Archive of Our Own

“It’s- It’s- It’s- like,” Buck’s saying from his perch on the arm of the loft couch. “It’s like starting all over again. Now that I’m with guys. And I’m single. It’s like reliving Buck 1.0’s wild, sexy life with but with the wisdom of Buck 4.0.” This is Buck in what Eddie privately thinks of as Philosopher Mode, making pronouncements and bold declarations in the dead of night in the firehouse kitchen after a call.

“Wild, sexy life,” Chimney mouths, sharing a look with Hen.

“Wisdom, huh?” Eddie says. “Just wrap it up, bud.”

Three pairs of eyes find him.

“I’m actually on PrEP…” Buck begins.

“And you know there are STDs that are not HIV.” Hen has never sounded more like a mom than at this moment, Eddie thinks. She slaps Buck’s bicep. Hard.

But Buck’s grinning at her. Something about the way the dim light hits makes his eyes look like sun on sea glass. “You didn’t let me finish. And I am wrapping it up. For the extra protection. Or, you know, he is.”

It takes Eddie a second. For that to sink in.

Somebody start compressions. Because Eddie's pretty sure his blood pressure just nosedived too low to sustain human life. The mug nearly slips from his suddenly numb fingers. He sets it down with a thud that sounds too loud in his ears.

()()()()()

Later that same shift, they’re alone in the gym, and since when did Buck work out in tight tank tops rather than loose cut off tees? The fabric clings to his broad shoulders, already dark with sweat, and so Eddie focuses intently on his own form in the mirror.

Or tries to. Thankfully, Buck doesn’t seem to pick up on Eddie eyeing him during his overhead presses. What? What else is he going to do? Look at the ceiling? His hands are occupied with the bar.

“Hey, so how was your ‘hang out’ with uh—what was her name?” Buck asks.

“Angel—Maria.”

“Angel Maria?”

“Maria.”

Now Buck’s doing completely unnecessary bicep curls. “Wait, then who’s Angel?”

“Angela. She was Tuesday.”

Buck raises his eyebrows. “Two in one week. What have you done with the real Eddie Diaz? Are you on like, straight people Grindr now?”

“Straight people Grindr is called Tinder. And you know this. You were straight until like, eleven weeks ago.” And yep. Eddie hears himself. He, really, really does. “Ah shit, Buck, I didn’t mean—”

Buck lets the bar fall to the floor with a clank.

“Eddie, don’t worry, man. So yeah, maybe I wasn’t always as straight as I thought, but I didn’t start figuring it out until that,” he cocks his head to the side, “oddly specific number of weeks ago. I don’t expect you to have your head wrapped around it. I don’t have my head wrapped around it. It’s a tough thing to get your head wrapped around.”

Eddie closes his eyes briefly. Because in his mind, all those words are jumbling together, and maybe it’s what they were talking about earlier, but he’s not so hung up on the broad continuum of human sexuality right now.

It doesn’t help that they’re switching spots, and suddenly Buck’s general groin area is near Eddie’s face as he starts his first set of bench presses. He’d like something else wrapped… Wait, what?

“Stop saying, ‘head wrapped around it,’ Buck,” Eddie sighs.

Eddie knows he’s being weird. He’s breaking the best friend contract by being so hyperaware of Buck after he came out. Eddie doesn’t know what it’s like to be gay or bisexual or whatever, of course, but he does know that if he were, he wouldn’t want his friends treating him any differently. And that’s what he’s doing. Treating Buck differently in the eighty-one days since Buck came out to him.

For example, the last thing he wants Buck to notice is that they’re no longer talking about…

“You know we can still talk about it,” Buck’s saying. “Maria, or Angela, or whatever. You can still tell me about your dates. I’m bi. I still like women.” And here, Buck lifts his head to give Eddie that familiar Buck grin. “A lot.”

Fuck. Can Buck read Eddie’s mind now?

He realizes he’s left Buck hanging. “...And you can, too!”

Now comes the quizzical head tilt that makes something soft and fond curl against Eddie’s chest every time he sees it. The head tilt comes with a, “Huh?”

“You can still talk about your hooku—dates,” an entity that has taken over moving Eddie’s tongue and lips is saying. “Even if they’re with guys. …Or girls,” he adds quickly. “Nothing’s changed, Buck.”

“Oh, thank god because I don’t know if I’m being like, prudish or something, man. This guy I met…”

Eddie was an Army medic. He has seen and heard things that make civilians shudder.

“...really wanted to come on my birthmark. Should I have let him? I mean, I get the face thing is hot…”

Signs of a heart attack, Eddie’s brain supplies. Chest pains. Difficulty breathing.

“...but it also feels kind of like a total stranger is objectifying a part of my body that makes me me, you know?”

Eddie has never yearned so fervently for a call. The alarm has never remained so resolutely silent.

“I, yeah, that’s not one I’ve run into before,” Eddie is finally able to say around the ball bearing that has burrowed somewhere under his sternum.

Buck always finishes his workout with squats—a truly wild exercise sequence, by the way—so Eddie knows he’s wrapping up.

“Yeah,” he flashes that grin at Eddie. “I guess that particular one is a uniquely me problem, huh?”

Is this really who Eddie is? Someone who finds out one small, completely normal fact about his best friend and suddenly can't discuss the details of their–okay, mostly Buck’s– sex lives like they've been doing for the past seven years?

“I think,” Eddie says this very slowly, to make up for the fact that he has no opinion whatsoever of who Buck—rather, whether Buck should let a stranger defile his distinctive birthmark. “That’s maybe a second date activity.”

“I mean, it’s Grindr. It’s not like there are second dates. Or first dates, really.”

Eddie sits up on the bench to face Buck, toweling off the back of his neck. “So, it really is just like that? Sex on call?”

Buck shrugs. “Pretty much.” Then an idea seems to strike him. Eddie watches intently as Buck reaches into the pocket of his basketball shorts. “Wanna see?”

Eddie’s head barely misses the loaded bar when he falls backwards onto the weight bench.

But he peeks back up when Buck’s phone pings with a notification sound Eddie’s never heard before.

“Oh hey,” says Buck, “there’s one now.”

And then Eddie’s scooting over a little on the too-crowded bench to make room for Buck, and Buck’s phone is in his hand, straddled between them.

The screen is a grid full of bare chests and… “Whoa, that's a lot of dicks,” Eddie blinks.

“Yeah, yeah, you’ve seen a dick before.”

Not your dick, Eddie’s glitching brain supplies. Not like this.

“That sound was a new message. Let’s see what…”

As the chat loads, Eddie notices something. “Wait, your username is ‘Fireho’?”

Buck shoots him another smirk, shrugging, as he messes with the screen.

Then he smashes his phone face down on his thigh.

“My-my-my bad. Guy I’ve already been talking to.”

Buck’s hands were fast, but Eddie’s occipital lobe had been faster. The new message was just a string of the tongue-out-panting emoji, and Eddie suddenly felt like hyperventilating himself. Because the pic the random had been responding to had been in the chat thread. And it was a pic of Buck.

A pic of quite a lot of Buck.

It’d been a while since Eddie's familiarized himself with the regulations, but he was also pretty sure that was not an authorized use of their turnout gear.

