Chapter Text
The obnoxious blaring of an alarm startles Buck awake, and he reaches out blindly to snooze it, not bothering to open his eyes when he’s going to keep sleeping until it goes off again. It’s one of his more annoying habits, he knows, but it’s not like anybody is sleeping in the same bed as him often enough for it to be a problem.
He groans at the ache in his shoulder, a discomfort that he doesn’t quite recognize. Maybe he slept on it weird? It feels like the skin is pulled tightly there, the muscles sore in a way that he doesn’t remember ever feeling. He stretches to try and relieve the feeling, only for a sharp stab of pain to spread from the shoulder down his arm and across the chest.
He hisses in response, pulling his arm back down quickly, like he can undo the stretch and retroactively cancel out the pain.
He hears movement outside the door, and figures his roommates must be up and about. They’re normally way louder than this, but hey, maybe they learned some manners overnight?
Or one of them had a girl over and she’s the one making the noise on her way out of the house while they sleep still. Yeah, that’s probably more accurate.
What the fuck?
He furrows his brows, eyes still closed, because he doesn’t recognize that voice. He doesn’t remember bringing a guy home last night after closing down the bar, and he doesn’t feel any pressure on the bed or any warmth beside him like there’s a person laying down still, and given that it’s male and definitely not one of his roommates - not to mention he’s the only one of them that would bring a dude home - bisexuality and all that - he can’t imagine who the hell could be talking.
Well, he needs to get up anyway, so he should probably face the day and deal with whatever mess he made for himself last night. He fights through the sleepiness with a grumble and pries his eyes open…
And promptly freezes, feeling his heart drop to the stomach.
This is not his house.
The room is all wrong. The bed is positioned the wrong way and he doesn’t recognize any of the furniture or the decorations.
Who the hell are you? The same voice from earlier asks, and Buck snaps his head around in search for the source, but the room is empty. He’s alone.
“Hello?” He calls, his voice echoing off the walls, and that’s definitely not his own voice!
In fact, it kind of sounds like…
What the fuck is going on?
He rushes to stand up from the bed, running to check the closet and under the bed but there’s nobody else in the room with him.
“Are you… are you in my head?” He stutters, feeling insane for even asking the question, but it’s the only thing that makes sense. The voice feels like his own internal monologue, but it is definitely not the voice he’s heard for the last 24 years of his life.
I… I think so. The man on the other end sounds almost as confused as he feels. A little scared too, which also helps to make him feel better, less alone at least.
Before he can respond, the noise outside the room ramps up and the door swings open. The cutest kid Buck thinks he’s even seen walks through on crutches with the brightest smile, and some part of Buck melts like a popsicle in the summer.
“Good morning, Daddy!” The kid greets sunnily, and then there’s a growl reverberating in his mind.
Leave my kid alone.
Buck is frozen in place, because the kid continues as if there’s nothing wrong, smiling up at him and asking for breakfast.
Dude. What the fuck do you want me to do?! He thinks back harshly, because what the fuck.
That’s the only thing he can think right now. He woke up in the wrong house, there’s a kid calling him Daddy that he’s never met before and an unfamiliar voice speaking to him in his head.
What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck.
“Daddy,” the kid pouts, drawing Buck out of his spiral.
“Oh! Yes, breakfast. Right, definitely. Uhm, okay. You- how about you go ahead out there and I’ll- I gotta get dressed and I’ll meet you out there and we can eat. Sound good?”
The boy agrees easily and turns around to exit the room, and Buck sinks down to sit on the bed again, holding his head between his hands, flinching at the flash of pain he gets when he puts pressure on his thigh.
“Okay. What the fuck is going on?” He asks the empty room, and is greeted by a heavy sigh.
I have no idea, but we need to figure it out. Fast.
Buck wants to make a smart ass comment back, but he decides against it, taking a deep breath to try and calm himself down. “Okay. Well, uhm. I’m Buck. Evan Buckley. I’m assuming since I’m in your life, you’re in mine, which means you’re in Peru, in the apartment I’ve been staying at.
I’m in Peru?! The voice practically shouts in his head, and he flinches at how loud it feels, even internally.
“Okay, first of all: fucking ow, dude. Don’t scream at me; you’re in my goddamn head, it’s not like I can’t hear you,” he snaps back.
Sorry, sorry. I just. Okay, I’m Eddie. Edmundo Diaz. You’re in El Paso, Texas, in my house with my son, Christopher. Chris is going to need food, probably cereal and then I’m on the schedule at the grocery store today from 7-3, and then I’m supposed to be at the bar from 6 to close.
