Work Text:
Eddie prides himself on his self restraint. Be it from his years in the army where he’d get his head chewed off for having the slightest slouch in posture, or from a childhood of being forced to be the man of the house and all the yelling that accompanied his father’s demands that Eddie grow the hell up, he was used to biting back his tongue. He was good at keeping the image of cool, even if not actually cool himself.
Admittedly, his poker face used to be better. It had slipped up a fair bit since he started working at the 118, a wall crumbling not unlike the way he had slowly – so slowly – let his guard down after returning from deployment. Even now, 8 years later, he was only just starting to sleep through the night, completely, more than one day a week.
His poker face, however – or lack thereof – yeah, that was becoming a bit of a problem. Some days he finds himself missing back when they had to wear facemasks, when his facial expressions didn’t have to be schooled, at least from the nose down. It would really come in handy right about now.
They’re responding to a call – a pretty standard one at that. Someone left a candle unattended a little too close to a curtain. They had put the flames out by the time the 118 got there, but they still had to go through and make sure that everything was kosher and that no sparks were going to reignite and call them back out for a second time that night.
There are no injuries, Hen just checks over the culprit at the scene to be safe, sitting him on his bed and checking his blood pressure and responses. He’s an attractive man, mid thirties if Eddie had to guess, with a mop of curly black hair atop his head. Eddie has no problems with this guy, aside from his lack of fire safety etiquette he supposes.
At least not until he and Buck reconvene with Hen and Chim and the guy has the audacity to start flirting.
“All clear up here, Cap,” Buck calls into his radio.
It crackles to life not a second later and Bobby’s voice comes through, “Copy that. Hen, Chim, all good?”
Hen unwraps the blood pressure device from the guy’s arm with a nod and Chim radios out, “All good. Packing up and heading down.”
“My heroes,” the guy drawls, eyes almost sparkling. And though he said heroes, plural, he’s only looking directly at one of them.
At Buck.
Eddie bristles.
“Just doing our job, sir,” Buck says, keeping his voice steady and professional. But the guy stretches out his arm, flexing, and Eddie watches how Buck’s eyes track the movement. Eddie’s eyes narrow.
“Please, my name’s Lucas,” the guy – Lucas (God, what a stupid name) – says, no longer even pretending to notice everyone else around them.
Buck smiles, charming as ever, and reaches a hand out toward Lucas, “Buck. Nice to meet you.”
Lucas takes Buck’s hand in his own and Eddie feels something acrid climbing up his throat at the slimy smile on Lucas’s face. “Oh the pleasure is all mine. If I knew the firefighters in LA were so handsome, I would’ve set fire to my ex’s ugly ass curtains long ago.”
And then he fucking winks.
Even worse, Buck laughs.
Eddie loves the sound of Buck’s laughter, like church bells and warm sunlight and happiness embodied in one single sound. But this? Buck laughing all flirty at some idiot who can’t even safely light a candle? Eddie hates this.
Hen rolls her eyes.
Chim scoffs in amusement.
Eddie seethes, arms crossing over his chest as he glares daggers between the two of them.
“Okay,” Hen says, breaking the moment, and Eddie could kiss her. “Your vitals all look fine Lucas. Maybe just take it easy today and give your heart a rest after a scare like that. We’ll head downstairs…” She turns to Buck with a pointed look, “Engine leaves in two minutes.”
And then Hen is all but dragging Eddie out of the room before he can dig his heels into the ground and demand that he stay to – what? Supervise? Chaperone his best friend and make sure this loser doesn’t do anything unsavory like give Buck his number or, God forbid, make a move?
So yes, logically, he knows Hen was right to pull him out of the room. With the anger bubbling beneath his skin, he’s sure that sticking around to witness whatever happened between Lucas and Buck was not going to end well.
Chim spends more time laughing than actually helping load up the rig and Eddie smarts at that.