The snap had been taken from the point of view of somebody on their knees, looking up, up, up at Buck. Perhaps ready to turn him out of his turnouts and then turn him out and does Eddie smell toast?

“My bad,” Buck’s holding the phone out again, and Eddie squeezes his eyes shut until only a sliver of Buck’s screen is visible. When he realizes all he can now see are chat bubbles, he opens them again.

Inexplicably, Eddie reaches for the phone. Buck gives it over, but not before pulling it back first with a warning, “Okay, but don’t scroll.”

Eddie’s thumb twitches to scroll.

Eddie reads. “Oh, wow. That’s a really, uh, specific request.”

“Yeah,” Buck says, going quieter. “Most of these guys really know what they want.”

Now they’re back on solid ground. Eddie places a hand on Buck’s shoulder. “This is new. It’s okay, Buck, if you don’t know what you want yet.”

Buck ducks his head, sweet and shy. “Thanks, Eddie.”

What an a-class idiot Tommy was. What did Eddie ever see in that guy?

Beside him, Buck is suddenly a warm weight on the small bench. Now that they’re not looking at the phone, there's no reason to sit so close.

“I’m talking your ear off, man,” says Buck, not moving. “You got anything on your mind? This Maria’s not a rabbi or something, is she?”

Eddie shakes his head, exasperated. “That wasn’t the prob—you know what? Are you hungry? Because I’m hungry.”

“Yeah,” Buck says, still looking at him. And were his lips always this pink? “Starving.”

Eddie swallows. But then Buck is bounding up the stairs for breakfast, and Eddie’s left to wipe down the bench they just used. He works quickly. He, too, is suddenly starving.

()()()()()

“So, I guess I’m gonna rail this guy while his husband watches.”

“Then I’m going to go ahead and say that my next forty-eight hours will be less eventful than yours,” Eddie answers after a beat, making a silent vow to never again ask Buck about his off-weekend schedule without someone else in the locker room.

Buck’s locker slams. Eddie stops him before he can grab his duffel and jet.

“Wait, are you sure that’s safe?”

“Ah, you know. PrEP, Doxy PEP, condoms. I’m all good.”

“I was thinking more, two guys. Got you in a vulnerable position. How do you know they’re not going to rob you or something?”

Now he has the full weight of Buck’s attention. “Awwww,” he teases. “Want me to text you their address, Mom?”

But Eddie’s not taking the bait.

“That and text me when you’re home safe.”

Buck eyes him now but with humor, not suspicion.

“You know, two girls could have drugged me and buried me in the desert, too, Eddie.”

“Yeah, but Buck 1.0 didn’t have me looking out for him.”

Buck’s still gazing at him. Down at him. Their slight height difference has never bothered Eddie. Doesn’t bother him still. He just notices it, is all.

“Nah, you’re right,” says Buck. “That he did not.”

()()()()()

That night, Eddie’s phone rings at 10:35pm. It’s late enough in Texas that it won’t be anybody he’s blood related to, and Maria—who he saw a second time—teaches sunrise yoga tomorrow morning, so he’s pretty sure it’s not an uncharacteristic booty call.

No, not a booty call. It’s Buck’s name lighting up his screen.

“Are you okay?” he answers immediately, then thumbs his home screen for the Find My Friends app just in case.

“You were right. I’m tied up in the trunk of a car. Oh, rescue me, hero firefighter!” Buck is laughing.

“Jesus Christ, that’s not funny.” Eddie hears street sounds in the background. “Where are you?”

“Outside. Walking home.”

“Smart. How crazy they lived like, four blocks from you.”

Buck is quiet on the other end of the line for a moment. “You looked up the address I sent you?”

There's something in Buck's voice Eddie can't quite read. Like maybe he's pleased Eddie checked, or maybe he's been waiting for Eddie to slip up and reveal just how closely he watches. Eddie pushes that thought away.

Of course he checked.

Eddie swallows. Keeps it light. “I knew the address. I know all the addresses. I’m a hero firefighter, remember?”

“Oh, so you were gonna come rushing down here if I didn’t send up a flare, huh?”

Come rushing? Buck’s lucky Eddie isn’t parked across the street right now.

Eddie listens to Buck’s boots thumping on the sidewalk.

“So, uh—how was it?”

He hears Buck huff a little laugh. “Yeah, I don’t think that scene’s for me.”

“That scene” is something Eddie’s been trying hard not to think about. Because Buck would do his best. Two guys and a fantasy and Buck there as the third. Third person, third wheel. Playing the guest starring role of Fuckhot Stranger, Evan Buckley. And he would try. He would try so hard to give those two guys what they wanted from him. It’s not bone marrow, but is it all that different?

He hears Buck’s key in the lock. The familiar sound of Buck’s door closing and the deadbolts sliding into place. That really was an astonishingly nearby hookup. He opens his mouth to ask Buck if he told these two jokers where he lived but closes it again. The types of things he gets up to these days? Buck’s not exactly a kid who needs lectures on Stranger Danger.

They haven’t spoken for a while. They’re just listening to each other breathing. This isn’t something they usually do on the phone.

“Home safe?” Eddie finally asks.

“Yeah,” says Buck.

“Don’t do that again, okay?” says Eddie. Because he doesn’t know how to say “come home” in a language that they both understand.

“Yeah, okay.” Then Buck punches Eddie right in the gut from 4.1 miles away. “You’re right. Damn, I didn’t even get off.”

Eddie has accomplished feats of will in his time. Rendering medical aid under heavy fire. Saving a kid from a 40-foot well. But he’s not sure if any hard thing he’s ever done beats suppressing the groan that he almost, almost just let Buck hear.

And if his hand snaps to his zipper like it's magnetized, nobody who knows him is around here to see it.

Buck’s still chattering, that silly, good-mood, teasing lilt never leaving his voice. “One of them was a neurosurgeon. Think if I swallowed I’d get smarter?”

If anything, it only makes Eddie harder.

This has been happening. Buck will tell him about some new hookup, and suddenly, he’s straining in his boxer briefs. He knows his sex life has been far less adventurous than Buck’s. Eddie’s not an introspective guy, but his lack of experience is one thing he’s not self-conscious about. It means he was a committed husband or partner. Faithful.

He’s faithful still, really. Eddie doesn’t have any way to answer Buck’s crazy hookup stories because, for the most part, he keeps what he does in the bedroom calm. Tame. Respectful.

It’s no wonder that when it’s just them, him and Buck, on the phone or in the bunk room on the wrong side of 3am, well.

It’s no wonder that’s the only time Eddie ever lets himself want.

One night they were at Eddie’s house, drinking a 12-pack while Buck maintained that he was cutting weight and didn't want any popcorn but then looked at Eddie’s bowl so longingly that Eddie started throwing popped kernels for Buck to catch in his mouth. They’d both drunk enough already that this was not an entirely successful endeavor. Soon enough, a piece of popcorn bounced off Buck’s nose and Eddie caught it and then, without thinking, popped it right in Buck's mouth. And somehow, for some reason, Buck had licked the salt and butter from Eddie's fingers and that was two years ago and Eddie thinks about it all the time. All the time.

