urge to grind down because he knows Buck won’t let him. The fingers inside of him are long and thick and Buck is scissoring them on every second thrust, and when they curl up it sends a jolt so good it hurts down the taut line of his spine.
He wants to lean further into the feeling, to get that feeling with every movement of Buck’s fingers inside of him, but Buck only gives it to him a couple of times, teasing.
Absurdly, he feels his eyes prickle a little bit, a little tickling sensation in his nose that Buck seems to catch onto.
“Oh,” Buck looks up at him in wonder. “Baby, don’t cry.”
Eddie sniffs, lies, “I’m not fucking crying.”
The fingers inside him curl up again, pressing right against that spot that sends a bolt of electricity through every inch of him, and Eddie whines high in his throat.
And Buck doesn’t ease them back this time, doesn’t tease him with more languid stretching and the ghost of the sensation. He keeps teasing at that spot with his perfect, perfect fingers and he pets at Eddie’s hip with his free hand, soothing and so, so tender, and -
And Eddie’s crying, okay? Sue him. He’s got Evan Buckley sweaty and naked under him, and his fingers are inside of Eddie, and his dick is hard for Eddie and is also about to be inside of him, too, and he’s so in love with him it hurts. So there are big, hot tears running down his cheeks, and his entire body is trembling, and he wants to take this moment and preserve it in a glass jar forever.
But he’d also really, really like it if Buck would get his dick inside him.
“Please,” he whispers, clenching down on Buck’s fingers desperately as they keep rubbing against his prostate, relentless and perfect, punching little ah, ah, ah noises out of him. He grabs at Bucks face and pets clumsily at his sweaty cheeks, pushing the hair off of his sticky forehead. “Please, Buck - Fuck - please, please, please.”
Buck groans so viscerally it’s like he’s the one getting fingered within an inch of his life, and he stares up at Eddie and thrusts his fingers into him in quick, sharp thrusts that have Eddie gasping for air on every stroke.
His cock is throbbing, harder than he’s ever been in his life, and Eddie wants to reach down and give himself at least a little bit of relief, but when he tries to do just that, Buck’s free hand comes up to wave him away.
So, Eddie changes course and wraps his hand around Buck’s dick instead, jerking him off in a hard grip and flicking his wrist on the upstrokes, rubbing his thumb into the leaking slit just to see the way it makes Buck shudder.
Buck looks up at him helplessly, mouth opening and closing with no sound coming out, his fingers still buried deep and teasing against Eddie’s prostate.
“I’ll stop if you stop,” Eddie tells him, squeezing the base of Buck’s cock and continuing his steady jerking motions.
Buck gasps and nods up at him.
And then, finally, he’s letting his fingers slip out of Eddie’s hole, soothing him with a kiss when Eddie whimpers at the loss. Eddie releases his dick, because a deal is a deal, regardless of how good the weight of it feels in his calloused palm and the pretty sounds Buck had made under him at the feeling.
When Buck reaches for the condom packet, Eddie snatches it out of his shaking fingers.
“You clean?” he asks breathlessly.
Buck stares up at him until Eddie squeezes his thighs together on top of him, snapping him out of whatever daze he was in.
He swallows, “Yeah, I -”
Eddie flings the condom over his shoulder and reaches for the almost empty lube packet instead, squeezing the last of it onto his palm and slicking Buck up with a few loose jerks. He lifts up on his knees and lines Buck’s slick, hot cock up to his stretched rim, rutting down against him teasingly while Buck continues to stare, slack-jawed and shocked.
“C’mon, baby,” Eddie hisses as the head catches on his rim, balancing himself with his free hand on Buck’s firm chest. “Fuck me, Buck, come on - give it to me, please.”
Buck’s eyes clear for just a moment, hands coming up to grip tight on Eddie’s hips and pushing up against him just enough to get the head of his cock past the tight ring of muscle he worked so hard to stretch.
They release twin moans at the feeling of Buck finally pushing inside of him, guttural and relieved, and Eddie feels wild with the feeling.
He tries to rock back and take Buck in further, but the hands on his hips are firm enough that Eddie’s forced to go at Buck’s pace, slow, so, so slow, the hot length of him slipping in inch by careful inch like a hot knife through butter. Eddie tips his head back and arches into the feeling, squeezing around the impossible width of Buck’s cock inside of him after so long, and it feels so good he feels his eyes watering again.
“So good,” he whispers. “Feels so good, Buck - baby -”
Buck hisses and slips further into him, staring up at Eddie with his eyes wide and intensely focused on his face, probably trying to look for any sign of pain, but there is none. He eases in so carefully, so gentle with Eddie even though he’s trembling from head to toe with the effort of holding back, and Eddie feels his heart swell with the overwhelming love he feels for him.
“I love you,” he tells him.
Buck slides in all the way and Eddie has a chance to sit back fully, his back arched and shaking because the head of Buck’s cock is nestled right against that spot inside of him that makes him feel like shooting off like a bottle rocket.
Buck licks at his dry lips and rubs soothing thumbs along his hipbones. “I love you,” he says breathlessly. “I love you so much, baby, you - Fuck, tell me when to move, okay, get used to it a little -”
Eddie lifts himself up and drops back down, swiveling his hips once he’s settled fully onto Buck’s cock, rubbing it against his prostate mercilessly. Beneath him, Buck releases a punched out groan and tries to hold him still, but his arms are shaking right along with the rest of him, overwhelmed and slick with sweat from head to toe, his skin as pink as his birthmark.
“You gotta - you - fuck, baby, I’m gonna,” he thrusts up and Eddie gasps, grinding down against him.
