Archive of Our Own

Eddie had already said no twice by the time Buck showed up at his door.

The third no was halfway out of his mouth when he opened it and found Buck standing there with his keys in one hand and the kind of determined expression that usually meant he had already decided how the night was going to go.

“No,” Eddie said anyway.

Buck didn’t even blink. “You don’t know what I’m asking.”

“You’re standing on my porch at nine-thirty on a Friday with that face. It’s either ‘come out for one drink’ or ‘help me move something heavy.’”

Buck tilted his head. “Could be both.”

Eddie snorted, leaning one shoulder against the doorframe. He was still in a T-shirt and sweats, the house quiet behind him in a way that felt wrong without Christopher in it. Chris was at Abuela’s for the night, and Eddie had planned to spend the evening doing absolutely nothing that required pants or emotional range.

Buck glanced past him into the living room. “You were really gonna stay in?”

“Yes.”

“And do what?”

Eddie shrugged. “Sit down.”

Buck stared at him for a second. “That’s the saddest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“It’s been a long week.”

Buck’s expression softened just a little at that, enough to take the edge off the teasing. “Exactly. Which is why you’re coming with me.”

Eddie crossed his arms. “Buck.”

“One drink,” Buck said quickly. “Hen and Karen are meeting us there. One hour. You can scowl through the whole thing if you want.”

Eddie narrowed his eyes. “You already planned this?”

Buck had the decency to look slightly guilty. “I planned to ask.”

“That is not what I asked.”

Buck rocked back on his heels. “Look, Christopher’s gone, you’ve been weird all week, and if I leave you alone right now you’re either gonna brood in the dark or reorganize your kitchen cabinets again.”

“I did that once.”

“You labelled things.”

“So I could find them.”

Buck looked past him again, clearly trying not to grin. “In matching handwriting, Eddie.”

Eddie should have shut the door.

Instead he sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. “I’m not going clubbing.”

“It’s not clubbing,” Buck said immediately, which usually meant it was at least adjacent to clubbing. 

“It’s a drink. With Hen and Karen.”

“With Hen and Karen.”

Eddie considered him.

There were very few people in the world he would follow out of his house on a night when he wanted to be left alone. Buck had somehow become the worst and best of them.

He stepped back from the doorway. “One drink.”

Buck’s grin flashed instantly. “You won’t regret it.”

“That sounds like a lie.”

“It’s an optimistic prediction.”

Twenty minutes later, Eddie regretted it on principle.

Not because Buck had lied exactly. The drive itself was quiet enough. Buck kept the music low, didn’t push too much conversation, and only bumped Eddie’s knee once in that absent, familiar way of his when Eddie went too still staring out the window. They passed through streets Eddie only half registered, the city thinning and brightening by turns under traffic lights and neon.

It wasn’t until Buck pulled into a crowded stretch of curb side parking and killed the engine that Eddie looked up properly.

Then he frowned.

There was too much noise for “one drink.” Too much bass in the air, even through the car doors. Too many people on the sidewalk, dressed for a night out in a way that had not been included in Buck’s pitch.

Eddie turned slowly in his seat. “Buck.”

Buck, who had been reaching for the door handle, paused.

“What?”

Eddie pointed vaguely through the windshield. “That.”

Buck glanced toward the building like he had somehow forgotten where they were. “Oh.”

“Oh?” Eddie repeated.

“It’s fine.”

“That is not an answer.”

Buck turned toward him fully now, one arm hooked over the steering wheel. “Hen said it was good.”

Eddie stared. “Hen said what was good?”

“The place.”

Eddie looked back at the line outside, then at the rainbow-lit sign over the entrance, then back at Buck.

“Buck.”

Buck’s mouth flattened.

There it was. The part where he knew exactly why Eddie had gone quiet.

For a second neither of them said anything.

Then Buck said, more carefully, “We don’t have to stay.”

Eddie looked at him.

Buck held his gaze, steady and sincere now, all the earlier cheer gone out of him. “I mean it. If you want to leave, we leave.”

That should have made it easier.

Instead it made something tighten in Eddie’s chest.

His phone buzzed in the cupholder between them. Buck reached for it first, glanced at the screen, and winced.

“What?”

Buck turned the phone so he could see it.

Hen: Denny situation. Karen and I can’t make it. I’m so sorry. First round’s on me next time.

Eddie let out a short, disbelieving breath. “Of course.”

Buck dropped the phone back down. “Okay. So. That part is bad timing.”

“That part?”

Buck dragged a hand over his mouth. “Eddie.”

Eddie looked away, out toward the sidewalk again. Two men near the entrance were laughing at something, shoulder to shoulder, one of them reaching out to fix the other’s collar before they went inside. No one seemed to think anything of it. No one was staring. No one was making a scene.

Just ordinary.

That almost made it worse.

Buck’s voice came quieter beside him. “I should’ve told you.”

Eddie looked back.

Buck wasn’t defensive. Wasn’t trying to talk him into it. He just looked honestly annoyed with himself. 

“I knew if I said ‘club’ you’d say no before I got you out of the house. I didn’t… the rest of it wasn’t supposed to be a trap, okay? I just thought it was a place with good music and strong drinks and people who mind their business.” He paused. “But I should’ve told you.”

Eddie believed him.

That was the problem.

If Buck had been smug about it, if this had felt like some stupid setup, Eddie could’ve gotten angry and gone home and that would’ve been the end of it.

Instead Buck was giving him the easiest exit in the world.

“We can go somewhere else,” Buck said. “Seriously. There’s a sports bar like three blocks from here. Terrible beer, probably at least one TV too loud. Much more your speed.”

A laugh caught in Eddie’s throat before he could stop it.

Buck’s mouth twitched, just slightly, like he knew he’d gotten one past his defences.

Eddie leaned back against the seat and looked out the windshield again.

He should say yes.

He should tell Buck to drive.

He should let the whole thing turn into a joke about Hen’s terrible recommendations and be done with it.

Instead he sat there.

Because Buck was right about one thing: he had been weird all week.

Weird for longer than that, probably.

Texas had cracked something open in him and then left him to deal with it alone, and ever since then it had felt like there was a part of himself he kept catching glimpses of out of the corner of his eye. Just there, waiting, while he kept doing what he always did: looking anywhere else.

His hand was already on the door handle before he realized he’d reached for it.

Buck noticed immediately. “Eddie.”

Eddie kept his eyes forward. “You said one drink.”

Buck was quiet for a beat. “Yeah.”

Eddie glanced at him. “You still offering me an out?”

“Always.”

That landed somewhere he didn’t want to examine too closely.

Eddie nodded once. “Then one drink.”

Buck didn’t move right away. “You sure?”

No, Eddie thought.

But he was tired of bolting before anything could catch up to him.

So he opened the door.

The noise hit him first when he stepped out—music bleeding into the street, laughter, heels on concrete, someone shouting to a friend farther down the block. Buck came around the car a second later, not too close, not crowding him, just there.

 Eddie shoved his hands into his jacket pockets and looked up at the sign again.

 Buck followed his gaze. “Last chance.”

Eddie let out a slow breath. “You planning on asking me that every ten seconds?”

“If necessary.”

That pulled another reluctant almost-laugh out of him.

Buck softened. “I’m not trying to make this a thing.”

Eddie looked at him. “It is a thing.”

Buck held his gaze for a second, then nodded. “Okay. Yeah. It is.”

For one strange moment, standing there under the spill of neon from the club windows, with strangers brushing past and the whole city still moving around them, it felt like Buck was the only still point in it.

That was either reassuring or incredibly dangerous.

Probably both.

Buck jerked his head lightly toward the entrance. “One drink. We hate it, we leave.”

Eddie should have said fine.

Should have rolled his eyes.

Should have made it easy.

Instead what came out was, “You stay with me.”

Buck didn’t smile. Didn’t joke. He just answered immediately, “Yeah.”

Something in Eddie’s chest eased.

Not enough. Just enough.

So he nodded once, more to himself than to Buck, and started toward the door.

Buck fell into step beside him.

And when they stepped inside and the lights hit and the bass rolled up through the floor and Eddie felt every instinct in him try to retreat at once, Buck leaned in close enough to be heard and said, “Still got you.”

Eddie didn’t answer.

He just followed him to the bar.

The first clue was the look on Eddie’s face.

It barely lasted a second. The opening beat hit somewhere under the noise of the club, threaded through bass and voices and laughter, and Eddie’s whole body went still in that tiny, unmistakable way Buck had come to recognize. Like something had reached inside him before he could hide the reaction.

Buck followed his gaze toward the dance floor, then looked back at him, already grinning.

“No way,” he said, leaning closer so he could be heard over the music. “You know this song.”

Eddie took a slow sip of his drink instead of answering.

That, more than anything, gave him away.

Buck laughed under his breath. “Oh my God. You do.”

Eddie lowered the glass, eyes flicking toward him with that maddeningly unreadable expression he got when he knew perfectly well he was holding something back. “Stay here.”

Buck blinked. “What?”

But Eddie was already moving.

Not toward the dance floor but toward the DJ booth.

Buck straightened away from the bar, startled enough that he didn’t even think to call after him. He just watched Eddie cut through the crowd, easy and self-contained, shoulders loose, one hand slipping into his pocket for half a second before he pulled it out again. People shifted for him without being asked. Neon washed over him in violet, then pink, then blue. At one point he glanced back over his shoulder, just once, quick enough that Buck almost thought he imagined it.

Then Eddie reached the booth and leaned in.

Buck could only catch pieces from where he stood: the DJ looking down, Eddie saying something brief, the DJ’s face splitting into a grin. A short laugh. A nod. Eddie held up one finger, like wait. The 

DJ nodded again and tapped something on his screen.

Buck stared.

