Archive of Our Own ^beta

Some might say this was inevitable, but Buck knows the truth.

Not inevitable. Could have been avoided. His happiness and his sanity and his KitchenAid mixer spared entirely.

No, the whole thing really only happens because they’re at Buck’s place.

If they’d been at Eddie’s, not Buck’s, it would have been Buck heading out the door, and well. Buck’s gotten good at that the past few months. Not to brag or anything, but he can walk backwards down the entire walkway from Eddie’s front door and only misjudges the distance to hit the headlight of his truck fifty-percent of the time (it makes Eddie laugh every single time though, so like sixty percent, if he’s honest. Seventy, maybe. Have you heard Eddie’s laugh?)

Kiss Eddie goodbye, make him laugh before he gets in the car, watch him out he rearview mirror that’s been perfectly positioned to see him waving, drive to his new, shitty apartment to do whatever the hell necessitated him not being directly glued to Eddie’s side for some awful reason, until he could turn around to just go right back. That’s how it always goes, has since they started dating.

You see?

He couldn’t have even had the thought in the first place if that’s where they’d been, if that’s how their night played out.

Instead:

“What are you doing?”

“Walking you to the door, like you said I could,” Buck grins, whole upper body leaned out into the hallway.

Eddie’s eyes amusedly trace the doorframe in answer, falling on the door that’s being precariously left open only by Buck’s foot kicked out behind him.

“You never specified which door,” Buck shrugs, tilting his head to one side to peek behind Eddie, “Elevator’s right there, has doors.”

“You’re so—”

“Actually, now that I think about it, you shouldn’t be in the elevator alone,” Buck continues, riding on the high that that dumb line got Eddie to take a step back closer to him, “Elevators break down on average twice per year, and these haven’t yet, so statistically speaking—”

“Next you’re gonna tell me you have mail to pick up.” Eddie’s eyes glint, which is cruel and unusual and categorically impossible, because nothing has ever looked good in the shitty lighting in Buck’s apartment complex.

“I could!”

“We stopped at your mailbox on the way in, it’s empty,” Eddie corrects, nose scrunching, and god, Buck loves him so much, “But nice try.”

“You twisted your shoulder weird on that call this morning,” Buck scrambles, sliding a palm up Eddie’s arm. He curls into the touch, another point Buckley. “The lobby door’s heavy, and Grumpy Joe at the front desk never gets up, he won’t help you.”

Eddie laughs brightly, adjusting the strap of his work bag on the shoulder in question, “Well shit—at that point you might as well walk me to my car, I have a door to open there too.”

“I knew you’d see reason eventually,” Buck nods seriously, “But then I mean, why stop there, right? If I’m standing at your car—”

“You’d drive me home.”

“Walk you to your front door.”

“Obviously,” Eddie shrugs back, but he’s having a much rougher time keeping up the charade than Buck, which is good, Buck thinks, because that means he gets to stare at Eddie’s smile some more, “I did say you could walk me to the door.”

“And you didn’t specify.”

“Rookie mistake,” Eddie hums, “Should have known better, with you.”

“You saying you think I’m chivalrous, Eddie?”

“The fucking chivalrousest.”

Buck’s zero-point-three seconds away from tackling Eddie to the ground to cover every inch of him in kisses and locking himself out.

“Can’t let you win, though,” Eddie adds, before Buck can ensure a less than pleasant trip to Grumpy Joe for a lockout key, “I’d have to walk you back to your door, too.”

He’s going to wake a neighbor up, the giggle that bubbles up out of him is so bright, “Only fair. The car door?”

“That second elevator malfunction might be coming, can’t risk it.”

“This door then,” Buck leans his shoulder into the doorframe lazily, both of his hands wrapped around one of Eddie’s. “Although—”

“You’re the chivalrousest.”

“How are you even pronouncing that?” Buck breaks to laugh, “Chiv-lir-var-sus?”

“You forget the est,” Eddie points, “Which means you wouldn’t be able to help yourself, once we got back here. You’d have to walk me to the door again. Square one, and unless you wanna go in circles all night—”

“I do, I do, I very much—yeah,” Buck nods vigorously, “Let’s go in circles, to the elevator?”

“Buck,” Eddie’s whole body goes cutely slack, his hands pushing at Buck’s chest.

“Sorry, did you say back? Back—back inside?” Buck juts a thumb over one shoulder.

“I gotta go,” Eddie presses laughter right onto Buck’s cheek moreso than a kiss.

“You don’t.”

“I do,” Eddie’s eyes can’t seem to settle, and Buck relishes in the rolling feeling in his gut while he watches every spot Eddie’s gaze flits over, hands on either side of his face and thumb rubbing idly. “But I can come back tomorrow.”

“That’s so far away,” Buck knows what he sounds like, every time he pouts like this, but Eddie never even once looks bothered by it. Like right now, his cheeks light up a bright pink. “Like the elevator that I have to walk you to.”

“C’mon, you know I mean it. Let me go home, do some laundry because I have zero clean clothes left, wash the dishes I’m certain Chris left in the sink, sleep for like, a minute or two,” Eddie says, his eyes doing that sparkle again, which is quite rude in the face of Buck’s abject misery, really, “And then I’ll come right back.”

“Well if the issue is just chores, I have plenty of those here you could do, and the better bed, so why don’t you just move—”

The thought hits him with such force that the rest of his sentence flies off at the end.

Buck wants to ask Eddie to move in with him.

See? Wouldn’t have happened at all if they’d been at Eddie’s place and Buck had to be the one to go, because it’d be Eddie’s place, and by sheer circumstance Buck physically wouldn’t have been able to think it. He couldn’t ask Eddie to move in to Eddie’s place!

But they’re at his fucking apartment.

It’s this shitty little studio Buck found within 20 minutes of Eddie telling him he was coming home, and like hell Buck was going to let a single thing prevent that from happening. Eddie and Chris needed a place to come home to, Buck could make that happen, no questions asked. He remembers next to nothing about moving his like, three personal belongings and half his clothes from Eddie’s (his old? previous? temporary?) place to this one. Details didn’t really seem to matter.

Until now. Because the small detail of it being Buck’s place is the only reason this could happen. It’s Buck’s place and he has the power to stand here, aching at the thought of Eddie leaving it, which prompts him to ask him to stay. To move in.

“Fuck.”

“We already did that,” Eddie’s voice tickles Buck’s nose. “But like I said, if you let me go home and get my shit together, we can do that again tomorrow.”

Buck hadn’t even felt himself react out loud, but is grateful Eddie isn’t making anything of it. He starts willing color back into his cheeks, for his brow to un-crease, for his chest to stop heaving—it feels like now that he’s had the thought it’s written all over him, like he’s a neon fucking sign for Eddie to read, practically screaming out of every pore in his body—which is a terrible fucking thing because the last time he thought about asking this—and the time before that—and then even before—no, oh no, in this stupid fucking apartment—

“Buck?”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, you gotta go,” Buck exhales loudly, mind still reeling, but if there’s one thing Buck can do, it’s kiss Eddie goodbye, no matter what. He’s real good at it. He twists easily to kiss the side of Eddie’s left hand, “Call me?”

“Mhm.”

“In the elevator, not a second later.”

“Copy that,” Eddie doesn’t even attempt to look put out by that, his cheeks bright red and tone so fond, “Thanks for tonight.”

“‘Course. Tomorrow?”

“The second the sun’s up,” Eddie whispers, slowly extricating himself from Buck, one step back, then another, and another, “Miss you already.”

Buck still doesn’t know how much he trusts himself to not blurt out that pesky new revelation he’s had, so he settles for quietly watching Eddie reach blindly for the button to call the elevator, like he can’t bear to look away from Buck either. Cute, like everything he does, but still, it inspires Buck to press his hand in a fist over his heart, his pointer finger pointed out towards Eddie. It’s a little habit they’d picked up when they first started dating and Buck’s over use of the phrase “I love you” between every other sentence at work was, even if they said it in kinder terms, starting to get on everyone’s last nerve.

Eddie smiles when he sees it, moving to get both his hands free so he can do it back, like always, only—

“What’s that?” Buck squints, as Eddie fumbles, bag slipping off his shoulder, to use a second hand to cross his other pointer finger over the first. “Is that—is that an X? You don’t love me?”

“No! No no no, I’m trying—it’s a plus sign,” Eddie yelps down the hall. He fidgets with his hands, tries to turn more squarely to Buck, fingers still in, apparently, a plus sign, over his heart, “Love you more. Plus sign. See?”

Oh god. Oh good lord. Buck’s gonna yank this man back into his terrible, horrible apartment and never let him leave. He’s fucking doomed.

He presses his lips together and presses on, best he can, “Okay, sure.” Then he switches his fist into an ‘o’ shape and connects it to his other hand doing the same, attempting an infinity sign, “Then I love you most-est.”

“You can’t one up my romantic gesture with made-up words.”

“You made up shiver-lee-lous-est or whatever the hell, so yeah, I can,” Buck all but sticks his tongue out childishly, crossing his arms over his chest to lean in lazily on the side of his doorframe.

“Mine was cuter,” Eddie shrugs just as petulantly back.

“No way.”

A soft ‘ding’ rings to alert them both to the elevator arriving, Eddie looks at the doors once, then back at Buck, “Fight about it on the way home?”

Home. His boyfriend is actively trying to murder him, is really the only explanation. Someone’s put a hit out on Buck for his previous various crimes as a twenty-six-year-old menace to the entire population of the greater Los Angeles area, and they’ve hired Eddie to take him out.

“I’ll win, but sure,” Buck kicks behind him to make sure his door’s still open, “See ya later, Eddie.”

“Tomorrow,” Eddie grins, stepping into the empty elevator once the doors open up, “Love you more.”

Buck can see him press the button for the lobby—and how awful to know Grumpy Joe’s going to get to see Eddie later than Buck will—before he settles, tries to make his dorky little plus sign again, which makes Buck laugh, even though he keeps his own hands squeezed firmly into fists with his arms crossed to keep from physically pulling Eddie back.

The doors are just starting to shut, there’s no more than an inch of space left until he can’t see Eddie at all anymore when—

“You’re a terrible influence, you know that?”

Eddie’s arm shoots out and stops the doors from shutting, dropping his bag on the elevator floor before sprinting back down the hallway.

“I didn’t say a thing!” he starts a quick incredulous laugh, but Eddie is quicker.

He’s got his hands back on either side of Buck’s face, reeling him in for a kiss. He’s flush against his chest, and it’s a little off kilter, a smidge on the side of desperate, and just, so so perfect. Buck always forgets about thoughts entirely when Eddie kisses him, and this time is no different. Which is good—great really—given every thought is still starting with will you and ending with move in with me? (Doomed. Fucking doomed.)

“That elevator malfunction is gonna be your fault,” Buck is surprised he can get the words out, his chest heaving and his smile so wide, forehead against Eddie’s.

“Worth it,” Eddie kisses him again, short and sweet this time, his voice a low and dazed hum, “One more.”

“No wonder your plus sign sucked, you can’t add,” Buck grins, after a clear three more kisses, not one more, in the doorway to his terrible, horrible apartment that he wants him to move into. He’s actually never going to have a normal thought ever again.

“Okay, I really am going this time,” Eddie says, though it sounds more like a reminder for himself than Buck, who, even in his distressed state, is loving every bit of no-resolve Eddie, always does, “Laundry, I have laundry.”

“And dishes.”

“And so many dishes, fuck,” Eddie groans, dropping his head into his hands and jogging back for the elevator, “It’s really hard being a cool dad sometimes.”

“You wouldn’t know,” Buck teases, and unfortunately, (or fortunately, who even knows how he’s feeling at this point) the elevator hasn’t gone anywhere, so the doors open back up immediately.

“I’m cool!”

Buck shakes his head, “You’re hot though, if that helps.”

“Tons,” Eddie rolls his eyes, and Buck doesn’t know if he does it on purpose or not, but he’s already reaching for his phone in his back pocket to call him, like he promised. His heartbeat stutters at the motion. “Thanks for walking me to the door, Buck.”

“Anytime,” he smiles, as his view of Eddie starts to wane for real this time, “I love you.”

There’s a flash of plus sign just before the doors clink shut, and the whir of the perfectly moving elevator fills the silence in his hallway that had just, not two seconds ago, seemed a lot brighter. Should he ask his landlord about that? Maybe the electric wiring’s broken? They could get a discount when Eddie moves—

Fucking hell, Buck thinks, real eloquently, once he can finally slam the door shut, drop his head in both hands, and lament his chivalrousest nature for taking them back to his apartment after work today, and giving the inevitable a really ill-timed and ill-located nudge.

The first non-move related thought he has, just before his phone starts ringing somewhere over by his bed and lit up with Eddie’s contact, is that he hasn’t bought a bag of flour in months.

He swears he can hear his KitchenAid laughing at him.

“How much yarn do you own?”

“Hi Buck, I’m well, thanks,” Maddie deadpans around her front door that Buck stalks right past, frenzied, “Sure, come on in! Oh, no, don’t worry—the baby’s asleep!”

“That’s fine, he can try on his hats later. I made him two, maybe three, who knows?” His words come out in a rush, all stuck together. Buck drops an overflowing bag of assorted knitwear on the table, balancing one on his pinky when Maddie gets the door shut behind them, “Also these. Supposed to be mittens, but I ran out before I could finish the set, so any yarn you have would be greatly appreciated.”

“You know how to knit?”

“Crochet,” Buck corrects, turning back to his bag, “And I’m very proud of this sweater, but he’s gonna have to grow into it, I got the proportions wrong—”

“Did we book a cruise to Alaska I wasn’t aware of?” Maddie laughs, thumbing at what Buck is pretty sure was his first attempt at a scarf for Jee-yun between his fingers.

“No,” Buck shakes his head, but Alaska, now that’s a good idea! Very far from here, far away from his loft, and far away from—

“So then why are you crocheting my LA-born and raised children a small department store’s worth of winter clothes?” Maddie quirks, holding the sweater up, “Wait—this is so cute.”

“Right! Does he like green? Do babies have favorite colors? I ran out of—”

“Buck.”

He stills, hats number four and number five nestled under one arm, and tries to squirm out of her gaze a little sheepishly when he truthfully admits, “You didn’t seem to appreciate my loaves last time.”

“I liked your loaves,” she tries, but seems to notice how she sounds before Buck can even make a face, “The scones were better.”

“I was out of flour anyway,” Buck sinks into a stool at the kitchen island with his first genuine laugh in the past 12 hours, and knows immediately when Maddie laughs with him that coming here was the right call.

So.

Buck is totally fine, thanks for asking. Doing good, so great. Who needed flour? Not him! An oven preheated to 350? Please. The aromatic smell of a sweet treat wafting through an apartment he was obsessing over not asking Eddie to move into? Now, why would you even imply such a thing?

The crocheting was totally unrelated. LA weather’s unpredictable, you never know when you might need three hat-mitten-scarf matching sets! And really, you think he needs an excuse to make gifts for the most precious niece and nephew in the entire world?

If he picked the crochet needle up at the exact same time Eddie’s ringtone sounded from his phone last night that was pure coincidence. There was nothing Buck was avoiding trying to—why would you even—ask? Buck doesn’t wanna ask Eddie anything. Nothing at all. He actually has so little he needs to talk to Eddie about that he told him to stay home this morning! Don’t worry about coming over like he begged for less than twelve hours earlier! Getting yarn from his sister was much more important today. For no reason other than that he started watching a YouTube tutorial on how to crochet a tote bag last night and that—that was important!

Cool. Glad we went over that and all came to the same conclusion.

Buck is doing great!

“Well, if none of the rest of us will, Jee will certainly miss baker Buck,” Maddie rounds out the side of the counter, and idly resumes cleaning a bottle at the sink, a task Buck had clearly interrupted. “She’ll get over it only if you let her steal the hats you made for her brother for her doll—ah!”

The bottle clanks in the sink when Maddie suddenly cuts herself off with a sharp gasp, and Buck squints at her puzzled, “What?”

“Who did it? Who broke up with who?”

“What!” Buck yelps, “What are you talking about?”

“What are you talking about?” Maddie launches herself from one side of the kitchen to the other, one hand braced on the counter opposite Buck’s seat, the other pointing her soapy scrub wand accusingly, “You said last time! Last time you were baking—”

“Oh my god, no, no,” Buck waves her off, waves the soap suds that fly at him off too, once he quickly catches on, “No one’s breaking up with anyone.”

“You’re sure?”

“Am I—yes, I am very sure, Maddie.”

“Okay, good. Very good,” Maddie nods, settling, but still stares a little challengingly to add, “I like Eddie.”

“Great, me too,” Buck starts warily, fidgeting with crochet hat number three, “It’s just uh—there’s this question I wanna ask.”

“Ah!”

“Can you stop gasping like that!”

“Sorry, can’t help it,” she begrudges, but she’s beaming in a way that has Buck smiling back before he even knows why, “Smart of you to come to me—Howie and Hen would never be able to pull it off, but don’t worry. I’ll figure out his ring size—”

It is no small feat that Buck stays sitting upright and breathing correctly at that.

“Really appreciate the enthusiasm there Mads, but that is definitely not the question,” Buck chokes out, then flops his head onto his forearms on the counter, blows an exhausted breath through his lips, “I wanna ask him to move in with me.”

“Oh,” every feature softens when Maddie mirrors his stance, slides forward on her own forearms to try to catch his eyes, “That’s wonderful, Buck.”

“No, it’s not.”

“It’s not?”

“It’s horrible,” Buck peeks up just a smidge, chin propped on one wrist, “I can’t ask him to move in with me.”

“Right,” Maddie says over a soothing touch up and down his arm, “Because there’s three of you and there are no walls around your bedroom.”

“No, no because—wait, that’s—” Buck sits up more fully on his elbows, “That’s a really good point, actually, I didn’t even think—logistically—“

She asks, “Is it timing you’re worried about? I know it’s only been what? A few months?”

“Shit, I didn’t think about that either,” the furrow between Buck’s brows grows more pronounced, “Do you? Think it’s too soon? Shit—you’re right, it’s way too soon—”



“I was ready to officiate the marriage thirty seconds ago, Buck.”

“You can’t officiate, you’re my best man.”

