Buddie!AU ā A blackout traps Buck in his apartment, the storm outside no match for the one brewing between him and Eddie. One visit to ācheck inā turns into charged touches, unspoken confessions, and a night of raw, unrestrained heat that neither of them can come back from.
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The city had been humming all day, the way Los Angeles always did - like it was holding a note only it could hear, thrumming under skin and concrete. Neon buzzed. Air conditioners groaned in overworked unison. Traffic droned on the streets far below, its noise curling up into every high-rise balcony and open window.Ā
It was a familiar soundscape, relentless in its constancy.
And then it was gone.
The blackout didnāt announce itself - it swallowed the city whole.Ā
One moment, Buckās apartment had been humming faintly with the refrigeratorās compressor, the soft click of the hallway light, the distant swell of someoneās TV in another unit. The next, it was silence. Heavy, unbroken. The kind that makes you feel like your own breath is too loud.
Out beyond the glass, the skyline was nothing but shadow.Ā
No billboards glowing over Sunset, no scattered windows lit like constellations in the towers across the street. It was as if LA had been wiped clean in a single sweep, stripped of every distraction, left raw and quiet beneath the looming dark.
The storm filled the absence quickly. Rain slapped against the window in heavy sheets, each drop racing down the glass in twisting rivulets before vanishing into the blur below.Ā
The air carried that smell you only get in the first hours of a downpour - wet asphalt, ozone, something metallic lingering in the back of your throat. A flash lit the horizon in a jagged white scar, and the thunder followed a beat later, rolling deep and slow, like some massive creature turning in its sleep overhead.
Buck sat motionless in the middle of it all, sunk deep into the couch.Ā
Heād found three candles in a drawer - a stubby one on the coffee table, two taller ones perched on the windowsill. They gave off just enough light to pull his features into relief, carving him out of the shadows one flicker at a time.
Fresh from the shower, he still smelled faintly of soap and steam, the warmth clinging to his skin in waves. His hair, darkened and heavy with leftover damp, curled tighter than usual, a few strands falling stubbornly across his forehead.Ā
Droplets from his earlier rinse were still sliding down the line of his neck, catching briefly in the hollow at his collarbone before disappearing beneath the cling of his shirt.
The shirt - an old, soft thing, pale and worn thin from countless washes - clung to him in places it never wouldāve if heād had time to dry off properly. The fabric was damp enough to show the shadow of muscle underneath when the candlelight caught it just right, stretching across the plane of his chest, the pull of his shoulders. The collar was loose, slipping slightly to one side, revealing a triangle of warm skin and the faint line of his collarbone.
Below, heād pulled on only a pair of grey sweatpants, no boxers underneath, the waistband hanging low on his hips from where heād tugged them on in a hurry. The cotton pooled loosely around his thighs, bunching when he shifted his weight. His bare feet rested on the couch cushions, toes curling slightly against the fabric.
The apartment felt different without the usual hum of electronics - bigger somehow, the walls farther apart. Every sound sharpened in the quiet: the restless hiss of rain against the window, the occasional groan of pipes in the building, the faint pop of candle wicks as they bent and straightened in the heat. Time stretched in that darkness, no clock glowing on the microwave to remind him of how quickly or slowly it was passing.
He watched the storm without really thinking about it, eyes tracking the chaotic dance of the raindrops.Ā
A strong gust would slam water hard enough against the glass to make the frame shiver, each hit a reminder of just how thin the barrier between him and the outside really was. The candlelight shifted with the drafts sneaking in through the edges of the windows, casting shadows that moved over him like someone elseās hands might - hesitant, lingering, unpredictable.
His mind was quiet, emptied out in the way it only got after the kind of day that left his muscles heavy and his head too full to focus on anything. He didnāt bother with his phone; it sat somewhere on the counter, its battery percentage unknown. There was no urge to break the silence with music. The blackout had given him something rare - a pocket of stillness where he could justā¦ exist.
But it wasnāt the kind of stillness that made you feel alone.Ā
It was weighted, humid, electric in the way the air gets before something changes. It made his pulse feel just a little louder in his ears, made every shift of fabric over his skin feel deliberate.
And he didnāt know it yet, but somewhere in that darkness - on wet streets lit only by the occasional lightning flash - someone was already climbing the stairs to his door. Someone carrying the exact kind of change that night seemed to be promising.
The storm had settled into something steady now, the rain falling in unbroken sheets that painted the city in sound.Ā
The candle flames swayed with the draft crawling under the window frame, shadows shifting and stretching across the apartment walls like they had a life of their own. Buck had lost himself in watching it all, breathing with it, until the sharp chime from his phone sliced through the quiet.
The noise wasnāt loud, but in the blackout it felt amplified, like a drop of ink in clear water.Ā
His eyes cut to the counter, where the faint rectangle of his phoneās face glimmered before fading again. He moved slowly, the couch cushions sighing beneath him as he stepped forward, his feet hitting the cold tiles under it, his damp shirt clinging tighter across his chest and back.
One message.
Eddie:Ā Iām here.
Two words, clean and unassuming, but Buck felt his body react before his mind caught up. A pulse in his throat. A warm tightening low in his belly.
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