Archive of Our Own

Sometimes, a cupcake is just a cupcake. It doesn't have to mean anything. Buck is clinging to that universal truth—because, surely, if anything is a universal truth, it's this—almost as tightly as he's clutching the bakery box with a single, perfect cupcake in it.

The firehouse parking lot is not huge. It's never been huge. Buck's actually had the thought it could stand to be bigger more than once when he's been rushing in late only to discover C-shift and the rest of A-shift snagged all the good parking spots. He's thought it bitterly, panicking, in any variety of ways. And now he knows for sure he was right all those times, because way too soon he's walking through the doors and into the engine bay.

It's Harry who spots him first. He's got a rag in one hand and a spray bottle in the other. Truly the perfect probie. Buck is proud of him more than he's jealous, which is probably a sign he's matured. On a normal day, he would go find Eddie immediately to brag, but Buck can't today.

Eddie is the problem.

Buck isn't one to call his best friend a problem, normally. He's not sure he's ever called anyone in his life a problem before. But there's the cupcake, and there's Eddie, and somewhere between the two lies the issue. Buck saw a bakery advertising s'mores cupcakes, thought casually that Eddie would like those, and ended up with one in his hands and a parking ticket because he couldn't pass up the opportunity. This is a very expensive cupcake.

“I didn't know you were allowed to buy anything from a bakery,” Harry calls. “I figured you were banned from every single one in LA or something and that's why you bake so much.”

“Nah,” Ravi says, popping out from underneath the engine and scaring Buck half to death. “He's only banned from three.”

Buck told Ravi that in confidence. Not that Ravi knows the meaning of the word. He'd probably sell out his own mom’s secrets if it would be funny enough. Buck would be more annoyed if Ravi didn't manage to also be so charming about it.

He's grinning up at Buck right now, so pleased with himself.

“Three?” Harry repeats. “Three?”

“Buck,” Chimney calls from the loft, “your sister wants you to text her back.”

Buck is well aware. He's ignoring Maddie for a reason. Buck is on a precipice, probably only one ill-timed remark from tumbling over and messing everything up. He can feel the weight of the secret he’s still pretending he isn’t carrying on his tongue. It won’t take much for him to admit something he knows he can’t ever say aloud. If Maddie keeps spewing her conspiracy theories about him, his best friend, and their respective feelings, he absolutely will ruin everything. Her last text, or the last one he read, at least, is still burned into his brain.

If you don't ever tell Eddie, how will you know for sure?

Maddie is wrong. Buck does know. Even if Eddie isn't as straight as either of them previously assumed, something he hesitantly told Buck two months ago and everyone else in a group text last week, he doesn't have feelings for Buck. Buck is sure of that. He has to be.

He's got excellent reasoning behind his certainty:

1. Eddie knows Buck better than anyone else in the world.
2. Eddie is too smart to be in love with Buck.
3. Eddie deserves better than Buck.
4. Christopher wouldn't approve.
5. And, for that matter, Theo probably wouldn't either. He loves Eddie, but loving him as Buck's best friend is way different than loving him as Buck's boyfriend.
6. If Buck lets himself have hope, he'll be crushed.

He repeats this list to himself a lot. It's a good list.

Despite the amount of time he spends running over all the reasons this won't work, his heart still leaps into his throat when Eddie rounds the engine and smiles at him. He looks good, already in uniform with his hair gelled back. The strand that usually springs free about three hours into any given shift is still in place.

“Hey, Buck,” Eddie says. “How's Theo doing?”

“He tried to make the microwave explode this morning.” Has Buck's mouth always been this dry? Maybe it's been a few years since he last had a sip of water. That would explain it.

“He's going to be a scientist.” Eddie's tone is both confident and adoring. Buck wants to lick him.

He doesn't. They're at work, and Eddie doesn't want Buck. Instead, he lurches forward, shoves the box into Eddie's hands, and says, “Thanks, cupcake.”

Then he flees the scene. It’s not dignified, but he doesn’t want to see Eddie’s reaction to Buck turning up with a freshly bought baked good for him and no one else. It’s too revealing.

