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It starts, like far too many things in Buck's life do, with an injury.
A sprained ankle, to be exact - nothing more than a blip in the long string of Evan Buckley's many bumps and bruises, ranging from minor inconveniences to potentially life-ending trauma. This particular sprained ankle, however, is quickly escalating from a minor inconvenience to a pretty major one, and the main culprit is one four-year-old who's now far too mobile for a specific foster dad who's under strict instruction to keep his ankle iced and elevated.
Said four-year-old is also due at baseball practice for his little league team in approximately 30 minutes. Buck is sitting on his couch, half-dressed, ice pack wrapped around his foot, wondering how he's going to take Theo to practice when he can barely tilt his foot downward onto the gas pedal of his jeep. He feels a headache building up behind his eyes, flexes his jaw slightly to try to dissipate it, and slumps on his couch, reaching for his phone.
Maybe the sprain triggered some latent magical ability of his, because the moment he lifts his phone, it starts vibrating. There's a picture of his best friend smiling dopily at the camera lighting up the screen, a big EDDIE across the top announcing his incoming call, and Buck doesn't think twice before answering. Words come spilling out of him before before he even hears the click of the call connecting.
"Oh thank god, Eddie. Theo's got his little league practice in like half an hour and I usually take him but I went to the doctor because my ankle suddenly started hurting a lot more after that fall on that tree call yesterday and they said it's sprained and now I don't think I can drive and I haven't even gotten Theo dressed and I don't kno-"
"Buck," Eddie's voice is slow, calming in its even cadence. Buck's mouth clamps shut, as if on instinct. "Relax. I figured."
There's a rap on his front door. Buck glances between his ankle and the door, mentally routing the best way to get to the front door without putting too much pressure on his bad side.
"Don't answer that, I'm just making sure you don't have a heart attack when I come bursting in. Keep that foot elevated."
The front door pushes open, and Eddie saunters in, his eyes scanning Buck in a quick physical assessment. He must be satisfied with what he sees, because he easily turns his attention to Theo, who's now clinging to his knee.
"Eddie!" Comes Theo's excited yelp from next to him.
"Hey there, bud. I heard Buck got hurt?"
"Yeah, he has to sit on the couch alllll day now."
"Well, he needs to rest. But not you, though. I heard you have baseball practice," Eddie says, ruffling Theo's hair slightly.
Theo nods, and declares, "I like baseball!"
"Since Buck's stuck on the couch, I'm gonna take you. You wanna go put on your jersey?"
Theo nods excitedly, and Eddie herds him into his room. After a brief moment, Buck hears someone rifling through drawers, and an endearing 'Aha!', before Eddie pads out of Theo's room.
"You didn't need to do this," Buck starts. Eddie doesn't grace this with a response, choosing instead to quirk an eyebrow at Buck, then stare very pointedly at his sprained ankle. Buck sighs. "How'd you even know he had practice today?"
Eddie nonchalantly busies himself with tidying up Buck's coffee table, littered with a couple protein bar wrappers from his snack earlier today. Shrugging, he says, "You mentioned something about it on shift yesterday. Figured you'd probably have a little trouble wrangling him after that fall."
The warm embrace of affection wraps itself around Buck's chest. He had mentioned, once, totally off handed that Theo had been really enjoying his Thursday baseball practice. And Eddie had clung to that information like gospel. Before he can stop himself, Buck finds himself smiling.
Eddie has moved on to picking up stray toys scattered across the floor, carefully placing them into Theo's box in the corner of the living room.
"Hey, bud, you ready yet?" Eddie calls out toward Theo's room. Theo comes running out in response, now sporting his baseball jersey. Buck watches as Eddie's entire face melts with fondness at the sight, and suspects his own face is doing something similar.
Before shepherding Theo out the door, Eddie cranes his head over his neck to peek at Buck once more. "Chris is at a sleepover tonight, so I'll bring Theo back and hang with you guys tonight? Anything else on his schedule I need to take him to?"
Buck thinks better of protesting, the dull throb of his ankle telling him he needs the help. Besides, it's Eddie - they've always had each other's back. He relaxes further into the couch at the thought.
"Not today," Buck says. "You know, how about I just share my Google calendar? It has all of Theo's appointments on it."
"Great," Eddie says easily, like the very act of entangling their lives via digital scheduling was a foregone conclusion. "I'll sync it with mine so you can see Chris' schedule too." He shoots Buck a final grin as he slips out the door, the distant rumbling of Eddie's truck soon fading into the distance.
