Archive of Our Own

“I’m sorry—what the hell did you just say?” Buck asks, turning quickly to face Chimney at the dining table where he’s doing paperwork.

The two had been shooting some brotherly shit while Buck got breakfast prepared for the crew before shift change which turned into Buck lamenting about how—while he loves having Theo around, grateful he had the means to become his foster parent, every day is a new adventure, et cetera, et cetera—sometimes he just… really misses sex.

Relationship sex. Casual sex. Wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am (or -sir, or -Mx., but those don’t rhyme) sex.

Hell, he misses being able to get off by himself, but when you split your time between being a public servant and corralling a still-grieving preschooler while still having to do all the regular adult responsibilities that come with keeping both you and said preschooler alive—and, shit, he left the damn grocery list on the fridge—you have to ration your energy wisely or else you end up falling asleep in your dinner and all your coworkers will take pictures before waking you up.

(He learned that one the hard way.)

There’s also only so many times in a row he can strip his own cock in the few minutes of alone time he has in the shower before it just starts to feel—routine.

Routine is not the way Buck ever expected to describe his sex life.

So, yeah. He misses sex, and he was saying that very casually in conversation with his brother-in-law, as one does, to which his brother-in-law replied, “Why don’t you ask Eddie? You spend all your time together anyway—an afternoon delight can’t be weirder than everything else you two’ve got going on,” before pausing and murmuring, “Plus, he’s good at it.”

Which is when Buck whipped around so quickly it probably could’ve registered on a radar speed gun.

Now, pointing a wooden spoon at Chimney, he asks, “What do you mean ‘he’s good at it’?”

And since the universe is so kind to Buck, this is when Eddie comes up the loft stairs. “Who’s good at what?”

Eddie, his best friend. Eddie, who had come out to Buck almost a week ago and to the rest of the team a few days after. Eddie, who Buck near-immediately knew without a doubt he was in love with once the realization he was an option had sunk in—probably tripped off that cliff and started falling the minute they had declared they’d have each other’s backs—which meant he’d probably been in love with Eddie for… who fucking knows how long? Certainly not Buck.

Just spectacular timing all around.

He ignores the trepidation on Chim’s face as he moves to point the spoon at Eddie and says, “You. At sex. According to our captain.”

Eddie stops in his tracks, hands immediately coming to clasp together in front of him in a familiar show of nerves as his eyes bug out. “Uh. What?”

“That’s what I would like to know,” Buck replies. “Would either of you care to elaborate?”

He watches as Eddie turns to look at Chim. There’s more eye bugging, eyebrows raising and lowering paired with emphatic hand gestures, some headshaking and grunting, when finally, after whatever unspoken agreement comes to pass, Chimney sighs. “There may have been an encounter once,” he finally says.

Buck slowly and deliberately puts the spoon down in an attempt to quell the impulse to throw it on the floor like a child having a tantrum and tries to take a deep, calming breath. “W-when? When would you two have had this ‘encounter’?”

“Right before I shaved off my mustache,” Eddie cuts in before Chim can respond.

“Still a damned shame it’s gone if you ask me,” says Chimney, shaking his head.

Calming, his ass. Buck feels like he’s been hit over the head with one of the skillets he’s been using. “You cheated on my sister? You helped him cheat on my sister?!”

His eyes dart between Eddie and Chimney as they make quick eye contact once again before looking back at him, both shaking their heads no.

Buck might not have kept his lightning-math powers, but he knows two plus two still equals four. Or in this case—two plus one equals three. “Oh my god. Oh my fucking god.”

At that, Chimney stands and uses his thumb to indicate over his shoulder. “You know what, I’m gonna go call my wife.” He uses the same hand to point at Eddie. “You good to…?”

Eddie nods, and Chim takes his leave down the stairs.

And then there were two.

“Are you going to let me explain?” Eddie asks, hesitantly making his way around the island.

Buck, suddenly very thankful he was nearly finished with breakfast prep, feels his hands start to go numb and has the foresight to turn off the burner he had been using to crisp up hash browns. “I’m gonna pass out.”