It isn't until he's halfway into his uniform, fly still open and shirt unbuttoned, that he realizes.

Thanks, cupcake.

If Chimney has already seen him, is it too late to claim he's got the plague and call out? They were in a sewer that was definitely rat infested last week. It's plausible.

“You okay?” Harry asks. He's cleaning the lockers now. Who bothers to clean the outsides of lockers? Buck should never have agreed to help him get into the Academy. He couldn’t be nosy if he wasn’t here. Also, some janitorial staff somewhere is probably really missing having someone this diligent on their roster.

“I think I have fleas.”

Harry takes a step back. “Okay,” he says, drawing the word out all judgmentally. “I'll just go ahead and… go. Out of jumping range.”

Hen draws the short straw and has to check Buck for bites before Chimney will let him out of the locker room. “No problems but your personality,” she informs him, the joke already ringing in her tone. He's not going to live this one down. “And that one is chronic, cupcake.”

Buck's heard they have really old diseases in glaciers, the kind of stuff scientists can't cure ‘cause it's so ancient. Maybe he should go lick one of those and see if he can't scare up a problem for himself. No one would remember the cupcake incident then.

Theo, though. Buck sighs. Agreeing to be responsible for another human life comes with very few downsides, but one of them is that it really limits his ability to fantasize about dying. He thought Eddie naming him in his will was responsibility, but it turns out even the heavy weight of paperwork doesn't compare to having a kid living in your house and depending on you for dinner day in and day out.

He may as well rejoin the others. The best way to deal with teasing from the 118 is to weather the storm.

Chimney was less amused by the flea thing than Hen, so Buck is man behind for the shift. He doesn't mind. He's working on one of Bobby's old recipes, a casserole, when the rest of the crew comes back from their third lift assist in a row.

“Casserole?” Eddie asks. If there's anything Buck can count on, it's Eddie being hungry. Whenever he calls him on it, Eddie claims it's because all his muscles burn calories for him and then flexes.

Buck gets lightheaded whenever Eddie does that, so he's stopped teasing him about it. It's for his health.

“Yeah,” he says instead. A nice, neutral answer.

“What kind?”

“Sweet pea.” Buck hums as he runs his finger down the page, double checking how long he should set his timer for.

“No pet names at work, Buckley. That's an HR violation.” Chimney snaps his gum.

Buck's head snaps up, any thoughts of his cooking forgotten. And then the alarm sounds again.

“Saved by the bell,” Ravi grouses.

“Keep a plate warm for me,” Eddie says.

Buck will. But everyone else's is going in the fridge. They've earned it.

He manages to avoid any more faux pas—and what is the plural of faux pas? Faux pases? Fauxes pas?—until late that night, when Eddie yawns and announces he's going to make chamomile tea.

“You want a mug?” he asks Buck. “And anything to sweeten it?”

Buck nods, but doesn't look up from his phone. His nanny, April, was a classmate of May's and came highly recommended, but he still can't stop himself from checking his nanny cam obsessively once Theo's gone to bed. April is only a room over, and she's never failed to come in if Theo has a nightmare or needs to go to the bathroom, but Buck can't fight off the guilt of not being there for him. Theo's parents can't be, so Buck should, but he got Ravi to crunch the numbers for him to see if there was a viable way for Buck to be a stay-at-home dad, and Ravi just laughed.

“Yes, please, honey,” he says aloud.

“Wow,” Harry mutters.

Buck switches away from his nanny cam to see if there's any chance he could contract dysentery. Chris made him play this video game where Buck died of dysentery five times, which must mean it isn't hard to do. It can’t be harder to find someone with dysentery than it would be to find a plague ridden flea.

Eddie just says, “Coming right up.”

Maybe Buck should add this to his list.

7. Eddie doesn't care what Buck calls him. He answers to honey the same as his name.

“You still haven't texted Maddie back?” Chimney asks. “Your phone is in your hands. I'm writing you up for this one.”

“Wait until he calls Eddie sugarplum. Might as well save yourself the extra paperwork and combine everything into one,” Hen suggests.

Buck doesn't even know what a sugarplum is. He'll never have reason to utter that word in Eddie's presence.

