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It’s currently 3 am and Buck is ravaging the fridge for something to satiate the hunger that took hold of him in the middle of the night. He analyzes each shelf for something salty, Buck likes salty but he buys a lot of sweet things because he knows Eddie secretly has a sweet tooth. He finds some pickles and settles for such to satisfy the little creature in his stomach.
He tries to make as little as possible noise as not to wake Eddie or Christopher up, he gets a fork to snatch up one of those succulent green delicacies when suddenly he feels two arms slandering around his waist, and he quickly realizes it’s Eddie. His efforts to be as quiet as possible were not very effective he thinks.
“Why aren’t you in bed?” Eddie grumbles, his voice still diminished as per the sleep he was getting. “I was hungry, go back to bed, baby. I’ll be back in a sec.” His voice was soft, almost in a whisper as to not further wake Eddie up. Eddie groans further burying his forehead in Buck’s back. He has now moved his hands to rest atop Eddie’s, his hands are cold most likely because Buck was no longer covering Eddie with his body, the perfect pressure to have Eddie sleeping like a newborn. He turns around and cups Eddie’s face to kiss his forehead and Eddie leans into it. “I missed you, come warm me up, please?”, --“cute” Buck thinks-- “I’ll go but first let me devour those pickles, I’m hungry.” “Ugh, fine.” so he detaches himself from Buck but stays close watching him eat his pickles like it’s his last meal.
“Are you done? I’m cold.”Eddie pouts and directs his gaze to Buck. “You look like a baby cow when you do that did you know?” He’s now storing the rest of the pickles in the fridge for whatever they’ll use them in the future. “Come here.” He says extending his arms so Eddie can fit perfectly in his hold. He kisses Eddie’s nose, cheek, chin, forehead, the other cheek, the corner of his lips, and finally his lips but Eddie stops him, “Your breath stinks of pickles, there’s no way I’m letting you kiss me.” He says giggling a little because Buck looks like a kicked puppy. So they just stay there in an embrace when Buck starts swaying them around and humming a song they’d heard on the radio earlier when they got off their shift and went home.
Eddie can feel the vibrations coming from Buck’s chest. It eases him and reminds him that Buck is still there, still breathing. After all the times he’d almost lost him, truly all the times they’d almost lost each other, the only thing that comforted Eddie was feeling Buck breathing, his heart breathing as strong as it did before he made it beat again. A shiver runs down his spine when Buck kisses his neck and moves his hands from his shoulders to his waist. “You’re good at this, where’d you learn to dance huh?” Eddie whispers, low and voice charged with sleep. “Well I had some lessons as a kid but mostly my travels before I came to LA. A lot of the smaller places had this little town fairs-“-He makes air quotes with his hands and moves them back to where they rested before-“ and they’d have these little balls and well the rest is history.”
They’re still swaying, Eddie feels at ease with this comfortable, repetitive movement of their melded bodies. They fit so perfectly into each other’s silhouette. Eddie just hums affirmatively and continues to follow Buck’s motion. They sway in languid movements, comfortable, a feeling of home in each other’s arms. The low light from the fridge, long forgotten open after Buck stored his 3 am snack, hits Buck’s face exaggerating the dark circles under his eyes after the long shift they’d had. It wasn’t a tough shift, it was just long and exhausting. They have a 48 off and they’ll spend it however it comes to mind but all Eddie can think about is this moment. This beautiful intimate moment they’re sharing, the careful but firm hold they have on each other. They took their time to get here but they did.
Eddie is so grateful to be able and to have allowed himself to have this. He chased ghosts, literally, for so long, especially the ghost of how he and Shannon were before she became pregnant with Chris and eventually married out of obligation. He doesn’t want to think about it but he needs to, to let himself heal and be free of the ghosts of his past.
The way they sway around the kitchen with the low light coming from the fridge left open and forgotten because they didn’t want anything to ruin this beautiful moment. Buck thinks that he’s so lucky to have this, to have Eddie and Christopher, he’s so grateful to be this lucky. As for Eddie, he can only think of how it is possible that he can feel like this again, but also not because it’s all so different but all so similar to what he had with Shannon. They never had these beautiful moments after getting married but they had danced under the stars, he thinks that he has to take Buck someday, when Eddie took his dad’s truck to just drive around in the night. It’s all so different because he didn’t know it could feel this intense, this easy, this relaxed. He can only whisper “I love you” in his mind repeatedly and feel so loved he could burst into pieces.
“I can hear you thinking, you know?” Buck says, in a whisper, there’s no way Chris would hear them and be woken up, but they’re still quiet. “It’s nothing, I’m just grateful for this. For us. I-“ He cuts himself off, he has no idea why but tears start rolling down his cheeks.”I love you, so much.” Buck kisses his tears away. “I love you too, so, so much.” Buck proceeds to kiss his whole face, he kisses all of his pain away. Loving the man in front of him, the love of his life is the easiest thing Eddie has ever done. They’ll eventually get back to bed, but for now, they’ll just savor the moment and cherish it for the rest of their lives.