Work Text:
i press my face into your gentle hands
and love you with the collective force of
every heartbeat i have ever had
- aure vives, an extraordinary amount of joules
Eddie is not an idiot.
Okay. Scratch that - Sometimes he’s an idiot. He really can’t do math in his head and even after all of his Mental Breakdown Cooking he can’t get pasta perfectly boiled and - no one is perfect! It doesn’t matter.
The point is, Eddie Díaz notices things.
Most of all, he notices Buck.
It starts out like this.
One day, his beautiful, gorgeous, insanely attractive, angelic boyfriend is pouting.
To be completely honest it’s more than one day. Buck pouts a lot. He ducks his head all cute and pulls out his giant watery baby blue eyes and sticks out his bottom lip just enough for Eddie to give into whatever he wants, whether it’s driving to Wendy’s at midnight for a Frosty or being the bottom for the night - and Eddie caves.
Who in their right mind wouldn’t cave? He has Evan fucking Buckley to sleep next to at night snoring as loud as a tractor and spread out like a wet dream. How could Eddie not be wrapped around his every finger like his pathetic malleable body was made to do just that?
Eddie notices his boyfriend staring at him. Notably, his stomach.
After his teenage years where it’s basically required to be insecure about everything including the way you breathe, Eddie wasn’t particularly shy about the way he looked. He’s handsome and he knows it. He doesn’t not get hit on in and out of uniform. He’s always throwing away crumply receipts or gum wrappers with phone numbers written on them after they have calls to clubs in WeHo. Eddie isn’t some smoke-show, but he’d say he’s averagely good-looking.
He and Buck have completely different opinions about Eddie’s level of beauty - especially about his insanely averagely-sized ass - but he’ll digress.
Eddie catches Buck staring at him through the reflection of the Station gym mirror. Buck is all pouty and puffy from whatever is annoying him this time, and it makes him perk right up.
He can't hold in his smirk when Buck looks away the second their eyes meet.
Buck is so checking him out.
“Like what you see?” Eddie asks, a lot cocky and a little turned on. It’s not every day that their shifts line up enough for them to have the same downtime. Eddie knows Buck is looking at something he likes, even if he’s a little pissy about it for whatever reason.
Eddie is a lot of things. Stupid isn’t one of them, especially when he's smart enough to use the bottom of his tank top to wipe the perspiration off his forehead. He knows what he’s doing. He watches Buck’s eyes track where the shirt lifts and all of Eddie’s tan, sweaty skin is on display for the world (Buck) to see.
Eddie tries not to let his jaw drop when all Buck does is scowl.
He's expecting a little more enthusiasm from his boyfriend, who normally goes feral over seeing Eddie's bare wrists, and maybe a flirty smile.
Not an eyeroll.
Eddie isn’t oblivious, either. He knows that the bratty twelve-hour dick-measuring contest on their first shift together was ninety-percent Buck being worried about being replaced and ten-percent because Eddie is, admittedly, hot. He heard Bobby introduce him as ‘eight-pack.’ He heard Hen’s very endearing compliment that even she, a card-carrying lesbian, found him tempting. He heard Chimney tell Buck he better get fitter, which Eddie personally hadn't agreed with, but whatever.
What they all don’t know is that Eddie was just as entranced with Buck’s looks as Buck was with his. He saw that giant prima dona and knew he wanted to fuck the daylights out of him.
Eddie never thought he’d fall in love with him along the way.
Now here they are, seven years later in the Firehouse gym where it all began. Buck, with the same constipated look on his face as he did all those years ago. Eddie, strutting around ike a peacock for his attention. Match made in Heaven. It's Soulmatism, as May called it at their last family get-together.
“Of course I do,” Buck mourns with a deep whine. “You’re perfect.”
Eddie cocks his head with the fond exasperation that only comes from knowing and loving Buck. The one he perfected a week after meeting him. “I know that face. I know that tone.”
The mouth slightly parted, outraged but trying to pretend he’s not. The wiggling of his shoulders, eyes flitting everywhere except whoever he’s talking to, avoiding the topic in an uncomfortable way for everyone involved. The slightly bitchy and fast-paced way he’s talking. The big green monster.
It’s envy.
“No you don’t,” he denies weakly.
“You’re jealous.”
Buck finally looks up, only to scowl at him. “No I’m not.”
Yup.
“You are!”
Buck drops the one-hundred-pound barbell comically loudly to the ground and saunters over to grab the two-hundred. He pointedly turns his head and begins his reps. Oh, he’s totally jealous.
Eddie knows what about.
The one thing that Buck constantly despairs over is having no abs. Which is ridiculous, because he’s built like the prettiest tank ever. His muscles are so big that they’re tissue soft and his abdomen is no exception. He’s always whining about it. He even drunkenly admitted it once!
Or… Eddie is pretty sure he did. He was also drunk, and they might’ve just been talking about their childhood celebrity crushes.
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson came up several times.
It doesn’t matter. Eddie knows his boyfriend. And he likes teasing him. It keeps the love going, he thinks. He teases Buck, Buck teases him, and they take it out on each other in the bedroom. Eddie makes his boyfriend giggle and he gets that thick cock down his throat. Win-win.
“Are you seriously still upset that you don’t have abs?”
Buck’s head snaps up. “What? No! I was- That’s not even what I was thinking at all!” He says. “I was mad that you’ve done seventy fucking jumping jacks and you’re not even red! You’re barely sweating, I - You think I don’t have abs?”
He’s made a terrible mistake.
Eddie winces. “Uh-”
“I do,” Buck sets the barbell on the ground and stands up from the bench. He cuts an impressive figure, built like a brick house and so big that he makes Eddie feel like a damsel in distress grabbing Prince Charming’s huge biceps after he slays the mean, oppressive dragon. He almost forgets why Buck is stalking up to him until he speaks again “I do have abs.”
Eddie has two options.
One: he could agree with Buck and they can move on. Buck can live in denial about having abs even though he really, really doesn't. They don’t have to make this A Thing.
