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Buck is humming to himself lazily while cooking when he feels a warm presence behind him.
A smile shows itself on his face.
"Hey."
"Hey, baby." Eddie says from behind him. His arms come around Buck's torso to hold him tightly. Eddie takes a moment to inhale the scent of Buck's hair, nose trailing across the back of his neck. "You smell so good."
"I missed you."
Buck wants to turn around to properly greet Eddie but his clingy boyfriend is holding him so tightly that Buck has no choice but to grin and let himself be held.
It is a date night at Buck's loft where Buck had offered to cook for Eddie. He hadn't noticed Eddie use his keys to come in because he was singing loudly to himself, until Eddie wrapped Buck in his arms.
Buck wants to move in with Eddie, he really does but there are two reasons he hasn't yet- a) they have started dating a mere few months ago and Buck doesn't want to push too far, be too much and b) they can childless get time to themselves in this loft and sometimes when they haven't seen each other the whole day, the rush of meeting again is a different kind of high.
Buck finally manages to wiggle himself out of Eddie's hold enough to turn around. "I missed you too."
He pecks Eddie's nose, licks the dust of blush on his cheeks.
"What are you cooking?" Eddie rests his arms on Buck's shoulders and clasps his hands together behind Buck's neck, essentially boxing him within his arms.
Suddenly- suddenly- Buck feels safe even though he is at his loft and there is no danger around, there never was, but Eddie is here, his boyfriend is here and Buck is- somebody's got him.
"Your favourite. Tiramisu." Buck's got Eddie too.
"You didn't have to baby. I know it's a lot of work."
"It's not. Not when it comes to you."
And for the first time that day, Eddie kisses him and Buck realizes just how much he has missed this because they kissed last night and there has been about eighteen hours in between- or was it twenty two?- Buck isn't good at maths anymore. Which doesn't matter because Eddie loves him anyway, loves him to the core, loves him by the way he's kissing Buck like he missed him just as much too, which is always a surprise, a gift-
"I can hear you thinking." Eddie pulls back a little and Buck has to swallow the whine his throat was about to betray him with. Eddie, the ever gentle Eddie, takes Buck's long fingers in his and twists them together until they fit perfectly in the crooks and crevices of each other. "Come back to me."
"It was nothing, I promise." He presses his lips to their joint hands and Eddie's are so soft despite the callouses and the knuckles where skin had once eroded off years ago due to Eddie's anger. Buck would have kissed them then too, if allowed. "Just thinking about -"
"Hm?" Eddie slowly rubs Buck's back, encouraging him on and the feeling is back.
Safety.
"Thinking about how much I missed you."
"I missed you too, mi amor." Gentle kisses on Buck's cheek. "So, so much."
If Buck's loft was a safe place for a kid with CP to live, Buck would have asked. He would have. But it's Eddie's house that is safe, for Buck too, and Buck cannot. just invite himself in- Can I move in?- and Eddie would say yes to make Buck happy, but he might be miserable later, or Chris might be and Buck cannot, he cannot- not again.
"Baby." Eddie kisses the corner of Buck's mouth. "Something on your mind?"
Buck puts on his most reassuring smile, hoping it's the one time his boyfriend doesn't read him. "That you have distracted me long enough from making dinner."
Eddie lets out a dramatic sigh but lets go of Buck. He is cooking his favourite dessert after all and Buck knows how much of a sweet tooth Eddie is. "You need help anywhere, baby?"
"Nope." He turns Eddie around and lightly shoves him towards one of his kitchen chairs. With a slap to his ass, he says, "You just sit there and look pretty."
He can feel Eddie pouting as Buck gets back to work. Buck doesn't feel bad about it because he will kiss the pout off his boyfriend's sweet face after dinner is done.
There are about ten minutes in which Buck gets to cook peacefully before he feels Eddie's breath ghost across the back of his neck again.
"Do you know how perfect you are?"
He finds himself locked into Eddie's arms, his back pulled back against his boyfriend's firm chest.
"Eddie, baby, I need to finish this-"
"I know you do, mi amor. This is why you're so perfect. Making me what I love, to make me happy." Eddie hums across Buck's skin. Before getting together, Buck never thought that he would find someone more clingy than himself but Eddie continues to surprise him with how much he craves touching Buck all the time.
So he lets Eddie cling on to him like a koala and doesn't stop his cooking to turn around this time.
"I love making you happy."
"My perfect housewife."
Buck doesn't know if Eddie meant to say that word out loud, but judging by the way they both freeze as soon as those words are out in the air, Eddie is as surprised as Buck.
"Buck I'm sorry I didn't mean it that way-"
"So you don't think I'm a perfect housewife?" Buck asks, nudging a gentle elbow in Eddie's ribs.
He doesn't turn around but he can sense Eddie's eyes getting darker with the way his voice drops an octane. "You want to be my wife?"
"Maybe I love- Eddie!" He squeaks as Eddie bites Buck's neck. Not a hickey, not a nip, he literally bites Buck's neck.
