Buck's snoring next to him and Eddie can't fall asleep.
Funnily enough, the snoring is not the direct cause of his insomnia. Yes, it is loud and a little bit annoying —and he recalls Chris through the years often saying he couldn't sleep well because of it, bullying Buck till he's begging for forgiveness and understanding while shooting his adorable, sad puppy look at Eddie— but Eddie is used to it after so many nights hearing it just a few inches away from him.
At this point, for Eddie the snoring it's nothing but a constant reminder that Buck is besides him pretty much alive and healthy, having some crazy dream he will share with him and their kid —'I'm almost nineteen years old, dad, come on!'— over some hotcakes in the morining. Eddie needs this, needs to know that Buck is right here, that he didn't stay dead after being struck by a lightening eight years ago, that he didn't die in a fire he recklessly ran into or drown in a fucking tsunami, crushed by a firetruck or asphyxiated by blood clots.
It's soothing —Buck's presence, the peaceful heaving of his chest and his breath against the naked skin of Eddie's shoulder, the snores so close to his ear and the warmth his body radiates— and it's somehow frightening at the same time because he's terrified of how easy is to be with this man, to have him around, to lean on him; it terrifies him how easy is to love Buck, to be married to him and to raise Chris together and to have his back and–
and how unbearable it would be to lose him, how broken and hopeless and sorrowful he would be.
And that's why he can't fall asleep.
Deeply-asleep-Buck seems to decide that's the perfect moment to take over the whole fucking blanket while shifting in bed, removing his right arm and leg off Eddie's chest and hip respectively, and letting his partner to freeze his ass off in this colder than usual december dawn. Eddie snorts, determined not to allow this betrayal, turns to his right side and ends up facing Buck's gorgeous, broad back full of scars —Eddie's got a fair amount of scars on his skin too. That's what being a firefighter for the last twelve years would do to you— and little freckles. He wants to kiss them, so he does while his left hand finds its way to Buck's belly.
And maybe a bit lower, too.
“Hey” says Buck a moment later, voice raspy and calmly spoken words. Eddie can almost see the gears of his brain starting to run very, very slowly. “What are you doing, exactly?”
“My husband stole the blanket and I'm cold” Eddie answers in that famous irritating, snarky tone of his while still spreading kisses all over Buck's skin. He won't stop loving the fact that both of them are used to sleeping in their underwear anytime soon. “So I'm looking for an alternative way to get all my warmth back.”
Buck chuckles and turns around, wrapping his body —and the blanket— on Eddie's again. Buck is twirling his beard between his fingers and pressing the softest, sweetest kisses on his face and Eddie can't not think that this is happiness, that this is the paradise everyone talk about.
“You know what? I think i have some ideas to accomplish that mission of yours” Buck mutters, his lips on Eddie's and their legs interwined. They're right where they belong.
“Of course you do.”
And Eddie can admit that the sound of his husband's giggles is even better than his snoring.
