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Buck is irritatingly tidy. How could someone with such a wild, raging mind—a bright, frenetic energy that vibrated off him—maintain such a blank space, free of clutter? The man couldn’t stay on top of bills, had a credit score that was embarrassing (and that was saying something, coming from Eddie), and yet somehow kept the loft in pristine, if bland, order.
It makes it difficult to plant the camera, is all. Eddie enjoys a neat home as much as anyone, and distracts his own racing thoughts with a bi-weekly deep clean, because that was what a good father did. He kept the house clean for Chris, ensuring nothing could be tripped over or would trigger his asthma. But for fuck’s sake, keep a bit of bric-a-brac on a shelf, Buck. Eddie has bookshelves full of keepsakes and knicknacks, a mantlepiece crowded with picture frames, tables with storage built into them that Eddie actually used. If someone wanted to sneak a camera into his house, they absolutely could.
But Buck? Kept nothing—literally nothing—on the shelf below his TV stand. The one and only bookshelf in the entire apartment, slotted to the left of his bed, is in a perfect position, were it not for the fact he keeps so little of import on it. Just a random collection of paperbacks that Eddie’s never seen Buck read, a wicker storage box, and a photo of a goddamn golden retriever, for some reason (self-portrait?). How could Eddie slip a pinhole camera concealed inside an everyday item when Buck keeps no everyday items in view?
And then his ceilings—the stupidly high ceilings in Buck’s stupidly blank bachelor-pad of a loft—would require too much time and equipment to install a smoke detector camera unit. Extra-tall ladder, for sure, which Eddie does not have the wherewithal to deal with.
Sure, he could break into the building’s maintenance suite and haul it up there, but then he’d have to fashion a disguise and possibly make small talk with nosy neighbors about being the new contractor, invent a whole persona and backstory for… Juan, who had three kids and a mother with dementia who lived in an illegal ADU in his backyard, and the city was pressuring them to tear it down if they couldn’t bring it up to code, and—and Jesus Christ, the effort. The risk.
(Even if said risk sparks something inside him, the same part that relished prying the boot off Buck’s tire before that Lakers game the other week. That dialed to an almost orgasmic high when he clamped around the unexploded grenade and lifted it with pinpoint precision up and into a steel box. That vibrated through every bone in his body at literally kicking a man’s nose into his throat… Fuck.)
The cameras snuck into wall sockets and phone chargers would be too low to the ground, ill-positioned to capture the action. Buck doesn’t have an alarm clock because he’s under the age of fifty-five and uses his phone, like a normal person. (Even Eddie, a certified grandpa and technophobe, does the same.) Hepa air filter? Buck might notice he hadn’t, you know, bought one.
It’s frustrating as fuck, to say the least, and Eddie needs this to work. Needs to feed the wolf inside him that won’t stop howling; keeps clawing at his rib cage, threatening to rip him apart, sinew and bone cracked and crushed in its greedy maw.
He needs to see this part of Buck, at his most raw and exposed, coming undone. Literally coming. Because if Eddie is having a psychosexual crisis, it’s all Buck’s fault, and he can’t actually do something about it. Like, what? Ask Buck to jerk off in front of him? Invite him into his bedroom as a third party observer? Because that would be insane.
Eddie isn’t going to risk everything because his brain and body has latched onto a new sexual fascination. Which is a thing that happens sometimes; he’d tumble down a PornHub rabbit hole and watch a dozen videos on some super specific kink—not even something he’d ever want to try in real life. Perfectly normal. Google and hundreds of experts agreed with him, that what got you going privately did not necessarily correlate with real life desire. Straight women got off to lesbian porn. People who’d never in a million years actually get tied up and fucked with a mechanical dildo, well… BDSM porn was interesting, was all! Anything with a taboo factor, really. No one in “incest” porn was actually related (thank god. Or, Eddie fervently hoped they weren’t). Naughty Mormon porn was a whole thing, and what even was that about with the long underwear and Children of the Corn vibe?
And, yeah, gay porn—he’s watched some. He was curious, and it had a whole different appeal than straight porn, where the performative women kind of gave Eddie the ick. It reminds him too much of the worst times with Marisol and not enough of the better times with Shannon. Guy-on-guy has a raw energy, a touch of the uncanny real. If you avoided the over-produced crap, tons of real-life couples, real-life hookups, posted candid videos of enthusiastic sucking and fucking. The moans alone… fuck, it gets Eddie going.
It was only natural for Eddie’s brain to leap from “muscular hunk rails moaning, tattooed bottom” to wondering what Tommy and Buck got up to in the bedroom. Just one of those intrusive thoughts that happen sometimes. Eddie had considered Buck and Taylor’s sex life, too, ever since Buck had joked about pegging, and Eddie Googled the term and… well. Buck probably conjured up all sorts of mental images of Eddie fucking a nun with the whole Marisol thing. It’s what bros did.
And bros kindly and respectfully didn’t share that shit with one another. Eddie didn’t confide in Buck that since his life spectacularly imploded, since Chris moved to El Paso and left Eddie to an empty house and too many thoughts, he’s taken up porn-watching and masturbation like it’s a competitive sport. And it happens to have coincided with his best friend figuring out he’s bi, and dating a guy for the first time—a guy Eddie knows; someone he’s flown to Las Vegas with to see a fight, and sparred with, and played more pick-up games with than he could count. Eddie’s familiar with the size and shape and heft and smell of Tommy Kinard, not to mention Buck, so it’s easy for his brain to jig and jog and spin out into what-ifs. About what things they’re doing and if it was really like in gay porn, and whether Buck’s a bottom or a top, and has he ever eaten ass? Would he like to? What did that feel like? Tommy barely entered into the equation. (Especially now—fuck that guy. Blocked and dead to him.)
Bro code dictates he doesn’t ask. No homo and all that. Or half-homo? A little bit homo? Eddie doesn’t think about it too hard. The gay porn is a masturbatory detour. Doesn’t mean anything. Needing to see Buck come doesn’t mean anything, either. What he doesn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.
Objectively, Eddie knows the whole hidden camera scheme is insane. Technically criminal. (Though he has a key to Buck’s loft, just like Buck has a key to Eddie’s house. If you squint, Eddie has permission from Buck to come into his home and do whatever he wants; mi casa es su casa. And, really, you could argue it was akin to placing a security camera in your home, to keep watch of your family. Buck is his family.)
Anyway, it was temporary. Just so he could scratch this itch. Once sated, the desperation of curiosity would fade.
That was the thing about Eddie’s off-roads into porn subcultures. They wormed inside his brain, rotted him from the inside out until he’d had his fill and moved on. It was barely about the sex at all—Eddie had never been someone overly sex-driven. It was fine when he had it, but wasn’t anything he couldn’t miss for long periods of time. With a partner, at least. Others moaned about dry spells, but Eddie was copacetic for months, even years between relationships. He masturbates on a regular-enough schedule, and the porn is a part of that.
Eddie just needs some Buck-flavored porn, or he might self-destruct.
Then one night in November, while Eddie is shaving his depression mustache and dancing in his underwear, Tommy breaks up with Buck. Suddenly, Eddie sees a window of opportunity. It’s better this way, because Eddie doesn’t actually want to see Tommy Kinard fucking his best friend.
After peeling a hungover and moping Buck off his couch, Eddie’d frog-marches his best friend back to his loft to perform a Tommy-cleansing ritual. They collect and dump in the trash anything he left behind. A stretched-out pair of sweatpants from Buck’s laundry bin. A gag-inducing meat-smoothie thing haunting the fridge. And a framed picture of Buck and Tommy at Maddie and Chim’s hospital wedding—Buck’s sooty face cracked in a delirious smile, Tommy hulking and smirking beside him. Eddie considers lighting a bonfire in the tub and burning Tommy’s smug toad face to ashes, but, no, has to stay on task.