Eddie may not believe the universe screams at him, but it certainly laughs at Buck.

It laughs at him a lot. They’re all watching a baking show, since Buck got ahold of the remote while everyone else was out on a call and refuses to give it up. Eddie comes back over to the couch with two mugs right as they finish a challenge and start the judging. The first cake is iced purple with little fairies dancing in a snowglobe.

Eddie hands Buck his tea and asks, “What theme is that?”

“Thanks, sugarplum.”

Hen laughs hard enough Buck can't even hear Paul Hollywood over it, and he was invested in that critique. Harry puts his head in his hands. Ravi makes a note in his phone, which is dangerous, because he's taken over most of the station betting from Hen.

Eddie just sits next to Buck and takes a sip from his own mug. “Could you make that?”

He says yes. He doesn't know if it's true or not, but he'll say anything that gets Eddie to smile at him.

Buck isn't, in case anyone is confused about this, in love with Eddie. He's got a list of reasons why he isn't.

1. Eddie is straight. And a renter.
1a. Eddie was straight. Now he is not. But he is still a renter. Buck can’t quite remember why that matters, a year on, but he was emphatic about it at the time and has repeated it like a mantra since.
2. Eddie is his best friend. He’s great at being Buck’s best friend. Why mess with a good thing?
3. Everyone likes to see their friends smiling. Their cheeks heat and their stomachs flip and their dicks twitch. It’s all within the boundaries of normal reactions.
3a. Sure, Buck doesn’t feel any of those things when his other friends smile, but Ravi and Hen don’t have smiles as nice as Eddie’s. That’s all.
4. Buck has ruined every single relationship he’s ever been in. He can’t lose Eddie.
5. Christopher wouldn’t approve.
6. Theo is still so new to living with Buck. He doesn’t need the destabilizing factor of Buck dating right now. Even if April insinuated she’d be happy to work extra hours if Buck had any evening plans.
7. Bobby wouldn’t have approved.

This list isn’t as good as the other one, but Buck thinks about it a lot anyway. Often, it’s what he falls asleep contemplating. He isn’t sure this is healthy, but Buck thinks other pastimes—like, say, thinking about Eddie’s biceps flexing while Buck’s hand was dangerously close to his cock—were worse. Buck doesn’t do that anymore. And not only because Theo crawls into his bed more times than not when he’s home. Although that is part of the problem. But Buck prefers to think he’s got impressive willpower.

Buck keeps his mouth shut until he and Eddie both fall asleep. It’s a sure fire way to stop himself from bestowing any pet names on Eddie. Abstinence does work.

He’d prefer condoms, but he’s not sure how he’d make them fit the situation. He could probably put one over his head and suffocate in it. That would work. Can’t slip up and call anyone cupcake if you’re dead.

In the morning, he stumbles up to the loft still half-asleep. He opens his mouth to say good morning to Eddie and Hen, the only two who beat him up, but he finds his mouth suddenly occupied. He chews and swallows.

“Muffin?”

Eddie smiles, self-satisfied. Smugness looks good on him. “You're not the only one who can bake.”

Hen snorts. “Yeah, the coffee shop is pretty good at it.”

“The close one?” Buck asks. He doesn’t need to. It’s always the close one, both because they’re close and because they open before the sun rises. “They outsource.” He leans down to take another bite of the muffin still in Eddie's hand. “This isn't from them. They use too much lemon in their blueberry muffins.”

“Why would you use any lemon at all?” Eddie asks. He always has good questions. And he always listens to the answer, no matter how long it takes Buck to get around to the point.

Before Buck can expound, at length, the alarm goes. Eddie slaps his back and shoves the rest of the muffin in his hand, then jogs towards the ambulance. “Enjoy the muffin. See you later, Buck.”

Buck does enjoy the rest of the muffin. And then a second one, because Eddie knows he’s always hungry enough for two and plans ahead for him.

Later, after Buck has washed the three surfaces in the station Harry may have left dirty (although there was an alarming lack of dust bunnies behind the fridge, so he thinks perhaps not), worked out, and proofread an English paper for Chris, not that he’s any real help there, he flops down on the couch with a book. He’s two chapters in and settling into a nice rhythm when everyone comes back.

