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Chapter Text

Chapter 14 - Part 2. 

"I mean I knew you couldn"t dance Buck but you never told me that Eddie could dance like that." 

The evening reception part of the wedding was in full swing and Buck was definitely starting to feel the effect of the numerous drinks he"d been bought by different people since they"d finished the speeches. They"d done all of the traditional wedding stuff like cutting the cake and the first dance (to I"ll be There and once more, Buck had cried like a teenage girl) before they"d started the child-free portion of the night. Shannon had picked all three kids up, with only a few tired tears from Bea, and he"d finally been able to just let himself relax. 

Or at least he had been relaxing till Karen had appeared to drag Eddie off, shouting about how he"d promised her a dance. The dance floor was full to bursting and Buck, who wasn"t anywhere drunk enough to make that much of an idiot of himself had so far completely avoided it. Instead, he was sat at the table the 118 had been sat at for dinner with Lucy, Lena and Ravi. 

"Well, in my defence Luce, thanks to my two left feet, we"ve never been dancing. And he doesn"t dance with his Abuela and Pepa in the kitchen like that does he?" Buck shot back through slightly clenched teeth, tone strangled. 

The thing was, Buck had seen Eddie dance plenty. Abuela and Pepa always had music on when they had guests over and so it was unusual for them to drag Eddie over to dance with them in the kitchen. And he"d watched his boyfriend dance with Bea, spinning her round on his feet and dipping her till she burst out laughing. And like, he"d known Eddie had rhythm. The way he moved his hips when they fucked proved that. Only, as he"d pointed out to Lucy, he"d never seen Eddie dance like he was currently doing. 

Eddie"s hips swayed and rolled, perfectly synchronised with the beat of the music. The rest of his body moved just as gracefully, torso twisting and dipping. Karen was just as good, matching Eddie beat for beat, the two both laughing and obviously having fun. Their movements were almost edging into indecent but they were just too smooth, too practised. And as Kira was actually grinding on her boyfriend at this point, they blended right in. 

Eddie didn"t look like a person who"d just been shot and had his gallbladder and 5% of his liver removed. Buck had to wonder if this kind of dancing fell under the moderate exercise that Eddie had been cleared for by his physios. But the entire physio team had been surprised by how quickly Eddie had recovered, pinpointing his stupidly high level of physical fitness and spotless health record before he"d been shot. Buck personally blamed the fact that Eddie was stubborn and refused to be incapacitated for a moment longer than he had to. 

Eddie had thrown off his jacket and bowtie at some point, his top couple of shirt buttons open so Buck could follow a rouge bead of sweat as it dripped down his neck and under his shirt. Eddie"s face was flushed, beads of sweat gathered along his hairline and Buck wanted, no needed, to lick every single one off and follow the one that had dripped down his shirt with his teeth. Eddie"s hips might actually have fucking hypnotised him. 

Only he was still at his sister"s wedding, now with a painfully hard dick and a whole barrage of intrusive thoughts that he really shouldn"t act on.

"Jesus, Buck. You look all— sweaty," Lucy commented, tone and expression slightly disgusted as she looked him over. She probably wasn"t wrong. He could feel how hot and clammy the back of his neck had become.  

He was already on a knife"s edge, so close to the finish line of their bet and every inch of him ached to touch his boyfriend, to taste him. To put the way his hips snapped like that to better use than just dancing to Daddy Yankee with Karen. 

"Have Eddie"s hips actually given you a heart attack? Do you need me to go and get Hen to do first aid?" Ravi asked, half biting back a laugh and Buck wanted to shove the other man"s head into the now half melted ice bucket in the centre of the table. It did kinda feel like something in his chest was gonna explode with the sheer amount of lust and need bursting out of him. 

"Ravi, shouldn"t you be off annoying your Diaz sibling?" Buck spat back but his tone only made Ravi laugh. 

"She"s getting us shots, remember?" 

Oh, yeah. Sophia had come up with the bright idea that they should do tequila shots and disappeared off to the bar. Buck was still watching Eddie dance, his boyfriend doing some kind of flex that rolled down his torso and into his hips and ass and he had to bite down on his own tongue so hard to stop the low moan that clawed its way into his throat, that he tasted blood. 

"Maybe adding more tequila to this equation isn"t going to help Buck and his sweatiness," Lena offered up, her and Lucy sharing an amused grin at his dilemma. At least his discomfort was uniting the two women. No-one could ever say that he didn"t try and look at the positives. 

"Hey guys. What"s up with Buck?" Albert and as he joined them, sliding into the empty seat next to Lucy. 

"He"s having a massive crisis cause he"s just learnt that his boyfriend dances like Channing Tatum and he"s trying not to go jump on him and do something wildly inappropriate in the middle of the dance floor at his sister"s wedding," Lucy explained and Albert turned to look at spot on the dancefloor that Buck couldn"t stop himself from looking back towards. He was pretty sure that Eddie had undone another button on his shirt and Buck wanted to die. 

"Yeah to be fair, those hips don"t lie," Albert agreed, humming approvingly and Buck was quickly reminded that Albert loved to push his buttons just as much as his older brother. 

"Have you only come over to pick on me as well Albert? Thought you"d be a bit more loyal after those 6 months I let you live rent free in my apartment," Buck reminded him, voice more petulant than annoyed. 

"No can do, all"s fair in love and war and that," Albert responded but any reply that Buck might have had was interrupted by Sophia returning with a tray with 8 shots on in it, packets of salt and a pile of limes. 

"Here you go guys," she informed them cheerfully, placing the tray down on the table and starting to hand the drinks out. When it was Buck"s turn, she took one look at his flushed cheeks and frowned. "Why does Buck look like he"s choking on his own spit?" 

"That"s not all he wants to be choking on right now," Lucy threw out with a wicked grin, eyebrows raised in a silent challenge. Ravi, who"d been tapping out the contents of his salt packet onto the back of his hand, did choke at that. Buck"s cheeks burned hot as he kicked his smirking, big- mouthed best friend under the table. 

"I will dump you as my best friend if you don"t stop talking right now," he hissed at her, both of them knowing that it was a stupidly empty threat, and looked anywhere that wasn"t at Sophia  

"I"ve heard worse from you when we lived together, Buck," Sophia pointed out and fair. She"d heard way too much about the size of her brother"s dick and how much Buck liked being fucked by it. It was almost as bad as Maddie walking in on him actually balls deep in some random bar hookup. "Here, drink your tequila." 

He accepted the shot because he needed to do something that wasn"t murdering his still smirking best friend or giving in to the desire to go and physically force his boyfriend off the dancefloor and out of his pants. 

"1,2,3 and shot." 

He was reminded how much he hated the taste of tequila, biting down on the lime as quickly as possible to chase it away.  The alcohol only fanned the want that skimmed just under his skin, more and more insistent with every shake of his boyfriend"s hips. 

"Come on, let"s go dance!" 

Sophia grabbed Ravi by the hand and dragged him over towards the dance floor, Albert trailing behind them. Lucy grabbed the extra shot, downed it in one and pulled Lena up with her. Buck did not follow. 

His dick was still hard and throbbing and he needed to do something to take the edge off. He squeezed his eyes shut trying to think of every gruesome thing he"d ever seen on call. But his mind just kept replaying the way Eddie danced over and over again and that wasn"t fucking helping the situation. His mind was a traitor. 

"Apparently Sophis got me a non-alcoholic version of a tequila shot so that I don"t feel left out? Though Lucy did suggest I lick the salt off your chest.." 

Of course Eddie had picked this moment to come and join him. Up close Buck could fully appreciate the way the sweat made his skin gleam, the tousled way his hair had fallen out of the gel he"d used earlier. He was panting slightly, throat hitching with every deep breath he took. He smelt like a heady mix of cologne, Karen"s perfume and sweat and Buck had to physically hold himself back from pitching his entire body forward into the other man"s neck and sniffing him. 

Eddie quickly did his own shot, not off Buck"s chest and Buck was done. He wasn"t sure what pushed him over the edge. Whether it was the way his tongue darted out to lick the salt off the back of his hand, how his lips wrapped around the shot glass or how his teeth sank into the soft flesh of the lime. But Buck had been running on the smallest amount of self- control all day and whatever had been left snapped and all that was left was pure need. 

"Weird. Tastes like tequila but somehow worse. Are you okay? You look—  flushed?" Eddie asked him, tone concerned. Buck shot him an incredulous glare. Like Eddie didn"t know the effect that he"d been having on him. Eddie reached out a hand to press onto Buck"s forehead but Buck grabbed it into his own instead. At least Eddie"s skin was as clammy as his from all of the dancing. 

"I, umm, just need you to come with me," Buck informed him, pulling him up without giving him a chance to argue or refuse. 

He had a vague idea where he was going. Buck still had the key to the room where the bridesmaids had gotten ready that morning. Sure, they had a hotel room but that was on the other side of the hotel and Buck had just had 5 weeks of waiting. He wasn"t wasting any more time than he needed to. 

"Why are we here, Buck? You forget something?" Eddie asked and Buck honestly couldn"t work out if he was actually that oblivious or if he was just teasing him.  

"Shut the fuck up Eds," Buck all but growled at his boyfriend, locking the door behind him and fisting a handful of Eddie"s shirt so that he could smash their mouths together. Eddie tasted like lime and fake tequila and Buck found that he didn"t mind the taste of that one so much. 

Every ounce of pent up wanting and need poured out of him in that kiss. In the way he found Eddie"s bottom lip and bit down, hard. The way he forced his boyfriend"s lips open and swept his tongue into the warm heat of his mouth. Eddie seemed surprised by the sheer force of it but soon reciprocated, one hand twisting into his curls and the other digging into Buck"s hip. The taste of blood mingled with the taste of tequila though Buck had no idea who it belonged to. 

They"d kissed plenty since Eddie had been shot but this felt different. Buck kissed him with intent, with purpose and an end goal that wasn"t just a cold shower. It might have only been 3 hours till the bet was up but Buck was done. It wasn"t like giving Eddie a blowjob now compared to in 3 hours time would somehow derail his recovery. 

"You know it isn"t midnight, right?" Eddie panted into his mouth as he"d barely pulled back from Buck"s lips. 

Buck felt another growl escape his throat, hands dropping to undo the buckle on his boyfriend"s belt. "Don"t fucking care about the stupid bet. If I don"t get your dick in my mouth like 5 minutes ago, I will actually die." 

"So dramatic," Eddie teased back but if the way that he hardened under the heel of Buck"s hand was anything to go by then he was fully onboard with Buck"s idea.  

Buck gave him on more bruising kiss, teeth nipping at his bottom lip one last time, crowded him backwards till the back of his knees hit the couch on the far side of the room, pushed him down and then dropped to his knees. 

Before this, Buck wouldn"t have ever imagined being quite so desperate to suck someone"s dick. So desperate that it almost physically hurt. But here he was, a fully grown man, tugging his boyfriend"s dick out of his boxes and almost choking on the sheer relief of it. Buck took a moment to appreciate how hard he was, drops of precum gathered at the head before he tipped his head forward and swallowed him down. 

Somewhere above him, Eddie hissed at the sensation, a sharp exhale of breath escaping his lips as his hips snapped forward into Buck"s mouth almost instinctively. The movement bumped Eddie"s dick to the back of his throat in a way that would probably hurt the day after but sent a jolt of pleasure straight to his own dick. He hummed in approval, squeezing at Eddie"s thigh with one hand to encourage him to move again. Eddie"s hand found its way back to grasp at the curls at the back of his head and he groaned around the dick in throat at the sensation. 

Apparently any measure of restraint that Eddie had been clinging to dissolved at the noise and he began to fuck up into Buck"s mouth in earnest, the hand in his curls keeping his head steady. Buck did his best to keep his throat slack, humming and sucking around his boyfriend"s dick, hollowing his cheeks. Over the slightly obscene, wet smacking sound of Eddie fucking his throat, Buck could hear the litany of curses, both in English and Spanish that were being punched out of Eddie"s throat with every snap of his hips. 

" Fuck, fuck, your mouth feels so fucking good. Extrañaba mucho tu boca . Fuck —-"

Buck had always known that he was good at blowjobs. The guys he"d been with had always told him as much. And he"d always liked doing it. But the way Eddie was reacting, it was like out was the best blowjob he"d ever been given. Though to be fair, the guy had died and then been forced to be celibate for 5 weeks. But every moan, every desperate tug at his hair made his own dick leak and twitch and Buck realised this was going to be over very quickly for both of them. But as they were currently in the middle of his sister"s wedding reception, being quick was probably a good thing. 

Like he was reading his mind, Eddie pressed a thumb to the corner of his mouth, lips stretched out around his dick. "Touch yourself, Buck." 

That ripped another moan from him but he complied, using the hand that wasn"t clutched at Eddie"s ass to all but rip his own belt and pants own and free his own dick. Thanks to the tequila and beer he"d been drinking, it was a little harder to coordinate his mouth and his hand but he was so close already, it didn"t particularly matter. 