Two: he could bicker with his boyfriend and possibly create some super hot sexual tension where Buck gets bossy until uses actions to prove his own point. This one ends in Eddie getting fucked against the wall, or their kitchen table, or the couch, or -
“I know you don’t,” Eddie crosses his arms over his chest and leans against the stand of the punching bag. He gives a half-shrug and that frown that Buck says makes him look like a puppy.
Easy choice.
Because the thing is, Buck doesn’t.
He’s got pounds and pounds packed on of only muscle. He has muscle literally everywhere on his body. His muscles have muscle!
But he doesn’t have abs.
Eddie knows. He’s spent hours looking at him, staring at how beautifully his abdomen flexes and relaxes. Traced the layer of fat above his groin. Has kissed all that lovely pale skin. Rubbed his tongue over it. He loves it.
He could draw every line of Buck’s body with only the memory stocked up in his tongue, starting with his belly. He loves it. He wouldn’t trade it for anything. It’s nice to grab when he’s on top. It’s even better for his cock to brush against when he’s on bottom. It’s nice to look at, as is everywhere on Buck’s big body. It’s part of him which means Eddie automatically loves it.
“Then I’ll have to prove you wrong,” Buck says stubbornly, puffing his chest out.
It makes him weak in the knees. Call him all the awful names you want, Size Queen better be one of them.
Eddie smiles. He puts a hand on Buck’s shoulder and leans over to plant a chaste kiss on his cheek. “Sure you will, honey.”
Buck stares at him. He stares right back.
If they weren’t at work Eddie knows exactly where his hands would be.
Hint: not anywhere close to himself.
Hint number two: familiarizing the section of Buck’s body that definitely does not have abs.
The moment is gone when Chimney bursts out of the back of the closest ambulance, pointing at the two of them with the most disgusted face Eddie has ever seen - which says a lot they deal with backed-up colostomy bags. “No PDA in the station!” He shouts, pointing at them menacingly.
Eddie almost forgets about it.
Sue him! He’s got a kid in high school, an emotionally and physically taxing job, and a hopefully soon-to-be-fiancé if the ring stored in his bedside lockbox is anything to go by.
Eddie doesn’t have the time to track down every single time he’s bitchy. He’s a busy guy and he loves it. He loves having a life that he can sink right into and go, go, go.
The fear is still there. He’s not going to pretend that it's easy.
It’s not. Eddie has nightmares. They all do. He has bad days - more than he’d care to admit. Sometimes he wakes up with the dust of Afghanistan in his throat and others he wakes up painted in blood and the worst, the very worst are the ones where he hears that giant electric clap going off and he can’t see anything besides Buck hanging dead in the sky. The fear knocking around in his chest takes up all the space he needs to breathe and love.
Christopher is getting older. He’s less and less tolerant of Eddie’s affections. The daddy treatment he used to get has completely melted into ugh, Dad! He’s shot up like a weed. His weekly escapades to the park have turned into hanging out with his friends until nine, or even ten o’clock at night. Eddie grits his teeth and calls out an I love you through a half-slammed door. He loves his son more than anything, and he's having trouble adjusting to the shadow he's beginning to leave behind.
Buck is his. He’s perfect. Eddie will never stop saying it. Especially to his boyfriend’s face. He’s everything Eddie never knew he wanted. Eddie loves him so much that he knows he’ll never live another day without that love; wound up tight in his body and making him warm with it all day long, forever.
They’re healing. It’s not easy. It hurts. They’re both different people, they cope differently. Eddie comes home from therapy sessions feeling too nauseous to eat Buck’s home cooked meals and Buck cries in his car on the way back home from hard shifts and they’re getting there. They either get wine drunk after couple’s therapy and sloppily make out on the couch or lay in bed and hold one another while they take turns crying about the pre-relationship general miserable-ness.
So when he’s not busy, he remembers.
Specifically because Christopher is happily packed away to school. They’re on the same forty-eight-off. The comforter is pleasantly warm. The curtains are shut against the offending morning sunlight.
Buck never came back to bed after dropping the kid at school like he usually does when they have nothing better to do than each other.
Eddie wipes his eyes. He clumsily taps the bedside tables until he grabs his phone. He scrolls through his contacts and presses Buck’s name.
“Hey,” Buck says happily after only a single ring. “What are you doing awake?”
Eddie grunts. “Not you,” he mutters despairingly. “Where did you go?”
“I dropped Chris off then I went to the gym.”
There’s a nag tapping on the base of his skull. Eddie’s morning brain can’t put his tongue on what’s going on yet. Or why Buck isn’t here spooning up behind him and pressing his morning wood into Eddie’s ass crack. God, he misses it.
“When are you coming back?” Eddie (totally doesn’t whine) asks.
“By your tone I’m assuming the right answer is before you get out of bed.”
This pleases him. “Yes. With breakfast.”
“What kind of boyfriend would I be if I let you starve? I’ll make you something.”
Eddie grins. Buck is as exceptional at making breakfast as he is at sex. “My man."
It’s really fucking good. Eddie moans like a whore during both. He secretly loves Buck pampering him and providing princess-like conditions for their little life together. Everyone jokes that Buck was born to be a househusband and they’re right.
Buck cooks. He makes lunches. He starts DIY projects and never finishes them. He snakes hair out of their drains and he genuinely enjoys doing it. He gets all giddy when the cars need a good wash so he gets a use out of his ginormous squeegee. He buys food in bulk whenever Christopher mentions offhandedly that he liked it. He props a leg up on the coffee table while he watches the news as he starts his day. He knows exactly what watermelon to buy by just slapping it around. He falls asleep after five minutes of watching house renovation shows and suspiciously wakes up when anyone takes the TV remote out of his limp hand. He eats leftovers like they’re going out of style and he stands with his hands on his hip to stare out the window at any kind of bad weather. He has a pair of long underwear stored in the back of their linen closet.
Who the fuck needs long underwear in California?
Eddie has never been more sure in anything besides the fact that he’ll love Buck, and he wants to keep him. For the rest of their lives; he wants Buck.
The call doesn’t go on much longer. Buck makes embarrassing kissy noises over the phone and hangs up before Eddie can make fun of him for it. He lays there as the end dial beeps through the phone and smiles all dopey up at his ceiling.
This is the man that will be his husband one day.
