Work Text:
The bar’s dead. Okay, well, the bar isn’t dead. The bar’s fine, just boring. The music’s just short of too loud, some pop-y song Buck’s heard a dozen times but still can’t place. There’s a lineup of people near the bar, some in pairs, some singles. The most interesting group is a group that’s ordered a beer tower and keeps trying to throw bits of napkin into it.
Buck’s bouncing his knee under the table in the booth they’ve comandeered, nursing his first beer of the night. It’s about half gone, which is saying something since they got here an hour and a half ago.
Ravi is across the table, looking characteristically unimpressed with everything. He’s had two beers, but they are going on nearly a minute of awkward silence, which is why Buck can look around and say the bar isn’t dead but it’s not exciting either.
Ravi tries, once again, for conversation. “Still can’t believe how long it took us to—”
Buck’s phone buzzes and cuts Ravi’s sentence off mid-sentence. “Oh, hey, finally.”
Ravi sighs.
Buck frowns at the text on his screen and drops back further into the booth. “Oh, of cours—Chris isn’t feeling well. Here we go. I told you. I knew he was going to do this. We’ve been friends for almost ten years, and he thinks I buy the fake Chris is sick story. Like, at least have the decency to tell me you’re bailing.”
Ravi clears his throat and takes a long, long drink of his beer. “Maybe because when he said, I think I’m out tonight, Buck, I’m pretty tired, you did everything but wrap yourself around his knees and beg him not to bail.”
Indignation burns up Buck’s neck, billows into a white-hot humiliation. “I didn’t… no, I was just… that’s not what was happening. I wasn’t begging him to come. I just think it’s important that he goes out every now and then. It’s like pulling teeth to get him to do anything. You know, I bet Chris isn’t even home. I bet he’s out doing something fun. Eddie said he’s been talking to some girl in his class.” Buck scoffs and takes a drink. “At least one of them is.”
Ravi chuckles.
“What?” Buck hisses.
Ravi doesn’t look at him, just stares into the diminished amber liquid in his mug and shakes his head, still smiling like he’s on a secret that Buck will just never understand.
“What?” Buck snaps, a little sharper than is probably needed.
The music switches, and suddenly, it is too loud and unfamiliar, and Buck doesn’t want to be here anymore.
Ravi throws up his hands in surrender. “Nothing, man, I just… like, we did this already. Don’t you think you oughta leave Eddie’s dating life, or lack thereof, to, I don’t know—Eddie?”
“No.” Buck finishes his beer and starts trying to find the appropriate way to end this night early. Ravi doesn’t look like he wants to be here anyway. “I don’t, because Eddie isn’t doing anything. Eddie is just sitting at home feeling sorry for himself all the time because he’s a dad, which he’s decided means he can’t enjoy anything.”
“Whatever.” Ravi rolls his eyes. “You want another round?”
Damn, that’s not what Buck expected. He opens his mouth and scrambles to find a reason to leave, well aware he was just railing on Eddie for something very similar.
At least Buck had the decency to show up.
“Ah, no, of course you don’t,” Ravi says.
“Wh-what’s that supposed to mean?” Buck asks.
Ravi’s irritating chuckle returns, even more irritating this time, like he’s so much smarter than Buck. “This is what you do. We go out. You check your phone nonstop to see where Eddie is and then finally start drinking and obsessing about getting him to talk to someone once he shows or you find some flimsy excuse to leave if he doesn’t show up.”
If this was someone else, Buck might feel guilty, but the thing is, Ravi doesn’t look hurt. He doesn’t even look offended, just judgmental, like Buck ought to be ashamed of this. Like this is some pattern of behavior Buck should seek counseling over.
“No.” He can’t leave now because that would mean Ravi is right, and he isn’t. “First off, we don’t even go out together that often so stop acting like this is some…” He clears his throat. “And-and I wasn’t thinking about leaving… I just don’t want another beer, I was going to… change drinks.”
“Really?” Ravi asks, so deeply skeptical Buck is contemplating ordering another drink just to throw it in his face.
“Really.”
Ravi wraps his knuckles on the table. “Okay, great, so how about we… make a bet?”
“A bet?” Buck raises his eyebrows. “Now you sound like Eddie.”
Ravi laughs—this genuine, hard laugh that doesn’t end until he covers his face with his hand for a few seconds.
Buck gets the feeling he’s the butt of the joke, but he doesn’t press, just sucks his teeth and waits.
“The bet… is that you can’t go the rest of the night without talking about Eddie. Hell, forget the rest of the night, I bet you can’t even go two hours.”
This is exactly why hanging out with Ravi is difficult. He’s always making some big thing about things that aren’t things. Buck can already tell he’s trying to make some point about Eddie that Buck will not engage with.
Instead, Buck scoffs. “Absolutely. What do I win?”
“Literally anything,” Ravi says, “but if I win, you text Eddie back and ask him on a date.”
Buck doesn’t have any more beer, and thank god, because he starts choking almost immediately. It goes on so hard and so long that he thinks Ravi might have to open up his throat like Abby did on their first date.
“Wh-what?” Buck asks. “You… what? Date—Eddie? You want… why would… we… Edd—date? Eddie is… that’s… what—we’re not—you mean, like, a joke?”
Ravi lifts one shoulder. “Whatever.”
“Uh…” Buck swallows. “You know, that’s homophobic or-or biphobic or something, just because I like men doesn’t mean—”
“I don’t care that you’re bi,” Ravi says. “I care that you can’t go two hours without talking about Eddie.”
“He’s my best friend,” Buck says.
“My best friend’s name is Mahesh,” Ravi says. “We go to the theater to see a new movie every weekend. He’s expecting a kid in March. You actually met him last year when the 118 went out for drinks on my birthday.”
“Uh.” Buck decidedly does not remember Mahesh. “I… okay?”
“And you don’t know any of that,” Ravi says. “You don’t know because I don’t fucking talk about him all the time. You know how many times you’ve told me Eddie has a silver star?”
“I…”
“Me either,” Ravi says. “That’s how many times you’ve said it. I know he needed a new set of pans because they weren’t sitting evenly on the burners. I know his oven takes a million years to preheat. I know he got a haircut last week.”
“You work with him, that’s—”
“He didn’t tell me any of that!” Ravi is halfway to yelling, talking fast. “You did. You told me all of it, some of it more than once. Every time we sit down for more than five minutes, you tell me some useless, pointless fact about Eddie and then somehow mental gymnastics it back to how he needs to get laid.” Ravi slams his hand on the table and leans forward. “If he needs laid bad so bad, Buck, why don’t you stop outsourcing and do something about it?”
Buck’s body’s reaction to this isn’t what he expects. There’s this burgeoning heat that begins in the center of his chest and blisters into the rest of them. Anger, or something like it maybe. He stares, blankly, at Ravi, who’s still watching him like he didn’t just say some of the most outlandish nonsense anyone’s ever said.
