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It’s Eddie’s fault. It’s always fucking Eddie’s fault.
Buck is minding his business, restocking the ambulance with Hen when he gets the text. When they get the text, he means—Eddie sends it into the extended 118 group chat, the one that has everyone from work plus all their families and even Tommy Kinard who Buck doesn’t even know .
Whatever. They get the text, and Buck short circuits so spectacularly that he bangs his head onto one of the shelves, hard enough that it’s going to bruise. He lifts a hand to touch his forehead, checking for bleeding. That would check out. He always thought he’d bleed for Eddie. He didn’t exactly think it would be for this .
Hen makes a noise of consideration in the back of her throat, looking down at her phone. Buck knows what she’s considering, knows he should be considering it too, but he’s pretty sure he’s going to burst into flames if he looks down at his messages again.
He does, though. What does he look like, a saint? You can’t expect Buck to be able to resist the—whatever the fuck Eddie thinks he’s doing right now.
Buck sucks in a deep breath between his teeth, braces himself, and opens the text thread again. Unfortunately for him, Eddie’s text hasn’t magically disappeared. There are still two photos tied to a message that says Which looks better?
Buck never thought he had this kink. He’s like, pretty convinced he knows everything there is to know about his own likes and dislikes and attractions and whatnot, but this? This fucking weird fantasy that’s playing in his head like he’s the subject of a strange student-teacher love affair? Buck’s going to Google the highest bridge in Los Angeles and jump off. Because it’s fucking glasses that are doing it for him. Glasses.
The photos are of Eddie wearing two different pairs of glasses—one a thick black pair, the other silver wireframes. Buck really can’t believe this is doing something for him, but he has to turn his back to Hen in the back of the ambulance to avoid her seeing whatever is going on with his face. He’s probably blushing furiously and he’s definitely chewing on his lips, and Hen would take one look at him and say Why are you going through a gay crisis?
Buck’s not going through a gay crisis. He already did that, when he crashed on Eddie’s couch for a week after his apartment needed to be fumigated and he had to experience Eddie fresh out of bed, all sleepy and handsome and very, very biteable. That crisis ended with him learning some very important things about himself. Namely the fact he thought nothing Eddie could do would ever be as hot as him teaching Buck how to make Linda’s super secret family recipes.
Well, here we fucking are.
Ravi is the first person to answer the group text. He says, If you don’t get the wireframes I’ll blind you .
Jesus , Eddie replies, Christ .
I agree, Lucy writes. With the blinding and everything .
Chimney says, You two becoming friends was a mistake .
Ravi says, Why, thank you, Howard.
Chimney leaves the group chat. Lucy adds him back.
Out loud, Hen says, “You’re awfully quiet, Buckaroo.”
Buck glances over his shoulder once he’s sure his face isn’t doing something disgustingly obvious. “Just processing,” he manages to say without his voice cracking at all. (It cracks a little bit). “I mean. Glasses. I’m not used to glasses.”
Hen’s eyebrow twitches upward. “ I wear glasses, Buck.”
“Yeah, well,” Buck agrees. “You’re Hen.”
“Thanks.”
“That’s not what I mean ,” Buck says. He turns to face Hen fully, ducking his head so he doesn’t clip it on another shelf. “I just mean—”
“It’s Eddie.” Hen nods after Buck does. “I think I know what’s going on.”
“No you don’t,” Buck says. “You don’t know anything.”
“The first thing that attracted me to Karen was the scarf she was wearing.”
“This isn’t the first thing—” He starts to defend, stopping when Hen’s eyebrow twitches up further. Well, cat’s out of the fucking bag, he guesses. Stupid Hen and her stupid lesbian superpowers. “Shut up, Henrietta.”
“I didn’t say a single thing,” Hen says.
“Your face did,” Buck replies. “Your—” he flaps his hand toward her. “Lesbianism.”
“My lesbianism,” Hen repeats dryly. “Like…gaydar?”
“Is it going off?”
“Oh, honey,” Hen says. “It’s been going off since Eddie joined the 118.”
“What—”
“ What do we need him for ,” Hen mumbles in a gross approximation of Buck’s voice. “Like, come on, dude.”