“No,” he muttered to himself, delighted and already a little undone. “No, he didn’t.”

The current song faded. A beat of static. Then the opening bars hit again, this time louder, cleaner, deliberate enough that the people nearest the floor reacted instantly. A cheer rose from somewhere to Buck’s right. Somebody clapped once in recognition. The bass rolled through the room, heavy and bright and impossible to miss.

And Eddie turned back toward him.

He just came off the edge of the crowd and stopped in the open space where the lights cut across the floor, facing Buck from several feet away. Dark shirt, sleeves shoved up, hair already a little mussed from the heat, eyes fixed on him like this had all somehow become private despite the room packed around them.

Buck mouthed, helpless, “Did you just ask him to play it again?”

Eddie gave the smallest tilt of his head.

Yes.

Then he stepped backward into the center of the floor.

Buck forgot his drink was in his hand.

For one suspended second, Eddie didn’t move at all. He just let the beat settle into him, shoulders loose, chin slightly lifted, as if listening for the exact place to enter it. The club lights flashed over the planes of his face, the line of his throat, the sharp set of his mouth.

Then his body answered the music.

It started with his shoulders.

A clean roll on the beat, one side then the other, controlled enough to look almost lazy until Buck realized how precise it was. The movement travelled down through his chest in a subtle drop, not exaggerated, not showy, just exact. Like Eddie knew where every line of his body was and what each one could do. His feet followed, grounding the rhythm: a measured step, a slide, the turn of his heel, the shift of weight into the next count so smooth Buck barely caught the mechanics of it.

Buck had seen Eddie do a thousand difficult things with that body.

He had seen him climb, run, fight, carry, brace, bleed.

He had never seen him dance.

Not really.

And definitely not like this.

Because there was nothing awkward in it. Nothing hesitant. Eddie wasn’t throwing himself around hoping confidence would follow. He was controlled from the start, and that somehow made it hotter—every flick of his wrist sharp, every angle of his elbows deliberate, every turn through his hips held just tightly enough to show he could let go more and simply wasn’t yet.

The choreography suited him so perfectly Buck almost hated it.
 

It wasn’t flashy. It was grounded. Tight. Rhythmic in a way that made every small motion matter. Eddie hit each beat with the kind of certainty that turned restraint into its own form of seduction. A cut of one forearm across his center. A pivot. A brief drag of his hand down the line of his torso that would have looked casual on anyone else and looked absolutely filthy on him.

Buck stopped breathing for a second.

Eddie glanced up.

Just once at first, checking.

Buck was already gone.

That much must have been obvious, because the next sequence sharpened. Eddie stepped into it harder, shoulders loosening as his hips followed through with more snap this time, less guarded. One hand came up, fingers loose, then dropped with the beat as he turned. His body stayed compact, controlled, but there was a pulse under it now, an ease settling in as if the song had finally gotten far enough under his skin for him to stop thinking and just move.

The crowd around him started to notice.

Of course they did.

A woman a few feet to his left recognized the sequence and laughed, immediately falling into the same opening steps half a count late. A guy on the other side joined badly but enthusiastically, grinning at his friends when he got the turn right. Two more people followed, then another, the floor answering the music in ripples of shared recognition.

Eddie caught it on the next count.

Buck saw the exact moment it registered: the flick of his eyes sideways, the brief surprise in his face, and then something softer breaking through. His mouth opened on a breath that might have been a laugh. The guarded concentration eased. Not vanished—Eddie would always be Eddie—and then he smiled.

Not the small private smile Buck knew from quiet kitchens and late-night couch conversations.

This was brighter than that. A grin tugging at one corner of his mouth as he realized other people were joining in and nobody was looking at him like he was out of place, like he was doing something wrong, like he needed to shrink himself to fit the room. They were just with him. 

Matching the beat, missing half the steps, laughing when they did, feeding off the same pulse.

Eddie let himself enjoy it.

The change in him was immediate and devastating.

His shoulders dropped another inch. The choreo sat deeper in his body now, less practiced and more lived in. He adjusted instinctively to the people around him, shifting without losing precision, repeating the sequence with an ease that made it look effortless. When the guy beside him almost missed the turn, Eddie glanced over and laughed outright, breathless and open and so unexpectedly happy Buck felt the impact of it low in his chest.

This, somehow, was worse.

Not because it was less sexy. God, no. Because it was sexy and joyful.

Because Buck wasn’t just watching Eddie be hot; he was watching him light up.

Watching him take up space. Watching him belong.

The DJ looped the song before it could die.

The crowd cheered louder this time, recognizing what was happening.

Buck set his drink down before he shattered the glass.

The beat rolled back in, extended, and the dancers nearest Eddie groaned in delighted recognition before following the sequence again. One more cluster joined from the back, turning the whole thing for a few seconds into something communal and playful and loose. Eddie went with it, shoulders and hips flowing more easily through the repeated counts now that he didn’t have to think about them. His shirt clung just slightly at the center of his back from the heat. A sheen of sweat caught at his throat. His hair had started falling over his forehead in a way Buck wanted to fix with his own hands.

Then Eddie looked toward the bar again. Toward Buck and everything changed.

Buck knew his face was betraying him by then. There was no way it wasn’t. He could feel it in the heat under his skin, in the tightness of his chest, in the way he’d stopped even pretending to watch casually. He was staring. Openly. Hungrily. Like the entire room had dropped away and left only Eddie under the lights.

Eddie saw it. Saw all of it.

For a beat he just held Buck’s gaze from across the floor, still moving with the others but no longer really with them. The grin the crowd had earned stayed for a second longer, warm and bright and dangerously beautiful.

Then it faded. Refined itself into something slower.

The corner of Eddie’s mouth lifted in a small, lethal smirk.

Buck’s knees nearly gave out.

It wasn’t a grin for the crowd. Wasn’t a laugh shared with the dancers around him. That look was for Buck alone. A sudden, breath-taking shift in energy that said, with awful clarity: oh. So that’s what this does to you.

And Eddie liked it.

Buck could see that too.

That was the end of him.

Because now the dance changed. Not the choreography itself, but the intention inside it. Eddie still hit the same steps, but he stopped giving the room all of his attention. The others were still dancing, still part of the scene, but now he moved like the song had drawn a line straight from the floor back to the bar. One shoulder rolled slower into the count. His hips followed through with more confidence, more weight, as though he was testing exactly how much control he had over the effect he was causing. A turn of his wrist. A deliberate slide of his hand from his chest to his waist. A pivot that left him briefly angled away before he looked back over his shoulder right on the beat.

Buck made a broken sound under his breath and had to grip the edge of the bar.

Eddie faced forward again, that smirk still there.

He was driving him insane on purpose now.

The realization hit Buck hot and dizzying.

Eddie knew the crowd was behind him. He knew he looked good. He knew Buck was standing there unravelling thread by thread, and instead of getting shy, instead of pretending not to notice, he leaned into it. Just the slightest extra push through one line of movement, the slightest delay before completing a turn, the slightest drop of his gaze to Buck’s mouth and back.

It was devastating precisely because it was Eddie.

Because Buck knew how hard-won this kind of confidence had to be.

And because once Eddie had it, even for a minute, he wore it like something dangerous.

By the time the extended mix finally began to wind down, people around him were cheering and laughing, falling out of sync, clapping each other on the shoulder. The little group dance loosened into general motion again, but Eddie stayed with the final sequence through the last beat, clean to the end. One sharp step. A final turn. A breath dragging visibly through his chest as he straightened, one hand briefly braced on his thigh before dropping to his side.

The room applauded around him.

Eddie barely seemed to hear it.

He was only looking at Buck.

Then he came back through the crowd, no longer smiling for anyone else.

Buck couldn’t move. His mouth had gone dry. His pulse was somewhere up in his throat. He was painfully aware of the bar pressing into his lower back, of the heat in his face, of the fact that he must look as wrecked as he felt.

Eddie stopped right in front of him, still a little breathless, eyes dark and bright under the lights.

There was still the faintest trace of that smirk on his mouth.

“Well?” he asked, voice roughened by dancing and heat and maybe something else.

Buck looked at him.

At the flush in his cheeks.

At the damp curl of hair near his temple.

At the mouth that had just smiled at strangers and smirked at Buck like it knew exactly how badly it was ruining him.

“Eddie,” Buck said, and even to his own ears it already sounded like a confession.

Eddie’s expression shifted at that.

Not all the way. The heat was still there, still lingering in the faint curve of his mouth, in the dark brightness of his eyes, in the flush high across his cheeks from dancing. He took half a step closer.

Buck felt it like impact.

“What?” Eddie asked, and his voice had lost most of the tease in it. “What is it?”

Buck laughed once under his breath, rough and disbelieving, because there were too many things. Too many places to start. Too many months—years, maybe—of things he had swallowed down and renamed and shoved into smaller, safer shapes.

But none of them were safe anymore.

Not after that.

Not after Eddie had stood under club lights with half the dance floor moving around him, smiling with the crowd, and then looked at Buck like he’d realized exactly what he could do to him.

Buck dragged a hand over his mouth, then let it fall uselessly to his side. “You cannot look at me like that right now.”

Eddie’s brows pulled together just slightly. “Like what?”

Buck just stared at him.

The worst part was that Eddie really seemed to need the answer. Still didn’t fully know what his face had done to Buck from across the room. 

What the smirk had done. What the look over his shoulder had done. What it had done to Buck to see him smiling openly with strangers and then turn all of that confidence, all of that heat, straight back at him.

Buck shook his head once. “Like you know,” he said quietly.

Eddie held his gaze.

And then, so softly Buck almost didn’t hear it over the music, he said, “Maybe I wanted to know.”

Buck went still.