Emotion after emotion pelts Buck’s insides, splashing him a thousand colors, and by the time he gets his mouth open, all that comes out is, “Th-that’s ridiculous.”
Ravi rolls his eyes and leans back. “Okay, fine, is it a bet?”
“I-I…” Buck reaches for words. It should be an easy bet. It’s not like he’s got some kind of compulsive need to talk about Eddie, but even the premise of it feels insulting. “No, no, that’s insane. I’m not asking Eddie on a date—that doesn’t even make sense.”
“So you’re admitting you can’t go two hours without talking about him?”
“No,” Buck says. “I’m just not going to make a bet because you think… god, would you agree if I said if I won you had to… I don’t know, ask Chimney on a date?”
“Yeah,” Ravi says, sort of smirking like Buck’s told a hilarious joke. “That would be hilarious. Even though I’m not sure if he’d use his captain powers to punish me or agree and make me take him somewhere nice.”
Buck groans. “Okay, what if…”
“Oh!” Ravi smacks the table. “To prove I’m not being biphobic, what if we make the bet, and the loser has to ask Eddie on a dat—”
“No.” It fires out of Buck so fast, Ravi actually recoils a little. Buck swallows, trying to figure out why all the saliva in his throat has gone thick and hot and gross. “You do not—no one’s asking Eddie out on a date.”
Ravi quirks an eyebrow. “For someone who wants him to get laid…”
“He’s straight,” Buck hisses. “He needs to get laid w-with a woman, or he needs to…” Then, he’s got it in his head, Eddie in the bedroom, something he’s thought about shockingly little considering how desperately he’s tried to hook Eddie up lately. He thinks about Eddie on his back, pinned down, breathing heavy, he thinks about…
“Fuck,” Buck snaps. “Can we just… get another round of drinks and stop talking about this?”
“Agree to the bet, and I’ll buy,” Ravi tries.
“No,” Buck says again, and his brain won’t stop. Thinking about what Eddie’s sweat tastes like, what sounds he’d make if… “Fine. Fine. I’ll… it’s… but you don’t ask him out if you lose, you just… never say anything to me about this again. Or him. Or anyone.”
Ravi grins, then extends his hand like he’s won a prize. Buck rolls his eyes rather than shake it and gets up to head over to the bar just as one of the waitresses comes over.
“Hey, you two.” She isn’t the person who took their order before. She’s got a swishy brown ponytail and pale skin and almost eerie blue eyes. “Can I get you another round?”
Buck pinches the bridge of his nose. “Actually, can you get us something stronger? Maybe something strong enough to forget the last ten minutes?”
She tilts her head, but smiles. “I can probably swing that. Everything okay?”
Ravi’s grin is leering. He should star in a Bond movie as the fucking villain, Buck decides. Buck likes it better when he glazes over and half-listens. Even though he has apparently been listening very well since he’s got Eddie’s entire to-do list memorized.
“Everything’s good,” Ravi says. “Just made a wager my friend’s not too thrilled about.”
She draws her head back, still smiling this skeptical little smile. It’s much less malicious than Ravi’s. “So why’d you make it?”
Buck shakes his head, mostly because it’s wandering back to places it should not go—places it should never have gone. “Can we just… get the drinks?”
“Of course.”
She brings them mercifully fast, and the first sip burns its way down Buck’s throat. “Damn, she took that assignment serious.”
“Yeah, she did,” Ravi said, then raises his glass. “To best friends.”
Buck frowns but clinks his glass anyway. “Fuck you.”
The drink is surprisingly good for how strong it is, and they get through it fast. The waitress brings them another without them having to ask, and the room starts spinning almost immediately.
“You know,” Ravi says, and he sounds much less annoying now, “we should try and find another couple for you to date, that… that was so fun. They were so fun.”
Buck blinks, and it takes him a few seconds to remember, which is pretty insane considering he accidentally fucked a couple then got asked to be their third. “Yeah, I thought so too, but you know what’s so crazy, they texted me the next day… again…”
Ravi opens his mouth, appropriately offended. “Bro, that’s so desperate. They must’ve like, really liked you.”
“It was the guy, and he…” Buck stops himself, as in physically, almost somersaults onto the table. Because he’s not supposed to talk about it. “Oh my god, no, no, I see what you’re trying to do.”
Ravi furrows his eyebrows then looks around like he can find what Buck’s talking about. “Wait, what?”
“Ha!” Buck gets out. “I see you… you’re not gonna win. You think you’re sooo smart, but you’re not smart… you’re… silly… you’re making things up and trying to make people think about things. But nope, it’s not smart—not nice. You’re not nice, or smart, you’re not smice.”
Ravi nods like he’s really taking it all in. “Silly. That’s such a silly word. Silly. No one’s ever called me silly. I’m not silly. Babies are silly.”
Buck has the far-off thought that smice is probably the word Ravi should’ve questioned, but he doesn’t press it. “You’re a baby. A tiny little baby, who just says stuff. You’re like Jee. You know, she asked me one time if I was married to… oh.”
Ravi’s eyes widen; they’re still glazed, so the effect is a little comical. “Oh, oh!”
“Stop.” Buck shakes his head. “Shh, shh, how long has it been? It’s totally been two hours. It’s probably been like… five hours.”
Ravi looks at his wrist and squints; Buck’s pretty sure there’s no watch, but he can’t be sure. Everything’s very blurry.
Buck huffs and grabs his phone. The screen lights up, and Eddie’s name is right there at the top, just sitting there, looking at him. For a moment, he panics, because that’s the word he’s not supposed to say, but then he realizes it’s a text.
Eddie
Sorry I swear I’ll be there next time
Buck frowns, then opens the notification and texts back: silly
Dots, then, what?
Buck
SILLY
Eddie
How drunk are you?
We have work tomorrow
Buck
Come fund out
Find
I kiss you
Miss you
Jk haha lol
Racism sucks
Ravi
Ravi sucks
Racism sucks too
Eddie
Okay… be safe
“It’s been an hour and twenty… twenty-two minutes,” Ravi announces. “Who are you texting?”
Buck drops his phone where he was midway through a text that’s so scrambled he can’t even read it at this point. “I wasn’t. I was… I don’t—I don’t have texting.”
“Really?” Ravi asks, then squints. “Yes you do! You texted me and Eddie about…”
“Hey!” Buck points at him, half-standing up before his knees hit the table. These tables are too small. “Hey, you… you lose.”
“Nuh-uh!” Ravi hisses. “That’s not the bet. The bet is that you can’t go two hours. I can say whatever I want.”