Maddie’s soft giggle does that thing again, settles Buck and makes him feel surer and surer that he’s fine. He’s got this. Anxious shake to his voice totally unrelated.

“C’mon, tell me what’s wrong,” Maddie slips her hand into his and squeezes, “Before you crochet Jee’s entire flower girl dress.”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Buck tries to start, “Everything about being with Eddie feels right, and good, so so good, Maddie. It’s not timing or logistics, or even—I know he’d say yes if I did ask.”

“But you feel like you can’t?”

Buck shakes his head.

“Because I’m cursed.”

There’s no sound in the house at all except for the leaky kitchen faucet, the idle buzz of the baby monitor, and Buck and Maddie’s very charged staring match for a full one, two, three—

“Buck.”

“I’m serious!”

“I know you are, that’s the problem,” she rips herself away from him, pushes a hand stressfully over her temple, “You are not cursed, Buck.”

“I am!”

“By what? The move-in powers that be?”

“I’ve got a couple working theories,” he says, seriously, which is not the answer Maddie’s looking for, clearly, as her eyes roll, “Wronged a landlord in my past life, walked under a ladder I don’t remember. Found out it was a full moon last night, which, could be it, or most likely, just your regular old, general cosmic karma—”

“General cosmic karma?” Maddie sputters a mocking laugh, and you know what? Two can play at that game, because that was not the answer Buck was looking for either. He huffs a little in his seat, glaring as she teases on disbelievingly, “No, none of those things exist, let alone have singled you out to prevent you from moving in with your boyfriend.”

“See, I knew you’d take his side!”

Maddie turns to quirk one brow at him questioningly, hand on the refrigerator handle.

“Eddie doesn’t believe in curses either,” Buck explains, leaning back in his stool.

“Oh good, so you’ve talked to Eddie about this?”

Buck only has the courage to say it, not unlike them being kids again, the way he squirms, because her back is to him for a brief second, “Well, I didn’t say that.”

“Buck,” she delivers in the same deadpan tone from earlier.

“He’d just laugh at me, and make me ask anyway, and our relationship would be fucking doomed, and—what is this?” Buck stops when a juice box is slid across the counter with unwieldy force.

“Once upon a time we used to do Eddie crises over a bottle of wine, but since lately you keep coming to me before noon,” Maddie says, jabbing a plastic straw into the top of her box, “This is the strongest I can offer.”

Buck squints down at the juice box, smaller than his palm, and ‘grape’ flavor on the label. His sister is the fucking greatest.

“These were my favorite,” Buck says, trying his hardest to not finish the entire thing in one slurp, that sound that drove Maddie insane when they were kids. “Can’t believe you’d wanna do this with wine instead.”

“It might help me believe in this made up curse that’s apparently plaguing you.”

“It’s not—it’s not made up, it’s—you know what?” Buck raises his juice box, “I think this grape juice pairs well with a trip down memory lane, don’t you?”

Maddie swirls her juice box around like she’s aerating a glass of wine, nodding him on.

“First girlfriend I broached the topic of moving in with—Abby. And what’d she do?” Buck points, a little bit of the hysteria he had stormed in here with returning to his voice, “Fled the country!”

He takes a long sip, then, “Ali literally picked out the loft for me, and then she fled to—actually, I have no idea where she fled to, I just know she couldn’t even wait for my painkillers to kick in before she did it. And when I asked Taylor—”

Maddie crumples her now empty juice box in one hand before he can finish that thought, mercifully, “Another?”

“Please,” Buck says, catching the juice box she tosses in his hands while he continues, “Asking her to move in was like seeing the light’s about to turn red and speeding through it anyway. I swore to myself I’d never do it again, but what happened when I was with Tommy?”

“That’s different, I think,” Maddie offers.

“Hell yeah, it’s different! He answered a simple yes or no question with the secret third option—dumping me!” Buck can feel his voice getting a little hysterical, “At first I was blaming it on the loft.  It’s cursed, and I was cursed living in it. You know I delivered a baby in there right? We never talk about it, but I literally—a baby! Under my stairs, Maddie!”

“No that’s, that’s a lot, for sure,” Maddie reaches a hand out for Buck’s straw, when he shows trouble getting it out of its plastic wrapping in his frenzied ranting.

“And Natalia saw that happen and still dumped me!”

“I thought you broke up with her?”

“Who knows! Who cares!” Buck yelps, “Because it wasn’t her fault, and it wasn’t the loft’s—which one: didn’t exist when I was with Abby, and two: handed me a hefty fee that I’m still trying to pay off for breaking my lease and ditching it forever last fall! So it’s gotta be me. Every single relationship I’ve had has ended as a direct result of me asking someone to move in!” Buck does, this time, indeed, finish the juice in one punctuated sip, “I’m cursed.”

“I’m not saying I’m on board with the full moon thing,” Maddie starts, “But it is, I’ll admit, an alarming pattern—”

“And you want me to ask Eddie about living together! I thought you liked Eddie!”

“I do!”

“Well if I bring this up you’ll never get to investigate ring sizes!” Buck exasperates, hands gesturing so wildly it’s a good thing he’s already downed those two juices dry, “Which, I already know, by the way, which—whatever, that’s not the point.”

“What is the point?” And he hates the amused lilt to Maddie’s voice, like she knows something he doesn’t, she always does. Big sisters, or whatever.

“The point is,” Buck punctuates, fists on the counter, “I ask, in any way, shape or form, and he dumps me. It’s inevitable. Cursed, coincident, whatever you want to call it—I lose the greatest relationship of my entire life just because I…”

“Because you what?” She prods on.

“Maddie, you should have seen me last night. I physically couldn’t let him leave,” Buck starts softly, kicking at the side of the island nervously, “And it’s the same when I’m leaving his house. I hate it, it feels—wrong. I never, ever know how to miss him, even if it’s just the few hours between days.”

It’s the simplest way of putting it, and it’s a shock it took him this long to name it actionably, but Buck really can feel the wrongness of it settle deep in his bones every time he leaves Eddie’s house to go to his apartment. Feels like everything shifts just a little to the left when he’s left in his apartment without Eddie, without Eddie and Chris, when it’s just him. Everything’s okay, but off-kilter. Filtered funny. Blurry at the edges.

It’s clear when Buck’s brushing his teeth at Eddie’s bathroom sink. It fits right on his skin when he rolls over and the pillow still smells like Eddie’s shampoo. Like he’s perfectly fluent in every language in the world when he gets to say “let’s go home” after a shift.

He’s said this before, but he’s never, ever meant it. Not like this. Why would they—should they—ever be apart, when they can be together?

“You know, the funny thing about that trip down memory lane,” Maddie jolts him out of his thoughts, juice box tapping melodically on the countertop, “None of those people were Eddie.”

Always bought him the best juice boxes, always knows exactly what to say.

“I love him so much, Maddie,” he whispers.

“Great, me too,” Maddie winks. Then slurps at her empty juice box, which she never does, and he knows it’s get him to crack a smile. (It works.) “I can see the wheels turning in your head, and I know you’ve worked this out somehow to be the end of the world, but I promise you, it’s not.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do, because—”

“Because you’re my big sister and big sisters know everything, yeah, yeah, that doesn’t work on me anymore,” Buck says, despite that juice box trick working less than thirty seconds ago.

“Not what I was going to say.”

“I know you think I’m crazy, Maddie—no, don’t even—I know you do, didn’t even let me get into my theory on how I must have foreclosed houses for a living in a past life and this is my—whatever,” Buck stops both himself, and Maddie with a finite, “But I know how this ends!”

“You don’t, actually,” Maddie says, and in the quickest bout of deja vu Buck has ever experienced, she makes two more juice boxes appear, “My turn for memory lane.”

“Maddie—”

“We have maybe five minutes to get rid of the juice evidence before Chim gets home with Jee, so unless you wanna share…” 

Unsure whether she means share his move-in curse or his juice boxes but not super inclined on either one, he begrudgingly waves her on.

“Just—humor me for a second. What happened right before you asked Taylor to move in?”

“I uh—” Buck clears his throat, procrastinates answering by fiddling with the flaps of juice box number three, “She told me she loved me and I didn’t—”

“Right, and that conversation we had right before you asked Tommy to move in,” Maddie forges on, “Josh asked if you loved him. And you—”

“Couldn’t really answer.”

“And the last thing you said to Eddie last night?”

“I love you.” It is the simplest answer yet, rolls right off the tongue. More. Mostest. All of it. Infinity and around and back and multiplied by ten thousand and one. “How’d you know?”

“Because it’s the last thing I say to my husband every night,” Maddie grins, “And you know Eddie’s ring size.”


Buck has no idea how to follow up a statement like that, but he blinks up at the ceiling and tries, “I came here for you to find me a loophole, not to make me cry, you know?”

“Thought you came here for yarn,” she teases lightly, finally relaxing back against the opposite countertop, “But seriously, you don’t need a loophole, Buck. And even if you did, didn’t you just move out? That sounds like one to me.”

“We weren’t together when I was living there, so it doesn’t count—trust me, I already tried to rationalize it,” Buck hums mirthlessly, “And don’t get me wrong, I’m happy I did it—that Chris and Eddie had someplace to come home to, easy peasy, but imagine how much easier my life would be if I was like, two weeks slower, and was still crashing there when Eddie kissed me.”

“Well you know the saying, nothing worth having comes easy peasy,” Maddie grins, “Lucky for you, a step above easy peasy is literally just having a conversation with Eddie about living together. Because I’m sure when you do, Eddie will be on the same page and—”

Now wait just a juice box minute.

Eddie might—Eddie could—if Buck just—

Oh my god. Oh my god. 

Forget all his whining and acting out before—Maddie is the greatest big sister in the whole entire world and no one has ever been smarter or more clever than her and she gives the best advice! Crisis averted! Who needs yarn! Who needs baking! No one is breaking up with anyone!

“The curse only applies when I ask him,” Buck is feeling rather chipper, wow, the weather is so beautiful today, the sunshine—who the fuck needs crocheted mittens! “So you’re right! All I have to do is get him to ask me!”

“How in the world did you get that from what I—you know what? I don’t wanna know.”

“I’ve got so many ideas, this is gonna be—you got paper? We need to write this down,” Buck slides around the side of the kitchen counter towards Maddie, already slinging open drawers to rifle through. “I start dropping hints today, and then—

“Nope, I’m not getting involved in…” Maddie winces at him, “Whatever is happening here.”

“Eddie and I can practically read each other’s minds, I’m surprised he didn’t ask me on the spot last night the second I had the thought,” Buck beams, “Seriously Maddie, don’t worry. This is going to be the easiest thing I’ve ever had to not do.”

Maddie studies him briefly, almost empty second juice boxes tapping methodically on the counter, but before he can get a real read on how she’s feeling, she smiles, “Fine. I’m gonna restock on crisis juice anyway.”

“It’s gonna be celebratory juice, just you wait,” Buck raises his box, and Maddie clinks hers to his before they each give it one last ear-grating slurp.

Yeah, Buck thinks, he’s got this! 

Easy peasy, lemonade juice box squeezy.

step one: subliminal messaging

Words you could use to describe Buck?

Calm. Rational. Level-headed. Nonchalant.

I mean, not right this second, but the point is you could, right? Evan Buckley could be a super calm and rational and level-headed kind of guy when the situation lends itself to his very real quality attributes of calm and rational levelheadedness.

Sure, he’s leaning a little more in the chalant direction right now than non, but that doesn’t preclude step one from working.

At least, that’s what Buck has to keep telling himself. He’s gonna stay positive. Yeah. Super positive. More good words you could use to describe Buck. Positive, optimistic, confident, rose-colored. Only good, positive, complimentary thoughts from this point forward!

“You smell.”

“Missed you too, Buck,” Eddie drawls, pressing a kiss to the pursed scrunch of Buck’s nose.

“When you said you were ‘going for a quick run’ I thought you meant like, for coffee,” Buck says as he steps into the Diaz house, shouldering Eddie’s sweaty post-run chest.

“Why would I mean for coffee?” Buck must have literally just caught Eddie coming back, concentrating on kicking off his sneakers. Buck can’t relate—his shoes are still on because he can only concentrate on Eddie’s lone sweat-soaked curl of hair over his forehead, which is actually the most evil thing Buck’s ever seen, and he’s literally got a bag of tricks to foil a seven year long move-in curse over one shoulder. He drops said bag and tries to remain strong. He’s got tasks. Important tasks. That will set up a plan. He’s got this. Positive. “I can make you a cup, if you want—”

“No!” Buck almost shrieks, reels himself and his wide eyes in, because Eddie didn’t know he was derailing Buck’s down to the minute plan that he hasn’t shared with a soul. He just wanted to make him coffee. “No, I mean, I’m fine. It’s late. I napped today.”

“You napped today?”

He didn’t. Was pacing his apartment instead.

He follows Eddie aimlessly towards the kitchen, “Sorry not all of us were born natural sprinting weirdos who like cardio.”

“You like cardio,” Eddie has the gall to wink. Buck has to hold onto the side of the fridge. “You sure you don’t want coffee?”

“No, I’m good.” Buck’s going to fall asleep halfway through the carefully selected episode of House Hunters that he is going to pretend to casually stumble upon on TV after dinner. “Even if I did, I couldn’t, in good conscience, let you stand here and make me coffee when you needed to be in the shower, like, yesterday.”

“I can’t be that bad,” Eddie peeks under one armpit, which has no right to make Buck feel a whole rush of fondness, but does of course. “Okay, fuck you, I smell great.”

“Great?!”

“Like a field of fucking flowers,” Eddie grimaces at Buck’s delighted, sputtering laughs, “Which, oh would you look at that, I went on a run to get for a sweet and loving boyfriend I no longer have.”

“You bought me flowers?” Buck says, finally catching sight of a bundle of blue hydrangeas packed in a wrap of brown paper and a little white bow sitting on the kitchen counter. The thought of Eddie Diaz, all six feet of tough guy muscles he is, running up the streets of Los Angeles holding these flowers for him almost makes him get down on one knee. Or both knees. He contains multitudes.

“No, you weren’t listening, I bought them for my sweet and loving boyfriend,” Eddie grabs the bouquet, clutches it deliberately out of Buck’s reach, “But it seems like he didn’t bother to come over today.”

“I looooove youuuu,” Buck sing-songs, gliding towards Eddie even as he tries to slink away in the opposite direction. He lands a kiss on the column of his throat, scratchy with dried sweat, and he hums, still right there, “You ran to get me flowers.”

“I just wanted to go for a run, it wasn’t to—not with the sole purpose—” Eddie huffs, but he’s holding Buck squarely against him now, so he’s not buying into the attitude, “I just happened to see them, and the blue—your eyes—you know, I don’t know if this helps my case.”

“It doesn’t,” Buck continues to crowd him with kisses, “You’re sweet, and thoughtful, and romantic, and hot as hell in your little running shorts—”

“See, I did have ulterior motives, not about the flowers,” Eddie deliberately moves one of Buck’s hands to his ass, which earns him a less than sexy snort. Judging by the way Eddie’s face lights up though, maybe that was his goal all along, to see Buck laughing like this.

“—and you smell.” Earns him an eye roll. Still hot. “C’mon, Eddie, I love you enough to tell you that you need to try out some new deodorant brands.” Buck bites at the smile lines Eddie gets wrinkled around his eyes when they’re this close together, which only pronounces them further with laughter, “What more could you want?”

Eddie hands fall back on the counter behind him, giving him leverage to lean back just enough to look at Buck, fully. He can’t place the exact emotion that crosses Eddie’s face there, for a split second, but it’s quickly covered with an enormously fond, “Nothing. Nothing more.”

“Hi, by the way,” Buck hums the little greeting he should have started with, smile appropriately dopey as all his plans to have a plan that works float far, far away.

“About time,” Eddie nudges his knee at the side of Buck’s hip, signaling him to step aside so he can grab the water he came in here for, “How’s Maddie? Feeling better? I know those kindergarten class viruses are no joke.”

Buck’s insides only twist with guilt for a half a millisecond at the lie he made up to avoid Eddie and spend the day at Maddie’s instead, post-move revelation yesterday. But really, only needing 24 hours to talk himself off the cursed ledge and regroup that spiraling energy into a five-step-with-itemized-subsections plan is impressive, by Buck standards, so he pulls it together and answers that lie really, and truly, so normally.

“She has the plague.”

Eddie stops mid-reach into the fridge to squint at him, “The plague?”

Overcorrection. Shit.

“I mean uh, that’s what she said it felt like, I think, I don’t know,” Buck shakes his head and turns so his back is towards Eddie, afraid of what his face is doing as he keeps going, “We didn’t really talk at all, about anything. No conversation.”

“Uh huh.”

“Yeah, she just slept it off, really, and I watched the baby.”

“Ah, also no joke,” and Buck makes the grave mistake of watching the condensation on Eddie’s bottle of water roll down the vein on the side of his forearm while he says it.

“Nah, he slept the whole day too actually,” Buck starts, “Pro tip: nothing puts a baby to sleep like a real estate podcast.”

“Uh yeah, that’d put me to sleep too,” Eddie bristles a little, “Why were you not falling asleep to a real estate podcast?”

Bingo.

“Diversifying,” Buck says, but means bullshitting. He doesn’t even know if real estate podcasts exist, but Eddie doesn’t need to know that, no, he just needs to hear Buck talking about real estate. “Real estate’s actually really interesting. Did you know houses with black front doors have asking prices for an average six thousand dollars more than houses with doors of any other color? And there are castles in France that sell for less than homes in LA—castles, Eddie.”

“No that’s—that is interesting. I’ll be looking forward to our next drive to work,” Eddie smiles, gulping down the last bit of his drink, “Alright, gimme a couple minutes to not smell, and then we have to order dinner.”

“Have to?”

“Cuts into my cooking time,” Eddie looks at an imaginary watch, “Can’t do it. What a shame.”

“You look real heartbroken,” Buck says, unimpressed, then adds, “Go shower, I’ll cook.”

“Oh,” Eddie blinks, “That was too easy.”

“Yeah well, I have this recipe I’ve been wanting to try anyway, just gotta make we got everything—can you pull up the recipe real quick for me?” Buck makes it across the kitchen in two quick strides, slips around Eddie to peek in the fridge after passing him his phone, “Should be the first tab open.”

