Pathetic.

And sure, Buck gets it. It was a—a crisis mustache, or whatever. A temporary change, and now that Christopher’s back and everyone’s together and everything is good, why does he still need it? But Buck just—he can’t explain it, can’t examine it, but it feels like he’ll be losing something if Eddie loses the facial hair. It feels like someone scooping up the last bite of a dessert he never got to try, or learning he missed the window on a museum exhibit he really wanted to see.

Please? Buck types it out and sends it before he can think too hard about it. Please. For me?

Eddie doesn’t respond to that. Ten minutes go by, then twenty. He probably got in the shower, probably is shaving it off right now, all that dark hair swirling down the drain. Tomorrow Buck will go over for dinner and video games with Chris, and Eddie will look…normal. Everything will be back to normal. Why does that feel like something Buck can’t handle, doesn’t want?

He’s halfway through prepping dinner, forcing himself to go through the motions so he’ll stop feeling shaky and fragile inside, when someone knocks at his door. He wipes his hands off, frowning, and goes to the door, and—it’s Eddie.

It’s Eddie, with a mustache.

“’For me?’” Eddie says.

Buck should feel ashamed, hearing his frankly unhinged message parroted back to him, but he’s too busy sighing with relief and—reaching, reaching out like he wanted to before, his palm cradling Eddie’s jaw and his thumb swiping across the hair at the corner of Eddie’s mouth. It’s better than he thought it would be, a little spiky at the ends but…soft too. Soft enough he wants to rub his lips against it.

So he does.

“Buck,” Eddie says, amused, his lips brushing Buck’s, the mustache tickling his skin. It’s not quite a kiss, not yet, but—it could be. It will be, soon.

“Shut up,” Buck says, heat flooding his face. Then, “Thank you.” And then he tips his head down a little and presses his mouth to Eddie’s in earnest, tonguing his top lip and groaning at the prickle, the newness, just what he wanted, what he asked for.

Eddie wraps an arm around his waist, iron band of muscle, and walks him backward into the loft, lets the door fall shut. “For you,” he murmurs against Buck’s mouth.

Buck moves his head left to right, lets the hair rasp across his cheek, his mouth, his chin. He licks again, kisses again, wants to burrow in and stay. “Thank you,” he says again. It’s silly. Stupid. But Eddie did this for him, and now Buck wants to give him everything, anything.

“Buck,” Eddie says, all fondness and gravel. “Just kiss me.”