is this because i don’t have a couch?

ps: i recommend starting over again even if you read the snippet bc i added and edited some stuff. love and light <3

Eddie proposes on a Thursday.

Nothing particularly notable about the day itself. No anniversary. No holiday. No grand orchestration of fate. No celestial alignment. No significance carved into the calendar. Just late evening sunlight slanting gold through kitchen windows; the kind of light that makes everything feel softer at the edges than it really is, Christopher's abandoned homework spread across the table amongst Theo's colouring pages all half completed, the distant hum of traffic from outside.

And Eddie—Eddie standing in front of him with nervous hands and unbearably soft eyes.

Afterwards, Buck will remember every detail with startling clarity. The way Eddie's thumb catches against the velvet edge of the ring box. The slight hitch in his breathing before he asks. The warmth of the light painting him amber and gold, like something holy. The tv on low volume in the living room, more presence than sound.

Outside, Los Angeles moves on without noticing anything is about to change. Then, Eddie kneels in front of him. Not as a best friend. Not as a partner in the fragile, long built architecture of their lives. But as something more certain than either of those words ever managed to be on their own.

It isn't dramatic. It isn't loud.

It's Eddie Diaz asking him a question like it has always already been answered. Buck says yes before the question is even fully formed in the air between them. Because of course he does. Because there is nothing else in him that thinks to respond differently.

Four nights later, Buck lies awake, staring at the ceiling, next to Eddie, listening to him breathe as he sleeps on his side, one arm thrown loosely across Buck's waist like even unconscious he refuses to let go completely.

Buck turns the engagement ring around his finger, feeling the metal slide against his skin. Slowly. Thoughtfully. As if attempting to map the weight of the future pressing gently into his flesh. And somewhere in that quiet, it lands in him with a kind of startling inevitability: He does not want to marry Eddie as Evan.

The thought doesn't arrive like lightning. It arrives like the tide. Patient. Certain. Already in motion long before he ever noticed it coming in.

Because Evan hasn't ever really fit. Not fully.

Evan belongs to Pennsylvania winters and a too-big house filled with oppressive silence. To unremarkable report cards slid across kitchen counters without much interest. To trying and trying to become someone worth keeping around. Evan belongs to a person Buck barely knows how to be anymore. Evan has always been a name that felt slightly out of reach, even when it was his, like it belonged to someone standing a few steps behind him in a hallway he could never quite turn around fast enough to see. Evan was an identity forged in total emotional neglect, the name heavily burdened with a lack of validation.

Evan is hospital wristbands that itch against skin too sensitive for permanence. Evan is teachers berating him for having too much energy. Evan is the version of him that learned early how to make himself smaller so he would not take up too much space in rooms that already felt full without him. Evan belonged to a person standing a few steps behind him in a hallway, untethered and crying out.

The name Evan is like an old hand me down coat. Something acquired in childhood, the sleeves are way too short, the zipper is completely broken, the material is scratchy against the neck, and it fundamentally doesn't keep warm. But it kept getting worn purely out of habit, worn for so long that the assumption is this is what coats are meant to feel like, that they're supposed to feel uncomfortable in some sort of way.

But Buck—

Buck is the name Christopher shouted in glee across a crowded school parking lot the first time he spotted him after a hard day. Buck was Bobby's steady hand against the back of his neck after a difficult call. Buck is Hen laughing fondly under her breath after calling him an idiot. He's Maddie saying his name like relief. He's Theo's third best friend after Chris and Eddie—in that order. Buck is Ravi's eye roll and Harry's groan and sigh. He's Chimney ribbing him for no reason other than he can.

Buck is Eddie, half asleep and rough-voiced in the dark, murmuring sweetheart, c'mere. It's Eddie saying his name like it's something worth keeping.

That's who he is. That's the life he's made.

The dichotomy is incredibly stark. Evan is a given name, assigned without consent by two people who never really knew him or cared enough to try, and saturated with neglect. Buck is an earned name, a title built on the foundation of chosen family, community service, mutual respect, and profound love—all encompassing love; platonic, familial, and romantic.

Buck is the name actively populated with positive meaning, a custom tailored suit. It wasn't bought off the rack; it was meticulously hand stitched together by the people who love him. The people who see his value and don't think he takes up too much space.

hiiii rain, my dear!! ty for waiting sooo patiently for this one, i reeeally loved writing it, so i hope you enjoy! 🫶🫶 buddie | g | 1755 words | #26 "I got you a present."

“Oh, hey,” Eddie says, suddenly appearing in the kitchen doorway. He’s got a travel mug in hand and a pleased smile on his face. “You’re back.”

