Archive of Our Own

Buck’s ass hurts. 

He steps out from the mechanical bull ring, smoothly recovering an almost-stumble before he can earn himself any additional jeers from the crowd of onlookers. The swift adjustment from being flung around like a tomato in a salad spinner to walking on solid ground is a steep learning curve, is all.

He also might be a little tipsy.

“You’ll get ‘em next time, cowboy,” says Eddie, appearing on his arm. Kind of literally, too. He’s clasping Buck’s bicep as though he’s using it to steady himself, even though he’s a slower drinker than Buck is. Maybe it’s the rush of new-city air keeping Eddie light on his feet. A lot about Eddie seems lighter, out here. 

Buck shakes his head to clear it. 

“Guess I’m just a city kid, after all. Don’t stand a chance ‘round these parts,” Buck says as he stoops down to grab his shoes - which has the by-product of jostling Eddie’s arm away. He feels a hand smooth down over his elbow as it goes. Eddie’s tactile tonight.

“Not with that attitude,” Eddie retorts. “We can make a country boy outta you yet. Hey - here’s a start.”

A gentle weight lands on Buck’s head where he’s currently crouching. He’s wearing a hat now, apparently. He tilts his face up to give Eddie a look of some description, only to find him grinning, crooked and pleased, apple cheeks rounded and pink.

“Well I never,” says Eddie, weaponizing his southern drawl with a teasing exaggeration that always makes Buck’s traitorous head spin. “Fits like a glove.”

Buck, who has a good feeling exactly which cowboy hat Eddie has deemed appropriate, narrows his eyes in a pathetic glare. Pathetic, because he’s currently staring up, up, up at Eddie from his current shoe-tying situation, which means Eddie’s towering over him, all cocky smirk and raised eyebrow, and Buck feels like he’s about to be swallowed whole in a far too pleasant way. 

He must make quite the sight right now. Pupils peering out through his lashes like a saloon girl in an old western. Flushed and supplicating. Hat—presumably—glistening. 

Never one to be out-bested without giving things the old college try - and with just enough tequila bobbing lazily along his bloodstream - Buck rises slowly to his feet, tilting his chin down an inch to meet Eddie’s eyes once he stands at full height. He reaches up above his head, grips the top of the—yep, discoball—hat with one hand, fingers spread wide over the crown, and twists it securely into place. 

“Thanks, doll,” Buck drawls. He tips the shiny brim towards Eddie, who stares at the shimmering shards of plastic, gratifyingly wide-eyed. 

He doesn’t turn this particular side of himself on Eddie often. Historically, hardly ever; though slightly more frequent as of late, because man, it’s fun to see a guy like Eddie - one so competent and generally collected - get flustered. 

Buck knows he can be a little oblivious on a good day, but he’s not stupid. He’s a people person; he can successfully read a room eight times out of ten. A blessing and a curse, it turns out, because in knowing this about himself, a specific chorus of voices echoing up from his gut have been… marginally harder to ignore, lately. He’s bested them for a while, but now tequila has entered the building, which tends to function like kryptonite to Buck’s powers of super-compartmentalization.

He has enough resistance left to half-heartedly shove Eddie’s reaction into the straight-bro-under-male-attention corner for the time being, but a seed of doubt is taking root in the same spot. It’s beginning to creep up the divot where those walls meet, fighting for real estate, clinging like a stubborn vine.

The brittle thought is shattered, mercifully, by a bystander getting jostled lazily into Buck’s back. He turns - it’s a woman, petite; not enough to push Buck forward, just enough to nudge his mind back on track. She squeaks out a sorry and scuttles off. When Buck looks back, Eddie is beaming at him, charming and friendly as ever.

Eddie smacks Buck on the arm amicably, recalibrating, then says, “One more for the road?”

“Sure. Sounds great.”

The bar is really not all that busy at this point, but Eddie still wraps a hand around Buck’s wrist as he weaves them through the throng. His grip is tight, warm. The tether heats Buck’s skin somehow, impossibly, more than the blazing gust of flames he had snuffed out head-on just that afternoon. 

There’s no extinguisher on hand for this one, though, so a cold beer will have to do.

Eddie pays for their drinks, tapping his card against the reader with a little flourish and a sing-song thank you, dorkish and hopelessly endearing. They sit down on adjacent stools, and the motion of Eddie scooting his seat closer to the bar causes their knees to touch. Buck doesn’t flinch; nor does he make any effort to split apart. 

“Thanks for convincing me to come to this thing,” says Eddie, tapping one foot against Buck’s beneath the bar. 

Buck breathes out a laugh. “I don’t think that guilt trip was one I took alone.”

Eddie hums. “I guess not. But I’ll give you due credit. You can be very persuasive.”

“Oh, yeah?” Buck smirks. A warming sensation catches quietly in his gut, the wick of a candle against a lit match. The combination of coy praise and firm pressure of Eddie’s knee against his own illuminates his ego in eager, flickering light.

Eddie nods. “Yeah. It’s a little annoying, actually.”

“I can’t help being right all the time, Eddie,” Buck lilts, jutting out his chin. “Maybe you just need to harden your resolve.”

“I’ll get right on that,” Eddie replies, voice easy with familiar sarcasm. “You were, though. Right, I mean. I’m ready to admit that a little bit of healthy competition can be good for the soul.”

“Is that the tequila or your ego talking?”

“Little bit of both,” says Eddie with a squint, holding his thumb and index finger close together, wobbling them to and fro.

“Mhm,” Buck hums, as laid-back as he can manage while barely repressing the toothy grin currently clawing its way out of his throat. “What about when you practically shoved Blue across state lines earlier? Was that good for the soul?”

Eddie rolls his eyes, but his cheeks tinge a tantalizing, rich pink. “Nepo Baby Two had it coming.” When Buck barks out a laugh, familiar crinkles appear around Eddie’s eyes, clearly pleased, before he continues: “I know we’re all pals now, friendship is magic, et cetera, but I stand by it. He shouldn’t have started on you like that.”

“I did kinda provoke him, Eddie,” says Buck, quietly amused.

“Hm.” Eddie doesn’t sound convinced. “You were being a bit of a dick, sure, but you’d been doing that all day.”

“Rude.”

“Warranted,” Eddie retorts without missing a beat, levelling Buck a flat, but fond, look. “Like I was saying: he’s the one that… escalated things. He shouldn’t have shoved you.”

Buck takes a long sip to buy himself a few seconds of respite. Eddie’s tone is definitive, assertive; there’s an almost intense set to his eyes and brow. Buck is really counting on the cold splash of beer to quell the tentative flames the scene before him is stoking beneath his ribs. He presses the top of his left foot firmly into the leg of his barstool, revelling briefly in the blunt sensation.

“So you were defending my honor?” 

The flush on Eddie’s cheeks deepens a fraction. He languidly eyes Buck’s arms and torso, before chuckling blithely and shaking his head. “I think we both know you don’t need me to do that.”

“But you did anyway,” says Buck. He shoots for teasing, lands closer to awestruck.

“I did.”

Eddie meets Buck’s eye, something weighty and intent swirling amongst the shades of honey-brown. Buck drums his fingertips on the bar countertop in an anxious rhythm, but determinedly doesn’t look away. Eddie presses his knee in against Buck’s and smiles, soft and tentative; Buck’s blood fizzes in his veins, his resolve teetering in place, dangerously close to faltering, to asking questions with irrevocable answers.

“It all worked out in the end, though,” Buck offers instead, letting the words ripple steadily through the moment like a splash of milk in too-hot coffee, keeping him from acting too hastily and burning his tongue.

“That it did,” Eddie acquiesces, ducking his head momentarily. The pressure of his knee eases back, but the denim of Buck’s jeans still lingers from the impact, firm and rough against his flesh. “Quite the stunt from Bobby, though, I gotta say. Putting us forward.”

Buck tucks his lips into a thin line and nods in acknowledgement. Hearing Bobby’s name always feels a bit like someone touching his skin with freezing cold hands. At least when it’s Eddie, who knows and understands, it feels more like a tender graze of the cheek than a sharp jab in the side.

“That’s Bobby,” Buck says. “He, uh… usually knew what I needed before I had any sort of clue.”

Eddie doesn’t respond except to extend the tip of his bottle towards Buck, who clinks them together. The resulting ting punctuates the thick silence.

“A little annoying, actually,” Buck echoes Eddie’s earlier sentiment, then takes the prompted sip.

Eddie laughs around the rim of his beer. “For sure,” he says after a sip. “He was too wise, sometimes. It makes sense, I guess, that out of me and him, he was the only one who knew I was coming back from Texas.”

Buck’s heart, already walking a loose tightrope from the hazardous chemical compound that is alcohol and reminiscing combined, plummets. 

At least when Eddie had dropped that quietly devastating tidbit into conversation the other day, Buck could divert. He had an occasion to prepare for, something to hold his focus, a through-line of impending intense physical distraction he could give his all. At least it meant I didn’t know if I was coming back had only ping-ponged off the concave walls of his skull sporadically whenever his mind wandered away, skidding off the rigid tracks he’d set.

Here, though, with the games over, the neon goalpost Buck was using as a beacon hasn’t so much shifted as been trampled over during the final paces of the partner relay. He has nowhere to run from how the words make him feel, this time.

As the hands were dealt, Eddie returned to L.A. under extenuating circumstances, leaving Buck with the most torturously tempting what-if he can imagine: if Bobby hadn’t been taken away, would Eddie still have come back to him?

Bobby seemed to think so. Buck keeps telling himself that, over and over - a reminder that’s almost a mantra. Bobby has, as ever, gone above and beyond for Buck’s sake, providing him one last nugget of wisdom and comfort from beyond the grave. His ghost is probably winking at Buck right now.

It’s easy, with grief, to let everything that’s gone and not coming back nestle into that fuzzy-edged haze of nostalgia that blurs the lines of reality. Unless he’s careful, it warps the good traits into superpowers; the minor grievances into fatal flaws. 

Rationally speaking, Buck knows that Bobby wasn’t all-knowing - but he was a spiritual man, whose grounding belief was, in many instances, the only thing that kept Buck from floating away. Bobby trusted his team, knew the gravity their family held. Buck doesn’t want to do him a disservice by not offering up that trust in return, now.

Eddie would have come home. Buck knows—he thinks he knows that. Even so - Eddie’s casual attitude about what is, ultimately, one of Buck’s biggest hypothetical nightmares, always nicks like a paper cut. He wishes Eddie wasn’t so blasé about the whole thing, even though he came back, he came home, it worked out fine, so by all means, it shouldn’t still sting Buck so sharply.

The issue being: the concept of shouldn’t has become pretty much futile, where Buck’s feelings for Eddie are concerned. House of cards, meet hurricane.

“I like Nashville,” says Eddie, switching avenues of conversation with ease. A complete sentence. More of an external musing, if anything. His eyes cast around the walls behind the bar. The multicolored fairy lights cast lively specs in his eyes like an enraptured child sat by a Christmas tree.

“I can see that,” Buck replies, neutral, but carefully pleasant.

Eddie’s head turns to Buck, abrupt but smooth, because the day Eddie can’t spot cracks in his demeanor with needlepoint precision is the day Hell freezes over, or the day all residents of Los Angeles remember to regularly change the batteries in their smoke detectors.  

“You don’t?” Eddie pries.

“No, I do,” says Buck, clarifying. “But you… you’ve been, like, lit up here, man.”

“Huh.” Eddie’s brow furrows, his lips twisting slightly to the side, contemplative. Once Eddie’s had a drink, his facial expressions always get more tell-tale, more cartoonish. Again - endearing. “I mean, I suppose it’s nice to go somewhere new. Get away for a bit.”

“Sure,” Buck mumbles. He picks at the label of his beer bottle, purposefully thoughtless, because the thoughts he could and would have right now would be—unwelcome. It’s a nice night. No need to make it into a pity party, even though he is historically stellar at hosting them.

“I’m like… Holiday Eddie.” Eddie tilts the bottle in his hand, loose-limbed from booze, rolling the ridges of it on the counter in a circular motion. The liquid inside sloshes about in kind, a lethargic, foamy whirlpool. Buck almost feels like he’s bobbing along inside there, right now.

“Holiday Eddie,” Buck echoes, then takes a loud gulp of his drink.

“Yeah. It’s easier to—let go a little, out here. Like I said, y’know - blow off some steam.”

“Sure,” Buck repeats again, more sullen than he’d like.  A puppet dangling from its pull-string. 

Eddie seems distracted looking at something beyond Buck’s shoulder, which is for the best if it means he’ll miss Buck’s inevitably sour expression. God, he’s being a buzzkill, and for what? Eddie’s done nothing that warrants the tantrum brewing up in his gut. He needs to get ahold of himself, but Buck knows his own track record by now. Once a bitter taste begins steeping in his mouth, it overpowers anything else. He needs—

“So, which one of you boys is buying me a drink?”

