Reading Time: 114 Minutes

Title: Rest of Yesterday
Author: Jilly James
Fandom: 9-1-1, San Andreas
Genre: Contemporary, Drama, Family, First Time, Slash, mild BDSM.
Relationship(s): Evan Buckley/Eddie Diaz, canon pairings
Content Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Canon-level angst and situations, kink, under-negotiated kink, erotic asphyxiation, character bashing, not Chimney friendly
Author Note: See master post for expansion on warnings, world, setting, timeline, etc.
Word Count: 78,625
Summary: Everything has been different since Chimney came back from looking for Maddie. Buck has been quiet. Watchful. Eddie is surprised at how it all eventually blows up. Buck thinks Eddie is right that he’s a fixer, but he realizes that sometimes you have to let everything fall apart to see what can be truly salvaged, and then focus on fixing yourself.
Artist: Greeneyesblue

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Chapter Eleven

“Particular reason why he’s still in his room?” Buck asked gently. The mood had been weird since Eddie and Chris got home, and he’d decided to broach the issue carefully.

Eddie had camped out at the dining table, working on paying his mid-month bills. His hand briefly tightened around the pen before he looked up and met Buck’s gaze. “We had a preliminary meeting with a custody evaluator. It was…difficult.” He sat back in his chair and took a deep breath. “My parents are a bigger nightmare than I expected. My attorney recommended I forward them a bunch of stuff, emails, texts. They took a download of my text history with my parents while I was there. They’re going to do some more interviews with Chris—video recordings.”

“Jesus, Eddie. What happened?”

“I think they’ve been subtly manipulating Chris. My attorney agreed with you about attempted parental alienation, except it didn’t work the way they intended, and it’s made him hate them. To the point that he’s started to resent me for making him talk to them at all. I need to get it all documented and then tell them they’re cut off entirely. If they fight it, we’ll file for a protective order. My attorney wants to do the records and evaluations first.”

Buck blinked a few times. “So… Bad Day?”

Eddie huffed a humorless laugh. “Such a bad day. He’s just…moody, I think. They asked questions all the way back to his care with Shannon. I know he’ll shake it off, and he wants to do this, but I don’t think the process will be easy.”

“No, I’m sure it won’t. I may have a suggestion for something to do instead of dinner to help cheer you both up. Let me send a text.” He pulled his phone from his pocket. “While I’m doing that, tell me how you’re doing aside from the attorney visit.” He gave Eddie a meaningful look then focused on the text he was sending.

“You mean Dr. Thomas.”

“Duh.”

“It was fine.”

“That was a big old lie.”

Eddie’s laugh this time was more genuine. “Therapy sucks. Better?”

“Sounds legit to me.”

“Can I ask you something? Of course you know you don’t have to—”

“Just spit it out, Eds. Since when have I hesitated to answer your questions?”

Eddie fidgeted with his pen. “Do you have any familiarity with EMDR?”

“Sure.” Buck’s phone buzzed and he sent off another reply to Nadine.

“You do?”

“I think it’s a pretty common part of the trauma therapy playbook for many. I also did some other stuff. I can’t take some of the medications they might prescribe for PTSD because they’re cannabis based, and that’s a no-no in our line of work, but I’ve done ketamine treatments.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Why in the world would that be funny?”

Eddie stared at him for a long time. “And you think this stuff works?”

“Yeah, I really do. If I went though another traumatic situation and could only pick one, it’d be the EMDR, but I think most things I tried helped to some degree.”

“I just can’t believe I never knew about any of this.”

Buck sent a final text to Nadine and set his phone down. “My impetus to get help was the shooting; no one in our lives really gave me room to talk about it, thinking I was making your trauma be about me.”

“Ay Dios, what bullshit.” Eddie rubbed his hand over his face.

“I mean, Athena never did, and she tried to talk to me, but I can see now that I resisted. I worried about anything I said getting back to Bobby and him using it as an excuse to bench me.” Buck frowned. “That should have been a huge red flag that I worried more about Bobby benching me than my own mental health.”

“Yeah, not good, but I can see how it sort of evolved into the situation you’re in.”

“Right. And I know Hen doesn’t realize she does this, but she internalizes and parrots too much of what Chim has to say, and Chim has been hostile toward me for a long time. I don’t know. It was just exhausting.”

“And you didn’t talk to me because…?”

“You were recovering from trauma yourself, Chris needed your attention, Ana was actively pushing me out of your life, and you were letting her.”

“Okay, ouch.”

“But true.”

“That was more me not paying attention than—”

“Than not noticing your supposed best friend was never around anymore?”

Eddie’s mouth opened for a response and then quickly snapped shut. “That’s fair, but I also kind of want to argue because I don’t feel like I ever forgot about you, and many times I wanted you to be there.”

“You wishing I was there after I’d been shoved to the curb was up to you to resolve.” Buck winced. “Sorry, I’m getting a little blunt. I’m just in a weird head space.”

“I can see that. Though since it’s out there, I see what you’re saying, and you’re not wrong, but I also think it’s a distorted perspective. Part of me thinks I should apologize for at least part of it, but you’ve asked me to stop.”

“Yeah, definitely stop. I don’t need apologies at this point, Eds. We’re fixing things, and that’s what matters to me. I think sometimes things might come out more bluntly than I intended, but I also feel like you’re holding back, and maybe if I’m more forthright, you will be too. Or maybe it’ll backfire, you’ll keep apologizing, and we’ll never get anywhere.” Buck sighed.

“Stop,” Eddie said firmly. “I don’t know what headspace you’re in, but we are making progress. You being so blunt about how you feel, especially other people’s fuckups, is new for me, so it may take me a minute to adjust, but I want to hear it. And, yes, I will try to be more honest myself.” He hesitated. “So… you’d recommend I try some of this other stuff?”

“Yep. Be prepared for it to suck large for a few days afterward, but then it’s just somehow…better.”

“Yeah, okay. So what is this plan for tonight?”

“I think I’ll keep it a surprise. Let me go round up prince charming and we can hit the road.”

“Where are we going?”

“It’s up near Ventura.”

“Ventura,” Eddie repeated, sounding incredulous. “That’s a long-ass drive.”

“Which is why we should get going. Oh, stop giving me that look. It’s not like you’ve got a hot date lined up. Clean up your paperwork while I go coax the Ultimate Diaz out of his bedroom.”

Buck left Eddie sputtering about driving to Ventura on a Friday evening and went to Christopher’s room. He tapped on the door and got a curt, “What?” for his trouble.

“Hey, superman, can I come in?”

“I guess.” As soon as he was inside, Chris set his book down and crossed his arms over his chest. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“That’s okay. That’s not what I’m here for.”

“Then what is it?”

“I had kind of a rough day, and I thought I should do something to make myself feel better. I wondered if you wanted to come with me.”

“What is it?”

“Well, I don’t think I’m gonna tell you. See, if you come, I’m sure you’ll enjoy it and then you can’t hold it over my head. But if I just tell you, you can blackmail me with the knowledge. I figured mutual blackmail was the way to go.”

Chris looked intrigued. “Now I really want to know. Is Dad coming?”

“Yep. And I promise, it will be a trifecta of blackmail material. Mutually assured destruction. Everyone will have to keep their peace.”

“When do we leave?”

“How soon can you be ready?”

“I’m like the wind.”

~*~

“I think we’ve been in the car forever,” Chris complained from the back of Eddie’s truck.

“We all have,” Eddie muttered as he navigated heavy traffic on the 101.

“Oh, quit complaining. Nadine is doing us a favor so everyone will be gracious about it and not even mention how long it took to get there.”

Chris scowled at him. “I would never—Carla would be disappointed in me for being so rude.”

Buck laughed.

“Besides, we’re doing this for you, right? I’m just here for blackmail material.”

Eddie shot him a confused look.

“You keep telling yourself that, superman. I’ll bet you last about thirty seconds.”

Chris sniffed. “I can hold out.”

“Uh huh.”

“Bet you Dad caves first—whatever it is.”

Buck considered. “As much as I’d like to side with my best friend on this, I’m pretty sure you’re wrong, superman. You’re going to give in like a wet paper towel.”

They trash talked for another ten minutes before Eddie called it quits, saying it was too much like listening to them play video games, and he didn’t need to drive over an hour to listen to them do that.

Buck laughed and changed the subject, glad that Christopher was out of his head a little bit.

~*~

They pulled off onto un unpaved drive, and Eddie shot him a look. “Is this a ranch of some sort tucked back here in the hills?”

“More like a farm.”

Chris was trying to peer around as much as he was able. “What do they do here?”

“Their main business is making some specialty CBD products, but that’s definitely not why we’re here. It’s more the little charity Nadine runs.”

They’d barely gotten out of the truck, hadn’t seen a human yet, when Eddie caught sight of the first one through the fencing that kept them penned in. “Ay Dios. It’s a teeny goat. In pajamas.”

“Holy crap. Chris was right. You just buckled like a substandard support brace.”

Eddie just waved him off and walked closer to the fence to stare the pygmy goats bouncing around in the pen and running in and out of their barn.

“Oh my god, Bucky, they’re so cute,” Chris enthused, grabbing hold of Buck’s arm, and practically shaking him in his enthusiasm.

Buck rolled his eyes, but it was in good humor. “You Diazes. Just alike.”

They were now both ignoring him as they stood at the fence and watched the goats bounce around.

“Hey there, Buck.”

“Nadine.” He leaned down and pressed a kiss to her cheek. She was barely five-foot-nothing. “It’s good to see you.”

“You too.” She patted his shoulder. “Seems like you get bigger every time I see you.”

Buck grinned. “Possibly.”

“So, do I finally get to meet the famous Christopher?”

“Can you two stop staring long enough to meet Nadine?”

Both shook off their fascination and politely greeted her.

Chris, though, gave Buck an accusing look. “Have there been goats all this time and you didn’t tell me?”

Nadine laughed. “Not quite. The farm used to be in Colorado, which is where I met Buck. I only moved to California in April. I think he’d intended us to meet sooner, but I’ve heard a lot has gone on over this spring and summer.”

Chris scuffed his Chuck Taylor’s in the dirt. “Yeah, that’s certainly true.” He peered at Nadine. “But I really like goats.”

“Buck has told me, so I’ve been eager to meet you. In fact, there’s something he doesn’t know yet that I was saving to reveal for when you got here.”

Chris’ whole face lit up. “What is it?”

“I’ve got baby goats. The nana goat was a little too old and we weren’t expecting this litter of kids—plus, it’s a big litter. Total surprise. But they’re needing to be bottle fed. You want to help?”

Chris looked starstruck. “I would love that so much.”

Eddie looked pretty damn excited himself.

Buck just laughed at his family.

Twenty minutes later, all of them were helping Nadine bottle feed the new litter. She was letting them do it all, and just supervising and helping. There were five kids, so Buck just fed one and left the others for Chris and Eddie.

Both of his Diazes seemed happy and content.

Yeah, Buck thought, that was pretty much what the world needed…more baby goats.

~*~

Buck stared at his turnouts, rubbing his hand over his name. It was his last few minutes with the 118, and it was every bit as hard as he’d expected.

What he hadn’t anticipated was how eager he would be to finally move on. As much as he hated what had pushed them to this, he knew he was moving toward something good.

They team had all gotten up early and, since there were no calls, had thrown an impromptu goodbye breakfast for Buck and Eddie. Bobby had gotten a floater to cover what should have been Eddie’s last official shift, so Eddie and Buck were leaving together.

“You should take them,” Bobby said softly from behind him.

Buck smiled sadly. “Property of the LAFD.”

“You never know when you might need them, and your dimensions are hard to find.”

Buck let the turnout coat drop from his fingers. “SAR, Air Rescue Unit. I really don’t need turnouts.” LA County would provide them, regardless, but they’d say LA County on the back, plus the colors were different.

“Oh.”

Buck finally turned to face his captain. Soon to be former captain in about twenty minutes.

“You’re a good fit for SAR. There are units that would have taken you in the LAFD.” Bobby held up a hand before Buck could say anything. “But I understand why you went this way. I’m going to guess if an air SAR unit that it’s probably LA County?”

Buck inclined his head.

“Good choice. They’ve tried to recruit you a few times.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Yeah.” Bobby had his hands shoved in his pockets. “C-shift is all here and starting equipment checks. Captain Marchson is ready to take over. I’m officially dismissing you and thanking you for your service to the LAFD, which has been an immense service, Buck, of which I am keenly aware. I’m doing this now and with a lot of anxiety because I need to not be your captain anymore so I can finally ask you when can we talk?”

Buck didn’t feel bad, precisely, for making Bobby wait for them to connect on a personal level, but he did feel sympathy. The lack of boundaries in their lives had led to a lot of problems, and it had been vital for him to have this while he was getting through his last days in a place he’d considered home for so long.

“I’m teaching an advanced class on rope rescue this week. I’ll have all my evenings free. Monday won’t be great, and you’re on shift anyway, but I know you’ve got four off, so… Any evening this week?”

Bobby’s smile was hesitant. “How about Thursday? I want to jump right on it and say Tuesday, but we both might be more tired than we expect from work, Wednesday I already have plans with Athena, but I could—”

“Never break plans with Sergeant Grant.”

Bobby smiled “Thursday seems safe.”

“Okay, Thursday it is.”

“Can I make you dinner?”

Buck winced internally and shook his head. “How about food trucks in Santa Monica and we go sit on the beach. I often go by the memorial and take the time to remember those who were lost as well as to remind myself to be grateful.”

“I didn’t know that.”

Buck shrugged.

“I’d love to go with you.”

“Great. I’ll text you or…something.”

“Kid.” Bobby blew out a breath. “Come here.” Bobby pulled him into big hug, and it took Buck a beat to reciprocate. “Anything, anytime, anywhere. I’m very proud of you,” he whispered. “I’ll see you on Thursday.”

With that, Bobby pulled away and left, leaving Buck emotionally flailing.

“You okay?” Eddie asked from where he was leaning against the ladder truck. Buck hadn’t even been aware of his presence.

“Yeah, I’m okay.”

“I really don’t believe that.” He tilted his head toward the door. “You ready?”

Buck nodded. “You say goodbye to everyone?”

“Yeah. We’ll see them all again, but I’m leaving with the person who matters, so no regrets.”

Buck felt something warm and hopeful flare to life. He’d remind himself later not to let those feelings out of their box but, for now, it was nice.

~*~

“That the last of it?” Ray called out from somewhere near the door.

“Yeah, it is.” Buck looked around the upstairs of the loft for the last time. He’d set his final move-out to be the day after his last shift with the 118 but before his first official day with LA County. Ray had volunteered to help with the business of the rest of his move, which included the furniture he was keeping.

“You good?” Eddie asked from where he was propping up a wall near the top of the stairs.

“More good than not, but between yesterday and today…” He shook his head. “It’s not even like closing a door, it’s like slamming it shut.”

“It’s a lot of change that coincided and probably makes each individual change feel bigger. But there’s nothing irrevocable here, Buck.”

“I sold the loft.”

Eddie laughed. “Okay, be literal why don’t you. I mean that leaving the 118 is not leaving your family anymore than leaving the loft is leaving your home.”

For some reason, that made Buck’s eyes feel hot and his throat feel tight. “Yeah.”

Then Eddie was beside him, arm slung around Buck’s shoulder. “Come on. Tomorrow starts a big new chapter. Let’s go pay Ray in Mexican food and margaritas while we close the book on this one.”

“I would not say no to food!” Ray called up.

Buck laughed. “Do we need to call Emma?”

“Hell no. As far as my lovely family is concerned, we are diligently working on your move for at least two more hours. I love my girls, but this is my night off from their complete domination of my time.”

Buck started down the stairs with Eddie hot on his heels. “Don’t front, you love it.”

“Of course I do, but sometimes you need a break from everything you love. Besides, they’re all getting pedicures, and I discovered years ago that I do not like having my feet touched by others. This is my line in the sand, gentlemen. I will not be moved. Yet, if they find out we’re free, we’ll all be defending the honor of my soles, and I refuse. There will be no disclosure; there will be food.”

Eddie laughed. “How was Chris with the pedicure plan?”

“I got a picture of him with his feet in a foot spa about twenty minutes ago. He’s laughing up a storm, so I think he’s safe.”

“This I’ve got to see.” Eddie and Buck both crowded around Ray to look at the various photos from the spa. Chris looked like he was having a blast with the Gaines family.

Buck smiled, half wishing he was there. Yeah, moving on was hard, but moving towards something great was a pretty good tradeoff.

Ray pocketed his phone and lifted the entire stack of boxes. “Get a move on, boys.”

“That’s just showing off,” Eddie muttered.

Ray just shot a look over his shoulder, eyebrows wiggling.

~*~

Buck entered the house, feeling his flagging energy perk up at Christopher’s delighted, “Buck!” called from the living room.

“Hey, bud. I’ll be right in, and before you tell me about school, I have a question for you, okay?”

“Okay!”

Carla came out from the kitchen. “Hey, Buckaroo. How was your first day of being the master instructor.”

“Ugh.” Buck let his head hang for a moment. “I’m not sure why they call this the advanced rope rescue class. It scares me that these people are already certified to do rope rescues at all.” He rolled his shoulders, trying to ease the tension.

“That bad, huh?”

“You don’t even know.”