“I’ve got just the thing to replace this with,” he says, jogging out to his truck and thanking baby Jesus he’d thought to grab supplies from home before they left. His contingency plan is proving fruitful. Tommy had moved the dog pic—that Eddie suspected had come with the frame—to a lower shelf, putting himself and Buck in pride of place, in line of sight of the bed in which they (presumably) regularly fucked. Eddie grits his teeth and removes the offending object.
“There.” He slots a fresh picture frame on top of a short paperback stack, careful to angle it toward Buck’s pillowtop queen so the pinhole camera concealed in a textured bevel in the frame’s design will get a good view. This thing even has night-vision mode. Eddie had tested it at home to ensure it worked, that a six-foot-something man climbing into bed would trigger the motion detectors, and he’d fiddled with the settings in the accompanying app to record for the following thirty minutes.
“You need more pictures of your family here. The people who really love you,” Eddie finishes with a little flourish. A ta-da move.
Buck takes in the photo Eddie selected, of the two of them at Chim’s bachelor party, a half-blurred riot of pastel, sweat-soaked brows, and shit-faced grins. Buck’s arm slung over Eddie’s shoulder, one of those giant paws teasing over his unbuttoned top. The drunken flush in Eddie’s cheeks, mottling down his chest, blending in with his shirt. Eddie had debated an actual family photo, of him, Buck, and Chris, but the thought of his son watching Buck touch himself—or screwing his next hookup—is a big no bueno.
It’s a good picture of them. Any outsider might see the snapshot as a prelude to a frenzied fuck. If only Eddie had known this psychotic fixation would later descend, he could have shoved Buck into the hotel bathroom, gotten his dick out right there. A bit of mutual masturbation Buck would barely remember in the morning. Eddie could have taken a photo of that, instead, of Buck’s surely captivating o-face, and skipped this spycam subterfuge. You’re a dumbass, past Eddie.
Though a static photo wouldn’t have audio…
So, really, the timing worked out in the end.
“I printed you copies of a bunch of other photos, too. With Chris and whatnot.” Eddie fans out the selection in his hand. “We can put them on the fridge. Personalize this place a bit, finally. Kind of weird you didn’t have any photos up before, man.”
Buck shrugs, bashful smile muted, the Tommy breakup sapping him of his usual exuberance. “I’m not here that much. Always over at yours.”
Not enough, Eddie thinks.
In this case, however, that’s going to work out well for him. With a sex drive like Buck’s, and fresh off a breakup, surely he’ll be fucking his hand on the regular. Hopefully on the bed in view of the camera. If Buck is a couch masturbator, Eddie’ll be so pissed.
Only, it seems that in his grief, Buck is too bummed to jerk off. That, or the nanny cam isn’t working.
Except it is. Eddie receives alerts on his phone from the app.
Motion detected.
Buck going to bed in a ratty LAFD shirt and boxer briefs, shuffling under the covers, turning over twice and… nothing.
Motion detected.
Crack of dawn, on a shift day, and if Eddie’s lucky, Buck’s one to take care of his morning wood in bed and not in the shower. But, nope. He’s not even hard. Eddie looks. Zooms in.
Motion detected.
Buck flopping on top of the covers, still clad in a flour-dusted apron, at 2 p.m. on a Thursday to cry himself into a nap. Jesus.
After several dozen disappointing fake-outs, Eddie stops checking the alerts in real time. Instead, every few days, on their twenty-four, and forty-eight, and ninety-six offs, he drags a finger over the video progress bar on his iPad screen, fast-fowarding through half-hour increments of the mundane. Buck reading in bed. Scrolling on his phone in bed. FaceTiming Eddie in bed. (That one is an ouroboros of strange; a stark reminder that Eddie is Buck’s best friend and ingrained in his life and also spying on him in his bedroom.)
Then, there’s a week where Eddie doesn’t check at all. Brad Torrance is shadowing the 118, which comes with the gut punch of him talking about his estranged kid. Eddie chews on his advice like cracked glass between his teeth. The sharp, lancing fact of what Eddie let happen, this distance between him and his son, cuts his tongue, slices at the tender insides of his cheeks. He knows what he needs to do.
The real estate agent will be calling soon. Eddie’s put on a burgundy button-up shirt, middle-aged dad slacks. He tried to smooth his hair into something presentable. But his whole face is off-balance without the mustache; he can’t get a grasp on himself—who he is, who he wants to be, now that he’s no longer hiding.
He knows he doesn’t want this, but he’s doing it anyway. Eddie’s well-practiced in marching forward onto paths he doesn’t want but knows are right.
Right now, however, Eddie craves the slinky comfort of distraction. Allowing his mind to drill in on his erstwhile compulsion, instead. The balm of a past-version of himself, who was lost in so many ways, but carried a single-minded focus on seeing Buck come.
Sitting at the kitchen table, Eddie taps into the nanny cam app, into the recorded events folder, eyes swimming with a dozen date-stamped files to check through. He backtracks to the last date watched, and goes through the motions. Surely, Buck hasn’t been abstaining this whole time? It’s been three weeks, and everyone knows the last time Buck wasn’t allowed to touch himself for nearly a month he was a live-wire. His friend has been depressed, moping and baking, baking and moping, but not especially high strung.
Maybe he was a couch masturbator, the bastard, or a chronic shower jerker. Which—pot, kettle—as years sharing a house with a nosy mom and two sisters, his stint in the army, and living with a kid suspicious of locked doors has certainly accustomed Eddie to a quick finish under a warm spray. But on the occasion he had a day off, no plans with Buck, and Chris was at school or a sleepover? Eddie fucks himself silly on the bed. Laptop on his chest, an alarming number of browser tabs of porn open, and hours fucking his hand, sloppy and wet. His refractory period isn’t what it used to be, but Eddie could come at least twice in an afternoon. Three times in a good session.
You have one job, Buck: fuck yourself on the bed! Just once!
He plays another video, another evening one, judging from the night-vision mode. On screen, Buck sinks into his mattress with a noisy expulsion of air, caught between a grunt and a groan. He’s clad in only his boxer briefs, odd for someone who always runs cold. What approximates winter has descended upon Los Angeles, the evenings long and cool, hovering around fifty degrees. When Buck stays over on Eddie’s couch, he sleeps in long sweatpants and a full-on hoodie, so the only explanation for his manner of dress could be…
Eddie gasps when finally—finally!—it happens. Buck palms over his underwear, a breathy “Uh,” punching out of him. He takes a minute to just feel himself, to tease. Lets himself squirm over the covers, hips chasing his own hand as more delicious sounds pour out of his mouth.
Once foreplay wears thin, Buck’s thumbs slide into the waistband of his underwear. He lifts his hips off the bed, pulling the fabric down over them and holy fucking Christ, his cock. His hard cock flops up onto his stomach, large and straining. The night vision mode dampens the thrill, but the high definition video is clear enough to serve its purpose.
Eddie watches, mesmerized, as he learns the location of Buck’s lube—lefthand bedside table, in a wicker basket pullout. Buck spills a generous amount onto the fingers of his right hand, grips himself and lets out a breathy moan.
Eddie gulps, suddenly parched. Water, he needs water. And maybe an exorcism. He needs—
Three loud raps sound at the front door, and then it’s banging open, a familiar gravelly voice calling out. “I almost relapsed and called Tommy, so I baked every speck of flour I had in the house—”
Fuck! With violent haste, Eddie taps the screen to pause, tosses the iPad down and rushes to meet Buck, already half way into the dining room.