“You should’ve seen your face, Eddie, god I wish I had a picture of it. Did you know you can make stickers from photos on your phone now? Albert showed me. Oh man, the mileage I would get out of a pissed off Eddie sticker…”
“Shut up, Chim,” Eddie bites, even though he truly has no idea what Chim is talking about (stickers???) beyond the fact that he’s poking fun at Eddie’s inability to keep his emotions from being displayed across his face like a fucking billboard.
Hen sighs, loading in the last bag and shutting the door, “This is nothing, Eddie. Just be glad you weren’t here for Buck 1.0.”
“Oh yeah,” Chim whistles through his teeth, “He ever tell you about his sexcapades as Firehose? I think I speak for the whole of LAFD when I say I am glad that those days are in the past.”
“Firehose?” Eddie asks, eyebrow quirked. Even as he says it, he feels a little bubble of desire growing low in his belly. He tries to ignore it.
“Please,” Hen scoffs, crossing her arms and leaning back against the bright red side of the truck. The corners of her mouth are upturned in a sly way that Eddie knows means she has some good gossip. Usually he loves to hear Hen’s gossip, but right now he can only focus on that feeling in his gut, bubbling up higher and higher, and the thrum of anger still fresh and hot under his skin. “He still uses the name Firehose, just not when it comes to women.”
Eddie is, admittedly, a little stumped. So it’s only when Chim gasps, “He’s on grindr?” that Eddie understands what Hen is talking about.
Chim is grimacing, ranting about how he absolutely should not know this about his brother in law, when Buck emerges from the apartment building, jogging the last of the way to his team. He’s got an easy smile on his face – one Eddie would normally cherish – and a faint hint of a blush on his cheeks. Eddie’s jaw clenches tight at the sight and he makes a mental note to dig his old night guard out of his bedside table tonight.
They climb into the rig, Buck asking oh so innocently, “What are we talking about?”
And Eddie prides himself on his self-restraint, really. But his ability to bite his tongue must be crumbling alongside his poker face these days because he narrows his eyes at Buck and in as clipped a tone as he can manage says, “Nothing much, Firehose.”
Buck looks at Eddie, and he knows it only lasts a split second. But in that split second a handful of emotions cross over Buck’s face, none of which Eddie can decipher. And then Buck is groaning, and he turns toward Hen, not unlike a little brother who’s just found out his sister went and blabbed her big mouth to all his friends, “I told you about that in confidence!”
🔥
Everyone seems to be in good spirits when they get back to the firehouse. Well, everyone except for Eddie. Hen and Chim and Buck are all laughing around the dinner table and joking with one another and Bobby is watching from his place at the stove chiming in when he has a little jab to offer. But Eddie… Eddie is angry. He throws himself down on the couch and stews in the anger while he eavesdrops on his friends.
Buck has always been an oversharer when it comes to his sex life, more than happy to discuss it in the middle of their workplace in such detail that probably would have HR raising their eyebrows if anyone was actually bothered by it. Even when they aren’t at work, Buck and Eddie practically live in each other’s back pockets. They eat dinner together most nights, he helps take Chris to school and picks him up after chess club, they go goddamn grocery shopping together for Christ’s sake. There isn’t anything that Buck does that Eddie doesn’t know about.
At least, Eddie had thought so. Until now.
He’s not sure why it bothers him so much.
So, Buck is on grindr and he didn’t tell Eddie about it. Did he think that Eddie would judge him? Or worse – did Buck think Eddie was, like, homophobic?
Because yeah, Buck came out to Eddie as bi. And Eddie supported him through his relationship with Tommy even if watching the two of them together made his stomach turn with nausea. And then when Tommy broke his heart, Eddie was there to pick up the pieces, breathing out a secret sigh of relief that he wouldn’t have to see Buck with his boyfriend anymore. He supposes he hoped that he wouldn’t have to see Buck with any boys again, that he would go back to women and it wouldn’t have to hurt to watch his best friend kiss another man anymore. And, and maybe that’s the problem. Maybe Buck could tell that Eddie was uncomfortable seeing him with other guys. Maybe he thought the discomfort was for all the wrong reasons.