—a distraction.

It’s not a long walk back to the hotel, but it’s good for Buck’s head regardless. He feels a decent notch lighter on his feet and significantly more sober by the time the elevator doors open to the floor they’re both staying on.

He saunters down the corridor like it’s his own meager red carpet. Hotel guests will congregate to watch a shitty indie short film of all the mixed up, abstract emotions he’s unable to pin in place. He feels—he doesn’t know. That’s the problem.

It’s as if all of his thought processes have stepped out to the left. His normal self is waiting in the wings for his cue to stride on stage, but the Buck currently front and center can’t remember his lines. It’s not even an unfamiliar sensation - it crops up more often than he might like. 

He can see himself acting out, curling in; he can also beg that other Buck to just chill out for like, two seconds, to be normal, for the love of god. Neither of them are powerful enough to fall in line. Two versions of him face off in his brain, fencing with uncooked spaghetti noodles. 

At this late hour, the atmosphere of the hotel hallway has been tuned to ambient, lit only by glowing sconces. The fluorescent overhead ceiling lights have been shut off, mercifully. Buck’s head is already providing a grating, steady, electrical hum - there’s really no need for anything else to chime in on the buzzing.

Because of the surrounding dim, when Buck goes to walk past Eddie’s door, his eye catches on a seam of light glowing underneath.

Eddie’s awake, then. Buck could knock, but—he shouldn’t. He should go to bed. He can get some sleep, shed some of the maudlin thoughts being stirred up haphazardly by the exhaustion of a long day and a night that’s felt somehow even longer, then see Eddie in the morning, clear head in tow.

He keeps walking for one step, two, three—then reaches a standstill. 

He folds before he can even scrape step four, turning heel, cards falling down on the table in a jagged pile. He was right: shouldn’t apparently holds zero weight in Buck’s life when the alternative is Eddie.

He takes a slow breath, looks up to the ceiling in entirely self-inflicted exasperation, and knocks on the door.

A few rapid heartbeats later, it opens, revealing Eddie. He’s wearing fleecy grey shorts and a faded green tee; his soft hair has successfully fought mostly free from its high security gel prison, so a few rogue strands make a delicate jailbreak over his forehead. He stands there looking like home personified, at least to Buck, despite being 2000 miles away from his permanent residence. 

It hits Buck, somehow both slowly and like a flame-adorned racecar in equal measure, that he might be doomed.

“Hey,” says Eddie. His shirt collar is loose, lopsided. Buck aches and aches to reach over and tug it into place, tidy Eddie up so he’s less rumpled and cozy, to give himself a slight fighting chance. Instead, he shoves both hands forcibly into the pockets of his pants.

“You’re still up,” Buck says, in place of any sort of appropriate greeting.

Eddie looks down at his own socked feet and back up, a touch incredulous. “Sure seems that way. You coming in?” He asks, except apparently it’s not a question but a foregone conclusion, as rather than waiting for an answer, he turns and walks back inside. Buck, as ever, follows.

The television is on - Vanna White smiles politely at Buck from the wall above the desk, before turning dutifully away to flip over two letter T’s. A phrase, three words. 

“Something the something,” Eddie mumbles, sitting back on the considerably unmussed bedding. He hasn’t even untucked the covers. He’s been sitting on—not in—bed, watching Wheel of Fortune, limbs entirely exposed to the hotel elements, like some kind of psychopath pensioner. Buck needs him so badly that he might just keel over.

“How come you’re still awake?” Buck asks, antsy. He pulls at a loose thread inside one pocket with pinched fingers, rapidly picking apart the stitching. Better to unravel that than eight years of friendship all because said friend’s shorts have ridden up agonizingly at the thigh.

“I was waiting for you to get back. You’re kind of early, though.” Eddie’s eyes are tracked to the TV, but they dart over at Buck when he asks, “You strike out with Dixie?” 

Which… Buck doesn’t even know where to start. He desperately needs to buy a vowel.

“Huh? Why—what—did I miss a text?”

Eddie, sat cross-legged on top of pearly-white cotton sheets, a vision so soft it’s making Buck dizzy, has the audacity to look puzzled. “Not from me. Why?”

“So you—how did you know?”

“Know what, Buck?”

“That I would knock!” Buck explains, exasperated, off-kilter. “What if I’d just headed to bed? What if I’d brought… someone back, gone straight to my room?”

“You didn’t, though,” Eddie points out. Literally - he gestures at where Buck is standing with an infuriating index finger. Absolutely impossible.

“No, I didn’t,” Buck acknowledges, jaw tightening. “But that’s not the point.”

Eddie must sense the growing tension in his tone, because his eyebrows sink back down slightly as he matches Buck’s gaze with something more level. “I just had a feeling.”

“A feeling.”

Eddie nods. Then, when Buck’s expression makes it clear he’s expecting something a little more concrete, he adds: “That you would,” accompanied with a vague, hand-wavey gesture, which—awesome, thanks, really clears things up. “Say hi, I mean. Knock. If you saw my light on.”

Buck laughs, but it’s weighty. Chastened. “Am I that predictable?”

“In general? God, no,” Eddie teases, theatrical. Then, softer, a shade quieter: “To me? I like to think so.”

On another day, under different circumstances, perhaps better rested and without the input of alcohol—though Eddie’s words leave him feeling stone cold sober—Buck might have taken that sentiment in his stride. Might have tucked it neatly into his breast pocket, folded up narrow and smooth, kept it close to home so he could take it out and examine it on lonely nights. Eddie knows me, scrawled roughly on a piece of paper. Eddie knows me so well, he knows I’ll follow him anywhere, as long as he says it’s okay.

To be known is to be loved, as the saying goes. Right now, with Buck’s capacity for sensible thinking run ragged and scraped down to the marrow, it feels a lot more like to be known is to be needy.

Eddie sits there, bright-eyed and content despite the late hour, having trusted correctly in Buck’s inability to let him out of his sight for more than five minutes. He wonders if Eddie ever feels smug, that he can do that. That Buck, by virtue of his ridiculous bleeding heart, is a sure bet; he’ll make it simple as anything every time. Buck turns to face the television in a most likely entirely unsubtle attempt at hiding his frown. 

“Right,” He responds eventually, but it comes out with too much bite. He forcibly tones it down, tries again, lighter: “Makes sense.”

On screen, Ethan from Texas solves the puzzle for $2600. GOING THE DISTANCE, the board flashes. Buck rolls his eyes. He refuses to let the universe taunt him through late-night game show reruns. 

“How can somebody win half a car?” Eddie’s voice breaks the brief quiet Buck had been chewing on. He spins back around.

“They can’t,” Buck clarifies, taking his time with each word. “Eddie, is—are you doing a bit?”

“No,” Eddie grumbles, embarrassed. He shifts position so his legs are in front, bent in an upside down V, then rests his elbows on his knees so he can lean forward to glare skeptically at the television screen. “I just never watch this stuff. I don’t understand why the wheel has a wedge that says ½ car. It doesn’t make sense, and now you mention it—” Buck didn’t— “it begs the question: which half?”

“Which… huh?”

At Buck’s candid confusion, Eddie starts making chopping motions mid-air with one arm. “Like… hamburger, or hotdog style?”

“Hamburger or—” Buck blinks, long and harsh, recalibrating after finding himself abruptly lost miles, miles deep in a mind-maze of Eddie’s creation. “Eddie, they don’t actually chop up a car.”

“I know that,” says Eddie with a slight pout, sincere as anything, as if he didn’t literally just refer to vertical and horizontal in fast food terms. “That was a bit. I still don’t like the half car part, though.”

Buck, standing aimlessly in Eddie’s hotel room, looks at his best friend like he’s never met him before in his life. “You land on it twice. Eddie. You just land on it twice.”

“That’s stupid,” Eddie retorts wisely, splaying out his hands in a gesture that screams what even is that. “I know they have smaller wedges. They should just do one wedge, half the size, one single car. Way simpler.”

“It’s a probability thing, though.” 

Eddie clearly doesn’t like that line of reasoning. He scoffs, brow furrowed, then his expression eases into a pleased smirk that he directs at Buck, eyes wide and twinkling - which is Eddie body language for being about to make some kind of stupid joke, so—

“Never tell me the odds.” 

Jesus Christ. Not just a dumb joke, but Star Wars. Buck prays, fervently and silently, to be swiftly replaced with a version of himself that isn’t turned on by nerds. 

Ultimately, God doesn’t answer, and he still wants to jump his best friend’s dorky bones.

“Speaking of getting lucky,” Eddie continues, unknowing of Buck rapidly firing through the five stages of horny grief, “what happened after I left?”

“Oh,” says Buck, about a millisecond after reaching acceptance. “Nothing, in the end. I mean, we talked, we flirted, but… that’s it.”

“Huh,” Eddie responds, the poster boy for neutrality, then turns his attention back to Vanna.

“Sorry to… disappoint?” Buck tries. He can’t get a read on Eddie at all, which makes him feel a little bit sick if he lingers on it too long. He imagines it’s like waking up one day having lost one of your senses. 

“You didn’t,” Eddie answers coolly, then smiles at Buck. It’s only a small crease of lips, but definitely genuine. When Buck offers a smile in return - helpless to instinct, and as he’s steadily realizing, totally lovesick and foolish - Eddie ducks his head, almost bashful. 

“But—how come?” Eddie asks, the question addressed to his knees.

“Just…” Buck starts, then falters. How does he phrase this in a way that isn’t profoundly incriminating?

Because maybe for a second, or half of that, Buck had considered what Dixie was evidently putting on the table. There’s a reason they say that old habits die hard.

At one point in time, he had hook-ups down to a science, a tried and tested practice. Buy them a drink, make them laugh; tease them, toss out a compliment or two. Let them be the one to make contact, break that final physical barrier, if that’s what they want. In Buck’s experience, as cocky as it sounds, they usually do. He can’t exactly argue with raw data.

It’s a ritual Buck used to sink into like a hot bath, letting the heat and steam warm him from the blood out. Reliable, fast-acting relief to soothe the ache he felt— sometimes, still feels—all over. 

Tonight, if nothing else, was affirming proof that Buck has changed. Tipsy, a little sad, desperate for distraction, and yet - he still hadn’t wandered down that familiar uneven path. Casual sex as a stand-in for intimate connection. Another short-lived attempt to fill the various vacuums dotted around his chest. 

Dixie was fun, and kind. She didn’t seem all that put out about Buck not making a move. Besides - something in her eyes suggested to Buck she was more than capable of drawing certain conclusions. That something was also, embarrassingly, evident in her tone whenever Eddie came up in conversation.

Which was, predictably, often.

So, it’s not that Buck wouldn’t enjoy sleeping with someone tonight. If anything, part of his problem is overwhelmingly—and excruciatingly particularly—the opposite.

“I wasn’t interested, really,” Buck settles on saying. “She’s cool, don’t get me wrong. Good company. I liked talking with her.”

“And flirting with her,” Eddie adds, pointedly.

“Well, yeah, I mean…” Buck decides he doesn’t want to continue this conversation while standing around like a flagpole, so he ushers himself over to sit on Eddie’s bed. 

“Buck,” Eddie cuts in warningly, right as he’s about to pull his legs up. The reason for the interruption being, of course, that Buck is still wearing his shoes. He toes them off, kicks them haphazardly towards the wall.

“Sorry, your majesty.” Buck sets himself down on the opposite side of the bed to the pillow Eddie’s currently leaning against, criss cross apple sauce, facing sideways.

Eddie huffs, crossing his legs in kind in a way that seems almost automatic; a perpendicular mirror. “It’s not fussy for me to prefer your gross shoes stay off where I’ll be sleeping, Buck.”

“My shoes aren’t—whatever. What was I saying?” 

“Flirting with Dixie,” Eddie prompts. His words come out entirely evenhanded, but Buck is watching closely enough to catch his nose wrinkle slightly. Interesting.

“Right,” Buck picks back up. “I didn’t, like, lead her on or anything. I think we both figured out in the first five minutes we weren’t gonna—do anything.”

Eddie snorts. “I know that feeling,” he quips, self-deprecating, breezy as anything.

“Shut up,” Buck says, with zero heat to it. He’s so patently adoring no matter what words wind up coming out of his mouth. He might as well have saved them both the trouble and used it to blow Eddie a kiss instead. “Anyway - it was just nice. It’s nice to… feel wanted, in that way, even when nothing will come of it.” Buck scratches his eyebrow, suddenly feeling sheepish. “Does that make sense?”

“I think so,” Eddie replies steadily, but he looks pensive, bordering on troubled. Buck, who tries hard to be patient when it counts, senses that Eddie might be working up to something and lets the moment sit. He focuses his gaze on where Eddie is currently wringing his hands together, thoughtful, self-soothing, like he’s molding his thoughts with clay. 