“And I’m still jonesing. Here, have a scone.”
Eddie accepts the vaguely lemon-sugar and blueberry-scented confectionary, bites into it to stop himself from screaming. “This is actually pretty good, Buck,” he says with all the enthusiasm he can muster.
There, he barely sounds hysterical. Keeping it contained. Fuck, now he really needs that water. Scones are dry. Why are they so dry???
His best friend says something about snickerdoodles, opens a cabinet above the stove and shit-shit-shit the iPad is still face up on the table. Eddie flips it over, just in time… for Buck to see him doing it, fuck!
Something about butter and fluffiness gets lost as Buck trails off, lasers in.
“What was that?”
“What?” Eddie rubs stray icing sugar off his hands, keeping it cool-cool-cool. Definitely was not looking at Buck-shaped porn on his tablet. Nope.
“You flipped the tablet.”
“Did I?”
Wide-eyed and innocent, Eddie. Use those baby cow eyes.
“What are you looking at, Eddie?”
It’s musical, teasing. One hundred percent the way you rib your bro who you think was absolutely watching porn on his tablet when you walked in. Fuuuuuuuuck.
“Wha—”
Buck holds up both hands in surrender. “Sorry, none of my business, uh, privacy of your own home and I—I respect that.”
For a beat, a sliver of a second, Eddie’s in the clear, and relief swoops through him.
“But just a quick—”
Buck snatches the tablet, turns it over in his hands before Eddie can stop him.
Confusion ripples across his face, lines of his forehead creasing deeply.
“Buck, it’s not—it’s not…”
Only it is, and what the fuck can Eddie even say??? Eddie’s entire body flashes ice cold, knowing the image imprinting itself on his best friend’s eyeballs. Himself, in bed, hand gripping over his cock.
“Eddie, is this… is this me?”
He taps at the screen and the audio clinches it, his own satisfied groan tinny and loud in the small kitchen. Eddie’s frozen, ringing his hands in front of him, debating his next move. Can he grab the tablet? Bash Buck on the head with it? Pour tequila down his friend’s throat, or slip him some GHB (where can he get some GHB?!?), so he’ll wake up in a few hours and forget this whole thing?
“I don’t remember…” Buck’s head tilts. “Did you find this on PornHub?”
“You’ve posted to PornHub?” flies out of Eddie’s mouth, not helping his deniability at all, but if Buck is asking that question, it means Buck has a sex tape out there? Or more than one???
“Those are my new sheets,” Buck mutters to himself, the crease between his brows Grand Canyon deep.
“M-maybe Tommy planted a hidden camera?” Eddie’s spitballing, grasping at any way to cover his ass here, but his suggestion has the opposite effect. Buck zeroes in on him.
“But you have the spy software here, on your iPad?”
“It’s—it’s… I…” He swallows thickly. Tries again. “I was curious about how you…” He trails off, still talking with his hands, spinning them wildly in the air. Fill in the blank, Buck.
“How I…?”
“You know.”
“I don’t know.” Buck huffs, not quite a laugh. Incredulity underpins the curiosity splashed across his face.
“It’s, like, a porn thing, okay?” Eddie finally rushes out. “Just porn. It doesn’t mean anything. I’m sure you watch all sorts of things to get off that don’t mean anything. But I didn’t get off. To you. So, yeah, that’s—that’s it. It was stupid, and I’m sorry and you should go, actually.” Eddie gestures for the iPad.
“I need to go? Eddie, we need to talk about—”
A wet schlick-schlick sound echoes from the tablet speakers and, oh God, was the video still playing?
“—this,” Buck finishes with a distinct flush high on his cheeks. He taps oh-so-gently at the screen, and the noises finally cease. He passes over the tablet with a sear in his gaze that would burn Eddie from the inside out, if he wasn’t refusing to make full eye contact.
“Eddie.” It's harsh, insistent.
Eddie winds on a heel, fleeing to the bedroom. Locks the door behind him, for good measure.
An exasperated “seriously?” pings through the now empty living space. A few minutes later, the front door cracks open, then closes with a bang.
Heart pounding in his throat, Eddie cowers in his room long after Buck's departure. He's got dry mouth that won't quit and a half-chub from the adrenaline rush of danger, from the knowledge his quarry is right here, on the dormant tablet. All he need do is awaken it. Play the rest of the recording. He doesn't.
Oh, to be so close to what he wants, but now Buck knows, and it’s tainted. His Hail Mary is the truth—he hadn’t done anything yet. All Eddie’s seen is half a minute of Buck stroking his cock. They can salvage this. Somehow.
Eddie’s not going to watch it.
He’s not.
Maybe he goes into the nanny cam app and saves that video file to the cloud, so it’ll sync to his other devices. Just in case. Because Buck’s going to get back to the loft and throw out the picture frame, and then Eddie will delete the app.
He waits the thirty minutes it should take Buck to go home at this time of day, with traffic. Waits for the app to throw up the alert.
Motion detected.
Buck’s home. He found the camera.
Eddie’s hands shake opening the notification, tapping into the new video, a livestream. His heart stutters in his chest at the sight of Buck—at the top of his head, technically. Then his cheek. Finally eye contact as Buck’s inspection of the frame bears fruit. Gotcha, his expression says.
Eddie expects a middle finger. A hissed curse. Then the feed to go dark. There’s a power button on the back of the frame. Buck can end this now, cut Eddie off forever and they can work on pretending it never happened.
Instead, Buck sits back. Settles himself on the floor next to the bed, long giraffe legs folded in front of him, knees knocking his chest. He stares into the lens. Into Eddie’s soul. Eddie doesn’t know how long it goes on; he’s trapped in a fugue state, watching Buck watching. Waiting.
A clink of metal snaps Eddie out of his stupor, a thunderclap reminder that the camera has sound. The hiss of leather follows. Buck’s removing his belt, for some reason. Maybe his plan is to whip the frame into pieces like Indiana Jones.
His hands disappear, out of view. There’s a soft, metallic grinding Eddie can’t place, not until—
Buck stands, pants pooling around his ankles. Zipper. He’s unzipped his pants.
With Buck’s height, the top of the frame is level with the bottom of his hip. The bulk of him in his boxer briefs is therefore off screen, but the underwear is a light gray. Even a partial view is enough to see the clear outline of his half-hard cock.
He steps back, calves denting the mattress behind him, massages over his dick with a practiced palm. Just like in the other video. Eddie mirrors Buck’s technique, touching himself over his underwear, over the dress pants he’d put on for the realtor, and—oh fuck. She’s supposed to call him any minute now. But Eddie can’t. Eddie’s hot and hard and broken, about to make a big mistake, but it’s… live. Buck’s touching himself right now, across town in his loft, with full knowledge of the camera Eddie planted, and he has to—fuck!
He fires off a quick message to cancel, shucking off his pants and underwear in the process. Out of necessity rather than calculation. He’s boiling despite the winter chill. His underwear is constricting. Eddie’s not going to do anything.
When he returns to the live feed, Buck’s had the same idea. There’s no more teasing over his briefs, dick half out of frame. He’s on the bed now, as God and spy cams intended. On his back, a million pillows propped up behind him so he can keep eyes trained on the picture frame. Holy mother of God. Buck’s fucking wetly into his hand, laser-locked on the camera.
It’s a test. Eddie knows it’s a test. He’s not supposed to watch.
He can’t tear his eyes away. Not as he shuffles up onto the bed, propping three pillows behind his back. As he slithers a hand into the top drawer of his bedside table, muscle memory kicking in, fingers grasping around a bottle of lube. He levers out the tablet kickstand and balances it on his chest. Left hand uncaps the lube, drips a moist dollop into his right palm.