(One time when he was still a probie, Buck accidentally hit his elbow really hard on the railing as he was going downstairs to use the gym. It barely registered on his pain scale, but a moment later he felt numbness creeping up his entire arm and only just managed to sit down on the weight bench in time for him to completely pass out, which is how he learned that your funny bone is actually your ulnar nerve and sometimes if you hit it too hard—well.

Right now he feels like that.

It’s a miracle he isn’t already laid out on the floor.)

“Okay, drama queen,” Eddie amusedly scoffs. “This isn’t the first time you’ve heard something about my sex life.”

And, sure, he has. He knows that Marisol liked morning sex and Ana could do this thing with her tongue and Shannon once came from nipple stimulation alone and none of that matters anymore because Eddie is gay and Buck is in love with him and now he literally has to bite his tongue to stop from imagining Eddie sitting in the sidecar to Chimney and Maddie’s motorcycle as the three of them ride off into the sunset together while Buck stands in the middle of the road watching him go.

Again.

But he can’t exactly say that right now, so—

“Well your exes aren’t my sister and her husband, Eddie!” Buck exclaims, throwing his hands in the air. “They were women you were committed to because you are a self-proclaimed nester!”

Eddie scrubs a hand over his face. “Buck—”

And, once again because the universe has either the best or the worst timing, Buck can’t find out what the rest of that sentence is supposed to be because the bell rings.

“We’ll talk when we get back,” Eddie says, briefly gripping Buck’s shoulder before running off to the ambulance.

Not if I have a choice, Buck thinks, then makes his own way down to the engine.

Howard Han is not an actor by trade. Things like lying and keeping secrets have never been his stronger suits, but he is a big fan of the arts. Drama. Theatrics, if you will. So when a clear opportunity to dust off his Hotshots skills fell into his lap, what else was he to do but grab it by the horns?

He taps the button to call Maddie before his office door is even shut.

“Hey, what’s—”

“Buck knows.”

Maddie’s silent on the other end. He knows she knows what he’s talking about, and she knows he knows she knows what he’s talking about.

There’s only one thing he could be talking about.

“And how did that go?” Maddie asks, sounding apprehensively curious.

Chimney shrugs despite her inability to see. “I got the f–heck out of Dodge as soon as he figured it out.” He grimaces, thankful he remembered in the nick of time that she’s probably in the car with three sets of little ears right now. “Eddie’s talking to him right now, but I bet you’ll be getting a much different phone call sooner rather than later.”

She chuckles. “Thanks for the heads up.”

“Anything for my very smart, amazing, talented, crazy, beautiful—”

The tones go off.

“—wife.”

“Ah, stay safe. See you tonight, love you.”

“Love you too. Good luck with Buck.”

He can hear the smile in Maddie’s voice as she says, “I’m the older sister—I’m not the one who’s going to need luck.” She adds, “And you’ll be reaping that pause I heard between ‘crazy’ and ‘beautiful’ firsthand when I get home from work,” before promptly hanging up.

God, he loves that woman.

Buck works on autopilot for most of the call. He would usually feel bad about that, but it’s an MVC with the worst injury of the lot being some cuts from window glass shattering in the impact, so he’s cutting himself some slack.

His brain needs the autopilot.

If he turns his brain on he’ll start thinking about Eddie having a threesome, which in and of itself isn’t exactly an issue, but.

But!

But this threesome involved—nope! He isn’t thinking about it.

If he was thinking about it—which is not a thing he is doing—the reason he’s turned himself into a walking husk isn’t even because Chimney was involved. All things considered, Eddie could have done a lot worse than Chimney. Like of course Buck feels some type of way about finding out that Eddie had sex with a guy already and it wasn’t him—but he can’t blame Eddie or Chimney for that, especially when it happened before Buck was even aware that he had feelings for Eddie.

(He will, however, likely find a way to blame himself for it later, when he can feel all his limbs and his blood stops feeling like lava coursing through his body.)

It’s the third party that’s really shivering his timbers.

Even if Eddie had been wrong about when it happened, thanks to a late night can’t sleep everyone a little too loose-lipped conversation from right after Eddie joined the 118, Buck knows that Chimney hadn’t had a threesome by then. Given that Eddie was still Catholic-guilt-married in the gap between that night and when Chim and Maddie started dating for real, there’s really no way for Buck to pretend it could have happened in the interim.