Eddie, woozy with love, is too awake to lay in bed any longer. He figures he has about an hour before Buck gets home. He showers, then goes out to the kitchen to start peeling their oranges for breakfast.
His boyfriend is terrible at it. The juice gets everywhere and his usually gentle hands dig into the delicate fruit too hard, too deep. It comes out mangled and practically inedible, and worst of all, it makes him sad.
As Eddie peels and places each slice into a bowl, he hopes Buck never learns.
Masturbating isn’t something Eddie does often anymore. Buck is moved in with him, they both have pretty high sex drives, and they are incredibly, fantastically sexually compatible.
Which is why it stings to see Buck, laptop open, gazing at shirtless men in their goddamn bed. He thought they shared that sentiment.
“What the hell are you doing?”
Buck jumps and slaps the screen at an inhumane speed. He smiles sheepishly, cheeks red at being caught in the act. He opens his mouth, probably to plead for mercy, but Eddie is on a roll.
“Are you seriously looking at porn while I’m in the next room?”
And listen. Eddie is not crazy possessive.
Does he hate when people of all genders get too handsy with Buck on the job? Yes. Does he hate it when, on the very rare occasion of them going to a club, men non-stop grab the same spot of Buck’s bicep that Eddie likes to bite down on to get him in the mood? Absolutely. Is he the one with the extremely hard boundary of never having orgies because the thought of someone else seeing and touching Buck in a state that Eddie cherishes regularly made him sick to his stomach? Damn right he is.
Have they decided that pornography and masturbation is forbidden in their healthy, completely monogamous relationship? No.
It’s just that… If his boyfriend is horny, he’d at least like to be there to watch. Especially when he’s one wall away vacuuming their living room rug.
If Buck really wants privacy to get his own rocks off, Eddie will shut the door behind him and give him the space to do so.
It doesn’t seem like that kind of situation just yet. He’ll test the waters first.
“I’m not - It’s not porn!” Buck sputters out, waving his arms frantically in the No-Officer-it’s-not-what-it-looks like gesture. “It’s men.”
Eddie blinks at him dumbly. “Shirtless men,” he points out. “In bed. While you’re in boxers. My boxers, by the way. With my pillow under that pretty head of yours.” He walks over and sits on the edge of the bed, the side across from Buck. “If you want something, all you have to do is ask.”
Buck chews on his bottom lip, contemplating. Without looking at Eddie he sighs and opens the laptop for them both to see.
Eddie feels his face twist into confusion. It’s definitely not pornographic. It’s just shirtless men. Not even specifically sexy shirtless men. The only thing they all have in common is a pack of abs and a photoshopped white-toothed smile.
“Why are you looking at them?” Eddie asks curiously. Looking back, this situation didn’t seem immediately sexual. Buck isn’t doing anything. There’s no lube bottle out or stray tissues. For whatever reason, he’s staring at these boring-looking men with a pack of muscles. “‘Cause, you know, if you wanted to see some abs you could just lift up my shirt.”
That gets Buck chuckling. Not a full-body laugh, or even a smile that reaches his eyes, but a polite giggle.
The niggling feeling is back.
It only gets worse.
Weeks pass. Nothing really changes besides Buck getting out of bed sooner and going to sleep later, impeding on some of their only alone time. Admittedly, it’s getting to him.
One day, when Eddie has had it up to here with waking up in his cold ass bed by himself, he makes himself get up to Buck’s early alarm.
He brushes off his boyfriend’s steady streams of questions with dolloped kisses and grumbling. He stumbles through pulling on workout clothes because Buck is fucking insane and goes on 5k runs at six a.m. and if this is how he has to spend time with the guy this is what they’re doing. He gets his tightest shirt on and heads to the bathroom.
Once Eddie catches Buck’s gaze in their mirror, a smear of blue toothpaste over his lips, minty and sweet, he wants to pry his brain open and search for everything Buck doesn’t like so he can kiss every piece individually.
Buck is so beautiful, so golden that Eddie doesn’t understand why the sun even bothered to come out today.
“Do you still love me even though I don’t have abs?” Buck mumbles through his mouthful of paste and brush.
Eddie pauses. This feels like the same test that would-you-love-me-if-I-was-a-worm was.
He said no, with the incredibly normal reason that Eddie wouldn't be able to decipher which worm Buck was and he wouldn’t want to love the wrong worm accidentally - he is faithful through-and-through - and Buck didn’t talk to him for three hours.
“I love you all the time,” He answers cautiously. It’s the truth, anyway, so why does it feel like he’s about to trot face first into a bear trap? He narrows his eyes. “Is this about that thing I said at the station like a month ago? All the workouts and eating differently - Is that what this is?”
“No,” Buck spits and resumes brushing, but the tone of his voice tells Eddie he’s a big liar. He’s staring everywhere besides the mirror, into their shared reflection.
Scratch all of whatever he thought before. Eddie is an idiot, and now he might’ve given his boyfriend a doubt about how overwhelmingly stunning he is. Option one is looking better and better by the second. Screw him for wanting Buck to pound a suspiciously body-shaped hole in the wall from fucking him so hard.
(Buck did, by the way. When they got home from that shift Eddie wasn’t even stripped before he was bent over their dresser. He couldn’t walk to the bed five feet away from them afterwards. It was easily in their top-ten best times. He gets a little tingly thinking about it.)
It gives Eddie a slight idea to show him now. To bend Buck right over the bathroom sink, open him up all pretty and loose, and make him watch himself get fucked. That would prove it, he thinks. Buck takes it so good. He’s so undeniably beautiful being filled.
They have fifteen things to do just this morning, and call him old-fashioned but Eddie isn’t about to have a quickie when he can’t have a few minutes to kiss Buck all over afterward. He’s completely banned car sex for the same reason. He likes to take his time.
At least, most of the time. Right now specifically.
“It is.”
“Is not.”
And Eddie - Well, he’s not going to take this anymore.
He’s the one that did this to his boyfriend, he’s the one that’ll squash it like a damn bug.