And then they’re truly like mirror twins, but for that final step. Eddie’s lubed-up hand trembles with hesitation. Should he? Can he?
This day doesn’t count. The whole day. Eddie’s going to wipe it from reality when it’s all over, so he might as well go all in. Right? Right.
His slick fist is electric, shocking an animalistic groan from his throat. Eddie has to still his hand at the base, give himself a stabilizing squeeze to stave off orgasm. So much has built this up in his mind, weeks and weeks of foreplay, cresting to this moment.
It’s like Buck knows what Eddie is doing. A garbled groan cracks through the feeble tablet speakers.
“Fuck. Shit. Yeah,” Buck gasps.
Caught in the haze of his own feeling, Eddie’d lost track of Buck on-screen. He squints, seeking explanation for what Buck’s done to elicit such exaltation. And, Jesus fucking Christ, Buck’s worked his left hand under canted hips and two slick fingers up his ass. He’s pumping his wrist, those fingers, in and out, a matching rhythm in the hand jerking over his dick. Without thinking, Eddie takes up the same tempo.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Buck continues in a litany. He’s forgotten the camera lens at this point and has his head thrust back against the pillows, exposing the long column of his throat. His Adam’s apple bobs around a heavy swallow, another cracked curse.
Eddie’s caught in a hurricane. Eyes glued to those fingers thrusting with a needy violence, the blur of Buck’s hand milking his cock. Every gutteral, fucked-out sound escaping that mottled-pink throat vibrating his ear drums, through his bones. The white-hot heat of his own palm, Eddie’s dick throbbing for release.
“I’m gonna—I’m gonna come,” Buck huffs, pornographic in his narration, and fuck if that doesn’t do it for Eddie. He comes, eyes squinched shut with only the sound of Buck’s strangled moan signaling his own release.
As the sparks wink out behind his eyelids, Eddie’s chest heaves so hard his ribs ache. It’s the best sex Eddie’s ever had and he’s alone. How fucking pathetic is that?
Not as pathetic as the fact he saves this video to the cloud, too. Eddie just has to rewatch the last part later to take in all the visual details he missed. It’s a bro code hall pass. This one video. One orgasm. Maybe two—another one on the replay.
He’s sure Buck’s going to trash the frame after this, now that his spite jerk-off is done.
~
He doesn’t.
Motion detected.
Later that night, 11 p.m. Not even a pretense of underwear tonight. Dick hard. A simple hand-job, no fingers in his ass this time. On top of the covers, phone clutched in his left hand and the rasping groans of gay porn audible. He finishes himself off quickly before cleaning up the mess and turning over to sleep.
Eddie doesn’t touch himself. He doesn’t. Just watches.
Just like he watches the next morning.
Motion detected.
7 a.m. Buck returns from the bathroom, palming at his morning wood. Doesn’t crawl back under the covers. Instead sits on the edge of the bed, a foot from the picture frame, spits into his palm and stokes himself leisurely. Pre-cum blurts from the tip of his dick and Buck smooths it down his length. This close to the camera, and in peachy morning light, Eddie can see how wet he gets. Marvels at it. All right, Firehose, the team had joked once or twice over the years. He assumed, well… and it is—sizeable. A really good dick. Fits nicely in a large, manly hand. But as Buck schlicks over himself, twisting around the head to gather more moisture, Eddie takes in the full meaning.
This could be a whole separate porn category. Its own hyperfixation. Buck’s gushing, wet cock. Eddie wonders what it tastes like, but in a totally normal, bro kind of way. He knows the taste of his own spend—who hasn’t tried it out of curiosity?—but is Buck’s different? He eats more fruit than Eddie does, always plopping blueberries into pancakes and whipping up pineapple mango kale smoothies. Eddie’s heard that makes a difference to the taste of a guy’s come. Maybe he should start drinking more smoothies, too. Just, you know, for the sake of the next woman he dates. As a courtesy. Buck probably did that for Tommy. And Eddie’s sure Tommy did not return the favor.
Eddie munches on honey-sweet apple slices for breakfast from the bag he keeps purchasing for Chris out of habit, even though his son is no longer here to need bento box school lunches or afternoon snacks.
It’s the first ninety-six off in months that Eddie doesn’t see Buck at all. In person. Doesn’t see him in person. Digitally, on the other hand?
Buck’s insatiable.
Eddie’s at Home Depot shopping for mulch when his phone buzzes in his pocket.
Motion detected.
He hides behind a Bird of Paradise display with the volume button jammed all the way down so he can see Buck fucking a Fleshlight.
Later, at the grocery store squeezing pineapples to test for ripeness:
Motion detected.
Eddie rushes home so he can properly enjoy Buck riding a dildo, but just as he’s flying through the front door, wondering if anyone was confused by the half-full cart abandoned next to the lemons, the feed ends. The half-hour time limit runs out before Buck comes and Eddie sobs with frustration.
He changes the settings in the app to record for a full hour going forward. And saves every video to the cloud for posterity.
Because they have their first shift together again tomorrow, the first time Buck will see Eddie since this started. Eddie will pretend he’s not watched every single exhibitionist livestream of Buck masturbating, because bro code, and Buck will stop doing what he’s doing when he thinks, really, truly, Eddie planted that camera because he was worried or simply misguided, and not because he’s a sex demon.
It’s fine because Eddie has a pornographic supply for the ages now, though he will be pissed forever about the dildo recording cutting off early.
Eddie walks through the bay doors at 7 a.m. the next morning bracing for impact. A punch to the face. Finger poking at his chest. Hell, even a good old-fashioned Evan Buckley passive aggressive under-his-breath quip-off. They haven’t had one of those in a while.
“Morning, Eddie. Get a lot done this weekend?” Buck greets him at the top of the loft stairs, cheer at full-tilt, his hand pausing over the spatula he’s using to stir a batch of scrambled eggs. “I don’t know about you, but I was really productive. Juice? Pressed the oranges myself.”
“Uhhhh.” Eddie accepts the proffered glass of OJ because is it weirder if he doesn’t? He gulps it down, sweet and slimy in his throat. Buck left the pulp in. It’s good. “Thanks,” he says with a smack of his lips.
The air is thick between them, the loft too private, too contained to just the two of them in the dim grog of morning. Where was “I take the crack of dawn shift with Jee” Chimney when you needed him? Or Julie from B-shift shuffling up the stairs with epic bed head, following the siren call of the salty bacon Buck’s frying in a separate pan? Why, on today of all days, had Eddie stuck to his routine of coming in an hour before shift change as courtesy dictated? Why, for once, was Buck early???
They don’t speak, Buck continuing with his nauseating half-smile and coordinated breakfast dance, well-practiced over many mornings in the Diaz household. Eddie knows his moves, too, grabbing a plate and lining it with paper towels for the bacon.
“You excited for filming?”
“What?” Eddie chokes on air.
“For Hotshots,” Buck says, casual as shit. “Nurse One is a big role, Eddie. Even if Nurse Two has more lines. Guess I’m the more… natural performer between us.”
He munches a slice of bacon, letting slip a lusty moan as the salty brine hits his tongue. This motherfucker.
“Oh, please! Which one of us is playing Doctor Miracle, himself?” Now Chimney chooses to arrive, after the ten minutes of loaded silence and Buck orgasmically eating breakfast food. “Brad says I could end up recurring if I play my cards right.”
Chim fixes himself a plate, to-go coffee cup already half-drunk and in-hand. They follow his lead, and the three of them sit across from each other at one end of the dining table.