“You’re a little earlier than I expected.”

He waved toward the living room. “I have a question that you’ll be part of.” Carla was supposed to be with Chris until Buck got home since Eddie was on his first twenty-four doing fly-along with Ray’s A-shift. Buck had resisted texting him all day to find out how things were going. Dr. Thomas was going to try a small EMDR session with Eddie this Friday, but the first line of defense was getting Eddie used to being in the helicopter every day.

Buck settled next to Chris on the couch, easily accept the side-hug and giving one in return. “So, Carla was going to stay with you until I got home from therapy this evening.”

“Oh… Is that where you were going after class?”

“Yep. We cut it forty-five minutes early because I seriously need to reevaluate the plan, and I was getting close to losing my temper. Anyway, your dad mentioned that you thought you might want to go with me to a session. You still game? If so, do you want to go tonight? I already texted Eddie and he’d planned to come with, but he’s also okay with just you and me going. If you’d rather wait, I’ll head out here in a few minutes and be home in about an hour and a half. Carla will stay on until I get back as per the original plan.”

Chris blinked at him a few times. “But I don’t have to talk, right?”

“Nope. You’re just observing.”

Chris nodded decisively. “Then I want to go with you tonight.”

“Cool.” He tousled Chris’ hair. “Get your shoes, and then we’ll stop at that Italian bistro for dinner if you want. It’s over by Dr. Copeland’s.”

“Geez, Bucky. That’s burying the lede!”

Buck laughed and waited until Chris was out of the room before looking to Carla. “Any concerns or advice?”

“Not a one. I think this is a good thing; those boys are both too resistant to talking about what’s really going on inside, and if you’re willing to be their therapy role model, I support your ambition.”

“Carla.” Buck laughed.

“You’re good at knowing what’s good for Chris, and I know Dr. Copeland did several rotations with pediatrics, so the two of you have this covered.” She nudged him again. “And Dr. Thomas is a great choice for Eddie.” She slapped her hands on her thighs and smiled brightly. “Well, I’ll get home in time to have supper with my Howard. Don’t get up, I can show myself out.” She dropped a kiss on his cheek. “You’re a good man, Evan Buckley. Always remember that and trust in yourself.” She looked down the hall and called, “Night, lemon cupcake!”

“Night, peachie pie!”

“See you boys tomorrow.” Carla only had Chris for a few hours each day this week since Buck would be home in the evenings, and she’d be doing evenings with him while they were in their LA County and air rescue orientation classes. Then she’d be back to having him overnight when Buck and Eddie were on shift.

Chris appeared with his sneakers on. “Ready!”

“You ever going to tell me the origins of those dessert-themed nicknames?”

“Nope!” Chris said with a big grin.

Buck sighed. “Replaced in my favorite person’s affections. I don’t even have a nickname.”

“Of course you do. You’re my Bucky.”

Buck blinked. “Fair point. I guess I got the first one, huh? I suppose I can live with the mystery a little longer.”

~*~

Dr. Copeland made a production of introducing herself to Christopher and explaining how the session would go. The evening was edging toward cool, but she had the gas firepit out. Between that and Buck and Chris on the wicker sofa together, they were plenty warm.

She looked up from her notes after everyone was settled and smiled at Buck. Chris knew that they were going to act like he wasn’t there as much as possible, though both of them were keenly aware of Chris’ presence and keeping things child-appropriate.

“Your last day at the 118 was Saturday. That’s probably the therapeutic elephant in the room, but how about we save that for a bit.”

“You do like to keep me on my toes, Doc.”

She smiled. “I gotta earn my pay. Tell me how your week has been outside of work. Or even any thoughts that have occurred to you that you think are worth exploring as you begin this big transition in your life.”

“I saw Maddie on Friday. That was…challenging.” He didn’t feel like he could get too in-depth on that with Chris around. He didn’t want to taint Christopher’s perspective of people he might wind up having relationships with later.

“Any one thought you can give me around that?” She was definitely asking for a kid-safe thought.

“The closer you are to someone, the harder it is to keep your boundaries.”

“From your lips, Buck.” She shook her head. “Boundaries are ongoing for us, so we can table that. What else?”

“There was moving out of the loft. We’d done a lot of my personal stuff, but I needed to get my books and things into storage. It was a weird ending. It felt bigger than I think it should have.”

“It’s the first place you’ve owned, correct?”

“Eh. Not exactly, but it’s the first place I’ve ever bought.” He waved away the full explanation. “I inherited a small piece of property, but I never lived there after I inherited it. I technically own it, though. But for the purposes of what you were asking, yes, it’s the first home I bought.”

“Why wouldn’t it be a big thing to close that chapter of your life?”

“I think it would be big, but I said goodbye to the 118 the same day I walked down my loft stairs for the last time. Eddie was the one who pointed out that the two changes at the same time probably amplified them both, making them seem bigger.”

“That’s a good observation, though I’d point out to you that amplifying factors are very real. They’re not imagined.”

Buck tilted his head to the side. “What do you mean?”

“Well, let’s say you stub your toe. It hurts and it sucks. You might hop around and swear and then get on with your day. You forget you stubbed your toe unless something causes you to remember—such as your toe is tender and you bump it into something. But if your toe was broken and you stubbed it, you’d be in agony and not easily forget you stubbed your toe. You might even have created a worse injury.

“When it comes to life stresses, we do look closely at how many types of major stresses someone endures in a certain period of time. Those stresses can amplify each other in ways that are disproportional to each individual stressor.”

She smiled Chris’ direction, leaning forward a bit. “What that means, Christopher, is it’s like being late on a homework assignment. If you’re late on one, and you know you can get it done in an hour, you might need an hour and ten minutes. If you’re late on two homework assignments, the amplification of stress, might mean you need three hours. If you were late on four, you might need eight hours. For many people, the greater the number of burdens on their stress system, the harder it is to regulate their response to the stress itself, and therefore, they need to allow more time to manage the stress itself aside from working the original problem. Make sense?”

Chris nodded.

Dr. C looked back to Buck. “So, you leaving your loft and your job even close to the same time, much less on the same day, is going to make each of those feel emotionally magnified.”

“Okay, I get that.”

“Do you feel like you can tell me what that feeling was?”

“Like I was slamming the door on my whole past.”

She nodded. “I can see why you’d feel that way, though do you think it’s a distortion?”

Buck nodded.

“Can you identify which kind of distortion?”

“I think my usuals tend to come into play. Definitely catastrophizing.” He made a face. “Emotional reasoning.”

“I know you hate trying to spot that one.” She looked to Chris. “Do you know what catastrophizing is?”

Chris nodded slowly. “I think I get that one. Making everything to be worse than it is?”

Dr. C looked impressed. “Very nice. What about emotional reasoning?”

“I understand the words, but not what Bucky means by them.”

“It means that you tend to believe the way you feel is a reflection of reality. So, if you feel no one likes you, then you must not be liked.”

Chris frowned. “But Bucky tells me all the time that feelings are real, but they aren’t necessarily facts.”

Buck tweaked Christopher’s nose. “That’s part of my own therapy, buddy. Reminding myself that however I feel is okay and I don’t have to invalidate my feelings to realize that feelings are biased. It’s good to step back and try to look at situations objectively. Sometimes that means asking someone for an outside perspective.”

“Like a therapist?”

Dr. Copeland smiled. “Absolutely. Sometimes it’s a good friend you trust to see things clearly and be honest with you—whether they’re related to you or not. Sometimes that could be a co-worker, depending on the situation.”

“Okay, I get it.”

Copeland looked back at Buck. “I think your experience and your feelings about all this is reasonable, but I have a hunch you know that.” She pointed her finger at him teasingly.

He smiled. “I’m getting better at spotting things, yeah.”

“Anything you’re not doing so well at spotting?”

“It’s been brought to my attention that I’ve been coming across as angry a lot. Um.” Buck hesitated. “I don’t like being angry, and I don’t perceive myself that way, so that really gave me pause. While I think these changes are good for me, I don’t like that it felt almost forced on me. It was only recently that I realized how much resentment and bitterness I was holding onto, and I know I need to find a way to let that go. Because letting that stuff fester is definitely going to make me angry. I think I’d like that to be our focus for our next iteration of therapy. I don’t want to bottle things up and be resentful.”

“What do you want, then?”

“I want to be happy about the changes in my life. I really do see them as good, and I don’t want it tainted by this resentment of feeling like I didn’t have a choice.”

“Is this about living with us?” Chris asked in a small voice.

“Whoa.” Buck changed positions, dropping to one knee in front of Chris and holding him by the upper arms. “Never. I have never in my life been anything but grateful for you and Eddie. And Abuela and Pepa too.”

Chris gave him a tremulous smile.

Buck hadn’t wanted to go down this path, but it hadn’t occurred to him that Chris would take on blame for Buck’s emotional state. “Do you remember when I had that bad black eye?”

“Yeah.” Chris reached out and touched Buck’s cheekbone. “Right here.”

“Someone from work hit me, and I did all the wrong things then about how I handled it. Maybe I’m a little mad at myself over it. I should have refused to work with them anymore, and I probably should have filed a police report, but I was so busy trying to hold on to everything exactly how it was, that I made myself really unhappy in the process.

“And then one day, I realized I was angry inside all the time. But I’d also chosen to let the situation go on for so, so long. I felt like the only choice I had was to leave and figure out something else. You are like my bright shining star, Christopher Diaz. Your dad dragged me home with him the day this all came out. Him practically strongarming me into moving in… Well, it’s helped me be less angry. It’s helped me heal a little so that I can see all the work I still have to do to get over it. How I need to forgive myself for the mistakes I made so I can start working on forgiving other people. Because I don’t want to be mad inside. Does that make sense?”

Chris nodded, sniffling. Then he lunged at Buck, and Buck accepted the bear hug. He took his seat, this time with Chris in his lap.

When Chris seemed a little calmer. Dr. C asked, “How are you feeling, Christopher?”

“I’m okay, Dr. Maria. But…” He hesitated.

“It’s all right, you can say whatever you need to say.”

“I think maybe I need to talk to someone like you so I don’t become scared inside all the time.”

Buck bit his lip and tried not to cry.

“I think that’s really brave to be able to say. How about between me and Dr. Thomas we come up with a list of people we think you might get along well with, and then you can meet them and see who makes you feel comfortable?”

Chris nodded and rested against Buck’s chest. “But first help Bucky. This is his doctor’s appointment, then I’ll take the referral, Dr. Maria.”

“You’re really freaking charming, kiddo. If I still worked with pediatric patients, I’d be offering you my card. But Buck’s about as young as I can stand,” she said with wink.

Chris laughed.

Dr. C looked back to Buck. “I think that was good, even if it sucked for two of you.”

Buck made a face. “You always say that about the most unpleasant things.”

“It means you’ve made good progress, and I’m giving you a gold star.”

Buck rolled his eyes but appreciated her ability to lighten the situation.

“What else would you like to discuss?”

Maddie was heavily on his mind, but he really couldn’t have that conversation with Chris present.

After a beat of silence, Chris offered, “You’re supposed to talk about your last shift with the 118.”

“Wow, are you keeping me on task?” Buck asked on a laugh.

“Someone has to.”

“The burn is real.” He shared a smile with Dr. Copeland.

“I like the solid redirect, Christopher,” Dr. Copeland said. “So, Buck. How was the last shift?”

“Easier than I was expecting, but still not easy, I guess.”

“How was it easier than you were expecting?”

“I think the hard part came from the stuff that precipitated the transfer to the engine and giving my resignation, which unexpectedly came up here today. I didn’t like riding on a different apparatus from Eddie for our last few shifts, but it kind of got me used to not working directly with him every day. I mean, of course I’m going to be anxious for us to be partners again but, I dunno… The way everything went down was like taking the departure in phases, so the goodbye wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be.”

“That sounds like it was about the whole experience, the whole team. What about Bobby in particular?”

“Eh. That was rough. We’re having dinner on Thursday, clear the air and try to mend fences. I realized the other day that, as much as I love the whole team at the 118, if another captain had come in to permanently replace Bobby, I’d have left a long time ago. The big lure for me was Eddie and Bobby. I know I’ll have Eddie in my life no matter what.”

Christopher pressed a little closer to him, and Buck tightened his arm in reassurance.

“But I wasn’t ever as confident about Bobby.”

“Do you have any clarity why that might be?”

“I certainly have more clearly defined personal relationship with Eddie that has nothing to do with work. Our friendship is not job dependent. I guess I was never quite sure where I stood with Bobby. I hoped, but I didn’t know. Uncertainty is a bi—, uh. Uncertainty is terrible. And, as we’ve already established, emotional reasoning is my jam.”

“Over the last few months, you’ve expressed a lot of hesitation about making this change because of Bobby. Has anything altered on that front or has something given you hope you didn’t have before?”

Buck thought about that for a second. “It helped that he’s kept to the boundaries I set about my last few shifts—not pushing the personal discussion. But then practically the minute my last shift was over, he asked if we could set up that time to talk. I guess that made me feel that our relationship was valuable to him…? Maybe. That’s the way I’m interpreting it in my head.”

“It sounds like you’ve picked up some good insight into that situation. Anything else besides him respecting your boundaries but still clearly wanting to be a part of your life?”

“I guess I realized I’d be okay no matter how things went with Bobby. I want it to work out, but the stuff that really matters—I’ve already got that.” He squeezed Christopher a little tighter.

Christopher turned in Buck’s arms so he could hug him around the neck, and he didn’t move from that position for the rest of the short time Buck and Dr. Copeland talked about Buck’s plans for the future.

Chapter Twelve

“You’re kind of quiet, bud. Did my session upset you?”

Chris put down his fork and looked Buck square in the eye. “I feel like I always have to be okay.”

Buck’s eyebrows shot up. “All right. Why do you feel that way?”

“Everyone calls me angel and sunshine and stuff like that. And they talk about how I never let anything get me down, but stuff does get me down.” He frowned at his plate. “Am I allowed to be not-okay?”

“Yes.”

“Even with you and Dad?”

“Especially with me and your dad. You’re not obligated to pretend with anyone, Chris. You’re not anyone’s emotional touchstone. You’re Christopher Diaz, human being who has feelings. Who gets sad and scared and angry, right along with happy and brave. When I call you my shining star, it’s because you’re like… Hm. What’s the sun’s characteristic of the solar system?”

Chris frowned. “It’s the center. Everything revolves— Oh.” He bit his lip.

“You’re my center, okay. But you’d be the heart of me even if you were sad, Chris. Someday, there’s going to be hormonal Chris, and you’ll still be Christopher Diaz, the main star in constellation Diaz. But the sun has solar flares, you know. No one expects the sun to behave. We have contingency plans and everything for when it’s acting up.”

Chris laughed. “You’re so weird, but I love you a lot.”

“I love you too.”

“So, I don’t have to be some…symbol?”

“Ugh. Gross. If people put you high enough on a pedestal, you’d start to become afraid of heights. Also, it’s lonely up there. It’s more fun being real, right?”

He nodded. “Mallory made my toenails glitter purple, and I like them. She gave me a noogie and called me a twerp.”

“Was that all fun for you?”

He nodded again.

“You want me to call Emma and see if she’s up for an impromptu movie?”

Chris looked up sharply. “Would you?”

“Absolutely. But don’t think we’re not revising this. And you have to talk to your dad about it too.”

Chris made a face.

“Nope, no avoiding serious discussions with your father. Eddie loves you for you, and he needs to know if you’re feeling like you can’t express how you feel around your family because you think you’re some sort of guiding light.”

“And Dad won’t be mad at me?”

“Not even a little. Eddie knows something is going on with you, bud, but he just wants you to be happy and healthy. Not for him, but for yourself. A happy person is sometimes sad, and they’re sometimes angry. He knows that very well.”

“And sometimes scared?”

“Yeah. Scared is a hard one for some people to deal with. You took a big step in admitting you want to talk to someone, and we’re going to make that happen as soon as possible, but I want you to know that you can always talk to me. Even if you want me to just sit and listen and not say anything.”

“That’d be okay?”

“Yes. Sometimes you just want to be heard, not fixed. And if you need that, you can tell me you want to be heard for a little while.”

Chris nodded but seemed pensive and not inclined to talk anymore.

“How about I text Emma?”

“Yeah.” Chris’ smile was small, but it was genuine.

~*~

Emma passed him a cup of tea then sat at the kitchen table. Chris and Mallory were watching some TV show they both liked, and Blake was in the room with them but focusing more on whatever was on Snapchat.

“Thanks for having us over at the last minute.”

Emma waved it away. “Please. Mallory especially would love to have Chris around all the time, and Blake enjoys it more than she lets on. And I’m not mad about getting to spend more time with you.” Her gaze went distant. “The five of us share a unique experience. Our men worked that day, so they know what it was like, but they also can never really know. Does that make sense?”

Her phrasing—our men—made his stomach flip over a little, but he didn’t poke at it. “No, I get what you mean. Having been in both sides of a natural disaster, it’s different to work it versus be caught in it.”

She nodded. “Mallory especially has wanted someone she can relate to who has been there. Who gets that sometimes you get lost in your head with the memories. It’s easier for Blake to talk to me.”

