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Eddie Diaz is a sane, logical man. Until Buck smokes. Then all bets are off.
It’s not like Eddie wants to be like this.
He’s a grown man. A father. A firefighter. A person with dignity and self-control and a solid enough grasp of reality to know when he's losing the goddamn plot.
Yet here he is—pressed against the kitchen window frame like a stalker, watching Buck light a cigarette like he’s the second coming of sin.
Jesus Christ.
It should not be hot. Buck smoking should not be hot. It should be concerning, or at the very least annoying, considering Buck only picked up the habit after Bobby died. Coping mechanism, he'd said, like grief could be ash and tarred lungs and a fucking Zippo flicked open with practiced ease.
But Eddie loses it somewhere around the flick.
The sound echoes in Eddie’s skull like a starter pistol. Buck’s thumb strikes the wheel of the lighter, flame licking to life, and Eddie swears something in his chest detonates. Then Buck’s cupping his hand around the cigarette, shielding it like it’s sacred, and—
Okay. Okay. No. No, this is stupid. It’s so fucking stupid.
Except then Buck exhales. Slowly. Head tilted, jaw slack, eyes half-lidded like something out of a goddamn French film. And Eddie’s cock twitches in his jeans like he’s fifteen and watching scrambled gay cable porn again.
He bangs his forehead against the window.
Buck’s sitting on the back steps, bare forearms propped on his knees, still damp from the earlier shower they’d taken after their run—not together, Eddie reminds himself, even as his brain helpfully replays the way Buck had tugged his shirt off afterward, all sun-damp hair and flushed skin and that little grunt when he stretched.
God, Eddie thinks, I’m so fucked.
Buck brings the cigarette back to his mouth. Lips parted, drawing in like he’s tasting it. The burn of the cherry glows molten red. He turns his head to exhale, neck flexing, mouth a soft, perfect O.
Eddie makes a noise.
He clamps a hand over his mouth like that'll help, like he hasn't already entered the ninth circle of horny hell, fully committed to the descent.
Buck doesn’t hear him, too busy tapping ash off the end like it’s nothing, like he’s not out here committing high-level war crimes against Eddie’s sanity. He leans back on one arm, legs spread—rude, frankly—and lifts the cigarette again, two fingers cradling it like a goddamn invitation.
Eddie’s breath stutters.
He needs help.
He needs to go outside and yell at Buck. He needs to lecture him on lung damage and poor coping strategies and how this is a goddamn betrayal of his promise to quit. But mostly, he needs to bite him. Just a little. Maybe right under the jaw where that vein pulses when he tips his head back and—
Nope.
Eddie rips himself away from the window, paces three steps, then circles back like a man possessed. Because he is. He’s possessed. He’s cursed. He is not well.
He glances up again.
Buck flicks his wrist to shake loose ash, then takes another long drag, this one deeper, slower. His lips part on the inhale—wet, soft, obscene. Smoke clings to his mouth when he exhales, curling past his lips like a whisper. His throat bobs. His tongue flicks briefly out, catching moisture at the corner of his mouth.
That’s it, Eddie thinks wildly. I’m having Buck committed. I’m having myself committed.
Buck leans forward to stub the cigarette out against the edge of the step, and Eddie watches the motion like it’s a strip tease. The flex of muscle. The dip of his head. The curl of smoke still trailing from his fingers. He tosses the butt into the can he keeps for them—them, plural, because it’s happened more than once now—and stretches.
The stretch.
Eddie can hear the vertebrae crack.
Buck groans, low and satisfied.
Eddie chokes.
Buck shifts, turning toward the door, and Eddie launches himself away from the window like he’s in a spy movie, slapping a hand to his face because it is burning. He pretends to inspect a banana like it's the most fascinating thing he’s ever seen. It’s underripe. He is dying.
The back door creaks.
“Oh hey,” Buck says, casual, cheerful, post-nicotine glowing.