Eddie’s been listening to the conversation from the couch, but as soon as Chim says, “So… Lucas?” In the teasing tone that they all know too well, Eddie stands abruptly, shoulders tense and hackles raised, and heads down to the workout room before he can hear anything else that he doesn’t want to hear.
It’s one thing for him to watch someone flirt with Buck. It’s another entirely to hear Buck wax poetic about how he got his phone number and how they’re going to go out that weekend. (At least, that’s what Eddie assumes is happening upstairs.)
So Eddie wraps his hands and takes it out on the punching bag, hoping that smacking around the bag can ease some of the white hot lightning that he feels in his veins every time he thinks about Buck’s soft smile and his easy laughter being directed toward another man. A man who isn’t Eddie.
Maybe, Buck caught on to the real reason for Eddie’s discomfort. Maybe he can tell just how badly Eddie wants him. Maybe he’s trying to spare his best friend’s feelings.
Eddie thinks that might actually be worse than Buck thinking he’s homophobic.
He hates pity. Hates the idea of Buck hiding something from him all because Eddie is a sad excuse of a man who is so gone on his best friend that it’s pathetic, really.
At least when Buck was with women, Eddie didn’t feel the sting of possibility. He didn’t look at Taylor Kelly or Ali or Natalia and think That could easily be me, why isn’t it me? And Buck is just so nice, really, so kind and good of course he would notice this about Eddie and try to – fuck – protect him from it.
He shouldn’t be angry. But he is.
Because he knows now. He knows that Buck has a Grindr profile. His photos are out there for anyone to see. The hard planes of his sculpted stomach, and the soft swell of his pecks adorned by tattoos Eddie has dreamed of licking and those fucking taunting V-lines that Eddie swears are there just to make his stupid gay life that much more miserable. They’re out there for other men to fawn over and message him about and… and Buck is fucking hot, okay, Eddie’s not dumb enough to think that he hasn’t been getting any action.
There may as well be steam coming out of his ears when Eddie’s traitorous mind goes there. Starts imagining the random men in Buck’s bed, in between his legs or down on their knees. Their hands and mouths and warm naked bodies sliding over his. Drawing noises from his best friend that no one else deserves to hear. Touching him in places they shouldn’t have access to.
Eddie is a sweating, huffing mess, pummeling the punching bag over and over and over until he backs up to take a running start at the thing in one final push of raw, unbridled anger when he notices Buck sitting at the weight bench, watching him.
Eddie stills, chest heaving up and down and the bag still swaying, metal chains calling out like wind chimes. Buck is just sitting there, another unreadable expression on his face and it makes Eddie want to scream. He knows Buck. He knows Buck better than anyone else in the whole entire fucking world. The idea that maybe he doesn’t, actually, has his head spinning and his breath ragged and… and he needs to sit down.
Eddie Diaz doesn’t panic. And his heart certainly doesn’t skip a beat when he sits down on the bench parallel to Buck’s, facing him head on, and Buck knocks his knee into Eddie’s. A silent, You okay?
Eddie drinks from his water bottle, greedy, and wipes his mouth and chin with the back of his hand as he waits for Buck to just spit it out already.
Finally, Buck says, “Shift ended 15 minutes ago. Everyone else has already hit the showers and gone home.”
The softness of his voice sends Eddie reeling – it’s just so opposite from what he’s feeling. It almost hurts that Buck can feel so calm and be so kind in this moment, when Eddie is all but boiling over with anger. He replies, curt and not unkindly, “You didn’t need to stay to tell me that, Buck.”
Buck’s eyes narrow, and he crosses his arms over his chest like he tried the nice route but now he’s on the defensive. “Well I figured maybe if everyone else was gone you’d tell me what the fuck has you down here acting like you’re in fight club again.”
