You're worried about Buck's level of worry?

Golp: a roundel purpure.

Roundels are circles in heraldry. They are named according to their color, which also has its own lingo. Let’s meet them!

Bezant: roundel or (gold) 🟡

Plate: roundel argent (silver) ⚪️

Torteau: roundel gules (red) 🔴

Pomme: roundel vert (green) 🟢

Hurt: roundel azure (blue) 🔵

Golp: roundel purpure (purple) 🟣

Pellet: roundel sable (black) ⚫️

If you marry a good-time girl

A joyful woman known to her town,

If she is wayward,

and revels in the moment,

do not reject her, but instead let her enjoy;

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."