Eddie turns around, trying to look normal. He fails. Buck is—Buck is glistening, okay, dewy with sweat and summer heat and something else entirely. His curls are damp. His lips are pink. His eyes are blown wide and stupid and relaxed. Eddie wants to bite them.
“Hey,” he croaks.
Buck wanders in like he doesn’t know he’s a walking weapon. “Are you hungry?”
Yes. “No.”
Buck grins and walks past him. He smells like shampoo and sweat and just a hint of smoke, and Eddie sways where he stands like he’s been hit.
I’m gonna die, he thinks. I’m gonna die in this kitchen because Evan Buckley smoked a cigarette and my dick took over executive function.
“You good?” Buck asks, peering at him over his shoulder.
“I’m great,” Eddie says. “Why wouldn’t I be.”
Buck shrugs, unfazed. “You look kinda weird.”
Because I want to crawl inside your mouth and live there like a reverse cigarette.
“I’m fine,” Eddie insists.
Buck hums and opens the fridge. He bends to look inside.
Eddie has to close his eyes.
The stretch of fabric. The curve of his spine. The peek of skin above the waistband of his shorts—
“Okay,” Eddie blurts, “we need to talk.”
Buck straightens. “Uh… okay?”
“No—sorry. I meant I need to talk. You just—stand there. Or—actually, don’t. Don’t stand anywhere. Sit. Or lie down. Or leave. I don’t care.”
Buck raises a brow but does as told, leaning back against the counter with his arms folded. “This is gonna be good, huh?”
Eddie opens his mouth. Nothing comes out.
Because Buck just tipped his head to the side—that tilt, that same smoking tilt, and it hits Eddie like a gut punch.
“You need to stop,” Eddie says, strangled.
“Stop what?”
“That thing you do. With the cigarette. And the mouth. And the fingers.” He gestures helplessly. “All of it. It’s—it’s not allowed.”
Buck blinks. “You mean smoking?”
“No! I mean—yes. I mean—Jesus, Buck, do you know what you look like?”
Buck tilts his head the other way, which is even worse, somehow. “What exactly is this about…?”
“It’s about the fact that you smoke like it’s porn.”
Buck stares.
Eddie throws up his hands. “You smoke like it’s foreplay, okay?! I can’t—Jesus—I can’t think when you do it.”
Buck’s expression does a strange thing. It falters, shifts, and then slides into something dangerous.
“Wait,” Buck says, slow and low, “are you saying you’re into it?”
Eddie, very seriously, considers leaping out the nearest window.
“Eddie?” Buck steps closer.
Eddie steps back.
“You like it when I smoke?” Another step. “That’s what’s been driving you nuts?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
They’re chest to chest now, and Eddie’s heart is pounding, the smell of smoke and Buck and heat making him dizzy. He opens his mouth to argue, or lie, or beg—but Buck leans in and whispers:
“You wanna see it up close?”
Eddie blacks out for a second.
Eddie does not, technically, black out.
What happens instead is worse.
What happens is that Buck says, You wanna see it up close? in that low, knowing voice, and Eddie’s brain simply… disconnects from his body. Temporarily. Like a computer restarting without permission. Blue screen of death. Windows shutdown noise playing faintly behind his eyes.
When he comes back online, Buck is still standing in front of him, close enough that Eddie can see the faint flecks of ash on his fingers, can smell the smoke clinging to his clothes, can feel the heat radiating off him like a second sun.
“Eddie?” Buck says, smirking.
Eddie nods. “Buck.”
He immediately walks into a chair.
Buck bites his lip. Eddie sees it.
Abort mission, Eddie thinks desperately. You cannot go to a shift like this. You cannot be normal. You are one cigarette away from biting your best friend in the locker room.
They have a ten hours shift.
Ten. Whole. Hours.
The drive to the station is a nightmare.
Buck drives, one hand loose on the wheel, the other resting casually near the window. He’s humming under his breath—something poppy and annoying and unfairly catchy—and Eddie sits rigid in the passenger seat.
Every time Buck shifts gears, his arm flexes.
