Work Text:
Here’s how it starts: Buck is on his elbows and knees, open-mouthed and panting, Eddie’s hand between his shoulder blades keeping him pressed down, every thrust shoving Buck deeper face first into the mattress, and Eddie says: “God, you get so fucking wet for me, huh baby.”
It doesn’t really register to Buck. People have said all kinds of things to him during sex, and he’ll go along with pretty much any of it, he’s not here to rain on anyone’s parade. Except that Eddie pauses for a second, his other hand slipping across Buck’s sweaty hip, and he says, “Uh. Sorry.”
“For what?” says Buck, except the duvet cover is in his mouth, so it comes out more like fwuh?
“What?” says Eddie.
Buck spits out the duvet cover.
“Huh?” he says.
It’s only the third time they’ve had penetrative sex. The first time Eddie kept stopping and starting like he was buffering, and Buck had said you know we really don’t have to- and Eddie had said no, no, I want to, except he said it very quickly. But Buck had just figured--well, he’d been nervous too, that first time with Tommy, and he gets it, it’s a milestone or whatever. It can feel like a big deal, Gay Sex with a capital G. So the fact that Eddie kept acting like he thought his dick might spontaneously sever Buck’s mesenteric artery if he didn’t move with the delicate wonder of a butterfly beating its wings was understandable.
The second time was better, except it was the middle of the night in Eddie’s bedroom with the door locked and Chris asleep down the hall, which is to say it was pitch-black and mostly silent. But it had still been good enough, better than good enough, with Eddie’s hand on Buck stripping him fast and slick, and his tongue in Buck’s mouth keeping him quiet. Even if Buck kind of would have preferred to be able to see him.
But hey, this time, Chris is having dinner at a friend’s house, the lights are on, and Eddie’s has the angle just right that makes Buck feel like he’s riding a downed transformer, crackling white fire building in waves inside him--or at least until Eddie stops moving.
“Everything okay?” Buck says, kind of craning under his own armpit to look at an upside-down sliver of Eddie’s face.
“What?” Eddie says again. “Yeah, of course, just-“
His hand slides up onto the back of Buck’s neck, broad and gentle and firm, and Buck melts into it, because he always melts into everything Eddie ever does. Eddie could sneeze and Buck would turn into a warm gooey pile of affection. Eddie starts moving again, a little faster, and he says: Just wanna watch you take it until there are noises pulled out of the back of Buck’s throat on every thrust, until he’s saying Oh God Eddie, and Eddie says, yeah, I know, I got you, I got you.
-
There’s just one problem. And it’s not even really a problem per se, just something Buck has noticed, which is that Eddie is kind of... weird about it all.
Not bad weird. Just like. Okay, after every blowjob, Eddie says “thank you.” It was cute the first time. But by the third time, it’s sort of like, what’s Buck supposed to say? You’re welcome? No problemo? He’s not--he’s not taking out the trash or something, sucking Eddie’s dick is probably like, one of his top ten activities, so the way Eddie gets all awkwardly sincere about it is--well Buck doesn’t know what it is, but he doesn’t like it.
Or like how Eddie doesn’t seem to actually enjoy being touched all that much. Well, he does in some obvious capacities. But then sometimes in bed Buck will pause and try to brush Eddie’s hair out of his face, or play with his nipples, or just even take a second to look at Eddie, because he thinks Eddie is so fucking beautiful, it actually makes him stupidly emotional sometimes in the middle of sex, that Eddie is so close and Eddie wants him and Buck can feel that Eddie wants him and Eddie is right there all warm and present and he makes this one specific face where he bites his lip and Buck is always astounded that he gets to have him, he actually gets to have him. But Buck only ever gets to look at or touch Eddie for maybe 3 seconds before Eddie’s crawling his way down Buck’s body, or flipping him over, and saying let me take care of you baby, and what, Buck’s going to say no to that?
Come to think of it. Eddie bites his lip a lot. There’s quiet in bed, and then there’s quiet. Buck just assumed that, well, Eddie’s entire adult sexual life has occurred with his son asleep in another room, so it makes sense that he would be quiet. And Eddie talks plenty, given the opportunity. But he doesn’t make anything anyone would consider a sex noise, Buck considers it a victory if he can work a single grunt out of him. Eddie is dead silent every time he comes, breathing through his teeth, and again. That’s not a problem, that’s just how some people are. But Buck isn’t sure--it just kind of seems like maybe...