Buck has always been able to give as good as he gets, and the biting of his words lights Eddie up inside. Softness and tenderness and earnestness, Eddie has never been good at knowing what to do with that. But a fight? Eddie Diaz can pick a fight. He knows how to win one, too.
“Don’t you have someone to meet up with or something? Figured you’d be taking Lucas out for a spin.” And the way he spits the name – Lucas – is filled with so much venom it reminds Eddie of the bile he had felt rising in his throat when the guy had the gall to flirt with his… his Buck right in front of him.
Buck scoffs, incredulous, eyebrows shooting up to his hairline, “That’s what this is about, Eddie? Really?’
“Yes, Evan.” Eddie says, because he knows how Buck hates it and some sick part of himself wants Buck to hurt over this, too. “Thought your days of whoring around were over and picking people up on jobs wasn’t something you did anymore.”
Buck’s jaw tightens, his arms flexing, in anger or hurt or annoyance, Eddie isn’t quite sure. He swallows, and Eddie can’t tear his gaze away from the bob of his throat, even when he says, “Who I sleep with isn’t exactly your business, now is it Eddie?”
And it’s not. Eddie knows it isn’t. But he can’t help the sting that the words leave behind. Because the thing is, he wants it to be. He wants it to be his business so fucking bad he aches with it. Eddie steels himself, putting on his best attempt at a look of indifference, praying that his poker face doesn’t fail him now. “I guess not, huh Firehose?”
He doesn’t give himself the chance to watch Buck’s face, or to hear what he has to say in response. Eddie just stalks away to the showers.
He’s barely got the water on and slipped under its stream when the door flies open, banging against the wall with a force that makes Eddie wonder if there’s a dent in the wall where the doorknob has crashed into it. He doesn’t have time to wonder any further than that because suddenly Buck is there, opening the door to Eddie’s shower stall looking angrier than he’s ever seen him.
“What the hell is your problem? I’ve been on dating apps before, you know. You never seemed to give a shit then!”
Eddie’s so enamored by the sight before him – blue eyes shining with fire, and his lips so pink, and his chest rising and falling so furiously – that he forgets for a second that he’s naked.
“I’m trying to shower, Buck.” Eddie says, turning around so that the water can wash over his face and, he hopes, wash away the pink of his cheeks.
“I don’t give a shit.” Buck says, indignant, “You don’t get to be mad at me. Not for this. For-for exploring my sexuality–”
“Oh that’s what you think is going on?” Eddie says, turning around to face Buck, nakedness be damned. He’s seeing white, he’s so angry. He presses closer to Buck, crowding him against the closed door and dripping water all over his clothes, “I’m just a terrible person who doesn’t support his best friend? You got it all figured out, huh? Well hate to break it to you but I don’t give a shit. I don’t give a shit that you’re into guys Buck, I don’t care that some random dude gets to touch you all over and kiss across your chest and swallow your fucking cum. I don’t care! I don’t care that it’s a man. I care that it’s not me.” He all but screams, digging his pointer finger into Buck’s chest hard enough to leave a bruise.
“It should fucking be me,” Eddie says, taking Buck’s face in his hands and pressing their lips together, hard.
Somewhere in the middle of the kiss wet with shower water and burning with rage, Eddie realizes what he’s said. What he’s done. His stomach turns, and he feels the bile beginning to rise in his throat yet again. He drops his hands from Buck’s face.
Eddie staggers back, trying to get away from the situation, trying to run from Buck. But before he can even hit the water, Buck’s hands are shooting out and drawing him back in and pressing their lips together even harder than before, his fingers digging into the sides of Eddie’s jaw with as much force as he swung the door open with not two minutes before.
They’re a mess of teeth and tongue and groans as they kiss in the shower, Eddie pressing his body up against Buck’s just to feel the drag of his jeans against Eddie’s naked cock. He moans, loudly, but he doesn’t have the bandwidth to be embarrassed about it, not when Buck is getting down on his knees, still completely clothed, and saying, “It can be you. I want it to be you.”