“I’m starting to think Chris struggles with feeling like he has to be on all the time. I don’t know anyone close to him who feels that way, but he’s internalizing something, somewhere. I wonder how much was him learning to always pretend he was okay, even when he wasn’t. Maybe he’ll be able to admit to Mallory where he’s struggling. Although…” he made a face.

“What?”

“I do worry that one of the big things he’s pretending about is that he’s okay over Eddie being shot. That’s probably a heavy topic for Mallory.”

“Not even. You don’t know, Buck.” Emma sighed. “When the shootings were happening, Mallory wanted Ray to stop going to work. In fact, there was a tantrum the likes of which I haven’t seen since she was four. They know Eddie was the first victim. In fact, they saw you on the news and Mallory cried and cried that she couldn’t call you.”

“Oh god.” Buck rubbed his forehead. “I’d have never wanted her to be—”

“No, Buck, stop. You had plenty just dealing with your own kid. Just know that Mallory and Blake care about you, and so they have feelings about the shooting already. It’s not a taboo topic around here. Ray sat them down several times and had very blunt conversations about the risks and precautions the department was taking. We don’t pretend around here. That’s no way to get the girls through difficult times. So, if Chris brings up the shooting, they’re going to go all in on hearing what he has to say, and no doubt validating how awful adults are for not blanketforting for the whole time.”

Buck chuckled. “I mean, I would have if I could’ve.”

“Yeah.” She gave him a look. “Ray swore so much he filled the swear jar over you and the crane, but he and I both know you were doing your job.” She reached out and squeezed his hand. “I’ve wanted so many times to come find you, but I didn’t want you to feel like… I don’t even know. Like I was clinging to you emotionally or making your situation harder. The time just never seemed right. I’m so glad you’re working with Ray now, but even if you stop, I really don’t want to lose touch.”

“Deal.”

~*~

“You sure you want to go with me today?” Buck asked for the third time before they left the house.

“Hell yeah. I can’t just sit around the house. I got a few hours of sleep last night.”

“Yeah, but I know that the shift was stressful. How many times did you go up?”

“Let’s just say it was a busy day for people being air lifted out of their own poor life choices.”

Buck winced. “Eds…”

“You can mother-hen me later. I’ve had less sleep on shift and stayed up all day. I want to see you teach this class.” Eddie frowned. “Unless you don’t want—”

“Oh my god, Eddie. I’m not insecure about teaching in front of you. Get in the truck.”

“I’m driving.”

“Duh. You’re a control freak.”

As soon as they were on the road, Eddie asked, “So, Chris is really okay?”

“I’d give a cautious yes to that in the way I think you mean it, but he’s got a lot of stuff tangled up inside that feels bigger than it probably is. It’s starting to amplify his anxiety issues, which he was prone to anyway. We just can’t let it keep going on.”

“But you think he will talk to someone?”

“He seems to want to. Just give him room to say no to any therapist he doesn’t like.”

Eddie stared broodily at the road. “Emma texted and suggested she come pick him up on her way home from work and he have another evening with Mallory because Mallory has some extra soccer practices in the evenings the rest of the week ahead of a match this weekend. He could have dinner with them and then we could pick him up after. Thoughts?”

Buck shrugged. “Sounds like she’s giving us room to be worn out and cranky, because I know Chris would happily go to Mallory’s soccer practice.”

“Yeah, fair. He’s already lobbying to go to the game this weekend. Okay. Do you mind texting her?”

“Sure. If you’ll tell me what’s really on your mind.”

Eddie blew out a breath. “I just worry a bit about getting dug in with Ray’s family, and having it backfire on us.”

“The bonds there aren’t bonds around the job. We can’t make that go away even if we walked away for a different position. Now that we know about it, now that Chris has made that connection, I think it’s a done deal.”

“I just don’t wan to be perceived as… I don’t know.”

“Sucking up to the boss?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Tell me if the team seemed like they’d be weird about you knowing Ray outside of work.”

Eddie frowned and tapped his thumb on the steering wheel for a minute. “It doesn’t seem like it. Someone made a comment about being glad Ray finally got his tsunami hire, and they were glad he brought a much-needed medic along for the ride. It seemed positive. Honestly, I heard more around the airfield about your performance that day than I’ve ever heard around the LAFD.” He shot Buck a questioning look.

Buck sighed. “Ray picked up whatever footage he could get, drone, cell phone, whatever, and LA County FD uses it as a training aid for improvised rescue operations.”

“Wow. Okay. Yeah, I could see why people would react positively to you, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re okay with us at his house.”

“Actually, Ray has a pretty serious reputation for only letting people in when he wants to. He’s close to a few guys at the airfield who hang out with him socially. My guess is if you and he are perceived as getting close that, at worst, people will assume it’s related to you both being former Army. At best, they’ll think that it says something good about you, not something bad.” He nudged Eddie with his elbow. “And it does.”

Eddie’s cheeks went a little red. “Buck.”

“Don’t make me compliment you, Diaz.”

“Asshole.” But he was smiling, so Buck took it as a win.

~*~

“Good morning,” Buck began with his fifteen students. “We have someone auditing the class today. This is my partner in the field, Eddie Diaz. I need to backup a little and level-set what the purpose of this class is.”

“Is he also SARTECH II trained?” One of the catastrophes in the class, Cliff Conroy asked.

“No and no.”

“Huh.”

“No, he’s not SARTECH II certified. I assume most of you know SARTECH is an evaluation and certification process. The various classes you take can work towards SARTECH II or III, but you need to take the right classes and sometimes in a particular order. Many of the advanced rope specialists in the LA area are not SARTECH II certified because it’s a ton more training they’d need to take before passing the evaluation. Anyway, that’s beside the point.” Most of the class were giving Conroy a weird look. “As I understood this class, it was a bridge and evaluation between RRT and RRS. All of you have passed basic Rope Rescue Technician training. The department wants to know who it’s worth funding to becomes advanced Rope Rescue Specialists. Some of you will even be good enough to skip that and go into the two-week intensive that’s combo advanced rope and water rescue.

“So, this was to give some insight into what to expect from advanced RRS, help fill in any skill gaps, and even for those of you who don’t take the next training, make you better at rope fundamentals. From what I saw yesterday, four, maybe five, of you are ready for RRS. One of the biggest skill deficits for many is your free climbing. RRS trains in industrial lead climbing, and you aren’t prepared for that if you can’t free climb like a boss.”

Conroy was shaking his head. “We have safety equipment for a reason.”

“Eddie, what is the function of the rope in free climbing?”

“To keep you from dying if you fall,” Eddie said deadpan.

“Right. It’s safety related to critical failure, not assistive. The RRS class will teach you the advanced equipment and advanced rescue configurations. Advanced technical solutions are a big part of the focus whether you’re doing a rescue with an A-frame or multi-track lines. That stuff they don’t expect you to know already. But when they get ready to teach highline operations and industrial lead climbing, your free climbing skills need to already be there.

“So, for every planned exercise for the rest of the week, you’ll be free climbing to the top. This morning, we’ll be doing a serious evaluation of the fundamentals. I know Portele, Henrickson, Massey, and Blaine are solid, so they’ll be on the belay lines along with Eddie. Adams, I’ll belay for you first because I think you may be good to go on this, but I’d like to be sure. Any questions?”

One of the three women in the class raise her hand and asked, “What if we can’t get there this week?”

“Then I would recommend you not push for RRS yet. But, assuming you’re solid on the rest, do so after you get your free climbing up to par. If anyone wants it, I’ll share where I climb. You can climb with me, and I’ll help you out—provided you’re not an entitled ass about it. But, yeah, you may just need a little more time climbing before taking the next step.”

“But you need this class for SARTECH certification?” Conroy pressed.

Buck frowned. “No. The training you already have is sufficient. SARTECH focuses on breadth of Search and Rescue skills, not any particular depth on most of them—unless you’re going for SARTECH I, and then that’s deep on the leadership aspects of SAR. I’m not here to prep you for SARTECH, I’m here to prep you for RRS. Seriously, it’s not the same thing. Any questions related to this course?”

Someone asked, “Are we going to be able to complete all the exercises if we’re sore from all this freeclimbing?”

Buck stared.

It was Portele who answered, “You really aren’t ready for this class, man.”

“Well, now that we’ve established that you will be sore, let’s start.”

~*~

“That idiot is going to get someone killed,” Eddie complained, rotating his shoulder as he beeped the truck open.

“He’s out of the class. I already called his captain.”

As soon as the door was shut, Eddie asked, “What’d you say to explain that?”

“That if they’re that desperate for him to be on the ropes, they need to send him through a three-day intensive on vertical skills. For fucks sake, Eds, he couldn’t stop getting tangled in his line.” Buck banged his head back on the seat. “I think the captain thought this class would help him fill in some of his missing fundamentals, except I think he’s missing all the fundamentals except the terminology.”

“Ay Dios.” Eddie started the truck and started cursing in Spanish under his breath. “Well, he sure demonstrated he knows what the SARTECH term means.”

“He must be angling for placement on a FEMA task force. Extra pay and they favor that kind of certification for their SAR teams.”

As they pulled into traffic, Eddie asked, “Are you?”

“Are I what?”

“On a task force?”

“I was. I’m sort of inactive right now. They have a full roster, but the lead said he’d slot me back into the team at the next opening when I was interested.”

“Why aren’t you?”

“It’s dumb.”

“It’s not going to be dumb to me.”

“Ugh. It’s like all my insecurities rearing their head.” Buck frowned the passing scenery. “Chim was really butthurt when I was placed on CA-TF1 during my probationary year. Never mind that I came into the LAFD with most of my SAR certs already done. I dunno. His insecurity was a lot, and I downplayed it on the job, but there are mandatory training days, so even if I never mentioned it, he knew why I was out sometimes—Bobby told his lieutenants.

“I just let my desire to fit in and be part of the team override everything. By the time I thought better of it, it seemed being rostered on a team would look pointed his direction rather than about me. I can’t even explain it. I was so tangled up in knots that it just became an emotional landmine I wanted nothing to do with.”

“Were you ever deployed with the task force?”

“Twice. A Hurricane on the East Coast, and mudslide in Washington.”

“Did you enjoy it?”

“I mean, I guess. Both times were a lot of SAR work, which I find satisfying and challenging, but sometimes the task forces are deployed in anticipation of things that never happen, so then it’s just hanging around. For instance, the Salt Lake City Olympics. They kept the medical side busy, but it was mostly waiting to see if something bad happened for those who were deployed.

“Yeah, I can see the tedious side of that.” Eddie seemed pensive, so Buck left him to his thoughts for several miles. “You were really good today,” Eddie finally blurted out.

“Pardon?”

“You’re a good teacher. I’m not sure why that surprised me, but it kind of did. You’re damn good at your job, so I’m not sure I’d be surprised that you could teach the skills—god knows you teach Christopher like a pro—but I was just surprised.” He glanced over. “You were just really good. I’d have counted myself lucky to be taught rope rescue by you.”

“Thanks, Eds.” Buck felt unaccountably shy. “I guess I don’t really care about doing that for a career, so I wasn’t trying to impress anyone…?”

“Maybe it was a broken give a fuck, but maybe it was just competence. Take the compliment, Evan.”

Buck huffed. “Yeah, fine.”

Eddie laughed at him. When they were about fifteen minutes from home, Eddie said, “Can I admit that I’m way too tired to cook and way too hungry to wait for you to cook?”

“Thai Orchid?”

“Perfect.”

“I’ll call it in, and we can stop on the way home. You still good with Chris staying the night at Emma and Ray’s?”

Eddie nodded. Emma had texted earlier that Chris wanted to stay over, and that Emma promised to get him to Durand in the morning, but after Eddie’s bout of insecurity, Buck hadn’t wanted to push it if Eddie wanted him home. But Eddie seemed too worn out to be neurotic. Maybe that was a win.

~*~

Eddie flopped on the couch next to Buck with groan of relief. “Dios, I’m tired. I was almost too tired to eat.” After they’d eaten, they’d both hit the showers before they were too worn out for basic hygiene.

“I’ve never seen you too tired to eat.” Buck glanced away from his phone and found Eddie in Buck’s favorite outfit. Sleep pants and old Army t-shirt. He looked back at the phone, not thinking about it.

“I have been too tired to eat but not too tired from exertion. If I’ve burned the calories, I’m gonna put them back. And my class instructor had me belaying dodos all day and then doing demonstrations.”

Buck laughed and finally set his phone on the table.

Eddie tilted his head toward the phone. “Everything okay?”

“Just Maddie apologizing for how some of that went down last Friday. We’ll work it out, it’ll eventually get better, but I can’t focus on her right now, so she’s just going to have to deal.”

“That’s fair. You’ve got a lot going on, and your sister has been very checked out of your life for a long time. I know there were reasons, but reasons aren’t excuses.”

Buck stared at him.

Eddie flushed. “Yes, therapy has already been good for me. Shut up.”

“I said not a word.”

He elbowed Buck lightly. “You deserve to focus on yourself. Or me. You can totally focus on me because I’m too tired to do anything but sit here, and I’m pretty sure we need water.”

Buck laughed. “You giant baby. Fine, I’ll get the water.” He was back with two glasses of water and two bottles of tea in under a minute. “Here, hydrate. Since I’m focusing on making sure you continue to exist until morning and all.”

“Damn right. You worked me like a criminal, Buck,” Eddie complained.

Buck sprawled back on the couch, giving them a little more room than Eddie had allowed, but Eddie flopped over into him, nudging at him like he wanted Buck’s undivided attention. Like that was ever a problem.

“We have a rare adult’s night alone, and we’re too tired to do anything fun. We should find that Conroy bozo and make him suffer with thirty trips up the wall.”

“Only thirty? Jeez, Eds. You’re getting nice.”

Eddie scoffed.

Buck grabbed the bottle of Advil he’d set out earlier. “Here, old man, take a handful of Advil and drink a bunch of water. You’ll live to see another day.”

“Idiota.”

“I know. I was gonna ask what movie you want to watch, but I really think it’s gotta be Cliffhanger.”

Eddie groaned.

“Vertical Limit? Fine Lines? The Summit?”

“You are a terrible human being. How can you not know anything about pop culture but be able to rattle off a list of movies that feature mountain climbing?”

“You’re absolutely right. We should watch K2.”

Eddie’s groan was more theatrical than the last.

Buck grinned and grabbed for the remote.

Chapter Thirteen

Eddie woke, and the first thing he registered was all-over achy soreness. He’d had worse, but he’d need a good stretch. Then he noticed the crick in his neck from the way it was laying on the back of the couch.

The final thing he registered was a heavy weight plastered against his side and breaths ghosting across his arm.

Eddie blinked his eyes open and realized the credit on their second movie—Vertical Limit—had just started to roll, which meant, it’d been less than four hours since they started the movies, so barely past their normal bedtime. He felt like he’d slept the whole night on this couch.

He carefully stretched his neck, trying not to disturb Buck in any way, feeling the bones pop and realign themselves in a satisfying way. Then he glanced down at where his best friend had conked out against his shoulder, probably right after they’d started the second movie.

One of the quirks of their body proportions—Buck’s long legs, and Eddie’s long torso—was that, when seated, Eddie was slightly taller. With Buck tilted to the side, resting on Eddie, Eddie was literally looking down at Buck’s head, at the mass of soft-looking blond curls that Eddie sort of wanted to touch.

It felt so right having Buck here with them—with him—that it made him feel warm and safe. He desperately wanted to ask Buck not to ever find another home, but he knew that wasn’t a fair thing to ask.

They really did need to stretch and drink some more water before bed. He could only hope tomorrow wouldn’t be so rough. He planned to be with Buck in the morning, and then he was on a maintenance run with Ray in the afternoon.

So, as much as he didn’t want to disturb Buck, he knew they had to get up. He reached up and touched Buck’s jaw. Buck twitched but didn’t wake, so Eddie moved his hand to cup Buck’s cheek. “Come on, Sleeping Beauty. Time to wake up.”

When he felt the shift in muscle tension that told him Buck was waking, he used the hand he had on Buck’s face to tilt his head up, meeting his friend’s sleepy gaze. “You awake?”

“Yeah.” Buck’s voice was sleep raspy, and he blinked those intense blue eyes lazily, not looking away from Eddie.

Without even meaning to, or being consciously aware of the urge, Eddie was pressing a light kiss to Buck’s mouth.

The chaste kiss lingered because it was as if time froze in a moment of perfect clarity.

Oh.

It was as if Eddie’s whole being was consumed with that moment of realization, and he couldn’t pull away.

Then Buck made this soft, desperate little sound in the back of his throat as he pressed up into the kiss. That one little noise, the return of that soft press of lips—it instantly did something to Eddie’s entire body.

Eddie pulled back a scant inch and just blinked at the love of his life. It was a stunning certainty that he’d been living with but just hadn’t noticed. What in the world was wrong with him? So many things suddenly made sense. Things Evan had said—or hadn’t said.

Then Buck was starting to look unsure, and Eddie couldn’t have that, so he moved in again, claiming the lush mouth with his own, getting an immediate groan of pleasure for his efforts.

He pressed his thumb lightly at the hinge of Buck’s jaw, and Buck readily parted his lips, opening for Eddie without hesitation. Eddie licked inside, chasing the essential taste of Buck.

