Work Text:
I'll just smile
and make believe
i don't feel a thing that doesn't work for me
-Oh Well, Oh Well by Mayday Parade
The first time Buck brings someone home to Eddie’s, it feels like a betrayal– to himself or to Eddie, it seems unclear. All he knows is that when his back hits his (Eddie’s) mattress and Shawn (Shane?) crawls on top of him, shame twists in his stomach.
It doesn’t keep him from going out the following night, though. And the night after that. Basically every night he doesn’t have a shift. Because the house is too empty without Eddie there and he can’t just keep crashing at Maddie and Chim’s.
There’s a blonde, a brunette. Someone with green eyes that he puts on their hands and knees because for some reason every time he looks into those eyes he gets a pang of wrong . A woman with a sweet southern accent who calls him a good boy and pegs him so well he cries. A tall, thin yet deceptively strong man who has absolutely no problem tossing Buck around (Buck thinks his name was Aldis, but maybe that’s just because he reminded him of Aldis Hodge). A woman with gorgeous dark hair who rides him into oblivion while wearing his favorite jean jacket and nothing else.
After all that, it’s not an issue. Really.
At least, it’s not, until he’s trying to change the sheets and the only clean set in the house is the one Eddie left behind. (Like the mattress, like the 118, like Buck .) He stares at the nearly-empty white wire shelves in the closet, remembering how he and Eddie had tried to shove the mattress into the U-haul and gave up after the third attempt. How they’d both laughed when Eddie bent to pull the door closed and it proudly proclaimed “Holds a queen bed!” How Eddie never bothered to pack the last of the linens for it.
The navy blue stripes stare back at him.
They’re still the only clean sheets in the house, and he’s already resigned himself to the fact that he’s not going to find the box with the detergent in it anytime soon. He peeks down the hall, as if there’s anyone here to catch him, before he pulls them half off the shelf and buries his nose in the stack. Tears spring immediately, visions of tucking Christopher in, of getting into bed behind Eddie to hold his arm straight so he could sleep after the shooting, of tucking his face into the pillow on the couch– pass by him in gut-wrenching technicolor clarity.
They’re not coming back. Buck knows that now. It’s been weeks. Christopher’s been gone for months.
He puts the sheets on the bed, grabs his keys, and heads out the door.
The bar is bustling.
It’s not one of the usual badge and ladder joints he frequents with the 118, but it’s still relatively clean and the music isn’t so loud he won’t be able to hear over the din. There’s plenty of people here, too. Most surveying the room like Buck is: sizing up, searching.
Then, Buck sees her.
Her hair is still dyed from the grey it was when they met at the station, but she’s back in the more stylish, high-end clothes she wore in all the pictures Eddie showed him. The floral soft things she showed up in at the house that night are long gone. Somehow, that makes it seem more okay to respond when she notices him back and blinks in surprise, “Oh, it’s– it’s Buck, right?”
And well— it’s not like she has any real connection with Eddie anymore. It won’t make him feel closer. It’s just—
The next thing he knows, he and Kim are on round four and the tequila isn’t even burning going down anymore.
“Look, I’m not like, crazy,” she insists, leaning forward with an intense earnestness in her eyes that makes Buck a little wary of accepting that statement at face value. “He just seemed like he needed it. And well, I’m an actress, I could give him that. He deserves any help I could give.”
And just like that Buck finds himself nodding along. Because of course. She’s right– not about her being what Eddie needs, because Buck is pretty certain that’s never going to be the case– but about Eddie. Eddie absolutely deserves every good thing in this world. It makes complete sense that Kim would at least try to help with that.
Who would meet Eddie and not want to give him the world?
It’s what Buck would do, after all.
“I– I get that, actually.” He says after a moment. “I took over his lease so he could go after Christopher, because he— he deserves someone to always have his back.”
Kim’s spine straightens. “Wait.” The air around them is suddenly charged. She leans in, bringing both hands up onto the bar. “You’re living in Eddie’s house? Like, currently?”
