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It takes Buck longer than it should to notice. Which - okay, sure, he’s oblivious about certain things even on the best of days, and he got struck by lightning less than a month ago, so maybe he should give himself a break. But still, it feels like something he should have noticed, so he ends up feeling pretty stupid for not noticing.
Since Buck woke up in the hospital, Eddie’s stopped touching him.
It sounds melodramatic when he puts it like that. Honestly, though, Buck is feeling pretty fucking melodramatic about it. If he really processes it, sits with it and admits it to himself, it makes him want to go lay down in the rain somewhere and maybe never get up again. And that, that is just ridiculous, and Buck knows it. He’s an adult, and he should be past that, right? He’s still seeing Eddie at the hospital and at home, and soon he’ll be back to seeing Eddie at work, too. They’re spending time together, Eddie laughs at his stupid struck by lightning jokes, nothing really feels that different in their day to day, so Buck shouldn’t feel so insane about it.
Except - every time Eddie normally would have put a hand on his arm or grabbed his wrist or even put a hand on his shoulder or the back of his neck - he just doesn’t. He waits and watches when Buck gets up, and doesn’t offer to help him, seemingly confident that Buck has recovered enough that he’s got it on his own. And by the time he’s home and his parents are gone again, Buck is recovered enough, to be fair. He doesn’t really need help to stand up - but he still wants Eddie to offer, or at least reach out.
He only finally noticed, though, because he did catch Eddie reaching out. They were at Eddie’s place, in the kitchen, because Buck was finally allowed to help with dinner again and he’d been carefully chopping up some vegetables. He’d glanced to one side, planning to make a joke that he can hardly remember now, and he’d found Eddie watching him, a hand hovering just an inch or two away from his elbow.
Buck had paused for a moment, and he’d actually watched as Eddie pulled his hand back, leaving nothing between them but empty space.
That one moment makes Buck trace back over every single interaction since he woke up, and that’s how he realizes that Eddie never gave him a hug, or grabbed his arm. He never helped Buck out of bed, or off the couch. And now - here Buck is, a week after noticing, and Eddie still hasn’t touched him.
He has no idea how to bring it up in conversation. Eddie’s always been the type to reach out and touch, to knock their shoulders together or to squeeze Buck’s bicep or to offer a hug, but neither of them have ever had to talk about it. It’s just something that happens, sometimes, when Buck gets very, very lucky.
It’s not even like Eddie is stingy with his touches, really, it’s just - something about the way Eddie touches him feels special. It always has. Losing it hurts , and since Buck isn’t even sure exactly what he did to have the privilege of it revoked, it hurts even worse.
It starts driving him crazy, actually. Now that he knows, he can’t stop seeing it. At the store, when Eddie almost puts a hand on his back. At the Diaz house, when Eddie almost bumps their shoulders together in the kitchen. At the loft, when Eddie’s fingertips come within brushing distance of his wrist and then dart away again, and Buck feels like he might actually throw up, after that one.
Every time, he thinks he’ll finally snap and blurt something insane out like, why won’t you touch me anymore? I think I really might die if you never touch me again. But every time the words get stuck in his throat or crowd together around his tongue until the moment passes and he just gives up and moves on.
After two solid weeks of near misses, of Buck noticing every little twitch and falter of Eddie’s hands, Eddie does it again. He reaches out, and he stops, and Buck watches him do it, just stares at his hand as it hovers there, and he snaps. Only - he still doesn’t manage to say anything. Instead, he just reaches out, and takes Eddie’s hand in his own, and holds on like he isn’t going to take no for an answer.
They’re in the grocery store. They’re standing in front of the bananas, and after Buck waxing poetic about appropriate ripeness for a solid two minutes, Eddie finally put a bunch in the cart, and rolled his eyes, and he’d reached over like he was going to take Buck’s elbow and steer him away, but instead he’d stopped again - and now they’re just standing here, holding hands in front of the bananas.
“Okay,” Eddie says out loud, staring down at their hands - which is almost as ridiculous as Buck just deciding to grab his hand in the first place.
Eddie’s hand is warm. Buck didn’t wear his hoodie - and it’s always a little chilly in the produce section, anyways, but he also feels like being struck by lightning maybe made his circulation even worse. With that thought, Buck comes up with his clearly brilliant excuse.
“My hand was cold.”
Eddie blinks at him, and Buck blinks back, waiting to see if Eddie is actually going to point out the obviously flimsy excuse.