The noise of the club seemed to thin out around them. Still there—bass underfoot, voices nearby, glasses clinking somewhere behind the bar—but farther away now, like the room had taken one respectful step back and left the two of them alone inside it.

Eddie swallowed.

The last of the smirk had faded. What remained in its place was something more dangerous, because it was honest.

“I saw your face,” Eddie said.

Buck’s heart kicked hard against his ribs.

“Yeah,” he said, because there was nothing else to say to that.

 Eddie glanced down for half a second, like he was trying to gather the thought without dropping it. When he looked back up, he was closer still—close enough that Buck could see the damp at his temples, the quick rise and fall of his chest, the tiny pulse fluttering at the base of his throat.

“I knew people were watching,” Eddie said. “At first.”

Buck didn’t move.

“And then they started joining in, and it was…” He let out a short breath, almost a laugh, but there was no humor in it. Just wonder, maybe. “It was actually fun. Easier than I thought it would be.”

Buck could believe that. He had seen it happen. Seen the moment Eddie stopped bracing and started enjoying himself.

“But then I looked back at you,” Eddie went on, voice lower now, “and you were just standing there.”

Buck felt heat flood his face all over again. “Yeah, well.”

Eddie ignored that. Or maybe he couldn’t.

“You looked like I’d knocked the air out of you.”

Buck opened his mouth, ready with some deflection, some half-joke, some instinctive attempt to survive this with his dignity mostly intact.

Nothing came out.

Because Eddie was right.

Because that was exactly what it had felt like.

Eddie’s eyes searched his. “And then I did it again.”

That dragged a helpless laugh out of Buck, brief and ruined. “Yeah,” he said. “I noticed.”

A tiny, almost disbelieving smile touched Eddie’s mouth at that, then vanished again. “I know.”

Buck blinked.

Eddie exhaled slowly. “That’s the part I can’t stop thinking about.”

The music shifted around them, another song beginning somewhere overhead, but neither of them moved. People brushed past at the edges of their space and kept going, the whole room a blur of light and color Buck could no longer focus on.

“What part?” he asked.

Eddie looked at him for a long second before answering.

“That I liked it.”

Buck forgot how to breathe.

Eddie’s jaw tightened, as if saying it aloud had cost him something. “I liked that you were looking at me like that. I liked knowing I was…” He broke off, searching for the word, then gave up and said it plain. “Getting to you.”

Buck stared at him.

Eddie’s mouth twisted, not quite a smile. “Actually, no. That’s not true.”

Buck swallowed. “No?”

Eddie shook his head once. “I liked that it was you.”
That landed somewhere deep.

Buck could feel every beat of his own pulse now, hard and bright and impossible to ignore. He didn’t know if he should reach for Eddie or step back or say something careful or say nothing at all.

Instead, because apparently self-preservation had fully left the building ten minutes ago, he said the truth.

“I’m in love with you.”

There it was.

No build-up this time. No softening it. No way to pretend he’d meant something else.

Eddie went utterly still.

Buck’s chest tightened immediately. Too much, too fast. Maybe the club had made him reckless. Maybe Eddie had only been curious. Maybe he had taken all of this—every look, every smile, every step back toward the bar—and built something impossible out of it because wanting 

Eddie had become the easiest thing he did and the hardest thing he carried.

“Buck,” Eddie said.

Buck shook his head. “No, let me finish, because if I stop now I’m not going to say any of this right.”

Eddie’s lips parted, then closed again.

Buck kept going, because he had to.

“I didn’t mean to tell you here. I really didn’t.” He let out another wrecked little laugh. “I had exactly zero plans to have a life-changing conversation in a club while you’re still sweaty from dancing me into a minor cardiac event.”

That almost got a smile out of Eddie, but Buck was beyond saving now.

“I just—” He pressed a hand briefly to his chest like that might steady what was happening inside it. “I’ve tried really hard not to know what this was. Or not to say it. Because you’re you, and you’re my best friend, and Christopher is Christopher, and I didn’t want to blow up the best thing in my life because I couldn’t get my feelings under control.”

Eddie’s eyes widened slightly at that. Not at the word feelings, maybe. At best friend. At best thing.

Buck kept his voice low, but it still felt too exposed, every word stripped raw by the music and heat and the fact that Eddie was right there listening to him like this mattered.

“But then you got that song replayed,” Buck said. “And you got out there, and you looked happy, and then you looked at me—” He broke off, breath catching. “And after that, I couldn’t stand here and act like this is normal. It’s not normal. You’re not normal to me.”

Eddie inhaled sharply.

Buck’s voice dropped even further. “You haven’t been for a long time.”

For one terrible second, Eddie said nothing.

Then he looked away.

Not far—just down, just briefly, like he needed somewhere else to put the force of what he was feeling. His hand came up to rub once over the back of his neck, then fell again.

When he looked at Buck this time, there was no trace of the smirk left.

Only wonder.

And fear.

And something else under both of them that Buck hardly dared name.

“I keep thinking,” Eddie said slowly, “that maybe I should be more shocked than I am.”

Buck’s heart lurched.

Eddie gave a tiny shake of his head, like he was arguing with himself in real time. “I mean, I am shocked. A little. But not at you.”

Buck waited, hardly breathing.

“At myself,” Eddie said.

The words came out quiet, but steady.

He looked past Buck for a second, toward nothing Buck could see. Toward some older version of himself, maybe. Some careful, tightly sealed version that had survived a long time by never asking certain questions too loudly.

“I’ve spent so much time not looking at things too closely,” Eddie said. “Because if I didn’t look, then I didn’t have to know. And if I didn’t know, then everything stayed simple.”

Buck said nothing.
Eddie laughed once, without humor. “Turns out that was bullshit.”

That dragged something helpless and fond out of Buck even in the middle of all this. Of course that was how Eddie would phrase a life-altering realization.

Eddie’s gaze came back to him.

“I kept telling myself the club was the hard part,” he said. “Being here. Letting myself be here.” His mouth tightened. “It wasn’t. The hard part was looking at you and realizing I cared more about what was on your face than anybody else in the room.”
Buck’s pulse stumbled.

Eddie took one more small step forward.

“So when you say you’re in love with me…” He stopped, swallowed, then forced himself to continue. “I should probably tell you that I don’t think a straight man gets off the dance floor and comes back wanting to hear that.”

 Buck’s breath left him in a rush.

Eddie’s eyes flicked down to Buck’s mouth and back up again, and there it was—that same terrifying honesty from before, only stripped of performance now. No crowd. No choreography. No smirk to hide behind.

Just Eddie.

“I don’t know exactly what this makes me yet,” he said. “But I know I wanted you to look at me. I know I liked what it did to you.” His voice softened. “And I know the second you said you loved me, I didn’t want you to take it back.”
Buck stared at him.

“Eddie—”

“I’m not done,” Eddie said, but there was a tremor under it now. “Because if I don’t say it now, I might lose my nerve.”

Buck shut his mouth.

Eddie let out a breath that looked suspiciously like relief.

Then, quieter: “I think maybe I’ve been in love with you too. I just didn’t know what I was looking at.”

That was the moment Buck’s entire body seemed to stop and start again.

Something on Buck’s face must have changed, because Eddie’s expression softened in answer, all the edges easing out of it at once.

“Buck,” he said, and Buck had never heard his own name sound like that. “Tell me I’m not making this up.”

Buck moved before he could think better of it.

His hand found Eddie’s wrist first, warm and damp from dancing, and stayed there just long enough to give him a chance to pull away.
 

Eddie didn’t.

He turned his hand instead, fitting their palms together like he’d been waiting to do it.

Buck’s eyes closed for one helpless second.

“No,” he said, voice unsteady. “You’re not making it up.”

When he opened them again, Eddie was even closer.

Close enough that Buck could feel the heat coming off him, could see the rise of his chest, could count the freckles high on his cheek if he wanted to. 

The lights flashed over them in shifting colour, but Eddie’s face stayed clear somehow, the only thing in the room that mattered.

“Okay,” Eddie said, very softly.

Buck blinked. “Okay?”

A faint smile touched Eddie’s mouth. Not the grin for the crowd. Not the smirk from the dance floor.

Something smaller. Realer.

“Yeah,” Eddie said. “You should kiss me now.”

Buck looked at him.

Really looked at him.

At the flush still high in his cheeks. At the softness in his mouth. At the fact that Eddie was standing here, in front of him, saying this, wanting this, after all the years Buck had spent telling himself not to hope too hard. 

Relief hit first.

Then something sharper chased right behind it.

It must have shown, because Eddie’s smile faded slightly. “What?”

Buck laughed once under his breath, but there was no humour in it. “Nothing.”

“Buck.”

The way Eddie said it made lying impossible.

Buck tightened his grip on his hand without meaning to. “I’m just—” He stopped, shook his head once, then forced himself to keep going. “I’m really glad it’s me.”

Eddie’s brows drew together. “Okay.”

“No, I mean…” Buck swallowed. “Jesus, I’m saying this wrong.”

Eddie didn’t pull away. He just stayed there, warm and steady and watching him.

And that made it worse, somehow. Easier and worse.

Buck let out a breath and looked down at their joined hands before dragging his gaze back up. “You said you didn’t know what you were looking at,” he said quietly. “And all I can think is… what if you’d figured it out somewhere else?”

Eddie went still.

Buck laughed again, softer this time, rough around the edges. “I know. Not my best moment.”

“Buck—”

“No, just— let me say it.” He shook his head, frustrated with himself now. “I’m happy. I am. I’m so happy I can barely stand here. But the second you said that, all I could think about was how close this could’ve come to being different.”

Eddie’s eyes searched his face.

Buck dropped his voice. “What if I hadn’t been here tonight?”

The noise of the club seemed to recede around them again.

