Chapter Text
Buck could smell the spicy scent of Eddie’s cologne. It was a heady mix of something with cloves and maybe amber that smelled rich and intoxicating if Buck closed his eyes and inhaled long enough.
But… that may have also been the head wound.
“Ow!” He flinched before he could stop himself and Eddie sucked in a sharp breath between his teeth in sympathy pain as he followed after Buck.
“I know,” he said, his voice a low rumbling thunderstorm washing over the static prickling of pain humming underneath Buck’s skin. “I’m sorry. Almost done.”
Buck twisted his fingers into a fist and dug his nails into his palm as Eddie tended to the split over his eyebrow.
“Breathe baby,” Eddie said, the reminder a soft correction that Buck latched onto because he refused to acknowledge a world where the first time Eddie Diaz ever called him baby was when he was bleeding all over his brand new shirt on a ruined date they’d worked so hard to get.
He refused!
Even if it did sound really fucking nice.
“I’m sorry,” Buck said, squeezing his eyes shut the moment he felt the humiliating burn building up behind them.
“Nah,” Eddie said easily. “You took a pretty good hit. Anyone would be flinching.”
“No,” Buck said. “Not that.”
He wasn’t apologizing for flinching. His whole face was starting to hurt and his headache was turning into a throbbing pain behind his eyebrow. When Eddie had offered to do the stitches himself instead of rushing Buck to the emergency room it had been a no brainer although some of those brains Buck was pretty sure he’d left out on the pavement where he’d face planted.
Eddie leaned back to look at him then, his mouth pulling into a frown. A knot formed between his brows and those hazel eyes were almost as brown as coffee as they studied him for something more that he'd thought he'd missed.
“I ruined the date,” Buck said and his chin started to tremble which wasn’t humiliating at all thanks! “Our date! I ruined it. I wanted everything to be perfect and I—”
Eddie’s lips stopped him from babbling further by pressing against his own hard enough to almost bruise. Buck let out a surprised little noise, tipping his head back to take on more of the weight and ferocity of Eddie's kiss as a tongue traced along his bottom lip. He opened with a sigh, desperate for more, but Eddie pulled away with a smile.
"You," he said, still close enough that his breath and lips traced against Buck's mouth. "Are ridiculous."
Buck waved a hand at his head. "Duh."
But Eddie kissed him again and it was sweeter then. Briefer. Something promising and comforting that made the tension in Buck's spine he didn't even know he'd been holding, melt away.
"You didn't ruin anything." Eddie shook his head, his nose brushing against Buck's own nose. "Except my stitches if you don't stay still."
Buck groaned as Eddie pulled away with a laugh, taking his chin in his hand so he could move Buck back into position for the last few stitches.