“We’re not doing this,” Eddie cuts off immediately. Buck keeps his gaze firmly planted on himself in the mirror, watching himself scrub his perfectly pearly teeth. That’s no good, so Eddie puts his hand on one side of Buck’s jaw and moves his face until he has no choice except to look him right in the eye. “Listen, okay? I’m sorry. I was kidding. I didn’t mean it, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt your feelings accidentally. I don’t care what you look like. But - I mean - You’re smoking hot,” he flounders for the correct words. They don’t fight often, and when they do, it ends in snot and tears and weepily making out on the couch through apologies. “I love you, and I’m sorry.”
The joke does the trick, because Buck blushes and smiles, all pink and perfect. “I know a way you could make it up to me,” he suggests.
Without thinking twice, Eddie drops down to his knees.
They don’t go on a run that morning.
Eddie loves everything about Buck. He loves the acne scars that Buck regularly whines about. He loves his birthmark. He loves the scars littered all around in various shapes and sizes. He loves the freckle on Buck’s left ass cheek and he loves the one-sided dimple that pops out when he smiles. He loves Buck’s hands, he loves Buck’s soft jaw, he loves Buck’s heart.
He loves how Buck is quick to anger and even quicker to forgive. He loves how empathetic he is. He loves that he giggles, fucking giggles. He loves that he smiles unabashedly, like nothing has ever hurt him even when the entire world has been atop his shoulders more than once. He loves Buck’s kindness. He loves how clingy he is. He loves Buck’s stupid faith in the universe. He loves how Buck loves- hard, and fast, and so fucking much that it makes Eddie dizzy. He loves how sweet he is. He loves how annoying he is about his twice daily showers. Eddie loves waking up finding the fuzzy socks that Buck insists on wearing to sleep but never fails to pull off in the middle of the night. He loves that Buck runs hot and sweats like a goddamn animal. He loves that Buck is terrible at DIY projects and really, really bad at baking cookies.He loves the symphony of snores that wake him up every morning and the mouth-breathing that puts him to sleep every night. He loves that Buck is lactose intolerant but insists on consuming more than the daily average of cheese necessary for a decent diet. Eddie loves that Buck always smells good even right after the gym or a house fire or a day of yard work.
Eddie loves him. Loves him more than anything in the entire world. Loves him like the world is on fire and they’ve got one day left on earth to make count. Loves him like an asteroid hurtling towards earth that just can’t stay away even when NASA throws missiles at it. Loves him like it’s his last day alive. Loves him just to love him.
Not that he’d ever want to, but he couldn’t stop if he tried.
Eddie loves having Buck’s legs around him. He loves Buck. He loves having sex with Buck, he loves fucking Buck, he loves making love to Buck, even as cheesy as it is. Buck is so passionate. He doesn’t shy away from the vulnerable, from the ugly, from the gooey intimacy. He lets Eddie see every single jagged piece of him and Eddie loves every last inch of all of him. Eddie loves Buck’s thighs over his shoulders as much as he loves them gently curled up in his lap. He loves the shape and sound of a tearful I love you coming from Buck’s pink mouth as much as he loves hearing the whimpers and moans. He loves when Buck babbles in the middle of sex to hold back from coming too soon and he loves Buck’s tiny butt that he could probably hold in a single palm and he loves putting his mouth all over Buck’s sensitive hip bones. Eddie would eat him alive and stuff him right into his safe belly forever if that’s what it took to keep him. He loves him so much. So much that he doesn’t even have to think, to move, to breathe to do it.
Loving Buck is intrinsically his, part of his body and soul.
He says as much. Every night Eddie sees Buck sour at seeing his stomach poke out or pinching harshly at the soft skin, he remedies it with a soft hand or a kiss or a compliment.
He tries, and tries and tries.
Eddie wanted to be past it.
He wanted this to be over, so he assumed it was.
And oh, was he dead wrong.
“Don’t you think you’re being a little…” Eddie thinks long and hard for a word that isn’t going to send his very sensitive boyfriend spiraling. “Ridiculous.”
For a few days, Buck had stopped waking up early. He snuggled up to Eddie like a warm puppy looking for attention and he thought they were finally over the month-long hurdle.
It’s Monday morning. Not an unusual day for Buck to be awake earlier. His shift starts before Eddie’s after all.
Though his time for groping his boyfriend under their pillow-soft comforter before they legally cannot conduct any kind of PDA for 48-hours has been ripped away again and he’s finally, truly had enough.
The sun is barely up and Buck is doing sit-ups in the living room.
Sit-ups in the living room when he should be in bed with Eddie.
Whatever this is has gone on long enough. He thought this was done when Eddie apologized for his shitty joke by blowing Buck in the bathroom. He thought this was done when they rutted together until they came in their boxers instead of Buck going for a workout. He wants to go to a cliff and scream until he loses his shitty voice.
Buck only rolls his eyes. “You already have a nice body,” he gripes. “Of course you’d think so.”
He crosses his arms over his chest with a huff of frustration. “That’s not what I meant.” He struggles to find the correct sentiment again.
Buck has never talked about any bodily insecurities he might have. Eddie never thought of it from how shameless he always is. Buck peed in front of him after their first date and asked Eddie to help shave his testicles after the third. He never would’ve thought of Buck to be a person caught up in a web over not having abs. Or, at least, to take it this far. Saying he’s concerned would be an understatement.
“I don’t want this to turn into you thinking you’re only sexy if you have abs,” he explains carefully. “And I know you’re going to say ‘it won’t get that far’ but you’re already unconsciously training yourself to think that. If you want abs because you want them, then great! I support you. But if you’re doing it for me, or-or because you don’t like your body, then it’s a problem.”
He swipes a hand over his face and collapses onto the rug next to Buck. He’s biting his lip and staring at the couch, thinking. His eyebrows are scrunched, and even so, he’s leaning in closer to Eddie.
He takes Buck’s sweaty face in both of his hands and ignores his moist upper lip in favor of giving him a peck. “You’re so beautiful, Buck,” he mutters with the most sincerity he could possibly express into his lips. “And I love your body. I love whatever you look like. I love it right now and I’ll love it just as much in twenty, thirty, forty years.”
“I love you,” Buck replies earnestly.
Eddie is so in love with Buck that even the way he says I love you makes his chest flutter.