Buck isn’t quite sure how to parse that question in conjunction with the sudden heat she’s giving off, but he answers, “y-yeah. I haven’t spent a ton of time there, but–”
“Would you like to?”
Kim’s expression isn’t joking. There’s not a hint of uncertainty. She looks… hungry.
This is wrong. This is cheating, or maybe homewrecking, or maybe some unholy third thing Buck can’t name. The bottom line is, there’s no world in which he should do this.
“Sure.”
The front door slams with the weight of both their bodies falling against it. Buck can barely stand up straight, but Kim doesn’t seem to mind. She kisses him with that same hunger she had in her eyes back at the bar, aggressive and passionate.
From one second to the next, though, her mouth is gone, and her back is pressed to Buck’s chest. “God, it really is his house.”
It doesn’t seem like she cares if he answers, so he just sets his lips to the side of her neck while she looks her fill. If she’s disappointed most of Eddie’s furniture is gone, she doesn’t show it. Instead, she turns back to take a hold of the collar of Buck’s jacket and drag him in. Buck slides a hand in her hair and does his best not to bring any boxes crashing down as he guides her back toward Eddie’s– his –bedroom.
It’s still mostly bare in here, the light blue walls they painted after fixing the drywall the only thing livening up the space with nothing but the bed and a lone lamp left inside. Kim straddles him on the bed, looking around the room before she bends to start kissing down Buck’s neck.
“I didn’t make it this far with him.” She confides between presses of her lips.
Buck keeps the good that immediately springs to mind behind his teeth. She never deserved Eddie (does anyone?), but if it gets her off to think about it, whatever. Buck’s not going to ruin that for her.
If she minds that he’s only half hard, she doesn’t call him on it. She just shimmies down so their hips are flush, her warm core a pleasant pressure against his dick. It feels good– really, it does. But he turns his head to bury his nose in the sheets anyway.
There’s no reason. He doesn’t need to breathe in the Eddie of it all right now. Not when there’s a woman in his lap about to help him forget about things for a bit.
Still, he must react in some way, because Kim gasps, rolling her hips down harder. “Oh my god— Is this his bed?”
And Buck’s always been one to jump on the bandwagon for whatever his partner wants in bed, which is the only reason for the breathlessness in his voice when he tells her, “his sheets, too.”
“Fuck,” Kim moans, scrambling back off him to start stripping with a terrifying efficiency while she orders him to do the same.
Evidently, he’s not fast enough, and she’s back on the bed in seconds and yanking down his jeans and boxers, her manicured nails scraping sharp down his legs. Kim pauses at the sight of his cock, not even fully hard against his thigh. Buck’s used to that– he may not be as much of a cocky asshole about it these days, but he knows what he’s working with. He opens his mouth to tell her she doesn’t have to try to take it if she doesn’t want to when she looks up at him with glittering eyes. “You can say his name while I do this,” she grins. “I won’t mind.”
And, well, it’s her fantasy. Buck once wore a vibrating plug out into public for Taylor, he’s not going to back down from this. Kim isn’t even the first woman Buck’s been with who mentioned a threesome with Eddie. He’s not really sure why she wants Buck saying Eddie's name, but whatever. It’s just a little roleplay, right?
So when Kim opens her red, red lips and sinks down on his cock, he closes his eyes and breathes “Eddie.”
He’s rock hard in a second, blood rushing south so quickly he’s dizzy with it. Kim must really be great with her mouth to get him there that fast. She moans in response, pulling back up to swirl her tongue around the tip.
Buck’s heart rate picks up, the euphoria of being able to say Eddie’s name (without the sympathetic glances or the annoyed eye rolls) coursing through his veins. It’s fucking– “Eddie, oh my god, your mouth.”
Because Eddie would be good at sucking cock if he was gay. Buck would be a bad friend to assume otherwise. And if Eddie were to ever ask, Buck would let him know how good he is.
Kim tosses a leg over one of Buck’s, rolling her hips in a slick slide across his bare skin. She’s almost frantic, pulling off his cock to urge him, “again, say it again.”
Oh, god. She wants to hear it. She wants Buck to talk about Eddie.
