Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Ravi winces at the appearance of yet another unwanted dick pic, and hurries to swipe out of that thread before it can be seared any further into his mind.

“What’s up, Probie?”

Ravi looks up to find Buck’s attention no longer on the book in his hands, but focused instead on Ravi with a small frown between his eyebrows. It’s not the same expression that means Ravi has to find a place to hide or endure yet another lecture on the importance of proper tool storage—there hasn’t been one of those expressions since Ravi stopped being a probie, though that hasn’t stopped Buck from calling him that.

Ravi looks back down at his phone. The last five message threads on his screen all abruptly ended with either unwanted photos or incredulously awful come-ons. Ravi sighs. “Nothing much,” he says, to Buck, “just the perils of dating apps.”

Buck snorts. “I remember those days.” Buck nods his chin towards Ravi’s phone. “What is it? Awkward or horny?”

Ravi clears his throat. “The second one.” Rather than being put off—as Ravi probably would be in his situation—Buck offers a commiserating expression. Encouraged by this, Ravi adds, “Who even sends a dick pic before noon on a Wednesday?”

Buck winces in sympathy. “Yikes. That’s a choice.” He reaches out with one of his ridiculously long legs to tap the tip of his shoe into Ravi’s. “I feel you, though. That’s why I mostly met up with women in my Buck 1.0 days.”

Ravi still isn’t so clear on the different software updates of Buck, but he doesn’t have much space to get hung up on that because—“Only mostly?”

(And Ravi is not thinking about how he walked into the firehouse on his first day and dropped his textbooks all over the ground because he saw Buck with one leg bent, foot resting on a bench as if to prop up his already prominent ass, head thrown back in laughter at something Hen said so the long line of his throat was on display, the short sleeves of his uniform threatening to rip trying to hold in his biceps. Ravi is not thinking about how, as he pathetically gathered his textbooks, he forced that attraction into a box labeled straight co-worker, do not even think about it all before even learning Buck’s name. And Ravi especially isn’t thinking about how half the time Buck meant to intimidate him, Ravi’s dumbass brain took it very, very differently.)

Buck shrugs, unselfconscious and seemingly unaware of all the things Ravi decidedly isn’t thinking about. “Yeah. There were a handful of guys I didn’t have to block immediately.” He leans forward in his armchair to get a glimpse of Ravi’s phone screen and chuckles to himself as he settles back into the chair. “If you want less explicit photos, you might want to switch to a different app.”

Still somewhat dazed from this revelation and the reaction he’s definitely not having to it, Ravi unthinkingly says, “Other apps are for people looking for relationships.”

Buck’s eyebrows climb high on his forehead. “And you’re not?”

Internally, Ravi curses himself for mentioning it at work, but he isn’t ashamed of how he goes about his intimate relationships. He has a need and he addresses it. That’s all. “Not right now,” he says to Buck, shrugging. “With work and my friends and stuff I don’t really have time, and I’m not especially interested in a partner right now, I’m just ho—” He shuts his mouth with an audible sound, before the word horny can fully leave his lips.

Buck grins at him, slow and amused, hearing it anyway. “You’re just what, Probie?”

“This is harassment,” Ravi says, refusing to look at him. “I’ll tell HR.”

Buck laughs, shaking his head and holding up his free hand in a placating gesture. “Hey, there’s no judgement here. Sometimes you’ve got an itch.”

Ravi shifts in his spot on the couch. Talking about his sex life with Buck is not exactly how he’d envisioned this shift going. But, in for a penny. “An itch would be easier to get rid of.”

Buck laughs again, this one shorter, more surprised. Ravi can’t help but smile at having been the one to cause it. “This is a side of you I haven’t seen before, Probie.” He leans forward in his seat, grinning. “A little advice—no matter how bad it gets, don’t go stealing the ladder truck for hook-ups. It won’t end well.”

Ravi scrunches up his nose. “Why the hell would I do that?”

Buck shrugs, looking back at the cover of his book as if it’s suddenly become the most interesting thing in the world. “I don’t know,” and his cheeks are turning pink. “Just some friendly advice from your mentor.”

Mentor is a bit of a stretch, Ravi thinks but doesn’t voice. Instead, he leans closer to Buck, biting back his smile. “Did you do that?”

“What? No! I would never—that would be so—I—” Buck deflates after a moment. “It was a phase, okay?”

Ravi grins, enjoying the steadily deepening flush on Buck’s face. “Sounds like an interesting phase.”

“Yeah, well, if you want to hear more about it, you can ask Hen.” Buck huffs, pointedly lifting his book as if to end the conversation, but Ravi’s having fun, and they still haven’t gotten a call, so it’s not like there’s anything else to do.

“I’d rather hear it directly from the source.” At Buck’s continued reticence, Ravi tries, “So was it like, in the truck or on the ladder or—?”

Buck looks up abruptly, making a face. “On the ladder, what? How would that even— no. I used the ladder to get us onto the roof and we—” Buck stops as he takes in whatever triumphant expression is on Ravi’s face. He points a finger at Ravi. “I know what you’re doing.”

“And yet it’s working anyway.”

Buck huffs. “Those days are behind me, okay? I don’t do the casual hook-ups anymore, I’ve matured as a person.”

Ravi opens his mouth to tease Buck further, but pauses as he takes in how Buck’s shifting in his seat, how his flush has turned blotchy on his neck and his lips are pursed and tilted down in the corners. He takes a second, watching Buck, before saying carefully, “You know there’s nothing wrong with casual hook-ups, right?”

Buck blinks a few times. “What?”

Ravi doubles down. “As long as you’re being safe, and not hurting anyone, then there’s nothing wrong with casual sex.”

“I—” Buck pauses, mouth open, then wets his lips. “But isn’t it, like, disrespectful?”

Ravi squints. “To who?”

“The women, the—partners.”

Ravi raises his eyebrows. “If you met them on these kinds of apps—” He shakes his phone in example, even with the screen dark. “—then I’m sure they knew what they were getting into. They probably wanted the same thing as you did. I don’t see how that’s disrespectful.”

Buck blinks a few more times. “Huh.”

He looks so genuinely surprised at this revelation, and Ravi wonders how long he’s thought of his “Buck 1.0” phase as him just disrespecting all these people. Ravi reaches out and taps his foot against Buck’s ankle, smiling when Buck looks over at him. “You good?”

Buck nods, a bit stilted, but half-smiles back. “Yeah. Yeah, just—rethinking a few things.”

You and me both, Ravi bites back, his horny frustrated mind unhelpfully supplying images of Buck in a ladder truck in decidedly less gear than regulation would recommend.

Thus both occupied, their conversation ends naturally. Buck reopens his book, but doesn’t turn another page for a while, and after shaking himself out of his imagination, Ravi unlocks his phone again but forgoes the hook-up app in favor of a game of Words with Friends with his roommate. By the time their first call comes in, Ravi’s assumed that that conversation will be the end of this topic, and he continues to believe so until their next shift, when Ravi’s in the locker room buttoning up his shirt, and Buck bursts in, wide-eyed and already gesturing with his hands as he says, “Okay, but what are the rules?”

Ravi stares. “The rules for…?”

“Casual sex.”

Ravi continues to stare. It is 5:39 in the morning.

Buck keeps talking, unprompted. “I can’t just go back to Buck 1.0. Bobby will not give me a third chance if I steal the ladder truck again.”

Ravi really isn’t usually this slow, but his roommate broke the coffee maker over the weekend and there’d been too much traffic to stop at the coffee shop on the way and he can’t be expected to follow Buck’s disjointed train of thought without any caffeine before the sun’s even come up. “You don’t need to steal the ladder truck to have casual sex.”

Buck huffs, as if Ravi is intentionally missing the point. “Well, yeah, but who knows what Buck 1.0.2 would be capable of.”

Ravi shakes his head. “I really need the software updates to stop.”

“Probie, this is serious.”

Ravi doesn’t think he’ll ever understand A-shift. “Buck, there aren’t rules for casual sex. Be safe, be clear about your intentions. That’s all I can offer you.”

“But what if I fuck it up?”

Ravi almost says then you’ll have fucked something, but restrains himself just barely. He really needs some coffee. “You could bring a friend to try to keep you in line? So you don’t go full “Buck 1.0”?” He pauses buttoning up his shirt to do the air-quotes, they’re that important.

Buck’s eyes widen. “That’s a great idea. When are you free?”

Ravi’s no-coffee brain stutters momentarily. “Huh?”

Buck opens his phone, the familiar weekly shift scheduling email from Bobby pulled up on the screen. “Are you free after our Friday 12-hour?”

The only plans Ravi had in mind for Friday night were sitting on his couch, scrolling through dating apps and drunk tweeting his reactions to the French version of The Circle. “Yes?”

Buck grins, looking up from his phone. “Perfect. See you then, Probie.” Then he’s walking out of the room with a bounce in his step and Ravi’s slightly less sleep deprived brain just goes fuck.

This cannot possibly end well.

*~*~*

The address Buck sends him to isn’t as bad as Ravi had been imagining. It’s not quite a club, but there’s dancing and a bar and Ravi’s shoes don’t immediately stick to the floor, which, like. A win for him there. It isn’t hard to find Buck, since he’s huge and has the energy equivalent to a golden retriever puppy. He waves Ravi over to his spot at the bar and hands Ravi a drink as soon as he sits down.

“To casual sex!” he cheers, clinking their shot glasses together, and then downs his in one. Ravi has not had nearly enough alcohol to be this distracted by the way Buck’s throat works as he swallows. Better down his own shot, then.

“So what am I meant to do here?” Ravi asks, leaning in closer so he doesn’t have to yell over the noise of the bar.

Buck appears to be better prepared for Ravi’s job description now than he’d been the other day. “Keep me in line. No sex on the premises, so like—no bathrooms or coat closets. If it seems like I’m gonna, stop me.”

Ravi tries to imagine cutting in between Buck and some faceless, horny club-goer, and blanches. “I’ll do my best.”

“That’s all I can ask,” Buck says, and then orders them another set of shots.

Ravi’s half-expecting Buck to immediately abandon him in search of someone to sleep with, but as he slams the second empty shot glass back down onto the bar, he turns to Ravi and says, “How weird was that dolphin call?”

Ravi huffs, slightly dizzy from the two shots in the span of two minutes. “Really fucking weird.”

Buck grins. “Did you know that dolphins take care of the hurt members of their pod? Like, the young and healthy ones help out the old or injured or sick dolphins. Kind of like us.”

“I didn’t know that.” Ravi finds himself smiling.

Encouraged, Buck bounces slightly on his stool and continues, “Yeah, and they blow bubbles! They use it to help hunt.”

Ravi squints. “How does blowing bubbles help them hunt?”

“They use the bubbles to guide prey up towards the surface.”

Amused, Ravi sips from the glass of water Buck ordered along with their shots. “Where’d you learn so much about dolphins?”

“Chris and I went to the aquarium the other day and he got pretty into the dolphins, so we took out a book from the library on them. Then it was giant squids, then sharks. Did you know sharks don’t have bones?”

From that, Buck tells a story about a shark attack on the freeway, and moves on to discussing the amount of water needed to sustain creatures in aquariums, and the history of irrigation systems, which reminds Ravi of something his sister, Maya, told him after a project she had last semester, and that’s how he somehow ends up telling Buck all about the engineering program she’s in, bragging as only an older brother can. Buck sits wide-eyed and attentive as Ravi talks, as if he’s genuinely listening to every word, and asks questions when Ravi’s done like he actually wants to know the answers. And when Buck’s the one talking, he gestures wildly, spilling liquid over the lip of his glass, but he’s so energetic that Ravi couldn’t try to settle him even if he wanted to, and there’s something so easy about it all. Fun, in that Ravi never knows what Buck’s going to say next. Affirming, in that Buck seems just as interested in what Ravi has to say in return.

And then Buck makes eye contact with a hot redhead on the other side of the bar and stops halfway through a sentence.

Without breaking their eye contact, Buck asks, “Do you think it would be weird to sleep with another redhead so soon after breaking up with Taylor?”

Ravi shrugs, kind of bummed their conversation’s ending in favor of Buck’s hook-up mission, but this was what he signed up for. “Maybe if they looked more like her, but.” Ravi assesses the rather lumberjack looking red-headed man returning Buck’s gaze. “I think you’re safe here.”

