Archive of Our Own ^beta

Usually, when Buck ends up in bed with someone it’s on purpose. 

It’s a clear goal for him. Almost calculated. An equation he knows better than almost everything else. Easy, simple steps to follow that lead to an inevitable end. 

Buck has been wanting for as long as he can remember, and he’s chased after the fulfillment of that want for nearly just as long. Sex has always been a satisfying scratch to the itch that lies beneath his skin. The bare touch of another and the mutual exchange of pleasure, a heady dose of medicine for whatever rotten thing that lives in him. Everything that is coarse and writhing and expansive and bruise sore momentarily soothed and adjusted so that it’s not pricking at his heart constantly. 

He wonders sometimes if that want, if his insatiable and incessant hungering need for more more more and his inability to find permanence, is inherent to him or if they come from the spare parts he’s constructed of that were never meant to stay with him in the first place. 

His very being formed from what’s not his to keep, his very life created for someone else, and his body knows it, his heart knows it, and it seems everyone else knows it too. 

Though, Buck can’t really blame his past partners for seeing that bare truth. Everyone he has slept with, even those he had feelings for and had convinced himself were more than just someone to lose, caught glimpses of that terrible chasm he nurses inside his chest and he’s the one who let it happen. 

Giving himself to someone kind of demands it, at least for him. The collision of bodies and the slickness of shivering skin and the burning heat of desire and the powerful crest of an orgasm has always stripped him to the core, even when it was a quick, fleeting thing. And he’s always loved it, sometimes in a dreadful and destructive way. 

Buck doesn’t know how to give only part of himself. He has to give everything. And he has and he does, and it’s not even something he regrets. Not anymore. There could be a type of strength and bravery in that, though admittedly it’s mostly unconsciously done. He just can’t help but devolve into something that devours and whimpers, eager to shove every good thing he possesses into the hands of someone else so that it’s seen and acknowledged. 

Most of the time, sex is what gave him that. Sex gave him a freedom to pour himself into someone and have them be happy to take from him even if just for a little while. And a lot of it was fun. Enjoyable. Even if, as the years went on, it came with a vulnerability he didn’t fully understand until Abby. 

Making people feel good and being able to take a little something for himself at the same time was all he needed at one point. And he had a hell of a time doing it. 

But, of course, in the end it wasn’t enough. Never enough. Nothing ever is for him. 

Buck’s grasp has always extended his reach. 

But, hey, at least he is aware of it. At least he knows himself. At least he can prepare and accommodate for his exasperating audacity. 

Not that he was able to do so when it really mattered. 

Because while getting someone into his bed has always been a purposeful endeavor filled with charm and intention, with Eddie it was none of those things. Pure accident and no forethought. Though maybe that’s how it always is when you have sex with your best friend and not some stranger or long-term partner.

His best friend.

A man who is the simplest, most complex, and achingly beautiful person Buck has ever known.

A man who is sharp and intelligent and competent and ridiculous and bitchy and hilarious and stubborn and fun and occasionally self-destructive and young at heart even though that youth has been boarded up and guarded for most of his life. 

Someone who has never been impermanent. Someone who gives to Buck just as much as he takes. Someone who drives Buck insane but also makes him feel so comfortable and safe. Someone who would probably be very hard for Buck to fumble horribly with and lose. 

Maybe that’s why it happens as easily as it does. 

It’s rare for Buck to have that kind of confidence and belief in someone else. Before Eddie, Buck doesn’t think he has ever looked at someone and not only seen what it will look like when they leave. 

And Buck knows the barest details of Eddie’s back. He knows the slope and dimensions, knows where a cluster of freckles lies just beneath his left shoulder blade, knows how the base cracks when Eddie stands up after sitting for too long, and yet, it’s never been turned on him. 

Buck doesn’t know those details out of necessity. He hasn’t memorized it all because it’s all he’s seen of Eddie or at least the very last thing he’s seen of Eddie. No, it’s just one part of him and every part of Eddie has stayed even when he probably wanted to run away, so of course Buck knows it.

He thinks every inch of Eddie was known to him even before they started sleeping together. He doesn’t even know when he started doing it, dedicating Eddie to memory, but over the years Buck traced over the parts of Eddie bared and hidden and learned them so well that he could identify Eddie in the dark. 

Probably would know Eddie anywhere, no sight or sound or even touch needed. 

So, yeah, it makes it incredibly easy the first time they have sex. 

How they got to that point, Buck isn’t sure. Years of pent-up desires and swallowed words? A breaking point that cracked the safe haven they built around themselves? Random chance and lowered inhibitions?

Buck is sure of the last one, but the other two, well, those are harder to answer. 

He knows their truth for himself, but when it comes to Eddie–he has no fucking clue. 

It feels like he should. After all, he’s confident he knows Eddie unlike anyone else, feels a vindictive and heady pride about that fact actually, but there will always be things he doesn’t know, things kept from him, pieces of Eddie that are unreachable to him. 

That alone should have been a good enough reason to not do it again. 

Buck isn’t a stranger to friends with benefits, but he’s never had a friend like Eddie before and he’s certainly never had a friend that he was already in love with before they even had sex. 

But it was good. It was so fucking good. 

A night of drinks with their friends that led to them stumbling home together, falling and tripping over each other and giggling at nothing as they barreled through Eddie’s front door. 

The sweet rush of alcohol and good times and greater company. The almost sickening thrill of being close enough to taste each other’s laughter. An unsteadiness that had nothing to do with the foggy, beer-soaked brain that was buzzing in Buck’s skull and everything to do with the nearness of Eddie, the magnetism of Eddie, the beauty of Eddie. 

Tousled hair, messy and wavy and sweat damp at the temples. Flushed cheeks, rosy and warm and bright enough to beg Buck to sink his teeth into that lustrous color. Open collar, exposing golden skin and that patch of chest hair Buck has dreamed about petting and licking and biting. Big, brown eyes, glimmering with a velvet darkness that called out for Buck to hand himself over and be swallowed up by the honey-drenched sweetness that flared to life as Eddie just looked and looked and looked at him.

Buck wasn’t drunk enough to not know it wasn’t a good idea. There probably isn’t enough alcohol in the world to make Buck forget how good he is at ruining things and that he always chases after what he wants so desperately that the thing he wants ends up hiding from him in fear. 

But it was Eddie. And Buck has never felt more safe or kept than with Eddie.

So, Buck kissed him. He fell forward, tugged by the raging, bruised fist clawing at his heart and the beacon of Eddie’s glinting, riverbed eyes, and took Eddie’s mouth, knowing that it was the only thing he could ever take. 

Eddie let him. 

Eddie welcomed him in, as if he was simply guiding Buck into his home, hand on the small of Buck’s back to keep him in place, tongue searching and curling and sweetly soft along Buck’s own as he tried his best to tuck Buck’s blood-soaked, heart-ravaged mouth behind his teeth. 

Buck did his best to do the same. He poured himself into Eddie’s open, wet, willing mouth, kissing with a ferocity he’s never known from himself, a ferocity that he knew he had the capability for but always tried so hard to keep buried beneath the surface. 

Seems fitting that Eddie was the one to set it free, unlocking the cage made by Buck’s young, bleeding hands with nothing more than the press of his lips and the moans sticking to his throat and his hands that were urgent but careful. 

So careful. Eddie was so damn careful with Buck.

They pushed and pulled each other down the hallway and into Eddie’s room, separating only to breathe and glance at one another beneath lashes through the dim golden glow of a home Buck never expected to be doing this in. In the small breath of that moment they made some silent agreement, a voiceless pact full of permission, and then continued to crash into each other.

Eddie’s touches were insistent and fervent, filled with the same trembling fever Buck felt spread over his own chest and down into his belly where it broiled and bubbled with a bite strong enough to make him choke on his own blood but he was too busy kissing Eddie and undressing him to bother with hurting. 

Buck swallowed Eddie’s wounded whimpers, such sweet needy sounds that abated the thing clawing at Buck’s insides which threatened to rip him straight down the middle. Those sounds were proof to him that Eddie wanted as much as Buck did, at least in that moment, so any flimsy thoughts of bringing this to an end were obliterated and Buck was able to remain whole enough to keep going.

They kissed until Buck’s lips were raw and tender and continued even then, nothing but hushed sighs and crackling cries and the occasional laugh expelled into the thin strip of air between them as they got naked and quite literally fell onto Eddie’s bed. 

Eddie tucked Buck into the sheets, almost like that’s where he has always wanted Buck, as if that’s where Buck belonged, naked and warm and wanting while surrounded by softness that Eddie bought for himself. 

The thought was almost too much to bear, dark and rough like adamant and winding around Buck’s bones like barbed wire, painful and impossible to remove. 

Buck didn’t care. He left it there. Left it to stick to his flesh and into his marrow to eventually rot away until there was nothing left of him, because he had Eddie. So many parts of Eddie handed over to him so suddenly that it made his head spin. Parts Buck longed for and never thought he would get a taste of.

He knew he would need to savor it, because what else could a night like this mean other than him getting to experience what he can never have long term? 

Buck ran his fingertips over Eddie’s skin, tracing muscle and hair and scars and tattoos, committing them to a different type of memory, one fueled by sensations other than just sight. He scratched down Eddie’s spine and plucked at Eddie’s nipples and rubbed the subtle curve of Eddie’s hipbones and pinched the head of Eddie’s weeping cock. 

He left as many pieces of himself behind as he could, marks and bruises and indents and waves of pleasure that could only come from his hand. 

Eddie took it all with an unexpected greed, sobbing onto Buck’s tongue and biting at his mouth, his chin, his neck, and rutting into Buck’s palm and kissing kissing kissing Buck like he couldn’t get enough. 

It almost felt like Buck found his match, someone with a want that is as ravenous and all-consuming as his own, so Buck wrapped himself up in the fantasy of it and indulged. 

And Eddie played his part so well that it felt real. 

Eddie uttered Buck’s name with a voice rougher than Buck has ever heard, delicate but harsh as if Buck’s name was meant to live in his mouth but also needed to be said with a sigh and smile. 

Eddie mewled into Buck’s skin and tucked his head into Buck’s neck while mouthing at Buck’s collarbone, and Buck wanted to tell him that that place was meant for him and would be a grave Buck would carry for the rest of his life and then some. 

Eddie clutched at Buck with mind-numbing strength, moving him this way and that, a bit shy but also boldly confident as he got Buck right where he wanted him. 

Eddie arched his back to get closer to Buck as Buck sucked his cock, nails digging hard into Buck’s shoulders, the heels of his feet dragging over Buck’s thighs and ass, his lashes fluttering over eyes that looked like a mess of spilled ink, his mouth bright and open and telling Buck how good he is. 

Buck has always loved sucking cock, ever since he discovered it was something he wanted and something he could do. He loves the weight on his tongue and the taste of someone else’s arousal and being buried right in the center of a man where he is hard and soft and smells like sex, but goddamn sucking Eddie’s cock was something else. Divine almost. A revelation certainly. So good that Buck’s spine nearly broke beneath the force of it, causing him to almost come all over Eddie’s sheets without being touched. 

But Eddie didn’t allow that. He told Buck not to come so Buck didn’t. And once Eddie had spilled in his mouth, hot and sticky enough that Buck hoped it stained his teeth and cheeks, Eddie pulled Buck up, kissed him slow and filthy, then got Buck on his back and returned the favor. 

Eddie learned so swiftly and eagerly what Buck liked best, holding tight to the base with his long fingers while his tongue played with the slit, humming loudly as if he was coming again when Buck was fully in his mouth, the bottom row of his teeth gently pressing on the vein along the underside, cheeks hollowing as he sucked Buck and tugged on his balls at the same time.

Buck came quickly. 

Quick enough that shame burned like acid behind his sternum. But Eddie didn’t seem to mind. In fact, his eyes flashed with satisfaction and he grinned up at Buck with a mouth covered in spit and come. 

It made Buck laugh. 

He remembers the airy sensation and sweet taste of it, relief and release all in one trembling breath. Eddie joined him, chuckling gently as he crawled back up Buck’s body and kissed him, allowing Buck to lick up his own come off Eddie’s face. They spent a few moments passing Buck’s spend back and forth, kissing much more slowly and gently than they had before. 

The beautiful and peaceful stretch of an orgasm well-earned fell over Buck, turning everything hazy and syrupy, thick and cloyingly sweet, warm and loose and sleepy. 

But it didn’t last.

When they broke apart and were lying on their backs side by side, anxiety spiraled through Buck’s nervous system, invasive and cold and prickling. 

Buck tried to swat it away, tried to breathe through the suffocating mass of it, tried to convince his spine to unlock and relax against the bed. But he couldn’t. 

He didn’t know what to do and he has always hated that. 

And the truth is, while Buck knows how to stay, he never knows when he should or shouldn’t. 

He doesn’t know how to do something good for both himself and his partner. He doesn’t know how to keep hold of anything worth keeping. He doesn’t know how Eddie could want anything more from him. 

So, admittedly, he freaked a bit. Became a stuttering mess as he got up to put his clothes back on while plastering on a smile that felt so fake and flimsy, telling Eddie it was fun and he really needed that and if Eddie ever wanted to do this again he knew where to find Buck. 

Stupid stupid words but he couldn’t stop them from falling out of his mouth. 

And Eddie just watched him, still naked and spread out amongst grey sheets, sweaty and breathing hard, eyes squinted and head tilted like he was trying to figure something out. Buck was paralyzed by it all, tripping as he shoved his legs back into his jeans, the entirety of his body nearly crushed by the shadow that seemed to grow in Eddie’s eyes as he nodded and croaked out an acknowledging agreement. 

He asked Buck if they would see each other the next day, almost like he was afraid of the answer, and Buck’s heart ached and withered and shattered hard enough to break his rib cage wide open. 

Already things were changing, and it was his fault. 

He chased after what he knew he couldn’t keep, Eddie far too big, too much, too everything for Buck to be able to make him fit in the palms of his hands. And Eddie clearly knew it too and was afraid of what Buck would do now, probably thinking Buck would disappear because Eddie can’t give him all that he selfishly wants. 

So, Buck smiled a real smile and walked over to Eddie, brave and heartbroken enough for the both of them to lean down and kiss Eddie’s cheek and say yes, of course .

Eddie’s sigh fluttered over the side of Buck’s face, cool and saturated in an emotion Buck couldn’t identify but he tried not to linger over because Eddie nodded with a close-mouthed smile and said good-bye like things were okay. 

Buck left, body still tingling and shaking and wonderfully wrecked, heart heavy and burdensome and cursing his name. 

And then it happened again.

And again.

And again.

It keeps happening is the thing. Completely unexpected. Not what Buck planned. But it happens nonetheless, a little less accidental each time.  

He and Eddie slip into this new faceted dynamic with an ease that he wishes were actually easy. It is in some ways. The rare instances where they have time alone together and need that type of connection for reasons neither of them admit to, they collide and bury themselves in each other as if they have been doing this together all their lives. 

They fuck with enough of a consistency that what was once a mistake, an accident, a mere blip that he could never hope would happen again, becomes regular, normal, expected, almost like a keepsake even though it’s not supposed to mean anything. 

And while Buck aches and pines and feels like each time he gives away something that he can never get back and knows that he will continue to do so until Eddie has all of him without even being aware of it, it’s not so bad. 

Like most things with Eddie are, the regular sex is good. Fun. A fucking delight to be honest.

Buck may be a bit lovesick and forced to hide needy whines like he is some dog trying not to be too cumbersome so his owner lets him stay, but he’s also more relaxed than he’s ever been, no matter the tension of his heavy love that only grows and grows and grows.

It’s fine.

Eddie bends Buck over the kitchen table and fucks him until he’s screaming, and it’s fine. Buck rides Eddie until he’s a babbling mess and his fingernails cut into Buck’s hip bones leaving marks Buck will trace later with a wretched wistfulness, and it’s fine. Eddie kisses Buck sweetly, finely, softly, as if that alone is enough, and it’s fine. Buck fingers Eddie until he comes all over himself, the sensation of his heartbeat basically in the palm of Buck’s hand, and it’s fine. 

It’s all so very fine. Buck is fine. Even if–

Well.