Buck stares at the closed door for a moment, the sudden silence oddly sobering. Like Eddie's very presence had addled his senses, made him feel slightly tipsy, lost in some euphoric high. He opens the calendar app on his phone, clicks the 'Share' button, and keys in Eddie's email quickly. Too quickly, as if he's worried he'll stop himself if he hesitates.
He does his level best not to think too hard about it.
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Turns out, sharing a calendar with your best-friend-slash-co-parent is the best idea Buck and Eddie have ever had. They develop unspoken routines, work as a well-oiled machine, a wholly coherent family unit. It becomes a reflex, wordless understanding, how Eddie knows to swing by to pick up Theo whenever Chris gets out of school 15 minutes before Theo does, how Buck has lunch cooked on weekends when Eddie and Chris drop by after Chris' robotics club and before Theo's therapy appointment. How family dinners get scheduled without a single word passing through either lips, but with a simple calendar entry. Like clockwork, they show up for each other.
Nowadays, Buck doesn't think twice about adding to the calendar. He's started to add even the most mundane reminders to himself, throwing in a "buy Theo's cereal" onto Tuesday, when he knows he'll likely be making a grocery run, or a quick "thank Maddie for the firetruck toy" on Friday, when he's planning to meet her for lunch.
It's for the sake of convenience, he justifies to himself, and his newly-diagnosed ADHD thanks him for it.
And if on Tuesday morning, when Eddie swings by to pick up Theo for school, Buck sees him quietly place a box of Theo's favorite cereal on the kitchen counter, he doesn't protest. He simply hums, deletes the reminder from his calendar, and lets his heart do three somersaults in his chest.
───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────
Buck is standing in Eddie's kitchen, a likely place for him to be on any given day, balancing a plate of pancakes in either hand. It's a day similar to most others - he'd checked their calendar the night before, seen 9am - Breakfast at Eddie's, and gone to sleep with a sort of warm reassurance he's grown accustomed to. At 9am, he and Theo are dutifully slipping into the Diaz residence.
Warm undertones of gold peek through the windows of Eddie's kitchen, and Buck grants himself just a second to bask in it momentarily. Syrupy sweetness worms its way into his nose, tickling his throat. Whether it's from the pancakes Eddie got up early to prepare, the ocean of maple syrup Theo's practically poured onto his plate, or from the domesticity of his family sitting down for breakfast, Buck can't tell. He's not too bothered either way.
Padding his way to the dining table, he places one plate in front of Eddie, and one in front of himself. Eddie's attention is flitting between Chris, who's animatedly explaining the project he'll be working on in robotics today, and Theo, who has somehow spread maple syrup all across his cheeks.
He watches as Eddie reaches for a paper towel, folds it gingerly between his fingers, more tenderly than he expects from those large, calloused hands, and wipes the syrup from Theo's face carefully. Theo giggles with each wipe, and each laugh reverberates across the room. Beautiful, Buck thinks, not sure whether he's referring to the sound of laughter, or Eddie himself, resplendent in the morning glow.
He studies Eddie closely, how his unbrushed morning hair sticks out endearingly at odd angles, how the soft smile he's pressed on his face tugs ever higher at each word Chris says, how lovingly he reaches over to slide the bottle of maple syrup out of Theo's reach. And the though strikes him at once, like something ever-present, all-consuming. Something that's been sitting dormant inside his chest for years suddenly demanding his whole being.
I'm in love with Eddie.
He almost drops his fork. The realization crashes into him a little like a sucker punch, and he feels an unintentional exhale as the air leaves his lungs.
Oh god. I'm in love with Eddie.
Before he can physically react to the thought again, Theo is blinking up at him, the maple syrup incredibly now invading his forehead, dangerously close to his curls.
"Buck, can I have more pancakes?" Theo trains his large, round eyes on him. Buck's heart goes weak.
"Why don't you ask Eddie? He's the one who made the pancakes," Buck smiles back.
Theo turns his eyes toward Eddie, pleading, "Please, Eddie?"
Eddie simply chuckles, and Buck feels his heart thumping in beat to every vibration of Eddie's throat. How had he never noticed the way his whole body soars at the sound of Eddie's voice, the way his whole head turns to zero in on wherever Eddie is in a room? How every inch of him longs to touch, hold, press up against him?