“What if this had happened when I was nowhere near you?” Buck went on. “What if you’d had this realization in Texas, or some other night, or with some guy who happened to be looking at you when you finally let yourself want something?” His jaw tightened. “I keep thinking about how easily I 

could’ve missed it.”

That landed between them harder than Buck had meant it to.

For a second Eddie said nothing.

Then his expression changed.

Softened first, and then deepened into something that looked almost like ache.

“Oh,” he said quietly.

Buck looked away for half a second, embarrassed now that he’d said it out loud. “Yeah. Not exactly suave.”

Eddie’s fingers tightened around his. “Hey.”

Buck looked back.

There was no teasing left in Eddie’s face now. Just honesty.

“That’s not what this is,” Eddie said.

Buck wanted to believe him so badly it almost hurt.

Eddie stepped closer, enough that their joined hands pressed lightly between them. “I don’t know when I would’ve figured it out,” he admitted. “Maybe later. Maybe badly. Maybe after making a complete mess of it first.”

That pulled the smallest, weakest laugh out of Buck.

Eddie’s mouth twitched, but only briefly. “But it wouldn’t have been this.”

Buck held still.

“It wouldn’t have been the same with somebody else,” Eddie said, more firmly now. “That’s not me saying I’ve got everything magically figured out tonight. I don’t. But this—” His eyes locked on Buck’s. 

“This is you.”

Buck’s throat tightened.

Eddie took another breath, like he was choosing the words carefully. “When I was in Texas, I was trying to outrun half my life. You know that, right?”

Buck nodded once.

“I kept thinking distance would make things clearer.” Eddie gave a quiet, humourless laugh. “Turns out it mostly just made me lonely.”

That hit Buck straight in the chest.

Eddie’s gaze dropped briefly, then came back. “And maybe that’s part of why tonight matters.” His voice softened. “Because I’m not somewhere else. 

I’m not halfway across the country trying to pretend I don’t miss you. I’m here. With you. And when all of this finally stopped feeling abstract…” He tipped his head slightly. “It was your face I wanted.”

Buck stopped breathing for a second.

Eddie’s thumb brushed once over the back of Buck’s hand.

“I wasn’t looking for just anyone,” he said. “I was looking at you.”

There it was.

Not a denial that Eddie had a life before this.

Not a promise built on some impossible purity.

Buck’s eyes burned unexpectedly. “You really know how to ruin me, huh?”

That got a small, warm smile out of Eddie. “Seems fair. You were doing a pretty good job of it yourself.”

Buck laughed, the sound shaky and helpless.

Then Eddie’s expression softened again, all the way this time.

“Buck,” he said quietly, “if tonight had gone differently, if you hadn’t been here, I probably would’ve gone home confused as hell and overthought it for a month.”

Buck blinked.

Eddie’s mouth curved. “Minimum.”

That did drag a real laugh out of him.

“But you were here,” Eddie said. “You were the one looking at me like that. You were the one I wanted to come back to.” His voice dropped lower. “And you’re the one I’m standing here with now.”

Buck stared at him.

Some knot inside him, the one he hadn’t even fully realized had tightened, finally started to loosen.

“Okay,” he said, barely above a whisper.

Eddie’s smile went a little crooked. “Okay?”

Buck nodded. “Yeah.”

Then, because he couldn’t help himself, because some last scrap of vulnerability was still caught under his ribs, he asked, “So you definitely weren’t about to go home with some random guy from the dance floor?”

Eddie looked at him for one long beat.

Then he leaned in until their foreheads almost touched and said, very quietly, “Buck, I left the dance floor and came back to you.”

That was it.

That was the end of any remaining distance.

Buck’s hand slid from Eddie’s wrist to the back of his neck, warm skin under his palm, and this time when he drew him in, there was nothing left in him except relief and want and the dizzy certainty that 

Eddie was here by choice.

“No,” he said softly, looking at Eddie’s mouth and then back at his eyes. “You’re not making it up.”

And then he kissed him.

It hit hard and fast, all the relief and hunger and disbelief Buck had been choking down for far too long finally breaking loose the second Eddie gave him permission. His hand came up to Eddie’s jaw on instinct, thumb against warm skin, and Eddie met him without hesitation, mouth opening on a sharp breath as he kissed him back.

For one dangerous second, Buck forgot where they were.

Forgot the crowd, the bass under his feet, the lights sweeping over them in red and violet. Forgot everything except Eddie, except the way his hand fisted in the front of Buck’s shirt and pulled him closer like he wanted this just as badly, except the sheer impossible shock of finally having him.

Eddie kissed like he danced.

Buck felt it immediately—that same deliberate certainty, that same grounded intensity, all of it turned intimate now, private in a way that made Buck’s head spin even in the middle of a packed club. Eddie wasn’t tentative. He wasn’t testing. He was here, fully here, kissing Buck like he had made a decision and committed to it with everything in him.

And God, Buck loved him.

The thought flashed through him so bright it almost hurt.

He deepened the kiss without thinking, his hand slipping from Eddie’s jaw to the side of his neck, and Eddie made a quiet sound against his mouth that nearly wrecked him on the spot.

Then somebody brushed too close behind Eddie, clipping his shoulder as they passed.

Reality crashed back in.

They broke apart only barely.

Not really separate. Just enough to breathe.

Buck’s hand was still at Eddie’s neck.

Eddie’s fist was still twisted in Buck’s shirt.

Their mouths hovered a fraction apart, both of them breathing too hard, both of them suddenly and painfully aware that they were still in the middle of a crowded club with bodies moving around them on every side.

For a second neither of them said anything.

Buck could only stare.

Eddie’s lips were slightly parted, his face flushed from dancing and kissing and heat, his eyes dark in the shifting lights. Buck had never seen anything in his life that made him want more.

His gaze dropped to Eddie’s mouth again.

Eddie noticed.

Of course he noticed.

And there it was—that tiny trace of a smirk again, softer now, but no less devastating.

“We should probably not do that here,” Eddie said, voice low and rough.

Buck let out a breath that was almost a laugh, almost a groan. “Yeah.”

Neither of them moved.

Eddie’s grip on his shirt loosened just enough to become something worse—his hand flattening briefly over Buck’s chest instead, right over his heartbeat, like he could feel how completely Buck was losing it.

Buck swallowed hard.

“You are not helping,” he muttered.

That smirk sharpened by half an inch. “Wasn’t trying to.”
Jesus.

Buck leaned in again before he could stop himself, drawn helplessly back into Eddie’s space, until their foreheads brushed. Eddie let him, eyes slipping shut for a second as the contact settled between them, small and intimate and somehow hotter than the first kiss had been.

Buck closed his eyes too.

He could still feel the echo of Eddie’s mouth on his, the heat of him, the way he had kissed back with no hesitation at all. It sat under Buck’s skin like a live wire. Every instinct in him was screaming to kiss him again, properly this time, with both hands and no one around and enough privacy to stop pretending he knew how to behave.

Instead he stayed there, forehead to forehead, trying and failing to breathe normally.

Eddie’s voice came quiet against the noise around them. “You okay?”

Buck laughed under his breath. “No.”

That finally pulled a small, real laugh out of Eddie too, warm and brief and close enough that Buck felt it.

Buck opened his eyes.

Eddie was looking at him with that same open honesty from before, he knew exactly what that kiss had done. Maybe not every detail, but enough. 

Enough to see Buck was hanging on by very little. Enough to enjoy it, at least a little.

Buck looked at his mouth again.

Eddie’s eyes flicked downward in return.

The air between them tightened.

Buck’s hand slid from the side of Eddie’s neck down to his shoulder, a touch chosen very deliberately for the sake of restraint. It still felt like too much. 

Eddie seemed to feel it too, because his breath caught, just slightly, and his fingers pressed once, almost unconsciously, into Buck’s chest.

“We really should go,” Eddie said.

The words were sensible.

The way he said them was not.

Buck tipped his head, just enough that their noses brushed. “Because of the people?”

Eddie’s mouth curved. “Mostly because of you.”

Buck stared at him. “Me?”

“You look like you’re trying very hard to stay respectful in public,” Eddie said quietly.

Buck let out a rough sound that made Eddie’s smile widen.

“Eddie,” Buck warned, because that tone was unfair and that smile was worse.

Eddie’s expression shifted again, softer around the edges now, but the heat stayed. “Buck, I just figured out I like kissing you. A lot.” His thumb moved once where it rested against Buck’s chest. “I’m trying to be responsible here.”

That did not help.

At all.

Buck’s hand tightened slightly on Eddie’s shoulder before he made himself ease it again. “I appreciate that.”

“Do you?”

“No.”

Eddie huffed out another laugh.

And because apparently both of them were still just reckless enough, Eddie leaned in and kissed him once more.

Shorter this time.

No less intense.

Just one quick, hungry press of his mouth to Buck’s that felt more like a promise of what would happen once they got out of there.

Buck chased him half an inch when he pulled back, unable not to, and the look that crossed Eddie’s face at that—pleased, a little wrecked, and far too aware—sent heat straight through him.

“Okay,” Eddie said, voice unsteady now in a way Buck hadn’t heard before. “Yeah. We need to leave.”

Buck blinked. “Right now?”

Eddie gave him a look.

A look that landed somewhere between fond and exasperated and very definitely not innocent.

“Yes, Buck,” he said. “Right now.”

Buck nodded immediately. “Yeah. Absolutely. Great plan.”

Neither of them moved for another second.

Then Eddie’s hand slid down from Buck’s chest, caught his wrist instead, and held on.

Buck looked down at their hands, then back up at Eddie.

Eddie’s face had softened completely now. No smirk. No teasing. Just flushed skin, bright eyes, and something quiet and certain in the way he looked back.

“Come on,” Eddie said.

Buck let himself be led.