If he thought having Eddie like this would take the sting out of his want and help siphon some of it out of his system, he was really fucking wrong. To anyone else it might be a shitty thing, and sometimes it is. 

Sometimes Buck’s heart breaks over and over again, tortured by what he almost has, so very angry that he continues to reach beyond what is his to grab for. Because the more he has Eddie’s body the more he wants Eddie’s heart, his soul, his mind, and Buck may have pieces of all of them but there are parts reserved for someone Buck is not. 

His claim only goes so far and at times he thinks he may hate himself for how much he wants and how he can’t be satisfied, so he chases away that hate while simultaneously punishing himself for its existence with Eddie’s mouth and his hands and his thighs and his cock.

But then he’ll take Eddie’s pleasure inside himself and see the heavy, delicate fall of Eddie’s eyelashes after the exhaustion of an orgasm and have the shape of Eddie’s bones beneath the pads of his fingers and he’ll think to himself Witnessing him like this makes it all worth it .

And, truthfully, it’s gotten to the point where Buck is content to feed this hunger in him even if it only becomes larger and more persistent.

Because there’s nothing wrong with loving Eddie like this. It may be inconvenient and unobtainable, but it’s not wrong. It is nothing other than wholly right and good and inevitable. A truth that can never be altered. An action he commits himself to every day. 

Buck’s love is alive and full of motion and the largest part of himself. He thinks it’s something he has devoted himself to every day since meeting Eddie, that he hasn’t just been memorizing Eddie but he’s been learning how to love him, and he doesn’t plan on stopping anytime soon.

Eddie deserves it after all, even if he doesn’t want it.

Which is totally fine. Buck can deal with it. He has been dealing with it and he thinks he has been doing a pretty bang up job of it actually. Not spewing bits of his adoration everywhere in a mess. Not acting deranged or insane. Not hoarding Eddie to himself the way he sometimes longs to. Or, at least, he’s not doing too much of those things for it to be suspicious. He doesn’t think. 

Nope. Nah, he’s just normal. As normal as one can be when they are fucking their best friend who they are secretly in love with anyway. Nothing has changed, not in the way he feared. He and Eddie are as good and as close as ever. 

It kind of feels like an extra knot has been tied between them, intertwining the two of them a bit more than they already were and they’ve acclimated to it like it was always there.

And even if doing this hurt more than it felt good, Buck would continue because it seems to be doing great for Eddie. 

Buck has his insecurities and knows that he is lacking in many regards, but when it comes to sex he excels. He knows how to make someone feel good. He knows how to study his partner and figure out what makes them tick, what makes them scream, what makes them shake. He knows how to focus so intently on someone that it makes them feel like the center of the world. 

So, of course Eddie is enjoying it. It’s not Buck being prideful or boasting, he’s just aware of the facts and what he can do with his body. 

And it’s not that Buck thinks he is the sole reason for Eddie laughing easier and smiling more and being more of himself, young and carefree in a way Buck thinks Eddie has yearned to be but never got the chance to fully embrace before the realities of life pummeled him to the ground and he took off running, molding himself to fit into a life he wasn’t ready for. 

No, that’s Eddie’s doing. That is Eddie’s hard work and strength and courage and boundless ability to keep going no matter how many bruises mottle his skin and heart. And Buck couldn’t be prouder of him.

But Buck does think the sex has helped Eddie feel a bit better in some regards, a little happier and looser and sated. He’s happy to give that to Eddie. Truly goddamn content to give Eddie access to regular orgasms with someone he trusts and cares for. 

Buck might not be great at doing what is good for himself but he’s well practiced at making efforts for someone else, and that’s never been easier or more vital than it is when it comes to Eddie.

And it’s not like Buck is suffering. Sure, it’s not the smartest thing he could be doing, falling dick first into a friends with benefits arrangement with Eddie when he is ass over heels in love with him, but having as much of Eddie as he does is more than he ever thought he could have and even with the hurt he’s so damn grateful. 

So, as long as they are both benefiting, Buck tries not to examine it too much, tries to soothe the ache inside him with the taste of Eddie’s skin and the shape of his mouth and gracefulness of his body, tries to just enjoy the most wild, fun, athletic, joyous sex he has had in his entire life. 

Though there are times–

There are times when there’s something elusive about Eddie that he can’t quite put his finger on. A sort of hesitation like Eddie is building up to say something important, his jaw clenching as his mouth goes slack and his eyebrows twitching over serious, depthless eyes which is what always happens right before Eddie lays something on Buck that changes his perspective and his very life, but Eddie always pulls back with a heavy breath like there’s something sitting on his chest that he can’t dislodge. 

When that happens, Buck catches a glimpse of the shadow he saw in Eddie’s eyes when Buck was leaving after the first time they had sex. It always disappears quickly though, overtaken by simple fondness if they are just hanging out or by lust if they are fucking. 

Buck files it away and restrains from digging. He has a bad habit of prodding at wounds that aren’t his, so convinced he can wipe away the stain and fix the hurt if he understands everything about it, and he’s terrified that doing so now would only make Eddie take several steps away from him instead of toward him, so he just–doesn’t. 

He bites his tongue until he can taste blood then shoves it in Eddie’s mouth to share it, because he’s incapable of keeping things fully to himself. 

He places the delicate threads of his yearning around Eddie’s body, ensuring they aren’t restrictive but that they exist enough for Buck to see and be content.

He says I love you by kissing Eddie’s lips and sucking on Eddie’s pulse and spreading Eddie’s thighs and biting that super sensitive spot right below Eddie’s asscheek and shoving himself into Eddie and taking Eddie into himself. 

And it’s enough. 

It’s enough. 

It’s enough.

Once he and Eddie unofficially established their new dynamic of being friends who fuck, Buck did have the thought that it might get weird trying to balance it all. How would they know when it’s just a friend one or both of them need? Does he need to make it clear when they make plans to hang out what it is he wants or needs? What if one of them expects something from the other that they don’t feel like giving in that moment?

It led to a worrisome spiral Buck has become accustomed to experiencing. He kept it as quiet as he could, though he knows it spilled out of him a little bit in the form of his endless bouncing knee and stuttering words and an ever-present flush, all of which Eddie definitely noticed and made him regard Buck with a bemused expression that shouldn’t be as cute as it is. 

As usual, Buck worked himself up over nothing. 

This thing between them works better than he could have expected. Somehow, they just know. They know and agree when it’s going to be sex and when it’s not, thanks to their brand of silent communication actually working in their favor. 

It’s easy, and yeah it was maybe a bit awkward in the beginning, but now it’s like a second skin, an innate instinct, a natural phenomenon like breathing and blinking and moving from one place to another. 

So, when he and Eddie arrange for a week off from work to drive Christopher to summer camp and then do their own camping on the way back, they spend their first day off together with the awareness that it’s nothing more than two buddies hanging out while they pack their bags and get everything ready for when they leave in two days. 

Buck is selfishly glad that they don’t ever have to talk about it. He’s not sure how he would fare if they did. Most likely, he would make a fool of himself, all bumbling and messing up his words and saying shit he doesn’t mean to while trying to ask for sex or ask for just his friend. 

It doesn’t take them too long to pack. 

Buck has spent the past couple weeks making sure they have all the gear they need to camp out near Castaic Lake while also creating a make-shift itinerary which is Actually very necessary, Eddie, at least so we know what our options are and it’s not like we have to stick to it absolutely but it’s nice to have so shut up . 

Eddie meanwhile ensured that everything would be fine in their absence, making sure bills are paid and there’s someone to check on Buck’s plants and that they don’t leave anything in their fridges that could go bad, and also appointed himself master of the snacks , buying a whole bunch of food that they most definitely won’t be able to completely eat while they are gone. 

Christopher makes himself conveniently absent from having to do anything by arranging a two-day sleepover with his cousins. 

Buck would have been dismayed and a bit ornery about it, but he was too busy being impressed. He even gave Chris an appreciative fist bump as he was about to get into Sophia’s car that morning, and Chris’ answering smug smile made Eddie’s crossed arms and stern brow absolutely ineffective. 

By the end of the day, they have everything ready to go and are lounging on the balcony at Buck’s loft, seated comfortably on the cushioned bench shoved against the building’s brick wall, silent for the moment as they watch the sun set, content to spend the next day and a half doing pretty much nothing together. 

It’s nice. Really nice. Relaxing and soothing with just a hint of fun anticipation for their little trip.

So, Buck decides to take out one of the carefully wrapped blunts from the plastic ziploc bag in his sweatpants pocket. 

He’s been having a bit of an urge to partake. It’s been several years since he’s smoked any, not since he got to L.A. and started working harder than he ever has in his entire life to become a firefighter. Obviously refraining since then there hasn’t been a chance to do it safely and without worry, but he has missed it. 

Buck likes the small burn of weed and its earthy fragrance that dances on his tongue and mellows him out while also lighting up his nerves a bit. 

Now that he has a week off from work and has no plans for tomorrow, he figured it’s as good a time as any, which is what he told Eddie earlier in the day when he swept into Eddie’s kitchen while waving a small baggie filled with two hastily rolled joints in the air, smiling wide and bouncing on his toes, something electric zapping through his veins when Eddie merely raised his eyebrows and grinned at Buck before whacking him with a hand towel and saying, “ Menso . Put that away before Christopher sees.”

Buck had frowned in response and whispered, “Eds, I’m sure he knows what weed is. C’mon. He’s thirteen.”

Eddie just huffed and snatched the bag from Buck, plastered himself along Buck’s front with a smile that turned to a leer when Buck choked, then stuffed the bag back in Buck’s pocket. “Maybe. But I don’t need to know that he knows. Kay?”

Buck rolled his eyes but acquiesced. 

He smiles at the memory now, the corner of his mouth upticking into his cheek with a pleasant force as he leans forward to grab the lighter he left in between the two burning candles on the small wooden table in front of him and Eddie. 

The familiarity returns to him with ease, something like nostalgia flickering through him in sepia tones when he carefully lights the blunt and places it in his mouth, taking the end of it between his teeth slightly because he likes how doing so makes the flavor seem a bit sharper. 

Buck’s first inhale is smooth even though the smoke scratches at his throat and lungs. It’s a good scratch, like the relief of finding an elusive spot that’s been itching and eradicating the annoying crawl of it with a few passes of rough nails and soft fingertips. 

He sighs as firelight swirls through him, heady and rich, lungs blooming open beneath the lovely weight of the drug, then pinches the blunt between two of his fingers and takes it out of his mouth. 

Buck holds the smoke in for a few seconds, delighting in the tight catch of it as it brushes over his inner flesh. 

When he releases his smoke-cloaked breath, he does so with a sigh, something so very pleasing about the wisps of thick grey as they dance in front of him and make the bold colors of the sunset go all hazy and opaque, a pretty blur he could sink into if he so wishes.  

Warmth that rivals what is now covering his nerves and pooling at the bottom of his lungs settles along his shoulder. It’s the warmth of skin, the warmth of intimacy, the warmth of a lover. 

Buck turns his head to find Eddie staring at him, the two of them so very close now that Eddie has shoved himself up along Buck’s side as much as possible, their shoulders nearly bare from where their sleeves have rucked up and are touching with enough heat that Buck’s skin is already almost damp.

Eddie’s eyes are fluid as liquid and burn brighter than the blunt clutched between Buck’s fingers. Something is shining in them, clear and vibrant. Something that makes that lovely brown color so deep and dark and rich. Something Buck has seen before but never quite like this, never this bare.

That could have something to do with the drug invading his body, so he takes another hit, breathing the delightful crunch of herbs in as if the weed can reveal more of Eddie to him.

Those loud, expressive eyes drop down to Buck’s mouth, sharper and brighter still as they trace the contours of Buck’s lips where they stretch over paper. 

Everything comes into focus then, as if the world around Buck has been set ablaze, but it’s not harmful or too much. 

It’s intense for sure, like his very blood has dissipated into sweet smoke, like the sunset has reached out with its last light and submerged him and Eddie in the golden ichor of its final remains, like there is a live wire stretching between him and Eddie that Buck wants nothing more than to pluck at. 

Maybe it’ll hurt if he does, but that’s never stopped him before. 

So, Buck plucks. 

“See something you like?” Buck asks after removing the blunt, smoke hanging onto his every word, blasting out into the air between him and Eddie. The barest hints of it linger around Eddie’s face. 

It makes Buck think of a saying he heard somewhere, that smoke follows beauty. A saying he caught when bouncing from ranch to ranch in Montana. Summer was like a dream there, fresh and open and carefree, so very bold and bright that it seemed unreal even when standing in the midst of it all. 

He remembers gathering around low burning bonfires with some of the other ranch hands, their jean-clad knees huddled close and palms sticky as they passed around a bottle of whiskey. James, a guy about a decade older than Buck who was extremely gruff but disarmingly kind, teased his friend Halton about his feminine features and his beauty when the fire’s smoke kept clouding over him. 

Something curled in Buck’s stomach and made his palms sweat when Halton only laughed and kept his knee tucked against James’ while drinking from the whiskey bottle and flicking his eyes between James and Buck. Buck didn’t understand the meaning of that feeling, not like he does now, so at the time he just attributed it to the crisp mountain air and the slosh of alcohol settling in his veins and belly.

Here he is now though, the pressurized curl that was really only a flutter back in Montana now ripping through him, rather permanent when he is with Eddie, eyes stuck to the fading cling of the smoke to Eddie’s features. 

Yeah, the saying is right. Smoke certainly follows beauty. 

How lucky is he to learn the truth of it. Not as lucky as the smoke that caresses Eddie’s jawline, but lucky still.

Eddie laughs a little to himself, the sound quiet and indulgent, the skin next to his eyes crinkling so prettily that Buck has to reach forward and touch. That sign of relaxed happiness remains beneath his fingertips, and if anything, it only grows as Eddie looks at Buck and keeps chuckling. “That’s the line you’re going with?” he asks Buck, mouth crooked and terribly endearing. 

Buck huffs and pokes Eddie’s temple before letting his hand fall away. If he touches too much he’ll take too much, and he couldn’t ever do that to Eddie. “Wasn’t a line,” he mutters, sticking his tongue out at Eddie for good measure. 

It makes Eddie laugh again which is exactly what Buck wanted. That laugh is so much sweeter than what Buck has captured within him right now, more delectable and intoxicating than any drug.

Buck has half a mind to stick his mouth to Eddie’s, breathe in that laugh, maybe even hold onto Eddie’s tongue with his teeth as if that talented muscle is the real joint and not the paper-covered herbs that Buck is holding onto. 

He knows he can, which is still such a wild thought, one that makes him near manic and want to bounce off the walls, but he’s not sure if he should like this. 

Perhaps he could just turn his body into smoke and tuck himself inside Eddie’s mouth, travel into his lungs and curl up next to Eddie’s breath, stay there for the rest of forever. 

Sounds nice. Sounds lovely. 

Far too nice and lovely for the likes of him.

Buck hums and drops his forehead to Eddie’s shoulder. The angle is a bit awkward and it makes his neck strain, but the soft, sturdy comfort of Eddie’s shoulder is worth it. He noses at Eddie’s t-shirt and hums again while throwing his free hand onto Eddie’s thigh and clutching at the muscle.

Eddie presses what feels like a wobbly and lopsided smile to Buck’s temple, which means he is amused and trying to contain it. Buck aches to beg Eddie to let it go, let it all go, which he has certainly been doing more of lately, but he probably has a good reason for keeping it to himself and Buck won’t take what Eddie doesn’t offer so he says nothing. 

“Didn’t think it was possible, but stoned Buck is even more handsy than sober Buck,” Eddie says quietly, voice deep and resonating the way it usually gets when he’s lust addled and about to come. 

Buck opens eyes he didn’t even realize he had closed to peek at Eddie’s crotch just to check and see if he’s hard or if there’s a wet spot, but there is neither. So what does that tone mean then?

Buck shakes it off and starts drawing circles on Eddie’s thigh. “I’m not that stoned,” he says truthfully, chuckling a bit to take the edge off that raw honesty. A few hits aren’t enough to take him fully under. Sure, it’s enough to make him a little looser and a bit less inhibited than usual, but this is honestly just him. This is him with Eddie. 