He might’ve witnessed Chimney make some questionable choices while he was dating that lady who dumped him while the rebar still held his body heat, but Buck is sure Chim would never cheat on Maddie.

Ergo.

Though what’s really burning his toast—because yeah, okay, he’s thinking about it!—is that deep down he knows that Maddie’s suspected Buck has had feelings for Eddie for years.

So why would she—

“You good, Buck?”

Buck startles in his seat at Hen’s question from the open cab door. He has no recollection of leaving the scene, but apparently they made it all the way back to the station with him just… going through the motions.

“Eddie asked me to tell you he had to run to make it on time to drop Christopher off at his bus to camp so he’ll see you later.” Her eyebrows draw slightly together. “You guys made it back before us and you’re still sitting here… why?”

He pulls out the easy excuse. “Jus’ tired. You know how it is when they’re that age.”

She squints at him. “Mmkay… At least get to a bunk if you need to power nap before you go home. You don’t wanna get caught up in here if B-Shift gets called out,” she finishes with a smack to the engine’s exterior.

“B-Shift?” he asks, then looks down and notices Hen is in her civvies. Shit, how long had he been completely out of it?

“Shift’s over,” she nods. “Traffic on the way back, another car accident. The house that’d been dispatched had it handled, it was just blocking more lanes than ours. You know people don’t know how to merge and rubber-neck at the same time.”

Buck huffs. “Ain’t that the truth.” He stretches his legs as best as he can in front of him as he unbuckles his seatbelt. “Thanks for knocking me back into the real world.”

Hen raises an eyebrow but doesn’t ask him any more questions. “I’ll see you when I see you. Give Theo our love, and don’t put off talking to Eddie.”

“Eddie?” He chuckles nervously as he jumps down. “W-why? You know something?”

Her other eyebrow joins the first as she replies, “I know that something is up with you because of the robot act you’ve been doing since we got to the scene.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, sounding obvious even to himself that he does, in fact, know what she’s talking about.

“Then we both don’t know anything,” Hen says, smiling with all of her teeth before she turns and starts walking away. “Bye, Buck. Talk to Eddie!” she tosses over her shoulder with a wave.

Buck waves back even though she won’t see it and then drags his hand down the side of his face.

Sure, maybe he’ll talk to Eddie. But there’s someone else he wants to talk to first.

After getting changed, Buck ended up making sure the breakfast he started was still edible for a very thankful B-Shift before they got called out to a—well, he wasn’t listening so he actually has no idea, but it means he was able to waste a few minutes before going out to his truck.

He waits until the third red light before he presses the call button. He hasn’t been hesitating at all! Fighting fires is part of his job description; he can handle one phone call with his sister about—

The ringing cuts off as Maddie answers and he doesn’t even let her say a full hello before he’s blurting out, “How could you have had a–a threesome,” he whispers the last word despite no one else being able to hear him, “with Eddie? You barely talk to each other!”

There’s a beat of silence before she says, “‘Hi, Maddie. How are you, Maddie? Thanks for taking Theo to daycare after his sleepover with Jee, Maddie!’”

“Yes, thank you. You were going there anyway with your own children, but thank you,” Buck says dryly. And he really is grateful for everything she’s done to help him, especially lately, but now? Now is not a time he feels like waxing poetic about the appreciation he has for their sibling bond. “How, Maddie?” he repeats.

She sighs. “Have you talked to Eddie?”

“Why does everyone keep telling me to talk to Eddie!” Buck runs a hand through his hair, tugging his curls out of place in frustration. “I’m not trying to talk to Eddie right now. I’m trying to talk to you.”

“Okay, first of all, what is wrong with you? Eddie and I are friends. Besides regularly seeing each other at 118 gatherings over the years, we worked at Dispatch together for, like, three weeks before he recertified.”

He can really hear the duh, dumbass in her tone.

Maddie continues, “And second of all, excuse me for not wanting to talk to my little brother about what goes on in my bedroom.”

“Jesus Christ, Mads!”

She tuts, and he can hear the eyeroll in her voice as she says, “Well, it’s not like you think Jee and Nash were delivered by storks.”