Buck gives it six, seven seconds max.

He fiddles with the carton of eggs that he took a loan out last Friday to restock, pretends to check the expiration on the milk, is just looking into Eddie’s juice flavor of the week when—

“Uh, I don’t think—um—this is Zillow.”

Buck flashes a Tupperware of leftovers his shiniest grin.

“Sorry, my bad,” Buck feigns innocence as he turns to take the phone back from Eddie, swiping out of yes, the Zillow page he left open. Take that, chalance! Buck is so positively nonchalant right now, you’d never know his search history is full of crocheting patterns! He taps the screen a few times for effect, then, “Ah, there it is. Yeah, I think I can—”

“Is there something you’re not telling me?”

“My apartment sucks, you know that,” Buck shrugs, “Anyway, dinner?”

Eddie studies him for a beat, his pretty brown eyes raking over every pore on his face, and Buck—no way—Buck doesn’t break a sweat, not at all. He’s fucking got this.

“Alright, yeah sure,” Eddie agrees, and if he wasn’t entirely convinced, it flashes away in a second, replaced with an even fonder smile than before. “Chris is in his room with homework, I’ll be back. Five minutes, love you more,” then he dashes off with a kiss to Buck’s cheek.

“Gee, I hope you love me more than five minutes.”

“Annoying,” he tuts, before he disappears around the doorway. Buck stays slumped against the counter and listens to Eddie’s slight jog down the hall, a pit stop to pester Chris about the state of his room (“At least put the dirty clothes near the basket.”), the laughter stretching between them, and Buck’s not convinced any sound in the world could be better. He could stand here, in this kitchen, and listen to Chris and Eddie simply existing, happily, for the rest of his life, he’s positive.

Positive. Right.

He’s super positive and confident that he will get to listen to this forever because he’s going to telepathically signal to Eddie that he wants to move in so well he won’t even need steps two through five.

So, step one.

While Buck maintains the belief that Eddie can probably read his mind as is, he figures a nudge in the right direction can’t hurt, and that’s step one. A low-key, casual, not at all obvious nudge.

He’s got lots of ideas, seeds to plant, in the next “five” minutes (because sure, pre-mustache/Texas Eddie definitely took the perfunctory five-minute showers he’s still swearing by. But now? Twenty minutes minimum. Could just stand under the hot water for a full five before any showering happens. Sings at least two songs. So, twenty-six minutes today, Buck is willing to bet, exactly, door-to-door, because he knows too much about Eddie, exactly.) Zillow and the fake real estate podcast weren’t even his best ones, if you can believe it. He’s got stuff better than those already very positively good and subtle conversation points.

Buck swaps some generic coffee table books they use mainly as coasters for some carefully selected magazines. Architectural Digest, Better Homes & Gardens, People Magazine (Eddie loves fake celebrity gossip, and Buck’s a weak man.)

He scrolls through Eddie’s Netflix and saves or presses play or rates five stars any and every show even slightly related to homes so that it’ll keep recommending these kinds of shows, and doesn’t feel so bad about messing up the algorithm when he knows Eddie’s gonna love “Selling Sunset”.

They’d shoved some of Eddie’s things in storage way back during the Texas-move days, and with the exception of six of the seven living room lamps Eddie was adamant about (he’s taped over the light switch that turns on the overhead light), they hadn’t missed anything collecting dust in the U-Haul self-storage unit.

Buck decides they should start missing all of them today.

He carries them in from his truck and lines them up against the wall in the living room, conveniently all in the same boxes, still labeled, from the original move.

And then, okay, this one’s a bit of a stretch—a real hop, skip, and a jumping game of word association, but Buck’s desperate, okay?

There’s a specific brand of laundry detergent Eddie still doesn’t splurge on but Buck has sworn by for like, the past seven years since he found it doesn’t make his skin itch like the cheap stuff he used in his probie year, and it always elicits the same exact reaction from Eddie: I could live right here, said with his nose directly in the collar of Buck’s t-shirt.

And well, that’s the goal, right? Living right here, Buck thinks, as he throws the laundry basket on his hip and speedily slip-slides down the hallway.

All else fails, Buck’s a good boyfriend. Sue him!

“Knock, knock,” Buck says in time with the actual motion, peeking through the opening in Chris’s bedroom door. “C’mon, you gotta ask ‘who’s there?’ for the joke. I have a good one today.”

“You say that every day, yet it never gets any less corny,” Chris says, but he’s smiling, twisting in his chair toward Buck.

“Well, orange you glad it gives you an extra thirty seconds to make it look convincing that you weren’t just on your phone,” Buck shrugs into the room.

“Not your best work,” Chris tuts, but his phone stays face up and pencil untouched. “You just missed Dad, he’s in the shower.”

“Caught him on the way in, told him he smelled,” Buck says, leaning over to make a show of smelling the top of Chris’s curls, “Oh man, runs in the family I guess.”

“Has that ever worked on anyone?”

“Your dad got me flowers.”

“We’ve already established he’s gross.”

“I said smelly,” Buck clarifies with a grin, because if he has a hard time tamping down the ‘I love you’s around Eddie, it takes a herculean effort he doesn’t always have around Chris, “Which speaking of…”

Buck bends at the waist to pick up one of at least a dozen articles of clothing strewn around the room.

Chris peeks up at him over the rim of his glasses, “I was busy. Doing homework.”

“Mhm,” Buck fixes him with an unimpressed glare, tossing a t-shirt into the basket he brought in, “Is there a method to this madness or can I pick up whatever?”

“You’re doing our laundry?” Chris quirks an unsure brow, “You hate laundry, that’s a dad chore.”

“It can be a me chore,“ Buck bends to grab a rogue sock, a school uniform shirt, some flannel pajama pants, “All your chores can be me chores—“

“All my chores?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Don’t think I do, actually. I was supposed to take the garbage out before dinner,” he says, with a signature Diaz grin that Buck is still waiting for an immunity on. Eight years. He doubts it’s coming now. “Since you’re offering.”

“You know, I was gonna say I missed you last night, but I’m retracting that,” Buck says, stalling in the doorway as he gives Chris’s now laundry-free room one last once over. “You good with dinner in twenty?”

“Did you cook?”

“Does that change your answer?” Buck laughs, and with Chris’s little shrug, adds, “Yeah, I’m making pasta.”

“What kind?”

“Does that change your answer?” Buck pulls his phone out of his back pocket, and hands it to Chris, because he did really have the recipe pulled up in the next tab over from Zillow. “I haven’t made it before but looks easy enough. I printed a copy of it for your technophobe dad in case we like it.”

He scrolls, the cute scrunch between his brows that he inherited carbon-copy style from Eddie getting more and more pronounced with concentration, “It does look good, has a weird name though.”

“Does it?” Buck’s voice betrays him up a couple octaves, “I didn’t notice.”

“You didn’t notice the huge title on the top of this blog post called ‘Moving Week Pantry Pasta’?”

He’s really nailed subtlety, if you couldn’t tell.

“The name doesn’t really matter,” Buck lies, “Can I go cook and clean now?”

“Okay, Cinderella,” Chris spins in his chair to face Buck squarely in the door way, contemplating look on his face melting with a smile he can’t abate, it seems, to add, “Hey Buck? Knock, knock.”

His knuckles rap against his desk, and Buck almost drops his laundry basket.

“If you’re not gonna ask who’s there to prove a point, I’m just telling you olive.”

“Olive who?”

“O-love you,” Chris cheeses, and Buck is going to melt into the floorboards.

“That killed you to say, didn’t it?”

“Don’t think I’ll survive to get the garbage, yeah.”

“Olive you more, Chris,” blows a mwah-ing kiss he thinks he can get away with that he hasn’t been able to since Chris was like, seven years old. “Don’t tell your dad, he thinks I love him most-est.”

“Oh, I heard. Taught him about exponents for like, forty minutes last night just so he’s prepared to one-up you next time.”

“Traitor,” Buck chides, finally turning out the door, calling over his shoulder one last time, “Weird name pasta in twenty! Some of that homework better be done!”

If he’s dignified a response, it’s mumble at best, and hard to hear over the sound of Buck zooming back to work.

Thirteen minutes left on his mental Eddie-timer, so he tosses the laundry in the wash, Chris’s and some of Eddie’s he found, one or two of Buck’s own things for good measure.

He spends the seven minutes it takes the pasta water to boil flip-flopping over whether this next one is overkill or not, but he spent 45 minutes and $9.99 on a Canva membership to make fake realtor business cards, so fuck it, he settles on, and slides the little piece of paper into Eddie’s wallet.

With just a few minutes left, Buck rapid-fires the rest of it.

Lights a candle on the kitchen counter called, literally, “Home Sweet Home” (features notes of cinnamon, baking spices, and a hint of freshly poured tea, thank you Yankee Candle), uses these cute magnets Eddie uncovered that Chris is too old for but Jee has hit the sweet spot to enjoy playing with to spell words like “house”, “move”, and “cohabitate” (but then thinks, in the spirit of subtlety, he should scramble the letters, at least a little), leaves a crossword puzzle book open with the pencil pointing to the answer “home” (which, probably is all for naught, because Eddie’s not a crossword puzzle guy and only leaves books around the house because he knows Chris and Buck like them, but oh well, it’s worth a shot).

And then Buck takes out the trash. Unrelated to step one, but obviously most important.

Shower’s still running and Moving Week Pasta sauce is fragrant and delicious by the time he runs back inside, all his (moving) boxes checked.

Minute to spare. Damn, he’s good.

Buck pulls his hoodie off as he heads for the bathroom, busies himself folding it into a neat little pile in his hands as he props himself against the opposite wall to loiter until the—yep, the water turns off. He can see Eddie pad across the room, his shadow in just the little sliver of light from the space between the door and the floor, and can hear him humming something that’s unfortunately not on Buck’s covertly named “Random Songs To Listen To” playlist that definitely doesn’t feature songs that allude to moving.

He’s giving the collar of his t-shirt and the hood of his sweatshirt one last inhale to make sure they smell appropriately of the good “live here” detergent and—

“Uh, hey?”

The door swings open, Eddie wearing nothing but some sweats, a towel over his shoulders, and the prettiest smile in the world.

“Hey, hi,” Buck shoves his hands forwards, “You always forget to bring in a shirt, so.”

“You been standing here, waiting, this whole time?” Eddie laughs, steam pouring out of the room behind him, remnants of his indulgent, unnecessary, scalding hot twenty-six-minute shower. He takes the sweatshirt though, impressively maneuvers to get it halfway on right there, but stops suddenly, “This is yours?”

“Sorry,” Buck hums, not the slightest bit sorry. This sweatshirt had gone “mysteriously missing” after their first date and has vanished at least twice a week since. “But your sweatshirt’s in the washing machine, and you defy all natural law by managing to be cold after a shower that long and hot—”

And Buck is expecting him to quip back something related to their banter from before, about needing all that time and hot water to scrub off his smelly run, but Eddie bites his lips together, “I’m not doing laundry today.”

“I am, twenty-ish minutes ’til I gotta switch to the dryer,” Buck says, looking at the time on his phone so as not to alert Eddie to the fact that it’s not “twenty-ish”, it’s twenty-one and a half minutes exactly in Buck’s carefully memorized plot. He pulls at the hem of his shirt, deliberately lifting it a hair of an inch, “Might have to do another load later, already got sauce on this while I was cooking.”

“You cooked already?” Eddie’s face does this complicated thing, been doing it since Buck met him really, where it looks like he can’t decide if it wants to smile or not. Buck hasn’t seen it go the latter in months. But it still feels like a victory when he gets a half-grinned, “While doing laundry? Just now? In the past five minutes?”

“I took out the trash too, but it’s important you don’t let Chris know you know that.”

“You just—just decided to do a whole list of chores, for me, in my house, on this random day,” Eddie starts, skeptical, “For no good reason?”

“No, no it was definitely for a good—a very good reason,” Buck says, the steadiest he’s sounded all night, because that part’s true, however, “Trying to earn my flowers back.”

Eddie cackles in delight.

“Figure I do a couple good deeds and I might be worthy of, uh—what did you call me again?” Buck saunters forward, tugging at the bottom hem of the sweatshirt Eddie’s still only got half-on, “Your super wonderful, perfect and kind, smoking hot—”

“Pretty sure I capped it at sweet and loving,” Eddie’s eyes roll and land on the collar of Buck’s t-shirt. Bingo. “Flowers for my sweet and loving…” Eddie trails off, fully snuggled into Buck’s sweatshirt when he pauses and—

And Eddie is—not quite staring at Buck. Something right behind him, just over his left shoulder, really, into the bedroom.

Buck’s about to turn to track it, when Eddie speaks, “Buck, do you—would you wanna…?”

Holy shit. Holy shit it’s happening. Did it in one.

A million emotions are flashing across his face, and Buck feels hot all over, unrelated to the state of Eddie’s shower, but good, so good about this, because he didn’t even elaborate on half of his good roommate skills yet, and Eddie‘s already asking if Buck wants to—

“You wanna shut the door?”

“Hm?”

“The door, behind you,” Eddie nods, tugging the sweatshirt off instead of on, pulling Buck into the bathroom instead of asking him to move into his house. Fuck. “How long’d you tell Chris ’til dinner?”

“Uh, twenty minutes, like, twelve minutes ago,” Buck scratches behind his neck nervously. Wrong question. Shit, should Buck have done something else? What’s the opposite of subliminal messaging? Neon signage? Why isn’t he asking—they’re always able to read each other’s minds—what did he—

Eddie hums, hands insistent on not asking any more questions, wrong or right, “Okay sure, I can work with that.”

And Buck has to yelp in surprise when he’s tugged in forcefully by the hem of his stained white t-shirt and kissed so very thoroughly but, sure, yeah, of course Buck wants to shut the door behind them. He’s positive.

Plan out the fucking window. Down the scalding hot shower drain. Whatever.

step two: the glass is half full empty

Step two gets an edit over a bowl of deliciously useless Moving Week Pasta, in light of there actually needing to be a step two to be used.

Buck’s handling it well, if you couldn’t tell.

And sure, okay, should he have expected to telepathically convince Eddie to ask him to move in with just one, measly little attempt at it?

Yes, actually.

He’s known Eddie for years, loved him for almost all of that, and most importantly, worked with him even longer. Hen and Chim are maybe the only people who can compete with them when it comes to being in-sync in the field. Eddie can answer Buck’s questions on a call before Buck can even think he needs to ask it! They’ve never had a problem anticipating each other on a rope rescue, in a landslide, scaling a building in a fucking earthquake!

But god forbid Buck wants to put their skills to use in a non-life-threatening way.

He just, he really doesn’t think he had any reason to doubt that Eddie would just up and know Buck wanted to move in. And he really doesn’t think he’s wrong for being a little upset about that not being the case.

So, fine. If Eddie isn’t gonna get the hint when Buck’s in a good mood, he can just start being a glass half empty kind of guy!

Buck’s apartment isn’t bad, it worked in a pinch when Buck just really wanted Eddie to come home, but in the week that follows step one, it becomes the most abhorrently evil place on earth to anyone who will listen.

“You have mice?”

“Wait wait wait—I thought it was cockroaches?”

“No, he specifically said ants in the kitchen.”

Buck hides his smile around the rim of his mug as all his coworkers cross-cross their conflicting information. He stays silent, as does, noticeably, Eddie.

“I don’t care which it is—Buck, you need to contact your landlord,” Bobby interjects from the station stove, flipping some vegetables in a pan, “They have an obligation to keep your living conditions safe.”

“Well, they did bring a mouse trap,” Buck starts, even though he bought it himself for the imaginary family of mice he’s never seen anywhere in or around his building, “But when I called about the ants last night, they told me that was non-emergent, and I’d be put on the waiting list for a maintenance visit.”

“Surely they can’t be serious,” Hen scoffs at Buck’s side, but when he nods solemnly, “They’re serious? And you didn’t go all clipboard on them?”

“You’re forgetting, Hen, that he’s a little biased towards landlords now,” Chim snickers, “He fell in love with his last one.”

“Thank god you never moved into one of my buildings. I’d hate to have to let you down,” Ravi teases, earning a wadded-up napkin tossed at him square in the face with a laugh.

“Honestly, guys, it’s fine. Is it the worst apartment in the world?” Buck shrugs, swinging around in his chair at the counter, head nodding dramatically, “Yes, it is. But I don’t really have any other options at the moment.”

He catches Eddie at the tail end of his spiel, who is already looking back at him. His lips are pressed into a thin, straight line, which isn’t giving Buck much to work with, to figure out if this is working or not. He’d complained about his leaky sink faucet the day before, and a “mystery neighbor” who was “stealing” his parking spot so Eddie “couldn’t visit”, and he spent 20 minutes on the phone with Eddie trying to get him to understand the Netflix one-household rule last night.

Pests was a dire hail mary, and considering everyone else seems a lot more concerned than Eddie does—

“What do you mean you have no other options?”

“Uh, I mean, I have no other options,” Buck starts, leaning forward on his stool slowly, towards where Eddie stands on the other side of the kitchen, “This was the only apartment available, and if I wanted to find a house, the market is—”

“You wanna buy a house?” Eddie’s tone is clipped, serious. His arms are crossed over his chest. Buck really can’t tell if he did good here or not.

“Maybe, eventually,” Buck says, “I’m sick of renting, I think, look what good it’s done me.”

As if his expression could get any less clear, Eddie bites his bottom lip between his teeth at that, fingers of his left hand drumming incessantly on his forearm.

The bell rings to save him from having to navigate wherever the rest of that conversation was gonna go, but that doesn’t mean Buck stops thinking about it.

If the mind reading was a stretch in hindsight, Buck at least knows Eddie likes him. All these terrible, horrible things happening to him in the apartment should be spurring his fiercely protective boyfriend to get him the fuck out of there. Like, this is the same guy who refuses to go back to a restaurant they went to five years ago that messed up Buck’s order one time.

But suddenly we’re not batting a lash at flooded bathrooms? At inhumane rent increases? At mice?

It doesn’t matter that Buck’s fabricated all of it, it should be really working.

He said he’d give it a week before resigning himself to move on, and he really does give it his best effort, squeezing complaints in wherever he can get—wonky AC and spotty WiFi and construction at all hours of the night—up until the very last seconds before midnight on Saturday.

