ps. i absolutely lovee love lovee your writing style!!!!
hiiii! ahh thank youu so much!! 🫶🫶 and ty for your patience! this was a fun one to write!!
you were probably expecting something angsty with this one, perhaps even a little post eddie getting stabbed number. but. i feel like that’s been done a million times already since the episode aired, and also i was in the mood for something softer so!! please enjoy some buddie suuuuuper platonically coparenting ;)
buddie | g | 1515 words | #20 "you need to wake up because i can't do this without you."
Buck’s alarm hasn’t gone off yet. His phone sits on his nightstand, silent and dark screened, and the digital clock Eddie insisted on plugging in on his side blinks a glowing red 5:28 AM, which means he’s still got nearly a whole hour left of beautiful, peaceful sleep before it will go off — or so he thought.
He doesn’t hear the quiet rattle of the doorknob, or the slow squeaking turn of it. The hinges are silent as the door pushes open, and the footsteps inside are muffled by the plush of Buck’s rug. Buck stays blissfully unaware of the third body now inhabiting his bedroom until it fists its little hands into the side of his comforter and clambers its way onto the mattress, teetering unsteadily for one second near Buck’s knees before a single, high-pitched giggle rings out and the full weight of it flops, unceremoniously, right on top of Buck.
“Oof,” he wheezes, eyes flying open to be met with Theo’s giant, toothy smile and his own big blue eyes mere inches away.
“Woah there,” Buck rumbles, one hand lifting instinctually to cradle Theo’s elbow, the other falling to Theo’s knee, holding him steady and safely on the bed — well, on Buck, because he is still very much squishing all of the air out of Buck’s lungs.
Theo wriggles a little, his heels kicking into Buck’s ribs as he gets comfortable.
“Gamorning, Mr. Poop,” Theo says, giggling some more.
Buck huffs out a laugh, unable to stop the corner of his mouth from ticking up into a small smile even though he knows he shouldn’t be encouraging that nickname. “Theo,” he says, “good morning. What did we say about coming into my room before the numbers on the clock say six zero zero?”
Theo pouts. “To wait ‘till they do,” he recites.
“That’s right,” Buck says. “And they don’t yet, do they?”
“No,” he agrees, and his pout deepens, his lower lip pushing out and wobbling dramatically. “But Buuuck,” he whines, stretching out the vowels in Buck’s name. “My tummy is rumbly! I want breakfast!”
Buck chuckles softly, his own tummy rumbling with it, and he swears he catches the even quieter sound of Eddie laughing too, from less than a foot away. He hasn’t moved, hasn’t made another noise, hasn’t shown any other sign of being awake, but his back is to Buck and Theo, so Buck can’t see his face, and he knows that Eddie is a light sleeper. He knew it before, but a couple months of sharing a bed has really solidified that knowledge. There’s no way Eddie’s slept through all of this.
Which means he’s pretending to be asleep right now. Faking unconsciousness to save himself from becoming the shiny new expansion of Theo’s own personal jungle gym. Leaving Buck to fend for himself, still bleary eyed and fighting back yawns.
If Buck were a vindictive man, he’d redirect Theo’s attention to Eddie’s sleeping form, maybe plant the evil idea of giving him the same kind of wake up treatment Theo’d given Buck into his little head.
But he’s not. He’s a good friend, a great friend, even, and instead of encouraging Theo to jump all over Eddie too, he caves, breaking his own rule about keeping their morning routine consistent.
“Alright, Theo,” Buck says, squeezing Theo’s knee. “Tell you what — why don’t you go into the living room and watch some cartoons, and I’ll be out in a couple minutes to make you some breakfast, okay?”
Theo’s responding cheer is raucous and loud, more of an excited, unintelligible squall than anything coherent. His smile is big again, eyes scrunching up, and he leans forward to pat Buck’s cheek before he scrambles to his knees, then his feet — nearly stepping right on Buck’s kidney and his bladder in the process— to climb off of the bed and scurry out of the room.
Buck listens to the sound of his little feet pitter-pattering against the floorboards, briefly wondering if he should invest in a runner rug if the racing through the hallway is going to become a pattern — which Buck’s sure it will. The twinkle of music from Theo’s cartoons bursting to life and the lack of screams and cries tell Buck that Theo made it without an accident, so he puts a pin in that idea for now.