“Don’t call me dude.”
“Don’t be one,” Hen shoots back. “Now, let’s talk about the matter at hand.”
“Let’s not.”
“Eddie is wearing glasses, and you’re having a crisis about it,” she goes on, like he hadn’t said anything. Buck scrubs a hand over his face and groans. “Actually, I think I need Chimney for this.”
“I’ll have you killed,” Buck says seriously. “They’ll never find your body.”
Hen pops her head out the ambulance’s doors and calls, “Chimney!”
Chimney appears suddenly, like he’d been waiting outside the doors the whole time. Buck isn’t sure what’s more likely—his brother-in-law developing super speed or him eavesdropping on this conversation from the app bay the whole time. “What’s up, kids?”
Buck ignores him. “I’m leaving,” he says. “I’m going to San Francisco and never coming back, and that’s on you .”
Chimney raises his hands. “I didn’t do anything.”
Buck narrows his eyes. “You exist,” he says. “And also, you stole my last gogurt tube from the fridge.”
“Those aren’t even yours,” Chimney points out. “They’re Bobby’s.”
“I’m Bobby’s favorite,” Buck says.
“You are not ,” Hen laughs.
Buck ignores her. “I’m leaving ,” he repeats. “Enjoy gossiping about me, you demonic individuals.”
Chimney blows a kiss toward him as he closes the ambulance door. Buck makes it halfway across the app bay before he tugs out his phone and finally, finally texts Eddie back. Hate to agree with probie, he writes, but the wireframes look good .
If Buck goes outside and screams into the late afternoon sky, that’s between him and God.
The thing is, Buck isn’t expecting Eddie to wear the glasses. He sort of imagined that they were for reading, or maybe fashion, if Eddie knew anything about either of those things. He wasn’t imagining Eddie walking into their next shift, the wireframes Buck had gone to bat for perched on the edge of his nose like it was normal.
It’s not normal. It’s so not normal that Buck very much wants to punch a hole right through the wall next to his head.
Buck doesn’t. Buck respects his place of work, and the skin on his knuckles, and the fact that he’s pretty sure the wall is made of pure concrete. He doesn’t do anything, actually. He just watches Eddie walk up the stairs to the loft, watches him grab a banana, watches him peel the banana and push his glasses up the bridge of his nose with his thumb, absent—
Christ alive, Buck is serious about the highest bridge thing.
Bobby’s the first one to comment. “I like the new look, Eddie,” he says, flipping an omelet over in a pan. “Very Clark Kent of you.”
“I’ve always related more to Peter Parker,” Eddie says absently, biting into his banana.
“Okay,” Bobby replies cheerily. “In any case—I like the glasses.”
At that, Eddie looks up. Not at Bobby, but at Buck, his dark eyes bright behind the lenses. And he looks—really fucking attractive, if Buck’s being honest, but it’s not like that’s exactly new . Buck’s always known that Eddie is attractive. It’s like—water is wet, Dead Poets Society is the gay movie of the 80s, Eddie Diaz is the hottest man alive. Whatever. Buck knows these things.
Buck doesn’t know, though, why Eddie is staring at him.
Ravi and Lucy come up the stairs to the loft, heads bowed together like the weird evil twins they are. Chimney was kind of right, the other day—them becoming friends was a mistake. They’re always—conspiring, and whispering, and sending Buck and Eddie weird looks over their phones, and Buck’s gotten good at ignoring it, like he ignores every other problem he has in his life, but since today is about not looking Eddie in the eye, he turns his focus on them.
“What are you two whispering about?” Buck asks, crossing his arms over his chest.
Ravi and Lucy pause, sharing a glance. Something passes between them—some look that Buck can’t decipher—before Ravi says, “We’re just planning for—you know.”
Buck raises an eyebrow. “I know what?”
“You know,” Ravi says again. Buck is going to kill him. “Trivia night.”
“Trivia night,” Buck echoes. “What’s trivia night?”
“Well,” Lucy says, “When a man loves a woman—”
Ravi smacks her. “That doesn’t even make sense.”
“ He’s the one that doesn’t know what trivia night is,” Lucy says.
