Steady (9-1-1, Buck/Eddie, M)

[phoenix]

I

Buck is easy to read. Heart on his sleeve. When he's delighted he's full of wild laughter: head thrown back, reaching for Eddie, hand twisting in his shirt, holding on. When he's heartbroken his eyes shine with hurt, lower lip trembling, vulnerable and needing. Brooding, playful, intent— all right there on the surface, pulling you in.

That's what Eddie's thinking about, next to him in the truck after a call, the good kind of tired at the end of a successful shift. He's looking out the window past Buck, letting Chim's story wash over him without tuning in, but he blinks and focuses when Buck's eyes drift upward and his mouth drops open. There's no question of what's about to happen, except— it doesn't. His breath catches, and catches again, until Chim trials off mid-sentence.

"You okay, there, Buck?" Hen asks from beside Chim.

"Yeah—" Breathy, eyes still fixed on the ceiling— "Just... gotta..."

They all wait, expectant.

"Stuck," Buck gets out.

"No shit," mutters Chim. "Anyway, so Maddie and I— bless you—" and he gets the finger in return because in spite of a sudden uptick in the hitching of his breath, Buck hasn't actually managed to sneeze, and now that Chim's blessed him, conventional wisdom says it's never going to come.

Eddie surveys Buck (eyes closed, face scrunched) as Chim goes on with his story, and takes pity on him. He reaches over and flicks the tip of Buck's nose with the knuckle of his index finger. Buck explodes with a spraying, uncovered hehhh... kTCHHHuh!, aimed vaguely in the direction of the floor.

"Fuck," Buck says conversationally, wiping his nose on the back of his wrist, at the same time that Eddie says, "Salud," Hen makes a noise of angry disgust, and Chim yelps, "Jesus Christ, Buck."

"Thank you," Buck says to Eddie, dignified. "At least someone has some manners around here." He's pelted with gloves and pens from across the aisle, and Eddie just shakes his head and laughs.
 

II

There's smog in the air, and wildfire ash, and smoke from the building they've just come out of. Buck's breathing heavy beside him, chest heaving, trying to get enough air. Eddie gets an arm around his shoulder. His own eyes are stinging. Buck buries himself in Eddie's side and coughs, and coughs, and coughs.  

"We should get someone to look at you." He's already scanning the scene. Hen and Chim are working on the residents they've just pulled out of the building, but he can hear the sirens of another ambulance en route, just a couple of blocks away.

"Nah." Buck tries to wave him off. "I'm good."

A laugh escapes Eddie's lips, short and sharp: worry in disguise. "Yeah. You sound good."

"Fuck off." Muffled against his side. Eddie pretends to push him away, and catches sight of the way Buck's eyelashes are fluttering. His pulse jumps with the sudden worry that Buck's about to pass out, but then Buck pulls in a breath and tucks himself back against him and sneezes hard— heh-TCHuh!— into Eddie's turnout coat. Eddie rolls his eyes at his lack of ability to cover his damn mouth, but mostly he's just relieved that Buck's still standing.

"Salud," he says, and Buck hums against him. He keeps his arm around Buck as they walk back to the waiting trucks.

III

Eddie's been watching Buck's eyes slowly slip closed, then start back open, for the past half hour. It's mesmerizing. Buck had been enthusiastic enough when Maddie had suggested they all go out for drinks after shift, but now he's fading fast. Eddie nudges Buck's ankle with his boot under the table, and gets a slow blink in return. "Ready?" He doesn't bother yelling— it wouldn't do any good, it's way too loud— just lets Buck read it on his lips. Buck rubs his eyes with the heel of his hand and nods, exhausted. Eddie leans down the table to explain, mostly in tipsy gesture, that he's taking Buck home. The others nod and wave and tell Buck to feel better— he's been holding it together all day, but apparently not as well as he'd thought— and go back to intensely debating... something. Eddie lost track an hour ago.

Buck is a little pale and a little flushed and a little unsteady on his feet, and Eddie wraps an arm around him, as much for his own benefit as Buck's. He catches Buck sniffling and turns back at the last second to grab a small stack of cocktail napkins from the table, damp with condensation from the beer pitcher. He offers the stack to Buck, who takes one off the top and immediately gives in to a sneeze that Eddie can feel more than hear over the noise of the bar. Eddie's not too far gone to catch the way Buck's eyes dart toward him, waiting for reassurance. "Salud," he says, and he can feel it in his throat but can't hear it on his lips over the people and the pounding bass, but Buck relaxes into him, lets Eddie lead him out onto the street, so it must be good enough.

In the Uber, Buck shivers on his shoulder. Eddie's warm with alcohol and the heat of the bar, and he shrugs out of his jacket and drapes it over Buck. He peels two more napkins off the stack and tries to offer them to Buck, but he's got his eyes closed, breath hitching. Uncoordinated, suddenly struck that he's more drunk than he'd thought, Eddie presses the napkins to Buck's nose just in time for the hih... ktch! ("Salud," slurred in close to his ear), hih... ktchmp! ("Dinero"), and a pause, waiting to see if there's more, and a sigh. Buck takes the napkins from him, and a few more from the stack, and blows his nose, and groans softly. Eddie, uninhibited from the booze and the hour, can't stop himself from pressing a kiss to the birthmark above Buck's left eye. Heat and sweat and faint smoke meet his lips, and he pulls Buck close and closes his eyes and doesn't stir until the car pulls up to his house. Buck makes a noise like he wasn't expecting this to be where they landed, but of course it is, does Buck think Eddie's going to let him climb the stairs to his apartment and then the stairs to the loft with his bed? In this state? When his own bed is big enough for them both, or the couch if Buck wants, and it's all on one floor, easy, and when Eddie thinks of home it's him and Christopher but also, half the time, Buck, in a way he doesn't really let himself think about when he's not drunk, but he is, so his hand is at Buck's waist and they're stumbling inside, into the quiet and the dark and it's familiar, and it's safe, and it's good.