“Of course not,” Buck sighs. “But this is…”

Her voice is gentler as she completes his thought. “This is… Eddie?”

He clenches the steering wheel, knuckles turning white. “I just don’t understand. You know—”

And here’s where he should say it. He should tell someone he’s in love with Eddie even if he doesn’t currently have any plans to tell Eddie (he’s been thinking about waiting for a respectable amount of time to pass since his coming out, so, like, a few months that actually will probably be less than three weeks because how can Buck keep these feelings hidden from Eddie now that he knows), but.

But!

But maybe he just found out Eddie had sex with his sister and brother-in-law and doesn’t exactly feel like being forthcoming about his inner feelings with the aforementioned sister.

Maddie doesn’t wait for him to decide how to end his statement. “I know that you should talk to Eddie.”

“Maddie.”

“Buck.”

He groans as he makes the final turn onto his street. “Why won’t you just answer the question?”

“Because I don’t think ‘you were dating your first boyfriend, we both have working eyes, would any sane person turn down an opportunity to see Eddie’s eight-pack up close and personal’ is what you actually want to hear right now.”

Actions, meet Consequences.

If he keeps driving he can get to the nearest bridge in less than three minutes. Just a swift yank to the right and it could be over quickly. Theo would be fine after losing a third parent to a smashed car, right?

Buck shakes his head to clear his thoughts. He’s fine. Maddie was right and he learned a lesson in real time on pressing a complicated issue—one that he will surely forget again—but he’s fine now. He would never actually drive off a bridge. Perfectly fine!

Eddie might’ve been right when he called him a drama queen, though.

“Thanks for reminding me about that wasted period of my life,” Buck says flatly. “And just because you have eyes—oh, shit. Shit.”

“What ‘oh, shit’? Why ‘oh, shit’?”

Because the universe still has jokes. “Eddie’s parked in my driveway.”

Maddie barks out a laugh. “Of course he is. Just talk to him, Buck.” She sing-songs, “Love you, goodbye!” and hangs up before he even gets a chance to protest the abrupt ending to their conversation.

Buck makes eye contact with Eddie still sitting in his own truck as he pulls in. They cut their engines and unbuckle at the same time, in sync as they are with most things despite Buck feeling like he got knocked out of orbit a few hours ago.

Here goes nothing, he supposes.

Maddie rinses the last wine glass out before putting it into the dishwasher and turns to grab the last stack of plates from Eddie, who’d politely offered to help clean up so Chimney could check on Jee-Yun and Nash. As she takes the plates in her own hands, she asks, “Does Buck know?”

Eddie had come out to them and the Wilsons earlier in the middle of his turn for Clue (a Star Wars edition, one of Chim’s most prized possessions for whatever reason) by simply saying he probably should’ve realized he was gay two decades ago when he binged the series before going to see Revenge of the Sith and didn’t have eyes for anyone else when young Obi-Wan was on screen.

There was silence for a second before Hen grabbed him by the shoulder to shake him, stunned laughter wracking her body as Karen launched her chair back to run around and give him a hug. Maddie watched briefly as Eddie and Chim exchanged that man-nod that could encompass anything and everything from cool, man to proud of you to love you, bro before her eyes turned to look at her brother.

Her brother who clearly wasn’t surprised by the news like the rest of them were given the small, knowing smile on his face.

The blatant heart-eyes, however, were new. Maddie is used to the Buck-and-Eddie of it all, the oblivious comments that lean more towards spouse than best friend, the way their eyes linger when the other isn’t looking.

But tonight, instead of the longing glances she normally sees etched in her brother’s eyes, Buck looked at Eddie like he could picture their whole future together in a single glance. It nearly brought tears to her eyes, seeing him look so settled within himself.

Whether or not he knew that’s what his face looked like, well. That would be a question for another day.

Eddie hadn’t been any better, eyes tracking Buck any time he moved across the room like he had an unreachable quota to meet.

One Maddie’s sure he wouldn’t want to meet anyway.

As the group returned to their usual level of game night excitement, she smiled at Eddie and reached over to squeeze his hand as she said, “Thank you for sharing that with us,” before she moved on to the most pressing question: “Now are you going to roll the die?”

