i thought i loved you (it's just how you looked in the light) [5.3k]
for @bucksear who sent the prompt: "I don't want to be your best friend. I want you more."
He loves the kitchen sink and the drying rack on the counter, because he always washes and Eddie always dries and sometimes when he dries he chips the grey bowls and breaks the white plates, but it doesn’t matter because he bought the set second hand and really, they don’t need more than three plates, three bowls, three mugs, and three forks.
“Just three?” Maddie asks.
“Yeah, me, Christopher, and Eddie,” he says, like it’s obvious.
Maddie gives a knowing smile. “And Taylor?”
He shrugs. “It’s not like the four of us hang out.”
“So who’s plate is she borrowing when they leave?” Buck stays quiet. She sets her mug on the table. “Moving out might help, but no matter where you go, you’ll only have three plates.”
(In which Buck hates his apartment, breaks up with Taylor, and makes a long overdue confession.)
[ao3 link]
It’s a quiet night. No work, no obligations, just a sofa and a movie. Buck sits on one end, Taylor sits on the other, a blanket around her lap, and he comes to the conclusion that he hates his couch. The leather sticks to his skin in an uncomfortable way and the cushions never stay in place.
They watch the TV in silence, some documentary Taylor was dying to see, and Buck comes to the conclusion that he hates his TV stand. The lamp in the corner is all too bright, the coffee table is too neat, and the floor-to-ceiling windows drown him, especially at sunrise, noon, and midnight.
He unsticks himself from the leather to rest his legs on the coffee table, carefully avoiding the glasses of water, and Buck comes to the conclusion that he hates his coffee table. It’s too shiny, too neat, and he knocks his legs on the corners at least three times a day.
“Are you okay?” Taylor asks as the TV goes dark. He didn’t realize the movie ended.
“Fine,” he says, “just tired.”
She nods, grabs her phone, and leads them off to bed.
They sleep, and it’s nothing remarkable, but when the morning comes, the top sheet bunches at the end of the mattress, the duvet is all too thick, Taylor’s hands are cold, and the sunrise burns his chest. Buck rolls over, hides his eyes in the pillow, and comes to the conclusion that he hates his bed.
Taylor sleeps while he cooks, brews coffee, and cleans the kitchen. He forgets about the girlfriend in his bed until she rushes down the stairs, swipes a waffle off the table, and kisses him goodbye as she speeds off to work.
“Thank you, but I’m already late,” she says when he offers her a mug.
Even with a counter full of food, an empty sink, and a beautiful view, Buck still hates his apartment.
He never used to. When he first moved in, Buck was thrilled to have his own place, his own kitchen, bed, and balcony. He’s only used the grill twice, but at least it’s his. The plants are his too, and he waters them all on his own with his pitcher and his sink.
He never used to hate the loft.
But now?
Buck goes to work surrounded by friends. Buck goes home. It’s not really home.
Half his mugs gather dust. He only ever sits in the one barstool and one corner of the couch. The fruit bowl is mostly for show. Buck loves the paint stain Christopher left on the dining table more than any piece of art he could ever hang.
Taylor loves it. He has his own apartment, a real, adult apartment. The decor is modern, the view is incredible, and in the year they’ve been together, he’s only seen her apartment once.
Taylor loves the loft. Buck still hates his apartment.
He spends his day off cleaning, though the broom doesn’t quite reach under the couch. So he moves the couch. Tries moving the TV stand too, but if he moves the TV, the sun will always leave a glare. There’s nowhere else for the couch to go. He rotates the coffee table. It looks exactly the same; too shiny, too neat.
Buck goes upstairs to try to move the bed, but no matter where he goes, the sun still shines. He should buy blackout curtains. No, he should give up. He moves a few picture frames, rearranges a few books, but he still hates the bed.
wish you would write a fic where buck and eddie are silly and married <3
Eddie’s alone in the grocery store. Well really, he’s alone in the pasta aisle where Buck left him, somewhere between the rigatoni and mostaccioli.
They’ve been married for a year, he really shouldn’t be surprised by this anymore.
Here’s how it goes: Buck spots an ingredient that reminds him of a recipe, and he takes off to find everything else he needs before he forgets. Which would be fine if he ever told Eddie where he was going. It gets worse when they’re shopping with Christopher, because he always wanders off with Buck, leaving Eddie to guess where they’re going.
And he loves his husband, so, so dearly, but shopping with him is a nightmare. He makes lists with no intention of following them, wanders off, and throws chip bags down the aisle trying to land them in the cart (his aim is awful, but at least Eddie’s good at catching).
Eddie debates leaving the aisle to find Buck, but knowing him, he’s shopping at a superhuman speed and will most definitely come back looking for him with some random assortment of items in hand. It’s almost a game, trying to look at Buck’s handful of groceries and follow his train of thought.
“Anything I can help you with?” he hears at the end of the aisle. “You seem a little lost.”
“Oh, I’m just looking for my husband—” Buck says, scanning over her head. His face softens when he spots Eddie, “—who I just found.”
Eddie smiles back, taking a few steps forward to grab the onion slipping from Buck’s hand.
“Hi.”
“Hi,” Eddie laughs. “Where’d you go?”
“Well we were getting pasta, and I saw the macaroni and I decided I wanted to make mac and cheese, but we don’t have any cheese so I had to go grab that before I forgot,” he points around at all the ingredients in the cart, “and—oh and breadcrumbs—I had to grab those too and I couldn’t decide between Italian and Panko so I just got both and then I couldn’t remember if we were out of butter—”
“—We are.”