“How come?” Buck sits down but never stops pointing. “How come you can say whatever you want? Maybe it’s you, you know? Maybe… maybe you’re projecting, maybe you secretly want to ask Eddie out on a date… maybe the reason you-you think… I talk about him so much is because you’re so interested.” His mouth falls open. “Oh my god. I can’t believe this. You’re in love with Eddie.”
Ravi’s face passes through several expressions Buck’s too drunk to read before he shakes his head. “I’m not in love with… wait, that counts. You lose. You totally lose. That’s totally talking about him. You said his name and got weird about his dating life all at the same time.”
“I did not!” Buck says. “I… you tricked me. You brought him up. You cheated. It-it doesn’t count.”
“It counts!” Ravi says. “It totally counts! You have to ask him out. I’ll do it, gimme… phone. Give me your phone.”
“No!” Buck cradles his phone to his chest. “This was a dumb bet, and you cheated, and it doesn’t count.”
The waitress reappears, looking between them. Buck’s too wobbly to read her face anymore, but she seems like she might be smiling. “What’s up?”
“He lost!” Ravi accuses, very unfairly. “He lost the bet, and he is trying to back out and say I cheated.”
“The bet about your best friend, who you talk about all the time and definitely don’t want to date?”
Buck’s eyes widen. “Are you a spy?”
The woman tips her head sympathetically. “You guys told me that while I was bringing your third drink.”
“We’ve had three?” Ravi chokes. “Shit.”
She laughs. “You can’t back out of a wager once it’s made, Buck.”
“Screw you,” Buck says, then drops his shoulders because this poor woman isn’t the problem, Ravi is. “Sorry, not… not screw you. But screw that, screw… no, I’m not asking Eddie on a date. Eddie’s straight. He’ll just be like no, Buck, you weirdo, and then… and then, we’ll never talk again and I’ll die alone and get eaten by my dogs.”
“You have dogs?”
Buck looks at him very seriously. “If me and Eddie aren’t friends anymore, I have to.”
Ravi’s face gets stuck in the act of processing this.
“Well,” says the waitress, “you two seem like you’ve had quite enough, why don’t I get you something to sober up a little… and maybe you’ll feel a little braver in the morning, hm, Buck?”
Buck will not feel braver in the morning, but sobering up seems like an excellent idea. “Yeah, let’s go with that.”
“You can’t back out of the bet,” Ravi says. “And I think you’re totally off base with Eddie. He wouldn’t call you a weirdo, I don’t even think he’s str—”
Buck’s voice pitches up too high and too loud. “Does he talk about me all the time? Since you’re such an expert? Do you know about my stovetop?”
Ravi sighs. “Well, no, but he isn’t you. Eddie thinks about what he says more, and he’s…” Ravi makes a hand gesture that Buck can’t understand. “I mean, you’re not wrong about him… the whole chastity belt metaphor, like… he’s, you know, repressed, but… in all things, not just about you.”
This isn’t news, but Buck doesn’t like that Ravi’s agreeing with him after harassing him all night. “He is repressed, which is why he needs to get laid.”
“But only in a very specific way under very specific criteria?”
“Yes,” Buck says and decides there’s nothing wrong with that. “I know him. I know what he needs.”
Ravi purses his lips and raises his eyebrows like he’s a lawyer who’s just tricked a witness during cross-examination.
“Here you go!” The waitress sets two glasses of electric blue liquid on the table. “I call it a lightning strike, and I think it’s exactly what you two need.”
“I thought we were sobering up,” Buck says.
“You are,” she says. “This is something I came up with myself. Not on the menu, but I promise no hangover in the morning.”
“Are we gonna die?” Ravi asks, like he’s resigned to it.
She laughs. “No, I swear.”
Buck would actually prefer that to dealing with Ravi’s continued badgering, so he grabs the drink and tips it back without further questions.
Ravi, apparently feeling challenged, does the same.
It tastes good, and it burns, but not like the alcohol. It makes Buck’s insides tingle in a way he’s not sure he’s felt before. He frowns at the glass once he finishes. “That was…”
But the waitress has already vanished, and in fact, another blonde woman—the first one—comes over, looking frazzled and out of breath. “Oh my god, I am so sorry. I didn’t even… I can’t believe I haven’t checked on you guys. It’s been… do you… do you need anything? We can comp your beers if—”
“What?” Buck and Ravi harmonize.
“No, we…” Buck cranes his neck to find the other waitress, but the crowd’s thick enough that he doesn’t see her. “There was another lady who was…”
“Oh, really?” The first woman asks. “I… well, you were my table, so whatever you ordered. Don’t worry about the check. I’m really sorry.”
She leaves when another table starts flagging her down.
Ravi looks at his glass with dawning horror. “Oh, god…”
~
Buck wakes up the next morning, and everything comes back in waves, quick enough that he is first grateful he’s not dead, and second even more grateful that the fake waitress apparently told the truth. He doesn’t have even a hint of a headache, or nausea, or anything.
He sits up and rubs his eyes. The light’s low, and he reaches for the lamp, except he misjudges and reaches so far that he falls face first onto the floor. “Shit, ow…”
It’s so hot in here, even the floor is too warm. He groans and pushes a hand into the floor to haul himself up, but the pressure is too much, too hard, and he shoots up so fast that he stumbles all the way back into his dresser.
“The hell?”
He pulls off the dresser and looks around. His house is new. There’s been a few times when he’s woken up a little disoriented, but this is… not his house. The room is dark with blackout curtains he doesn’t own; there’s no doors to the yard. The bed’s smaller, too modern, all the furniture is all modern and black.
How drunk did he get? Did he come home with someone?
He shakes his head and grabs his phone off the nightstand, scrolling to Ravi’s number—or trying to. It’s not there.
“What?” Buck asks no one. “What is…?”
He opens his texts. The last one is someone named Mahesh and it says: you’re braver than me
The next text is from him, from Buck, and it says: just got here, table near the back.
It’s Ravi’s phone, Buck realizes. The lockscreen is of Ravi with a woman that Buck thinks might be his mom. She’s in another photo on the dresser, standing beside Ravi in his dress blues graduating from the fire academy.
This must be Ravi’s place. Maybe Buck came back home with Ravi and, oh god, did he sleep with Ravi? No, no, he would remember that.
In fact, he remembers going home. He remembers brushing his teeth, getting into bed, looking at Eddie’s text thread, and contemplating if he should tell him that he was probably poisoned by a fake bartender and might be dead tomorrow.
He remembers deciding against it.
“Ravi?” Buck calls.
No answer.
“Ravi, hey?”
He wanders out of the bedroom. Ravi’s apartment isn’t big, and the living room is empty, same as the kitchen. He makes his way back towards the bathroom, trying to figure out how the hell he ended up here.
He opens the door, and once again, there’s nothing. “What the hell?”