“You making any progress on that?” Eddie asks. But this is not about Eddie. With effort, he shakes out the hand that had just wandered to his zipper. Buck needs him right now. “Figuring out what you do want?”

He doesn’t know how he can tell. Maybe because he just knows Buck, but he can tell Buck’s horizontal now. His voice is low and close to the phone speaker.

“Eddie—” Then, “Yeah. Yeah, some.”

“Like what?”

On the other end of the phone, springs squeak.

“One person at a time, for starters,” Buck says.

“Frank would probably say that’s a good boundary.”

“Oh geez,” Buck cuts himself off to yawn. “Don’t bring up the therapist thing again.”

“Hey, you’re the one who slept with her.”

“That was ages ago. Buck 1.0.”

“He forgot to set his boundaries,” Eddie says.

“Forgot the boundaries,” Buck agrees, the end of the word disintegrating into another yawn. “I don’t know why I’m so tired.”

“I guess boning some guy while his husband hovers over you burns a lot of calories.” Eddie really can’t believe they’re talking about this so casually. Dios.

“He wasn’t hovering. He was in a chair, not allowed to touch. Cucking. It’s a whole thing. Do you never watch any porn outside the main categories?”

“Guess not,” but Eddie’s smiling as he says it.

“Gotta love your little vanilla ass,” Buck’s voice is husky with sleep.

They’re quiet for a few moments. Eddie flips around to different icons on his muted TV. Clothes rustle on Buck’s end of the phone. Buck’s taking his shirt off, Eddie thinks.

“Did you ever like…? Wear uh…? You know what? Of course you haven’t. Never mind, it’s too weird to talk about…” Buck trails off.

Eddie drops the remote.

“Wear what?” Eddie asks.

The room is so quiet he can hear Buck’s swallow. “No, man, forget it.”

“Hey,” Eddie says, and somehow it feels like a lie. “You can tell me. I won’t judge. I promise.”

The response is barely more than a whisper. “Like… underwear.”

Underwear? What about it? Because literally the last thing he’d seen Buck in before they’d turned the bunk room light off their last shift was LAFD-navy colored boxer briefs, and Eddie was currently drawing a blank at anything one of his Grindr hookups might want him to wear that could eclipse those.

Buck seems to take his silence as unspoken assent to continue. Eddie can picture him perfectly: sprawled across his bed, one arm behind his head, phone pressed to his ear. Comfortable, the same way he lounges on Eddie's couch during movie nights, taking up too much space, radiating heat.

“But like… women’s underwear.”

“Panties,” Eddie squeaks. And suddenly, he is wide awake and thanking god Christopher is at Noah H.’s birthday sleepover because otherwise, he’d have been jumpscared awake by the sheer intensity of his dad’s exclamation.

From the phone comes a quiet, “Yeah.”

“What color?” Eddie’s treacherous mouth asks. Aloud.

“Um, well I guess, ah—pink. I think he’s going for a whole kinda lacy, girly vibe. He said something about contrast or whatever.”

And Eddie is now pressing the heel of his hand into the base of his cock to stop it from getting more ideas.

“I mean, it sounds kind of fun,” Buck is saying. And is there no sexual adventure that Buck doesn’t think sounds fun? “This other guy I’m talking to said basically, if I make an anonymous Amazon wish list, he could order me some without me needing to give out my address. Then I could send him pics. And no, before you lecture me, no more face pics after Birthmark Cumshot Guy.”

It’s a lot to take in. Panties. Amazon wish list. Panties. Buck 3.0 face pics are out there? Buck. In. Pink. Lacy. Panties.

It’s breaking Eddie’s arrow-straight brain, is what’s happening. Panties are inherently sexy objects. It isn’t just 14-year-olds who gush precome in their boxers when thinking about anybody’s ass in tight, lace panties, maybe tugged down around the curve of a muscular…

“Eddie?”

Eddie may have gasped at the imagery his brain had just conjured. Gasped is too strong a word. He’d inhaled unusually fast. He’d messed up at breathing.

“What kind of pics?” Oh, what was that? Another mistake with the breathing? Except that mistake formed words and asked Buck to describe exactly how he planned to pull pink lacy panties up his long, long legs and then pose for sexy pictures for Ed—a guy he met on Grindr.

“I guess I haven’t thought that far ahead. It’s stupid, right? I mean, will my dick even fit in panties?”

No, it will not, Eddie’s brain unhelpfully supplies. Buck’s cock will most definitely not be contained by the pink and the—the fabric. The head will peek out, red and raging, leaking precome and darkening the lace until Eddie can’t take it anymore and plunges, tonguing up the outline of Buck’s cock, dragging whimpers out of Buck until neither of them can take it anymore and Eddie takes Buck in his mouth.

He, a straight man, has never sucked a dick before. But in that moment, Eddie imagines just how Buck will taste. The salt and musk of him.

These new phones are supposed to suppress background noise, but Eddie knows somehow that if he dares to touch himself again, even steals one quelling stroke through his underwear, Buck will hear the slide of material against Eddie’s calluses. His breath is already coming too fast, too ragged. The phone screen is hot against his ear, and he can hear Buck shifting against his sheets, can picture exactly how he looks spread out on that bed Eddie slept in for months during quarantine.

This is not… He’s never... Eddie’s not led around by the dick like other guys. It’s his superpower. Even conceiving Chris had been the result of him and Shannon deciding it was high time they lost their virginity.

She’d been wearing pink panties with a matching bra that night, in fact, and maybe, probably that’s the reason Eddie feels absolutely wild right now. Like he needs to stand up and walk around. Like he should leave the house this second and run to Santa Monica pier and back, not even stopping to put his sneakers on.

He’s thinking of Buck earnestly applying himself to lining up the shot and taking pictures of himself in pink panties for some stranger, and it makes him want to simultaneously flay his skin off and jerk himself rough and dry while Buck tells him what else he would do for Ed—some rando off an app who isn’t Eddie.

“Eddie? Was that too much information?” And now Buck sounds unsure and Eddie, who looked him dead in the eye and promised him nothing would be different between them, is the reason.

“No. No way, Buck.” And he’s able to say it without his voice cracking even though he’s a lit fuse about to burn down, even though the explosion is imminent.

“I’m sure the pics will look great,” he manages. “You should send them. Only if you want to, though.”

Because that's what a supportive friend would say. That's what someone who isn't imagining dropping to their knees would say. That's what someone who hasn't spent the last seven months realizing exactly why they've always stared at Buck would say.

Buck hesitates. Finally says, “Okay.” And they hang up, and Eddie lays there with his hands by his sides, clenched into fists.

()()()()()

It becomes a thing after that.

Buck texts him addresses (“West Covina? Is any hookup really worth that?”) and Eddie looks out. It’s what any best friend worth the title would do. Buck always calls when he gets home.

“So, what was on the menu tonight?” Eddie asks. Shamelessly. At 2:02am. A month ago, he wouldn’t have even thought about it. Wouldn’t have dared. But Buck’s voice when he describes his hookups, extra raspy and low, is becoming an addiction.

“Oh, man.” And Eddie can practically hear the blush spreading across Buck’s cheeks even over the phone. “Um—”

Eddie waits. It can’t be more out there than the kitty ears dude, right?