He"d been jerking himself off enough over the last few weeks, that the feel of his own palm was too familiar. But unlike those times, everything around him was Eddie. The way his hand yanked insistently at his hair, the smell of sweat, cologne and something else that was just him and the taste and weight of his dick on Buck"s tongue.  It made everything feel a thousand times better, so intense he was practically spilling his load over his own hand after a few pumps of his first. 

Buck took Eddie right down to the base, his nose buried into the dark hair between Eddie"s thighs and swallowed, cheeks hollow and nails dug into the skin of his thigh. Then Buck was cumming, careful to aim his away from him, and his very expensive suit, and towards the hard wooden floor he was knelt on. The absolute force of it knocked him for six, spots of white crowding his vision and the way his resulting moan vibrated around Eddie"s dick pushed his boyfriend over the edge as well. 

Eddie"s orgasm washed over him so quickly the only warning Buck had was that final grind of his hips into Buck"s face before he shot his load straight down Buck"s throat. Normally he wouldn"t mind but this time, probably cause he hadn"t orgasmed in 6 weeks, the amount of cum that poured out of him was actually staggering. And then Buck was actually choking on it. 

To be fair to him, as soon as Eddie realised that Buck was actually choking, he quickly pulled back leaving Buck to try and force some air back into his lungs. His throat ached, his eyes were watering and his chest burned. But all his mind could seem to focus on was that fact that he"d finally gotten to do something other than making out and unsatisfying grinding with his ridiculously hot boyfriend. 

Then Eddie"s face was in front of his, fingers notched onto his jaw as he coughed and spluttered like it was the first time he"d ever deepthroated someone.  

"Jesus, Buck. Are you okay? I"m so sorry." 

If he hadn"t been almost coughing up a lung, the sight of Eddie"s concerned expression, eyes wide and dark, would have made him laugh. The entire thing was just so ridiculous.

"If I die—- do not—- let them put choked to death on my -my boyfriend"s huge dick in my— abritury. What would your Abu—  Abuela say?" 

And at that Eddie was laughing, his head dropped forward to rest against Buck"s forehead so that every laugh that bubbled up from his chest vibrated through Buck"s shoulder. So he gave in, his own laughter a little more hoarse and wheezy. 

"Buck, I"d flee the country before I had to admit to anyone that you choked to death on the disgusting amount of semen that just came out of me," Eddie shot back between bouts of laughter and once Buck felt like he wasn"t going to actually die, he closed the small gap between them and kissed him again. 

This kiss was slower, more soft lips than teeth and tongue and Buck sighed into his mouth. "I missed you so much." 

"You taking to me or my dick, Buck?" Eddie asked and this close, Buck could really appreciate how his eyes glinted when he was amused.  

"Well, I do really like you but I haven"t been able to touch your dick in over a month, let me have my moment here, Eds, please" Buck replied, trying to school his expression and tone into something serious.  

"Fine. Then you won"t mind me saying how much I missed putting your mouth to use," Eddie answered, voice low and Buck felt his stomach clench at the sound of it. "Though right now, we need to get dressed, clean this up and get back to your sisters wedding before anyone realises what happened. And then, once the wedding is done, I"m pretty sure you promised, what was is, that you were going to "dick me down" so hard that I needed another month off work?" 

For a minute Buck was half tempted just to blow off the rest of the wedding entirely and drag Eddie off to their room to fuck him senseless but he couldn"t do that to Maddie. Not when she had her whole new years countdown planned. Instead he followed Eddie"s lead as getting his clothes mostly back to a decent state, wiped his cum off the floor and let Eddie try and smooth out the mess of knots he"d turned his hair into. There was nothing they could do about Eddie"s lip or Buck"s mouth though. No way to hide the bite marks from Buck"s teeth or how swollen Buck"s lips were. 

"Out of curiosity, we were both this close to winning the bet. What pushed you over?" Eddie asked him, eyes curious and Buck felt his mouth slacken and drop. 

" What pushed me over? You seriously don"t know? I knew you were obtuse but fucking hell, Eds," Buck exclaimed and Eddie looked genuinely confused. And he suddenly really understood how Eddie thought that Buck might have, at one point, just wanted to be his friend. 

"You were out on the dance floor dancing like something out of an actual wet dream and you"re gonna ask me what pushed me over the edge?" 

"You"ve seen me dance before?"

"Yeah with your Abuela, with our daughter. Not like that! Not like you were auditioning for a party in the next Magic Mike movie!" 

"Yeah but I"ve danced in front of people loads of times. I"ve never been manhandled off the dance floor for a blowjob because of it before," 

"Well, Eddie, for a start I"m gonna make a guess and say that your hips have made plenty of people think plenty of dirty things. But this is me. I literally get turned on by watching you do laundry. What did you expect?" 

"Well, you could always come and dance with me Buck," Eddie suggested and Buck quickly shook his head. That was not happening. 

"Umm, no. I want you to still be attracted to me by the time this thing finishes. I know everyone teases the shit out of me for everything but they really aren"t wrong about my inability to dance, Eds," he pointed out. 

He didn"t care that he had two left feet or that his friends teased him about it. It was kinda like calling out Chim for being so fucking accident prone or when Lucy"s niece had broken her ankle and no-one had let up about it for months. It was just how they worked. But he did care about Eddie wanting to fuck him and so dancing was the last thing he"d be doing when he was this close to getting fucked until he couldn"t walk. 

"Don"t worry, we"ll get some more tequila in you and you"ll be fine. The kind of dancing I meant doesn"t require you to actually move, Buck. You can leave that to me," Eddie suggested, voice low but his mouth curled up into that amused, cocky smile that showed he knew exactly what he was doing. Buck shoved at his shoulder, gaze narrowed. 

"You can"t keep saying shit like this if you actually want me to not march you straight to our room and let you fuck me senseless," Buck pointed out and for a moment it looked like Eddie might just cave and give in to Buck"s suggestion. Buck could see it in the way his pupils blew wide, in the way his Adam"s apple bobbed hard as he swallowed. But then he had hold of Buck"s hand and was pulling him towards the door. 

"Come on, there"s a drink calling your name. And Maddie will kill us both if we skip out on her wedding reception to fuck. We can go watch Lucy and Lena embarrass themselves some more," Eddie suggested and while not as fun as Buck"s suggestion, it was entertaining as hell. And wouldn"t get him murdered by his sister for skipping out on her wedding reception for sex. 

Eddie paused by the door, waiting for Buck to unlock it and Buck was just hit by how much he loved him. Like a smack to the face or like a swift kick to the chest. It was total, undeniable fact that Evan Buckley was stupidly in love with Eddie Diaz and always would be. Like the fact that water was wet. 

"I really fucking love you. And I mean you, not your dick. Not that I don"t love your dick. I just mean I love all of you, as you know, a complete package," Buck informed him, kissing at the corner of his mouth. Eddie smiled back at him, eyes soft and like Buck was the best thing he"d ever seen. 

"I love you too, mi corazón . Now come on, you owe me a dance." 

X

"So what have you two been up to?" 

Buck didn"t see Lucy approach but there she was at his side. All questioning eyes and suggestive tone that implied she already knew the answer to her question but just wanted to see him suffer. Eddie had disappeared off to get him his promised drink and the rest of their friends were either spread across the room or dancing. 

Maddie was dancing with Albert and Karen, a bright smile on her face like she was having the best kind of day and he felt affection burst in his chest. His sister deserved this; if not just because of how much of his shit she"d put up with over the years. Lucy came in second in that fucked up race but he wasn"t feeling quite so affectionate to the woman who was looking pointedly at his swollen lips and smirking. 

"Umm, nothing. I just had to go and get something from my room," he lied though he knew it was pointless. Buck wasn"t a good liar anyway but his friends could always see right through him. Especially Lucy. 

"Yeah, of course. That"s why your face looks like that, right," she replied, her tone much giving off a I don"t believe your shit for a minute vibe.  

"Shit. Is it really obvious?" Buck asked, slightly panicked and reached up to feel his mouth. His lips were pretty swollen in the way that only happened after giving someone a blowjob. Especially as enthusiastically as he"d just done. Lucy seemed to take pity on him and patted his shoulder like she was calming a spooked horse. 

"Relax. I literally watched you drag Eddie out of here. I doubt anyone else was paying that much attention," she reassured him and he looked around.  

She wasn"t wrong. Hen was sat with Athena, Bobby, Tommy, his wife and Chim at one table, all laughing and very much not paying him any attention. Ravi and Sophia were half dancing, half making out on the dancefloor. Lena had joined Eddie at the bar and for a moment Buck wondered if she was grilling him in the same way Lucy had come to interrogate him. 

Lena would never do that with him but she and Eddie were friends weren"t they? She certainly hadn"t been living in their house, playing babysitter to a dozen houseplants and stocking their fridge because she overly liked Buck. 

Sure, they got on better but only because of Eddie and Lucy, not because they particularly liked each other. He should probably work at that. It seemed off that Eddie and Lucy were close enough to hang out reading the most unhinged, fucked up, ridculous books they could find on Kindle and mocking them mercilessly like they were the stereotypical gay best friends out of a 90"s sitcom while Buck still couldn"t fill an entire conversation with Lena without the other two as a buffer. 

He needed to let everything go. She hadn"t taken his job, Lucy was still his best friend and her name had long since been ripped off the front of his locker and shoved in the bin. But for some reason the resentment lingered. He should probably talk to Frank about it at some point. 

However that was an issue for a future version of him to deal with. This version of him chose to instead fix his best friend with a questioning glare of his own. "Why were you paying that much attention?" 

"Because me and Lena were having a little bet on whether you"d snap this close to winning your bet. Or well, neither of you losing rather," Lucy admitted without a moment"s hesitation. At least the two women were talking to each other. 

"Sending him over for fake tequila was a dirty trick, Lucy Donato," Buck pointed out and Lucy just shrugged, not even bothering to deny it. 

"Well, one of us is $50 dollars richer and the other just hooked up wherever you ran off to. I think it worked out pretty well for both of us. Come on, I"ll let you buy me another shot as a thank you," Lucy replied and dragged him off towards the bar and to where Eddie and Lena were stood. 

Eddie didn"t quite convince him to get up and dance after that but Buck enjoyed watching him dance with their friends from the sidelines. He looked happy. 

Buck didn"t mind that his friends had become Eddie"s, didn"t mind that he had in-jokes with Lucy or went to lunch with Athena without him. Because when they"d first met, even though Eddie would probably never admit it, he"d obviously been lonely. It hadn"t taken Buck much to see that. 

Eddie always brushed it off, made excuses about how he"d never really had many friends but Buck didn"t think that was quite true. He"d obviously been close to his friends in the army once but they"d drifted apart after the helicopter crash. 

So Eddie had been lonely and Buck wanted to give him everything. And that included giving him his friends, making him a part of the little family he"d made for himself at the 118. And unlike he might have done in the past, it hadn"t felt like his was being replaced for a second.  

At some point Sophia had rounded as many of them up as possible. He didn"t miss the way Lucy planted herself on Lena"s lap rather than one of the empty chairs. Buck found himself between Chim and Hen, Eddie across the table from him with Karen. Maddie had taken one look at the drinks Sophia had brought and crossed over to dance with Josh. 

"Umm, Soph? Why is it on fire?" Ravi asked his girlfriend who just rolled her eyes at him. 

"You"re a firefighter Ravi, don"t tell me you"re scared of a little bit of fire?" She pointed out and her expression was exactly like her brother when he was being a sarcastic shit. Eddie and Sophia looked pretty similar, far more than Buck and Maddie but that face was eerily identical. 

"Yeah but my drinks aren"t normally on fire. What even is this?" He repeated as Sophia handed out shots to the rest of the table. 

"It"s still tequila. Just on fire. On 3, 2, 1—- drink!" 

Buck still didn"t like the taste of it. Being on fire, it turned out, did not make it taste any better. In fact the only thing that had made it taste slightly better was licking the after taste of the fake tequila from Eddie"s mouth. But Buck was a people pleaser so he wasn"t gonna refuse a drink that someone had bought him. 

"Shame you"re still not allowed to drink Eddie," Karen commented sadly, peering down at the shot glass in Eddie"s hand that had contained the fake tequila Buck knew for a fact that Maddie had made them stock at the bar. 

"I don"t know. Listening to stories about your wedding, I think it"s a good thing for my sense of dignity," Eddie replied and well, it wasn"t like he was wrong was it? It wasn"t even the fact that his friends had stuck monopoly one dollar bills in his boxers that got him. It was the falling on his ass the day after trying to retrieve his pants from where he"d "seductively" thrown them into a tree after drunkenly stumbling out of them. Buck had seen the videos even if his memory was fuzzy. 

"When can you drink again?" Lena asked, peering out from where Lucy was draped over her. Not that it seemed like Lena minded. 

"12 weeks post surgery. It"s longer than everything else because my liver is still regenerating till then," Eddie explained and Buck still thought that was pretty cool. Like his boyfriend was just casually sat there regrowing part of one of his major organs.

"You went to the Dr the other day didn"t you? Did they give you the all clear?" Hen asked and Buck could see the tense line that Eddie"s jaw had settled in at the question. He doubted anyone else would notice but as he was keyed up to every little thing Eddie did, he saw it clear as day. Because the all clear meant going back to work only that probably wouldn"t be with the people gathered around the table with them. 