“Wait, only twenty-one dollars? That’s actually not so—”

“No, babe, that’s the time. Driver is twenty-one minutes away, see?” Buck points at his phone screen, “Costs forty-seven dollars.”

“What?”

“Yeah, it’s—it’s totally insane,” Buck tucks his phone back in his pocket before Eddie can scrutinize the details any closer, “But it’s not Uber’s fault that my apartment is so far away from our favorite bar, right?”

(No, it is not, in fact, Uber’s fault. It is however, Buck’s fault, who made sure to select the most expensive and furthest away option to hammer home that point. It’s harmless. He’s treating Eddie to a really nice Green Comfort Uber XL in 21 minutes. An upgrade. That proves a point. It felt like a nice middle of the road plan like, six beers ago, okay?)

“Stupid Uber,” Eddie groans, a little childishly, arms out at his side as he wobbles, balance-beam walking toe to heel on the very edge of the curb.

“It’s not that long.”

“You’re not that long,” Eddie pouts, stops a foot away from where Buck stands. He holds back his laugh for an impressive three seconds. “Hah, that’s not true.”

“Oh boy, gonna be a long twenty-one minutes, huh?”

“Wait, how long? Our Lyft’s only five,” Karen yells from Eddie’s left.

“You guys use Lyft?” Chim chimes in.

She holds her phone up next to her cheek, bright cheesy grin to point to the app for the group, “It’s pink!”

Eddie finds that point delightful, like he’s finding most things other than their wait time tonight, looping an arm through Karen’s but turning back towards Buck to semi-shout, “We should use Lyft!”

“I’ll get a fee if I cancel now,” Buck shrugs (he has no idea if this is true or not. Probably isn’t.)

“Twenty minutes is kinda insane though,” Hen offers, arms crossed as she peeks over at Buck inquisitively, “I wonder why yours is so much worse.”

“Oh, it’s probably because we’re going back to my apartment,” Buck supplies his over-practiced answer. Swears it sounded less goofy before they sat down at their booth a few hours ago, but really, those last two shots have made his abysmal acting even worse. “Where I still live. Really far from here. They upcharge if you have to go over bridges, I think. Which you have to, for my apartment. Not Eddie’s but. You know. That’s where we’re headed.”

Maddie lets out an evil little cackle. Several heads turn sharply towards her (except Eddie and Karen, who are deep in the throes of sorting their apps in rainbow order.)

“Sorry, I’m sorry,” Maddie sucks back her laughter between a toothy grin, staring directly at her brother, “I just, wow—wish there was something any one of us could do to fix this!”

It’s nice to know subtlety has escaped all Buckleys entirely.

“We could give you a ride,” Chim offers, the only one out of the six of them starkly sober enough to come this clear a conclusion, “I drove, and your apartment’s not far—”

“We can’t,” Maddie interjects, “Can’t drive them.”

“We can’t?”

“You heard Buck, about the fees,” she tries, “And Buck loves fresh air.”

“Just love it, gonna be a great—oh look at that—nineteen minutes now!”

“There’s something weird happening here, that I am too sober to try to figure out.”

“Let me just, say goodbye to my brother, real quick, then we can go. Alone. Without Buck and Eddie,” Maddie shimmies away from her husband’s side and ducks her head towards Buck for a loud whisper, “This is the best you could come up with?”

“I don’t even know what number attempt we’re on, Maddie,” he squares his shoulders towards her, “I’m very bad at this.”

“I hate an I told you so.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I don’t,” she giggles, hiccups in between, reminding Buck this is an impressive conversation for them on the sidewalk outside of a bar sometime just past midnight. “But you have twenty one whole minutes to prove me wrong!”

“It’s only seventeen now, actually,” Buck corrects, pouting, as Maddie heads back towards Chim. They call a goodbye over one shoulder before making their way towards their car parked around the corner, and Karen and Hen slip into their five-minute Lyft, leaving just Buck and Eddie.

“Wait, seventeen already? That was a quick—” Eddie stops a step away from Buck, his eyes crossing a little in the middle as he stares in concentration down at his fingers to, seemingly, count how many minutes were between seventeen and twenty one. Buck is very sure his eyes have cartooned into hearts. “Five minutes?”

“Four minutes, baby. Good try,” Buck pats Eddie’s arm twice, eyes trained on swiping around the Uber screen of his phone mindlessly.

“Oh, sorry,” Eddie winces, “I was close?”

“You were.”

“You’re so smart,” his voice does a total 180, practically cooing in Buck’s ear, honey dripping from each syllable as he rests his chin on Buck’s shoulder, “Can we put on Jeopardy when we get home?”

“What?” Buck sputters, laughing. “Where did that come from?”

“I like watching you get the answers right.”

“I don’t get them all right.”

“You get a lot of them right. But can I tell you a secret?” Eddie drops his voice a whisper, right on the shell of Buck’s ear, not waiting for an answer, “It’s hot when you get them wrong too.”

He gets a look form a couple walking past him at the volume and pitch of his startled laugh, but it does little to stop him. To be completely honest, Buck had almost forgotten completely that there were other people outside here with them, a whole line of people still waiting to get into the bar, some passersby, other people who may or may not have also selected the wrong Uber and are waiting a very long time for their ride.

He pays none of them any mind.

Eddie’s got a glow on his cheeks that Buck can’t tear his eyes away from, a steady, heady and joyous feeling spilling from him, and though he can call time of death on his dream of being asked to move in early tonight, like his other attempts, he can’t be too mad at the outcome.

“Alright sure, we can watch Jeopardy,” he remembers there was question to answer in the midst of his laughter, kissing the spot beneath Eddie’s right eye. He can feel his smile grow under his lips with the motion, and has to kiss it again, “Eddie Diaz, I’d like to buy a vowel: you—wait no, that’s the wrong show—”

“You’re drunk too!” Eddie yelps, starting to slip his hands around Buck’s waist, inching closer, “God, you’re gonna get so many wrong, it’s gonna be so hot.”

“That makes no sense,” Buck starts fondly, until— “Oh fuck! You fucking monster!”

“Hm?”

“Your hands are ice cold,” Buck tries to peel Eddie’s hands off where they’ve furrowed underneath Buck’s shirt and onto his lower back, but Eddie presses himself closer, splaying his palms against his skin. Fucking evil move, PDA aside.

“It’s cold out here!” Eddie adds a tickle with his fingers, making it impossible for Buck stay looking affronted. “And we still have so many minutes.”

“Alright Texas, if you wanted my jacket, all you had to do was ask nicely,” Buck nudges Eddie, who does not seem inclined to move, but does when Buck starts shucking off his jacket, “No need for the frost bite hands.”

“You have cold feet.”

“My feet are not touching your bare skin in the middle of this sidewalk right now,” Buck defends. “Plus, I started wearing socks at all times at home for that exact reason.”

“Well, they don’t make hand socks, now do they?”

“Believe that’s called a glove.”

“Well then maybe you should make me some,” Eddie laughs, greedily and smugly accepting Buck’s jacket over his shoulders, “Just realized I never asked what that was about.”

“Hm?”

“The sudden interest in knitting.”

“Crocheting,” Buck corrects on autopilot, but silently praying the amount of alcohol he consumed tonight hasn’t entirely destroyed his brain to mouth barrier. He tries, “It’s nothing, just uh. Felt like learning one day, that’s all.”

“Okay, you’ll make me gloves?” Eddie says, peeking down at the way the sleeves of Buck’s jacket are way too long, and hides the ice cold hands in question cutely. They’re actually pretty well matched when it comes to clothes sharing, in the grand scheme of things, but Buck’s jackets are always a little big at best on him, making them swallow Eddie whole. (Buck has started intentionally sizing up in jackets only and then insisting Eddie doesn’t need one when they go out just to pull this move. Works every fucking time.)

“Don’t know if I have that in me yet, but for you, Eddie, I’ll try,” Buck says, checking his phone once more, “You feeling better now?”

“Yeah, yeah, I shouldn’t have had that last water. I have to pee,” Eddie bounces the balls of his feet, looking up and down the street as the cars, none theirs, zoom by.

“Sure, blame the one glass of water I made you drink,” Buck laughs, “It shouldn’t be that much long—oh, no—still seventeen minutes.”

“No!”

“Looks like he’s stuck in traffic?”

And wow, Buck could not have constructed this better if he tried. Thank you so much, Uber Pro Diamond driver John in a silver Toyota Camry with a 4.98 rating. It’s too bad Eddie’s too busy being the cutest drunk person on the planet to get with the program like you, John.

Case in point: “Ugh, does he know I have to pee?”

“I don’t think he does,” Buck laughs, watching Eddie give up on his pacing and decide to sit on the edge of the curb instead, forearms propped up on his knees and face turned sideways to rest his cheek on top of that, and he looks so—god, Buck is a weak, weak man. He sits down too, and hopes to only regret it when he finds a gross stain on his pants because this is unsanitary as all hell but Eddie looks cute and Buck is, you know, weak. He’ll burn the pants in the morning, it’s fine. “You wanna message him?”

“See, my brain wants to say yes,” Eddie starts slowly, winking one eye open at Buck once he joins him, “Actually no, no it doesn’t. There’s no amount of alcohol that could stop me from being mortified at the thought of doing that.”

Buck echoes the same bright laugh that Eddie keeps pulling out of him, pausing to show Eddie his phone screen once more, “Well, maybe the traffic heard you anyway, down to sixteen.”

“Thank you traffic!” Eddie yells into the street, hands cupped around his mouth, unabashedly happy, “Unfortunately, alcohol could not stop that one. Enabled it probably.”

Buck lets his laugh peter out into a sigh eventually, sitting back on his hands, “I really am sorry about the wait though.”

“It’s okay, it’s not your fault,” Eddie smiles, genuinely, like a stab to Buck’s selfish, superstitious, scheming heart. God, he’s the worst.

“Next time we can try Lyft, or you can go with Karen or Chim or, you know, order your own—”

“Why would I do any of that? I don’t wanna do any of that,” Eddie shakes his head fervently, his late-night unsettled hair flopping over his forehead with the motion.

Buck gently pushes it out of the way, “You’d be home already.”

“But I wouldn’t be with you,” Eddie says simply. “Can I tell you another secret?”

“Of course.”

“Before we were together—this is so embarrassing, I don’t even know why I’m—anyway,” Eddie starts, “I used to have a list of excuses ready, reasons why I should go home with you or you should go home with me. And I’d like, go to the bathroom before we left any place and psych myself up to do it, to ask you.”

“Really?”

“Every single time, little pep talk in the mirror. Didn’t always work,” Eddie laments, resting his head lightly on Buck’s shoulder, “But sometimes it did, I’d get the courage to really lamely proposition that it made sense for us to carpool or, pretend my car was out of gas, or, I don’t know. You’d come home with me. That was all that mattered.”

Because that’s the crux of it all, right? Buck comes home to Eddie, Eddie comes home to Buck. There’s no other option anymore, no matter where they end up, how long it takes them.

For as many nights as Eddie embarrassed himself trying to take Buck home, Buck has probably triple that in wanting exactly what he has right at this moment. Doing anything with Eddie is just as good as doing nothing, be it pleasantly buzzed on his couch, or on this very curb.

So he can wait, Buck thinks. Twenty-one minutes or twenty-one years or twenty-one steps.

Buck drops a kiss or two on the top of Eddie’s head, and then, with his lips still on his skin, “Always.”

“Thanks,” he mumbles back, “For not making me have to ask anymore.”

(Sentimental inner monologue aside, this one still stings. The universe has to fucking with him on purpose, Buck is sure.)

“Yeah, you don’t. Never have to, I promise,” Buck clears his throat, “Me and you, always.”

“Well, me, you, and your ants.”

“My aunts?” Buck puzzles, the only family he has is—

“Your ants and your cockroaches and your family of rats!”

“Oh no, it’s not—”

“That you have no other option but to live with, probably knitting them some hand socks, your favorite roommates, and your favorite landlord—”

“Oh my god, Eddie—”

“—when I have a perfectly good bed that you never have to ask to use!” Eddie pouts, “But it’s fine, we’ll just go have a threesome with a mouse.”

“You are so annoying,” Buck says the same way you might say, you are so wonderful, or you are so special to me, or you are so the love of my life, “You gonna invite me back to your place or—?”

“We just established—no asking,” Eddie states, like this was obvious, “You can redo the Wheel of Fortune question, though. I liked that one.”

“It was the wrong show!”

“Let’s go with Evan Buckley for a thousand,” Eddie moves right along with the bit, “I really hope it’s the double Jeopardy, I wanna wager five full minutes of PDA.”

Yeah, he takes it back. This pessimist’s approach to the move-in curse was never, ever going to work. Buck’s so, so bad at it.

He looks at Eddie here, and all he sees is a life that is so full.

“Alright high roller, wanna make it three?” Buck gleams, turning his phone to Eddie, where his Uber has been cancelled, and replaced with a Lyft that will take them to Eddie’s, where he’ll stay, without asking, until his made-up ants are fully exterminated at the beginning of next week.

It gets there in just a handful of seconds over 3 minutes.

Eddie is sure to fill up all of it.

step three: call in reinforcements

“LAFD, is anyone there able to respond?”

“Oh, thank god, thank you, uh, yes, yes, come in, he’s back this way,” a woman’s voice rings out before the 118 can even see her, clambering over big brown boxes lining nearly every square inch of the small apartment hallway to reach them, “Hi, Ellie—I uh, tried to call as fast as I could, but I couldn’t find my phone because we’re living in a fucking inhabitable hellscape right now.”

“Nice to meet you Ellie, my name’s Bobby, and this is Hen, she’s gonna check you for any injuries.”

“Oh no, no, I’m fine,” she smiles politely when Hen reaches out to her, “It was Ben who had the accident, in the bathroom.”

Five pairs of eyes all turn on her.

“Okay yeah, yeah, I heard it, just—” Ellie winces, “Come see for yourselves, if you can survive the obstacle course.”

Bobby leads the way, Hen and Chim just behind him so they can get to the patient as soon as possible, so Buck tags on at the back with Eddie.

“Ugh, this is so, so stupid,” Ellie laments, dropping her head in her hands with a sigh, “It was his idea originally, but it’s my apartment—”

Eddie does his on-call smile (puts anyone within a five-mile radius at the scene of a call immediately at ease, Buck has seen it work so many times, has felt it work on himself), and asks, “Hey you can’t blame yourself, renovations are tough! I just came back from a fixer upper myself.”

“We’re not renovating, Ben’s moving in.”

Ah. Oh. Awesome.

It’s unfortunate they’re not in a fire right now, Buck briefly thinks, before he takes it back because things are bleak but not bad enough to consider arson, but the point remains—maybe if they were in their turnouts, Eddie wouldn’t be able to feel the way Buck goes full-body stock still at those words. Moving in.

“Or—he was, don’t know if that’s still gonna happen.”

“Really?” Buck all but chokes over his own voice to grit it out, Eddie pressing on ahead of them.

“We weren’t ever really a hundred percent sure, to be honest with you, went back and forth for a while before deciding, and now—I don’t know, this feels like a pretty clear sign that we decided wrong.”

“Then you’re talking to the right person,” Eddie yells back to them without turning to look, “Buck loves signs.”

“I don’t—it’s probably nothing, I’m sure you made the right call,” Buck reassures, just as they turn the corner into the bathroom and— “Okay yeah, this—I can see how you might see this as a sign.”

Buck struggles to make complete sense of exactly what happened here, but yeah. It’s bad. Bad sign.

Hen and Chim are currently trying to get a blood pressure cuff around Ben’s arm, and it’s a task they’re usually real speedy at, but is proving difficult given there’s a bathtub on top of Ben.

He winces in pain as Chim’s boot shifts some tile, tries to wedge Ben’s arm out from under a slab of faucet so he can give Ellie a thumbs up from beneath a pink polka dot shower curtain. So that’s good!

“Looks worse than it is, Ells, I promise,” Ben shouts, unconvincingly around a swear when they get another piece of tub off a sore spot. “And hey, now they really have to come fix your plumbing!”

“You were having plumbing issues?” Bobby turns to Ellie.

“There was a small wet spot on the ceiling, thought it might be a leak.”

“And the leasing manager’s an idiot who said it’d be fine, and someone could come look at it two weeks from now,” Ben adds, angrily.

“Clearly a little more than a leak,” Buck peers up at the ceiling with a gaping hole in it, squinting at where the bathtub fell through, then points, “Should we be checking on them?”

“Fuck no, they’re assholes, probably find a way to blame this on us,” Ben grumbles, coughing up some collapsed-ceiling dust, “Almost all of Ellie’s neighbors are awful.”

“Well they were about to be your neighbors too,” Ellie crosses her arms over her chest, “If you hate it here so much, why’d you agree to move in?”

“Not this again, you wanna have this fight while I’m being crushed by two stories of bathroom?”

“Is he gonna be okay?” Ellie turns towards Hen.

“We’ll take him to the hospital for some scans to make sure there’s no internal damage,” Hen starts, dropping her stethoscope to smile, “But yeah, he looks good, seemed to dodge the worst of it.”

“Then yeah, actually, I do wanna have this fight now. Maybe we should rethink this.”

“Re-think what?” Chim asks immediately, like a moth to a flame when it comes to gossip.

You see, the thing about step three is this:

Buck learned fairly quickly just how tragically bad he was at steps one and two, so it feels like the right move to bring people in on step three, who might be better at this than him. Unfortunately, his options are somewhat limited. Maddie has sent him taunting pictures of juice boxes every day that Buck remains not moved into the Diaz house, so she might still serve best as a confidant, not partner. Chim had suggested throwing a party when he and Eddie had gotten together, so the support’s there, but subtlety may be lacking. He even comes particularly close to having Bobby just up and hand Buck change of address forms in front of the whole team to see what Eddie does. Not his finest show of will. Not something Bobby would feel morally inclined to do anyway.

But Ben and Ellie?

Two complete strangers with no ties to the situation other than that they’re stuck, literally, in a similar one?

“They were thinking about moving in together,” Buck smiles, back towards Ellie while Eddie and Chim continue to uncover Ben from the rubble.

“Congratulations!”

“Not congratulations, I don’t think it’s happening anymore.”

“Why not?”

“Uh, a bathroom fell on me!”