"You were saying something?" Eddie acts innocent like he didn't just break Buck's skin with his teeth.
"Maybe I love cooking for you too much."
"Jesus, do you know how good you look in this apron? Do you know how much I love walking into your loft and finding you in this apron with your cute brows all scrunched together and your tongue darting out of your lips because you're concentrating too hard on cooking? Do you know how- how domestic you feel?"
Buck doesn't know if it's a kink thing for Eddie or if he's just rambling about anything but he's saying things that Buck has been yearning to hear for years. He has always been parts to people - a bunch of cells for his parents, a good fuck for his partners, a good firefighter for his job- but Eddie is. He's telling Buck that he is domestic- someone to keep around- and he will tell that to Buck even if he wasn't cooking Eddie's favorite thing, but-
It isn't Buck's house and he doesn't know if it's just a kink thing for Eddie, so he cannot ask to move in, he can just wait in his loft in his silly little aprons and wait for Eddie to love him.
"Dinner is done." He announces instead.
"It can wait. Let me stay here a little longer." Eddie's nose is smushed against Buck's neck and every part of his body is pressed against Buck's. "You look so good in this apron, baby."
Buck wants to turn into liquid goo so he and Eddie can fuse together cell to cell.
"Baby." He is not ashamed to admit that his voice comes out as a whimper. "Baby."
"Marry me."
This time the silence that follows is louder. A certain stiffness enters Eddie's body and before Buck can stop him, Eddie's warmth is gone.
Buck turns around to find Eddie's eyes widened with fear and his fists clenched together, probably digging the nails in his flesh.
"What?"
"I didn't- I- it just came out, Buck I didn't mean to-"
"So you don't want to marry me, Diaz?"
Eddie takes a step back or maybe it is forward, Buck is too busy tracking the emotions behind those brown eyes to notice his footsteps.
"That's not what I said, Buckley."
"So you do want to marry me?"
"I don't want you to feel like we are rushing things."
"That doesn't answer my question baby." Buck asks, smirking a little.
"You look too good in that apron." Eddie blurts out suddenly. "It's not my fault."
"So you decided to actually wife me up?"
"Wife, husband, anything. As long as it's you." Eddie's voice is suddenly confident so Buck should have seen it coming when he drops down to one knee.
"Eddie, baby, you don't have to-"
"Sh." Eddie shushes him. He takes Buck's hand in his and puts the other behind his back: the posture of a perfect gentleman. "I know I don't have a ring right now but Evan Buckley, would you do me the honor of becoming my wife and husband?"
There are a lot of things unconventional about this proposal so neither of them is surprised when Buck starts laughing. "You're a dork."
"I'm on one knee for you, Buckley. I need an answer."
"There's a problem though." Eddie's face falls as soon as Buck says it, and Buck can see that he is expecting a rejection, so he quickly says, "I'm gonna have to move in with you if we get married."
"I thought that was obvious." Eddie says, confused.
"Ask me that first, dumbass."
"As you say, princess." Eddie rolls his eyes, and Buck almost drops to his own knees at the term. "Will you move in with me and my son, Evan, so I can marry you?"
This, okay, things weren't supposed to be emotional. They were joking around, right? This has to be a joke where Eddie will laugh later and tell Buck, 'hey you weren't serious man, right?' but Buck's throat is full anyways and is voice is heavy when he asks, "Are you- You don't have to Eddie, if it- if it feels too soon."
"Buck baby, you can say no and we can pretend this never happened and go back to being what we were. But I want this- I have wanted this the moment we got together and nothing feels too soon for you. If you wanna keep this loft a little longer, I will understand and if you never wanna marry, I would understand that too because I love you and I don't need a piece of paper from the government to prove that."
"Oh Eddie." It's a prayer that falls out of Buck's lips and then he's on the ground too, pulling Eddie's face in the cup of his hands and kissing his tears away. "Sweetheart, of course I want this. I want to move in with you and Chris and be a family and I want our last names merged together. The only reason I didn't ask to move in before was because I didn't want to invite myself into your home."
"Oh now you're a guest?" Eddie says because Buck has never been a guest at the Diaz home. He's smiling and Buck's smiling and then they're kissing. Kissing harder and messier than they ever have.
"Yes yes yes." Buck says in between their kisses. "Yes to everything, baby. Yes."
"I love you." Eddie says.
"I love you too. And now I get to cook for you every day. Be your perfect wife."
Buck is mostly joking but Eddie says, "You're perfect no matter what. Even when you'll feel lazy and not in the mood to cook." He teases.
"As long as you don't get to cook-"
Eddie shuts him up again with a kiss. They stay on the floor making out, until Buck remembers dinner. Untangling himself from Eddie is the most difficult thing he had to do but he somehow manages that while pulling Eddie to his feet too.
As they set the table and are finally sitting down to eat, Buck moves to take off his apron, but Eddie stops him with long fingers on his arm. "Keep it on. Please." He adds, a little shy.
Buck just laughs and tightens the knot of his apron. He has a feeling he's not taking it off the rest of the night.