call this little ficlet thursday, this is @deareddie's fault and is inspired by the h50 episode where danny asks steve what he's wearing and guesses, "cargo pants."
“What are you wearing?”
A laugh startles its way out of Eddie. He abandons the box he was just opening to pick his phone up, turning the speaker off. “What?”
“Well, you won't tell me anything else.” Buck’s laughter filters across the line, teasing and warm and everything that makes Eddie’s heart hurt now that he’s 800 miles away from him. “So, what are you wearing, Eddie?”
It’s that tone that Eddie gets stuck on, all low and flirty the way Buck gets sometimes. Harmless to everything except Eddie’s heart, which kicks in gear every time he hears it.Â
Like the day he'd found Eddie's iPad flipped over, an innuendo pressed into the curve of his smirking mouth, evidently unaware of what was to come.
Sometimes, he wonders if Buck ever means the things he says to Eddie — if he ever imagines things being a little different, of meeting Eddie at a bar and putting the moves on him. The same moves Eddie’s made fun of him for countless times, good-natured and teasing the way they are with each other.
But then he thinks about his Buck, sweet in his awkwardness, and heart worn on his sleeve, and wonders if he even wants that cocky front. He has no doubt Buck could back it up, knows that there’s a world of truth and skill behind that cockiness, but the man he wants is the one with mismatched socks who slips and slides in Eddie’s kitchen, accidentally knocking over flour bags and leaving trails of cinnamon sugar in the tile grout.
He thinks about the Buck who'd walked into the realization that Eddie was going to leave, and despite his clear sadness, had stuck by Eddie' side, sharing the misery with him.
He thinks about the Buck who challenges him, shoves at him, bullies his way into Eddie's life, the one who drives him up the fucking wall — and the same one he wouldn't have any other way.
He'd fallen in love with his version of Buck, pushy and annoying and endearing and his whole goddamned family.
Hell of a time to have that realization — looking at Buck standing in the rain in his side mirror, his expression devastated and crumpled. The knot of too late, too late, too late had formed in Eddie's gut at the sight, and has only gotten bigger in the 26 hours since.
26 hours since he left LA, left Buck standing alone in front of the only house that's felt like home outside of his Abuela's home, and they've already talked on the phone for a good 7 of those hours.
“Why do you want to know?” Eddie returns, lowering his voice in turn. He knows this game, knows how he can modulate his own voice, make it a little rougher, add an edge to it. He knows how to add the suggestive tone to his own voice, too.
Even with as clumsy as it sounds to his own ears, Buck’s breath hitches over the line.
Eddie smiles, looking down at himself. The Texas humidity had started sticking to him by the time he unpacked the third box from the back of the U-haul, so in actuality, he’s just in a pair of shorts, his shirt thrown off somewhere among the piles of stuff in the rental. He's sweaty and gross, covered in dust and grime, and even a little grease because his truck had started making a foreboding sound and Eddie was not about to have it crap out on him after 12 hours on the road.
So all in all, he looks gross, but he'll play into this fantasy anywhere.
“Eddie.”
Eddie knows what hope sounds like on Buck. Knows what Buck sounds like when he wants answers, can picture him clearly in his mind. Bright blue eyes, head ducked down and cocked slightly to the side.
“Buck,” Eddie says, letting his voice warm with amusement. “Ask me again.”
There's a line in the sand here, one that Eddie brushes away with a swipe of three words. Tomorrow, he'll focus on Chris and his parents and everything else he needs to do, but today, this is for him and Buck.
A beat of silence. Then, lower and rougher and flirtier than before — “What are you wearing?”
Eddie grins.