“Good, because it was buy one get one, so I had to get two boxes.”
“And the onion?”
Buck stares into the cart, trying to follow his own thought process on that. “Is it on the list?”
“No,” he says, “but I’m sure we’ll find a use for it.”
“I’ll use it for the cheese sauce?”
And Eddie could pull out Buck’s list, make fun of him for writing it even if he never follows it (though Eddie’s not much better about following his own lists), but it’s endearing how he gets so excited about something as simple as a pasta dish, and even after years of home cooked meals from Buck, his chest still aches at the smell of garlic and onion on the stove.
“Sounds perfect.”
At this point, they’re loitering in the pasta aisle, and blocking, well, everything, but Buck’s still smiling at him in the gentle way that makes his eyes crinkle at the corner, and Eddie never stood a chance really. He kisses his husband, short and sweet, takes him by the hand, and pulls them on to the next aisle.
“Next time you wander off, tell me where you’re going.”
“I’ll just take you with me,” Buck squeezes his hand.
“Even better.”
tell me what fic you wish i'd write, and i'll tell you how i'd write it
Eddie comes home to the sound of running water, whistling, and a wave of piano ballads from the kitchen. He sheds his jacket and shoes by the front door and smiles when Buck misses a note, too focused on the dishes to notice Eddie’s footsteps or the click of the lock.
He watches Buck for a moment, head bouncing to the music, hands traveling across pots, pans, and drying racks.
“Hey,” is all he says. Buck jumps, suddenly aware he’s not alone. He shuts off the water and leaves the towel hanging on the edge of the sink, scrambling to turn down the music and find a reasonable explanation. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”
“I should’ve heard you sooner,” he says. “How was it?”
He shrugs. “Just as awkward as any other parent-teacher night.” Eddie leans against the fridge, careful not to disturb the magnets. “Christopher’s asleep?”
“Out like a light.”
“You’re a—”
“—miracle worker?” he finishes, just like the time before, and the time before, and the time before. He’s become predictable, though there’s something comforting hiding within that routine.
“Something like that,” Eddie smirks. “You can just leave the dishes.”
Buck shakes him off. “I made the mess, I’ll clean it up.”
Eddie accepts his offer, but wordlessly steps beside him to help. He switches the soggy, water logged towel for a clean rag, and goes to work drying and sorting the plates.
Rinse, dry, repeat. Rinse, dry, repeat. They make light work of the mountain in the sink, but it’s the coffee mugs that stop Eddie in his tracks. Below the cabinet, just off to the right, is a glass tank filled with far too many pebbles, lights, and fake plants.
“How did this fish get here?” Eddie points down at the aquarium sitting proudly on the kitchen counter, towards the side, below the window.
Buck turns around, biting his lip, considering the truth and considering a funny story.
“Don’t be mad.” He starts, as all bad stories do.
“Buck.”
“I just think the two of you would get along.”
“Buck.”
“Okay, therapy sucks. Spilling your guts sucks. And the worst part is when you come back home, and you just have to sit there alone thinking about how much it sucked.” He wrings his hands and stares at Eddie, stares with those gentle, loving eyes with the little creases right in the corner. So much of him wants to help. So much of him is hard to resist. “You said you didn’t want an emotional support dog. Or an emotional support pig. Which is understandable, but you even said no to the cat, so I thought—“
“—A therapy fish?”
“His name is Waffles, and he’s a betta fish.”
Eddie crosses his arms. “An emotional support betta fish.”
“I never said that.” Buck pushes off the counter, hand in the air. “Your words, not mine.”
He looks down at the aquarium and watches the fish, Waffles, drift back and forth, blue fin drifting behind him. He swims laps, he dives down, he stares through the glass with his beady fish eyes. It’s an elaborate set up, one which Buck definitely spent too much time and money assembling, but the fish seems happy enough, which must count for something.
Eddie sighs, still staring through the water. “I can’t take care of a fish.”
“Sure you can,” Buck bounds over, sorting through the stack of jars and cans next to the tank. “Food goes in the water. Waffles eats the food. Filter cleans the water. You make a new friend. Easy.”
“Not easy.”
“Easy.”
“Buck.”
“Look, if you really don’t want him, I’ll take him to my apartment, but I think Waffles would be very happy with you and Christopher,” he says, almost begging. “You take care of him, he takes care of you.”
if you need me, call me, no matter where you are
dispatcher!eddie, based on the 5b trailer and that one time abby gave buck a tracheotomy because can you believe that's a real thing that happened. 1.8k
“Is your radio broken?” Eddie asks.
“No?”
His face twists. “Then why are you calling me?”
“Because I’m off duty and you’re, like, the third best medic I know,” Buck says. “And I’m pretty sure giving a tracheotomy and receiving a tracheotomy are two very different things.”
or; Buck calls Eddie instead of 911 (it’s the same thing though, isn’t it?).
[ao3 link]
Eddie wears his uniform wrong. Sure, the buttons line up right on his freshly ironed shirt. Sure, the seams still sit just where they’re supposed to. Sure, his name is still Diaz and the metal tag on his chest is still correct, but he stands out at dispatch. He wears the wrong uniform, sits at the wrong desk, and spends his time performing the wrong job. He wears tactical boots to his desk job, there’s a pen light still clipped to his pocket, and on too many occasions he’s pulled the stethoscope from his glove box before remembering that’s no longer his job.