Whenever Buck says it, he gets this teeny tiny sparkle in his eyes, and he nods a little like his full body is on board with how much he means it. He always pushes his chin out and curls in, making himself small to bear the weight of the love, and his voice dips into this gentle thing that makes Eddie crack apart with every single word.
He grins, probably looking just as dopily in love. “Love you too.”
But because Buck is also a little shit and the biggest piece of work Eddie has ever had the privilege of knowing, he flops back onto the floor and folds his hands under his head. “But I want abs.”
With a long-suffering sigh, Eddie gets up and lays across the couch.
If he’s going to be mourning their once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to have hot, sloppy morning sex, he’s going to do it staring at his sweaty boyfriend.
Buck’s insufferable mission to grow himself a six-pack doesn’t go as planned.
Eddie has no one to blame but himself. He’s the one that made the fucking joke. He’s the one that poked the bear. He’s the one that has permanent abs no matter how much he eats or packs on muscle - they’re always there. He puts zero effort into keeping and maintaining them. When he tells Buck as much, it goes in one ear and immediately right out the other.
After a few weeks of no results, Buck gets frustrated.
They talked about it. Buck says the only change he made was swapping out abdomen workouts for cardio, which Eddie was incredibly happy to hear. Buck isn’t actually working out more than he was, only doing it more at inconvenient times to Eddie. Sue him, okay, he likes getting his hands on his boyfriend, and he can’t do that if the guy is on their living room carpet laying with the dust bunnies. His concern tapered down to measurable levels (AKA not watching his boyfriend’s every bite of food like a starving hawk and coming up with crazier incentives for him to skip the gym, ranging from different sex acts to cleaning out the storage unit that Eddie doesn't own) and they navigated it. Buck just genuinely seems to want to try and grow some abs.
Eddie hates it.
Eddie loves Buck’s body, is the problem.
His dirty little secret is that he prefers the layer of fat over Buck’s stomach that rests there even during his most intense shredding seasons. He loves when Buck sits down and it peeps under the lip of his sweaters. He gets ecstatic during bulking seasons because he knows Buck’s belly will be even more prominent. He loves how soft it is when he kisses it. When he gets to touch it. He loves it. Buck has always had it too - even when he was a little less muscle-y all those years ago when Eddie was boxing and trying not to stare at it when Buck was being all bratty and territorial.
He’d even go as far as to say it’s an obsession.
Buck is big. Everywhere.
Usually when he gets in his head about Buck’s general size, he wants to be held down and fucked about it. Don't get him wring, he is dreaming about getting all six feet and two-hundred-fifty pounds of his boyfriend spread out all pretty on their mattress for Eddie to ravish until he can’t taste anything except the salty, musky taste of Buck’s skin. He wants to be coughing out pubes by the time he’s done, God, Mary, and Joseph forgive him.
But right now, he wants all of Buck, all those big, beautiful body parts writhing so hard he sees a new color.
Buck’s body is nowhere near in the top ten things that Eddie loves about him, but holy hell is it a plus that he wakes up to a man with the physique of a Greek God. He was sure his dick chafed the first month they got together. He couldn't stop staring every time Buck innocently dressed in front of him, or every time they showered together. Hell, he still stares. He can't help it. He's drawn to admire Buck's glorious beauty, all of it.
Really, it doesn’t matter what Buck looks like. Eddie would enthusiastically eat his ass regardless. But there’s something about reaching up and having something to grab onto that never fails to make him throb in his pants. He likes pressing Buck’s leaky cock into the soft, plush skin. He likes feeling it between them. He likes how it feels under his hands.
Eddie likes how his dick glides across it when he rides Buck. He likes how it feels to rest his forehead on it while he pretends deep-throating isn't going to make him vomit. He likes sucking on it, fucking it, and licking stripes up it. He likes laying atop Buck and feeling against the plush of his own stomach. He likes leaving hickeys on it. He'd be devastated if it weren't there.
It’s a secret that Eddie vows to scream over rooftops if that’s what Buck needs to believe he’s incredibly attractive just the way he is and always has been.
Buck is the most beautiful man he’s ever seen in his life. No exaggeration, no bias. And part of being that big, beautiful man is having a soft belly and soft arms and soft thighs and a soft chest. Buck is beautiful because he is Buck and because he is big and soft and has layers of beautiful fat.
He’d be beautiful no matter his size, this just… happens to be the Buck that Eddie fell in love with and lives with and sleeps with and thinks about every single day.
Their relationship was the first time in literal years that Eddie was getting good, hot sex on the regular and the first time ever that Buck was sleeping with someone who loved him just as much as he loved them.
A lightbulb flickers in his brain. A metaphorical one - not a very bright one, considering Eddie is the one who got himself here in the first place. But it’s on, and it’s illuminating every last inch of the memory he has of Buck’s skin. Eddie has every freckle, every scar, and every mole memorized.
He is going to lick and suck and fuck every single inch of his giant body. Eddie Díaz is a lot of not-nice things but he is not a quitter. He’s going to prove to Buck that he’s beautiful if it kills him.
And Eddie has had enough near-death experiences to know not to jinx that.
It’s a good thing he doesn’t believe in that shit and that he’d be more than happy to die being suffocated in between Buck’s thighs.
If words aren't enough, Eddie will prove it to him this way.
Eddie, as he stares at their newly hung mirror, prides himself on his handyman skills. Before his grandfather passed, the man made sure Eddie knew how to do everything from installing new door locks to temporarily fixing a toilet.
He tries not to think about what Abuelo would say if he knew exactly what Eddie was doing with the skills he taught him.
It’s a cheap mirror, screwed into place above their bed. A perfect reflection of the center of their bed, and Eddie knows if he laid down the entire thing would be visible. He prays it won’t come loose and slap them both in the face mid-penetrate.
He’ll take it down, of course. Probably in the morning after (hopefully) another round of sloppy morning sex when he can look up and see Buck all blissed out again. Christopher comes in here after all, and Eddie doesn’t know how he’d explain a mirror on the ceiling without scarring his baby for life.
There’s a brand-new bottle of strawberry lube and two giant towels over the bed. Buck is almost done with his shower. He’s ready to feast.