Eddie has good hands. Long fingers. Buck swallows as he watches them overlap - folding then smoothing out, rinse and repeat - meditatively. He bets Eddie gives a great massage. Which, it turns out, is an avenue of thought he absolutely will not—cannot—venture down right now, or he’ll explode. Then Eddie would have to pay extortionate cleaning fees.

In the end, when Eddie seems to have finished mulling over whatever thoughts or feelings he’s pressure-cooking, he doesn’t follow up on his previous sentence. Instead, he strokes his jaw once, sniffs, then says: “You did great today, by the way. I’m not sure if I, uh… mentioned that yet.”

“Oh,” says Buck, surprised. Not at Eddie complimenting him—even though it does fire a current straight to the beating bulb in his chest, his pulse stuttering and flickering predictably with bright light—moreso at the somewhat sharp bend in conversation. “Thanks, Eddie. You too.”

“Yeah?” Eddie ducks his chin. “Which part?” When he looks back up, he rests his head in the cup of one palm, elbow digging into his bare knee, now looking up at Buck through thick eyelashes. It’s as though he’s adopted an alternate persona in the span of two seconds. It reminds Buck of those crappy thriller movies where the villain is revealed to have multiple personalities, except instead of flipping a switch to evil, Eddie has turned downright coy. Buck feels a damning flush rise to his cheeks. 

“Uh,” is what escapes Buck’s lips, like it’s his first day on earth. Which part, he says. Which part? Eddie is sitting there, in his comfy clothes, giving Buck—and he’s being polite here—come hither eyes, basically asking him to flip through his rolodex of memories devoted specifically to Eddie being strong, capable, and, most lethal of all, sweaty from exertion. 

Scratch that earlier thought - maybe Eddie is a bit evil.

“Blatantly fishing for compliments,” Buck recovers. Sort of.

“Come on, Buck,” Eddie croons, evil. “Indulge me.” Menace, gorgeous, evil.

“Fine, fine.” Buck releases a put-upon huff of air, puffing out his cheeks, because if Eddie wants to ham it up, he can damn well play along. “When you pulled the engine. That was definitely impressive,” he says, letting his head flop slightly to the left, overtly considering. “And, you know, when you almost killed a man for taking a swing at me—”

“Alright, now, cool your jets,” Eddie grins, face full of mirth, eyes sparkling. “Let’s not go throwing around felony accusations. I just… gently nudged the guy.”

“Objection, your honor. Hearsay.”

“My word versus yours, Buckley. And that’s not how hearsay works.” 

“Conjecture.”

“One more of those, and I’m banning you from Judge Judy.”

“I’d like to see you try,” goads Buck, leaning forward. He’s teetering on Eddie’s personal space, right at home. “I’ve heard I can be very persuasive.”

Eddie blinks, once, twice, but he doesn’t back away. His eyes flit downward for the briefest of moments, and Buck’s lungs feel like they’re filling rapidly with popping candy. He doesn’t dare move an inch. They might be breaking new ground here, but the blueprints haven’t changed. Let them be the one to make contact.

Except, Eddie doesn’t. He stays put, but his only reply is a small smile. Buck can’t help but feel like he’s being let down gently. 

And that’s—it’s to be expected, of course, because that’s what Buck has been saying all along, shouting to his sister and his ex and the skies, anyone willing to listen, he and Eddie, it’s… just not like that, at the end of the day.

Internally, Buck douses himself with a bucket of freezing cold water, self-reproaching, but refuses to let a flinch through. He leans back to a safe distance steadily; keeps the dull jolt of rejection discreet. He swiftly folds up the hoard of childish aches leeching out from behind his ribcage, shuffles them into a neat pile, rests them down. 

To be picked up later, maybe, but not now, not while Eddie’s watching, intent and with chocolate eyes that will melt Buck on the spot if doesn’t tread carefully, oh so normally.

Except—well. That crumpled piece of paper from earlier falls out of his breast pocket. Eddie knows him so well.

“Hey,” says Eddie, soothing, but underscored with a dotted line of urgency. He reaches out one hand, palm facing the ceiling. Buck is… confused.

“Hey.” Buck, helpless, smacks Eddie’s palm with his own in the world’s feeblest low five. 

Eddie’s eyes narrow down at the point of contact, eyebrows creased together in what can only be unfiltered disbelief. “Unbelievable,” he mutters, then before Buck can retract his hand, Eddie clasps it in his own. Squeezes, gentle but pointed, where they are now joined together. A delicate paper chain dangling between their folded legs. 

We have two P’s, says Vanna, no longer content to be ignored. He looks to his left instinctively to watch her turn over the letters. Person, reads the category on the board. Two words.

When he turns back, Eddie is smiling at him, bemused. 

“Sorry,” Buck says, sheepish.

“You’re fine,” Eddie almost-whispers. “Which, actually, is—hm. I just wanted to check in with you, I guess. Maybe I’m looking too hard, I don’t know, but… I like to think I know you, obviously.” Eddie smiles for a moment, lopsided and charming, before his face resumes its quiet sincerity. “You’ve seemed kind of off today.”

“How so?” Buck asks, swallowing his heartbeat where it hammers somewhere in the back of his throat.

“Nothing bad,” Eddie reassures. “Just… during the games, for example. Before, too. You were even more intense than usual. You’ve been all jittery, like you’re on edge.” Eddie shuffles forward until their toes touch through their socks. It suddenly feels like they’re wrapped up in a pillow fort, exchanging late night secrets under their breath and a pile of blankets. “I swear, I’m not criticizing,” Eddie adds, voice low. “Just—checking you’re okay.”

“That’s fair,” Buck responds. “I think that I just really wanted to—prove myself. I’ve been, uh…” Buck scrapes the skin around his thumbnail on his free hand. Gears himself up for honesty, and whatever may follow. “...in my head, I guess.”

Eddie makes an understanding noise. “Your parents?”

“What?” Buck tilts his head slightly, confused. When he realizes what Eddie’s implying, he barks out a dry laugh. “Oh, you mean—the divorce? No, no. I was being serious, man, it doesn’t bother me. I literally almost forgot just now. The only person I’m even slightly worried about is Maddie, but we had a good talk about it, so.”

“That’s good,” says Eddie, squeezing his hand.

Because they’re still holding hands. Buck can’t even look, because if he does, he might spontaneously set on fire from the wrist down. 

This isn’t—this can’t be a friendly hand-hold, right? Is it? Buck needs a minute, a day, a week, to collect all the evidence in his head, weigh up each side of the argument, engage himself in rational, intellectual debate. Instead, he’s stuck in this hotel room, staring at Eddie half-delirious while he answers questions about his parents’ impending divorce, and all he can think is: how platonic is it that they’re essentially holding toes right now?

People do say it isn’t gay if you keep your socks on.

“You with me?” Eddie’s voice bursts into focus - a solid weight yet not quite an anchor, because Buck’s doing a decent job at saving face, but he’s still about two inches from flying off the deep end. “What’s eating at you?”

When Buck feels Eddie’s thumb smooth over his knuckles, the gentle pressure is what finally makes him crack. “Did you really not think you were coming back?” 

Well, then. So much for saving face. 

Eddie’s hand, still palm to palm with Buck’s own, tenses. He doesn’t let go, though.

“Buck.” It’s quiet, timid, but still sounds almost pleading. “Is that what…” Eddie pauses. His fingers slip from their grasp, snaking down to press into the frail skin of Buck’s wrist, holding his pulse securely in place. “Did I upset you?”

“No,” replies Buck on instinct. “Yes. I—maybe.”

Eddie’s grip loosens by a fraction. His expression stays even. “Maybe?”

“I’m confused, Eddie. I don’t even know.” Buck sighs. “There’s a part of me that says I’m overreacting and just—upsetting myself again for no good reason, but…” Buck pulls his arm free - in part to rub both hands over his eyes; in part so Eddie can’t be the one to break the connection first, if this is going where he suspects it’s going. “Obviously not on purpose, but—yeah. Maybe.”

“Okay,” Eddie responds, drawn out; tentative but not unkind. His hands meet in the middle of his lap, holding themselves now instead. “I want to meet you where you’re at, Buck, but I don’t… Can you help me understand?”

“I’m getting there.”

“Okay,” says Eddie, a gentle echo reverberating off dense, solid ground. “Would it help if I were to start?”

Yes. Yes, Buck despairs, because he’s a grown man in his thirties who is currently so lost in the forest of his own thoughts that he keeps walking head-first into trees, complete with a comical bonk and birds circling; so he needs his Best Friend Forever to draw him a map to his own emotions, a thick red crayon line and a big X. They might both be firefighters, but hey, Eddie was a boy scout.

“I think so. Sorry,” Buck answers.

“Don’t apologize.” Eddie, so far, is being patient enough with Buck for the both of them. It sort of makes him want to cry in frustration. “I guess I…” 

Eddie trails off in thought, brow and nose scrunching, looking so much like a Disney animated rodent in the best possible way that even in his harrowing emotional fog, Buck has to fight very, very hard not to crack an unlikely smile. 

“Texas, the move, Chris barely speaking to me, it was all a tough time,” Eddie says, and Buck nods accordingly - none of that is new information. “So, I don’t want to lie to you—I can’t lie to you, Buck, and say I knew anything for sure at all, back then.”

“You just—” Buck surprises himself with the sound of his own ragged voice. A wave of intensity floods over him where he sits there, unsuspecting and unprepared for such emotion to breach the surface. All at once, he feels claustrophobic. He needs to move, so he gets to his feet, starts pacing. 

Now back in view, Ethan, his enemy from Texas, solves another puzzle: SPARRING PARTNER. 

“I think you’re the only one who wasn’t sure, Eddie. And I know you were in a bad spot, I understand that, I swear I do, but it’s just…” He wipes a hand down over his lips, letting the bottom one drag against his palm, just on the side of too dry. “Is L.A. not—home? For you?”

“What?” Eddie’s back straightens. His hands come to rest each on one knee, poised and postured, almost methodical. Bracing himself for a negotiation, watching Buck’s fuse fizzle down, down, down, bomb defusal kit handy in his back pocket. “Of course—Buck, why would you think that?”

“Because!” Buck exclaims, one hand flinging itself into the air above his head, a vision teetering on hysteria. “Family comes home, Eddie. That’s the point. We—they come back to each other.”

“I did come home.”

“Yeah, you did. And I’m so, so, glad, Eddie, because I think I was losing my damn mind for a minute there,” Buck rambles, not so much showing his hand as flashing it on the big screen, but he’s not at the wheel anymore to give it much thought. “But you were the only one. I really think - the only one, including Chris, probably your—awful parents, including me, deep down, that didn’t know you were gonna wind up back where you belonged. And I can’t figure out if you’re just—just that unattached, or so crazy insecure that—”

“That’s real nice, Buck.”

“I’m sorry,” Buck entreats. “I’m sorry. I haven’t had time to—think this through and—and plan my words, so I’m gonna say some stupid things, probably, because I’m really winging it here, man.” Eddie is still staring at him, jaw tight, gaze level, in all his frenzy. Keeping his cool even as Buck launches shrapnel all over the pristine hotel bedding. He lets out a long breath, tags on: “I don’t think you’re insecure.”

“I know.” Eddie’s voice stays delicate, even now.

“And I know you care. Just… hearing you bring it up so casually, Eddie, it makes me feel kind of insane. Like, I know, really, that the way you moving hit me was… overdramatic. I just think that still, maybe, how you talk about the possibility of you not coming back as—as a throwaway, when to me it’s so—well.” Buck sniffs and glances away. He focuses on the texture of the rough carpet beneath his feet to keep himself tethered to the ground.

“It sometimes feels like it didn’t affect you. Leaving me.”

Me, he says, because us was always a paper-thin replacement of a term. He’s already driven far enough down this one way street that he might as well commit, foot heavy on the gas, straight into a telephone pole. All of his chips laid down.

Eddie is now chewing his bottom lip, so Buck gives him time to process the oversized suitcase of abandonment issues he’s just dragged into this hotel room. The only noise Buck can hear over the blood rushing in his ears is the clunkclunkclunk of the wheel spinning from the television speaker.

“I’m sorry,” Buck adds once more after a beat of silence, unable to help himself.

“You don’t need to be.” Eddie shuffles over to the front of the bed and plants his feet solidly on the floor, like he’s punctuating the statement. “I want to hear what you’re feeling. Even if you’re mad, or it’s ugly, even if it’s the raw, unfiltered mess of it - especially then,” implores Eddie, face determined. “We’re in this together, Buck. We’re not gonna really ever figure things out if we keep tip-toeing around issues.”

“I heard that’s called communication.”

“Yeah. I just learnt about that the other day.”

Buck lets out a wet laugh. “That’s not fair.”