He doesn’t think he can say that though. Not without revealing too much of his heart. 

“ I’m not that stoned ,” Eddie mocks in an exaggerated voice, all husky and slow and stupid enough that Buck cackles so hard he can taste smoke and blood. 

Eddie’s chest rumbles pleasantly, a captive laugh he doesn’t give sound to but Buck can feel the vibrations of it from where he’s pressed to Eddie’s shoulder. It’s a lovely feeling, lovelier than the steadying, sparking weight of the drug crawling through his bloodstream. 

Something that sparks a lot hotter spears through the core of him when Eddie lays on hand on the curve of Buck’s skull and pulls at his hair to get him to look up. Buck resists for a moment, mostly to frustrate Eddie but also because the sting of his hair being pulled is darkly delightful, sending a staticky pleasure spiraling down his spinal column. 

But eventually he relents, following where Eddie wants him to go, happy to be removed from his little hiding place because that means he gets to see Eddie’s face again. 

Eddie looks bemused, his mouth all crooked and stretched wide, his eyes flaring like the last golden edges of the sun as it dips below the horizon. 

Buck smiles at Eddie, baring his teeth and gums, and releases Eddie’s thigh to waggle his fingers in Eddie’s face.

An inelegant snort rips out of Eddie right before he leans forward to playfully bite at Buck’s fingers. Buck yelps and yanks his hand back, glowering at Eddie. 

Eddie gives him a lazy shrug in response, all loose and unrestrained the way Buck likes him best. His crooked grin stays on his face, like it’s a permanent thing he couldn’t ever hope to get rid of, and jerks his chin toward the blunt as Buck brings it to his mouth again. 

“You gonna let me have a taste?” Eddie asks.

Buck nearly replies, Of the weed? Or of me?

He doesn’t though. Mostly because his tongue feels too thick to produce words but also because he thinks he knows the answer based solely on the look in Eddie’s eyes that seems to scream both and all of it and everything . 

Of course, Buck could be seeing what he wants to see, dangerously induced by the weed to see something in Eddie that would mean they are on the same page, that Buck isn’t alone in this, that his expansive and indefinable want actually has a match. 

His mind works through it all with a painful degree of slowness as if attempting to capture the image of an Eddie who might feel the same so that Buck can look at it later. Unfortunately, this means that there is a too long pause after Eddie’s question which Eddie must take to mean that Buck is hesitant about sharing. 

Sharing has never been something Buck has hesitated over but it has gotten him in a lot of trouble before. Still, Eddie should know Buck will always give him what he asks.

Eddie raises a very judgy eyebrow and pokes Buck’s cheek. “Afraid I got cooties or somethin’?”

Buck snickers, his ribs expanding from the harsh kick of his amusement and resulting in a wave of smoke being blown in Eddie’s face. 

Eddie blinks rapidly and instinctively rears back. 

That only makes Buck laugh harder, his eyes squinting from the force of it and flooding with the nice bite of tears. 

He ends up coughing through the last edges of his laughter, so incredibly amused by Eddie’s hilarious expression, but somehow he manages to keep his lungs firmly in place while holding the blunt out to Eddie and saying, “If you got cooties then I most definitely have them too at this point.”

Eddie’s chin dips toward his chest, those goddamn beautiful eyes crinkling again. “Heh. True.”

“You ever smoked weed before?” Buck asks curiously, the hoarse scrape of his voice unpleasant against his throat but he doesn’t mind because he really wants to know the answer. 

“Mmm, yeah. Once. In high school.”

“Really?” Buck hands the joint over, interest sharpening the sensation of his slow yet overworked nerves.

Eddie takes it easily, gracefully, the pads of his fingers dragging over Buck’s. It’s a small, inconsequential touch but it wrecks Buck anyway. 

“Why do you sound so surprised?” Eddie asks, tilting his hand and frowning down at the blunt as he positions it the way he wants in between his fingers. 

Buck shrugs, his body lulling to the side without his permission, squishing him and Eddie together a bit more tightly. Eddie doesn’t seem to mind so he stays. “I dunno. Just–Just doesn’t fit my picture of you as a teenager, I guess.”

“You’ve thought about me as a teenager?”

There’s a little too much glee in Eddie’s voice for Buck’s liking. 

“Don’t make it weird. I guess–I guess I have always kinda wondered what you were like. Before you met me. Before–” Buck waves his hand around them to encompass the everything of Eddie’s life after he stopped being a kid when he was still very much one. 

Eddie’s head moves side to side, as if he’s taken Buck’s words in and they are rattling around in his head in an attempt to be processed. Then his mouth twists into a rueful shape, a bit dim and mournful, almost bleak. “I wasn’t exactly a goodie two shoes if that’s what you were picturing.”

Eddie glances at Buck from beneath his lashes after the sentence breaks past his teeth, something almost bashful taking over him and shining through his features which appear so young now in the fading light of the day as he brings the burning roll of herbs to the perfect circle of his lips. 

Buck inhales at the same time as Eddie does, more out of instinct than anything, but he knows the exact taste catapulting through Eddie’s mouth right now, he knows how Eddie’s lungs feel as they seize and capture the wispy smoke, he knows the sweet rush that’s traveling through Eddie’s skull. 

He wonders, if he kissed Eddie right now, how similar they would taste. 

He’s sure he’ll find out later, because the air around them is fusing and charged the way it only gets when they are about to embark on a path that leads to them being naked and sweaty and wrung out.

Eddie breathes in the drug like it’s no different than the fresh air of the balmy evening surrounding them, his eyes remaining on Buck’s while he holds it in for several moments, something burning in him that Buck swears he can feel on his own skin. Then Eddie lets it all out in a whooshing rush, coughing a bit at the very end of his exhale. 

“Woah,” Eddie murmurs, cutting their shared gaze and looking down at the faded orange end of the blunt in his hand. “That’s good shit.”

“Well I wasn’t going to get the bad shit, Eddie.”

“Oh shut up.”

Eddie rolls his eyes, an action that involves his whole body, the glorious big bulk of him moving so very dramatically and it’s so goddamn endearing that Buck can’t help but love him more for it. 

“So,” Buck prods as Eddie takes another hit, “Man, I gotta say, I’m kind of crushed. Teenage Eddie Diaz wasn’t a goodie two shoes? Really?”

Eddie’s lips split into an indulgent grin that is equal parts amused and wry. His tongue darts out of his mouth, dragging over the bottom stretch of that smile like he’s chasing the taste of something, and then he shakes his head. 

“No. Maybe. I don’t know, Buck. I’m not sure how I compared to you–” he pauses and gives Buck a loaded look that makes Buck simultaneously perk up with smugness and curl into himself sheepishly, “But. I mean I didn’t stray too far out of the lines. Wasn’t brave enough for that. So, I snuck out a couple of times. Drank at a few parties. Smoked weed the one time. That’s about it.”

There’s something about Eddie when he is like this, telling Buck about his past, revealing something of himself that Buck doesn’t know. A sort of wistfulness settles over him, making him look almost heartbreakingly young and tender. His colors dim a little bit, like he has become the sunset and his light is fading. And his eyes go a bit hazy, like he’s seeing something far far away.

Could he be thinking the same thing as Buck? Is he wondering what it would have been like if they knew each other sooner? Are a million could have been’s swirling around in his brain?

Buck isn’t all that certain that Eddie would have liked who he was as a teenager, but it also seems impossible that any version of themselves wouldn’t connect. 

“Oh,” Eddie says suddenly, shattering the reverie overtaking them both, “And, y’know, got my first girlfriend pregnant. There’s that.” He snaps his fingers in the air and grins wildly.

Buck laughs, once again filled to the brim with a golden gooeyness, so very glad that Eddie can joke about it now and feeling special that he chooses to do so with Buck. “There is that,” Buck agrees. 

Eddie shoves his knee into Buck’s, cheeks all round and rosy as he beams unrepentantly at Buck. 

It’s such a good fucking look on him that Buck is left with no other course of action than to sigh wistfully like he’s some girl in a fairytale mooning over the handsome prince. 

“Was it Shannon that you smoked with?” Buck finds himself asking, not sure how he knows Eddie didn’t do it alone, but he does. 

Eddie shakes his head. “Nah. Got it from my friend Justin who lived on my street. We smoked together on my roof. Though–” he trails off, mouth snapping shut to keep contained what was about to come out, his eyes widening like he’s surprised at himself. 

“What?” Buck asks, leaning in close, the entirety of him held captive by the gravity of Eddie, something raging in his chest that feels animalistic with the need to know what Eddie was going to say. “C’mon, Eds. What? What? What? What?” He punctuates each what with a nudge of his elbow to Eddie’s ribs. 

“Ah, fucking–Alright. Cut it out, man.” Eddie playfully and gently shoves Buck, a twisted laugh expelling out of him. “I–Justin left to go home not long after we smoked everything and I was. Okay, so I was high and wanted–I called Shannon to come over. Convinced her to sneak into my room and then–”

“And then what?” Buck asks, wiggling his eyebrows dramatically. 

Eddie’s face twists with the breath he lets out, nose scrunched and cheeks pinched and eyes framed by those damn enchanting crinkles. “And then I ate her out for like an hour,” Eddie says with an indolent shrug and a wave of his hand as if to say there you go and no big deal .

Buck cackles, laughing with such giddy glee he’s near fit to burst from it. 

“Oh, man,” he gasps out, shaking his head and slapping Eddie on the shoulder, unable to say more. 

His very blood seems to glitter beneath his skin and flutter wildly, because damn he’s kind of impressed but also the image of Eddie eating someone out all slow and indulgent is, well, it’s a lot and Buck knows what Shannon looked like okay, she was gorgeous, so he can’t help it if that image piques his interest. 

Fuck, he is probably going to hell. 

If he were a bit more sober, he might feel something about that, but as it is, he’s able to wave it away and plead with his dick to calm down as he trains his focus on the shyly proud look on Eddie’s too-pretty face. 

Buck has seen a lot of expressions on that face. Seen it blank with horror. Seen it scrunched with happiness. Seen it dim and hollow due to unseen forces. Seen it pink and bright. Seen it twisted in pleasure. 

A wide collection Buck tucks close to his chest, like every emotion Eddie has ever bared to Buck and every dear inch of his face is a keepsake, a token, a gift that he has to protect. 

This expression though is one of his favorites. It's one that glows in the confines of the fleshy prison crafted from his eager hands and bleeding heart. It makes Eddie look carefree. Gives him a shine. Turns his colors so vibrant that to look at him is to hurt. Makes it seem like he is carrying some kind of special magic within himself. 

And oh, how it makes Buck want. 

The thing is, he can have. Bits and pieces sure, but it’s still a whole lot compared to nothing. Honestly, he has so much of Eddie, is privy to nearly every bit of the man, and it’s more than he could have ever conceived having for himself. 

Interesting, that having can hurt just as much as having nothing at all. 

A weird dichotomy. A strange and profound sort of thing. Because Buck is greedy and can’t help but beat himself sore over the things just out of his reach. Like Eddie’s heart that Buck swears he can sometimes feel right at the edge of his fingertips. 

Yeah, it hurts. 

But Buck looks at Eddie, loose-limbed and sprawled comfortably next to him, chin tipped up to the sky as he attempts to blow smoke circles into the air and laughing at himself as he fails, his mouth that Buck has touched and kissed and bit all lazy and indulgent, and, as usual, thinks Worth it.

“Hey,” Buck says, the one word an awful scrape as he packs away his heart and transforms an I love you into something much more harmless, “Stop hoarding that. S’mine. Gimme.”

He stretches his arm out in a pitiful attempt to grab the joint from Eddie, fingers wiggling wildly in a gesture that clearly says give it , because while he could probably just take it from Eddie, he wants Eddie to give it to him. 

Buck resolutely ignores the other joint he has in his pocket and he prays Eddie doesn’t mention it either. 

This is the one that he wants. The one all warm and crumpled beneath Eddie’s fingers. The one whose slight embers are reflecting in the dark pools of Eddie’s eyes. The one with a damp edge that Eddie slowly wraps his lips around in the same manner he does with Buck’s cockhead. The one that is saturating Eddie’s mouth and lungs with an earthy, tangy taste that Buck still has the echo of in his own throat. 

Buck knows what it’s like to be touched by Eddie and kissed by him. He knows what it’s like to have Eddie’s mouth under his own, all to himself, everywhere all at once. He knows all that and more yet still he aches. Still he wants wants wants. And it feels like maybe now he could be satiated even though he is hungrier than ever. 

He wants to continue sharing this until both of them are too far gone, because it feels more intimate than they usually let things be, and Buck is too uninhibited to stop himself from asking for more of it. 

Eddie releases a long, smoke-clouded breath that’s broken up by the startling shape of his smile, tipped sideways and so very pink, looking like Buck’s heart could be tucked in its edges, then shifts his thigh against Buck’s as if he is trying to move closer even though that’s impossible. 

“Let me give it to you,” Eddie murmurs, darker and more hushed than the encroaching night. 

Buck cocks his head, eyes squinting as he swallows Eddie’s words past a dry mouth, the synapses in his brain firing sluggishly as he tries to process what Eddie means, and the whirring there must be loud enough for Eddie to hear because his smile softens and he lets out a little laugh that sounds more devastating than it has any right to.

Eddie softly says, “C’mere,” even as he reaches for Buck, one large hard landing on the back of Buck’s neck with heavy intent, palm resting across the top of Buck’s spine with a mind-melting warmth and security. 

Every nerve collected in a bundle just beneath the skin there activates, sparking like tiny fireworks beneath Eddie’s touch and raining down Buck’s spine so hard he shivers. 

That reaction pleases Eddie, makes him bite his bottom lip as if he is trying to contain another laugh or smile. Then he closes his hand around Buck’s neck, purposeful and rough but still oh so gentle as he directs Buck close close close until their noses are almost touching. 

An embarrassingly loud click vibrates in the back of Buck’s throat, his mouth opening to let the sound out when Eddie tips his chin up, brown eyes flashing with some kind of meaning Buck is supposed to understand. 

It takes him a minute to get it. And it doesn’t fully register what Eddie wants until he gestures at the blunt he’s holding as carefully as he is holding Buck and then waves his pointer finger between their mouths. 

Shotgun. 

Eddie wants to shotgun with him. 

Buck giggles. “Really, Eds? Shotgunning? What are we, fifteen?”

He expects Eddie to laugh too or maybe offer up some kind of convincing excuse, not that Buck is opposed. No, having smoke that has clung to the inside of Eddie’s cheeks travel into his own body, carried by the very breath in Eddie’s lungs, sounds quite magnificent, but still. 

Buck has done a lot of things in his life, but he hasn’t done this. Always seemed too young and personal, and besides, he was almost always alone when he got high in the past. Preferred it that way, actually. Didn’t want to be seen like– this . But he doesn’t mind it with Eddie, actually wants to be seen fully by him so fiercely it would make his knees buckle if he were standing. 

Still, he’s gotta give Eddie shit for it. 

Except Eddie doesn’t react how Buck expects. 

Eddie just looks at Buck, eyes searching and lighting up like sunlight shining through honey as if he has found something, something surprising and lovely, and then he says, all casual and sweet, “Feels like it sometimes. Like I’m fifteen and free and giddy and clean. When I’m with you.”

Buck’s breath hitches, sticking audibly to the inside of his chest, caught and captive and heavy. Something bruise sore and candy sweet takes up residence on the edges of that sticky breath, jabbing into his belly and hooking onto his ribs.

He doesn’t understand how Eddie does it. How he just says shit like that as if it’s nothing, as if it’s simple, as if it’s casual. It’s a special talent of his that Buck hasn’t gotten used to in the least, always struck dumb by a string of words Eddie offers easily, words that knock Buck on his ass, words that throw his world into a tailspin while also centering him perfectly, words that give him something he didn’t even know he needed or wanted. 

The quiet acknowledgement that he makes Eddie feel young and carefree, that Buck just might be better than any drug, that he’s not just taking from Eddie to fill up his own hollow spaces but is also actively giving away something good–well, it’s dangerously wonderful enough to almost convince Buck he is being loved the way he has yearned for all his life. 