The kiss went from an unhurried, stunned exploration to something heated and grasping in a heartbeat. Eddie’s hands were moving, going after whatever he could touch—strong back, thick arms, smooth skin. It was so perfectly overwhelming, he found himself biting at Buck’s throat, wondering if he was about to come in his pants for the first time since he was a teen.

Buck’s big hands were grasping at Eddie, trying to pull him closer, as if he could merge them into one. Eddie needed more contact, more Buck.

He pressed back, bearing Buck down into the sofa cushions, laying himself out on top of the strong, capable man beneath him. Buck groaned and arched under him, causing their hard cocks to rub together through four thin layers of fabric.

Buck was so hard it felt like it must hurt, and Eddie was rapidly getting there. He hadn’t been turned on this quickly in longer than he could remember. He’d always been a little slow to arousal, so this was a fucking revelation.

He slid his hands under Buck’s muscle shirt, feeling the hard, sculpted planes of Buck’s chest. He rubbed and then pinched both nipples, getting Buck’s head arching back on a guttural moan as his reward. He couldn’t help but attack the long line of throat, barely able to stop himself from marking that luscious skin.

“Eddie, please. Wait.”

It was like an ice bath, and Eddie started to pull away.

But Buck’s hands were clamped around his biceps, keeping him in place. “I just need you to mean it. Please. I love you so damn much, but I need you more than I need this. I can’t be casual. I can’t—”

Eddie interrupted the broken string of confessions with his mouth, the kiss gentle. He pressed a lingering kiss to the corner of Buck’s mouth then another even softer kiss against the full lips. Without breaking contact, he murmured, “I love you. It’s so much a part of me, I don’t know when I didn’t.”

Buck made a broken little sound and then pressed up into Eddie, curling arms around him, pulling him tight to the firm chest. Eddie let the kiss get heated again, let tongues and teeth fill in missing pieces of knowing—the sense memory of Buck.

He stripped away their shirts and then their sleep pants. He’d wanted to go slower, to keep them on edge, but it wasn’t happening this first time. Their underwear soon followed, leaving them naked and visually appreciating one another.

Their bodies slid together, and Eddie shuddered at the rightness. Then they were moving, grinding and grasping. Buck’s long, long legs curled around Eddie’s hips, and Eddie nearly lost it.

Then Buck was whispering in his ear, lips ghosting over sensitive skin. “I’m so close.”

“Then come for me, hermosohermosobeautiful; I want to see.”

“God. Yes.” Buck pulled him closer, his thick cock sliding against Eddie’s, making his whole body ache with want. “Not you. Not yet. Please wait.”

Eddie groaned and buried his face in Buck’s throat for a second; the request making his brain feel like it’d shorted out. He nodded against the sweat-slick skin then pushed up on his arms, desperately wanting to see Buck come apart.

Buck flushed and sweaty and seconds away from coming was one of the most beautiful sights Eddie had ever seen. He snapped his hips a little harder, loving the feel of Buck’s cock against his own.

Buck’s thick thighs clamped on Eddie’s hips as he arched his head back and completely stopped breathing. Then he was coming, hot and heavy between their bellies, making them slicker and driving Eddie crazy. His ability to keep his promise not to come was only achieved by sheer will and gritted teeth.

Then Buck was breathing again and sagging into the sofa, legs still around Eddie, but holding on tight.

Eddie gave roll of his hips, dragging his hard cock over Buck’s softening one. Buck whimpered but still arched up against him as he shivered, but then he was pushing against Eddie’s chest. Eddie let himself be pushed, let Buck practically shove him back to sitting in the far corner of the sofa. Trusting Buck, he let himself be moved around, but then his breath caught as Buck was suddenly on his knees, pushing Eddie’s legs apart.

A second later, Eddie’s hips were being tugged to the edge of the cushion, Buck’s big shoulders encased by Eddie’s thighs, then Eddie’s cock was half down Buck’s throat.

Eddie’s breath stuttered and he was so shocked, he couldn’t gather his wits about himself to gentle Buck or slow him down when Buck gagged himself on that first impatient taking of Eddie’s cock. Before Eddie had taken a full breath, Buck had backed off, adjusted his angle, and then Eddie was fully in Buck’s mouth and throat.

It was like Eddie’s breath was punched out of him as his abdominal muscles contracted in waves, trying to adjust to the intensity of so suddenly being encased in hot and tight.

Buck just fucking held it. Held Eddie’s cock in his throat until his eyes were watering, then he backed off and did it again. And again.

Eddie’s brain could barely function as Buck deep throated him in a way he’d never before experienced. It was too much—Eddie was already on edge. “Buck…” was all he could get out in warning.

But Buck understood and pulled Eddie closer, bobbing on his dick a few times, before swallowing him down again.

Starbursts went off behind Eddie’s eyes as his balls pulsed and emptied, and Buck swallowed around the head of his cock. Eddie’s brain whited out—he wasn’t aware of anything outside of the wet heat of Buck’s mouth and the aftershocks of the most intense orgasm he’d ever experienced.

When he could think again, his hands were buried in Buck’s hair—something he’d never done to a partner in his life—and Buck was curled over Eddie’s lap, just holding Eddie’s softening cock in his mouth.

Eddie let his head fall back, resting on the back of the couch, staring up the ceiling trying to get his bearings. His hands slid to Buck’s shoulders petting gently, letting Buck set the pace. Buck just kept Eddie’s dick in his mouth, tongue moving gently over the softened flesh.

Eddie didn’t think he could breathe and think at the same time, so he just closed his eyes and stayed with the blissed-out feelings.

~*~

Eddie crowded Buck against the wall of the shower, kissing him languidly. They needed to go to bed, but showering together seemed so alluring, and he felt they needed something between the sudden intense intimacy of the couch and the more profound intimacy of sleeping together.

He could practically feel Buck’s uncertainty, and normally Eddie would be there too in this sort of circumstance, but so much of Buck’s hesitation at times make sense in hindsight. Buck had long been aware of his feelings, while Eddie had been oblivious. The feelings were there, but Eddie was nothing if not clueless at times.

“You know this is it, right?” Eddie murmured against Buck’s skin.

“What?”

“You’re it for me. I wasn’t kidding out there; it wasn’t the heat of the moment. I love you. My brain is slow sometimes with what my heart was sure of a long time ago.”

“Eds…”

“Forgive me for making you wait?” he whispered against Buck’s mouth. “Forgive me for Ana…for putting you through that?”

“Jesus, Eddie. You were always worth waiting for.” Buck’s arms slid around his waist, then strong hand gliding up Eddie’s back. “I love you.”

“I love you.” He pressed a lingering kiss to Buck’s mouth as soap-slick hands slid over soft skin over firm muscles. Buck reacted so beautifully to any affection, moving into it and pressing close as if he were trying to mold himself to Eddie’s hands. “Not either of our first time with a man…?”

Buck shook his head. “Been a while. Since before the 118.”

“High school,” Eddie admitted. Attraction had always been odd for him; he could appreciate the aesthetics of a person, but the desire to have sex without knowing them first was rare. He figured they could talk more about their sexual history if it became important.

Eddie rinsed them both free of soap, appreciating the view of water flowing over Buck’s bare skin. “Now, let’s go to bed since we didn’t conveniently get our act together before a day off.”

“We’re really terrible with foresight.” Buck hesitated. “I’m sorry about earlier. I was so fucking desperate to suck you off, I should have talked to you about tests and fluid bonding and—”

“Buck, it’s fine.” He pressed a gentle kiss to Buck’s jaw. “I haven’t had penetrative sex with anyone in a while. Ana and I did some stuff, so I still got double checked after we broke up months ago, so I’m in the clear.”

“Me too. I mean, it’s been over four months since Taylor and I… Well, I know we’ve barely been broken up for two, but our schedule wasn’t lining up and the lack of emotional intimacy was starting to mess with me, so we hadn’t in a while. My tests are clean.”

Their communication about some things really sucked. He’d totally missed the disconnect Buck was going through with Taylor. “You’d be good with going without condoms?”

“I’ve literally never done that, but with you? I want it.”

Eddie’s kiss was tender. “Me too.”

“Good. Um… Do you want me to sleep—”

“Ay Dios. You’d better not say it. Don’t make me call you a dumbass right before we sleep together for the first time.” He kissed his lover again to take any sting out of the words. “I want you to fully move into the master bedroom, but take it in your own time, okay? If you need space to think or…whatever, I won’t care. Well, I’ll care, because damn if I’m not itching to hold you now that I get it, but your feelings are more important, okay?”

Buck’s eyes were a little glassy. “I’d like to be with you.”

Eddie nudged his chin up and kissed his Adam’s apple. “Perfect.”

~*~

Buck half woke when Eddie slipped out of his embrace. Before he could wake enough for worries to fully take over his brain, Eddie was back, sliding into bed, this time curling around Buck’s back and pressing his face near the back of Buck’s neck. Warm breath ghosted over Buck’s skin, and contentment helped him slide back into a near-sleep state for a little longer, at peace with Eddie’s arms around him.

Consciousness intruded more forcefully a short time later, and he slid out of bed for his own trip to the toilet, checking the time on his phone first to see they had a good hour before they had to get up.

When he returned, Eddie was stretched out on his back, blearily blinking at the ceiling. Then he caught sight of Buck and smiled softly. “Morning.” He held his hand out, clearly wanting Buck closer.

The obvious desire for Buck’s presence made something unsure and unpleasant release even as warmth settled low in his belly. He took the hand and settled easily into Eddie’s embrace. He was so eager to touch that he couldn’t have stopped himself if he tried, but he kept the glide of his hands over Eddie’s skin unhurried and gentle.

Eddie was a lot like a cat being petted, subtly arching into the touches he liked the best, making contented noises in the back of his throat. He curled into Buck, nuzzling his ear. “I can’t regret where we are right this moment, but I’m a little butthurt at my past self over all the mornings that could have been this perfect.”

Buck smiled against Eddie’s skin.

A much as he’d wanted to get his hands on Eddie for years, he’d wanted to get his mouth on him more, so he couldn’t help but start to mouth at Eddie’s skin. The intensity of the sucking kissing increasing to actual marks as he drifted below the collarbone.

“Okay?” he asked after he’d gotten a little intense with his sucking over Eddie’s hip bone, realizing he should have asked Eddie how he felt about marks before he’d gotten so carried away.

Eddie’s cock was fully hard and making Buck’s mouth water. Rather give a verbal reply, Eddie arched his hips up with a moan and pressed Buck back to his hip.

Buck let himself go, lavishing attention on Eddie’s abdomen, hips, and thighs, learning every spot that made Eddie make sweet sounds of pleasure. Then he pulled one of Eddie’s balls into his mouth, sucking until Eddie’s breath hitched. He moved on to the other one, lavishing it with the same attention until Eddie was swearing at him, but his hands were encouraging.

Then Buck went for his prize, what he wanted in his mouth. He took Eddie’s long, heavy cock in slower than he had last night—when he’d been so damn desperate—taking his time to take it in all the way the first time. He loved sucking cock, but he was out of practice. He had to hold himself up on his arms to keep his head at an angle that would allow him to eventually take the whole thing.

As Buck worked his mouth on and off Eddie, his lover’s breaths came in stuttering gasps, and Buck could tell from the tremble in his thighs that he was already close. One day soon, he wanted to get Eddie off and then just warm his cock until Eddie was hard again. Then he wanted Eddie to let go and really fuck his throat. They didn’t have the time for that this morning, however, so he took Eddie over and over into his throat, his own cock rubbing against the sheets.

Eddie’s hands fisted in Buck’s hair, and he started to thrust up, making Buck’s eyes water a little, but it was exactly what he wanted. He felt white hot energy race up his spine as Eddie’s cock pulsed in his mouth, and he swallowed down Eddie’s cum.

His own muscles were quivering from release as he licked Eddie clean while Eddie panted through his recovery, idly petting at Buck’s hair.

Buck rolled to the side and took a second to catch his breath before rolling out of bed and heading for the bathroom.

He heard what sounded like a swear word from the bedroom, then Eddie was visible in the mirror, looming behind him in the doorway, his expression tight. “Did you seriously just give me a toe-curling blowjob and then run away before I could…” he trailed off as his eyes slid down Buck’s body to his softening cock.

Buck felt his cheeks heat.

Eddie slid up behind him, pressing close to his back, lips and teeth worrying at the back of Buck’s shoulder even as his arms slid around Buck’s waist. “Oral fixation?” he murmured against the tingling skin.

“Yes,” Buck admitted, though it was more complicated than simple oral fixation.

“Wow. Lucky me. Although… I feel a little deprived here, Evan.” The words were hot against Buck’s ear.

“Oh?” Buck managed on a shaky breath.

“How soon can you come again?”

“Depends on how turned on I am.”

“How turned on are you?” Eddie’s strong hands slid over his hips, across his belly, to rest right above his cock.

Buck’s breath stuttered out. “Very.”

“How are you with overstimulation?”

Buck made a little whimpering noise he couldn’t have stopped if he tried.

“Oh, it’s like that, huh? Lucky, lucky me. Just imagine… Next time, I’ll be able to get my hands on you first and then I get to think about you overstimulating yourself the whole time you’re practically trying to choke yourself on my dick.”

Buck groaned.

“Yeah, you like that idea.”

Eddie’s foot tapped at Buck’s ankles, nudging his legs apart so that Eddie stood a couple inches taller, easily able to hook his chin over Buck’s shoulders. Buck started to brace his hands on the counter, but Eddie stopped him. “Hands behind my neck.”

Buck’s breath left in a rush as he wound his arms up and back to thread through Eddie’s hair first and then slid down to the base of his neck. Reaching behind another person put his torso in a prominent arch.

One hand left his hip to open the drawer and pull out a bottle of lube, which Eddie managed one handed. “Look at how pretty you are, all stretched out, just waiting for me to touch you.” He nipped at Buck’s earlobe. “So damn strong, so beautiful.”

Then Eddie’s slippery hand curled around Buck’s softened cock, and the sensation was a lot, but Buck relaxed into it, shuddering as Eddie’s hand slid over his flesh. The grip was firmer than Buck normally would for himself, but it was still perfect, and it told him something about how Eddie touched himself.

“Tell me, Evan,” Eddie whispered in his ear, “do you like to be fucked too?”

Buck forgot to breathe for a few seconds. “Yes. It’s been a long time, though.”

“How long?”

“I was twenty-three.”

“Why so long?”

“It’s… I don’t like it with people I don’t have strong feelings for. Too intimate.”

“Mm.” Eddie’s lips traveled over the side of his neck as the incredibly dexterous hand continued to work Buck’s cock back to hardness. “Can you come on cock alone or do you need help?”

Buck made a pitiful whining sound. “Eds…”

“Look at us getting to know what makes each other tick—practicing our communication skills. Tell me…”

“Usually. Sometimes I need more.”

“I’m thinking about how to satisfy your oral fixation and still get to have your sweet ass.” He rolled the palm of his hand over the head of Buck’s cock, making all his muscles jump and tremble. “Do you like to have something in your mouth when you’re being fucked?”

“I do.”

“Will my fingers work?”

Buck groaned. “Yes,” he managed to gasp. The stroking got a little faster, almost like a reward, but Buck wasn’t fully hard yet, so the too-much-too-much sensation made his muscles tremble.

“Is something in your mouth sometimes the extra you need to get you off when you’re getting your ass stretched wide on cock?”

Buck’s brain shorted out. “Yes.”

“That’s so good to know. I’d put my fingers in your mouth now, but I want answers more. When you’ve got my dick in that skilled mouth of yours, do you need to suck me to completion, or can we go part way?”

Buck tried to think of how to answer that, but Eddie’s hand was super distracting, causing fire to bloom in his belly and spine. “Eds.”

“Come on, baby.” Eddie nipped his earlobe. “Answer me.”

Buck shuddered. “I like to have my throat fucked with a hard cock.” He gasped at a particularly good twist of Eddie’s wrist. “And, um.” His brain was barely working. “I just like cock in my mouth—doesn’t have to be erect.”

“Ah.” Eddie pressed his mouth against Buck’s shoulder. “You can warm my cock whenever you want, queridoqueridodarling.”

Gasping, Buck struggled with his knees staying locked.

“Look at what we have to look forward to. The next time we have a morning off, alone together, I’m going to fuck your throat just the way you want, and the way I’m now aching to. But I’m not going to come, no… I’m going to bend you over and take my sweet time with your tight ass until you’re aching to come, then I’m going to offer you my fingers and let you suck them until you come on my cock.”

Buck’s cock was hard and aching and that lightning sensation was building in the base of his spine already.

“When you’re still a shaking, quivering mess, sucking on my fingers like they’re your whole world, I’m going to come in your ass. For the first time in your life, someone is going to come in you, Evan. Should I plug my cum into you? Keep your hole stretched wide?”

Buck’s shudder was almost violent.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Eddie sped up his strokes on Buck’s tender cock. “Then I’ll drag us both to the shower, maybe play with your plug a little. Would that be fun?” Eddie obviously didn’t expect a response, getting all the answer he needed from the noises Buck was making. “Then we’ll get dressed—soft comfortable clothing, suitable for a day of lounging around. We’ll lay on the couch, and you can warm my cock as long as you want. Inevitably, I’ll get hard, so I’ll probably hold out as long as I can, then put you on your knees, hold your head in place, and fuck that absolutely amazing throat of yours. And you could just keep your mouth on my dick as long as you wanted. I’d pet your hair and tell you how absolutely perfect you are.