"I think I have an extra pancake," Eddie winks, and god has he always been that attractive? "But maybe we should hold back on the syrup this time, huh?"
Chris snorts. "I think he's only asking for more pancakes as an excuse to eat more maple syrup, Dad."
Theo gasps, his ploy having apparently been found out. He swipes the bottle of maple syrup from the table and hops off his seat, laughter ringing out as he runs around the dining area, with Eddie pretending to give chase.
Alright, so Buck is definitely in love with his best friend. But with a four-year-old running circles around him, remnants of pancake stuffed in his mouth and maple syrup slathered impossibly across his entire face, Buck really doesn't have time to think about that right now.
So he does what every responsible adult with any sort of structure in their life would - he schedules his mental breakdown for a later date. Pulling out his phone, he navigates deftly to his calendar, and eyes a free day a little over a month from now. October 15th, as good a date as any, he supposes. He blocks out a 3 hour time slot with an event titled 'Process the fact that I'm in love with Eddie', and swipes the app away without a second thought.
There. He's got it handled. It's on the calendar, which means he safely file this thought away into some deep recess of his mind for now and get back to the issue at hand. The issue that involves many wet paper towels, lots of scrubbing, and failing that, probably a whole second bath for Theo.
The calendar is a godsend. In fact, he adores it so much that it completely slips his mind that said calendar happens to be the one he shares with his best friend.
───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────
Buck finds that he's surprisingly good at compartmentalization. Sure, does he want to reach over and plant his lips on Eddie's every time he gives that breathless half smile he's wont to do? Yes. Does every word from Eddie's mouth make his face heat and ears burn? Sure. Does every small brush of their fingers and little touch make him feel like electricity is surging through every nerve in him simultaneously? Obviously.
But he's so good at pretending this is all just best friend stuff. At least, till he has time to sit down and process this, he has to pretend this is normal, regular, really really close best friend stuff.
They're sitting in the loft of the firehouse, Ravi and Harry playing Mario Kart on the television, Hen with a book on the couch, her attention divided between the words on the page and very close race on screen. Chim is seated further back, finishing some paper work from their 24 hour shift, which is only an hour from wrapping up.
Eddie's munching on a cookie, pencil in hand and brow furrowed as he's trying to parse a particularly tricky crossword clue. Buck slots himself in next to Eddie, despite there being much more room on the couch closer to Hen, and leans over to peer at Eddie's crossword.
Hurry after romantic's latest squeeze (5).
"Crush," Buck says, his throat scratchy.
Eddie frowns, his eyebrows knotting together again. Buck wants to kiss the little scrunch he gets in the middle of his forehead.
"I don't get it. How's it crush?"
"Hurry is rush. Romantic's latest is the letter C. C followed by rush. Squeeze is the definition," Buck explains, trying to keep his tone even to not betray the fact that his stupid crush is making his heart beat something wild in him. "And it's uh… it's a pretty good one. It can mean squeeze as in physically squeezing something and crushing it. Or it can mean um…"
Eddie's eyes tick up, a light flicking on behind them. It ignites something deep in Buck's gut. Buck nearly gets on his knees.
"A romantic interest. Like having a crush on someone," Eddie says, voice low, his lips dangerously close. Far too close for Buck, who's desperately holding on to his last thread of sanity. Buck nods, not trusting that he can even produce words at this proximity to Eddie's rosy cheeks.
Eddie leans back and pencils in the answer, looking pleased.
They sit like that for a little while, and Buck lets the sounds of the loft wash him over. Lets the hitched breaths of Harry and Ravi as they consecutively overtake each other underscored by the sounds of the Mario Kart soundtrack try to make him forget every lustful thought he has about his best friend who's sitting next to him, their knees knocking every time Eddie shifts in his seat.
"Hey, Buck," Eddie suddenly says, and Buck jumps a little, startled out of his thoughts. He feels a little like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Just a Buck caught with his mind deep in thoughts of kissing his best friend stupid. Eddie tilts his head towards Buck and gives a little half-smile, and Buck actually feels his heart skip a beat.
"Y-yeah?" He says, sounding so totally normal.
Eddie huffs a small laugh to himself, as if endeared, then continues, "I saw that they're doing a special exhibit at the aquarium next week on sharks. Was thinking we can go next week? The four of us?"