Every time he glances over, he does that little half-smile like he knows something Eddie doesn’t. Or worse—like he knows everything Eddie is thinking and is enjoying it.
“So,” Buck says eventually, tone light. “You’ve been kinda weird this morning.”
“I have not.”
Buck hums. “You walked into a chair.”
“It jumped.”
Buck laughs, bright and delighted, and Eddie feels it in his chest like a physical blow. He grips the door handle harder than necessary.
They stop at a red light.
Buck taps the wheel, then—deliberately, slowly—rolls the window down.
Eddie’s breath catches.
Buck doesn’t look at him as he reaches into the cupholder and pulls out a cigarette. He doesn’t rush. He doesn’t fumble. He just lifts it to his mouth, strikes the lighter—
Click.
Eddie sees white.
“Buck,” he says hoarsely.
Buck flicks the flame away and finally looks at him, eyes bright. “Yeah?”
“You can’t do that in the jeep.”
Buck shrugs, takes a drag. “Window’s open.”
“That’s not—”
The light turns green.
Buck exhales as he pulls forward, smoke curling out into the morning air, and Eddie has to turn his head toward the window like a man watching a car crash he can’t stop.
This is psychological warfare.
Buck glances at him again. “You sure you’re okay?”
Eddie swallows. “You’re doing this on purpose.”
Buck smiles.
“Am I?” Buck asks.
“Yes,” Eddie says flatly. “You’re being… smug.”
Buck laughs, smoke trailing from his mouth.
Eddie closes his eyes.
At the station, it gets worse.
So much worse.
Because Buck is back in work mode—confident, cocky, effortlessly charming—and Eddie is painfully aware of every inch of him. The way he leans against the counter during downtime. The way he rolls his shoulders like he’s loosening up, like he’s about to do something physical and dangerous.
And every time they step outside, Buck lights another cigarette.
They’re restocking gear when Buck steps close to grab something from the shelf behind Eddie.
“Sorry,” Buck murmurs, warm breath ghosting over Eddie’s ear.
Eddie drops the wrench.
Buck leans in, voice low. “You dropped the wrench.”
Eddie meets his eyes.
Buck’s gaze flicks down—just briefly—to Eddie’s mouth.
Eddie forgets how to breathe.
Buck straightens like nothing happened.
Ten minutes later, Buck is outside again.
Eddie tells himself he’s not watching.
He is lying.
Buck stands under the overhang, rain starting to mist down, cigarette glowing faintly in the dark. He looks cinematic. He looks unfair. He looks like he belongs in a movie where Eddie is doomed from the start.
Buck exhales, smoke curling upward, rain cutting through it.
Eddie grips the doorframe so hard his knuckles ache.
This is not sustainable, he thinks wildly. This is not a normal reaction to nicotine.
Buck glances over his shoulder and catches him.
Their eyes lock.
Buck raises the cigarette slightly, like a question.
Eddie shakes his head once.
Buck smiles anyway.
By the time their shift ends, Eddie is vibrating. His nerves are fried. His thoughts are a tangled mess of don’t look and look and if he does that again I will lose my fucking mind.
Buck, meanwhile, is relaxed. Loose. Radiating the smug confidence of a man who knows exactly how much power he’s holding.
They change out in silence.
Eddie stares at his locker.
By the time they hit the locker room at the end of shift, Eddie feels feral.
Eddie Diaz, reliable, steady. Internally, though, he is a mess of static and half-formed thoughts and one singular, relentless focus: Buck and his fucking mouth.
Buck is in a good mood.
He drops onto the bench across from Eddie, peeling his shirt off without hurry, stretching his arms overhead like he’s got all the time in the world. Eddie stares resolutely at his own locker.
“You gonna keep pretending you don’t notice,” Buck says lightly, “or…?”
Eddie doesn’t look up. “Notice what.”
Buck hums. Eddie can hear the grin in it. “Nothing.”
He reaches into his jacket pocket.
Eddie’s shoulders tense.