But it’s fine. They have been through so much shit together, truly so much shit, they have watched each other literally die, it doesn’t get more intimate than that. So what, Eddie’s weird silent lip-biting orgasm face is really that big a deal? Eddie just gets in his head sometimes, that’s all. And it’s Buck’s job to get him out of it. So if Eddie is holding back a little, if he isn’t really letting loose, Buck just needs to try a little harder.
-
Most of the time, Buck floats around on a cloud because of the fact that Eddie lets him touch him. Not just sex, which is its own religious experience, but like. Buck gets to bury his face in Eddie’s neck when they’re watching a movie, and Buck gets to give him a smacking kiss hello if they’ve been apart for longer than 20 minutes, and Buck gets to hold his hand, oh my god, he gets to hold Eddie’s hand.
Buck prides himself on knowing Eddie’s body well. From the back of his knuckles to the soles of his feet, it’s all something Buck has carefully cataloged, filed away in his mind under ‘Eddie’s left pinkie finger’ and ‘Eddie’s spine, subsection thoracic’. So when Eddie pulls his shoulder at the gym, Buck is of course the resident in-house expert. Buck stops him from icing it, because it’s just going to make his whole side lock up.
“Let me give you a massage,” Buck says.
Eddie kind of laughs it off, and then winces, because Eddie is the noblest of martyrs. Buck doesn’t know a lot about Catholicism but he thinks you could probably make one of those big religious paintings of Eddie shot through with arrows finding salvation through suffering or whatever. But Buck is Episcopalian, which mostly consists of potato salad recipes, so he says Eddie in that soft wheedling voice of his, the one Eddie can never say no to, and he gets Eddie to lie down on the bed with his shirt off, and he gets to work.
He’s had partners tell him he should be a professional masseuse before. Buck thinks that’s doing a disservice to the massage therapists of the world, who train very hard for their qualifications, but usually nobody wants to hear about the podcast Buck listened to about the history of reflexology, particularly when they’re half-naked covered in massage oil. Eddie does, though. He says it into his shoulder, his face turned away from Buck: “I like hearing you talk.”
Buck blushes, and there’s a big stupid balloon in his chest, because nobody has ever said that before, and certainly no one has said it quite like that, all simple and matter-of-fact. So Buck talks, and he moves his hands, finding where the tight knots of muscle are around Eddie’s shoulder blade and working them with his thumbs, and eventually Eddie makes this noise. This kind of quiet breathy sound into the pillow, and Buck takes that as confirmation that he’s doing something right, so he keeps going, working at his trapezius, by that point of course Buck is straddling him for appropriate leverage, and Eddie’s hips kind of twitch down into the bed when Buck starts working at his lats. And Buck kind of bites back a smile, and runs a gentle hand down Eddie’s spine, and says, “does that feel good?”
And Eddie’s face is still turned away from him, but his voice is low and ragged when he says yeah, and so Buck does it again, leans forward to press a kiss to the back of Eddie’s neck, graze with his teeth at the edge of Eddie’s shoulder as he starts working at Eddie’s lower spine, and Buck is pretty sure it actually takes both of them by surprise when he presses his knuckles into the divots above Eddie’s sacrum and Eddie hisses, breathing out through his teeth, and his hips jerk and spasm and grind down into the mattress, and then he goes very still.
Buck kisses his shoulder blades, and the shell of his ear, before getting up to go get Eddie a warm washcloth, and then to hopefully tell Eddie that he is the best most amazing thing that has ever happened to Buck in Buck’s life, if Eddie isn’t sick of hearing it, except when he comes back into the room Eddie is sitting at the edge of the bed looking kind of wild-eyed.
“Sorry,” Eddie says.
Buck regards him in puzzlement.
“For what?” he says, frowning.
“Well," Eddie says. “It’s.”
Buck is still trying to figure out what exactly Eddie is apologizing for, so he just kind of squints at Eddie, but Eddie is already scuttling backwards out of the room into the bathroom.