Buck takes this as permission to go over and strike up a conversation. Ravi watches for a few minutes, a bit uncomfortable with having to stare to be honest, before a guy in a button-down sidles up next to him at the bar and offers to buy him a drink. He’s attractive enough, though he doesn’t really stick out, but Ravi lets him pay for a drink and they end up chatting. The guy’s nice, if kind of boring, and Ravi could maybe entertain the idea of taking him home anyway, until his eye gets drawn to the dance floor and he abruptly chokes on his drink.

Buck’s dancing. A better description would be, Buck’s grinding, firm and upsettingly well, up against the redhead from before. Ravi likes to think of himself as a person with good control over his reactions. He hooks up when he feels the need, no more or less. But right now? Alcohol and the way Buck’s currently moving his hips have combined to wreak havoc on Ravi’s control and now he can think of nothing except fitting his mouth to the space just below Buck’s Adam’s apple.

The guy Ravi had been talking to seems to see this, and politely but quickly moves on. Ravi would be more embarrassed if he had any thoughts to spare to shame, but as it is, he’s too focused on the sliver of skin peeking out between the hem of Buck’s shirt and the line of his jeans. Fuck. This is problematic, probably.

Ravi takes a minute to assess his feelings on this matter and decides, with some relief, that he has no romantic inclinations. Buck is—Buck. A good co-worker, a good man, but Ravi doesn’t want to, like, marry him or anything. Screw his brains out? Yeah, that’s definitely a thing Ravi would be into, and he’d enjoy talking about Buck’s ridiculous but well-articulated opinions on musical theater, but not holding his hand as they walk down the street. So this isn’t as much of a problem as it could be, but Ravi still wants to suck his self-appointed mentor’s dick and that’s—well, that’s kind of inconvenient, seeing as he’s currently got a lumberjack redhead volunteering to do it instead.

Ravi watches them dance, realizing it’s probably a bit creepy, but Buck asked him to keep him from hooking up on-site, so Ravi reasons he’s just doing his job. Which means he’s watching as the redhead turns to whisper something in Buck’s ear and Buck turns a rather charming shade of pink before shaking his head. The redhead laughs, smiles, and presses his lips to Buck’s cheek before inexplicably walking away, and Buck starts making his way back towards Ravi.

“What happened?” Ravi asks, when he gets within earshot. “It looked like you were getting along.”

“He asked me—” Buck coughs, pausing to raise his hand at the bartender for another drink as the flush migrates down his neck. “He asked me if I was down for a threesome with him and his boyfriend and I, uh. Didn’t think I should jump in that hard my first night back in the game.”

Ravi blinks away the mental images and forces himself to reach out and pat Buck’s shoulder. “That’s probably for the best.”

Buck sighs, thanking the bartender as he returns with Buck’s drink, and takes a sip, kind of sort of pouting. “Yeah. I guess that means I haven’t gone full Buck 1.0 yet. Buck 1.0 would’ve said yes in a second.”

That’s—okay that’s way too many mental images. Either Buck is too hot for his own good or it’s been too long since Ravi last hooked up with anyone. Probably both. Ravi grasps for something, anything else, to focus on. “You know, you refer to Buck 1.0 like he’s a totally separate person.”

Buck takes a larger sip of his drink. “I like to think of it like that. Like I’m not—him. Anymore.”

Ravi peers at him over the lip of his own glass. “What was he like?”

Buck takes an even larger sip and shrugs. “Reckless. Stubborn. Always looking for something to make him feel good. Looking for—” He cuts himself off, something distant in his expression.

Ravi knocks their drinks together. “What are some good things about him?” Buck blinks a few times before frowning. Ravi just nods, encouraging. “Come on, it couldn’t have been all bad.”

Buck sighs, deep. “He joined the fire academy?”

“So he wanted to help people.”

Buck nods, a bit begrudgingly. “Sure, but he also wanted to scale cliffs and run into burning buildings.”

Ravi grins, probably a bit too wide. “Don’t we all?”

Buck’s lips twitch towards a smile. “He liked Hen,” he allows. “Hen liked him. He made Bobby laugh, when he wasn’t giving Bobby a migraine.” His smile falters a little. “He teased Chimney.”

Ravi hurries to pull him back. “Sounds like Buck 1.0 was likeable.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I—he was.”

Ravi, a bit tipsy, daring, bumps their knees together. “You still are.”

Buck huffs, chin tilted down towards his chest so he can give Ravi a look from under his eyebrows. “Probie, I chased you with a chainsaw.”

Ravi smiles. “Out of care. Hen explained it to me.”

Buck mutters into his drink, “What does she know,” but his ears are pink when Ravi checks.

“Look.” Ravi puts his glass down on the bar, ducking his own chin to try and meet Buck’s eyes. “I’m not going to tell you how to think of your own life, but Buck 1.0 is as much you as any other part of you. All of life is about keeping the parts of yourself you like and figuring out what you want to change. I’d say you’re doing a pretty good job of it so far.”

Buck squints at him, drink paused halfway to his lips. “How’d you get so wise when you’re like 12?”

Ravi huffs, and remembers his mother’s tear stained cheeks as he told her that it would all be okay, that no matter what happened, he was grateful to have had her as his mom, had a family who loved him and good books to read and people to laugh with. He remembers her saying you are too wise for your age, Ravi. “I don’t know,” he tells Buck. “Probably all those girls’ magazines I stole from my sister.”

Buck smiles, and that soothes the ache in Ravi’s chest just enough to swallow down the rest of his drink. Buck watches him, his eyes darker than usual, but that’s just probably leftover from the dirty dancing. Buck finishes his own drink in another long sip and sits up straighter. “I think I’m done for the night,” he says. “Want to share an Uber home?”

Ravi stares for a moment, surprised. He’d been under the impression that Buck didn’t want to leave without a partner, but Ravi’s not going to complain about getting to stop sitting on this stool. “Sure,” he says to Buck, and doesn’t protest as he settles their tab—it’d been Buck’s idea to go out tonight, he can pay.

Buck orders them an Uber, and then wheedles Ravi into a game that involves counting up all the red cars they see on the drive back, and Ravi’s tipsy and smiling and he’s got Buck’s excited voice in his ear when they see three red cars in a row and it’s probably the most fun night out Ravi’s had in a while.

Maybe he doesn’t want it to end yet, and that’s why he invites Buck in for a nightcap before he goes back to his own place. Maybe Buck doesn’t want it to end yet either, and that’s why he accepts.

Ravi’s roommates are all out—it’s Friday night, after all—and he doesn’t have much to offer in the way of nightcaps, but there’s some leftover hard lemonade from their barbeque last week and Buck laughs but accepts one, and Ravi only realizes his mistake as he watches Buck’s lips fit around the mouth of the bottle. Ravi definitely shouldn’t have anything else to drink or he might just ask Buck to do the same thing to his dick.

Oh fuck. Ravi really wants to ask him to do the same thing to his dick.

“Roommates aren’t home?” Buck asks, gesturing around generally with his bottle.

Ravi shakes his head. “They’re out picking up, probably. Most people don’t quit by—” Ravi glances at the clock on the stove. “—11:30.”

Buck grins, too pink and plush, the mouth of the bottle held just a breath away from the inviting dip of his bottom lip. “You calling me old, Probie?”

“Why do you still call me that?” Ravi doesn’t mean to ask it, but he’s holding back so many other things that it manages to just slip out before he can catch it.

The flush returns to Buck’s cheeks and Ravi wants to lick it. He rubs at the back of his neck, sheepish. “Ah, I—well, honestly, I knew a guy I worked construction with once called Ravi,” and the way he says it—Ravi stands up straighter. Buck says it right, he saysRuh-vi and not the Rah-vi Ravi hadn’t felt sure enough to correct in the beginning, the Rah-vi it’s been too long to correct now. “So whenever I go to say your name, I start to say Ravi instead, so I just—kept up with the Probie so I wouldn’t say it wrong.”

“Buck.” Ravi wets his lips even though they’re not dry. “That’s—that’s how you say my name. I just—I guess I didn’t know how to correct people.”

Buck blinks a few times. “Oh. Oh, everyone would totally listen if you told them. I know I hate it when people don’t call me the right thing. I can talk to the house if you want, Ravi—?”

Ravi doesn’t let him finish. He swallows his name, his right name, right from Buck’s lips, and then groans when Buck’s tongue immediately presses back, eager and wet. Fuck, fuck, this is probably a bad idea, but Ravi’s got his fingers tangled in Buck’s belt loops and he wants nothing more than to sink to his knees right here in his shared kitchen, and keeping himself from doing that is using up all of his self-restraint at the moment.

Fuck it, Ravi thinks, as one of Buck’s hands slips under Ravi’s shirt. Ravi shivers, and ducks his head to fit his teeth to the Adam’s apple that’s been taunting him all night.

“Ravi,” Buck says, breathy, and Ravi groans into his neck. “This isn’t—I mean, this isn’t because I, like, know how to say your name, is it? Because—because I’m sure plenty of people—hnngh—do.”

Ravi groans again, pulling back far enough to look Buck in the face. “This is because you dance too well for a white boy and I really want to suck your dick.” Ravi swallows and adds, “Like. As a friend.”

Buck stares back at him with his big, round, dumb eyes for a handful of seconds before he nods, dazedly. “Like a friend. Sure. Okay. Works for me.”

Ravi exhales, and grins, and curls one hand around Buck’s wrist to tug him up to Ravi’s room. Yeah. This’ll probably be worth the fallout.

*~*~*

Ravi wakes up too warm and pleasantly achy. He shifts in place, toying with the idea of turning over and getting some more sleep—if his alarm hasn’t woken him up yet, that means he has more time—when, abruptly, the warmth along his side disappears. Ravi struggles against his drowsiness to open his eyes. He wakes up more fully at the sight of an entirely naked Buck standing beside his bed with saucer-wide eyes.

“Oh,” Ravi says, mostly to himself.

“Fuck. Fuck, I—sorry, oh my god, I’m so sorry, Ravi, I shouldn’t have—”

Ravi stops paying attention. Whatever time it is, it’s way too early for how quickly Buck is producing words and Ravi’s honestly a little distracted by the marks he left down Buck’s chest, and fuck, his thighs are thick and the dirty-blond hair on them dusts them so prettily. Ravi had his mouth there last night, he can see the imprints of his teeth high up the inside of Buck’s left thigh, and oh—it’s probably half the just-woke-up and half the not-giving-a-fuck that has Ravi rolling his hips into the mattress below him and humming pleasantly at the friction against his dick.

Buck stops producing words—thank fuck, Ravi was worrying he might wake up his roommates—and tilts his head, not unlike a dog. “Are you grinding against the bed right now?”

Ravi shrugs as best he can without disrupting the rhythm he’s got going. “You’re hot,” he gives in answer, and Buck opens his mouth to presumably say something, decides better of it, and then they decidedly don’t talk again for the next, roughly, thirty minutes.

Ravi’s not complaining. “You’re, like, really good at that,” he says, still a bit out of breath as he lays side by side with Buck in his bed.

Buck turns to him, a pleased grin on his lips. “Yeah?”

Ravi huffs at him, but he knows he’s smiling. “I would say you don’t need the ego boost but honestly, you kinda do.”

Buck’s smile falters, but he shrugs. “Yeah, probably.”

Ravi shakes his head, turning so he’s facing Buck on the bed. The lingering buzz of orgasm doesn’t help with the whole waking-up thing, but now that he’s been conscious for more than a minute, he can recognize that a conversation needs to be had, at the very least. He’s like mildly worried this will go terribly and he’ll have to switch stations, but given the aforementioned recent orgasm, Ravi’s got enough evidence for the opposite to not stress too hard about it.

“So, like. I want to make it clear. I don’t want to date you.” Whatever remnants were left of Buck’s smile disappear completely, and Ravi hurries to clarify, “Not because you aren’t, like, dateable. I enjoy your company a lot and I like being your friend. And if you don’t want to keep doing this, I’d still really like to keep being friends. But, I don’t like you romantically.” Ravi watches Buck’s face carefully as he says, “And I don’t think you like me romantically either.”

Buck deflates, but not with dejection. More like relief. “Yeah. Yeah, I—I don’t really.” He scratches at his chin. “I probably would’ve pretended I did if you did, though.”

Ravi frowns. “Buck, that’s—”

“Not fair to either us, a really fucked up reason to date someone, and honestly super condescending when you think about it?” Buck’s eyebrows lift, and then drop. “Yeah, I know.”