And somehow that was almost as bad as the kiss.

Eddie didn’t drop his wrist right away. He kept hold of him as they moved through the crowd, firm enough that Buck felt every step of it. The press of Eddie’s fingers around his pulse. The impossible fact that this was happening in public, that Eddie was the one pulling him through the room, that neither of them had taken any of it back.

Buck nearly walked straight into a table because he was too busy staring at the line of Eddie’s shoulders.

Eddie glanced back at him once, caught it immediately, and the corner of his mouth twitched.
“Focus,” he said.

Buck stared at him. “That feels unfair.”

And then he kept walking.

Jesus.

The club felt even hotter on the way out. More crowded. Too loud for how quiet Buck’s own thoughts had gone. People brushed past them, laughter and perfume and sweat and spilled drinks all blurring together, but Buck barely registered any of it. All he knew was Eddie in front of him, Eddie’s hand on him, Eddie’s shirt still damp at the center of his back from dancing, Eddie having kissed him and then looked at him like he wanted more.

At the edge of the room, Buck leaned in close so he could be heard over the music.

“Are we leaving because you’re being responsible,” he asked, voice low, “or because you’re about two seconds away from kissing me again?”

Eddie kept his eyes ahead. “Both.”

Buck almost missed a step.

Outside, the night hit them like a shock.

Cool air. Space. The bass from the club dropping to a dull throb behind the walls instead of pounding straight through Buck’s ribs. People clustered along the sidewalk in laughing little groups, rideshare doors opening and slamming, cigarette smoke drifting under the streetlights.

Eddie let go of Buck’s wrist.

Buck immediately hated it.

Then Eddie turned back toward him, and whatever he saw on Buck’s face made something soften in his own.

“We’re not doing this on the sidewalk either,” Eddie said.

Buck exhaled. “You are suddenly full of rules.”

Eddie stepped closer, close enough that Buck could still feel the heat of him despite the night air. “Buck.”

That was all.

Just his name.

But it landed like a hand to the chest.

Buck glanced automatically toward where he’d parked the Jeep up the block, then back at Eddie, then laughed once under his breath at himself. “Okay. 

Yeah. Definitely not driving.”

Eddie’s mouth twitched. “Good.”

“Was that concern for public safety,” Buck asked, voice low, “or concern that I’d wrap my car around a pole because you kissed me?”

Eddie gave him a look. “Both.”

Buck nearly laughed again.

He pulled out his phone and opened the rideshare app, thumb still clumsy in a way he would absolutely deny later. The little map loaded.

Seven minutes.

Buck stared at it like it had personally offended him.

Eddie leaned against the brick wall beside the club entrance, head tipping back for a second as he took a breath. Without the lights and the crowd and the movement around him, he looked different again. Not less beautiful. Worse. More real. More reachable. His hair was a mess now, his mouth still a little swollen from kissing, his chest still rising slightly faster than normal under the dark shirt.

Buck’s gaze caught there and stayed.

Eddie looked back at him and went very still.

For a second neither of them spoke.

Traffic hissed past on the street. Someone shouted from farther down the block. The city kept moving around them like nothing had changed.

Everything had changed.

“You’re staring again,” Eddie said quietly.

Buck didn’t even try to deny it. “You kissed me.”

Eddie’s mouth curved slightly. “You kissed me first.”

“Yeah, and then you kissed me back in a way that has made me lose all higher brain function.”

That smile grew.

Buck loved that smile. He was probably going to die about it.

He took one step closer before he could stop himself. “Tell me we’re actually going somewhere and you’re not just standing out here to see how long it takes before I stop behaving.”

Eddie’s eyes dropped briefly to Buck’s mouth.

Then back up.

“That would be a very short experiment.”

Buck laughed once under his breath. “Eddie.”

Something flickered across Eddie’s face then—not the smirk from the dance floor, not exactly. Warmer than that. A little uncertain under the heat.

“The car’s coming,” he said, softer now.
Buck nodded.

“Right.”

They made it maybe forty more seconds before Eddie reached for him anyway.

Not a kiss. Not with people still coming in and out of the club doors ten feet away.

Just his hand, finding Buck’s where it hung uselessly at his side.

Buck looked down at it.

Then up at Eddie.

Eddie didn’t look embarrassed. He looked almost stubborn about it, jaw set in that familiar way that meant he’d decided something and would see it through.

Buck threaded their fingers together immediately.

The rideshare pulled up two minutes later.

Buck glanced once more toward the Jeep parked up the street and said, “I’ll get it tomorrow.”

Eddie squeezed his hand. “Yeah.”

The driver barely looked at them. Buck was grateful for that, because he was not at all convinced his face was doing anything resembling subtle. He opened the back door, let Eddie slide in first, then followed—and discovered very quickly that the confined space of a rideshare was somehow worse than the club had been.

Because now there were still too many people, technically.

Just one too many.

And he was sitting right in front of them.

Eddie sat close anyway.

Not pressed against him, not enough for the driver to glance in the mirror and start making assumptions, but close enough that their thighs touched the second Buck settled beside him.

Neither of them moved away.

“Where to?” the driver asked.

Buck opened his mouth.

Eddie answered first.

“His place.”

Buck turned his head.

Eddie kept looking forward, but Buck saw the faint colour rise again at the edge of his cheekbone.

Something hot and helpless went through him.

Buck gave the driver his address.

The car pulled away from the curb.

For the first minute, Buck tried very hard to be normal.

He looked out the window. He adjusted his seat belt. He attempted to think about literally anything except the warmth of Eddie’s leg against his and the fact that Eddie had just, without discussion, chosen Buck’s place.

It lasted maybe forty seconds.

Then Eddie’s hand found his again on the seat between them.

Small movement. Hidden low.

But deliberate.

Buck’s breath caught.

He glanced toward the driver automatically. No reaction. Just the road and the radio turned low and city lights sliding past the windows.

When Buck looked back down, Eddie’s fingers were still there, waiting.

Buck took them.

This time Eddie’s grip tightened.

Neither of them said anything for another block.

Then Buck, because silence was becoming unbearable, murmured, “You do know this is making it worse, right?”

Eddie’s thumb brushed once over the back of his hand. “I know.”

Buck turned his head slowly. “And you’re doing it anyway.”

That finally got Eddie to look at him.

The expression on his face was unfairly calm considering the circumstances, but Buck knew him too well now. Knew the tell in the slight tension at the corner of his mouth, the brightness in his eyes, the way he held himself when he was containing more than he wanted to show.

“You kissed me in a club,” Eddie said quietly.

 Buck stared.

“You told me you loved me.”

Buck’s throat went tight.

“And now,” Eddie continued, voice even lower, “I’m sitting in the back of a car trying very hard not to do anything stupid before we get to your apartment.”

Buck had to look away.

Because that was too much. Because Eddie saying things like that in that tone should probably be illegal.

Streetlight after streetlight flashed over the windows, cutting the city into brief gold and shadow. Buck could feel every second of the ride in his body. 

The heat of Eddie next to him. The drag of his own pulse. The fact that their hands were still joined between them like something precious and secret.

After another minute, Eddie spoke again.

“I really did like it.”

Buck turned back. “Like what?”

Eddie’s gaze dropped briefly to their hands, then lifted. “The way you looked at me.”

Buck felt his entire face go warm.

“Eddie—”

“No, I mean it.” His voice stayed quiet, but the honesty in it hit just as hard as anything louder could have. “I’ve been thinking about it since I got off the dance floor.”

Buck swallowed. “That can’t possibly be helping either.”

“It’s not.”

A helpless laugh slipped out of Buck before he could stop it.

Eddie smiled—small, tired, still a little awed. “Okay. Good.”

Buck looked at him for a long second.

Then he said, because apparently tonight had completely destroyed his self-preservation, “You need to know I was seconds away from dragging you back into that kiss on the sidewalk.”

Eddie’s eyes darkened immediately.

Buck went on, quieter now. “I didn’t because I was trying to respect the fact that you just had, like, three separate realizations in one evening.”

That made something in Eddie’s face soften.

“You were being respectful?”

Buck gave him a look. “I contain multitudes.”

Eddie huffed a laugh and leaned back in the seat, but he didn’t let go of Buck’s hand. “Good to know.”

They fell silent again after that, but it was a different kind of silence. Not strained. Not uncertain. Just full. Packed tight with everything still hanging between them, everything waiting on the other side of the drive.

When the car finally pulled up outside Buck’s home, Buck thought he might actually thank the driver out loud for surviving what had felt like the longest twenty minutes of his life.

Instead he paid, got out, and stood on the sidewalk for one dazed second while Eddie came around the back of the car to join him.

The door shut behind the rideshare. Red taillights disappeared into traffic.

And suddenly they were alone.

Not alone-alone. Not yet. The city still moved around them, distant and alive. But alone enough.

Buck looked at Eddie.

Eddie looked back.

Neither of them smiled this time.

It was too much for smiling.

Buck took one step closer. “We made it.”

Eddie let out a breath that sounded almost like disbelief. “Barely.”

That was all it took.

Buck reached for him and Eddie met him halfway, their bodies coming together fast and close and finally without an audience except the darkened street. The kiss hit deeper this time—not frantic, but hungrier for having been denied. Eddie’s hands caught at Buck’s jacket, then slid up, one of them settling at the side of his neck in a touch that was somehow both grounding and ruinous.

Buck kissed him until he had to stop just to breathe.

Their foreheads knocked lightly together when they broke apart, both of them laughing once under the strain of it.

“Inside,” Eddie said.

Buck nodded immediately. “Inside.”

By the time Buck got his keys in the lock, his hands were shaking again.

He got the door open, barely had time to kick it shut behind them, and then Eddie was there—really there, in his house, in his space, looking at him like he still couldn’t quite believe they had made it this far and also like he had no intention of backing out now.