"Yeah. I"m still supposed to not lift anything super heavy for another 2 weeks but they"ve cleared me for moderate exercise. So I could return to work on light duty. Then I have to go back for another check up in another six weeks to be fully discharged," Eddie explained and Buck hooked his foot around his ankle under the table as a show of silent support. At least he hoped it was Eddie"s leg. The last thing Buck needed was to accidentally end up playing footsie with Lena. 

"Please do not become like Buck when he was on light duties. I was this close to locking him in a storage cupboard and refusing to let him out," Lucy exclaimed as she threw him a disgusted look, finger and thumb pinched together in demonstration. 

"I think we were all that close. Fire Marshall Buckley was almost insufferable and I suffered through the cocky, asshole Buckley days when he first joined," Hen agreed and Buck let a little outraged noise escape his throat. 

"Guys, I wasn"t that bad," he insisted but even Karen was looking at him like he was talking utter crap.

"You literally visited us for lunch and then spent most of it inspecting the station to make sure we were up to code. We work in a fire station , Buck!" Chim pointed out, jabbing a finger into the table repeatedly. And yes he had done that. But he"d only been doing his job, just like Bobby had told him to do. 

"You pulled my landlord on a fire violation and almost got me evicted," Lucy continued but Buck wouldn"t feel guilty for that. The guy should have been upto code in the first place. It wasn"t like people weren"t paying enough rent to live there. And there was a reason that they had a fire code in the first place. 

"Well at least your apartment didn"t burn down because of a shoddy landlord." 

"You failed us on a fire drill, Buck. Your own house," Hen piled on and Buck maybe felt a bit bad about that one. But he had only been doing the job he"d been forced into while he"d not been allowed to do his actual job. Not his fault that he"d wanted to do a good job at it. 

"Hen, I was being impartial! You did fail. You were 4 minutes over your allotted response time and you log-jammed the main stairwell," Buck explained, not for the first time. 

"The man had a seizure. Can"t believe it"s been like 4 years and you"re still being an ass about this," Lucy complained bitterly, eyes narrowed at him. Buck shrugged, hands raised up. 

"Bobby told me to take the job seriously. So I did. Sue me," he replied but unaware of the irony when he"d had to be talked down from the stupid plan of suing the city. Hen fixed him with a look over the drink she was holding. 

"Yeah, you maybe took that advice a little bit to heart, Buckaroo," she pointed out and he sent her an apologetic grin. Across the table Chim had caught Eddie"s attention  

"You should have seen him filling the report out. I"d never seen a man make check marks with such enthusiasm before," Chim told Eddie, tone almost disgusted at how much Buck had apparently enjoyed failing them. Eddie caught his eye and laughed, like he could entirely believe it. "Give a guy a little power, he goes mad."

"Hey! Pot, kettle, black Chim. We all remember your first go at being interim captain. Like the power didn"t go straight to your head," Buck shot back. Yeah, he"d maybe gone overboard with the whole Fire Marshall thing but Chim had been a nightmare too. Bobby had been forced to intervene just because he was so fed up with them showing up at his house to complain about how Chim was acting. 

"I"m a wiser kettle now, Buck. Captain Chim 2.0 even," Chim replied with a lazy grin and Buck felt himself roll his eyes. 

"I can"t believe I let an idiot like you marry my sister," he muttered but Chim only blew him a kiss in return. Chim had learnt his lesson and become a much better Captain since then but he wasn"t getting that out of Buck. 

"So have they told you what you"ll be doing when you come back?" Lena asked Eddie and Eddie"s gaze briefly shifted to Buck"s. He tried to send his boyfriend an encouraging smile. The kind that hopefully said that it was okay, that he was going to be okay no matter what. 

"Oh, no. Not yet. I have a meeting next week," Eddie answered diplomatically even though only he and Buck knew that it wasn"t so much to discuss his role at the 118 but him starting his new job. 

"Well I"ll be glad to have you back. You make that one a hundred times more bearable to work with," Lucy commented, jabbing a hand at Buck and Buck let out a huff of outrage. Not because he thought that Lucy actually meant it. Afterall she"d been the one who"d been there at his side doing his gruelling PT regimes to get him back to work last time. But because it shifted the attention away from Eddie and his job. 

"You literally chose to be my best friend. May I remind you of that?" He pointed out, folding his arms across his chest. She thought for a moment before answering, her voice almost sounding defeated. 

"You lured me in with a chubby-faced baby and then kept me there with baking. I never stood a chance," she answered with a deep sigh. But her eyes were soft. Probably thinking back to when Bea had been a baby and liked to sleep curled up in Lucy"s shoulder. Buck didn"t deny it. Lucy had always had a sweet tooth, and a soft spot for Bea, and Buck had no problem exploiting either fact. 

"Gonna to be weird without you Chim. Like you"ve been at the 118 longer than of us," Ravi mused, looking thoughtful. Chim had been there the longest out of any of them. 

Of course it sucked that Eddie was leaving because if Buck had his way then he"d have his boyfriend with him all the time. But it wasn"t the same as Chim leaving. Sometimes it felt like Chim was the 118. He was the longest serving member of the firehouse, had survived countless Captains and changes. Of course he"d be an awesome captain but it felt a little like something integral was being gutted from the station. Like, they were losing a limb. They"d carry on without him but it wouldn"t be the same.  

"Don"t get too emotional on me, Ravi. You"ll be fine. Bobby is looking at another probie already. You"ll soon forget I was even there," Chim joked but the gazes turned on him were anything but amused. 

"We would never forget you, Chim," Hen replied and again Buck wondered what it would be like to lose your partner of so many years like that. They"d worked together for 10 years. He and Lucy had only only been partnered up for half that time and he couldn"t imagine having to get used to working with something new. 

"I literally can"t forget you. You just married my sister," Buck quipped, hopefully sounding more light-hearted than he felt. 

"Yeah, you"re stuck with us whether you want to be or not," Lucy agreed with a nod. 

"I do mean it guys. You don"t know how much it"s meant to me that you"ve helped out so much with the wedding and that you"ve shared the day with us. You"ve been the best team to work with. I can"t begin to imagine how much I"m going to miss you all. Like, you guys are family, you know?" Chim informed them and fuck, he felt his eyes fill with tears. Again. He was really gonna miss the fuck out of Chim. 

"Chim"s made Buck cry again," Ravi pointed out and then everyone was looking at him and didn"t that make it worse. Hen wrapped an arm around his shoulder and tugged him down till he had his head tucked into her shoulder, her hand patting him on the back. 

"Stop looking at me, Ravi!" Buck hissed, the words muffled from where his face was pressed into Hen"s shoulder. 

"Come here, Buck. I"ll miss you too," Chim said as he joined in the hug, wrapping his own arm around Buck and Hen. 

"Come on, enough of this. We"ll go get another drink and dance," Lucy said suddenly and Buck appreciated her shifting the attention off him. Across the table Eddie mouthed something like you okay and Buck nodded as best as he could. Sophia enthusiastically agreed with Lucy and stood up, dragging Ravi with her. 

"Is this drink going to be on fire? Ravi asked, trepidation lacing every word and Sophia just sent him a wicked grin back in response. 

"Well that"d ruin the surprise wouldn"t it?" 

X

Buck had never really liked New Years. 

When he"d been a kid his family hadn"t ever celebrated it. They"d never gone to parties or watched fireworks in the park. It had been just another thing that normal families did and that the Buckleys ignored. Maddie tried , just like she did with every other holiday. She"d let him stay up late, given him sparkling grape juice in a fancy ass wine glass and stood out in their freezing back garden waving sparklers around in the cold night air.

But then Maddie had been gone and he"d ignored the whole thing. It had gotten better when he was in highschool and college, when it became about parties, underage drinking and hooking up but some part of him still felt like that sad little kid waving sparklers around with his sister whilst his parents slept through the midnight countdown. 

Once he"d started travelling, most new years were spent working. Especially when he"d been a bartender. And god, those shifts had been hell. Literally relentless. And something about new year somehow made a real handful of drunk people even more obnoxious than they normally were. At least when he"d been a ranch hand or when he"d worked construction, he"d had an excuse to go to bed early when his shifts had started so early. 

He"d thought things had gotten better once he"d met Abby but then she"d left and it had become somehow worse. A day to think back over all the ways he"d fucked up the year before facing another year with Abby gone, his kid without her mom and endless ways to fuck up some more. 

But this year was different. 

For a start he was at his sister"s wedding at a hotel just outside the city, he was pretty drunk but in a good way and he was surrounded by nearly all of his favourite people and not because they were on shift at work. It was always a busy shift for them between firework accidents, drunk drivers and medical callouts and more often than not, Buck had volunteered to work them. 

The biggest change though was the fact that for once he was just excited for the year to come. 

Sure, there were plenty of big changes on the horizon. Eddie leaving the 118 sucked and he was still struggling with the fallout of the shooting and his nightmares. And he"d really miss Chim at the station. But there was so much more to look forward to. And for once it really felt like the good things outweighed the bad. 

Eddie stood next to him, hand loosely holding his as he talked to Sophia and Ravi. It was the first time in a long time that he"d spent new-year with someone he was dating; not since that first year with Abby when she"d been pregnant with Bea. It was nice, knowing that he had someone to go onto the next year with. And not just anyone but the person that was probably gonna be the love of his life. 

"Oh, before I forget. I need to hand these out." 

Suddenly Sophia was busy searching through the bag that she was holding and grabbing individually wrapped bags of grapes from her bag. 

"Why are you giving us grapes?" Hen asked curiously from where she stood with Karen on his other side. Lucy was holding up the bag and inspecting the contents suspiciously, like she might have been seeing things due to the amount of tequila she"d been drinking. 

"I know the answer to that. It"s for luck right? It"s a thing they do in Mexico," Karen piped up brightly, even raising her hand in the air like an over enthusiastic kid in their favourite class. 

"You"re such a nerd babe. I love it," Hen informed her wife fondly and kissed her cheek though she misjudged the distance and half ended up planting a kiss on her nose. 

Sophia finished handing out the bags to the members of the 118 stood together and gestured at Bobby and Athena who"d just strolled into the garden to join them. 

"You trying to make sure we get our 5 a day Sophia? Might not help with the amount of alcohol you lot have been throwing back this evening," Athena commented with a raised eyebrow, looking between them. 

"None of us are that drunk, Thena. Felt too bad on Eddie to get wasted without him," Hen explained, squeezing Eddie"s shoulder gently. 

"Well none of you are sober," she retorted with a matter of fact tone and well, he couldn"t argue. He was pleasantly buzzed. 

"To be fair to them Thena, no-one has gotten naked yet. Or tried to give Chim a lapdance," Bobby pointed out to his wife with an amused smile. "Though it is nice to have someone else to laugh at you lot and your antics with," Bobby added though that part was directed at Eddie. 

Bobby was sober but he"d never had issues with any of them drinking around him. He"d always tagged along to bars with them or had alcohol at his BBQs. They"d all stopped drinking around him, back when they"d found out but Bobby had found that them walking on eggshells around him had actually made his addiction more of an issue. The only rule was that they never drank whiskey. 

Even so, they didn"t drink all that often, at least not in any margin that got them wasted. Sure, he had wine nights with Hen, Karen and Athena but they"d been rare enough before he"d started dating Eddie. In fact the last time they"d ever really gotten drunk as a group was Hen and Karen"s vow renewal. But it did mean that Bobby got a front row seat to them making asses of themselves when they did get drunk. And boy, did he like to remind them of their bad life choices when they sobered up. 

"You still haven"t explained the grapes," Lucy interjected as Sophia slapped at her hand to stop her eating one of them. 

"Yeah it"s a tradition back in Mexico called las doce uvas de la suerte. You have 12 grapes representing 12 months of the new year and the story goes that they represent 12 wishes. And if you manage to eat all 12 in the 12 seconds that the bells ring then your wishes come true. But we don"t really actually do that anymore "cause our cousin nearly choked to death one year and my Uncle Paco had to do the heimlich on him. Normally we do the whole kiss at midnight then eat them," Sophia explained before her expression turned shy. "You don"t have to do it if you don"t want to. It"s just a silly family thing." 

"I could do with 12 wishes to be honest," Lucy piped up, looking at Lena at her side out of the corner of her eye. "So yeah, sounds good to me." 

"Yeah, I agree with Lucy. I"d love to join in with you," Karen agreed, Hen nodding at her side. 

"Bet I can eat all 12 in 12 seconds," Buck offered up, eyeing up the bag with a careful eye. There weren"t that many of them. 

He had heard about the whole grape thing though his drunk mind had become fuzzy on the details. The kids were having a celebration with Abuela, Peppa and some of their friends and eating grapes had been one of the many activities that Bea had been talking about since Pepa had told her about it. There had also been something about throwing water out of windows, burning an effigy of some politician that Abuela hated and eating lentils. And of course, a huge amount of food. Part of Buck was kinda sad that he was missing out. The pictures that Shannon had sent through looked like they were all having a good time. 