Instead, Eddie just blinks some more, and adjusts his grip on Buck’s hand. He tangles their fingers together, and nudges his thumb against Buck’s wrist, and then Buck is just standing there staring at their hands, too. Eddie really does have nice hands. They’re rough and strong and a little smaller than Buck’s, and with the way their fingers are interlaced, they fit with Buck’s almost perfectly.
“Okay,” Eddie says again, a little more softly. It isn’t a precursor to anything. He doesn’t let go of Buck’s hand. Instead, still holding on, he just starts walking towards the rest of the aisles, and Buck goes with him.
They spend the rest of their grocery trip holding hands, and not talking about it. Eddie either pushes the cart with one hand, or he uses his hand all tangled with Buck’s if he needs two hands, and they push the cart together. They take turns grabbing things off the shelves. When Buck gets distracted and wanders off a little, either Eddie gently tugs him back, or he lets himself be dragged along, sighing indulgently.
Eventually, back out in the parking lot, they do have to let go of each other - but Buck is pretty sure that whatever the problem was, he’s fixed it. Eddie touched him now, and held his hand, and nothing bad happened, so they should go back to normal.
Except that they still don’t.
Buck had assumed, apparently stupidly, that if he could just break the seal or something that everything would go back to normal. He touched Eddie, so now Eddie could touch him again. It made sense in his head.
But Eddie still isn’t touching him. There’s space between them on the couch when they try to have a movie night. They barely brush knees even in the fire truck. Buck is going to lose whatever is left of his sad little mind.
In fact - well, by all accounts, apparently he does , because one night at the loft when Eddie’s just there to drop off some food and then stays to have a beer, Buck decides he’s going to fix the sitting problem. Only somehow, instead of just scooting closer on his new incredibly ugly couch, he ends up getting up and just - depositing himself directly in Eddie’s lap.
Again, a little like the grocery store incident, Eddie just starts blinking at him.
The thing is - Buck knows he should be embarrassed. He should scramble off Eddie’s lap and apologize or something, he should make a joke - but it’s so comfortable.
Eddie, like a reflex, wraps an arm around Buck’s waist to help keep him steady, and Buck tilts a little, tucking himself against Eddie’s side. Eddie is warm, the fabric of his shirt is soft under Buck’s hand, and Buck can actually feel the way Eddie’s ribs expand with every breath, pressed close to his own. Comfortable in a way he rarely is, Buck sags into Eddie even further, relaxing as the moment drags on and Eddie, for whatever reason, doesn’t shove him off.
He glances down at Eddie’s face, and from the angle he’s got, Eddie’s head is tipped back slightly to look up at him, so he’s looking up at Buck through his lashes, his eyes all big and dark and beautiful. Buck feels himself sway a little closer before he manages to stop and adjust slightly.
“I may have overcorrected,” Buck mumbles, still stuck staring into Eddie’s eyes, and down at this especially nice angle of his face. It is - a really nice face. Buck resists a sudden impulse to reach up and start tracing it with his fingers, following the line of Eddie’s nose or just touching the mole right by his eye as gently as he can.
“I’m not sure I get what you were correcting,” Eddie tells him, blinking again, but still not moving away.
If Buck knew how to explain without sounding like a serial killer, this would be the perfect time to do it. Instead, he says, “I was cold again.”
Slowly, Eddie’s free hand creeps up to Buck’s hip, and it tugs him in tighter, making sure he doesn’t fall off Eddie’s lap as they both shift around. “I don’t know if you’ve heard of blankets…” Eddie trails off, raising an eyebrow - but he’s not letting go.
“You’re definitely warmer than a blanket,” Buck grumbles, and he crosses his arms as he tries to make himself as small as possible, tucking his head down towards Eddie’s shoulder.
“Maybe not an electric blanket.”
“Well, maybe not, but I don’t have one of those, because we live in California.”
Eddie snorts at that, and he starts shifting his thumb over Buck’s waist - it’s over the fabric of Buck’s shirt, but still the feeling makes Buck shiver, and that makes Eddie raise his eyebrows in surprise. “You really are cold, huh?”
“Think the lightning made my circulation worse or something,” Buck mumbles.
“I don’t think that’s how that works when all your heart scans came back clean, bud.” And Buck suddenly has a close up view of Eddie’s jaw and the corner of his mouth as a smile creeps onto his face.
“Tell my extremities that.”
Snorting again, Eddie tightens his grip and shifts slightly on the couch to make things a little more comfortable for both of them. Buck ends up sitting with his legs across Eddie’s lap and his ass on the couch, still tucked up against Eddie’s side with one of Eddie’s arms wrapped around his waist and his legs.