For one suspended second they just stood there.

The quiet settled around them after the noise of the club and the ride and the city below. No bass. No strangers. No driver in the front seat. Just the soft hum of the refrigerator, the dark windows, the faint spill of streetlight across the floor.

Buck looked at Eddie.

Eddie looked back.

And then that same slow, dangerous awareness from the dance floor flickered briefly through Eddie’s face—not the public version, not the smirk meant to drive Buck crazy from twenty feet away. Something more private now. Softer, but no less devastating.

“You’re staring again,” Eddie murmured.

Buck dropped his keys on the table without looking.

“Yeah,” he said, stepping closer. “Now I’m home.”

And kissed him.

There was nothing restrained about it this time.

The second Buck’s mouth found his again, whatever self-control they’d both been clinging to since the club finally gave out. The careful restraint from the sidewalk, the backseat, the fumbling pause at the door—it all snapped at once. Eddie met him with a low, rough sound that went straight through 

Buck, hands catching at Buck’s jacket and hauling him closer until there wasn’t any room left between them.

Buck moved him back without even thinking about it.

Or maybe Eddie gave ground just as easily. Either way, the next thing Buck knew, Eddie’s shoulders brushed the wall beside the door and Buck had one hand planted near his head, the other firm at his waist, kissing him like he had been holding himself back for far too long and had finally run out of reasons to try.

Eddie kissed him back.

That was what undid Buck most. No hesitation. No awkwardness. No second-guessing. Eddie was in it, warm and solid and breathing hard into Buck’s mouth, fingers bunching into Buck’s shirt under his jacket as if he needed something to hold on to.
Buck’s whole body lit up.

“Jesus,” he said against Eddie’s mouth, not even sure whether it came out like a prayer or a warning.

Eddie answered by kissing him deeper.

Buck made a helpless sound and shifted closer, his hand sliding from Eddie’s waist to his ribs, feeling the heat of him through the dark shirt, the quick pull of his breath underneath it. Eddie was still warm from dancing, still carrying the pulse of the club under his skin, and Buck could feel all of it—the rise and fall of his chest, the flex of his fingers at Buck’s side, the way he tipped his face up to change the angle and somehow made everything worse.

Or better.

Definitely better.

Buck’s other hand found Eddie’s jaw again, thumb brushing the line of stubble there, and Eddie leaned into it just enough to make Buck’s pulse stumble.

That tiny response almost took him out.

He broke the kiss only because breathing had become a practical problem.

Buck lowered his forehead to Eddie’s for a second while they both tried to catch their breath, and he could feel the ghost of Eddie’s smile there, maybe just as overwhelmed as he was.

“Still being respectful?” Eddie murmured.

Buck laughed once, breathless and disbelieving. “You really want to ask me that right now?”

Eddie’s mouth curved. “No,” he admitted. “Not really.”

And then Buck kissed him again because there honestly wasn’t a better answer.

This one turned rougher faster.

Just the pure force of too much wanting finally having somewhere to go. Eddie’s hand slid up into Buck’s hair, gripping just enough to make Buck shiver, and Buck responded instinctively by pressing in closer, one thigh easing between Eddie’s just enough to make the breath leave him in a soft, startled rush.

Buck felt it.

Every bit of it.

The sound. The shift in Eddie’s body. The way his fingers tightened at the back of Buck’s neck.

Buck pulled back barely an inch, searching his face.

Eddie’s eyes were dark and wide and absolutely not uncertain.

“You okay?” Buck asked, voice rough.

Eddie gave him a look that would have been annoyed if he didn’t also look completely wrecked. “Buck.”

That was answer enough.

Buck smiled despite himself—small and helpless and completely gone for him—and kissed him slower this time, letting the heat stretch.

The way he breathed in when Buck’s hand slipped under the hem of his shirt just enough to touch warm skin at his waist. The way his whole body stilled for one sharp second when Buck’s thumb brushed there, then relaxed into it instead of away. The way his mouth softened on the next kiss, open and willing and devastatingly honest.

Buck had touched him a thousand times before in a thousand harmless ways.

This did not feel harmless.

This felt like crossing into a country they’d both been circling for years.

Eddie’s hands slid under Buck’s jacket fully now, palms warm through the thin shirt, flattening against his back like he wanted to learn the shape of him by touch. The intimacy of it almost hit harder than the kissing. Buck felt himself go still for half a beat, overwhelmed by the simple fact of Eddie touching him like this—careful and hungry at the same time, like he wanted more but still couldn’t quite believe he was allowed to take it.

Buck pulled back just enough to look at him.

Eddie looked equally wrecked by the sight of him.

Eddie laughed against his mouth, brief and warm and gone almost as soon as it came, and then one of his hands moved from Buck’s back to Buck’s chest, curling into the fabric there and tugging him in until Buck had no choice but to follow.

The wall behind Eddie made a quiet sound when Buck’s palm hit it again.

“Sorry,” Buck murmured, though he wasn’t sure whether he was apologizing to the wall or to Eddie.

Eddie’s answer was to turn them.

Buck barely had time to register what was happening before his own back met the wall instead, and then Eddie was there in front of him, one hand braced beside Buck’s shoulder, the other at his waist, face tipped up, eyes dark and steady and hot enough to stop Buck’s heart for a second.

Not shy.

Not smug, exactly.

Just aware.

Aware of what he was doing. Aware that he had Buck pinned against his own front door and Buck was absolutely not interested in escaping.

“Okay,” Buck breathed.

Eddie’s mouth twitched. “That bad?”

Buck laughed helplessly. “You have got to stop—”

Eddie kissed him before he could finish.

And Buck, trapped between laughter and want and the hard line of Eddie’s body against his, gave up the thread entirely.

This was different with Eddie taking the lead.

Buck had always known, somewhere deep down, that once Eddie wanted something enough to stop fighting it, he would be intense about it. Focused. 

All in. But knowing it abstractly and experiencing it were two very different things.

Eddie kissed like he meant every second of it.

His hand at Buck’s waist tightened, thumb pressing once through the fabric of Buck’s shirt, and Buck’s head tipped back against the wall on a breath. 

Eddie followed the motion immediately, mouth trailing from Buck’s lips to the edge of his jaw—not far, not enough to feel like something else entirely, but enough to make Buck’s knees feel suddenly unreliable.

“Eddie,” he said, and his own voice sounded nothing like his.

Eddie stilled at once.

Buck opened his eyes to find him watching closely, all that heat instantly checked by concern.

And there it was—the Eddie Buck knew just as much as the one kissing him senseless. The man who would burn the world down if he had to, but would still stop on a dime to make sure Buck was okay.

That tenderness, right in the middle of all this, hit Buck straight in the chest.

He smiled, still trying to breathe. “No, that wasn’t a stop. That was a… wow.”

Understanding dawned slowly across Eddie’s face, followed by a flush that only made him more unfairly attractive.

“Oh,” he said.

Buck laughed softly. “Yeah. Oh.”

Eddie looked like he wanted to kiss him and hide at the same time.

Buck solved the problem for both of them by sliding a hand to the back of Eddie’s neck and drawing him into another kiss—slower this time, deeper, less desperate but no less intense.

Eventually they had to come up for air again.

Buck’s head dropped back to the wall, chest rising hard.

Eddie stayed close enough that his forehead brushed Buck’s temple for a second before he straightened just enough to look at him.

There was a question in his face now beneath all the heat. Not doubt. Just the next thing.

Buck knew what he was asking.

He smiled, softer this time. “Bedroom?”

Eddie shut his eyes briefly like the word.

Then he looked back at Buck and gave one small nod.

“Yeah,” he said, voice low. “Bedroom.”

Buck took his hand.

And this time, when Eddie let himself be led, neither of them was pretending to go slowly.

Buck barely made it three steps before Eddie tugged him back.

Buck turned, still breathless, and found Eddie looking at him with that same dark, steady intensity from the doorway.

“What?” he asked, voice low.

Eddie didn’t answer right away. His fingers tightened once around Buck’s hand.

Then, quieter, “Come here.”

Buck stepped back into his space and his hand settled at Eddie’s waist. Eddie came willingly, one hand sliding up Buck’s chest, then to his shoulder, then around the back of his neck as if he couldn’t decide where he wanted to hold on.

Buck loved every second of it.

Eddie tipped his face up for him so easily now, like his body had already decided Buck belonged here.

Buck brushed his thumb over Eddie’s cheekbone.

“You sure?” he asked softly.

Eddie’s eyes searched his face.

Then his mouth curved, small and crooked and so familiar it made Buck’s chest ache. “Buck,” he said, almost fond. “I left a club with you.”

Buck laughed under his breath. “Fair point.”

“I kissed you in your hallway.”

“That was mutual.”

Eddie’s hand slid higher into Buck’s hair. “And I’m standing in your house asking you to stop talking.”

Buck kissed him again with a helpless sound, and Eddie laughed into it, warm and brief, before Buck’s hand spread between his shoulder blades and pulled him closer. Eddie came willingly, chest to chest, one leg shifting in just enough that Buck felt the press of him and had to break the kiss on a rough inhale.

For one second they just stood there breathing.

Eddie noticed.

The smallest flicker crossed his face, followed by that look Buck was already learning — the one that said Eddie knew exactly what he was doing now and was only getting bolder with that knowledge.

“Still being respectful?” Eddie asked.

Buck stared at him. “You are enjoying this way too much.”

“Maybe.”

The way he said it — quiet, rough, with no real attempt to hide the satisfaction in it — sent heat straight through Buck.

Buck lowered his head until his forehead rested briefly against Eddie’s. “You keep doing that,” he murmured.

“Doing what?”

“Acting like you don’t know what your face does to me.”