“Eh. Maybe not,” Eddie shrugs. “It’s a constant learning curve. At least, that’s what therapy told me. It also told me that I’m not great at it a lot of the time, so, even if you were really bombing up there,” he gestures to where Buck is standing, shrugs slightly, “I wouldn’t be in a position to judge.”

It really is the emotionally constipated leading the emotionally constipated with them sometimes, Buck thinks. It means the world to him, though, that with Eddie there will always be a safety net: an almost egregious margin of error wherein Buck can lash out in the crux of the moment, brain to mouth filter clogged beyond functionality with gunk and indiscernible emotions, and Eddie will call his bluff with tender ease. Because he just knows Buck that well. Eddie knows he can be clumsy and jagged and sometimes crude, that he sometimes might take a stray elbow to the ribs as Buck scrambles to find his footing, but loves him anyway.

God - is that what this is? 

“Would you come sit?” Eddie asks, gentle, beseeching, and Buck feels stripped bare, exposed nerves rustled by the patchy AC, because currently there’s distance between them, but Eddie wants him close. Granted, these few paces to the foot of Eddie’s bed are a drop in the ocean as analogies go, but still - he wonders if it really is that simple, in the end.

Buck sits. Not as close as he’d like, but within arm’s reach. Never let anyone say he’s bad at compromise.

“Thank you,” says Buck, hushed. “I’m still sorry, even if you know I’m—mostly talking out of my ass, sometimes, when things bubble up like that. I don’t like that you have to hear it.”

“I can handle it,” Eddie replies, which sounds a lot like I can handle you. Might even do so voluntarily.

Buck hums, a small smile unfurling; the corners of his lips delicate petals cautiously seeking the sun. They sit next to each other, legs hanging over the edge of the bed. A loud but tentative physical awareness hangs in the short expanse of air separating them, like two perfect strangers assigned adjacent seats on a bus. 

The dusty screen over his mind is clearing, Eddie’s patient words brushing it away with a gentle hand. He can take complete, unpolluted breaths again.

“If anyone can, it’s you,” says Buck, less than half a confession, a single ace laid face-up on the table. “But I mean it, Eddie. When you left for Texas, I took it really hard. Harder than I should, I think.” 

He flits his eyes towards Eddie, who is there waiting - brown eyes half-surrendered to greedy pupil, meeting his stare without a flinch. Buck gives in to the hungry trepidation surging and crashing in his chest and turns away.

Four words. What are you doing? reads the category on the board. If only he knew. 

“Buck…” Eddie starts, voice steady yet gentle, effortless tender conviction. “First off, I want to say: I’m sorry for ever making it seem like moving away was easy for me.”

“That’s not really on you,” Buck replies. “You told me before you left, man, that it wasn’t nothing. I just have a hard time believing things, sometimes, if I’m not being… regularly reminded. I’m like one of those babies, you know? Who… they see a toy disappear behind a blanket and just cry and cry, because they don’t understand it’s still there, just, not in front of their face anymore. Object permanence,” Buck finally recalls the term, “but, like, for other people’s feelings.”

“Buck,” says Eddie, his expression so full of candid affection that Buck barely resists flailing across the mattress to smother himself in a crisp feather down pillow. “Even if that’s true, I think even the most securely attached man alive would struggle to go a full year on just not nothing.”

“Well…” Buck chews his lip. “Maybe.”

“Yeah. Can I apologize, now?”

“Yeah.” Buck clears his throat. “Floor’s yours.”

Eddie nods, shifting one knee up onto the bed, seamlessly cutting their proximity in half like a hot knife through butter. “I should’ve been more mindful. I’ve been taking the easy out, in a way. It’s hard to talk about Texas, about being away from L.A. - from you—” a jolt hits Buck’s nervous system, it flashes like bulbs adorning a fairground ride; on the fritz, probably hazardous, undeniably full of life—“with any level of depth that isn’t, well, safely above the surface. I don’t regret it,” Eddie crosses his hands in a sweeping gesture, as if to leave no room for error. “I’d do it again, to get Chris to forgive me.”

“You won’t need to.”

“God, I hope so. Knock on wood.” Eddie reaches over, taps his knuckles against Buck’s temple. 

“Asshole,” Buck counters, not believable for even a second.

“Forgive me,” Eddie simpers. His hand is still situated by Buck’s skull. He gently tucks two fingers under Buck’s chin, tilting it towards himself, and god, he’s pouting - sarcastic, yes; but even so, his lower lip is jutted out in a way that makes Buck want to bite, snap his teeth against it, tug it safe where it belongs. Buck is a weak, weak man, so he stares shamelessly.

Then Eddie presses the two fingers to the side of Buck’s jaw, a barely-there pressure, just informative enough for him to play along. He turns his head away in kind like Eddie’s just delivered a head-spinning slap - easy to do convincingly when he’s already kind of reeling.

It’s a breath of fresh air in a moment so dense. When he turns back, Eddie is grinning. So much of love, Buck thinks, lies in the silly.

“Anyway,” Eddie continues. “I’d do it again, but I’d hate it just the same. Every part of those few months that wasn’t spent with, or even near my son - Buck, I was miserable in Texas. And… My factory setting is to expect the worst, so I never really learnt how to let myself hope for… shit, even just—happy. Let alone the best.”

What is the best? Buck’s thoughts tinker away, excavating Eddie’s words with tiny tools wielded by clumsy hands, beginning to dare to think there might be treasure laid beneath after all. Do you mean me? Am I your best?

“If I’m… flippant, when I talk about that possibility, me staying out there permanently, it’s just another ass-backwards coping mechanism.” Eddie wipes a hand down  over one eye, leaves it grasping at his cheek, resigned. “You know better than anyone that I deflect like it’s my job. It’s like… dipping my toes in some alternate timeline I only narrowly avoided. One where everything sucks.”

“Torturing yourself,” Buck remarks.

Eddie sighs. “Maybe. Or maybe it’s more like disbelief, at this point. Because I did make it home. I have my kid, I have you. And god, I wish we still had Bobby, more than anything, but other than that… things are good, Buck. Aren’t they?”

“They’re good,” says Buck. “You—you seem good. I love seeing you happy, Eddie, after everything.”

Eddie’s hand vacates his cheek and comes to lay face-up on the bed between them. Fortunately, Buck is a fast learner and great at adapting in high-pressure environments, so this time, he reaches out and threads their fingers together. Meanwhile, Vanna—quietly, as to respect the intimacy of the moment unfolding—turns over two G’s.

Buck takes a steadying breath as he comes to terms with how neatly Eddie’s fingers tessellate with his own, then continues.

“I think that maybe because we never really, you know, talked about it, I got so in my own head that it wasn’t me making you feel like that. Even with being out here, I mean, you’re vibrant. Being in a new city makes you so… jolly.”

“Like—Santa Claus?” Which, Jesus Christ, absolutely isn’t an image that should make Buck’s core flood with heat, and yet.

“If the suit fits,” says Buck, now ardently not looking in Eddie’s direction, because this is not the time to unpack any of that if there ever is one. “Eddie, don’t distract me.”

“Sorry.” He’s not. “Continue.”

“I think… when I really care about something, or, well - someone,” Buck flails their joined hands slightly, just in case his blindingly bare soul has left any room for confusion, “it’s like I—can’t keep control of my own head. I start catastrophizing like crazy. Which - with you, these past couple of days, months… God, it’s so self-centered I can’t stand it, man. I hate myself for it, a little. That—that you just existing, enjoying yourself without me being tied into it, has been giving me this fucked up sense of rejection.”

“Why wouldn’t you be tied into it?” 

Buck’s head snaps towards Eddie. He probably looks like a possessed doll from a horror movie, but - it’s just not what he was expecting to hear after laying such ugly parts of himself out for academy consideration. “What?”

“I mean it.” He pulls a move from page one of the Diaz Intimacy Playbook and bows his head, tilting, forcing Buck to meet his eyes from just above. “Buck, you’re not just tied; you’re basically knit into my damn existence. We’re like—remember when Chris did that section on textiles in Home Ec?”

Buck smiles helplessly at the sudden tangent. He loves when his own mannerisms bleed obnoxiously into Eddie’s like this. Buck is so frequently dragged along a zigzag train of thought - whenever it happens to Eddie, it feels a bit like undeniable proof of their co-existence. “Yeah, I do.”

“And he made that - not to be judgmental, but, well - awful scarf.”

“Sounds a little bit like you’re being judgmental.”

“Buck. You saw the scarf.”

“I wore the scarf, thank you.”

“Of course you did,” says Eddie. “I mean - it was so wonky; he somehow stitched over himself all over the place—seriously, I don’t know how the hell he doubled back on himself so many times—but I doubt Houdini himself could untangle that thing. I don’t think it’ll ever come apart.”

The way Eddie is looking at him right now leaves no room for sensical thought. All that’s left in Buck’s mind is a connect-the-dots like from a kid’s menu at a restaurant, a shakily scrawled heart forming gradually, line by nervous line. He blinks harshly, looks away for a fleeting moment of respite.

Eddie speaks, but it’s muffled, because Buck is distracted watching Claire from Arkansas solve Vanna’s latest cruel riddle (take that, Ethan). The solution is, of course, Making A Romantic Gesture. Naturally.

Gathering himself, Buck looks over. Eddie’s expectant expression reminds him they’re still mid-conversation, which polite society dictates he should offer up some sort of thoughtful response to—whatever Eddie just said.

“Pardon?”

Eddie exhales through his nose, a restrained laugh of disbelief. “So polite.”

“Sorry, I just - I missed what you said.” 

“I said…” Eddie smooths over the length of Buck’s thumb with his own. Every cell of the thin skin lights up with each pass. “It’s fitting.” He gestures to the television. 

Buck’s thoughts spin round and round as he puts the pieces together, before finally landing on elation. His heart does a series of precise backflips, acting like one of those old electronic toy dogs, executing 360 degree turns in the confines of his ribcage. He’s surprised it hasn’t burst out, grown legs, and started sprinting around the hotel room in all its bloody and beating glory. Forget every bad thing he has ever said about his good, true friend Vanna White. 

Buck clears his throat and adopts his best attempt at a poker face. He’s never been more nonchalant, actually.

“How so?” 

Eddie rolls his eyes in the overly-fond way he tends to reserve for Buck’s antics. His heart, straining and tired but determined to keep leaping around like a fool, pants in his chest.

“How so, is that I’m trying to tell you something, Buck. Don’t start playing coy now.” 

Eddie shifts closer, which is dangerous, really, because Buck is a pot one hot touch away from bubbling over. His knee presses into the waistband of Buck’s jeans where they meet at an angle on the bed. The joint presses in, like it had at the bar earlier; like it has on so many nights spent heckling bad movies on Buck’s favorite couch; like it has, day after day, in the back of the fire engine in front of God and all their coworkers. It’s never scorched through to Buck’s flesh quite like this, though.

“I’m enjoying myself out here because I’m with you, dumbass,” Eddie states, rewriting Buck’s very existence with a characteristically effortless mix of caring and slightly bitchy. No one man should wield such power. Buck might have to kiss him about it. 

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh.” Eddie swallows. The bob in his throat only draws attention to the firm muscles of his neck. Buck’s willpower reserves are dwindling fast, and there’s no back up generator. They’ll probably have to huddle for warmth.

“I never meant to play it off, me leaving,” Eddie continues. “Or hurt you by dancing around it, even now. I’m sorry that I did.”

“It’s okay,” Buck whispers, steadfastly not looking at Eddie’s mouth while he speaks, because this conversation is important and probably long overdue so he needs to stay firmly grounded. If he does look, he’ll transcend his mortal body and evaporate into some blissful, horny alternate plane of existence. Which is—not grounded.

“I won’t do it again,” Eddie adds.

“I know. And I’m—I’m sorry for not saying something earlier.”

“Buck,” Eddie smiles, “if we both start apologizing for things we should’ve said out loud, we’ll never manage to check out of this hotel.”

“Doesn’t sound too terrible to me,” Buck quips without thinking. He’d maybe feel bad about derailing the earnest tone of conversation so cavalierly, except Eddie’s thumb stalls its gentle movement for one nervous moment and his lips part just so. So—it doesn’t seem like he minds. Hot anticipation stirs in Buck’s abdomen; familiar, yet so, so new.

”Oh?” Eddie’s eyes sweep intently across Buck’s shoulders, his neck, his jaw. “How so?” 

Little shit. It barely even makes sense, but Eddie loves having the last word - and frankly, if he keeps looking at Buck like this, tantamount to stripping him bare hands free, he can have absolutely anything he wants. 

Buck reluctantly untangles their fingers, but it’s in the name of proactivity: he uses the freed hand to grip the flesh just above Eddie’s knee. He stares as the muscle and fat pale beneath the brunt of his fingertips; irrefutable evidence that this is really happening.