Buck doesn’t pull the cigarette out. Just rolls it between his fingers inside the pocket, the motion subtle, almost absent-minded. Eddie clocks it instantly.
Buck’s eyes flick up.
They meet Eddie’s.
Buck smiles.
Eddie stands abruptly, slamming his locker shut harder than necessary. “You’re doing this on purpose.”
Buck’s tone is innocent. “Doing what?”
Eddie turns, glare sharp. “You know.”
Buck steps closer, easy, unhurried. “I really don’t.”
Eddie’s mouth opens. Closes. He can’t say you smoking makes me insane in the middle of the locker room. He settles for, “You’re enjoying this.”
Buck laughs softly. “Maybe.”
Buck leans back against the lockers, arms loose at his sides, eyes on Eddie like he’s watching something fascinating unfold. “You’ve been staring at my mouth all day.”
Eddie scoffs. “I have not.”
Buck tilts his head. “Every time I light up.”
Eddie’s face heats. “You’re imagining things.”
Buck steps closer again. “Am I?”
Eddie’s thoughts unravel.
Stop smiling. Stop standing like that.
If you light one more cigarette I’m going to do something unforgivable.
Buck reaches into his pocket again.
Eddie’s breath catches.
Buck pulls the cigarette free, twirling it between his fingers. He doesn’t light it. He just watches Eddie while he does it.
“You look like you’re about to say something,” Buck murmurs.
Eddie grits his teeth. “Put that away.”
Buck’s smile widens, slow and pleased. “You sure?”
Eddie steps forward without meaning to. “Yes.”
Buck studies him for a beat—eyes dark, intent—then tucks the cigarette back into his pocket.
“Okay,” he says easily. “Later.”
They leave together, shoulders brushing, the air between them charged and crackling. Buck doesn’t smoke on the walk to the car. Eddie almost wishes he would. The restraint feels intentional.
The drive is quiet. Eddie’s knee bounces. Buck’s hand rests loose on the wheel.
When they pull into the driveway, Buck doesn’t get out right away.
“You coming in?” he asks.
Eddie swallows.
Inside, the house feels smaller. Buck shrugs off his jacket, stretches again—always stretching, always showing off without pretending not to.
Eddie watches.
Buck turns. “You keep doing that.”
Eddie snaps his gaze up. “Doing what.”
“Looking at me like that.” Buck steps closer, voice low, teasing. “Like you’re trying not to.”
Eddie’s control frays. “You’re pushing it.”
Buck smiles, soft and dangerous. “Yeah.”
He reaches into his pocket.
This time, Eddie doesn’t stop him.
“I thought you wanted me to quit,” Buck says, voice thick and low.
“I do,” Eddie groans, already tugging Buck’s shirt up, “I did—fuck—do it after.”
Buck smirks and takes a drag, eyes locked on Eddie’s like he knows exactly what he’s doing.
Smoke spills from his mouth in a slow, lazy exhale that ghosts over Eddie’s lips. Eddie tilts his head up like he’s chasing it—like he’s chasing Buck, and maybe he is, always has been.
Eddie kisses him before he can think—mouth hot and open, tasting like ash and sin and him. The nicotine lingers on Buck’s tongue, sharp and electric, and Eddie moans into it, deep and guttural. He fists a hand in Buck’s hoodie like he’s afraid he’ll float off if he doesn’t hold on.
It’s a mess from there. Hands sliding under clothes with no grace. Eddie’s palms skating up Buck’s sides, dragging his shirt with them, while Buck pulls at Eddie’s belt like he’s been waiting for hours. Maybe he has.
Buck never lets go of the cigarette.
Even as Eddie mouths at his jaw, teeth scraping down his throat. Even as Eddie presses him back against the bed, grinding down hard enough to drag a ragged gasp from both of them.
He lifts it to his lips with one hand, the other buried in Eddie’s hair. Takes a slow drag while Eddie ruts against him like it’s the only thing tethering him to the earth.