Ravi’s bathroom is super clean. It’s not surprising, but it’s almost weird—how everything’s in it’s perfect place. He’s got a tiered shelf of grooming products on the counter, and Buck rolls his eyes, stepping to the sink to splash some water on his face.
But he stops short and stares.
Stares.
And screams.
Because Ravi is there. He’s in the mirror. He’s staring at Buck—shirtless, in a pair of boxer briefs, and now he’s screaming. He’s mirroring Buck’s movements. Because he’s Buck—because this is…
All the nausea Buck didn’t have when he woke up comes rushing in. He squeezes his eyes shut and pinches his arm, again and again. “This isn’t happening. Wake up. This is wrong and horrible and this is not… happening.”
Except he’s not waking up, and the pinching is really starting to hurt. He stares, horrified, at his reflection—at not his reflection, at Ravi’s reflection—for another second, before he sprints back into the other room, grabs Ravi’s phone and calls himself.
It rings a couple times, then goes to voicemail.
“FUCK!” Buck cries, panting as he looks around the room. His whole body feels wrong, and eventually, he runs to the toilet and throws up in it.
Somehow, he fumbles his way through getting dressed, finding Ravi’s keys, figuring out where the station is with respect to Ravi’s house. He does all this while calling himself—calling Ravi, hopefully—two dozen times.
No one answers, and Buck is forced to walk into work wearing Ravi’s fucking skin. He is the first one in the locker room, and he checks the mirror, just to make sure he wasn’t experiencing some house-induced psychosis. Nope, still not him. Still Ravi.
He swallows a little more bile.
Finally, about fifteen minutes later, he sees himself walk through the doors. For a second, he just sits there, trying to rationalize if that’s really how he walks, if that’s actually what his side profile looks like.
Is he really that awkward? Why does he look so off balance?
Another wave of nausea, but he fights it off and sprints to snatch his own arm and haul his own body into the locker room, which is quite a task, because he’s—Buck—is not small, and Ravi is. Ravi is very small.
Ravi really ought to work on his upper body strength.
“What the fuck?” Buck hisses. “Why didn’t you—what is… Ravi, are you in there?”
Ravi, using Buck’s fucking face, offers a small little smile. “Yeah, yeah, it’s me… sorry, I saw you calling, but I was… I’ll be honest, I kinda wanted to see your face when you first saw me.”
“Are you kidding?” Buck wheezes. “This isn’t some joke—you’re in my… how are you… this can’t be real. This is a nightmare. I’m gonna wake up.” He slaps himself; it hurts. “I gotta wake up.”
“I thought that too,” Ravi says. Buck really hates hearing his own voice like this. “But I think… I think this is for real.”
“And that’s okay with you?” Buck is struggling not to scream.
Ravi lets out a breath. “I mean, no… I want my body back, but maybe it is just some… joke that lady was playing on us. Maybe it’s just, you know, for a day…”
“Or maybe it’s forever and we’re stuck like this!” Buck says. “This is not a thing that just happens, Ravi. This isn’t normal. This isn’t like she stole our clothes after skinny dipping! We are in each other’s bodies.”
“In which case,” Ravi considers, “freaking out isn’t going to fix anything.”
Buck would punch him if he wasn’t staring into his own face. “Maybe we can go back to the bar after work, and—”
“You know what I think?” Ravi asks, still in Buck’s fucking voice.
He doesn’t know what Ravi thinks, and he’s so, so, so very sure that he doesn’t want to know what Ravi thinks.
“What?” he punches out anyway.
“I think this is about the bet,” Ravi decides, and Buck cannot fathom himself ever looking this calm before. It’s unnerving; it’s infuriating; it’s insane. “I think she wanted to make sure you didn’t back out of the bet, so she switched our bodies so that I can make sure you don’t—”
“—shut up,” Buck snarls, and suddenly losing his body feels insignificant in the face of Ravi marching said body up to Eddie Diaz and asking him out. “Ravi, no, no, no, you are not… if you do, I swear to god I will disfigure your stupid face in ways you cannot imagine.”
“Wow,” Ravi whispers. “Violent, much?”
“You can’t,” Buck whispers, and it dissolves into pleading. “Don’t do this to me, okay? I’ve already thrown up four times this morning, if I experience any more stress, I think it’s possible I’m gonna have a heart attack and die in your body.”
“Makes you wonder what would happen,” Ravi says.
Buck groans. It does, though, a little. Like would it just stay like this? Ravi stuck in Buck’s body and Buck dead in Ravi’s. That would make the most sense.
It doesn’t matter. That is not the point.
“Let’s just try to get through this shift.”
Ravi crosses his arms, and Buck is once again forced to grapple with their size difference. Ravi, or, well, Buck kind of looms. “We can get through it, but I think I should test my hypothesis. She seemed pretty invested in what we were talking about… what if I…”
“You are not doing this, Ravi. You are not screwing up my friendship with—”
“Eddie!” Ravi says, all loud and cheerful. “What is up, buddy?”
“Eddie?” Buck asks, then realizes and whirls, backs right into Ravi, who doesn’t move because Ravi weighs maybe thirty pounds and Buck actually works out when he goes to the gym. “Eddie! Hey, you’re… you’re… hi.”
He could try telling Eddie, just to stave off whatever insanity Ravi is about to unleash, but that should be a last resort. Eddie’s gone along with a lot of Buck’s shit, but this might be hard for even him to stomach.
“Hi,” Eddie says, shifting a little uncomfortably at the showering of attention, before he heads to his locker. “You two are more chipper than I expected this morning.”
“Yeah,” Ravi says, and crosses the room to lean against the locker beside Eddie’s and look him over with this leering, awful expression. “How’s Christopher?”
Buck’s eyes almost bulge out of his head, but he doesn’t move. If he does, then he will tackle Ravi to the ground, which he’ll have to explain—also, he’s half convinced he couldn’t even get Ravi to the ground with their respective body weights.
Eddie chuckles and shakes his head. “Don’t start, Buck. He’s fine, and I will go to drinks next time, I swear.”
Ravi drops his head back against the lockers and grins. “You better. It’s not as fun when you’re not there—nothing’s ever quite as nice to look at.”
Eddie freezes. Buck shatters into four thousand pieces. Eddie laughs a little. Buck is still in tiny little pieces on the ground.
“What?” Eddie barely gets out.
Ravi shrugs but never stops smiling. “You gonna pretend you don’t know you’re pretty?” he asks, then reaches over and runs a hand along Eddie’s arm. “C’mon.”
“Uh…” Eddie is blatantly, actively flustered. Buck, from his vantage point of shards of glass on the ground, can’t believe this. He’s never seen Eddie flustered, not by anything Buck’s ever said. He assumed Eddie would roll his eyes or scoff or maybe even play it as a joke, but Eddie does none of that. Eddie stammers and stares at Buck’s hand before he slams his locker too hard, then clears his throat. “Thank you, Buck?”