Game night continued as normal from there until Buck went to check on the kids and came back with a fully conked-out Theo on his hip, speeding through his goodnights so he could get the boy home to his own bed, with Hen and Karen leaving not much longer after that.

(As they were walking out the door, Karen whispered to her that maybe they’d be able to call game night “date night” out loud soon, like they’d been doing in secret any time they knew Buck and Eddie were going to show up together.

Maddie could only hope it would be sooner rather than later.)

Now, Eddie’s eyebrows scrunch in confusion, hands frozen in front of him from where she had taken the plates. “Yes? He was the second person I came out to.”

“Not that.” She lightly swats a dish towel in his direction. “Are you going to tell him you’re in love with him?”

Eddie blanches, his entire posture stiffening, and she watches his eyes dart between her own before his shoulders slump like a marionette whose strings were suddenly cut. “Is it that obvious?” he asks with a slight groan.

Chuckling softly, Maddie replies, “If it’s any consolation, I don’t actually think Buck has any idea.” She tips her head forward. “I do think you should fix that though.”

“I don’t know if he has feelings for me like that,” he says, shaking his head. “He hasn’t acted any differently since I came out to him, and he’s already got so much going on right now—I don’t want to add ‘trying to figure out how to let me down gently without the fear of ruining our friendship’ to his plate. You know he’d find the exact spiral to somehow blame himself for not reciprocating.”

A plan rapidly forms in her brain. Usually she wouldn’t meddle in her brother’s love life like this (though she did wish she’d given him a nudge away from Tommy after Buck’s unceremonious ‘coming out’ at her wedding), but after years of suspecting and finally having tangible proof these boys love each other, she’s simply tired of waiting.

Maddie smirks and asks, “Want to test the theory?”

“I’m only here to get my grocery list,” Buck says as he walks past Eddie to his front door. He doesn’t check to make sure Eddie’s following him, but when he makes it three paces inside and does an abrupt about-face—of course Eddie is there, closing the door behind him.

He looks soft as he leans back against it, and so unfairly beautiful, and like everything Buck has ever wanted.

And suddenly what he wouldn’t let himself think about, didn’t want to say, is bubbling right out of him. “I just–I just don’t understand how this could’ve happened! Is this why you asked Maddie to bid on you at the auction? Were you hoping it would happen again? Chimney is our boss, Eddie. What about the damn chain of command?” He groans, knowing he sounds crazy as Eddie just watches on with an alarmingly calm (and fond; he looks so fond of Buck right now that it might actually be driving him crazier) expression on his face, but Buck’s brain and his mouth aren’t friends right now. “What did you even—who did you—” His eyes widen with his latest intrusive thought. “I figured out Maddie was pregnant right after you shaved the stache off. Could Nash—”

Eddie jolts, his composed silence finally breaking—to guffaw. “Bud, I’m gonna need you to remember how long pregnancies usually take, then picture your nephew and think real hard about which one of his parents he currently looks more like. And Chim wasn’t captain back then,” he adds.

“I can’t do math right now, Eds! I am obviously going out of my mind!”

Eddie grins as he nods, eyes crinkling in the corners. “So out of your mind I’m pretty sure you just tried to ask for the specifics of whose body was where—when you and I both know you don’t want to know that.”

Buck did in fact just learn that lesson minutes ago in the car.

“Are you going to let me explain now?” Eddie asks, taking a half-step closer, just enough to no longer be flush with the door.

There’s nothing Buck can think to do to put this off any longer so he shrugs, shoulders all the way up to his ears, and waves his hand in a way he hopes conveys I guess if you have to but I think I’d actually rather stub my pinky toe on the coffee table.

Eddie’s eyes narrow—because even if Eddie didn’t get all that from the gesture, Buck realizes he started involuntarily grimacing, bracing for impact with his face instead of his thoughts—then dart around the room before landing just slightly over Buck’s shoulder, brows furrowing together. “It was a nice idea, you know? I never got the chance to sow any wild oats before my life had to get real serious real fast, and like you said—I am a nester, so I don’t think I ever would’ve just–just gone out and done anything like that, but… the idea of throwing caution to the wind, of getting to experience something like that with friends, with people I trust, with people who I knew could move past it in a way where it wouldn’t be awkward or weird after… was nice.”

