Archive of Our Own

The doorbell rings at nine PM when Buck is on the couch, mid-beer, barefoot and slightly cold, and his first thought is that he really doesn’t want to deal with the Mormons tonight. 

His second thought, lagging behind by half a second, is that the doorbell shouldn’t be ringing at all. Nobody who comes to Buck’s house rings the doorbell. Maddie texts before she shows up. Chimney calls from the driveway for some reason. And Eddie — Eddie has a key. And even then, Eddie has never knocked, in any iteration of any place Buck has ever lived. 

Eddie always just walks in. 

So it’s probably a package or a Mormon or one of those guys who tries to get you to switch power companies. Buck heaves himself off the couch and pads barefoot to the door, mostly annoyed, clutching the handle to pull it open and—

It’s Eddie. 

Buck’s brain does a small reset, because Eddie does not knock and Eddie does not ring the doorbell, and yet here Eddie is, standing on Buck’s porch, having rung the doorbell. 

Eddie’s hair is pushed forward on one side and back on the other, like he’s been dragging his hands through it on the drive over. His shirt is rumpled, his eyes wide and slightly wild, the way they go when he’s spent too long thinking and not enough time talking. His hands are wringing together in front of him, the left thumb pressing into the right palm on repeat, the way Eddie does when he’s nervous. 

Buck has half a second to wonder if someone died. 

“You have a penis,” Eddie says. 

Buck’s first instinct is to slam the door. 

Buck’s second instinct, arriving so closely behind the first that they’re basically holding hands, is to wonder what the hell he did today to deserve this. Racking his brain, he only comes up with 1) he helped an old lady carry her groceries to her car and 2) he returned a library book. 

He has been, by all metrics, a good person. 

That doesn’t seem to matter at this particular moment. 

Okay, cool. Awesome. 

Buck does, in fact, have a penis, and his good friend Eddie is now confirming this fact on his porch at almost nine o’clock at night, and everything about this is normal. 

Buck is having a normal night talking to his best friend who is also, by all accounts, super normal and apparently curious about the whereabouts of Buck’s penis. 

That’s — alright. 

Buck’s third instinct is the one he goes with, because over the course of roughly eight years of being Eddie Diaz’s best friend, developed a very specific defense mechanism for when Eddie says something that makes Buck want to lie down in the street. 

It is: pretend they’re flirting. 

Pretend Buck just heard a line, and that whatever Eddie just said is exactly the kind of thing Buck gets at bars from people who want to take him home, because Buck knows how to handle those situations. He’s done it a thousand times. Never with Eddie, but — well. Pretending. 

It doesn’t matter that this is Eddie or that Eddie has never flirted with Buck in his entire life. The bit is the bit. The bit has gotten Buck through conversations before, and it will get him through this one. 

“Hey, Eddie,” Buck says, crossing his arms and leaning against the doorframe because if he doesn’t he might fall over. “Nice to see you. How are you doing today?”

“I’m great. Fantastic.” Eddie is still standing on the porch. He hasn’t crossed the threshold. He’s delivering this entire conversation from outside Buck’s house like a Jehovah’s Witness with a very specific outreach mission. “Penis. You’ve got one.”

“Last I checked.”

It comes out smooth and easy. Flirty. Buck is killing this. 

Internally, Buck is twenty different small Bucks in a trench coat trying to operate the controls of a much bigger Buck. One is yelling, one is crying, and a third one is googling what does it mean when your best friend says penis to you on your front porch. 

Through all of this, the bigger Buck is leaning in the doorway like none of it is happening, like he’s a hot guy in a movie about a hot guy. 

“Great. That’s perfect.” Eddie nods once, decisive. Buck having a penis is perfect. Great, that’s that. Now they can go inside and have a beer and shoot the shit like normal. Eddie and Buck and Buck’s perfect penis. Except — “I need you to fuck me.”

The bigger Buck drops the act. 

The bigger Buck has, in fact, never been on stage in his life, and the small Bucks have all started screaming. 

“E-excuse me?”

“I need you to fuck me,” Eddie repeats, patiently, like he’s explaining a very simple concept to someone who is being deliberately obtuse. “Tonight. Can I come in?”

“Yeah,” Buck hears himself say. His ears are ringing. “Yeah, come in.”

He has no memory of stepping aside or closing the door. There’s a chunk of time between can I come in and Eddie pacing in his living room that has been excised from his life. 

Eddie paces. And paces. Running his fingers through his hair and shoving the sleeves of his shirt up over and over again. Buck stands in his own living room like he’s never been in his own living room before, like he’s looking at it for the first time and needs to be told what couches are for. 

Turning to make another pass across the rug, Eddie passes under the lamp, the light catching him from the side, illuminating the freckle under his eye. It’s small. Nothing, really. The kind of mark you’d miss if you weren’t looking, and most people don’t look, but Buck has been looking and is pretty sure he could draw Eddie’s face from memory by now. 

He thinks about it sometimes when he can’t sleep. He thinks about it now. 

The thinking-about-it is going to be a problem. 

Has been a problem for a long time, probably, but Buck has never had to acknowledge it out loud, and he’s not going to start tonight, because Eddie just asked Buck to sleep with him, and there are bigger fish to fry. 

“Okay,” Buck says, proud of how level his voice is. “Okay. Okay. Let’s— kitchen. Let’s go to the kitchen. I’m gonna get you some water. We’re gonna do that, and then you’re gonna explain what is happening to me right now.”

“I don’t need water.”

“You need water, Eddie.”

“I’m not dehydrated, I’m—”

Buck shakes his head. “Why did you ring my doorbell?”

Eddie stops mid-pace. “What does that—”

“You don’t ever ring the doorbell, Eddie! You don’t even knock. You just walk in. You’ve walked into every place I’ve ever lived. You once walked in on me in the shower, and instead of leaving, you sat on the toilet and kept telling me about your day.”

“That was an emergency,” Eddie deadpans. 

“You were telling me about a parking ticket.”

“Buck.”

Buck sighs. “You rang the doorbell, Eddie. Something is wrong.”

Eddie opens his mouth to argue and then visibly accepts the point. Following Buck into the kitchen, watching while Buck pours him a glass of water, not drinking it. Setting the glass on the counter and resuming the pacing, this time in a smaller area, which makes the pacing more concentrated and somehow harder to watch. 

Leaning against the counter on the opposite side of the island, Buck puts the island between them on purpose. Sole functioning buffer zone in the kitchen. 

“Okay,” Buck says. “From the top. What the fuck is happening?”

Eddie starts wringing his hands together again. “I was at basketball.”

“Mhm.”

“With the— the basketball guys.”

Buck snorts. “Sure.”

"And we were talking about—" Eddie waves a hand. "Stuff. Guy stuff. Just— guys, you know, talking."

"That tracks."

"And one of them, Marco, you don't know him, he started talking about—" Eddie's face flushes, going the color of a tomato, "—celebrities. Like. Male celebrities. That he thinks are attractive. And he's straight, he's married, has a wife, and like four kids, he just thinks it's important to acknowledge when a man is, uh, objectively—"

"Hot."

"Yeah." A rapid nod. "Yeah. And then the other guys started doing it too. Like, just naming guys. Pedro Pascal. That guy from the Marvel things. The one with the arms."

"That doesn't narrow it down."

"Buck."

"Sorry. Continue."

Continuing is what Eddie does, and while Eddie is continuing, Buck is doing his level best to keep his face arranged in the configuration of a person who is hearing this story for the first time and finding it mildly interesting. 

Inside, Buck is doing math. Buck is doing the kind of math a person does when their best friend, the most fiercely heterosexual man Buck has ever met, the man who once spent a large handful of minutes explaining to Buck why a particular truck commercial was, quote, not gay enough, the man who has been married to a woman and has fathered a child and has never, in the entire run of their friendship, given Buck any reason to think he was anything other than what he said he was — that this man has shown up at Buck's house at nine fucking PM with a story that ends with so I think I might need to sleep with a guy. 

The math is not mathing. The math has set itself on fire and run out of the building.

"And they were doing this whole thing about how it's a sign of being secure in your sexuality. That straight men who are comfortable with themselves can admit when another man is attractive. And the ones who can't, who get all weird about it, those are the ones who maybe— that those are the guys who have something going on."

Buck stands very still, as if not to startle Eddie into not continuing, because Buck is invested now. 

Inside, Buck is starting to think Marco might be onto something, and also that he would like to send Marco a thank-you card, and also that he is a horrible person for thinking that, and also that there is no version of the next twenty minutes that does not end with Buck having to make a decision that he is in no way qualified to make.

"And what did you say?"

A long pause. The wringing of hands resumes.

"I said I don't find any male celebrities attractive."

"Oh, Eddie."

"And then they laughed at me. And said—" Eddie's hand goes through his hair again. The hair is suffering. "Said maybe I should think about that. Said maybe I had some stuff to work through. Jokingly. They were joking. But."

"But."

"But it stuck with me." Eddie looks up. "And I started thinking. And I was like, no, that's stupid, I'm— I'm fine, I'm secure, I'm—"

"Straight."

"Yes!" Eddie points at him. "Yes. Exactly. I'm straight. I know I'm straight. I've always known I'm straight. So I should be able to— to do the secure-straight-guy thing. Right? I should be able to acknowledge when a man is attractive. As a sign of being comfortable with myself. Which I am. Comfortable."

Buck hums. "You are the picture of comfort right now."

"Shut up."

"Eddie."

"I figured it out, Buck. I figured out how to prove it. To them. To myself. To— to everyone."

Buck waits.

"I'm gonna sleep with a guy."

Don’t move. Don’t fucking breath. Buck is a statue. A statue with the most confusing hard-on ever.

There is a small Buck inside Buck’s head holding up a sign that says PLEASE LET ME WAKE UP and a slightly larger Buck behind that one holding up a sign that says YOU ARE AWAKE, IDIOT, and the two Bucks are about to come to blows.

"E-Eddie."

"It's the most secure thing you can do. Sleep with a guy and feel nothing. Right? If I do it and I feel nothing then I know. And I can stop— stop thinking about it."

"Eddie. Buddy.” Buck takes a step toward him. “Sweetheart."

The sweetheart lands between them like a brick through a window.