Buck’s own smile stretches across his mouth, something warm settling in his chest now that he and Eddie are back in each other’s orbit. “So are you,” he says happily, carefully setting his armful of canvas tote bags on the counter. The handles slip down his arm to dangle over to the edge, and Buck tucks them safely out of the way. “How was drop off?”

“Easy today,” Eddie answers, letting a palm skate across Buck’s lower back as he passes behind him on his way to the sink, pausing just long enough to duck in and smack a kiss to Buck’s cheek. “How was the farmer’s market?”

Buck melts back into Eddie’s touch, preening under the sweet affection. He’s glad to hear things went smoothly this morning; since Theo’s transition from daycare to preschool it’s been a bit of a crapshoot whether he’s going to cling with tears in his big blue eyes and the world’s most heartbreaking frown turning down his mouth or run straight into his classroom without so much as a single glance back. Buck was bummed to have to miss it today, but with the forecast of unexpected summer showers this weekend, the farmer’s market got bumped up a couple days, and Buck couldn’t miss it. Eddie, thankfully, had been more than happy to take on kid duty this morning, coordinating breakfast and bathroom time and getting two different kids to two different schools without being late for either.

“Wasn’t as good without you there,” Buck answers honestly. He missed Eddie’s hand in his as he weaved through the stalls and the throngs of other shoppers alone, the way he always tugged Buck to the booth with the fresh bread and pastries and the homemade salsa one that always gives out free samples. “Ms. Jenkins didn’t give me a discount on honey today,” he tells Eddie, pulling out the three jars he still ended up buying.

Eddie’s laugh is loud enough to be heard over the faucet. “That’s not my fault,” he says, easily reading between the lines. “She doesn’t give you one just because I’m there.”

Black snorts. “She totally does though,” he says. “I think she’s a little bit in love with you.”

Eddie spins on his heel, soap suds flying across the counter from his wet hands. Amusement sparkles in his eyes, and his mouth, half-open in scandalized shock, curves at the corners as another burst of laughter spills out. “She’s seventy, Buck!”

“And clearly not blind! She’s got spectacular taste!” Buck volleys, gesturing towards Eddie’s, well, everything. Even in a pair of old jeans and a worn t-shirt that’s damp from the sink and stained with what looks like mashed banana from Theo’s breakfast, with hat hair and the impression from his sunglasses still stamped into the bridge of his nose, he's gorgeous. Ms. Jenkins would be so lucky.

Eddie rolls his eyes, swiping the dish towel off of the hook to half-heartedly swat it at Buck. “You’re ridiculous.”

“It’s true!” Buck defends. “She’s an ass girl, I just know it.”

“Buck!”

15) a thumb pressing down on a bottom lip + 10) hands guiding a spoon up to waiting lips

"This is stupid. You're being ridiculous."

Buck huffs out something between a sigh and a snort as he watches Eddie lean against the wall of the kitchen, arms crossed and lips pursed. Immediately, his mind catalogues the minute details of it, cross-referencing the twitches in his expression with the rolodex of Eddie-isms that lives in his brain rent-free.

Crossed arms? Annoyed Eddie.

Pursed lips? Eddie who's annoyed because Buck hasn't already figured out why he's annoyed.

Leaning against the kitchen wall? Eddie who still wants Buck to figure out why he's annoyed.

Luckily, Buck is perfectly aware of why Eddie is annoyed, even though he's pretty sure that it's not the same reason that Eddie thinks he's annoyed.

"You're being hangry again," he says, not looking up from the crockpot where he's stirring, the scent of tomato and basil bright in the air.

Eddie huffs again, his whole chest heaving with it. He's lucky that Buck thinks he's cute - er, in a platonic way - when he's grumpy. "Oh, so it's a me problem," Eddie complains, all petulance. "Evan Buckley can do no wrong, he wasn't being childish at all, it's all because I-"

"- had to skip lunch because we had a call," Buck finishes, rolling his eyes. "And I know you don't actually care about my pop country playlist, Eddie."

"You know I hate pop country. It's not-"

"- real country, I know. You're such a music snob, music is-"

"- just an expression of artistic intent that shouldn't be constrained by genre? You can't say that when half these artists are people looking to make a quick buck - don't -"

"- hey, you were the one who said it, I just wanted to listen to some music on the way back-"

"- music you know I don't like, and you kept turning the volume up!"

"Traffic was loud, okay?" and Buck did, admittedly, find it hilarious to watch Eddie sink further and further into the passenger seat, face like a grumbly kitten's as Buck kept turning the volume up whenever he tried to turn it down.

Eddie glares at him, and Buck rolls his eyes as he turns back to the lasagna soup, humming as he grabs a wooden spoon. "You're such a dick," he says.