Buck has the briefly insane thought to be thankful that at least this happened with a couple who cares about Eddie and not one practicing the swiss-cheese version of ethical non-monogamy like Jade and Zane. Thankful!

“But in practice,” Eddie continues, “in practice it doesn’t really matter—the specifics, the why, whatever else—because… the threesome never happened.”

There’s cotton in Buck’s ears. There’s cotton in his ears, or he stuck the Q-Tip too far in after his last shower and ruptured something—he must have a delayed ruptured eardrum. That’s probably a thing! He’ll look it up later, hopefully he’ll remember when his hearing comes ba—oh, there’s ringing now. That’s usually a good sign, right?

“Sorry, I can’t—can you repeat—what?”

“I didn’t have sex with Maddie and Chimney. I just… let you think I did,” says Eddie, shrugging a shoulder.

Buck’s eyes blink rapidly as he finally processes, exclaiming, “You lied to me all morning?!”

Eddie shakes his head. “Technically no? Chim said there might have been a time that it happened—and there was a joke made once after a game night you weren’t at, which is the ‘when’ that I said earlier.” He dips his chin down. “Then we both said no when you asked about cheating on Maddie.”

“But I just talked to Maddie and she said—”

“When she came up with this—because this whole thing was her idea—I told her I didn’t want to lie to you at all. So whatever she said—it probably had the same flavor of avoidance.”

Buck skims over their phone call in his head and finds that Eddie’s correct—Maddie had been a bit cagey before she said he wouldn’t want to hear that any sane person would turn Eddie down. He can now clearly imagine her unspoken qualifier: “And I’m insanely in love with my husband and don’t want anyone else, idiot.”

His eyes lock back with Eddie’s. “So—why? Wait, actually—how were you going to explain if we didn’t get called out before breakfast?”

Eddie cringes. “Honestly, I have no idea. I didn’t know Chim was gonna say anything yet, so I was just praying you’d need to take some space so I could figure that out.”

“And it was just you three in on this… whatever? Not Hen or anyone?”

“Just the three of us,” Eddie confirms with a nod. “Chimney was supposed to find a way to ‘slip up’ and Maddie and I would back him up when you had questions.” He tilts his head to the side as he says, “On the ride back it did kinda seem like Hen knew something though, so Chim might’ve told her already.”

“Okay, so, again.” Buck backtracks, “Why? I can’t seem to think of a single good reason for any of you to want me to think you had group sex with each other. Have we not had enough weird shit going on in our lives lately? Was it supposed to be a prank? A funny joke? Because I’m not laughing, Eddie! I’ve spent all morning trying not to imagine you pretzeled up with—” He cuts himself off as he really takes in Eddie’s expression. He’s smiling like the cat who got the cream, but the look in his eyes—it’s one of the fondest gazes Eddie has ever thrown Buck’s way. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Because,” Eddie starts, smile widening in the way that really emphasizes the pinkening of his cheeks, “I am incredibly in love with you, and I’m pretty sure you’re in love with me, too.”

The cotton must still be in Buck’s ears, and that feeling of being hit over the head with a skillet from earlier has returned with a vengeance. He understands the words, and he understands them in that order, but he doesn’t understand them coming out of Eddie’s mouth.

“You—me?” Buck rapidly shakes his head. “Hold on. Y-you had sex with my sister because you’re in love with me?”

“Again, I did not have sex with your sister. Or Chim. Or anyone but myself in a very long time.”

Buck can’t get distracted by the image of Eddie touching himself right now. There’s important shit happening here, he assumes, if he could just string a single thought together.

He notices suddenly that he’s drifted closer to Eddie since his brain did a hard restart. He wants to reach out, to feel Eddie’s skin on his fingertips, but he still feels like he’s missing important context. “How did you come to that conclusion? That we’re in love with each other. Because, don’t get me wrong,” Buck swallows, “I-I am in love with you, Eds, but why did I have to think you had a threesome for us to be standing here?”

Eddie’s the one who bridges the gap between them, taking Buck’s hands and lacing their fingers together as he huffs out a small laugh. “Maddie thought it would be the fastest way to prove to me you felt the same. Called me right out after game night.” He shrugs. “I bet they’re all pretty sick of us after how many years we’ve been oblivious to what’s been right under our noses.”