“That sounds like you’re quoting.” Buck shrugs, and Ravi decides to leave it for now. “Yeah, okay, so. Romance is off the table. Friendship very much remains on the table.” Buck nods firmly, and Ravi smiles, a bit relieved but mostly just pleased. “So what about sex?”

Buck blinks instead of responding, and Ravi explains further.

“I thoroughly enjoyed last night. And this morning. I would be down to continue doing this, if you are.”

Buck’s eyebrows scrunch together. “So, like. Actually platonic friends with benefits?”

“Yeah.”

“Huh.” Buck purses his bottom lip, considering. “I—yeah. That works for me.”

“Cool.”

They lie there quietly for a minute or so. Ravi mildly entertains the idea of going back to sleep for a bit, before Buck says, “So what are the rules?”

Ravi blinks heavily, trying to refocus on being conscious. “Rules?”

“Yeah, like.” Buck gestures vaguely. “If I were to go downstairs and make breakfast. Would that be okay?”

Ravi squints, his cheek pushing into the pillow. “How would that not be okay?”

Buck splays his hands out wide, nearly smacking one into the wall above the bed. “I don’t know! I’m—this is weird. I’ve never had casual sex with someone that, like, cared about me as a person.”

It’s too early for Ravi to unpack that, so he just closes his eyes again and says, “Breakfast is welcomed but not necessary. Any other rules you’d like to establish before I go back to sleep?”

There’s some shuffling as Buck presumably fidgets while he thinks, and Ravi lets himself drift, hovering between sleep and wakefulness and enjoying the warmth in his bed from another body, enjoying how easy it feels to do so. Ravi generally has a good time whenever he goes home with someone, but there’s something nice about knowing the person. He’s not wondering if he should leave, or if it’ll be awkward when he wakes up fully. Even with Buck mildly panicking beside him, Ravi knows that, come the morning proper, Buck will still be Buck—heart-of-gold, tries-so-hard-in-everything-he-does, really-unfairly-fucking-hot Buck.

When Buck finally does speak, Ravi doesn’t open his eyes. Buck’s quieter now than he was before. “Is it alright if we don’t—tell people?”

Ravi hums, questioning.

Buck clears his throat. “The team. Bobby and Hen and—Bobby and Hen.”

“Sure,” Ravi says, because he doesn’t like to talk about his sex life at work much anyway.

“Okay.” A few moments of just breathing. Ravi settles further into his pillow. “What about—exclusivity.”

Oh. Ravi opens his eyes to see Buck staring at the wall, hands twisted together in his lap. Ravi considers his answer carefully before speaking. “Honestly, if it’s between you and dating apps, I’ll happily choose you. So, as long as you’re available, I’m probably going to be pretty exclusively with you.”

Buck nods, but he continues to keep his eyes trained on the wall.

Ravi asks, “How do you feel about that?”

Buck snorts, and looks down at his hands. “You sound like my therapist.”

“Buck.”

Buck sighs. “I mean, yeah? I don’t—I don’t really care about going out and finding people to sleep with instead, so, same, I guess. But if—” A frown tugs at his lips, and even after Ravi gives him a moment, he still doesn’t continue.

Ravi tries for him. “I know you’re more interested in finding a relationship than I am,” he says. “So if you want to date people, I don’t mind. If it gets serious with someone, and you want us to stop hooking up, then that’s fine. You just have to tell me.”

Buck scrunches up his nose. “You talk about this like it’s all, just. Normal.”

“It is?” Buck huffs, and Ravi tries to gather enough of his remaining consciousness to explain further. “I just mean that, sex and dating, and especially sex and dating in LA, is already so goddamned weird. Sure, casual, platonic sex with your co-worker—”

“Mentor,” Buck interjects idly, and Ravi tamps down on his amused huff, ignoring the interruption.

“—probably isn’t the most common thing, but if it works for us, then who cares? I don’t have to deal with dating apps but I still get sex with a nice, hot guy.”

Buck grins, and it would be smug and showboat-y on anyone else, but on Buck, it’s just pleased. “You think I’m nice and hot?”

Ravi rolls his eyes and then buries his face in his pillow. “Shut up,” it comes out muffled. “You know you’re nice and hot.”

“You’re nice and hot, too,” Buck says, and he sounds so earnest about it that Ravi needs to hide his smile in the pillow.

“I’m going back to sleep now,” he says.

Buck pats at Ravi’s bare shoulder. Ravi almost laughs because it’s the same kind of thing Buck would do at work to praise Ravi for a job well done. The last thought Ravi has before letting his warm, comfy bed embrace him in sleep is, This is definitely going to be interesting.

*~*~*

The smell of melted butter and sweet, bready goodness brings Ravi back to consciousness. His stomach rumbles approvingly and, with the motivation of finding out the source of that enticing scent, he pulls himself out of his bed. Dressing quickly, he hurries down to the kitchen, only to freeze in the doorway at the sight that greets him.

Buck, wearing his undershirt from yesterday and a pair of Ravi’s sweatpants so tight on him it’s indecent, stands at the until-now mostly decorative stove of Ravi’s share-house, laughing at something while flipping pancakes with one hand, hardly even looking as he does it. He’s laughing, it seems, at something Ravi’s roommate Chez is saying, who’s sitting at the breakfast bar with a half-eaten plate of pancakes in front of him. Ravi’s other roommate, Ollie, sits at the dining room table with a woman Ravi’s never seen before, his shoulders tense and up next to his ears, but tucking into his own plate of pancakes with determination.

Chez spots Ravi first and cheers. “There he is! The winner of Friday night hook-ups!”

“Chez.” Ollie darts his eyes at the woman now wearing a rather peeved expression.

Chez returns Ollie’s indignation with wide-eyed innocence. “What? Ravi’s made pancakes.”

Buck coughs, his cheeks a nice shade of pink, and smiles sheepishly at Ravi. “Pancakes?” He holds out a plate and Ravi decides his dumb roommates can wait. He takes the plate gratefully, choosing to sit on the counter next to the stove rather than brave the breakfast bar or the dining table of awkwardness. Buck hands him some syrup—real maple syrup, the one Bobby sent Ravi home with when he learned with horror that they only had the cheap stuff. Ravi gratefully douses his plate before handing it back, and Buck manages to take it while in the process of scooping batter onto the griddle one-handed. The batter somehow resolves itself into a perfect pancake medallion, nearly identical in shape to the stack of finished ones Buck’s building on the other side of the stove.

A bit distracted by Buck’s competence, Ravi’s sorely unprepared to hold back an unabashed groan as he takes his first bite. Buck looks at him abruptly, surprised. Around the pancakes in his mouth, Ravi says, “What the fuck, these are better than Cap’s pancakes.”

Buck smiles, the flush on his cheeks reaching his ears. “Don’t tell him that. You know how seriously he takes his pancakes.”

“I won’t but, fuck.” Ravi hurries to get another bite, shaking his head in dazed disbelief. “How are these so good?”

Buck scratches at the back of his neck. “Chris likes pancakes, like. A lot. I’ve had a lot of practice to perfect the recipe.”

Ravi chews, almost halfway through his plate already. “I’ll have to thank him next time I see him then. These are fucking delicious.”

Buck grins, flipping another pancake. “You curse more when you’re off the clock.”

“Don’t you?” Ravi shoves another bite into his mouth, watches Buck shrug. He glances back over at the situation happening with his roommates—Ollie seems to be trying to placate the woman with little success and Chez is probably live-tweeting the whole thing, going by the way he’s snickering into his phone. Ravi nudges Buck’s thigh with his foot and nods his chin at the general situation. “Wha’s happened there?”

Buck glances over briefly before refocusing on his pancakes. “Kind of my fault? I saw the girl coming down the stairs and invited her in for pancakes. Then Ollie showed up and kind of made it clear he hadn’t been expecting her to still be here and Chez—” Buck cuts off, wincing, and Ravi finishes for him.

“Chez made it worse. Yeah.” Ravi sighs, reclining against the wall and spearing himself another forkful. “Sorry about them.”

Buck shrugs. “Kind of par for the course with 20-somethings.” He glances sideways at Ravi. “You’re honestly the only 20-something I know who has his life together.”

Ravi shrugs back and shoves more pancake into his mouth. “Had more time to practice,” he says. Buck raises his eyebrows, inquisitive, but at that moment Ravi’s third and final roommate, Marcus, bursts into the kitchen, soaking wet, wearing a blouse he decidedly didn’t own yesterday and no shoes to speak of. Ravi and Buck’s conversation ends in favor of hearing Marcus’ story about having sex on a golf course only to be woken unceremoniously upon the beginning of the sprinkler cycle.

Ravi’s grateful for the distraction, but also for the pancakes, and also for the way Buck’s ass looks in Ravi’s sweatpants. All in all, it’s a pretty good morning.

*~*~*

“Hey, Ravi.”

Ravi turns from his post at the sink, elbow deep in a pink pair of kitchen gloves. Buck stands at the breakfast bar with his palms flat against the counter, pressing his weight into them. Ravi quirks an eyebrow, inquiring, as he continues to scrub the plate in his hand without looking at it.

“Want some help?”

“Uh.” Ravi glances at the steadily growing pile of pots and pans cluttering the drying rack. He points at them awkwardly with his elbow. “If you could dry and put these away, that would be great.”

“Sure.” Buck snags a dish towel off the counter and joins Ravi at the sink, humming to himself as he starts wiping down the pots. Ravi knows Buck likes to do this—help others with their chores after he’s finished his own. Mostly Ravi knows this because he spent his probie year competing with Buck to do the same thing in his own quest for approval. Now, Ravi usually only helps out the others when they ask, but they haven’t had a call in a while, and if Buck wants to spend his free time making Ravi’s life easier, Ravi isn’t going to question it.

“Sorry, Buck, what did you just call him?”

They both turn back to the counter where Hen, who’s been sitting there reading out of a textbook since before Ravi started the dishes, has now paused her studying in favor of peering at them from behind her colorful glasses.

Buck’s forehead wrinkles. “His name?” he says, one eye scrunched up in a squint as he returns Hen’s confusion with some of his own.

Hen’s eyebrows lift higher. “Ravi?” She exaggerates the syllables, ruh-vi.

Buck’s expression slackens. “Oh, shit.”

Ravi’s cheeks warm as he clears his throat. “That’s—how you say my name. How I say it, I guess.”

Hen’s eyes widen, seeming even bigger with her glasses framing them. “We’ve been calling you the wrong name for a year and a half?”

Ravi really wishes he weren’t wearing giant rubber gloves that spray suds whenever he attempts to gesture. “Uh, sort of?” He winces. “When I got here, people just—assumed, and then it was too late to say anything and I, uh. Didn’t.”

Hen purses her lips for a moment. “That’s—I’m sorry.”

Ravi hurries to shake his head. “No, no, really, it’s—I get it a lot, since I grew up here. Lots of people in the US assume it’s rah-vi, I honestly respond to both at this point but—but yeah.” He takes a small, steadying breath. “My name’s Ravi.”

“Well then, Ravi.” Hen gives him the smile she gave him on his first day with A-shift. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

“Sorry, I, uh. Sorry it took this long.”

Hen shakes her head. “No sorrys needed. I’ll just use the right name from now on, how about that?”

“That would—that would be nice.” Ravi gives a tight smile and then tries again and it comes more naturally.

Hen returns it for a long moment before her expression goes teasing and she waves her hand at the sink, directing him back to his task. “Okay, Ravi, make those pots and pans sparkle so Cap can whip us up something good for dinner. Amino acid catabolism is kicking my ass and I deserve a treat.”

The next smile comes easier still. “Yes, ma’am.”

Hen returns her nose to her book and Ravi turns back to the sudsy sink awaiting him. Buck’s managed to put a nice dent in the pile of drying things, so it’s easier for Ravi to balance the next few items on the drying rack. Buck takes the next pan from Ravi’s hand to dry and as their arms brush, Buck says, “Sorry about that. Didn’t mean to force you into talking about it.”

Ravi huffs, his lips curling upwards unbidden. “Are you apologizing for calling me by my name?”

Buck squints at the half-dry pan in his hands as if it’s presented him a complicated algebra problem. “Yes?” He dries the pan further with large circular motions. “For doing it without thinking.” He pauses to put the now-dry pan away in its proper place. When he steps back next to Ravi, he says earnestly, “You should get to decide how people call you, and how to bring it up.”