Buck did not mean to say it. He was halfway through buddy, which is a perfectly acceptable thing to call your best friend in a crisis, and somewhere between buddy and the end of the sentence, sweetheart came up the chute and out of his mouth, and now it's just hanging there in the air between them, vibrating.

It’s not a word Buck uses. Not for Eddie. Not for anyone, really. Buck has, in the privacy of his own head, called Eddie a lot of things over the years — most of which Buck has never been brave enough to think about for too long — but he has been careful, careful, not to let any of them out of his mouth. 

He has a list of acceptable Eddie nicknames and the list is Eddie and Eds and bud and on rare occasions Diaz, and sweetheart is not anywhere near that list, was not on the list this morning, has never been on the list, and yet here it is, freshly minted, exhibit A in the case of the People versus Buck for the crime of being In Love With His Best Friend.

A flicker — Eddie's eyes are on Buck, hold for a second, then move on like nothing happened. Hands still wringing and stopping, wringing and stopping. 

Eddie didn’t acknowledge it and that’s — okay. Buck can think about that particular can of worms later. 

For now, he barrels forward, because the alternative is dying right here in his kitchen.

"That is. Okay. Where do I start." Pushing off the counter — hands need to be free for this. "Number one. That is not how being secure in your sexuality works. Number two. That is the opposite of how it works. Number three. Most straight men who are secure in their sexuality do not, as a method of confirming this, seek out gay sex. That is— Eddie, that is gay. The thing you are describing is gay. The act of doing it is gay. There is no version of this where you end up more straight at the other end."

Eddie scoffs. "You don't know that."

"I do know that."

"You don't."

"Eddie, I am bi. I have personally conducted this experiment. The results are in."

"Yeah, but you're— you're you,” Eddie says, hands flailing a little. “You were always gonna come out bi. Sure, Tommy was the catalyst, but you’ve always been bi.”

"First, I don’t want to talk about Tommy. And second, I don’t think you hear what you’re saying right now.”

"My point is, just because you slept with a guy and were like, oh, I'm into it, doesn't mean I'm gonna sleep with a guy and be into it. I could sleep with a guy and find it deeply unappealing and then I'll have my answer and I can stop—"

Buck doesn’t feel the need to correct Eddie on the fact that he kissed Tommy before ever jumping into bed with him. That feels like a later conversation.

"Stop what?"

Eddie's mouth snaps shut.

This is the part where Buck quietly notices that Eddie didn't finish that sentence. That Eddie's eyes flicked to the side and his hands started wringing again the second the question was asked. Eddie was about to say something and then he did not say it, and Buck is choosing — because he is Eddie's friend and also because he’s a coward and because this is already so much — not to ask what it was.

"Eddie." Buck softens. "What is actually going on? Like, what's the real version of this? Because the basketball-buddies thing, that's a story you tell yourself. That's not— that's not enough to drive to my house at nine o'clock at night."

"Buck." Eddie's hand is back in his hair. "I just need to do this. Okay? I just— I have to do it. Once. And then I'll know. And then I can move on."

Buck squeezes his eyes shut. "And it has to be tonight."

"It has to be tonight,” Eddie confirms, nodding solemnly. 

"And it has to be a guy you sleep with."

"Yes."

"Why not just kiss a guy?”

"Because kissing isn't— kissing wouldn't be— I'd just say it didn't mean anything. I'd find a way to talk myself out of it. It has to be the whole thing."

"Eddie." Buck is damn near pleading at this point. His body is so confused and his mind is confused too and his dick — well, his dick is intrigued. But it doesn’t get a vote. It’s in time out. 

Eddie breathes out, loud in the quiet. 

"And it has to be you."

The kitchen tilts.

Buck is going to have to sit down. Buck does not sit down. Buck is going to have to do something with his face but he doesn't know what his face is doing right now, and trying to think about not making a face is making it worse. 

"It—" Buck clears his throat. "Why?"

Eddie shrugs. It is the most casual shrug Buck has ever seen. Eddie could be commenting on the weather. Eddie could be at the DMV. Eddie is absolutely not currently making Buck want to sit down on the floor of his own kitchen.

"Because you're the only guy I've ever been attracted to."

Buck's lungs forget how to breathe. That’s alarming. Or would be, if Buck wanted to be conscious right now. He’s starting to think passing out due to air deprivation might not sound so bad. 

"I'm—" Buck coughs. There's nothing in his throat to cough up. He coughs anyway. He coughs to fill the time, because if he stops coughing he is going to have to respond to what was just said and, fuck, he’s not prepared for that. "I'm sorry, you— what?"

"So it makes sense, right? Like, if I'm gonna do it, I should do it with someone I find attractive. Otherwise I'm just picking some random guy and I won't know if it's the guy or if it's the whole— the whole thing. This way I already know you’re hot and can focus on the task at hand.”

"The task at—" Buck has to put both hands flat on the counter. He’s very dizzy right now. "Eddie. Did you just— did you just casually mention— in the middle of— you can't just say something like that and—"

Eddie blinks at him. So fucking innocent and — dare Buck even think it — cute. What an asshole. "Like what?”

"L-Like you've been— I'm the only— what?"

A small, baffled tilt of the head, like a sweet little puppy who isn’t rearranging everything Buck’s ever known about his closest friendship. “Yeah, I figured you knew.”

Is this what dying feels like? Maybe, with the lack of oxygen going to his brain.

“You figured I— Eddie.”

Eddie is flushed from chest to cheeks. Buck is dying. It’s official. “It’s not a big deal, Buck,” he mumbles.

Ah! No biggie! Buck is the only man that Eddie has ever been attracted to and he’s standing in Buck’s house asking Buck to fuck him, but no big deal! 

If it weren’t unbecoming and slightly worrisome, Buck would start banging his head with the fridge door. 

Buck gapes. “It’s a huge deal!”

"It's really not."

"Eddie, the entire premise of your visit is that you're straight."

Eddie opens his mouth and achieves a small squeak, but nothing more.

The hands, which had briefly achieved stillness, start up again — left thumb pressing into right palm, slow circles, the wringing back in force. He looks — which is a little funny, given the circumstances — annoyed. 

Eddie is annoyed right now. 

“It doesn’t count,” he says, finally. 

“What does that mean?”

"You don't count. I'm, like, I'm aware. That you are. Objectively. The way someone looks at a sunset and goes, that's a nice sunset. I can look at you and go, that's a— a— Buck. I can— I can see that you're—" he gestures at Buck's entire torso, "—the way you are. But it doesn't mean anything. It's just an awareness thing. Everybody has— most people have one. Mine just happens to be you."

"Most people have one," Buck repeats. 

"Sure."

"Eddie."

"What?"

Buck stares at him. Eddie stares back. The kitchen is full of things Buck cannot say right now. Buck is, somewhere in the back of his head, applying for sainthood.

"Okay," Buck says. "Okay. We're gonna table that. We are absolutely going to table that and come back to it never. Also I’d like it noted that I am doing this under duress."

Eddie rolls his eyes. "Noted."

"I have so many follow-up questions."

"Noted."

"So many, Eddie,” Buck emphasizes. 

"Noted, Buck."

Buck takes a breath. He is going to be the reasonable one in this conversation. He is going to be the rational, level-headed friend, who talks Eddie out of this, because that is what a good friend does when his other friend shows up at his door with bad logic and a worse plan.

"Eddie." Buck softens his voice. "Listen to me. You don't have to do this. You don't have to sleep with anyone to prove a point. You don't even have to prove the point. There's no— there's no test you're failing. The basketball guys were joking. Nobody is keeping score. You can just go home and—"

"I want to.” It’s barely a whisper.

Buck hears it, though. Buck hears it and Eddie sees Buck hear it and immediately starts to course-correct. 

"I mean— I need to. Like I said. To prove it."

"To prove it."

"Yeah."

"To yourself."

"Yes."

Eddie doesn't say anything for a second, looking at the counter, hands wringing together again. He’s purposely avoiding Buck’s eye. Buck knows all of Eddie’s nervous tells, and right now, it’s like every single one is lit up in neon. 

The thing Buck has been not-thinking-about is getting harder to not-think-about.

"Eddie." Buck swallows. "If I say no… what happens?”

Eddie looks up.

Eddie looks up and his face is — there's something in his face that Buck has never seen before, or maybe has seen a hundred times and never let himself acknowledge. Open and a little frightened. Pleading. Asking Buck with his eyes what his mouth is too afraid to say. 

"I'll figure something out," Eddie says quietly.

Buck sucks in a breath. "Like what?"

"I don't know. I'll figure it out."

Wow, okay. That’s — that pisses Buck off for no reason at all. 

"You'll— what, Eddie. Find a guy at a bar? Download an app? Some stranger?"

"I said I'd figure it out, Buck.” Eddie is getting sharper now, angrier. 

"That's not—" Buck drags a hand down his face. "That's not— I don't want you doing that."

"It's not your call."

"I know it's not my call, I just—"

"You said no. That's fine. I'll—"

Buck cuts him off. "I didn't say no yet."

The kitchen goes very, very still.

Eddie's eyes find his, frightened still, but maybe a little — hopeful, too?

"You didn't?" Eddie says.

"I didn't."

"Oh."

"Oh," Buck echoes faintly.

He is going to do this. He is going to say yes. He is, in roughly a minute and a half, going to walk his best friend into his own bedroom and he is going to put his hands on Eddie, on purpose, while Eddie is telling himself it doesn't mean anything. 

He is going to be the science experiment. The guinea pig. The deciding factor. 

He's going to do it because Eddie asked and because Buck has never, in the entire run of their friendship, been able to say no to that face, and because the alternative is Eddie finding some random guy with a worse haircut who is possibly a douchebag named Mike or Brad or something, and Buck cannot — cannot — let that happen.

He's going to do it because he loves Eddie. He loves him so much. He loves him in the regular best-friend way that everybody loves their best friend, the way Buck assumes everyone goes around feeling about the person they trust most in the world, and that's fine, that's allowed, that's not — that's not a thing. It's just love. The normal kind. The kind that means you'd do anything for them. The kind that means when they show up at your door asking you to fuck them you say yes, sweetheart, without thinking about it.

(Faintly, he’s still thinking about the freckle.)

"Okay," Buck says.

Eddie's breath catches.

"Okay?"

"Yeah. Okay. I'll— yeah. I'll do it. We'll do it. Whatever— whatever this is, we're doing it." Buck’s hands are shaking. He puts them in his pockets so Eddie won't see. "But we're doing it my way. And you have to do whatever I say. And if at any point you want to stop, you say so, and we stop. Immediately. Without arguing about it."

