#murphycooper

Chimney hesitates, and Eddie feels something wild flare up in his chest. It must show on his face, because Chim holds up his hands, takes a step back.

“I’m not saying no,” he says. He’s pale under his helmet, voice shaking. They all have been, ever since Buck vanished under falling rubble. “I’m saying let me think, Jesus.”

“Would you stop to think? If it was Maddie?” He feels the skin under his hands start to go cold, waits for Ravi to check pulse points to make sure the flow has stopped to Buck’s arm before he lets go. “It’ll take ten minutes. We pull it out of me, put it into him.”

Chimney holds his eye for a beat, jaw clenched. “You’re sure you can do this?”

Eddie nods, ripping his bloodied gloves off as Hen passes him a fresh set. Buck’s blood, his mind supplies unhelpfully. His stomach rolls, but his hands are steady as he searches for what he needs. 

“It’s a buddy transfusion,” he says. “I can give a unit, maybe two if he needs it.”

“Start with one,” Chimney tells him, tacit permission. “The last thing we need is both of you down.”

And it’s slow. Agonizingly slow, and Buck’s unconscious through it all, which doesn’t help ease the flutter of fear in Eddie’s chest even as he watches his own blood flow into Buck. Watches the way his skin gets its pink back while Hen dresses the wound on his other side. 

When it’s done and Buck’s loaded into the ambulance, Eddie collapses onto a concrete block, working his hand and stretching his arm out. He feels calmer now that they’re through the worst of it, but he’s still on edge, still got the fear ticking away in the back of his skull. It seems like they’re always on the edge of losing each other, like they can never really get ahead, like –

A hand lands on his shoulder, and he looks up. Chim squeezes, then lets him go. Something passes between them, and Eddie nods. 

“Ride with him,” Chimney says. He tilts his head. “I would. If it was Maddie.”

“Do I want to know what’s happening between you two?” Adri asks from his other side. She’s on her fourth tequila soda and swaying a little on her barstool. “Soph thinks you guys have like... a weird swingers thing going on.”

Eddie lets out a laugh, sharp and surprised. When he looks over at her, the smug look on her face is cut down a little by the fact that she’s also busy chasing her straw around the rim of her glass with her tongue. She catches it and her mouth closes around it, eyebrows raised at him.

He glances back at Buck on the other side of the room, leaned in close to say something into some guy’s ear. The guy settles a hand on his waist, and Buck doesn’t flinch or step away. Leans into it a little, even. Eddie feels something hot flare up the back of his neck.

“We’re not swingers,” he deadpans, ripping his eyes away. “We’re normal.”

Adri releases her straw and gives him a grin. “Swingers are normal, Eddie,” she says loftily. “Just because you’re gay now doesn’t mean you get to be a prude about everything else.”

He laughs again, rolls his eyes. Glances back at Buck. The guy’s stepped closer, a little more in his space than he was before. Or maybe that’s just Eddie’s imagination working overtime, spinning off into one of a thousand scenarios. Picturing how he might swoop in, or how he might not. Might sit back and let things play themselves out, let Buck do his thing and see where it goes. 

If they were swingers – which they’re not – but if they were, the guy isn’t bad looking. He’s even Buck’s type, which is to say he looks a little like Eddie from a distance and through the haze of a couple cocktails. 

It could be fun to see what would happen if he didn’t intervene: would Buck notice? Would he detach himself eventually? Come looking for Eddie? Pick his head up from the conversation with the stranger and try to find Eddie’s eye from across the room? How far would he let it go before he cut himself off? Would he cut himself off, or would he just keep waiting for Eddie to put a stop to it?

But that’s not what they do. It’s not really something Eddie’s capable of doing, truth be told.

“Save my seat,” he tells his sister. He slides the cowboy hat down the bar toward her. “And this.”

She picks it up and drops it on her head, grinning at him from around her straw. Drops her purse on his vacated stool. 

“Go get ‘em, cowboy.”

Eddie just shakes his head, already mentally refocusing on the task at hand. Because this is what they do. 

Habitually. Recreationally.

Usually it ends with one of them pinned to the mattress, but they’ll have to settle for something a little more tame tonight, what with Eddie’s entire family staying in the same hotel and Chris on the pullout couch on the other side of the bedroom door in their little two-room suite. 

As he makes his way across the bar, he watches for it, but there isn’t a point where he can tell that Buck has spotted him, which means that Buck’s probably had an eye on him the entire time. There's something satisfying about that, something that curls itself around Eddie's spine and makes his shoulders draw down away from his ears.

They’re pressed up close together, Buck and the guy, and Eddie fills in the third space, setting his beer down on the little table where they're standing, his other hand in the pocket of his jeans. Casual, like he’s joining a conversation between a few friends. 

The guy catches sight of him, raises his eyebrows. 

“Can we help you?”

“Oh, me?” Eddie asks. “No, go right ahead. Keep doing what you’re doing.”

Buck ‘notices’ him then, but it’s theatrical, so badly acted that Eddie almost laughs. Eyes going wide, smile barely hidden as he sucks in a breath and jumps away from the guy.

“Eddie,” he says. His cheeks are flushed pink, lips bitten. “Um.”

“Hi,” Eddie says. “Going to introduce me to your friend?”

The guy looks between them, then seems to get an idea of what’s happening, or at least the fake pretend version of it that they’re playing at. 

“Hey, man,” he says. Holds up his hands. “I didn’t know he was –”

“Taken?” Eddie asks. He raises his eyebrows. “Yeah.”

The guy flushes a little, eyes darting over Eddie’s shoulder to find a path for a graceful exit. Eddie feels a little sorry for him, but – whatever.

“It’s fine,” he says. He lifts his chin, dismissing him. “I don’t want any trouble. Get out of here.”

The guy doesn’t wait to be told twice, collecting his drink and throwing an apologetic look at Buck for getting him in trouble before slipping away. He’s barely gone before Buck breaks, a shuddery laugh making its way out of his chest as he worms his way into Eddie’s space, hands grabbing at his waist and head dipping to mouth at his neck, teeth scraping as Eddie scratches through the damp curls at the back of his head.

“Took you long enough,” Buck says against his throat, words buzzing over his skin. “Thought you were gonna leave me over here.”

“Nah,” Eddie says. He tugs on his hair to get him to pick up his head then kisses him, tongue curling against the back of his teeth. Reclaiming him. “Wouldn’t do that to you.”

“Good,” Buck says. He’s grinning now, cheeks still flushed. “Your sister texted me while I was over here. Sophia. She thinks we’re freaks.”

Eddie huffs out a laugh, kisses him again.

“Yeah, well,” he says. “We are a little.”