“Does that sound good?”

“Eddie, please,” Buck managed to whimper.

Eddie’s thumb pressed and rubbed right at the base of the head of Buck’s cock, and a second later, Eddie was shoving two fingers into Buck’s mouth. He immediately started to suck, feeling his whole brain go offline.

“Come for me, Evan.”

Already on edge, the combination of the words and having something in his mouth, pushed him over instantly.

Buck blinked and realized he was back in bed with Eddie braced above him, smiling softly.

“You with me?”

“Mm-hm.”

“You got a little spacey there, so I thought we should lay back down.” He trailed soft kisses along Buck’s jaw, ghosting a final kiss over Buck’s birthmark. “Your mouth is sinful.”

“My mouth? Jesus, Eddie. Your sex talk is lethal.”

“Sex promise.” A gentle kiss was dropped on Buck’s mouth. “You are absolutely amazing, hermosohermosobeautiful. You never need to run from our bed because anything we did got you off.” Eddie blanketed Buck’s body with his own. “We don’t have long before we have to get up, so I want to bask in how happy I am right now.”

Our bed. And Eddie had just said he was happy. Buck felt tears sting his eyes, but he blinked them away and pulled Eddie in closer, relishing their time together.

~*~

Eddie had been distracted to the point of useless in Buck’s class during the morning session, so it was a good thing he was just there to observe and help out if needed. Then his alarm had gone off that it was time to go meet Ray for the maintenance flight, so he gave the signal to Buck and left the training facility for the half hour drive to the airfield. They’d driven separately because Eddie had therapy after his flight with Ray.

He was still pretty fucking useless at the airfield, but at least he wasn’t working today. This was all volunteer time to get used to being in the helicopter again.

Ray had him help with pre-flight checks and various other tasks that were already becoming standard. It was a different apparatus, but the nature of the equipment checks weren’t all that different from what he was used to, so it was easy to fall into a rhythm.

“I hear Buck’s a great teacher.”

“Yeah. He’s rock solid with his skills,” Eddie said, more distracted than not, but he tried to focus.

“Glad I hired him before LA County realized he’d be a good instructor. They’ve considered working with several other agencies in Southern California to field our own course for RRT and RRS to possibly cut down on the cost of farming that out. Buck is probably the most promising person to be the instructor we’ve had in a while as usually people with his level of rope experience—which is honestly weird in someone his age—are not firefighters in any capacity, they’re pure SAR. He’d be a great fit, but I don’t think his heart would be in training. Still, they may approach him with it.”

It took Eddie a few beats to parse that around after-sex brain the likes of which he’d never had before. “Yeah, I can’t see him wanting that full-time, but I also don’t think he should be denied the offer.”

“Oh, they’ll probably offer. Load up. Let’s get in the air and see how we do today.”

Eddie wasn’t sure how long they’d been in flight but there was the steady pulse of Ray’s voice over the headset talking about their kids. Sometimes, Ray asked questions about something related to the job, but mostly he kept it personal since they weren’t on shift right now.

After a long silence, Ray’s voice came over the headset, “You’re much more relaxed today.”

“I slept with Buck last night.” It was like word vomit, and he couldn’t believe his filter had shut off and he’d blurted that out. It spoke to how shorted out his brain was but also how comfortable he had become with Ray. His face instantly felt hot.

Ray shot him an incredulous look before focusing back on the task at hand.

“Ay Dios.” Thank all the damn saints there weren’t black boxes on the helicopters. “I am so damn sorry. I just—”

“Weren’t you two already sleeping together?” Ray asked, sounding appalled.

“No!”

“Dammit, I lost a bet with Em. I swear that woman is a shark. A psychic shark. Never bet against her.” He sighed. “Am I going to have to find another employee?”

“What? No! I just… I’m sorry, I can’t believe I said any of that. Just drop me in the LA Reservoir, please.”

“Well, there was a time when I’d accede to that request, because a cool dip might do you some good, but with nearly one-hundred-million black plastic shade balls now covering it, I’m pretty sure the fall would kill you. I have no desire to go to jail; Emma’s making a pork roast for dinner.”

After a beat, Ray asked. “How could you two just now be getting your act together? You’re raising a child together, for fuck’s sake. Not to mention that you left your job for him. I thought you two were life partners who’d figured out how to be professional on the job; I had no idea you both had your heads up your asses. When you show up for orientation next week, you’re both going to find relationship declaration forms were already in your paperwork because I assumed you were together. Makes me question all my life choices if you’re both that clueless.”

“It was just me, I think.”

Ray shook his head. “I’m not sure how you’re a walking, talking, functional human while being that boneheaded.”

“Thanks, Ray.” Eddie sighed. “I think I’m like conditioned from childhood to be unobservant about my own feelings. Or something.”

“So, why the angst?”

“I have no idea. I’m actually really happy, I just… I don’t want to fuck it up.”

“Then don’t.”

“Why do people say that? I always fuck up relationships!”

“At least your panic over nothing is reducing your stress about being in the bird.” He shot Eddie a glance. “Listen, it takes two people to fuck things up. But in the case of the overgrown puppy who is desperately in love with you, do you happen to know what he most wants and needs?”

Eddie considered that for a second. “Yeah, I think I do.”

“Are you capable of either providing it or supporting him in achieving it?”

That was easy. “Yeah, I am.”

“Well, there you go. Problem solved. Go forth and don’t fuck up. And stay professional on the job.”

Eddie laughed. “That won’t be an issue; I’ve never been a fan of PDA.”

“Good. Now, I want to commend you on having your bizarre moments during maintenance flights. Keep it that way, and we’ll be golden.”

“How about I just not embarrass myself on the job?”

“Hell, son, I’m not asking for that; I need something to tell my wife about.”

“You’re a real peach, Ray.”

“LA Reservoir coming up.”

Eddie sighed and resolved to never tell a living soul about his morning with no brain-to-mouth filter.

~*~

Isaiah joined Eddie at the treadmill, which was Eddie’s preferred way of warming up and smiled.

Eddie immediately hit the stop button.

“Evening, Eddie. How are you today?”

“I slept with Buck,” he blurted out, then dropped his head into both hands. “I have got to stop just saying that.” He looked up and found Isaiah grinning at him.

The therapist gestured to the tiled area. “Well, come on. Let’s get started on your tai chi. I can see I won’t be introducing any new movements today, but that’s all right. The rhythm of what you know will help you focus while you continue that train of thought.”

Once Eddie was going through his warmup with just walking, he offered. “I’m in love with him.”

“I know.”

“I think I have been for a while.”

“Yeah.”

“This is the real deal—like for the rest of my life.”

“Mm-hm.”

“I think I’m happy.”

Dr. Thomas stopped him and met his gaze head on. “Good. You’re allowed.”

Eddie felt overwhelmed. “I think I’m scared.”

“Of course you are. Let’s walk and talk about that.”

Chapter Fourteen

Buck thought this was probably a really bad idea, and he hadn’t told anyone he was doing it except Dr. Copeland, but he needed this over and done with. He wasn’t sure how to respond to Maddie’s emails anymore, so he was taking his cues from her therapist.

Part of him was so freaking happy about everything with Eddie, and he hated that a lot of this crap from past risked overshadowing it.

He fiddled with his tea, his seat carefully chosen for camera angle, and Beverly was aware of what was going on, subtly keeping an eye out from her spot near the espresso machine. He’d told her he just needed camera angle, but she was clearly a worrywart.

The chair across from him slid away from the table and Chim sat down. He looked normal, but also not. There was something different, but Buck couldn’t put his finger on what it was.

“Chim.”

“Buck.” Chim hesitated. “Thanks for meeting me.”

“I don’t really have anything to say, so if you could just tell me what you want.”

Chim was quiet for a long time before he seemed to steel himself. “Everything is messed up, and I don’t know how to fix it.”

“It’s not my fault that—”

Chim held up a hand. “I know. I’m not saying it is. It’s easy for me to blame you, and I know I’ll probably default to that for a while, but I am working on it. I just don’t know what to do. I feel like there’s this axe over my head, and I don’t know how to come out from under that feeling to be the right father for Jee-Yun and the right partner for Maddie.”

Buck stared, thinking it was some bullshit that Chim was coming to him for this. But he figured anything he had to say was for Maddie and Jee, not Chim. “That impending doom feeling isn’t coming from me.”

“I know that.”

“But,” Buck stressed, “you’re right that something is eventually going to get around. I mean, Jesus, Chim, you fucked around in front of Liam Keane. The only reason the guy’s a floater was because his station was shut down and he was considering the multiple—and I do mean dozens—of offers for him. He’s a legend in the LAFD when it comes to fire fighting and fire science, and the only reason he’s not making it a big deal is for my benefit—because I’m sick of shitty rumors about me. Liam will probably keep quiet because it’s what I want, but the probies won’t.

“I know you’re not happy at an engine company, but I think you have two choices. Keep your head down, do a good job, make friends, and then your coworkers will disregard any rumors that start—pretty sure Eddie told you that already, but it’s sound advice. You know how loyal a company can be. Bobby wouldn’t have helped place you at that station if they were going to treat you like shit, so give them a chance. The other option is to cut your losses and go work in the private sector now. I know it’s less money if you’re actually in the field as a paramedic, but you can do that now. If you get fired later for cause, you may have closed that door.”

To his surprise, Chim just nodded. “Anything else?”

“You have nothing to worry about from me as long as you stop telling people that I caused you to be violent. I’m not going to tolerate that sort of outright slander.”

Chim swallowed heavily. “Yeah. Hen and I are— Well, we’re going to mend fences, but she’s pretty pissed. I’m sorry about that.”

“I’m honestly not in the place to receive apologies from you. Though, incidentally, I’m sorry is more about your feelings than about extending an apology. So, if we ever get to that point, consider the phrasing.”

Chim looked startled and a little annoyed, but he managed to push it down. “Maddie wants you and I to mend fences.”

“No, we are not doing this. You will never drive Maddie’s agenda again. If Maddie wants something, Maddie asks directly. At worst, she sets up a joint therapy session to ask. She does not ask you and you do not advocate for her. You and I do not have that sort of relationship, and we may never have it again; do you get me?”

Chim looked taken aback. “But I know you love Maddie.”

“My relationship with my sister is none of your goddamn business. What she chooses to tell you is outside of my control, but you do not stick your nose in it and tell me what I should do based on what Maddie wants. I hope you’re getting some fucking help Chim because you deserve to exist outside of what Maddie wants, and you’re never going to be emotionally healthy if you’re just trying to figure out how to please someone else.”

After a beat of shocked silence, Chim swallowed heavily. “I am getting help.”

“Good. I guess I can’t ask for more that, all things considered. I don’t really have more to say or more advice to give. Good luck.” He started to get to his feet.

“Buck, wait. Did you want to see Jee-Yun?”

“More than anything, Chim, but I’m not at the point where I trust you two to let me see her without it being a manipulation or part of an agenda. I hope we can get there, I hope you two can get in a good place where I can come to her birthday parties and spoil her with trips to Disneyland, but we’re not there now. And the fact that after being kept from her for so long that my last two interactions with you and Maddie have both ended with an offer to see Jee, especially after you didn’t get what you want…? It feels so fucking manipulative.”

“No, Buck, I didn’t mean it that way.”

“Then talk to your therapist about how this comes across after the way you’ve behaved, because it’s not good. I really hope I can get to know my niece some day, but I won’t have my love for her be weaponized.”

Chim seemed almost ready to cry. “Buck, I would never.”

“I just don’t believe you, Chim. The thing is, I want to believe you, so I think that’s a strong indication that there’s hope. But today is not that day.”

“Yeah, all right.”

Buck nodded and left the café.

~*~

Eddie kept a weather eye on where Chris was playing on the climbing cage in the playground as he paid for their ice cream. “Chris!” He held up the treats to show the agenda.

“Yay!”

“Be careful climbing down.”

Chris made a raspberry sound and climbed down with a lot more agility than the last time Eddie had taken him to this park. He retrieved his crutches and joined Eddie on a bench. There was no one else nearby, just a few kids playing in the basketball court a way off.

“Your climbing is getting better.”

Chris nodded enthusiastically as he began eating. “Bucky said my old instructor wasn’t cutting it, and he got a new guy to help out with some tips for how to harness better to support my bad hip so I can spend more time on the wall. I like it; it’s a lot of fun, and I’m getting muscles.” He flexed his arm, showing the teeny bicep, which was defined to a degree where it hadn’t been before.

“Wow, look at you go. That’s a lot of improvement in a short time.”

Chris shrugged. “People, sometimes even instructors for kids like me, like to act like I can’t do stuff rather than letting me figure it out for myself.”

“I get that, but sometimes they’re maybe using their expertise to make sure you don’t push too hard too fast. Though in this case, I can see maybe your old instructor was being too cautious.”

Chris gave a firm nod and kept eating his ice cream.

“So, you said you wanted to talk to me about something. And then after, I’d also like to talk to you about something.”

Chris made a face. “After ice cream.”

“Ah. A ‘don’t ruin my treat’ conversation. Well, that’s foreboding, but okay. Ice cream first.”

It didn’t take them long to finish the small treats and then Chris was fiddling with the forearm brace on his crutch, obviously uncomfortable. “Bucky says that sometimes you need to just say something, to just have someone hear you. That it’s not about being fixed, it’s about saying what’s in your heart and not being alone.”

“Buck’s very wise, I think.”

Chris nodded. “I was going to wait and talk to the new doctor, but I think maybe I shouldn’t. and then I was going to talk to Bucky.” Chris hesitated. “But I think I should tell you. But I just want to say it, I’m not asking for you to do anything or tell me I’m feeling wrong.”

“I absolutely want to listen, but before I settle into listening role, I want to assure you that I would never tell you how you were feeling was wrong.”

After a beat, Chris dipped his head in acknowledgment. “I feel bad about you getting shot.”

The statement was so stunningly blunt, it took Eddie’s breath away.

“It makes me feel all yucky and like I’m knotted up inside. I think I’m scared a lot, but I don’t know how to be okay. Grandpa says big boys don’t get scared, but I’m scared, Daddy. I’m scared all the time. I’m scared something will happen to you or Bucky. I’m scared someone will take me away from you. And I don’t want to feel this way anymore.”

Chris was staring at his lap, not seeming like he was going to say anything else, so Eddie took a spare second to wipe away a few tears he hadn’t been able to control. Then he dropped to one knee in front of his son.

“Me too, mijo.”

Chris looked up. “Huh?”

“I’m scared too, and sometimes leaving the house makes my stomach feel tight, but every day it gets a little easier, I think. Thank you for telling me how you feel. I don’t have magic answers; I just didn’t want you to think you were alone in being scared and confused.”

Chris’ lip quivered and then he was lunging and Eddie and sobbing into his shoulder. “I try so hard to be strong, Daddy.”

“I know, and you’ve done so good. But you don’t have to keep this all locked up inside. It’s okay to be however you are, I promise.”

“Even if it’s not a good day?”

“Yeah. I’ll take you however you are, Chris. You don’t have to pretend or try to hide things. And if you don’t think you can tell me, you can tell Buck. And if not Buck, soon there will be a doctor of your very own you can tell all your secrets to. And if not them, there’s Emma and Carla and so many people who love you exactly how you are.”

Tears continued to dampen Eddie’s t-shirt, but Chris nodded into his shoulder.

They stayed like that for a long while, until Christopher pulled back with a sniff and wiped at his nose with the back of his hand. “What did you need to say? Because I’m listening.”

Eddie bit back a smile. “Okay, well, I appreciate you being willing to hear me out.”

Chris nodded seriously, giving Eddie his full attention, setting his hands on Eddie’s shoulders.

“You see, I’m in love with Buck, and I’m trying to decide what to do about that.”

Chris’ jaw dropped.

~*~

Bobby took the seat across from Buck at the food truck tables. “Hey, kid.” Bobby had let him know Athena had to work unexpectedly, so his evening was free. Buck had jumped on the chance to have a better end to his day than dealing with Chimney.

“Hey, Bobby. Thanks for doing this a day early. Chris is having a sleep over tomorrow night and then through the weekend, so Eddie I are trying to have an evening for adults. Not that Mario Kart isn’t great, but sometimes….”

“I get it. I’m glad the stars aligned for us to do this even a day sooner because, I’ve gotta tell you, kid, I’ve been miserable.”

Buck looked down. “That was never what I wanted.”

“I know that, Buck. I never thought you wanted me to suffer. Now, tell me what you want to eat, and I’ll go grab it while you hold the table.”

Buck pointed out a kebab truck and asked for a big order along with some falafel.

When Bobby returned with the food, he offered, “Word that you’re a natural-born instructor is starting to make its way around amongst the captains.”

Buck flushed. “I mean, it’s just climbing and rope techniques.”

“Well, you’ve always been good at that, but it doesn’t mean you can teach it.”

Buck figured there were a lot of implicit questions in there, but he didn’t feel like he needed to get into how he wasn’t attached to the outcome of this course, so that was probably easing his nerves. He settled for a shrug. “I’m not interested in teaching.”

“Mm. Well, I’m proud of you either way. You’re doing a good job.”

He felt a distinct flush of pleasure in his chest at the words and smiled. “Thanks, Bobby.”