Buck tries to glare at Ravi; he tries so, so, so hard but Ravi’s still got his eyes on Eddie. Buck wants to rip them out. They are his eyes, and he knows that, and yet. They are not actually his eyes. Not right now.
“Ignore him,” Buck says, in this high-pitched, last-ditch gambit. “He’s probably still drunk.”
“So you don’t think he’s pretty?” Ravi asks.
They’re firefighters. There will probably be a fire today. Buck could push him into it. He could kill him—there’s ways. He laughs. “No, that’s not what I meant—obviously he’s—”
“Don’t answer that.” Eddie spins on his heels and gives Buck this reassuring, unfamiliar smile, then turns to Ravi and looks at him, really looks, and Buck knows the look, even from here.
What the hell is wrong with you?
Buck’s never stood here and watched Eddie look at someone else like that, even when it’s been Hen—he’s never watched Eddie give that look to anyone other than him. Eddie’s mad, all wound up, but that’s Buck’s look—Ravi doesn’t get to have it.
Ravi blinks back at Eddie. “What?”
“What do you mean what?” Eddie huffs because Buck should know, Buck does know.
“Keep looking at me like that, and I’m gonna get the wrong idea,” Ravi says.
Eddie twitches and steps back, and Buck holds his breath. Fuck Ravi. For making Eddie uncomfortable, for enjoying this, and most of all, for saying what Buck’s never been allowed to say because, even if Buck knows Eddie like lines from his favorite song, it’s easy to get lost in the notes.
Eddie half-storms out of the room, and Buck tries to grab Ravi as he glides towards the door, far, far too pleased with himself.
“Stop it,” Buck snaps.
Ravi’s smile widens. “I’m not missing out on this opportunity, just… watch and learn.”
Watch and learn.
Watch and learn?
Buck slams his fist into a locker as Ravi walks out. It’s more than teasing at this point, more than the risk of Eddie saying no—more than switched bodies, even. It’s Ravi acting like he understands Eddie better than Buck. It’s Ravi getting a reaction Buck’s never gotten.
All of this is wrong. Buck’s half tempted to fake illness to find the lady who did this and make it right, but that would leave Ravi alone with Eddie, and he’d sooner set himself and this entire firehouse on fire.
~
Despite Buck’s best attempt to manifest some world-ending catastrophe that forces Ravi to stop whatever he thinks he’s doing, the call bell doesn’t ring, and they end up in the gym.
Buck would be excited to test how weak Ravi actually is. He sees him in here all the time doing something, but with arms like this, he can’t actually be lifting actual weights.
The problem is, Eddie’s also in the gym, and Ravi keeps eyeing and circling him like a fucking shark. Buck follows him around the gym until Ravi finally settles on the bench press and starts adding weights.
“Ravi…” he says it low at first.
But Ravi just keeps adding weight, definitely ignoring him on purpose. Buck has no idea how he’s so cavalier about this. What if they never switch back? God, what if they’re stuck and somehow Ravi’s flirting works so well for Eddie that he decides he isn’t straight and he wants to go on a date with Ravi in Buck’s body and they end up on a date and Ravi and Eddie start kissing and Ravi grabs Eddie by the hair and nibbles a line down his back and—oh, Buck needs to relax.
Buck really, really needs to relax.
He swallows and says again, a little more firmly, “Ravi.”
Unfortunately, it is Eddie, not Ravi, who looks at him. “Uh, why are you whispering your own name?”
An oversight, Buck realizes. It ought to not be so natural to say Ravi while he’s looking at himself, but then, none of this ought to be natural—none of this ought to be possible. “I was, uh…” Fine, he can do this to too. He can fuck with Ravi right back. “Actually yeah, I can’t work out without it. I need to give myself little pep talks throughout the day or I just… fall apart. So I talk myself up, like, yeah Ravi, you’re so strong, Ravi, or you’re so handsome, Ravi. Self-love is super important. Sometimes, when I look in the mirror, I even—”
“Alright,” Ravi hisses. “That’s… so interesting, Ravi.”
“Thank you, Buck,” Buck answers.
Maybe Ravi’s on to something because the look of near-comical confusion on Eddie’s face knocks back some of the nausea he hasn’t been able to shake until now.
“You know,” Buck says, “maybe if I keep it up, I’ll look less like a twig and more like you one day.”
Ravi tongues his cheek, but instead of taking the bait, he smiles. “That’s so nice of you to say. Speaking of, Eddie, how much do you weigh?”
“What?” Eddie asks.
Now Buck feels bad for him, but better he’s confused and slightly afraid than whatever the hell happened with Ravi this morning.
“How much do you weigh?” Ravi repeats like it’s the most normal question in the world.
“Why does it matter?” Buck tries to keep it casual. He knows how much Eddie weighs, and Eddie knows that.
“You should know,” Eddie says. “You were giving me a hard time about it last week.”
Buck fights the urge to stick his tongue out at Ravi.
Ravi, who has apparently become the smoothest person alive, just tilts his head and says, “Remind me.”
And for some reason, Eddie answers, “Uh, one-seventy-three last I checked… why?”
Ravi lifts his eyebrows and grabs a couple plates. A couple plates that Buck realizes add up to exactly one hundred and seventy-three pounds, and Buck can’t help the scoff that falls out of him because Ravi does this while maintaining this obscene eye contact with Eddie—Eddie, who is not looking away.
Of course Buck can lift Eddie’s weight. He’s always known that. Eddie knows that. He can lift more than that, but it doesn’t matter, because he’s never put Eddie’s exact weight on the bar and started doing reps like Ravi is doing now.
“That’s not even that…” Buck clears his throat. “Weren’t you lifting two hundred yesterday?”
Ravi clicks his tongue and keeps the set going. “Maybe, but sometimes less weight and more reps is better. Helps with tone, makes you more flexible…” On the last word, he casts his head back to look at Eddie, who’s still fucking looking.
Buck never really liked his body anyway. He can get a new one.
The eye contact jars Eddie, and he laughs this peppered, strained sound that Buck doesn’t, doesn’t, does not find attractive. Then, Eddie remembers he’s at the gym too and grabs a couple of dumbbells.
Buck can’t stop staring at him. He’s completely off balance. He’s picked up a fifteen- and ten-pound dumbbell, which firstly, isn’t symmetrical, and secondly, is the equivalent of Eddie working out with a couple toothpicks.
But more than that, he’s flustered, again; he’s blinking too much; his cheeks are pink; he keeps having to open his mouth to take breaths and all of them are shallow. Buck can’t stop watching the way his swallow moves down his throat because he keeps doing it, keeps swallowing.