“Well,” Buck lilts, using his grasp to leverage himself closer still with one fluid motion, until he’s almost breathing Eddie’s air. Which is good, it’s great, even; if he can’t crawl inside him and set up camp, this will do just fine. “Think of all the Wheel of Fortune you have left to watch—”

“Buck—”

“Think of all the puzzles we could solve, Eddie—”

“Stop talking,” Eddie demands, lighthearted, but the fingers that curl over Buck’s jaw leave no room for argument, squeezing so he has no choice but to gape like an awe-struck fish, each press of skin hot like a brand. 

He nods as far as Eddie’s grip will allow, which—isn’t far. He is, literally and figuratively, in the palm of Eddie’s hand. It’s intoxicating. A rush of heat travels to his crotch, tethered directly to where Eddie’s thumb traces over the skin just under his mouth, agonizingly slow, eyes lapping up the motion.

Eddie inches his thumb up, now caressing the warm, damp skin of Buck’s inner lip, tugging it down to expose his bottom teeth. Buck’s breath comes out dense and heavy, beating heat down on Eddie’s knuckle.

Eddie’s gaze flits up, eyes onyx dark; Buck matches it. He can barely breathe from how turned on he feels, from how excruciatingly exciting it is to witness a new, previously unrecognizable expression take over Eddie’s features. Even after all this time in his proximity, Buck has never seen Eddie so plainly want.

He releases Buck’s mouth with a final drag, swipes his thumb lazily over Buck’s chin and down to his jawline. A fleeting cool sensation tingles where the moisture captured from his own mouth meets the air. They stare at each other in thick silence for a beat, two, three. 

Eddie’s eyes, almost entirely pupil, flit between each of Buck’s almost wildly. He looks mesmerized, struck dumb by his own action - one not even strictly explicit yet still entirely obscene. Buck is suddenly, overwhelmingly, feverishly compelled to do something about that look. 

In one flurry of movement, he yanks Eddie’s hand away from his jaw, threads it together with his own; takes his other hand off Eddie’s knee to grasp desperately at the collar of his shirt and pulls him in, hard.

They collide and it’s something frantic. Every new press of their mouths ramps up the buzzing in Buck’s veins. He thought he knew the pure devastation of heat before, but no structure fire has ever burned him quite like Eddie’s mouth against his. 

He knows he’s being nothing short of ferocious, but Eddie is so, so capable. Buck trusts him to hold his own.

He moves the hand bunched in Eddie’s shirt and slides it up to his neck, fingers pressing in as he grasps desperately at Eddie’s nape where goosebumps pebble the skin at his hairline, almost like scruffing a kitten. Eddie lets out a small whimper into Buck’s eager mouth and every nerve receptor inside him sets alight in a blinding haze of want.

Now that he knows Eddie’s on board, this train is flying firmly on the rails. Or off. He feels a little like a man possessed, or maybe just a man pent up and with freshly granted access to put urgent hands all over the man he loves, muss him up good and proper. Said man just so happens to be so hot that Buck is barely resisting dropping to his knees thirty seconds into their first kiss, just to appropriately reflect his degree of appreciation.

Buck sucks Eddie’s bottom lip between each of his own, shamelessly claiming. It’s passionate, but not rough - not this time. Right now, he’s committed to pouring out every little scrap of held-back devotion—years and years worth—into every kiss, every touch, every little motion. 

When Eddie’s hand squeezes his own hard enough to break, it feels like he’s getting his point across.

A hand paws at Buck’s lower back, rucking up his worn flannel and pushing into the soft cotton of the T-shirt underneath. Now that he’s back on level footing, Buck can read Eddie like a picture book once more. The clenching hand against Buck’s back tells him he wants to touch. The thin layer of fabric still acting as one last buffer tells him: this is new. This is important. Which - Buck agrees wholeheartedly.

There’s something thrilling, a little forbidden, about kissing your best friend in the whole world in a hotel room a thousand miles from home. 

Eddie’s always been a bit more caught up in the unspoken rules of things, while Buck has a tendency to barrel through. Not here, though, not with Eddie; even though he’s definitely more than halfway hard from some kissing, and that thought alone makes his dick twitch - he’s determined to do this right.

So, Buck pulls back an inch, but keeps his hand still clasped firm at Eddie’s nape to leave no room for doubt.  He uses his teeth to pull Eddie’s lip with him as he retreats the minute distance, then breaks the kiss with a gentle pop. Eddie’s eyes stay closed, his cheeks are flushed, his breath is coming out in sharp bursts. Buck needs to take him apart with utmost sincerity and care, but first—

“Hey.” And because Buck is a fool and a weak man, he dips in for one additional small, sweet peck before continuing: “You’re my best friend, you know.”

Eddie’s eyes flutter open, unhurried. He smiles. “Getting some mixed signals here, bud,” he says, but there’s no trace of uncertainty on his face. Because he knows Buck so damn well.

“I just mean… this is—this is it, for me. I’m not—actually, I don’t think I can be casual about this. About you. I just want to, uh, make that known.” Buck swallows. “We can go at whatever pace, anything you need, we can talk more, I just…” He squeezes Eddie’s nape, an attempt at reassurance for them both. “You’re my best friend,” Buck finishes emphatically. 

Those four words have felt pretty loaded for a while, but they’ve never been a more transparent stand-in for I love you than just now.

Eddie squeezes their joined hands once before letting go to reach out and cup Buck’s cheek. His fingers are so long that he can effortlessly brush the pads of them over the shell of Buck’s ear, making him shiver.

“You’re my best friend too,” Eddie says, hushed like he’s letting him in on a secret. Like it’s three words instead of four. He moves the hand down to Buck’s shoulder, to his bicep, then to cup his elbow; he holds it so tenderly, like a young child with a grazed knee that Eddie is kissing better.

“Nothing about this is casual for me. I’m right there with you. And I, uh…” Eddie stalls for a moment. The hand at Buck’s back tangles in his shirt, pulling and twisting gently, pointedly. His thumb makes contact with the warm skin underneath, and—Jesus, Buck is so hyper-sensitive to every little point of contact Eddie offers, the pad of one thumb fires a flare gun up the entire length of his spine.

“I don’t want to slow down,” Eddie continues, releasing Buck’s shirt to press his palm in against the bare skin of his back. “I’ve been thinking about this.”

Eddie’s blushing. Buck could rack his brain for days and still fail to recall whatever good deed he’s done to deserve witnessing this - causing this. And he saves lives, like, professionally.

“Oh yeah?” Buck smirks. He doesn’t bother trying to quell the glee swimming all over his face. 

“Shut up,” Eddie mumbles, squeezing Buck’s bicep chidingly. His face is a pretty, pretty pink, but he stubbornly maintains eye contact. 

“Yeah. I’ve been thinking about it—a lot. But, uh,” he pauses, one finger trailing up Buck’s arm to play coyly with the collar of his flannel, which Buck really needs to take off soon, actually, because he feels approximately one hundred thousand degrees, “that doesn’t mean I don’t know how to… delegate.”

Buck likes where this is headed. Scrap that - he might be about to propose to where this is headed; put a down payment on a house; grow tomatoes and green beans in a cute little garden with where this is headed.

”Chain of command,” Buck nods, bravely holding back a smug smile—mostly. He wets his lips and smooths his left hand deliberately over Eddie’s waist, back and forth. Eddie flushes even deeper, his pupils darting evasively to the corners of his eyes. 

Dutifully, the horny recordkeeper inside Buck’s brain whips out a pocket-size notepad.

“What I mean is… I’m here. I’m all in, I’m an eager participant,” Eddie says, eyes now transfixed on Buck’s mouth. “It’s just new, still, for me. So…” 

Buck can fill in the blanks. It’s an absolute pleasure and a privilege to fill in those blanks.

“You want me to take care of you, Eddie?” 

Eddie nods, the movement shallow. Buck feels a very slight dig of nails at his lower back, which he can only assume—hope—is involuntary.

“Say please,” Buck coos, because he’s a man on top of the world; he’s Icarus, but his wings are made of teflon, and Eddie wants him. Why would he change up his behavior now when it’s served him so well this far? 

He’s going to take care of Eddie - god, is he going to - but he would be remiss not to have a little fun with it. Besides: Eddie’s cute when he’s huffy.

”Fuck you,” retorts Eddie, predictably, never one to go down without a fruitless fight. The good news—for him, at least; unfortunate for Eddie’s stubborn streak, maybe—is that Buck is so very good at this part. 

He pouts slightly in faux-sympathy, just to be a dick; just to see the tips of Eddie’s ears tinge a brighter red. He brings the hand curled around Eddie’s neck around to cup his jaw - tender, but unyielding enough to make a point - and captures his mouth in a vigorous kiss, pulling both of Eddie’s lips up in the clutch of his own. 

Buck is intent—content—kissing Eddie senseless until he gets what he wants to hear. 

He nips at Eddie’s lip again, once, twice, then runs his tongue over the spot to soothe before nudging it ever so slightly into Eddie’s mouth. When Eddie tries to match the action with his own tongue, Buck holds firm. Makes his terms of negotiation as clear as he can with only his mouth and the grip of his hand: a taste is all he can offer until Eddie says the magic word.

Undeterred, Eddie tries to deepen the kiss again, so Buck squeezes his jaw in retaliation; to which Eddie responds with a guttural, needy noise that rings out like sweet music to Buck’s ears. He pulls away to mouth at the sharp line of Eddie’s jaw, his lips moving reverently over the solid bone, before licking down to just underneath. He hopes his tongue leaves a glistening path in its wake. A piece of himself lingering across Eddie’s skin, right where he belongs.

“Buck,” Eddie complains; perhaps at the wet sensation, but more likely at Buck’s hand that’s slipped smoothly under his shirt at his navel, thumb languidly tracing the strip of skin that lies above the waistband of his shorts but no further. 

Buck continues to leave open mouthed kisses over the wide expanse of Eddie’s neck where he’s tilted his head up and to the side, a delicious act of compliance with Buck’s ministrations; Eddie happily exposes his skin for Buck’s teeth and tongue even though his jaw continues to clench obstinately. 

“C’mon, Eddie,” Buck purrs, low and sweet. He dips the tip of his thumb under his waistband, brushing delicately over the patch of coarse hair beneath. “For me?”

”Fuck,” Eddie groans. If Buck were to hazard a guess, it’s equal parts lust and mulish frustration. Lucky for him, lust is doing a lot of heavy lifting - once Buck delivers a firm bite to his collarbone while simultaneously brushing the backs of his knuckles against his swelling dick, Eddie pants out: “Please.”

Buck beams shamelessly against Eddie’s clavicle.

”Anything for you,” Buck says, and pulls his hand out of Eddie’s shorts to tug at his shirt instead. “Off.”

”Yours too, yours too,” Eddie replies, so breathy and frantic it makes Buck dizzy.

He pulls Eddie’s shirt up over the planes of his stomach, helps him tug his arms through the sleeves, leaving Eddie to toss the garment wherever he sees fit as he rapidly shrugs off his own flannel. 

Suddenly, two hands press at Buck’s stomach, pushing his tee up between urgent thumbs and fingers, palms smoothing over the planes of his abs in a way that feels near-reverent. Buck reaches behind his head and tugs his T-shirt off by the neck so Eddie can explore his torso to his heart’s content, which it appears is—extensively. He looks at the downright wonder in Eddie’s eyes as he tracks his hands over Buck’s abdomen and feels so gut-wrenchingly wanted. It’s fucking amazing.

For a moment they both sit and watch the movement of Eddie’s fingers, Buck’s chin tucked against his clavicle, trying to get a glimpse at Eddie’s point of view: to figure out what he’s seeing, what he’s feeling, that has him so glassy-eyed and enthralled. 

“Buck,” Eddie rasps. 

He might be the luckiest son of a bitch in the world, because, yeah - that’s his answer, huh?

“Uh huh,” Buck replies, struck dumb by how blatantly affected Eddie is from what he’s doing and the rough press of fingers over his pecs, the furthest thing from tentative. “Fucking—god. Come here, please, let me kiss you—”

He reaches for Eddie’s waist as he presses their mouths back together, dick swelling in his jeans at the sheer amount of it he can gather within his two hands. It feels so fucking petite in his hold even though Eddie is undoubtedly big, six foot of man, calloused skin and thick hair. The dichotomy overwhelms his senses.

A thumb brushes over Buck’s nipple and he shudders, maybe even whimpers; he wishes for less than half a second he could find it within himself to be even a tiny bit embarrassed. He isn’t, though. He wants Eddie to know exactly how affected he is in no uncertain terms. 

Encouraged by the noise, Eddie moves his mouth to slide on top of Buck’s: a subtle and slight power shift which Buck allows with no issue. Part of taking care of Eddie means letting him win the small battles - he still holds some cards, but Buck can see his entire hand. He allows himself to be kissed for a moment, settling into the acute flare of sensation that jolts low in his belly with every rub of Eddie’s thumb over his nipple; lets himself just feel. 