He dresses like a firefighter but each day he rides the elevator, walks the hallway, and sits and listens to the real firefighters do their right jobs.
It’s hard to be upset when he made this choice for himself. It’s even harder when Eddie learns he’s actually pretty good at it. He can calm the patients down, he can relay information well, and he can remember even the most insignificant details. The echoes, the music, the insignificant background noises, he knows how to use it to his advantage.
But sometimes—
911, what’s your emergency?
911, what’s your emergency?
911, what’s your emergency?
911, what’s your—
It becomes all too repetitive.
Today is a slow day. A slow, repetitive day.
A photo of Buck and Christopher pops up on his caller ID. The 118 is en route to a twenty year old with a fish hook stuck in his hand (“I swear I’m not drunk or anything, I’m just really bad at fishing.”)
If his memory is correct, Buck should be working. He checks his monitor. He checks his phone. He checks the monitor again.
Today is a slow day. A slow, repetitive day. He answers the call, he always does.
“Is this a fish hook related problem?” Eddie asks as he answers the phone.
“Am I supposed to know what that means?”
He triple checks the monitor. The 118 is on call.
“Is your radio broken?” he asks with greater suspicion.
“No?”
His face twists. “Then why are you calling me?”
“Because I’m off duty and you’re, like, the third best medic I know,” Buck says. “And I’m pretty sure giving a tracheotomy and receiving a tracheotomy are two very different things.”
Eddie sits up as soon as he realizes the potential for a real emergency. “Did you call 911?” He asks, checking the call logs and scanning the room for anyone responding to a call.
“I called you,” he says.
Eddie ends the call immediately, switching to his earpiece and keyboard. He calls Buck and opens a new report, typing “choking?” into the notes section. The phone only rings once before he answers.
“Did 911 just hang up on me?” Buck asks, his voice strained, either from CPR or rescue breaths. The background noise amplifies; he assumes Buck switched the phone to speaker.
“Where are you?” he asks, ignoring his question. Eddie doesn’t know the situation, but he vaguely knows it’s a respiratory emergency. Get an address, send paramedics, figure the rest out as he goes.
Buck rattles off the address to a cafe, and claims the only people in the building are him, the closing shift barista, and a young woman choking on some sort of pastry.
“Have you—”
“—She has a pulse, but it’s weak,” Buck interrupts, answering his question before he could run through the protocol. “I’ve been giving rescue breaths, but her airway is completely blocked. I need another option.”
“You’re not doing a tracheotomy, Buck,” he says. Eddie switches channels to alert the nearest unit of the incident. The 118 is still on call, the 147 is at least twenty minutes out. He sends the 133, parked a few streets away. “Paramedics will be there in seven minutes. Keep giving rescue breaths.”
He stumbles over his words, stuck in his exasperation. “She doesn’t have seven minutes.”
“You’re not a paramedic, Buck,” he warns.
“But you know how—”
“—Buck—”
“—She’s choking, I can’t see the object, and rescue breaths aren’t working. I already have the knife, and I’m pretty committed to making this work.” And, well, it’s almost funny. Not the dying, the choking, or the probably panicking, but the image of Buck he’s created in his head. Buck, off-duty, just trying to buy a coffee on his way home, making conversation with a barista, stumbling into emergencies, just like he always does. Buck, dropping everything to save a stranger. Buck, determined to save every possible life, no matter the cost.
“C’mon,” he urges again, “We’ve done surgery together before, this isn’t any different.”
The grenade. The ambulance. The promise. “It’s—” Eddie stops himself. Because really, it’s entirely different. And really, Eddie thinks about that day more than he’d ever care to admit. It’s the day his new life started; Los Angeles, firefighting, the beginning of everything, the end of a tired era. It’s the day he questioned transferring, because how is this guy friends with everybody if he’s so awful. It’s the day Buck offered his hand in a blind leap, and Eddie had no choice but to take it.
Eddie gave Buck no reason to risk his life, but risk it he did. Buck trusted him to keep the bomb from detonating, despite all the misguided hatred and snippy comments. He followed Eddie into that ambulance, ambitiously and idiotically, prepared to die with him, beside him, despite it all.
Buck stumbles and makes mistakes and cares a little too much and a little too deeply. He’s reckless in a calculated way, and better at solving tough problems than anyone he’s ever met. Buck ties himself to a thread and throws his body off a cliff, but only because he trusts Eddie to hold the other end of his line. His lifeline, his livewire.
He made a promise to watch Buck’s back, despite it all.
Eddie made a promise to himself to keep him safe, despite it all.
There’s a hint of irony to it; with every effort to save Buck, Buck saves him instead.
Eddie’s good at his job. He listens, he waits, he responds. But lately he misses being saved.
They’ve done this before, but it’s entirely different, really, because Eddie isn’t there and Buck isn’t here and he broke his promise, his one and only promise, to have Buck’s back.
“Paramedics are five minutes out.” Eddie says. The girl’s running out of breath. Buck’s waiting, hoping, trusting. He sighs. “Do you have a first aid kit?”