“You’re killing me,” Eddie groans, grabbing Buck’s hips, trying to steady him, trying to stop himself from shaking apart.
Buck’s grin is breathless, wild. Smoke curls from his mouth, his nose, trailing between them like steam. “You’re the one who’s into it.”
“I’m into you,” Eddie growls, biting down just below Buck’s ear, sucking hard enough to leave a mark. “This just—fucking helped.”
Buck laughs, low and rough, and finally flicks the cigarette into the tray by the bed. “Then let’s see what happens when I really blow your mind.”
It’s chaos from there.
Clothes are gone without ceremony. Eddie yanks Buck’s jeans down, pushes his boxers aside. Buck gasps when Eddie palms his cock, already hard and leaking, hips twitching up into the touch. Eddie’s not any better—he’s been so tightly wound he feels like his skin might split open.
He drags his mouth down Buck’s chest, nips at a nipple just to feel him jerk, then keeps going. Sucking bruises into the warm skin of Buck’s stomach like he needs to leave proof. A trail of dark, hungry kisses until Buck’s writhing under him, fists twisted in the sheets.
“Fuck—Eddie,” Buck breathes, voice gone ragged. “Please.”
That please shatters something in Eddie.
He flips them without thinking, Buck ending up on top with a startled grunt. Buck plants a hand on Eddie’s chest, steadying himself, eyes dark and blown wide as he straddles Eddie’s hips.
His cock drags against Eddie’s as he rocks down, both of them gasping. The friction is maddening. Every thrust slick and filthy, too much and not enough.
Every kiss tastes like salt and smoke and want. Eddie can’t get enough of him—his mouth, his weight, his sounds.
Buck wraps a leg tighter around Eddie’s waist and pulls him in like he’s daring him to lose control.
“Jesus,” Buck hisses, head falling back as Eddie thrusts up into him, desperate. “You’ve been wound up for days.”
“Weeks,” Eddie pants. “Weeks, Buck. You have no fucking idea.”
Buck bites his lip and grinds down harder, eyes locked on Eddie’s like he does know, like he’s known the whole time.
Eddie ruts against him like he’s trying to crawl inside his skin. Like nothing else has ever mattered. He doesn’t care about being gentle. He wants Buck to fuck him into the mattress, wants Buck to make him feel it for days.
Buck moans, high and sharp, as Eddie fists his cock and strokes them together. “Fuck, Eddie—don’t stop—don’t—”
“I’m not,” Eddie groans. “You feel too good. You’re so—God, you’re so fucking hot—”
Buck’s body stutters, tense and trembling. His fingers dig into Eddie’s shoulders, nails biting into skin as he rides out each thrust, each drag of Eddie’s fist.
“I’ve wanted this,” Buck gasps, “for so long—wanted you, wanted—”
Eddie slams their mouths together to shut him up, to claim him, to keep himself from falling apart completely.
Their rhythm spirals into chaos, slick heat and sweat-slicked skin, mouths breaking and finding each other again, hips snapping into desperate motion. Buck’s whining now, helpless little sounds that go straight to Eddie’s cock, making him harder when he thought that wasn’t possible.
“Gonna—fuck, Buck, I’m gonna—”
Buck nods frantically, grinding down. “Do it. Come. I want it—”
Eddie crashes into it, groaning so loud it echoes, buried in Buck’s neck as he comes hard, hips jerking, cock spilling between them. Buck follows seconds later, a cry punched from his lungs, head thrown back, thighs clenching around Eddie’s hips.
They collapse together in a tangled heap of limbs and sweat and come and everything unspeakably good.
Eddie can’t breathe.
He just lies there, letting Buck go soft against him, his skin flushed and shining, chest heaving, hair a disaster.
“You okay?” Buck pants, laughing a little.
Eddie lets out a sound that’s almost a sob. “No. Absolutely not.”
Buck kisses his shoulder, still breathless. “Wanna do it again later?”
Eddie closes his eyes. “Only if you never smoke again.”
Buck hums, cheek against his chest. “That’s definitely a lie.”