falling asleep on each other perhaps 👀
Eddie thinks Buck might be trying to kill him.
Well, trying is a strong word. The death of it all is probably unintentional, but it’s going to kill him all the same.
It starts when Buck shows up for a shift and announces that he and Tommy will be consciously uncoupling.
“Isn’t that, like, divorce?” Hen asks. “Y’all are barely dating. It’s been, what, two months?”
“Two and a half,” Buck says. “Breakup didn’t feel right. Too serious.”
“Pretty sure divorce is more serious,” Chimney points out, and Buck sighs.
“We will be discontinuing our cooperation,” he says, and Hen snorts.
“Didn’t know you guys had a startup.”
“Oh my god,” Buck says. “We’re just not seeing each other anymore, okay?”
“Then why didn’t you just say that?” Chimney asks, and Buck reaches for the closest thing to throw at him.
“Hey,” Eddie says, when Buck finishes fiddling with his cup of coffee and takes the seat next to him at the table. “You okay?”
“Yeah, it’s what—” Buck starts, then sighs. “I mean it’s not whatever, but it’s not a huge deal, you know?”
“So,” Chimney says before Eddie can find a reply. “What’s next? Are you on the hunt for the next guy?”
Buck wrinkles his brow. “When have I ever been on the hunt?” Then he holds up a hand. “Actually, don’t answer that. Buck 1.0 was definitely—but I’m not that guy anymore. I’m just gonna let the universe come to me.”
“That’s a lot of faith to have in the universe,” Eddie says, and Buck—
Buck gives him a look he’s never seen before. One he doesn’t quite know how to read.
“Faith,” Buck says. “Yeah. I’ve got that.”
—
Then comes the touching. And the problem is that no matter how much he wracks his brain, Eddie can’t remember if Buck has always touched him this much or if he’s just suddenly become hyperaware of it overnight.
It’s a thigh pressed against his in the back of the engine, the heat of Buck’s body palpable even through two layers of turnouts.
It’s hands brushing against each other when they walk side by side, and the sudden, absurd impulse Eddie has to just take Buck’s hand.
It’s Buck’s fingers drifting along the back of Eddie’s neck when Buck walks past the couch Eddie is sitting on, and the shiver that zips down Eddie’s spine in response.
It’s all of this, and it’s more, and it’s going to be the death of Eddie because every errant bit of contact makes his blood sing. And what is he supposed to do with that?
—
He knows what he’s supposed to do with it, and that’s the part that’s actually going to kill him.
Because it’s Buck. Bold, brave, beautiful Buck, who falls in love with the world a little bit each day. Who loves easily, and wholeheartedly, and has only ever wanted someone to love him the same way. And Eddie—
Eddie would give Buck everything he has. But how could it ever be enough?
It’s not enough that Eddie wants. Buck deserves more than that, more than the small, atrophied part of him somewhere deep inside that remembers how to want.
Buck deserves the world. All Eddie has to give him are the fractured pieces of all the different people he’s been, soldier father husband son, glued together as best as he can.
But it’s hard to remember that, here on the couch in the firehouse loft in the shadows cast by the kitchen lights, the only ones left on in the middle of the night. It’s hard to remember that when Buck is asleep with his head pillowed on Eddie’s leg, curled in towards him, his face relaxed and unwrinkled in sleep.
It’s hard to remember that when Buck shifts, searching, and settles when his hand fists in the hem of Eddie’s shirt.
It’s getting harder to remember day by day, but it’s also getting harder to believe. Because when Buck opens his eyes and blinks the sleep out of them, his soft, murmured hey sounds a lot like the first word of the rest of his life.
send me a swoony prompt!