"Of course you"d say that," Lucy said with a roll of her eyes. "What do you get if you manage it? Other than not choking to death?" 

"Easy answer. Eddie has to be my new-year kiss," Buck replied with a grin and planted a slightly too wet kiss on his boyfriend"s cheek with a wet smack. 

"I assumed I was already your new-year kiss unless you"ve had a better offer?" Eddie replied, wiping at his cheek with his sleeve, eyebrows raised in question.

"Dunno, Eds. That friend of Mrs Lee"s had been flashing me smiles all night—" Buck offered up as a suggestion, trying to keep his face and expression serious. 

"You want to kiss a 70 year old woman, you go ahead Buck. Not going to hold you back," Eddie replied though Buck didn"t miss the way his mouth almost quirked up into a grin. Buck licked his lips and planted another, even more wet, kiss to the cheek Eddie had just wiped clean. 

"It"s okay. Once I"ve eaten these grapes, your mine anyway," Buck reminded him with a wide grin. Eddie rolled his eyes and went back to cleaning his cheek though he did grab Buck"s jaw in a tight hold when he went to kiss( slobber ) on his cheek for a 3rd time. 

"Can we keep your foreplay somewhere not next to your little sister please?" Sophia complained and Buck laughed, pulling away from Eddie"s grip and planting a kiss on Sophia"s cheek instead much to her outraged disgust. 

Just before midnight, Maddie and Chim joined them in the garden to a raucous round of applause. They walked over to join where the 118 were stood in the centre of the garden and Maddie came to his side and grabbed at his hand. Buck wrapped her into his side, giving her a tight hug. 

"Bit different than just me and you with a packet of dollar tree sparklers and grape juice in plastic wine glasses isn"t it?" Maddie asked him with a soft sigh and Buck pressed a kiss to the top of her head. 

It had been odd the first summer she"d come home to visit and he"d realised that he now towered over her since he"d had his most recent growth spurt. She"d always been his big sister and it had taken some getting used too as the inches between them had grown. Once she"d been and to carefully tuck him under her arm and hold him tight, now Maddie was the one who slotted under his. 

"Better though," he replied honestly, smiling down at her. "You don"t have to worry about me setting fire to myself this way." 

Maddie laughed, afterall Buck had always been stupidly accident prone even when he hadn"t been trying to hurt himself, and adding sparklers to that had set Maddie"s teeth on edge. She"d always done it though because it made him happy. She"d quickly said no to having them at her wedding though. Apparently sparklers and drunk people didn"t mix no matter how many of them were firefighters. 

Sophia handed Maddie and Chim their grapes and quickly explained what they were for. With a minute to go, they all took their places, Buck pouring the grapes into his hand so he was ready to go. 

"Here we go," Chim informed them all with a grin as the countdown timer the venue had provided reached 15 seconds. With his free hand, Buck grabbed hold of Eddie"s, tight.

"10." 

"9."

"8."

"7."

"6."

"5."

"4." 

" 3." 

"2." 

"1!" 

"Happy new year!" 

Then somewhere a bell rang out to signal that it was midnight and the sky above them erupted with a bang. Above them fireworks exploded in a series of vibrant flashes, patterns and shapes that illuminated the darkness of the night sky into a fleeting canvas of colour. 

Around him people laughed and exclaimed delightedly at the display. People pulled each other into hugs and kisses, Chim dipping Maddie low on one side and Lucy muttering fuck it and dragging Lena into a kiss by her top. Lena went with it, hands grabbing at the blonde woman"s face. The rest of their friends were doing the same, even Josh was busy making out with someone Maddie had worked with in Boston. 

And, Buck? As soon as the countdown had reached 0, he"d shoved the full handful of grapes in his mouth and chewed. Like Eddie had once pointed out, years of trying to eat between calls had almost perfectly trained him for this moment and he managed to swallow the entire handful down with 2 seconds to spare.  

He turned to Eddie, who was carefully popping grapes into his own mouth one at a time with an obnoxiously smug grin. "See? Told you I could do it." 

"There"s going to be one pretty upset 70 year old wandering around here. What did you wish for?" Eddie asked curiously as he ate the last few grapes that his sister had given him. 

Buck paused for a moment. He hadn"t actually thought of 12 wishes. He"d been far more focused on proving the fact that he could eat 12 grapes in 12 seconds. He wasn"t sure that he had that many things to wish for but he tried, flicking through all of the things that he wanted in his head. 

1, to get his promotion. If he wanted to be one of the youngest Fire Chiefs in the LAFD he needed to get a move on. 2, to get back off medication. 3, to be able to sleep at least a week without being woken up by a nightmare. 4, to make therapy with Abby work for Bea"s sake. 5, for Bea to like school when she started in August. 6, for Chris to keep doing as well as he had been doing at school. 7, for his friends to be happy and have a good year. Especially for Lucy to get her shit together. 8, for Chim to do well in his new job. 9, for Eddie to like his new job even if it wasn"t with him. 10, for Maddie to find the answers she was looking for in Pennsylvania or put it being her if she didn"t. 11, to finally get to have sex with Eddie in a fire truck even though he"d lost the bet. And 12, get Eddie to agree to marry him, somehow. 

Buck didn"t share any of that with Eddie, instead wiping the grape juice off his face and flashing him his biggest shit eating grin. "Nuh-huh, not telling. Then it won"t come true. Don"t you owe me something?" 

"You"re exhausting you know that?" Eddie pointed out but his tone was fond and there was a soft smile on his face. Then he stood close and closed the gap between them. 

Inside his pocket he felt his phone vibrate. He didn"t even need to look at it to know it was a notification from his Google calendar reminding him that they were approved to have sex now it was officially January 1st.  

Yeah, Buck could get behind new-years as a holiday if it meant getting to spend it kissing Eddie. This time his mouth tasted like the grapes that Sophia had given them and his bottom lip was still ever so slightly swollen from where Buck had bitten down into it earlier. Eddie"s fingers were warm where they grabbed at his neck. This kiss was slower, gentle and tasted more like a promise, like home. 

Eddie pulled back, eyes soft and warm and ran a thumb across the high point of Buck"s cheek. "¡Feliz Año Nuevo Evan."  

"Happy new year, Eds," Buck replied and Eddie kissed him again. And yeah, maybe he liked the holiday just a little bit more than he had. 

X

1st Jan 2024

The wedding party wound down just after 2am and pretty much everyone had left by 2.30. They"d watched the rest of the firework display that the venue had put on before going back inside. Eddie had quickly pointed out that once they all got inside, Lucy and Lena were nowhere to be seen. Maybe one of his wishes had anyway started to work itself out and they"d barely started 2024. 

Buck had ended up being one of the very last ones to leave as he"d had a few jobs to do. Once he"d made sure Maddie"s bouquet was safe and that and that all the staff had been tipped, he was pretty much done aside from the staff clearing chairs and tables. Eddie was nowhere to be seen. 

Buck was kinda drunk but not nearly drunk enough to have missed his boyfriend saying he was going up to the room without him. He grabbed his phone, relieved to see a message from Eddie on his phone.  

Eds(hot boyfriend) : in the courtyard when you"re finished. 

Buck headed out through the door and towards the courtyard where Maddie and Chim had gotten married earlier. Luckily the alcohol in his system kept the cold at bay. Somewhere in the distance, despite the late hour, fireworks were still being let off into the night sky. 

The chairs from the ceremony had been cleared away but the flower arch he and Hen had wrestled with the day before still stood in place, fairy lights nestled between the flowers. The trees were sparkling with lights too, the sound of the water fountain rippling softly in the background. 

Eddie, who retrieved his jacket at some point, stood underneath the flower arch, hands in his pockets and staring up at the fireworks in the distance. The light from the flower arch reflected against the darkness of his hair. Even from this distance Buck could see the tense line that his shoulders had taken on. And the tequila that he"d been drinking turned slightly sour in his chest. 

"All done. Though who thought giving me responsible stuff to do when I"m kinda drunk was a good idea?" Buck complained though his heart wasn"t really in it. He was happy in the fact that Maddie trusted him. But he wanted to say something to ease the tense line of his boyfriend"s shoulders. 

"That would be your sister. And I offered to help. It was you who insisted that you were good doing it on your own," Eddie replied with a slight twitch of his eyebrows. Buck rolled his eyes. 

"Don"t be sarcastic, Eds. Why would you listen to me? Rookie move, Eds," he shot back but Eddie wasn"t biting the same way that he normally did. Buck stepped closer, reaching out to wrap a hand around Eddie"s shoulder. Despite the chill he felt warm under Buck"s palm. 

"Are you okay? You know if you don"t feel up to anything, we can just go to bed. I"ll even let you be the big spoon," Buck offered up helpfully, changing tact. But Eddie just shook his head.  

"No, it"s fine. It"s not that," Eddie replied but didn"t elaborate. Buck felt himself frown in confusion. Surely he wasn"t that drunk. But he couldn"t get a read on what was up with Eddie at all. He"d been absolutely fine all day, having a good time even. "I can"t believe that you lost the best 3 hours before it was up." 

It felt like he was purposely changing the topic away from whatever was bothering him and Buck felt the slightest flush of anger and worry start in his chest. They"d promised to do better at being honest with each other after the whole medication/nightmare and job situation but it felt like there was something he was missing. And Eddie wasn"t being upfront about whatever it was. 

He didn"t push though, choosing instead to continue the conversation that Eddie had offered up. "Yeah, yeah. We"ve been over this. It was all your fault for being so tempting."  

"What would you have asked for if you"d won?" Eddie asked, Buck choosing to ignore the way that Eddie rolled his eyes at the line of reasoning that he offered up. 

He kept his hand on Eddie"s shoulder though, squeezing with the smallest amount of pressure. Though Buck was drunk and his ability to judge was slightly off.

"Well, you know what I wanted. But I"ve have taken letting you fuck me in your uniform when we get home tomorrow," Buck answered with a slight shrug, ignoring the slight sting at the fact that it had been him that cracked. He wasn"t that upset though. An awesome orgasm would do that to a guy. "Doesn"t matter though. You won the bet. So what do you want for your prize?" 

It had felt like a safe route of questioning as it had been Eddie who"d brought it up in the first place. But apparently it was not, at least if the way Eddie"s face went slightly pale, eyes widening. And Buck was just even more confused about what was wrong with the other man. 

"I need to say something and I just need you to listen, okay?" Eddie all but ordered, finally taking his hands out of his pockets. His hands were flexing nervously, a gesture that was usually something that Buck did rather than Eddie. 

"Umm, is this a good or bad talk? "Cause you look tense, Eds," Buck asked tentatively. 

He was better at not letting his thoughts spiral away from him and rush straight into the worst case scenario but he wasn"t entirely fixed. He"d been hard wired that way for so long it was proving a hard habit to break. Even when it came to Eddie. The alcohol certainly wasn"t helping him put the things that Frank had been teaching him into practice. 

Eddie"s eyes swept over his face, frowning at what he saw there. He knew Buck well enough now that he could probably see the panic stirring in his eyes. Eddie stepped closer, grabbing one of Buck"s hands and wrapping it around his own wrist. On instinct Buck pressed his fingers into the familiar patch of skin just over where Eddie"s heart beat pulsed, strong and steady as always. And like always, he immediately felt calm settle over him at the sensation. This close, he could see how the lights in the arch above them reflected in the dark brown of his boyfriend"s eyes. 

"Buck, I just need you to listen. Can you do that for me just for a sec?" Eddie asked again though he hadn"t moved his wrist from out of Buck"s grip. He didn"t make any comments about the size of Buck"s mouth or his inability to shut up either, words and expression entirely serious. Buck nodded, wordlessly. 

"When my helicopter crashed in Afghanistan, I really thought that I was going to die. I was lying there after I"d dragged everyone out, bleeding out and realised that I"d wasted my entire life hiding. That because of that I missed out on so much," Eddie started and the worry flared back with a vengeance. Eddie rarely brought up his time in the service and talked about the crash even less than that. So the fact that he was acting so weird and was now bringing the subject of it up made alarm bells ring in his head. 

"What"s brought this on? You okay?" Buck asked, completely forgetting that he"d just agreed to listen and not interrupt. Eddie sighed, screwing his eyes shut and brought up his free hand rub at his temples. 

"Jesus, Buck. I said just listen. Please," Eddie repeated and this time it sounded like halfway between giving him an order and begging. 

"Okay," Buck agreed again, chewing at the inside of his lip as a way to direct the nervous energy that had started to build in his chest ever since he"d found Eddie stood under the twinkling fairy lights they"d helped put up the day before. 

"But I didn"t die and I settled into the idea that I missed out on my chance to have the kind of relationship that my grandparents had because I"d been scared. And I really thought that I was okay with that. I had Chris and when I moved here, I had Pepa and my abuela and then Soph joined us too. I really believed it was enough," Eddie continued though his eyes were still shut and his  fingers still ran across his temples. 

On instinct Buck used his own free hand to smooth a thumb across the frown lines between his eyes. At the familiar touch, Eddie opened his eyes and smiled. That soft, familiar smile that Buck loved. The kind that Eddie sent him on lazy mornings in bed when they had no kids in the house and the tension in his chest dimmed. He still wasn"t sure where this was going but it didn"t seem like a bad thing. Not when Eddie was smiling at him like that. 