"I won't want to stop."

Fucking hell. 

"Eddie."

Eddie huffs a laugh. "Okay. Okay, yeah, I'll tell you."

"Promise me."

"I promise."

Buck nods. He doesn't trust himself to say anything else. He's already said too much. He's already said yes and sweetheart and he's about to say a lot more things he can't take back, and he's going to do it with his hands and his mouth, and Eddie is going to lie there underneath him and tell himself it's fine, it's fine, it's just an experiment, while Buck quietly loses his mind in the regular best-friend way.

"So," Eddie says. He's still standing on the wrong side of the island. "Now?"

"Now," Buck agrees.

"Like… right now?"

"What did you think was gonna happen, Eddie?"

A helpless, full-body shrug, both hands coming up palms-out. "I don't know! I drove over here, I didn't— I didn't have a plan."

"You drove over here without a plan."

"I had the broad strokes!"

"The broad strokes."

Broad strokes, Buck thinks. Broad. Strokes. The phrase enters his brain and immediately takes off its pants. Buck's brain, traitorous organ that it is, supplies a brief and unauthorized visual of what broad strokes might mean in the specific context of Eddie being naked in Buck's bed in less than fifteen minutes, and Buck has to physically turn his head and look at the refrigerator until the visual goes away. 

The refrigerator has a magnet on it from a pizza place Buck doesn't go to. Buck stares at the magnet. The magnet is shaped like a slice of pizza. It has eyes and arms and and a little speech bubble that says come on in for a slice, I’m delicious. 

Buck will probably be cumming in— the magnet isn’t helping. This is getting ridiculous. 

This is fine, Buck thinks. The broad strokes. Eddie has driven over here to be fucked by his best friend with only the broad strokes mapped out, the way other men show up to assemble furniture, and Buck is supposed to fill in the rest, and any minute now Buck is going to have to start being a person who actively does that, which means moving his body in a forward direction, which means leaving the kitchen, which means going to his bedroom—

Pushing off from the counter half-heartedly, he reaches for the dish towel by the sink for no reason, folding it, refolding it, setting it back down in the same place.

"Buck, you're stalling."

"I'm not stalling, I'm—"

Buck is absolutely stalling. 

He drops the towel.

"Drink your water."

"I don't want the water."

A jerk of the chin toward the glass. "Drink the water, Eddie."

Eddie picks up the water and drinks the entire glass in one go, like a man at a wedding being toasted, while maintaining unbroken eye contact with Buck across the kitchen island. It’s honestly a little erotic. Buck can feel his dick twitch in his pants, like a weird standoff. Who will draw their weapon first? 

Whatever. Weirder things have happened. 

Eddie sets the glass down, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Water's been drunk."

"Yeah," Buck says. His voice has gone somewhere he wasn't expecting. "Yeah, I see that."

Eddie crosses his arms over his chest. 

"So."

"So."

"Bedroom?"

"Bedroom."

Neither of them moves.

"Buck."

"Yeah."

"You're still standing there."

"I'm coming. I'm coming, just— give me a second. I'm— yeah. Okay. Yeah. Let's go."

He walks around the island. The island has failed in its singular duty. Buck leads Eddie to the hallway, and Eddie follows him without a word, and Buck does not look back, because if he looks back he will see Eddie's face and if he sees Eddie's face he will say something he can't unsay, like sweetheart again, or please, or I love you, I love you, I love you, what are you doing to me?.

He doesn't say any of it. 

Instead, he leads, and Eddie follows. 

Walking down the hallway is the longest walk of Buck's life.

It's eleven feet, give or take, and Buck has covered the distance roughly twelve thousand times since he bought the place, but this particular trip is functioning under different physics. Time has slowed. The light from the lamp by the bedroom doorway is soft and yellow. Somewhere behind him, Eddie's bare-sock footsteps are following — careful, soft, steps that are screaming that Eddie is suddenly very aware of his own body in space.

Not turning around takes everything Buck has, but turning around carries consequences, so Buck just walks. 

The bedroom is exactly where Buck left it, which is, on reflection, a thing he is going to have to deal with, because the bed is unmade and there's a t-shirt on the chair and a half-empty water glass on the nightstand, and Buck has the brief, useless thought that he should have made the bed this morning, the way someone setting up a crime scene might consider tidying first. 

Stepping inside, flipping on the low lamp by the dresser instead of the overhead, Buck registers the room going honey-soft and dim around them in a way he absolutely cannot blame on accident. He could have turned on the overhead. He chose the dresser lamp. Cue the sexy lighting.

Eddie follows him in. The door clicks shut behind them, and Buck — Buck, who has been spending the last hour managing this with calm, harried competence — feels something inside himself shift gears.

Turning around, taking him in, Buck finds an Eddie he wasn't expecting.

The Eddie who drove over here was all elbows and conviction, hair-tugging and pacing and I need you to fuck me. 

The Eddie standing two feet inside Buck's bedroom is somebody else entirely. Hands clasped together in front of him, no more wringing — the wringing has been retired in favor of total stillness, the way prey animals go still in tall grass. His eyes are on the floor. His shoulders are too high. The flush from the kitchen has crept up the line of his throat, and there's a small, audible catch to his breathing that Buck would not be hearing if the room were not so quiet.

This is, Buck realizes with slow horror, like watching a wave roll in, a shy Eddie. An Eddie waiting to be told what to do. An Eddie who has handed Buck the wheel and stepped back from the dashboard with both hands raised.

And fuck, he may regret admitting this, even to himself, but — Buck likes it.

Buck likes it a lot.

The twenty small Bucks in the trench coat have come to an unprecedented agreement on something, and what they have agreed on is that Eddie is currently standing in Buck's bedroom looking at the floor and breathing funny, and that this is doing something to Buck on a cellular level, and that none of the small Bucks are going to dispute it. The small Buck who was crying earlier has dried his eyes. The small Buck who was googling has closed his tabs. They are all leaned forward with their hands on their knees, waiting to see what the bigger Buck does next.

What the bigger Buck does next, apparently, is smile. He can feel his mouth doing it. It’s not a nice smile — no. It creeps in, predatory, having just figured out that the thing he was bracing himself to white-knuckle through is actually going to be the best night of his life, and is now mildly embarrassed that he was ever worried.

"Hey," he says, soft. 

Eddie's eyes flick up. Down. Up again. He doesn't speak.

"Eddie. Look at me."

Looking up properly this time, meeting Buck's eyes for a full second before his gaze drops to Buck's mouth, Eddie does this beautiful small thing where his shoulders sink half an inch, like the request to look up has also given him permission to relax, and Buck — Buck has to take a slow breath, because there is a creature loose in his ribcage and it has opinions.

"There he is," Buck murmurs. Trying it out, watching Eddie's reaction.

A flush blooms higher up Eddie's neck. He starts breathing harder. 

Oh.

Oh, that's interesting.

Buck plasters this in the bright forefront of his brain, like an exhibit. Eddie responds, demonstrably and visibly, to a low voice and a soft command. This is information Buck is going to be making use of.

"C'mere," he says.

Coming here is what Eddie does. Crossing the small distance between them with a careful, even step, stopping a foot from Buck and looking up at him, hands still clasped, eyes wide and dark and a little glassy in a way Buck has never seen Eddie's eyes go before. The shyness has not abated. The shyness has, if anything, escalated.

"Look at you," Buck says, his voice dropping even lower, smooth like silk. "Drove all the way across town to come knock on my door, ring my doorbell like a stranger, tell me you need to get fucked. That what you came here for, Eds?"

Eddie gasps, his mouth parting slightly on the sound. 

The flush is now in Eddie's ears. The hands have unclasped. One of them is hovering somewhere near Buck's chest, and on the inside Buck is screaming at Eddie to touch him. 

"I—" Eddie's voice is barely there. "I— yeah."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"You drove over here desperate for it." Pushing it, just to see. Just to see how far he can go. "Couldn't even wait til morning. Couldn't ask me over the phone or through text. Just— so needy.”

A small, ragged inhale. Eddie's eyes have gone fully wide. His chest is rising and falling in the visible way it does after a hard run, and they haven’t even done anything yet, they haven’t even touched, and Eddie is — Eddie is breathing like Buck has been at him for an hour.

Holy shit.

Holy shit.

Buck has never been more turned on in his fucking life. 

The creature in Buck's chest sits up. The small Bucks in the trench coat raise their tiny hands in a tiny standing ovation. Whoever decided, in the great cosmic lottery of personality assignments, that Eddie Diaz would respond to being talked to like this, like he is a needy thing that drove a long way to get on his knees — whoever made that call deserves a fucking fruit basket. 

Buck is going to send fruit baskets to every cosmic intelligence responsible for putting this moment in his life. He's going to send one to Marco, too. Marco gets the biggest basket. Marco is getting a goddamn Edible Arrangement with the chocolate-covered strawberries.

"Buck," Eddie whispers.

"Yeah, sweetheart,” Buck mumbles, lips so close to Eddie’s their noses are bumping. 

Sweetheart is a test this time, and Eddie fails it beautifully — his eyes flutter half-shut, his weight shifts forward by an inch, and his mouth opens on a soft, voiceless sound that is going to live in Buck's memory forever.

"Use your words."

"Please."

Well, in for a penny, in for a pound. "Please what?"

"Please—" Eddie swallows. His voice is so small. "Please kiss me?"

"Yeah," Buck breathes. "Yeah, okay. I can do that."

He brings a hand up. Brushing his fingers along Eddie's jaw, taking the long way, watching Eddie's eyes close at the contact like a man dying of thirst getting his first sip of water. The hitch in Eddie's breathing has become a full, unsteady rhythm. The flush is everywhere now, blooming down into the V of Eddie's collar, and Buck is making a private note to find out, later, just how far that flush goes.

Tilting Eddie's chin up with two fingers, selfishly taking another second just to look at him because he might never get to look at him like this again, Buck lets the silence stretch until Eddie makes another one of those small voiceless sounds.

Only then does he lean in and kiss him.

The first kiss is supposed to be careful. Buck plans for it to be careful. He has, in his head, a perfectly reasonable closed-mouth gentle kiss queued up and ready to go, the kind of kiss that says we can stop here whenever you want. That is the kiss Buck has prepared.