“I know what trivia night is,” Buck says. “But like—since when do you guys do trivia night?”
“Since we realized all our coworkers were boring as hell,” Ravi says. “Like, do you guys do anything besides sit in each other’s houses and like, eat dinner?”
“Hey,” Eddie says, pushing up his glasses again. Buck is going to stick his head in an oven. “Buck and I take Chris to the zoo.”
Ravi and Lucy share a look like Eddie’s just proved their point, which makes Buck want to stick his head in an open fire pit, instead. Maybe he’ll find one of the last few blimps left in the world and crash it.
“ Well ,” Lucy says, in her best I’m not getting involved in #Buddie drama voice, “Ravi and I do trivia night. We have a team and everything.”
“A trivia team,” Buck echoes, like the world’s most annoying parrot. “I didn’t know that was a real thing.”
“You don’t know a lot of things, Evan,” Ravi says.
“I’ll push you into a burning fire,” Buck replies.
“You will not ,” Bobby says. Honestly, Buck kind of forgot he was here. “Ravi, Lucy—trivia night sounds fun. Have you ever thought of having the whole firehouse participate?”
Another look passes between the two gremlins. After a moment’s deliberation, Lucy says, “That could be cool. It’s teams of four at The Bar off Sunset.”
“The bar,” Bobby repeats. “What’s its name?”
“The Bar,” Lucy says again. “Capital-T, capital-B, The Bar. Like in Gone Girl .”
Ravi grimaces. “Don’t invoke Gone Girl in front of me,” he says. “You know how I feel about Nick Dunne.”
“Yeah,” Lucy says. “You think he’s dreamy.”
“I think he’s insane.”
“Insanely dreamy,” Lucy says. “Anyway,” she addresses the rest of the firehouse. “The Bar. 7:00 PM. Come with a team name or get kicked out.”
Ravi grins. “See you there!”
Eddie looks at Buck once they disappear down the stairs. “You in?”
Buck is very much so not in. If there’s one thing Buck knows about himself, it’s that the glasses are only the beginning. If he has to watch Eddie be smart too, he might as well just resign himself to popping a boner in the middle of a trivia tournament, a boner he’ll have to explain as You know, I was pretty sure people just started making up sexualities for attention, but maybe they’re onto something with that sapiosexual thing.
But ask his parents. They’d be more than happy to tell you what a weak, weak man Buck is, especially about the things that matter. So, instead of saying Nah, man, I’m busy you know, watching very straight porn , or something, Buck just looks at Eddie’s beautiful bespeckled face and finds himself saying, “I’m in.”
Stupid fucking glasses.
The Bar is actually a pretty nice place, if Buck’s being honest. It’s got an array of pride flags behind the actual bar, a little stage set up for live music, plus such a wide variety of tequila that Buck thinks, at the very least, he won’t remember tonight if he’s lucky.
He and Eddie, predictably, arrived together. Their shoulders brush as they walk up to the bar together, and Buck thinks, distantly, about sliding a hand around Eddie’s waist, or into his back pocket. Maybe he could push Eddie’s glasses into his hair so they don’t get smudged and lean in and kiss him, and—
“ Buck ,” Eddie says, smacking him on the forehead. Buck blinks quickly, coming back into focus. Damn delusions got him losing focus in the middle of a crowded bar now, apparently.
“Did you say something?”
“What do you want to drink?” Eddie asks, pushing the glasses up with his thumb. Buck wants to swallow him whole. “They have that IPA you like—”
“Tequila,” Buck interrupts. “I need tequila.”
“What, you expect me to support you during the trivia tournament?” Eddie says. “I know I’m smart—” Buck begins to sweat, “—But I thought you had my back.”
He wonders, distantly, if jumping over the bar and drinking an entire bottle of tequila would kill him. Probably. Might be worth it, anyway.
“I do have your back,” Buck says, just a little bit hoarse. “That’s why I stopped you from naming our team something stupid like Quizpicable Me.”
“Hey,” Eddie says. “You love that movie.”