“Well that doesn’t have to mean anything,” Buck offers, “Right?”

“I don’t know, it felt like the right call, at the time,” Ellie smiles sadly, peeking up at Buck with a heavy sigh, “We’ve made like, seven pros and cons lists, and I’m out of ideas.“

“What do you guys think? Should we do it?” Ben asks in between a wince as Hen gets an IV in.

“We can’t drag these innocent firefighters into our personal problems, Ben.”

“Like we couldn’t drag your Catholic mother into it who just wanted to let us know we’re living in sin?”

Oh. And that’s an interesting point for no reason whatsoever. Buck hasn’t spoken to Eddie’s mom in years—that’s so—totally irrelevant information—does she—would Eddie care—

“I told you, I didn’t care about that,” Ellie insists, “What I did care about was you not renewing your lease without telling me.”

Shit. Shit shit shit.

“We don’t mind, being involved, actually, I mean, you’ve got lots of people happily living with their partners here who I’m sure would love to uh,” Buck says, “Share their secrets to success.”

It feels like everyone in the room clocks Buck’s weird energy shift, except for Ben, but he gets a pass on social cues at the moment. The sound of collapsed ceiling tile is deafeningly loud as Eddie keeps moving off the patient, methodically, slowly, avoiding a place in this conversation. Fortunately, even though it’s clear they all feel it, no one mentions it, and Buck’s making a mental note to hand deliver every baked good Chimney has ever desired when he gets off shift tomorrow for speaking up next.

“If it helps at all, I moved in with my wife before we were even engaged, and now we’re married with two kids,” Chim offers, bandaging up one of Ben’s arms.

“See now that deserves a congrats.”

“Thanks, I’m pretty lucky,” Chim beams, “My son rolled over for the first time this morning, you wanna see?”

“Um, duh,” Ellie laughs, hands out for Chim’s phone he’s already scrolling through as he jumps up from rubble duty. Buck replaces him, feeling okay sitting out the viewing of his nephew’s big roll having seen it four times over today already.

When he crouches beside Ben’s torso to resume Chim’s work, Eddie scoots towards his feet, avoiding eye contact.

“How about you?” Ben looks up at Hen as she drops her stethoscope, Chim and Ellie lost to the conversation for a few minutes with their cooing, “Any move-in luck like your friend here?”

“Actually it’s funny, my wife was Chimney’s neighbor, originally.”

“No way!”

“He set us up, we dated for a bit, bought a house together,” Hen gushes, “Best thing that ever happened to me.”

“I have pictures of their kids too, hold on,” Chim indulges in his favorite job in the world, getting to brag about their kids, swiping through his very extensive camera roll. Ellie is either the most polite person on the planet or she is genuinely interested in Mara and Jee’s joint half-birthday party last month.

“Okay, your turn,” Ben points again, and Buck doesn’t realize at first, he’s looking at him.

“Oh no, I don’t think you want my opinion on this one, really—”

“No, honest, this is all really, really reassuring.”

“Right, which is why I don’t think you’re gonna like hearing that I have uh,” Buck gets real interested real fast in a heap of shower curtain rings, “A complicated relationship—”

“You have a complicated relationship?”

Surprisingly, it’s neither Ellie nor Ben, but Eddie whose interest is piqued.

“With moving, relationship with moving in,” Buck rectifies. “It’s been uh, mostly negative in the past and currently, well—I moved into my boyfriend’s house, then I moved out,” he finally manages to win over the briefest second of eye-contact from Eddie, but it falls as quickly as it began, so he grimaces up at Ellie, “And then we got together.”

She at least smiles somewhat sympathetically back at him.

“Alright, last but not least!” Ben gestures towards Eddie. Buck is literally holding his breath waiting for an answer. Best case scenario Eddie feels like spilling his guts, realizes life’s too short to wait for a bathtub to fall on you, misses Buck living in his house, and asks him to move in while they’re getting onto the stretcher. Problem solved. They’ll have Ben and Ellie at the housewarming party, guests of honor.

Worst case scenario:

“Same exact answer as him,” Eddie grits, getting the last piece of debris off of the patient as he says it, “Think we can get the gurney down the hallway?”

“That’s quite the coincidence,” Ben ignores the discussion Bobby is currently having with Chim over the progress being made on clearing a path through the moving boxes to the bathroom, “Two firefighters in the same station, both moving into and out of their boyfriend’s place before they were boyfriends?”

“No, it’s my place that he moved into into,” Eddie says, smile tight.

“Oh, that’s so cute!” Ellie squeals.

“Right, and wait’ll you see their kid,” Chimney leans back in with his photo album at the ready, and it’s really very good that Ben’s okay and no longer requiring EMT services because Buck is fast approaching CPR territory. “He’s gotten so big, giving me a run for my money when it comes to handsomest guy on the family tree, for sure.”

“You’re related?”

“My wife, Maddie, is Buck’s sister.”

“I’m obsessed with you guys, all of you,” Ellie gasps, “You should have a TV show, why don’t you have a TV show?”

“I’m literally always saying that—”

“Chim, why don’t you help Eddie get Ben on the gurney, follow Hen and I out,” Bobby’s captain voice makes a stern reappearance, as the scene gets set back into motion, “Buck, hang back with Ellie here until the coast is clear?”

“On it, cap,” Buck says, clearing a path for them to lift Ben, and heading to stand at the side of the room with Ellie.

She watches them work on Ben intensely, pure love and adoration in her eyes that Buck could spot from miles away, because it’s an expression he wears almost 24/7, lately. Her hands are clasped under her chin, gaze focused, not looking away but a clear smile on the edge of her voice to whisper, “So you’re, like. 100% moving in with him after this, right?”

Buck laughs, “I want to. I really, really do.”

“But a bathroom fell on you?”

“Repeatedly,” he nods.

“You know, maybe this was a sign,” Ellie starts again, after a beat of silence, “But not a bad one.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m an elementary school teacher, every year I make my kids read Chicken Little. You heard of it?”

“The Disney movie?” Buck asks, “Like ‘the sky is falling’ Chicken Little?”

“That’s the one, it’s all about assuming the worst case scenario, causing panic. Thinking the sky is gonna fall on you, even when you know it can’t,” she shrugs, “I have loved Ben for so much of my life, I can’t even remember when it went from being something I was thinking about doing to something that was just part of me.

“I think I was afraid of the sky falling on us, by making this change, you know? Moving in together, it’s a big step, a scary one,” she smiles, laughing as Ben tries to direct Chimney around a box of what is apparently, Ellie’s favorite glassware, “Even though I knew nothing could hurt us, rationally. I knew how strong our relationship was, deep down somewhere. I still panicked.”

“So the sky fell on you.”

“A sign, just to remind me,” Ellie finally turns towards Buck, “We’ll get through anything, as long as we’re together.”

Yeah, Buck gets that.

“Also a sign that this apartment’s shit and we should get the fuck out, just buy a house like all your lovely coworkers.”

And yeah, Buck gets that one too. Rest in peace, step two.

“Well you now have five firefighters willing to triple-fact check your home inspector when that time comes,” Buck gestures towards the hallway.

“And you have a teacher willing to wreak havoc at a parent-teacher conference if your boyfriend doesn’t get it together and ask you to move in soon.”

“Chris is in high school.”

“I have connections,” she says slyly, a mischievous twinkle in her eye, slipping out of the building and catching up with Ben being loaded into the ambulance, “Got room for one more in there?”

“So I was thinking,” Ben says, hand all bandaged up from the sky falling on him and surviving it, immediately reaches out for Ellie’s. She takes it without even having to look at what she’s doing, “We sue this place for every penny it’s worth and buy that house by the beach you love driving by. The one with the yellow door. And you can Pinterest the fuck out of the kitchen, marble countertops and green backsplash and—”

Ellie kisses him, ceiling insulation dust sticking to her rosy cheeks and her curls that fall in front of her face, “I love you so much.”

“I love you more.”

Eddie finally looks up at Buck, fist over his heart, one finger pointed out to him.

“Good luck, Buck!” Ellie yells, waving with her one free hand as Hen swings the ambulance door shut.

“You too, Ellie!” he calls back. “Don’t let Chimney bother you with pictures the whole ride!”

On Eddie’s left, Chim has a different choice finger for Buck, before he runs around the side and climbs into the driver’s seat.

“Alright, 118, let’s load out,” Bobby calls, tapping the back of the ambulance. “Buck, Eddie.”

“Be there in a minute, Cap,” Buck jogs the distance between them, slipping into the spot the ambulance just vacated as Bobby heads for the truck, leaving just him and Eddie.

“Can I come over tonight?”

“You never have to ask,” Eddie smiles, chin tilted up to take in Buck’s whole face. “But yeah, Chris isn’t home, it can be a date.”

“Oh, a date?” Buck flirts, “Like dinner and a movie, candles and wine?”

“Like beer and basketball, for that attitude.”

“Jokes on you, I like basketball now,” Buck huffs, crowding Eddie’s space, “I just imagine all the players are you.”

“That’s the most romantic thing anyone’s ever said to me,” Eddie rolls his eyes, looks over his shoulder briefly, “You think Bobby can see us from here?”

Probably, definitely, Buck thinks. But, “No, not at all,” Buck says.

So Eddie grabs Buck and kisses him fast, hands on either of his cheeks, soft and sweet and blazing hot all at once, and over as quick as it started. He kisses him like, well, like the sky is falling.

“You ever worry about the sky falling on us?”

“No, not really,” Eddie shrugs, brushing his nose sweetly against Buck’s just once, one of Buck’s favorite little habits of his, before separating like a professional on the clock, “If it did, you’d get me out of it. Lift it all off, throw it back up into the sky.”

“Yeah,” Buck nods, “Yeah, yes, I would.”

“Why? Did your bathroom collapse too?”

“No, no, nothing like that, just thinking about Chicken Little,” Buck says, steering them towards the truck they were supposed to have boarded two minutes ago, “But now that you mention it, maybe I should shower at yours tonight, you know, for safety.”

Eddie tosses his head back in laughter, the sunlight catching his smile like he’s a prince straight out of an elementary fable, “Are you going to be suddenly concerned with conserving water now too?”

Buck laughs back, shoves Eddie forward with a hand placed a little too low to be considered a friendly hand on his lower back, but it’s fine. Bobby probably definitely can’t see them, Eddie is the love of his life, and the sky isn’t falling.

“Hey Eddie, I love you so much.”

Eddie holds a hand out to help Buck climb up into the engine, “I love you so much more.”

step four: absence makes the heart grow fonder

This is the first step Buck goes into already knowing and recognizing and fully cognizant of the fact that he’s going to suck at it.

Growth, right?

The first thing Buck did when he met Eddie was remove the phrase “personal space” from his vocabulary.

Or, first thing he did, in hindsight, was ogle his abs, but then yeah, definitely second thing. Second thing Buck did after meeting Eddie and appreciating his physique in a decidedly non-platonic way, was delete any and all understanding of personal space between them.

Buck would willingly volunteer to be the first test subject on an experimental prototype to superglue yourself to someone else’s skin.  And make sure Eddie was in line behind him. Buck scrolls past those videos on TikTok that ask stupid questions like “Would you live in your boyfriend’s pocket for a million dollars?” because he’d do it and let whoever was offering keep the money as thanks for inventing such a thing. Buck pretends to forget things at Eddie’s house for an excuse to come back sooner. Buck started hating his king-sized bed he swore he’d never part with after the first night he shared it with Eddie because it was too big.

Buck loves being with Eddie. Physically. He wants to exist in whatever space Eddie is in at any and all times, and then move like, at least twelve inches closer than that.

So yeah, this is gonna be a challenge.

But if he can muster up the courage to pull it off, it might be his most successful step yet.

Because if Buck wants to invent a way to live inside Eddie’s shirt pocket, Eddie wants to invent a way to live inside Buck’s ribcage.

He’s going to fucking hate this.

“Are you about to ask me for a tip?”

Eddie pauses the path his kisses are taking, up Buck’s side, to wink one eye open at him.

“Yeah, and think long and hard about your percentage before you twist the screen back to me. I don’t earn a living wage, and I provided an essential service,” Buck deadpans, sitting back against the headboard, scrolling on his phone.

“Ten percent seem fair?”

“Oh so it was the worst sex of your life?”

Eddie rolls over, hiding his hysterical laughter into the dip of Buck’s hip. It tickles, Buck never even knew he was ticklish there, and what a joy that is to know, right? He’s got a ticklish hip bone, set off by his boyfriend’s unbridled joy.

“Fifteen?” Eddie bites at Buck’s skin, he can feel the little indents of his canines, “I don’t know if twenty’s in my budget, sorry.”

“No that’s fine, I really hope you enjoyed that orgasm, you’ll never get one from me ever again.”

Laughter tickles his skin again. Buck’s never been more in love than he is in this exact moment, which is crazy, because he said the same thing one second ago, and the second before that, and the second before that.

“Seriously, what are you looking at?” Eddie twists to prop himself up on one elbow, “Did I give a ten percent performance?”

“You’re an automatic twenty-five percent gratuity for the whole party, baby,” Buck laughs back, “No, I’m just uh, checking traffic.”

“Traffic? You’re into traffic patterns now?” Eddie asks lightly, “We’ve moved on from real estate podcasts?”

“Not the history of traffic, which, is actually more interesting than you think, by the way, did you know the first ever traffic light was put up in the middle of an intersection in England in 1868, which—first of all, crazy to imagine driving without traffic lights at all, like how did anyone know where to go, or—anyway, guess what happened to that traffic light Eddie? It blew up. The guy operating it died!“

“Fuck, really?”

“Yeah, and they didn’t try again for another forty six years when electricity—sorry, I’m getting side tracked, you don’t care—” Buck shakes his head, glancing back down at his phone sheepishly.

“No, no, keep going, I didn’t know traffic lights did it for me, but,” Eddie grins, fingers tracing patterns slowly up one of Buck’s thighs beneath the sheet, “This could get me to splurge on 17%”

“I was literally, actually looking up traffic,” Buck says, “How long it’ll take me to get home.”

And that does, indeed, have the desired effect. Maybe he wasn’t gonna be so bad at this after all.

“You’re leaving?” Eddie sits up on both elbows now, brows scrunched together deliciously. Buck wants to devour him wh—nope, nope, stay on track, Buckley. “Tonight? When?”

“Uh, ideally sooner rather than later,” Buck shrugs one shoulder up, keeping his eyes on the traffic report on his phone, “Looks like there was an accident on the freeway, and if I wanna get home at a decent time—”

“What do you need to be there for?” Eddie breathes out, in a flat rush.

“I live there, Eddie,” Buck laughs, but it’s tickling no one, devoid of any real joy, “All my stuff’s there—”

“What do you need?”

“Seriously?”

“Yes,” Eddie nods furiously, sitting up abruptly, and doubles down, “What do you need?”

And shit okay, Eddie learned traffic lights did it for him, and well, whatever this is, Buck has learned, is doing it for him. Eddie has never looked more attractive than he does trying to get him to not leave his home. Fuck. He’s 100% screwed.

He’s sticking to the script though. This whole thing had started because Eddie insisted on leaving Buck to head home one night, so it seems only fair. Uno reverse. Or whatever.

So he starts, “Uh, we have work tomorrow, I need clothes.”

“I have stuff you can wear.”

“And a clean uniform,” Buck adds.

“You have a spare in my locker. That it?”

“I have a dentist appointment tomorrow before shift,” which is true, and, why Buck couldn’t pass up the opportunity to make step four work today and only today.

“I can take you, I love waiting rooms,” Eddie has assumed full defensive position, body twisted squarely towards Buck’s lackadaisical sprawl, hands on his hips.

“I need to brush my teeth,” Buck counters, “C’mon, Eddie, even you can agree I have to brush my teeth before going to the dentist.”

“I mean yes, but you can do that here.”

“With what toothbrush?”

“Uh, your toothbrush.”

“I don’t have a toothbrush here.”

“Did you hit your head on the way down before or something?” Eddie pushes a hand through Buck’s curls as he suddenly hops up to standing, heading for the bathroom to, seemingly, prove his point and make almost every ounce of Buck’s will dwindle. He’s in nothing but Buck’s t-shirt that he’s supposed to re-wear to the dentist tomorrow. “You’ve had a toothbrush here since like, 2019.”

“Hopefully not the same one,” Buck finally has the breath in his lungs to be able to respond when Eddie disappears briefly into the bathroom, “You should be changing your toothbrush every three to four months.”

“You’re on a roll with the fun facts today.”

“That’s not a fun fact, that’s actually the opposite of a fun fact. Do you know the kind of bacteria that—”

“You don’t have toothbrush here.”

“I do not.”

“What the fuck happened to your toothbrush?” Buck can hear Eddie’s frenzied voice from behind the wall, likely pillaging his medicine cabinet at the same time, and he’ll have no luck, because Buck tossed the toothbrushes yesterday morning before they left for work, “What the fuck happened to my toothbrush?”

“They needed to be replaced, and good thing my instincts were correct, you clearly weren’t gonna do that.”

“You were serious about the three month thing?”

“I don’t fuck around about dental hygiene, Eddie.”

“Fine,” he sighs, leaning his hip into the doorway, the light from the bathroom silhouetting him and holy fucking hell Buck really is just a man, you guys. He is just a man. “You have the replacements?”

“Right, about that,” Buck winces, and Eddie sighs again. “It slipped my mind, I wasn’t exactly thinking straight on the drive here.”

“You most certainly were not,” Eddie’s pissed off grin finally cracks into an endeared one, “So what I’m hearing is, we need toothbrushes.”

“Correct.”

“If you had a toothbrush here, you’d stay?”

Fuck. A loophole. He’s been out-loopholed.

“I don’t—”

“That’s all you’re missing, right? You have clothes, a uniform, a ride,” Eddie paces forward anxiously, “So if I get you a toothbrush, you’ll stay? You won’t leave?”

And Eddie is pouting. Honest to god pouting. With sex hair. And Buck’s t-shirt. And the hottest disregard for dental hygiene Buck has ever seen.

Buck may have been willing to put up a fight, but step four was no match for Eddie Diaz.

“If you go get me a toothbrush, wouldn’t you have to leave?” Buck gives it one last ditch effort that he knows is failing before he even finishes the thought, because Eddie is crawling back up to him from the foot of the bed.