“Look, Buck, I don’t even need you to tell me all the ways I messed up, so if you’re worried that you’re going to have to spell it out, you don’t have to.” He slid an envelope across the table. “But I did write out what I thought my screwups were along the way that I thought you might need at some point to make sure I actually got it. But I felt like what was probably more important today—rather than hashing out every little thing—was that I just tell you that I couldn’t bear to lose you from my life.

“I’m not fine with not having you in my station, but I will take that any day over not having you in my home. You’re family, Buck, and I apologize for all the missteps that made you ever doubt that.”

Buck’s vision was blurry, and he blinked down at his food, trying to get the tears under control.

Bobby’s hand closed over his forearm. “It’s okay; I’ve always known you’re a crier.”

Buck gave a watery laugh. “Bobby.”

“You’re the son of my heart, and I should have told you that a long time ago. I made mistakes because of those feelings, but I want to do better by you. There’s no expectation except that I hope you’ll keep trying to work this out with me because I need visitation, kid. I need family dinners, and holidays when we can swing it around Isabel Diaz commanding your time.”

Buck’s laugh was less emotional this time. He turned his hand over and grabbed onto Bobby’s. “It’s not all on you, and I know that. I let so much go, and a lot could have been prevented if I’d just said stop.”

“You can look at it that way if you need to, but that’s not a concession I need. I’m okay with accepting my fault in this and that it’s the greater share of the fault, particularly professionally. On that front, I’m working to regain people’s trust and let them know I’ll be a good captain. Believe me, Alyssa Calley has me on an unofficial probation that I worry will last the rest of my career. I let something important slide, and one of the people I love most got hurt, so I’ll take my lumps and be grateful. The job isn’t even a worry. You’re my concern.”

Buck passed his free hand over his face, wiping away tears. “Jesus, Bobby. You’re messing me up. I thought I’d have to fight a battle to get you to see my point of view.”

“I’m sorry, Buck. The only battle was keeping myself contained long enough to wait for this conversation. So, I expect cooking dates and family visits, and as many holidays as you can wrestle from Isabel.”

“Yeah, okay.” Buck sniffled.

“And don’t make Athena hunt you down. She’s kept her distance because she said I needed to fix my mess first, but if you don’t come see her and the kids soon, there’s going to be a whole riot.”

Buck laughed. “I’d never want Athena finding a pretext to pull me over and tell me all about myself. I promise I’ll be there.”

“Good. Now, eat your food and then we can walk to the memorial together. I can admit that I’ve never been, and it’s something I’d like to share with you.”

“I’d like that as well.”

“Oh, and you can tell me when you and Eddie finally got together.”

Buck’s mouth fell open. “How’d you know.”

“Your whole demeanor about time alone with Eddie has changed. Since when has beer and Mario Kart ever not been enough for you two? I mean, really.” Bobby’s expression was deadpan. “So…when?”

Buck sighed. “Last night.”

“Dammit, I lost a bet with Athena.”

~*~

Buck arrived home and was barely in the door before Christopher was practically jumping on him. “Whoa what’s this?” But he never turned down a hug from Chris, so he picked him up and spun him around, getting rewarded with giggles.

“Dad told me! I’m so excited. I’ve been wanting this for forever and ever.”

“Have you?” He set Chris back on his feet.

“Yes! This is the best thing ever.” He pressed a smacking kiss to Buck’s cheek. “Dad says you’re moving out of the teeny room.”

“Yeah. Though I figure we’ll probably keep out-of-season clothes in there since we have to share dresser space now. Plus, it gives Carla a place to sleep.”

“She’ll like that. And Dad warned me about knocking if the door is closed, which I promise to do.”

Buck felt his face get hot. They’d be locking the damn door if they did anything serious, but… “Knocking is always courteous.”

“Yeah, you always knock on my door. I always liked that. Outside of you and Dad, most adults act like I’m not allowed privacy.”

Eddie’s voice came from where he was leaning against the living room entry. “Anyone who enters your room without an invite needs to be reported to me or Buck. STAT.”

“Yes, sir.” Chris fired off a sloppy salute, grinning hugely. It did something to Buck that the news of their relationship made Chris this happy.

“How was Bobby?” Eddie asked.

“It was good. We went to the memorial, had a good conversation, ate my weight in falafel. I think we’ll be fine. You and I will still be in classes and orientation, so we actually have thanksgiving off, but A-shift is on duty this year, so Bobby is lobbying for some sort of meal with all of us around that weekend.”

“Wow,” Chris said. “How many Thanksgivings are we having?”

“I think three,” Eddie said, sounding bemused. “Abuela on Thanksgiving Day, Emma invited us over for Black Friday, though she’s taking a meal to the airfield, and we’re invited if we want to go. How about suggesting Sunday to Bobby?”

“Will do.”

“This is gonna be so great! Three turkeys!”

“I think Emma is serving ham.”

“Oh my god! this is the best holiday ever!”

~*~

Christopher fell asleep mid sentence as he was rambling about his plans for everything in his enthusiasm for Buck and Eddie being a couple.

Buck brushed his hair off his forehead, set his glasses on the nightstand, and then slipped out of his room. He paused by the door and took a minute to catch his breath.

“You okay?”

“He’s so happy.”

“Yeah, he knows one of his favorite people isn’t going to leave. We’ve all got bumps in the road still, but we’re better together.”

Buck smiled. “Yeah, we are.” He took Eddie’s hand and lifted it, pressing a kiss to the inside of his wrist.

“He also said this saves me from any more disastrous dating choices.” Eddie’s tone was wry.

Buck laughed.

Eddie tugged him toward the bedroom. “Let’s make an early night of it.”

“That sound promising…”

“We can do as much or as little as you want, but I find myself suddenly skin hungry all the time. Besides, I need to tell you something.”

“Good something?”

“Eh.”

Buck frowned and followed Eddie. Despite the ominous statement, Eddie locked the door.

They went through their nighttime routine efficiently, except they both went to bed naked.

Eddie curled around Buck’s back and took a deep breath. “So, hear me out.”

“Oh god.”

“It’s not that… I told Ray we were in a relationship.”

“What?”

“I couldn’t help it! I was so addled and dazed from the amazing sex that when he asked me why I was so relaxed, I just blurted out that we’d slept together.”

“What?!”

“To be fair, he already thought we were sleeping together and said we were always going to find disclosure forms in our paperwork on Monday. So he didn’t really care except that he now thinks we’re both idiots. I asked him to throw me in the LA Reservoir.”

“On all that plastic?”

Eddie huffed.

Buck couldn’t help it, he burst out laughing. “I can’t believe you.”

Eddie rolled him onto his back, looming over him. “Laugh it up, Buckley. But you’re going to have to go on shift with him some day too.”

Buck’s lips twitched. “I really don’t care, but I think you do.” He kept fighting chuckles. “I can’t believe he really thought we were already together.”

“Yeah, and I guess I see his point. I think from an emotional perspective, we’ve been a couple for a long time.”

Buck frowned and curled his hand around Eddie’s bicep. “I was trying to move on when I got together with Taylor; it just didn’t work out.”

Eddie’s expression was a little sad. “I’m sorry, babe. My heart was there, but my brain was…I don’t even know.” He leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss to Buck’s mouth. “I’m just glad you weren’t successful in getting over me.”

“Even if I’d been able to move on, I doubt I’d have ever been over you, Eddie. I don’t think you get over your great love.”

Eddie’s expression became soft, and he leaned in for a more serious kiss. It hadn’t been clear when they came into the room if they’d take this anywhere tonight, but the kisses slowly turned heated, their touches more purposeful.

Despite Buck’s inclination, it was Eddie who slithered down the bed and took Buck’s cock into his mouth. There was something gentle and almost adoring about way Eddie sucked cock, and it brought Buck to the edge with embarrassing swiftness.

He pushed at Eddie’s shoulder, called his name in warning, but Eddie redoubled his efforts until Buck came with a soft gasp.

Eddie pulled away slowly, kissing his way back up Buck’s chest, stopping to pay attention to each nipple before claiming Buck’s mouth again. “Can I have you?” Eddie whispered.

“Yes.”

Buck’s ass hadn’t had any serious work in a long time, but he was now bonelessly relaxed, so the prep was easy. He easily accepted first two then three fingers, and Eddie’s pace was unhurried, his eyes intent and watchful.

“You want to flip over?” Eddie asked when he was finally satisfied with Buck’s readiness.

Buck shook his head. “Just like this.”

Eddie slid on top of him, lining up his slick cock with Buck’s hole. He slid his tongue into Buck’s mouth at the same time he began the glide of cock into Buck’s body.

Buck groaned and wrapped his legs fully around Eddie’s hips, opening himself more for the heavy stretch and intimate intrusion.

Eddie paused once he was fully inside, foreheads resting together, bodies joined. He waited for a long time before he began to rock his hips. Buck’s prostate was sensitive from having come, but it was a delicious sensitivity that Buck hadn’t had in way too long.

Eddie kept up the unhurried rocking for a long time, the head of his cock just sliding back forth over Buck’s prostate. Buck’s cock was only semi-erect when he started steadily leaking onto his belly, and Eddie rocked a little harder, keeping up the steady pressure.

Buck groaned and held on.

The orgasm, when it came, was a surprise. Like a smaller wave that went on for longer, cresting and lasting for what felt like an eternity.

He came back to awareness to Eddie murmuring in his ear. “That’s it, babe. You’re so good. Look at how you rode that out. I’m going to keep going unless you need me to stop.”

The sensitivity was a lot now, but Buck just sank into it, feeling replete and sated. The more he was wracked with involuntary tremors, the more he enjoyed it.

“Fuck, I’m close. I’m coming inside you, Evan.” His teeth sank into Buck’s shoulder, and then he began fully thrusting, taking Buck’s breath away with starbursts behind his eyes. Then Eddie stilled, panting against Buck’s cheek. “Dios, how are you so fucking good?”

Buck groaned and twisted his head to capture Eddie’s lips. Eddie readily kissed him, tongue sweeping inside, offering it up for Buck to suck on.

When they broke the kiss, Eddie gave an experimental move of his hips, his cock still mostly hard. “Want me to plug you for a while?”

Buck blinked, not even aware Eddie had the stuff to do that.

“Same day delivery.”

Wow. Okay, then. “Yes,” he admitted, having never tried anything like sleeping plugged, even if it was only for a few hours.

Eddie reached into the nightstand and pulled out a moderate sized plug and some lube. “I also got a larger one for when you’re feeling like you want a stretch.” He coated the plug with lube then before Buck could process it, Eddie was sliding out and the plug was pressing at his hole. “Relax.”

Buck had instantly tried to clench around Eddie’s cock as it pulled out of his body, leaving him feeling empty. He took a breath and then made himself relax. The plug slid home, and Buck shuddered.

Eddie pressed Buck’s legs up and open, staring at his ass. “Dios, that’s hot.” He lowered Buck’s legs. “Wait right here.” He returned with a cloth, wiping Buck down from the saliva and lube. Then he was gone for longer, the water running in the bathroom.

When Eddie returned, he climbed into bed, asking, “You tired yet?”

“Relaxed, but not tired.”

Eddie pulled out his Kindle and lay on his side. “I thought I might read.”

Buck reached for his own e-reader, which they’d all made a point of setting up on the nightstand earlier when they’d finished moving Buck fully into Eddie’s room. Eddie took Buck’s Kindle out of his hand and set it on the nightstand.

“You can read if you want. Or…” Eddie raised a brow.

Oh. No, reading wasn’t really what Buck wanted. He’d just never really had this option before. He slid down the bed and nuzzled at Eddie’s soft, clean cock. He pulled Eddie’s into his mouth, letting his tongue travel lazily over the surfaces, tracing veins for a moment.

Eddie began petting his hair.

Buck relaxed.

Chapter Fifteen

From the backseat of Ray’s huge-ass F-350, Eddie watched the passing scenery, lost in thought as Ray drove them to dinner. At the end of Buck’s class, Ray had said he was taking them out for a celebration. Eddie would probably fly out with A-shift tomorrow, but Ray was playing it by ear depending on how today’s counseling and first attempt at EMDR went. Eddie had disclosed the trauma therapy, and Ray was fully supportive, which was a relief.

The session had gone okay, but it was a little like his brain had been scrubbed raw. He was all over not thinking about it and going out to dinner. Isaiah said he could have some weird responses in the coming days and to keep an eyes on it, suggesting finding comforting distractions if necessary.

Buck and Ray were talking animatedly about something to do with chemical flame retardants, which Eddie would have normally found interesting, but his mind was elsewhere.

Therapy oddness aside, Eddie couldn’t help but think that he and Buck needed a honeymoon period to really revel in one another so he could get past this sex brain and stay focused. He’d never been so distracted by another person—or sex with said person—in his life. It made it easy for him to get lost in memories, half conversations, and thoughts of things planned.

Their sex life was already incredibly dynamic after only a few days, and he couldn’t imagine what it’d be like when they had more time to explore and fully learn one another. They’d done a lot of the promised fantasy on Wednesday night at bedtime, just no throat fucking. Then, last night, he’d discovered how serious Buck was about having his throat worked over.

Eddie barely managed to repress a shiver at remembering Buck’s head hanging back off the bed while Eddie fed him cock and watched the cockhead actually visibly intrude into Buck’s throat. Buck also liked to hold it there, cutting off air. The angle meant they had to rely on hand taps for him to know when Buck needed him to back off.

It had felt like jumping off the deep end into something Eddie had never experienced before, but when Buck had come untouched while choking himself on Eddie’s dick… Yeah, Eddie was never forgetting that moment. They really needed some solo time alone—several days alone. Buck’s kinks were rapidly becoming Eddie’s major kink that he never knew he had, but there were still so many things to explore. Not the least of which is that Buck had this big, almost ideal cock, and Eddie was determined to ride it one of these days. For that, they’d need to get over this frenzy on both of their parts for Eddie to be in Buck’s mouth or ass.

The truck coming to a stop pulled him from his ruminations of their sex life, and he looked around in surprise. They’d pulled up in front of a ranch-style home that was clearly under construction. There were no workmen, but there was a construction fence and signs all over about construction and trespassing.

“This does not look like a restaurant,” Buck observed dryly from the front seat.

“Nope,” Ray said cheerily, “but it’s close to the restaurant. That counts, right?” With that lack of elucidation, he hopped out of the truck, then unlocked the padlock on a construction fence around a house in need of a lot of work.

Ray showed them into the house. “I flip houses on the side. I’m good with my hands, and it keeps me busy and from driving the girl’s crazy. Also, more money in the retirement account.”

Buck looked around in interest, and Eddie did as well. They both had worked at least a few months in construction—longer for Eddie—so it was a shared knowledge and possibly interest.

“It’s got good bones,” Eddie said.

“Yep. Needs a lot of new sheetrock, all new floors, cabinets. But the structure is good and so is the foundation. The prior owner was renting it, and the tenant tore it up. They just wanted to get out, so I got it for a steal.”

“Hm.” Eddie looked around a little more. “A couple months of daytime work on your off days and you’ll have it ready. But why are we looking at your hobby?”

“I have several. This one hasn’t been started yet, and it’s a low priority. Thing is, I know you two want to live closer to the airfield. I know you’ve both worked construction, so you’re ahead of where I was when I started flipping—pro tip: never do your own electrical. I’ll sell it to you for my cost to date if you wanted to take it on.” Ray named the price, and it was so reasonable that it made Buck’s mouth drop.

“Are you for real?” Eddie asked.

“Yep. Like I said, got more projects than I know what to do with, and Em wouldn’t mind me being out from under one of them, especially if it was going to Buck.”

Buck flushed.

“The other thing is that we have a guest house behind the pool. We don’t rent it out long-term because we figure Em’s mom is going to retire into it someday, but you two are welcome to rent it if you want. It’s only three blocks from this place. The guesthouse is only a two bedroom, and the kitchen is small, but I think you could have this place ready in a few months. Rent with utilities is $1200.”

“And we’d save so much time commuting,” Buck murmured, looking around.

“You two talk and then come meet me in the truck so we can get dinner. You don’t need to give me a final answer today or anything.”

“Wait here,” Eddie murmured as he jogged after Ray. “Ray!”

Ray pivoted in place and waited, one eyebrow arched.

“Tell me why.”

“You keep thinking the job is about what Evan did for my family. It’s not. He came to my attention because of that. This, however, is. And it’s a sad offering in light of what he did because it’s a small thing that costs me nothing, but I hope it brings something to your lives that in some way shows my appreciation for what Evan Buckley has brought to mine. I wouldn’t even charge you two rent on the guest house except I know he won’t accept if I don’t.”

“The rent is so fucking low, Ray.”

“Eh. I’ve got lots of arguments for why it shouldn’t be any higher. Not the least of which is that I usually don’t rent it at all. You two are building something new and beautiful. I wish for you a fraction of the joy Em and I have. Maybe someday, you’ll be in a position to pass it on and help the person who saved your family.”

Eddie blinked and looked away. “The person who saved my family is inside.” He blew out a breath. “But I hear you. Unless Buck throws up a major objection, we’ll accept.”

“Good man.” He peered at Eddie. “You doing okay?”