And so he keeps his promise, he guides Buck through the motions. Clean the knife, find the cricoid. “Clean a straw, too,” he reminds Buck. Firm pressure, firm steady pressure. A short incision, short and straight. “Same size as your scar,” he says, and somehow Buck finds humor in it. Eddie walks him through the steps and ignores the fact that technically he’s not certified to do this either.
(“Good Samaritan Law,” Buck justifies, “we’re acting in good faith, who can blame us?” Somehow there’s still an ‘us’.)
“Try to keep the blood out of the airway,” Eddie instructs, though it’s mostly common sense, “and give rescue breaths through the straw. Two minutes out.”
“It looks a lot easier when Hen does it,” Buck says between breaths.
“Hen isn’t usually using a coffee straw.”
“Fair point.”
He takes another breath. And another. And another. They both go quiet, counting respirations, waiting for a good sign. It’s worse over the phone; he’s rather useless at this point, sitting by his keyboard rather than checking pulses. All he can do is listen to the straw whistling, Buck breathing, and the barista begging for this girl to live.
“Anything?” He asks, because he can’t bear the silence.
“There’s chest rise and fall, but she’s not waking up,” Buck tells him. It’s still a waiting game.
“I’ll take what we can get,” Eddie says. “One minute out.”
Every inhale, every exhale from Buck becomes the loudest sound in the world. He tunes out the rest of the world and focuses on his breaths. One, two, pause. One, two, pause. Buck shifts position. One, two, pause. Still no pulse. One, two, pause. One, two—
“They’re here,” Buck sighs with relief. He shuffles on the other end of the line as he steps away from the scene. Roll on three, he hears, one, two—the noise fades after a few seconds, leaving just him, Buck, and too much distance between them. “I, uh. I can’t believe you let me do that.”
“I’m not sure I could’ve stopped you,” Eddie jokes. Neither of them speak. Water runs on the other side of the phone, washing away the call, washing away the fall out. Towels rip. A few people mumble. The sirens start their steady blaring, growing more and more distant by the second. The ambulance calls him in, alerts him of the transport, and he makes note of it in his report.
“Hey Eddie?”
“Yeah?”
“I just—” He swallows. He lets out a breathy laugh. This is part of Eddie’s job too. The right job, not as a dispatcher, but as his partner. Patiently wait. Read between the lines. Buck stutters in a nervous way, unsure of his wording, unsure where to step. Eddie can imagine the face he’s making so distinctly: one eye squinted, mouth quirked up at the corner, rubbing his forehead as if he can force the words to surface.
“Thank you,” he finally says, “for still having my back.”
Eddie smiles. It’s almost familiar. “Always.”
“Now if I ever need to do a thoracotomy—”
“—We’re not doing surgery together again.”
Buck laughs. It’s an old sound he misses hearing every day. He laughs like it’s a normal day, a normal call, a normal amount of blood on his hands. It’s the type of sensation Eddie feels insane for missing.
“See you later, dispatch.”
Eddie takes that as a new promise.
The call ends, and Eddie returns to the day, the slow, repetitive day. He leans back in his chair, his wrong chair at his wrong desk with his two wrong feet tapping against the bar. Eddie still wears an emblem on his chest, Lost Angeles Fire Department, and it’s out of place among the embroidered polos around him. It’s the wrong uniform, the wrong job, and the wrong type of ache in his chest, not born from panic, but from something much more distant.
It only takes a moment for the phone to ring again.
the devil that you know (is better than the devil that you don’t)
aka i can’t get villain jonah out of my head after 5.14 and also i’ve become unironically attached to lucy so here’s ~1k words about it
It takes twelve minutes of standing outside Los Angeles Metro Dispatch for Taylor to realize her boyfriend is still in the fire. The 118’s gone through a lot of changes over the past few months, but everyone she knows is accounted for outside the building, along with a few extras proudly wearing the number across their helmets.
Buck is still in the building. Everyone else made it out. She’s worried, of course she is, but admittedly, she didn’t drive towards the burning building to find her boyfriend, or her boyfriend’s friends, or her boyfriend’s best friend who may or may not be inside the fire.
Her eyes are on a different story: the penthouse, the fall, the unexplainable catch. Two weeks is a lifetime in terms of online popularity, but Taylor is the stubborn type who refuses to let a story die. If she can get a quote, an extra detail, something about Lucy’s past to make her all the more interesting, then she can make the story relevant again.
It’s hard to place a face when every face is covered with soot and helmets. The turnouts are her saving grace with their neatly printed names across the back.
Wilson, Han, Greenway, Donato, Nash.
She double takes.
“Lucy Donato?” she calls, doing her best to flag her down without seeming too desperate for a story. “Taylor Kelly, Channel Six News, I just have a few questions for you.”
Her helmet hangs loosely in one hand as she looks back and forth between Taylor and the smoke. The team scatters. She laughs with the slightest head shake and raised brow.
“Yeah, I’d love to talk, but I’m kinda busy with the burning building.” Lucy gestures behind herself and takes a few steps back.
“I’m not here to talk about the fire,” Taylor shakes her head.
“Then you know where to find me after I put it out.”
She tilts her head. “Are you agreeing to a future interview?”
“You’re welcome to join us for dinner, but there’s nothing to say you don’t already know.” The helmet slides over her head as she rounds the corner, clapping Bobby on the back on her way over, but he’s too focused on the scene to acknowledge the gesture.
“You know,” a new voice says, “I told her she was crazy for not taking any interviews after that insane catch the other week. People would eat that up.”