I love you , Buck thinks miserably. The bartender drops off two shot glasses and two beer bottles. Buck shoots back the tequila like he hasn’t had a drink in forty-six years, barely even wincing as it burns on the way down. “Fine,” Buck says. Somewhere in Pennsylvania, his mother is shaking in her boots that Buck is such a fucking pushover. “I guess we can be Quizpicable Me. But you have to break it to Maddie and Chimney.”
“Deal.” Eddie grabs his own tequila shot and beer, turning back to the rest of the bar. The Bar. Whatever. Then, he does something so fucking ridiculous that Buck wants to push him into the gross ass bathroom and get on his knees, like he’s still twenty-five and kind of a whore.
Eddie uses his shoulder to push up his glasses. Buck wants to jam this glass into his eyes so he’s blind and never has to see Eddie’s stupid beautiful perfect handsome face again. But if he did that, he’d never get to see Eddie’s stupid beautiful perfect handsome face again.
Buck signals the bartender and asks for another tequila. At the very least, he can stop being sober. Maybe that’ll keep the thoughts at bay.
Eddie checks his hip against Buck’s as they walk to the cluster of tables Lucy and Ravi reserved near the washrooms. Two of them are filled—one with Lucy, Ravi, and two strangers that Buck doesn’t recognize, the other with Bobby, Athena, Hen and Karen—and the last is reserved for Quizpicable Me.
“Buck!” Lucy calls, already two sheets to the wind. “Come meet The Bar’s number one trivia team.”
“Number two, soon,” Karen calls, a straw between her teeth.
Lucy waves her away, hooking her arm through the woman next to hers. “Buck, Eddie, this is Sebastian,” she says, pointing to the man next to Ravi. “Ravi’s live-in boyfriend.”
“You make me sound like a housewife,” Sebastian says. “I have other attributes other than being Ravi’s boyfriend.”
“But none of them are as important,” Ravi says, sipping from a fishbowl margarita.
“And this ,” Lucy says, “is my girlfriend, Teresa.”
“Girlfriend,” Eddie says, raising an eyebrow. “But you’re—”
“You know, it’s funny, Eddie Diaz,” Lucy says. Maybe she’s three sheets to the wind, now that Buck thinks about it. “I think kissing Buck made me gay.”
And Buck, two shots and half a beer in, replies without thinking. “Yeah, same here.”
Everyone blinks at Buck. Buck blinks at everyone.
Eddie makes a sound like he’s choking on his tongue, and Buck thinks that all things considered, that might be a good way to go. It’s no getting shot in the middle of the street , but hey, Eddie’s moment passed with that one.
“You’re—what?” Eddie manages to say after everyone’s been quiet for so long Buck’s convinced he’s gone spontaneously deaf. He hasn’t, obviously, but hearing the way Eddie’s voice cracks, he kind of wishes he had. “What?”
“I’m—I don’t know,” Buck says, flapping a hand through the air. Lucy and Teresa share a look, followed by Ravi and Sebastian sharing a look, and Buck is convinced they all have telekinetic powers and can read each other’s minds. “Gay. Queer. A lover of men.”
“A lover of—” Eddie cuts himself off and drains his tequila shot. His glasses slip down his nose a little bit. Buck wants to bite on his arm and shake it like a rabid dog with a bone. “Okay. Sure. Okay. Okay.”
Sebastian leans in closer to Ravi and whispers, “Is he having a stroke?”
Ravi whispers back, “I think that’s just called being a homo.”
“I can hear you both,” Eddie snaps. He takes a swig of his beer and goes to rub at his eyes, but his glasses are in the way, so he just sort of pushes them out of the way, the frames sitting askew on his face. Buck wonders if you can contract rabies without encountering like, a bat, or something. It feels probable, with the way his head is spinning.
Someone claps a hand down on Buck’s shoulder, smelling like baby formula and something familiar. Chimney says, “Sorry we’re late. What did we miss?”
Buck says, “Eddie named the team Quizpicable Me.”
Eddie says, “Buck sleeps with men now.”
It’s Maddie’s turn to make a choked noise now. She’s at Chimney’s side, wearing a pretty sundress, sipping on a glass of red wine that she almost spills all over herself at Eddie’s words. “Buck’s doing what now?”