Now he’s close– so close– and so is Kim, her movements getting a little wild against his leg. Buck flushes with pride. It’s just good manners to make sure his partners come first, but also, if she wants him to fuck her she should come at least once before she tries to take him. That’s the reason he obliges, really. The reason he grips the bedsheets with both hands and begs “Eddie, please,”
Kim throws her head back as she comes, groaning long and low as she slows to a stop. She smiles at him as she breathes through the aftershocks, bright and mischievous and god, she really does look just like Shannon. There’s no reason that makes Buck’s cock twitch other than the fact that she’s familiar to him. Buck has always liked sleeping with people he feels connected to.
He reaches for her, wrapping a hand around each thigh so he can drag her up onto his face, but she bats his hands away when he tries to pull her past his hips. “You’re gonna fuck me now.”
Buck mourns the loss of his tongue in her pussy, but above all else, he aims to please. Maybe she’ll let him later. They have all night, after all.
(Should he take her home after, though? It feels like Eddie wouldn’t want her here in the morning.)
Kim gets up on her knees, and Buck has a split second to think about how he should tell her to wait while he grabs a condom before she’s sinking down on his cock and moaning “Eddie,” all throaty and fucked-out.
Rational thought is gone as Buck grips her hips, gritting his teeth and counting the seconds to let her adjust before he drives up into her. Kim’s tits bounce while he builds up a rhythm and she brings her fingers to her clit. Her tits look like perfect small handfuls, so he tenses his core and rolls up to get his mouth on her nipples. They’re peaked and hard under his tongue, but she smells like spun sugar. Nothing like the eucalyptus scent of Eddie’s detergent, or the woodsy warm notes of his cologne.
There’s nothing wrong with that, obviously. But Buck feels better when he eases back down to the bed instead, anyway.
Kim is stronger than she looks, balancing one hand behind her on his thigh for leverage to meet every thrust. “So good,” she moans, “right there, right there.”
Buck keeps himself steady, dutifully hitting that same spot while she circles her clit. She’s starting to tense, about to come again, and Buck shivers with it. He’s done well, he’s making her feel good.
“Getting close?” Kim asks, breathy. “You going to come for me in Eddie’s house? In Eddie’s bed?”
Fuck. Buck’s eyes roll back in his head just as Kim’s tossing her head back again and clenching hard around him. Deliriously, he tries to stay the course, make sure he gets her through her orgasm before-
“Come on, baby. He deserves to hear you, doesn’t he?”
Buck nods, frantic, and suddenly Kim disappears from view, and all he can see is miles of tan skin and deep brown eyes that he looks into and instantly feels so deeply right inside. “Fuck, Eddie, I’m gonna–”
The orgasm explodes through him, lighting up every nerve ending from his prickling scalp to his curling toes as he fills her up. Distantly, Buck hears a squeak as he pistons his hips fast enough to carry himself through his own pleasure. It doesn’t sound like distress, so he doesn’t stop until he’s spent, going boneless and sweaty as he comes down.
When Buck manages to pry his eyes open, Kim has a tired smile on her face. “Holy shit. I bet he misses that.”
Buck’s forehead wrinkles as he tries to figure out what that’s supposed to mean, but then she’s starting to ease off him, and he remembers he still hasn’t gotten his mouth on her yet. Clearly, it’s much more pressing that he let her dismount before he flips them and slides down between her legs. She gasps, getting a hold in his hair so he checks, “okay?”
Kim nods, that sparkle back in her eyes. “You’re really something, Buckley.”
Keep walking, Buckley. Sounds in his head and he shakes the thought free before he licks an indulgent stripe up her cunt with the flat of his tongue. He prepares to sink into the familiar rapture of eating pussy, of devoting himself entirely to the person in front of him when he looks up and sees her in all her glory and thinks Eddie saw this.
Then it doesn’t matter that she isn’t Shannon. It doesn’t matter that Buck doesn’t normally think of Eddie that way. It’s just admiration.