Taylor nods, looking him up and down. “And you are?”
He laughs dryly. “You can call me Jonah.”
“The new guy?” she nods.
“The old new guy,” he takes off his helmet and steps closer. “I lasted a week before the guy I was replacing came back.”
Her gaze is all over the place, tracking Lucy, the fire, the smoke. No signs of Buck. Or Eddie for that matter.
“Sorry to hear it,” she offers.
He shakes her off. “The 118 is a closely knit group, and I don’t think they ever liked me much. Some more than others.” He takes a quick glance towards the truck, and Taylor follows his gaze to Hen. “But I don’t need to tell you how close they are, you already knew that. You and Buck are still together right?”
She tilts her head with some confusion, mostly wondering just how much he knows, just how much there is to share. Buck tells her a lot about the team, but not everything, just as she doesn’t tell him all her stories. Hen, Chimney, Captain Nash, they all know her well enough to tell her nothing at all, just ask about her day and ask about the weather.
“Yeah, we are,” Taylor eventually answers the question. “I know you weren’t at the 118 for long, but you must’ve heard some stories, right?”
He shrugs. “There was a lot of drama, and I didn’t have nearly enough context to piece it all together. Something about Buck’s sister, something about Chimney and Buck’s sister, something about Eddie, something about Buck and Eddie. Him and Lucy had a weird thing for a while, but they got over that.”
“A weird thing?”
“Yeah, he was super awkward after the kiss,” Jonah flips his helmet from one hand to the other, “but hey, I would be too if I had a girlfriend and I kissed my work partner.”
The revelation stops her in her tracks. Until now, in her head at least, the other woman was a random club girl, probably young, probably just trying to have fun. Taylor could write off the night as a drunken mistake on Buck’s part, nothing to worry about.
Except random club girl is Lucy Donato, the woman who catches people as they fall from skyscrapers like some sort of miracle worker.
It changes things.
The pause must’ve been too long, or something shifted in her face against her will, because Jonah’s still standing here instead of fighting fires, saying, “Oh, I thought you knew.”
“Greenway!” Someone calls, probably Captain Nash.
“Sorry you had to find out like this,” he offers, leaning in, almost whispering, “but hey, let me know if you’re looking for a story. I can tell you all about the penthouse, and probably a few other things your boyfriend isn’t sharing. I’ve overheard some… interesting things.”
“Like what?” she prods, forcing herself to stay composed.
He grins. “Not all these firefighters are heroes.”
“But you are?”
“You can answer that after I save your boyfriend’s life,” Jonah walks backwards towards dispatch. “I don’t ever want to accuse anyone of something they didn’t do. But I’m just saying, not all fires are accidents. And maybe Donato isn’t the hero you should be writing stories about.
Taylor nods, still stunned as he jogs off. She glances over at the police still managing the perimeter, she glances over at the dispatchers, wrapped with shock blankets and gauze. Eddie’s missing from the picture. Buck hasn’t come out of the fire. Lucy and Jonah run back in.
There’s something wrong with the way he tells a story.
‘13) things you said at the kitchen table’ because love is stored in the kitchen <33
[ao3 link]
It drives Eddie crazy how Buck leaves every kitchen cabinet open while drying and stacking the dishes, despite Buck’s argument that it’s the most efficient way to clean, and it drives Buck crazy how Eddie washes the plates and cups first and not the big pots and pans. So they compromise, leaving Eddie as the resident dish-dryer and Buck as the dish-washer. Scrub, rinse, hand it off. Scrub, rinse, hand it off.
Buck’s sleeve begins to slide as he scrubs the saucepan, and Eddie pulls it back up before it can reach the water, letting his hands linger at the crook of his elbow. Their eyes meet, but neither says a word. Buck hands over the saucepan, eyes still kept, and the only reason Eddie breaks away is because the pans are stacked in the bottom cabinet.
Scrub, rinse, hand it off.
A cup meets his hand that he only vaguely recognizes. It’s tall, plastic, and the graphic on the front is mostly faded, but he can just barely make out the word Zoo, with Hershey, Pennsylvania scrawled just beneath. The cup, at least ten years old, probably more, managed to stay in Buck’s life and cross the barrier into Eddie’s.
It’s followed by a tupperware with Maddie’s handwriting scribbled on top, nearly faded, almost gone, labeling whatever was once stored in the container.
Then comes the mug, which Eddie is certain he never bought, but it’s somehow become his favorite; obnoxiously large and easy to hold, perfectly shaping his hand.
The kitchen did as kitchens do best: handed him a bit of truth that could be found nowhere else.
Cups, dishes, chipped bowls and plates; there’s a bit of Buck in every corner of the kitchen. All around the house they’ve grown to call home, there’s remnants of a life that’s become indescribably theirs. Buck takes his key and lets himself in, shoes fitting perfectly on the bottom shelf of the shoe rack. He hangs his keys beside Eddie’s, and leaves his jacket by the door. Buck walks inside and steps over the darkest floor panel because he knows that’s the one that always creaks, and Chris is already asleep. There’s rings on the dining table, three to be exact, and magnets on the fridge Eddie never bought, holding up photos Eddie didn’t take.
Nothing is ever certain, but Eddie’s confident that Buck is a sure thing. Not just his work partner or best friend, but the only person he can imagine by his side year after year, time and time again. Because when Buck’s hand brushes against his, he feels light and, for the first time, Eddie believes that love can be freeing.