“Do you need a hand in the shower?” Buck says. “If your rotator cuff is messed up-"
“It’s fine,” Eddie says, awkwardly loudly, and then the door slams shut. And Buck frowns at it for a while, but the shower runs and the door does not reopen, so Buck goes to put the sheets in the washing machine, and then he gets distracted trying to match a bunch of socks in the laundry room, and by the time he comes out Eddie is crunching on a bowl of cereal in the kitchen and acting totally normal. So Buck steals a spoonful on the way to Eddie’s mouth, and Eddie snorts at him, and it’s all perfectly back to normal.
-
So here’s the thing, and Buck knows it’s kind of stupid:
He’s never actually--they’ve never actually just talked about it. And that is distinctly out of character for Buck. That’s pretty much the first thing Buck does with any new partner, sit down and go through the do’s and don’ts, the yeses and the nos and then everything in between. He just thought.
He just thought.
Buck knows Eddie. Buck knows Eddie down to his molecules or atoms or whatever. He knows Eddie’s favorite kind of donut (apple fritter), knows Eddie is liable to get a charley-horse at around midday if he doesn’t roll out his arches every morning, knows which side of the bed Eddie likes to sleep on, knows what happens in Eddie’s nightmares, knows that when Chris was gone Eddie started going on 4am runs around the neighborhood and Chris might be back now but Eddie still hasn’t stopped, and Buck can listen to Eddie's breathing and tell if he’s awake or not and what kind of a mood he’s in. And Buck didn’t get any of that by asking, didn’t get any of that by talking about it, he just--he just knows. Because Buck gets him, Buck understands him, he doesn’t have to try, he just does, so. So maybe Buck just kind of figured...
But Buck knows what Bobby would say. Not that Buck is going to be asking Bobby about any of it, God no. But. Relationships, communication, blah blah blah. So.
“Hey,” Buck says over dinner, Chris safely absconded to a girl’s house, Eddie keeps checking his phone. “What kind of stuff are you into in bed?”
Eddie chokes on his penne.
“What?” he says, after a long drink of beer.
“You know, like, sex-wise.” Buck says. “We never actually talked about it.”
“Oh,” Eddie says. “No. I guess we didn’t.”
Buck keeps waiting.
“I don’t know,” Eddie says. “Just... normal stuff.”
“Normal stuff?”
“Yeah. You know.”
Buck just keeps waiting, but Eddie doesn’t say anything else.
“Well,” Buck says. “There’s not really a standard of normal, in terms of sexual desire. People like all kinds of things. Like, one time I was with a woman, and she could only get off if I meowed, and that was normal to her. Everyone experiences pleasure differently, you know? So there’s really not a standard. I mean, there’s maybe more common sex acts, like oral or anal, but then there’s also plenty of other options, like fisting or sounding, and then there’s stuff like watersports or impact play-“
Eddie gets up from the table.
“I just realized I have to. I forgot to,” he says.
Buck blinks at him.
“Do you not want to talk about this?”
“What?” says Eddie. “No! No, of course I do, I just. Have to... I gotta go for a run.”
“A run?”
“Right,” says Eddie. “Just not--not that hungry and I just--Didn’t go this morning and I just--Yeah. Okay.”
Which is how Buck winds up sitting alone at the dinner table chewing on cold pasta and trying not to panic. But he doesn’t need to panic, because Eddie comes back as Buck is finishing anxiety-cleaning the kitchen, and Eddie starts the shower, and then he comes out and throws his sweaty shirt at Buck’s face, and he says, you coming? And under the water he touches Buck like Buck is something to be cautious with, like Buck might melt away at any second, and Eddie says just wanna watch you baby, you look so good, and Buck gasps yes, and yes, and yes.
-
The thing is, Buck has had a lot of sex with a lot of people. And it’s really not a big thing to him, he’s always been a try-anything-once kind of guy and usually that turns into trying anything ten or twenty times. So it’s not--there’s really no reason for him to be as worked up about this as he is. Used to be he liked sex for the same reason he liked the tough calls, the risky calls: for however long it took, the world narrowed down into a single definable course of action. That tunnel vision, that clarity, that’s the thing he really chases. That and he loves orgasms, his own obviously, but also other people’s, he loves watching their faces and hearing their noises and thinking, I did that, all me.