Eddie doesn’t just do this with anyone, for anyone, and yet it seems to be so easy for him when it comes to Buck. Baring himself, being vulnerable and open, being silly and indulgent, focusing on his pleasure–all things he does with Buck and goddamn if it doesn’t make Buck feel like the luckiest man in the world.

But then Eddie’s face falls slightly and dims with what has to be embarrassment. 

And Buck can’t bear for Eddie to regret what he said or hide himself away. If he’s deprived of the pretty glow of Eddie’s confidence and sincerity he very well might perish a horrible and ghastly death.

So Buck drops his head in a heavy nod, wishing he could give more, but any words falter and disappear on his tongue, unable to take shape beneath the expanse of the riotous ache and low-level prowling arousal shattering over every inch of him. 

The response must be good enough for Eddie, who simply sighs a sigh that is a very tiny and lovely thing, then takes another hit, cheeks hollowing as he inhales, chest stuttering the slightest bit as he goes past his limit. 

Fondness is a raging torrent within every scrap of Buck’s being as he watches. 

Eddie repositions the hand he has on Buck’s neck, reinforcing his hold until it’s firmer, the tips of his fingers sliding into ends of Buck’s hair and curling ever so slightly to scratch and send a barrage of liquid heat through Buck’s bloodstream. 

Buck lets himself be held, lets himself be guided, lets himself be controlled. 

Every spot on his body is pulled so taut and thin, stretched over the enormity of what he contains, sensitive and hot and bending so much he’s sure the skin will break and he’ll bleed all over Eddie. 

And that wholesome, destructive sensation is only heightened as Eddie angles Buck’s head just the way he wants it, lashes heavy and sensual as they flutter over the honey brown of his eyes, and then knocks his knuckles against Buck’s chin in demand that he open his mouth. 

It’s a familiar move, one Eddie has done countless times before. One that is usually accompanied by writhing bodies and rippling moans and bitten off curses. A consistent plea made when he wants Buck open and willing. A gentle demand typically made because he wants to feed Buck his fingers or cock or tongue. 

Helpless, and like always, Buck obeys. 

Eddie releases his breath, rising up just the slightest bit as he tips Buck’s head back back back, mouth falling open in a perfect circle when he’s hovering over Buck and there’s only scant inches between their lips, breathing everything into Buck with a glint of delight that’s visible in his eyes and the rosy swell of his cheeks. 

Buck greedily sucks it in, groaning as his eyes roll back, tongue probably lolling out in a way that makes him look like some kind of dopey, deranged animal. 

He supposes he is. 

There’s no room for him to feel any shame about that though, not when he catches a glimpse of Eddie watching him with rapture, looking almost like some kind of spell has fallen over him and he’s happy about it.

A wicked flush starts in Buck’s chest, groomed to life by that look on Eddie’s face, blowing outward in dizzying spirals and surely painting him an obnoxious shade of pink. 

He swears he can taste Eddie’s tongue on the smoke. He swears he can feel the soft inner flesh of Eddie’s cheeks and the dull bite of his teeth. He swears the drug is laced with something else, something other, something ruinous and similar to the beating flesh of his own heart. 

Buck closes his eyes to savor it all, the smoke infiltrating his body and pushing through his system with a discernible weight, pooling at the bottom of his spine alongside his arousal which perks up like a wild animal who has caught the scent of prey. 

It’s enough to make his cock fatten up the slightest bit. 

He smiles to himself and glances down at his lap, something between sheepish ruefulness and misplaced, heady pride prickling at him. 

Eddie snorts.

It’s a rough, loud, inelegant sound and it cuts through Buck with a jolt. 

He opens his eyes, bleary and a little blurry, a smile already taking shape on his face before he can even see Eddie clearly because that sound means Eddie is amused and Buck loves nothing more than amusing Eddie, though making him cry out and shake in pleasure is a close runner up. 

An entirely too delightful look spreads over Eddie’s face, slow and saccharine, brightening him up like there’s sunlight in his veins as he glances between Buck’s crotch and his face. 

Then, in a move that isn’t surprising at all because Buck knows exactly what this look means and isn’t that a fucking thrill, Eddie loosens his grip on Buck’s neck to tangle his fingers in the ungelled curls teasing Buck’s nape. 

Eddie pets at him, all sweet and kind and almost charming in his movements, his palm curving so delicately around Buck’s skull in a cradle, his fingers brushing through Buck’s hair and curling a little harshly every now and then to scratch his scalp. All the while he watches Buck as if he is studying him, wholly intent and focused as Buck lets out a fucking purr that rumbles on and on and on.

Buck attempts to glare at Eddie, but there’s a disconnect between his brain and his face, a lulling or numbing that’s from the dangerous combination of weed and Eddie. He can feel his expression scrunch up the slightest bit before it goes lax once again, smoothing out because how can he hold any tension in his body when he is being touched like this?

He spreads his thighs apart a bit to accommodate the swell of his cock, a punch-drunk heaviness settling there and rippling up towards his belly with a biting heat. The span of his legs results in his body slouching more against Eddie, his knee practically glued to Eddie’s, his shoulder tucked beneath Eddie’s arm, his hand somehow finding its way to the very top of Eddie’s thigh.  

Eddie takes him, accepting the weight, humming a little to himself as he continues to play with Buck’s hair. 

“You know wh’t that does t’me,” Buck slurs, fighting to keep his eyes from closing again. 

He has to keep seeing Eddie. He has to. Because one day, inevitably, he won’t be able to anymore. One day, Buck will have lost the privilege to look at and appreciate Eddie like this. One day, he’ll have to hide his longing again, his desire and pain. One day, Eddie won’t welcome this. 

It’s a haunting thought, the shadow of a ghost that travels alongside Buck, latched onto him with a vengeful greed, but at least right now it’s too dull to cause the familiar wave of panic he has to ride when this truth consumes his thoughts. 

Thank god for drugs. 

Eddie chuckles almost soundlessly, like he doesn’t have enough breath for it but is trying to push it out of himself anyway. “Buck. You–” Eddie breaks off with a giggle that has all the sound his previous chuckle lacked, the tenor of it sweetly captivating. “God, you really–It’s just so easy to get you horny.”

Buck wants to laugh at the way Eddie dramatically drags out the word so and widens his eyes to illustrate his point, but the laugh gets stuck somewhere between Buck’s gut and his throat, so he settles for a pout, poking out his bottom lip and grumbling even as he shamelessly leans back into Eddie’s touch to encourage Eddie’s petting. 

“M’not gonna apologize for my very healthy an’ virile sex drive.”

Eddie makes a face while mouthing virile to himself. 

Buck ignores him. “And what am I–what am I supposed to do, then? A hot guy blows smoke into my mouth and plays with my hair and what? What am I gonna do? Not–Not get hard? Don’t think so, bud.” He giggles to himself and bats his hand against Eddie’s broad, beefy chest in a gesture meant to communicate something but Buck finds himself not really knowing what that is.

Oh well. Better things to focus on. Like how warm he is and the thick stickiness in his veins and the lovely pressure in his chest and the blurriness of the world and the vividness of Eddie Eddie Eddie .

“A hot guy, huh?” Eddie asks with every bare inch of his mouth and teeth on display. It only barely distracts Buck from the darkening blush on Eddie’s cute cheeks. Buck kind of wants to gnaw on them. Maybe they really taste as sweet as they look. 

“Mhmm,” Buck hums in answer, leaning forward until their foreheads touch and sighing a little at the contact. So many points of contact. Eddie’s hand in his hair. His hand on the curve of Eddie’s thigh. Their brushing brows and shared breaths. So good, but still not enough. 

“That’s you,” he whispers while tipping his chin up to knock their noses together, saying it like it’s a secret Eddie should already know.

Eddie’s laugh is big and boisterous and beautiful. 

The physicality of it fans across Buck’s jaw and he opens his mouth to get a taste of it, panting a bit just inches from Eddie’s own mouth which is split wide open. There’s no taste to it but oh how it settles comfortably in Buck’s chest, snuggling up against the pride that blooms boldly there. 

If Buck never does anything else in the world other than make Eddie laugh, then it’s time well spent. 

“Charmer,” Eddie murmurs with a tug on Buck’s hair, tone curling with the sweet southernness of an accent Buck only gets treated to when Eddie is drunk or excited or post-orgasm. 

Buck shrugs helplessly. “S’true. Y’re gorgeous, Eddie. Beautiful. Handsome. Lovely. Just so–so pretty.” Oh shut up, he needs to shut up, but he can’t. 

It propels out of him without restraint or hesitation even though he knows he should keep a lock on this devotion because they don’t do this . They don’t talk about or acknowledge what the other does to them, not in this type of context. 

They are friends and they hang out and watch movies and share silences and go hiking and take Christopher everywhere under the sun and yeah, they fuck like they’ll never have a chance to do so again, but they don’t talk about it. They don’t allude to it. They don’t offer the other words like the ones Buck has just uttered because it’s–well, it’s too much isn’t it? Far too much for what they really are even if attraction is implied here. 

He’s never told Eddie how good looking he is, not like this, even when some days it’s all he can think about.

But it’s an indulgence Buck has no other option than to sink into, too caught up in the silky tendrils of a high that isn’t all consuming but sure as hell isn’t non-risky either, falling into the depths of what he nearly has but doesn’t with a plunge that isn’t ice cold for once but gently warm. 

The landing still stings though.

Stupid. Unbelievably stupid. But, hey, it’s a problem for sober Buck to deal with, to regret, to agonize over. Right now, slightly high Buck is going to enjoy the way it feels to admit these things to Eddie and the way it makes Eddie soften like he’s gonna melt right into Buck’s hands. 

“We should do this more often,” Eddie says with a sigh, gesturing to the sunset and the smoke dissipating between them then blinking rapidly enough that Buck can feel the sweep of Eddie’s lashes against his skin.

Buck huffs. “With what time?”

Eddie blows a raspberry at him. “Don’ come at me with your silly logic, alright.”

“Yessir,” Buck chirps. 

Eddie intakes a sharp breath, pulling away from Buck and settling back against the bench, hand slipping away from Buck’s hair in time with his head falling backwards to rest on the wall behind them, exposing the long column of his throat. “Buck,” he says. Just that, nothing more. 

It’s rich and raspy and dark, sounding fucked out. And harsh, exhaled like Buck’s name can only come with a wealth of charged, glittering emotion. 

Buck wants more of it. Wants Eddie to keep saying his name. Wants to be forever tucked and kept inside the cavern of Eddie’s mouth. And he knows that he can’t be, knows that sometime soon he’ll be let go and his name won’t be uttered like this in Eddie’s voice because this isn’t a forever thing no matter how badly he wants it to be. 

Someone else’s name will be granted that sound. Someone who is more worthy. Someone who is capable of being kept. Someone whose heart Eddie wants as much as their body. 

So, Buck has to do what he can now. He has to peel out that fucked and hoarse quality of Eddie’s voice and shove it so deep inside himself that no one can ever take it from him. Because none of it, nothing from the very first moment they kissed, has been enough for Buck and it never will be.

Not enough. 

Never enough. 

Never enough. 

The only way for him to deal with that is to bury it all beneath the sweet fog of the weed which has started to fade the slightest bit and he needs Eddie to stay here with him, so Buck sluggishly reaches out and plucks the joint out of Eddie’s hand then unceremoniously climbs into Eddie’s lap. 

It would be a cool, slick move, one that makes Eddie breathy and flushed and shine with sensual appreciation, except–

Except it isn’t. It’s an uncoordinated thing, messy and graceless. 

Buck’s knees slip against the bench’s cushion and his ass lands roughly on one of Eddie’s knees and his forehead knocks into Eddie’s temple as he tries to regain balance and not completely collapse over Eddie before spilling onto the ground. 

It’s like his body has been turned to liquid, incorporeal and flimsy and uncontrollable, nothing substantial to keep him from making an absolute fool of himself. 

Buck curses under his breath and braces a hand on Eddie’s pec, the fingers of his other hand just barely keeping hold of the blunt.

Eddie’s eyes are wide and his body trembles with barely contained laughter, rocking up into Buck’s and making him that much more unbalanced. 

“Eddie,” Buck whines. 

Eddie snorts hard enough that Buck thinks his throat must be bleeding from it, and then he reaches up to frame Buck’s waist between his hands, keeping him steady as his head swims. 

Buck smiles in thanks and Eddie just shakes his head in reply before dropping one hand down to curl around the back of Buck’s thigh, tugging him forward and then pushing out to arrange him in a better position. 

“That better, you klutz?” Eddie asks, laughter clinging to every word.

Buck sticks his tongue out at him, a bit too dizzy to form words but Eddie doesn’t need to know that. 

Eddie’s mouth twists into a fond shape, small and lovely while his hand sweeps up and down Buck’s ribs. 

The motion makes Buck even more dizzy, but he doesn’t mind. Eddie has got him. He’s safe with Eddie. And besides, the whooshing in his head kinda feels good in a weird way. 

Buck takes a deep breath, inflating that sweet pressure traveling around inside him, and giggles a bit at the tickling sensation warping through him as he murmurs, “Whoops,” and offers Eddie what is no doubt a besotted, goofy grin.

Eddie just looks up at him with a very pink expression, fondness so barely apparent but it’s accompanied by something else. It could be awe, but Buck has no idea what about him or this situation could be worthy of such a thing, so he studies Eddie’s expression a little harder, sinking down into Eddie’s lap and focusing his vision on Eddie until that’s all he sees.

He looks bright, all warm colors and an inescapable shine, the evening sun given human shape, and he shouldn’t look like that because it makes Buck think things he shouldn’t, stupid and impossible things, but he also–

There is something hollow there, not a presence but an absence, almost like the bruising ache of a muscle around something that is missing. Buck doesn’t understand it, except for how he might because it seems awfully similar to what has been pounding wildly inside of him ever since he looked at Eddie just past a threshold and realized what he is feeling is love and then immediately wrecked himself by having sex with Eddie. 

But that’s not–That’s not what is going on here, not with Eddie. If Buck had a clearer mind he could probably figure it out but his brain is too foggy and slow and soaked in remnants of a drug that is making him feel too much while also numbing him to a lot of things, so he just tucks this look of Eddie’s away to be examined later.

“What are you thinking?” Eddie asks, his brow slowly crinkling as that deceptively vulnerable and horribly wanting expression fades away. 

So many answers to that question exist but he’s not sure which ones he can give life to.

They dance and curdle on the tip of his tongue, the sweetness of some and the sourness of others battling each other just behind his teeth, all of it too much so he purses his lips to make some kind of barrier and doesn’t say anything at all, merely offering Eddie a shrug as his response.

Point for Buck. Turns out he is capable of keeping his mouth shut. Go him.

Eddie appears unimpressed, expression flattening as he lets go of Buck’s thigh to knock his knuckles against Buck’s jaw. “C’mon. That’s your thinking face.”

“I have a thinking face?”

“Yup,” Eddie says brightly. “Looks like this.” His face twists exaggeratedly, mouth dipping down into a funny frown and that crinkle in his brow deepening and his eyes going all big and round. 

Buck throws his head back in a laugh. “Bullshit. I don’t–I don’t look like that,” he manages to get out, a bit breathless from his amusement. He rubs his thumb against Eddie’s brow to smooth it out, his laughter fading slowly as Eddie beams up at him.

“Yeah, you do. First time I saw it I thought you had pulled a muscle or something.”

“Okay, enough, that’s just–Whatever.” Buck pokes Eddie’s forehead hard enough to make him frown then holds up the nearly burnt out blunt as if it’s the answer to everything. He glances between it and Eddie, his gaze landing and staying on Eddie of course, tracing the gorgeous planes of his face as he says, “I was thinking I want more of this.”

It’s not a lie. 

He wants more of all of this. He wants more of what he can’t have. He wants more of Eddie. He wants every morsel of the thing beating in Eddie’s chest that is surely so much more intoxicating than any drug.

And it feels good to admit that in some small way, even though he’s happy to let Eddie think he is only talking about the weed. 

Though, for some reason, Eddie looks almost disappointed, a shadow stretching over his face and dimming his light, but it’s gone too fast for Buck to truly catch. 

“Me too,” Eddie whispers softly. 