That is not the kiss that happens.

The kiss that happens is careful for approximately one and a half seconds, and then Eddie whimpers against his mouth — a small, wounded, grateful sound — and the leash in Buck's hand, the one he didn't know he was holding, goes completely slack.

His other hand finds Eddie's hip and the kiss deepens immediately. Eddie's mouth opens under his, hot and a little clumsy, and Buck — Buck, who has been being so good, who has been the responsible adult in the room — Buck loses something he is not going to get back.

He kisses Eddie like he's been waiting years to do it, because he has, and he’s not about to waste it.

Eddie's hands come up, landing flat on Buck's chest, splayed and tentative, not pushing, not pulling, but holding, like Eddie has been wondering for a while what it would feel like to put his palms there and now he knows and he doesn't want to let go. Buck takes a step forward. Eddie takes a step back. Buck takes another step forward. Eddie takes another step back. 

There is, somewhere in Buck's hindbrain, a flicker of recognition that he is walking Eddie backwards across the room, and that the door is behind them, and that this is the kind of decision a man makes when the man has stopped being a responsible friend and started being something else.

Eddie's back hits the door.

He gasps against Buck's mouth, small and surprised, and it goes straight down Buck's spine like a coin dropped down a well. Buck pulls back just enough — just enough — to look at him.

Eddie's lips are wet. His eyes are blown to hell. The freckle under his eye is right there, an inch from Buck's face, and Buck has the unhinged, lunatic urge to kiss it specifically, on its own, like it's been waiting its turn. He doesn't, not yet — but he tucks the urge in his exhibit, right next to everything else he’s learning tonight. 

"Look at you," Buck murmurs, dragging his thumb along Eddie's lower lip because he can, because Eddie is letting him, because Eddie is currently making a face that says he would let Buck do significantly worse. "Got you all worked up and all we’ve done is kiss."

A small whimper as Eddie’s hands tense on Buck.

"Y-yeah," Eddie whispers. The stutter is new. The stutter is delicious. "Buck—"

"Yeah, baby."

The baby slipped out and Buck is not going to take it back, because Eddie's whole body just swayed forward on instinct, and Buck wants to see what happens if he says it again. 

Kissing him again — open and hot and a little mean this time, biting at Eddie's lower lip just to feel him gasp into it, sliding a thigh between Eddie's legs because the door is right there and Eddie has nowhere to go — Buck’s mind is a waterfall of possibilities. 

Eddie's hands have moved from Buck's chest to the front of Buck's shirt, gripping the fabric, and his hips have done a small, involuntary roll forward against Buck's thigh, and Buck has to break the kiss right there because if he doesn't break the kiss right there he is going to take Eddie apart against the door and they are still both fully dressed and they haven't even made it to the bed yet, and Buck has standards.

Pulling back, pressing his forehead to Eddie's, breathing hard. Eddie's mouth is open, his eyes are closed, breathing like he's run a mile, and Buck is in awe at what just a little kissing has done to him. 

"Eddie."

"Mhm."

Buck taps his cheek softly. "Hey, let me see those pretty eyes, princess."

Eddie opens his eyes, glassy and dazed.

"You good?"

A slow nod.

"Words, sweetheart."

"I'm good," Eddie breathes. "I'm— Buck, I'm really good."

"Yeah?" Brushing a strand of hair off Eddie's forehead, because he can. "You wanna go to the bed?"

"Yeah,” he breathes. 

"Yeah?"

"Yes. Please."

He sounds wrecked, trying to be as polite as possible but now, after a couple minutes of kissing and some pet-names, Eddie’s not above begging. Buck has a brief out-of-body moment where he watches himself, from the ceiling, completely in awe of this man while simultaneously wanting to destroy him. 

Buck steps back, and his hands move to Eddie's hips, turning them — gently, but with intent — so that Eddie is no longer against the door and is instead being walked, slowly, the six feet across the bedroom to the edge of the bed.

Eddie goes without a word, his eyes on Buck's mouth, his hands hovering uselessly at his sides like he doesn't know what to do with them now that they're not on Buck. The back of his knees hit the mattress, and he sits, looks up, and waits.

Buck looks down at him.

Down at Eddie, who is sitting on the edge of Buck's bed in a wrinkled henley with his hair a mess and his mouth pink and his eyes huge, who is waiting to be told what to do next, who is going to let Buck do anything, and quietly understands that the responsible-friend version of this night is over, and the new version of this night is whatever Buck wants it to be, and Buck — Buck wants a lot.

"Take off your shirt," he says.

Eddie, without taking his eyes off Buck for a second, reaches for the hem.

"Slow," Buck says.

Eddie freezes mid-motion, shirt halfway up, a strip of stomach showing — flat, tan, the dark line of hair leading down into the waistband of his jeans — and Buck has to take a second, has to physically stop and breathe, because he has been allowed to see Eddie naked a handle of times in their friendship, and not one of those times has he looked like this. Not one of those times has Eddie been sitting on the edge of Buck's bed with his eyes wide and his mouth swollen, peeling himself out of his clothes because Buck told him to.

"Slow," Buck repeats, quieter. "Let me look at you."

Eddie's hands hover, his breath catching.

"Pull it off. Yeah, baby. Just like that."

Pulling the shirt up inch by inch, doing as he’s told, Eddie reveals himself to Buck in a long, drawn-out line: the cut of his hips, the soft trail of hair, the flat plane of his stomach, the line of his ribs, the dark pink of his nipples already tight in the cool air of the room. He's breathing hard by the time the shirt clears his head, hair mussed worse than it already was, fabric clutched in one fist before he drops it on the floor like he's forgotten what it was.

Buck takes him in and God. 

The flush is everywhere. Not just the throat and ears now, full chest, blooming pink across his sternum, climbing up the line of his collarbones, traveling all the way down to where the waistband of his jeans cuts across his hips. Eddie is the color of a man who has been thoroughly worked over, and Buck has not laid a hand on him yet.

"Look at you," Buck murmurs. He hasn't moved. He's standing two feet away with his hands at his sides, just looking, and Eddie is starting to squirm under it, knees pressing together, hands coming up to half-cross his arms over his chest before he remembers himself and lets them hover. "Don't hide from me, baby. Let me see."

A small, helpless sound. Eddie's hands fall to the mattress on either side of his hips.

"Good." Stepping forward now, slowly, the way you'd approach a skittish animal. Buck stops with his thighs almost touching Eddie's knees, looking down. "Look at that pretty flush. You're so pink, Eds."

Eddie's eyes flutter shut, eyelashes brushing his flushed cheeks. 

"Pants. Off."

Reaching for his belt, fingers fumbling, getting it open on the second try because his hands are shaking, Eddie pushes himself up just enough to slide his jeans down his thighs. He kicks them the rest of the way off. The boxer briefs underneath are doing absolutely nothing to hide what's happening in them — the line of him pressing hard against the fabric, a damp spot already darkening the front. Buck clenches his jaw and breathes through his nose. 

Hard and leaking, all because of Buck. Fuck.

"Look at that," Buck says, low. "Already so wet for me. Princess, you're a mess."

The sound Eddie makes is broken. It punches out of him like he wasn't expecting it, like that word hit him somewhere internal and rearranged things. His hips twitch forward, just an inch, an involuntary search for friction that finds nothing, and he flushes harder somehow, chest going almost so red it looks like it might hurt to touch. 

Oh.

Oh, Buck thinks, with slow, dazed clarity, discovering treasure. Princess. Princess does it.

"Yeah?" Buck murmurs. Reaching down, finally, brushing his knuckles down the line of Eddie's cheek, watching Eddie's eyes flutter again at the contact. "This okay? You like that, princess? You like being my pretty girl tonight?"

It’s a check-in. A way for Buck to give Eddie an out if he needs it. To let him know they don’t have to follow through if it’s too much. But —

Eddie whimpers, and his eyes go wet at the corners, his hands clench in the bedspread on either side of him like he doesn't know what to do with the want.

"Use your words."

"I—" Eddie's voice cracks. "Buck, I—"

"You like it."

A frantic nod.

"Say it, baby."

"I like it." Barely a whisper. "I like— fuck, Buck, I like it."

"Yeah you do." Tracing a thumb along Eddie's lower lip, watching Eddie's mouth fall open under the touch. "Look at you. So good for me. Came over here all desperate, asking so nicely, and now you're sitting on my bed letting me call you my pretty girl. You been thinking about this, princess?"

Eddie's eyes squeeze shut. He doesn't answer.

"Hey." Tipping Eddie's chin up. "Eyes on me. I asked you a question."

Opening his eyes, glassy and dark, Eddie meets Buck's gaze with an expression that has Buck growing even harder in his already too tight jeans, if that’s even possible. "I—" He swallows. "Maybe."

"Maybe."

"I— sometimes."

"Sometimes what, baby. C’mon, you can do it."

"Sometimes I thought about—" Eddie's whole body shudders. "About… you."

The last word is so quiet, so small and submissive. Buck is having the time of his life.

"About me, what?"

"About you doing— this." A whisper. "Doing this to me."

Buck's brain whites out for a full second, and the small Bucks in the trench coat have collectively passed out, and the creature in Buck's ribcage has now achieved sentience, and somewhere underneath all of that is the slow, dawning understanding that Eddie has been thinking about this. 

About Buck. About Buck doing this to him. 

For how long, Buck doesn't know. He's not going to ask tonight. He's going to ask tomorrow, when he can think straight, when his cock is not throbbing in his pants at the sight of Eddie flushed pink and trembling on his bed admitting he's been thinking about this.

For now — for now, Buck has work to do.

"That's my pretty girl," he murmurs. "Lay back."

Lying back without a word, head landing on the pillow, body laid out long and trembling for Buck to look at, Eddie does it so easily that Buck's heart jumps in his chest. But he really can’t think about that right now. Right now there's no room for soft. Right now there's only the want, hot and specific, the way Buck wants to take this Eddie apart piece by piece, the way he wants to find every single button and press all of them.

Pulling his own shirt off and tossing it somewhere, getting his jeans open and shoving them down before he can think too hard about it, Buck crawls onto the bed and settles between Eddie's spread thighs. The boxer briefs are still on — Eddie's and Buck's both — and Buck is keeping them that way for now, because Eddie's hard cock is straining against the fabric and Buck wants to play with it before he gets it out, wants to drag this part out until Eddie is begging.