“Eddie’s a fan of the show, right? You like to watch? What do you think: me or Chim for Best Performance in a Leading Role?” Buck asks, all guileless and light.
“I don’t know, Buck.” Eddie really chews on the edge of his name, grinding into that “ck” with his teeth. “Not sure I’ve seen enough of your work to judge.”
And, well, fuck. There went Eddie’s plan to pretend he didn’t know what was going on.
The rest of their shift goes by irritatingly smooth. He and Buck share the same near-psychic connection as usual, wordlessly coordinating at an MVA on Wilshire and a rope rescue off Mulholland. At the latter, Eddie doesn’t even notice the way Buck’s harness strains over his muscular thighs, that it augments his cock, drawing attention to its size even while soft. Eddie’s a professional.
It’s one of those nights where something’s in the water in Hollywood. First a suspected gas leak at a booming nightclub that ends up a false alarm. Then a call to a different club, this one in WeHo and for a spate of food poisoning (who orders sushi at a gay bar???). Eddie doesn’t know which is worse: sloppy-drunk twenty-four year old girls spilling out of too-tight minidresses and teetering in stilettos all over Buck, or sloppy-drunk twenty-four year old guys saran-wrapped into latex booty shorts and slathered in body glitter all over Buck. Buck, for his part, appears equally delighted at both. Eddie swears to God, if Buck gets someone’s number and he has to watch him fuck one of them in his bed…
Like, he'll watch it, but he'll be annoyed about it.
Then they’re dispatched to a weird sex call and Eddie renounces all former skepticism on the subject of curses.
It’s a runaway fucking machine, which the guy is filming for his OnlyFans. Eddie has half a dozen clips just like it favorited on PornHub.
Buck works to dismantle the malfunctioning motor that refuses to respond to the remote control and power down, while Hen and Chim check the vitals of the poor guy writhing under its relentless assault.
“I tried to uncuff myself, but the key flung away. Not sure where it landed. Please, get me out of here. Make it stoppppppp.” The guy, Brett, groans, then moans, as the dildo attachment presumably strikes against his prostate. There’s a chiming sound, then another, and another. Musical and high-pitched, like a cash register ringing up.
“I’ll find the key,” Eddie offers, scanning the carpet, which is an unfortunate slate gray and high-pile. Just the place for a key to get lost in. He’s distracted by the incessant ringing, though, and follows the noise over to a laptop and camera set-up on a nearby coffee table, chatbox active and flying up the right-hand side of the screen. On the left is the video feed and Eddie’s own face frowning down. The chatbox is a siren call.
$$richazz$$: GET OUT OF THE WAY DUDE
Missioncumpossible: i don’t mind. this guy is hot af
Cockslut92: he got dick sucking lips for sure
Eddie ducks out of frame, cheeks flaming and suddenly very self-conscious about his lips, but keeps reading.
Bootyslav88: hot firefighters should join in. suck & fuck/gangbang-style
Cumminggggggg4: no, don’t uncuff him pretty firefighter man. Shove ur dick in his mouth!!!
Franksmith74: nah the bearcub with the treetrunk arms should top him. Did you see that ass when he came in? fuck.
And now Eddie is getting an erection, goddammit. Not helped by Brett’s keening cry as he shudders with another orgasm. The timer on the livestream says this has been going for two hours. He’s watched videos like that, guys coming five, six times from their prostate alone. Ends up a totally dry orgasm eventually.
It’s perfectly normal that Eddie knows this.
Perfectly normal that Frank fucking Smith, presumably born in 1974 and surely has a career in some imminently creative field, has implanted a mental image of Buck shoving his cock up Eddie’s ass, thanks.
“I’ve almost got it!” Buck’s triumphant cry rings out. “I think. Any luck with that key, Eddie?”
He resorts to getting on his hands and knees and crawling around the carpet, which at least hides his half-hard cock, until finally, something small and metal brushes his fingertips.
“Here!” Eddie shouts, and they free Brett from his mechanical dildo prison just in time for Buck to kill the motor.
Eddie collapses into bed at home after their shift, torn between sleeping for six hours straight and vigorously jerking off. And then:
Motion detected.
He’s developed a Pavlovian response to the notification chime at this point. He can’t not open the new video live streaming from Buck’s loft. Why not play masturbation roulette: if Buck’s going right to sleep, Eddie will too. But if he’s got his cock out, then…
He does, and so Eddie fights exhaustion and settles himself naked on top of the covers, lube at the ready. Buck takes his time, first carefully fingering himself with two fingers before opening his laptop. It has much better audio capabilities than his phone, and the whirr and whine is clear as day. He’s getting off to fucking machine porn.
Eddie watches, mesmerized, as Buck rifles through the storage basket in that left-hand bedside table and pulls out a new toy. Well, new to Eddie. Buck’s more than familiar with the curved vibrator, from the way he slicks it up with aplomb before nudging it against his hole. Slips the silicone cock ring attachment over his dick, securing it around his balls. Then he powers on the toy and Eddie is so fucking glad he increased the recording time frame to an hour.
Because Buck writhes on the prostate massager for forty-five fucking minutes until he comes, untouched, with a strangled cry. Eddie finishes twice, hand brutalizing his dick, ass hot and aching, clenching at nothing. Does he want—? Should he try…?
No, he’s lost his mind. This has to stop. It was only supposed to be about sating a curiosity. The burn was supposed to fade. Now Eddie’s seen Buck orgasm half a dozen times, and it’s only getting worse.
Eddie nearly jumps out of his skin when his phone buzzes with a text from Buck.
Buck (10:42 AM)
Pretty crazy call last night, huh?
Give you any ideas?
Gave me a few
Knowing Buck, in the come down from a mind-blowing orgasm, is texting him about the sex call they went on last night breaks Eddie’s brain a bit. It’s the closest they’ve come to talking about this since that first shift, Buck teasing about filming and performance. But Eddie can’t answer. Can’t acknowledge they’re in some sort of fucked up dance with each other. For all Buck knows, Eddie isn’t even checking the nanny cam app anymore. Eddie clings to that. To the deniability.
Buck must have worn himself out, because the next few days are blessedly masturbation-free. Their next shift is fine, at the least with no calls to nightclubs or sex mishaps, so Eddie considers that a win. Buck doesn’t bring up the last shift at all or rib Eddie for leaving him on read. They film their Hotshots cameo on the forty-eight off after. Eddie gives it his all, really tries to sell his lines. Buck gets more screentime, but Eddie thinks his delivery is better.
Motion detected.
Buck falls into bed after sixteen hours on set, most of it waiting around yet somehow twice as exhausting as their last few twenty-fours. Eddie watches him sleep, softly snoring and clutching a pillow to his chest as if cradling a lover close.
Motion detected.
Up at 5 a.m. and goes for a run. The live stream runs with nothing in frame for the whole hour.
Motion detected.
Buck reads in bed before turning over to sleep.
This is good. The reprieve Eddie needs. Time to reset his mind and body and stop whatever this sick compulsion has grown into.
Any day now, the nanny cam is going to run out of juice. Devices like it have limited battery life, especially with continuous recording. Eddie’d done the math, and after approximately fifty half-hour recordings, it would need a recharge. He’d snuck in a quick powerup the last time he was over at Buck’s loft, that night after the Lakers game, but the device would hit the limit again soon now that he was having it record for longer stretches. The battery would die, and this would be over.
It doesn’t though. The videos keep pinging Eddie’s phone like clockwork. All normal stuff.