Eddie runs his hands through Buck’s hair, in awe and reverence at first, and then he tugs, a little mean, just to see the way that Buck’s head lolls back, exposing the long line of his neck. And maybe because Eddie is still a little angry. The burning under his skin not yet completely extinguished.
“Yeah?” Eddie grunts, absolutely wrecked, and Buck nods, ever so eager before leaning in to mouth at Eddie’s cock with warm, wet breath. “C’mon be a good boy,” Eddie demands, releasing one hand from Buck’s hair to force his mouth open and guide it around the head of his cock.
Bucks lips close around Eddie’s cock, head bobbing up and down. Eddie uses his grip on Buck’s hair to set the pace, slow at first and then ramping up into something brutal, forcing Buck to take him just that much deeper into his throat. He sputters and chokes and Eddie pulls him off just long enough to take a full breath before he pushes him back down. They continue like this, Buck choking on Eddie’s dick and Eddie controlling how much air Buck gets, Buck whining around the cock in his mouth, and Eddie wiping the tears from his cheeks with a softness that doesn’t quite fit with the scene they’ve found themselves in. Eddie moaning and cursing and fucking his hips into Buck’s face until he’s spilling down his best friend’s throat.
He rides out his orgasm, hips stilling with Buck’s nose pressed into Eddie’s pubic hair and throat spasming around the too-sensitive head of his cock until he can’t take it anymore. He pulls out and Buck gasps for breath, his hands digging into Eddie’s thighs like a lifeline, keeping him afloat.
Eddie watches as Buck gets his bearings, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and then rising, just a little unsteady, to his feet in front of Eddie. He sways into Eddie’s orbit, and Eddie reaches a hand out to catch him, fingers curling around his bicep. Buck looks a little floaty, all soft around the edges, and he giggles, voice light and airy, as he lifts his hand to Eddie’s lips. Eddie takes it in his own, in silent understanding, and lets his tongue lave over the skin to lap up whatever was left of his own cum. When it’s all gone, he takes Buck’s pointer and index finger in his mouth, sucking at them and slicking them up with his spit.
The action seems to bring Buck back to him, his eyes darkening and land legs back.
Buck takes his fingers out of Eddie’s mouth and quickly replaces them with his lips. It’s just a short kiss, but it sends Eddie reeling nonetheless. He feels a little floaty himself when they pull away, that is until Buck says, “Never did that with anyone from grindr before.”
Eddie sees red. He growls, “Are you gonna stand there fully clothed talking about grindr or are you going to finally fuck me, Buckley?”
Buck’s eyes widen, and he gets with the program quickly, pulling his shirt over his head and stepping out of his pants and underwear in record time. In the blink of an eye, Buck is manhandling Eddie, turning him around and pushing him toward the wall. “Bend over.”
“What–” Eddie asks, looking back at Buck who has, again, dropped to his knees behind him.
Buck rolls his eyes, standing back up, “Bend over so I can eat you out. Despite my reputation as a whore, I actually don’t carry lube on me at all times. So if you want me to fuck the attitude out of you like you’ve been begging me to do since that call earlier today, fucking bend over.” With that, Buck presses a firm hand into the middle of Eddie’s back, forcing his chest down. His hands reach out on instinct to brace against the wall, and Buck nudges his legs a little further apart.
“Here, get these nice and wet for me.” Buck says and then his fingers are back in Eddie’s mouth. Buck fucks them in and out as his other hand strokes languidly up and down the side of Eddie’s ribcage. Eddie can’t focus on anything, though, not with the way that Buck’s cock is resting on the back of Eddie’s thigh. Hot and heavy and wet.
After what seems like an eternity but could only have been a few seconds, Bucks pulls his fingers out with a cocky grin and drops back down to his knees behind Eddie. He pulls his ass cheeks apart, letting his wet fingers ghost over the rim of Eddie’s hole before sinking the first one in up to the knuckle.