So maybe he just needs to get out of his head a little. Be more in the moment. Maybe he just needs to take what he’s being given, no pun intended. Because. It is actually insane to Buck that Eddie is just like, alive at the same time as him. Eddie closes his eyes when he takes the first sip of coffee in the mornings, and Eddie curses in Spanish when he stubs his toe, and Buck just thinks, oh my god. It’s you. You’re here. And then everything beyond that is another level of unbelievable to Buck, he feels like--like something truly incredible has happened, some kind of natural wonder like bioluminescent plankton or spiral galaxies or that kind of thing, that’s the only explanation for why Eddie lets Buck steal all the covers.
And it’s not like it’s difficult. It’s not like it is in any way a challenge to arch out on the bed and let Eddie touch him with sure, deft hands, let Eddie tease until Buck is pleading, saying please I want it so bad, please, and Eddie says you’re so pretty when you’re begging for it, aren’t you sweetheart, and he says it all rough and grinning, except--except Buck knows all of Eddie’s smiles, and that one is--
But then Eddie is in him, and Buck really just needs to stop thinking, which isn’t that hard, because Eddie may be new to it all but he’s a quick study and has an above-average grasp on internal anatomy. And soon Buck is caught in an open-mouthed groan, fingers twisting into the sheets, dick leaking onto his stomach as Eddie fucks him, but also--
Okay, so obviously Eddie’s hard right now, this would not be physiologically possible if he wasn’t. And Eddie’s breathing heavy, eyes half-glazed, so it’s not like this is doing nothing for him. But also, Buck can feel the muscles of Eddie’s stomach pressed up against the back of his thighs, can feel how steady and even his breathing is, more like he’s on a treadmill at the gym than like he’s plowing someone into a mattress. Which is why, when Eddie snaps his hips a little meanly, gets Buck to gasp and whine, says, “You’re so tight baby”, Buck says, “Are you having a good time?”
“What?” says Eddie, pausing.
“Just--you know. Are you having a good time. Are you enjoying yourself. That kind of thing,” Buck says. Eddie is just staring at him.
“I--Yes?” Eddie says. “I’m having a great time. Why, are you not? Do you wanna switch positions, or take a break, or--'
“No!” Buck says. “No, no, I’m also having a great time.”
“Okay,” Eddie says slowly. “So should I... keep going or...?”
“Oh,” Buck says. “I mean yeah, yes please, give it to me--"
Which gets them going again. And it feels fucking incredible. That’s not the problem, that will probably never be the problem. It’s more like, at this angle the only thing to look at is Eddie. Which is ideal, Buck never really wants to look at anything that isn’t Eddie anyways. It’s just that right now Eddie is all covered in a sheen of sweat, his stupid abs flexing, his hair doing that swoopy thing into his face, and Eddie looks perfect. Literally perfect. Eddie kind of looks like you could cut him out of a magazine.
Eddie says, “Look at you, look at how good you take it”, and Buck says, “Do you want to be doing this?”
Eddie stops.
“What? Yes, Buck, I very much want to be fucking you right now, am I not making that clear?”
“Okay, sure,” Buck says. “But like, do you want to be doing this.”
Eddie sits back on his heels.
“Okay,” he says. “What’s going on here.”
“Nothing!” Buck says. “I’m just--checking in, you know.”
“Is something wrong?”
“No! It’s all good. Really, really good. Just, I want it to be good for you too. Like, is this actually what you want, or is this what you think I want?”
Eddie frowns.
“Is this not what you want?” he says.
“That does not answer the question!” Buck says.
“I don’t know what answer you want from me right now!” Eddie says.
Which is how Buck winds up sitting in the Jeep in the driveway in the middle of the night, his ass still slippery with lube, his shirt on inside-out, clutching his phone and grinding his teeth.
She picks up on the third ring.
“Buck,” Hen says. “What’s going on, it’s 11 at night, is everything alright-“
“Do you think when you love someone too much, it makes the sex bad?” Buck says.
“Oh hell no. We are absolutely not doing this,” Hen says. “Eleven p.m. Buckley, I have taken my melatonin-“
“Well who else am I supposed to talk to!” Buck says. “My sister? Or my brother-in-law? Or Bobby?”
“I don’t know, one of your other friends!”
“I don’t have other friends!”
“So make some! I am not going to give one coworker sex advice about another coworker--“
“I don’t need--" he says. “It’s not...”
Buck picks at a spot on the steering wheel.
“I just thought,” he says, and he can hear how lost he sounds. “I thought being with him was going to be easy.”
Hen is quiet for a minute.