Time stretches out in a sleepy sort of way, and Buck is pretty sure he starts to nod off against Eddie’s shoulder. “Couch is a lot more comfortable like this,” he mumbles, only slightly more than half awake.
“It’s not great, is it?”
“Kind of hate it,” Buck admits around a sigh. “But Mom wanted to do stuff while they were here - I think it’s like - a guilt couch. I think it makes them feel better.”
“Mm,” Eddie shifts a hand up to the back of Buck’s neck, his fingers just barely edging up into Buck’s hair. “Guess you’ll have to find one for yourself now.”
Buck makes a discontented little noise in response - but that’s all he can really manage before he dozes off again. He knows he probably shouldn’t be falling asleep on Eddie or the couch, but he assumes that he’s still close enough to being in recovery that he can get away with it.
Somehow, though - somehow holding hands in the grocery store and cuddling on the couch still doesn’t fix it. Eddie still won’t touch him. Well - obviously he will, because if Buck touches Eddie, Eddie touches back. It’s not like he freezes up or shoves away or complains.
The loss of all those little casual touches, though, is still making Buck feel absolutely deranged beyond all reason. He keeps getting the urge to go around shaking people and telling them to hug their best friends before they lose their chance. He wants to shout in the face of every other person who still gets to touch Eddie, to make sure they know how lucky they are. He feels - like maybe he’s got a few screws loose, like maybe the lightning did something to his brain, or just maybe that there’s something going on here he’s missing that is making him so completely inescapably stupid about this whole thing.
Whatever is doing it - Buck decides that the only real answer is that he has to start touching back more often. He’ll watch for when Eddie reaches out, and then he’ll lean in or reach out or - something, and finish Eddie’s gesture. Buck is hoping, at least he thinks he is, that it’ll be sort of like positive reinforcement and things will just go back to normal. Because that’s all he wants - he just wants things to go back to normal.
He’s almost 90% sure of that.
Anyways, the next time he catches Eddie reaching out, Buck just reaches over and takes his hand, like that was where they were both headed.
They are, unfortunately, once again standing in the produce section, arguing about bananas.
Eddie stops, mid-sentence, and looks down at their hands. “Is this just going to keep happening here?” he asks - but he isn’t pulling his hand away.
“The produce section is cold. It’s like, the coldest part of the grocery store, you can’t pretend that’s not true.”
“No - that part’s true.” Eddie pauses, opens his mouth and tilts his head, then seems to think better of it. He sighs, and shakes his head, and tugs Buck back towards the shopping cart. “Come on, then. Get your bananas and let’s get you away from the refrigerated vegetables.”
Buck manages, again, to keep Eddie holding his hand all the way through the grocery store. If it weren’t for how fixated he is on every rare touch he gets now, it could almost fade totally into the background. It feels just as utterly mundane as it did last time - Eddie doesn’t seem uncomfortable, and he doesn’t draw any attention to it. He takes it in stride. They hold hands in the toothpaste aisle, as they debate whether Christopher needs to switch to a different brand. They hold hands while they get eggs, and oat milk creamer, and pasta. Every once in a while, Eddie’s thumb shifts randomly over the junction of Buck’s wrist, and Buck loses track of everything around them every time he feels it.
He sort of wants to stay in the grocery store forever, as long as it means Eddie will keep holding his hand.
Unfortunately, life doesn’t work that way, and when they make it to the Jeep, they do let go. Buck’s hand feels strangely empty all the way home, no matter how tightly he grips the steering wheel.
From that day on, though, every single time he catches Eddie’s hand outstretched, hovering just by his elbow or shoulder or wrist - he just grabs it. It seems like the easiest way to keep touching Eddie back.
He ends up holding Eddie’s hand basically every day.
They hold hands on the couch, while they look for something to watch, and Buck traces Eddie’s knuckles with his fingertips. They hold hands in the kitchen, while they decide what to make for dinner, and Buck finds a way to do all the meal prep that he can with just one hand. They even hold hands in the firetruck, sometimes, and while Hen raises her eyebrows, Buck just shrugs at her and grins, and she smiles back and shakes her head.
Honestly, they hold hands now more often than they don’t, and it makes Buck - really happy. He keeps waiting for the novelty to wear off, but every time he takes Eddie’s hand, and Eddie just sighs and presses a thumb against his skin or swings their hands back and forth, Buck feels like a soda that somebody shook up, fizzy and giddy to the point of bubbling over.
Then, one day in the kitchen, while Eddie is pushing a spatula around in a pan one-handed, he glances over at Buck’s hand in his and says, “We really need to get you some gloves or something, huh?”
