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1
Buck has always fancied himself something of a matchmaker. He enjoys seeing couples–or in some cases, throuples–fall in love. It makes him feel like he’s contributing something positive to the universe. But his latest case is a tough one. The guy is objectively gorgeous, which should make things a bit easier in theory, but watching him through the glass of the station’s locker room is making something in Buck’s brain itch, and it’s not just Chim and Hen’s comments.
“Eight Pack” has dark hair and big brown eyes. He’s six feet of lean muscle and Buck shouldn’t be feeling jealous about all the attention being lavished on him by the rest of his squad but there’s something about him that makes Buck want to punch a wall. It’s an overwhelmingly disproportionate response but it’s singing through his blood, electric. Unfortunately, the man is shrouded in that soft blue aura that means he’s Buck’s next project. With an annoyed little growl, Buck resolves to find the new guy his soulmate as quickly as possible. The sooner he’s out of Buck’s hair the better.
They clash immediately, of course. Buck preens and peacocks around the station, practically pissing in every corner of the place. They butt heads in the gym at the firehouse, in the back of the engine on their way to a call, inside the back of an ambulance while prepping to remove a live grenade from a patient’s leg. Eddie–his name is not Eduardo, it’s Eddie –asks what they’re measuring and Buck realizes the guy is damn near unflappable. He holds the metal munitions box carefully and tries not to get them blown up because that would be really fucking embarrassing.
It’s afterwards, when Eddie calls him a badass and Buck can literally feel himself blushing, that the animosity he’s been feeling subsides. Buck decides there and then that Eddie Diaz is his new best friend and they’re going to find him his soulmate. Buck is Cupid. It’s his job.
2
Buck finds out about Christopher on a Tuesday. The whole city is in a panic, tremors shaking the earth beneath their feet, and there’s a skyscraper leaning at a dangerous angle, but before that there is the most adorable kid Buck has ever seen on the tiny screen of Eddie’s phone where they’re all smashed together in the back of the fire engine. “I love kids” slips out of Buck’s mouth unbidden, and Eddie looks at his phone with so much affection that it makes Buck’s breath hitch in his chest. “I love this one.”
Eddie being a single dad slightly complicates Buck’s job, but it’s worth it to see that look on Eddie’s face. It’s just one kid. Buck can handle finding a soulmate for his best friend who also loves kids.
They scale a skyscraper, rescue several people, and Buck doesn’t think about Abby once. Instead, he focuses on doing his job as proficiently as possible. Then he takes Eddie to Christopher’s school, and Buck realizes he was dead wrong. Christopher isn’t just one kid. He’s the coolest kid in the world, and Buck would do literally anything to make him smile. Christopher talks about his day and the earthquake and Buck answers all of his rapidfire questions to the best of his ability, thoroughly taxing his knowledge of natural disasters. By the time he drops the Diaz boys off at their house, Buck is elated. Finding Eddie a soulmate won’t be difficult at all.
3
Shannon is a lot of things, but she’s not Eddie’s soulmate.
Buck can tell that the situation is complicated, and he got the backstory from Eddie himself months before she showed up and shot Buck’s plans all to hell. Buck knows that they’re sleeping together because Shannon practically announced it to everyone at the station, and Buck has to admire her resolve but he doesn’t know how to help Eddie. Does Eddie even want his help? Buck isn’t sure but he’s worried about Eddie, worried about what this will mean for Christopher, and worried about how much more difficult this is going to make his job. Eddie deserves to fall in love, and this whole sneaking around thing isn’t doing him any favors.
Buck mostly stays out of it. Mostly. He may or may not heavily imply that what Eddie is doing is a little reckless and a lot stupid, but Eddie is absolutely convinced that he knows what he’s doing.
Shannon dies on a Thursday. It’s gut wrenching to watch Eddie shut down, harder still to see him cry. Then the fire truck crushes Buck’s leg and he vomits up blood and there’s the lawsuit, the stupid fucking lawsuit, and he doesn’t see his Diaz boys for a while.
4
Ana is a mistake. She’s pretty and kind, educated, the sort of person who on paper would seem absolutely Eddie’s type. The problem is that she’s not his soulmate. Buck meets her and exchanges pleasantries and gives her his most winning smile because she’s important to Eddie, but she’s not his soulmate. It’s starting to wear on Buck that finding the perfect match for his best friend is getting more difficult with each passing year. He’s starting to fear that Eddie’s soulmate isn’t even in Los Angeles.