Theo's deep in his shark phase at the moment, roping Buck and Eddie into 'playing fish' nearly every night, which largely consists of Theo pretending to be a shark and chasing the two of them around. He's also requested for his shark plushie to grace his bed every night for the past two weeks. Chris has been regaling him with shark facts that Buck remembers telling him when he was younger.
That is to say, Buck's heart does that traitorous thumping again, and his knees go weak. "I-I'd love that. Um. Theo would love it too," he manages.
"Great. I'll put it on the calendar," Eddie says, pulling out his phone.
From across the loft, Hen raises an eyebrow, smirking slightly. "You guys share a calendar?"
"Yeah," Eddie offers easily. "Makes it easier to coordinate stuff with the kids."
Eddie's still fiddling with the calendar on his phone, so Hen turns her full attention to Buck, leveling him with a knowing look. Buck feels blood rushing to his face, his ears, but presses his mouth into a neutral line, trying to shrug casually. He thinks it comes out more as a flail. Which - appropriate, considering he feels like he's absolutely drowning.
He's working so hard to not be weird about this that he nearly misses when Eddie suddenly stills. His eyes are on his phone, and Buck catches them widening, before he schools his expression. Blinking, he looks back up to Buck, looking a shade paler than before.
Pressing a smile onto his face, he stutters out, "Uh I- um. I've gotta. Go take a quick shower. Feel kinda uh- gross. Shift's almost over anyway. So um. Yeah. Okay." He stands and hustles off to the showers.
"Okay," Ravi huffs, setting down his controller, pointedly not looking at the television declaring his 2nd place finish behind Harry. "That was weird." He gestures toward the loft stairs that Eddie had just disappeared down.
"Buck's being weird too," Harry adds, proudly setting his controller down next to Ravi's.
"N- No I'm not," Buck sputters. "We're both being super normal."
"Eddie just ran out of here like he saw a ghost," Ravi says, completely deadpan.
Hm. Buck thinks. That was weird. He pulls out his own calendar, checks the schedule for today. He sees a single entry from Eddie for tonight, 7pm - Help Chris with his science fair poster.
"Aha!" Buck declares. "Chris' science fair poster is due soon. I guess Eddie just forgot about it till he checked just now."
Ravi looks skeptical, but drops it. Harry, however, only chooses to narrow his eyes. "That doesn't explain why you're being weird."
"I am being completely normal," Buck says, in an even tone that someone who's desperately in love with his best friend and dying about it could totally never manage.
Harry rolls his eyes, unimpressed, then picks the controller back up. "Rematch?" He offers to Ravi.
Ravi nods and picks up his controller as well. Buck turns his gaze onto Hen, who's still looking at him with that half-smirk, a knowing glint in her eyes, like she's reading him to filth.
Buck gulps, trying to soothe the dryness in his throat, and looks back at his phone. Chris had mentioned that he'd need very specific markers for his poster, and Buck needs to figure out which Office Depot has them in stock. He's definitely not just trying to avoid looking Hen in the eye.
───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────
Buck is buzzing as he enters Eddie's home at 6pm.
"Where's Chris?" Buck asks, balancing a couple bags of art supplies and placing them down carefully onto the coffee table.
"At a friend's place. He'll be back before 7," Eddie answers from the kitchen. Buck hears the sink running in the distance. "You bring Theo?"
"Nah, he's staying at Maddie's. I thought Chris would probably need to work with no distractions. The poster's due this Friday, right?"
Eddie emerges from the kitchen, giving a quick noise of assent while wiping his hands on a towel. He stops at the threshold between the dining and living room, eyes locked on the many bags sprawled around. "What's uh… what's all this?"
Buck grins, letting the excitement of helping Chris with a science project carry his voice. "Art supplies! I didn't know what board Chris wanted to go with, so I got a couple options. He really liked that blue corrugated cardboard one we used last time, but maybe he wants to switch it up? And I got some colored paper too, didn't get too many ribbons because I think we have some left over from last time. And he asked specifically for these markers, but the first three Office Depots I went to said they were out of stock, even though their website said they had them, so I had to drive to Pasadena, but I managed to find them!"
Eddie looks floored, gaping slightly as his eyes swing wildly from Buck to the art supplies. Buck clamps his mouth shut, studying the look on Eddie's face.