Leaning down, bracing on one forearm above Eddie's head, kissing him again, slower now, deeper, with intent. Eddie's hands come up and clutch at Buck's biceps, fingers digging in, and Buck can feel Eddie's whole body trembling under him, practically vibrating.

Working his way down then — down Eddie's jaw, the line of his throat, sucking a mark right under the hinge of his jaw because Buck has wanted to put a mark there for years and he is not going to leave this bed without doing it. Eddie's breath stutters into a moan. His head tilts back, baring more of his throat, an offering Buck takes with both hands.

"That's it," Buck murmurs against his skin. "Let me hear you. You don't have to be quiet. Nobody's home but me."

Mouthing along Eddie's collarbone, biting gently, listening to Eddie's breath hitch every time, Buck makes his slow way down. The freckle under Eddie's eye is going to get its turn, but not yet. First the throat, the chest, the small pink nipples that Buck has been studiously not noticing, that he now gets to put his mouth on, sucking one and rolling the other between his fingers, making Eddie cry out — a startled, broken keen, his hips bucking up under Buck without permission.

"Oh, fuck," Eddie gasps. "Buck. Buck."

"Yeah."

"I didn't— fuck— I didn't know that—"

"That it would feel good?" Switching nipples, scraping his teeth gently over the other one, watching Eddie writhe. "Yeah. Lots of things are gonna feel good tonight you didn't know about. Gonna take my time, teach you all of them."

Eddie whines loudly. His hands are in Buck's hair now, not pulling but holding on, anchoring himself. 

Continuing down, kissing the soft skin of Eddie's stomach, tracing the trail of hair with his tongue. Stopping just above the waistband of Eddie's boxer briefs, with Eddie's hard cock right there, an inch from Buck's mouth, and Eddie's whole body is tight and trembling under him.

Looking up, he catches Eddie's eye.

"You want me to touch you, Eds?"

"Yes." Eddie's voice is wrecked. "Yes, please, Buck, please—"

"Where, baby. Tell me where."

"Anywhere. Buck. Anywhere, just— please."

"Look at you, asking so nice." Buck presses a messy, deliberate kiss to Eddie's hip, right over the bone, watching Eddie's stomach flutter. "But you said you wanted me to fuck you. That's still what you want?"

"Yes."

"Yeah?" Mouthing at Eddie's hip. "Want me to open you up first, get my fingers in you, get you nice and ready for my cock?"

Eddie makes a sound that's not really a word. His hips push up under Buck, searching for contact, finding none, and his hands tighten in Buck's hair. "Buck."

"Gotta go slow with you." Letting his teeth graze Eddie's hipbone. "Gotta open you up real good. I'm bigger than what you're used to. Bigger than average, and you've never had anything in you before, so we're gonna take our time. Gonna get you stretched on three fingers before I even think about putting my cock in you. That sound okay?"

Eddie’s whole body goes tight under Buck, hips canting up, hands fisting in Buck's hair hard enough to sting. The flush blazing across his chest goes a shade darker, like the words alone hit him somewhere physical.

"Yeah, I know." He can hear how smug he sounds. "You like the sound of that, huh? Like knowing you're gonna feel it tomorrow?"

"Fuck." Eddie's voice has gone hoarse. "Shit, Buck."

"Yes or no, Eds."

"Yes." Eddie chokes it out. "Yes, please, please, I want— I want it."

"Okay. I've got you."

Reaching over to the nightstand, pulling the drawer open, finding the lube without looking, Buck does not break eye contact with Eddie the whole time. Eddie's chest is heaving, his eyes are glassy. Eddie is, by every available metric, more turned on than Buck has ever seen another human being, and Buck has not even gotten the man's underwear off yet.

"Hips up," Buck says.

Lifting his hips obediently, letting Buck hook his fingers in the waistband and pull, Eddie watches with his bottom lip caught in his teeth as Buck drags the boxer briefs slowly down his thighs and off. His cock springs free, flushed dark, hard and curving up against his stomach, leaking against the soft pink of his belly, and Buck—

Buck has to stop for a second. Buck has to stop for a second and look.

"Jesus, Eddie." It comes out hoarse. "Look at you."

The flush goes molten across Eddie's chest.

"Buck,” Eddie all but whines. “D-Don't stare, just—"

"I'll stare if I want to." Settling between Eddie's spread thighs again and getting his hands on Eddie's knees, pushing them apart, opening Eddie up for him. "You came over here and asked me to fuck you. I get to look. Look at this pretty cock. Look at how hard you are for me. You sure you've never thought about this before?"

“Please,” Eddie says again, slurred at this point.

"Yeah, okay. I've got you. Knees up. Let me see you."

Bending his knees obediently and planting his feet on the mattress, Eddie lets his thighs fall open in a way that Buck is sure is going to keep him up at night for years to come. Eddie offers himself up with a small, trembling, perfect kind of trust that punches Buck in the gut. 

He looks — God, he looks unreal. Spread out on Buck's sheets, flushed pink everywhere, cock hard against his stomach, eyes wet and huge and fixed on Buck like Buck is the only thing in the world.

Slicking up his fingers, warming the lube between them because Buck is not an animal, Buck takes another second just to look. Just to have this — Eddie laid out for him, waiting for him, pliant and pink and his. There is going to be a version of Buck, ten years from now, who closes his eyes and finds this image waiting for him exactly as it is now, undimmed.

"Buck," Eddie whispers. 

"Yeah. I'm here. Gonna take care of you."

Buck brings his slick hand down and circles Eddie's rim with a single fingertip, watching Eddie's whole body twitch at the first touch. Eddie makes a small, shocked noise. His hands fly to his face, covering his eyes.

"Hey." A soft command. "Hey, no. Hands down. Let me see you."

Eddie whines, but the hands come down, reluctantly. His face is flushed almost crimson, eyes screwed shut, mouth open on shallow little breaths.

"There you go. Eyes too, Eds. Open."

Opening them, blinking against the heat in his face, Eddie meets Buck's gaze with an expression so unguarded, so desperate, that Buck has to remind himself he has a job to do here.

"That's it. Stay with me. Gonna go slow."

Pressing just the tip of one finger in, watching Eddie's mouth fall open on a soundless gasp, Buck is gentle and patient and completely, fully attentive — and also, internally, losing his entire mind. Because Eddie is tight. Of course he is. Because Eddie has never done this before, has never had anything in him. Buck is the first person to ever feel this, to ever get to do this, and the knowledge of that is — Buck cannot think about the knowledge of that. Buck has to set it aside, under things that will undo me later.

"Breathe," Buck murmurs. "Breathe for me. Relax."

Eddie takes a shaky breath, his eyes on Buck, never leaving for a second. 

Buck hums. "Good girl."

Eddie's cock jumps against his stomach and Buck mentally tells himself to remember that reaction for later. 

He works the finger in slowly, all the way to the knuckle, holding it there, letting Eddie adjust, Buck watches Eddie's face for every flicker of feeling. Eddie's mouth has fallen open, his eyes unfocused, hands finding the sheets and gripping them so hard his knuckles have gone white.

"Talk to me. How is it?"

"Weird," Eddie gasps. "Weird, uh, f-full. I don't—"

"Yeah?" Pressing gently, curling, searching. "Good weird or bad weird, Eds?”

"I-I don't know, it's just—"

There. Right there. 

The reaction is instant. Eddie arches off the bed, his back bowing, a startled, broken cry tearing out of him that goes straight to Buck's cock. His hands fly up — grasping at nothing, then finding Buck's shoulders, gripping, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise.

"Buck, Buck, Buck,” Eddie is basically chanting now. “What— what was—"

"Good weird, then." Buck can’t, currently, bring himself to care about how pleased he is with himself. "Yeah. That's the spot. Was wondering when we'd find it."

"Buck."

"I got you. Just relax. Gonna make you feel so good."

Buck keeps working his finger over that spot, not letting up, watching Eddie fall apart under him, his hips trying to push down onto Buck's hand, his cock leaking against his stomach in steady pulses, his whole body trembling so hard Buck can feel it through the mattress. 

Nothing in his life is going to be the same after tonight. He is going to remember this — Eddie spread open and shaking on his bed, calling his name in a wrecked, ruined whisper — for the rest of his life, and he is going to be grateful for it every day.

"Such a good girl," Buck murmurs. "Taking my finger so well. So tight. You gonna let me put another one in?"

"Yes,” Eddie moans, quickly turning into a sob as Buck adds a second finger. 

When Eddie sobs, it does something to Buck.

He's been holding himself together pretty well, all things considered. He's been the responsible one, the one keeping track of breath and pace and whether Eddie is okay and whether Eddie needs anything, and now Eddie has just sobbed on the end of Buck's fingers, and Buck's cock, trapped behind the fabric of his boxer briefs and aching for the last thirty minutes, gives a hard, demanding pulse that Buck can feel in his teeth.

He doesn't stop, though. Slowing his hand, working the second finger in alongside the first with the kind of patience that's costing him, he watches Eddie in pure ecstasy, and waits.

"There it is," Buck says. "There you go. Breathe."

Eddie's eyes squeeze tight and he inhales shakily, then open again, glassy and unfocused. The shape of his mouth has gone soft, parted, useless for words. His chest is heaving in a way that isn't quite sobbing anymore, isn't quite breathing either, somewhere in between.

"You with me, Eds?”

"It's a lot," Eddie manages, barely. 

"Yeah it is." Curling his fingers, very gently, watching Eddie's hips jerk. "Hurt?"

"No. No, it's good, it's just a lot."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah,” Eddie breathes dreamily. 

"You're doing so good."

Eddie's hands have found Buck's wrist where it disappears between his thighs, fingers gripping as he whimpers under Buck’s ministrations. 

The kind of trust this requires is something Buck is going to have to address with himself later, in private, possibly in therapy. The fact of Eddie's body underneath him, opening up around two of his fingers with shocked welcome, is the kind of thing Buck did not believe people meant when they used the word gift. It's a word he has, until now, associated mainly with bad birthday parties and holidays. But Eddie is letting Buck inside his body on the basis of one, notably not long enough, conversation in a kitchen, and Buck does not know what to do with that information except be very, very careful with it.