Eddie makes it up the stairs first, Ravi hot on his heels. “I need coffee,” he announces. “Buck, you want some?”

“Sure,” Buck says. They’ve got another hour here, and he’s planning to nap when he gets home since Theo will be at camp for a few more hours, but the caffeine won’t keep him up.

“Want anything in it?” Eddie asks.

Buck appreciates the thoughtfulness. He’s been messing with his coffee recently, slipping protein powder into it and trying out soy milk. But this morning he only wants simplicity. “Thanks, sugar,” he says.

“Chimney is out,” Ravi announces.

Buck blinks. The coffee maker starts gurgling. He coughs.

“Do you think I have consumption?” he asks.

“No,” Eddie says.

Chimney comes up the stairs, so Ravi takes the opportunity to inform him, “You’re out.”

“No, seriously? What was it this time?”

“Sugar.”

Buck hates this. “I could be dying.”

“You aren’t dying.” Eddie’s voice is patient and even.

Chimney is less gentle. “Suck it up and get out of my sight, Typhoid Mary. I wanted to take your sister on a date if I won.”

“You make more than the rest of us anyway.” Eddie opens the fridge. “Shouldn’t you two have enough money for a night out? I’ve taken Buck out for dinner no problem, and we’re both single parents.”

Buck’s heart skips a beat at being referred to as a single parent.

“On a date?” Ravi asks. “Money where your mouth is, Diaz.”

“Watch it,” Eddie says, his tone a touch less amiable than a moment ago. “Buck, c’mon. Let’s go to the roof.”

Buck rolls off the couch and follows him. He would follow Eddie anywhere. And he even gets the door, because Eddie is carrying two mugs.

“Thanks, bud,” he says.

Buck’s body lights up. Two simple words, said affectionately while Eddie is squeezing past him, and Buck is acting like this. He might be in danger.

He needs a new list.

Reasons why Buck can’t call Eddie anything that could be construed as a pet name ever again:

1. He doesn’t want to reward anyone who’s bet on him.
2. He has to face them all after the joke has worn off.
3. And Chimney, at least, must know, because Maddie knows.
4. It doesn’t matter to Eddie.
5. Buck wants it to matter to Eddie too much.

They drink their coffee in silence. Buck thinks about every pandemic he read about in the dark, endless days after Bobby died and before Eddie came home. Buck could’ve kept reading Wikipedia pages even once Eddie was ensconced on his couch, his body a steady warmth next to Buck’s, but Buck didn’t want to anymore. Eddie makes things better with the simple miracle of his presence.

“Whatcha thinking about?” Eddie asks once he’s drained the last of his mug. He sets it on the ground next to his chair.

“Ebola,” Buck says.

“Diseases again?”

Buck shrugs.

“Tell me about it.”

And so Buck does.

Time passes quickly when Buck talks to Eddie, finishing his primer on ebola and wandering from one topic to another. Minutes pass in a blink, the day overtaking them as the city properly wakes up. It isn’t until Eddie’s stomach rumbles that Buck realizes how long he’s been rambling.

“Sorry,” Buck says, shamefaced, the bitterness of once again having forgotten himself and being too much rising in him like bile.

Eddie stretches. “Make me an omelet? You can tell me more about white-nose syndrome while you cook.”

“You don’t care.”

“Of course I care about bats.” Eddie grabs both of their mugs. They dangle from one hand. Eddie makes everything seem effortless. Nothing in Buck’s life has ever come easily to him, not like so much does for Eddie. “Don't I look like a guy who cares about bats?”

Eddie leads them inside. Buck can’t help himself, not when Eddie prompts him again and seems eager. The plight of bats, and then a diversion to colony collapse, which Buck read about after the beenado, carries them through to the kitchen. Eddie washes their mugs while Buck pulls out ingredients. They work together without having to talk about it.

And then Buck starts prepping, Eddie takes a seat at the counter, and they lapse into a comfortable silence. More of the team shows up, lured by the sounds of Buck’s knife on the wooden chopping board Bobby always favored.