“Well- He, uh- He wanted me to wear my boots.” Eddie hears the creak of that uncomfortable couch. These nights, he’s become intimately familiar with the settling of Buck’s couch or the swish of his refrigerator door.

“Like our turnout boots?”

“Our duty boots.”

Eddie sits up in bed a little.

“And do what?”

“Eddie, come on.”

And then it dawns on Eddie.

“Oh my god, like a foot thing? With his mouth? Does he know where those boots have been? We have literally walked through radioactive waste.”

“Eddie, you don’t have to yell. No, I didn’t let him lick my actual work boots, okay? He, uh—got off another way.”

Buck does this to torture him, Eddie thinks. He throws out the barest bones of a scenario and leaves Eddie’s brain to connect the dots. For somebody who Buck rightfully pegged as never straying too far from the PornHub homepage, lately his imagination is getting quite the workout.

Still, two can play that game.

“I don’t understand, Buck.” And now it’s his voice that slips to a lower register. “Like how?”

“Fuck, it was—”

And Eddie’s smiling even as his hand is toying with the hem of his briefs. It’s cute, is all. Buck is cute.

“So, he had this, like, bench in his room, and he wanted me to, like—put my boot up on it so he could—well, you know.”

“No, Buck, I don’t know,” Eddie says innocently. On the other end of the phone the couch creaks again.

The words follow a quick intake of breath. “He-rubbed-off-on-my-boot.”

It’s not even Eddie’s kink, is the thing. Rubbing off on one of their boots? He doesn’t get it. Buck’s meaty thigh, however…

And that’s a box he needs to close and lock and place in a larger steel box and then toss into the deepest trench of the ocean.

Still, before they hang up, he can’t stop himself from asking. “So, I get what’s in it for him. Hot firefighter in sexy leather boots to hump or whatever. But what’s in it for you?”

And he probably misheard. It was probably just a new late-night furniture settling sound Eddie doesn’t yet recognize. Because he swears he hears Buck very faintly whisper, “This.”

()()()()()

“Did you ever do the thing with the panties?” Eddie finds himself asking one night.

He’s half under a blanket on the couch, Netflix asking him if he’s still watching. Not six hours ago, Buck had been right here at arm’s length, fixing Christopher’s bow tie for an honest-to-god school dance.

He didn’t know who’d looked sharper, Buck or Christopher. Buck had come over with his blinding white sneakers matching his too-tight white t-shirt under a baby blue jacket.

“Maybe watch a movie?” Eddie had asked after. But Buck had hesitated. Then apologized. “I told someone… I’ll shoot you the address. It’s in Hacienda Heights.”

And Eddie had just nodded and waited for this call.

“Ah, geez. That was a mess!” post-hookup Buck was saying. “Listen, I know how to take a dick pic like everybody else, but I wasn’t sure how to make those sexy. They looked so strange, mostly I just made myself laugh.”

Well, that was a lot of information.

“You act like everybody is an expert at dick pics.”

“Are they not?”

“Buck.”

He doesn’t have to be in the same room with Buck to imagine the look of realization dawning on his best friend’s face.

“Eddie Diaz, why I never! Or should I say, you never? Oh my god. Is this the same Eddie Diaz who lectured me about lighting for the sexy firefighter calendar on the day I met you?”

“My niece took those pictures!” Eddie squawks, and then they’re both laughing.

“Well, you- you- know,” Buck says, once they've both settled. “If you ever want any advice.”

Eddie's sprawled on his bed now too, one arm thrown over his eyes. The darkness makes it easier to imagine Buck's voice is closer than 4.1 miles away. Makes it easier to remember how Buck had looked earlier, jacket pulled tight across his shoulders as he'd knelt to help Christopher with his tie.

"What? You'd give your expert opinion?"

He shouldn’t be able to hear the shift of an Adam’s apple but Eddie thinks he does, hears Buck swallow. “Of course.”

“Maybe you should show me how it's done,” someone says. Somebody who could not possibly be Eddie has just asked Eddie's best friend for a dick pic. The words hang in the air between them, impossible to take back. Eddie's heart pounds so loud, he's positive Buck can hear it through the phone.

“Are you sure about that?” And Buck's voice is careful, so careful. Like he’s trying not to spook a wild animal. Like he knows exactly how close Eddie is to bolting for the treeline.

It’s Eddie’s turn to audibly swallow. His skin has never felt this red-hot and he’s a goddamn firefighter.

Anticipation of… something… has never felt like this. Is it supposed to feel like this?

“You have to use your words, Eddie.”

It sounds like someone else who says, “Yeah—uh… yes.”

“How do you want it?” Buck asks.

Eddie’s brain has whited out. Can eyes roll all the way back in your head? The room is too hot, his skin too tight. Every breath jagged like it's being pulled from somewhere deep in his chest.

“..You mean, you're going to take a new one?” he manages to ask.

Now Buck’s breaths are coming in ragged, matching Eddie’s own. The sound goes straight to Eddie’s core, makes his fingers twitch with the need to touch and grip and drag.

“The other ones... I wouldn't…” Buck trails off, but Eddie hears what he’s not saying. “I wouldn’t send ones other people have seen,” Buck doesn’t say. The “I wouldn’t do that to you” is also unspoken, but Eddie hears it anyway. He does.

And his hand is on his cock now, of course it is. Still in his boxers, because if he doesn’t take it out, if he doesn’t give himself a firm, decisive stroke with Buck’s voice in his ear, then he hasn’t crossed a line yet, right?

“I know how I want it,” Eddie says suddenly, voice rough in his own ears. “I want to see your face.”

Because the one he had seen, and they’d both decided to pretend he hadn’t, had been just cock and hands and a broad, hard torso. And it was Buck, because of course Eddie would recognize Buck anywhere, in any position, from the tattoos he chose for himself to the scars he didn’t, but that pic could be for anybody. As far as Eddie knows, his best friend has sent that one to dozens of guys. If they’re going to do this, this is going to be Buck for Eddie. Only for Eddie.

Buck’s voice in his ear. “Eddie…”

And now… Now Eddie knows what it would sound like when Buck’s writhing under him saying his name. Now he knows what it would sound like for Buck to lose control under his touch. Eddie’s lost his own fine motor skills now. Is palming his cock, pressing against it, unsure whether he’s encouraging his orgasm or stifling it in anticipation of what comes next.

He feels like a teenager again. He’s become ravenous. Eddie’s never been led around by his cock until this exact moment. Never understood what it's like to want someone so much it actually burns.

“Send it and I don’t care about the fucking lighting, Buck.”

An eternity passes, both their breaths coming rough across the too-far distance. Buck’s on the bed, Eddie knows. Had heard the familiar rustle of sheets. Intriguingly, he’s heard no more rustle of cloth since Buck started on his—errand? favor?—for Eddie. Does that mean Buck was already naked, Eddie questions. His hand’s finally down his shorts, gripping himself at the base now, slicked up with all the precome he’s been leaking since Buck’s contact lit up his phone.

It could take thirty seconds or thirty minutes, the two of them, just panting at one another. He puts the phone on speaker so it feels more like Buck’s there. Like any second, he could reach over and touch.