“We could go together,” Eddie says, making his way closer and closer, til he’s straddling him fully, legs on either side of his ticklish hips, “We can make out at all the red lights on the way and hope they don’t blow up and kill us.”

Buck cocks his head to one side, hands sliding up Eddie’s arms of their own free will, a finger twisting around the hair at the nape of his neck.

“Please? Please stay,” Eddie hums, barely above a whisper, “I don’t want you to leave.”

“I don’t wanna leave either,” Buck whispers back just as gently, nose to nose. Ticklish. He learned that one the very first time they kissed. His favorite fun fact. “I’m sorry about the toothbrush.”

“I mean, I really don’t want you to leave,” Eddie holds one of Buck’s hands in his, his thumb running carefully over each knuckles, eyes downcast.

“I’m not gonna.”

“No, like, I uh—what I’m trying to say is,” Eddie takes a big deep breath, voice still low, eyes still on Buck’s left hand he’s holding, “You know how much I love you, right?”

“I know.”

“Whatever it is, triple it. I love you that much.”

“I know,” Buck’s laugh rumbles out of him, low and sated and wonderful.

“I mean it, Buck, I love you triple what you think I do. And then once you believe in that tripled number, triple it again, and again, and you can keep going and never stop.”

“And I love you double that,” Buck smiles, “You can’t beat me at math, Eddie.”

“I wanted to ask, um, would you—I mean, do you wanna—” Eddie fidgets nervously, his eyes wide and beautiful.

“Do I wanna…?”

There’s a long beat, waiting, the top of his hand Eddie’s holding resting on Eddie’s chest, and his heart’s beating so fast he can feel it, just with that faintest touch.

“Do you wanna drive, or do you want me to?” Eddie deflates with his question, sitting back on his heels, putting a few inches of space between each other. Not exactly the absence Buck was going for, or the question, but both were honestly, a long shot.

“Well if you’re offering, it’s all you, sexy Uber driver.”

“Hah, talk about shitty tips,” Eddie scratches a fingernail across Buck’s abdomen, “I hope you have some cash on you.”

“I have to tip in cash? That seems unfair, you just didn’t tip me at all,” Buck smiles, nudging Eddie to the side to signal getting up. He gestures at the dresser to their right when he swings his feet off the bed, “Let me put some pants on so we can go. Sweats are in the middle drawer, right?”

“Uh, no, no, don’t worry, I got it,” Eddie launches himself out of bed, putting himself between Buck and the drawers, “There might be a sweatshirt of yours in the closet, if you wanna check?”

“Yeah, okay,” Buck’s lets the weird behavior slide, they’ve cycled through the full range of human emotions tonight, it seems, “I don’t think any of my hoodies live at my apartment anymore.”

“What a shame, how’d that happen?” Eddie looks positively heartbroken at the news, tossing some sweatpants across the room and slamming the drawer behind him shut, “Here, hurry up, I don’t think the CVS down the street is 24-hour anymore.”

“Alright, alright, you got the keys?”

“Yeah, hey, should we get ice cream while we’re out?”

“Obviously,” Buck tugs the pants on, ties the drawstrings at the waist, and tries his best to pull the elastic down to his ankles. He fails, theme of the night, and the furthest they get is mid-calf. He’s looking down at the slippers he’s sliding on when he says, arms outstretched, “How do I look?”

“Like I need to let you leave more than sweatshirts here.”

“Let me? You steal these in broad daylight!”

“You have no proof,” Eddie grins as he finishes putting together the rest of his own haphazard late-night ensemble, “You ready?”

“Yeah, yeah, let me just—what are you doing?”

When Buck looks up, Eddie’s waiting for him in the doorway, one hand partially over his mouth.

It comes out cutely muffled, but he does answer, “Does this look like 20% of my lips to you?”

“What?”

“You’re owed a tip,” Eddie says, “20%?”

This is it. This is who Buck is never leaving again, for the rest of his life.

He pushes him out the door, laughter bouncing off every wall as they back their way through to the living room, to Eddie’s car, to the maybe open late-night convenience store in search of minty fresh breath, and he lets Eddie kiss him through all of it. With 20% of the corner of his mouth, and then all of it, three times, and three more times, and three more after that.

And it’ll never be enough, Buck thinks, somewhere between the toothbrush aisle and the ice cream freezers, but this is a pretty fun thing to be absolutely, terribly, horribly bad at.

He just gets to kiss Eddie again and again.

the step three/four combo

Buck fails so spectacularly at step four that he’s actually inspired to do it again.

No literally. He fails spectacularly. Like that last one goes so well right up until the last second where he caves and stays over at Eddie’s that he really thinks with just a little more work, it actually would have worked! It was spectacular. His best failure yet. Sure, Buck sort of blacked out a little when Eddie started giving him those big brown doe eyes from three centimeters away, making it possible for Eddie to have asked him something like “Do you wanna move the laundry to the dryer?” and he would have swooned, but still. He feels victorious, and as close as he’s ever been to being successful.

He might have said this around step one, but he means it this time—he doesn’t think he’ll need step five.

Buck is so serious about this that he puts safeguards in place to make sure he follows through. He can’t back out with tons of people around—that was his fatal flaw last time. It was just him and Eddie, so Buck never really stood a chance.

No, this time, Buck’s making sure the room is filled to the brim with unsuspecting scene partners.

“Hey, I’m heading out.”

“You’re heading out?” Maddie stops Buck’s attempt at a hug goodbye halfway in, hand on his elbow and brows furrowed incredulously, “You, Evan Buckley, are leaving this house, Eddie’s house, before everyone else?”

“Yes, yeah, I am and if you could make a really big deal about it, I’d appreciate it,” Buck gesticulates wildly, “You know, like oh my gosh, Buck! You’re leaving! That’s so sad, why can’t you stay?”

“Why can’t you stay?”

“A little louder than that, it’s gotta reach the kitchen, Mads,” Buck corrects, ducking to be eye level with his nephew that Maddie has balanced on one hip, “I know you’ve got a good cry in you little man, feel free to really let it rip for me.”

“No seriously, what happened? Why can’t you stay?” Maddie asks, not following instructions and keeping up her inside voice.

They’re standing in the front hallway, right by the door, simply because Eddie’s house is the fullest it’s been in over a year. Over Buck’s shoulder in the living room Jee and Mara are using Christopher’s chess pieces to put on some sort of show for him. Hen is busy destroying Ravi at a recently recovered  game of Mario Kart from the couch. You can still smell Bobby’s barbecuing wafting in from the sunny-lit backyard. And in the kitchen, Eddie is giggling with Karen over something, bright and happy and so at ease.

Naturally, this seems like the perfect time for Buck to upset him.

“Oh god, is this another curse loophole?” Maddie says, less of a question and more of a disapproving statement, “We’re still doing that?”

“I’m just as disappointed as you are to still be at this, yeah,” Buck nods, leaning forward on his toes to try to peek around the wall to the kitchen, having lose line of sight on the target, “I think I’m getting closer though, and if you help, this could be the last curse loophole—”

“A curse loophole?” Chim appears, eyes twinkling, “Who’s cursed?”

Maddie blinks at her husband, voice floundering a bit as she accepts the drink she hands him with her free hand, and stammers to say, “Uh, no, we said purse. My purse has a hole in it and you know, Buck has just gotten into crocheting—”

“Forget it, Maddie, I know you told him everything the second I left your house after juice boxes,” Bucks discloses with a wave. Maddie does, at least, look like she’s going to deny it for a second, but Buck let’s her save her breath, “It’s fine, actually, the more the merrier, I guess. Chim, I don’t know how up to speed you are, but today we’re on step four, if you wanna help.”

“This is a plan with steps? You didn’t tell me about steps,” Chim turns to Maddie, not even attempting to dispel the notion he’s been in on this from the jump. He’s giddy with excitement when he turns back to Buck, “What happened to steps one through three?”

“I’d really rather not relive it,” Buck winces.

“Oh my god, that call the other day, with the ceiling bathroom!“

“Step three yeah, and step four, which we’re reattempting today, is getting me to leave Eddie, forcing him to miss me so much that he has no choice but to be so upset that he immediately asks me to move in.”

“And you think that’ll work?” Maddie asks.

“It almost did! The other day! I just need back-up this time I think. We’re gonna make a big show of me leaving, and I’m just, gone. I’m going. I will no longer be here,” Buck explains.

“You know,” Chim posits, hand on his chin, “That’s actually not a bad plan.”

“Don’t encourage him.”

“Thank you, Chimney!” Buck yelps, eyes on his sister, “Should have went to him in the first place, bros before big sisters, or however that saying goes.”

“Chimney doesn’t buy the good juice boxes,” Maddie levels.

“Well when he helps me make Eddie really upset that I’m leaving, we won’t need the good juice boxes anymore!”

“I really do think this could work, Maddie,” Chim supports again, “You’ve clearly never seen what Eddie looks like when Buck picks up a half a shift at the end of one of ours. It’s bad.”

“Chim, my favorite brother, I will crochet you the scarf of your dreams, whatever your heart desires,” Buck laughs, “As soon as I leave here, dramatically, and break this curse.”

“Uncle Buck, you’re leaving?”

Jee-yun comes running up from the living room, arms around one of Buck’s legs in a hug and chin poking into his thigh to look up at him.

“Yeah, Jee, sorry I gotta go,” he soothes a hand over one of her pigtails.

“But what about the sleepover?”

“Uh,” Buck blinks down at his niece, up at her parents’ blank expressions, back at her, “What sleepover?”

“Your big sleepover with Eddie!”

Back to Maddie and Chim. A long beat, and another, a few blinks, and then—

“Would now be a good time to tell you Jee also heard about the loophole stuff?”

“You blabbed my secret to your daughter?”

“She’s a Buckley and a Han, she’s genetically programmed to love gossip!”

“She’s five!”

“Exactly, which was why when she asked what happened to all her juice boxes, I told her her Uncle Buck was just upset because he wanted Eddie to ask him to have a really big, long sleepover.”

“That, and your love life makes for really interesting bedtime story material.”

“Oh my god,” Buck groans, head dropping which makes Jee giggle, “This is hopeless.”

“Hey no, wait, no it’s not,” Chim reassures, “It’s a good idea! I said it was a good idea, it’s gonna work, it’s good, what do you need us to do?”

“I don’t know,” Buck murmurs, lips twisted in a defeated pout. “Maybe I should just go.”

“No, don’t look sad, stop it, you know I can’t handle that,” Maddie turns away, fussing, “Here, hold the baby, it’ll make you feel better.”

And well, it’s a trap, for sure, to get him not to leave the place like a kicked puppy, but it’s one Buck happily walks into, taking his nephew happily to get little baby hands plastered all over his face. It does the trick, and a smile pulling at his cheeks instantly, despite the downer mood that’s been cast in the last 30 seconds.

“Does it count if one of us just asks Eddie on your behalf?” Chim tries to keep brainstorming, “Like a medical proxy, but for houses!”

“I don’t know, what do you think, baby, huh?” Buck coos, “Did you inherit the believing in curses gene or not?”

It earns him a delightful giggle right in his ear, and some nonsensical babbling.

“Definitely got the gossip one,” Maddie laughs, who got the indiscreet gene just like Buck it seems, when she thinks she’s being secretive taking a picture of Buck and the baby right now.

“What’s going on over here?”

They all snap out of the infant trance when a new voice interjects—Eddie, smiling sweetly with his hands in his pockets, looking around at all of them before decisively settling on Buck holding the littlest Han.

“Um, not much—” Buck starts lamely, met by Chim’s incredibly well-meaning but poorly executed: “Buck was just leaving, right Buck?”

“Leaving?” Eddie quirks.

“Something came up, I think, he was just saying goodbye,” Maddie plays along too, smiling lightly.

Alright, yeah, yes, he’s got it this time. Laid the trap, Eddie walked right into it, surrounded on all sides.

“Eddieeee!” Jee yells from the side of their small circle, “Are you gonna ask Uncle Buck about the sleepover now?”

Well, he guesses that answers Chim’s question about asking on Buck’s behalf.

Jee is giving Eddie’s big brown doe eyes a run for their money, batting her lashes up at him sweetly, innocently, like she didn’t just leave three grown adults tensed in anticipatory panic with one simple question. Chim is squeezing one of Maddie’s arms, Maddie is pressing her lips tightly together, eyes flickering back and forth between Buck and Jee and Eddie and around again. Even Baby Han keeps opening and closing his mouth in what Buck is choosing to read not as hunger cues, but sounds of shock and awe.

The only people not phased? Jee, and of course, Eddie.

Any unease he had at the quick insinuation that Buck was leaving is immediately wiped off between every crease on his happy, smiling face, crouching down to Jee’s height, “Of course you can sleep over, Jee. You don’t even have to ask.”

His favorite fucking phrase lately. Buck hides his own reaction behind the baby.

“No, Uncle Buck!” She corrects, insistingly, “Uncle Buck wants to sleep over!”

Oh my god. Oh my god.

“He can sleep over too,” Eddie grins, letting Jee excitedly clap both her hands over one of his, “As long as he knows our bed is for princesses, smelly uncles have to sleep on the couch.”

Jee flashes Buck the biggest, proudest thumbs up ever.

Chim almost has to excuse himself to let out a cackle directly into Eddie’s weird choice in decorative wall art.

Indulging in her apparent successes, Jee starts telling Eddie all the things they’re gonna do at their big sleepover, coercing him into uncovering the nail polish from last time they babysat here, and could they bake cupcakes since Uncle Buck will be here? and maybe they could play CandyLand at the same time! Jee’s already assigning every player their color and—

“Hey, you guys want us to watch the baby too?” Eddie yells over one shoulder, resisting Jee’s forceful drag back to the backyard, promising to catch up to her in a second, “You could make a night out of it, yeah? Some alone time?”

“Oh, you don’t have to do that for us, Eddie—” Maddie starts.

“Yeah, really, don’t—” Chim attempts to salvage.

“Are you kidding? You’re doing me a favor,” and Eddie looks so genuinely excited at the prospect of it, like he really does think Maddie and Chim would be helping him by letting him have a whole night of lawless Candyland. He leans over, making silly faces at the baby, “We’re gonna have so much fun, right buddy?”

Alright kid, this is it. Last ditch effort, here. Everyone else has failed. Buck, speechless. Chim, bad actor. Maddie, still doesn’t believe in curses enough. Jee, successful in the exact opposite of step four.

All we need is a cry, a good shrieking wail. He’s not even picky, some spit up right on Eddie’s beautiful, glowing, baby-fever inducing face would do the trick at this point, Buck thinks.

So of course, he lets out the happiest little garble, arms outstretched for Eddie.

“I’m gonna take that as a yes!” Eddie grins victoriously, scooping the infant out of Buck’s arms, the only one really feeling the sentiment. “Buck? You coming to get your butt kicked in CandyLand?”

”Yeah, yeah, be there in a second,” he smiles, watching Eddie retreat over one shoulder, having a full conversation with the baby, answering babbles with full sentences, lets his ears get tugged on like it’s a genuine pleasure, and even pit stops to peek-a-boo around the kitchen corner with Karen.

Buck thinks he might have melted into the floorboards. He doesn’t know how, but somehow, some way, he is going to get that man a baby. He has genuinely lost all higher brain function. It’s lucky he’s still breathing, because that was so—holy shit. Shit. Shit.

Nope, not today. One curse at a time, he reminds himself.

“We’ll uh, drop some pajamas off later?” Maddie shrugs, helplessly.

Buck groans, dropping his head in defeat onto Chim’s shoulder, earning him a commiserating shoulder pat.

“I swear to god, if your kids get a drawer here before I do…”

(Buck loses all four rounds of CandyLand they play that night. It has nothing to do with his bad mood at all failure, and nothing to do with Eddie playing one handed so he can hold the baby the whole time either. Not at all. Just your run of the mill skill-issue, surely.)

step four, attempt three

No, he really was gonna try again, he means it. They’ve got 48 hours off now, and—

“Hey,” Eddie crowds Buck back against the door to his truck, work bag swinging at his calf. He looks him up and down once, his eyes doing this thing that Buck has named for what they always signal, but it includes words that are not appropriate to repeat on work property, “So, I was thinking, we have a 48-off—”

“Yes, yeah, let’s go.”

Eddie giggles his whole run around the passenger side, and makes it really difficult for Buck to back out of the spot with his mouth on his neck.

step four, attempt three and a half (no, the last one did not count) (really!) (what was he supposed to do with 48 hours off? leave his hot boyfriend to be hot all alone?) (buck’s just a really good boyfriend, okay?)

“This is kinda nice, you’re like my own personal ASMR.”

“This is ASMR?” Eddie squints into the phone screen, not breaking his concentration in dish-washing, “Isn’t that like, pov: the mean girl at school does your hair?”

“Yeah, but it’s also—wait, how do you know about that?”

“Mara gave me and Karen a crash course when I was over there last week,” Eddie smiles, “You still didn’t answer my question though, is this you asking me to do your hair?”

“Were you a mean girl in school?”

“A straight-A angel,” Eddie brags, smile crooked, “But I can be mean for your scalp massage if you really want.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Buck laughs, “I just meant, I like the sounds you’re making over there, it’s sort of, oddly soothing?”

“You’re getting the tingles from my tapping,” Eddie drums his fingers on the back of the frying pan he’s just finished drying, voice dropping to a whisper, “Follow my finger.”

“Shut up.”

“Maybe I missed my calling,” Eddie says, making a show of running his finger through the bristles of his scrub brush, and promptly getting suds all over the screen of his phone. “Or not.”

“Don’t quit your day job, baby.”

“How’d you finish so much faster than me, huh?” Buck loses sight of him on the screen for a second, dish towel over the camera on Eddie’s end, “Thought we were washing dishes together?”

“Uh, I cook for one, you cook for one plus a growing teenage boy,” Buck leans back against his counter, waiting for Eddie to finish up the last of his drying.

“You’ve been spoiling me lately, I haven’t cooked for just two in, I don’t know,” Eddie shrugs, leaves the frame of the FaceTime for a second to put a dish away, “Months, probably.”

There we go.

Buck had Chimney hide his car keys after work today just to eliminate the temptation altogether of heading over to Eddie’s, and it’s actually worked so far.