. . .

He wakes, disoriented, to the thought of Christopher— but he's at Abuela's, he's fine. He forces himself to breathe in the morning light, to get a read on things. His mouth is dry and his bladder is kicking, but his head is heavy and Buck's curled up against him and he just really does not want to move.

Pretty soon it's not a matter of choice, so he shifts out from under Buck and pulls the covers back up over him and brushes his palm over Buck's forehead, and back over his hair. He's warm, probably still warm enough to be a fever, but he's not shivering like he was last night. Eddie stretches and groans and goes for a piss and a drink and painkillers, and turns on the coffee to brew. He's not sure he's going to actually get back up when it's done, but he can always warm it up later.

He tries to slip back into bed without waking Buck, but doesn't quite manage it. Buck blinks up at him, eyes owlish, hiding nothing.

"It's still early," he says, and his voice is rough from yelling down the table at the bar last night. "Go back to sleep."

Buck just looks at him, and Eddie wraps him up in his arms. "We're not on shift. We have the house to ourselves. Nowhere to be, no one to see all day."

"Okay." Quiet and hoarse.

Eddie sighs. "You're not going back to sleep, are you?"

Buck looks away. "Sorry. I can... I can try. Or I can go out to the kitchen so you can sleep." His voice is a wreck.

"Shut up." Lips in his hair. Quiet for a moment. "How do you feel?"

Buck shrugs in his arms, and sniffs, and sniffs again, which makes him cough, and cough some more.

"Sorry I asked." He's gentle, apologetic, but Buck looks away.

"I shouldn't've gone last night, I could've just stayed home and then you wouldn't've had to leave early, I just felt like shit and when you asked I couldn't say no, I could've taken the cab to my house, you didn't have to—"

"Shhh," lips on his forehead, his birthmark, his cheek. "This is exactly where I want to be."

. . .

The smell of coffee eventually pulls them out of bed, and Buck stumbles into the en-suite bathroom while Eddie goes for the mugs. He can hear Buck coughing, and blowing his nose, and then— hih-ktschh!, hih... ktchu!, eh-CHUU!; Eddie's lips moving in response, keeping time: salud, dinero, amor. When Buck comes into the kitchen he looks lonely and cold and pale, with his nose starting to chap. "Jesus, Buck." Soft, wrapping him up in his arms. "Couch?"

"Couch." His eyes are already closing.

Eddie pushes him gently toward the living room and takes a minute to force his brain to think. Coffee— check. He gets two big glasses of water as well, one for each of them. A new box of tissues from the closet. A wastebasket to put them in. He sets up the coffee table, then goes back to the bedroom and comes back with the bed pillows and the comforter. He starts out next to Buck, feet up on the coffee table with Netflix on, but pretty soon he's sideways with Buck leaned back against his chest, both of them propped up with pillows under the comforter, warm and sleepy and perfect. The tissue box is wedged in there, too, but the closer to sleep Buck gets, the less he reaches for it. He's almost out when his breath starts to catch again, and he just turns into Eddie's chest, not opening his eyes, mouth opening slightly. Eddie grabs a couple of tissues from the box, waiting. hih... ktchh. "Salud." Buck's fingers tangle in the hem of Eddie's shirt. hih... tch. A slight shake of his head, like that one was unsatisfying. "Dinero." heh-tchhuu! A sigh, settling in deeper against Eddie's chest. Tissues in the wastebasket, and then Eddie's pulling them deeper into the blanket nest, letting his eyes close as well. Murmuring the word:

"Amor."

fin

 

(Also available on AO3.)

Edited September 15, 2020 by phoenix

[MyOwnPrivateSFC]

*incoherent babbling and happy autistic flapping*

WROTE FOR MY FANDOM! YOU WROTE FOR MY FANDOM! MY PAIRING! AND IT WAS SO GOOD! I LOVE IT SO MUCH! SPANISH! AND BUCK BEING SO BABY! I LOVE IT!!!!!! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

[Avocados]

This is amazing!!!Thankyou!

I love Buck/Eddie and there needs to be more fics for them!

 

[dragonko]

I absolutely love this .... Please please please write more!

[darkness-is-the-light]

Oh my god. I just recently started watching 9-1-1 and I absolutely love Buck and Eddie. This little fic was adorable and I’d love to read anything else you write for them. I also wouldn’t mind seeing some role reversal. You manage to get their voices just right. 

[phoenix]

Ahh, thank you all for reading a commenting! Sorry my reply is so late; this fall has been hectic, and then once so much time had passed I felt weird about bumping the thread, but! I just finished writing a new fic for these two, so I figured it was time. 🙂

@MyOwnPrivateSFC Thank you!! I'm so happy you liked it! And thank you for the shoutout in the Underappreciated Fandoms thread! ❤️

@Avocados Thank you! And I agree, I'd love to see more for them. Maybe with the new season coming out people will be inspired. 🙂

@dragonko Yay, I'm so glad you like it! I'm posting a new fic momentarily, enjoy!

@Sophie83540 Thank you! I love the two of them together... pretty much always with Buck being the one in need of some caretaking, haha. Hope you enjoy the next fic as well!