Eddie could stay here forever; Buck on top of him, encircled in Buck’s big arms, being kissed by Buck’s pillow-plush lips. Making out with him is one of Eddie’s favorite activities. Buck could kiss him awake from a coma, wake him from nightmares, and bring him right back home with the single inkling of a kiss.
Buck had dropped his towel the second he saw the bedroom set up. He dove right into the bed and curled into Eddie’s lap, all sweet and puffy red from the hot water. He planted his wet, bare ass right onto Eddie’s thighs, wrapped them all up together, and hasn’t stopped kissing him since. There’s water everywhere, and Eddie can’t even think long enough to give a fuck about it soaking into their pillowcases.
“You’re distracting me,” Eddie breathes as Buck begins to mouth down the hot skin of his jaw and throat. “I had - fuck, do that again... A plan.”
“Oh yeah?” The vibrato of his voice tickles Eddie’s skin, and he’s instantly covered in gooseflesh.
“I’m gonna fuck that cockiness right out of you.”
By the looks of it, that pleases Buck. “Are you now?”
With mental and physical Herculean strength, Eddie pushes Buck backward so that he’s lying flat on the bed. Not only because some loving man-handling is exactly how Buck likes to be treated in bed, but also so he can see how beautiful he is for himself.
Watching Buck’s face morph from desire into confusion upon seeing himself when his back hits the mattress makes anxiety bubble up in his gut. Before he can overthink too much, he’s yanked right down, his body splayed right over all of Buck's.
“Do you like it?”
There is only a thin ring of blue around Buck’s darkened eyes. His cheeks and chest are flushed pink and from what Eddie can tell against his own stomach, Buck is just as hard and weepy as he is. He's puffing of breaths the way he does before panting. Edie thinks he likes it, but he wants to hear it in his boyfriend's voice.
“Love it,” Buck says all eager. “Love you.”
“Love you too,” Eddie kisses his cheek, runs his fingers up Buck’s side to cup his cheek and give him a proper kiss. One right on the money-maker, open-mouthed and wet and deep. “Let me show you how much?”
“I’m not opposed - Oh fucking, God - nnghhh - to that... Fuck, Eddie-"
Eddie throws Buck’s muscle-coated thighs over his shoulders and gets to it.
He had stripped first, putting on an inkling of a show that was basically him watching Buck squirm on the bed while trying not to trip out of his tight boxers and crack his head open on the bedframe. He could barely contain his own excitement, his hands shook when he parted Buck’s legs and slipped a throw pillow under his hips for the best angle possible.
Next time, and there will be a next time, Eddie is going to ask - no, beg - Buck to sit on his face. He wants to get his tongue even deeper inside than it already is. He wants all of Buck’s weight physically crushing him. He wants to be consumed. Covered. To be swallowed whole by Buck.
"Keep your eyes up," Eddie instructs as he presses his dry thumb over the twitching hole in front of him. "Watch yourself."
"Eddie," Buck gasps, careening up to look him in the eyes. "It's - A lot."
He kisses the inside of Buck's thigh reassuringly and firm. "I know it is, baby. You can do it. You're so pretty, so good. You'll see," he promises. "You'll see what I get to see."
He says get to because it's a goddamn privilege to know what Buck looks and sounds like at the peak or orgasm. Anyone in his past that believed differently is a fucking loser. Their loss is his permanent gain.
At the first swipe of tongue over his hole, Buck collapses onto the bed, forced to look right up at the mirror. He's always so good, so responsive. Eddie has to reward him for it.
Eddie keeps his pace slow for now. It’s not often that they get night only for this. He’s unhurried. Every swipe of his tongue is a deliberate touch to get Buck quivering. He coordinates every lick across Buck’s puckered, sloppy hole, and pulls away to spit on it every so often, too. He sucks purple-pink hickeys into the skin beside it and licks away all the dribbling lube, fucking it back in with his tongue,
He doesn’t stop until Buck is moaning like he can’t bear to stop himself from being loud, not until Buck’s legs are clamped around his neck, shaking so hard he’d be mistaken for a diabetic on an accident scene. He doesn’t stop until Buck is yanking his hair and scratching at his shoulders, babbling and begging him for faster and fingers - no, inside, God and more teeth - ah! He' so fucking bossy that it's making Eddie melt right into the puddle alongside their discarded blankets.
When Eddie looks up at Buck through his clumping, wet lashes, he can’t believe this is all real. That this isn’t an incredibly vivid, hopeful wet dream of the rest of his life.
They've both come so far (literally most nights), and went through so much to have this. He’s so filled with love that it’s bursting right out of him all the time. He’s hot with it, all the love boiling over into this.
And he’s using it all to make Buck fall apart.
After what has to be a good hour, when his mouth grows too numb to continue steadily enough and Buck is breathing so hard that Eddie is scared he’s close to sobbing, he pulls off.
“God, baby,” Eddie pants. He leans his sweaty forehead against Buck’s bent knee to catch his breath, staring up at the masterpiece he’s been painting for the better part of an hour.
Buck is flushed from head to toe. His abused hole is gaping, winking desperately from where Eddie’s tongue had stretched it out wide and far. His chest is heaving like he just ran a marathon and his mouth is wide open. His eyes are clenched tightly shut. His head is lolled carelessly to the side. His hands that were once respectively on Eddie’s hands and shoulder and now gripping the sheets and yanking them off the corner of the mattress. Eddie thinks he sees faint tear tracks on his cheeks. He’s the most beautiful thing Eddie has ever seen with his own two eyes.
He crawls up Buck’s body, kissing the damp skin as he goes. He kisses the trail of hair from his groin to his belly button and the wide span of Buck’s torso - the line of his abdomen and the plush skin of his stomach. Both nipples, then all the way up to his neck, then his cheeks, and finally, the corner of his mouth.
Buck’s eyes flutter open, and he turns his head hazily to meet Eddie’s lips. He has half a mind to remind Buck to be watching himself in the mirror, but it's gone as quick as it came when their lips are together again where they belong. They kiss for a few seconds before Buck begins to squirm again. He rubs his twitchy, weepy cock all over Eddie’s and whines when the friction isn’t enough for him to get off.