Five whole hours Buck has spent here, in his apartment, alone, without Eddie and Chris.

It’s going well. No, Buck’s eye didn’t just twitch.

“Sorry, man.”

“Eh, not your fault, like I said, spoiled,” Eddie reappears, “Alright, that’s the last of it. Should we move this party to the bedroom?”

“Edmundo Diaz, you tramp!” Buck teases, picking its phone up off its perch against the stove, and feels like he’s walking with Eddie down the familiar hallways.

“We ate dinner together first, on FaceTime, it counts,” he flashes a grin, his camera work getting a little spotty—still yet to master aiming and walking, “Chris, you wanna say goodnight to Buck?”

“Dad, how many times do I have to show you, there’s a button for this,” Buck hears Chris before he seems him, Eddie just trying to twist his hand to catch Chris on the front camera. The view starts rapidly flip-flopping between back and front, Chris clearly demonstration said button for who knows what time, “See, you don’t have to be a contortionist, you just press here—”

“Maybe I just wanna come in real close and bother you,” Eddie says, flipping the camera back to the front and squishing his cheek against Chris’s annoyance to get them both in frame, “Plus, Buck likes this view better anyway.”

“Sorry Chris, he’s got a point,” Buck bites back laughter as Eddie’s grip slips and now he’s getting a shot from directly under their chins, “This really is the most flattering angle out there.”

“Ugh, I hate both of you,” Chris says, a rogue bubble of laughter betraying him when Eddie starts tapping the top of Chris’s head for really terrible ASMR sounds. “Can you go do your twenty-minute goodnight in your room?”

“Man, I just love having a teenager, don’t you, Buck?”

For all his big talk and poking fun at Eddie, Buck might not be any better at FaceTime camera work. He drops his phone in the hallway, scrambles to pick it back up.

“Yeah, yes, uh, we’ll leave you alone now, Chris,” Buck stammers, “Just wanted to say goodnight, and I love you.”

“No corny joke tonight?”

“I knew you liked those,” Buck quips, “I’ll give you double tomorrow, how’s that?”

“You’re coming over, right? Dad’s a really bad chess practice partner.”

“Hey!”

“Soon as the sun’s up,” Buck promises.

“Good, don’t be late,” Chris does his best impression of Eddie’s stern voice, which earns him several giggles, “Love you, goodnight.”

“Lights out in twenty, yeah?” Eddie reminds, after leaving a kiss on top of Chris’s head, and then leaving the room. Back in the dark of the hallway to his bedroom, he looks down at Buck, “Do we really take 20 minutes to say goodnight?”

“I don’t know, you wanna time it?”

Eddie laughs, but Buck can tell by the weird angle of the camera that Eddie’s starting the stopwatch on his wrist, “Hey, I don’t know how serious Chris was about me coming over that early—”

“Very serious,” Eddie nods, setting the phone down on the bathroom counter, “Come at five AM, I don’t care.”

“I think the sun rises at 6:42 tomorrow,” Buck says, with a quick google.

“Then you better not be here a second after 6:42,” Eddie smiles, “I’ll be up and waiting.”

“I don’t know what kind of karma I earned to fall in love with an early bird,” he rolls his eyes good-naturedly.

“Just get here, you can go back to sleep once you do,” Eddie assures, “I miss you.”

“I saw you like, six hours ago,” Buck tries, but feels how wrong each of the words feels in his mouth, so, “But I know. I miss you too.”

“Ugh, thank god I didn’t know I was into you before I went to Texas,” Eddie groans, reaching for his toothbrush, “I can’t handle you 20 minutes away now. Think of how annoying I’d be.”

“I was already so annoying about it,” Buck reminisces with a wince, “Ravi would have killed me, for sure.”

Eddie laughs into toothbrush, some toothpaste falling out of the corner of his mouth. Buck has maybe seven of the most insane thoughts ever thought in rapid succession, starting with wanting to lick his toothpaste spit right off his skin. He’s awful.

“What flavor you got?” Buck asks, which feels like the most normal way to follow up that thought. It comes out more like ut aver oo ot since he’s started brushing his teeth too. But Eddie understands, of course, and responds with a perfectly audible eer in. (Spearmint. Take that step one. They can mind read.)

“My mouth feels so much cleaner now that my toothbrush has been replaced,” Eddie quirks, after spitting in the sink, and no, Buck has no response to that sound at all.

“My bad for caring about your teeth,” Buck says, following suit, “I happen to quite like your smile.”

“Really?”

“Fishing for compliments?”

“No, no, I just, I don’t know if you’ve ever said it like that,” Eddie tries to fight it, but he flushes a little, arms crossed and leaning in on the edge of the counter, “That you like my smile.”

“Well, I do, I love your smile,” Buck says, turning off the faucet, “It’s my favorite smile in the world.”

Eddie doesn’t answer, just lets the corners of his lips fight a losing battle to turn up, his spearmint-fresh pearly whites peeking through. It’s the most beautiful thing Buck’s ever seen.

“Yeah, that’s the one.”

Eddie’s cheeks get even pinker.

Buck forgets entirely what he was supposed to be doing here.

“Alright, I’m going to change,” Eddie says, hurrying out of the bathroom.

“No, what the hell, Eddie! This is like, the one step you can’t leave your phone for!” Buck protests, as he continues working through his nightly routine.

“Better?” Eddie finally reappears after a few minutes, sweats changed, but shirtless, at least, pajama t-shirt in hand.

Buck makes a show of whistling to embarrass Eddie. It works wonders.

“That and the smile, and the concern for your dental wellbeing, shit Eddie, if Ravi didn’t kill me, you might,” he pretends to fan himself, switching off the light in his bathroom and heading for bed.

“Fastest way to a man’s heart is through his incisors,” Eddie gleams, mirroring his movement out of the bathroom and into bed, “And look at that, only thirteen minutes.”

“Seven whole minutes I get to just stare at you, aren’t I lucky?” Buck settles, trying to get his second pillow to lay right so his phone with stay propped up.

“I think normal people are supposed to find that creepy,” Eddie says, his sheets shifting noisy over the phone.

“We’re not normal though,” Buck smiles.

“Not even a little bit,” he smiles back, “I never hang up after you fall asleep.”

“No?”

“If someone asked me to list out all my favorite things to do, they’d find watching you breathe pretty uncomfortably high up on the list.”

Buck settles on hand on his chest, right above his heart, and watches it steadily rise and fall with a breath, rise and fall.

“You breathe an average 18 times per minute, if you were wondering,” Buck counters, just so Eddie knows he’s the furthest thing from normal too.

A minute goes by, maybe more, and he listens to the sound of Eddie’s ceiling fan, of Eddie’s creaky floorboards when Chris must get up to turn off his light, of Eddie’s breathing. He counts to 18 and starts over again. And over again. And—

“Isn’t it lucky we ended up here?”

Buck asks it before he even knows he’s going to, Eddie seems surprised by the question for a second, for the cut in the quiet, but he smiles, hands wedged under his cheek cutely.

“In different beds in separate houses?” He complains, “No, it fucking sucks.”

“No, I mean, like here,” Buck laughs a little, “I traveled the entire country, to other countries even—refused to sit still my entire young adult life, until here. I stopped in LA, didn’t move, for the first time ever. I never really knew why, was just a feeling, I guess.

“Nothing really gets to you, if you’re always going first, you know?” Buck says softly, pensively, eyes flicking back up to the phone screen, “But I gave standing still a shot, just once, here, and you got to me.

“And I don’t know, I think that’s pretty lucky.”

When he find’s Eddie’s eye again, he also finds, they’re glassy, visible even through his bad camerawork.

“Oh my god, no, no, why are you crying?”

“I don’t know,” Eddie laughs wetly, palms pressing into his eyes, but Buck’s favorite smile still showing, “I just think I love you a lot.”

“I love you a lot too,” Buck soothes, “Hey, did I say something—”

“No, no, you’re—you’re perfect, and I think—I really needed to hear that,” Eddie settles, props himself on one elbow, “Let’s stay here forever, yeah?”

“Yeah, okay.”

“I mean, not on the phone, I can’t afford an unlimited phone plan, and not in your apartment, your apartment’s gross,” Eddie adds, “But like, here, the general here.”

“Here, there, wherever, doesn’t matter to me,” Buck says, “As long as we’re together.”

“Me and you,” Eddie nods, fist over his heart, “I have so many things I wanna do with you.”

Buck nods.

“How many toothbrushes you think we’re gonna go through together?”

“Rough estimate, real quick?” Buck presses a hand to his temple, “Somewhere in the two hundreds.”

And Eddie smiles, and Buck wants to be there, but he’s so lucky to be here, that nothing else really feels like it matters.

“I can’t wait.”

step five: scare him with legal documents

Step four is so swiftly disposed of after that last one, Buck forgets there was ever a step four at all. Grand plans crumpled up and thrown in the garbage at 6:43 on the dot.

Step five is originally left blank, in part because he had, in his naivety at the onset of this thing, as we’ve established, really thought he’d never get to this point.

But he also isn’t sure documents can really intimidate Eddie “I’m going to put you in my will without first getting your express agreement and then sit on that information until I feel like dropping it a year later” Diaz.

Chim and Jee brainstorm with him over a family dinner one night for alternatives, and while a tea party sounds super promising for sure, something interesting happens at work one day that makes him rethink the point about documents.

Buck’s helping Bobby make dinner, he doesn’t even know what it is, some French thing he can’t pronounce and has so many steps that are all so complicated even Bobby is getting confused. Everyone and everything that is not this recipe, its ingredients, and its overwhelmed and underpaid sous chef are exiled to the opposite side of the loft in the name of good cuisine.

This unfortunately includes Buck’s grossly hot boyfriend who is having a very good hair day, and his phone.

He’s halfway through a red wine reduction when the latter starts ringing, and in the name of good cuisine, Buck has to ask the former to answer it for him.

“It’s your apartment building, I think?” Eddie yells from the couch, showing off the contact name Buck definitely can’t read from here, “I shouldn’t—”

“No it’s fine, answer it, it might be the exterminator,” Buck yells back, quickly returning to his tasks before Bobby docks him another sous chef point.

“You still have ants?” Bobby asks, looking up from the oven.

“No,” Buck shakes his head, because he can’t lie to Bobby, but he also can’t give a really great explanation beyond that.

He faintly registers Eddie greeting whoever’s on the phone, can’t really hear much of what he’s saying, doesn’t really matter, not until—

“Uh, they’re asking about renewing your lease?”

Buck honest to god didn’t even plan this one. If it wasn’t French week in the station kitchen, Buck would have answered that call himself, renewed his lease for another month because he wasn’t very optimistic anymore, and then moved on.

But Eddie is honest to god gaping at him like a fish, his mouth opening and closing, moving the phone away from his ear, back to it like he’s gonna answer, and then opening his mouth to no sound coming out so moving it away again.

And this is interesting.

So, “Yeah, I renew month to month,” Buck starts, flashing him one quick smile before refocusing on chopping vegetables, “You can still answer, thanks.”

Eddie looks exactly like what he looked like in Texas, when his WiFi was awful in that house and his FaceTimes would freeze every 30 seconds.

He looks at Hen for help, to Ravi, to Chim, who is the only one to send even a remotely encouraging thumbs up, and floundering for an answer, he settles on something that from this distance sounds like, “Evan Buckley’s not available right now, he’ll call you back.”

Quite interesting, indeed.

“That wasn’t very nice,” Bobby speaks up first, a few minutes later, when everything across the loft has settled.

“Chim told you?”

“He didn’t have to, I know you,” Bobby replies, and Buck really doesn’t wanna see the meaningful paternal look that goes with that tone of voice, “Just ask him, Buck.”

“No can do, Cap,” Buck wipes his hands on the end of his spring with a tight smile, “Thought coq au vin was a distraction free zone? Asking Eddie to move in with me when I’m cursed seems like a pretty big distraction.”

But not for long, Buck thinks, because maybe this was the key. Paperwork and agreements and renewals were not Eddie’s friend the way life-altering legal decisions were.

So if he takes this knowledge, and one very useful tip from his brainstorming sessions with his five year old niece—Eddie’s got two major weak spots: red tape forms and kids.

It comes together in the form of some forms for Chris’s school.

“This seems like a lot of work to just go from one online portal to another,” Eddie grimaces at the computer screen all three of them are hunched around, “It’s all online, they can’t just, like,” he waves his hands around, “Transfer it in the ether.”

“Did you just hear the words that came out of your mouth?”

“It’s really not that bad to re-fill, Eddie,” Buck laughs, typing away, “Some emergency contacts, addresses, his birthday.”

“Well, I still think it’s pointless, and I want no part of it,” Eddie smack a loud kiss to Buck’s head and retreats, “What do we want for dinner? And you can’t say pizza, Chris.”

“What if Buck wants pizza?”

“Does Buck want pizza?” Eddie counters, disapproving stance with his hands on his hips aimed at which one of them still left at the table, Buck isn’t sure.

He looks between Eddie and Chris, helplessly, “Yeah, I want pizza.”

Eddie’s scolding an “I’m gonna remember this,” while Chris hi-fives him under the table, and Buck gets back to work.

“I’ll order while you look over this, I think I’m finished, just double check my work,” Buck says, spinning the computer towards Eddie and reaching for his phone. “Love you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Eddie waves him off, leaning over, hands on either side of the computer to squint at the forms Buck has filled in. Buck thinks he’s gonna need reading glasses soon, all that squinting. He is embarrassingly excited for the day it comes. He slips out to the side of the kitchen, loitering in the dining room to call in their standard pizza order. If he’s timed it right, he’ll finish giving Eddie’s address for the delivery right about when Eddie should be finding—

“Uh, I think they were asking for your address here.”

Buck hangs up the phone victoriously. Here we go. Last step. This one’s it.

“Huh?” Buck has the playing oblivious act down best out of all the acting bits he’s tried over the course of this endeavor, “My address?”

“Yeah, here. Emergency contact. They need your full name, your phone number, your email—“

“Which I filled in, right? That’s me, Evan Buckley,” he points to the screen.

“Right, but then,” Eddie scrolls a little, “Address. You put this one, this house.”

Chris giggles.

“Shit, sorry, force of habit still, I guess,” Buck pretends to apologize, slipping back into his seat, but taking his sweet time to “correct” that erroneous “mistake”. “I’ll change it right now, sorry, honest mistake.”

And then Eddie does that thing again, the same thing he did at work the other day, where he freezes, and his face goes through seven different emotions all at the same time. He stands there, staring at the computer for so long, that Buck’s moved on to helping Chris with a question on his homework and—

“Or you could just not change it.”

Holy shit.

Was it—was it happening? Was this it? Buck did it, Buck actually—

He’s prematurely celebrated before, and he’s not gonna make that mistake again, so he blinks over at Eddie to confirm, “What do you mean?”

“I mean, don’t change it,” Eddie says simply, and it feels so good, too good to be true, when— “What do they really need your address for, anyway?”

“Uh, I don’t—”

“You’re here all the time, and who knows, if you delete it, does it like, reset the whole form? That’d be a hassle.”

“Sure,” Buck starts warily, following Eddie who is now pacing, voice growing more and more frantic, like he’s justifying this more to himself than anything.

“And like, if something happened to Chris, you’d bring him here, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Right so, that’s the point of an emergency contact, yeah? I’d want—you know, in case of an emergency, you should be here. You’ll be here. I want you here, this place, this address.”

And we’re like, at least in the right zip code of success this time.

But Eddie ultimately looks like he’s going to have an aneurysm, so Buck accepts defeat more swiftly than he ever has in the past, and puts his sweet, technophobe boyfriend out of his misery.

“Of course, Eddie, I’d be here if anything happened, but I think the school is asking more in like, a background check kind of way?”

“Huh?”

“It’s like a safety thing,” Buck laughs lightly, “If I’m gonna pick him up, or visit, or be allowed to sign stuff—

“Oh, right,” Eddie nods, wild eyes settling down a bit, “Right yeah, that makes sense.”

“So I’m gonna change it, on here,” Buck says, pointing to the screen, before, indeed changing it, “But I’m not like, changing it in the grand scheme of things. I’ll be here, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s good, that’s…” Eddie nods, once, twice, then, “Pizza in twenty?”

“Pizza in twenty,” Buck agrees, letting Eddie disappear to shake that off and set the table.

Chris is still giggling.

“Pretty sure the portal will be edit-able, in case you cared.”

“Just for that,” Buck points, nudging Chris back into his notebook, “I get to eat your crusts.”

“Well, that’s it. I’m gonna be the weird uncle who lives in your basement forever.”

“We don’t have a basement,” Maddie says, inspecting her first row of yarn-work proudly, “I get why you like this.”

“We can start a family business when I move in,” Buck flops his head over the side of the couch arm rest, letting the blood rush to his head like he’s a kid again. The three empty juice boxes on the coffee table are further proof he’s reverting in his misery.

“You’re not moving in, just give him time.”

“I‘ve been at this for months, Maddie!”

“It’s been like, three weeks, tops,” she deadpans, tossing another empty juice box into the pile, “But I get it. I know I’ve been giving you a hard time, but I really did believe you’d get it done somehow.”

“Yeah?” Buck tries to peek up at her, but the baby has decided his new favorite tummy time spot is on Buck’s chest, so his view’s a bit absconded by cuteness.

“Your crazy goes really well with Eddie’s,” she laughs, “I did think he’d get it, still think he might. But I also still think if you get tired of waiting, he wouldn’t let a curse come anywhere near you, Buck.”

Buck thinks of the look on Eddie’s face when he did his laundry for him, outside the bar waiting for an Uber, as they watched Ben and Ellie drive away, from the doorway to his bathroom, in his kitchen, with a kid on his hip or on his cheek, on the phone, on FaceTime, and right on the tip of Buck’s nose.

Buck’s tried to get him to crack, but Eddie’s always just smiling at him.

“Yeah, I’m starting to think that too,” Buck says, delighting in how his big, heaving breath makes the baby laugh, “But I can wait.”

Maddie smiles, at him, declining to toss him another juice box given her kid, sporting some Buckley original booties and hat, by the way, is in her line of fire, but Buck doesn’t mind. No juice necessary.

He can wait.

He waited years to get him the first time, he can wait a few more weeks, months, even a year, to change his address.