Buck stops, freezes in place still midway through reaching into a cabinet to pull down some plates. “We do?”
“Well since your hands are apparently literally always cold,” Eddie says - and there’s a little sparkle in his eyes as he glances over, and a smile tucked in the corner of his mouth. He’s joking, or he thinks it’s funny, but Buck just feels a little like he’s going to be sick. Slowly, he lowers his free hand, and then he gently pulls his other hand out of Eddie’s grip.
“I mean I’m not-” The words catch a little, and Buck gruffly clears his throat as he turns back towards the cabinets, reaching in with both hands. “They’re not always cold.”
Eddie moves the pan off the heat and turns off the burner. Then he comes over to stand beside Buck, and reaches out to nudge his knuckles against Buck’s hip.
Buck almost, very nearly, bursts into tears. Instead he just bites his lip and stays as still as he possibly can.
“You wanna tell me why we’ve been holding hands for a month, then?”
“What, now you wanna talk about it?” Buck asks, trying to pretend he’s not all choked up.
“It didn’t really seem like the grocery store was the place to ask.”
“We’ve held hands in like twenty different places now, including my place and your place. This isn’t even the first time we’ve held hands in your kitchen!” He turns, on that, finally abandoning the cabinets so he can face Eddie.
Outwardly, Eddie looks pretty calm - but Buck can see the tension around his eyes, and the way he crosses his arms over his chest. “I’m just trying to understand what’s happening here, Buck."
It almost makes Buck laugh - he can hardly understand what’s happening, and he’s the one doing it. He’s been trying and failing to understand any of it for nearly two months now. With all that in mind, the last thread snaps, and he cries out, “Well why don’t we start with how you wouldn’t touch me for a month after I woke up in the hospital?”
Eddie blinks at him, obviously disarmed. “I - what?”
Already, Buck regrets saying it out loud. He sounds insane. He feels insane. “You-” Buck pauses, takes one last look at Eddie’s wide, concerned, brown, brown eyes, and then drops his gaze to the floor. “When I woke up, Christopher hugged me, and you didn’t. And when I got out of the hospital, you just never… I kept waiting for things to go back to normal, and they didn’t. You’d keep reaching out like always, but you’d stop before you made contact, just all the little - normal ways you usually would - you just kept stopping. And I didn’t know how to ask you about it, even just saying this I sound - I know how it sounds. But once I noticed I couldn’t stop noticing, and I hated it, so eventually I thought - if I just grabbed your hand when you reached out, maybe it would help. Somehow.” He swallows the growing lump in his throat and tilts his head back up to look at Eddie.
Now, Eddie isn’t looking at him. He’s staring at the wall somewhere, his eyes glassy and distracted, and Buck can’t tell at all what he’s thinking.
“I’m sorry,” Buck says finally, when the silence keeps dragging out. “If I made you uncomfortable, or if I made it worse, whatever it was - I just couldn’t tell if you didn’t wanna hurt me or if there was something - I just wanted to fix it.”
“I didn’t…” Eddie trails off and crosses his arms a little tighter. He rocks back on his heel, still staring somewhere over Buck’s shoulder - all the little signs that indicate just how upset he is. How upset Buck made him - but Buck still isn’t sure exactly which part caused the problem. Eddie rubs a hand over his mouth and starts again. “I guess I did realize that I was stopping myself, at least at first. It wasn’t completely conscious, I just - froze. The longer it went on, the less I was thinking about it actively - and when you never said anything, I guess I thought you didn’t notice.”
“It took me a while,” Buck admits, gripping the kitchen counter so hard his knuckles turn white. “At first it didn’t seem - I mean I guess at first I told myself maybe you weren’t even thinking about it, maybe I was just making something out of nothing.” He tightens his grip even further, until his fingers start to tremble. “I guess I wasn’t.”
“No,” Eddie admits. “I was…” He shifts on his feet again, awkwardly, leaning towards Buck and then away. “I just kept thinking about how the last time I’d touched you was to give you CPR.” For a moment, the words almost hang in the air. Eddie’s next words sound forced. “And you were so - cold. Every time I’d get close, it was like I could feel it all over again, and I knew I could replace it if I just finished reaching, but - something kept stopping me.”
“Chimney said you were the one that got my pulse back,” Buck says, his voice a little quieter than he meant it to be.
Eddie scoffs, and a tear rolls down his face, which he tries to brush off with the heel of his hand. “Technically that was the Lifepak, I think. I was the last person to give you compressions, but - you went into v tach, so they shocked you back to rhythm, and then Chim got a pulse.”