Ravi takes his eyes off the food processor piece he’s currently sponging up to assess Buck, but he’s just got on that same intent expression he wears whenever he’s talking seriously about something.

“That’s right,” Ravi says, careful. “Thank you for saying that. But honestly, I’m kind of glad I didn’t have to bring it up, and knowing how this place works, I’m sure everyone will know by the end of shift and that’s a few less conversations for me to have. So. It’s alright.”

Buck takes a slow breath, his shoulders rising and falling with it, even as he continues to dry cookware. Ravi gets the impression there’s more going on than he’s aware of, but if Buck doesn’t want to bring it up, then he’s not going to push. Regardless of how A-shift seems to operate, that’s just not his thing.

Just to make sure Buck knows they’re alright, though, Ravi bumps their shoulders together, and a bit of the tension bleeds out of Buck’s posture. The conversation thus over, Buck takes to his drying task with relish, excelling in it so well that he quickly runs out of things to dry as Ravi takes extra time to scrub away the crusted-on leftovers from lunch.

Apparently, waiting for Ravi to hand him another pan gets too boring, though, because the next thing Ravi knows, Buck scoops up a bit of the suds from the sink and flicks them at Ravi’s ear. “What—hey.” Ravi tries to wipe his ear with his shoulder and is mostly ineffective. “This is—stop hazing me.”

“It’s only hazing if you’re a probie,” Buck says, all seriousness from before gone in favor of a twinkle-eyed grin. “This is just bullying.”

“Stop bullying me then—hey!” Ravi splutters at the large group of bubbles suddenly on his forehead, popping steadily and causing little warm rivulets of soapy water to slide down his face. “I’ll tell Cap you’re the reason he can’t cook dinner if you don’t stop.”

“Oh no,” Buck says, mocking, “don’t tell Cap on me.”

Ravi huffs, focusing determinedly on his second to last pot. “I think I preferred you chasing me around with a chainsaw to whatever this is.”

“This,” Buck says, his grin audible, “is fun,” and promptly deposits another helping of bubbles on top of Ravi’s head.

Ravi shakes his head to dislodge the bubbles and shoots Buck a glare. “Being lukewarm, wet, and sudsy is your idea of fun?”

Ravi can see the moment Buck thinks of the perfect, entirely not safe for work response from the bursting glee and immediate attempt at restraint in the slight bulging of his eyes and the way his teeth latch desperately onto his bottom lip. Ravi doesn’t know what comes over him, but he suddenly just has to throw the remaining suds in his hand right into Buck’s face.

Buck splutters immediately, but he’s laughing, pure joyful surprise masked almost entirely by a beard of bubbles. And then he starts hacking because—“Thoap on ma thongue, ugh, groth,” and Ravi just starts giggling. He’d like to say chuckling or laughing or literally any word other than giggling but that’s exactly what he does, the kind of delight that just bubbles in your chest and aches in the best way.

Distantly, he registers Hen walking away, muttering about children and study spaces, but Ravi’s giggling too hard to feel bad about it, because now Buck’s managed to clear away enough of the bubbles to leave himself a unibrow and a goatee and it’s something of a look, in Ravi’s opinion. Ravi thinks, if he was in love with Buck or had any inclination to be, this would be the sort of moment where he’d want to kiss him, taken by his joy and his sheer ridiculousness. As it stands, Ravi mostly just wants to shove more soap at him.

“See if I help you with chores again,” Buck says, when he’s wiped the last of the bubbles from his face and soap from his tongue. He says it darkly, but his smile betrays his glare, and he still stays to dry off the last of the pots when Ravi hands them to him, so he doesn’t think Buck’s too mad about it.

They only have a handful of calls for the rest of the shift, letting them actually sit down to eat the as-always delicious dinner Bobby whips up for them using the newly clean pots and pans. As they reach the latter half of their 24, most of them retire to the bunk room, Ravi included, before they’re pulled away to a call a little after four in the morning. It’s not much—a minor accident at a faulty traffic light exacerbated by sleepy driving, probably—and they’re back in the station by five-thirty. As soon as they pull in, Buck starts packing up to leave.

“Cap only lets you leave early because you’re his favorite,” Ravi complains, pulling supplies out of the storage closet to restock the ambulance as Buck hurries to change out of his uniform.

“I’m not his favorite,” Buck says, cheeks pink, because he’s ridiculously unaware. “And I scheduled this in advance, it’s not like I’m running out on my shift.” He fiddles with the button on his jeans before reaching for his shirt. “Christopher’s class has a beach trip today. I promised I’d join Eddie for breakfast and drop off.”

Ravi doesn’t know the full story there, but he’s heard enough less-than-fun facts about tsunamis and he’s aware enough of the news to make an educated guess. “Making pancakes?” he takes a guess.

“Yeah.” Buck grins to himself, buttoning up his shirt. “I’m pretty sure I can even convince Eddie to let me put chocolate chips in them.”

“That’s ‘cause you’re his favorite too,” Ravi says, muffled, as he reaches deep into the closet for another roll of gauze.

Buck looks over. “What?”

Ravi waves him off with the procured roll of gauze. “Nothing, ignore me and my pancake jealousy. Have a nice time.”

Buck closes his locker and bounces over to Ravi, clapping him on the shoulder. “Thanks, man. Have a good rest of shift.”

Ravi bids him goodbye, only a little bit stupidly jealous of a ten-year-old, and resolves to ask Buck to make him pancakes again the next time they have breakfast together. Thus satisfied, he takes his bag of stuff over to the ambulance so he can restock it. He blames the early hour and relative quiet for how, when Hen suddenly appears behind him and says, “So Buckaroo figured it out before the rest of us, huh?” he scatters the contents of a box of bandages like confetti. She laughs, holding her hands out placatingly. “Easy there. Didn’t mean to scare you.”

“It’s okay,” Ravi says weakly, staring sadly at the puddle of bandages on the floor around him. “It’ll keep me on my toes.” Hen continues to laugh at him with her eyes even as her mouth settles into an amused smile. He stares back at her for a few moments before her eyebrows lift, expectant. “What?”

Hen huffs a short laugh, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning against the side of the ambulance. “Buck. Your name. Figuring it out before the rest of us.”

Ravi blinks a few times in quick succession. “Oh. Uh, yeah. He said he worked construction with a Ravi once? So he already knew.”

Hen hums. “And when did you two discuss that?”

“We went out to a bar on Friday after our shift,” he says without thinking, and then absurdly feels like hiding behind the not-insignificantly sized box of bandages still in his hands at the responding gleam in Hen’s eye.

“Just you and Buckaroo?” she says, too knowing, and Ravi had thought they’d done a good job acting normally for their first shift together after last Friday. Okay, sure, maybe the soap fight was a bit much but Buck would’ve done the same thing with Hen or Eddie, if he were here. Fuck, it’s been too long since Hen spoke, she’s going to figure it out, she’s going to know, Ravi has to say something—

Ravi gives into the impulse and holds the box of bandages in front of his chest for protection. It hardly spans his sternum. “Yes,” he says weakly, and as Hen’s smile widens, he hurries to add, “Buck wanted a wingman.”

Hen’s smile stops growing. “You played wingman for Buck?”

Ravi nods.

Hen drops her arms from across her chest and stands up off the ambulance. “Buck’s dating again?”

“Not so much dating,” Ravi says without thinking.

Hen’s eyebrows furrow. “He’s doing the casual thing again?”

Ravi holds back his wince. Sort of? “I uh, I don’t—it’s not really my place. I—I shouldn’t have said anything.”

Hen frowns at nothing in particular and Ravi continues to clutch a mostly-empty box of bandages like a teddy bear. He thinks, ridiculously, of that giant stuffed bear his fifth-grade class sent him, the one that had been the same size as him. There’s a photo that his mother still keeps on the mantle of him and that bear squeezing into one hospital bed together. He wonders, idly, where the bear ended up. Probably in the attic—he doubts his mother would’ve thrown it away.

“You’re right,” Hen says, after a minute of silence. Ravi’s completely forgotten the last thing he said. Possibly seeing this, Hen says, “I shouldn’t be asking you about it. If I want to know, I should talk to Buck.”

Ravi nods. She still doesn’t move away after a handful of too-long seconds so Ravi shakes the now-slightly-dented mostly-empty box of bandages and gestures at the mess on the ground. “I’m gonna—”

“Yeah, yeah, of course.” Hen hesitates a moment. The creased expression on her face gives way to something softer. “I just wanted to say, that I think you’re good for him. I was worried about him after Eddie left, but having you around has kept his spirits up. So thanks.”

Ravi has no idea what to say to that. “Uh, you’re welcome?”

Hen smiles and squeezes his shoulder before walking away. Ravi watches her go. When she ducks into the bunk room, Ravi looks to the box of bandages as if it can explain to him what just happened.

Really, Ravi doesn’t think he’ll ever understand A-shift.

*~*~*

Ravi reluctantly emerges from Buck’s bathroom after half an hour to find a set of clothes waiting for him on the bed. They’re big on him, of course, but he pulls the drawstring of the pajama pants as tight as he can and settles the waistband halfway up his stomach so he doesn’t trip on the stupidly long legs and somehow he manages to make his way down to the kitchen without braining himself on something.

“I was starting to worry about you,” Buck says, turning just enough so Ravi can see his grin as he stirs something at the stove. “Spent so long in there, you’ll give a guy a complex.”

“Sounds like a you problem,” Ravi says, because he’s just had the best shower of his life and he can’t be fucked to say anything else.

Buck huffs a short laugh, turning to spoon something that smells like heaven onto two plates, one of which he pushes toward Ravi. Ravi collapses at the breakfast bar in front of it, groaning already. “You cannot have a magical shower and feed me something that didn’t come out of a box if you ever expect me to leave.”

“Yeah, no, I just got this place back to myself, thank you. No more roommates for me.” He pushes a set of utensils and a napkin towards Ravi, taking his own and moving over toward the couch.

Ravi follows, food and such in hand, and it’s probably half that he’s found the love of his life in Buck’s shower and half the leftover buzz from his recent orgasm, but he doesn’t think before saying, “Really? This place seems like it’d be lonely without anyone else around.”

Buck pauses, halfway to sitting on the couch, and tilts his head at Ravi. “What’s that mean?”

Ravi shrugs, sitting down beside him. “Your apartment’s kind of—cold?”

Buck jerks a thumb in the direction of the thermostat. “I can turn the heat up?”

“No, not like that, it’s just.” Ravi makes a face, looking around at Buck’s living room. The rich leathers and deep brown woods blend perfectly with the greys of the concrete and metal. It’s exactly what someone would picture when thinking of an industrial loft—right out of a magazine. The few markers of it actually being lived in—the food on the table, the video game controllers left out—are easily cleaned away to leave it perfect as intended. Ravi shrugs again, looking back at Buck. “It just kind of feels like a staged apartment rather than your apartment.”

Buck looks around at his place too. “Huh.”

Ravi winces. “I mean, it’s like, nice? Like, good job on the design choices and stuff.”

“I didn’t really choose any of it.” Buck looks back to Ravi. “My ex-girlfriend furnished it.”

“Taylor?”

Buck shakes his head. “Ali.”

Ravi’s never heard this name before. “Oh.”

“She wanted a nicer place for us to stay when she was in town,” Buck says, gesturing vaguely. “I’d been staying in Maddie’s guest room. It made sense.” He looks around at his apartment again, shrugging. “She had fun picking everything out and I—I liked making her happy.”

“How come you never got your own stuff?” After you broke up, Ravi doesn’t say.

“Ah, well.” Buck, for the first time during this conversation, appears genuinely uncomfortable, sitting up straighter on the couch. “I got hurt right after I moved in, and when I eventually did have time to think about home décor, it’d been so long.” He gets the look on his face that Ravi’s come to understand means there’s something Buck’s assuming he knows about Buck’s life that Ravi 100% does not know. “It just never seemed that important.”

Ravi isn’t entirely sure how to proceed with this. With any other casual sex partner, he wouldn’t even think of saying anything. But this is Buck, so he tries very carefully to put it into words. “It is important,” he says, and Buck looks back at him. “I mean, you’ve seen my bedroom.”