“Tastes so good,” Eddie mutters into Buck’s mouth. The scratch of his voice makes everything feel more real, more intense. His throat is sore, jaw pleasantly achy in a way he’ll despise for the next week. Right now, it only turns him on more. “I’ll fuck any part of you. God. Beautiful.”
Eddie’s not winning any awards for the dirty talk. It’s the best that his sex-addled mind can come up with on such short notice, babbling everything he thinks without bothering to string any of it together tangibly. It’s hot, and it doesn’t have to make sense to make Buck melt right into the sheets into a hot, gooey mess for Eddie to lick up. If Buck hears good and you in the same sentence he whines all the same.
It does the trick, too. Buck's moans are followed by a hard twitch of his hips, strong enough for Eddie to gasp at the contact their dicks make. He hasn’t touched himself the whole time, scared of coming too soon, and Buck’s making it extremely difficult not to do. He's near purple with need, cock jumping with the ghost of every moan that falls from between Buck's lips..
“Can you feel what you do to me? I’m leaking all over,” Eddie asks roughly, grinding down to meet Buck’s uncoordinated jerks. The slide between their bellies is so slick from precome that Eddie isn’t completely convinced that they haven’t spilled an entire bottle of lube all over themselves. “So hard that it hurts. All for you.”
“So let me do something about it,” Buck says and starts snaking his hand down between.
Eddie intercepts the loving gesture and pins Buck’s wrist above their heads with a wicked smile. “Not yet. I’m not even close to being done with you,” is what he says.
What he means is: if Buck meaningfully touches any body part close to his throbbing cock he’ll come all over both of them and have to grit his teeth through the oversensitivity of accidentally rubbing his soft cockhead against the mattress instead of focusing on sucking Buck’s soul out of his body through his ass.
He can’t have that.
Eddie lets Buck’s hand go in favor of getting what he originally came for. With one last kiss to his lips, he gets back to work. He is going to gnaw on this man like he’s a dog with his favorite chew toy.
With Buck propped up all pretty, it scrunches his spine just enough for his belly to really come out. Eddie had to ignore it in the first round, the fear of orgasming at the second swipe of his tongue all too real, but now he can indulge. The very belly that Buck has been trying to get rid of for weeks now. The very belly that Eddie is so obsessed with that his cock throbs the second his brain comprehends that his eyes are seeing it.
He can’t wait to touch it. He can't wait to feel it. He can’t wait to kiss it until it’s pink and raw like the rest of Buck’s skin.
“Keep looking up for me,” Eddie says from his spot in between his legs, kissing Buck’s thighs and asscheeks, warming him up for round one-and-a-half. He’s not sure if orgasms amount to new rounds, because if so they are painfully stuck in the first. Neither of them has come and it’s starting to become glaringly obvious from how embarrassingly whiney they’re both getting at every little touch. “So pretty for me. Maybe I’ll take a picture.”
He won’t, but the thrill is enough to punch a noise right from Buck’s mouth.
It’s for the best, anyway. If Eddie had an entire spank-bank folder of his incredibly sexy boyfriend he wouldn’t get anything done besides emptying his balls every hour. His technophobia is the only thing keeping him sane.
“You ready?” He rubs his hands up Buck’s calves gently. He knows how overwhelming this all is. He’s been on the receiving end numerous times - they both have. It’s a lot. For the body and for the mind.
To give up control. To give into pleasure. To give into one another.
Eddie loves him. And he’s so proud Buck can let him do this.
“Love you,” Buck whimpers softly, breathlessly, reading his mind.
If they’re going to be that cheesy couple that confesses their undying love and holds hands during filthy, back-breaking sex, he’s going to own it.
“I love you too,” he replies easily. Loving Buck, and telling him, is easier than breathing. “So fucking much.”
This time, Eddie doesn’t go slow. He skips all the soft kitten licks and gentle nips.
He eats like his goddamn life depends on it.
He eats like a man starved. He eats like a man on death row that was just given his final meal. He eats like he’s just tasted something sweet for the first time in his miserable, salt-filled life. He eats, and eats, and eats. He eats until his tongue is numb and his jaw aches so bad he’ll have to put arnica gel all over his face. He eats until the inside of Buck’s legs are rubbed red and raw. He eats until Buck’s heels are digging painful bruises into his back. He eats until Buck sounds like he’s sobbing.
Finally, he reaches up and wraps a hand around Buck’s big, red cock. He jerks it once, twice, then comes in long, thick stripes all over his belly and chest. Eddie mutters praises just loud enough for Buck to hear in between the hard sucks. It works him through, keeps him grounded to the now.
Eddie goes from licking directly to kissing around Buck’s hole once his orgasm begins to slow. It’s swollen and red from Eddie’s mouth, the stumble and teeth nipping at it making it even more sensitive to every sensation. Buck flinches when Eddie brushes a finger over it, another sob choking out.
His own cock is positively throbbing. It’s bobbing every time Buck makes a punched-out sound or begs or says Eddie’s name. He thinks he could shoot if Buck said so this very second, untouched and messily everywhere. His hips won't stop twitching forward into the painful friction of the mattress.
He'd be embarrassed if it wasn't so dirty-hot.
Eddie had a plan. One that he kept close and safe to his chest. No one knew his plan - obviously. It's not like he’d ever whisk one of his co-workers away and gush about how he’s going to destroy their other very well-known coworker in bed later.
He looks up to memorize the glowing aftermath of Buck’s orgasm - the white streaks painting his upper body, the few droplets that have landed over his cheek and bottom lip, his flushed chest, and the tiny hurt whimpers that keep pouring out. Eddie is drunk on it all. He can’t even think straight.
Eddie takes Buck’s softening, oversensitive cock in his mouth, and sucks.
“Fuck, Eddie, that’s- holy Fuck!”
That really gets him talking.
Once it starts, Buck’s babbling doesn’t stop.
“God, God, Eddie, it’s-” Buck cries. His hips are moving nonstop, flinching away in the same movement that he twitches upward, deeper into Eddie’s mouth. “Eddie, Eddie, Eddie-”
Eddie doesn’t stop. It would take a damn hurricane to pry his lips off Buck’s cockhead, flared and dripping, and a long line of hot heat that Eddie is drinking up. He’s thrashing, his knees kicking out and arms flailing everywhere. His ows turn into ahhhs as quick as they came.