Then Eddie hears a gasp. Was that—?

A few seconds later, a text comes through.

Buck’s cheated a little. His face a blur, the foreground of the photo his fist curled around his still-hard cock. God. It’s so much. It’s everything. It’s the pearly come spilling over his fingers that catches Eddie’s eye and mesmerizes him.

With no conscious thought, he finally shoves his shorts all the way down below his ass. It only takes three quick strokes before he's following behind Buck, release pulsing hot over his fingers while Buck's breath catches in his ear.

He might have said Buck's name. He definitely said Buck's name.

“Is it always supposed to be like this?” Eddie hears himself ask.

He hears Buck breathe out. “That was—we’re not even in the same room, and I don’t think it's ever been like this. Not for me.”

They’re silent, then, while come grows tacky on Eddie’s fingers, his stomach, his chest.

He owes Buck more, he knows. That’s how conversations work. But he lets the silence stretch on long enough for reality to crash down like a sniper’s next bullet. He has, he realizes with a pit of sick dread in his chest, just crossed every line he’s ever drawn.

“Eddie?”

“I- I’m not gay. I don’t know what…” he trails off.

There’s a long silence.

“So that’s what this feels like,” Buck finally, inexplicably, says. Then, “You know this doesn’t change anything between us, right?”

“Right,” Eddie agrees. So why does it feel like a lie?

()()()()()

If the weight on Eddie’s shoulders is any indication, he’s walking to his own execution and not the firehouse where he has worked happily for most of the past seven years. He sees the strap of Buck’s gym bag poking out of his locker door, and his shoulders droop in relief that he stalled long enough to avoid any private locker room exchanges.

When he heads up the stairs to the loft after changing into his uniform, the rest of A-shift is up there. It’s 6am and the mood is subdued, but Buck’s up-nod doesn’t appear any different from any of their other early mornings.

Eddie pours his coffee and stands there contemplating it, taking far too long to turn around and join the others at the table.

By then, Chimney is showing Buck and Hen pictures of Jee’s first trip into the Reptile Lair at the zoo. The three of them laughing and it’s like Eddie never fucked up at all. Chimney turns the picture to him—it’s Maddie and Jee with matching scrunched up noses—and Eddie’s eyes find Buck’s like they always do when something is cute, or funny, or… well, any time, really, but Buck just takes a sip of his own coffee and looks out the window and this is why you can never let yourself want things.

Eddie’s only about three more sips into his own coffee when their first call—fire alarm in an office building—comes in.

After they get the false alarm turned off, Bobby’s talking to the building manager, but the guy’s eyes are only for Buck.

Eddie’s noticed that more, since Buck came out and revealed himself as an option to all the men of LA. It’s probably always been like this, but this guy in his little blazer is definitely angling for Buck’s attention. Maybe it was always like this. Eddie’s probably just been wearing blinders. The building manager places a loose hand on Buck’s bare forearm, and then suddenly, Buck’s shooting Eddie a glance.

Like Eddie has any right.

He’s the first one back in the engine.

()()()()()

They get another call almost immediately, this time a high-angle rescue in the Hills. For maybe the first time ever, Buck’s face is unreadable to Eddie.

The tension between them doesn’t go unnoticed on the way to the call, but none of the rest of the 118 comment. It’s a single-passenger MVA call with extraction, where it’s a miracle nobody died.
“Two more feet,” Buck says, voice steady as they rappel down the side of the cliff. Eddie looks Buck in the eye the way they always do and marvels at how, despite Eddie crossing a line that can never be uncrossed, their bodies still move in sync.

The victim is a dad, if the unicorn-covered backpack spilling school papers and the loose GoGo Squeezes in the back seat were any indication. They’d later find out the accident was caused by the victim trying to turn around on the cliff’s soft shoulder, after realizing his daughter had left it all in the car at school dropoff.

The dad is unconscious but stable, and when Eddie reaches for the oxygen mask, Buck's hand is already there, passing it to him. Their fingers brush, and Eddie almost fumbles the equipment. Buck’s eyes flick to his for just a second, still unreadable, before returning to the victim.

"Need a c-collar," Eddie says, voice rougher than it should be.

"Already on it," Buck responds, and there it is, the slightest hesitation in his voice, a half-beat pause that nobody else would notice. But Eddie hears it. It’s like trying to explain to somebody how to throw a baseball. Once you think too hard about it, all the fluid mechanics are broken down into discrete parts, and suddenly, you can’t even toss to the shortstop.

The father's strapped into the basket, oxygen mask secure, c-collar in place. It’s time to bring him up. Buck and Eddie work the haul system, Bobby supervising from above.

"Ready for lift," Eddie calls. Buck should respond immediately with confirmation. It’s what they do, the call-and-response that keeps everyone safe. But there's that hesitation again.

Eddie glances up. Buck is staring at the anchor point he just secured, fingers lingering on the carabiner. It's just a fraction of a second, but it's enough to make Eddie’s chest tighten.

“Buck? We good?”

Buck snaps back to the present. “Yeah. Anchor secure. Ready for lift.”

Eddie tries to catch Buck's eye, but Buck is already focused on the task. It's not like him to be distracted during a rescue. It’s not like either of them to let personal stuff bleed into the job. But then again, personal stuff has never been this. Between them.

The entire ascent is shaky, both of them acting like probies on the first day of the Academy. At one point, the basket shifts, and Buck has to throw his weight the other way to compensate, leaving him dangling over the cliff face.

This is not how they work. This is not “BuckandEddie.” They still somehow manage to guide the basket and their unconscious patient upward to safety, but it’s amateur hour.

Bobby approaches as the paramedics take over with the father. "Everything okay with you two?"

"Yes, Cap," they answer in unison, too quickly.

Bobby gives them a look that says he knows better, but there are victims to attend to and a scene to clear.

As they pack up the equipment, Eddie notices Buck double-checking every carabiner, every knot, with methodical focus. When their hands brush reaching for the same rope, Buck pulls back like he's been burned.

Behind them, someone steps out of the milling crowd. “Need any help? I’m a neurosurgeon.”

Neurosurgeon? That pings the back of Eddie’s brain.

The ambulance is already leaving and Buck and Eddie are on cleanup, so Bobby handles the request. “Appreciate it, but we’re all done here.”

But Buck, closing one of the compartments on the engine, looks over his shoulder and waves at the bystander.

“Mehdi. Hey!” And Buck’s smiling, but it’s the smile of the just-been-kicked, the one Eddie’s seen on his face far too many times after a difficult call. Where he’ll stay “on” a little bit longer, a little bit extra, to make sure everybody around him is safe. Eddie’s just never been the reason for that look, is all.

The stranger comes closer, and now the situation has Eddie’s full attention.

“Buck!” Mehdi, who is needlessly tall, says. “I saw you rappel down. That was literally amazing.”

“Please step back from the accident scene,” Eddie butts in. Because LAPD is always on them about stomping all over their scenes and destroying evidence.

“Were you the guy in the chair or the guy getting railed?” Eddie thinks as Mehdi takes a few cautious steps back.