Eddie made a vague gesture to his head, indicating therapy had been rough. Ray also knew Eddie planned to join Ray’s support group for vets once he was a little further along in his individual work with Dr. Thomas.

“I get it. I’ve done the work myself. I felt like a had a cold for two days afterward. That’s why I didn’t schedule you on tomorrow. But if you wake up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, feel free to come to the airfield.”

“Ray.”

The eyebrow went up again.

“Thank you.”

“You can thank me if I ever save your ass on the job. Don’t thank me for this.”

~*~

“I can’t believe we’re buying a house,” Buck murmured, feeling shell shocked as they left to head home and relieve Carla, who had agreed to stay through the evening so they could have dinner with Ray.

“Let’s not tell Chris until the ink is dry on the purchase paperwork. I just don’t want to get his hopes up if it falls through.”

“Yeah, I get it. It’s still pretty surreal.”

“Damn right. When do you want to move?”

“You’re month-to-month now, right?”

“Yeah. The landlord has been keeping it without a new lease, probably in the hopes of raising the rent as soon as the market will tolerate it.”

“Ugh. How about we move thirty days after the mortgage paperwork is signed?”

“Deal.”

“Well, that was easy,” Buck said with a laugh.

“We’ll probably actually move sooner because this drive is for the birds, but we’ll have a leisurely move window if we give notice the day we finalize the purchase.”

“True.”

Eddie reached out and took Buck’s hand. “Hey. You okay with everything?”

“I thought we just agreed to buy the house.”

“No, I mean us. Like the progression of everything. We’re not pushing too hard, right?”

Buck couldn’t parse that. “Well, buying a house is pushing pretty hard, and we just agreed we were both on board.”

“Okay, to be blunt, I meant the way our sex life is progressing.”

“Oh!” Buck felt his cheeks heat. “Yes, of course. I should be asking you that since I feel like I steamrolled you with my kinks.”

“Is ‘steamrolled’ another way of saying turned me on so bad I nearly came like a teenager?”

Buck laughed, feeling the tension release. “Sorry, I just have never had anyone really tolerate my oral fixation all that well.”

“I don’t even know what to say to that. Have you dated a lot of fools?”

“I get why, honestly,” Buck admitted. He’d had some in-depth conversations about sex boundaries with several of his female partners, and most of them just weren’t interested in his degree of oral kinks. “It comes down to a mismatch around a variety of things that don’t even have to do with sex.”

“I guess, but I’m just incredibly turned on and pleased.” After a beat, Eddie asked, “Would you have told me? I mean, of your own volition talked to me about it if I hadn’t chased you into the bathroom?”

“And asked me a bunch of pointed questions with your hand on my dick? I don’t know. I hadn’t planned to tell you so much so quickly, but you seemed into it.”

“Oh, I am. You said so much ‘already.’ Is there more?”

Buck rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, yeah.”

“Just tell me, babe. I’m not gonna flip out, and I know you well enough to know that if I’m not into it, that you’re not going to hold it against me.”

“Well, I assume you figured out one of them already. By the nature of our conversation the other night and how I’d tap out if I needed air, you must have figured out that it’s, uh…”

“A form of erotic asphyxiation? I’ll admit, it took me longer than it should have to get it, but it did register.”

“I prefer to use something in my throat to block air short-term rather than any sort of mechanical strangulation.”

“Good. I’m not down for actual strangulation. I wouldn’t object to putting a hand around your throat, but not actual pressure.”

“That’d be hot. Agreed, though. No force.”

“What else?”

Buck blew out a breath. “I’m almost as into rimming as I am into giving head.”

Eddie seemed to go offline, just blinking at the road as he navigated traffic.

“Problem?”

“No. Just wondering how I’m going to get through family dinner with that on my mind.”

Buck snorted a laughed. “Eds.”

“No, seriously, Buck, you can’t just tell me things like that!”

“You asked!”

Eddie huffed. “We hadn’t talked about it yet, but I have a hyper-sensitive prostate, so I only enjoy penetration if I’m on top and can control angle and depth.”

“That’s cool, we don’t have to—”

“But,” Eddie continued, “I’ve tried rimming a whole one time in my life, Buck. Do you have any idea how criminal it is that I liked something so much and only got it once?”

“Oh.” Buck started to smile.

“Yes oh.” Eddie blew out a breath. “We definitely need an adult vacation. One where I can spend half of it sitting on your face.”

Buck burst out laughing, feeling something uncoil in his chest. “What about you?”

“What about me what?”

“Kinks, interests, preferences?”

“Honestly, my sex life has been pretty straightforward. I never knew I had an interest in seeing my dick bulging someone’s throat until last night. That was…” Eddie shifted in the seat and cracked his neck. “I also didn’t know how intimate it could be to just have my cock in someone’s mouth for two hours.”

Buck felt a warm flush of pleasure that the things they’d done had affected Eddie so strongly. “Anything you want to try? I promise if I’m not into it, I’d just say no. I’ve never been a pushover about sex.”

“You… Hm.” Eddie cocked his head as he changed lanes and moved around someone then seemed set to try to reply again. “Last night, when you wanted to try the larger plug, Dios, you responded so prettily to the stretch. I wouldn’t mind trying some pretty intense anal play with you, get you stretched wide when we have the time for it. Maybe even fisting if you were into it.”

Buck’s breath caught and his ass clenched. “Yeah.” He had to clear his throat. “I’m into it. Never done it, but I’m into the idea of trying it.”

“Then we’ll get there some day.” Eddie sighed. “Ya know, whenever we get this mystery free time.”

“We’re not doing so bad so far.”

“I want days, Buck.”

He smiled to himself.

“I’m also pretty into the orgasm control that you seem to just naturally give sometimes,” Eddie added.

Buck nodded. “Denial is fine too.”

“Wow. For how long?”

“Any amount of time if we don’t have to work. If there’s work on the horizon, it’s too distracting. “

Eddie seemed to bluescreen again. “So I could keep you on edge for the entirety of a four day stretch and then let you come right before our first shift back, and that would be okay?”

Buck had to clear his throat again. “Yeah, that’d be fine.”

“Ay Dios. Our next four off before we move, we need to send Chris to stay with Emma and Ray.”

Buck bit his lip, hoping that promise was sincere.

Eddie blew out a breath. “Okay, then. That’s… Wow again. Anything else, we’ll talk about if it comes up.”

~*~

Eddie was sort of relieved that Chris wanted to go to bed early. Normally, he didn’t on Fridays, but he’d had a busy social calendar lately, plus he was getting up early to go with Emma and Mallory for the day to cheer at Mallory’s soccer game.

Buck said goodnight first and left Eddie to put Chris to bed.

They talked softly about their day, which they did sometimes instead of a story. It had become the more grown-up version of bedtime story. Afterward, Chris sleepily said, “I told Carla I’m happy now, so I didn’t think I needed the therapist, but she said you have to do the work to maintain it.”

“That’s absolutely true. I’m going to keep going to therapy because I like being happy.”

“Me too.” Chris yawned. “Night, Dad.”

“Night, buddy.” He kissed Christopher’s forehead, checked to be sure he had a glass of water, then closed the door. He took time to turn off the lights and make sure the house was ready for bed. It was not grown-up bedtime, so Buck and Eddie would have usually watched TV or talked for a couple more hours, but there was no way they weren’t availing themselves of sex time whenever they could.

Buck was just getting out of the shower when Eddie entered the bedroom. Droplets of water were still clinging to his skin. Eddie backed him into the wall and pulled him in for a deep kiss, licking aggressively into Buck’s mouth.

“I’ve wanted in your mouth since the car,” Eddie admitted.

Buck chased his lips, pressing another lingering kiss. “Shower. I’ll get ready.”

“You’ve got a plan, huh?”

“I think so.”

“All right.” Eddie took another kiss from Buck’s lush mouth. “I’ll be back soon.” He took a really thorough shower, wanting to be prepared for whatever Buck might have in mind. One of Buck’s large, soft beach towels was spread across the sheets with Buck sitting on it. The larger plug was sitting next to him, along with their regular lube and a tube Eddie didn’t recognize. The plug seemed like it’d be uncomfortably large to Eddie, but Buck had accepted it easily enough with just a little extra work last night.

Buck spread his legs and gestured Eddie closer.

He stepped into the V of Buck’s legs and stroked his hand down the side of his face, letting his fingertips graze Buck’s birthmark. “I love your birthmark.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. It’s perfectly unique, which makes it perfectly you.”

“Eddie.”

“Tell me what you want.”

“I’m already slicked up. Stretch me out on your cock and take me for a hard, long ride. I want my ass on the edge or even off the bed. Legs around your hips, or even bend me in half—I don’t care. Then, after you’ve filled me up with your cum, I want the thick plug. I want to wear it as long as possible, so I got a long-lasting lube that might even work all night.”

Eddie’s cock was rock hard just listening to Buck talk.

“Don’t let me come.”

His breath stuttered, and he closed his hand around the back of Buck’s neck, yanking him into a kiss. “How long?” he finally whispered against Buck’s jaw after he’d come up for air.

“How long do you want?”

“You can come tomorrow before dinner.”

“You might work tomorrow.”

“No, I’m not working tomorrow. We’re going to shelter ourselves away and you’re going to have a plug in your ass tomorrow and my cock in your mouth. You’ll get to come before dinner.”

“Okay.”

Eddie stared at Buck intently. “Anything else, hermoso?”

Buck’s cheeks flushed. “Yeah. I’ll tell you after.”

Eddie kissed Buck softly, tenderly, while slicking his cock with lube.

Then he pushed Buck back on the bed with a firm hand in the center of his chest. They were both rock hard. Eddie usually had good stamina for sex, but he wondered how long he’d last with the way Buck had wound up him with a few words.

He pulled Buck’s legs up, draping them over his shoulders. With a firm grip on Buck’s hips, he yanked him down until his ass was fully off the bed, and then guided his cock to Buck’s hole, immediately pressing inside.

His pace was slow but without pause, doing as Buck asked and stretching him out on Eddie’s cock. His ass was so damn tight, squeezing around Eddie.

Buck arched his back and moaned.

Putting his hands on the back of Buck’s knees, he pressed until Buck was folded nearly in half, legs spread wide. When Buck was fully relaxed into the position, when his hole was no longer clenching around Eddie’s length, Eddie pulled back and thrust in hard.

Buck stopped breathing as Eddie didn’t hesitate to pound his ass, keeping the pace almost brutal, trusting Buck to know what he wanted. Soon, with every thrust, there was a soft, punched out little moan, and the longer Eddie fucked him, the more relaxed Buck became. His cock was steadily leaking, and Eddie eyed it as he drove in with a particularly hard thrust.

“You’re not going to come, are you?”

“No. I promise. Just don’t touch it.”

A want raced up Eddie’s spine. To train Buck to not come not matter how much he touched his cock. He put that urge aside for now and focused on giving Buck the hard ride he’d asked for.

“If I put my fingers in your mouth, are you going to disobey and come?”

Buck looked torn. “Yes,” he admitted.

“We’ll work on that.”

Buck moaned and his head shifted restless. “Yes, please.”

“God, you’re so damn good.”

Buck’s cock twitched and he gasped. Praise kink. Eddie would have to be careful if they wanted to succeed in the orgasm denial. But he didn’t have much more of this pace in him, so he decided to chase his own orgasm immediately, rather than risk ending their plans.

Once he’d decided to come, it was easy to get the pace perfect to achieve the white-hot pleasure of climax in a couple of minutes.

Panting, Eddie braced his weight on the back of Buck’s thighs, still holding him wide open while he regained his equilibrium.

Before he could begin to soften, he slicked up the big plug. The new lube was thicker and had an almost oily consistency. He slid out and quickly pressed the tip against Buck’s hole, waiting the beat for Buck to relax the grasping reflex before he pushed in until the black plug was fully and firmly seated.

It was bigger than anything Eddie would ever be comfortable with, and the idea of that thick stretch in Buck’s ass all night was a mental turn on even if his body was utterly sated.

Slowly, he released Buck’s legs, helping him sit up. “I’m going to clean up. I’ll be right back.”

Buck looked dazed, but he nodded.

When he returned, the towel had moved to the center of the bed, though Buck was sitting in the same spot. “What now?”

“You lie on your front. I’m going to bury my face in your ass for a while.”

Eddie’s breath caught, and he shuddered. “Dios, Buck.”

“I promise I’ll try really hard not to come.”

Eddie felt his cock give a twitch of interest. “I think you’re going to get me hard again, so if you can keep from coming, you can suck me off.” It was an absurd offer because Eddie was pretty sure he wanted in Buck’s mouth whether Buck came or not.

Buck bit his lip and nodded, his cock looking painfully hard.

Eddie climbed on the bed, sprawled out on his stomach. His legs were nudged apart, and Buck began mouthing at his ass cheek, making Eddie shudder and tremble in anticipation. Then Buck went lower, sucking at his balls, licking them gently, aware of how sensitive everything must be.

Burying his face in his arms and letting himself relax, Eddie spread his legs a little further.

When Buck tired of sucking Eddie’s balls, he slowly licked his way up to Eddie’s hole. His tongue fluttered over the furled muscle, almost like little kitten stroke before switching to long, flat drag.

Eddie went utterly boneless, except his ass lifted towards Buck’s face. Buck kept at his work, seemingly tireless of licking, changing his technique and style. Sometimes nibbling Eddie’s ass cheek or dropping down to suck his balls.

He was half hard already when Buck’s dexterous tongue slid inside him. Buck languidly fucked Eddie with his tongue for what seemed like an eternity, as if it were barely any effort.

Eddie was fully hard, but he didn’t want to stop. He couldn’t come from this, but he didn’t want to end Buck’s attentions to his ass. Buck began alternating between licking and tongue fucking, until Eddie was thrusting against the bed and desperate to come again.

“It’s time for you to get me off,” Eddie managed to get out, almost hating to stop this, but he needed to come.

Buck whimpered and gave another lingering lick to Eddie’s hole before he pulled away.

With a Herculean effort, Eddie managed to roll onto his back, his cock jutting up and begging for attention. He glanced to Buck’s hard, weeping cock to make sure he was satisfying their end of the bargain.

“You’ve fucked me out, babe. I can barely move,” Eddie faux complained. “you’re going to have to do all the work. I know how much you like having cock in your throat, so keep your legs spread wide and don’t let your cock touch anything. Let’s give you your wish to put off coming until tomorrow.”

Buck nodded and braced himself above Eddie exactly how Eddie described. Eddie threaded his fingers in Buck’s hair and fisted tightly, getting a moan for his efforts. He guided Buck to his cock. “Suck me off.”

Buck went down on him like he was starving for it. Other than keeping his hand in Buck’s hair, he let Buck do the work, staying still, his ass still relaxed and tingling from Buck’s thorough attentions.

Eddie felt orgasm approaching swiftly, already planning to jerk off sometime while Buck’s tongue was in his ass. He needed that experience. He was tempted to hold Buck on his dick, but he had a hunch tripping Buck’s oxygen deprivation trigger would result in immediate orgasm.

When he couldn’t hold back, he guided Buck’s head in exactly the rhythm he wanted, fucking relentlessly into his throat, until he came with an intensity that shocked him.

When his sense of time and space returned, they’d shifted. After only a few days of learning each other in bed, he was surprised that they’d rolled into position on their sides with Buck gently sucking and licking at Eddie’s softening cock, cleaning him up from his second mind-blowing orgasm.

“Fuck, that was amazing.”

Buck curled a hand over Eddie’s hip, thumb circling his hipbone as he simply held Eddie’s cock in his mouth.

~*~

Morning came too early, and Eddie woke to Buck in his arms, sound asleep. The night before came back to him readily, and his brain nearly fizzled out at how good that was. He slipped out of bed for a brief bathroom run.

When he climbed back into bed, Buck half woke and curled into his side. Eddie trailed his hand down and tapped the base of the plug. How’s the lube holding up?”

“Good, I think.” Buck mumbled against his shoulder.

“I’m going to twist it.” He rotated it, getting no resistance, so he pulled it partially out and shoved it back in.

Buck groaned low and deep.

“You want to keep it in?”

Buck nodded.

“All right. I’ll need to get Chris up in an hour to take him to the Gaines’ place. I’ll tell him you’re staying in bed for the day because you had a long week.”

“No, I should get up.”

“Stay in bed.”

Buck finally gave in and cuddled into Eddie’s side. After a few minutes, his fingers began ghosting over Eddie’s skin, then his hand curled around Eddie’s cock.

Eddie put his hand on Buck’s shoulder, giving a little pressure. “Go ahead if you want to.”

Buck eagerly slid down the bed and swallowed Eddie’s cock down, and Eddie thought again how lucky he was.

~*~

Buck was still in bed, dozing, when Eddie got back home from dropping an eager Christopher off for Mallory’s soccer game.

Eddie got the house set up like he wanted, made sure all the blinds were closed, dead bolted the door, then went to fully wake Buck. “Come on sleepy head. Stay naked if you feel like it.”

When Buck joined him in the living room, he was, indeed, naked, looking a little uncertain.

“What would you like to do today? We can just lay here and watch movies? Talk? Or I can do anything in that range of stuff we discussed, provided you don’t come.”

Buck’s eyes widened. “Yeah, that. Just use me how you want.”

“Then stay naked unless you’re cold, okay?”

Buck nodded.