Eddie’s hand at the back of his neck tightened slightly. “I’m learning.”

That should not have been as hot as it was.

Buck kissed him before Eddie could say anything else, and this time when Eddie backed up, Buck went with him. One step, then another, slow enough not to break the kiss, unsteady enough that both of them laughed softly into each other’s mouths when Buck nearly misjudged the edge of the rug.

The bedroom doorway caught Buck by surprise only because he hadn’t been paying attention to anything but Eddie for the last ten minutes.

Eddie noticed that too, apparently, because when Buck finally drew back enough to get his bearings, 

Eddie was looking up at him with that warm, wrecked almost-smile.

“You good?” Eddie asked.

Buck blinked at him. “No.”

That got him a real laugh.

Buck loved making him laugh like this. Loved that it was still Eddie under all of this — still dry and fond and quietly impossible, even while he was kissing 

Buck like he meant to ruin him.

He stepped in again and caught Eddie by the hips this time, guiding him back the last step into the room. Eddie went, eyes on Buck the whole time, and then Buck was kissing him under softer light, away from the noise of the city and the strange adrenaline of the club, with nothing around them now except quiet and heat and the sound of their breathing.

It changed the feeling again.

Because here, in Buck’s room, there was no excuse left. No interruption waiting to save them from themselves. No audience. No reason to stop except their own choice.

Buck kissed the corner of Eddie’s mouth.

Then his cheek.

Then back to his lips, slower, deeper, until Eddie’s hands slid under Buck’s shirt and Buck felt skin on skin for the first time that night.

He went still.

Eddie must have felt it immediately, because he stilled too. The heat didn’t vanish from his face, but something shifted underneath it. Buck saw it happen — the moment Eddie’s confidence, so easy a second ago, caught on something invisible and sharp.
Buck drew back a little.

“Hey.”

Eddie looked at him, still flushed, still wanting, but there was something tighter in his expression now. His hands stayed where they were on Buck’s skin, warm and careful, but his eyes dropped for a second before coming back up.

“I want this,” he said quickly.

 Buck’s chest tightened. “Okay.”

“It’s not that.” Eddie exhaled, frustrated with himself, and looked away again for half a beat. “I just…”

Buck waited.

Eddie laughed once under his breath, but there was no humour in it. “I was feeling pretty confident five minutes ago.”

Buck’s mouth softened. “I noticed.”

That got the faintest, briefest smile out of him, but it faded fast.

“With you,” Eddie said quietly, “I know what I want. I know that much.” His fingers flexed once lightly against Buck’s side, like he was grounding himself in the fact that Buck was really there. “I just don’t know what I’m doing yet.”

Buck didn’t move.

Eddie’s jaw tightened. “With women, I always knew the script. Or at least I knew the version I was supposed to know.” He swallowed. “With you, I don’t.”

That landed so hard Buck felt it low in his chest.

Not because it scared him.

Because Eddie was telling him the truth right in the middle of wanting him.

Buck stepped in again, but slower this time, giving Eddie every chance to pull back if he wanted to.

He lifted a hand to Eddie’s face, thumb brushing gently over his cheek. “You don’t have to know already.”

Eddie looked at him like the answer had somehow not occurred to him.

Buck smiled, soft and a little wrecked himself. “We’re not performing for anybody, Eddie.”

Buck kept his voice low. “There’s no right way to do this. There’s just us. We can go slow. We can stop. You can tell me if something feels weird or good or if you just want to kiss for a while and that’s it.” He brushed his thumb over Eddie’s cheek again. “I’m not in a rush.”

Eddie stared at him.

Then his eyes dropped briefly, and when he looked back up there was something so open in his face Buck had to work not to kiss him on the spot.

“You’d really be okay with that?” Eddie asked.

Buck gave him the most helpless little smile. “Eddie, I’m okay with whatever gets to keep you here.”

Eddie’s whole face softened — not the dance-floor smirk, not the teasing confidence from the club. Something quieter. More vulnerable. More real.

And somehow that was even hotter.

He stepped in and kissed Buck first this time.

Still warm, still deep, still wanting — but now there was trust in it. Eddie’s hands slid back under Buck’s shirt, slower this time and Buck kissed him back just as carefully, letting him set the pace.

This felt more intimate than anything before it.

The heat was still there, absolutely, but now it was threaded through something steadier. Buck could feel Eddie testing what he liked, what made Buck breathe in harder, what made his hand tighten at Eddie’s waist. And every time Buck answered him honestly, Eddie seemed to settle a little more.

When the backs of Eddie’s knees hit the bed, both of them paused.

Eddie glanced down, then back up at Buck, and this time the crooked little smile that touched his mouth held less bravado and more affection.

“Well,” he murmured.

Buck laughed softly. “Yeah.”

He stayed close, one hand at Eddie’s waist. “You want me to slow down?”

Eddie looked up at him through dark lashes, still flushed, still beautiful. “No,” he said.

Buck eased him down onto the edge of the bed without breaking contact, and Eddie went with him, eyes flicking up once in a way that made Buck’s pulse jump. Buck stayed standing between his knees for one long second, taking him in.

“You cannot look at me like that,” Buck said roughly.

Eddie’s mouth curved.

Buck made a low, helpless sound and Eddie’s hands pulled him in, Buck’s found his waist, and the whole room narrowed around them — the bed, the low light, the quiet hum of the house outside the door, all of it fading under the rush of having Eddie here and willing and honest and looking at Buck like there was nowhere else he’d rather be.

By the time Buck finally pulled back, both of them were breathing hard.

He rested his forehead against Eddie’s and closed his eyes.

Neither of them spoke for a few seconds.

Then Eddie, voice low and a little unsteady, said, “Still think the club was the hard part?”
Buck laughed softly. “No.”

Eddie’s fingers traced once at the back of Buck’s neck.

“What’s the hard part now?” he asked.

Buck opened his eyes and looked at him.

“Not kissing you again,” he said.

Eddie smiled — warm, wrecked, and far too fond.

“Then don’t.”

Buck kissed him.

Eddie answered instantly, hands already on him, and whatever words had still been hanging between them dissolved for good. There was no room for talking now anyway — not with Eddie looking up at him like that, not with Buck standing between his knees and feeling the pull of Eddie’s hands every time he tried to draw breath.

Buck’s hands found the hem of Eddie’s shirt properly this time and paused only long enough for Eddie to catch his wrist and guide him higher.

“Okay,” Buck said, voice rough with a laugh that didn’t sound much like one.

Eddie’s answer was just to lift his arms.

Buck pulled the shirt over his head and dropped it somewhere behind him without looking. Then he stopped for one suspended second, taking him in.

Eddie, flushed and warm from the night, hair a mess, chest rising fast, looking up at Buck with none of the old uncertainty left in his face now — only heat, and trust, and something almost challenging in the way he held his gaze.

Buck bent and kissed him hard for it.

Eddie made a quiet sound against his mouth and tugged at Buck’s shirt in return, impatient now, and Buck broke the kiss just long enough to pull it off himself. It landed somewhere near Eddie’s clothes, joining the rest of the night on the floor.

When Buck leaned back in, the first press of bare skin against bare skin pulled a sharper breath out of both of them.

The room felt warmer all at once, smaller somehow. Eddie’s hands moved over Buck’s back like he was still getting used to being allowed to touch him like this. Buck answered in kind, palms sliding over warm skin, across shoulders and ribs and the line of Eddie’s waist, each touch making the next one easier, hungrier.

They ended up farther back on the bed without either of them deciding it, just the slow give of the mattress and Buck following wherever Eddie pulled him. At one point Buck had to catch himself with one arm to keep from putting all his weight on him, and Eddie laughed softly into his mouth before dragging him right back down.

He kissed the corner of Eddie’s mouth, then his cheek, then the line of his jaw, slower now, letting himself linger. Eddie tilted his head back against the pillow and Buck felt the movement like permission. His hands slid down Buck’s sides and back up again.

The rest of the clothes disappeared in pieces.

A button undone with fumbling fingers and a laugh under their breath when it took too long. A belt dropped carelessly to the floor. Jeans pushed aside in a mess of sheets and hands and mouths and heat.

By the time they were finally rid of everything that kept getting in the way, both of them were breathless, tangled up together in the half-made bed, the room dim around them and the city reduced to a soft blur beyond the curtains.

Buck propped himself over Eddie and just looked at him.

Eddie, hair scattered over the pillow, chest still rising too fast, one hand resting against Buck’s side like he had no intention of letting him go anywhere.

It hit Buck all over again then — not just how much he wanted him, but how much he loved him. How impossible and obvious and overwhelming it all felt at once.

His expression must have changed, because Eddie’s hand moved from his side up to his face, fingertips brushing his cheek.

Buck turned into the touch and kissed his palm.

Eddie’s mouth softened.

Then he drew Buck down again.

The kissing turned slower after that. Their legs tangled. Hands wandered and returned and wandered again. Eddie’s fingers kept finding the back of 

Buck’s neck, Buck’s hands kept settling at Eddie’s waist and hips.

At some point Buck pressed his face briefly into the curve of Eddie’s shoulder just to breathe, and Eddie’s hand slid through his hair in a quiet, absent stroke that nearly stopped his heart.

The drag of fingertips over skin.

The shift of sheets under them.

The catch of breath every time one of them discovered something new the other liked.

The fact that neither of them seemed able to stop touching for more than a second.

When Buck finally lifted his head again, Eddie was watching him with that same open, wrecked warmth he’d had after the first kiss, only softer now. 

Sleepy with wanting. Still a little amazed.

Buck kissed him once, gently this time.

The rest of the night seemed to narrow to that: warmth, skin, tangled sheets, the quiet of Buck’s room around them, and the steady, growing certainty that neither of them wanted to be anywhere else.