“I can never remember what animal venison comes from,” Eddie muses, apropos of nothing. “Hey, Buck, you know?”

Buck doesn’t look up from his chopping. “Deer.”

“Sorry, what was that?”

“No,” Chimney tries to cut in.

“Deer,” Buck repeats, louder. And then he thinks maybe the problem is that he’s talking to the counter, not to Eddie, so he looks up and says, “Deer.”

Eddie’s smile is warm and happy. Buck can’t help but return it. He cocks his head, confused. Why is Eddie so happy about game meat?

“No shot,” Harry complains. “I went bust. This one shouldn’t even count.”

Betrayal swirls in Buck’s belly. He’s known they were all joking about this, have been the entire shift, his series of unfortunate events nothing but funny to them, but somehow seeing the proof that they’re talking—conspiring—behind his back stings. And Eddie is at the heart of it. Buck’s always been able to trust Eddie.

His eyes sting. He’ll blame the onion if anyone asks. He goes back to it, cutting more slowly now, methodically. Doing a good job, every motion just how Bobby taught him.

“He said it,” Ravi rules. “No one said Eddie couldn’t prompt him to do it. And bust is when you go over. You're just out.”

When Buck glances up, Eddie isn’t standing with the group anymore. Buck isn’t sure when he wandered away. Buck keeps working on his omelet. Eddie will come back for food. He always does.

Buck's mom once told Maddie that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. That was back when she was first dating, when she was entering a grown-up world Buck couldn't follow her into.

Maddie had rolled her eyes at the advice, but only so Buck could see. It felt like he was in on the joke with her, the two of them united against the world—or at the very least their parents—again. That's the only reason he remembers that moment, he's pretty sure. That was what was important to him back then. Being part of a team, having someone who would let him have their back.

Now, as Buck cracks eggs and lets the memory wash over him, he knows it isn't true. Because if his mom's advice was any good, Eddie would want him. Buck would cook his way right into Eddie's heart. And his bed.

Buck's hands shake as he pours the first eggs into the pan. He's pissed, he realizes distantly. He's no good at being angry with Eddie, he either swallows it down or blows up and both are bad, but he doesn't know how to talk to Eddie about this either.

Because there won't be any talking to Eddie about it, not unless he tells the truth. And Buck can't do that. He can't hand his still beating heart to Eddie and ask him not to crush it, not when it would be an impossible request. Buck loves him too much to set Eddie up to hurt him.

This should be something he could laugh about with the team. If he could force himself to be normal, it would be. But he can't, and so the ache of it sits heavy on his chest, a weight he can't dislodge.

Buck loves Eddie. If Buck is going to call Eddie a pet name, he needs it to mean something to Eddie too. Not a stupid bet or shift-long joke. A romance. Love.

True to form, Eddie reappears to claim his food. He thanks Buck quietly.

Buck doesn't respond.

Eddie leans in close enough that Buck can feel his breath on his ear. “When I ask your favorite dessert, say pudding.”

He doesn't like pudding, because it screams hospital food to him. And he's spent more than enough time in hospital beds or uncomfortable visitor's chairs. Helpfully, Chris is always happy to eat Buck's pudding.

He shakes his head. “I don't—”

“Trust me,” Eddie commands.

Buck does.

As they all sit down to eat, Buck and Eddie with their omelets and everyone else with meals they scrounged up because they don't get to tease Buck relentlessly and then eat his food (except that Hen and Ravi are both eating scones he baked, but the joke is on them because those are carrot scones, and Buck is willing to admit the concept didn't quite work out, which is backed up by the face Ravi makes when he bites into his).

Eddie bides his time. Dangerous, in a situation where the alarm could go off at any time, but Eddie always has been more strategic than Buck is.

Luckily for Eddie, Ravi complains about the scone. “Haven't you ever had an actually good dessert before?”

“It isn't dessert, it's breakfast,” Hen points out.

“Buck loves dessert.” Eddie leans back in his chair. “What's your favorite?”

That's his cue. Buck looks up from his food, pretends to consider, and then says, “Probably, pudding.” In a move he's proud of, he pauses after probably so it sounds more like he's tacking on a pet name. Michelangelo would be so proud of him.