As he buries his tongue inside her and the taste of come hits him, Buck breaks. He’s hard again in seconds, way sooner than anyone over thirty should be able to be, and god it hurts a little but who fucking cares because Eddie’s been here.
It’s almost like they could be together again.
Maybe that’s what Buck’s tasting. Not his own come mixed with Kim’s but Eddie’s. Would it taste the same?
He’s coming again before he even realizes he’s humping the bed, and thank fuck Kim is, too, shuddering under him as he sucks gently at her clit.
Buck can barely breathe but he does his best to draw it out for her, soft licks to her cunt and light pressure on her pulsing clit. He’s focused. He has to focus.
Eventually, she pushes at his head until he backs off, and she flops back against the pillows with him.
“Fuck, you’re– wow.”
Buck grins, pleased. “T-thanks.” And then, because he’s not sure what else he’s supposed to say, “I, uh, I hope you didn’t mind being here amongst the boxes. I’ve had a uh, a hard time unpacking.”
Kim nods. “That makes sense. It’s not every day your boyfriend moves states. That’s a lot to deal with.”
Boy–
She can’t mean—
“B-boyfriend?” Buck sits up, ignoring the warmth in his chest at the word. “What, do you mean Eddie?”
Kim stares at him, incredulous. “Well, yeah. I assumed based on the way he always talked about you and what you said at the bar that–”
As if Eddie would date Buck. Eddie’s straight! They’re best friends. Partners, sure, but not like, partners. Besides, they’re not even that anymore.
“Eddie’s straight.”
The sound that breaks out of Kim’s chest is wild, some mix between a laugh and a gasp. “You said his name when you came.”
Buck scoffs, because come on. It’s obvious what that was about! “That was for you! You were the one all hyped to have sex in Eddie’s house! I’m just a-a-a a good lay!”
Kim’s eyes are saucers. “I was crying on your shoulder about the guy! And you said all that shit about how amazing he is and how much you miss him, and I thought, no one better to mourn with than the guy’s boyfriend.”
“Eddie is amazing.” Buck retorts, reflexive.
Kim’s mouth opens, closes. Opens, closes again. She turns and looks at the bare wall. “Right.”
She gets up to start gathering her clothes, but they’re not done with this. They can’t be. Kim was clearly wrong earlier, she is crazy.
“He’s straight.” Buck defends, finding a pair of sweats to slip on so he’s not having this idiotic conversation with his fucking dick in the wind. “It’s not like I’m in love with the guy.”
“Buck, you’re living in his house.”
Buck rolls his eyes. “That doesn’t mean anything. This isn’t his house. He was a renter. That was just me being a good friend.”
Kim laughs, sounding almost shocked. “A friend ? The way you talk about each other there’s clearly more feelings than friendship, honey.”
And honestly, who does she think she is? She didn’t really know Eddie. Not like Buck does. She knew a version of him lost in grief and frankly, a little delusional. Because who wouldn’t be upon meeting a stranger who looks exactly like your dead wife?
Now that they’re both dressed those facts are much easier to see.
“Yeah, well, I don’t have to want to sleep with everyone I have feelings for, and I don’t have to have feelings for everyone I sleep with.”
Kim raises her hands in surrender, palms up. “Understood. You’re not ready. That’s okay.”
Buck rolls his eyes. Jesus Christ, why does everyone want him to be hopelessly pining after his straight best friend? He’s not some sad bisexual stereotype. “Right, well. This was fun.”
Kim raises her eyebrows, amused. “It was. See you around, Buck.”
Buck hopes not.
Especially not when she pauses in the entryway and turns back to him. “You know, Marisol was never the competition. You were.”
Buck opens his mouth, but she’s already on her way. Whatever, that insane little statement doesn’t deserve a response anyway.
But as he watches her walk out the door and he’s left in the empty house, he wonders. The silence is deafening until it’s filled with the echo of his own voice. Eddie, please. Then Eddie's. It’s not nothing. Eddie, oh my god, your mouth. This thing between us has been messy and hard. Fuck, Eddie, I’m gonna–
Buck packs a bag and a container of peanut butter cookies and heads back to Maddie’s.