But then…

“You thought so?” Buck asks, with a glance at Eddie before looking up at Tall Mehdi with bright eyes. And coming from anybody else, that would be fishing for compliments. Totally inappropriate flirting at a scene that could have ended much worse. But Eddie knows there’s still a part of Buck, despite all his rescues, despite the fact that he’d give his life for their victims and nearly has, that still yearns for a pat on the head while expecting only a smack on the nose.

So he takes over for Buck, stowing the static ropes and leaves him to chat with his… this guy.

Because Mehdi says something else with an undertone of praise that makes Buck smile. And it’s not his professional smile, the quick-and-friendly one he unleashes on victims or reporters or members of the public. It’s the slow smile Buck reserves for people who have sat at the bar in his kitchen after midnight.

Eddie watches his—is he still his best friend?—light up under a stranger’s attention and thinks about how Buck deserves this. He deserves someone who can give him praise freely, openly. Someone who can look at him appreciatively here in front of their crew and Bobby Nash and god and everybody. Someone who isn't tied up in knots inside their own head.

And if it hurts, it only hurts Eddie, so that’s okay.

()()()()()

They have a true weekend off. Friday arrives and Buck doesn’t text an address.

No address on Saturday either.

Eddie carefully avoids the Find My Friends App. He doesn’t open his and Buck’s text chain.

They’re back on shift, and Hen asks Buck about his weekend. This time Buck doesn’t glance at Eddie. Eddie guesses he deserves that.

“Just, you know,” he shrugs at Hen’s question. There’s a peculiar smile on his face that Eddie realizes with a start he doesn't recognize.

Now Hen has a hand on his shoulder. “You’re being careful, right?”

Buck still doesn’t look at Eddie.

“Always,” he says.

()()()()()

On their next 96-hour off, Eddie finally scrolls past the weeks—or was it a month already?—worth of unread texts from Maria to his last text thread with Buck. It’s a Hacienda Heights address. The pic—that pic—had been there, too, but Eddie, good friend is what he is, had erased it from the thread.

…Though not before he saved it and locked it in a password protected folder called “Bills” just in case Christopher ever asked to use his phone. There also probably isn’t a literal groove on his phone screen from how often he’s entered that password in the past six days. Probably.

Eddie’s actually not that good a friend.

A good friend wouldn’t be pulling up Buck’s location at 1:41 in the morning when he never sent an address and obviously didn’t mean for Eddie to check up on him, and why does this address in Los Feliz look so familiar?

Oh right. What had he said to Buck one time? Eddie’s a hero firefighter. He knows all the addresses.

And the one Buck’s blue dot hovers on is Tommy Kinard’s.

“He just kissed me,” Buck had said that day at his kitchen island two hundred and thirty-three days ago, eyes wide. “I think he was just trying to shut me up, but still! I swear, I never even thought about kissing a guy until that moment.”

But then, “I kind of can’t stop thinking about him,” Buck had said.

And so, “This won’t change a thing between us,” Eddie had lied.

Eddie goes to sit the beer bottle on the coffee table and misses. It’s pretty crowded on there, honestly, after he dipped into the second six-pack.

He remembers now, the night Buck and Tommy broke up. Buck had been saying something about how Tommy said Buck wasn’t ready. That Tommy wasn’t Buck’s last. That Buck needed more experience.

It dawns on Eddie then. That’s what the Grindr hookups were about. More experience for Buck, so…

Oh.

The blue dot on the map blinks and blinks. Good for Buck, then. Good for Tommy Kinard, the pilot who randomly kisses people’s best friends.

He tries again, but the bottle falls to the hardwood, spins, lands on nobody.

Good for them.

()()()()()

Without examining it too closely, Eddie adds Find My Friends to his home screen. Sunday morning their next weekend off and Buck’s at that brunch place where Tommy meets all his friends only to talk shit about them on the way home after bottomless mimosas. (Friends who, just by the way, are all dudes, it occurs to Eddie now.)

That Wednesday, Buck’s dot is at (what will always be to Eddie) the Staples Center where the Lakers are playing the Spurs.

Sometimes—okay, a lot of times—Buck’s at home. But the first time Eddie drives by there on one of their off nights, Tommy’s truck is parked two blocks down, and it isn’t like Eddie was planning to go in anyway. He was just going for a nice relaxing LA rush hour drive.

On shift, Chim asks Buck, “You guys still coming for game night tomorrow?” and his eyes snap to Buck’s reflexively even though Buck has become quite the master at avoiding him these past few weeks.

The last message in their text chain is still that Hacienda Heights address.

The next day, Buck’s location hovers at Maddie’s for much of the evening. Eddie can’t risk driving by to see if “they” is who he thinks “they” are. The Buckley-Hans have a huge front window and Eddie’s truck is too noticeable. Could he check with a drone? How much is a drone? Can you rent one?

Eddie’s going a little crazy maybe.

He's washing his hands and almost misses when the blue tracker dot starts to move at about ten that evening.

He’s picturing Buck in one of the soft cardigans he’s taken to wearing. Buck definitely did the dishes at Maddie’s. Maybe he even put Jee down and read her a story, making up all the voices like he used to do for Christopher, while Maddie makes the decaf for everybody else. Eddie can’t picture Tommy in that domestic scene, so he doesn’t even try.

Yet the dot navigates to Los Feliz. Stays there for five minutes. Ten. So, not a quick drop-off then, with a goodnight cheek kiss at the door. Or better yet, a fist bump in the truck before Tommy fucks off back into his house alone. When the dot has hovered for forty-four minutes, Eddie reaches for the tequila.

But he won’t be able to blame the alcohol later because it only takes one shot before he’s fiddling with the living room lampshade to create the perfect sidelight.

Eddie’s never done this before.

The dot on his phone screen is still loitering at Tommy’s address when Eddie finally switches away from Find My Friends for the first time all night.

The camera app points to the fabric of the couch at first.

What does it say about Eddie Diaz exactly that this plan has been forming in his mind all night and, when he unzips his jeans, he’s already hard as a rock?

Buck never ended up giving Eddie any dick pic tips after all, so he has to operate by trial and error. His mind casts back to how it all got started, with Buck saying the panty pics just looked silly (let Eddie be the judge of that). His own first efforts aren’t keepers either, but after a few snaps, he grips just right, or a draft has magically repositioned the lampshade, and he’s taken the one.

He stares at his own phone screen. He’d gone for, you know, tasteful. Dragging his boxers just low enough to cradle his balls, with his cock bulging from the vee of his fly. He decided against a hand there, instead letting the sidelight work its magic and catch the pearlescence of the precome gathered at his head.

But once the task is over, his resolve, and his erection, flags. He switches back to Find My Friends. His friend—can they be more than friends?—is still at the same location.

This is it. The moment of truth. There’s literally only one way to find out.

Cock still out, he attaches his dick pic to their dusty text thread. Types, “You never gave me your expert opinion.”

Eddie’d prepared himself for several possibilities. Especially the worst reaction: radio silence.

So it’s gratifying when, approximately 27 seconds later, he watches Buck’s blue dot scuttle away from the address in Los Feliz.

For the last time, if Eddie has anything to say about it.