Then Eddie lets out a shuddering breath in between kisses, and Buck remembers he’s a man on a very important mission.

He squeezes at Eddie’s slender waist, tucking the tips of his fingers as close as he can to the fragile space between his every rib, and asks, “Can I?”

“Yes, yeah—” Eddie cuts off sharply as Buck hauls him with a steering grip around his middle, knees landing astride Buck’s thighs at the foot of the bed. Eddie is hovering on his lap, so Buck has to tilt his head back to keep kissing him fiercely; has to engage his core to avoid tipping back from the eager pressure Eddie with which pushes forward. Screw his job. This is what his rigorous workout routine has been for the whole time.

He runs his hands down Eddie’s sides and grasps at his hips, squeezing once, letting the tips of his fingers graze teasingly at the top curves of his ass. He might have reached saint status by not immediately grabbing two perfect handfuls, honestly, but this is bigger than him. 

Eddie grips the back of Buck’s head, toying with the loose curls at the crown, a scratching motion that both soothes Buck and drives his hips upwards to chase friction that isn’t there. When Eddie notices, he tries to sink down to grind against him, but Buck holds him in place with the firm grip on his hips, steady and assertive. 

From his limited knowledge of Eddie’s sex life, he’s always been a cut to the chase kind of guy. Buck has other plans.

“Buck, come on,” Eddie whines, and god, it’s so delicious. 

“Hm?”

“Let me—”

As gorgeous as Eddie’s imploring is to hear, Buck cuts him off with another harsh kiss, refusing to stray off task. He lets one hand stray down to cup Eddie’s ass, helpless to the groan of satisfaction that escapes at how the firm, plump muscle moves in his grasp. With the other hand, he strokes gradually up the plane of Eddie’s right thigh.

He finally pushes his tongue forward and through spit-slick lips, where he’s met eagerly with Eddie’s own. Buck has always loved kissing with tongue - it’s so messy; there’s no achievable finesse to it. A sloppy, dirty form of intimacy where self-control surrenders to want, wet muscle curling and pressing, breaths coming so hot and so close, leaving the skin around his lips satisfyingly damp. It’s the closest you can get to physically consuming another person, which—given half the chance and without the ethical implications in tow, Buck would with Eddie, no hesitation. 

The tip of Eddie’s tongue runs over his bottom teeth and he moans quietly, delighted to know that Eddie won’t just hear it but feel it from the inside out. Buck lets his hand curl over Eddie’s inner thigh and up to the crease of his crotch. He gets a tug of his hair in response: an encouragement to keep going; an admonishment for teasing.

“Been thinking about it too,” he murmurs into Eddie’s mouth, who lets out a small noise, vibrations echoing directly into the back of Buck’s throat. “Yeah. Tried to—didn’t wanna think about it too much, didn’t wanna - disrespect you. But now…” Buck breaks the kiss; a thin string of spit trails after his mouth, the connection clinging in its desperation not to be broken. “I think maybe you wouldn’t have minded.”

He punctuates his words by brushing his hand over where Eddie is straining through his shorts, just glancingly. Buck isn’t even holding Eddie’s hips anymore, but he keeps jolting forward in tiny stuttered thrusts, like he’s holding himself back from bearing down. It’s a sweet, unspoken compliance; keeping his strength trapped purposefully behind a set of ornate double doors, brass handles rattling with the effort, determined and delicate. 

“Definitely not,” Eddie sighs out, breaths stuttering. “You should’ve.”

”Oh, I did,” replies Buck. He dips into the back of Eddie’s shorts, squeezing the smooth flesh of his ass with one greedy hand—God, it just isn’t fair for Eddie to be walking around with something so perfect. “I said I tried, but… I’ve only got so much resolve, Eddie.”

Eddie lets out a breathy laugh, says, “You should harden that.”

Buck rolls his head back as he barks out a delighted laugh in return. “Not gonna be a problem.”

Eddie’s gaze dips languidly to the tent in Buck’s jeans, biting his lip like an afterthought. He reaches out to press against it, but Buck grabs the hand with his own before he can manage.

“Nuh-uh. You first.”

“Oh, really?” Eddie huffs. Adorable. “When might that be? Tomorrow? Next week? Next—oh,” Eddie moans out, interrupted by Buck gripping him through his shorts. 

Buck squeezes his length, flexes his fingers to work over him with the friction of the cloth. There’s a slight damp patch forming at the head and Buck swipes his thumb over it lazily, drawing out another choked-off noise from Eddie’s throat.

“There you go,” Buck soothes, still just palming at fabric. He loosens his grip and teases two fingers up and down the length of the shaft, feather light against the cotton, as Eddie pants achingly in his lap.

“Buck, please,” Eddie groans, drawn out and undone. Buck responds by pressing an open-mouthed kiss to his cheek, stays there after, breathing hot and heavy against Eddie’s jaw.

“What’s that?”

“Just—touch me.”

“I—”

“If you say I am touching you, I swear to god, Buck, I’ll kick you out and send you back to your room.”

Buck, hand currently one soft degree of separation from his best friend’s cock and harder than he’s ever been in his life, giggles. “Nah, you won’t.” He goes back to kneading at Eddie’s thigh, just to be a dick. “I think you like this.”

“God, you are…” Eddie doesn’t finish his sentence, instead turning his head urgently to kiss Buck with a ferocity that suggests the missing words are such an asshole. 

“I’m right,” Buck murmurs against Eddie’s lips. “You do. Me—hardly even touching you, you love it, you love not being in charge for once. Besides…” Buck brushes over Eddie’s length through his shorts again, a barely-there glance of his palm, “you couldn't kick me out, could you?” He lets his hand hover, agonizingly close to where Eddie wants—where he needs him to press down, and meets his eyes with an expectant look. A brief silence settles over them where they cling to each other on the hotel mattress. 

Eddie shakes his head. Their noses brush in the restless quiet.

“No, you couldn’t. Because I’ve got you.” Buck punctuates this with a firm squeeze of both hands. 

Eddie makes a growling noise. He clearly can’t decide which pressure to seek, whether to push backwards or forwards. Buck strokes Eddie’s dick, firm and steady; it would be sweet relief from the teasing if it wasn’t still through a layer of fabric, but Buck loves this. It’s almost dirtier this way. From the dazed gleam in his eyes, he suspects Eddie’s just as into it as he is.

“I’ve got you right where I want you,” Buck rumbles, finally giving in to that persistent surge of desire, taking hold of Eddie’s hips with both hands and guiding him down to grind their lengths together through their clothes, pressing him in, in, in. The heady sensation has him running his mouth straight away, rambling into the sensitive skin tucked behind Eddie’s ear. 

“You’re so pretty, Eddie, do you know that? Fucking—gorgeous, falling apart, perfect on my lap, letting me take my time with you.” He tilts to nibble at Eddie’s earlobe, relishes in his resulting shiver; continues rocking his hips in a lazy grinding motion with the grip of his palms, back and forth. Hot pants of air caress his cheek with every labored breath Eddie takes.

Lost in the delicious not-quite-enough friction, he whispers his next bout of horny nonsense straight into Eddie’s ear: “Trusting me to take care of you, so good, so fucking good, Eddie, shit. You feel amazing. You feel that?” Buck drags him down in a deep, drawn out motion, deliberately sliding every inch of Eddie’s length over stiff denim. “Feel how—how hard you’ve made me? Didn’t have to do a—a thing, not even lift a finger, you just drive me fucking crazy.”

Eddie’s face is turned sideways, forehead pressed against Buck’s temple. He’s started letting out constant breathy little moans that tickle the peach fuzz of Buck’s jaw as he speaks. It feels like they might as well be doing this in a sauna, everything is so overwhelmingly hot: Eddie’s damp exhales against his cheek; the friction of denim as he rubs Eddie against himself over and over; the tense hand Eddie has clasped at the back of his head, a desperate lifeline.

“Fuck,” Eddie lets out at a particularly rough drag of his hips. “Feels so good. So good to me,” he pants.

“Yeah?” Buck holds Eddie steady, pinning him in place, trapped together in a hard press. He starts to slowly drag the back of Eddie’s shorts over the globes of his ass, inch by merciless inch. “You want more?”

“Yes,” says Eddie, tense with anticipation in Buck’s arms. “Please,” he adds, which - Buck was going to give it to him anyway, but it makes him moan to hear him act so sweet.

He pulls the shorts down further over Eddie’s ass, delivers a firm tap to one cheek. “Stand up quickly for me, take these off, let me see you, c’mon.”

Eddie does as he’s told, stumbling slightly as he gets to his feet, the two of them clutching at each other's forearms to keep him stable. Eddie laughs, sheepish.

“That good, huh?” Buck teases, letting Eddie go once he’s got both feet planted on the floor a couple of feet away so he can unbuckle his belt and unzip his pants.

Then Eddie pulls his shorts off - altogether unceremoniously, in Buck’s opinion, because he really thinks this moment deserves a fanfare, or perhaps a fucking barbershop quartet; for God’s sake, Eddie’s standing there, butt-ass naked in front of Buck for the first time.

(The first time that counts, anyway. The first time Buck’s allowed—encouraged—to be a total pervert about it.)

He’s a fucking vision. Either Buck’s chin is damp from messy kisses, or he might just be drooling. 

The glow emitted from the ceiling light dances over Eddie’s abs, casting rolling foothill shadows that Buck wants to traverse, roll around in the fresh grass and dirt until he’s filthy with it. The lines of his hips and waist are perfectly angular, framing his middle like a work of art. His cock sits firm between his toned thighs, a solid, tempting weight, pink and glistening at the tip.   

Eddie stands there and lets Buck look his fill like the generous friend he is. His body language is confident, he doesn’t curl in on himself at all. Another datapoint gets added to Buck’s extensive research: Eddie knows he looks good naked. Now that he knows this he can never unknow it, and his dick might never be soft again. 

Before Eddie can finish the few steps it takes to reach the bed, Buck stands up and strides over to him like a man starved. He gathers Eddie’s waist in his hands and claims his lips in a bruising kiss, then presses into the small of his back to hold him tighter, pushing him close. The tip of Eddie’s dick pushes against the cotton of Buck’s boxers in the exposed gap of his unzipped pants, smearing clear precum over the fabric. 

He digs the palms and fingers of both hands into the meat of Eddie’s ass, who gasps into Buck’s mouth as he re-adjusts onto the balls of his feet, the motion dragging his dick upward in a sudden rush of friction. Buck does it again, and again, kneading the plump flesh, guiding them into a messy standing grind.

The angle isn’t perfect; Eddie’s only a little shorter, but Buck’s legs are longer, so he’d be slightly off-balance without Buck holding him firm. The silver lining of this is that Eddie’s movement is almost entirely within Buck’s control - something he’s rapidly learning does it for Eddie a great deal, only corroborated by him breaking the kiss to let out a ragged whine against Buck’s chin.

“That’s it,” Buck murmurs, turning to nose at Eddie’s temple. “I’ve got you. Let yourself go for me. You sound so fucking gorgeous, letting me move you about like this, want you to enjoy it, Eddie,” he sighs out, positively blissful, Eddie bare and writhing in his arms as he sets their pace. 

“I am, fuck,” Eddie nods, hushed and frantic.

“Yeah? You feel good?” Buck asks, kissing the side of Eddie’s head as he punches out a staggered moan, the sensitive tip of his cock catching on a seam of Buck’s underwear. “Am I making you feel good? Tell me, Eddie, please—”

“You’re making me feel so good, you’re—shit, Buck. Need—can we—move?”

“You’re sweet,” Buck coos. “You asking me to take you to bed?”

Eddie’s first attempt at a retort is disrupted as Buck dips down to bite at his collarbone, the sharp pressure making him gasp instead. He valiantly tries again, voice rough: “I was already in bed, you dick.”

“Mm,” Buck objects. “Technically, you were on bed, I think - sheets still made up, sat so, so polite, waiting for me to come to your door,” he murmurs against Eddie’s chest, then runs the tip of his tongue over one nipple. Eddie jolts, grasps a hand in Buck’s curls.

“Technically, Jesus Christ, even now, you’re so pedantic—”

“Mm,” Buck interrupts with a hum, grazing Eddie’s nipple with his teeth, tugging at the sensitive bud ever so slightly just to make him moan. “Keep bickering at me, it turns me on.”

Eddie groans, seemingly speechless—not even in a horny way, but it still feels like a victory—and guides Buck’s head back up, kissing him tenderly, like he’s something to be treasured even when he’s being a purposeful pain in the ass. 

Buck’s soul illuminates. It glows golden, brightening up Eddie’s hotel room with a flood of warmth and gratitude. He feels like he’s won the lottery.