Buck takes a little bit of soup into the spoon, turns around. "Takes one to know one," he says cheerfully. He takes a step forward, and Eddie presses himself harder into the wall with his determinedly sour mood.

"Stop."

A step. Another. "I don't know what you're talking about, Eddie."

"You're trying to-- placate me!"

Another two steps. "Oh, big words coming out."

"You can't just grin your way out of everything, Buck, sometimes you just have to--" Eddie's words stutter into silence as the tips of Buck's slippers knock against Eddie's, his hand holding up the spoon expectantly.

"Just one taste, Eddie," Buck coaxes, tilting his head. He watches the war in Eddie's eyes, his nose twitching as the scent of the soup hits it. Eddie swallows, and Buck's eyes trace the bob of his throat with an emotion that he chooses not to interrogate.

"I'm not a kid, Buck," Eddie says. "You can't just--"

Feed me, Buck hears, but the words are cut off when Eddie's stomach makes the choice for him, the rumble loud in the kitchen. Eddie looks at Buck. Buck looks at Eddie. Buck, in a moment of true and genuine friendship, doesn't even laugh.

Eddie glares at his stomach, Buck keeps smiling. Eddie sighs, long and loud, as if he were doing Buck a favor, and opens his mouth.

Buck watches him, the dark fan of his lashes as he looks at the spoon in Buck's hands, the soft part of his lips, the steady, trusting lean of his body. For a moment, something shivers down his spine, some knowledge that he blinks away so that he can keep his hand steady. He stares at Eddie for a beat too long, and Eddie's eyes look up towards his face expectantly, in a way that looks wholly different when he's looking up through his lashes.

Buck swallows, smile faltering, before slowly guiding the spoon to Eddie's mouth, one hand below to catch any spills. It means that his palm is right by Eddie's mouth as it wraps around the spoon, that he can feel the soft vibration of Eddie's throat as he hums with approval as the hit tastes his tongue, that he can catalogue the slow slide of his lips off the wooden spoon, the way his eyes fall shut for just a moment before he swallows.

Buck swallows in tandem with him, throat suddenly dry. Eddie blinks, frowns a little. Abashed Eddie. "That's...good, Buck," he says, the irritation fallen from his body at the first bite of food hitting his stomach.

It makes pride glow in Buck's sternum, something bright and sparkling. It makes Buck stupid, apparently, because the next thing he knows his free hand isn't retracting with the spoon but cupping Eddie's jaw, thumb sweeping over his chin and landing on his lower lip, a little wet, a little red.

Eddie stares at him. Buck stares back.

"You," Buck stutters, trying to move his hand away. His hand doesn't obey his orders, though, just keeps pressing to Eddie's plush lower lip, sweeping against the divots of it. "You, ah, you had a bit of-- um, something. Here."

There. Saved it.

Eddie's mouth is still a little open, and this close Buck can almost smell tomatoes and herbs from his lips, can feel his mouth water at the scent. His tongue darts out to sweep over his lips slightly, looking more instinctual than anything, and Buck can feel a hot thrum through his veins as it catches momentarily on the pad of Buck's thumb.

"Is it..." Eddie looks at him through wide eyes, and Buck's mind flips through its Eddie-rolodex but can't find a match to the expression on his face right now. "Is it gone now?"

Buck's thumb presses in a little, momentarily, and he can barely feel Eddie's breath hitch as he finally withdraws his hand. "Um, yeah." he coughs, turns back to the stove. "Yeah, it's gone." he looks down at the pot. "And it's-- it's ready, now, so you can, uh, you can go grab a seat, and I'll grab you some food."

A huff of air, soft. "Yeah," Eddie says. Buck listens to the shuffle of his feet, the silence in the kitchen after. He looks through his peripheral vision to make sure that Eddie's not in the room anymore, then looks down at his hand, the faint tremor running through it.

He presses his thumb to his lip, still a little damp, a little warm. He closes his eyes for a singular moment, knowing. Then he opens them again, and allows himself not to know.

He grabs a bowl, a clean spoon. Eddie's hungry, that's all.

1) knuckles brushing across a cheek + 3) lips pressed against a brow-bone + 20) fingertips tracing the notches of a spine (mwah ty sarah <33 i chose to do them separately AND together, because i am always Like This. this one got kind of long so under a cut!) (touch prompts!)

Eddie is used to being the early riser in a relationship. Eldest son time. Military time. Single father time. Any number of reasons for the way his body has become accustomed to jostling him awake at the brink of dawn, clear-headed and efficient, any traces of irritation tucked into the spaces deep inside of him reserved for feelings that he doesn't have the luxury of indulging in.