Buck looks, then, at what’s right under Eddie’s nose—lips that’ve been appearing in his dreams since long before he knew why. “I bet you’re right,” he says, stepping closer to Eddie, leaving little room for anything but their still-clasped hands. “I think this is the dumbest plan that’s ever worked.”

“Maddie might be an evil genius.”

Buck chuckles lowly as he leans in, moving until he’s a hairsbreadth away from Eddie’s mouth as he whispers, “I don’t want to talk about my sister anymore.”

Their lips meet, and what Buck expected to be a gentle, tender bookend to their mutual confessions quickly becomes heated as Eddie lets go of his hands to turn them around and shove Buck up against the door.

Fully pressed against one another now, Eddie grips at Buck’s waist as his tongue slips into Buck’s mouth—and Buck’s a goner. The desire he’s felt every time he looks at Eddie that had become a low hum in the back of his mind—one he’s been doing his best to ignore—suddenly becomes a symphony.

He’s already half-hard in his jeans, hips rolling to try and find any form of friction, and feeling Eddie’s own growing erection has him letting out a moan which Eddie swallows with enthusiasm.

Buck’s fingers thread through Eddie’s hair as Eddie starts mouthing across his jaw. Eddie nips at his pulse, but doesn’t stay long enough to leave a mark. Buck doesn’t whine about that at all.

Okay—he’s a liar, and he’s whining, and it makes Eddie grin against his neck.

“I won’t leave a mark that can be seen if you get a random visit from Deidra,” he starts, coming back up to briefly suck Buck’s bottom lip into his mouth, teeth tugging on it as he pulls away before finishing, “but I promise I’ll give you however many you want the moment we have some real time alone.”

Buck whimpers, then surges forward to bring their spit-slick mouths back together.

Eddie slowly moves his hands up Buck’s sides, rucking up his shirt as they go. They make a home on his ribs, and for some reason this specific placement makes Buck feel held completely—the devotion obvious in the touch of Eddie’s palms—until Eddie’s thumbs brush lightly over his nipples, causing Buck to dislodge Eddie’s hands as he keens forward with another moan.

He’s rolling his hips faster with encouragement from Eddie’s hands now on his ass urging him on, Eddie’s own hips stuttering forward as he gasps into Buck’s mouth, when suddenly the pressure is gone, Eddie no longer standing in front of him. Buck opens his eyes, and the sight he sees makes them roll into the back of his head: Eddie, on his knees, looking hungrily up at Buck.

“This has been the weirdest fucking day of my life,” Buck murmurs. “How is this real?”

Edde’s hands hook behind Buck’s knees as he—Jesus fucking Christ—as he sways forward to nuzzle against Buck’s clothed cock. Peering up at Buck, he says, “Well if you want me to get back up…”

Buck threads a hand through Eddie’s hair, using the other to cradle Eddie’s jaw. “You can do literally whatever you want, no pressure, but I would really love it if you kept going,” he says, brushing his thumb along Eddie’s cheekbone.

Eddie leans into the touch, looking up at Buck with his gorgeous eyes wide as he says, “I would really love to get you in my mouth,” then places a gentle kiss in the palm of Buck’s hand.

Nodding once, Buck squeezes Eddie’s shoulder briefly before his arm drops limply to his side as Eddie’s hands start climbing up the back of his thighs. He’s already close, closer than he thinks he’s ever been this quickly, and he’s finally going to have a release with a partner—with Eddie fucking Diaz, no less—and it’ll be a miracle if he lasts long enough for Eddie to get what he wants: Buck’s cock on his tongue!

Buck can hardly believe it still.

Eddie begins to undo Buck’s belt buckle—and his phone fucking rings. His phone fucking rings, because the universe hates Evan “Buck” Buckley.

The despondent groan he lets out could probably register on the Richter scale.

Eddie’s hands fall away as he sits back on his heels. “You wanna check who that is?”

Buck shakes his head despite moving to pull the device out of his pocket.

“Shit,” he rasps, seeing the name of Theo’s preschool on screen and showing Eddie before he answers and puts it on speakerphone. “Hello?”