Working the fingers a little wider, scissoring slowly, Buck leans down and kisses the inside of Eddie's thigh where the muscle is jumping under the skin. The skin here is paler than the rest of him, a softer version of Eddie’s normally rough and calloused skin that Buck didn’t know about. There’s a vein running down the meat of it that Buck traces with his mouth because he can't help it. He sucks a mark into the soft skin there, high up, where nobody is ever going to see it but Eddie. A private one. Just for tomorrow.

Eddie moans weakly above him, completely pulled apart, undone. Buck lifts his head just enough to murmur against the skin.

"That's mine, Eds. That one's mine."

"Yes," Eddie breathes, and the word is shaky.

"Yeah?"

"Yes. Anything."

Buck lifts his head all the way and looks at him. Eddie's mouth is slack, eyebrows drawn together in a dazed pleading expression that Buck has never seen on him. He didn't know Eddie's face could do this. He's going to have to learn to live in a world where it can.

"Anything, huh."

"Yes. Buck, please."

"Gonna add another one. Yeah?"

Eddie nods so fast it's almost a flinch and gets out a barely-there yes please before he runs out of breath.

Pulling his fingers out for a second, slicking them again because Buck is not, as previously established, an animal, Buck takes the moment to look. To really look. Eddie's cock against his stomach is dark red and shining at the tip, an obscene mess of clear fluid pooled in the dip of his navel, twitching against his skin with every heartbeat. The flush has moved past pink and into something darker, splotchy across his chest, mottled at his collarbones. His thighs are shaking visibly and continuously, and the muscle of his stomach is jumping in little involuntary waves. He looks like he has been wrung out. 

He hasn’t even been fucked yet.

"Look at this fucking mess," Buck says, and it comes out hoarser than he means it to. "Look what I'm doing to you, Eddie."

"Buck," Eddie manages, but there's nothing else in him.

"You see what you look like right now?"

Eddie gives a small, shaky shake of his head, eyes squeezed shut again, and his hand comes up off the bed like he's about to cover his face. Buck catches his wrist before he can get there, gentle but firm.

"Open your eyes. Look at yourself."

Eddie opens his eyes and looks down at his own body — at the leaking mess of his own cock against his stomach, his own thighs spread wide for Buck — whining softly before he tries again to bring his hand up to hide.

"Hey," Buck says, catching the hand again, holding it pinned to the mattress beside Eddie's hip. "None of that. Don't hide. You're so fucking pretty like this. I want you looking."

"I-I can’t."

"I'm serious. Look at me."

Eddie looks at him, and the look on his face is destroyed. It is the look of someone who has had something taken from him that he didn't know he was carrying, who has been pried open without bracing himself first. Buck has had sex before. Buck has had a lot of sex, but Buck has never had a person look at him like this — like he is the only thing in the world, like he could ask Eddie for his name and his social security number and his bank account information and Eddie would simply give them, dazed and willing, because Buck has the wheel.

Something inside Buck does a slow, terrible shift, and he pushes it down because he's busy.

Sliding three fingers back in this time, slow and decidedly not gentle, Buck watches Eddie's whole body arch off the bed in a long beautiful line. The cry that comes out of him is the loudest he’s made all night, raw and unguarded, and Buck feels it like a hand around his throat.

"There you go," he breathes. "There you fucking go. Look at you taking it. So fucking good for me."

"Buck, I can't," Eddie gasps, shaking his head against the pillow.

"Yeah you can."

Eddie nearly sobs. "’M gonna cum, Buck."

"No you're not."

The hand not currently inside Eddie comes down and wraps tight around the base of Eddie's cock, squeezing. Eddie shouts, startled, ragged, hips bucking up hard into nothing, eyes flying open wet and wild.

"Buck, wha— please."

"Not yet," Buck says, soothing it, kissing his thigh again, keeping the squeeze firm. "Not yet, Eds. Wanna feel you cum on my cock. That what you want?"

Eddie nods frantically and tries to answer but only manages a soft moan. 

"Yeah. Okay."

Easing his fingers out, ignoring the genuinely pitiful whine Eddie makes at the loss, Buck reaches blindly for the condom on the nightstand and tears it open with his teeth because his other hand is slick and he cannot, at this moment, be bothered with logistics. Getting his own underwear off is its own relief, his cock finally free, hard and heavy and slapping up against his stomach. He goes to roll the condom on, quick and efficient because he has been waiting too long.

"No."

Buck stops.

The word came out soft and a little slurred, slipping past whatever filter Eddie usually has. Eddie is staring up at the ceiling, eyes glassy, mouth swollen, hair stuck to his forehead with sweat. His head rolls toward Buck on the pillow, like it weighs more than it did an hour ago.

"No what, Eds?" Buck has to keep his voice hushed, careful.

"No condom." Eddie shapes the words like he isn't quite sure where they came from. "Don'. Don't wan’ it."

"Eddie."

"Wanna feel you."

The condom is halfway down Buck's cock but Buck's hand has stopped moving entirely. Somewhere in his chest, the small persistent humming has gone deafening. Eddie is looking up at him through wet lashes, soft and unfocused, taken apart and put back together wrong, and the words are sitting between them, heavier than two words have any right to be.

"Sweetheart." Buck's voice is rough. "You're fucked out of your head right now."

"Mm." Eddie's eyes close, then open again, slow and sticky, like something is holding them shut. "Don' care."

"Eddie."

"M' clean. Tested. After Marisol." It comes out in pieces, the way it comes out when a man isn't building sentences from the top down anymore. "You?"

"I— yes. Yeah. I'm clean."

"So."

"Eds."

"Buck. Please." And there's the word again, said the same way it's been said all night, but with something underneath it now. Something soft and stripped and needy. "I want— I want to feel you."

Buck doesn’t know what to do with his hands, or — or his face. He’s standing on the edge of a decision he should not be making, because Eddie is wrecked and pliant and not thinking straight, and Buck knows what tomorrow-Eddie is going to feel about tonight-Eddie's decisions, and Buck has a responsibility here.

But Eddie is looking up at him like that, and Eddie is saying please like that, and Eddie has been begging for the last five minutes, and Buck is not — Buck has never been — a strong enough man to say no to Eddie.

"Are you sure?" Buck asks, his voice very serious now. "Eddie. Are you sure? Because I'm— I'm not gonna be able to take this back."

"Sure."

"Eddie."

Eddie fucking pouts, sticking his lip out and everything. "Buck. Please. I want it."

Buck pulls the condom off and sets it on the nightstand carefully, slowly, because his hands are shaking and because the moment feels like it should be marked somehow. Then he reaches for the lube again, slicks himself up properly, looks down at Eddie one more time to give him a final chance to change his mind.

Eddie is watching him with his bottom lip caught in his teeth and his eyes shining.

"Last chance," Buck murmurs.

“Buck.”

“Yeah?”

“Fuck me like you mean it.”

Convinced that no one on the planet could say no to that, Buck lines himself up again and pushes in.

The world feels suspended, somehow, quiet and very loud at the same time. Eddie's body opens around him on a breathless cry, and Buck has to stop with just the head in, has to stop, because the heat of it and the tight clutching grip of Eddie's body and the noise Eddie is making and the fact that there is nothing between them now — nothing, not a single layer — and that this is Eddie — Eddie Diaz, his best friend of nearly a decade, on his back in Buck's bed, taking Buck's bare cock for the first time, the first time anyone has ever felt Eddie like this — is too much information all at once.

"Fuck," Buck breathes. "Fuck, Eddie. Fuck, you feel— fuck."

Eddie is shaking under him. “Oh. Oh my God."

"Breathe. I've got you."

He pushes in another inch, and Eddie's body resists for a second before opening to let him in deeper. Eddie's hands fly up to grip Buck's shoulders, scratching down his back, leaving welts that Buck hopes stay for a while, long enough for him to appreciate them.

"’S big," Eddie whispers, his voice shaky.

"I know. Stay with me. Look at me."

Eddie's eyes find his and lock there, and they don’t move from Buck’s face the rest of the way in.

Buck pushes the last inch home and settles fully inside him and stops, giving Eddie a minute to adjust, giving himself a minute. Eddie's body around him is something there isn’t words for. There is the warm tight clutching reality of it, and there is the fact of Eddie's face under him — soft and shocked and beautiful — and there is the awareness, vague and distant, that something in the back of Buck's mind is starting to make itself known after years of him pushing it down. 

"You okay?” he murmurs.

Eddie nods against the pillow, breathing ragged, thighs trembling around Buck's hips.

"Talk to me."

"Full," Eddie slurs, barely able to keep his eyes open. "Buck, I'm so full."

"Yeah you are."

"I can feel all of you."

"Yeah," Buck breathes, leaning down and pressing his mouth to Eddie's jaw, to his cheek, to the bridge of his nose. "That's me. That's all me. You're doing so good."

Eddie whimpers and his hands move from Buck's shoulders down to his back, palms flat and spread, holding on like he's afraid Buck might leave.

"I'm gonna move now. Tell me if it's too much."

Eddie nods lazily. "Okay."

"Yeah?"

"Move."

The first stroke is shallow, exploratory, easing out an inch and pressing back in to find the angle, and Buck feels Eddie stop breathing for a second. The second is deeper.

On the third, Eddie whines, high and a little panicked, his hand flies up to push at Buck's chest, fingers spread, not really pushing, just there.

"It's too much," Eddie gasps. "Buck, 's too big, won't fit, won't—" 

Buck stills for half a second. Just long enough to lean down and put his mouth against Eddie's ear.

"Yeah it will."

"B-Buck."

"Look at me." Buck waits until Eddie's eyes drag back to his, glassy. "You asked for this. And now you're gonna take it. Got it?"

Eddie's mouth falls open, but doesn't answer.

"Got it?" Buck repeats.

Eddie nods, tiny and ragged.

"That’s a good girl."

It has the desired effect almost instantly. Eddie's whole body shudders under him, the resistance in his thighs going liquid, the pushing hand on Buck's chest curling weak and forgetful into the skin instead. Buck rocks his hips forward an inch, watches Eddie's eyes roll back, and bites down on the soft place where Eddie's neck meets his shoulder hard enough to leave a mark that won't fade for a week.

"You're gonna take this cock," he murmurs into the bite. "All of it. Every inch. 'Cause that's what you came over here for. Isn't it?”

"Yeah," Eddie breathes, slurring. "Yeah, please."