Buck nods happily and eagerly even as something twinges painfully in his chest and scoots forward until he is hovering over Eddie’s groin, one hand automatically sinking into the hair on the crown of Eddie’s head with a grip firm enough to push him back similar to how Eddie treated him earlier. 

The hair pulling and thin veneer of control doesn’t just do something for Buck, and he feels wicked and hungry as he uses that knowledge on Eddie now. 

Eddie instantly goes pliant, tension that Buck hadn’t even noticed was there melting away as he seems to sink down down down, the brown of his eyes flaring with a charged inner light as his legs spread beneath Buck and his throat is bared eagerly. 

It’s a true exposure of himself, one that Eddie allows and indulges in, and it never fails to make Buck feel sickeningly powerful. 

He must luxuriate in that feeling for too long though because Eddie grows impatient, letting out a hurt little noise and resisting Buck’s grip the slightest bit, a desperate plea breaking over his expression as that wounded sound turns into a hum, his mouth dropping open without any coercion.

Buck thinks he could do anything to Eddie at this moment and Eddie would let him. 

If only.

Buck shushes Eddie, silently promising to give him what he needs, as if Buck is an expert on that subject, and places the joint between his lips, sucking down the last dry embers of it, all of him burning so hot he’s not sure how he is still alive. 

Then, swift enough to make his dizzy mind shudder, Buck curves himself over Eddie and drops down enough to open his mouth over Eddie’s, blowing that intimate mix of smoke and breath onto the other man’s tongue. 

Eddie sighs as it enters his lungs, eyes fluttering closed, body loose, hips twitching. 

It’s so very much like a possession. This substance that’s in Buck, touching him in the most hidden of places, controlling the messy smear of his thoughts and emotions, flowing out of his mouth and into Eddie’s body, the very same thing now ebbing inside of both of them, shared and almost otherworldly. 

Buck wishes he could slip inside Eddie along with the smoke, curl up in the ventricles of his heart, lay down in the pathways of his veins, submerge himself in muscle and bone and blood and call it home. 

And Eddie looks at him like he would let him, that aching vulnerability Buck thought he saw earlier awakening once again, taking shape on Eddie’s face as if the curl of Buck’s mouth and the swell of smoke inside him have coaxed out his heart into the broad light of the evening. 

If anyone had the capability of loving Buck, of keeping him, of giving as much as he takes, Buck thinks it would be Eddie. 

“God,” Buck says in a hoarse scrape, “I love you.”

Eddie jolts beneath him, the movement a bit stilted and delayed but Buck feels it. 

He physically feels the surprise and panic invade Eddie, everything that was loose and relaxed before turning tight with a painfully wound tension. He can see it as Eddie’s eyes blow wide, darkness eating at the whites surrounding dark dark dark brown as he blinks fast. He can hear the strangled noise bubbling up in Eddie’s throat like he can’t quite make himself swallow what Buck has breathed in between them. 

The smoke and very breath from Buck’s lungs Eddie could take, but not his love apparently. 

Well shit, Buck thinks as the too familiar and horribly audible crack of his heart echoes in his ears.

What the fuck happened to keeping his goddamn mouth shut?

Buck needs to–do something. But he can’t. He’s stuck. He is stuck and he is cursing the flimsy joint left in his hand, frowning down at it so hard it hurts and then discarding it on the concrete below them, absolutely paralyzed by the weight of the drug and what he’s just done.

“Buck, you–” Eddie jerks beneath him again and goes silent, gaping and struck utterly dumb, fixated on Buck with an awful intensity, clearly rooted to this moment because of what Buck has stupidly let slip. 

And Buck supposes he’s not going to be able to just play this off. Which is–really fucking tragic. But hey, he’s been crushed by a ladder truck and killed by lightning and lost his best friend’s kid in a tsunami so, really, this is just par for the course of Buck’s life. 

“Ah, shit,” he breathes out with a wince, lifting himself up on his knees so he isn’t touching Eddie as much which sends a dark line of pain from his left knee to his thigh, but he ignores it. “I–I wasn’t supposed to. I didn’t–I didn’t mean to say– that .” He laughs and it’s manic and twisted, void of anything that could truly make it a laugh, because no real laugh is this mirthless or sickened or despondent. 

Eddie is clearly less convinced by the pathetic laugh than even Buck himself is, his face spasming as if he is hurting.

Buck’s heart wilts. Its beats slow until only a handful of dull, painful thuds knock against bone. It withers and twists as if trying to wring itself dry of all feeling. And Buck cannot breathe through it and he can’t stay here. 

He can’t make Eddie endure his heartbreak as well as his love. 

But when he tries to move, to hide, to disappear, Eddie doesn’t let him. 

Strong, tremoring hands latch onto Buck’s thighs, holding him captive. 

Buck thinks he might just die a little from the touch, a touch that seems to communicate that he’s not wanted anywhere else other than where he is but that can’t be right, and then he dies a little more when Eddie releases one thigh to grab Buck’s chin, forcing their eyes to meet. 

There’s a searching in Eddie, as if he has caught a glimpse of something he has been looking for and discovered the answer as to how he might find it. It makes his eyes so very dark and wild, makes his expression hard as granite, makes his fingers on Buck’s chin horribly soft. 

It’s overwhelming and Buck is so fucking confused by it.

And then Eddie asks, “Did you mean it?”

The sentence is carried out in one breath, practically punched out of Eddie, and it hits Buck so hard he would fall over if not for all the ways Eddie is keeping him close and steady. 

Buck’s confusion ripples with the impact of the question, growing tenfold and the forceful swell of it is just enough to keep him present and prevent him from burrowing down into the sludge of his regret. “What?” Buck asks in return, tasting the faint echoes of his pulpy, bruised heart. “I–What? Why are you–What?” 

None of it is coherent. His words and meaning are all jumbled and smoky and saturated in so many layers he could never even begin to peel them all apart and make sense of them for anyone else. So, he tries again. He attempts to tell Eddie to forget about it and say that it’s fine and he’s sorry and ask to be let go, but instead what comes out is, “You think I’m lying?”

Maybe one day, Buck will be able to pull himself out of a hole rather than dig himself deeper, but today is not that day. Not when he is sitting on Eddie’s lap and burning with the heat of horror and remnants of weed. Not when he has confessed his love to the man who is his best friend and who he has been fucking for the better part of five months. 

Nope, he’s in deep enough as it is, might as well see how much farther he can go. 

Plus, if he’s honest, he is stripped bare enough that the insinuation that he doesn’t love Eddie and is just making up his feelings kind of pisses him off. 

Eddie squints at Buck like he doesn’t know what to make of him, thumb sweeping so delicately over Buck’s jaw and chin, and then he starts chewing at the inside of his bottom lip the way he always does when he is uneasy and unsure. 

Eventually Eddie just shrugs. “You’re pretty high, Buck,” he says, voice thick and far too casual to actually be casual. 

Buck scoffs. “Not high enough to not know how fucking gone I am on you.”

He should have taken the out Eddie was offering, really he should have, but fuck Eddie for thinking one joint would be enough to make Buck confess to something that actually isn’t real. His love is real, it’s the most real thing, and it should have remained unknown but–but it’s not and he can’t bear for Eddie to doubt it.

Eddie can not like it. He can reject it. Scorn it. Pity it. But if Eddie doubts it, Buck thinks that would destroy him more than anything else. 

But Eddie doesn’t really look doubtful now. He kind of flinches like he’s been slapped, but his eyes turn brighter for some reason and his hands on Buck get firmer and his mouth drops open so dramatically that Buck wants to tease him but he’s too busy cursing himself and the weed that keeps his tongue so loose.

“I shouldn’t have said that either,” Buck groans. “You don’t–You don’t want to hear that. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” He shifts above Eddie, trying to encourage Eddie to release him, trying to release the frightful, awful buzzing beneath his skin that feels like it’s going to explode out of him at any time. 

Buck risks one last glance at Eddie’s face before tearing himself away, a sort of blue feeling washing over him at what he sees–such a stark, naked look of loss and longing that means Buck really needs to bury all of this in the ground with him and put some distance between the two of them. “Look, we can forget–”

“I wanna hear it,” Eddie rushes to say, letting go of Buck’s chin to clutch at his hip and keep him in place. 

The words are desperate and said so fast that Buck can hardly decipher them, banging around in the space Eddie is trying to eliminate and Buck is trying to enlarge. Each word is a hook that sinks into Buck’s flesh and ties him so viscerally to this moment that nothing could take him away from it. 

“I wanna hear it,” Eddie repeats, a little slower, a little more hushed, and a lot more soft with something that sounds far too much like frantic devotion. 

“You–want to hear it,” Buck says haltingly and it comes out more as a question than the statement he intended. “It being–” he trails off and raises his eyebrows at Eddie, waving his fingers in a gesture that says c’mon give me something to work with here, fill in the blank for the love of god.

Eddie inhales a shaky breath, the tail end of it cracking in a rough hitch that makes Eddie wince. He tries to hide it though, chest puffing out while his fingers tangle in the hem of Buck’s shirt and he smiles a smile that is even shakier than his breath was. 

Nervous. Eddie is nervous. 

And Buck is–a lot of things right now, all of them too quick and too transparent and just too much for him to do anything other than remain frozen on top of Eddie. 

“Buck, c’mon,” Eddie mutters harshly, tugging tugging tugging at Buck until they are as close as they were when Buck shotgunned the last breath of the blunt into Eddie’s mouth. “You gotta know.”

“Clearly, I don’t.”

Clearly, he should. He knows how well he knows Eddie and he knows the signs he has seen but has convinced himself aren’t real and he knows that if there wasn’t the tiniest flicker of possibility that Eddie feels the same way then he would be reacting differently, but still, he needs something that can’t be waved away beneath the cloak of night and damp bed sheets. 

Eddie licks his lips once, twice. “You said, well.” He closes his eyes tight and shakes his head as if trying to convince himself he isn’t hallucinating or seeing a mirage that has haunted him for too long. “You love me.” It comes out through a tiny, sideways grin, the one that Buck fell in love with who knows how many years ago, the one that makes Eddie look boyish and sweet. 

A laugh expels out of Eddie then, enlarging his smile until it’s nearly blinding, the brightness of it searing into Buck’s heart with an intense heat that makes it beat beat beat so fast so large so loud. 

“You love me,” Eddie says again, “and that’s all I have ever wanted to hear.”

“Is that the weed talking?” Buck asks, because fair is fair, but also what?

Eddie’s precious, pink, lovesick expression turns a little flat and stern. “No, Buck.”

The deadpan tone of his voice makes Buck chuckle and feel brave enough to touch Eddie, his hands finding their way to Eddie’s broad shoulders. “S–Sorry, I just–” he lets the rest of his sentence fade as he looks at an Eddie who wants to hear that Buck loves him, an Eddie who wants Buck in return, an Eddie who is still his best friend. 

And it hits him so fucking hard. It’s a gut punch. It’s the clench of a bruised, bloody fist. It’s the first breath taken after nearly drowning. It’s stepping into a spot of sunshine. 

It’s love and Eddie is in this with him.

“ Oh ,” Buck breathes. “Oh. Okay. You–Okay.”

He cups a hand along the curve of Eddie’s neck, right where he is so warm and so sensitive and so alive, and the sharp blade of pleased pride cuts into his cheeks as Eddie’s pulse jumps beneath his touch, pounding up against his palm fever bright. 

Relief seems to flutter over Eddie, erasing the trembling in his fingers and the hesitancy darkening his eyes, though his pulse remains hot and swift, the reaction of his blood boldly apparent as he leans into Buck’s touch and sticks his hands beneath Buck’s shirt to pet at the small of his back and drops a quick kiss to Buck’s cheek like he’s not sure if he is allowed to do so. 

All of it gives life to the reckless bravery Buck has been driven by his entire life.

So, with intent this time, Buck murmurs, “I love you.”

It tastes sweeter than the aftertaste of herbs on his tongue, sweeter than the sticky amber color cascading over them both as the sun makes its descent, sweeter than the full body sigh Eddie releases. 

“That’s good,” Eddie replies, grinning wildly. 

Buck traces that grin with the tip of his finger, acquainting himself with every edge, imprinting the pretty shape on his skin. “It is?” He hates how breathless he sounds but he can’t help it. It’s a miracle he is breathing at all, when what he wants with a hunger he thought he would die from is seemingly being handed right over to him, Eddie not allowing him to starve any longer.

“Yeah,” Eddie says with a serious nod, their noses and smiles brushing with the motion. “Makes me being in love with you a lot less awkward.”

Buck cackles, so happy happy happy he has to be shining with it. “Oh, you motherfucker.” He moves his hand from Eddie’s neck to his face, cradling the lovely contours of it, holding him still so Buck can plant a quick kiss to his full lips. 

Eddie pouts before the kiss even ends. “Not exactly the name I wanna be called right now.”

“Should I call you buckfucker instead?”

“What? What does that–Oh. Dios mio . Buck .”

Eddie puts enough force at the base of Buck’s spine to make him fold inward, his chest bumping Eddie’s, his ass firmly planted on Eddie’s thighs, their cocks so very dangerously close to one another, and then Eddie nips at the hinge of Buck’s jaw. “You are so not funny.”

“Then why are you laughing?”

“Because I love you.”

Well, that’s not fucking fair. 

It takes all of Buck’s strength not to swoon and drape himself across Eddie’s body like some Victorian lady collapsing from a case of the vapors. He decides to kiss Eddie about it, which doesn't really help the crimson ache of his head rush or the dizziness spiraling through his veins, but Buck couldn’t care less. 

Eddie opens for him so easily, drinking in Buck’s kiss with a high-pitched, rumbling moan that sends a fierce catapult of shivers through Buck’s body, shivers that dance along his spine and trickle through his blood and glitter behind his eyes. 

He frames Eddie’s face between his hands, fingers curling along the sharp cut of Eddie’s jaw, thumbs settling along the warm skin of Eddie’s cheeks, and he uses his hold to turn Eddie this way and that, so very determined to dominate Eddie’s mouth and relearn every single inch of it. 

There’s something so very special about how Eddie lets him do it, how he goes pliant but is still participatory, how he invites Buck in again and again with sensual sweeps of his tongue, how his mouth curls and begs and pleads with Buck’s, how his teeth dig into Buck’s bottom lip with a gentle savagery. 

All of it only feeds the insatiable hunger Buck cradles in his core, awakening it so that it roars and trembles and explodes, each pass of Eddie’s tongue and the sweet pressure of his lips and the intoxicating nip of his teeth and every ruin coated sound he releases enough to make Buck shatter and break and then come back together again. 

And the only thing Buck can do is deepen the kiss, make it even messier, licking over the line of Eddie’s teeth and chasing after the faint taste of weed that clings to the back of his throat. His enthusiasm makes this kiss a bit off center but he doesn’t mind and neither does Eddie who just pants into Buck’s mouth before scratching his blunt nails down Buck’s back in hot lines and sucking on Buck’s tongue. 

It’s a depraved sort of thing, the slick and graceless moves of their mouths. It’s devouring and downright filthy, full of teeth and bruises and spit that travels down their chins. But still, it’s the loveliest thing, sweet as sugar. 

“You love me,” Buck gasps onto Eddie’s tongue, tucking the words right behind Eddie’s teeth. The awe in the words is so very apparent, crackling and reverent and fragile even in its strength. He says it again for good measure, just because he can, just because it’s true, laughing as its given voice and transferring that relieved sweetness to Eddie who swallows it up with greed. 

He wonders if it felt this good when Eddie said it to himself. Did it make his heart stutter? Did it send a glimmer through the pit of his stomach? Did it lessen the sting of a raw wound that was reopened every time they fucked, every time they had each other but didn’t really? Did it feel like a sigh traveled through his soul?

“You love me,” Buck says once more, giddy and shaken and stricken. “You love me and you think I’m funny.” Stupid, he is so stupid but it feels so good, feels like something he can delight in and play around with instead of hate himself for. 

Buck plants an obnoxiously loud smack of a kiss against Eddie’s swollen lips as a sort of punctuation to his sentence, bubbling up with so much warmth and glee that he is close to boiling over. 