“Hi, Mr. Buckley? This is Melody from the front office at Stepping Stones Childcare. Have I caught you in the middle of anything?”

He watches as Eddie pushes himself to stand. Only the rapidly fading potential of life-changing orgasm, he thinks, but instead says, “N-no, it’s fine. Is–is Theo okay?”

She sighs on the other end of the line. “He is technically fine, but he’s… Well, he’s got a marble stuck up his nose. We tried pushing it back out on our own but it seems like it’s going to need medical intervention. He’s breathing fine and is being his normal rambunctious self otherwise.”

Buck closes his eyes, head thudding back against the door. “I’ll be there as fast as I can.”

“Thanks, Mr. Buckley. See you soon!” Melody says, too cheerful for the circumstances in Buck’s opinion, and the call ends.

“Raincheck for mouth stuff,” Buck says with an exaggerated pout as he looks back at Eddie, shoulders slumping.

Eddie chuckles, wrapping his arms around Buck’s neck. “We have time, bud. Rest of our very long lives, if we’re lucky.”

Buck’s heart appreciates the sentiment, it really does, but his dick on the other hand—his dick was really looking forward to making Eddie’s acquaintance.

He sighs and says, “You’re right. I know you’re right,” as he knocks his forehead on Eddie’s shoulder.

Eddie scratches through the short hairs at the nape of Buck’s neck. “You wanna divide and conquer—you take Theo to urgent care, I go get groceries—or d’you wanna go together?”

“This might be coming on too strong considering we haven’t gone on a date yet,” Buck says with mirth as he straightens back up, “but I think I could spend every minute of every day with you and still want to lose sleep so we could spend even more time together.”

“Good,” Eddie says, pressing a quick kiss to Buck’s mouth. “Me too. And that means we can stop to get ice cream cones on the way to the store.” He looks up at Buck through his lashes. “Might even give you a demonstration of what I was going to do with my mouth when Theo isn’t looking.”

Buck’s jaw drops, giving Eddie the opportunity to lick into his mouth just enough to tease. He whimpers, again. “Eddie.”

Eddie gives him a shit-eating grin in response as he pats Buck’s flank. “C’mon. We can figure out how to milk Chim’s inevitable guilt for extra baby-sitting on our way.”

God, I love that man, he thinks.

And he can say it out loud now, too. “I love you so much.”

“I love you too,” Eddie replies easily, pulling Buck out the door. “How long do you think it’ll take before he loses his mind?”

Chimney doesn’t even make it to their next shift before he spills his marbles to Buck.

Buck, prepared for this to happen, negotiates an entire childfree weekend on their next 96-off (Eddie had talked him down from also adding a drum kit and a Mickey Mouse plushie that repeatedly plays the hot dog song to his list of future presents for Jee-Yun and Nash) “in recompense for emotional damages.”

He and Eddie use every minute of that time wisely. Between the tender, life-affirming sex he anticipated, Buck gets absolutely pounded into the mattress, Eddie rides him within an inch of his life, and makes good on his promise to mark Buck up as much as he wanted, giving Buck a veritable necklace of love bites along his pecs and traps—which Buck eagerly returns, making Eddie’s ass look like he got a very thorough cupping massage.

They’re lying satisfied in Buck’s bed, sweat-damp and sticky from their latest round, when Buck lifts his head off of Eddie’s chest to ask, “D’you think you’d wanna have an actual threesome? I don’t think I’d ever want to share you, if I’m being honest.”

Eddie traces lines up and down Buck’s arm as Buck watches him think the question over. After a few moments he says, “Thinking about it is kinda fun, right? But I just…” He pauses. “I don’t think it’s for me. I need the connection to be there, y’know?” He moves to hold Buck’s chin between his thumb and pointer finger. “And I don’t want to share you either.”

Buck places a kiss over Eddie’s heart before laying his head back down. “Great. No threesomes for either of us, and I never have to think about the threesome you didn’t have ever again.”

Eddie stiffens slightly underneath him, hand going still where it had migrated back to his arm, before sighing. “Chim and I did kiss in front of Maddie once.”

Buck lifts back up so fast his back cracks. “What the hell did you just say?!”