“I want New Year's Eve off,” she says finally. “I want one year where I don’t start the new year trying to reattach the fingers of some idiot who set off a firework while they were holding it.”
“I... okay?” Buck says. “I don’t do the scheduling--"
“I know you don’t do the scheduling, Buck. I cleared it with Cap. Sorenson is down to take my shift. If and only if someone watches her dog.”
Buck grimaces.
“I’m not watching that dog," he says. “That dog never shuts up and it pisses everywhere.”
“You’re watching that dog," Hen says. “Or do you not want my pearls of wisdom anymore?”
Buck groans long and loud, and knocks his head against the Jeep window a few times for good measure.
“On second thought," he says finally. “Who doesn’t love geriatric incontinent Pomeranians.”
“See, Buckaroo? Knew the animal lover in you would win out.”
“Enjoy ringing in the new year with a regular number of fingers,” Buck says.
“Oh, I plan to,” Hen says. “And to answer your question, no, Buck, I do not think loving someone makes the sex bad.”
“Okay, sure. But it’s just--I mean, I’ve had sex with people I love before, and it was good, it was great. And I’ve had sex with men, so obviously that’s not it. So then is it just--am I just not... Am I doing something wrong?”
“What does he say when you talk to him about it?”
Buck is quiet.
“Buck,” Hen says. “Did you talk to him about it.”
“Yes!” he says. “I. Kind of. Mostly. Sort of. I mean I tried but then he kind of--well he kind of fled. Literally. Like, I was just listing things people might be into, and he sort of just--"
Hen groans.
“Tell me you didn’t give him a kink checklist,” she says.
“Not exactly,” Buck says defensively. “Just random hypotheticals, and then he ran away.”
“Okay, this is mostly the melatonin talking, so do not go quoting me on this later, but Buck. Use your goddamn brain. That boy is so repressed his closet is like, an entire Neiman Marcus at this point.”
“...I don’t know what that means.”
“It means... If you asked Eddie what his favorite song was, what would he say?”
“He’d say he likes all kinds of music.”
“Mh-hm. And what would he say if you asked him what his favorite book was?”
“He’d say he isn’t much of a reader.”
“Right. So. You see the problem.”
“You’re saying he doesn’t have opinions?”
“What? No, Jesus, that is like, the bitchiest most opinionated man I know. He just--he just doesn’t think he has opinions. It’s not--it’s not as easy for everyone as it is for you. You spent your formative years chasing tail, he spent his lying back and thinking of England or whatever. And having a baby. And getting shot at.”
Buck winces.
“I know that!” he says quickly, in order to spend as little time as possible considering the combination of Eddie and bullets. “I’m not--I’m not pushy or anything, or at least, I don’t think I am. I mean, he’s the one that initiates like... almost every time.”
“Hm.”
“Hm what?”
“No, nothing,” Hen says.
“Hen--"
“Look, Buck, I do not know why you think I have any insight into the puzzle box that is Eddie Diaz.” She says. “Just--stop freaking out about it, and engage with him like a regular person.”
“Right, okay,” Buck says. And after a beat: “And uh, what do regular people do, again?”
Hen sighs.
“We don’t have time to deal with that one,” she says. “You’ll work it out. You two always do.”
-
Hen is right. Eddie’s been through a lot. Buck really, really needs to be less self-absorbed about it all. He resolves that for the rest of the week, Buck is going to think about Eddie and only about Eddie, and Buck is not going to let his own stupid feelings get in the way. He is going to be exactly, perfectly, totally attuned to Eddie’s needs. So he buys the fancy wine Eddie likes but never buys himself, insists on chauffeuring him around the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area because Eddie secretly cannot stand LA driving, and after three days, Eddie says, “Are you about to tell me I have terminal cancer.”
“Do not joke about that,” Buck says, and stomps off to get started on the lobster risotto.
And it kind of works. Eddie is happy, or happy-ish, he seems genuinely grateful about the driving at least. Even if Eddie keeps giving him these kind of… uncertain glances. Which Buck does not like, to put it mildly, they actually kind of make his fight or flight kick in, and Buck is very much committed to fight here. So maybe Buck doubles down a little, maybe he power washes the driveway and gets Eddie’s car’s oil changed and helps Eddie respool the hoses and makes sure to send Eddie a heart emoji at least once an hour and by the time their 48 rolls around, Eddie says,
“Buck. Can you please stop following me into every single room.”