“Okay,” Eddie rallies, walking them back towards the bed, their kiss unbroken except to whisper against Buck’s mouth. “I want my tupperware back. It’s been months.”

“Fuck—” Buck pulls back, eyes wide. “I totally forgot I still had that. I’m so sorry.”

“Buck, I’m kidding.”

“I know, but—”

“Buck. You asked for bickering. I don’t care about the damn tupperware right now. My dick is fully out. Hey,” Eddie seems to come to a realization mid-speech, “why isn’t your dick out?”

“I’ll get there, be patient,” says Buck - just like that, he’s back on task. He presses a sweet kiss to Eddie’s left cheek, then his right. “You asked me to take care of you.”

“Mm, but—fuck—” Eddie lets out a yelp-turned-moan as Buck spins him by the hips and presses him firmly into the mattress.

Buck runs his hands soothingly over the planes of Eddie’s back, says: “No buts. Let me be sweet to you. Please, Eddie?” He leans over, clothed hard-on pressed down against Eddie’s lower back, who groans breathlessly, his face turned at a right angle. “Can I make you feel good?”

“Fuck. Yeah, Buck, please.”

“Yeah? Can I do it how I want? Will you let me do that?” Buck asks, near-pleading and shameless, mouth pressed against the sweaty hair at Eddie’s nape as he rubs his cock slowly, gently against his flesh through the dampening material of his boxers.

“Whatever you want,” Eddie exhales. “I trust you, please, just…”

Buck hums, appreciative, and kisses daintily just behind Eddie’s ear. “Gonna make it so good, I swear,” he says, then pulls back to paw at Eddie’s hips. “Roll over for me?”

He does - Buck helps guide him over then crawls up to meet him on the mattress, nudging him to lie further back, head against the pillows. He’s so perfectly dishevelled. It’s as though he’s been plucked smoothly out of Buck’s wet dream. 

“Comfy?”

“Mhm,” Eddie smiles. His cheeks are rosy from a deadly combination of unabashed happiness and mild embarrassment, but if this is how Buck goes out, then so be it. “Better if you took your pants off, though.”

“Patience,” Buck chastises with a smile. Eddie rolls his eyes like the words whatever you want hadn’t poured from his lips like honey thirty seconds ago. “I’m busy.” 

He settles on his side and rests his weight on one elbow, eyes shamelessly roaming over Eddie’s body, hungrily mapping out each spot he wants to visit. He uses his free hand to cup Eddie’s right pec and gives it a firm squeeze.

“I’ll show you busy,” Eddie grumbles, but he puffs his chest out slightly like he secretly loves the attention. Buck is helpless but to kiss him about it.

Eddie responds to the kiss eagerly, his whole posture open and inviting. He raises an arm and loops it around to cup the back of Buck’s head where he hovers over his form, and everything is Eddie, Eddie, Eddie. The gentle slide of his lips beneath Buck’s; the grounding pressure of familiar, trustworthy fingers at his nape; the tangled aroma of shower gel and his Eddie-specific musk, earthy and rich, with the lingering scent of leather from the jackets he’s been sporting more and more often lately, the ones that make him look like a heartthrob straight out of an 80s movie. 

Buck lets out a thematically appropriate dreamy little sigh. He feels Eddie grin against his lips.

He retorts with a pinch to Eddie’s nipple, who inhales sharply—sensitive, which is nothing short of incredible news for Buck—before his chest starts to shake in gentle, quiet laughter. 

“Sorry,” says Eddie, breathless, pressing an apologetic peck to Buck’s mouth - unnecessary, since Buck is laughing too.

“What’s so funny?” Buck asks. He digs a teasing hand gently into Eddie’s side, who squawks, so Buck does it again.

“Alright, alright, you clown,” Eddie grits out, words reverberating against Buck’s mouth. “Nothing, nothing, you just…”

“I just?” Buck smooths his hand across the planes of Eddie’s stomach. When he scratches lightly at the happy trail there, Eddie bucks his hips - only minutely, but not enough to escape Buck’s doting notice. He darts a kiss to Eddie’s jaw.

“Jesus, Buck,” Eddie rumbles as the hand dips gradually lower. “You just sounded like such a—romantic cliche.”

“I’m a romantic guy,” Buck counters.

“I’ll believe that when I see it.” It’s bait, but Buck’s not biting. 

“Exactly. You will.” 

Buck tugs Eddie’s earlobe between his teeth and slides his fingers down, down, then away from his straining dick to knead the flesh of his thigh instead. Eddie lets out a low pitched whine in response, almost a growl. A weak warning, because Buck’s having the time of his life, and he has nowhere else to be. 

“What happened to how I want, huh?” Buck taunts, nails grazing at Eddie’s inner thigh. He brings his hand up so the backs of his knuckles brush against Eddie’s balls, watches enraptured as his dick twitches, sensitive and keen. “Maybe this is romantic, for me. Getting you all worked up and needy. Anyone ever done this for you, Eddie?”

Eddie is breathing heavily through his mouth. He clutches at Buck’s shoulder, tightly, like it’s the only thing that can keep him floating off the bed and through the ceiling. Buck hopes his fingertips leave a neat, untidy line of bruises.

“No,” Eddie pants. “Only you. Just you.”

“Thought so,” hums Buck, shuffling so he can loop his other arm behind Eddie’s head so he’s nestled into his bicep. He reaches down and rubs the pad of a finger over Eddie’s nipple in tiny little circles; feels it when Eddie moans into his armpit. 

“Buck, please.” 

Eddie’s legs are moving seemingly of their own accord, flexing and bending at the knees. Buck presses down on the thigh beneath his hand, and Eddie flattens. He works with Buck’s wordless commands so effortlessly. Buck’s dick throbs in his boxers, desperate for some form of relief.

“So sweet,” Buck soothes, abandoning Eddie’s nipple so he can trace tender fingers down his cheekbone. “You’re good, you’re good; I got you, Eddie,” he says, then he finally, finally, wraps a firm hand around Eddie’s length.

Eddie cries out, then muffles it by biting into Buck’s bicep. Buck considers telling him to stop; to let every perfect little noise ring out in the open, let his desperate whines vibrate every particle making up the stale hotel air and possess it with the same raw hypersensitivity flowing through Buck’s core right now - but he holds off for the time being.

Teasing Eddie, bringing him drawn-out, magnified pleasure, has swiftly entered Buck’s top three all-time favorite hobbies with its extremely recent debut. He can only hope to revisit the activity again and again and again as time goes on. Equally, though, he’s aware that this, right now, is a first time of sorts for Eddie - he doesn’t want to go too hard, or do too much. He wants Eddie to feel good; he needs to ease him into it.

Eddie is a practical and responsible guy who, on occasion, will sprint into specific things with too little regard for his own wellbeing. Buck likes to think that he - an expert in the field, from so many years of closely studying Eddie’s behavior - is the best guy for the job of helping slow his roll when required. There’s plenty of time for a variety of very fun conversations in the future.

Besides: the biting is really doing it for him, anyway, so. Win-win. 

“That’s it,” Buck murmurs into Eddie’s hair, hand curled and dragging slowly up and down his cock, letting him sink into the sensation. On an upwards swipe, he collects some of the moisture leaking from the head of Eddie’s dick over his fingers and uses it to ease the glide. Eddie lets out a whimper at the sweeping pressure over his slit.

Eddie’s cock is flushed and pulsing; its weight is so hot and heavy and tempting, Buck wants to drool all over it. His breath is coming in short pants solely from watching himself jerk Eddie off, slow and steady, chest heaving; his dick aches at every desperate grasp of Eddie’s hand against his bicep, his shoulder, his neck. He’s using any remaining scraps of effort not focused on Eddie’s pleasure, on his every movement, on pushing his own desperation down. 

“God, you look so fucking good, sound so fucking good,” Buck moans, voice thick in his throat. “Love making you feel like this. Love learning all the different pretty noises you make—fuck—” Buck groans, watching a splash of precum spurt out of the head of Eddie’s dick as he twists his palm around the tip. “Just like that. Let me touch you, just like that, you’re so fucking hot, Jesus, you’re obscene.”

When Eddie’s dick throbs in his hand, Buck pauses his movements briefly, knuckling his fingers near the base. 

“Fuck,” Eddie whines, face now pressed into Buck’s throat.

“Shh, you’re okay. You’re doing so good, you’re okay. Just—fuck, Eddie, you’re a fucking dream, let me touch you just a little bit longer, please.” Buck is, evidentially, firmly not above begging. 

Eddie nods several times into his neck, small, frantic movements, his mouth hanging open. His lips drag urgently against the tendons under Buck’s jaw, a drawn out, distracted kiss to Buck’s pounding pulse. 

“Yeah, fuck, please, just—don’t stop touching me, Buck, please,” he says, muffled and burning against Buck’s skin.

“Okay, okay,” whispers Buck, essentially self-soothing; a desperate plea to a higher power to help him maintain a semblance of control after hearing Eddie beg, good fucking Christ. He restarts the movements of his hand, tugging leisurely up and down, the motion stuttering slightly from how distinctly turned on he is and fuck—he can’t take it anymore. “Can I just—hang on…”

Buck shifts, shuffling down and in until he’s plastered along Eddie’s side, chin resting on his shoulder. He presses a kiss there, then rolls one leg over Eddie’s, letting out a deep-set groan at the relief, ignited by the friction against his crotch where it now rests against Eddie’s hip. 

“Fuck,” Buck gasps, helpless but to rut weakly against Eddie’s side, the zipper of his pants probably biting slightly into the flesh there, but he seems unperturbed. 

In fact, when Buck looks up, Eddie is staring down at him glassy-eyed, a ray of shimmering, burning heat. He scratches his fingers down Buck’s spine and meets his gaze, taking in his almost certainly lewd appearance, then croaks out: “Feel good?”

“So fucking good.” Buck refocuses his efforts into jerking Eddie off, letting his own hips roll erratically in a mindless pursuit of pleasure. Eddie moans louder than any time he has previously, his head tilts back and his hips lift up, seeking the tight heat of Buck’s fist. There’s no better word Buck can find to describe it than slutty, and with that, he’s rapidly falling off the deep end.

“Fuck me, Eddie, you’re fucking beautiful, you look—fucking insane,” says Buck, his boxers cool against his skin where he’s leaked through them, out of his mind and mostly untouched, but all he can focus on is the way Eddie’s eyelids press shut, the way his core tenses, the way his jaw clenches as he gets close. “Kiss me, right now, please—”

Eddie’s eyes part but stay heavy and lidded as he searches for Buck’s mouth, meeting it with his own, any actual kiss lasting all of two seconds before devolving into just panting close, breathing in each other’s air. They hold eye contact and it burns a hole through to the back of Buck’s skull; the plain intensity of Eddie’s gaze makes his hips rut a little harder, a little faster. He probably looks ridiculous, eyes crossed, head spinning from their close proximity, but it doesn’t matter in the slightest. 

It’s messy, shamelessly devoid of any finesse. Buck’s still got his fucking pants on. It’s the most intimate sexual experience he’s ever had. It’s equal parts enlightening, comforting, and terrifying.

Buck squeezes his fingers purposefully on an upstroke, lets the pads of them rub over the mess pooling at the head of Eddie’s cock in small circles, and Eddie’s eyes roll into the back of his head as he chokes out a moan. 

“Buck, I’m—”

“Yeah?” Buck cuts him off before he can speak the rest into his mouth, too eager, no capacity for manners; just so, so desperate to get Eddie off like he deserves. “You like me touching you? I love touching you, Eddie, gonna do it all the fucking time, you’re gonna have to pry me off you, I swear,” he rambles, speeding up his hand. “This is just my hand, I’m gonna get my mouth on you, next, take you deep—fuck, that’s it, let me hear you—get my tongue on you, open you up. Wanna—God, I wanna fuck you, Eddie. Can I? Will you—”

“Yes, oh fuck,” Eddie moans, nearly a shout. He’s sweating, overexerted, and he must be so fucking close, Buck needs to make him come so hard he sees stars. “You can fuck me, please fuck me, trust you—oh fuck, Buck, I’m gonna come,” he groans, voice hoarse and sinful; the hand that isn’t grasping Buck’s shoulders is pulling the bedsheets apart in a fit of desperation.

“Do it, please, Eddie, please,” begs Buck, stroking his cock fast and firm even through the blooming ache in his hand, feeling it swell and throb fiercely against his palm, right on the cusp of release. He bites at Eddie’s jaw then up to his earlobe, pleading straight to the source: “Come for me, I need it, need to make you come. Need to watch you come, wanna hear you, c’mon.”

“I’m—fuck, you’re making me come,” Eddie whines out, sounding dazed, wondrous; Buck’s in heaven, he can’t believe he’s witnessing this, “I’m coming—” 

Eddie’s words choke off with a deep, rolling moan. His cock pulses in Buck’s grasp, fast spurts of cum shooting onto his perfect abs and stomach, up to his pecs, making a mess of Buck’s hand as he works him devotedly through his orgasm.