Eddie’s thighs are starting to hurt from exertion, but he’s determined to stay in this position for a little bit longer, so he takes a deep, steadying breath and starts bouncing up and down with short, sharp thrusts of his hips up and down, bobbing on Buck’s cock and balancing himself with hands splayed wide on Buck’s heaving chest. Each time he takes Buck in all the way, he swivels his hips in little figure eights, grinding down hard just to hear the hurt little noises that Buck can’t help but make at the feeling, his fingers digging into the skin of Eddie’s hips so hard it’ll definitely leave bruises.
Eddie’s not sure what it says about him, the thrill he feels at the thought of that.
When the ache in his thighs becomes too strong to ignore, Eddie drops down into Buck’s lap and settles for grinding down instead of trying to move up and down on his cock, and it isn’t much of a sacrifice because both feel just as good.
But Buck, so attuned to him from day one, catches on, and it seems to snap him out of the daze he fell into as soon as Eddie sank down on him. His fingers spasm on Eddie’s hips for just a moment, a little warning, and then he’s flipping their positions without even pulling out.
Eddie has to swallow back the truly debauched whine that claws itself up his throat at the effortless display of strength, swinging his arms around Buck’s neck and fisting his fingers in his hair as Buck’s hips piston in a stuttering rhythm, hard and fast, slamming into him over and over again with single-minded determination. And he’s licking a thick, wet stripe along the damp line of Eddie’s throat, mouth wide open against his damp skin and mouthing at the stubble on Eddie’s jaw, his tongue hot and wet and his breaths coming out quick and sharp with exertion.
Their stomachs press together, and Eddie can feel his neglected cock leaking between them at the feeling of something finally pressed against it.
Though the relief is short-lived, because Buck unsticks himself from him in favor of lifting one of Eddie’s legs up, pressing his knee up to his chest gently and then thrusting back in, so much deeper this time.
And the slight change in angle is perfect, because it has him pressing right against Eddie’s prostate on every thrust. Eddie keens high in his throat at the feeling, scratching at Buck’s back and gasping up at him with wide eyes and tears trailing steadily down his cheeks.
“Close - Buck, baby, I’m gonna come,” he breaks off in a moan, grinding up against Buck as much as he can in this position, gripping him tight.
Buck gasps and tips down to kiss him, hips stuttering out of rhythm and giving a deep, filthy grind inside of Eddie on every second stroke as they breathe into each other’s open mouths, sharing the same damp, warm air and looking into each other’s eyes the entire time.
Buck presses a wet kiss to his slack lips, “Where - do you want me to -”
“Inside,” Eddie whines. “Wanna feel you, please, please.”
When Buck presses into him, hard, grinding and grinding against Eddie’s prostate relentlessly, Eddie finds himself flung off the edge so violently that he momentarily blacks out from the force of it, clutching at Buck’s back and pulling him against himself with fingers fisted in his hair, his legs trembling so hard he’s worried they’ll cramp up.
Thick, warm ropes of come land on the quivering skin of his abs and his chest, pooling in the dip of his pecs and the hollow of his throat. He can hear himself saying something, breathless and unintelligible, murmured into the damp skin of Buck’s throat as he bites and sucks at it. But his ears are cotton-stuffed and it’s hard to focus when Buck stills inside of him and he feels his dick throbbing, spilling hot and wet inside of Eddie and sending a fresh wave of pleasure down his spine to the point of near-oversensitivity.
They clutch at each other deliriously in the aftermath, a little bit desperate and overwhelmed in the comedown.
Buck laps at the come that landed high on Eddie’s chest, the flat of his tongue pressed into the fine hair dusting Eddie’s sternum and then moving to lick at the smooth hollow of his throat. He kisses a line of wet, open-mouthed kisses up Eddie’s throat and then licks at the salty trails of tears still drying on Eddie’s cheeks before kissing his swollen lips, and Eddie hums against his mouth, petting through Buck’s hair to soothe the sting of pulling at it earlier.
Eddie’s not sure how long they stay like that, pressed together with sweat and come drying tacky on their skin, but he knows that the inside of Buck’s mouth tastes splendid as he licks into it sloppily, sucking on his tongue and tasting himself as well as Buck.
His spent dick twitches at the thought, and Eddie, in a moment of insanity he will forever deny, trails a hand down his own chest and runs a finger through the still wet come on his stomach. When he brings it up to Buck’s mouth, Buck’s half-lidded eyes meet his own as he parts his lips and lets his tongue drop to suck the finger in.
“Jesus,” Eddie whispers, thrusting his finger in and out of Buck’s mouth for just a moment before removing it and replacing it with his tongue, licking the taste of himself off Buck’s tongue before he has a chance to swallow it.
Buck groans against his lips and cups Eddie’s face tenderly, rubbing at his cheek with the pad of his thumb.
“Freak,” he murmurs into Eddie’s mouth, and kisses him harder when Eddie laughs.
Much later, after they’ve showered and stripped the soiled top sheet off the bed in favor of curling up together underneath the blanket Buck brought in from his room, Eddie grins up at the ceiling as his fingers trail through Buck’s hair gently.
“What?” Buck mumbles into his chest, his cheek mashed against Eddie’s collarbone. He kisses the clean skin of Eddie’s throat, pressing his nose against his pulse point and taking a deep breath, sniffing him and nosing at him.
Eddie squeezes him tighter and turns to press his mouth to Buck’s forehead.
“I’m just really happy,” he whispers.
Buck kisses his chest and hums, pleased and tired and clingy, his new favorite version of Buck, though every version of Buck is his favorite.
“I’m happy, too,” Buck tells him, voice so small it’s like he’s already past the edge of sleep but is forcing himself to stay awake just to let him know.
God, Eddie loves him. He loves him so impossibly much, it’s actually kind of scary.
Scary and good, but mostly just good. Really, really good.