Buck nods, because he has. It’s filled with a motley of thrifted and cheaply bought furniture, and none of it’s exactly Ravi’s ideal taste, but that’s not the important part. Ravi’s landlord wouldn’t let him paint the walls, so instead he’s covered them with pictures of his parents and sister and extended family, put up stubs from concert tickets and random napkins from weird bars and buttons with colorful slogans on them he’s collected from nights out with friends. When he walks into his room, he feels settled, surrounded by reminders of the people he loves. From his seat on Buck’s couch now, Ravi can count exactly two personal items and they’re both pictures. The photobooth strip of Buck and Christopher stuck to the fridge with a colorful magnet and the small, framed photograph of a child-Buck with his bike that sits on the living room end table.

Ravi waits as Buck seems to make the comparison between their spaces and come to the same conclusion, the muscle in his jaw tensing. Just to drive it home, Ravi says, “If I didn’t know you lived here, I’d hardly be able to tell.”

Buck snorts, his gaze skittering away from Ravi. “If you hate my place so much, we can use yours instead.”

Ravi lets him have the joke and gives him a flat look in return. “My place, with the three starving 20-something-year-old roommates who would force you into the kitchen before we could ever reach my room? No, thank you.” Buck’s jaw remains clenched, but he smiles briefly. Gently, Ravi says, “I don’t hate your place. I just think it’s important to have somewhere you feel comfortable, and home.”

Buck goes silent for a handful of seconds, staring into nothing but somehow focused anyway. “I have that,” he says, and doesn’t offer any explanation, but he seems honest enough and Ravi knows when not to push. Buck clears his throat, grabbing for the remote and tossing it to Ravi, who nearly lets it smack him in the face before clumsily grabbing it out of the air. “Now, what were you saying about a comedy special?”

Ravi perks up, fiddling with the remote to get Netflix up on the screen. “It’s a stand-up show. There are four parts, and they’re all sort of connected? It’s cool, I think you’ll like it.”

“I don’t want anything that’s going to make me think too hard,” Buck says, and Ravi snorts to himself.

“I don’t think anyone’s ever accused you of that,” he says, and then chokes out a laugh when Buck pokes him in his side, ticklish. Ravi should’ve known he wouldn’t just conveniently forget Ravi’s soft spots the second they got out of bed. “I will leave if you tickle me again.”

“Spoilsport,” Buck says, his eyes bright, and Ravi huffs, ignoring him in favor of getting the show to start playing.

They eat as they watch, and Buck helps him clean up afterwards even though rules dictate that the cook shouldn’t have to help. Ravi ends up staying to finish the four-part special, and by then it’s so late that Buck tells him he might as well stay over. It should be weird to sleep over at his casual sex partner’s loft when their last shared orgasm was hours earlier, but Buck gets into bed beside him and slings an arm over Ravi’s waist, casual as anything. He’s warm and close and Ravi knows he’s going to start snoring like a monster as soon as he falls asleep, but there’s something to this whole cuddling thing.

It’s been a while since he’s had anything like this. He enjoys casual sex, enjoys the one-night-stands for how they take care of a need, but there is always that moment when he switches from being as close to another person as he can possibly be to being completely on his own. It’s harsh sometimes. This, with Buck, with the shower and the dinner and the watching a comedy special together on Buck’s couch, letting their laughter bowl them over, bumping shoulders and sharing smiles, and now just this simple closeness. There’s something to it, is all, and Ravi lets his eyes close with a pleased smile on his lips.

Only to completely change his mind as Buck shoves his ice-cold feet into Ravi’s calves. “What the fuck.”

Buck, somehow already half asleep, blearily says, “What?” before pressing his feet in harder.

Ravi scrambles to pull his legs away but can’t get the right leverage. “Oh my god, stop, how are your feet this cold, what the fuck.”

“Calm down,” Buck says, squeezing Ravi around the waist and further pinning him in place to attack him with his popsicle toes. “Being dramatic.”

“Dramatic ? Your feet must be dead, they’re that cold. It’s because of your fucking legs isn’t it? Of course it is, they’re a million miles long, no wonder the blood can’t reach them, shit—”

Buck grumbles sleepily, deep in his chest, and says, “If I suck your dick, will you shut up about my feet and go to sleep?”

Ravi stops ranting. He tilts his head, considering. “Yeah, alright.”

Buck ducks under the covers, his mouth—very hot in comparison to his ice cube feet—trailing down Ravi’s chest as he goes. Yeah, okay, there really is something to this cuddling thing.

*~*~*

Ravi’s bored on a random afternoon and sort of distantly horny, so he shoots Buck a text asking if Ravi can come over, only for Buck to respond, actually closer to u rn, mind if we do urs? Ravi debates for a moment—Marcus and Ollie are both home right now—but they’re both downstairs and Ravi can just put on some music to drown out whatever sounds he and Buck make. So he texts back sure and within twenty minutes, Buck’s standing on his front porch.

“Hey,” he says around a grin when Ravi opens the door, and the distant horniness drifts significantly closer.

“My roommates are home,” he says, in the name of transparency. “But the walls are thick enough that I think loud music should give us enough privacy.”

Buck shrugs. “As long as we’re not annoying anyone, I don’t really mind.”

Everyone thus properly informed, Ravi nods and turns to lead Buck to his bedroom, only to get stopped in the hallway on the way by Marcus yelling, “The pancake guy!” from the living room.

Ravi winces but Buck laughs good naturedly and lifts a hand in greeting. “Hey,” he says, “Marcus, right? And Ollie, sorry again about the whole—” he waves his hand, “—morning after thing.”

Ollie purses his lips, squinting at Buck as if he’s still mad. “If you want to make it up to me, you could make us lunch.”

Buck, for fuck’s sake, almost looks like he’s going to agree. Ravi cuts in to put a firm hand around Buck’s wrist and say, “I told you they’d try to use you for food.” He darts his eyes at his roommates. “If you want homemade food, call your moms. If you need me anytime in the next hour, no you don’t.” He then walks away, Buck in tow, ignoring the catcalls from Marcus and the complaints from Ollie until they are firmly behind Ravi’s bedroom door.

“That was kind of hot,” Buck says, as Ravi fiddles with his speakers to set up some random playlist on a decent volume.

Ravi glances over at him. “Only kind of?”

Buck grins, less in his usual puppy dog sort of way and more in like a someone-you-definitely-shouldn’t-take-home-to-meet-your-parents kind of way. Ravi’s horniness drifts ever closer. “Take-charge Ravi is new.”

The music settled, Ravi walks back over to Buck, still standing at his door. “How do we feel about take-charge Ravi?” he asks, assessing. He’s pretty sure he knows, but still. Communication and all that.

Buck’s eyes darken. “I’d say we feel pretty good about him.”

Ravi knows what he likes, generally. Up until now, it’s been mostly Buck using his big muscles and big shoulders and generally big everything to put Ravi where he likes and make him feel really fucking good, and Ravi has enjoyed the hell out of it. But there’s a budding want within him now that has him taking Buck by the hips and nudging him until he’s sitting on the end of Ravi’s bed. Buck just lets him, going where Ravi puts him and grinning up at him expectantly, and as Ravi settles into his lap, he can feel as Buck’s breath catches in his throat.

It takes a second for Buck to get with the program as Ravi kisses him, but only a second, and then Buck’s ridiculously large hands are pressed against Ravi’s lower back and his mouth moves eagerly against Ravi’s. Ravi settles further into his lap and discovers that Buck really does feel good about take-charge Ravi as he groans into Ravi’s mouth.

“I think,” Ravi says, parting their lips long enough to take in Buck’s dazed, pink-mouthed expression, “that I want to ride you.”

Buck nods jerkily. Ravi grins, proud of himself for getting Buck like this and also unbelievably turned on.

Really, Ravi doesn’t want to go making big declarations or anything, but sex with Buck may be the best he’s ever had. Buck’s just a bundle of people pleasing and desperation for approval wrapped in a hot firefighter package so, like, him being good at sex isn’t exactly surprising. (Okay, except for that one thing he does with his tongue, that had been plenty surprising and rather world-changing, to be honest.) But aside from the pleasure of it, it’s just fun being with Buck. Easy and good and really, if Ravi were at all going to fall in love with him, he’s sure he would’ve by now.

But, as they lay there, sweat drying on their skin and a pleasant, achy satisfaction simmering through Ravi’s body, Ravi knows he’s not in love with Buck. Mostly because, without the promise of impending orgasm, he’s got very little desire to lean over and kiss him. He knows Buck’s not in love with him either because Buck’s already on his fucking phone, which seriously?

Ravi squints. “Are you on Instagram right now?”

“Huh?” Buck glances over briefly before refocusing on his phone. “Oh, yeah, Eddie sent me a video of a cake Christopher wants to try to make.” He shows Ravi his screen, where a fairly good cake rendition of a creeper from Minecraft is on display. “He’s been getting better in the kitchen,” Buck says, pulling his phone back. “But I still think that’s gonna be a challenge.”

“Well, you’ll be there to help him,” Ravi says, smirking a little. He wonders if it’s bad form to tease your fuck buddy about their less-than-platonic life partner while you’re still naked in bed with them. But Buck brought Eddie up first, so. He figures it’s fair game.

“Course,” Buck says, completely unaware of Ravi’s teasing. Ravi sighs to himself before going off in search of something to clean them up with.

“You can stay if you want,” Ravi says, once there’s no longer cum drying on his stomach, “but my roommates are 100% going to try to get you to cook again.”

Buck laughs, pulling his jeans back on, and honestly, it’s enough of a look—Buck, shirtless, unbuttoned jeans, and blooming marks on his chest—that Ravi almost considers asking for round two, but then Buck says, “I’ve actually gotta get going. I’m doing some grocery shopping before heading over to Eddie’s for dinner, and I’m already cutting it kind of close.”

Ravi pauses, halfway to his hamper. “You’re going to Eddie’s right now?”

“Yeah.” Buck shrugs on his undershirt and turns, searching for his button-down. “He’s got some dish he got from Linda at dispatch and he wants me to try it.”

Ravi searches him for some hint of self-awareness and finds none, so he offers, “You want to borrow my shower, then?”

Buck snorts. “With the way you talk about my incredibly average shower? I think I’ll save myself the trauma, thanks.” He finds his shirt and pulls it on. “I’ll just shower at Eddie’s, I’ve already got stuff there.”

Ravi stares at him long enough that Buck notices—which is novel, considering Buck’s seemingly even more oblivious than Ravi previously thought—and asks, “What?”

Ravi shakes his head. It’s not his place to comment on whatever he perceives Buck and Eddie’s relationship to be. Ravi’s sure other people would have things to say about his and Buck’s relationship if they knew about the sex part, things that wouldn’t be accurate because they aren’t part of his and Buck’s relationship, so he bites his tongue. “Nothing,” he says. “Just—” because he has to ask, “—does Eddie know about—” Ravi gestures between them and the bed, “—this?”

“No?” Buck tilts his head, the whole puppy dog thing back in full force now that they’re firmly out of the sexual territory. “We agreed not to tell the team.”

Ravi very intentionally doesn’t point out that Eddie’s technically no longer on the team. “Yeah,” he says, “but you and Eddie are—” There are many words Ravi could use here, but he’s navigating this conversation carefully, so he ultimately just says, “—close.”

Buck doesn’t seem to know what to say to that, and seems to be working himself up over it, so Ravi gives him an out.

“I’m just saying, that if you wanted to tell him, I wouldn’t mind. It doesn’t bother me either way.”

“Oh. Okay. Cool.” Buck doesn’t say he doesn’t want to tell Eddie—he doesn’t need to say it for Ravi to be able to tell—but he nods. “Thanks.”

“Of course.” Ravi looks at him for a few moments longer. “I don’t want to keep you if you’ve gotta get going.”

Buck nods again, a little distracted. “Yeah, yeah, I—I should go. Thanks for—” He gestures at the bed, cheeks vaguely pink. “I’ll see you on Thursday.”

Ravi nods, accepts the hug Buck gives him, and walks Buck to the door on his way out. When the door closes, both Ollie and Marcus pop their heads out of the living room with twin expressions of disappointment. “He didn’t stay to cook?”

Ravi huffs at them. “No, and just because I’m sleeping with someone who knows how to use a stove doesn’t mean he’s here to feed you two.”

“You should lock that down so we can cut down on our takeout bills,” Marcus says. Ollie nods along seriously.

Ravi rolls his eyes. “I’m not going to “lock that down”. We’re just sleeping together.”