Buck nods, and lets go of the counter so he can shuffle just a little closer. “Still sounded to me like you kind of saved my life.”
“I don’t know.” Eddie shakes his head, and wipes away another tear. “It was just the feeling, I think. I couldn’t shake that - sense memory, in my hands, from when you were in full arrest, and you were so cold and I couldn’t feel a heartbeat, and that little voice in the back of my head that said somehow it might come back or I might still feel it even if it wasn’t there-” Cutting himself off, Eddie shakes his head and huffs out a little laugh, clearly only laughing at himself. “I promise I did try to talk to Frank about all this.”
“I had-” Buck’s voice cracks, and he clears his throat again. “I felt like that after you got shot. I kept - washing my hands. I kept thinking about your blood, and feeling it even when it wasn’t there.”
Finally, Eddie glances over, and they lock eyes. He laughs, short and sharp, and sways just slightly in Buck’s direction. “We really make a hell of a team, huh?”
“I mean, we do,” Buck insists, letting his arms fall back to his sides. “And if anything - we are really good at saving each other, at this point.”
“That’s true.”
They stand there, about half a foot apart, just staring at each other. Eddie’s arms are still crossed, and hesitantly, Buck reaches up, just hooking a finger in the sleeve of his shirt. “So uh - now what?”
“I guess it depends on whether or not you actually want to keep holding my hand in grocery stores,” Eddie says. He shrugs - but the movement doesn’t look entirely casual, his shoulders just a little too stiff and mechanical in their motion.
“Just - in grocery stores?” Buck asks, trying to make it a joke so the words are just a little easier to get out.
“Well you said you started the whole thing just to - fix it.” Not quite making eye contact, Eddie reaches down and nudges a gentle fist against Buck’s side. “It’s not like I’m scared to touch you anymore. I think that part’s fixed.”
“Right.”
There are things that Buck knows he should say - something about how happy it’s made him, about how comfortable it all feels, about how much he doesn’t just want to go back to normal, it turns out - but he doesn’t know where to start. Instead, the silence stretches out, and Eddie’s hand draws back, and Buck watches as he slowly draws in on himself, just a little.
Buck opens his mouth, and closes it, and reaches out his hand - but Eddie isn’t looking, and he steps away, just out of reach.
“We should finish making dinner.”
Right. There’s still a pan on the stove, and it’s getting cold, and under the nausea that’s settling over him, Buck’s probably still hungry. They both need to eat. “Yeah. Okay.”
It’s immediately horrible. It’s not even so much that they’re not holding hands - it’s that they’re not touching at all. And that sounds ridiculous, again, because they’ve been touching plenty, and Eddie just touched him, but it’s like Buck doesn’t know how to go without it, now. He’s destroyed his own ability to go more than five minutes without touching Eddie, so now they’re just standing here in the kitchen, and Buck is trying to use both of his hands to finish setting the table and plate up some salads, but he wishes that he wasn’t. He feels pathetic.
Eddie finishes the stir fry, and takes the pan back off the burner. For a moment, he glances to his side, then he turns around, looking a little lost, until he places Buck just standing over in the doorway. He clears his throat. “Dinner’s ready.”
Buck’s resolve or fear or - whatever it was, lasts about fifteen more very awkward seconds. Then he crosses the kitchen in two strides, wraps his arms around Eddie’s waist, and hugs him tight. The sun rises right in his chest when Eddie chuckles against him, and Buck can feel it as much as he can hear it.
“Hey - okay,” Eddie says softly, wrapping his arms around Buck’s shoulders.
“I wanna keep holding your hand in the grocery store,” Buck mumbles where he has his cheek pressed tight against Eddie’s shoulder.
“Okay,” Eddie says again, rubbing his hand up and down Buck’s spine. “And not in the grocery store?”
“I don’t think I can stop at this point.”
Eddie snorts, but he tilts his head and presses his temple against Buck’s. “Well I’m not gonna make you. I was just - trying to understand it. I kept talking to Frank and eventually he just told me to ask you.”
“Ask me what?” Buck mumbles, pressing his fingers right over Eddie’s shoulder blades.
“Just - what you meant by it, you know. If you were cold and I was just the closest source of heat, or if you needed it to ground you or-” Eddie stops, and clears his throat. “You know. Your best friend starts holding your hand everywhere when that’s not something you’ve ever done before - you might have a couple of questions.”
If Eddie had been the one to just randomly start grabbing Buck’s hand, actually, Buck might have just ended up in the hospital with heart palpitations rather than talking to his therapist. Which - actually maybe this entire situation could have been handled a little more maturely if Buck even still had a therapist.