“How about we watch TV for a while. Keep my cock in your mouth, no sucking no matter how hard I get. I’ll let you know when I want more.”

Buck slid onto the couch and buried his face in Eddie’s lap, mouthing at the cloth covered dick. Eddie tapped his cheek to get him to back off so he could free his cock. Buck followed the instructions perfectly and just held Eddie’s cock in his mouth while Eddie flicked on the tv.

He kept reaching down to stroke Buck’s face, hair, and shoulders, feeling the reverberation of Buck’s contentment in his fucking balls.

The day was mostly calm, yet it was one of the most intense sexual days of Eddie’s life. It was as if he’d experienced his own sexual awakening the minute he’d kissed Buck and they’d fallen off the cliff into the kind of sex they both wanted to have.

In between leisurely kisses and touches, he let Buck suck his cock or warm his cock, whichever was Eddie’s preference. After lunch, he put Buck on his knees and fucked him with the thick plug until Buck was sobbing from the intensity of that thick plug being removed and reinserted. Afterward, there’d been a quick shower before he’d put the plug back into Buck’s sore hole.

They hadn’t negotiated any kind of cock binding, but he figured they would when they were in the right headspace so that they could fully go into Buck’s breath kinks without triggering orgasm when he didn’t want it.

Because Eddie was feeling self-indulgent, he did sit on Buck’s face and let Buck tongue fuck him until Buck’s tongue was exhausted and he couldn’t speak until he’d had some recovery time. Jacking off with a tongue in his ass was everything Eddie thought it would be.

As the dinner hour was approaching, something Eddie had specific plan for, he threaded his fingers in Buck’s hair and pulled him off of his cock, stroking the side of his face tenderly.

“Look at you. It’s time for you to come. I’d though about ending your denial period by putting my cock down your throat, but I want to see you too badly, so come on. Bedroom.”

Buck readily followed him and watched as Eddie spread out one of the beach towels. His cock was an angry red, nearly touching his belly.

“Lay on your back, legs up.”

Buck lay back and spread his legs wide, pulling them close to his chest.

Eddie pulled the plug out, then immediately slid his cock into the loose hole. There was still enough pressure to feel good, but the long period of being plugged had a distinct effect. Eddie began rolling his hips, letting his cock slide over Buck’s prostate.

Buck’s head rolled restlessly on the pillow.

“You can come when you want. I’m just going to talk to you for a bit.” He began a steady rhythm. “You were so perfect today, Evan. The way you take my cock is breathtaking, and, Dios, the way you surrendered to that ass play? My mind was blown. I don’t even know how it can already be this good, and I know it’s going to get better as we become less hesitant with one another.

“You’ll learn to ask for everything you want, just as I’m learning things about myself I never knew. Like how much I love seeing you this way. I love when your hole is tight around me and also how it was loose when I slid in just now. I love how good you were as you tried so hard not to come. I’m so lucky with you, Evan, and I love you so much. You’re so damn good that it aches to see sometimes, and I know I’m so lucky.”

Buck shuddered and came explosively all over his chest, all the way up to his chin, his ass tightening around Eddie.

“That’s it. Beautiful.” He let Buck take his weight. “I’ve come several times today because you’re so damn good, so this is going to take a while. Wrap your legs around me and come again when you’re ready.”

The leisurely roll of Eddie’s hips precipitated the longest fuck of his life.

He sealed his mouth over Buck’s unable to not seek that additional point of intimate connection.

~*~

Buck put his head under the water, trying to get his head back together. It was like being in a weird fog all day. He felt good, relaxed, but his ass was sore as hell. He made a note to himself that he should never do that the day before a twenty-four-hour shift.

The shower door opened and then Eddie was wrapping his arms around him. “You okay?” Strong hands slid over Buck’s skin, the touches tender and non-sexual.

“Yeah, I’m good.” Buck’s voice was a little raspy.

Eddie began washing his hair. “You still up for going out to dinner?”

“We’re going out to dinner.”

“Yeah, if you’re game.”

Buck groaned. But he figured it’d be good to get out of the sex fog he’d been in for nearly a full day. Eddie began massaging shampoo into Buck’s hair, and he groaned. “If you turn me to goo, I won’t be able to walk.”

Eddie chuckled and kept massaging.

When they were done with the shower, Eddie was weirdly solicitous and had Buck sit at the kitchen table—on a cushion—and gave him a glass of water, occasionally stroking hands over Buck’s shoulders and the back of his head.

He took the seat across from Buck, a printout in his hand. “After that last round, while we were cuddling, I finished chasing some links I’d been reading earlier while you were…”

“While I had your cock in my mouth in the living room? You can use the words, I remember.”

“Yeah. Anyway, I felt like there was an undercurrent I didn’t really understand to what we’re diving into. I’d like you to read something.” He passed over a page labeled Dominance and submission.

Buck frowned. “That’s never been my thing.”

“Just read the page, Buck.”

The more he read, the farther up his eyebrows climbed and when he got to the section on subspace, he just stared a blinked a lot. “Oh.”

“I think we tumbled headlong into something neither of us were aware of, and therefore we never really discussed it properly. Before you flip out, I want you to know I’m fine with it going this route. If we want to pursue it, that is. However, I’d like us to slow our roll a little until we can do some reading and talk boundaries when we’re both clearheaded.”

“Yeah.” Buck had to cough to clear his throat. “I mean…yeah. Wow. This was our whole day, yet I would have said this wasn’t my thing at all based on the terminology.”

“The question is…do you want to pursue it? You don’t have to answer now, in fact, I’d rather you think about it.”

Buck nodded, but he knew he absolutely wanted it. He was starting to fantasize about being on his knees for Eddie and the word sir on the page was tripping his trigger in a big way. “What do we do? I don’t want to stop our sex life?”

“I think we talk some more after dinner about what kind of sex acts we can do until we sort this out. I don’t think orgasm denial or plugging you overnight is a good idea until we figure out the limits.”

Buck nodded, chewing on his lower lip.

Eddie chuckled and reached out to extract the lip. “I’m not even suggesting you keep me out of your mouth, hermoso. Just that we have start and stop times and don’t do things right now that send you floating.”

Buck smiled with relief. “Fair and agreed.”

“Good, you still game for dinner?”

Buck nodded, then he frowned as he took in their clothes, which Eddie had picked out for both of them. “Wait. Are we going on a date?”

“Of course we are.” Eddie kissed the back of his hand. “Mi amormi amormy love.”

Buck felt the delight fill him.

Epilogue

Buck rolled his neck, trying to ease the stiffness after the long session with his head hanging off the side of the bed as Eddie fucked his throat and indulged Buck’s love of choking on cock. He was really proud of himself that he’d finally managed not to come during breath play, since that type of thing was a big orgasm trigger.

Eddie tenderly massaged the hinge of Buck’s jaw while dropping little kisses on his lips. “How do you feel, hermosohermosobeautiful?” It had become the endearment only used in scenes or during sex, and Buck had developed a very sexual reaction to it.

Buck nodded, struggling with language a bit. “Good, sir.”

“You were very, very good, baby. So proud of you. Come on up.” Eddie pulled him to his feet and then bent him over the bed, removing the plug. They’d only had about three hours of play planned today ahead of recovery time before school let out. Despite the time limit, Eddie very quickly got him up to their new, thickest plug and kept him stretched wide while putting his mouth trough its paces for hours.

Buck groaned at the empty feeling, hands clenching in the bedcovers while Eddie’s fingers slid inside, checking his asshole. He probed at some tender tissues, and Buck hissed. They’d tried some new aspects to their anal play, which were amazing and added a delicious bite to being stretched, but it was tender as hell now.

“I think you’re good. Let me know if it’s too sore and I’ll put something on to numb it for a while.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Eddie pulled him to his feet and turned him so they were facing. He crowded Buck back into bed, holding him close for a long time, hands stroking over Buck’s back and shoulders, soothing and non-sexual. Then he pulled back enough to look at Buck closely, framing his face with both hands.

Eddie stared into his eyes for a long moment. “Hey, baby. You fully with me?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Then the scene is over.” His thumb grazed over Buck’s birthmark.

Buck smiled and leaned in to kiss Eddie. During scene, only Eddie initiated. Eddie liked the complete control and Buck liked giving it up, but they also liked being outside of that dynamic, so they’d set firm stop points.

They cleaned up and got dressed. Buck used some cold water to deal with his erection. Orgasm denial was one of the few things they stretched out between scenes since it had easy stop/start components that didn’t mess with his head space. He usually knew what the target was for the end of the denial period, and Eddie had set it pretty short this time. He’d get to come during their regular bedtime cock worship session.

They reconvened in the living room the way they usually did to talk after they tried something new. “How was that?”

“I liked it. More than I feel like I should, but…”

“There’s no should, Buck. It’s whatever works for us.”

“Yeah. It was good. You?”

“Oh, I think I liked it more than your poor asshole could reasonably handle, so we’ll definitely keep that limited,” Eddie said with a grin.

Buck smiled and bounced up, feeling energized by an afternoon of amazing sex and not feeling guilty for asking for what he wanted, for seeking to get his needs met. “I’m gonna make a snack. You want something?”

“I’ll have whatever you’re having.”

The house was filled with boxes as they were moving to the Gaines’ guest house soon. Chris could barely stand the excitement. Buck and Eddie had a pretty rigid schedule for working on the new house, but they also knew they needed to schedule time for themselves. Today after shift had been a them day.

Buck made them sliced meat and cheese rolls with a bowl of fruit. They’d burned a lot of calories, so the snack was needed ahead of dinner.

Eddie checked his watch midway through the snack. “I’m off to get Chris. You good? Because no reason you can’t come with.”

He often did, but he wanted to reply to some email. “Go. I promise, I’m fully out of subspace and ready to go. I’m just going to take care of some emails while you’re gone.”

“Okay.” He dropped a kiss on Buck’s mouth, then left.

Buck opened his tablet and dealt with Maddie’s emails first. Things weren’t great with her, but they were improving. She was out of the hospital, but her demands got to be so much that he’d needed to keep careful distance between them. As a result, they emailed more than they met.

Weirdly, communication was slightly better with Chim. Buck had declined to meet again, but he’d said he was open to email. He hadn’t expected Chim to take him up on it, but he had. The emails came about once a week, and Chim was clearly trying to get his life together. For Maddie’s sake, Buck hope he succeeded. They’d never be friends, and Buck wasn’t remotely interested in trying for that.

Chim had said some things that made him think the two might leave the area after Maddie’s treatment plan was done. Chim was looking at opportunities in other cities. The idea of Maddie and Jee leaving was hard, but he understood how sometimes you just had to start over.

He’d figured most people at the 118 would completely drift out of his life, but many of them had surprised him in that regard. Hen especially made an overt effort to stay in touch and they met up whenever they could. It would be easy to become so busy he never had time for people, but he didn’t want that. Eddie was trying to mend things with Hen, but it was a slow process because he gave out his confidences so rarely.

Anders, of all people, had started the group chat with people he liked from the 118, including the probies, Buck, and Eddie. Anders was likely to move to a different station, and Sam already had. The chat was often busy, and it gave Buck a point of connection with his past that he was grateful for.

Bobby definitely wasn’t prepared to be left behind, and literally pestered Buck into cooking plans on a weekly basis, if possible, and they had their own ongoing text conversation about some topic or the other that interested them both. With Bobby came the Grant family, which was good for all of them, especially Christopher.

The Gaines family were rapidly becoming necessary fixtures in Buck’s life, and Emma one of his best friends outside of Eddie and Chris. It was disconcerting how much had changed for the better in a short period.

Everyone was happy, but they were also committed to do whatever was necessary to stay that say, so they all made time for their therapy appointments. Chris had some moody days as he broke new ground with his therapist in Malibu, but he was getting better too.

Buck had thought the hardest thing he’d ever do was leave the 118, and maybe it was, but compared to what he’d gained, it was the easy choice to make.

He finished his last email just as the truck pulled back into the driveway.

Chris came flying inside, barely keeping his balance. “Dad wouldn’t tell me. Did you rescue anyone from the helicopter?”

“We rescued a whole group of hikers who’d gotten stuck. There was one injury, but your dad is a rock star, so they were just fine. And then there was a car that drove off a cliff and was just hanging in some tree branches. That was a little scary because we were rushing to get the driver out, but the team works great together.”

“Oh my god! I can’t believe you get to be in a helicopter every day. It’s so exciting.”

“Every shift,” Buck corrected.

“Right. That.” Chris grinned.

Eddie was doing great with the work, too. Between counseling, exposure, and various PTSD treatments, he wasn’t being triggered by the memories of being shot down.

Their gazes met. “We made a good move,” Buck said softly.

“Yeah, we did,” Eddie agreed.

“We sure did!” Chris yelled. “What’s for dinner?”

“How about we go out?” Eddie said. “We’ll hit the food trucks, okay?”

“Yes!”

“Go do your homework, knock it out, and then we can hit up the arcade or something until it’s time for dinner.”

“I’ll be like the wind!” Chris pulled away from Buck and headed for his room.

“Be the accurate wind,” Buck called after him.

Chris blew a raspberry.

Eddie settled next to him with a folder of papers in his hand. “I’ve been waiting to talk to you about something, and I think now is a good time. I thought maybe doing it with Chris, but I wanted to give you space to have your reaction, not worry about his.”

“Okay…?” Buck frowned.

“When we started talking about the custody evaluator and his therapy, what was that? A couple months ago?”

“Wow, has it only been two months?”

“Maybe slightly less, but it hasn’t been that long. Anyway, Chris told me then that his wish was that you could adopt him.”

Buck instantly had tears in his eyes. “Oh.”

“That’s not an easy process if you aren’t my spouse or domestic partner, which I found out when I consulted my attorney at the time. Even back then, before I realized how clueless I was being, I’d wondered if you’d be interested in being my domestic partner, in raising Chris with me.”

“Eddie…” Buck felt his eyes burn and fill with tears.

“I had my head so far up my own ass about my feelings that I thought maybe you would consider a platonic partnership so we could raise our kid and he could call you Pops the way he really wants to.”

Buck bit his lip and felt the first tears spill over.

Eddie smiled and reached out to wipe them away. Then he opened the folder and pulled two sets of papers, one labeled Domestic Partnership Agreement, and the other Checklist for Stepparent Adoption.

“We’re already partners, and you are already Chris’ parent. This is absolutely yours if you want it.” He put his hand on the DP paperwork for emphasis. “But before you say anything,” he reached into his pocked and pulled out a black box. “I’d much rather it if you’d marry me, Evan Buckley.”

“Oh my god.”

Eddie opened the box and showed two identical rings of platinum with inlaid onyx. There was also a matching medallion. “I figured we could tattoo on rings for work.”

Buck touched the rings with trembling fingers, then the medallion, glancing at Eddie in question.

“It’s for Chris in the event you choose any path to adoption.” He flipped the St. Christopher medal over to show the engraving. Christopher Buckley Diaz, son of loving fathers Eddie and Evan. “He picked the engraving. Said he wants to change his middle name to Buckley to be named after you, since, and I quote, Granduncle Javier is a dick, and he’d much rather carry your name.”

Buck choked out a watery laugh. “Eddie.”

“Will you marry me, Evan? Or—”

“Yes!” Buck said firmly before Eddie could offer domestic partnership. There was a point when he would have gladly taken a platonic partnership with Eddie, but why would he do that when could have it all? “Of course I’m going to marry you, and…” He pressed a firm kiss to Eddie’s mouth, fingers ghosting over Eddie’s face. Then he got to his feet, taking the ring box with him.

He strode down the hall, knocking briskly on Christopher’s door. “Can I come in?”

“Yep, but I’m cosplaying the wind in here, so make it fast!”

Buck entered and dropped to one knee in front of Chris with the box in his hand.

Chris’ eyes went wide, and he stared at Eddie, who had followed Buck into the room. “You did it?”

“Yeah, he did.” Buck turned Christopher’s face back toward him then touched the St. Christopher medal. “Yes, Christopher Buckley Diaz, I will marry your dad and adopt you.”

Chris’ lip trembled and a few tears fell even though he was smiling. “I can call you Papa?”

“I would be so honored. And when we do your name change, I’ll change my middle name to Buckley too and take Eddie’s last name. No hyphenation for us.”

Chris’ smile was blinding, and he launched himself at Buck. “We’re gonna be a family.”

“We were already that. We’re just going to be a little more than we used to be.” Buck pressed a kiss to Christopher’s hair. “I love you so much.”

“I love you too, Papa.” He pulled back and wiped his cheeks. “Can I call Mallory and tell her I’m getting adopted?”

Eddie handed over his cellphone. “After you call Mallory, we’ll go. You can finish up your homework later.”

“Sweet!”

Eddie pulled Buck into the hallway. “Happy?”

“This is everything I ever wanted, Eddie. Thank you for chasing after me that day when I told Bobby I was leaving.”

“I’d follow you anywhere.” Eddie wrapped both arms around Buck’s waist and pulled him close.

“Oh, hugging time!” Christopher threw himself at them, wrapping his arms, as much as he could, around them both. “Mallory wasn’t answering. This is better anyway.”

Buck met Eddie’s gaze in silent agreement.

The End

“I’ve contained my future by holding on to the past…” Alana Davis, Rest of Yesterday.

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