Then, Eddie laughs. It's a beautiful sound, Buck's heart sings with it, his brain supplying a harmony. The smile on Eddie's face reaches up to his eyes, pulling at the laugh lines all across his face. Eddie crosses the living room in a few quick steps, reaching his arm out to rest on Buck's shoulder. The contact sets Buck on fire, but he'll gladly burn himself alive to bask in it.
"Holy shit, Buck," Eddie breathes. "Is this what you've been doing since shift ended?"
Buck shrugs, careful not to jostle Eddie's hand off him. If he had it his way, they'd be surgically attached, so he'd have Eddie touching him forever. "There was traffic to Pasadena."
Eddie huffs another laugh. "Buck," he says, impossibly fond. "You went to 4 different Office Depots for my kid. Well, our kid."
It's Buck's turn to be a little breathless, as Eddie's statement pushes a shocked exhale from him.
"You know, I think of myself as a patient man," Eddie continues. "But I think I've gotta compress the timeline a little."
"W-what?" Buck tilts his head, deeply confused.
"That thing you've got scheduled next Thursday. I need you to move it up," Eddie says, using his free hand to fiddle with his phone. He opens the calendar app, and turns his screen toward Buck. There it is, next Thursday, in a blatant blue box, bolded letters. 2pm - Process the fact that I'm in love with Eddie.
Buck blanches. His heart long abandoning the concept of a rhythm, now threatening to thump its way out of his ribcage expediently. Buck kind of hopes it does, a quick death seems preferable to facing the consequences of his actions at this point. He feels numbness, almost like static, flood through every inch of his body. His tongue sits dumbly in his mouth, useless.
He opens his mouth. He needs to explain, needs to apologize, needs to let the carpet swallow him whole.
But Eddie is smiling, eyes still squinting with the effort. His two rows of perfect, white teeth on full display for Buck. Still a little breathless, but with an air of playfulness now, Eddie says, "You love me."
Buck nods dumbly. No other part of his body seems to be cooperating at this point.
"I'm uh- I'm gonna request for you to move the processing up to now, bud. Before I say the next thing I have to say," Eddie gently squeezes Buck's shoulder.
Buck blinks. Once. Twice. And his body finally decides to relax into Eddie's touch.
"Okay," Buck says, a little too quickly. "Processed. I'm done. I love you."
Eddie's smile is still easy as he chuckles to himself. "That was fast. You had a whole 3 hour block scheduled."
"Eh. I should've known I wouldn't need it. Loving you is pretty straightforward."
He watches in real time as Eddie's cheeks glow a beautiful shade of red. He'll make Eddie blush like that every day of his life if he can.
Eddie clears his throat, scrolling a little on his phone. "G-Good. Um. I'm gonna move something up too."
Buck glances back at the calendar, and sees something scheduled on 22 October, a week after his original scheduled freak out. 8pm - Come out to Buck.
"Come out to-" he reads.
"I'm gay," Eddie says plainly. The space between them stretches with a bit of a taut tension, as Buck sees something like fear flash in Eddie's eyes, shakiness in his breath, a slight wavering in his resolve. Almost immediately, the tension melts into tenderness, Buck's hands wrapping themselves around Eddie, clinging to him like he's the last bastion.
"I'm so proud of you," Buck says into Eddie's neck. Eddie buries his head further into Buck's embrace, and Buck feels Eddie's tense shoulders relax as he grips Buck tightly.
Buck practically has to peel himself off Eddie after a while, fighting off an intrusive thought to grab the glue gun from Chris' art supplies and make their embrace permanent, so he never has to go without Eddie's warmth ever again.
"There uh… there's one more thing I gotta push up to today," Eddie admits, suddenly a little shy.
"Yeah?" Buck asks, eyes alight.
Eddie presses his phone into Buck's hands, using his index to scroll a little further to reveal another appointment scheduled on 29 October, another week later. 9pm - Tell Buck I love him too.
"Well?" Buck smirks, his tone distinctly teasing. "I'm waiting."
Eddie rolls his eyes, but there's only affection in his expression. He tilts his head forward, staring straight into Buck's eyes, unblinking.
"I love you too, Buck."
If Buck thought he was blushing before, he can't imagine the deep burgundy radiating off his face now. He feels all the heat in his body rush into his cheeks, and the laugh that rises out of his throat, completely unintentional, sounds honest to god like a schoolgirl's. Eddie's smile grows bolder, enjoying teasing a reaction out of Buck.