Another week goes by. Their episode of Hotshots airs, and Eddie uses it as leverage to get at least a whole sentence out of Chris. His moving plan has been on hold as Eddie’d gotten too wrapped up in the game of gay, masturbatory chicken he’s playing with Buck, but after another dozen videos of mundane Buck bed footage, perhaps it’s time to talk to the realtor, finally.
There’s nothing left for him here in Los Angeles. Not really. Not anymore. For all their purported normalcy at work, Eddie knows he’s ruined things between him and Buck. He hasn’t haunted Eddie’s couch in weeks. They keep a respectful distance in the firetruck. On the station couch. They don’t talk. Haven’t really talked since Buck started dating Tommy and everything imploded with Kim. All Eddie’s fault, of course. Eddie’s proficient at ruining things.
The start of their next forty-eight off dawns gloomy and damp, the weather as good an excuse as anything for Eddie to do nothing all day. He hasn’t jerked off the whole week. Maybe he’ll lick his wounds, go back to PornHub and watch two thirty-somethings pretend to be teenage stepsiblings, like a normal person. Maybe he should try his fingers… In fact, so long as Eddie’s trying new things and breaking bad habits with an empty house and no one to stop him, he figures why not utilize a bigger screen, try out the couch? Look at him, embracing change. Frank would be proud.
Just as Eddie settles down—naked, with a towel in place because laundering his cushion covers is a bitch, his tablet ready to cast to the TV—he gets the notification that’s a shot right to the dick.
Motion detected.
The video starts playing on the TV like a movie. Eddie notices immediately the change in venue. Well, more like shift in perspective. Buck’s moved the picture frame, angled it on the TV stand at the end of his bed to offer a better view of the proceedings. Because there is something new in Buck’s life, in his loft.
A fucking machine. Buck’s bought one and set it at the end of the bed.
His credit is never recovering from this.
Eddie likely won’t, either. That much he knows already.
Buck must have turned the camera off to get this all set up, powering it back on right when he wanted Eddie’s attention. There’s little preamble, not even prep. Buck’s hole glistens with lube as he gets on all fours on the bed, ass up, a hand reaching back to part his cheeks and position the dildo affixed to the drill end of the machine. Buck waits to turn it on. Takes his time to wet the silicone head, smack it against his pucker, before pressing it inside. Eddie spies the remote controller on a long cord on the bed beside him.
For his part, Eddie scoots until his ass is on the edge of the couch and plants a leg on the coffee table. He paints an obscene picture, hooking his dominant hand under his thigh to tease fingers already sticky with lube near his hole. A tentative touch; his middle digit ghosts over the furl, wet and warm. The sensation is strange, but good. If he closes his eyes, Eddie can imagine it’s someone else doing this for him, opening him up. A prelude to more. His stomach somersaults, heat rippling through him.
But if he closes his eyes, he’ll miss Buck, who switches the machine on, starting with the lowest speed. Almost too slow. First, the dildo barely moves. Then with the slightest lever forward from Buck, the head slips from his body, instead sliding feebly along the crack of his ass. With a confident ease Eddie can’t tear his eyes away from, Buck slots the cock back into place without even looking. How many times has Buck been fucked to have practiced that? How long had it taken his best friend to become accustomed to taking cock? To train himself to come untouched? It’s this, all the intangibles, that Eddie can’t get from voyeuristically consuming Buck-flavored porn, ultimately rendering this whole exercise—tantamount to an obsession—strangely inert. Hollow. But it’s all Eddie has. All he can concede, even to himself, to wanting.
“Turn it up,” Eddie mutters, as if Buck hears him through the screen, he does.
The machine picks up speed, dull motor whirr raising into a pitchy whine. Buck, too, warms up, the first breathy pants and grunts spilling past his lips. Eddie loves this escalation. The way Buck always starts out silent, all sleek lines and sound comportment until the dick or fingers ravaging his ass, the sloppy, squelching blur of a hand over his dick, tips him into wild desperation.
Despite what he enjoys in others, Eddie is a sexual stoic. Always has been. He likes to stay quiet, keep himself contained, lest anyone hear. Lest he lose himself a little too well. But he can’t help the puff of surprise when one probing finger turns to two. Eddie’s hands aren’t small. His fingers twinned have a heft and girth that quickens Eddie’s breath. It’s a slight discomfort, a burn, but once Eddie commits, he commits.
He and Buck wind themselves up: Eddie building to three fingers, and Buck titrating the speed until he’s crying out.
“Fuck!” Buck groans, long and deep. “N-never been f-fucked like this.” A laugh bubbles out of him. “Tommy could never. He wishes.”
Buck talking to himself—full-on conversational with a silicone dildo pounding into his shiny, pink hole—is new.
“I-uh, didn’t get the appeal of this, at first. Why use a machine to get you off when you could fuck a real-live person? But then it got you hard.”
Buck ratchets the dial up another notch, the sound from the motor cacophonous, so much so Eddie’s sure he misheard.
“Are you hard now, Eddie? You fucking yourself watching this machine fuck me?”
Everything stops. The three fingers in his ass. The blood in his veins.
He knew, logically, they were engaging in something, but the fourth wall break is a whole new mindfuck.
Buck is writhing on cock and having a whole-ass conversation with Eddie through the nanny cam he planted.
“Is it really ‘just porn,’ for you, Eddie? Is that why you needed it to be me? Is that why you’ve watched—uhn!—every video?”
Shit, fuck—how could he know that? Panic grips him by the throat, but what’s worse: Eddie’s harder than ever. The danger, the wrongness. Fuck, it does it for him.
Eddie works his fingers back up to tempo and finally reaches for his dick. The machine’s really drilling into Buck now, brutal and unyielding. The angle of the camera mostly affords a sidelong view of Buck’s hulking frame, but it’s enough to see his purpling cock leaking heavy between his legs, to catch the way he’s flexing his thighs to the point of trembling.
“You’re predictable, Eddie,” Buck says between gulping breaths. “You hid the charger and the instruction manual in the armoire. And the packaging that included—oh, fuck!—the security code. Synced the app with my devices easily, since the frame was already—mhnnnn—hosted on my home WiFi.”
Buck adjusts the dial, increasing the speed of the dildo’s thrust to near full power. A reedy whine tears from his throat. He collapses forward, throwing his weight onto his forearms to better fuck himself backwards.
Eddie jacks his dick in a daze, fingers inside him searching for that magical spot. If his eyes weren’t glued to the TV, if every other ounce of his concentration wasn’t on Buck’s castigating narration, his coordination would improve, his success odds increase. But Eddie’s multitasking within an inch of his life, dammit.
“You upped the auto-timer to an hour after the dildo video,” Buck pants out. “Were you disappointed you didn’t get to see me f-finish? It was a good one. Nice, screaming O. Maybe I called out your name, Eddie.”
The hypothetical—or admission—rushes Eddie’s body with heat, a curse spilling from his lips, followed by a drawn out moan. He twists his fingers with intention until he feels that sweet, hot pulse of pure pleasure. And, suddenly, Eddie’s discovering he is not a sexual stoic; he’s merely never felt this fucking good in his entire life. Needy sounds tumble out of him, matching his best friend on the screen, who’s now got his hands spread out, fingers clawing at the comforter. Buck shoves his face down, muffling a litany of moans and taking pause to ride the cock demanding his supplication.
When Buck finally comes up for air, his face is a riot of red, hair a sweaty tangle.
“Maybe I’m thinking about you right now, Eddie. Wishing this was your cock inside me. Would you take me this r-rough? Fuck me ‘til I begged? Cried?”
Yes, Eddie thinks. His stomach, his balls tighten. He’s close.
“Or d-do you wan’ me to fuck you?” Buck grits out. “I would. You’re curious? I’d fuck you so good, Eddie—shiiiiiiittttt.”