“Use that tone again and I’m going to tell everyone you’re homophobic,” Buck hisses to his sister. “Is that what you want, Maddie? To be part of a dispatch scandal? I’ll tell Josh. I’ll tell Linda .”
“Josh doesn’t scare me,” Maddie replies, narrowing her eyes. “Since when do you like men?”
Since I had to give Eddie a sponge bath multiple times while he was recovering from the shooting, Buck thinks. Then: Since I started having wet dreams about Eddie in his glasses. Then: Since I met Eddie fucking Diaz. Can you blame me?
Out loud, he says, “Since I slept with one. I don’t know.”
“Since you— Evan ,” Maddie chides. “You didn’t even know you liked them before you slept with them?”
“You never know unless you try, or whatever,” Buck says.
Chimney jumps in. “That’s true.”
“I need another drink,” Maddie says.
Someone rings a bell somewhere in the bar. Ravi and Lucy grab onto their respective partners, tugging them to their table, and Buck takes that as his cue to sit down and bang his head repeatedly on the wood table. Or to flag down a waiter for another tequila. Whichever comes first.
“Welcome to The Bar’s weekly trivia night!” Someone is standing on the little stage against the wall, talking into a microphone. He’s tall, with dark hair and bright green eyes, and if Buck wasn’t committing to the bit of pining miserably over Eddie, he might be tempted to employ his newfound sexuality to convince him to come home with him. Except, he can’t, because he and Eddie carpooled here, and Buck promised Christopher pancakes in the morning.
Buck drops his head to the table and groans.
“My name is Ben,” the host announces, and Buck picks up his head just enough to see him grinning. Buck, distantly, misses his 1.0 self, who would have no qualms about dragging Ben into the staff washroom for a quickie. Buck whatever-the-fuck-he-is-now-point-oh is, unfortunately, looks at the back of Eddie’s head instead. His heart stutters in his chest; Buck needs to be put down.
Ben goes over the trivia rules, which Buck kind of tunes out. It’s not that Ben isn’t attractive—in fact, he’s very attractive—but there’s this part of Eddie’s neck that Buck thinks he’d like to sink his teeth into, just to hear the noise that Eddie would make, and—
“Oh-hoh-hoh,” Maddie says. Buck knows that sound. “I get it now.”
Chimney and Eddie are both distracted by Ben’s speech, so Buck ducks his head in closer to his sister and hisses, “I’ll kill you. I’m serious, Maddie.”
“You wouldn’t,” she replies easily. “I’m the mother of your favorite niece.”
“You’re the mother of my only niece,” Buck says. “Don’t bring Jee into my death threats.”
“Don’t threaten me with death, then.”
“You don’t get anything,” Buck says, pointing a finger into Maddie’s face. “Not a thing.”
“So you’re not pining over Eddie, then?” Maddie whispers. “You’re not dreaming about him and his beautiful—oh my God, it’s the glasses, isn’t it.”
“I hate you. I hate you so much.”
“It is the glasses. Jesus Christ, I should have known. You always had a thing for Andrew Garfield’s Peter Parker pre-getting bit by that spider. God, Buck, you can’t—”
“Can’t what?” Buck whispers. “Fall in love with my best friend? Too fucking late for that, Maddie.”
“Oh, Buck,” Maddie says gently. She rests a hand over Buck’s, the way she used to when he was little. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Buck says, shaking his head. “It’s a non-issue, alright? Eddie is—he’s my best friend. I’m not going to ruin that with anything like my feelings.”
“How do you know he doesn’t feel anything back?” Maddie asks.
Buck’s eyes slide from his sister to Eddie’s face in profile. Something deep in his chest aches. “I’m not going to risk it.”
Maddie squeezes his hand and drops the subject. Buck orders another drink.
All in all, being wasted on cheap tequila is not conducive to getting questions right during a trivia night.
There are twelve teams total, including Quizpicible Me, and while they’re not dead last, they’re certainly not vying for the top spot like Ravi, Lucy, Sebastian, and Teresa (Quiztina Aguilera) and Athena, Bobby, Hen, and Karen (E=MC Squared). Buck and company are floating in the middle of the pack, mostly getting entertainment questions right courtesy of Chimney, but Buck’s kind of too drunk to actually care about any of this.