"But here"s the thing, Buck. It wasn"t enough. I had this emptiness inside no matter what I did. And I"d convinced myself that I could live with it as long as Chris was happy. But then I met you. You came barrelling into my life out of nowhere, completely unexpected." 

Somewhere above them, someone had started another round of fireworks despite the fact that it was now stupidly early in the morning. They exploded in bright sparks of colour that reflected across Eddie"s face. Like colourful freckles dusting across his nose. Suddenly it felt like someone had set fire to one in his own chest. Because Buck had heard a speech just like this once. Had made a speech just like this and that had been in a park with Abby 5 years ago. 

"But that"s the thing. Sometimes finding your person, falling in love isn"t always expected. Sometimes someone just comes into your life, takes you completely by surprise and changes you and your life forever. And you, Evan Buckley, have been one of the best surprises that life has ever given me," Eddie reached up to rub a thumb along his jaw softly. Buck bit at his lip to keep himself quiet, to force down the question that was forming on his tongue. Purely because he thought Eddie might actually kill him if he interrupted him for a 3rd time. And Buck had some sense of self-preservation. Enough at least to keep his mouth shut. Eddie"s fingers reached just below his ear and stopped. 

"When I moved to LA, I was convinced that it would never feel like home. But I was wrong. You told me once that I could find my home here if I tried and you were right. But it isn"t the city that"s become my home, it"s you. I"ve built a home here but I didn"t do it alone. You"ve always been right at my side, every step of the way and I couldn"t have done any of this without you," Eddie continued and the part of Buck that never felt good enough wanted to argue that Eddie would have been fine on his own. That he had been doing fine before they"d met. 

But he"d done enough work with Frank, and been corrected enough times by Eddie, that he"d shoved those thoughts down. Because maybe Eddie would have been fine without them meeting but he was more than just fine now because they had done. And whether or not he was good at doing anything else, he was good at being the person who loved Eddie Diaz.

"You"re it for me, Evan. I still can"t believe that I"m allowed to be this happy. That we"ve carved out this amazing, perfect family and get be surrounded by so many people who love us and that it"s all ours," 

"I love you. And will love you for the rest of my life. I love your shit eating grin, the fact that you know ridiculous amounts of random facts. Like I could ask you right something random like now how much water in the LA reservoir and you"d probably just know . I love how much you encourage Chris, no matter what he"s interested in or wants to do. I love how good of a father and a friend you are, how much you care, that you aren"t ashamed to wear your heart on your sleeve even when people have hurt you," Eddie continued as his fingers began to stroke down his neck, pressing into his pulse point as they passed over it. And Buck, who"d just about managed to not cry for a few hours, felt his eyes begin to sting and blur with tears 

Because while his friends and Maddie had told him plenty why they loved him, he wasn"t used to it from someone he was in love with. He"d only ever loved Abby and while she"d mentioned him being brave or how much fun he"d brought into her life, she"d never categorically told him why she loved him. But that kid trapped inside him, the lonely one who just wanted his parents to love him and missed his big sister, needed the why. Needed to understand exactly why someone chose to love because otherwise he just didn"t believe it. Being insecure, especially when it came to the people around him, was just another thing on a long list he was working through with Frank. 

The hand that had been stroking down his neck paused and shifted upwards so that Eddie could thumb a tear from the corner of Buck"s eye. That was another thing he was working on with Frank; the actually embarrassing amount he cried.  

Buck hadn"t cried much as a kid even when he"d been hurt already from with Maddie. But his sister had always been his safe space. Even as a kid.  

While it hadn"t made his dad care about him any more than he anyway had in his detached kinda way, it had just made his mom angrier. And while he"d wanted attention, he didn"t like the white hot anger she sent him at the sound of him crying. When Bea had been ill and they"d argued, he"d brought it up once and she"d blamed him, pointed out that children crying was one of her main triggers. But when he"d been a kid, Buck hadn"t understood that. Then once he"d grown up, he hadn"t cried because he hadn"t wanted to annoy people, to give them another reason to leave. 

Then Bea had been born, and Abby had left, and it felt like everything had broken loose and he"d not stopped crying since. But the people around him hadn"t left. His friends comforted him when he cried, hell Lucy even climbed into his bunk and let him cry on her shoulder till her top had been wet with snot and tears after a really bad call. No-one had ever gotten angry at him but himself. 

And now, instead of being annoyed, Eddie traced the damp path a tear had left with the calloused pad of his thumb and kissed the spot just above his mouth where it had stopped. 

"You told me once that you just wanted someone to stay, for you to be enough. Well, this is me choosing you, mi corazón . If you"ll have me, I"ll stay by your side for the rest of my life. You are more than enough, you"re everything to me," Eddie informed him and whatever tension he"d been carrying on his shoulders was gone and his expression was just pure, unchecked love. 

Then he dropped down to one knee, a black box in his hand, and probably not for the reason Buck had been on his knees earlier in the night.

"So, Evan Buckley, will you marry me?" 

Those words might have just broken Buck"s mind. And the thing was, he"d never been put quite on the spot like this before. And Buck, being Buck, felt his mind begin to spiral. And instead of providing anything useful for him to say, he opened his mouth and said the only thing that his mind had come up.  

"It"s 3.3 billion gallons," he informed his boyfriend who looked beyond confused. Buck continued even though he knew he just needed to shut the fuck up. The words just kept coming and he just kept on talking. "The amount of water in the LA reservoir. It has enough water to cover the city"s needs for like 3 weeks. Just if you actually wanted to know the answer." 

"Umm, that isn"t really an answer to whether you want to marry me or not," Eddie pointed out and yeah, Eddie probably didn"t actually care about how much water was in the LA reservoir. 

"Sorry. You"ve kinda fried my brain right now, Eds," Buck explained and took a deep breath in, trying to shut down all the stupid shit his mind was coming up with instead of an actual answer. Below him Eddie started to get a panicked look in his eyes, like he thought Buck might actually say no and he"d miscalculated the situation. " But yes. Course I"ll marry you. I already told you that you"re my forever person. That won"t ever change." 

And then, probably a little rougher than he should have been when he"d been shot just over a month ago, Buck yanked him up from the floor by his jacket and kissed him. Because at least if his mouth was busy doing that, he couldn"t say anymore stupid shit. Eddie let out what sounded like a groan of relief and Buck swallowed the sound down, his hands reaching to tug Eddie"s face as close as he possibly could. 

Because, despite the fact that he may have just ruined the moment with inappropriate water supply based trivia, it was up there with the best moments of his life. Probably just below the first time he"d seen Bea. Even if Eddie had kinda just stolen his thunder with the whole proposal thing. But he didn"t really care. He was just happy. 

When he pulled back, Eddie was smiling at him with such affection, it made everything ache with the sheer force of it. It all felt kinda like too much, like he"d explode with how fucking much he loved his boyfriend. Hang on, no, fiancé.  

"When we, uhh, tell everyone about this, can you maybe not tell them that my initial answer was trivia about LA"s water management system and just skip to the bit where I said yes?" Buck asked, feeling his face flush with embarrassment at the memory. Even though he"d literally only just said it. Like a total dick. 

"I don"t know, Buck. It"s exactly the weird kind of thing I"d expect your brain to come up with if I"m honest," Eddie replied with a grin, eyebrows raised and Buck shoved at his shoulder. "And Maddie thought the reason you wouldn"t be able to answer was that you"d cry too much. Not that you"d have a sudden, burning desire to educate me on LA"s water management system." 

"If you keep being mean to me, I"m changing my answer," Buck complained, lip jutting out in a pout. He yelped slightly as Eddie lent forward and kissed him, biting down into his bottom lip. 

"No take backs, Buck. Remember? Now, Chris helped me pick this out so if you don"t like it, take it up with him," Eddie explained and took the silver band out of the box he"d been holding. It was a plain silver band with a smaller, darker patterned band running around the middle. 

"Chris was in on this?" Buck asked as he let Eddie slide it onto his finger. "Who else knew what you were planning?" 

"Literally just Shannon and your sister. It was Maddie"s idea actually, to propose on New year. She thought you could do with some better memories. And she made a good argument for getting her money"s worth out of all this," Eddie explained gesturing with one hand at the stupid, fucking flower arch and the rows of trees covered in fairy lights. 

"Curious to know how they all reacted, Eds." 

"Your sister cried. A lot. Shannon laughed at me for being worried that you"d say no and Chris called me an idiot for not knowing that men have engagement rings now and then basically wing-manned the whole thing," Eddie answered and Buck couldn"t help but laugh at that. He could imagine every single reaction perfectly. 

"Fuck, I really love you," Buck exclaimed, the whole thing still bubbling and overflowing from his chest. He really wanted to kiss him again. So he did. Because Eddie was his fiance now and what was stopping him? Absolutely nothing. 

"You never answered my question about what you wanted for winning the bet," Buck asked again when they"d pulled away to breath. Because technically Eddie had still won and therefore had a prize to claim. 

"Well, the answer was to get laid by my hopefully soon to be husband but that would have given the game away. I put a lot of effort into that speech so you were listening to it. Even if the main thing you seemed to take away from it was the one throwaway remark about the useless trivia you know," Eddie chastised and Buck flushed again at the memory. And he knew he was never going to be allowed to forget it. "Though I can get on board with your idea about the uniform when we get home," Eddie agreed and Buck was very much okay with that idea. 

"Hang on, do you not need a ring too? I have no idea how this works," Buck asked suddenly, glancing down to where Eddie was twisting the engagement ring around Buck"s finger. 

"You can pick me one out if you want," Eddie replied with a shrug before frowning down at Buck"s hand. "I need to get you a silicone version to wear at work."  

"I don"t need to wear one at work, you know. I can just keep this one safe in my locker. I won"t lose it," Buck argued, slightly offended that Eddie didn"t seem to trust him to keep his ring safe. Buck might be a bit of an idiot but he wasn"t irresponsible with things like that. Something as important as that he"d keep safe. 

"Yeah but I want you to wear one at work. Might make people think twice about hitting on you when you"re already mine," Eddie explained and suddenly Buck understood that this wasn"t because Eddie didn"t trust him to keep the ring safe. It was because Eddie wanted everyone to know that Buck was very much taken and unavailable. Even when they weren"t together. And Buck was very much okay with that. His dick certainly was very, very okay with that.  

"Is this a good time to remind you that I find you being possessive like super hot? "Cause I really fucking do, Eds," Buck reminded him dropping his voice low on the way that he knew drove the other man wild. And if the way Eddie"s dark gaze flashed, it very much had the effect Buck had aiming for. 

"Well, lead the way Buck." 

X 

"Eds, I swear if you don"t get this door open—" 

"You aren"t exactly helping here, Buck." 

To be fair to Eddie, Buck knew he wasn"t helping.  The other man was trying to get their key into the lock but the corridor was mostly dark and Buck was half draped over his shoulders, lips on his neck and grinding his erection into the small of his back. Because fuck , he still felt too much and he needed to fuck out some of what he was feeling. Make Eddie feel exactly how much Buck loved him. 

"Come on Eddie, do you not think we"ve waited long enough?" Buck complained, probably far too loudly and Eddie twisted to glare at him over his shoulder. 

"You"re going to end up waking up the entire corridor if you aren"t quiet. And I"m pretty sure both my sister"s and Bobby and Athena"s room are near us," Eddie pointed out but Buck was kinda too far gone to care about waking them. He"d make some offhand comment about how they probably weren"t asleep either but he was aware enough to know that bringing up Sophia"s sex life might ruin the mood. 

"Then you need to get the door open quicker then, Eds," Buck pointed out matter of factly and snaked his hand around Eddie"s hips so that he could tug at the buckle of his belt. Buck wouldn"t actually give him a handjob in the very shared corridor of the hotel but it was a close run thing. 

" Me voy a casar con un idiota ," Eddie muttered to himself under his breath but before Buck could share his outrage at that particular comment, Eddie finally had the key open. Then the door swung open and Buck all but shoved Eddie forward into the room, slamming the door shut behind them. 

Buck hadn"t actually been in their hotel room yet. Eddie had brought their stuff up while Buck hadn"t been getting ready with the bridal party. It was big and he probably should spend more time admiring it with the amount it had cost to stay in for two nights. But to be honest, Buck simply didn"t care how nice it was. He just wanted Eddie naked and inside him as quickly as possible. He didn"t even really care about the bed. He"d happily let his fiancé fuck him on the floor if he had to. 

"You, clothes off now. Please and thank you," Buck informed his boyfriend, yanking off his tie as he headed over to grab one of their overnight bags from the corner. He grabbed the lube he"d packed, placed it on the side and returned to the task of getting his own clothes off as quickly as possible. 

He vaguely registered that the bathroom was huge, with one of those oversized freestanding baths before he showered as quickly as he could actually manage. One thing about work was that it had taught him to be in and out of the shower in a few minutes flat when needed. In fact, so quickly that he was done by the time Eddie had finished hanging up the tux that Buck had just thrown on the floor because he was sober and years in the army had inescapably drilled being neat into him even if that was the opposite of his natural state. Eddie wouldn"t admit it but Chris inherited his messiness and it wasn"t from Shannon.

