Chapter Text
“And the firehouse is officially decorated for Christmas...hold on, who gave Buck a clipboard?” Chimney moaned as he climbed the stairs, his eyes landing on the man sitting at the table, a clipboard in front of him, his phone beside it, displaying something green that Chimney couldn’t quite make out. It was writing, he knew that much by the way that Buck would turn to look at it, then scribble something down on his sheet of paper, and then turn back to the phone.
“I thought we destroyed it.” Eddie hissed into the shorter man’s ear. “You said you’d broken it.”
“Into ten different pieces. Where did he get another one?” Chimney hissed back, edging towards the table to get a better look, but the second that Buck sensed him, he turned the clipboard over and pressed the side button on his phone, making it go dark.
“Nuh-uh, I’m planning Eddie’s Christmas present, and if I let you see, you’ll just blab, so neither of you gets to.” Buck grinned as he slid his phone in the pocket of his hoodie and the clipboard under his arm.
“Buck, you know you don’t have to get me anything. Just being with us on Christmas Day is enough. Besides, Christopher has asked for the new Spiderman game for Christmas, so you’re working as gaming support.” Eddie laughed, because as much as he loved playing games, he was absolutely terrible at the Spiderman games. No matter how hard he tried, it always ended up with him throwing down the controller in frustration and “rage quitting” as Christopher called it. And he had no idea why he was so bad. Let him loose in ancient Greece, stabbing guys a lot bigger than his character, and he was fine. Let him race around a virtual Mexico in a supercar and he won almost every time. But that red asshole was his nemesis.
“Yeah, but I know for a fact you’ve got me a new pair of jeans, a hoodie and some aftershave, oh, and my favourite chocolates.” Buck replied, raising an eyebrow. “Your son can’t keep secrets for shit, you should really be careful what you tell him...” Eddie pressed his lips together so he couldn’t say what he really wanted to, and then, after counting slowly to three, he muttered something in Spanish that he was sure Buck couldn’t hear. But from the way he whacked him gently on the back of his thigh with the clipboard and snorted slightly, Eddie knew he had.
“It’s not his fault, I bribed him with candy if he told me. Now, gents, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.” And without another word, Buck headed towards the quiet room and settled down in the chair to finish his planning without distraction, because, after everything that Eddie had done for him that year, he deserved something special, something personal, and most importantly, something perfect.
Buck loved Christmas, it was one of his favourite times of the year, and he had started planning in July, buying gifts for Christopher and Jee-Yun whenever he saw one that he was sure they’d love. And maybe this year he’d gone a little overboard. The massive pile of boxes in the closet whispered that both Eddie and Maddie were going to kill him when they saw how much he’d bought. But, he thought, it was going to be worth it on Christmas morning when they opened them.
Buying for the kids had been so easy. Almost too easy. But Eddie on the other hand, had been impossible. The man had so many Henleys, he already had a watch, didn’t wear jewellery except his St Christopher medal...anything that he thought of had been quickly dismissed as a bad idea. Then one night he was idly scrolling through Instagram and came across a scratch-off poster listing 100 dates. They weren’t dating, Eddie was completely straight, but it got him thinking. If he couldn’t think of something to buy Eddie, he could give him friendship for the year, take him out once or twice a month, find things that they could do that maybe they hadn’t done before.
Which led to that moment at the firehouse, Buck pouring over his phone, studying two lists – 100 date ideas and 100 bucket ideas, discarding the romantic ones, or the ones that weren’t entirely possible (visit every continent, for example, would be impossible to do over the next twelve months, as would attending the Olympics or going on a safari), and eventually coming up with a list of fifty that would be feasible. He’d looked into it, and it seemed relatively easy to make his own scratch-off poster once he’d designed it. There was a place near his home that could print it, and he could buy scratch-off stickers to cover up the pictures.
He had almost finished his list when the familiar sound of the alarm filled the loft, and he groaned. Shoving the clipboard and the list under the chair cushion, then putting his phone in his pocket, he headed towards the stairs, praying for an easy rescue, because he’d barely slept the night before, and he was really not in the mood for anything strenuous that day.