It shouldn’t be this big of a deal, he sees Buck every day.
He sees Buck at work, by his side on every call. He sees him holding the shopping list when they go to buy groceries together. He wakes up and finds Buck still sleeping on the couch, feet poking out from beneath the covers and hanging over the armrest. As he sleeps, he pulls his hoodie around his face, trying to block the slivers of sunlight peeking in from behind the curtains, dancing around his face. When Chris wakes up he taps Buck’s head until his eyes peel open, smiling when he discovers the culprit is his favorite kid in the world.
(Eddie prefers to let him sleep just a few minutes longer).
On the days where he wakes up alone, Eddie is greeted by blue eyes sometime in the afternoon when Buck comes home from a shift.
Home.
It’s been weeks since the shooting, and Eddie doesn’t need help with reaching the top cabinets or carrying the laundry anymore, but Buck still hasn’t left. Eddie would never ask him to leave, secretly relishing in the extra moments spent by his side, and Buck always creates some new excuse for staying an extra night.
“Albert just got back from his shift, I don’t want to wake him up,” or, “There’s construction on the upper floors and the sound is driving me crazy,” or, “I took the sheets off my bed to wash them, but I never actually got around to it.”
Eventually he stops making excuses, and Eddie no longer has to ask him to stay.
Home.
“Buck,” Eddie whispers, his name a revelation in itself. He’s still holding the mug, his favorite mug, the one from Buck’s apartment that’s somehow become his.
He’s about to hand the cutlery over to Eddie, but leaves it in the sink instead. Buck turns to Eddie, slowly, carefully, letting his gaze travel up and down, before settling on his eyes.
“Hmm?” Buck hums.
“This is your mug.”
“Oh,” he sighs, taking hold of the handle with soapy hands. “I must’ve left it here. I’ll take it back to the loft later.”
“No,” he cuts in, too fast.
“No?”
The mug dangles precariously from Buck’s fingers, hooked around his middle and ring finger. A few drops of water fall to the floor, but they’ll dry fast enough. He knows Buck won’t let it fall, but still, he’s on edge watching the mug hang.
“It’s a good mug,” Eddie says. It’s not too heavy, not too light. He can microwave it without the handle burning too hot. The inside is big enough to hold an unreasonable amount of coffee and tea, though the only time he’s drank tea from the mug are the days Buck brewed it for him. It’s a good mug. My favorite.
“It’s yours if you want it.”
He shakes his head, smiles just slightly. “But it’s not mine.” Buck scrunches his face, trying to piece together an odd conversation.
“So is it my mug or your mug?”
“It’s ours.”
He nods, slow, still confused. “So I should put it in the cabinet?”
“No,” he says. Yes, he means to say, what’s mine is yours.
And that’s really it, isn’t it? Eddie hasn’t had a ‘mine’ in a long time. It’s an ‘us’ or a ‘we’ or an ‘ours’. Buck orders packages to his house and picks up his mail and drives Chris to school, Eddie right beside him in the passenger seat. They share a pantry and a sink and a stack of take out menus stashed beside the fridge, their favorite orders circled with flare pens, colored pencils, sharpies, whatever they can find. The pizza menu is pinned to the fridge with a magnet, though they never need to check the menu, it’s the same every time.
(It’s as simple as a pizza order. Yes, it’s cheap and covered in grease, but Buck picks all of Eddie’s favorite toppings. They take turns pulling slices, washing it all away with whatever beer they found in the fridge, and he notices Buck counting in his head, trying to ensure they’ve both taken their share of the pie. They’re fed and content and Buck tries to be sly when he slides his extra crust onto Eddie’s plate, the thick crust with the garlic seasoning.
Eddie knows Buck prefers the thin crust, but orders the thick ones anyways. Eddie never mentions it to him, but he smiles as he takes his first bite into the bread.)
“You’re doing the dishes,” he says.
“Should I stop?” The water is no longer dripping from his hands and the soap is dry against his palms.
“And sometimes you do the laundry, and you used to have your own drawer in my dresser but it’s all so mixed up that I’m pretty sure I’m wearing your shirt right now.”
“You are,” Buck points out. “But I don’t mind. But if you mind—”
“I don’t mind. That’s my whole point.” He shakes his head, trying to sort the ideas in his mind. “I don’t mind. And my shoulder is fine and I don’t need you staying here anymore.”
“Oh,” Buck says, his expression dropping. He finally sets the mug aside, suddenly more focused on the knives in the sink than on Eddie’s words.
“But I want it,” Eddie quickly amends. “I want you to stay.”
It’s as close as he can get to a confession without saying the words. They’re standing, opposite sides of the same line, teetering back and forth, and Eddie so desperately wants to take Buck’s hand and pull him to the other side.
He slides closer to the sink, within Buck’s reach, but not holding on.
“For how long?” Buck asks, “Because I can’t sleep on your couch forever.”
“No, you can’t,” he agrees. He moves slowly at first, uncertain, unsteady. Buck’s hands are sticky in his, dried soap pressing against clean skin. It smells like lavender and leaves his palms tacky. It’s uncomfortable and itchy but he can’t pull away. “But I’ve got a pretty nice bed.”
“I don’t think anything purchased from IKEA can be considered ‘pretty nice’.”
“It does the job.”