"Wait!" Buck suddenly yells, and Eddie freezes. "Were you gonna make me wait a whole week between you coming out and telling me that you love me?"
Eddie barks out a choked laugh. "I didn't think that hard about it, Buck. I rushed to pencil it in after I saw your appointment earlier today."
"Eddie, you know that waiting a whole week would have killed me. I would've catastrophized like… at least twenty times!"
"Well," Eddie pouts. "You didn't even schedule a time to tell me you loved me. I had to… infer."
Buck is left a little speechless at that, frowning a little petulantly back at Eddie. "Well- You- You should've moved the coming out up the schedule, then," he argues, but can't stop the slight smile tugging at his mouth. "How would I have known you were even an option?"
Eddie huffs a little indignantly, then lets the tension melt from him a little. His voice is small as he admits, "I was kind of scared."
"Of me?" Buck points at himself, incredulous. "Your bisexual best friend who came out to you?"
"Not that you wouldn't be accepting. But that you'd come to the next logical conclusion - that I'm obviously so in love with you that it triggered a late-in-life sexuality crisis," he says, eyes clamped shut from the effort of baring his soul so plainly. "And that you didn't feel the same."
Buck has no choice but to laugh a little manically at that. There isn't a universe, he thinks, where there exists a Buck who isn't in love with his Eddie. The thought is simply unfathomable, untenable. "Never," Buck says effortlessly.
Eddie blinks up at Buck.
"There was never a chance I didn't love you back."
"I know," Eddie says, and it sounds truthful. "I guess I got in my own head. Kinda dumb of me."
"Dumber than an accidental love confession via Google calendar?"
"Maybe we both need to stop being dumb," Eddie says, his voice dropping a register, adopting a much more dangerous edge. Something hungry flashes in his eyes. "I'm gonna kiss you now," he states. Matter of fact, like an immutable truth.
Buck nods. He's never nodded quite so quickly, nor quite so eagerly before in his life.
Their lips crash into each other, ravenous. Buck feels his lips settle onto Eddie's, and for a moment, he feels something like calm satisfaction wash over him. Like he's been searching his whole life for something, bouncing from place to place, trying to wriggle himself into the small gaps afforded to him in the cracks of other people's lives. But here is a whole person, whose every contour has been perfectly sculpted around him, their lips clicking together like two long-lost halves finally made whole.
He leans in, and Eddie's body moves in time with his, a dance they've long perfected without the need for rehearsal. Buck gets a little lost in the delirium of the taste of Eddie's lips for a moment, pulling at him, wanting more, more, more-
The front door creaks open, and Buck and Eddie both jump, quickly pulling away and turning to see a very exasperated teenager standing in the doorway.
"Hey! Chris! Um… You're early!" Eddie stammers, trying for a nervous smile.
Chris shakes his head - a small, fond gesture. "Yeah, I wanted to get a head start on that poster," Chris says, a slight smirk at the corner of his mouth.
"I went a little crazy with art supplies," Buck offers weakly, gesturing vaguely to the coffee table.
Chris laughs, eyes sizing up Eddie first, then flying over to study Buck. He grins, and slyly adds, "You know… I also have access to the shared Google calendar."
Eddie coughs. Buck tries to pick a really interesting corner of the house to look at.
"I saw a couple of really interesting additions earlier today," Chris says, nonchalant.
Buck notices a cobweb in the corner he's been staring at. Wow, he should really help clean that. He thinks he can sort of make out Eddie turning a concerning shade of red in his periphery, doing something that looks suspiciously like burying his head in his palms.
Chris huffs out a laugh again, then finally relents. "If you were in fact kissing before I came in, congrats," he says lightheartedly. "But next time, can you guys keep your weird gay mating rituals off the family calendar? I actually use that for scheduling."
Chris chuckles at his own hilarity as he stalks off to his room to set down his backpack. Buck turns to Eddie, and find that they're both looking at each other with the same kind of relieved disbelief, laughter fighting its way out of both their chests as quick bursts of exhales.
"Well, that went well," Buck says.
Eddie smiles, but crosses his arms. "Yeah, but I don't agree about the family calendar." He's pouting again, a slightly juvenile tone seeping into his voice. "Think I'll be using it for more from now on."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. In fact, I think I've got a proposal to schedule."
Buck feels his heartbeat tick up at that, but it only makes him feel more alive.
"Hm," he huffs, defiant. "Not if I schedule one first."