"You know this is going to be over embarrassingly quickly, right?" Eddie asked him when he moved, grabbing the lube off the chest of drawers and kicking his legs apart where Buck had draped himself over the dressing table on one side of the room. 

"Yeah, yeah. I know. Just, please—" Buck started, quite happy to beg obnoxiously if he needed to but the slide of one of Eddie"s lubed fingers inside him without warning proved an effective way to shut him the fuck up. " Fuck, please." 

"God, I want you so much. You have no idea how much I love you," Eddie informed him, half draped over his back while he worked him open in a way that wasn"t gentle but was quick and that he"d definitely feel the day after. And that edge, between pleasure and pain  made him shudder and grind back against his boyfriend"s hand. Especially when he felt Eddie"s teeth sink into the curve of his shoulder before dragging up to latch onto the skin just below his jaw. 

"Please, I"m good. Just fuck me," Buck heard himself and that 100% sounded like he was begging. And he knew he probably wasn"t ready, no definitely wasn"t ready but he didn"t care. It had been too long and to be honest, he wanted to feel the burn and ache of it the day after. 

"No. You aren"t. Stop rushing me," Eddie shot back though he did add a 3rd finger to his movements. Fuck Eddie and the fact that he cared about Buck"s well being far more than Buck did. "Just behave." 

The thing was Buck had never been good at not rushing head first into things. Especially when they were things that he really wanted. The prospect of getting hurt wasn"t really something that had ever stopped him. But Eddie was different. Years in the army had taught him a level of patience that Buck would never be able to understand or copy. But when his hotheadedness came up against the sheer power of will that was his boyfriend, sorry fiancé, when he didn"t didn"t want to be rushed, Buck rarely( never) won. 

So, he did what he had available to to him, and fucked back against Eddie fingers and moaned in a way that he hoped encouraged him to hurry the fuck up. Because while Eddie was, like he was at everything he"d learnt since they"d gotten together, stupidly good with his hands, he needed more . 

"So, seeing as I know for a fact that Hen and Karen are next door, I need you to be quiet," Eddie pretty much ordered but the pathetic noise that ripped out of him when Eddie pulled his hand back was anything but quiet. Neither was the sharp hiss when Eddie yanked at the curls just above his neck. Hard. "What did I literally just say?" 

"Eddie, I swear if you don"t stop being an ass about this—-" Buck stopped because he wasn"t sure what he was planning on ending that sentence with. He wasn"t gonna leave or just go to bed. And Eddie knew that. 

"Or what? You"ll do what, Buck?" He heard Eddie ask from behind him, still not fucking touching him anywhere that really mattered, and he was pretty sure that the asshole was getting off on how frustrated Buck was getting. 

"If I said that I"d just go to bed would you believe me?" Buck offered and the hand buried in his hair yanked again. The sharp sting sent a jolt straight to his painfully hard dick. He needed something but the thought of getting himself off again was almost depressing. 

"No, I wouldn"t. You"re really not a good liar, you know that?" Eddie answered and Buck was about to argue something, anything back to make him do something when, without much warning, Eddie slammed into him in a way he"d definitely feel the day after and it was a close run thing that Buck didn"t come right there and then.  

The guttural, wild noise that the sensation ripped out of his chest was anything but quiet. But as the noise that Eddie made behind him was just as loud, he didn"t really have grounds to make any kind of comment about it. 

For a moment Eddie didn"t move, seemingly just relishing the feeling of being fully seated inside his ass for the first time in far too many weeks. 

Before Eddie, back when he"d only ever hooked up with guys and never moved past casual sex, he"d always kinda thought this position was almost clinical, definitely impersonal. 

He"d never minded. Buck had always liked sex and had always been good at it. It was a way of connecting with people without having to give anything more, without having to let people peer beneath the surface. Easier to fuck someone, get them off and not let them see enough of him to end up disappointed. 

But the way Eddie"s face dropped into the curve of his shoulder, lips on his skin felt anything but clinical. The hand that wrapped around his chest and pulled their bodies even more flush against each other, the other than trailed up where Buck"s hand was braced against the table and laced their fingers together was almost painfully personal. Being fucked like this by Eddie felt something more like being worshipped and he actually could cry at how right it felt. Like something that had been shaken loose when Eddie had been shot had finally slotted back into place. 

" Te extrañé. Me perdí esto, mi corazón . Fuck—--"

"I need you to move, Eds. Please —" Buck choked out, his voice breaking on the last word and with a tight squeeze of their joined fingers, Eddie pulled back and finally started to move and Buck wasn"t going to be held responsible for the indecent sounds being fucked out of him. 

It probably wasn"t anywhere near the best sex the two of them had ever had. It was too desperate, too frantic for that. But it didn"t stop him finishing, completely untouched, an embarrassingly short amount of time later. For a moment he couldn"t breath from the force of it. Like his orgasm had been sucker punched out of his chest. But Eddie was right there with him, spilling hot and deep inside him and if he could breath, he almost felt like laughing with the sheer relief of it. 

Then they were both lying on the floor, chests heaving even though they"d barely even got any kind of rhythm going, and Buck did have to laugh to himself.  

Next to him, hand pressed over his face, Eddie sighed deeply. "All that talk and then, whatever that was. Can I blame my sudden lack of stamina on being shot?" 

"Yes, if you can figure out how to blame both our lack of stamina on it, not just yours. Just give me like, 10 minutes and I"m gonna prove to you that 6 weeks of not using my dick with you hasn"t ruined my sexual prowess," Buck complained, reaching blindly for Eddie"s free hand. 

"Yeah, you"re going to have to give me longer than that," Eddie pointed out with another long sigh.

Which was exactly the reason why 30 minutes later, Buck had all but forced Eddie into the stupid, fancy bath that the room came with. Mostly because it was oversized enough that Buck could stretch his legs out completely without quite reaching the other side.  

The hotel had come with some bubble bath that smelled like apple and something flowery and Buck had dumped the entire bottle in. Because, as Eddie pointed out, he didn"t take baths and the sight of him sat in Buck"s arms, arms folded across his chest, deep frown on his face and bubbles up to his chin delighted some part of Buck that he couldn"t quite explain. Plus it soothed the beginning ache in the bottom of his back that he knew was going to hurt like a bitch in the morning. 

"You know baths are supposed to be relaxing, Eds. You could look like you"re at least trying to enjoy yourself," Buck suggested and laughed as Eddie splashed a handful of water across his face. 

"In the year we"ve known each other, when did I ever come across as a relaxing bubble bath kind of person to you?" Eddie retorted and Buck rolled his eyes. 

"Because Eds, in the bath you can do things like this," Buck replied and took the opportunity to run a hand down Eddie"s thigh under the water, the other sticking up the damp skin of his chest to grasp lightly around his neck. 

"We could do this in bed, Buck," Eddie tried to argue but Buck noticed the slight hitch to his voice as he spoke. He shifted the hand on Eddie"s thigh higher, running his fingers in lazy circles on the skin just to the side of Eddie"s dick. 

"Yeah but it smells like apples in here. And it"s, you know, super easy clean up," Buck pointed out, dragging the tip of tongue across the shell of Eddie"s ear and revelling in the shudder that raced through his entire body at the sensation. He shifted his fingers closer but not quite touching. "Plus, I like you wet and naked." 

"You maybe have a few interesting points," Eddie agreed and let Buck tip his head backwards so that he could mouth at the damp skin of his neck. Below the ridiculous amount of bubbles, Buck felt Eddie"s dick begin to stir to life again. 

"I always make good points, Eds. You should listen to me more," Buck reminded him and dragged his teeth over his pulse point, feeling Eddie"s entire body twitch and twist at the sensation. 

Buck would never admit this to anyone other than Eddie but he fucking loved the fact that no-one but him had ever gotten Eddie"s body to react quite like this. Buck knew his own body was stupidly responsive. His dick had been hard as soon as he wrapped a hand around Eddie"s neck. He was a physical person anyway so it made sense that extended to sex too. 

But in general Eddie was far more reserved than he was when it came to physicality. He wasn"t like Buck, who was always touching people, instinctively searching for the kind of physical closeness he"d not had as a child. On shift, if he wasn"t curled up against Lucy"s side on breaks, he was letting Hen stroke his hair or walking with an arm slung around Chim"s neck or hugging Ravi so tightly he"d lifted him off the floor. 

So it thrilled Buck no end to see how easily Eddie"s body came apart under Buck"s fingers.  How needy and responsive he was when it was Buck who touched him. How hard his dick was getting with the most gentle of touches. Because every inch of Eddie Diaz belonged to him and his body knew it. 

He dropped his fingers away from Eddie"s thigh, feeling the way he tensed at the loss of contact. "Do you want to get out and go to sleep? It is pretty late." 

"Buck, don"t be a brat. I said you had some good points," Eddie hissed back, pushing his body backwards into Buck"s chest and his dick was suddenly very much interested in the friction the movement provided him. "However I will get out if getting out includes getting fucked." 

Suddenly the whole bath thing had kinda lost its appeal. At least in comparison to Eddie"s suggestion. He didn"t bother emptying the water, just forced Eddie up so that he could drag both of them out of the water and towards the bathroom. The bottle of lube was still on the side where Eddie had abandoned it earlier and Buck grabbed it on the way past as he walked Eddie backwards and onto the bed. 

Buck flicked his eyes down and for once it wasn"t the sight of his boyfriend"s dick that caught his attention but the still fresh, pink scar alongside the right side of his abdomen. Buck had seen it plenty when Eddie had been first injured but not as much recently. And he"d never really taken the time to properly look at it. 

He reached a hand out and gently traced along the length of it with one finger and around where the surgical scar blended into the one left behind by the gunshot that had nearly killed him. Buck swallowed, suddenly hating the fact that Eddie was gonna be forced to carry around this reminder of the shooting for the rest of his life. 

"Hey, Buck. You okay? It"s fine, it doesn"t hurt anymore," Eddie told him gently, reaching out to wrap a hand around his wrist. "It"s just another scar, I have plenty of them." 

"I know, Eds. It"s just— I really love you and I hate how close I came to losing you. I don"t ever want to do that again," Buck explained, eyes still cast down towards the scar on Eddie"s chest. He"d hated looking at his own leg for the longest time, but not because of what it looked like but because it was a permanent reminder on his skin of everything that he"d nearly lost. 

Eddie shifted up so that he was sat on his knees and notched his fingers under Buck"s jaw. "Hey. Just, look at me okay?" Eddie asked him and Buck complied, lifting his gaze to meet Eddie"s. As always his expression was steady, unwavering and grounded Buck in the kind of way he"d always needed to be. "You won"t have to. I"m right here. We"re both okay. I"ve got you."

"I just really, really love you," Buck replied because it was exactly how he felt and Buck had never felt like holding back how he felt about the man he loved. Eddie grinned at him, apparently happy enough that he"d stopped Buck spiralling into whatever brief bout of melancholy his scar had inspired. 

"I really love you too Buck but I"d love you a whole lot more if you were, what was it, dicking me down right about now," Eddie told him, voice completely serious and yanked his face forward and slotted their mouths together. 

Eddie wasted no time in licking into his mouth, falling backwards into the pillows behind him and dragging Buck down on top of him. Blunt nails scraped at the skin of Buck"s shoulder, legs falling open so that Buck could properly position himself on the bed and though Eddie didn"t say anything, Buck knew that he was encouraging him to get a move on. He felt for the bottle of lube that he"d dropped into the bed and grabbed it, clicking the cap open blinding as he didn"t particularly want to stop kissing Eddie. Luckily, thanks to years of sleeping his way up and down both South and North America, he was pretty well practised. 

He shifted back slightly if only so he could work a hand in between them. Buck hadn"t ever been lying when he"d said that he didn"t mind if they"d only ever fucked with Eddie on top. Sure, he liked being a top too but he loved sex with him more than anything. So it had seemed a fair trade off. But getting to top Eddie might actually be the best thing that Buck had ever got to do. Mostly because he got massively off on how much Eddie trusted him and that this was the one way that Buck could have him that no-one else had ever come close to. 

And fuck, Eddie looked ridiculously hot being fucked. That was a given. 

But because this was something that they hadn"t done all that much, Buck as much as he was inpatient and just needed to get the fuck on with it, would actually take his time. Most of the time Buck was happy to let Eddie take the lead with things; he"d follow the other man anywhere, anytime. But when it came to this he seemed happy to defer to Buck. 

The hand that had been lazy running through his hair grabbed a much tighter hold when Buck eased the first finger in, Eddie"s teeth sinking into his lip. Like Eddie had before, Buck used his free hand to lace their fingers together, pinning Eddie"s hand above his head on the bed. He didn"t miss the fact that, like before, it was the hand with the ring Eddie had given him, the cool metal pressing against Eddie"s fingers. 

"You aren"t going to hurt me, promise, you can go faster—" Eddie huffed, breaking their kiss and Buck couldn"t help the absolute smirk that crossed his face. 