Buck waits about 18 hours.

Buck gives it a good solid 18 hours before he loses it, like full, off the rails, loses his goddamn mind in the middle of Eddie’s kitchen on a nice, pleasant, Tuesday afternoon.

“I need to ask you a question.”

“Okay,” Eddie finishes drying his hands, tosses the dishtowel on the counter behind him, “Shoot.”

Buck’s standing under the little opening between the dining room and kitchen, fists clenched at his sides, and in clear view of the KitchenAid mixer he never took back after he moved out.

It’s laughing at him.

“Are you having stomach pains?”

Eddie’s voice is creased with worry when, apparently, Buck takes too long to ask his question.

“No, no—”

“Headache? Shortness of breath?” Eddie continues his line of questioning, pulling out a kitchen chair and lunging for his glasses, “Do you need to sit? Let me get you some water—”

“I have a question,” Buck repeats, though he does sit down.

The sound of Eddie pouring the water from his cute little pink filtered pitcher is the only sound in the house for a second—Chris is at a friend’s and Buck’s barely breathing—until, “Yeah, I got that. You wanna ask it?”

“Yes, yes, I do,” Buck nods, taking a long sip from the glass of water Eddie slides him. But he does not get anywhere closer to the question.

“Did Chris put you up to this?” The right corner of Eddie’s lips quirk up in a half-smile, leaning into one arm propped on the counter again, “I know he’s been dropping hints about a pet, and you had that thing with the dog, and honestly, I don’t really know why either of you is so stressed about it. We can get a dog.”

“No, that’s not—wait yes, yes, we want a dog, but that wasn’t the question.”

“Then what was it?” Eddie’s voice sounds like laughter, like he’s in on some amusing joke Buck doesn’t know about. If he wasn’t currently losing it, he’d find it really endearing.

“Sorry, I just—you’re serious about a dog?”

“Buck.”

“Right, right,” Buck shakes his head, hair flopping over his forehead with the frenzied motion, “I wanna ask you a question.”

“Mhm.”

And looking at Eddie, right there, the way the sunset glows around him from the window, the swoop of his hair, Buck’s sweatshirt that he wants to live in on his shoulder, and the beautiful, easy lilt of his smile.

How can Buck risk losing that?

“Nope, never mind actually, you need to ask me a question.”

“What?”

“There’s a question, for us, that needs to be asked, but I can’t do it,” Buck’s shakes his head, feet of the chair scraping as he gets up to start pacing the length of the kitchen, “So you, you’re gonna ask it, ask me, this question.”

“Okay,” Eddie starts, wild confusion etched on every smile-line around his eyes, because he is still, against all odds, smiling at Buck, “How do you want me to do that?”

“Nothing fancy,” Buck’s sputters, facing the back door, “Just ask!”

“Right, yeah, I just,” Eddie replaces Buck’s spot at the table, “I don’t know what question you’re talking about?”

“Yes! Yes, you do, Eddie!”

“I really don’t.”

“I have not been subtle. I’ve been dropping hints, I’ve wedged it into every conversation, I’ve been positive, I’ve been negative, I’ve roped complete strangers in on it,” Buck stops at the little pile of papers Eddie keeps stacked by the fridge, shuffling through it for the Moving Week Pasta recipe. He slides it across the table to Eddie as he picks up his pacing. “I have been trying, tirelessly to get you to crack, to ask.”

“I really wanna help here, Buck, but I honestly have no idea—”

“I know you know, you have to know. Cause this what we do, right? We get each other.”

“Yeah, of course, Buck, but I’m really not, really not getting what’s going on here.”

“No it’s fine, I got, got a little intense, sorry, my bad,” Buck holds his hands out, takes a large step back, “Just take a second, think about it. There’s nothing you wanna ask me? About us? About our relationship?”

Buck can almost see the steam coming out of Eddie’s ears he’s so serious about thinking about it, like Buck requested. He’s really, really trying. His bottom lip has all but disappeared, he’s picking at the skin around his fingernails, he’s rocking back in his chair anxiously.

He’s staring at Buck, like he can read the answer right out of his mind.

It’s a minute, maybe, of nothing more than them staring at each other.

Then Eddie braces his hands against the end of the table, pushes his chair out, wipes his palms on the top of his knees, blows a breath through his lips, and asks Buck a question.

“Do you wanna marry me?”

“Yes,” Buck gasps, “No, fuck, fuck—I mean, yes! Yes, yes yes yes yes, yeah, absolutely yes, but no that’s not—what the fuck is happening?”

“I’m asking you to marry me.”

And Eddie Diaz, this asshole, has the audacity to stand up, smiling.

“That’s not the question! Or, it is a question you could ask, some—no, no actually, I wanna ask. It’s yeah. I wanna ask, sometime, down the road, eventually, definitely, I’ll ask. Like, I’ll say yes if you beat me to it, but I’m just putting it out there, I call dibs on asking that one,” Buck’s lets out all in one breath, his voice shaking with adrenaline, “So final answer: yes but no but yes and yes but also no.”

“You wanna run that by me one more time?” Eddie’s voice is dripping with joy, his shoulder scrunched up cutely where he stuffs his hands in his pockets, “Should I go get your ring, or?”

“You have a ring?” Buck’s eyes all but fly out of their sockets. The neighbors might complain. “No, fuck, fuck, I need to—stop getting sidetracked—oh my god, stop, stop laughing!”

“Sorry, but I’m really fucking confused here,” Eddie laughs, ducking his head to try to catch Buck’s eye contact, “I’m clearly not gonna guess right, so just tell me—”

“Ask me to move in with you!”

Eddie stops about a foot away from Buck, three whole tiles of floor space separating them.

“Oh.”

Buck’s eyes can feel the word vomit rising in his throat, and he’s helpless to stop the past however many day and weeks of failed attempts and steps and plans come pouring out of him.

“I know, okay? I know it’s soon, and I know it’s complicated—I was here and you weren’t and then you were back and I wasn’t and then—you know, it was all backwards, right? Worst timing in the world,” Buck starts, “And I know we haven’t talked about it explicitly, and I know this is like, a big thing to assume, but I really, really feel like we’re on the same page.”

Eddie nods, just the tiniest little movement, but it’s enough to keep Buck going.

“But I’ve been dying here, because I physically cannot ask you myself. You have to ask me,” he blurts fast, before he loses the nerve, “I’m gonna say yes, I promise. You are the easiest yes in the world, to anything at all. But I need you to ask me this one, right now, please.”

“I—” Eddie tries to start, his chest rising and falling faster than it normally does, “Sorry, I’m just, trying to catch up—“

“If it’s logistics you’re worried about, don’t be! We can move here, we can move into my apartment. I made up all that shit about the ants and the mice and it’s actually a fine place, if that’s what you and Chris wanted, we could make it work. I’ll make anything work. One of those like, school bus converts or, a tent in the backyard, or we could buy a whole new house! I’m game! Whatever! I don’t care!

“I just—Eddie, you have to know, I’m so crazy about you. And there is not a single day that I ever wanna be anywhere that you’re not.

“I’m gonna be with you forever, 200 toothbrushes and counting, I know it. And I think, for most normal people, the absolute certainty of forever, knowing you’ve got all this time together, is the perfect reason to not rush anything.”

“But we’re not normal,” Eddie giggles.

“No, we’re not,” Buck’s giggles back, not knowing when tears got in his eyes, but doing nothing to stop them, “I see every reason to rush. I see me waking up to you tomorrow, I see trying to both fit in front of the sink to wash dishes tonight, I see finally getting everything you own to be washed in the good detergent by next week, I see only one water bill and one address on Chris’s school forms, I see me giving up my drawer of stuff here for our nieces and nephews toys, I see babies of our own running around, if you’re down—“

“Sorry, to interrupt just, I’m down, yes, a hundred percent,” Eddie interjects suddenly, “Just. Putting that out there. So down.”

“Hell yeah, let’s do it! Let’s do that, and a dog, and whatever the fuck we want! Let’s do everything together!” Buck’s like, a sputtering mess at this point, but Eddie’s still looking at him like he could be hung in the Louvre. “Ask me to move in, please. Please.”

“Why?”

“Hm?”

“If I’m gonna ask, I should know why, right?” Eddie starts, taking one tentative step forward, “Why can’t you ask?”

“Oh!” Buck croaks, punching the bridge of his nose, and squinting eyes shut, “I don’t think that’s super important, really—”

“Buck.”

Might as well get it the fuck over with, right? He’s come this far without the move-in gods smiting him.

“Because I’m cursed.”

It comes out a little mumbled, jumbled mess, so it’s no surprise when Eddie put a hand to the shell of his ear, amused, and repeats, “What was that?”

“I’m cursed.”

“Oh my god.”

“No wait, Eddie, just, hear me out—”

“A curse, Buck? Seriously?” It comes out with a funny echo because Eddie is busy sliding his hands down his face is misery.

“Seriously, yes, look—I’ve talked it out with a lot of different people—”

“Who? Chimney?”

“Yes, actually, and my sister, who you’ll be happy to know is a non-believer, just like you, but she knows I believe, very strongly, with lots of evidence to back me up, that all of my past serious relationships have ended as a direct result of me asking the other person to move in.”

His hands are still covering half his face, but Buck can see Eddie’s eyes melt into big, evil orbs, so kind and patient and understanding and evil, because it’s just making Buck’s own eyes wetter.

“You think I’m gonna break up with you because of this?”

“Eddie, I think the sky could fall on us and we’d survive it.”

Eddie nods.

There’s too much space between them, three whole steps in the kitchen, and isn’t that crazy? That Buck’s about to finally get what he’s been waiting for, Eddie’s going to ask him to live here, and the only thought in Buck’s mind right now is that he still wants to be closer?

Because Eddie’s gonna ask. Buck’s certain. He knows. Every single step has led to—

“No.”

“I’m sorry, no?” Buck’s blinks.

“No, fuck you I’m doubling down,” Eddie says abruptly, arms crossed over his chest, “Marry me.”

It’s Buck’s turn to free like shitty WiFi FaceTiming. What the fuck?

“I did know what you were trying to get me to ask, what kind of best friend would I be if I couldn’t read your mind?” Eddie starts to explain.

“When?”

“Zillow,” Eddie smiles, “I’m actually not that bad with an iPhone, swiped one tab over and saw a search bar you forgot to clear, how to make your boyfriend ask you to move in with him.

“But I couldn’t ask you to move in because I had this ring hiding in what would become our bedroom.”

Buck gasps a little, “The middle drawer?”

“My sweatpants don’t fit you, never thought you’d look in there.”

And Buck just, he has to laugh at the absurdity of it all. He thought he was losing his mind, er, he probably did lose his mind there, just a few minutes ago, but the rest of it? He knows Eddie, he knew it, he’s never been wrong about them.

 “I’d been trying to come up with some sort of plan, to get the ring on your finger, so that it wasn’t hiding anymore, and you could move in, because fuck—I don’t know if you were doing this on purpose, but every time you left here?” Eddie shakes his head, “I didn’t think I’d survive it.

“I was trying to come up with something good, something romantic, something you were worthy of. And then, there were so many of these moments, regular old, nothing moments in the day, when I would just think, fuck it, I’ll just ask, right here, right now, in a towel in my bathroom, or while pulling some guy out from under a bathtub, or in your car on the way home from work.

“And I know this isn’t the question you were trying to crack me on, but you did it. I snapped,” Eddie throws his hands up in surrender, laughing joyously, “I physically cannot wait a second longer to ask you this question, Buck. I don’t wanna wait either.

“So no,” he repeats, “This is my question. If there’s something else you want asked, you can ask it. You can do it. Because I don’t believe in curses, but I believe in you.”

Buck looks at Eddie, at any moment in the day, and he sees his whole life. It’s the single greatest feeling in the world, and Buck gets to have it, more hours in every day than he can ever keep track of in his head. And he knows, with the way Eddie is looking at him right now, that he sees the exact same thing. And he might have just said he found the best feeling in the world, but that one’s better. And you know, a moment from now? Buck will probably find a better feeling than even that.

Fuck the curse.

“Eddie, can I—”

“But answer mine first.”

Buck almost jumps back at the interruption, but watches Eddie, neutral-faced, point one finger to his chest, and double down again.

“You have to answer my question first,” he repeats, taking one more step towards Buck, so just one step separates them left, and his voice lilts over that little space towards Buck like honey, “Because if you let me go get the ring from my sweatpants drawer, and you give me a good answer, well then technically…we’re not dating anymore.”

Buck’s jaw drops, just a little.

“We’d be engaged, not dating, and then I think, well, fuck your curse,” Eddie finally, finally smiles again, “It doesn’t apply anymore.”

Holy shit.

This is the love of Buck’s life.

“Oh my god, you loopholed.”

“Hm?”

Buck collapses into the nearest kitchen table chair, “You found me a loophole! I tried myself, I asked every person I know, but none of us could do it, none of us could find a way around it but you, Eddie,” Buck slides forward in his chair, reaching for him, finding his hands, crawling his fingers up to his shoulders, tugging him down, watching every point of contact where his tapping tickles, “You are the the most sweet and loving and beautiful and brilliant person in the world. You were always the answer.”

“Can you give me an answer? I’ve been getting mixed signals here for the past like, twenty minutes.”

“Annoying,” Buck tuts, and leans down, kisses every edge of Eddie’s smile.

“Can I go get the ring now?”

“No, no no no! Don’t leave,” Buck tugs him back, causing Eddie to catch himself on one knee. He holds Eddie’s face in his hands, and whispers, “Ask me again.”

“Buck,” he says, voice steady and sure, eyes so bright looking up at him, pulling Buck’s left hand down to squeeze in both of his, “Will you marry me?”

“Yes,” Buck kisses, more than he says, “Can I move in with you?”

“Yes more.”

“Yes more?” Buck’s cackle is so bright it surely reaches the whole neighborhood, “What does that even mean?”

“Just more than a yes, however certain you think I am, double it.”

“You can triple my yes.”

“Yes and yes and yes and yes and yes and—” Eddie kisses Buck’s lips and his nose and his cheek and the other and his eyebrow and his ear and his neck and his knuckles and his left ring finger and yes and yes and yes and yes.

“One more question,” Buck says, when he feels too giddy to even know how words are forming anymore.

“Anything.”

“Should we go try on some sweatpants in our bedroom?”

“Uh, I think the activity I’m taking you to the bedroom for is kind of a no pants—oh! Oh! The ring, got it, yes, yes, let’s go do that,” Eddie yanks Buck out of his chair so fast, his left hand goes flying and knocks the half full glass of water over, the letters of Moving Week Pasta bleeding out as they run down the hallway.

“Should we stop in the bathroom to brush our teeth first?”

“What?”

“I don’t know, I just feel like, first fiancé sex, we should have good-smelling breath.”

“Holy shit, I love you so much.”

“Love you more.”

“Can I ask you a question?”

“No, I wanna guess,” Eddie says, grabbing Buck’s hand, and making sure their rings clink with the motion. “Is it……can we stay in bed all day?”

“No, but yes. We were gonna do that without me asking,” Buck’s rolls onto his stomach, forearm on Eddie’s chest, “Try again.”

“Can we go round two?”

“Ask me again in ten minutes?”

Eddie’s laugh tickles Buck’s forehead. That’s a new one.

“If it’s anything to do with getting a new dog, I’m gonna tell you right now, it’s a no from me. One’s enough.”

“I agree,” Buck laughs back, poking Eddie’s collarbone a little petulantly, “C’mon, it’s a really easy one.”

“The sun’s not even up, yet, cut me some slack,” Eddie flops back onto his pillow, playing with Buck’s fingers, “Alright, is it—”

There is a wailing, screeching cry from next door that cuts him off swiftly.

“Can it be your turn?” Eddie groans, nudging his forehead against Buck’s.

And Buck, well. Buck has learned his strengths and weaknesses.

Eddie will always be one of them.

“Still not the question but yeah, I got it,” he kisses under Eddie’s eye and pushes himself up and out of the bed, socked feet sliding across the floor as he grabs a sweatshirt, “She heard us say the second the sun’s up too many times, took it literally.”

“I don’t know who she inherited that from,” his morning-person husband says, sitting up with a big yawn. “Did you forget to press play on her real estate podcast last night?”

Buck’s just heading out the door when—

“Wait no, I’m gonna miss you too much. I’m coming too.”

Eddie’s got strengths and weaknesses too. Buck knows him.

“Oh my goodness I know, baby, no one’s allowed to have any fun without you!” Eddie says, slipping into the nursery, her cries all drowned out the second Eddie picks her up and swaddles her in some Buckley crochet originals.

Buck hangs back in the doorway, pressed to one side, keeping the door propped open with one foot, just watching them.

“Morning, Buck,” comes from behind him with a yawn, and Buck turns to see six feet of young adult bed head and morning breath coming towards him.

“Did we wake you? Sorry,” Buck whispers, smiling.

“Nah, that was all him,” Chris points down the hallway, to their equally morning-person dog, who’s running himself around the kitchen right now, Buck can hear his pitter-patter feet. “I took him out so he should be good for a couple hours, I’m gonna go sleep all of that.”

“Yes sir,” Buck’s mock salutes as Chris drags himself back to his room. “I’ll have a coffee waiting for you at what? Noon?”

“I’m not that bad,” he tries to argue, but then, “Okay yeah, you’re right. See you at noon.”

“You got it. Hey Chris?”

“Let me guess,” he bites back a smile, “You love me a latte?”

“I was gonna say words cannot espresso how much I love you, but yours is better.”

It earns him an impressive laugh for seven in the morning before he retreats, and when he turns his attention back to the room ahead of him the crying has stopped, and Eddie is already smiling back at him.

“Hold on I think I got it,” Eddie says, bouncing their daughter in his arms.

“Yeah?”

“Can you guess how much I love you?”

“That’s the one, yeah,” Buck smiles back, the delicate quiet of the room too perfect to say much else.

So he puts one hand over his heart, and points his finger out to Eddie.

“Double jeopardy,” Eddie whispers back, “I’m betting it all.”

Some might say this was inevitable, but Buck knows the truth.

No, the whole thing really only happens, because Eddie asked, and Buck asked, and the answer was always clear.

Yes and yes and yes and yes.

And yes some more.