Buck thinks that's the strategy guy, anyway. Chris talked about him once when he was prepping Buck on his ten point plan to get his teacher to give him bonus points on a project.

This time, it's Ravi who groans. “Seriously?” he checks his watch. “You two only had to go half an hour more.

“Oh no,” Eddie says, his voice flat. “Everyone else is out? How could that happen?”

If Buck made a list right now. It would look something like this—

Reasons why Buck loves Eddie this morning:
1. He knew Buck would be upset, and he fixed it.
2. He got one over on all of their coworkers, even Hen.
3. He's smiling at Buck right now, uncomplicatedly happy.
4. Eddie finished his own omelet and is stealing mushrooms out of Buck's, which is both rude and the best thing anyone has ever done.
5. Because he's Eddie, and Buck has loved Eddie for a long time.

Buck finishes the last bite of his omelet. He leaves a mushroom on his plate for Eddie to snag. Eddie jumps on the opportunity. Once he's done chewing, he takes his plate and Buck's to the dishwasher.

Buck doesn't want to talk to anyone else. He heads over to the railing to watch the B-shift ambulance crew do a supply check before their team officially takes over. He may be biased, but he doesn't think they're nearly as efficient as Eddie and Hen.

Eddie leans on the railing right next to Buck. Any closer and their arms would be touching. “You know, I never much liked pet names.”

Buck has to swallow before he can muster up a response. “No?”

“Nah.” Eddie shakes his head. Then he looks right at Buck. “But coming from you, they feel nice.”

Buck can't figure out how to take that, let alone what to say in response. So he opens and closes his mouth a few times.

“And I’ve got some extra cash now,” he adds. “Could take someone on a date. Could take you.”

He’s almost certain he’s sick for real this time, because Buck freezes. His whole body simply stops functioning. It’s a toss up as to whether or not he’s even breathing.

Eddie leans back on his heels. “Think about it,” he recommends. And then he walks away.

Buck goes home. He thinks about it. Buck’s not a genius by any stretch of the imagination, but Eddie laid things out plainly for him. A trail of breadcrumbs.

He’s playing pretend with Theo—which mostly looks like Theo smashing two dinosaurs together while screeching, with occasional maniacal laughs thrown in, and Buck nodding along enthusiastically—when the question hits him.

“Did your parents call you any pet names?” he asks when Theo takes a break to breathe. These pauses are rare. Buck has learned to take advantage of him.

Theo says, “I’m a boy, not a dog,” with the long suffering attitude of a child who has been forced to repeat that more than once. As the person who has had to apologize when Theo played a game he dubbed ‘bad dog’ and lifted his leg on a tree in a public park, Buck has a feeling he knows where that came from.

“True,” Buck agrees. “You are a person.”

Theo goes back to making T-Rex noises, which sound almost identical to his interpretation of plane noises. Buck keeps nodding along, but he’s still chewing on the idea of Eddie and pet names.

Eddie has called Chris a variety of pet names over the years. Superman, mijo, the hermit who lives in his house and only emerges for food, that sort of thing. All very affectionately.

Buck’s parents never called him anything but Evan growing up. They hated any sort of nickname, which Buck is realizing must have extended to pet names too. He tried to call his dad Pops once and got resoundingly rebuffed. He was being a little shit at the time, but still.

Chimney calls Jee his little ladybug. He called Nash bumblebee last week. Buck isn't sure why Chimney has a bug theme going on, given how he hates them almost as much as he does crows. But it's cute. Chimney is a way better father than Buck's was.

Buck wants to be more like Chimney than his dad. More like Eddie, too. Eddie is a great dad.

“Hey, little bud,” he asks, “you ready for a snack?”

Theo considers this with all the gravity it deserves. “Ants on a log,” he announces.

Buck bows. “Your wish is my command.”

Theo loves being helpful. When he has a task to do, some sort of meaningful contribution, he's happy. He's one of Buck's better sous chefs. Buck spreads the peanut butter, and Theo sprinkles the raisins on top. More than Buck would, but since Theo will eat them all, he lets him do what he wants.