He doesn’t care about any of it until Ben the hot host says, “And the next question: What’s it called when you’re sexually attracted to intelligence?”
And Buck, like the normal drunk person he is, slams a hand down on his table’s buzzer so loud that the slap of his palm on the wood drowns out the actual buzzer sound. Ben blinks at him, then at his cue card, before saying, “Quizpicable Me?”
“Sapiosexual,” Buck replies, hiccuping a little.
“Correct,” Ben says.
Buck, unthinking, leans into Eddie’s side and whispers, “I knew that would come in handy.”
Eddie, much soberer than he is, whispers back, “Since when did you know big words like that?”
“Since I scoured the internet for answers,” Buck replies. “Obviously.”
“Answers for what?” Eddie asks.
Buck gestures vaguely to himself, going back to sipping on his beer.
Eddie stares at him through three more questions before he pushes back from the table, muttering about getting another drink.
Maddie says, “You’re being obvious, Buck.”
“I’m being drunk,” he replies. Twenty-five-year-old Buck would be ashamed of how sloppy he’s gotten after a few tequila shots and a couple beers; thirty-year-old Buck is proud he hasn’t blacked out yet. “There’s a difference.”
Maddie says, “I really don’t think there is.”
“What do you know,” Buck says. “You and Chimney are—like that .” He gestures to how their pinkies are locked together, even if Chimney is knee-deep in a rapid question round against Ravi, voice carrying through the entire bar. “Insufferable.”
“Yeah, because we got our shit together,” Maddie says. “I can’t say the same about you and Eddie.”
“There is no me and Eddie,” Buck says. If he sounds a little miserable, then whatever. “There’s me. There’s Eddie. That’s it.”
“Sure,” Maddie says, sounding like the annoying sister he loves. “I’ll believe that when you believe the moon landing is real.”
“The moon landing is fake —”
“Congratulations, Quiztina Aguilera!” Ben the host crows, cutting Buck off at the start of his rant. “You’re the reigning champions of The Bar’s trivia night!”
“Take that, straights!” Ravi says, smacking a kiss to Sebastian’s cheek.
“I need another drink,” Buck says. “Do you guys want anything?”
Maddie and Chim both decline, so Buck finds his way to the bar, searching for Eddie. He finds him, eventually, nursing another IPA and looking a little out of it. Buck squeezes in next to him.
“Maybe in another life,” Buck muses, leaning heavily against the counter, “we could be gay Navy pilots or something. Saving lives, having each other’s backs…”
Eddie glances over at him, apparently not surprised by Buck’s presence. He flags down the bartender and orders a glass of water, no ice, the way Buck likes it. “We already do that,” Eddie says.
“Yeah, but we don’t fly planes ,” Buck says. “Don’t you want to be gay and fly planes?”
“I want you to drink your fucking water.”
“Okay, sir ,” Buck says. He watches as Eddie’s ears turn bright pink and thinks it must be because of the heat in The Bar. “I’m just saying, we could be like, total badasses in the Navy.”
“I was already in the army, Buck.” Eddie shakes his head, pushing the glass of water closer to Buck. “I don’t need to be in the Navy too.”
“Well, maybe I do.” Buck finally takes a drink. It doesn’t taste as good as tequila, but Eddie looks pleased, so he swallows another mouthful.
“You’re right where you belong,” Eddie says. Buck feels unceremoniously soberer, twisting the glass in his hands. “You know that, right?”
“Sure,” Buck says. “Right. Of course.”
“Yeah, that was convincing.”
“I do know,” Buck says. “I mean I—sure, I know.”
“Still super convincing,” Eddie says. He shakes his head, propping his chin on his fist. “Buck.”
“Eddie.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Buck knows what he means. He knows exactly what he means, and still, he says, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do,” Eddie says. “Come on, Buck. Since when do we keep secrets from each other?”
Buck sighs, dragging a hand over his face. “It wasn’t—look, it wasn’t a secret . I was just…figuring things out.”
“Without me,” Eddie says. It isn’t a question.