Eddie groans, brows furrowing together even as a tiny smile graces the corner of his mouth. He reaches up to take one of Buck’s hands in his own, turning his hot gaze to Buck's palm right before he kisses the heart of it then bites it. 

If only Buck could tear out the vicious thing in his chest that loves so brightly it makes him sore and have Eddie sink his teeth into it, cover Eddie’s mouth with the vivid colors of his adoration, have him lick over the edges scrawled with Eddie’s name.

“You’re also a mood ruiner,” Eddie murmurs into Buck’s palm, biting it once more and making Buck hiss and jerk from the cool sting of it.

Buck rolls his eyes and takes his hand back, placing it in the center of Eddie’s chest where the thrumming of his heart is loud enough Buck can feel it and he smiles to himself as he drags his hand down down down, over muscles he has dreamed about and kissed and licked and bitten and covered in his come. 

Eddie’s stomach spasms beneath Buck’s hand and his breath goes all choppy and fast, eyes heavy lidded as he watches the path Buck’s hand makes. 

Buck pokes at Eddie’s belly button just to make him yelp then swiftly cups Eddie’s cock, taking it in hand with a gentle but firm grip, feeling the throbbing heat of it even through two layers as it thickens. “Hmm.” Buck clucks his tongue. “Doesn’t feel like I’m a mood ruiner.”

“Are you sure?” Eddie asks. There’s a cruel bite to the shape of his mouth as he smiles and kisses Buck lavishly, slow and languid as if he carries something scared on his tongue and is passing it over to Buck for safekeeping. “Maybe you should– ah –double check.”

Eddie thrusts up into Buck’s palm, shamelessly fucking the spot that he kissed before. 

He’s so beautiful like this that Buck has to lean back a little in order to appreciate it, something in him bursting white-hot at the lustful sheen coating Eddie’s oil slick eyes and the flush on his cheeks and the sensual, rough movements of his hips and the playfulness on his face and the pretty bruising on his lips. 

“How do you suggest I check?” Buck asks, nearly wincing at the harsh crack of his voice, so utterly ruined and almost unrecognizable, the tenor of it warped because of the thing writhing behind his breastbone at the image of Eddie and the sensation of his hardening cock as it pulses in Buck’s hand. 

Eddie grins, all youth and delight, dimpling his cheeks and making the rosier. “Get my cock out.”

Buck is torn between giggling and moaning, so some twisted combination of the two launches off his tongue, and the sound only makes Eddie grin more. 

Buck’s heart beats fast at the sight of it, so terribly swollen and hot and drowning because of how pretty Eddie is and how eager and honest he is with his want and how he looks like he is in love.

He’s not really sure how he never saw it before. It seems so very obvious now. Though maybe that’s because Eddie is no longer trying to dampen it, he’s not storing it away to be hidden, he’s not protecting himself the way Buck has been trying and failing to do. Eddie is just giving it away now and Buck thinks he can happily and easily take it.

“Okay,” Buck says simply and sweetly, contorting his lips into a shape he hasn’t really used in a while, one that he perfected back in his 1.0 days, one that is sultry and promising and perfectly displays how good he is with his mouth. 

Eddie’s eyes impossibly darken, heady like aged whiskey and earnest like wet soil and sweet like caramelized sugar. 

Buck sits up a bit on his knees, sighing a little when Eddie wraps a hand around the back of Buck’s thigh to ensure he doesn’t topple over. He palms over the crown of Eddie’s cock in reward for Eddie’s consideration. It’s so gorgeously visible even through Eddie’s sweatpants and boxers, a bit of wetness soaking where it begs to be released, damp enough that Buck’s mouth waters.

Eddie mewls and throws his head back, undone from such a simple touch, so Buck does it once more before removing his hand entirely and focusing instead on his own cock, curling his fingers in the waistband of his sweats and shoving the fabric down to expose the slick heat of himself. 

The gentle roughness of Eddie’s hands lands on the bare skin of Buck’s hips, warmer than the rapidly cooling air around them. Buck clutches at Eddie’s shoulders as Eddie’s thumbs sweep over his hip bones, delicate and soft and thrilling, the skin there so terribly sensitive it makes Buck cry out.

Eddie hushes him, eyes flicking quickly around them, intaking the stretch of the rest of the balcony before them, as if he is checking to make sure no one can see, a bit of hunger seeming to growl in his eyes like he is daring anyone to see Buck the way he gets to.

It makes Buck unbelievably hot. 

“ Eddie ,” Buck whimpers, throwing his head back while rising higher on his knees. 

“Alright. It’s alright,” Eddie says quietly, his left thumb never ceasing its movements along the thin stretch of skin over Buck’s hip bone while his right hand drops down to caress Buck’s knee exactly where faint scarring from the truck bombing lingers. “Are you okay? In this position? Anything hurting?”

Tremors catapult down Buck’s vertebrae at the sweetness and concern in Eddie’s tone. There may be traces of tension and discomfort but Buck can barely feel them, not through the onslaught of pleasure and happiness and love that’s intoxicatingly heightened by the weed. Plus, the bench’s cushion is plush enough to save Buck from any true pain.

“No. No. M’good.” He wraps an arm around Eddie’s shoulders and bends down to kiss him, fucking his tongue into Eddie’s mouth while his hips twitch hard enough to drag the weeping head of his cock against Eddie’s soft t-shirt. 

“ Ah ah ah ,” Buck moans, spewing the sounds into Eddie’s mouth. 

Eddie hums and arches his back, hands sliding away from Buck’s hips to sweep over his stomach beneath his shirt, nails scratching at the hair curling around Buck’s cock, palms sliding along the trembling curve of Buck’s thighs. 

“That’s good,” Eddie says and Buck’s not sure if it’s in reply to Buck’s assertion that he’s fine– more than fine really–in this current position or if it’s just simple praise for Buck but either way Buck smiles and flushes from throat to cock, his blood pulsing with an aching fever.

“Though,” Eddie continues, pinching at the inside of Buck’s thigh and leaning his head back away from Buck’s mouth, “I thought I said to get my cock out.” He raises a stern brow, though his admonishing expression is belied by the way his eyes keep dropping to Buck’s cock, lust blown and red-rimmed, and the way he swallows with a loud click that echoes around them.

Buck bares all his teeth in a smirk. “Didn’t I? This –” Buck punctuates the word with a thrust of his wet, flushed cock against Eddie’s disappointingly covered stomach, sobbing a bit from the spark of pleasure pain it induces, “is your cock, isn’t it?”

“ Fuck ,” Eddie breathes, expelling the word so harshly it sounds like it cracks against the back of his teeth. “Fuck.” His fingers dig into Buck’s skin hard , all bruising strength and momentary loss of control, his nostrils flaring as his burning hands seemingly sink into Buck’s flesh to yank him forward into a rough, claiming kiss.

“Yeah,” Eddie whimpers into Buck’s mouth, tongue catching against the roof of Buck’s mouth and eliciting a spine breaking shiver. “It’s mine.” He kisses and kisses and kisses Buck, wrecking and dominating his mouth until Buck is whining and arching and shaking.

Then Eddie’s hand wraps around Buck’s cock, the sharp slide of it slick enough thanks to the precome pouring out of Buck in sticky, pearly lines that Eddie plays with, spreading the fluid over the tip and forcing it down Buck’s length until he has a firm hold around the base. 

A supernova sparks through Buck, rapid and decimating, stars twirling behind his closed eyelids as the near painful power of pleasure and arousal explodes, the phenomena of Eddie and his touch burning out in sugary fractals that Buck swears he can taste. 

“All mine,” Eddie continues, the hint of a rambling tone evident in his hazy, slurred voice. He tightens his fist over Buck’s cock, hard hard hard just the way Buck likes and licks away Buck’s tortured cry. “Big, beautiful cock and you can’t even really do anything with it can you? Gotta have someone else to use it.”

“Ed–Eddie,” Buck gasps, so hot hot hot that sweat is building up in the backs of his knees and the divots of his chest and behind his ears and it’s only worsened by the mean bite of Eddie’s words. 

“Ain’t that right, sweetheart?” Eddie goads, thumb swirling over Buck’s cockhead right before he pushes his nail against the slit, coaxing out more precome that flows out of Buck so messily, soaking up not only his cock but the hair that covers his groin as well as his thighs and the fabric of Eddie’s shirt. 

Buck jolts, electricity tumbling through his veins, transforming him from just another human body into a pure live wire, nothing more than senseless energy firing at capacity with no absolutely no direction. “Mhmm,” he pants, forcing his lax and bruised mouth to cover Eddie’s in a poor imitation of a kiss. “Yours. You use–You use it so much better than me. Fuck .”

Eddie’s smile is sharp enough to cut glass, but it feels so sweet over Buck’s lips. So, Buck kisses it, much sweeter and more chaste than anything else they’ve done so far which makes the smile’s edges soften so much that Buck’s heart gives an awful pang. 

“So pretty though,” Eddie murmurs, dragging his smile across Buck’s chin and jawline, stopping only to lick over the hinge of Buck’s jaw and suck a bruising mark there. “ Such a pretty cock. A pretty cock for a pretty boy.” 

A laugh tickles along Buck’s ribs. Not exactly from humor or amusement but perhaps mirth. Glee. Delight. Pride. 

There’s nothing better than the drawl of Eddie’s voice as he tells Buck how good he looks or how good he is, and Buck would happily live inside Eddie’s mouth when he gets like this, when he’s rambling and praising. Just curl up underneath his tongue and feel the lovely way it moves as he says things that hook into Buck’s soul with a tart clench. 

He would tell Eddie that and happily listen as it most likely makes Eddie laugh and glow, but he’s not really capable, too strung out and on edge, careening fast toward a glittering edge that promises such sweet things at the bottom, so he just fucks into Eddie’s fist, pistoning his hips with such force that he’ll probably be sore tomorrow, chasing after the good that beckons to him with wild abandon the way he always has. 

Eddie lets him, murmuring encouragement with a guttural voice, his touch almost brutal as he does all the things Buck likes best, having dedicated himself to learning all the most efficient ways to get Buck to come hot and fast over these past few months.

He presses his thumb hard against the small ridge under the head and plays roughly with the slit and twists his wrist on the downstroke and practically strangles the base and pulls and yanks and pinches the crown until everything is just a filthy mess. 

His palm is so hot and slick and Buck doesn’t think there is anything better than rutting into it, which may be ridiculous because it’s just a damn handjob but Eddie has always been so so so good at this, at everything really, taking to sex with Buck with an ease that left Buck a little jealous and a lot enamored. 

Buck chants Eddie’s name, hoping each letter carries the praise and love welling up behind his breastbone with a pressure that’s bound to pop. “S’good,” he manages to say, slurring and fucked out and deep enough that it had to have come from the very pit of himself. “Y’re so good at this, baby. So good to me.”

The hollow, crackling hitch of Eddie’s breath echoes in Buck’s ears, cutting through the rushing pound of his blood. 

“Yeah,” Buck laughs, keeping up the graceless rhythm he and Eddie have established as he pinches one of Eddie’s nipples through his shirt and licks over his mouth. “M’not the only one with a praise kink, am I?”

It had been a wonder when Buck first discovered it. He’s always known it about himself, his need for praise and acceptance something that burned white-hot in his chest and belly and burst out of him in waves of desperation that usually tasted more sour than sweet, but Eddie–

Well, it was a bit of a surprise, though looking back maybe it shouldn’t have been. 

Eddie has always tried so hard to do what he thought was best, to be a good son and a good husband and a good father and a good friend, so why wouldn’t he love hearing that he actually is good when so much of his life has proven, at least to him, that the opposite is true.

And Buck loves to tell him, loves that this is something they share even if perhaps it’s rooted in hurtful things, but it is a new enough discovery that he has to tease Eddie for it, establish that lighthearted and fun atmosphere that they are so good at creating for each other. 

“Laugh it up,” Eddie grumbles with a cruel twist of his fingers around Buck’s cock. “You’re the one that’s a writhing mess in my lap. Fucking my fist like it’s the best thing you’ve ever had.”

“It is,” Buck pants, too far gone in every way to be anything other than brutally, rawfully honest. “It is.”

“ Buck ,” Eddie says, something like devastation crashing over his expression, so beautiful and tragic and lovely, and Buck imagines that maybe that’s what his heart looks like, the honey crispness of it a little bruised but no less sweet for it.

Buck wants to devour it. 

And suddenly what he has is not enough. It never is, but especially now, because he needs Eddie’s skin, his cock, the beat and warmth of his heart as it pushes against his chest, so terribly close to being able to leap in Buck’s mouth if it were able. 

He needs all of that because he’s never had it like this, with the knowledge that this is more , that love lies beneath every action and word. 

“More,” Buck pleads with a suddenness that Eddie rears back a little in surprise, the glimmering coat of ruin and lust fading away from his face just a little. 

Buck clenches his fists in Eddie’s shirt and fucks into Eddie’s hand furiously, mouth falling open around soundless cries and face scrunching in an expression that surely can’t be attractive. “Need more. Please. More. Please .”

“Okay,” Eddie says immediately, so darling and precious as he takes Buck’s request and decides instantly to fulfill it. “Okay. Um.” He looks around wildly, fingers going lax where they circle Buck’s cock and his free hand splaying wide against Buck’s sternum. “Couch? Couch.”

Buck nods and before he can even begin to gather the strength to peel himself away from Eddie on what will surely be unsteady legs, Eddie just gets a strong grip around the backs of Buck’s thighs and stands up. 

A truly undignified sound crawls out of the bottom of Buck’s stomach, embarrassingly reminiscent of a squeak that is high-pitched and throaty. He scrambles to latch onto Eddie, throwing his arms around Eddie’s shoulders, his legs clinging to the width of Eddie’s waist, thighs straining and breath stuttering. 

Eddie grunts a little then puffs out a small laugh. “Relax,” he says with a sideways smile right before taking one step towards the glass doors and stumbling, his knee most likely buckling and causing him to topple over the slightest bit. 

“Dammit, Eddie,” Buck hisses with an incredulous laugh, dropping his head into the crook of Eddie’s neck because if they are going to go down in a tangle of limbs and ruin their chances of getting some extremely satisfying orgasms then he doesn’t want to see it. 

Eddie pinches the back of his thigh. “Don’t worry,” he says, breathless and casual and lighthearted enough that Buck risks exiting his hiding spot to peek at Eddie’s face. 

The grin Eddie is wearing is so very boyish, curling up into his cheeks with reddened, lax lips, looking like a wet dream up until Eddie starts wiggling his eyebrows. “I got it,” he declares, taking another step and shooting Buck the most smug, triumphant look when they don’t fall over. 

“I’m swooning,” Buck replies dryly. 

It’s mostly a joke, except for how it’s kind of not. Eddie’s strength is certainly impressive, especially considering the fact that just moments ago he was smoking a joint and then jacking Buck off, so yeah, maybe a part of Buck is wilting a little bit, somewhat undone by how attractive Eddie is like this and how easy it is for him to carry Buck across the balcony and into the living room. 

Being with someone who matches him for size and strength has certainly been a fucking dream, and the fact that Buck isn’t gonna have to give it up anytime soon is a goddamn miracle that he vows to take advantage of over and over and over again.

But for now Buck’s only plan is to bask in the hot strength of Eddie’s hands along his thighs and the gentle way he lays Buck down on the couch and how beautiful he looks looming over Buck, settling on his knees in between Buck’s spread legs like that’s where he belongs, like it’s his domain, and Buck would certainly crown him ruler of it all, king of Buck’s body and heart but it feels cheesy to think let alone say so he shuts that up tight and drags Eddie down into a kiss because it’s been far too long since he’s had Eddie’s mouth. 

That mouth is purer and more addictive than any drug, one of Buck’s most favorite things in the world, and spending any time without it attached to his or without mapping the wet heat of its insides is a fucking travesty. 

“Mmmph, Buck,” Eddie mumbles, the words slightly muffled against Buck’s tongue. “Clothes.”

“What about them?”

“How about we get them off, yeah?”

“Oh. Yeah. Great idea. Fantastic idea. You’re so–You’re so smart.”

Eddie laughs.

Buck’s chest goes warm and his belly flips, bouncing around inside him in a shimmer of color and sensation, all of it so very decadent and overwhelming but it’s just so good to make Eddie laugh. 