Marcus and Ollie’s eyebrows raise simultaneously. They share a look that they probably think appears very mature and communicative without words, but actually just looks like a series of increasingly dizzying eyebrow twitches.

Apparently they determined Ollie should be the one to ultimately speak after this little show, because they then turn to look back at Ravi as Ollie says, “You two seem pretty close for just sleeping together.”

“Yeah,” Marcus adds before Ravi can respond. “I don’t think we’ve ever seen you this, like. Chill before.”

Ravi wants to snark, you’ve also never seen me getting this much good sex on the regular, so, but he restrains himself. He also doesn’t just leave without responding, because he’s a well-mannered twenty-something that deals with his problems instead of avoiding them. That, and Ravi knows his gremlin roommates would take his leaving as victory, and he can’t have that. So he says, “Really, it’s just sex. We’re friends and we work together, but I don’t want to date him.”

Ollie and Marcus’ eyebrows set off again, and Ravi groans.

He tries to drive home the point with, “Seriously. I’m pretty sure he’s in love with someone anyway.”

“You think he’s what,” Ollie says, and almost simultaneously, Marcus’ eyes widen as he says, “Wait a minute, you’re co-workers—is he the Buck who chased you with a chainsaw?” Then, hearing one another’s words, they say in unison, “ What the fuck, Ravi,” and any hopes Ravi had of escaping to his room to shower disappear.

Ravi spends the next hour being interrogated, answering questions in between trying to count how many months are left on their lease. Ultimately, he reminds himself of how shitty the LA renting scene is, resigns himself to their endless questions, and reminds himself to never have Buck over to his place again.

*~*~*

Ravi shifts his weight from foot to foot, debating for a moment longer if he should just go home. But. Well. He’s already standing in front of Buck’s door. It’d be dumb to just go home now. He takes a breath and lifts his hand to knock.

There’s a distant, “Coming!” and some footsteps. Then the door opens, Buck’s standing there, and all the pent-up energy from shift surges under Ravi’s skin and he just really wants to push into Buck’s space and let himself stop thinking for a bit.

Buck blinks. As if reading Ravi’s thoughts, he holds up a hand between them to keep Ravi where he is. “Ravi, hey—I didn’t know you were stopping by.”

“I sent you a text,” Ravi says, suddenly unsure. “I—you didn’t respond, but I knew you weren’t on shift, so I thought I’d just. Stop by and see if you were available.”

Buck darts his eyes back into his apartment before stepping closer to Ravi and lowering his voice. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I just.” Ravi huffs a breath, sheepish. “We got a multiple alarm fire at the end of shift. There were no casualties or anything, nothing bad. I’m just a bit wired.”

“Oh,” Buck says, understanding, the tension in his shoulders dissipating. “I—” He winces, and Ravi knew it was a long shot anyway, but disappointment settles sourly at the bottom of his stomach. “I’m sorry. I’ve got Christopher for the afternoon, so I can’t—you know.”

“It’s alright.” Ravi can just go for a run or something until his body stops being so loud. That will get him tired and sweaty and settled the way he needs, it’s just—not the way he wanted it. But he knew when he didn’t get a response before driving over that there was a chance Buck would be busy. Ravi’s an adult, he can handle a little disappointment.

Buck seems less sure, though. He worries at his bottom lip which honestly isn’t helping Ravi’s whole stop-being-horny-right-now thing. He’s still staring at Buck’s mouth when he says, “You can still hang out with us, if you want?”

Ravi pauses, surprised. He thinks about it—thinks about going back to his house alone, about running until his legs ache, about the quiet that will inevitably greet him once he returns, exhausted—and finds himself saying, “Sure.”

Buck smiles, pleased, and lets Ravi in the door. There’s a half-unzipped backpack sitting on Buck’s dining table, paper and colored pencils spread around it. Plates from what was probably an afterschool snack sit by the sink, unwashed, and an extra pair of shoes that haven’t been tucked into the shoe rack properly are tossed on the floor by Ravi’s feet. Looking over to the living room, Christopher sits at the coffee table with a pile of Legos scattered in front of him. Two misshapen, indeterminate structures poke out from the chaos, one in front of Christopher, the other unattended.

Christopher grins brightly at Ravi. “Probie!”

Surprised, Ravi laughs.

“His name’s Ravi, bud,” Buck says, ruffling Christopher’s hair as he rounds the coffee table to sit down in front of the unattended structure.

“Hi, Ravi,” Christopher corrects himself. “Are you going to play with us, too?”

“If that’s okay with you.” Ravi steps toward the living room, hesitating at the edge of the rug. But Christopher just nods, pushing a handful of Legos in Ravi’s direction, so Ravi sits down at the table opposite Buck. Once he’s sitting, though, he doesn’t really know what to do with the colorful bricks in front of him. He didn’t play with Legos much growing up—too many pieces he could lose in trips to and from the hospital—and he’s not sure exactly how to start.

He watches Buck and Christopher for a minute, trying to discern a technique, but as far as Ravi can tell, they’re just sticking pieces together indiscriminately. Ravi looks to his own pile. Maybe he could try to make a building or structure he already knows? To give him direction? Ravi picks up a piece and tries his best.

It does not go well.

Really, Ravi shouldn’t have expected much. The reason he came here to begin with had been to get out his restless energy, and sitting on the floor sticking Legos together doesn’t really help him do that. It’s nice to be around people, and listening to Christopher talk about his day at school while Buck asks questions and makes Chris laugh isn’t the worst way to spend his time. But Ravi’s buzzing out of his skin. He can’t get the stupid little piece to fit together right, no matter how hard he tries the damn thing looks nothing like the Eiffel Tower, and with every piece he adds to it he hates it just a little bit more. Which is ridiculous because it’s plastic and Ravi shouldn’t be letting it get to him but for some reason this fucking Lego nothing is the bane of his goddamned existence right now and—

“Hey, Ravi, what’s your favorite color?”

Ravi looks up from his monument of shame to see Buck staring at him expectantly. “What?”

“Your favorite color,” Buck repeats. “What is it?”

“Mine’s yellow,” Christopher says, helpfully. “Buck’s is pink.”

“Oh.” Ravi doesn’t know why this simple question is throwing him so much. It’s ridiculous. It’s a question preschoolers ask one another, it shouldn’t be giving Ravi such pause. But he doesn’t remember the last time someone asked him what his favorite color was. Doesn’t remember the last time he thought about it. He likes lots of colors, likes soft blues and pale purples and all the different kinds of greens in the world—except maybe the green of those drinks they sell at Chez’s favorite bar, that green looks hazardous going in and out (thanks Chez for that knowledge). But the rest of the greens, the green of moss and the ocean on a sunny day and the canopy of forest leaves overhead on a hike, those are pretty good. “Green,” Ravi finally says, because Buck and Christopher are still both looking at him, waiting for an answer.

“Nice,” Buck says, as if he’s genuinely pleased with Ravi’s choice of favorite color. He then begins picking out all the different shades of green pieces scattered across the table, piling them up next to Ravi’s failed construction.

Ravi watches him. “What are you doing?”

“Whenever Chris and I get bored with our projects, we just put together all the pieces of one color and see what happens,” Buck explains, breaking pieces off his own sculpture to add to the growing green pile.

“It always looks really pretty,” Christopher says, nodding seriously.

Ravi must continue to stare in confusion for too long because Buck nudges his leg under the coffee table and nods at the pile of green Legos. “Get building, Probie.”

Ravi looks between the pile and his failed building for several long seconds before reaching for the pile.

He starts just putting them all together into a wall of variously colored green bricks, but at one point he accidentally adds one at a right angle and decides to just go with it. It still doesn’t look like much of anything, but Christopher was right—it is kind of pretty. The greens don’t all go together, and there’s no reason why he puts a piece in one place over another. But as he gets into it, Buck starts backseat building and saying, “Yeah, that one should go in the corner,” or, “No, not there, further right,” and gets Ravi to huff at him and say, “It’s my project, thank you.” Christopher giggles, and Ravi smiles at him, and it’s—

He can still feel the remnants of the shift under his skin, but he doesn’t feel the urge to run until he can’t feel his body anymore or pull Buck into bed until he can’t remember his own name. Not that he’d be opposed to the second still, but he doesn’t feel the need to do it anymore. This has focused him, and calmed him down a bit, and now he’s got a sort-of beautiful, incomprehensible Lego structure to show for it.

“Alright bud, I’m gonna start dinner,” Buck says, when the sun starts sinking lower in the sky. “You think you can supervise Ravi and clean up for me?”

“I can keep him in line,” Christopher says, and laughs at Ravi’s dramatized indignant squawk in response.  Buck walks off toward the kitchen and Ravi starts to take apart his creation only for Christopher to stop him, insisting, “You have to take a picture first!”

Ravi cracks a smile, giving in and pulling out his phone to dutifully snap a photo of his building. Only then does Christopher help him take apart the constructions, scooping all the pieces back into the big tub that Ravi’s only just noticed stays tucked into the corner of Buck’s living room at all times. Christopher puts something on Netflix after they’ve finished cleaning, so Ravi leaves him on the couch and settles into a seat at the counter to watch Buck cook. There’s a strange mix of emotions in his chest he doesn’t know how to articulate, or at least how to convey to Buck in a way Ravi thinks he’ll understand. But he wants to try anyway.

Buck finds his voice before Ravi does, though.  “I know this isn’t what you were looking for when you came over,” he says, quiet enough so that Christopher probably won’t hear it.

“It wasn’t,” Ravi says, because that’s true. “But it was still nice.”

“It’s usually how I deal with shifts like that.” Buck stirs the contents of the pot in front of him, leaning over the edge of it to watch it as he does. “I just go over to the Diaz’s. It works for me.”

“It’s a bit domestic for me,” Ravi says honestly, because he’s 24 and an afternoon with a ten-year-old is novel but not necessarily something he’s looking to do every day. “But it was fun to play. I didn’t do much of that as a kid.” Buck glances over, eyebrows raised in question, but Ravi doesn’t really want to go into it right now, so he just shakes his head. “It’s nice to have fun for the sake of it,” he says. “So thanks for that.”

Buck smiles, genuine. Then, starting to smirk, he says, “Eddie’s picking him up at eight, if you want to have more fun after that.”

Ravi huffs. “That was terrible.”

Buck points his spoon at Ravi. “But it worked.”

“Smug isn’t a good look on you,” Ravi says, but can’t smother his smile.

“I have it on good authority that everything’s a good look on me.” Buck swings his hips dramatically as he turns to grab a handful of chopped onions. Ravi laughs.

Dinner’s as delicious as always. Ravi offers to clean up while Buck and Christopher play a video game and joins them after the sink’s empty and the dishwasher’s running. He’s delighted to find out that he can thoroughly whoop Buck’s ass at most games, and Christopher’s amusement at Buck’s increasingly dramatic antics following his losses are just as rewarding. When the door finally opens, signaling Eddie’s arrival and Christopher’s departure, Ravi almost wishes they could stay like this a bit longer.

He remembers his sister having playdates as a kid, her and her friends running around the house together. He remembers her begging at the door please Mom just another five minutes, remembers wishing he could join them as he laid in bed with a book, too tired to try.

He’s a decade late, but Ravi thinks he got himself that playdate.

Buck gathers up Christopher’s backpack while Christopher himself plops down on the floor to pull on his shoes. “He did all his homework except for one question on math we couldn’t figure out,” Buck says, handing over the backpack. “He’s eaten, dinner and dessert, and he got an extra half hour of video games because Ravi’s too good at Mario Kart.”

Eddie’s eyebrows quirk upwards. “Ravi?”

Ravi emerges from the shadow of the living room and Eddie’s eyes jump to him. “Hey,” he greets.

“Hey.” Eddie frowns as he says it, turning back towards Buck like he’s looking for some kind of explanation.

Buck offers it. “Ravi had an intense shift and came over to wind down.”

“Oh,” Eddie says, like that’s given him more questions than answers.

“Anyway,” Buck changes the subject incredibly obviously. “We still on for Saturday?”

“Yeah, 2 o’clock. We’ll meet you there.” Eddie glances at Ravi again as Christopher stands up, shoes now on. “I’ll see you, Ravi.”

“See ya,” he says. “Bye Christopher. Thanks for letting me hang out with you and Buck today.”

“Bye, Probie,” Christopher says, giggling, and then hugs Buck goodbye.