“‘Does the job’ and ‘pretty nice’ are two very different things. And I’ve slept in that bed before, the mattress is stiff. And your sheets—”
“—Will you move in with me or not?” he asks, finally asks. They’re standing toe to toe, hand in hand. From this close, Eddie has to tilt his chin up to meet Buck’s eye. He stands in his shadow, a few inches below him, and feeling small has never felt so warm.
Buck laughs, a little nervous, looking all over Eddie’s face, anywhere but his eyes. “Usually you don’t move in until after the first date. Several months after.”
“And I usually don’t kiss before the first date either...” All hesitations fade after that, a subtle confirmation that they feel the same way.
“But?”
“I’ll make an exception,” Eddie says, pulling one hand away to cradle Buck’s jaw. No hesitations, no more waiting, what’s mine is yours. He kisses Buck, pulls closer, closer, closer until there’s no telling where one body ends, leaning against the counter, and where another begins, stuck between soap covered hands.
You’re always the exception, he presses into each kiss, each touch against his waist, each graze against his teeth. The hem of his shirt is wet from spilled water on the counter. Buck holds on, firm hands that steady his bones and leave him settled. It’s never ending and needy and somehow they both forget to breathe, but there will be time for breathing later, for terminating leases and reorganizing their dishes and arguing for pantry space.
For now, Eddie kisses him until it hurts, then kisses him again, promising forever.
-
(how will the world end?)
(it’s genuinely not something i think too much about. there are people to love and dishes to do in the meantime.)
how about 20. things you said that i wasnt meant to hear
hold me like you mean it, we'll pretend, because we need it
Maddie and Hen take Buck out for the night after he breaks up with Taylor. And Eddie, he’s left with nothing but drunken confessions in his voicemail box.
@deareddie asked: 20: things you said that i wasnt meant to hear
anonymous asked: prompt 11. things you said while drunk. My fav
Eddie’s not sure what to expect when he checks his phone in the morning. He left it charging in the living room as he stumbled to bed last night, too many wine bottles stacked on the coffee table and Scrabble pieces scattered on the floor.
(“You’re cheating,” Chimney slurs, throwing a ‘Q’ at Karen.
“I’m not cheating, you’re bad at Scrabble.”
“‘Qi’ isn’t a word.”
“It’s in the Scrabble dictionary.”
“That’s not a real thing. We’re using Merriam-Webster, and I don’t think—”)
His head throbs slightly, but not enough to keep him in bed all day. However bad he feels, Buck most certainly feels worse. A wine night with Karen and Chimney is nothing compared to a nightclub with Maddie and Hen in a desperate attempt to distract Buck for the night.
Buck broke up with Taylor. He promised Eddie he was okay, but his eyes were a little too red for someone who feels just fine. He claimed that really, their relationship was over a long time ago, that it was never going to go anywhere but down, but still, Eddie could tell he was hurting. Maybe she wasn’t a good girlfriend, but at some point she was a friend, and now she’s gone.
Eddie can’t say he ever liked her, but he knows Buck did. They talked about it, but not for long. If they talked too long, it would go too far, and confessions would be made that should be left unsaid.
Most of what they say, these days, is left unsaid. There’s a burning image of his blood on Buck’s hands, face, mouth, that he can’t get out of his head, but he keeps quiet. It’s better left unsaid. He broke up with Ana, he never mentioned her again. It’s better left unsaid. A gun to his head in the back of an ambulance, Buck’s voice, raw and wretched, screaming Eddie’s name. It’s better left unsaid.
Maybe it’s killing him, or maybe he agrees, but Buck has left it that way too, unsaid. Until now.
this time i'll be good, this time i'll get it right
(this wasn't a prompt, but i turned it into one. here's some fiances era buddie for you)
[read on ao3]
Six people per table isn’t enough. The chairs would be oddly spaced around the circular tables, the groups wouldn’t divide well. Eight, nine, it’s too many, too crowded. Seven would work, but one table would get stuck with eight regardless.
“Eddie.”
Him and Buck decided they wouldn’t have a separate table for themselves; they’d spend too much time wandering away to their friends. It would be too isolating. They’ll have time alone later, weddings are for dancing and conversation and family—
“—Eddie.”
But seating themselves with the rest of their friends creates a whole new problem, the whole arrangement becomes distorted. Maybe six seats will work. Six seats and one odd table of seven. Deciding who takes the seventh seat is a headache in of itself and Eddie struggles to maneuver the digital seats around the digital tables of his diagram. His detailed, incredibly thorough diagram of the venue. There’s even a cake, a clip art design he spent far too long cropping and placing off to the side on it’s own little table.
On second thought, that table should be moved too. There’s a window right beside it, that might cause—
“—Eds, hey,” Buck finally pulls his attention away for a brief moment. He wraps Eddie’s hand in his own, silver engagement band reflecting off the warm light above the dining table, which has been temporarily converted into his wedding planning station. “You’ve been sitting here for hours staring at… nametags?”
Buck has to squint to read the names, most of the text boxes stacked together on the side, waiting to be rearranged. Again.
He snaps his gaze back to the screen. “I need to fix the seating chart.”
“It’s fine the way it is,” Buck insists, pressing his thumb along the back of Eddie’s hand, tracing the veins, smoothing away the tension. He guides his hand away from the touchpad with a delicate touch.
“It can’t be fine, it needs to be perfect.”
Buck lets out a breathy laugh. “I can almost guarantee you nobody is gonna stay in their seats.”