There’s a fraught moment when Buck, in dot form, has a chance to take a right to his loft or a left to Eddie’s house. You can turn right on red at that intersection, Eddie remembers. As the dot lingers, Eddie feels the smile bloom on his face. Buck’s doing the right thing. He knows it. He does.

The dot goes left.

Waning erection? Not in this house.

He waits until Buck’s dot is stopped at the next red light before he texts again, “Bring the panties.”

Hilariously, the blue dot suddenly darts right, which would double him back toward Buck’s loft, then immediately makes what Eddie’s pretty sure is an illegal U-turn that lands him squarely back on the path to Eddie’s house.

Eddie runs his tongue over his canine tooth.

So they’ll have to wait for the panties then. That’s fine.

As the blue dot drifts too-fast toward where he still stands in his dim living room, Eddie reaches for the post-nut anxiety that flooded him the night Buck sent him that photo. He doesn’t find it in a second shot of tequila, which he sips, or in the springy energy that has him pacing a sure-footed circle around his living room.

Should he open the door or lie in wait and make Buck fumble for his key?

The dot turns into headlights sweeping across the front window.

Eddie’s leaning in the open doorway by the time Buck bolts out of his truck. Eddie notes vaguely that outside, the driver’s side door is still open and the dome light’s on, before Buck is right there in front of him, millimeters away, and the rest of the world could wash away in a tsunami for all Eddie cares about anything beyond the one thing he wants right now to reach out and touch.

In front of him, Buck’s huffing and puffing. Like he ran here instead of breaking at least nine traffic laws. How are his eyes always this blue even half in the dark?

Eddie’s fizzing like he’s built up a layer of static shock, while Buck in front of him is pulsing like a star about to go supernova. His gaze flicks down to the bulge in the front of Buck’s jeans and Buck mirrors him.

Still, he notices Buck’s hand is up, fingers flexed, but frozen like he can’t bring himself to make that final move.

Because Buck’s always been making the moves, Eddie realizes.

Buck’s not much taller, but they’re so close, like they’re about to dance, that Eddie has to lean back a little to catch his eye.

Eddie slides his tongue over his teeth again. “So?” he asks, all nonchalant. “Got any tips for me?”

Whatever uncertainty made Buck hesitate now vanishes. Suddenly standing before Eddie with that glint in his eye is the Buck who can talk a bartender into the alleyway during peak shift. The one who can chub up a cock with just the rasp in his voice.

“Filters aren’t fair,” Buck says, leaning in. They still haven’t touched.

Eddie’s affronted. “Filters? I wouldn't even know how.” Eddie slams the front door shut. He walks backward to the couch. Buck stalks behind him. Crosses his arms over his massive chest. Looks Eddie up and down speculatively, gaze flicking between Eddie’s eyes and his mouth and his cock.

“Oh yeah? Prove it.”

And it’s happening now. Eddie grips his zip between his thumb and forefinger but stops.

“You think I need filters?”

Eddie tugs the zipper. Buck’s pupils are blown wide. He’s zeroed in on the only movement in the room.

He yanks the tight jeans down under his ass. Buck takes a step forward. Eddie can hear Buck’s ragged intake of air now. Can hear his heartbeat, maybe.

Then Eddie slides his boxers down and Buck’s on his knees like Eddie put him there.

“Can I?” he says, looking up at Eddie. His breath’s on Eddie’s cock. Buck’s breathing on Eddie’s cock. Then, “I have to,” Buck says. He says it like he’ll die if he doesn’t.

“Fuck. Yeah. Fu—”

Eddie forgets how to finish a one syllable word. He forgets his own name.

Buck’s mouth is on his cock.

Eddie thinks about how he’d pat himself on the back for “making love.” For keeping things in the bedroom calm. Sane. Respectful.

There’s nothing respectful about what Eddie’s doing now.

He gets both hands in Buck’s hair, drives into his face, fucks his throat. Maybe it’s not how a first time is supposed to be. But Eddie’s been waiting so long. He’s been waiting his whole life. And Buck’s on his knees at his feet moaning when Eddie thrusts in. More and more. Close already, Eddie tries to pull away. Give Buck air. But Buck grips his thighs and growls around Eddie’s cock and who is he to deny his Buck?

He shocks himself that his lips and tongue can still form sentence fragments.

“Playing with me,” Eddie gasps. “Telling me what you let those other guys do to you.” He could come now, if he let himself. But he’s working up a head of steam. “You knew what you were doing showing me that pic that day in the station. You knew what you were up to, you little fucking tease.”

At that, he slams harder down Buck’s throat and Buck does gag. He’s opportunistic, that Buck. He comes off Eddie’s cock, takes in air. “Come anywhere,” he husks. “Fuck. Eddie. Fuck. Do it.”

It was enough of a reprieve. Then Eddie’s back in Buck’s mouth. He’s no longer in imminent danger of ending this right the fuck now. “You told me about that asshole wanting to come on your pretty face. God, I was jealous. I was livid. Look at me, Buck.”

Tears of exertion bead in Buck’s long eyelashes.

Eddie curls his grip on Buck’s hair into a fist.

“Nobody comes on you but me.”

Then he pulls out.

Eddie’s spent a lot of time thinking about what Buck does with other people. What they do with Buck. But the first time Buck makes him come, and knows about it, Eddie’s not thinking about anything at all, except taking and claiming and marking what’s his.

He pulls out just in time to paint Buck’s face—cheek, mouth, lashes. Watches it drip down the curve of his jaw. Holy shit.

This is what it’s supposed to feel like.

Buck blinks through it, eyes locked on Eddie, his lips wet and parted, tongue darting out to catch a drop.

Eddie makes sure to smear some on Buck’s birthmark, after.

His hands on Buck’s face, he casts around for the familiar anxiety. It still doesn’t come.

“You feel better now?” Buck asks, still on the floor.

Now Eddie’s gripping Buck’s elbows, pulling him up. That changes the dynamic. Buck’s the bigger one, the fact of his massive body reminds Eddie. He fills up the room. Steals all Eddie’s air.

Jeans now halfway down his thighs, restricting his movement, Eddie only has time to breathe, “yeah,” before Buck crashes their mouths together for their first kiss.

This is what it’s supposed to feel like, Eddie’s brain stutters again.

Eddie squirms when he feels Buck’s cock, steel-hard and intimidating, grinding against his hip bone. Their fingers clash as they both reach for Buck’s zip. Then Buck lets Eddie win. It’s the first time Eddie’s touched a cock other than his own and he must be a natural or something because he’s smearing all the precome down Buck’s length and then it takes one, two, three strokes before Buck’s aiming at Eddie’s pubic bone and coming there in ropes.

“Pretty sure I’m gay,” Eddie says into Buck’s shoulder, afterward.

Buck pulls back. He’s still catching his breath. “I have some experience in this area,” he pants.

“Oh yeah? I came to the right place? Or is this going to be like dick pic tips all over again? Because I’ve still never heard a single piece of advice on that topic from you, Buckley.”

They support each other to the couch. Buck’s face sobers.

“I was with someone when you sent that.”

“Anybody important?”

Buck’s flopped on the couch now like a sleepy puppy. He turns to face Eddie.

“Nope.”

Eddie places his hand between the two of them. Buck covers it with his own.