He beams up at Eddie, hoping to share and communicate even an ounce of that feeling, then tips his chin up to peck Eddie on the lips before he starts trying to wrangle himself out of his shirt. 

It takes them both and involves a lot of scrabbling limbs and quiet curses and knees in places they shouldn’t be, but he and Eddie manage to get each other naked, though Buck’s sweatpants don’t entirely get discarded. They are pooled around his ankles, neither of them willing to lose the contact it would take to get rid of the pants completely. 

The entirety of it is a heated rush, reminiscent of a promiscuous youth Buck embraces some days and shuns on others. Their skin hot and slick and so terribly sensitive as they crash together.

Eddie’s knees kicking Buck’s legs open. Buck’s thighs closing around Eddie’s hips. Eddie’s hands fisting in Buck’s hair. Mouths hungry and demanding. Buck’s hands on Eddie’s ass and his back and his shoulders and his chest. Eddie’s fat cock slipping along the divot of Buck’s groin, the head of it so flushed and tight that Buck swears he can taste it. 

It’s probably an awful, depraved sight. The two of them rutting into each other, moaning and sobbing and kissing with zero finesse, nothing but pure mess as they chase after one another and descend into a charged frenzy that Buck doesn’t think he’s ever experienced before in his life. No better than fumbling teenagers, eager and loud and uncoordinated, as if this is the very first time they are getting to touch each other. 

And it makes sense in a way, that it’s like this now. A brand new first time for them. Very similar to the actual first time they did this. It was wild and desperate then too and while they weren’t fully drunk they were certainly a bit inebriated, all warm and fuzzy and free of inhibitions thanks to alcohol and the proximity they have never tried to fight. 

But this time there’s no endling line Buck has to resist barreling toward. No fear or panic. No wretched need to take take take because it might be his only chance. No feeling of impending doom like he’s hanging over a precipice that will kill him. 

Buck is still fucking starved for Eddie, probably always will be, but now he knows he no longer has to survive on the bare scraps he manages to beg for. 

Starbursts of happiness trickle along his nerves, bright and sparking and heavy with a gravity that links and roots him to this moment. It feels a bit like he’s collapsing into Eddie, being utterly consumed as Eddie kisses him deeply and gets his hand back around Buck’s cock. 

It also feels like Buck has finally stepped over a threshold that he’s been lingering at, everything that has been liminal and every almost and not quite firmly obliterated until it’s nothing but being and having. It’s simple. It’s them. Just them. 

All of it is everything he has ever wanted but god it’s almost too much. Too much to bear. Too much to contain. Too much to live with. But he’ll happily crumble beneath it all and be even happier to die from it. What better way to go, right?

He sobs into Eddie’s mouth, every atom that he is composed of seizing until they are taut enough to rip him in two, relentlessly thrusting into the cradle of Eddie’s hand as his balls tighten and his orgasm draws near.

Eddie leans back to look at him, breaking the ravaging gentleness of their kiss. 

“Oh, Buck,” he breathes, face slack and open and awed as if he’s seeing something divine, a special witness to an event unlike any other, even though it’s just Buck beneath him, writhing and panting and clutching onto any part of Eddie he can touch. 

“Baby,” Eddie continues, voice so low Buck shouldn’t be able to hear him amidst the occasional slap of Eddie’s cock against Buck’s skin and the slick squelch of Buck’s precome as it builds between his own skin and Eddie’s palm but he does he does he does. “Honey. Sweetheart. Darlin’.”

“Eds,” Buck groans in complaint, throwing his head back and tensing, his knees slapping closed around Eddie’s sides, toes curling against the couch’s soft fabric, hands grappling at the firmness of Eddie’s ass to keep pulling him close, chest heaving as something threatens to tear out of him. 

“C’mon, you know you like it.”

Buck forces his bottom lip out in a pout that doesn’t last very long, eliminated by the sweet crush of pleasure as Eddie pinches the crown of his cock between his fingers. “Nuh– hnnngh –Nuh uh.”

Eddie scoffs, the sound both mean and amused and even that is enough to make Buck’s blood pound and heat enough to boil. But that boil painfully deflates into a simmer as Eddie slows the movement of his hand, teasing Buck with light touches that send aching crawls of sensation down his spine, and leans down until their noses are touching. 

Eddie opens his mouth over Buck’s, hovering there instead of kissing him, then whispers in that stupid bitchy, deadpan voice of his, “Buck, the first time I called you baby you came all over yourself. Untouched. Mid-fuck. Now I may not be the smartest person in the world, but even I can extrapolate the data from that.”

Buck’s head swims violently. “Was pent up," he argues. Then, "You’re too coherent right now,” he mutters with a glare, quickly releasing the bruising grip he has on Eddie’s ass to take hold of his cock, stopping Eddie’s mindless movements of humping Buck’s hip bone, and stroking him with a bold, near dry touch.

The sound that breaks past Eddie’s teeth is mangled and twisted. 

“Don’t– ah ,” Eddie spits out, chasing after Buck’s touch and nosing at his chin, “Don’t know how that didn’t give me away honestly. How mouthy I got when, y’know–” he pulls back and flicks his gaze down in between them, where the backs of their knuckles are brushing lovingly as they jerk each other off. He raises his eyebrows up and down and grins at Buck when their eyes meet. “You think I call just anyone that shit?”

Buck shrugs, heart fit to burst, swelling up and spreading out in his chest. “I dunno. You’re just–You’re sweet, so I thought–” he trails off without finishing, for some reason feeling shy. 

“You think I’m sweet?”

Buck sighs. “Occasionally.”

He’s not sure why that response makes Eddie’s eyelashes flutter wildly and his eyes glow like dark gems and his mouth curve into a shape so loudly loving that Buck swears he can feel the edge of it poking into his heart, but it does, and honestly, Buck is too far gone to really give a fuck.

An intense shockwave of vibrations rattles down his spine and bloom up over his thighs to tickle at his belly when Eddie lingers over Buck’s cockhead, playing with the stickiness gathered there, pressing the pad of his thumb into the slit and then dragging it down to right beneath the crown and pushing pushing pushing. 

“Eddie, Eddie, Eddie,” Buck chants, tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth, voice cracked beyond comprehension, body clenched tight and crystalized as he fucks Eddie’s fist. 

“Lube?” Eddie croaks, the last syllable traveling out alongside a clenched hiss because Buck nudges their weeping heads together.

“No,” Buck answers simply. Stopping what they are doing to find lube sounds like the stupidest idea in the world, especially when Buck is wet enough for the both of them, and it’s a pity that maybe Eddie isn’t as smart as Buck has always thought. 

Eddie hums, so very agreeable for a change when Buck has him like this, and then he starts kissing along Buck’s jawline and then down his neck, focusing intently on wringing everything he can out of Buck, devoted to Buck’s arousal which he holds in the palm of his hand, and ignoring his own pleasure for the moment, his hips stilling so that his cock is now mostly just sitting in Buck’s pitifully motionless hand. 

Buck would feel bad about that, but he’s absolutely crushed right now. 

Every pass of Eddie’s hand and every sucking kiss Eddie places over Buck’s pulsepoint situates him so very deeply in his own body, edging him toward a freefall that he knows will be the most thrilling and peaceful thing once he reaches it, and it all leaves him utterly incapable of doing more than trailing his fingers over the parts of Eddie he can reach–strong back, solid pecs, pebbled nipples, mussed hair–with one hand while keeping Eddie’s pretty dick warm with the other.

He does his best to leave his mark and bring about some kind of pleasure even if his touch lacks any direction or finesse or strength. 

And still–

More. Buck wants more.

He whimpers when Eddie sinks his teeth along his jugular vein, their bluntness pushing into the very essence of Buck that rushes and rages beneath Eddie’s touch, his blood pooling along the surface of his skin as if it desires to be splashed all over Eddie’s mouth and for just a moment Buck wishes for that. He wishes Eddie’s kisses would cut him. Wishes for Eddie to have his blood as well as his love and his breath.

Buck brings a hand to the side of Eddie’s face, tracing the pretty edge of his cheekbone before pushing Eddie away from his neck. His hand limply circles Eddie’s throat, pushing him back enough until they are face to face. It looks pretty there, a sort of collar that isn’t restrictive but caring and guiding and Eddie looks happy enough to have it, something dazed coloring his expression, so Buck leaves his hand there and brings the other one up to Eddie’s mouth.

He traces the plump, bruised flesh of Eddie’s lips with slick fingers covered in Eddie’s precome, shaking all the while, then grabs Eddie’s chin and presses down hard to get Eddie to open his mouth. 

It takes strength he has almost been entirely sapped of to lean up enough to place his mouth right below Eddie’s, his core tight and clenched from the duality of pleasure and the position he is in. 

“Want it,” Buck pleads, licking over Eddie’s bottom lip. 

Eddie’s grin is almost cruel as he nods. He rests his brow on Buck’s and nudges their noses together before murmuring, “Open wide,” and then spits in Buck’s mouth when he obeys. 

Buck moans, wanton and wrecked, falling down onto his back once again, Eddie’s spit collecting on his tongue with a wonderfully wet weight that he allows to linger and coat the entirety of his mouth before he swallows. 

Sharp, starving stabs of something far beyond pleasure nearly cracks open the bones of his chest. 

“Good boy,” Eddie says, sounding like he very much means it, the truth of his words bare and bleeding in his voice.  

A hurt, wounded noise bubbles up in the back of Buck’s throat, all high and reedy and similar to the whine of a dog as it begs for more even when it’s already been given so much. “Y–Yeah?” Buck asks breathlessly. “Am I? Am I–M’good?”

“So good,” Eddie promises. 

Buck comes. 

He comes hot and wet and hard all over Eddie’s fingers, more so from Eddie’s words and the ruination of love and lust buried in his eyes than from the too fucking good sensation of Eddie’s hand flying over his cock. 

It’s a riptide that washes over Buck and yanks his insides out, pouring from him with a near painful crest of sharp warmth that flutters over every sensitive, raw inch of himself. 

And it only worsens, only gains power, when Eddie quickly ducks down to take the head of Buck’s cock into his mouth, catching the remnants of Buck’s orgasm, his tongue so very soft and wet and his mouth so very pliant and gentle as he sucks in the last sticky ropes of Buck’s come. 

Buck shatters, body arching into a back breaking curve, one hand fisted in the cushion above him while the other buries itself in the damp, curling tufts of Eddie’s hair. 

It’s good. So good it hurts. So good he can’t think or breathe. So good that he is nothing more than the pulsing sensitivity that’s resting just past Eddie’s teeth. 

The vibrations of Eddie’s moan and the little tug he gives Buck’s balls makes Buck fold, curling in on himself from the overstimulation, crying out both in protest and encouragement. 

Eddie’s breath puffs out of his nose in harsh pants as he gives Buck’s softening cock a soft suck, and oh , he looks so beautiful, bent over Buck, head between Buck’s thighs, eyes closed so tightly in bliss that his lashes curve over his cheeks with painful delicacy. 

Sweet, syrupy, crackling relief pushes hard at Buck’s breastbone when Eddie releases him, so careful and considerate as he lets Buck fall from his mouth, his fingers gentle enough Buck can barely feel them where they encircle the base of his cock and scratch at the hair covering his groin. 

Buck is so close to collapsing and never getting back up again, but Eddie’s face is a mess, mouth and chin covered in the come he couldn’t catch in his mouth, the rich soil darkness of his eyes ablaze and depthless, skin flushed a pretty pink that contrasts starkly to the pearly, near translucent strands of Buck’s release. 

Laughter crawls out of Buck, his happiness and euphoria combining to make the sound. 

Eddie smiles wide at him, gummy and bright and full of teeth. His nose scrunches with it and it creates such an ache in Buck that is surely strong enough to make his heart give out, but it keeps going, beating and pumping and living as he looks at Eddie, covered in his come and happy and smiling and looking so in love. 

Buck wishes he could say something. Grand words of how Eddie makes him feel and how privileged he is to share this with Eddie and how this kind of love thrills and terrifies him in equal measure and how he’s sure he’ll love Eddie even more tomorrow than he does today and that love will still exist even when Buck is nothing more than scraps of dust. 

But he’s sated and wrung out and his tongue is heavy and he would probably just mess that all up anyway, so he weakly pulls at Eddie’s hair and his shoulder to get him to crawl up Buck’s body.

Eddie does, following after Buck so easily, the fronts of his thighs plastering themselves to the back of Buck’s as he tucks himself close, the length of his body attached to the length of Buck’s all snug and warm. 

A glimmering wave of glee and contentment stretches over Buck, settling over the gradual calming of his heart and layering itself on top of his sensitive skin and poking at his cheeks with a smile that feels wobbly. 

He drags that smile over the mess on Eddie’s chin then sticks out his tongue to chase after it, licking it all up and sighing at the taste of himself on Eddie’s skin. 

Eddie sighs and catches Buck in a kiss, tender and precious even with the come they pass back and forth. 

Buck could do this forever, live just like this forever, never move or bother to do anything else, but then he feels the hot hardness of Eddie’s cock nudging his stomach. 

“Mmmm,” Buck hums against Eddie’s lips, breaking their kiss. “Your turn.”

Eddie snorts and Buck wants to ask him what that was for but Eddie just tucks his head into Buck’s neck, body rolling, so Buck settles his hands on Eddie’s waist and rearranges himself as best he can with Eddie’s weight holding him down, directing Eddie with hushed words and gentle touches to fuck his thighs. 

Buck has to kick one leg a little wildly to get his ankle free of the loose constriction of his sweatpants, but once he does he can close his thighs a little better for Eddie, provide a nice channel for him to fuck into. 

The keen that rips out of Eddie burrows into Buck’s skin and lazily ripples over his nerve endings, lighting them back up from where they had turned a little cooler and calmer in the thick expanse of Buck’s afterglow. 

“Yeah, that’s it, baby,” Buck whispers into Eddie’s ear, reaching up with one hand to card his fingers through Eddie’s hair. “Take it. Mmm, yeah. Just–Just take it. That’s so good.”

Eddie’s mouth opens over the sensitive stretch of skin between Buck’s throat and shoulder, damp and messy, hot on Eddie’s exhale and cool on his inhale. Buck can’t really concentrate on that sensation though, not with the slickness of Eddie’s cock spearing over his still sensitive and trembling thighs. 

“Goddamn fuck,” Eddie curses, punctuating his words with a nip to Buck’s skin, his thrusts sloppy and wild and strong enough that the slap of their skin echoes throughout the loft.

Strong enough that Eddie fucks Buck up up up the couch and pushes back his thighs enough that his cockhead ends up prodding at Buck’s hole. 

Buck whines, his body stretching out and clinging to Eddie, welcoming that pressure and touch while his fingers grip Eddie’s hair a little tighter. 

“Okay?” Eddie asks, the single word sounding a bit pained as if it had to force its way out between clenched teeth. 

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Buck assures him, opening his legs up a bit more, the dual impact of Eddie’s hips against his thighs and his cock against his now fluttering, greedy entrance so terribly fucking good that he can barely stand it, but like hell will he do anything to discourage it. 

Thankfully for Buck’s overstimulated nerves, Eddie doesn’t last long. 

His cock slides through the dampness of Buck’s thighs, made all slick and warm for him by the combination of Buck’s sweat and Eddie’s precome, and then it taps taps taps right over Buck’s rim, occasionally nudging against his balls and perineum, the pounding flush of Eddie’s arousal so intense and loud that Buck can physically feel it as it touches him where he’s most sensitive. 

Stickiness soon coats his rim, clinging to his skin and the head of Eddie’s dick, connecting the two of them together as Eddie keeps his cock as flush with Buck’s hole as he can, grinding into the muscle with desperate undulations of his hips. 

Then, despite the thick, hazy trenches Buck always descends into after an orgasm, he manages to get a hand back on Eddie’s ass, tracing the lovely curve of it before plunging two fingers between his crack to press them against Eddie’s hole.

And Eddie erupts, his come coating Buck’s thighs and ass, gathering along his hair and sliding down down down until he’s sure some of it is gathered in the backs of his knees. 