"Don"t rush me, Eds," he parroted, echoing Eddie"s words from earlier and he felt the sheer frustration rolling off the other man as he groaned, twisting his hips and trying to find more friction where Buck was stretching him open. It was probably unfair. Buck was purposely not hitting his prostate because they"d already had one embarrassingly short round of sex and he wasn"t going to risk another. He had to maintain some sense of dignity. 

"You"re such a brat, you know that Buck?" Eddie complained and he felt himself laugh.

"So you"ve told me once or twice," Buck replied innocently and slid a 3rd lubed inside and enjoyed the feel of Eddie"s hips jerk upwards underneath him in response. Buck quietened down any further argument by kissing him solidly, tongue swiping across his still slightly swollen bottom lip. 

It felt easier kissing him now because he didn"t have to hold back. He could follow exactly where his body wanted to go without worrying that he"d end up hurting Eddie with his over-enthusiasm or having to force himself back from the edge. 

Once he felt that they spent enough time prepping, or more accurately Buck had reached the end of his limited patience, he tapped at Eddie"s thigh. "Hook your legs around my waist." 

Eddie complied as he lubed up his own dick and Buck used his then free hand to grasp at one of Eddie"s thigh to use as leverage. "Right, so I need you to promise me that you"ll tell me if it gets too much or if I hurt you," Buck instructed, frowning at the way that Eddie rolled his eyes underneath him. "I"m serious, Eds. Promise me or I"m not doing anything." 

"Right, fine. I promise. Now, can you please get on with it," Eddie agreed though Buck could almost taste the sarcasm. But he"d agreed and that was enough for him. 

Shifting his weight forward over him, he used his memento to push into him, slowly and carefully, and the heat and pressure of it made his chest clench. It felt good, too good and he had to hold himself still for a moment before it ended way too soon yet again. Probably not helped by the gasps and moans that were escaping Eddie"s mouth with every inch of his dick that Buck slid into him. 

The thing about missionary that Buck had always loved, at least with people he really cared about, was the fact that you ended up face to face. He loved watching the person he was having sex with fall apart. And while Abby had always ended up closing her eyes or looking away because it was too much ( like the rest of him, he guessed), Eddie always kept his gaze locked into his; unashamedly just as intense and needy for it as Buck was. It answered that deep-seated need for connection in a way that other types of sex just didn"t. 

Like this it wasn"t so much that he belonged to Eddie or vice versa, it was that they belonged together. He"d spent too long waiting to find someone to belong to, someone who"d want him, who"d chosen him and he knew without a doubt that he"d found it right here. With someone who"d been just as lost as he was, who needed to find where he belonged just the same. Like two lonely entities drawn to the pull of a fixed point that was the home they"d made with each other.  

As if he could read his mind, Eddie used the thumb of his spare hand to press gently into the highpoint of his cheekbone, fingers tilting his chin to look their gazes together. "You"re mine and I"m yours. Forever, Buck." 

Buck nodded, not trusting himself to speak and finally trusted himself enough to move his hips. Gently at first, barely pulling out before he"d slid back in, eyes still locked onto Eddie"s so he could see how his eyes darkened, how his pupils got a little more blown out with every movement. But then he felt the sharp dig of Eddie"s heels in his lower back. An unspoken plea of more. And one thing Buck couldn"t do was say no to him. 

So he increased the movements of his hips, fully pulling out and slamming back in, delighting in the strangled curses dragged out of his boyfriend"s throat. He let go of Eddie"s hand, sitting back slightly and grabbing at Eddie"s other thigh so he could change the angle of his thrusts, fucking a little bit more upwards. The resulting barrage of absolutely filthy Spanish that poured out of Eddie"s mouth when his dick finally brushed against his prostate had Buck almost on the edge of his own orgasm. Heat pooled in his lower back, tendrils climbing up his spine and into his fingertips. 

Sure, it had been longer this time but it certainly wasn"t his best performance. He probably could ease off, slow his thrusts and draw it out but frankly, he just didn"t want to. That could be for another day when he was quite so desperate to fuck yet another orgasm out of the man he was somehow lucky enough to be engaged to. 

"Eds, I"m not gonna touch you. I think you can finish just like this. But as you"ve pointed out, you might want to be a tiny bit quieter if you don"t want all our friends to know exactly how much you like me fucking you," Buck reminded him and he knew his was being an absolute shit, especially as he"d used every sharp thrust as he spoke as a way to drag his dick over Eddie"s prostate, but he didn"t care. 

"Fuck—off," Eddie forced out between curses, teeth clenched as Buck fucked him apart. 

The hand Buck had let go off travelled to his curls, fisted a handful and used it as leverage to keep their gazes locked together. The legs around his waist tightened, blunt nails dragging down his spine. He"d no doubt be covered in bruises from where Eddie"s heels were dug into his back, from his nails or the teeth that were biting along his shoulder but Buck didn"t mind. Every mark was a reminder that Eddie was his, a mark worked into his skin that might as well have read the word mine. He"d feel every little bruise tomorrow but he wanted that. Especially when they"d gone so long without being able to have this. 

And with the way Eddie twisted and moaned underneath him, eyes so blown that his iris looked black, Buck didn"t think he minded either. Maybe when the tequila burned out of his system he"d care a little more about the fact that they were being far too loud. Between the absolute barrage of curses streaming out of Eddie, his own choked moans and gasps and the slam of the bed thanks to the unforgiving pace he"d built them up to, whoever was on the other side of the wall would certainly be able to hear them. 

But fuck, maybe it was the tequila but he really, really didn"t care anymore. His thighs were starting to burn, the heat of his orgasm was almost unbearable and all he wanted to do was watch the man he loved completely fall apart. 

"Come on, Eds. I"ve got you," Buck reminded him and used one hand to trace up his chest and wrap around his neck. He didn"t choke him or anything but he squeezed just a little, feeling the metal from the two chains he wore dig into his skin. "I fucking love you." 

He squeezed just that little bit more, timing it with a particular well angled, forceful thrust straight against his prostate and Eddie was done. He looked almost like the force and speed of his orgasm took him completely by surprise, mouth falling open in a wordless shout and everything was impossibly hot and tight. So Buck let himself go, following him over the edge into his own orgasm. 

He was pretty sure he blacked out just a little with the sheer, all encompassing pleasure of it all and when he came back to his senses he"d collapsed onto Eddie"s chest, cheek against his collarbone and both of Eddie"s arms wrapped tightly round him like a vice. They were both sweaty, Eddie"s cum sticky and smeared between where Buck was lying on top of him and he probably should have found the whole thing a lot more disgusting than he did. Instead he was pretty content to lie there forever. 

"We should probably get cleaned up," Eddie pointed out eventually and while he was right, Buck made zero attempt to actually move.

"Pretty sure the bath is still full. Might not be completely cold," he offered up with a lazy, half smirk   

"I didnt want to get in the bath before you fucked me stupid. I"m not getting back in it now," Eddie replied and tickled at the sensitive spot just under his armpit till he moved. The worst thing about that was that Eddie wasn"t even ticklish so it wasn"t even like he could fight back. 

"Wait there, I"ll grab a cloth," he told Eddie as he shifted back off the bed. 

The muscles in his thighs and calves ached like a bitch and yeah, he"d 100% feel that tomorrow. He grabbed a washcloth and quickly cleaned them up, chucking it onto the floor when he was finished. Eddie had shifted over onto the side it looked like he"d slept on the night before when he"d been sharing with Karen. 

 "Yeah. We probably should have put down a towel. There"s kinda a wet spot," Buck commented as he looked down at the side that was supposedly his and the fact that they"d kinda ruined the sheets with lube, sweat and cum. Eddie just shook his head and tugged him over to the other side of the, luckily, king sized bed.  

"Well, we"ll just have to cuddle on this side of the bed then. I"ll even let you be the big spoon if you want, Buck," he offered and Buck didn"t need to be told twice. He shifted over as far as he could and plastered himself down Eddie"s back, wrapping him up as tight as possible with two arms around his chest and a leg hooked around his. 

"I know I"ve said this before but you really are the best sex of my entire life, you know that?" Buck offered up for no other reason that he"d just really missed having sex with him. And it wasn"t a lie. Not just because sex with Eddie was physically fucking fantastic, even though it was but because it was just so much better with someone who loved him so completely. 

"Better than Taylor?" Eddie asked and he could feel the look on the other man"s face. Because Eddie already knew the answer but he just liked hearing Buck say it. Because sometimes Eddie could be one of the pettiest people that Buck had ever met. 

"Don"t be petty, Eds. You know you"re better than Taylor. Especially "cause you let me cuddle you after," Buck reminded him, rolling his eyes despite the fact that he knew that Eddie couldn"t see him. 

"Well then, I"m going to cuddle the absolute fuck out of you then," Eddie replied and tightened his grip on the arms that Buck had wrapped around his chest. 

"In all seriousness, no-one I"ve ever been with has ever felt like it does with you," Buck told him honestly as Eddie sent back to twisting the engagement ring around his finger where Buck"s hand was resting across his chest. "I"ve always felt that I"m too much for people. Like with Taylor. I was good to hang out with and hook up with when she was bored but she didn"t want the rest of me "cause I was too messy. But even when we first met, it never felt that way with you." 

And that was the main difference he guessed. The people he"d hooked up with had only ever wanted him for one thing, just like Taylor. She"d run away the moment he"d tried to make the thing between them into something more. Abby had wanted him as a distraction from her mom and the moment he"d served his purpose, she"d wanted to leave him behind. 

Eddie was the only person who"d wanted to see below the surface of the front he put on to the world. And not only wanted to see who Buck actually was past someone to use as a means to an end but loved every piece of him he found there, rough edges and all. 

"Buck, of course you aren"t too much. And fuck Taylor Kelly and every other person who ever made you feel like that. But hey, her stupidity was my gain. You can"t imagine how pissed off I"d have been if we"d met and I hadn"t been able to have you "cause you were dating Taylor ," Eddie muttered darkly and Buck had to laugh. He couldn"t imagine a world where he found Eddie and chose Taylor of all people instead. 

"Eds, you hardly know her. I get why Lucy hates her but she basically disappeared after we starting dating," Buck pointed out even though he knew why Eddie didn"t like her. But Buck was a shit and he liked the possessive edge that Taylor inspired in the other man. 

"Buck, I know enough. And I mean even Karen doesn"t like her and Karen likes everyone," Eddie pointed out and Buck had to wonder what exactly Eddie and Karen had been talking about the night before. The grip on Buck"s arm tightened and he was pretty sure that Eddie had pushed his back just that little bit more flush into Buck"s chest. 

"I think, even if I"d been dating Taylor when we met, I"d have realised that this was where I was meant to be. Even when we hardly knew each other, even when I didn"t realise what it was, somewhere inside I knew you were always made to be mine," Buck offered up and knew it had been anyone else that he"d been saying this to, he"d have been embarrassed as shit. But it was Eddie and it was how he felt, so he had zero problem voicing his thoughts  

"Destiny huh?" 

"Maybe something like that. You"re it for me. I don"t think I could love someone else as much as I love you, even if I wanted to," Buck admitted and he was sure that thought probably should scare him more than it should. Because Eddie could really hurt him if he wanted and in a way that he didn"t think he could ever recover from. But he wasn"t because he knew that Eddie would never hurt him. He trusted him completely. Eddie had lifted Buck"s hand to his mouth, placing a kiss to the centre of his palm. 

" Te amo desde el fondo de mi corazón. Te quiero tal cual y como eres . Me gusta todo sobre ti," Eddie whispered against his fingers, Buck able to feel the way he smiled against his skin. 

" Yo también te amo ." 

Buck was quiet for a moment, Eddie dropping Buck"s hand back to rest against his chest. Buck knew they probably should be sleeping but he just couldn"t shut his mind off. Not because he was spiralling for a change but because he was just too excited. Like Bea on Christmas morning. 

"Do you think we"ll still be all over each other when we"re an old married couple?" Buck asked, not actually concerned but because it was the kind of question that would needle Eddie out of trying to sleep and into talking to him instead.  

"Are you worried I won"t be into you when I"m married to you, Buck?" Eddie asked, tone incredulous but falling straight into Buck"s trap. Like they were kids on a sleepover who didn"t want to go to sleep, not two adult men who had been living together for months. 

"Excuse me? It might be me that stops being attracted to you Eds," Buck shot back, almost choking on the absolute audacity of his own statement. Eddie snorted at that and shifted round till they were lying nose to nose. 

"Buck, I don"t think you"ve stopped trying to get into my pants since we started dating. I can"t imagine you stopping anytime soon. Do you?" He challenged, one eyebrow raised slightly and an amused set to the line of his mouth. 

"Fine. I"ll keep myself out of your pants from now on," Buck replied, moving his hands away from where they"d been resting on his back. Buck popped his bottom lip out in a sulk, if only because he knew how much Eddie liked biting it when he did that, and fought back a grin at the way Eddie"s gaze couldn"t help but drop to his bottom lip. 

"Stop sulking. You know I love having you in my pants," Eddie told him back, tone almost weary but he wasn"t able to stop himself from nipping at Buck"s bottom lip regardless. "And to answer the question, no. I"ll always want you. Even when you"re old." 