And he’s looking at Ravi. Buck’s body or not, that is Ravi, and Eddie is looking at him, stealing glances like he’s…
Buck launches himself over to the bench and yanks the fifteen-pound weight off the end of the bar, which almost knocks Ravi clean off the bench.
“Shit!” Ravi flails for balance and eventually finds it. “Are you crazy?”
“I needed the weight,” Buck says, valiantly ignoring the three identical plates hanging on the wall a few feet away. “You looked like you were wrapping up.”
“Oh,” Ravi sets the bar in the rack and sits up. “Oh, you’ll know when I’m done, trust me.”
It’s the worst thing anyone’s ever said for so many reasons.
“This is not a game,” Buck snaps.
“Right,” Ravi says, and there’s a glimmer of real irritation before he steels himself with a breath. “It’s a bet.”
“Are you guys good?” Eddie tries from across the gym. “Did something happen last night? You’re both being…”
“Well,” Buck tries, just as Ravi says, “No.”
Buck grits his teeth. Ravi cannot be trusted, and he’s losing his mind, and Buck can’t help when it spills out. “We switched bodies. There was a weird bartender, and she gave us a drink, and now we switched.”
Ravi rolls his eyes.
Eddie blinks, and for a second, Buck thinks maybe he’s going to get it, but then he gives them the half-hearted smile he usually reserves for his parents. “Okay, sure. You guys… have your little inside joke. I guess that’ll teach me not to bail so often.”
“No,” Buck tries again. “Eddie, this isn’t…”
“Alright, I think I’m done.” Eddie sets the weights down. “I’m gonna take a shower.”
“Need any help?” Ravi asks.
Eddie whirls back to him, stunned. “What?”
“Just wondering if—”
“He’s kidding,” Buck butts in. “He’s just… being… silly.”
Eddie narrows his eyes.
“Nothing silly about it,” Ravi says. “There’s all kinds of places that are hard to reach in the shower. I bet I could reach them just fine.”
Eddie opens his mouth, eyes shifting between them one more time, but he can’t quite get anything to come out of his mouth, so he closes it and walks out of the gym without another word.
Buck grabs, well, himself—which is something he has to grapple with more directly when trying to throttle a body twice the size of the one he’s currently stuck in. “I’m going to murder you with my bare hands.”
“That would be suicide,” Ravi reminds him. “Literally.”
“You’re freaking him out,” Buck says. “Stop.”
“I’m turning him on,” Ravi shoots back, then peels Buck’s hands off his collar and steps back. “You’re the one who tried to tell him we switched bodies.”
“We did switch bodies,” Buck answers.
“Well, yeah, but would you believe if he told you he and Hen switched bodies?”
Buck wrestles with the air in his throat for a few seconds. “Fine, maybe I could’ve—it’s just because you won’t stop flirting with him.”
Ravi swipes at some of the sweat on his brow. “Yeah, and if you haven’t noticed, he’s into it. I’m taking the initiative you have refused to for, like, eight years.”
“You don’t get it,” Buck says, and he’s not sure why he puts it that way. He’s not sure why he doesn’t say what are you talking about or you’ve lost your mind or anything that makes it sound less like there is something to get.
There’s nothing to get. Buck and Eddie aren’t something to get. They just are, and now Ravi’s trying to fuck everything up because some horrible, witch bartender is apparently overly invested in bets between drunk guys.
“What don’t I get?” Ravi asks because apparently he’s just privy enough to the explosion of words in Buck’s head to ask the most annoying question possible.
Before Buck can answer, the call bell rings.
~
The call’s routine, which is good, because Buck’s still adjusting to his reduced strength and how much this body moves. He ran into the back of the firetruck twice, Ravi (himself) once, and then, and then Eddie.
The call was for an old man who collapsed while cooking and set off the smoke alarm, so Eddie’s spent most of the call kneeled next to him trying to assess the damage—Buck knows this because he’s been watching relentlessly to make sure Ravi hasn’t tried to ambush him.
He’s still watching now, walking toward him with too heavy steps, so when Eddie finally stands upright, Buck can’t stop in time to keep from crashing directly into him.
Eddie stumbles straight into fucking Ravi, in Buck’s body, because this day is cursed. And Ravi’s there, because despite the fact that Ravi has also struggled adapting to his new proportions, he handles this situation like he’s never had any body but the one he’s currently in.
His hands land squarely on Eddie’s waist, steadying him. A scream crawls up Buck’s throat and falls out of his mouth like a whimper as he stares at his own hands on Eddie’s waist. He’s not sure they’ve ever been there, not like that, fingers sprawling like they’re trying to devour it.
It’s impossible not to think about Eddie’s waist. Buck decided that a long time ago. It’s just natural to look at him and think about certain parts of him, including his waist. Everyone probably does.
It’s very grabbable, and yet, Buck’s never grabbed it—except right now, Buck is grabbing it, only it isn’t Buck who’s grabbing it, it’s Ravi. Ravi with Buck hands on Eddie’s waist, and Eddie blinking and glancing down, then up, and working a laugh up from his chest to his mouth.
For a second, Ravi looks as shocked as anyone else would upon having one of their coworkers thrust at them unexpectedly, but then whatever evil has taken possession of him comes back. Maybe it was always part of him, maybe he’s always been a fucking demon put on this earth lying in wait for the moment he could ruin everything Buck’s ever worked for.
Ravi tightens his grip, rather than letting go like a normal coworker. He holds Eddie there, for a few seconds, pulls him so they’re facing each other fully, and this little shudder runs all the way up Eddie’s spine as he realizes he’s being manhandled.
Buck imagines launching himself across the space, wrenching himself between them, then hurling his own body ten yards towards the road and watching it get splattered across a windshield. It would be awful, but it feels like the only option at this point.
Unfortunately, he can’t move. He’s just standing there, staring, waiting for Eddie to come back to himself and shove Ravi away from him because this is entirely inappropriate; they are on a fucking work call.
Twenty-seven years later, Eddie does. He laughs, again, and sets a hand on Buck’s chest—Buck’s chest that Buck does not currently get to feel because Buck is not the current possessor of Buck’s fucking chest. His eyes widen, especially because Ravi doesn’t let Eddie push away. He drops one of his hands lower until it’s on Eddie’s ass, and it’s not just touching, it’s—
The world turns to technicolor screaming in Buck’s head. He’s not sure when or how, but he gets between Ravi and Eddie; he musters enough strength in this stupid, useless body to knock his own backwards a few steps, and then he’s standing in front of Eddie, chest heaving like he’s facing down a man with a gun rather than his own face.
Eddie makes some kind of sound behind him that sounds vaguely like a question.
Ravi, however, is trying to keep a smile off Buck’s face.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Buck asks.
Ravi throws up his hands. “I was about to ask you that question.”
“What the fuck is wrong with both of you?” Eddie snaps, and they turn to face him. “You’re both acting insane.”