He flops back against his pillow with a heavy sigh, lying there for one blissfully still moment before he flails an arm out to blindly reach for his phone. When he pulls it in front of his face, the clock reads 5:33. Buck’s eyes flutter briefly shut, mourning the almost forty-five minutes of extra sleep he could’ve gotten if Theo understood alarms and the importance of sticking to them. As it is, Buck figures he’s got maybe five minutes, if he’s lucky, before Theo gets bored and impatient and comes running back in — or worse, tries to raid the kitchen himself. The cereal’s on a low enough shelf that he could do some damage.
Buck is just mentally preparing himself to get up, when from his left comes:
“Oh, I fucking knew you were awake,” Buck hisses, rolling immediately onto his side. It puts him mere inches away from Eddie’s back, and Buck reaches out, curling his hand around Eddie’s bicep.
“Mm, no, m’not. M’still asleep,” Eddie says, trying to shake Buck off of him by curling more tightly into himself.
It doesn’t work. Just encourages Buck to press in closer, practically plastering himself to Eddie’s back now. The concept of personal space is long since forgotten now that he’s got something to prove. Buck props himself up on an elbow too, giving himself enough leverage to peer over Eddie’s shoulder and catch a glimpse of his face.
He only just misses the brown of Eddie’s very open eyes as he squeezes them shut again, turning his face more directly into the pillow to better hide.
“Liar,” Buck accuses, pinching Eddie’s side. He delights in the yelp it draws that Eddie tries so valiantly to stifle. “Nobody can sleep through Hurricane Theo, not even you.”
“Don’t know what you’re talkin’ about,” Eddie rumbles, and Buck can see him biting the inside of his cheek, keeping his smile at bay.
“Eddie,” Buck says, sounding so much like Theo earlier. “Eddie, Eddie, Eddie,” he goads, “come on.”
Eddie makes an exaggerated snoring noise, and Buck huffs his disbelief.
“Come on, Eddie,” Buck pleads. “You’re supposed to have my back, right?" he asks, going for the jugular. “You need to wake up, because I can’t do this on my own.”
Without warning, Eddie rolls onto his back, practically right into the cradle of Buck’s embrace, his shoulder pressing firmly into Buck’s chest and hip knocking into Buck’s too. He peers up at Buck with big, sleepy eyes. They blink slowly, unintentionally emphasizing his eyelashes, long and pretty in the hazy glow of the sun that slips through the curtains. There’s a pillow crease indented into his cheek, a little crust of drool at the corner of his mouth. His hair is mussed, soft and curling across his forehead, and Buck only just resists the urge to brush the strands from his eyes. He lets Eddie do it himself instead, running his hand through his hair, which really only succeeds in getting it to stick up in an entirely new, endearingly adorable way.
Buck’s fingers clench into a fist at his side.
“I’m up, I’m up,” Eddie groans, voice low and gravely from disuse. “That,” he adds, pointing a finger at Buck, “was not playing fair.”
The tip of his tongue pokes out afterwards, wetting his lips, and Buck’s eyes flicker. To the sudden dart of red, to the glisten of spit left against his scar. They stick and they stare, and his breath catches in his throat as he realizes how easy it would be. To lean the rest of the way down and just— kiss him.
Shit. Where did that come from?
“Buck?” Eddie asks after the moment stretches too long without a response, tone going softer.
It’s like a bucket of cold water over his head. “Hm? Oh, uh, you know there’s— there’s no rules in this game,” he says, but it's not nearly as confidently as he would have liked it to be.
Eddie’s eyes dart across Buck’s face, assessing and surveying. It makes Buck feel a bit like one of Paramedic Diaz’s patients.
What doesn’t make him feel like one of Paramedic Diaz’s patients, though, is the way Eddie’s eyes suddenly drop to his lips. The way they linger there. Like maybe he’s also thinking about—
There’s no way. There’s no way.
Buck’s voice is shaky as he starts, “Eddie—”
But, before he can finish, before he can even figure out how he’s going to finish:
“Buuuuuck!” Theo shouts from the living room, the impatience clear in his tone. “Breakfast!”
“Be right there!” Buck shouts back, and his eyes flicker down to Eddie’s mouth one last time, quick and fleeting, before he rolls away from him and out of bed completely.