Eddie keens and Buck pulls it out nice and slow before pushing back in deeper. He presses a kiss to the birth mark on the back of Eddie’s thigh. “So beautiful, Eddie.”
Buck fucks his finger in and out until the resistance gives enough to add the second. It’s gone a little dry so he gathers the saliva in his mouth and presses his tongue to Eddie’s hole, letting the squelch of spit ease the way. Eddie’s knees buckle, but Buck steadies him with his other hand. Wraps it tight around his waist.
“Careful, baby.” Buck teases. “You’re so gone on my fingers and my tongue, what are you gonna do when I get my dick in there? They don't call me firehose for nothin'.”
“F-fuck,” Eddie stutters under the twist of Buck’s fingers that press up into that sweet spot. He bites out, “Hurry up.”
Buck takes his fingers out, laughing under his breath at the whine it earns from Eddie. He tuts, “What am I gonna do with you, huh? All that attitude…” He presses one final kiss to Eddie’s leg and then rises. He spits into his palm and takes his cock in hand, coating it in wetness. Eddie looks back over his shoulder, eyes wide and still burning, and Buck sighs, gripping Eddie’s waist like a vice as he lines them up, dragging his cockhead over the pucker of Eddie’s hole just to tease.
“ Buck,” Eddie groans, pretending like he’s exasperated, like this isn’t lighting his insides on fire, “Stop teasing and fuck me alread– Ahh.”
“Like that, baby?” Buck asks, voice sickly sweet in Eddie’s ear as he pushes all the way in, nice and slow. Buck’s grip on Eddie’s waist never wavers, but he brings his other hand up to Eddie’s chest, pulling him back so that their bodies are pressed together flush. Eddie moans, loud and wanton as Bucks lips work their way over the sensitive skin of his neck, hips pulling back to push back in harder and faster. Over and over and over.
“S-so full,” Eddie whines, high and needy, as Buck grinds against Eddie’s ass, slow and filthy.
“Hard to be a brat when you’re stuffed full of my cock, huh baby? This was all you needed, wasn’t it?”
Eddie nods against his chest, top of his head knocking into Buck’s chin. But Buck just smiles at how pliant and sweet he’s become, like all of the fight has been fucked out of him. “Y-yeah,” he whimpers, jolting forward with each thrust from behind him, “Need you.”
Buck rubs his hand over Eddie’s side again, almost like he’s trying to comfort him, “Good job, baby, telling me what you need. You’re taking me so well – fuck – you’re so tight, baby.”
Eddie clenches around Buck at that, a sly smile spreading across his blissed out face and Buck swats lightly at his ass, though there’s no real heat behind it. “Keep doing that and I’m gonna cum,” Buck warns.
Eddie clenches again, “‘M close. Wan’you to cum.”
Buck tucks his head into Eddie’s shoulder, picking up the pace now that he has permission to chase after his own orgasm. “Yeah?” He breathes into Eddie’s skin in between open mouth kisses, “Want me to – ha – cum inside of you?”
“F-fucking Christ – yeah, yes. Cum in me, I want it.”
Bucks hand sneaks lower, taking Eddie’s dick in his palm and squeezing. “Come on, baby. Cum for me,” he pleads. It doesn’t take much of Buck jerking him off before Eddie shoots off, cum dripping down Buck’s hand and splattering the shower wall. He all but collapses forward, Buck’s hand letting go of Eddie’s cock to hold him up by his chest. He hammers into Eddie, eyes screwing up in concentration and pleasure until he feels Eddie reach up to grab his hand from his chest. The action draws his gaze, eyes opening and zeroing in on it.
It takes the sight of Eddie licking his own cum off of Buck’s fingers for the second time that night for Buck to fall over the edge. His hips stutter as he spills into the tight heat of Eddie’s ass. “Fuck.”