“That’s it. So fucking good,” Buck murmurs into Eddie’s ear, squeezing the tip of his cock just once, too greedy to watch the pulse of cum he draws out as Eddie’s length twitches in his hand. Instead of bending down and lapping it up—even though he wants to so badly—he settles for pressing his crotch firmly to the meat of Eddie’s thigh and making small circles with his hips. “Gorgeous. You’re gorgeous, you look unbelievable, I’m so lucky.”

“Jesus,” Eddie exhales. He presses one hand into the small of Buck’s back, encouraging his movements; with the other he goes to grab Buck’s, but he hesitates for a second upon remembering the state of it. The mess he made.

“Oh. One sec,” says Buck, then abruptly gets to work cleaning his fingers with his mouth. The taste of Eddie washes over his tongue, down his throat, he feels like he can track every drop’s movement as it flows languidly through his body, hypervigilant to everything Eddie. Because he’s a man in love, and also a man who has been bricked up for what feels like hours; he just obviously had more important things to focus on. Dicks that don’t belong to him. Dick, singular.

He’s not thinking clearly right now.

Eddie sputters slightly, drawing Buck’s attention. He’s staring wide-eyed and heady, chest heaving from his comedown, as Buck meticulously licks and sucks his cum off his fingers. Truthfully, Buck didn’t even think twice before doing it, but he’s delighted at the positive results.

“You taste good,” says Buck, matter of fact. The sky is blue. Eddie’s cum tastes good on his fingers. Two plus two equals four. 

“Come here right now,” Eddie urges, gripping Buck’s jaw and crashing their mouths together. 

Buck knows Eddie just came, he might need a minute to recoup, but—he’s right on the edge himself from the pure pleasure and burning satisfaction of turning Eddie into a writhing, moaning mess under his touch. His guard is down; it’s dead and buried. So, he feeds his tongue into Eddie’s mouth, swallows his responding moan, licks messily behind his teeth.

“Never come that hard in my life,” says Eddie, interrupting the kiss. “Jesus, Buck, that was hot. You made me feel so good.”

Buck moans, presses his palm to his cock over his boxers, desperate and aching. 

“Eddie, please, I need—”

“What do you want? Anything, just tell me.”

“It’s not gonna take much,” Buck groans out, pulling his jeans down to his thighs. “Can I—” He stutters out, moving to straddle Eddie’s hips, kneeling over him where he lays back against the pillow - flushed, dishevelled, almost perfectly ruined.

“Yeah, yeah, c’mon. Let me touch you,” Eddie urges, and Buck would never deny him anything, so he pulls his boxers down enough to free his dick from their confines. Even the cool air of the hotel room is enough to make it twitch dramatically, he’s so far gone.

“Fuck…” Eddie mutters, eyes hazy.

He’s staring. Buck is leaking so much precum it looks like his dick is crying, but instead of touching him, Eddie is staring.

“Eddie, please,” he begs. 

It seems to be sufficiently desperate enough to turn Eddie’s brain back online, because he wraps an obedient, benevolent hand around Buck’s aching cock. The sensation is so acute and all-consuming that he almost loses his balance. Eddie’s touched him one time, and he feels like he did after stepping off that mechanical bull.

Eddie’s fist creates a perfect, wet vacuum around his dick. He isn’t shy about it, he takes Buck in hand and pumps him up and down, tender but strong. Buck thrusts desperately into his grip, a needy whine escaping every time the sensitive head of his cock meets the smooth ridges of Eddie’s curled fingers. 

His balls tighten, he’s right on the fucking edge already, Eddie’s expert touch dragging him relentlessly towards his peak. His hand glides so easily over his length, eased by how wet Buck gets when he’s turned on like this; his capacity for coherent thought having tumbled out the window and now sprinting down the street, letting out a litany of guttural moans.

“That’s it, Buck,” says Eddie, voice low and confident. It’s the same voice he would use to guide him through a complicated rescue procedure at work, so competent and effortlessly sexy. “Fuck my hand, that’s it, c’mon. Feels good, yeah?”

“So fucking good, so good, I’m so f-fucking close,” Buck stammers out, mind clouded over, the thrum of pleasure spreading from his gut to every little corner of his body. “I need it so bad, Eddie, please—fuck, a little faster—”

“I got you, keep going,” Eddie murmurs, speeding up the pace of his fist. Then, a vision that will possess Buck’s every waking thought: he sucks two fingers into his mouth, lips suctioning around the digits; he pulls them out, now shiny with spit, and pinches Buck’s nipple. 

The sudden tweak of firm pressure and cool pang of moisture combine to coil rapidly in his gut, lighting him up from the inside out. Buck whines, his hips stuttering as he fucks his leaking cock into Eddie’s hand. Eddie doesn’t relent, just keeps softly pinching and twisting, rolling the stiff bud between the pads of his fingers. The two distinct sources of pleasure surge through Buck and he moans, loud and unabashed, hands grasping desperately at Eddie’s waist, his torso, his shoulders, anything he can cling to.

“Oh, oh, fuck, please,” Buck chokes out. “I’m gonna—can I come on you, Eddie, please, wanna fucking—mark you up, please,” he begs, near out of his mind. He covers Eddie’s hand on his cock with one of his own, watches their entwined movement, vision dizzy and desperate.

“Yeah, baby, c’mon. Come on me, want you to. Want you to make a fucking mess.”

“Fuck, I’m gonna, gonna make such a mess, Eddie, gonna come so hard, wanna get it all over you, oh fuck—”

With two more strips of his cock, Buck comes with a broken shout. Ropes and ropes of white streak over Eddie’s stomach and torso as he strokes Buck through it, uttering soothing words that he can’t actually hear right now through the dense buzzing in his ears.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Buck chants mindlessly, his orgasm flooding through him. Eddie’s hand slows but keeps working loosely around Buck’s cock, making him whimper as the last few pulses of cum are drawn out. Needlepoint pleasure zings in his veins when Eddie’s fingers graze the tip oh so gently, excruciatingly and deliciously sensitive.

“Fuck. That’s enough, fuck, thank you,” Buck pants. He undertakes the Herculean task of kicking off his jeans and boxers, then collapses on top of Eddie, softening dick sliding through their combined mess on his stomach. They lie there for a minute, clinging tight, breaths coming out laden and heavy.

The ringing in Buck’s ears fades to a steady, pleasant hum as the seconds drip by. Eddie’s hands smooth over his back and shoulders, occasionally lingering with an affectionate squeeze. It’s so soothing, so innately careful, that it makes Buck shudder, overwhelmed.

“You okay?” Eddie asks upon feeling the flinch.

“More than.” The words come out slurred and muffled against the crook of Eddie’s neck. His mouth leaves the skin slightly damp with saliva, which he likes, he wants more of himself strewn across Eddie, he’s an insatiable, greedy man - so he punctuates the words with a sloppy open mouthed kiss, complete with a mwah.

“Good,” Eddie responds. “You’re heavy.”

Buck makes an indignant noise, as though he isn’t aware of his own bulk—which he is, he works hard for it, thank you—but goes to prop himself up on his elbows nonetheless to offer Eddie some relief. He gets halfway up before Eddie bears a firm hand down between his shoulderblades. He collapses back down with an exaggerated oof.

“Don’t you dare move,” Eddie commands, voice tinged with affection. “It’s a good thing. You feel… nice.”

“High praise,” Buck smirks. He snaps at Eddie’s earlobe with his teeth, playful. “Nice. Good. What about what we just did? How was that? Pleasant?” A nip to Eddie’s jaw. “Satisfactory?”

“Took the words right out of my mouth,” Eddie deadpans, squeezing Buck’s waist with two deft hands. They feel right at home against his skin. 

Buck might be obsessed with Eddie’s hands. He wants to frame them on his wall so he can gaze at them day in, day out; but then Eddie wouldn’t be able to do his job, and Buck would really miss seeing him at work.

He misses him right now, actually, which is perhaps a touch deranged given that he’s on top of the man, but, hey. Love is an unsolvable mystery, or whatever.

Buck adjusts so they’re face-to-face, touching the tips of their noses together, inching forward in tiny, pressing fragments with an expectant look. Eddie’s eyes are wide with held back laughter. 

When the button of his nose is pushed almost flat, Eddie breaks. “It was better than satisfactory,” he beams, nudging Buck’s face back an inch and flaring his nostrils as if to reset them. “That was—Jesus, Buck. I don’t actually have any useful adjectives to offer. You emptied them all out with your hands, and your mouth, Christ, the way you talk,” says Eddie, sounding so awed that the tips of Buck’s ears heat pink.

“Yeah, I, uh—tend to do that.” Buck blushes. 

Eddie notices his sheepish expression and leans in to press an affirming kiss to his mouth. “I like it. Keep doing it.” Another kiss, deeper this time.

“Yes, sir,” Buck chimes against Eddie’s lips, earning himself a feather-light swat at his back. “Ow.”

Eddie pushes harder against Buck’s mouth, his kisses eager with latent fondness and a touch of exasperation - Buck’s sweet spot. His Eddie-tailored specialty.

Two arms wind around Buck’s middle, squeezing him tight, then tighter some more, before relaxing slightly while keeping him clutched close. Eddie breaks the kiss, only to press a delicate one to Buck’s nose, instead. 

The reward centre of Buck’s brain blooms with a field of bright spring flowers. He can hear the birds chirp, feel the bees hum.

“Okay, up, up,” Eddie demands, shoving at Bucks’s chest - so of course he groans, put upon and dramatic, and stubbornly does not shift.

“Five more minutes,” Buck protests.

“Buck,” reasons Eddie, “we can go right back to doing this once we’ve cleaned up. You have my word. I just need to go grab a towel, or—something, before we get glued together down there.”

“Doesn’t sound so bad to me,” Buck counters, but smushes one final, indulgent kiss to Eddie’s lips before rolling off of him.

“Thank you,” Eddie sing-songs, swinging his legs eagerly over the edge of the bed as though he also wants to resume their previous position as fast as possible. Buck’s grin would probably blind several citizens of Nashville if the curtains weren’t closed. 

As Eddie darts to the bathroom, Buck’s attention is drawn back to the television screen. Vanna smiles at him, poised. He almost feels bad about the things she just witnessed.

“Sorry Vanna,” Buck whispers.

“What was that?” Eddie asks as he comes back in and kneels onto the bed, damp towel in hand. He hasn’t even cleaned up his own stomach. He just came right back to sort Buck out first. Thank God the oxygen mask rule doesn’t apply to post-coital aftercare, or they would need to have a serious talk.

“Nothing. Thank you,” says Buck, watching Eddie with a sickeningly sweet expression as he delicately wipes down his sticky torso. 

“You’re welcome.” Eddie’s chin dips as he starts cleaning himself up; then his senses must catch up with him, because he raises his head sharply to give Buck an incredulous look. “Were you talking to the TV?”

“Maybe,” Buck admits.

“Hang on - did you just apologize to Vanna White after she watched us have sex?”

“Yes,” Buck defends. “She doesn’t—she didn’t consent to that.”

Eddie gapes at him. His eyebrows twitch minutely in various directions as a bounty of different emotions cross his face, before it settles on his Buck special: a heaping platter of fond amusement, served with a garnish of disbelief.

“I suppose she didn’t. Maybe she liked it, though.” Eddie tosses the used towel in the general direction of the bathroom, then shimmies away to peel back the covers. Buck follows suit, plastering himself against Eddie’s side, one leg strewn over both of his thighs, soft dick resting snug against his hip. 

“You can’t know that,” says Buck, pedantic. “We can never know what Vanna thought of our first time. We just have to live with that, Eddie, and sit in the uncertainty. It’s the cruel hand we’ve been dealt.”

“You never know,” replies Eddie, snaking an arm around Buck’s shoulders. He places an easy kiss at his hairline, then another just above his eyebrow, right where his birthmark pigments his skin. “She could find a way to tell us.”

Buck sighs, long-suffering. One more puzzle for the road, it seems. They watch the screen intently as Andy from California asks to solve for Event, two words.

“Award-winning performance,” declares Andy, to which Vanna applauds.

“Huh,” Buck chimes, pleased. “Thanks, Vanna.”

“She’s got taste,” says Eddie, his tone appreciative. Buck turns his face up to look at him. He keeps his expression thoughtfully neutral, meets Buck’s eye, and asks: “Think she wants to watch a sequel?”

The thing is - Buck is a jealous man. He wants Eddie all to himself, actually. 

He rolls on top of Eddie, then reaches over to the nightstand for the remote, shutting the screen off with a forceful press of the button. 

“Show’s over,” Buck says definitively, then dives down to kiss him. The laugh Eddie lets out against Buck’s mouth feels a hell of a lot like winning.