He trails one hand up, keeping the other firmly holding Buck’s trembling leg up, and presses down onto the layer of fat over his belly.
Eddie’s eyes roll back into his head and he moans, wanton and needy, all from feeling Buck’s stomach.
The vibration from the sound rumbles through the cock in his mouth. Buck practically screams. Thank God and Christ that neither of them share a wall with neighbors. He’s clawing at the back of Eddie’s neck and arching off the bed, writhing where he lays so beautifully. It’s as if he can barely catch his breath, the pleasure stopping him from doing anything, feeling anything, besides this.
Eddie keeps bobbing up and down, up and down, milking the precome and sounds right from Buck's mouth and cock.
Buck is big everywhere, okay? The last time Eddie tried to over-enthusiastically deep-throat with no prep he almost threw up right in his boyfriend’s lap. His eyes were streaming for ten minutes minimum. He couldn’t even look at his own dick for a week after without getting a little nauseous.
He refuses to let that happen right now.
There's no doubt in his mind that Buck would forgive him instantly, but he'd never forgive himself.
Buck's desperation, how whiney and needy he gets makes Eddie want to cry and jerk into his own first in two strokes maximum. He wants to take a video and memorize every single second, wants to put up polaroids of his boyfriend all laid out and pretty in their bed, teary-eyed from how good he feels. When he squirms too high up on the mattress, his body so overstimulated it still can’t tell if Eddie's blowjob is hurting more than it feels good, Eddie has no choice but to follow.
It puts him right up against the mattress. He practically sobs himself when his dick rubs against it, hard and hurting, the head leaking steadily since he got Buck propped up on the pillow. He can’t help but hump forward, chasing his own pleasure as he forces Buck to have more.
With his free hand, Eddie slips two slick fingers right into Buck’s hole.
It all happens in slow motion. Eddie crooks his fingers, rubbing over the tender nerves of Buck’s prostate.
It's like a buzzer button. Buck cries out and comes, shooting right down Eddie’s throat shouting Eddie's name on repeat over and over and over.
The motions of him bucking up make his belly press even harder into Eddie’s hand, and he follows him right over the edge with only the friction from the mattress, permanently dirtying the side of it.
He comes forever. It’s wave after wave of never-ending pleasure all because of Buck.
Buck's cock down his throat. Buck clenching around his fingers. Buck's belly under his sweaty palm.
It's all so much.
Buck’s softening cock slips out of his mouth somewhere between his own groans and calling out his boyfriend’s name. When his orgasm stutters to a stop he slumps in exhaustion, half into his gross puddle of come and half on the hardwood floor of the bedroom.
“Come up here.”
Eddie blinks dazedly, his body swaying precariously. “Huh?”
Somehow, Buck crunches up, gets his arms under Eddie’s, and hauls him up. They arrange themselves lazily, not at all trying to avoid the wet spots that will no doubt dry and create a bigger mess than he planned. They'll have to shower soon. The crusted-up semen on their bodies and blankets will disgust both of them so badly that they won't want to look one another in the eyes soon.
Together, they catch their breath. It's nighttime now, the darkness visible through the slits of the curtains. Despite the cool air, Eddie is hot being pressed up against Buck's feverish skin. He doesn't even think for a second about moving. Being pressed up against his boyfriend's big, beautiful body is exactly where he wants to live and die.
“Thank God the universe gave me a man that’s good at sex,” Buck mutters, half asleep probably.
“It wasn’t the universe. It was us," he corrects.
“No way. The Universe had a little bit to do with it. How else would we have found each other? We’re from completely different parts of the country. We’re almost nothing alike.”
Eddie presses his face into the side of Buck’s face and squeezes the life out of him, making him yelp a little and claw Eddie’s arm playfully. Buck is giggling, and squirming around, pleasantly pliant from the orgasms. He smells like musk and sweat and Eddie wants to eat him alive, wants to live right in his rib cage so he’s always first to hear Buck’s laugh. Memorize it as it goes up his throat and out into a world that doesn’t deserve to have it.
“There’s no such thing as the Universe. It’s stupid.” Eddie cranes his neck, completely uncomfortable and even more worth it, to kiss Buck’s pink, loving birthmark. “I love you on purpose.”
They exchange more gooey I love you’s until Buck’s eyes begin to droop. They’re on their sides now, just far enough for Eddie to watch Buck slowly drift away in the middle of his own sentence.
Eddie untangles their clasped hands and guides Buck’s now-empty one around his waist. He sighs happily, continuing the mutter about a funny call he went on as a probationary firefighter. Something about a full moon and a room full of pregnant women doing yoga. He’s heard the story a thousand times now, and he can’t wait to hear it a thousand more.
He runs the pads of his fingers over Buck’s face, soothing him into sleep. Over the bumpy slope of his nose. The wiry hair of his eyebrows. He traces a circle around the splotches of the birthmark benevolently. This, he thinks, is Eddie's favorite part of Buck’s face.
Well, that and his smile, and dimples, and cheeks, and eyes, and -
Eddie can’t pick. He loves all of Buck, and especially these perfect imperfections that make Buck his Buck.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispers, only for Buck to mumble quietly, eyes fluttering precariously.
In only a few minutes, Buck’s words patter off for good and he begins to snore softly, his mouth open just so. Now that he’s asleep, Eddie moves the hand off his face and uses it to cradle his head instead. He scoots even closer, slipping his leg between both of Buck’s and crunching their spare arms between them.
Eddie kisses the corner of his mouth. “I love you,” He whispers.
He isn’t tired anymore. Not in the slightest. He watches Buck’s sleeping, pretty face, and memorizes the sweet puffs of breaths he takes. He wants to bottle it up and put it into a necklace for the next time Eddie misses him, which will evidently be the next time they’re in separate rooms.
Hell, Eddie misses him now, and Buck is only asleep.
He glances up into the mirror on the ceiling to see them wrapped around one another, and Eddie knows he’s looking at the rest of his life. He’d stay for Buck forever. He lies here. In their bed, in their home, and holds Buck until he wakes for Eddie to love him even more.