Buck woke up slowly.

At first all he really knew was warmth.

Warm sheets, warm light bleeding faintly around the edges of the curtains, warm weight half draped over him like his body had been claimed during the night and no one had bothered to inform him. For one lazy second, still caught between sleep and waking, he only registered that something felt different. Better. Heavy in the chest in that way good things sometimes did when they were almost too good to trust right away.

Then he opened his eyes.

And found Eddie asleep with one arm across Buck’s middle, face turned into Buck’s shoulder, hair a mess, mouth soft and parted just slightly with sleep.

Buck went very still.

Because he thought any sudden motion might break reality.

The whole night came back in a rush after that. The club. The dancing. The confession. The kiss at the door. Every impossible, gorgeous second of getting Eddie home and into his bed and waking up with him still there.

Still there.

Buck looked down at the arm over him again and had to bite back a helpless smile.

Eddie had drifted closer at some point in the night, like even asleep he was determined not to give Buck too much room to doubt this. One of Buck’s hands was trapped awkwardly under the pillow. The other was resting at Eddie’s back, like it had landed there sometime in the dark and refused to leave.

Buck did not see any reason to change that.

He just lay there and looked at him.

God.

He was so gone.

Eddie shifted a little in his sleep, forehead brushing Buck’s collarbone, and Buck’s heart did something embarrassing. He lowered his chin slightly and pressed one absent kiss into Eddie’s hair before he could stop himself.

Eddie made a small noise and tightened his hold by an inch.

Buck smiled into the quiet.

His phone buzzed on the nightstand.

He ignored it.

It buzzed again.

Buck reached for it blindly, trying not to jostle Eddie too much, and squinted at the screen.

Hen

So. How was the one drink?

Buck stared at the message.

Then at Eddie.

Then back at the message.

His reply was immediate.

Buck

You are dead to me.

Three dots appeared almost at once.

Hen

That sounds suspiciously like it went well.

Buck narrowed his eyes at the phone.

Buck

You told me it was “a place with good music.”

You failed to mention the life-altering emotional consequences.

Hen took longer to answer that one.

Hen

Wow.

So very well then.

Buck’s mouth twitched despite himself.

Before he could type back, the weight against him shifted. Eddie let out a sleepy breath, blinked once against Buck’s shoulder, then looked up.

It took him maybe two seconds to remember where he was.

And then another two for the flush to start.

Buck had never loved anything more.

“Morning,” he said softly.

Eddie looked at him for a long second, eyes still heavy with sleep and something warmer underneath it. “Morning.”

Buck lifted the phone slightly. “Hen texted.”

Eddie shut his eyes for half a second. “Of course she did.”

“She’s dead to me.”

That got the faintest sleepy smile out of him. “You’re saying that while smiling like an idiot.”

Buck looked offended. “I can multitask.”

Eddie huffed a laugh and pushed himself up just enough to steal a brief, lazy kiss. It wasn’t heated, not like last night. Just warm and easy and somehow more dangerous because it felt so natural.

When he settled back down, Buck’s entire body felt rearranged all over again.

“So,” Eddie murmured, voice rough with sleep, “how much of an earful is she getting?”

Buck considered. “A moderate one.”

Eddie’s mouth curved against Buck’s shoulder. “Liar.”

Buck smiled into his hair. “Okay, a dramatic one.”

By the time they walked into the station the next shift, Buck had rehearsed at least four versions of his speech for Hen.

None of them survived the first thirty seconds.

It started badly for him the second she looked up from the kitchen table and saw them come in together.

Not just together-together. That alone wouldn’t have meant much. They’d arrived together a thousand times before.

Hen noticed.

Of course she noticed.

Her eyebrows went up.

Chim, sitting across from her with a mug in his hand, looked from Buck to Eddie and then immediately straightened like a man scenting gossip in the air.

“Oh,” Hen said.

Just that.

Two letters.

Buck pointed at her instantly. “No.”

Hen leaned back in her chair. “Interesting.”

“I’m serious.”

Eddie, traitor that he was, went to the coffee instead of immediately helping.

Chim squinted. “Why does this feel like I missed an episode?”

Buck turned back to Hen. “You.”

Hen pressed a hand to her chest. “Me?”

“You knew what kind of place that was.”

Hen tilted her head. “I knew what kind of place it was.”

“You omitted critical information.”

Chim sat forward. “Wait, wait, wait. What kind of place was it?”

Hen didn’t look at him. “A place with good music.”

Buck stared at her. “That is exactly what you said before, and I need you to know it remains a gross abuse of context.”

At the coffee maker, Eddie made a sound that was dangerously close to a laugh.

Buck swung toward him. “Do not side with her.”

Eddie turned with two mugs in his hand, his expression impressively neutral except for the fact that Buck knew him and could see the amusement all over him. He passed one of the mugs to Buck with the kind of quiet ease that only made everything worse.

“I’m not siding with anyone,” Eddie said.

Hen looked delighted. “Mm-hm.”

Chim looked at the mugs. Then at Buck’s. Then at Eddie’s. Then back at their faces.

His eyes widened.

“Wait.”

Nobody answered him.

“Wait.”

Still nobody answered him.

Chim actually stood up. “Hold on, hold on— did you two—”

“Chim,” Hen said mildly.

“What? No, because if I’m right, I deserve to be right out loud.”

Hen was openly grinning now.

Buck looked at Eddie, who took one sip of his coffee, avoided everyone’s eyes for exactly one second, then said, very calmly, “Buck wants to give Hen an earful.”

The kitchen went silent.

Hen turned to Buck with exaggerated offense. “Oh, Buck wants to give me an earful?”

Buck, suddenly aware that all attention had shifted to him, tried to recover. “That is not—”

Hen folded her arms. “By all means.”

Buck narrowed his eyes. “You set me up.”

Hen’s expression didn’t change. “Did I?”

“You used yourself and Karen as bait.”

“Did I?”

“You absolutely did.”

Hen hummed thoughtfully. “And yet, here you are.”

Buck opened his mouth.

Closed it.

Opened it again. “That is not the point.”

“It feels a little like the point.”

Chim made a strangled sound somewhere to Buck’s left. “Oh my God, I knew it.”

“You did not know it,” Eddie said.

“I absolutely knew something,” Chim shot back.

“You knew gossip was happening,” Hen corrected. “That’s not the same thing.”

Buck stared at him.

Then at Hen.

Then at the rest of the room, which had become aggressively unhelpful.

“This is unbelievable,” he muttered.

Eddie, still standing beside him now, said quietly, “You are smiling.”

Buck looked at him in betrayal. “I thought we were a team.”

The corner of Eddie’s mouth lifted. “We are.”

That should not have hit as hard as it did.

Unfortunately, everyone in the room saw it hit.

Hen’s whole face softened for one brief second before the smugness came roaring back. “Oh, wow.”

Chim put both hands flat on the table. “Okay, no, I need rules. Are we doing this? Is this happening? Is there a memo? Do I get a memo?”

“You do not get a memo,” Buck said.

Hen sipped her coffee. “I think he definitely gets a memo.”

Buck tried one last time to summon indignation. “Hen, you still sent us there without a proper briefing.”

Hen considered that. “That’s fair.”

Buck blinked. “Really?”

“Sure.” She nodded. “I should’ve told you. It was manipulative.”

Buck pointed at her again. “Yes.”

Hen smiled sweetly. “Counterpoint: worth it.”

Buck made an offended noise.

At that, Eddie finally laughed properly.

Every head in the room turned toward him, because Eddie’s laughter was rare enough on a normal shift and almost unheard of when it was directed at 

Buck being flustered.

Eddie looked down into his mug, still smiling a little, then glanced up and caught Buck staring at him.

His smile softened immediately.

That was it. That was the final blow.

Hen saw it.

Chim looked like he was about three seconds from climbing onto the table in excitement.

Buck gave up.

Completely.

He reached out, took the mug Eddie was balancing awkwardly in one hand, and set it on the counter behind him so it wouldn’t spill.

Buck turned toward him, still half-annoyed, half-dazed, and before he could think better of it, leaned down and pressed a quick kiss to Eddie’s cheek.

It was brief.

Easy.

Barely more than instinct.

Which somehow made it worse.

Because the room went dead silent.

Eddie froze for half a second, more startled by the public part than the kiss itself, then slowly turned his head to look at Buck. The flush that rose across his face was immediate and impossible to hide, but there was warmth in his eyes too—warmth and that faint, wrecked softness Buck had seen the night before and had no defense against now.

Hen put a hand over her heart. “Okay, I take it back. This is disgustingly sweet.”

Chim pointed wildly. “No, it’s great. It’s horrible, but it’s great.”

The room went quiet again.

Not awkward.

Eddie looked at Buck, and Buck looked back, and there was something almost disbelieving in the simple fact of being able to do that here, in the station kitchen, in front of the people who knew them best, without either of them having to look away.

Then Eddie cleared his throat and turned back to Hen.

“For the record,” he said, “he’s right.”

Hen blinked. “About what part?”

“You should’ve told him.”

Buck looked vindicated for all of one second.

Then Eddie added, with the faintest trace of that now-familiar smirk, “But the music was good.”

Hen burst out laughing.

Buck stared at him. “Unbelievable.”

Eddie took his coffee back. “You already said that.”

Buck leaned in just slightly, too quiet for anyone else to hear. “I’m still giving you an earful later.”

Eddie looked up at him over the rim of his mug, eyes warm and entirely too pleased with himself.

“Looking forward to it,” he said.

Buck nearly choked.

Hen slapped a hand over her mouth.

Chim shouted, “I knew it!” and with all the calm of a man watching exactly the ending he expected unfold in his kitchen, picked up his coffee and said, 

“Try not to break anything on shift.”