And he’s coming and Eddie’s coming; they’re coming together, and Eddie shouts down the house as his body seizes with pleasure, and fuck, fuck, fuck. Eddie’s a fucked out, boneless mush on the couch; he can only imagine Buck feels much the same, melting into his mattress as he is right now on the screen. And he’s still talking to him, and fuck.
“Eddie, this is getting ridiculous. Come over. Let’s talk about this.”
Nope. No. Eddie cannot. Will not.
If they talk about it, they’ll have to do something about it, and Eddie can’t. He doesn’t know why he can’t, just that he can’t have… doesn’t deserve…
He shuts off his TV and turns his phone on Do Not Disturb for the rest of the day, throwing himself into that backyard project with the mulch despite the season. It provides a plausible deniability for the ache in his body, a better reason for the lengthy, scalding shower he treats himself to before dinner. The next day, he goes over to Pepa’s to help her deep clean her apartment. Doesn’t even see the alerts for Buck going to bed, getting up in the morning. Eddie’s got this on lock.
But he can’t block everyone from his phone forever—what if Chris calls?—so Saturday evening, Eddie finally relents. He swipes away all the nanny cam app alerts and texts from Buck. Only his most recent missive shows in the preview window, and Eddie can’t help reading his last two messages, sent in quick succession.
Buck (7:28 PM)
Really?
Fine.
Whatever that means.
Eddie finds out what it means at 10:43 p.m. that night.
Motion Detected.
Eddie isn’t weak because he taps open the livestream right away. It’s just instinct. He doesn’t know what he’s expecting. Another fucking machine session? (I mean you spend that kind of money, you kind of need to use it all the time.) Standard masturbation?
It’s Saturday night. Buck could be with a partner. He and Tommy have been broken up nearly six weeks, and Buck stopped cope-baking weeks ago. (Now he’s regular holiday baking, with Christmas right around the corner.) Chim’s made more than a few cracks about how Buck should “get back out there” and have a “slutty bisexual era.”
“Only I can call it that,” Buck had said during a shift last week, wrinkling his nose. “I do want to sleep with other guys. Try something different.” And he wasn’t looking at Eddie as he said it. Eddie just happened to be in the way.
But now, on the video feed, Buck’s fully clothed, sitting on the floor next to his bed. He’s put the picture frame back in its place and is staring directly into the lens.
An amendment: Buck is technically dressed, if one applies the word “clothing” liberally. Look, Eddie’s no stranger to a tank top that barely counts as a shirt. But Buck’s never gone for that. The scrap of fabric pretending at being a shirt dips low over his pecs. Eddie swallows hard.
“I don’t know if you’re watching, Eddie,” Buck says, voice low and dangerous. “You’re… fucking frustrating. But I think I know you.” He purses his lips. “I think I know you better than anyone, Eddie, whether you like it or not.”
He heaves a deep breath, blows out slow through his nostrils. “It’s fine if you don’t want to talk about this. You’re a man of action. I get that. So, this ends tonight. Either you do something, or you don’t.”
Buck stands and turns, ass to the camera. Then he drops trou, bending forward slightly to show off something shiny and black nestled against his hole.
“I’m open and ready for you, Eddie. Or—” He spins around, removes his “shirt.” Eddie’s mouth goes dry. Buck’s dick bobs, pink and hard, a silicone cockring secured around the base. “Hard and willing. Your choice.”
Buck crawls on top of the covers, hissing at the drag of his cock against the fabric as he lays on his stomach, ass up. He turns his head in the direction of the frame, so as to be clearly heard.
“Half hour, Eddie. If you’re not here by then, I’m finding someone on Grindr to fuck me. Then I’m throwing your three hundred dollar spy cam in the trash.”
Eddie’s already shoving his feet into his shoes and fumbling for his keys.
Buck said it: he’s a man of action. Eddie doesn’t know what he’s going to do when he gets to Buck’s. All he knows is he must go.
Go, go, go, his brain chants as he bodies his way out the front door, slams his truck into gear and out the driveway. He’s all lead footed and spitting curses at the worst of LA drivers all the way down San Vicente, though he cautiously slows approaching Labrea, where the team has responded to so many MVCs that the Thai joint on the corner knows them all by name.
But then he hits bumper-to-bumper traffic in K-Town, and panic pushes up his sternum, dread and bile rising up his throat. This is taking too long. He’s not going to make it in time. Stuck at an eternal red light, Eddie fumbles for his phone, opens the live stream. Buck’s where he left him, but his face is caught in a digital glow, thumbs flying over his phone screen.
No, no, no, no. “Buck, shit. Wait for me!” Eddie rails on the steering wheel and dashboard. What kind of psycho sets a thirty minute timeline to get anywhere in Los Angeles traffic???
Eddie’s about to text, use his Big Boy Words to tell Buck he’s on his way, that he’s sorry, that they’re going to work this all out, but then traffic starts moving and he has to toss his phone back onto the passenger seat. Now it’s green all the way, because of course. Eddie screams onto the side street by Buck’s building, tires burning rubber, and he wrenches the wheel violently at the first spot he eyes. Nevermind it’s two blocks away; it’s a parking space in one of the most stupidly trendy parts of DTLA at 11:15 p.m. on a Saturday. That’s Jesus coming in with an assist.
Eddie runs all the way to Buck’s front door, sprinting through the Arts District like a romance hero booking it through an airport in a movie. He jams the building code he knows by heart into the keypad out front, then hauls ass up four flights of stairs. The elevator is notoriously slow. He checks the time. Shit, it’s not 11:15. It’s 11:33. He’s late. So fucking late. Thirty-three years late to a sexuality crisis and seven years late to actually fucking doing something about his feelings for Buck.
His lungs are burning by the time he reaches Buck’s door; his hand trembles trying to fit the key in the lock, leaving scratches in the paint like a 2 a.m. drunk. Finally, he manages the satisfying click of tumblers shifting, and the steel-clad door swings open. Eddie steps over the threshold, breath bated, listening for the sounds of sex. There are enough bars nearby Buck could have easily found someone to come up and slip inside him in the nearly twenty minutes Eddie’s overshot his runway. He’s never used Grindr personally, but Eddie knows how it works. Location-based fuck services.
No enthusiastic moaning or the slam of a bedframe greets his ears. But there is something. Muffled and low, buried in sheets. Eddie inches toward the stairs up to the bedroom, heart slamming against his ribs, and a sick unease twisting in his guts.
It’s Buck. Oh, God, he’s—he’s found another sexual stoic to fuck. They’re doing it all quiet, sensual and slow. And Buck’s burying his face in the comforter, moaning. Sobbing, the sex is so good.
And Eddie—Eddie has to see. Has to complete the circuit. Show himself that it’s over.
He’s careful on the stairs. Slow. Creeping up to his own execution. This is going to kill him, he knows that now. Buck’s it for him. And like with most things, Eddie’s fucked it up.
He hits the rise of the final step, readies himself for devastation.
Buck’s alone. And he’s…
“Are—are you crying?”
“Eddie? Eddie!” Buck’s up like a shot, loping over to him like a Bernese Mountain Dog. A very naked Bernese Mountain Dog. Christ. “Eddie, Eddie, Eddie,” he chants, launching himself forward with a thunderous sob. His embrace is rib-cracking and wet, as he buries his face in Eddie’s shoulder. Buck’s a snotty crier.
“You’re here,” he rasps into Eddie’s collar. Then, he’s shoving Eddie back, punching him in the shoulder. Not hard. But enough to make a point. “You’re late.”
“It’s LA. There was traffic.”