The door closes behind them. Ravi waits a moment before saying, “That was weird, right?”

Buck winces. “Kind of?”

“Do you think—I mean, I’d understand if he doesn’t know me well enough to want me around Chris unattended yet?”

“No, no it’s not that. Eddie, he, uh.” Buck’s cheeks pink up. “He trusts my judgement about Chris. So I’m sure he’s fine with you being here.” He rubs at the back of his neck. “I think he’s just surprised we hang out, I guess.”

Ravi thinks jealous might be a better word, but he’s promised not to push Buck on this, so instead he just says, “So, about that fun you promised?”

Within the hour, any remaining restless energy has been thoroughly used up.

*~*~*

“You need to come home.”

Ravi huffs, maneuvering awkwardly out of his car with one hand, using the other to keep his phone pressed to his ear. “I told you, I can’t take time off right now. We’re understaffed and I just finished my probie year.”

“I don’t care,” Maya says while something whirs in the background. “ If I have to hear another word about how they’re going to be alone for the holidays, I’m going to disown myself.”

Ravi stops walking momentarily. “They said that?”

Maya huffs. “Not to you, obviously.”

“Maya.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. ” Something clangs worryingly. “ They’re just mad ‘cause I didn’t come home for spring break, but still. It’s not like I can ditch classes for a week to fly back to Washington.”

“I know that.” Ravi heads to the locker room, shouldering his way through the door. “But I can’t ditch work for a week when we’re already down two guys, either.”

“You’ve been down two guys for months.”

“Yeah, I know.” Ravi sighs. “I’ll talk to Mom and Dad.”

Maya scoffs. “And say what? They already hate your job, this’ll just make it worse.”

Ravi opens his locker, shoving his bag inside it. “They don’t hate my job.”

“Yes they do! Of course they don’t say a word of it to you, just complain to me like I have any say in whatever reckless fucking life decisions you make.” There’s another pointed clang.

“It’s not reckless,” he says, beginning the awkward process of changing while keeping a phone pressed against his ear. “And I’m sorry they’re bothering you about it.”

Maya sighs deeply. “Don’t be sorry, it’s not your fault. I just—” She stops there.

“I know,” Ravi says, and tries his best to sound sympathetic, not guilty. “I’ll talk to them,” he repeats. “You just focus on school.”

“I’m trying,” she says, but doesn’t add any pointed comments about their parents, so Ravi lets it slide. Another series of metallic clangs fill the line as Ravi struggles into his undershirt.

“Where are you right now? It’s so loud.”

“Machine shop. I have a project deadline tomorrow and nothing works like it should. Why am I trying to be an engineer again?”

“Because blood freaks you out and it’s either engineer or doctor?” Ravi quips.

“Or beat childhood cancer and then you can do whatever you want,” Maya quips back, and it doesn’t have the bite it might’ve a year ago, so Ravi manages a smile in response.

“It’ll be okay, kid.”

“One more year.”

“One more year,” he agrees. “I’ll text you after I talk to them. Let me know if you need anything, okay?”

“Will do. ” A clang. “ Stay safe.”

Ravi smiles more easily. “You, too.”

Hanging up makes it much easier to finish dressing himself. After putting his civilian clothes into his locker, he closes the door only to jump, finding Buck on the other side of it. “Fuck—Buck, what the hell.”

“You sounded stressed on the phone,” he says, because of course he’d managed to catch some of Ravi’s conversation despite Ravi not noticing him on the way in. “Who was that?”

Ravi takes a breath to calm his racing heart. “My sister, Maya.”

Buck’s forehead wrinkles. “The girl from the picture next to your bed?”

“Yeah.” Ravi debates how much information he wants to share. “My parents are bugging her about going home for Holi even though she’s in the middle of the semester.”

One of Buck’s eyebrows shoots up. “They’re not bugging you?”

“No.” Buck’s face does something complicated and sad, so Ravi clarifies, “They want me home, but they don’t—they don’t bug me about things.” He bypasses any follow-up questions Buck might have about that by continuing, “It’s not like I can go home either, with how understaffed we are. They have other family to celebrate with, and it’s not like Maya and I have any, like, religious connection to it or anything. Honestly.” Ravi moves towards the door, Buck following behind him. “I never really got to participate in all the events growing up anyway, so.”

Buck catches up to fall into step next to him. “Would you want to celebrate though? If you could.”

Ravi shrugs. “I mean, yeah? But it’s not like I know anyone here who celebrates.”

The bell rings then, interrupting whatever question Buck was going to ask next. They jog off to grab their gear and Ravi assumes that’s the end of it. Buck doesn’t bring it up during the rest of their shift, or when they meet up two days later at Buck’s apartment, or when they see each other during shift change after that. Ravi calls his parents and apologizes for not being able to come home, they tell him there’s nothing to apologize for, he mentions how busy Maya’s been recently in an effort to get them to stop bugging her about it, and Ravi thinks that’s the last he’ll have to think about Holi until next year.

Then he’s called in Saturday morning because someone from C-shift caught a bug and they need someone to fill in, but when he gets there, all of A- and B-shift are gathered in the parking lot. Not only that, but several of them are holding water guns or balloons, and large buckets filled with colorful powders are set up on fold-out tables along the edges of the parking lot. Ravi gets out of his car, shaking his head with confusion as he walks towards them all. Buck meets him halfway with a sheepish smile.

“Hey. I, uh, I know you said you weren’t really planning on celebrating, but. I thought you might want to anyway? I—I know there’s supposed to be a bonfire the night before, but that seemed more religious than you were interested in, and this part seemed like something we could all do together, and Bobby spent like, all night trying to make the food, so even if you don’t want to do the color stuff, you’ll at least get a meal out of it, and—”

Buck continues to ramble. Ravi realizes he’s close enough to a bucket of blue powder that he can reach over quickly enough to grab a handful and smear it down the side of Buck’s face, effectively cutting him off halfway through a sentence. Buck blinks, wide-eyed and shocked, and Ravi’s face hurts with how wide he’s smiling.

After an extended moment, Buck grins back. “Oh, so it’s like that?” Suddenly Ravi’s being sprayed with deep green water, completely ruining his shirt, but he can’t really care when the entire parking lot bursts into movement simultaneously.

Ravi never really got to do this part when they celebrated. Maybe when he was really little, but then he got sick, and either he was too tired to join or his parents worried too much to let him, and even as he got older, he never really just—let himself just enjoy it like this. Never just had fun with it the way Buck and the rest of the crew make him have fun now.

Hen appears intermittently, attacking all in sight with handfuls of purple and blue. At one point, Buck piggybacks Christopher over to pop a water balloon right onto Ravi’s head. Bobby and Athena both shoot Ravi down with their own water guns, Athena so accurate no one could escape unscathed, and Bobby just going for wide arcs to cover as much surface area as possible. Ravi gives as good as he gets, grabbing handfuls of powders and throwing balloons and even pilfering a water gun from someone on B-shift. If he targets Buck more directly, well, that’s just because he reacts the best to Ravi smearing dye across his face, laughing brightly and holding Ravi in place so he can return the favor, and Ravi—

Ravi’s chest hurts with all the laughter. He’s covered, head to toe, in a rainbow of dyes and powders, and he misses his family but he’s mostly just—grateful. Grateful that he’s alive to experience this. Grateful to have people to experience this with.

People are still throwing colors around when Bobby brings out the food. It’s not the same as Ravi’s mother’s homecooked Ghujiya, but it’s good anyway, and it’s better still for the proud smile he gets from Bobby as he praises it. “I was worried we were overstepping,” he says, heaping more onion Pakora onto Ravi’s plate. “But you celebrated Christmas with us, so I figured it was only fair to celebrate Holi with you. So thank you for letting us join you today.”

“Thank Buck.” Ravi looks over at where Buck is collapsed on the ground, letting the kids—Christopher, Harry, Denny—shoot him with water guns, laughing even as he feigns dramatic death. “He’s the one that organized it.”

“Oh, Buck was in his element with this.” When Ravi looks back at him, Bobby’s eyes are fixed firmly and fondly on Buck, too. He’s holding a mango lassi that he’d been sipping, but has seemingly forgotten. “Researching and getting supplies and gathering all the people he loves in one place.” Bobby’s eyes crinkle in the corners. “It’s been good for him.” His gaze drifts from Buck back onto Ravi, and Ravi’s touched that the degree of fondness in his expression doesn’t change. “You’ve been good for him.”

Emotional from the day, Ravi just says hoarsely, “He’s been good for me, too.”

“Yeah,” Bobby says, pulling his cup back to his lips. “He does that.”

Ravi’s always been slightly separate from A-shift’s codependent family stuff. Sort of voluntarily, really, but he has to admit, there’s something nice about how much they all care about each other. Care about him, he corrects, as he looks around at all the people who came in on their day off with their families to celebrate something they’ve probably barely heard anything about.

Ravi grew up with a good, loving family, and he wouldn’t trade them for anything. But all these people chose to love him, and the power in that—it has Ravi’s face aching with his joy.

They do all have to stop eventually, though. Ravi goes back to Buck’s apartment to clean up afterwards—well, first to make a mess of Buck’s sheets, and then clean up. As Buck showers, Ravi texts pictures of the morning to his family group chat. He stares at his own smile, half his face covered in green, the rest of it a mix of yellow and red. His sister reacts to the picture with a heart, tells him she’s glad he found a way to celebrate in LA. His parents tell him they miss him but are “happy to see him happy” and that—

There will always be the guilt. Ravi knows, logically, he couldn’t have done anything to keep himself from getting sick. He knows it was the cancer, not him, that caused the sadness to grow behind his parents’ eyes and never quite leave, even now. He knows it was the cancer that had his dad taking on a second job to cover the medical bills, the cancer that had his sister spending her afternoons in a hospital waiting room rather than out with the other kids, the cancer that made it so his mother still looks at him and pictures him small and sick in a hospital bed rather than the man, the firefighter, he’s become. But for the longest time, the cancer was a part of him, and the guilt of being the cause of all that—Ravi knows he’ll never get rid of it completely.

But he looks at his colorful smile, looks at his mother’s we’re happy to see you happy, and thinks, this is something the cancer couldn’t take from him. At least, it’s something he can take back. The silliness, the playfulness, the uncomplicated joy. He spent so long trying to put on a brave face for his parents, trying to be mature and wise beyond his years, that he never got the chance to just be a kid.

And Buck, while decidedly not a kid in a variety of ways Ravi knows very intimately, is probably the closest thing to a kid that Ravi’s got.

Buck tumbles out of the shower then with a towel around his waist and a bit of orange he somehow missed just below his ear. Ravi still isn’t in love with him, but maybe he doesn’t need to be, to get to have this.

“Okay, stop looking at me like that,” Buck says, huffing a laugh. “I can’t go again, I’ve got to be at the Diaz’s in like half an hour.”

“I can look at you without wanting to have sex with you,” Ravi says, even though he’d been a little bit thinking about sucking Buck’s dick as a means of conveying his gratitude over today.

Buck flexes, because he’s an asshole. “Sure, you can.”

Ravi throws a balled-up pair of socks at him. “Don’t be a tease.”

Buck laughs, turning to his dresser to pull out clothes of his own.

Ravi watches him dress, working himself up for what he’s about to say. He waits until Buck is fully clothed and turns back around before meeting his eyes and saying, “Thank you for today.”

Buck’s cheeks go pink. “It was no big—”

“It was.” Ravi maintains Buck’s gaze, trying to convey his sincerity. “It was a big deal. Thank you for doing it.”

Buck shifts on his feet, ducking his chin, but he doesn’t fight Ravi on it again. “Of course,” he says, to the floor, then looks up through his lashes. “You’re family.”

Ravi’s face is going to hurt tomorrow from all this smiling. Still, he can’t find it in himself to be mad about it.

*~*~*

The morning of the date Ravi’s pretended he’s stopped noticing, his parents send him an out-of-the-blue we love you text. Maya sends him a picture of the latest stage of her project—Ravi’s still not 100% sure what it is, but he congratulates her regardless—and tells him to have a nice day.

I know what you’re doing, he texts back.

So? she responds, and he hearts it.

With his phone already being out, it’s easy enough to switch over to his conversation with Buck and send, Can I come over after your shift later?