Buck can't convince himself he isn't in love with Eddie. Not anymore.

“Ant in your nose!” Theo announces.

Buck eats it instead of letting Theo stick it up a nostril. He shows Theo the evidence on his tongue before he swallows. “Ant in my belly!”

Theo laughs. He puts a raisin on his own tongue too.

“Let's eat your snack at the table,” Buck suggests. Theo agrees sometimes, but he also likes to ask if they can eat outside. He nods this time.

Buck deposits the plate and swings Theo up into his booster seat. “Good?” he asks.

Theo doesn't bother answering. He's already crunching down loudly on celery.

Buck watches him eat, and he knows his smile is embarrassingly fond. He'd been so unsure about fostering Theo at first, back and forth on it until his talk with Harry clarified things for him. He made the right decision then.

He's been terrified about letting himself look at this thing between him and Eddie. So, so scared. But if taking in Theo has taught him anything—and it's taught him a lot, mostly about common household dangers—it’s taught him to trust himself when something feels right. When someone feels right. There's no one in the world who's ever felt like more of a fit for Buck romantically, and he's done a lot of sampling.

If Eddie is in, Buck needs to be too. He trusts Eddie, after all. And if he's willing to call Eddie pudding on command, he can handle dating him.

Maybe Buck should take more time with this decision, but the thin veneer of denial is gone, and all he can think about is Eddie. He's waited long enough. He doesn't need to tie himself in knots anymore, not when Eddie likes the way romance tastes in Buck's mouth.

Well, Buck thinks, he doesn't know how either romance or Buck's mouth taste yet. But if Buck has anything to say about it, and he's coming to realize he does, Eddie won't have to wait to find out.

It's still hazardous to Buck's property to leave him on his own, but he and Theo have been figuring each other out. Buck thinks the peanut butter glueing Theo's mouth shut and making it harder to chew should give him at least five minutes of safety. It's a risky proposition, but Buck has a good rental insurance policy and a phone call he needs to make.

“Oh, so you are alive,” Maddie says the moment she answers. “I thought Chimney might be trying to cover for something.”

“I'm in love with Eddie.” It feels different said aloud, no longer belonging just in the quiet parts of his own mind, only existing in the moments he can’t drown his feelings out.

“Oh,” Maddie says. Then, quieter, “Oh.”

Buck finds himself tearing up and, for a moment, feels stupid for it. “I think maybe,” he pauses, then tries again. “I-I think this could be good.”

“I do too, Evan,” Maddie says. There's a thickness to her voice like she might be on the verge of crying as well.

Buck could make a list here, and it might help.

Reasons why it's safe to believe Eddie Diaz may want to date Evan Buckley:

1. He practically said so, didn't he? All plain and easy to understand.

He'd make a list of all the reasons why he loves Eddie, but he doesn't have a lifetime to sit and compile it, and he's pretty sure that's how long it would take. Maybe decades of diligent listing wouldn't even scratch the surface. That's how much he loves Eddie.

“I’m going to tell him.”

“Good,” Maddie says. “I'm so proud of you.”

Buck is proud of himself too.

Since he has a kid to amuse and, almost as importantly, keep alive, Buck can't drive to Eddie's until Theo is back at his summer camp and safely under the purview of other people the next morning. Buck doesn't think Eddie will mind the delay. If he's right, they've both been waiting for this for a long time.

It occurs to him that he'll probably owe his sister an apology if this goes well. But that can wait. Buck couldn't be rushed into this, he thinks. He had to get here in his own time.

Eddie opens the door in shorts and an old tee he wears to clean. It's got holes, so Buck can see snatches of his chest and stomach peeking through. “Hey, Buck,” he says.

Buck holds out the offering he brought. A cupcake of his own this time. He made them after Theo went to bed. For the third time. The kid has more energy than a battery. But once he finally went down for real, he conked out hard, leaving Buck plenty of baking time.

“Hi, cupcake,” he says.

Eddie's lips curve into a smile. “Yeah?” he asks.

Buck takes a step closer. He's confident in this, he thinks, but he's nervous too. This is big, the sort of thing that has the potential to change his life. “Yeah,” he says.