“Again, not to say I don’t enjoy it,” Eddie continues. “Just wanted to make sure it wasn’t secretly a cry for help or something.”
And Buck doesn’t really know what to say to that, either, because with how absolutely deranged he’s been for the past couple of months, maybe a cry for help is the best way to describe the whole thing.
Does it matter now, though? Now that Eddie’s cheek is brushing against his, and Eddie’s arms are warm and steady around his shoulders. Now that he can press his hand against Eddie’s waist, and tug him in just a little closer, and feel the way he inhales in response. If it got him, got both of them here , maybe it doesn’t matter at all.
“Are we gonna eat dinner?” Eddie asks, a smile tucked away in his voice.
“Gimme a minute,” Buck answers, and he fully just clenches his fist in the fabric of Eddie’s shirt.
“You can hold my hand at the table, you know,” Eddie almost whispers.
Buck almost asks if they can both eat one-handed like that when he remembers - Eddie is left-handed. He’s right-handed. They actually can hold hands while they eat. This also explains how they’ve been able to hold hands so much in the first place without it disrupting literally everything they do.
Feeling flustered, Buck takes a deep breath, and squeezes Eddie just a little bit tighter just to center himself. Then, he forces himself to step back and let go. “Okay. Yeah. Let’s eat.”
As soon as they get the food plated up, and they get seated - Eddie actually offers Buck his hand, holding it out with his palm up. Slowly, feeling the weight and significance of the movement now that they’ve agreed on it, Buck reaches over and takes it. He tangles his fingers with Eddie’s, and feels warmth creep up over his face as he ducks his head over his plate.
All through dinner, Buck feels oddly shy. Suddenly, having dinner alone with Eddie, something they’ve done hundreds of times, feels different. It feels like a date. Things haven’t gone back to normal at all - except Buck doesn’t care, because this is better.
He doesn’t want to go back to casual touches. He wants to crawl into Eddie’s lap on the couch again, he wants to keep holding hands everywhere they go, he wants to sleep in Eddie’s bed, and kiss each one of his knuckles, and he wants to pull Eddie in close and literally never let him go. These are not just friendly urges, but they’re not even completely new. Buck has always wanted to be closer and closer to Eddie - has wanted to wrap around him in some undefinable way and just stay there, everything else be damned. It’s like he and Eddie have always been attached by some invisible tether, and the further Buck got from him the more it hurt.
All the hand-holding, the cuddling, it’s been soothing every one of those long-forgotten aches that Buck just got really good at pretending weren’t there. He feels settled, and warm - and yet, still, he wants to be closer. He wants to touch Eddie everywhere, all over, however Eddie will let him.
For as long as they’re both still eating, he settles for rubbing his thumb up and down over Eddie’s wrist. Buck feels for his pulse at the base of his thumb, and then seeks out the warmth of his veins, tracing them down Eddie’s arm, as far as his thumb can reach without disturbing the clasp of their hands.
After they’re done, they wash up in the kitchen. Eddie nudges Buck out of the way at the sink with damp fingers pressed against his hip, and Buck can practically feel the fingerprints through his shirt. They move seamlessly together like that to get everything washed and dried, and then they both turn towards the door to the living room.
“You want me to grab drinks?” Buck asks, hanging back half a step.
“Yeah, sure.” Eddie wraps a hand around Buck’s wrist and squeezes gently. “Thanks, bud.”
Buck does actually get a beer out of the fridge. He takes off the bottle cap, then makes his way out to the living room. He stands behind the couch for a moment, just looking at the back of Eddie’s head - at the way his hair tapers down towards the nape of his neck.
Then he walks around the couch, hands Eddie a beer, and sits directly in his lap.
Eddie wraps an arm around his waist, and laughs quietly as Buck makes himself comfortable. He actually even leans forward and puts the beer on the coffee table to get both his hands free - which puts the hinge of his jaw directly in Buck’s face for a minute, and Buck just turns his head and presses his face against Eddie’s neck instead of - biting.
“We’re doing this too, huh?” Eddie asks.
“I mean as long as it’s just us. Probably wouldn’t do this if Chris was here.”
“Probably not,” Eddie agrees - but he wraps a hand around Buck’s thigh, keeping him close and situated, and they both just sit there, breathing against each other.
“You never…” Buck trails off, trying to find the best words for what he wants to say. Eddie’s hand soothes patiently up and down his back all the while. “I kept waiting for you to shove me off. One of the times I grabbed your hand at the firehouse or - the first time I did this. I couldn’t figure out why you just kept… letting me.”