Buck perks up, because a bar, he can do. He’s never worked at a grocery store, but he’s sure he can figure it out quick enough. He’s worked at a lot of various jobs, he’s a quick study. Okay, can do. I also have a shift down at the bar later, but it’s not for several hours still, he shares after doing quick math in his head to figure out the time difference. He has no idea what the hell is going on, why he body-swapped with a stranger on a random Thursday, but it doesn’t feel like he really has time to figure all of it out right now, not when there’s jobs at stake and schedules to be kept.
He hears a clatter in the house and remembers the child that’s waiting for him, and he scrambles to get dressed, rummaging through the nearby drawers through what seems to be strictly jeans and Henleys. He shrugs and changes clothes, absentmindedly noting the change in color of his skin, but it doesn’t really register until he walks by a mirror hanging on the wall and his feet might as well be stuck in drying concrete because damn.
Eddie is like, the single hottest man Buck has ever seen, holy shit.
He’s right around Buck’s height, lithe and muscled with fluffy brown hair and a dusting of stubble across his jaw. His eyes are deep brown and are surrounded by thick, inky lashes. His ass is pert and round and if Buck was in his own body, he would be drooling over the whole combination. He’s having a hard enough time dealing with it all as is.
Buck’s well-versed in his attraction to men, being bisexual is not something new to him, but holy. Fucking. Shit.
What? What’s wrong? Is everything okay? The nervous voice in his head asks, and damn, he hadn’t realized how hot the voice was either. God, maybe it’s a good thing they didn’t meet in person because he’s completely sure that he would make an absolute fool of himself if he was faced with all of this in person.
A surprised choked noise echoes through his mind, and he curses himself, because he did not realize that was all being sent through to Eddie. Man, he really needs to learn how to control this, or it’s going to get embarrassing, fast.
Nope! No, nothing wrong, all good here! He hurries to assure. It’s probably weird enough that there’s a stranger rambling in your head about how hot you are, the last thing Buck needs to do is push it even further. This situation is weird enough, he doesn’t need to make the man apparently living in his body for the time being even more uncomfortable.
He hurries out of the room and follows the noise of an impatient child clambering for breakfast and finds Christopher sitting at the table, swinging his little legs back and forth in picturesque child impatience.
“Morning kiddo! So, what are we feeling for breakfast?” He asks, silently praying that Eddie isn’t some like, gourmet level chef, because Buck never really learned. He’s not awful behind the stove, but his specialty is definitely take-out.
“The tiger, please,” he asks politely, and Buck turns to see a familiar box sitting in plain sight above the fridge, thankfully. That’s one less thing he has to go rummaging for. The bowl and spoon and everything else is a different story though.
He looks through a few of the cabinets, much to Christopher’s amused confusion. “Dad, what are you looking for?” He asks with a giggle, and Buck flounders, trying to come up with an excuse.
“Uhm, I’m just trying to find the bowls. Are they in here?” He asks in a light voice, attempting to play it off.
“No, Dad!” He says around a laugh, and Buck smiles at the joyful sound, deciding to take it even further if it makes the boy laugh like that. He’s never really been around kids, but he’s always loved them, and this one is no exception.
They giggle their whole way through Buck locating the bowl and spoon and glass for juice before setting them on the table and hurrying across the room to grab the milk and juice from the fridge.
He sits beside Christopher at the table and listens to him talk about the dream he had and how funny it was, and even though the situation is kind of fucked and Buck isn’t actually his dad, he can’t deny that this feels kind of like a gift; to be allowed to revel in the joy that is a rambunctious young child.
He also feels kind of like an asshole for depriving Eddie of this time with his son, because he can clearly see how close they are, how much love is in this house.
He hasn’t seen a wife or mom around, despite what looked suspiciously like a wedding ring on Eddie’s bedside table, but maybe that’s a good thing for right now, given that he’s not all that confident in his ability to trick a child into thinking he’s actually Eddie. There’s no way he’d be able to play it cool enough to convince an adult, especially not one that knows Eddie so intimately.
You need to get going, because my mom gets Chris to school watches him while I work, and you’ll need to drop him off before you head in, Eddie prods him, and Buck’s eyes dart to the clock on the stove and cursing at the time it reads back.
Man, he didn’t even think about childcare before work. How do parents do it?
“Alright, lets get ready to go see grandma so I can go to work!” He claps, watching carefully as Christopher climbs down off the chair and makes his way towards the back of the house, wondering how much help he should be offering. He’s a little unsteady, but he looks very determined. He needs to do some research on CP if he’s going to be spending time around Chris so he doesn’t end up hurting Eddie’s kid in his own ignorance.
“Are you going to brush your teeth, Dad?” He calls, and Buck mentally smacks himself on the forehead. Duh, he has to do that.
So yeah, they need to figure this out as soon as possible and get back into their bodies, before Buck forgets how to be a person entirely, or something bad happens.