And then Eddie takes the last step for him. He pulls Buck in, right there in the doorway, and kisses him. It's like no other first kiss Buck has ever had. He didn't even know it could feel like this, safety and warmth and coming home swirling together with an all-consuming passion. Buck loves Eddie, and he needs him.

“Come in?” Eddie asks when they need to pause for breath. Not that Buck thinks he'll ever be able to take a full breath again, not with the ball of joy that's filling his chest.

Buck knows there's a lot more they can do inside, but he likes this too, being pressed up against Eddie in his doorway. There's a part of him worried that if he moves, it'll break this thing between them, as precious and fragile as an eggshell.

“We're giving the neighbors a show,” Eddie murmurs. Eddie has never once cared about that. He mows his lawn shirtless. Just last week Buck saw him get the mail in shorts so tiny it was a miracle he didn't flash anyone but Buck.

“Let ‘em watch,” Buck says. He leans in again.

But Eddie leans away. “I want you all to myself.”

Well, if that's his reasoning… “Why didn't you say so?” Buck crowds Eddie, forcing him out of the doorway and inside. He kicks it shut behind him.

“I've been trying to get you here for months.” Eddie curls his hands in Buck's shirt. “I'm not sharing you now.”

“For months?”

“When I came out and said this could change something between us,” he says. He tugs Buck, maneuvering him so they're heading for the couch, Eddie walking backwards. Buck would prefer the bed, but he's willing to hear Eddie's plan out.

“And when I took you out for dinner and picked your outfit.”

“Bros night.” Buck had called it that, blurted it out over dinner like it was something he said ever, not understanding at the time why Eddie's face fell.

“I've been half-naked around you every time you come over alone.”

Rare, without Theo, but Buck has managed it a few times.

“Even April noticed. Your nanny was trying to help me out.”

Buck pauses, thinking. “Is that why there's a collage of you on my fridge?”

Eddie snorts. “You look at twenty pictures of me every day—”

“I thought it was great Theo likes you that much!”

Eddie's smile turns soft and mushy at the edges. “He might like you that much,” he says. “But no, his collage is the firetruck one.”

That does make sense, now that Buck thinks about it. There's a real difference in quality between the two.

“I needed a new plan,” Eddie says. He holds onto Buck's hip tightly, like he's anchoring himself. “And then you walked in and called me cupcake.”

“I didn't call you cupcake,” Buck protests. “I had a cupcake.”

“Only for me.” Eddie rubs a circle on Buck with his thumb. Buck's entire awareness shoots to that small circumference. For all he knows, the rest of his body could stop existing. While Eddie is touching him, that's all that matters.

Buck gives in. It's inevitable. He always gives in to Eddie. “Yeah.” He swallows. “Only for you.”

“Getting you to call me pet names worked,” Eddie says, which Buck thinks is a stretch, but he's here now, so he can't complain. “It was a good plan.”

“You'd make Michelangelo proud,” Buck informs him.

Eddie pauses. “The ninja turtle? Or the sculptor?”

“The strategy guy. Chris read his book.”

“Machiavelli?”

“Maltagliati,” Buck shoots back. Machiavelli sounds right, though, now that Eddie's said it.

Eddie kisses him, really more of a peck than anything else, but it still brings a smile to Buck's face. It's hard to kiss Eddie when he's smiling, but he's too happy to care. “How can you memorize the Wikipedia page for the dancing plague but not remember Machiavelli’s name?”

“I have a lot of talents.”

Eddie kisses him again. “You want to show me some of them?” He offers Buck a smirk before he adds, “Cupcake?”

Yeah, Buck sure does. He kisses Eddie and backs him up against the wall. “You sure you're ready for this, pumpkin?”

Eddie shivers.

“Babe?” Buck kisses the hinge of his jaw. Then down his neck. “Baby?”

Eddie moans.

Buck decides it's time for a new list: everything that leads to Eddie making that sound. It'll be his best list yet.

Eddie's hands travel, exploring the curve of Buck's waist. He'll have plenty of time for lists later. Right now, he has a man to take to bed.