“How am I acting insane?” Ravi asks.
“You just grabbed my ass,” Eddie says.
Buck can’t decide if he’s glad Eddie called him on it or if the sound of the accusation is about to induce a cardiac event. He is pretty sure a fatal heart attack would be less painful than this either way.
Ravi hums a little, then shrugs. “That’s not insane. You have a nice ass.”
Eddie physically stumbles back a step. “We’re at work.”
“Okay,” Ravi says, like he’s working through something, “so if I grabbed your ass while we weren’t at work, that would be…?”
A dozen sounds escape Eddie in a single breath, and he just sort of stands there.
“Stop!” Ravi’s voice comes out of Buck high pitched and panicked. “Stop talking about his ass. Stop looking—stop touching—stop thinking about his ass, you—”
“Everything okay over here?” Chimney rounds the truck from where he was talking to the man’s daughter on the other side.
No, Buck wants to scream, but there’s nothing Chimney can do for him. There’s nothing anyone can do for him, especially because when he moves to check on Eddie, beneath the confusion and uncertainty, there’s that very distinct stain of pink stretched all the way down his neck.
Eddie scrubs his face with his hands, then straightens. “Yeah, yeah, we’re good. I, uh… I need to… okay.”
He starts packing up his supplies, which leaves Buck and Ravi to stand there and face Chimney who doesn’t appear to have been reassured by Eddie’s answer.
“No worries, Cap,” Ravi says. “Just a little argument about personal space.”
Chimney looks like he might ask but thinks better of it.
They ride back in relative silence with Eddie watching Buck and Ravi like he’s expecting one of them to attack him. Once they get back to the station, Chimney mercifully asks them to help with some restocking, which means Ravi can’t terrorize Eddie or Buck, and the next call requires a little more focus, meaning Ravi can’t sexually harass Eddie.
Buck gets through the shift clinging to the certainty that he’s going to get back to the bar and fix this. He’s definitely not thinking about Ravi’s hand—his hand—on Eddie’s ass. He isn’t thinking about the sound Eddie made when Buck pushed him back or the way he kept swallowing in the gym. He’s not thinking about chasing that swallow down his throat with his teeth and licking the jut of his collarbone.
Buck isn’t thinking about any of that because Ravi is wrong, and Eddie is straight, and this has all been one colossal mistake.
Finally, the shift ends, and Buck walks into the locker room to collect his—Ravi’s—stuff to find Eddie sitting on the bench, pressing at the junction between his shoulder and neck.
“Hey,” Buck says, which is probably the most normal thing he’s said to Eddie all day, “you okay?”
Eddie glances up at him, a little warily, which is fair. “Yeah, I’m fine. I think I fucked my shoulder a little on that last call when we were getting those people off the landing.”
“Oh,” Buck says, and his fingers curl, because there’s this ember glow of temptation—this desire to help, like he always does, but then, a scalding, jagged-edged hesitance.
He thinks, suddenly, of how things are between them, Buck and Eddie. How close they are, how intimate, how Eddie will answer the door to him in his underwear. How Buck still falls asleep easier on Eddie’s couch than any bed he’s ever slept in. How Buck knows if he calls Eddie at 3am Eddie will pick up. How when Eddie was in Texas, Buck couldn’t take a full breath unless they were on the phone. How Eddie is his, has been his, in every way except physical.
Even today, in Ravi’s body, never sharing a single look or smile with Eddie because he wasn’t Buck, has left him hollow and aching for something that belongs to him.
Ravi has been touching Eddie, Buck’s Eddie, all day with Buck’s hands, and Buck doesn’t get to feel it; Buck never gets to feel it. Feel Eddie. He can’t.
Buck doesn’t hesitate now because he isn’t in his own body. He hesitates because he knows if he touches Eddie, really touches him, that he will never be able to stop. Because after everything, every claim Buck’s staked over Eddie Diaz, there is only one thing left to want, to need, and that is to touch him, hold him, have him completely, and that singular, forbidden want has infected the core of Buck’s very being, and if he gives into it, then it will consume him.
Eddie flinches when he presses a little too hard into his own shoulder, and a sound escapes Buck that makes Eddie look up, all guileless uncertainty.
“Buck’s, uh… been weird today, huh?” Buck’s not sure why it comes out.
Eddie scoffs. “Both of you have been weird today.”
“Yeah, but with him, you didn’t…” Buck’s words stick in his throat. “You didn’t exactly tell him to stop. It kinda seemed like you…”
Eddie’s eyes are sharp when he flicks them, then back down to the floor. “Seemed like I what?”
Is it because he’s been braver, smoother, better? Is it because of how he touches you?
Is it him?
Or is it me?
“Nothing,” Buck relents.
Eddie lets out a breath and doesn’t look at him again.
There's this endless pause where Buck just stands there, and Eddie keeps massaging his shoulder.
“Am I in your way?” Eddie eventually asks, even though it’s a silly question, because the bench isn’t blocking any of the lockers. Eddie’s not taking up much space at all, except to Buck he is, to Buck, Eddie is always taking up all the air in the room.
“No.” Still, Buck doesn’t move.
“Man, crazy shift, huh?” Ravi waltzes in, and the air shifts, and Buck knows, knows, that he’s been standing there watching them like he knows what time it is. “You good, Eddie?”
Eddie’s face goes through a few stages of grief, likely because every interaction he’s had with both Buck and Ravi today has been a trial and/or tribulation. “Yeah, just fucked up my shoulder.”
“Oh,” Ravi says, and Buck’s best efforts to threaten him with widened eyes fail when Ravi turns and smiles very pointedly at only Eddie. “You’re not gonna be able to work the tension out on your own. Let me try.”
“No,” Buck hisses and gets between them.
Ravi’s mouth twitches. “Oh, did you wanna do it?” He gestures to Buck’s—Ravi’s—hands. “You know, now that I’m looking at them, your hands do look a little more dexterous. You could probably do a better job.” Then, he glances at Eddie. “Whose hands do you think would feel better, Eddie?”
Buck balls said hands into fists and contemplates slamming them both directly into Ravi’s face.
“Okay,” Eddie says and pulls himself off the bench. “Can someone please tell me what is going on? You guys are starting to scare me. Did you take some kind of drug last night or something?”
Buck and Ravi exchange looks. After an entire day of this, maybe Eddie would buy that they switched bodies if Buck said it again, but then, Eddie might wonder why Ravi was flirting with him so much. He might ask questions, and Buck’s throat goes dry when he thinks of answering them.
“Here’s the deal,” Ravi says, all casual, “I lost a bet with Ravi…” He’s a little unsteady with his own name. “…last night, and the wager was that I, Buck, have to ask you out. On a date. With me…” His eyes shift like he’s searching for something. “Buck.”