"I"m younger than you, Eds," Buck pointed out with a grin but he moved his hand back, sweeping an open palmed touch up the other man"s chest and cupping around his neck gently. 

"Hardly. You"re 31, not 21, Buck," Eddie argued back but his own hand had started to drift, gentle fingertips tracing down Buck"s collarbone, around his nippers and along the indents of his stomach and hips. 

"And you"re 33. That"s like, super old," Buck replied, trying to make his tone sound almost horrified even though, somehow, his dick was already starting to twitch back to life as Eddie"s fingertips skimmed across the top of his thigh. 

"Really? Yet I see there"s one part of you that doesn"t seem to mind how old I am," Eddie noted pointedly and shifted his hand to grasp at Buck"s now very much hard dick. Like his body was eager to make up for all the time they"d lost out on over the past few weeks. 

"Never said I didn"t find you being old a turn on. You"re lucky you have me to keep you young," Buck teased back, biting at the inside of his mouth to bite back the groan that wanted to escape. 

"Is that what this is? Keeping me young?" Eddie asked, voice entirely seriously but Buck could see the glint to his eye that betrayed that he knew exactly what effect he was having on him. Eddie let go of his dick, raised his hand and spat into his palm like something out of teenage Buck"s wet dreams and ran his hand along the length of Buck"s dick. There were definitely gonna be teeth marks on the inside of his cheek from where he"d just bitten down on it. 

"I think the technical term is jerking off but whatever you want to call it, Eds," Buck tried to offer up nonchalantly but he sounded anything but unaffected. Especially teamed with the way his hips jerked up into the wet heat of his palm. 

"You"re such a cocky shit," Eddie reminded him, though he also shifted them again, so that Buck was pressed into the mattress on his back and Eddie was half lent over to him, still jerking him off at a maddenly lazy pace. 

"But I"m your cocky shit, remember? Now are you gonna put your mouth to better use or are you forgetting things in your old age?" Buck replied, trying to sound teasing but just coming across as impatient. And because he knew exactly how to push his buttons, Eddie slowed the rhythm of his hand right down. 

"I"m starting to have some regrets about asking you to marry me here, Buck," Eddie teased and Buck was proud of the fact that his mind didn"t try and cling onto that statement as any kind of truth. Not like he would have done a few months ago. Instead he wrapped his hand around the back of Eddie"s neck, feeling the metal of his ring slide across the two chains Eddie wore. 

"No take backs, Eds. You already said," Buck reminded him, echoing his earlier words and twisting his hips trying to get any kind of friction going where Eddie still had a hand fisted around his dick. 

"As I said, regrets." 

"You love me really," Buck continued, a wide grin on his face that quickly shifted into a moan as Eddie finally squeezed the hand that was around his dick, swiping his thumb to gather the precum that had started to gather at the tip. 

"Yes. Apparently I do. Now are you going to shut up and let me show exactly how much I"m still attracted to you?" 

"Yeah, you aren"t getting any younger he—-" Buck started, because as proved earlier, he didn"t know when to shut his mouth and stop talking. Until Eddie shifted and swallowed him down and then Buck found that he couldn"t form anything resembling words at all. 

X

It was the knock at the door that woke Buck up. 

He had no idea what time it was but there was light streaming in through the slight crack in the curtains across the window opposite the bed. At some point in the night they"d shifted so that Eddie was asleep on his back with Buck plastered down one side of his body, their legs tangled together and one of Eddie"s hands still threaded through the ridculous mess his curls had become overnight  

"Why is someone knocking at on the door?" Buck complained into Eddie"s neck, pushing his face further into the other"s man"s space rather than making any move to stand up and answer the door. 

"I have no idea. What time even is it?" Eddie asked him, sounding slightly more with it than Buck did. But then Eddie hadn"t been the one of them throwing back tequila the night before. 

"Well, I"m sure they"ll go away if we ignore them," Buck decided and curled up more tightly against Eddie"s side. His head hurt, both from the alcohol and probably the very few hours of sleep he"d gotten the night before. His body hurt too but that was probably thanks to the indecent amount of sex they"d had more than the alcohol. 

"You sure about that?" Eddie asked him as the knocking continued. In fact it seemed a bit more insistent than before. Buck groaned and tried to blanket his head with his arm. His head was already pounding, he didn"t need this on top. 

When the knocking didn"t stop, Buck conceded defeat and started to force himself up and out of bed with an over-exaggerated huff. "I swear if someone isn"t actually on fire or something, I"m gonna kill whoever is at the door," he mumbled darkly as stood up and immediately winced. 

There was a sharp tug somewhere in his lower back and fuck, that hurt. He needed to do something about that, some stretches or something. He was not giving any of his friends that satisfaction of seeing him limping. Even so, the pain reminded him that he"d gotten off four times the night before. Which was honestly some kind of personal record, at least since he"d hit his mid-twenties. He almost swore when he bent down to grab his boxers off the floor. Maybe he was getting old?

"What?" He demanded when he finally yanked the door open. The corridor was too bright compared to his hotel room and he squinted against the light pouring in from the windows that faced his door. 

"Good morning to you too Buckaroo. It"s breakfast time. You"re going to be late if you don"t get a move on. Everyone else is already down there," Hen greeted him, one eyebrow raised as she swept her eyes up and down his half naked body. Buck wasn"t bothered. She"d seen him in less at work. 

"Seriously? You woke me up at this time because of breakfast? Seriously?" He demanded and fought the urge to slam the door shut in her face and go back to bed. Behind him he heard Eddie slipping out of bed and closing the bathroom door. 

"Because you"re supposed to be down there helping with venue clean-up in a few hours and somehow I don"t think you"ll want to do that on an empty stomach," Hen reminded him, voice slow like he was being an idiot and he groaned and grabbed at his head. 

"Oh, fuck. I completely forgot," he admitted, like she hadn"t already worked that one out as he stood in front of her, not dressed and obviously just rolled out of bed. 

"Yeah I can see. I can also see why I had to wear earplugs till 5 this morning. You might want to put some more clothes on before you let anyone see you," she teased gently, pointedly looking at his chest and Buck glanced down. He couldn"t see his shoulders but he could see the obvious fingertip shaped bruises on his hips that Eddie had left behind and the faint lines that he"d scratched into Buck"s thighs as he"d blown him. And suddenly the memory of how loud he"d been the night before hit him straight in the chest. 

"Umm, exactly how much did you guys hear?" He asked even though he knew the answer. Buck was a whole host more aware when his blood wasn"t mostly tequila and he"d finally fucked out weeks of sexual frustration. He wondered how many of his friends they"d disturbed and wanted to crawl back into bed and never leave.

"Enough to make me entirely thankful that the room came with two sets of complementary earplugs. And definitely enough that the next time we"re all staying in a hotel together, I"m requesting a room as far away from you as possible," Hen answered without hesitation and Buck could feel how hot his face had become. She didn"t look mad. If anything she looked like was thoroughly enjoying how embarrassed he was by the whole thing. 

"Hen, I"m so sorry. Like, there was a lot of tequila and—-" he tried to explain but Hen took pity on him and cut him off. 

"Don"t. I remember what it was like to be stupidly and loudly in a new relationship, Buckaroo," she teased but somehow that wasn"t making Buck feel any better about the whole thing. "Also unless you want this morning to be a whole load about you, I"d take that off." 

"Huh? Take what off?" He asked, confusion cutting through the embarrassment that he"d been wrapped up in. Hen dropped her gaze to the arm he had wrapped across his chest. 

"I"d ask if Eddie had actually banged out what brain power you actually had but then I remembered exactly who im talking to.  The very obvious engagement ring you"re wearing, you beautiful idiot," she elaborated and he dropped his eyes down to the hand she was staring at. And oh , he"d forgotten that he was wearing that.  That time he couldn"t stop the stupidly wide smile that spread across his face at the memory of the night before. 

"Oh yeah. You don"t look surprised." 

"Because I"m seriously not surprised. At all. Pretty sure Karen talked your future husband down from at least one panic attack the other night about you saying no. As if you haven"t been basically surgically attached to him for months," Hen commented and Buck looked up from where he was admiring the ring on his finger to send her an outraged look.

"Hey! You"re making me sound clingy," he complained even though he knew it wasn"t far off the mark. Especially when it came to how much he wanted to be near Eddie at all times. 

"You are clingy, Buck. It"s not a bad thing.  Eddie obviously likes it," Hen commented and then she smiled at him, entirely too fond for someone he"d kept up the night before. "I"d give you a hug but I"m not touching you till you"ve showered. Pretty sure if I blue lighted you, you"d light up like a Christmas tree." 

"Rude but probably true," he agreed. Eddie had wiped him down but Buck really needed a shower. He wouldn"t want to give him a hug either if he"d been in Hen"s position.

"Congratulations Buckaroo. I am really happy for you. Now go shower and do some stretches or something. Can"t have you limping about all morning," Hen joked again, still laughing at him as she headed off down the corridor. 

Buck headed back into the room just as Eddie came out of the bathroom, hair damp from where he"d obviously taken the world"s quickest shower. Probably an army thing. He had fished out his pyjama bottoms from his suitcase and Buck noticed that he wasn"t half as marked up as Buck was. He also wasn"t limping. He was however obviously laughing at the way that Buck was as he walked, or limped, over to him. 

"I"d say I felt guilty about that," he started, nodding his head down to Buck"s legs with an amused grin, "But you were the one who pushed me into fucking you a second time so I"m putting the blame for this on you." 

"Yeah, fair. Fun though right?" Buck reminded him as he reached his side and let Eddie wrap a hand around his neck. He smelt like toothpaste and Buck really needed to brush his teeth so that he could kiss that smirk off his boyfriend"s face. Right now, his mouth tasted like tequila and death. "Can I borrow one of your chains?" 

"Course you can. But why?" Eddie asked, already moving to take one of the chains from around his neck. He removed the medallion, attached it to the other chain and passed the new empty one over to Buck. 

"Umm, unless you wanna be the people who make somebody else"s wedding all about them then I"m gonna put this around my neck," he explained as he slipped his engagement ring onto the chain that Eddie had just given him. Eddie took the chain out of Buck"s hand and gestured for him to bend down slightly.

"Come here then. Though you"ve kinda of got a whole —-" Eddie noted as he looped the chain around Buck"s neck, gesturing to Buck"s shoulder, "---- going on." 

Buck looked to the mirror on the other side of the room and finally saw the massive amount of bruises and bites that Eddie had worked into his skin. All the way from his neck to the outside of his thighs. And, because it was hot as fuck, his felt his dick twitch. 

"Fuck. Least the pictures were all done yesterday huh? Fuck, that"s sore," Buck hissed as he pressed into one of the bruises at his neck. 

"Stop poking at it then," Eddie told him but Buck ignored him and pressed at another, hissing at the pain when he pressed too hard. Eddie rolled his eyes as Buck continued to thumb at the bruises that Eddie had left all over him the night before. "You are literally a child." 

"Yet I"m the one stood here with a perfect imprint of your teeth on my shoulder. So what does that make you?" Buck challenged and Eddie sighed, rubbing a hand across his forehead  

"The maker of questionable life choices," he answered and Buck stuck his tongue out at him. Doing nothing to not act like the child that Eddie had just accused him of being. "Now are you going to go shower or do I need to carry you?" 

"I can walk, thanks. Your dick didn"t break me that much. Plus you"re only cleared for moderate exercise, remember?" Buck replied even though Eddie"s dick had kinda broken him that much. Broken him in a way that Buck fucking loved and wanted to repeat as soon as he could.  

"I"m not sure what part of last night was considered moderate?" Eddie mused and Buck had to agree with that. When his doctor had said they could have sex again, he didn"t know if he"d realised they"d taken that to mean that they could fuck four times in one night. 

"I dunno. Pretty sure I rocked your world, Eds," Buck told him with a shit-eating grin and something dark flashed in Eddie"s eyes. 

"Yet I"m not the one limping this morning. Go and shower," he ordered and gave him a slight shove to the shoulder. 

"You could keep me company?" Buck suggested, stepping closer to his boyfriend rather than towards the shower as instructed and hooked a thumb under the waistband of the pyjama bottoms he was wearing. 

"I know exactly what your definition of keeping you company is, so no. If you"re not ready in 15 minutes I"m going to breakfast without you," Eddie replied but he didn"t move away from him or stop the way that Buck had started to stroke the skin just under the waistband of his pyjamas. 

"Yeah, yeah. Like you would," Buck challenged and stepped even closer. Despite the fact that they"d basically fucked non-stop the night before, Buck could feel his dick twitching to life at the idea of having Eddie in the shower with him.

"Try me, Buck. Now stop being a shit and go shower," Eddie ordered again but Buck knew from how Eddie was getting hard under the hand he"d slipped further into his pyjama bottoms that he"d already won the argument.

"Again, you could join me—"

"You"re the one explaining to your sister why we"re late, Buck," Eddie told him, finally relenting and letting Buck drag him off to the shower with him. 

He ignored Hen"s knowing look when they showed up just before breakfast ended, both with damp hair and Buck still limping with two new bruises across his knees.