They’re standing in the street when a shot rings out. It’s the loudest thing Buck’s ever heard. He gets a faceful of blood spray and learns what actual fear tastes like. Now the loudest thing he can hear is the freight train of his heart trying to beat out of his chest. He’s got Eddie’s blood coating his tongue and everything in him is screaming to move, crawl, drag himself closer to pull Eddie to safety.
Eddie’s story doesn’t end like this. Buck knows that in his heart. He’s watching his best friend bleed out in the street and his aura is getting fainter by the second. Something fast and ferocious and dangerous wells up inside Buck, propelling him forward to scoop Eddie up and haul all six feet of him into the closest fire engine. Buck doesn’t remember what happens on the haphazard drive to the hospital. He knows that when they get there Eddie’s heart is still beating. That’s all he knows for several long hours.
Buck doesn’t truly relax until he sees Eddie smile, again. His aura is bright and he looks exhausted, but Buck is so happy to see those big brown eyes again that he ignores Ana’s lingering presence and hugs Eddie as carefully as he can just to feel the rise and fall of his chest, the warmth of his skin.
Eddie breaks up with Ana on a Monday and Buck breathes a sigh of relief. Something in his chest thaws a little.
5
Marisol hates Buck. She hates that he has a key to Eddie’s house. She hates that Buck is always in Eddie’s house. She hates that Buck treats Eddie’s place like he lives there, too. Buck isn’t exactly fond of her, either. She’s possessive of Eddie in a way that Buck isn’t used to and it grates his nerves, triggers something in his hindbrain that makes him want to cling to Eddie and hiss at her like a feral cat. That’s insane, so Buck doesn’t do it, of course. But he wants to.
Eddie seems happy until he suddenly doesn’t, old Catholic guilt and moving boxes causing him to look at Buck with stress in his eyes. There’s not a lot Buck can do besides be supportive. He listens when Eddie vents and gives him gentle advice despite praying for the end of the relationship. It feels selfish and Buck doesn’t entirely understand why he feels the way he does, why seeing them together makes his head hurt and his chest ache. He just knows that she’s not right for Eddie and she’s definitely not right for Christopher and Buck wants her gone.
Eddie breaks up with Marisol on a glorious Sunday morning and Buck barely contains the urge to fist pump the air and run a lap around the neighborhood.
+1
Eddie’s aura disappears at exactly 1:36 on a Thursday afternoon, or at least that’s when Buck notices it.
They’re sitting pressed together on the couch in the loft of the station, Buck idly watching Chim get his ass kicked in Mario Cart and Ravi cackling gleefully. Eddie nodded off some time ago with his head on Buck’s shoulder and Buck wouldn’t move if the entire world collapsed around them. Eddie’s hair is so soft against his jaw. Buck wonders why they don’t do this all the time and sets himself a mental reminder to ask Eddie when he wakes up. He looks down at Eddie’s head and that’s when he sees it. The bright blue aura that normally rings Eddie’s head like a halo is gone.
Something in Buck breaks. That means Eddie’s fallen in love with his soulmate, then. Buck hadn’t even noticed. In that moment Buck realizes that instead of the elation he should feel at Eddie finally having found his person, all he feels is a bone-deep sadness, profound and aching like a yawning chasm in his stomach.
He wanders into Maddie and Chim’s after shift. His sister takes one look at him and shakes her head. “What happened?” Buck tells her about Eddie’s aura and how his lungs hurt when he tries to breathe and how he wants to crack open Eddie’s chest and live there forever, soulmate be damned.
Maddie rolls her eyes and informs him that he’s in love with Eddie. Buck frowns at her. “Mads, that’s insane. It’s not even possible for me to fall in love with anybody, least of all my best friend.”
Maddie sighs, her brown eyes big and sad. “That’s just bullshit that Mom and Dad told you when you were a teenager. They don’t know what they’re talking about. You have an enormous capacity for love. You’ve got the biggest heart of anyone I know.”
Chewing his lower lip, Buck hesitates. “But he’s already in love with someone else.”
“He deserves to know, Evan. You should tell him.”
That’s how Buck ends up on Eddie’s doorstep at one in the morning after a forty-eight hour shift, six pack and a ragged bouquet of flowers in hand. Buck is pretty sure they’re tulips but he’s not certain because he technically stole them from the park beside his apartment. It doesn’t matter. He’s going to hand them to Eddie and explain everything, how he’s sure he’s in love with the other man and he knows that Eddie has a soulmate out there that he’s already fallen in love with but he needs to know that Buck feels so strongly for him that it makes his body feel heavy with it. Buck is going to bare his soul and come clean about how he’s been feeling for all these years, without even realizing it until today, and they’ll drink beer and talk things over and Buck will come to terms with the fact that he’s not the one for Eddie but they’ll always be friends. One day he’ll have to stand at the altar as Eddie’s best man and watch him marry the woman of his dreams and that’s okay, because he just wants Eddie to be happy. He’ll explain everything.