Buck’s forehead falls to Eddie’s shoulder and they stay there for a moment, Buck holding Eddie against him as his cock begins to soften inside. When Buck finally looks up, Eddie’s face is slack and sated. He looks so blissed out, Buck is helpless but to grab his chin between two fingers and pull him in for a soft kiss.
Eddie hums into the kiss, pressing forward enough to cause Buck to slip out. He turns around in his arms, deepening the kiss as he ignores the feeling of Buck’s cum dripping down his thigh. Instead, he leans into the wet slide of their lips and the feeling of Buck’s fingers threading through the hair at the base of his neck and splayed out across the small of his back. A moment later they separate and Buck greets him with a blinding smile that has Eddie’s heart doing cartwheels in his chest.
And then he remembers where they are. “Shit, we probably shouldn’t have done that at work.”
Buck sucks in a breath and grimaces. Eddie is right. “Yeah… well, Why don’t you get cleaned up as quick as possible and I’ll meet you at the jeep? I can drive us home?” He asks, tongue darting out between his lips as he looks Eddie over.
“You ask me to clean up as quickly as possible and then you look at me like that?” Eddie scoffs, playfully pushing Buck away. He steps back into the stream and begins cleaning himself, all too aware of the burning gaze of Buck’s eyes as they wander across his body.
“Hey, I’m fine just looking – i-in fact, I’m just happy I finally get to look. The last few years have been fucking torturous, man.”
Eddie huffs a laugh at first, “Well you’re not too bad looking yourself, I– wait… years? What the fuck, man? Why didn’t you ever say anything?”
Buck rolls his eyes, “Don’t go getting all angry on me again, I just fucked that out of you.”
“I’m serious, Buck. Why go through all of the bullshit relationships and hookups and fucking grindr accounts when you could’ve just told me and we could’ve–”
“Well you didn’t exactly tell me, either. Did you?” Buck levels, and Eddie knows he’s made. He purses his lips and then turns around to wash his hair in the stream instead of giving that a verbal response. It stings a little, is the thing. The knowledge that his fear – his cowardice – had been a blockade between himself and his desire all this time.
He’s still smarting a little when he says, “If you like me so much why were you always taking people’s numbers on calls? I never did that. A-and don’t say that you haven’t been lately. Just today–”
“Just today nothing!” Buck shouts, his frustration bubbling over. Eddie turns back to look at him, startled by the outburst. Buck doesn’t normally yell. Even when they argued earlier, he wouldn’t classify what Buck was doing as yelling, per say.
Buck sighs, exasperated, “Literally nothing happened today, Eddie. As soon as you left the guy got all shy and was like Sorry I didn’t mean to make your boyfriend uncomfortable, I had no idea you were spoken for.”
Eddie sputters at that, “B--but you were- you were looking and –”
“And nothing.” He takes a step closer, placing his hands on either side of Eddie’s face so he’ll hear him – really hear him – when he says, “And the grindr account is nothing, either. I told Hen I was thinking of making one to help me get over somebody else, but I deleted it pretty quickly when I figured out that nobody could compare to you.”
“Oh.” Eddie says, because that’s all he can think of at the moment.
“Yeah,” Buck says, inching closer and closer, “Oh.”
And then Buck kisses him again and it feels the same – the burning passion underneath everything just like when they kissed before – but different, too.
Because now Eddie knows that he’s so incredibly stupidly, fucking gone on his best friend. And his best friend is maybe a little bit incredibly stupidly gone on him, too.
They pull apart and Eddie shuts the water off. “Let’s dry off, Buckley. And then maybe I’ll let you fuck the attitude out of me again when we’re home. God knows your driving will annoy me enough before we get there.”
Buck grins back at him as Eddie grabs his towel and wraps it around his waist. He watches like a lovesick puppy as Eddie opens the stall and makes his way toward the locker room.
“Uh, wait. E-Eddie? I- I didn’t bring a towel. Eddie?!”