“Please, just...” Buck starts but can't figure out how to finish.
Eddie runs his tongue over his bottom lip. If anything, this looks like it’s gotten him well past starting to scare me and into terrified territory. “Okay, that’s…” Eddie blinks too much, like he did earlier at the gym, only it’s not—only this time, it’s hurt that’s causing it. “Hilarious. You could’ve just done that over text.”
Buck opens his mouth.
But Ravi’s already answering, “If we did it over text, you might not understand that Buck, I, really, really want to go on a date with you,” Ravi says. “That’s why Ravi made the bet, because he knew I wanted to but couldn’t work up the nerve.”
“He's lost his mind…” Buck flails, then shoves Ravi, because nothing he says feels like it’ll stop this appropriately. “Eddie, ignore him.”
Eddie doesn’t ignore him. Instead, he asks, “Why would you wanna go on a date with me?”
“What do you mean why?” Buck asks, because of everything Eddie could’ve said in response, that wasn’t supposed to be on the list. “Why would I—he… wh-why would anyone not?”
Eddie looks so tired, and Buck wishes he could hug him, or at least drag him out of here, but he gets the sense that anything he does in this moment is just going to make Eddie’s exhaustion worse.
He’s probably wondering why Ravi would have an opinion on this—little does he know, Ravi’s opinion is what caused all of this in the first place. “I don’t… are you guys pranking me? Is this a joke? Because at this point, it’s starting to feel mean.”
“Mean?” Buck feels like an over-filled kettle long past boiling, there’s all this heat, all this air in him screaming to get out. “You think the only way I’d wanna go out with you is if I was mocking you?”
Eddie’s eyebrows furrow; it screws his whole face up and it is somehow stupidly attractive. “You wanna go out with me?”
“Of course I want to go out with you.” Buck can’t stop himself because the look on Eddie’s face isn’t discomfort or polite disinterest, it’s the fundamental disbelief that Buck, or maybe anyone, could want him. “You are the only person in the world I want to go out with. You’re the only person who makes me feel seen and heard and… alive. How can it be this unbelievable that I want you? You do have a nice ass. You are pretty. I want to touch you all the time, and there’s no way I’ve hidden it that well for this long. There’s no way you can’t believe that I am desperately fucking in love with you, Eddie.”
Ravi makes a sound.
Eddie’s eyes are so wide, so, so wide, and Buck sees every flutter in the long, dark length of his eyelashes. The shock splattered across his face as his mouth opens, then closes, then opens again. “Wow, that was… really, really sweet, and… surprising, I…” Eddie’s eyes flick away from Buck, almost desperate, to Ravi, then back. “Thank you, Ravi, I’m flattered, but I’m… I don’t…”
“Yeah, Ravi,” Ravi says. “Great speech.”
“Fuck,” Buck hisses, then takes a steadying breath. He said that as Ravi, which would explain why the polite disinterest that was missing before has leaked into Eddie’s expression. “Please, god, let this work.”
He takes three steps to cross the room, grabs Eddie face and pulls him in. The height’s all wrong. He’s in the wrong body, but it’s still Eddie’s mouth on his, and it’s warm and half-open. Mostly still, but it doesn’t matter, it tastes like color. It tastes like seeing the stars for the first time, and then, it tastes like falling.
He is falling, falling, until he blinks, and he isn’t kissing Eddie—instead, he’s watching Ravi kiss Eddie, and he swallows another round of throw up before he, for the second time today, rushes to pull them apart.
Eddie reaches up to his mouth, and Ravi sways a little on his feet.
“Oh, hey,” Ravi says. “I was right.”
“What?” Eddie sounds like he might be near tears.
“Ravi’s not in love with you,” Buck says. “This isn’t a joke. This morning, when I said the thing about the bodies switching, I…” He rolls his eyes. “Oh, just come here.”
Buck catches Eddie by one of his belt loops and hauls him towards him, again, and this time, the height is right, and this time, Eddie breaks open. Eddie kisses him back, and it’s warm and soft and willing. This time, all that starlight is alive on Eddie’s tongue and at the back of Buck’s throat, this time, the falling doesn’t stop. This time, Buck lets himself touch, lets his fingers slot between the rungs of Eddie’s ribs and cling, lets himself be consumed by the thing he’s been running from for the better part of ten years.
Eddie’s hand quivers a little where it’s settled on Buck’s cheek, and he gasps, searching Buck’s face, gasping for air as he stutters back. “Holy shit. That was… you were serious?”
“I was,” Buck says. “I am.”
“Well,” Ravi announces, and it’s such a relief to hear his stupid words in his own damn voice. “My work here is done. You guys can thank me tomorrow. Venmo or PayPal. I’d say you could buy me drinks next time we go out, but I’m not subjecting myself to that for at least a month.”
He walks out before either of them can figure out what to say, and Buck laughs a little. “He got to kiss you for a few seconds there. I’m not giving him shit.”
“Mm,” Eddie says. “Wait, so Ravi grabbed my ass?”
A spike of anger twists Buck’s insides, and he holds onto Eddie a little tighter to stave it off. “You’re right. I think he should Venmo me, actually.”
“You’re gonna have to explain this to me,” Eddie says.
Buck lets out a breath. “I can try, but you wouldn’t believe how little I understand of what just happened.”
Eddie scoffs, then refocuses his attention on Buck—and it’s all heavy, pulsing want, half-incinerating the inch of space between their mouths. “You’re in love with me.”
“Not so surprised anymore?” Buck slides his hand to the small of Eddie’s back and pulls until the friction between them grows teeth.
Eddie drags a tongue over his bottom lip and has to tilt his head a little to hold Buck’s eyes. “I think I just needed to hear you say it.”
“So when’s my turn?” Buck fights the gravity of Eddie’s mouth with every ounce of strength he has.
“I dunno,” Eddie says. “You were really annoying today.”
Buck nips just a little at his mouth, then slides his hand down to Eddie’s ass and squeezes, and god, it’s like a shot of euphoria straight to his brain. “I was going through something.”
Eddie sighs. “Okay, Buck, I’m in love with y—”
Buck’s kissing him, starving, before Eddie can finish the sentence, because he doesn’t have to, because he was going to say it. Because Buck knew this would happen—knew he wouldn’t be able to stop, but what he didn’t know was that Eddie wanted it as bad as he did. Eddie wanted to be touched as bad as Buck wanted to touch.
He’s been so stupid for so long.
Eddie tips his face away, but Buck doesn’t stop kissing, just sucks a line to the hinge of his jaw as Eddie asks, “So, are you gonna take me out now?”
“Hell no,” Buck says into his skin, then tips Eddie’s chin up to look at him, and he presses the next words into his mouth, squeezes his throat so he has to swallow them. “I’m gonna take you home.”