“I’m not doing that,” Buck says, from the bathroom where he just so happened to need cuticle ointment at the same time as Eddie is flossing. And Eddie rolls his eyes at him, and Buck goes to prep the steak marinade for tomorrow’s dinner, and put on a Dodger’s game, and get Eddie a beer, and try to stare at Eddie’s face out of his peripheral vision, just to make sure there’s nothing lurking there that’s unexpected, just to make sure Buck is doing a good enough job.
-
Ultimately his fatal flaw is trying to surprise Eddie in the shower before bed, which at first doesn’t seem like it’s going to be a problem. At first it’s going great, even though Buck really should have learned his lesson about his knees and tile floors by now. Buck takes Eddie as deep as he can, drooling and choking on it, and Eddie pets his head and says he takes it so pretty, except that then. That’s kind of just it.
Buck just keeps sucking cock, Eddie keeps fucking his face, until the shower starts to run lukewarm, and Buck gets water up his nose, and Eddie is kind of wincing from overstimulation, and Eddie says, “I, uh. I kind of don’t think...”
“Oh,” Buck says, from where he is still on his knees, the shower is starting to get actually cold now. “Yeah, okay.”
Eddie shuts the water off, and pulls Buck up, slides one hand between his legs, hot and on just this side of rough.
“I could do you, though,” he says, nipping at the side of Buck’s jaw. “Wanna watch you come apart.”
Except Buck is kind of weirdly stupidly close to tears. And Eddie’s hand is on his dick and Buck is not turned on at all, which is unheard of.
“Can we just...” Buck says. “Can we go to bed.”
And Eddie kind of studies his face for a second, and there’s one of those razor-thin uncertain looks, so Buck kisses him hard, tries to let it say everything. And then in bed he curls around Eddie, buries his face in Eddie’s neck and breathes him in, and Eddie’s warm heavy arm is draped across his waist, and Eddie sleeps. And Buck doesn’t.
-
“We have gone beyond the dog-sitting portion of this arrangement,” Hen says.
“Hen!” he says, or well, whispers, because it is 6am and he is hiding in the laundry room. “It is an emergency.”
“Okay, it’s very sweet that you think I’m the Dan Savage of the LAFD, but Buck, I don’t know why you think I know shit about relationships--"
“Well, you and Karen worked it out after you cheated, so I just figured you probably know things about communication or whatever.”
“Off to a very strong start,” Hen says.
“I just,” Buck says. “I love him so much. Sometimes I want to literally eat him. Is that normal? I’ve never felt that way about anyone else. I never wanted to eat Taylor.”
“Yeah, no, that’s pretty weird,” Hen says. “But also, Eddie is pretty weird.”
“He’s my weird,” Buck says, his voice cracking.
“I know, I know,” Hen says. “So talking didn’t go well, huh.”
Buck gives a stupid watery sniffle.
“Buck,” Hen says.
“Look,” Buck says, and Hen groans. “No, no, I think--I think you were right, I think I’m way too caught up in my own feelings about all of this--"
“That’s not what I said!”
“You said I should stop freaking out--"
“Lord have mercy,” Hen says. “This is exactly why I did not want to have this conversation.”
“Well, how am I supposed to fix things then?”
“It’s your relationship!”
“But I don’t know.”
“That is the whole point of a relationship! You figure it out together!”
“Oh.”
“Don’t you oh me. Just talk to him. Tell him how you feel. Listen to how he feels. And do not call me again.”
-
So okay, that’s not that hard. Tell him how you feel. Buck managed that once before, and Eddie’s eyes got all big and shiny, and he kissed Buck before Buck could even finish stammering through his “I broke up with Tommy and I realized some things” speech. And then there hadn’t been a whole lot of talking, and Buck had been a little concerned about that one, but Eddie had barely waited for Buck to finish coming before he’d said, do you want to move in? So that had all worked out pretty okay.
Except this time Buck doesn’t have time to prepare. He doesn’t even mean to do it. He’s just in the bedroom changing shirts after an unfortunate incident with the blender, and Eddie walks in to grab his phone charger, and he says, “You have some smoothie in your eyebrow."
And Buck says, “I love you. I am in love with you. I love you so much. Oh my god.”
Eddie pauses. And closes the bedroom door.