"Asked so nicely too. Got down on my bed and spread your legs for me. And now you wanna act like you can't take it?"

"M'sorry. M'sorry, Buck, please."

"Don't be sorry. Just do as you're told."

He pulls back, drives in, and Eddie sobs.

"Take." Thrust. "This." Thrust. "Cock." Thrust.

Eddie wails. It tears out of him beautifully, his whole body jerking up under Buck on the last thrust, his hands scrabbling for purchase at Buck's back.

"There we go." Buck's voice has gone somewhere low and dangerous. "Knew you had it in you. Such a slut for it."

It rolls through Eddie like a current, his response visible to anyone watching, the flush blazing hotter, his mouth parting just slightly, his cock, neglected against his stomach this whole time, gives a hard visible twitch and leaks fresh against the soft pink of his belly. 

"Yeah, sweetheart. That's what you are tonight. My slut. My sweet little cockslut. Spread out on my bed taking cock for the first time and loving every second."

"Buck. Buck — fuck — please.”

"Please what?"

"More."

"Yeah." Pulling almost all the way out, pausing, watching Eddie's hips chase him uselessly. "Yeah, I'll give you more. You earned it. Look at you. Such a needy thing."

He drives back in hard, and Eddie's whole body convulses around him, his back arching off the bed, keening. 

"Fuck. So fuckin’ good, Eds." Buck can’t stop now. Can’t hold back or go soft. Helpless to do anything but chase the pleasure mountain in his stomach. “Take me so well, baby.”

Eddie can’t answer, past coherent thought, eyes rolling back in his head and his mouth hanging open, a thin sound is coming out of him on every exhale, just uh — uh — uh, high and broken, every thrust punching it out of him.

"Yeah," Buck breathes against his neck. "Yeah, that's it. There's my—"

He cuts himself off.

The word he was about to say wasn't slut and wasn't princess and wasn't good girl. The word he was about to say was love. It got halfway up his throat and he caught it. He caught it. He is going to think about it when this is all over, when his brain comes back online, but for now he buries the syllable in Eddie's neck and bites down on the skin there harder than he means to and keeps moving.

He finds his rhythm. It's not the gentle thing he was planning. It's deeper than that. Harder. Every stroke aimed exactly where it needs to go, dialed in within a handful of thrusts, and Eddie underneath him is dissolving. Hips moving up to meet him in small useless motions, mouth open against Buck's shoulder, the noises coming out of him not even noises anymore, just breath shaped like Buck's name and broken pieces of please.

"Yeah," Buck murmurs into his hair, slowing for just a moment, just to make him feel it. "Look at you. Said you couldn't and now you're loving it. Aren't you, baby?"

"I love it, fuck, Buck.” Eddie is babbling now. “Love it, love it."

"Yeah you do. Couldn't even wait til morning. So fucking needy you drove across town just to spread your legs for me. Such a sweet thing."

The dirty talk and the cruelty are doing something Buck didn’t predict. Eddie is responding to it — every mean thing Buck says gets a visceral response, the flush going deeper, his eyes rolling back further, his cock somehow getting harder against his stomach.

Buck is probably going to have to sit Eddie down tomorrow and have a conversation about what they have just discovered about him, what this means for them, but for now Buck is going to use it.

"You like this. Like being talked to. Like being told what you are."

"Yes, yes, yes."

"What are you, Eddie?"

A shudder cascades down Eddie’s skin, leaving goosebumps in its wake. 

"Tell me, baby. What are you?”

"Yours." It comes out so soft Buck almost misses it. "M'yours."

It goes through Buck like a knife. 

Eddie didn’t mean to say it. Buck can see, in the flicker of Eddie's eyes, that Eddie didn’t mean to say it. It came out past the filter, past the brain, from somewhere underneath. The slur of a mouth that is no longer asking permission from the man who owns it.

Buck can’t think about that right now. How much he wants it to be true. How much he wants Eddie to be his, and how much he wants to be Eddie’s. 

If he lets himself think about it, Buck is going to stop fucking Eddie and start crying and they have not finished what they started.

"Yeah you are," he says instead, barely there and mean and true. "Mine. My pretty thing. Drove all the way over here to give me this. Didn't you, Eds?”

"Yours, Buck. M'yours."

"Yeah." Driving in deeper, harder. "Take my cock, baby. Show me how much you need it.”

Sliding a hand under Eddie's lower back, lifting him slightly, adjusting the angle until the next stroke hits Eddie’s prostate dead on and makes Eddie cry out, Buck does it again. And Eddie does it again. And Buck does it again, until Eddie is unmade beneath him. 

This is when Buck starts saying the rest of it. 

Things start coming out of him before he can really understand them, before he can decide whether they are smart things to say, before he can vet them for sincerity. They are not sincere. Or they are. They are exactly as sincere as Buck has been refusing to be for all these years, and they are coming out under the cover of whatever dynamic they’re playing into right now.

"Look at you," he breathes against Eddie's temple. "Taking me like this. Like you were made for it. Like you been waiting your whole life to get fucked by me."

Eddie's hands tighten against Buck's back and a slurred whine pours out of him.

"You feel that, sweetheart? You feel how good you take it? Body just opens right up for me. Like it knows you belong to me."

"It does," Eddie slurs. "M'body knows."

"Yeah it does. Yeah it does, baby."

Eddie’s eyes flutter shut, little uh, uh, uh’s making their way out of his mouth at every thrust, completely lost to his pleasure. 

“God, Eddie, you really love this, don’t you?”

“Love it. Love it, Buck, m’love it.”

“That’s right.” He pushes in deeper, making sure to drag out slowly, letting Eddie feel every inch. “Knew you would.”

There is a precise moment, somewhere between the third and the fourth I love it, where Buck looks down at Eddie's face under him and somewhere underneath the haze of being inside Eddie and feeling Eddie come apart around him, has the slow shocked realization that he is in love with this man.

He’s in love with Eddie. 

Has probably been for a long time, possibly years, possibly the whole time, and while fucking him to near delirium, Buck knows it. 

The realization is the size and weight of a dropped piano.

Buck can’t deal with that right now, though. Eddie’s counting on him. Eddie asked for Buck’s help, said it had to be Buck, and Buck will be damned if he doesn’t make this the best fucking sex Eddie has ever had in his life. 

He shoves the realization sideways into a small dark room in the back of his head, where it joins approximately eighty-seven other realizations Buck has been not-dealing-with for the last several years, and turns back to the matter at hand, which is making Eddie cum on his cock so hard he forgets his own name.

"You gonna cum for me? Gonna cum on my cock?" Buck asks, breathless, the constant pounding catching up to him and making his arms shake where he hovers above Eddie. 

Eddie nods, frantic, near pleading.

Buck hums, shaking his head. “Uh-uh. Words."

"Y-yes. B-Buck, please."

"Yeah." Buck reaches between them and wraps his hand around Eddie's cock — abandoned this whole time, leaking steadily, twitching against his fist — and strokes once, just to watch Eddie shake. "Yeah, sweetheart. Come on. Cum for me."

Eddie cums, and it is not a gentle thing.

His back arches off the bed in a shape Buck didn’t know it could make, throwing his head back, groaning so low it sounds painful, cumming harder than Buck has ever seen another human being cum. He clenches around Buck's cock so tight Buck makes a noise of his own as Eddie paints his own stomach and chest in long stripes, shaking apart and gripping Buck hard enough to bruise, his face going slack and awed and so, so happy.

Buck makes it three more strokes before he cums inside Eddie. 

Cums. Inside Eddie.

Fuck.

It hits him like a freight train. He buries himself deep, presses his forehead to Eddie's, and lets it tear through him while Eddie's body keeps shuddering around him in little aftershocks. Somewhere in the white-out of it he hears himself say something, but isn’t sure what. 

It might be Eddie's name.

It might be something worse.

The ceiling fan is spinning and Buck doesn’t remember turning it on.

Buck has, in the last several minutes of being a person again, become aware of the ceiling fan. It is a four-blade ceiling fan with a small dome light in the middle that Buck has never used because it casts the kind of yellow that makes a room look like a dentist's office. The fan is on low. The fan has been on low for several hours, probably, since before Eddie ever rang the doorbell, and Buck did not notice it earlier because he was busy, and he is noticing it now because he is no longer busy, and noticing the ceiling fan is preferable to noticing whatever’s happening between him and Eddie. 

Eddie, who is breathing next to him.

Eddie is breathing next to him, which is something Eddie has done a hundred times, a thousand times, all the time, since you need to breathe to live, and it has never sounded like this. The sound of Eddie breathing is currently the loudest thing in the room. Buck can hear every inhale, every exhale, can feel the soft press of Eddie's shoulder against his own where they are not-quite-touching on the mattress.

The blanket is somewhere and Buck doesn’t have the energy to figure out where. Buck is naked and sticky and shaking faintly and the ceiling fan is spinning.

He’s been in love with Eddie Diaz for eight years.

He has been in love with Eddie Diaz for eight years and he just realized it in the middle of fucking him, and he’s going to have to spend the rest of his life with this information, and Eddie is lying next to him fucked-out and eerily silent and Buck doesn’t know how to start a conversation with the man he is in love with about anything ever again.

Say something, Buck thinks. Say literally anything. Say ‘that was fun’. Say ‘hope that helped’. Say ‘do you want some water?’

His mouth opens to try to say anything at all. 

"Hope that—"

"I'm so fucking gay."

Buck closes his mouth.

The words are addressed to the ceiling, delivered like a small but important administrative announcement. Like he’s reading the morning paper and the front page article is something he finds interesting enough to tell Buck about. 

Eddie doesn’t look at Buck. He continues looking at the ceiling fan. Eddie does not appear to be breathing any differently than he was a minute ago.

The silence stretches and Buck is — Buck doesn’t know what to do with his face. 

Or his hands. Or his body, which is currently naked and sweaty and disgusting. He’s staring at the ceiling next to Eddie because that’s where Eddie's eyes are, and at some point, very slowly, Eddie's head turns on the pillow to look at him. 

Eddie's eyes are wide and a little wet and entirely terrified, his mouth is slightly open, and the man who just announced his sexuality to a ceiling fan with the casual authority of a referee calling a foul is now looking at Buck like Buck might be about to tell him he’s wrong.

Buck looks back, and the silence stretches some more. The ceiling fan goes on doing what it does. The sounds of traffic carry in from outside. 