Ravi doesn’t have a shift today—he asked for one, but Bobby’s trying out the new recruits on A-shift today and he turned down Ravi’s offer to join them. So he spends the day working around the house. He and his roommates do their best, but they are four twenty-something-year-old men with jobs, so the housecleaning can fall by the wayside sometimes. Chez, who works from home, sends him looks when he catches Ravi with the vacuum out, but he doesn’t say anything out loud, and Ravi’s left to his cleaning in peace until Chez’s lunch break of ramen and an apple.

“No wonder you all beg Buck for food every time he comes over,” Ravi quips, in the middle of scrubbing the counters.

“Hey, I’ve got the apple.” Chez waves said apple around as if it proves his adulthood or something. Ravi rolls his eyes and moves over to the sink to ignore Chez in favor of rinsing out his rag. Chez, unfortunately, follows him. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” Ravi squeezes the rag tight to get out all the excess water. “I’m fine.”

“Okay,” Chez says skeptically. “I’m only asking cause, like. Ever since you started fucking that Buck guy you haven’t been—” Chez waves his hand at Ravi’s general person. “—like this.”

And that’s—well, that’s a remarkable awareness of someone other than himself, at least for Chez. Ravi’s almost proud. “Really,” he says, and looks up from his rag in the hopes of seeming more genuine, “I’m alright. Today’s just—not a great day for me.”

Chez makes a face and very reluctantly offers, “Want to talk about it?”

“Definitely not.”

“Thank God.”

The timer dings for Chez’s ramen and he leaves Ravi to his cleaning in peace. Ravi finishes in the kitchen and moves to the living room, then the bathrooms, and almost contemplates doing yard work when his eyes catch on the clock. A-shift should be just about done. He goes to retrieve his phone, left in his room at the start of the day, and finds a message from Buck waiting for him.

gimme like hlf an hour and then sure. Ravi showers off the day of choring before driving over to Buck’s apartment.

Ravi’s only halfway through the door before he’s pressing his mouth to Buck’s, and Buck somehow, miraculously, seems to know exactly what Ravi needs, because he closes the door by pushing Ravi into it. Ravi shoves his hands up under Buck’s shirt, one going around Buck’s hip to pull him closer, the other feeling up his abs. Buck hums into Ravi’s mouth and slots one of his giant thighs between Ravi’s leg. Ravi groans, rutting up against it.

“Down here or upstairs?” Buck asks, voice low and rumbly, and Ravi has to kiss him again before answering.

“Upstairs.”

Buck steers them towards the stairs. They leave their clothes in a trail behind them. Buck must get fed up with how careful they have to be, kissing up the staircase, because they only get three steps up before he’s picking Ravi up completely and carrying him up to bed. Ravi wishes he could say he doesn’t find it hot—if only because if Buck knew exactly how hot Ravi finds it, he would be insufferable about it—but today especially, Ravi just needs to be put out of his head, and Buck using his ridiculous arms to physically carry him up the stairs is exactly his chosen method of doing so.

Buck deposits Ravi onto his bed and tugs off his own shirt before settling down over him. “How do you want to do this?” he asks, mouth pressed against the underside of Ravi’s jaw.

Ravi tugs at Buck’s sweatpants. “Make me stop thinking for a while.”

Buck pulls back—which is the opposite of what Ravi said—far enough to see Ravi’s face. “You okay?”

Ravi swallows and nods. “Yeah. Yeah, just—wanna stop thinking for a bit.”

Buck hesitates a moment longer, before he leans back in and makes Ravi do just that.

Afterwards, lying sweaty and sated and more settled than he’s been all day, Ravi’s eyes slip closed without his knowledge. The next thing he knows, he’s being shaken gently awake and there’s a sweet, bready, buttery scent filling his nose.

Ravi opens his eyes to find Buck squatting next to the bed, a tray with a plate of pancakes on it balanced in one hand. “Hey,” he says quietly. “Made you some pancakes, if you want them.”

Ravi huffs and hopes it conveys his how is that even a question of if without so many words. He sits up, letting Buck settle the tray over his lap, and notices the little dish of cut-up strawberries and the bottle of maple syrup also sitting on the tray. Buck disappears before Ravi can say anything, but returns a minute later with his own plate, though no tray. They eat quietly, but Ravi doesn’t mind, and Buck must not either.

Ravi thinks about it, while he eats. He knows if he doesn’t explain, Buck won’t push. He’ll let Ravi help him clean up from the pancakes, maybe invite him to watch something or stay the night, and he’ll let Ravi pretend like this is like any other time they’ve gotten together, because it is, for the most part. But Ravi thinks about how it’d felt when he told Hen, sitting outside the smoldering hospital with Rupert heavy on his heart. Remembers how it felt when she’d put her hand on his shoulder and said I guess that’s why you do it, too and just understood him, in a way his parents, even his sister, never could.

Ravi pushes the tray off his lap and lies back against the pillows, staring up at Buck’s off-white ceiling. “Today’s my anniversary,” he says.

Beside him, Buck audibly swallows a mouthful of pancakes to ask, “Anniversary of what?”

Ravi remembers his mom’s tear-stained face, Nurse Penny’s encouraging smile, as Ravi stepped up to the bell he’d stared at for a year. He remembers the feeling of the rope against his hand, how loud the ringing had been in his ears, remembers thinking, I actually get to live now.

That had been the first time.

The last time, his mom still cried, Nurse Anji was the one who smiled at him, and Ravi only thought, I’ll be back again within the year.

For years, he hadn’t believed he’d make it to adulthood. Now he’s 24 years old, with a job he loves, a supportive network of people behind him, eight years in remission, and he’s sad for the kid who didn’t get to be a kid. The kid who spent years without thinking he could ever have something like this.

Ravi lies in a bed with a man he’s not in love with but loves anyway, and who loves him in return, and he doesn’t know how to explain his gratitude without explaining the rest of it, so he does.

“The anniversary of the day I started living again.”

Ravi turns to look at Buck then. Going by the scrunched-up nose, he has no idea what Ravi’s talking about, which—fair.

So he starts at the beginning. “When I was eight years old, my leg started hurting really bad. My mom thought I fractured it at soccer or something, so she took me to the doctor.”

Buck puts his plate down on the tray. “It wasn’t a fracture.”

Ravi shakes his head. “Osteosarcoma. Stage two. We did the chemo, and the surgery, then more chemo. I went into remission, and we thought—that was it.” He takes a slow breath, in, then out. “About a year later, my knee swelled up and we went back to the doctor and—relapse.”

Buck watches him carefully, something unbearably heavy in his eyes. Ravi didn’t tell Buck to upset him, and he hurries to explain, to get through the story so he can tell him why he’s even bringing it up.

“I went into remission two more times, and relapsed two more times, until eight years ago today.” He takes another steadying breath. “I was sick for a long time, and I didn’t—I don’t think I ever realized how much I lost by not getting to be a kid. Even after I went into remission the last time, I spent years waiting for the next one and—and I think I still do sometimes, but—” Ravi shakes his head. “I’m telling you this because, Buck. These last few months, I have had more fun than I think I’ve let myself have since I was eight years old and you—you’re a really big part of that.”

The heaviness in Buck’s eyes dissipates some as they go round and wide. “Me?”

Ravi huffs. “Yes, you.” He nudges Buck’s shin with his foot. “Don’t go getting a big head about it, though.”

“Me?” Buck says, hoarse. “I would never.”

There’s something he isn’t saying—there usually is, with Buck—but Ravi lets it go. Because today, he’s eight years cancer free and he’s got a family that loves him and a team he’d walk through fire with and friend who knows how to get Ravi out of his own head long enough to enjoy himself and it’s good. It’s good, and he’s grateful to be alive, and that’s all that matters.

*~*~*

Ravi knows, logically, that rope rescues are dangerous and must be performed with the utmost care for safety and precision. But it’s really hard to remember that when all the civilians are safely back on solid ground and it’s just him and Buck sharing a grin as they’re pulled back up, too.

“Try not to grin too obviously,” Hen tells him, as he steps back onto the horizontal part of the cliff. “It’s bad form.”

“I’m not grinning,” Ravi says, unclipping his harness. “And, anyway, everyone’s safe and no one’s hurt. I can be grinning because of that.”

Hen huffs, smiling. “Yeah, but you’re not.”

“Hen’s just jealous because she never gets to do rope rescues,” Buck chimes in, joining them now that he’s unclipped from his own harness.

“Jealous I don’t get to dangle from a cliff with only a little bit of rope holding me up?” Hen shakes her head, gesturing dismissively with both hands. “Mhmm, no thank you. I’ll leave that to you boys.”

Buck throws an arm around Hen’s shoulders, leaning in closer when she side-eyes him. “I saw you at our last rock-climbing party. I know you like it.”

“Rock climbing at an indoor gym is not the same as hanging from the side of a cliff.” Bobby reappears from where he’d been communicating with the officer on scene and Hen waves at him. “Cap! Cap, come over here and get this thrill-seeker to stop trying to infect me with his crazy.”

Buck squawks indignantly and refuses to release Hen out of spite. Ravi follows them back to the truck, letting their bickering wash over him with a smile. He doesn’t get to work with A-shift as often anymore since Bobby brought in Lucy and Jonah, but with Lucy out today, Ravi got to fill in, and honestly, he’s missed them. Something Ravi a year ago never would’ve thought possible.

Hen tells Buck about her and her wife’s newest foster kids on the way back to the station, sharing photos that Buck coos over and Ravi dutifully responds, “They’re adorable,” to. Ravi talks about the local theater troupe he’s thinking of trying out for—“I always wanted to try in middle school, but—well. It’s never too late.” Bobby invites them all to yet another barbeque at the Grant-Nash household next weekend. Then they pull back into the station and just like that, their shift is up.

Ravi looks over to Buck, lifting his eyebrows. Buck shrugs, feigning disinterest, and Ravi rolls his eyes. Buck grins, proud of himself, so Ravi makes a mental note to make him work for it later as revenge. He forgoes showering, knowing he’ll just need another one in an hour, and changes quickly into his civvies. He follows Buck back to the loft, parking beside his Jeep, trailing him into the building, and bouncing lightly on his feet as they wait in the elevator.

“Rope rescues really get you going, huh,” Buck teases, so Ravi pokes him in the side and leaves him gasping, ticklish, in the elevator as the doors open. “That was mean, Ravi,” he says when he catches up, pulling out his keys to let them in the door.

“Was it?” Ravi responds idly, tracing the line of Buck’s shoulders with his eyes. “I guess I’ll have to make it up to you.”

When Buck glances over his shoulder at that, his eyes are more pupil than iris. Ravi quirks his mouth into a smirk, and Buck opens the door a bit quicker. They manage to get inside and get the door closed before Buck pushes into his space, trailing wet kisses down Ravi’s throat until his teeth catch on a particularly sensitive patch of skin and Ravi’s breath catches. He grips at Buck’s shoulder with one hand, tangles the other in his hair.

“Thought I—hnn—was making it up to you,” he says, only a little embarrassed about how breathy his voice is.

“You are,” Buck rumbles into Ravi’s neck. “You know how much I like making you feel good.”

“Fucking—” Sharp inhale as Buck tugs his shirt out of the way to work at Ravi’s collarbone. “—people pleaser.”

Buck laughs, warm and wet, into Ravi’s skin. “You complaining?”

Ravi digs his fingers into Buck’s shoulder. “No.”

Buck presses closer, providing glorious friction against Ravi’s rapidly hardening dick. He rolls his hips into Buck and Buck hums, pleased, moving as far down as Ravi’s likely soon-to-rip shirt collar will let him.

“I like this shirt,” Ravi says in warning as Buck tugs at it even further.

Buck huffs, but dutifully pulls back and releases his hold on Ravi’s shirt. “Guess I should change locations then,” he says, and drops to his knees.

Ravi curses, his head dropping back to rest on the wall behind him even as he keeps his eyes on the picture Buck makes on his knees. Dark eyes, too-pink lips, hair all rumpled, mouth hanging open, wet and hungry. Fuck. Ravi pushes his hand back into Buck’s hair and pulls just a little. Buck’s eyes close and he smothers a sound in his throat, pushing closer until his nose bumps the zipper of Ravi’s jeans.

Something clatters to the floor. Ravi and Buck both look over to see Eddie standing next to Buck’s decidedly open front door, his keys a pile on the ground beside him.

Buck, his mouth still inches away from Ravi’s dick, just says, “Oh shit.”