“Are you… are you okay?” he says.
“Yes!” Buck says. “I’m great! I’m fantastic! This is the best I have been in my entire life! What about you?”
Eddie is staring at him.
“Buck,” he says. “Can you tell me what’s going on.”
“I don’t know what’s going on,” Buck says miserably. “You won’t tell me what’s going on.”
Eddie frowns at him, his eyebrows drawing together.
“Nothing is going on?” he says. “I’m just--getting my phone charger--"
“I just. Do you even want me here?” Buck says.
“What?” Eddie says.
“Or is it just--is this just another girlfriend thing,” Buck says. “Where I move in and then like three weeks later--"
“How could you even ask me that.”
“I don’t know!” Buck says. “I just--I want you to be happy, and you’re not, and then I don’t know what I did wrong--"
“Buck,” Eddie says, and oh no, his voice sounds all choked up, and if Eddie starts crying, Buck is going to absolutely start sobbing and lose his shit, abort mission, abort abort--“You make me so happy. You have to know how much I--Buck, I love you. You have to know that, you have to get that--"
“Then why don’t I get to touch you?” Buck says, and he sounds so goddamn needy, he is about to light himself on fire, that would probably be a better outcome than watching that stricken look flash across Eddie’s face--
Eddie scrubs at his eyes.
“Oh God,” he says. “I really fucked this up, didn’t I.”
“No, Eddie, that’s not--I’m the one who--"
“I just,” Eddie says. “I’m trying here, I’m really really trying--"
“Trying to do what?”
“To--to be enough,” Eddie says.
“Eddie. If we were like, two tiny dust motes floating in space it would be enough for me. If we never met but one time I saw you on the bus and you smiled at me it would be enough for me. As long as you’re here, you just have to be here, that’s all.”
Eddie sits down heavily on the bed.
“The shit that comes out of your mouth sometimes,” he says weakly, looking kind of flushed.
“Can you just--can you just tell me what you want?” Buck says. “Because I promise it’s okay, I promise we can work with it, just, please.”
Eddie’s face is red, and he clamps his eyes shut tight for a second, and then he sighs.
“The thing is," he says quietly. “I just. I have no idea. I mean, I just, I want you. I want you . But other than that I just--Yeah, I don’t know. I mean, The first time I masturbated I straight up thought I was going to hell. The first time I had sex I had a goddamn baby. This is not--And you’re out here with like, a cockring collection, so what am I supposed to--"
“Eddie, we do not need to be having sex if you don’t want to be having sex--"
“No that’s--that’s literally the opposite of what I’m saying,” Eddie says. “I just straight up do not know how.”
“Oh,” Buck says.
Buck sits on the bed next to him.
“I mean,” he says slowly. “Like I said. There isn’t really a… how.”
“Yeah, no, I’m getting that,” Eddie says.
“It’s just like, trial and error. There aren’t sex rules. That would kind of defeat the purpose.”
“Right,” Eddie says.
“It’s just… you know, what do you like.”
Except Eddie kind of just stares at him.
“Oh,” Buck says again. And he can’t help smiling. Grinning, actually, because that’s actually--that’s actually kind of an easy one. Buck has been bracing for impact, so sure the rug is about to be yanked out from under him that he’s crawling around on all fours, when the actual outcome is just that--that he gets more Eddie.
“Well. Do you want to find out?” Buck says.
Eddie takes kind of a shaky inhale, and he isn’t looking at Buck anymore, but he is nodding.
“Yeah,” Eddie says quietly. “Yeah, I kinda think I do.
-
Buck likes Eddie in the daylight. He likes him at night too of course, he likes when Eddie pulls Buck’s cold feet between his own ankles to keep them warm. He likes in the evenings when Eddie is next to him on the couch, their thighs pressing together as Buck steals popcorn out of Eddie’s lap, and he likes the early mornings when Eddie is sleepy and grumpy when the alarm goes off and shoves his face in Buck’s neck, and mostly he just likes Eddie all the time, every hour of the day.
So of course Buck likes him in the daylight, on a quiet Sunday, mid-morning light streaming through the cracks in the blind, Eddie whose skin is kind of pink and very warm, Eddie whose eyes are all blown out and dark. Buck likes touching him, Buck likes when the two of them are together, Buck says, “Tell me what feels good.”