"Yeah," Buck whispers. "Yeah, seems like it."

Eddie's whole body relaxes all at once.

It is a remarkable thing to watch, actually. Buck has the experience of watching Eddie receive the validation he didn’t know he was waiting for. The terror leaks out of Eddie's face like water from a cracked glass, his shoulders drop, and what is left is the wreck of a man who has spent the last several hours convincing himself of something he no longer has to convince himself of.

A small, broken whimper escapes Eddie.

Buck thinks, for half a second, that Eddie might be about to cry. Then Eddie's face cracks, and the sound becomes a laugh — small and dazed and disbelieving — and Eddie covers his face with his hands and laughs into them, helplessly, laughing like he’s just been handed his own life back.

Buck starts laughing too. He can’t help it. It rolls up out of him on its own, and pretty soon they are both lying there naked and sticky in Buck's bed laughing at the ceiling, Eddie with his hands over his face and Buck with one arm thrown over his eyes, both of them shaking with it.

"Oh my god," Eddie wheezes.

"I know."

"Buck."

"I know."

"I just— I drove all the way over here."

Buck grins. "You did."

"I rang the doorbell."

"Yeah you did."

"I told you I needed you to fuck me.”

“You did, yeah.” 

Eddie’s nose scrunches up. “I thought I was straight.”

"Yeah, I'm starting to put that together," Buck says, and Eddie laughs harder. A tear slides out of the corner of his eye and into his hair, and Buck has to roll onto his side to see Eddie's face properly because he doesn’t want to miss any of this.

"Hypothesis," Eddie says, addressing the ceiling fan again. "I am a straight man. Method. Sleep with my best friend, who has a penis, in order to prove that I would feel nothing. Result." He pauses. "Inconclusive."

"Inconclusive."

"I felt so much, Buck. I felt so many things."

"Yeah I noticed."

"In conclusion. I was not, in fact, a straight man. I was, in fact, the opposite of that. Quod erat demonstrandum."

"Did you just— Eddie, is that, are you speaking Latin right now?"

"Mr. Vasquez. Eighth grade. I got an A in that class. I have been waiting twenty years to use that phrase."

"Eddie."

"Quod. Erat. Demonstrandum. Thus it has been demonstrated. Thus, Buck. Thus."

"I'm going to push you off this bed."

"You wouldn’t."

Eddie's hands come away from his face and he turns his head, looking at Buck across the sparse distance. "Buck,” he whispers. 

"Yeah?” Buck whispers back. 

"I think I might be in love with you."

Buck isn’t really sure he remembers how to breathe.

It is not a big stop. It is a small, necessary stop, the kind a body makes when it has just received information it doesn’t know how to process. Eddie said it the same way he said I'm so fucking gay, like a small administrative update, except this time his eyes are following Buck's face for the reaction and he’s doing this complicated thing where he’s trying to smile and not commit to the smile in case the smile turns out to be a mistake.

Buck thinks about lying.

Only for, like, half a second, because Buck has spent a long time being good at lying about this and he could probably do another two minutes of it on autopilot. But then he thinks about Eddie saying I’m yours, and Buck decides that he’s done.

"Yeah," he says.

Eddie blinks. "Yeah?"

Buck's grin grows. "Yeah. Me too."

Eddie's eyebrows pull together, a small confused wrinkle forming between them. Buck wants to smooth it with his thumb. He doesn't, but only because his arm is currently trapped under Eddie's shoulder and moving it would take more effort than Buck is willing to expend right now.

"Me too, what?"

"Me too, in love with you."

“Oh,” Eddie breathes. The wrinkle smooths on its own. His mouth parts slightly, eyes searching across Buck’s face, checking to make sure Buck isn’t joking. 

“Yeah.”

Eddie is quiet for a second, his tongue darting out to wet his bottom lip. Buck looks back up at the ceiling fan for a minute to slow his pulse because apparently whatever they just did was an appetizer where Buck’s dick is concerned. 

“For how long?”

"Eddie."

"For how long, Buck?" Eddie's hand has come up to rest flat on Buck's chest, fingers spread, palm right over Buck's sternum, and Buck is reasonably certain Eddie can feel his heart threatening to beat out of his chest. 

"I don't know." Buck swallows. "A while. Long time. I figured it out tonight but it's been a while."

Eddie's fingers curl, very slightly, into the skin of Buck's chest. "Oh."

"Yeah."

Eddie commits to the smile this time. It’s a stupid, goofy smile. Pleased and still in the process of believing that this is actually happening.

Buck has seen Eddie smile a thousand times by now, but he hasn’t seen this particular smile. He stores it away in the back of his mind, the new spot he created today, dedicated entirely to faces Eddie makes when he’s no longer pretending. 

"Hey," Buck says.

Eddie's eyes are still on him, that loose grin still half-hooked at the corner of his mouth. "Hey."

"You okay?”

"Yeah." Eddie's foot moves under the blanket, finding Buck's ankle, pressing there. 

"Yeah? Because that was— it was a lot. And we didn’t really, uh, talk about it beforehand.”

"’M good, Buck. Better than good. It was— I really liked it,” Eddie says, blushing slightly.

Buck nods to himself, mostly. He lets his eyes track down to where Eddie's hand is still spread across his chest, fingers loose now, no longer curled. Outside, another car drives past, headlights making a quick yellow arc across the bedroom wall before fading out.

"Hey, also."

"Yeah?"

"Tommy."

Eddie's mouth tightens, just barely. His foot stops moving against Buck's ankle. "What about him?"

"He still play basketball with you guys?”

Eddie is quiet for a second. He picks at a small thread on the pillowcase between them, eyes dropping from Buck's face to follow his own fingers. When he speaks, the answer comes out stilted.

"No."

"No?"

"I stopped inviting him when you guys broke up."

Buck has to take a breath and put a small mental flag on this conversation because he's going to need to come back to it later, in detail, with follow-up questions, and possibly a notebook. 

"You stopped inviting Tommy to basketball after he broke up with me?”

"Yeah." Eddie's still picking at the thread.

"Eddie."

"What?”

"That's. That's an interesting choice."

A small huff of breath out of Eddie's nose — not quite a laugh. "Is it?"

"For a straight man."

Eddie's fingers go still on the thread. His eyes come back up to Buck's, a small wry curve sneaking back into his mouth. "I wasn't a straight man."

"You thought you were a straight man."

"Yeah." He yawns and it takes his whole face, his eyes scrunching shut and his jaw cracking. When he settles back against the pillow his head burrows closer to Buck on the mattress, hair brushing Buck's shoulder. "I thought a lot of things."

Eddie’s eyes are closed now, his face half-smushed into the pillow, his mouth curving into a small soft smile. Buck looks at him, just because he can, and has the dazed thought that he's going to spend the rest of his life doing this. 

"Hey."

Eddie hums, eyes still closed. "Mm."

"You staying?”

Eddie pauses. His eyes open and find Buck's face. He looks at Buck for a second, like he's making sure Buck means it.

"Yeah." His voice is soft. "Yeah, I'm staying."

“Good."

Eddie's eyes don't close again. He's still watching Buck, with a small considering wrinkle pulling at his eyebrows like he's working up to something.

"Buck."

"Yeah?”

"Do you— you wanna give this a shot?"

Buck's heart trips once against his ribs, he barely manages to keep his face neutral. "What, the relationship?"

"Yeah." Eddie's fingers find Buck's chest again. "With me. The relationship with me."

Buck considers, in the half-second he gives himself, the entire span of the last eight years — every shift, every holiday, every Chris-related logistical conversation, every time he canceled a date because Eddie needed help with something, every time Eddie made him dinner, every time Buck watched Eddie across the firehouse and looked away before Eddie could catch him doing it. Buck considers all of this in a half-second. He's known the answer for a long time, he just hasn't said it out loud.

"Yeah." His voice comes out a little rough. He clears his throat. "Yeah, I want to give it a shot."

Eddie’s face crumples into a half-smile, half-pout, like he’s trying really hard to keep himself from getting emotional and not succeeding fully. 

"Okay."

"Okay."

They stay like that for a while. Eddie's eyes start to drift shut again, then drag back open with visible effort.

"Buck."

"Yeah?”

"’M gonna fall asleep."

"Okay."

His eyes close. "Probably right now."

"Okay."

"Sorry." It comes out slurred.

"Don't be sorry. Come here."

Buck lifts his arm. Eddie shuffles closer, head landing on Buck's chest, leg slung over Buck's, one hand fisted loose in the sheet between them. He's heavy and warm and smells like sex and Buck's body wash, mixed, and Buck doesn't know what to do with the fact that Eddie smells like him now.

The ceiling fan keeps going. Buck brings his hand up and lets it settle in Eddie's hair, and Eddie makes a small contented sound against Buck's collarbone, nosing closer.

Eddie's breathing slows.

"Buck." It comes out half into Buck's skin, mumbled.

Buck strokes through his hair, gentle. "Yeah, sweetheart."

"Fruit basket Marco."

A small laugh shakes Buck's chest. He feels it pass through Eddie too. "Yeah, I know."

"Biggest one." Eddie's voice is barely there.

"The biggest one ever made, Eds. I'm on it."

Eddie's hand on Buck's stomach gives one last weak pat, like he's confirming the deal. "Mm. Okay."

Eddie is asleep within a minute. Buck stays awake for a while longer, looking at the ceiling, listening to Eddie breathe against his skin, doing the private work of revising every single one of his memories to include the fact that this is what they'd been driving toward the whole time.

He gets up, eventually, careful not to wake Eddie, and finds the dish towel from earlier, still folded weird on the counter where Buck left it, and brings it back to the bed. He wipes Eddie down as gently as he can. Eddie doesn't wake up, doesn't move except to nose closer when Buck slides back in next to him.

Buck pulls the blanket up over them and turns off the lamp.

In the dark, Eddie's breathing is even and content, the ceiling fan turns above them, and Buck finally closes his eyes.

In the morning, he thinks, he's gonna have to make coffee. He's gonna have to figure out what Eddie wants for breakfast. He's gonna have to call Hen and Karen and find out when Chris is getting picked up. He's gonna have to think about how to tell the 118. He's gonna have to deal with the fact that Marco is, in fact, getting a fruit basket.

He thinks about all of this, in the dark, with Eddie asleep on his chest, and falls asleep smiling.