He would wake up before Shannon, in the quicksilver moments that they were together after Chris was born, rolling out of bed to rock their son to sleep and being rewarded by the softness in her eyes when she woke up after, exhaustion clinging less fervently to the edges of her eyes. He would wake up before Ana, watching her face still and silent in the dawn light, startling himself with her presence like she was a guest that he never quite came to expect. He would wake up before Marisol, untucking himself from her to do his morning chores, her jokingly complaining about her not doing her fair share of work and it never occurring to him to share any of it with her. It's just what he does. He's the one that gets up. He's the one who does it all.

With Buck, though, it's different.

Buck isn't like Eddie, with the clock embedded into him by necessity and force of habit. He's just a morning person, in the truest sense of the word. Though to call him that perhaps belies the point, which is that Buck throws himself into living as much as he can, as fully as he can. He throws himself into mornings and lingers into nights and even when he's sleep-worn or heavy with exhaustion there's a feeling of satisfaction there, like he takes pride in wringing out every moment he can from a day.

Between the two of them, even before-- all of this, which is to say the kissing and the cuddling and the bodies pressed into each other under the sheets, it was always a little bit of a guessing game on who was going to wake up first. Sometimes it would be Buck, the smell of breakfast and soft humming and the clunking noise of living that Buck can never quite contain. Sometimes it's Eddie, who quietly prepares for the day ahead of them, packing Buck's duffel alongside his own with the ease of love worn smooth at the edges.

With this, though--

(which is to say: the startling joy found in crevasses of Eddie's life that he'd thought were gathering dust. The ordinary moments suddenly refracted in color like light through a prism or waterfall or some other metaphor for the inherent transmutation properties of love. The kissing. So much kissing.)

-- with this, everything shifts, ever so slightly.

(1)

8) thighs wrapped around a waist

It's quiet for just long enough for Buck to start panicking.

It feels more intimate, now, warm air exhaling from one of their lips in one breath, inhaled by the other in the next. Slow, instead of ragged. Deliberate, instead of desperate.

Scared, instead of sure.

"I--" he says, because he's always been incapable of leaving things well enough alone. He watches Eddie's chest, bare and golden. He doesn't let his eyes fall lower, doesn't let himself take in the way Eddie's waist looks against his fingers, the curve of his thighs over Buck's hips. He can't let himself remember this. He's fooling himself if he thinks that it's not seared into him already. "We just--"

"Yeah," Eddie says, when Buck can't quite bring himself to complete the sentence.

"And you--"

"I know," Eddie says. And there's a little tremble in his voice, something that's already beginning to retreat. Buck wants-- Buck can't-- Buck has to--

"Eddie," he says, and the word still feels shiny and new in his mouth, even after all these years. Even after tonight, when he must've used up a lifetime's worth of Eddie's, murmured and moaned and tucked into secret places.

"Buck," Eddie says, and there's something caught there, too. There's a hitch of air over Buck's lips, like Eddie wants to say something else. He doesn't.

For a moment, it feels like that's it. The glass fractured between them falling back into shape. Buck can't look into his eyes. Eddie can't say it out loud. Nevermind the come on their stomachs, their swollen lips, the bruises they won't be able to hide.

Buck thinks, believes, tells himself that they can still come back from this. It's them. They have to.

Then Eddie's thighs shift slightly, and Buck's fingers tighten involuntarily.

He doesn't mean to. He needs to let Eddie go. If Eddie can't-- if he's not-- Buck can't do this halfway, can't be the anchor on another sinking ship. Not anymore, and especially not with Eddie.

But his hands don't listen to him. They press into Eddie's sides, the divots of his hips. If Buck looks down, he knows he'd be able to map out the bruises they're going to leave. He doesn't. He can't. He watches the St. Christopher against Eddie's sternum instead, trying to force himself to relax, to let go, to say something easy and funny, something to make Eddie laugh, to forget all of this.

But Eddie gets there first: fingers against Buck's jaw, and Buck wants to close his eyes but it's Eddie. It's Eddie. It's always been Eddie.

It's Eddie, brown eyes looking down at him, something awed in his gaze. It's Eddie, muscles relaxing under Buck's grasp, going liquid and soft and letting Buck hold onto him. It's Eddie, a smile cresting his face like sunrise after the longest night of the year: slowly, then all at once.

"Buck," Eddie says again. And, oh, Buck can hear him, now.

"Eddie," Buck replies. Eddie's legs shift again, but only to wrap themselves tighter around Buck's waist. Buck's hand go loose, but only so he can run them up Eddie's sides, cup his face.

He can feel Eddie's cheeks shift under his fingers, the soft swell of his smile running through his fingertips and directly into his heart.

"Hi, Buck," Eddie says, something other than fear in his voice.

Buck laughs, startled, wondering. "Hi, Eddie."