“ Oh ,” Buck breathes out, shaking and shivering like he’s just had another orgasm even though he hasn’t. He clutches at the back of Eddie’s skull and buries his nose in the sweaty hair at Eddie’s temple, kissing what skin he can reach and murmuring sweet nothings to Eddie as he comes down, body deflating over Buck’s, breath going choppy before evening out. 

“Shit,” Eddie says with a little laugh, almost like he’s surprised. 

Buck chuckles too, his heart warming at how their chests bump against each other with the force of their joy. “We are so good at that. Should keep doing it, don’t you think?”

This time Eddie’s laugh is loud, bright and belly deep and blasting over Buck’s skin. 

“Y’know what, that’s a pretty good idea, bud.”

“Maybe don’t call me bud when you’re naked on top of me and your come is sliding down my legs. You’re my best friend forever, sweetheart, but bud doesn’t really fit the mood right now," Buck replies, just to give Eddie shit. 

He can’t see Eddie’s face, but he just knows Eddie rolls his eyes because when Eddie does that it’s never an isolated action, it’s always accompanied by the movement of his whole body as if his exasperation is too strong for him to do otherwise. 

Buck is far too lazy and satiated to even try to reprimand or admonish Eddie for it though, so he just lets his body sink further into the couch, arms winding themselves around Eddie and clutching him close, ensuring he remains stuck to Buck’s front with his body cradled lovingly between Buck’s thighs. 

There is a slight squelching sound when Buck’s come covered skin comes in contact with the couch and Buck wrinkles his nose in response. That is not gonna be fun to deal with, but it’s future Buck’s problem not his, so he ignores it and closes his eyes, basking in the sweet, warm intimacy of the moment. 

They’ve never really done this. 

Before tonight, whenever they were done and their orgasms had been achieved there would be this slight lull, a time when Buck was convinced his yearning had turned corporeal and visible, the greedy tangles of it reaching out for Eddie and pleading for them to stay together a little bit longer so Buck could pretend it was more than it was. 

And that’s when one of them would pull away, break through the awkwardness and get cleaned up and dressed, sometimes leaving entirely and other times just moving away from where they had been fucking and going about their day together like nothing was off or different. 

Not this time. 

This time Buck gets to stay. He gets to have. He gets to keep. 

“I would have, y’know,” Eddie says quietly, so quietly Buck almost doesn’t hear him. 

Buck makes a questioning noise. 

A cold huff of air fans over Buck’s throat, followed by what sounds like a large gulping click as Eddie swallows. “Kept doing this, I mean.” Eddie trails his fingers over Buck’s ribs, dancing them over skin covered bone like he’s trying to distract himself or maybe even Buck. “This–charade of ours,” Eddie adds with a twisted laugh, voice so carefully casual as he admits it. “Even if what happened tonight hadn’t happened. I would have kept doing this with you until the day I died.”

Buck’s throat closes up, sealing around what could have been a gasp or a sob or even just a harsh breath. 

There’s so much he could say to that. 

He could say that he understands. He could say that in some ways his plan was the same and in others it wasn’t because he never expected to be wanted that long. He could tell Eddie that he deserves so much more than that. He could tell Eddie that he’s sorry for being a frightful coward who would have allowed them to keep up this pretense for the rest of their lives if his love hadn’t slipped out of him the way it always does. 

In the end he says none of that. 

Buck just says, “Me too,” and presses his mouth to Eddie’s temple in what he meant as a kiss but turns more into a testament of cherishment and mourning, a supple and harsh slash of all the things he has ever chased in his life without abandon and never gotten to truly grasp. Until now.

Eddie shudders, his lashes brushing feather soft and wing quick against Buck’s skin, then he lets out a hum, the sound of it a little sad. “We wasted a lot of time. And I–well. I have never felt like that was something I’ve got to waste. But I did. With you.” He shakes his head, dislodging the flushed permanence of Buck’s mouth against his temple, and hums again, his hand closing around Buck’s side in a stabilizing grip as he burrows further into Buck’s neck. 

He thinks it makes Eddie feel safer. Being hidden right there for now. So, Buck holds him close and keeps him there. 

The thing is, Eddie isn’t exactly wrong, but he’s not exactly right either. At least, not to Buck. 

Buck has spent plenty of time imagining that things were different. 

He has replayed the first night they slept together so much that it’s more familiar to him than anything, almost worn out and faded like a photograph that’s been handled too often, its colors blending into something that hardly resembles the original. 

He has thought about what would have happened if he told Eddie everything then and there. Allowed himself to think Eddie would feel the same and still take him to bed. Indulged in daydreams that looked a lot like what his reality is right now. 

And, sure, maybe that would have been better. Maybe it would have worked just fine and these past five months they would have been a couple and not hurting themselves and each other. Not playing pretend but just living their truth. 

But there’s no guarantee of that and Buck doesn’t care to linger on what could have been. Not anymore. Not with Eddie. He’s ready to rest, to stop chasing, to remain firmly in place. 

And he knows the regret that must be nestling within Eddie’s breastbone now, because it lives in Buck too, and he knows how Eddie has always felt stretched thin and rushed and left behind and empty-handed. He knows Eddie hasn’t been given a lot of grace or time in his life, so maybe it feels like yet another thing has been stolen from him now that he knows what could have been. 

Buck doesn’t want that for him though. 

“I’m not so sure it’s wasted time,” Buck says carefully. He raises a knee, a little bit to stretch out the soreness building up in his leg but mostly so he can tap Eddie’s hip and cradle him a little bit closer. 

He feels the scrunch of Eddie’s brows against the side of his neck. “What do you mean?”

“Well–” he pauses, chewing on the words building up on top of his tongue, not exactly reluctant to give them voice but worried that they won’t come out right. In the end he just shoots straight for the heart of it, discarding the static pulse of anxiety that he’ll chase Eddie away. 

Eddie has always listened, and he’s always heard Buck. Maybe sometimes he hasn’t fully understood what Buck means or what he is doing, but that’s never stopped him from trying and it’s never pushed him away beyond Buck’s reach. 

“No time with you is ever wasted,” Buck admits, sweeping his palm along the arch of Eddie’s shoulders and tapping his knee against Eddie’s hip once more. 

A sharp, rattling inhale inflates Eddie’s lungs, pushing against Buck’s chest.

Buck decides to keep going, despite how Eddie’s reaction lodges in between his ribs, fierce and unraveling. “And it was nice, wasn’t it? I mean, we learned each other. Had a lot of fun. A lot of fun.” He has to smile and laugh with his repetition because it’s true, sex has never been more fun than it’s been with Eddie even with all the other shit hanging over him. 

Eddie laughs too, and it’s filled with more mirth than anything so Buck counts it as a win, especially when the end of that sound is accompanied by a smile that Eddie pushes into Buck’s skin before murmuring a soft yeah .

That alone gives Buck more confidence, so he says, “Sure there was–there was some pain. It wasn’t exactly great thinking I could never have more of you. But. Hurting with you is better than anything I could I have with anyone else, so–”

“Buck,” Eddie says, all hushed and torn. 

Eddie emerges from the crook of Buck’s neck, leaning up on an elbow and gazing down at Buck, the brown of his eyes so bare and rippling like dark velvet or the bed of a river, beautiful and soft and full of life. 

Buck just watches him, drowns himself in the depthless cavern of Eddie’s eyes, and something exquisite wraps around his heart when Eddie touches the pads of his fingers to Buck’s birthmark, drawing an invisible path from that splotchy color down to the side of Buck’s eye and then across his cheek, stopping at the corner of his mouth and tucking his thumb there like it’s a kiss. 

“I love you,” Eddie says with a darling, bashful smile, giddy enough that it takes Buck’s breath away.

Buck matches that smile with one of his own, grinning unrepentantly as he accepts those words and inserts the lovely blade of them directly into his chest. “I love you,” he promises back. 

Eddie’s hand lands on the curve of Buck’s throat, thumb stretching out to dip in the hollow and sparking a coil that seems to bring everything of Buck to life. The sparkle of Eddie’s eyes only heightens that sensation, making everything blurry and indescribably good as if he has just taken another hit. 

It’s easy to lean into the touch and tuck the rapid beat of his pulse into the heart of Eddie’s palm, the roar of his blood just from being in Eddie’s presence and experiencing Eddie’s touch almost sore and struck with a kind of sex-hazed drawl. 

Buck follows its call, tipping his chin up so their mouths can crash together.

It’s the gentlest crash Buck has ever experienced. Not dripping in blood or soaked in misery. Not existing at the tail end of a stupid decision or a desperation he can’t feed. 

The twist of their mouths is tender. Loving. Near surgery in its sweetness. 

Eddie’s mouth is ever yielding, settling them into a rhythm that matches the one pounding a vicious tattoo against Buck’s chest. Sacred in how peacefully and determinedly he kisses, as if he’s an acolyte who has devoted himself to learning this and only this. 

Buck keens at the taste of it, sucking in the heat of Eddie’s quiet gasp and the richness of his pliancy and the savory sweep of his tongue. 

And the kiss is more than the beautiful meeting and conversing of their mouths. It’s a language that involves the entirety of them. 

Eddie’s teeth a plea scraping across Buck’s cupid bow. Buck’s clutching fingers a confession against the vertebrae of Eddie’s spine. Eddie’s palm flush to Buck’s life, greed and appreciation and love. Buck’s knees tight around Eddie’s waist in supplication and joy.

Their chests, stuck together and warm, loud in declarations that may never fall past their teeth.

Their legs, tangled and shifting, hair brushing with a hushed rasp, Buck’s toes tucked against Eddie’s bony ankle, a soothing symphony of relaxation and contentment. 

Buck ends the kiss with a sigh, breaking away from the beautiful torment of Eddie’s mouth to breathe and settle and exist with knowledge that he can kiss Eddie again and again and again, as much as he likes, whenever he likes, because this is it, this is all that will ever be for the rest of his life and it’s the best thing Buck has ever known. 

“You’re very handsome like this,” Eddie says, the left corner of his mouth dipping into his cheek, a sort of wistfulness darkening his eyes as if Buck being handsome is both lovely and a huge problem. 

Something that’s not quite a breath and not quite a laugh floats out of Buck. He bites down on his bottom lip, restraining the stretch of bashful joy that threatens to break over his face. He’s not able to stop the prideful puffing of his chest though and Eddie notices, his eyes narrowing even as he smiles all dreamy like. 

Buck snickers and removes his fingers from the length of Eddie’s spine to thread them back through Eddie’s hair, grabbing a hold of him so he can bring Eddie down for one more kiss, a tiny thing, just a peck that says thanks and hey and I love you .

Eddie sprawls back over Buck’s chest once the kiss is over, snuffling a bit like a puppy trying to get comfortable, his nose dragging over Buck’s collarbone and his stomach flexing against Buck’s and his hips digging into Buck’s thighs. 

They stay like that for a while, riding the slow come down together, quiet and mostly still. 

It’s the most grounded Buck has felt in a while and he’s not so sure that the heavy solidness of himself in this moment won’t cause him to sink through the floor and straight into the earth’s core, but it’s not a terrifying thing because Eddie is on top of him, sweeping his palm up and down Buck’s side, heartbeat alive against Buck’s flesh, keeping Buck right here. 

The steady crawl of sleep starts to settle over Buck, muffling everything around him and folding him into the darkened colors of night. 

He’s not the most comfortable, what with the constant weight of Eddie and the come and sweat sticking to his skin and the crunch of his body on the couch, but he finds he doesn’t mind and is almost completely taken into unconsciousness, worn out from the duality of the vestiges of the drug seeping out of his system and the workout he’s just been through. 

But then Eddie ruins it. 

His nose noticeable wrinkles against Buck’s skin, a wrinkle Buck knows very well, a wrinkle that means Eddie is growing uncomfortable and irritated and feels gross, which is confirmed when Eddie grumbles under his breath before saying, “This is getting gross.”

Buck groans and scratches a few lines against the base of Eddie’s neck. “S’fine. Sleep.”

“No.”

“Eddie,” Buck whines.

“Buck,” Eddie whines back. 

Buck huffs out an exasperated breath that feels strong enough to crack bone and encourages Eddie to look at him with a yank on his hair. Eddie removes himself from Buck’s neck and looks up as Buck gazes down at him. 

“C’mon, Buck. We’re gonna get stuck to this couch if we aren’t careful. With all this drying sweat and come.” Eddie’s face twists in disgust and he sticks his tongue out while shuddering. 

“Wasn’t gross when you were sucking my dick,” Buck points out.

“That was in the throes of passion. Very different.”

Buck weakly nudges Eddie’s calf with his toes. “Oh really?”

“Really. And it’s not like it was coming out of you all dry and flaky, now was it?” Eddie raises his eyebrows haughtily. 

Buck frowns, brow furrowing in an almost painful line as he envisions that image. A disgusted shudder not unlike the one Eddie made earlier breaks over Buck’s body, cold and yucky because ew .

“Do you think that’s poss–”

“Let’s not.”

Buck giggles and makes a mental note to look into the different possible textures of semen later. “Alright. Get off me and help me up then.”

Eddie rises up quickly, probably a little too quickly, because he mumbles a low, “Whoa,” and blinks his eyes really fast while shaking his head, one hand bracing itself on Buck’s lower abdomen. 

“You good?” Buck asks, reaching down to trail his fingers over Eddie’s knuckles. 

“Yup. Yeah. Good,” Eddie assures with a cute little nod.

“Great. Then get up.”

“Oh, now look who’s eager to get off the couch.”

“Okay, let it go,” Buck says with a laugh that turns into a groan when Eddie grabs him by the hands and hauls him up. 

Cold air greets him when he’s on his feet, clinging to his damp body and sending a sharp shiver down his spine. Buck stumbles with it, his shins and knees bumping into Eddie’s as he curls himself into the heat of the other man. 

Eddie takes his weight with an exasperated sigh but the way he clings onto Buck and nuzzles his cheek tells him that Eddie doesn’t really mind all that much. 

Time goes wibbly wobbly and all too fuzzy after that. 

It’s not a crushing weight or painful concern. It passes them by with delicate slowness, intimate and soft like time belongs to them and only them. 

Together they lean on each other and stumble up the stairs, a feat that feels like it takes ages and also no time at all. Then Buck blinks and they are in the bathroom wiping each other off with washcloths, both of them a little unsteady and giggly because they keep pressing on the spots that are most ticklish. 

Then they are falling into bed still wearing nothing but their skin, burrowing under the covers and curling into each other, Eddie’s chest a warm, strong brace against Buck’s back, their tangled fingers resting over Buck’s heart that isn’t raging with fear or dread for what comes next. 

No, his heart is calm. Still wild, still bursting, still achey. But now it’s fully Eddie’s as much as it is Buck’s, maybe even more so. 

And maybe the first time Buck fell into bed with Eddie wasn’t exactly purposeful. Nor the second or third or any other time really. Each time feeling like a happy accident that they didn’t know how to cope with. Each time feeling like a rare gift meant for someone else. Each time feeling like the pain Buck used to chase for love. 

Now there is nothing but purpose here. Intention and promises and vows and love.

“Y’re helping me clean the couch tomorrow,” Buck mumbles into his pillow, tightening his grip on Eddie’s hand and tapping their wound together fingers against his chest three times. 

“Like hell,” Eddie mumbles back, punctuating his reply with a biting nip to the top of Buck’s spine.

Buck huffs and shoves his ass back against Eddie, making him jolt and rumble out a noise that sounds very similar to a growl. “We’ll discuss it in the morning, dear,” he says because he’s far too tired for anything else. He’ll convince Eddie easily enough, he’s sure, because Eddie has never left him alone with any kind of mess, no matter which of them made it.

“Hmphf,” Eddie breathes out, though there’s the edge of what feels like a smile poking into Buck’s shoulder blade. “In th’ mornin’,” Eddie eventually agrees, the lax softness of his mouth so very lovely and supple against Buck’s skin, his knees bumping pointedly into the backs of Buck’s. 

And there will be morning for them. And evening. And night. And so much time. All of it spanning in front of them, the reality of it beautifully visible to Buck as he blearily blinks one more time before closing his eyes and falling asleep with a smile and all his love on his mouth.