Dream A Little Fic

Buck was hogging the firehouse couch. 

It was cheeky really, they didn’t have much comfortable relaxing space in the firehouse loft, just the three recliners and the sofa, so usually he wouldn’t monopolise it like this, but right now everyone else was either holed up in the bunk room or busy showering so he was trying not to think about it too hard. He’d move if anyone came up. 

The last call had been long and tiring and difficult in all the wrong ways, and now Buck’s mind was running too fast to sleep. If he went into the bunkroom he would inevitably annoy Hen into banishing him away again anyway, so he was doing the rest of the team a kindness and letting his brain wind down before bedding down for the night.

He was typing his disordered thoughts out into his Notes in an effort to calm down when a familiar hand batted his arm out of the way, long fingers and calluses on every edge, followed by the heavy weight of a body laying down on top of him and curling into him. 

“Uh, Eddie?”

Eddie huffed, eyes closed already. “You didn’t come to bed,” was murmured into his shoulder. “It wasn’t your fault.”

Buck heart clenched. He’d carried a little girl no older than six out of the apartment building. She’d succumbed to smoke inhalation before the ambulance could set off. They couldn't bring her back.

“No, I– I know,” Buck replied. “I just– I’m not ready to sleep yet. Need to think it through, I guess.”

Eddie hummed, and the vibration warmed Buck’s chest. He shuffled slightly so that Eddie was cradled on top of him. 

“Okay. You can carry on, I’ll just… be here a minute,” Eddie said as he slid his leg between Buck’s for stability and buried his face into Buck’s neck. Barely ten seconds later his breathing evened out as he drifted off to sleep. 

Buck gently hooked his arms around Eddie’s sleeping body and carried on typing, warm and a hell of a lot more settled than he had been before Eddie arrived. 

An hour later, Henrietta Wilson shook awake from a nightmare, desperate for company and a glass of water. Heading through the common area, she was greeted with the sight of Buck snoring lightly into Eddie’s hair, cuddled into each other, dead asleep, and completely and entirely hogging the couch. 

She grabbed a drink and padded quietly up to the roof space, settling in on the deck chair next to Chim. He clinked his glass on hers. She looked up at the star-less Los Angeles sky, considering. 

“D’you think they know?”

Chim scoffed, “No. I think one of them might actually have to die for them to figure it out.”

“You would think that.”

Chimney laughed, “Hey,” he shrugged, cheery grin across his face, “It worked with you and Karen.”

Hen just rolled her eyes and sipped her tea.

They’d figure it out.