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Eddie, as it turns out, is extremely cuddly when he’s asleep.
It’s not like he’s standoffish when he’s awake, either: he’s always there with a hand hovering over Buck’s back when they have to fight their way through a crowd, is always digging his fingers into Buck’s shoulders when they get unbearably tense toward the end of a shift. He’s soft brushes against Buck’s side and teasing flicks to his chin and legs thrown over Buck’s lap when there isn’t enough room on the couch.
But he’s different when he’s asleep. Unguarded, snuffly and messy-haired, full of all sorts of scrunchy expressions when someone tries to wake him before he’s ready.
And he clings.
It hadn’t been too obvious, the first few nights of quarantining together. The first day, Buck made a pillow wall between the two halves of the bed, just in case; Eddie had taken one look at it, snorted, then thrown one of the pillows at Buck’s head with startling precision, so it’s not like Buck was expecting him to sleep on his back like a corpse, but.
He woke up the next morning with Eddie’s arm thrown over his waist, warm and effortlessly grounding. The day after, it was Eddie’s leg tangled with his, Eddie’s forehead leaning against Buck’s shoulder.
Today, he wakes up with Eddie half on top of him, head resting on Buck’s chest, his thigh thrown over Buck’s, holding him close with his fingers fitting into the spaces between Buck’s ribs. It feels forbidden to dip his chin just so, enough to hide his face in Eddie’s hair, to breathe him in.
All of it feels forbidden, but Buck does it anyway. He keeps doing it, keeps taking, because the measures are relaxing and Eddie misses Christopher and all of this is so painfully temporary. He keeps taking for as long as he’s allowed, and they don’t talk about it, ever, just roll out from under the covers and go about their day.
There’s always a part of Buck that thinks Eddie’s just humoring him; that he knows how much Buck likes to be touched and indulges it because he’s just that good of a friend, and it makes him feel bitterly selfish, today and every day, when he lifts his arm and rests a hand, light as he can manage, on Eddie’s back.
Eddie grunts. “How is your brain actually making a sound right now,” he says, lips moving over the skin of Buck’s chest, raising a flash of goosebumps all over Buck’s body. “Sleep, Buck.”
Unseeing, he reaches out a clumsy hand to run down Buck’s face, like he’s trying to close his eyes.
“Sorry,” Buck says, with his breath stuck somewhere deep in his chest, lodged painfully between his ribs.
Eddie grunts again. He’s silent for a few seconds, and then he sighs. He raises his head, pillows his chin on his hand so it’s not digging into Buck’s chest.
The morning sun spills over his face, over the hint of stubble on his cheeks and the freckle under his eye and the pimple he’d glared at when they were brushing their teeth next to each other last night. Buck forgets to breathe entirely, then.
“What are you thinking about?” Eddie asks, his voice raspy, soft.
You , Buck doesn’t say, even if it is the truth.
“Nothing,” is what takes its place, the lie in it obvious even to Buck's own ears. “Just couldn't get back to sleep.”
Not with Eddie pressed against him strong and solid and so, so warm, anchoring him as he always does. Not with the feeling it gives him, a fluttering in his stomach like butterflies, a childish joy for those few minutes when Eddie's asleep and Buck gets to pretend this is real before he remembers to be ashamed of it.
Eddie frowns a little, a pronounced crease between his eyebrows. “What's up?”
“Nothing,” Buck says again, blinks away, stares at his ceiling dappled with light. “Weird dream, and then I was just…”
Pretending I can keep you, just for a minute.
“You're chatty in the mornings,” Eddie laughs, and then he moves, drags himself just a little higher on the bed so he can tuck his face into the space over Buck's shoulder, where the pillow is warm.
Buck swallows, tries to drown the little spark of hope that's born as Eddie's breath spills over his collarbone. Eddie’s still half-asleep, and he’s doing—this. Is nuzzling into Buck’s neck, breathing him in, teasing Buck with his voice little more than a rumble in his chest.
“Sorry,” he repeats, hunting for something else, a joke he can say back so all the love doesn't just spill out of him, too big to be missed in the rumpled sheets.
“It's okay,” Eddie sighs. He raises his head again, and bends the arm that's thrown over Buck's chest to touch Buck's face, his palm over Buck's cheek, a thumb resting just a little too close to the corner of Buck's lips. “I'll fix you with some coffee, just give me a minute.”
And he—he leans forward, smiling, and kisses Buck; a chaste, sweet thing.
And then he gets up and walks into the bathroom.
Everything is still for a beat, for two. Buck blinks, dizzy despite lying down, waiting for the familiar shapes of his bedroom to dissolve and clue him into the fact that this is a dream, but it—it all stays, the reality where Eddie just did what he did, and—
The door opens again.
“Um,” Eddie says in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest, blinking at Buck with his eyes wide. “I have—never done that before.”
Buck has to swallow three times before can make words. “I would definitely remember if you had.”
“Right,” Eddie nods, and the lines of his face harden from something like surprise into—Buck's not sure, actually, but he knows the way Eddie's moving his jaw, the upset purse to his lips.
“But I didn't—Eddie,” Buck sits up, struggles up onto his knees on the oversoft mattress, half-crawls toward the end of the bed. “It's okay.”
Eddie makes a face. “I just—” he closes his mouth, leaning out to peer over the railing, probably checking that Hen and Chimney are still asleep, “I just kissed you.”
“Yeah,” Buck says, and feels his heart climbing up his throat, unstoppable.
“I was—God, I must have been half asleep still, I forgot, I'm—Buck, I'm so sorry.”
“Y—you forgot,” Buck repeats, and he's not sure when he's started shaking, only that he notices it when he tries to reach a hand toward Eddie.
Eddie rubs both palms over his face, takes a step back, grabs the door handle like he might disappear in the bathroom and lock himself inside.
“This is my fault,” he says, looking at the floor. He runs a hand through his hair, blinks up at the ceiling, and Buck's entire body jolts at the sight of tears in his eyes. “I should have just slept downstairs with Hen and Chim, because this—it was so easy to let myself—”
“Pretend,” Buck interrupts, and Eddie's hand drops from his hair like someone cut its string.
“That it's real,” he says, almost a whisper.
“That you want me,” Buck nods, and thinks he might cry, too, thinks that if he tried to get up he'd just stumble right over himself and fall, clumsy with everything he feels for Eddie, bleary eyes and messy hair and everything, everything.
“I do,” Eddie breathes, barely a sound, and only then seems to realize that Buck is reaching for him. ”I do, I—Buck.”
“We need to talk about this,” Buck says, but he can't hold back the smile that stretches his face and then just keeps going, buoyed by the fizzy joy that comes to life under his skin. “Like, so much talking, we can't just trip into this, it's too important—”
But by then, Eddie has reached the bed, and he bumps into Buck as he climbs in, sending both of them backwards into the sheets, the way they started: Buck on his back, Eddie on top of him, but this time it's his entire weight pushing Buck into the mattress. This time, they're both grinning; this time, they're clear-eyed.
“We will,” he says, serious for a moment, his thumb resting in the divot of Buck's chin. Buck doesn't whine, but it's close. “I promise, baby, but can I—”
And it's Buck who closes the distance, this second time around, pulling Eddie in by the back of his neck. One of them laughs; Buck can't tell which one, but he swallows the sound, presses the remnants of it into Eddie's lips, and doesn't pull away until there are signs of life from downstairs.
Until the sun has reached all the way across the bedroom, and Eddie's still holding him in the light of day.