“Not without you,” Buck says. “Just…away from you.”
“Right,” Eddie says. “Because I’m so terrible to talk to—”
“Jesus, dude,” Buck says. “It’s not about you.”
“Of course,” Eddie says, pushing up his glasses. “Sorry I expected my best friend to be able to talk to me about this. It’s not like I talked to him about the exact same thing—”
“It’s not the same , Eddie!” Buck says, gripping his bottle so tight it feels like it could break. How the fuck did he go from joking about being a pilot to this? “You know it’s not the same. I’m—fuck, man, I’m Buck . I can’t—I can’t have a sexuality crisis like everyone else. I’m already the town whore who can’t keep a girl long enough to make something real. So what am I supposed to do when I wake up and realize I have feelings for a guy, huh? Say ha-ha, just kidding everyone, I actually like men! No, I fucking—cheat on my girlfriend and then beg her to stay, and even when I break up with her, I still almost ask her for a second chance, because I’m nothing if not the most pathetic fucker in this entire city—”
“Buck,” Eddie says. “Christ, Buck. Do you really think that about yourself?”
“Don’t be naive, Eddie,” Buck spits. “What else am I supposed to think?”
“You’re—God, you’re fucking wasted,” Eddie says, shaking his head. “You’re drunk. That’s what this is.”
“Don’t be a dick,” Buck says. “I promise, I still hate myself when I’m sober.”
“I’m taking you home,” Eddie says. “Don’t move.”
Buck gives a miserable salute, tugging his water closer to his chest. Eddie disappears for a few minutes, long enough that Buck considers ordering another drink, just to quash the spiteful fire that’s raging in his chest, but he doesn’t. He might be fucking up this whole night, but he doesn’t want Eddie to be upset with him. Or—more upset with him, at least.
Eventually, Eddie comes back. He grabs onto Buck’s elbow and pulls him toward the exit of The Bar. Buck wants to say something about not getting the chance to say goodbye, but he figures he’s pushing his luck if he does, so he just keeps his mouth shut, letting Eddie steer him to the truck.
Buck presses his head to the cold window and shuts his eyes.
Maybe in another life…
“We’re here,” Eddie says. Buck had mostly fallen asleep, so Eddie’s voice startles him out of his daze. He blinks at the shadowy outline of Eddie’s house, blinking sleep from his eyes.
“This isn’t the loft,” Buck says, kind of dumbly.
Eddie hums. “You promised Christopher breakfast,” he says. “Unless you’re backing out of that.”
It feels like a challenge. A test. Buck says, “Not backing out.”
“Then get the fuck inside.”
So, Buck goes.
He toes off his shoes at the front door, flicking on the living room light and sitting on the edge of the couch. The world outside the house seems quiet, like it’s holding his breath. Buck feels the same way.
“I’m sorry,” he says eventually. Eddie hasn’t come into his line of sight, but Buck knows he’s listening. He’s always listening. “For snapping at you at The Bar.”
“It’s fine,” Eddie says. “Or—it’s not fine, but I understand why you did it.”
Buck twists around on the couch until his eyes finally land on Eddie’s. “You do?”
“Sure,” Eddie says. “I went through the whole coming out thing too, if you recall.”
“Right.”
“Plus, if we stopped being friends any time one of us was a dick to the other, we never would have made it past our first meeting.”
Buck’s mouth tilts into a small grin. Eddie pulls his glasses off his face and cleans them with his shirt, lifting it enough that Buck catches a glimpse of the dark trail of hair that trails down from his navel, disappearing beneath the waistband of his pants. Buck looks away.
“I forgive you for snapping,” Eddie says. “But I want you to be honest with me about why you snapped.”
“You caught me in a bad mood,” Buck tries.
“Try again,” Eddie says. “You were having a great time like, ten minutes before I asked.”
Buck sighs, dragging a hand through his hair. “I didn’t—I don’t want to talk about it. About all of that shit.”
“Why?”
“Because,” Buck says. “Because it’s—I don’t know, man. It’s a lot.”
“Obviously,” Eddie says. He comes around the side of the couch and sits on the coffee table in front of Buck, close enough that their knees bump. “You don’t have to do shit alone, Buck.”