Eddie laughs, and knocks his head gently against Buck’s. “Buck, I let you snore directly in my ear all through quarantine, I let you put on Taylor Swift every time we’re in the truck-”
“She’s growing on you, you can’t fool me.”
Huffing, Eddie pokes Buck in the ribs. “That aside - I let you reorganize my dishwasher. You have a thousand little habits that I’ve made space for because I like having you in my space. You wanting to hold my hand is - I mean it’s nice. It’s fine.”
Buck’s brain is still stuck on I like having you in my space as he pulls back to look Eddie in the eye. “Is that just a nice way of saying this is my least annoying habit?” he asks, instead of saying anything more revealing.
“No, because that would be the fact that you insist on handwashing half of my dishes every time you come over, that one actually comes in handy.” Eddie’s grinning as he says it, though, his hand coming up to squeeze at the back of Buck’s neck, softening the joke - even though it’s already downy soft, the way Eddie’s ribbing always is.
“That still doesn’t really explain why you’re fine with it.”
Eddie sighs, and his thumb tucks up against the hinge of Buck’s jaw. “I’m saying that there’s not much you could do that I wouldn’t be fine with, Buck. It’s not like it’s a chore to be close to you when I like being close to you. I wanted to touch you when you got out of the hospital - if I hadn’t had such a strong reaction to - everything else, I probably would have hugged you for at least a day as soon as you woke up. Instead - you saw me reaching out and you reached out instead. If anything, I’m grateful for it.”
“Oh,” Buck says quietly. “Well - uh. You’re welcome.”
Laughing, Eddie brushes his hand up and touches his thumb lightly above Buck’s brow - right over his birthmark. “Yeah. Thank you.”
Smiling, Buck ducks his head back down to press it against Eddie’s shoulder, holding him tight again. If Eddie’s only reaction to Buck being desperately and unashamedly clingy is to thank him for it - well. It’s not like Buck is going to pull away now. He’s going to enjoy every moment he can get.
Fingers move gently through Buck’s hair, and Buck shifts up into it, nudging his head up into Eddie’s palm like a cat seeking attention.
“Do you wanna watch something? Or do you just wanna sit out here?” Eddie asks, practically murmuring it right into Buck’s ear. “It’s fine with me either way.”
“I’m not moving,” Buck grumbles.
“You don’t have to,” Eddie says mildly. “I could just put something on - but if you’d rather have the quiet.”
“Doesn’t have to be quiet.” Buck stretches out his back and slings an arm over Eddie’s shoulders, hooking his elbow around Eddie’s neck to rest a palm on his chest. “We can keep talking.”
“You never told me much about your dream, when you were in the coma,” Eddie offers - but as soon as Buck starts to tense up, Eddie just rubs a hand over his back again and shakes his head. “Or not. You don’t have to. I heard some from Hen and Bobby and - you gave me the basics. Something just made me think about it.”
“It wasn’t…” Buck trails off and huffs. “I tried to make it funny, telling everyone in the hospital. It wasn’t actually very funny when I was in it.”
“Yeah, I’d imagine so.” Eddie’s fingers brush through his hair again, and then Buck feels the ruffle of his breath there, too - like he’s very nearly kissing the top of Buck’s head. “You said you weren’t a firefighter so - I’m assuming we never met.”
Buck shakes his head.
“I’m guessing that guy had it pretty rough, then.”
“Why do you say that?”
Eddie shrugs, enough that it jostles Buck a little, and shakes his head. Then the point of his chin nudges against Buck’s head, and settles there. “I spent a lot of time while you were in the hospital - thinking about the worst. About what life was gonna look like if you didn’t wake up. I tried not to - Chris was so determined you were gonna be fine, and I didn’t want to discourage him, but I knew if I didn’t start trying to wrap my head around it, if something happened and I hadn’t…” As Eddie trails off, he wraps Buck up in his arms, one around his shoulders and one around his waist, and squeezes him tightly, just for a moment. “Just thinking about it was bad enough.”
Swallowing back all the words that almost slip out, Buck says instead, “It uh - it didn’t seem like he was doing great. The other you. Even though - I mean, there’s a difference between - you know, what almost happened, and if you’d never met me at all.”
“Yeah,” Eddie agrees. “Not knowing you at all would be a lot worse.”
He sounds so certain. Buck, abruptly, needs to see his expression, so he starts to pull back and Eddie shifts enough to let him sit up. Their faces are just a few inches apart, ducked in close together. If Buck tipped back down, he could press his forehead against Eddie’s, brush their noses together - but he holds himself back. “You sound - sure.”