“None of them ever were,” Buck continues. “Important.”

“Good.” Eddie turns his hand over so he can thread his fingers with Buck’s. “Did you ever figure out what you want?”

Buck shakes his head, almost exasperated. He’s taking a page out of Eddie’s usual playbook.

“Didn’t have to. Already knew.” And the way he looks at Eddie is so hopeful now that Eddie can finally make himself say it.

“That’s a coincidence, because I already knew, too.”

Now Buck’s grinning. He jerks a thumb at his chest. “It’s me, isn’t it?”

“Don’t make me regret it,” Eddie says, but he’s smiling, too.

Still holding eye contact with Eddie, Buck thumbs open his phone. Lifts it up to show Eddie the last picture pulled up there.

“No notes. So, you good if I make this my lock screen?”

()()()()()

One Year Later

After finishing the dishes, Eddie slides into bed to join Buck, who’s wearing one of the old threadbare firehouse t-shirts to sleep and probably nothing else.

Except nope. Eddie loves when he’s wrong about this. His thumb finds the silk strap at Buck’s hip. Panties Eddie did not buy from Amazon.

Buck, his ideal man, sighs sleepily, then wriggles onto his back to give Eddie more groping room.

“I still remember exactly where I was the night you first told me about this. I think I stopped breathing.”

Buck stretches, causing the shirt to ride up. “Yeah, I know.”

“You knew? But you kept talking like it was nothing.”

“What do you think you would have done if I’d said, ‘Hey Eddie, so, you touching your cock right now?’”

“You don’t know, Buckley. Maybe I should have told you to come touch my cock.”

Buck’s waking up. “Would have.”

“Well, I know that now.”

Eddie slots his knee in between Buck’s legs, lets the silk drag along the top of his thigh. Buck inhales sharply.

“You said it so casually. Like you hadn’t just ruined me for anybody else.”

Buck’s even more awake now. As intended. “I didn’t want to scare you off. You were like a little stray cat hanging around the backyard.”

Eddie pulls Buck flush against him. “A little stray cat, huh? So you domesticated me?”

“Yeah, I did. And it was hard work, too.”

For that, Eddie turns him back over. He’ll show Buck a stray cat.

Except first he pauses to kiss Buck’s forehead before moving down his body to mouth the silk. Because Buck’s given him the right.

Buck’s up on his elbows now, interested.

Eddie tongues under the lace just so he can watch the slinky fabric stretch as Buck’s cock stands to attention. And to think, he almost never let himself have this.

Begrudging the few seconds it takes, Eddie snaps the bedside lamp on. Buck, one arm slung above his head, content to be groped, blinks, but then smiles a slow, lazy smile.

“Sex pervert.”

And Buck’s just how Eddie wants him, the length of his erection straining the lace. Eddie positions himself on his knees, then reaches for his phone. Snaps a pic. Because while he wouldn’t call himself expert level yet, the locked folder in his phone marked “Bills” now holds a whole lot more photos.

He looks back up at Buck, whose pupils are blown wide. He’s waiting for what Eddie will do next.

“Think I could fuck you without taking those off?” Eddie asks casually, still on his knees and inspecting Buck for more potential photographic opportunities.

“I really want to find out,” Buck breathes.

“Open yourself up. I want to watch.”

“Yeah, yeah, some things never change,” but Buck’s grabbing the his-side-of-the-bed lube and soon enough, teasing one finger into his hole beneath the fabric of the panties where Eddie, maddeningly, can’t see his fiancé’s hard work.

Eddie slides a finger under one of the lacy straps but Buck bats him away with his less busy hand. “You want to fuck me wearing these or not?”

He’s in a mood, Eddie is. “I’m just happy I get to fuck you at all.”

“Saying sweet things isn’t dropping my panties, Diaz. I’m, ah—committed now.” But he’s added two fingers and his voice strains around the words.

Eddie cheekily reaches for the strap again—“I’m just making room, baby,”—and this time, Buck doesn’t slap him away.

“Need a break?” Eddie asks. Then, without waiting for a reply, “Turn over. Hands and knees.”

“Is this you being grateful?” Buck’s voice is muffled, face down on the bed.

Eddie takes his time to admire Buck’s ass on display before pulling the panties to the side and answering, “No, this is me being grateful.” Then he licks a stripe over Buck’s hole.

“Oh. Fuck. Eddie.” And there it is. All those shades of noises Eddie first heard on the phone, so much brighter and bolder here in Eddie’s bed. Nothing could persuade Eddie to change his life now. Would he take up residence and make phone calls and pay bills with his tongue in Buck’s ass if Buck asked him? Yes.

“Better than Thanksgiving dinner,” he lifts off to murmur, smiling at Buck’s answering groan.

Soon after, Eddie’s soothing at Buck’s hips, massaging down the backs of his thighs. Partly for Buck, partly because he’s so hard that he can’t trust himself to even handle his cock long enough to position it at Buck’s entrance.

“That was a preview,” he says. “Eating that ass worked without taking them off. Let’s see what else we can accomplish.”

Buck’s squirming in front of him, still on his knees. Eddie tugs at his hip. “Lay back down, baby. Get comfortable.”

And if Buck lying comfortably on his back to take Eddie’s cock means Eddie also gets to press into him while looking into his pretty blue eyes, then that’s just a bonus.

Eddie groans as he twists the panties to the side and sinks into Buck’s tight heat.

It’s always, always like this. This is how it was always supposed to be. It may have taken Eddie years. But he’s making up for it now.

It’s not the most comfortable. The panties are silky, but when Eddie really gets going, they will definitely chafe. But there’s no need to rush. The scrap of fabric under his hand, he thrusts into his fiancé nice and slow. Buck’s blissed out now, gazing up at Eddie.

The panties trap his magnificent cock. Precome paints a circle on the silk and suddenly, this is a terrible, horrible idea. Eddie needs to see all of him. He’s slipping the fabric down, down Buck’s long legs. Buck bends his knees to help, only managing to give Eddie a little back-talk—“Teamwork didn’t make the dream work?”—before Buck is all his and Eddie’s taking him again, and the only thing between them is the sweat they’ve worked up and Buck’s bobbing cock.

Eddie takes the time to display the panties, dangling them off one finger. “Gonna hang these from my rearview mirror.” That elicits a sound from Buck like he knew it would.

Buck gets a hand around himself, but Eddie stops him.

“Nuh uh.” And he’s wrapping the panties around Buck’s cock instead.

Buck, who was already panting, inhales sharply, eyes following Eddie’s hand and the lace.

God, Buck makes him filthy. Makes him crazy.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Eddie urges, then nearly fizzles into atoms himself when he watches Buck come onto the panties, Eddie’s fingers, Buck’s stomach.

It’s over soon after that.

“You still want this load?” Oh, damn. Buck can barely speak. All Eddie gets is an affirmative sound that’s little more than an exhale. He’ll crow about fucking Buck speechless later, but right now he’s focused on finishing the job. Eddie kisses the inside of Buck’s knee, looks at the evidence of what they just accomplished all over Buck, then comes inside him. Because he gets to do this now.

This is what you get when you let yourself want things.

And the aftermath makes a beautiful picture for the old “Bills” collection.