“Easy for you to say.” Buck bites down on his lip. He’s going to say—he doesn’t know, really, something about how Eddie always has things figured out, even when he doesn’t. Instead, he says, “I hate your glasses.”
Eddie blinks. “What?”
Buck gestures to his own face. “Your glasses,” he repeats. “They’re—I don’t like them.”
And Eddie—he looks hurt, a little bit, but also, really fucking confused. “I thought—you said you liked them.”
“Yeah,” Buck says. “I did.”
“What changed?”
“You started fucking wearing them all the time,” Buck says. “I thought they were just going to be reading glasses or something.”
“So you hate my glasses,” Eddie says like he’s trying to figure out one of Christopher’s math equations, “because I wear them all the time.”
“Yeah,” Buck repeats.
“That makes no sense,” Eddie says.
“Does anything?” Buck rubs his eyes with his knuckles, digging them in until he sees black spots. “I don’t know, Eddie. Everything you do makes me miserable. You lift weights and I ache. You cook dinner and I ache. You wear your stupid fucking glasses and I ache . I hate that. I hate that I can’t look at you without aching, and I—”
“Oh,” Eddie says. “I get it.”
“Get what?”
“I get what you’re saying,” Eddie says. “But if I’m wrong—fuck, punch me or something.”
“Punch you—Eddie, what—”
Except, Buck doesn’t really get the chance to say anything else, because then, Eddie’s pressing forehead, his hands on Buck’s knees, and he’s kissing him, like really kissing him, and Buck has the briefest moment of hesitation before he presses in and kisses back.
Eddie’s hands slide up Buck’s thighs until they’re wrapping around his waist, pulling him to the edge of the couch, their knees fitting together like the pieces of a puzzle. Somewhere, through the haze of tequila and the feeling of Eddie’s lips on his, Buck is confused, a little lost, but he wouldn’t trade anything in the world for this. Eddie’s glasses press into Buck’s nose a little uncomfortably, and Buck just—keeps kissing him.
Eventually, Eddie pulls back with a wet pop , his breath ragged. “I’m taking it as a good sign you didn’t punch me.”
“I’m so fucking confused,” Buck mutters, his bottom lip brushing Eddie’s.
“You ache,” Eddie says, and Buck nods. “God, Buck, I’ve been aching for ages . I’ve been fucking—Christ. I’m in love with you.”
Buck chokes on an inhale. “You’re what ?”
“In love with you,” Eddie repeats. “Like, head over heels sort of shit. I didn’t think I had a shot—Christ, Buck, I didn’t think you liked men —”
“I love men,” Buck supplies, a little breathless. “Love, love, love men. Love—fuck, Eddie, I love you .”
“And my glasses,” Eddie says.
“No, I hate your glasses,” Buck lies. “I just have professor/student fantasies all the time, which like, I didn’t even know I was into , but apparently—” He cuts himself off at Eddie’s bright smile, dropping his head to Eddie’s shoulder. “I hate your glasses.”
“You love my glasses.”
“Fine,” Buck says, taking the opportunity to bite the skin of Eddie’s shoulder. Eddie shudders; Buck bites him again. “I love your glasses. Happy? I feel like I’m fifteen years old again discovering that I have a working dick. I can’t stop thinking about your stupid fucking glasses—”
“Buck,” Eddie interrupts, tilting his head up. “If I promise not to take the glasses off, can I take you to bed?”
“We have so much to talk about,” Buck says, a warning. “I’m going to—we have a lot to talk about.”
“In the morning,” Eddie says. “For now, let’s just—get ready for bed. We’ll talk after breakfast.”
Buck has never been able to say no to him. Not really. He pecks Eddie on the mouth, once and then twice, before standing from the couch, tangling their fingers. “If I see any contacts in your bathroom I’m flushing them down the toilet.”
“That’s a rational response, sure,” Eddie says. Buck can hear the grin in his words.
“I don’t need to be rational,” Buck replies. “I just need you.”
“Well, good news, baby,” Eddie says, pressing his lips to the shell of Buck’s ear. “You’ve got me.”