“I am sure,” Eddie tells him. His eyes are locked on Buck’s, big and dark and just a little bit tight around the corners. “If I had to choose between - and to be clear, thank God I don’t. But if I had to choose between being some version of me that only got to know you for a little while and a version of me that never knew you at all - I know what I’m choosing. Even in just the first couple of years we knew each other - all the things you did for Chris, all the things you did for me - I don’t wanna be in a world without all that.”
Maybe it’s just because he doesn’t have any idea what to say to that - or maybe it’s the same strange impulse that’s been making him grab Eddie’s hand and climb into his lap at every opportunity for the past month - whatever it is, as soon as Eddie finishes talking, Buck leans down and presses his mouth against Eddie’s.
It’s not the world’s best kiss. Eddie’s mouth is stiff with surprise, and Buck hits a little to the left, anyways, more like the corner of his lips, but he can feel Eddie’s stubble under his mouth, and the warmth of his skin, and he lingers for a moment before he convinces himself to pull back. “Sorry,” he says immediately, squeezing his eyes shut so he doesn’t have to see the look on Eddie’s face. “That - maybe wasn’t the best moment-”
“No, it’s - it works for me.”
Buck opens his eyes, and he finds Eddie staring at him again - now his eyes are even darker - but there’s a smile hiding there, too. “Really?” Buck asks him. “Feels like I’m kind of ruining the moment. You’re saying all this big emotional stuff-”
“What, and you’re just kissing me to shut me up?” Eddie asks, grinning properly.
“Well…”
Eddie laughs, and Buck laughs with him, falling forward to finally press their foreheads together. “Just this once, I’ll let you get away with it.”
“Mm, I think you might let me get away with it more than once,” Buck teases.
Tilting his face up, Eddie brushes his nose against Buck’s, and Buck can see and feel the way his eyes flutter shut. “I guess you’ll just have to wait and see.”
Buck kisses him again, because it’s definitely the only answer now. This time, Eddie’s mouth is gentle beneath his own, waiting for the touch, and Buck parts his lips just to breathe around the feeling welling up in his chest. Eddie tugs at the back of his neck, and pulls him in closer, and kisses him back - Buck is a little awkwardly hunched over, still sitting in Eddie’s lap, but he can hardly care. Eddie’s lips are soft and warm and insistent against his own, moving with purpose like Eddie wants to kiss every doubt out of his head - and Buck hardly had any doubts left to begin with.
They kiss, and break apart to pant against each other's mouths, and then they kiss again, Eddie touching his tongue to Buck’s mouth and Buck parting his lips to let Eddie in without a thought in his head. They kiss until Buck’s chin feels a little raw from Eddie’s stubble, and his mouth is feeling warm, too, probably pink and a little swollen - and they both have to pull away just to catch their breath again.
“I love you,” Buck says, pulling back just enough that he can see Eddie’s face. Eddie’s eyes are warm, and his mouth is definitely a little red - and he smiles as soon as he processes what Buck said. His whole face lights up, and Buck has to kiss him again for that - just a quick little dart, a gentle press of mouths, with a hint of teeth from both of their grins.
“I love you, too,” Eddie tells him, breathing the words into the open space of Buck’s mouth. He kisses Buck again, a damp smudge at the corner of his mouth, and then he pulls back with a laugh. “Sorry, - I probably could have said that when you woke up in the hospital, too, but - I kept making excuses. Then when you started the hand-holding thing - I wasn’t sure if you knew-”
“I had no idea,” Buck admits, shrugging, and grinning in the face of Eddie’s bark of a laugh. “I uh - I was a little slow on the uptake. But I got there.”
“You did,” There’s fondness in every syllable of Eddie’s words, and he punctuates them by pressing his thumb against Buck’s birthmark again. “That’s what counts.”
Shifting around, turning so he’s almost straddling Eddie, Buck cradles Eddie’s face in his hands and smiles down at him. “I only want my couch if you’re sitting on it.”
The corner of Eddie’s mouth twitches up. “You know, I think that’s the most romantic thing you’ve said to me yet.”
“I know,” Buck says solemnly - and he tips forward to kiss Eddie again, through both of their laughter.
“You’re just gonna be holding my hand in the grocery store for the rest of our lives now, huh?” Eddie asks as they pull apart again.
Buck kisses him again - a lush press of their open mouths, and a blatant distraction. Then, as he pulls away, he grumbles, “Stop trying to one-up me. Save something for later.”
“I’ll put some away for the wedding vows.” And Buck can just hear the smug delight in his voice - so he kisses Eddie hard, again, and he doesn’t pull back for a long, long time.