He stares at the seats. Smaller tables might fix the issue entirely, five seats per table divides evenly. But would five be too intimate, too small? Too many opportunities for awkward silences, and besides, what if someone needs to excuse themself? Then there’s only four, and four is definitely—
“Hey.” Buck rests his fingertips on Eddie’s jaw, easing him away from the screen. He slides the laptop away from him slowly, giving Eddie every opportunity to stop him. He lets the lid fall shut. “Since when do you care so much about the seating chart or—” he flips through the scattered notebook pages on the table “—or playlists, or tablecloths?”
“It needs to be perfect,” he echoes himself.
“Why?”
Buck started planning the wedding first; him and Maddie picked the venue. He made a list of pros and cons, and another list, and another. He printed out spreadsheets of prices and locations, this one is too cramped and this one is slightly over budget, but it has these vaulted ceilings and a back patio. Maddie promptly decided she was done helping.
(“—I’m going to smack you over the head with that clipboard if you don’t stop using the word ‘rustic’. You watched HGTV one time and now you think—”)
Eddie decided to take over after that, despite knowing next to nothing about weddings. He wasn’t in charge of his first wedding, he let Shannon take control over that. It was last minute and messy and around every corner, there was a new problem that couldn’t be solved. The wrong flowers, the wrong band, and ultimately, the wrong husband.
He can’t afford to be wrong again.
Buck presses reassurances against his skin, his hand trailing up his arm. His touch is gentle, always is. It’s the anecdote to all his worries and, with enough time, could rid him of all panic. His touch is the ultimate coercion, leading him home, through the front door, always closer, closer, closer. His touch is enough to pull the truth from Eddie’s head and make sense of all the jumbled thoughts.
“My wedding was nowhere near perfect. It was a disaster, actually. And we’re only getting married once—you are only getting married once.” He looks down at their knees, slotted together in their seats. “I want it to be perfect for you.”
Buck smiles, sweet and bright, something so private. “Eddie, I don't need a perfect wedding. I don’t want a perfect wedding.” He takes both his hands and rests them on either side of Eddie’s face, gently tracing his cheekbones. The touch, the smile, he melts under the weight of it. “I like the messes and the mistakes and I’m really excited to watch our friends get drunk and start some family drama.”
Eddie laughs at the mental image of his sisters getting blacked out at the open bar with Hen and Chimney, or Karen trying to persuade him into taking an extra glass of Champagne, or Bobby sitting across from his father, stuck somewhere between friendly conversation and pointed glares.
Buck pulls him back in, trying to fold madness into reason. “What did you tell me when you proposed?”
“I’d marry you in the kitchen in our pajamas if that’s what you wanted. The frog soap holder could officiate.”
“Because…”
He sighs with a long, slow blink, “...because all I need is you, Chris, and a ring.”
Buck nods, taps his cheek. “So you get dressed and grab the rings, I’ll get Chris, and we’ll go to the courthouse right now.”
Eddie laughs. How could he not? There’s fabric samples on the dining table mocking him for overplanning. Then in comes Buck (notorious for overplanning) ready to throw it all away on a whim in favor of love and spontaneity.
“Buck—”
“If you wanna wait, I can wait.”
The words hang oddly in the space between them. “But…”
Buck smiles, “But I’m also sick of not being your husband.”
It’s honest and it would be disgustingly sappy if Eddie didn’t love him so much. Buck pouts, he genuinely pouts and it’s impossible to not lean in and kiss him, soft and slow, a desperate attempt to somehow love him harder. He leans closer, hands shifting around Eddie’s neck, tracing the joints of his spine.
He tries to be the voice of reason. “But we already booked a venue and put down a deposit and ordered the flowers and the cake, the red velvet one you wanted—”
“—The frosting was so good—”
“—And I don’t think our friends would appreciate us getting married without them.”
Buck shrugs. “So marry me now, then marry me again in a month,” he says in that pointed way, as if it’s the obvious solution to a problem he wasn’t aware existed. “Just you, me, and Chris. We won’t tell anyone we did it, but we’ll know.”
“I think they’ll notice when we come to work with matching rings,” he argues with a raised brow.
“So we’ll take them off at work,” he says. “It’s a win-win. I get to marry you twice, our friends will be there the second time, and by then I will have perfected my vows. A win-win-win, really.”
Eddie shakes his head, not quite in disbelief because he may not have predicted a surprise second wedding, but it’s not exactly surprising either.
“You really want to do this?”
“I do,” he nods, pulling away from him just to slide out of his chair onto the floor. Buck props himself up on one knee in a cheesy, dramatic fashion, reaching out for Eddie with pleading hands. “Eddie Diaz, will you marry me?”
He rolls his eyes at the antics, his face settling on something fond. As if he could say no, as if he could ever say no to Buck. He’d rebuild the world, break it down too, if he were only to ask.
Eddie slides to the floor, just as clumsily, searching for something to hold him steady. His hands find Buck’s face, his thumb pressed to the corner of his eye, outlining his birthmark, smoothing over the soft skin. He kisses Buck, his fiancé, his almost husband. It’s a little messy, piled together on the floor, but it’s the best kind of mess. He kisses Buck once, twice, cradling his face with a gentle touch, leaving behind a promise with every press of their lips. This time I’ll be good and this time I’ll get it right and I may not be perfect, but good God, I’ll try to be.