That plan goes immediately sideways when Eddie answers the door shirtless, hair a wreck and rubbing his eyes as he looks Buck up and down in confusion. “What are you doing? It’s one in the morning,” He croaks.
Buck forgets how to talk for exactly seventeen seconds. “I brought you flowers,” Buck says stupidly, struck dumb with how beautiful Eddie is. He thrusts them at Eddie’s chest and barges past him into the dimly-lit kitchen. The frog sponge holder over the sink stares at him reproachfully as he sets the beer on the counter and immediately forgets everything he wanted to say. This is an unmitigated disaster.
Eddie’s voice comes to him from right behind him and Buck nearly jumps out of his skin. “You’re still in uniform. What’s wrong?”
Buck turns to face him, leaning back against the kitchen counter and frowning. “You fell in love with someone and it’s not fair because I loved you first,” Is what comes out of Buck’s mouth.
They both take a second to really process this information.
Eddie’s nose wrinkles adorably as he blinks at Buck. “Did you hit your head during that last call? Hold on, let me grab my pen light.”
Eddie makes to walk away and Buck nearly growls at him, grabbing his arm to halt him in his tracks. “I confess my unconditional love to you and you’re going to find your damn pen light?”
“I’m more concerned about the part where you think I fell in love with some mystery person out of nowhere,” Eddie snorts. “What are you on about, Buck?”
“I brought you flowers.”
“You did.”
“I told you I loved you and you’re not freaking out.”
Eddie frowns. “Do you want me to freak out?”
“No, but…” Buck trails off, emotions whirling in his chest and his thoughts a mess. “This isn’t going the way I had rehearsed it in my head.”
Eddie chuckles. He gets his arms on either side of Buck, caging him in against the counter. Buck thinks for one terrifying moment that Eddie might kiss him and panics about it until Eddie actually does.
Eddie’s lips are chapped. He always forgets his chapstick in his pants pocket and washes them. Buck keeps a spare on him at all times for this exact reason. Why he’s thinking about chapstick when his best friend is kissing him is beyond him. Buck gets with the program and kisses back until he remembers–
“You’re in love with somebody,” He reminds Eddie, pushing at his bare chest. Eddie’s chest hair tickles his palm. Buck wants to lick it.
Eddie rolls his eyes and leans back in to kiss Buck. “It’s you, you big idiot. It’s always been you.”
They make out about it. Buck loses his shirt somewhere in the process and he’s pretty sure there’s a giant hickey on the side of his neck–over the collar of his uniform–but he can’t bring himself to give a shit. Eddie is warm and alive and gorgeous under his hands and Buck can’t stop touching him anywhere he can reach. It’s like Christmas and his birthday and that first time that Bobby let him drive the firetruck all rolled into one intense feeling of joy. Buck feels like he could run to San Diego and not get tired.
“I’m not really sure what I’m doing with the sex part,” Eddie rumbles into his mouth.
“We can figure it out. Doesn’t have to be right now.”
“I’m not going to be able to keep my hands off of you at work.”
Buck grins and accidentally clacks their teeth together. “We’re gonna traumatize Chim.”
Eddie laughs and it’s one of the best sounds Buck has ever heard. He loves it. He loves Eddie, so he tells him again and gives him another kiss. They end up on the couch in the living room, Eddie sprawled on top of Buck and half-heartedly watching a cooking show on TV. Buck grouses about the contestants until Eddie distracts him with his mouth again and it’s amazing.
Later, when the TV is playing some weird infomercial and Buck is petting Eddie’s hair, scritching his scalp gently while Eddie slips in and out of sleep, Eddie mumbles against Buck’s throat. “How did you know I was in love with someone?” He asks.
Buck kisses his temple. “I just knew.” He’ll explain the Cupid thing, but not right now. That’s a conversation for tomorrow. Right now he wants to fall asleep on Eddie’s stupidly comfortable couch using his best friend as the world’s greatest weighted blanket.
“There’s more to it than that and I know it,” Eddie says around a yawn.
“Probably. But right now you need to rest and so do I.” Buck drags the afghan off of the back of the couch and tucks it around them. “Go to sleep, Eds.”
Eddie huffs softly and falls asleep on Buck’s chest. He’s out like a light. The last thing Buck can remember thinking before nodding off is that this is the best Friday of his entire life.