Buck turns surprisingly smug for a man in nothing but a cockring. “I knew you were watching. Pervert.”
“Pot, kettle.”
Buck snorts. “You started it. Turning me into your own personal porn star.”
“Then you—” Eddie pokes him in the shoulder for emphasis. “Leaned all the way in. The fucking machine was inspired.”
“Thought you’d like that.” Buck leers, though its efficacy is dampened somewhat by a rogue sniffle. It draws attention to the red-rim of his eyes, irises blasted electric blue in contrast. Buck’s waterline still shimmers with tears.
Eddie thumbs at the mottled pink of Buck’s cheek.
“You were crying.”
“Eddie, I—” His face clouds over like a summer storm. “Tommy said he was my first but not my last. When he broke up with me. I didn’t understand what he meant, thought it was bullshit, right? But then you started doing…”
Buck spins his hands in Eddie’s direction. “Well, whatever this has been, and I thought, hey. It’s you. You’re my last. So, yeah, I’m fucking crying. I thought you stood me up. Broke my heart.”
“Buck.” Eddie stills those big, beautiful hands, clutching them between his. It’s ridiculous, comedic, standing chest-to-chest in Buck’s bedroom, Eddie a sweaty mess in a Henley and khakis, Buck in nothing but a cock ring with a buttplug in his ass. Somehow, it’s the most romantic thing Eddie can imagine. A hand breaks away, lifting to Buck’s cheek to soothe away a tear.
“First off, fuck Tommy. Breaking up with you is a literal crime. But he’s right. He might have been your first, but I’m your last. It is me. And you’re…” Eddie’s throat clenches tight, stuck with the enormity of his feeling. But he needs to get this out, to say it. Leave no room for misunderstanding.
However, Buck takes his pause and runs with it. “Oh, God, wait.” He jerks back, wrenching his hands away. “If I’m your first, then… shit, Eddie.” His face crumples, body shrinking with it, rendering him small.
“Eddie, it can’t be me, not your first. I-I can’t lose you. You have to go out and, and—sow your wild oats. I’ll show you how to use Grindr. Take you to a gay bar. Wingman you. Then if you still want…” He trails off.
Eddie is going to axe murder Tommy Kinard for planting this seed in Buck’s brain. No, scratch that. He’ll cut the fuel lines on Tommy’s helicopter, send it careening into the depths of the icy Pacific. They’ll never find the body. Cleaner that way.
“Buck,” Eddie says, in a tone that brooks no argument. Eddie recaptures the ground he lost, stepping in close. Chest-to-chest. Cock-to-cock. A hand clasped over his collarbone, thumb resting in the divot there; his home base.
Then softer: “Buck, hey. Evan.”
Buck’s chin juts up, watery blue eyes locking in. It’s only the third time in seven years he’s used that name. Eddie saves it for when it really matters. Right now, it’s critical.
“You’re my only, you got that? No ‘first, last’ bullshit. Just you. Forever.”
Eddie slides his hand up to cradle Buck’s jaw, thumbs over his trembling bottom lip with intention. Complete the circuit, Eddie. Only, he hesitates. This is leaping off a cliff, rushing into a burning building at full tilt. Changing the trajectory of his entire life with a single choice.
But he’s Eddie, and this is Buck. Buck who always has his back, who would secure the shit out of his harness before any leap, so he could never fall. Harnesses brings to mind Buck in his, of course, and Buck’s cock, which is still very much pressing hard against him, and—
“Eddie.” It’s chiding, but heavy with nauseating fondness. “Kiss me.”
And so he does. He kisses the shit out of his best friend, the love of his life, the only man for him. The man he’d really like to fuck right now. Because the elephant in the room is very naked and grinding against him, and they’ve effectively been engaged in a month of elaborate foreplay.
Except Buck had given Eddie a choice. Options.
And Eddie’s finally being honest with himself about what he wants, right? He really wants to know what it’s like to get fucked.
But that’ll take time. After his midnight sprint, Eddie should really shower first, and then Buck would have to open him up (and Eddie really wants him to take his time, fucking him thoroughly with those practiced, sizeable fingers), and they have work tomorrow, and it’s already midnight… And meanwhile Buck’s already done all that work on himself. He’s open and ready, as he said.
Eddie comes up for air, kisses along Buck’s jaw, over to his earlobe. “Do you still want to…”
Buck groans, digs fingers into Eddie’s back to press him closer. A wet patch sticks Eddie’s shirt to his abdomen where Buck’s dick has copiously leaked. “Yes. Fuck, yes.”
Eddie strips in record time, which is saying something given he holds the firehouse record for quick-changes. Buck hovers close, assessing and greedy, scanning the length of Eddie’s body
“Finally get to see you,” Buck says, palming over his dick. “It’s not fair I didn’t get to this whole time. Did you get off every time you watched me, Eddie?”
Not a trace of upset is left, Buck now clear-eyed and switched into seduction mode.
“Not every time. I have self-restratint,” Eddie teases. “Which is why I can wait for you to fuck me. Next time we’re off shift.”
“You want me to do that?” Buck’s voice vibrates with need.
“I want everything,” Eddie says.
“Get on the bed. Now,” Buck demands, but then is too impatient to await compliance. He shoves at Eddie’s shoulders, pushing him down onto the mattress with a bounce, and fuck if that doesn’t do it for him on every level. Buck manhandling him into place and crawling over him until he’s seated over Eddie’s abdomen, ass hovering tantalizingly over Eddie’s dick.
And when he reaches behind him to draw the plug out with a hiss, teeth biting into his lower lip as his eyes turn liquid? Holy fucking shit the HD spycam did not do the full scope of Buck’s sex faces justice. Eddie wants this cast in Cinemascope across the biggest screen he can find.
Eddie’s insides flutter, a swarm of bees (apropos) taking up residence. Buck’s going to ride him, slide down on his cock and make like a rodeo champion. Seems like that should be his role, as the resident (almost, not quite) cowboy, but he can save that quip for later. Eddie’ll say something cheesy and clever when their positions are reversed, tell Buck to buck (ha!) like a bronco beneath him and see if Eddie can stay on.
“Hey, I, uh, I—” Buck says, gravelly and unsure. He leans down, kisses Eddie sweetly. “I love you,” he murmurs against Eddie’s lips, eyes so close and locked in on him that Eddie’s having trouble focusing. He wants to—needs to—respond, but then Buck’s doing his Jedi dick trick, reaching behind to guide himself over Eddie without looking, and at the slick, hot, clench of him, a sound punches out of Eddie that’s animalistic and sharp.
“Fuck!” he grinds out as Buck slides all the way onto his length and takes no pause to settle before beginning to bounce. It’s athletic, because of course it is—they’re firefighters, and look at Buck. The man does not skip leg day.
Eddie’s not sure he’s going to last long, the vise of Buck’s ass better than anything Eddie’s ever felt before. And this… Eddie hates cheesy shit, like calling sex “making love” and even as much as he loved Shannon, sex with her never transcended the physical, not like this. Eddie’s entire body is screaming with sensation, and it’s so much, too much; his breath hitches and his heart speeds, a million pins and needles sparking every nerve ending, like a prelude to a panic attack except the core emotion, the thing powering the electricity singing through his body isn’t horror or fear, but love. He’s so fucking in love he could choke on it, and Buck told him he loves him—he loves him!!!—and now he’s riding Eddie’s dick and moaning like a banshee and Eddie is so overwhelmed he could cry.
And he wants to say it back, wants to scream “I love you,” but with Buck writhing on top of him, he’s afraid it won’t land in the spirit with which it's intended. Buck is such an asshole, such a cheater, slipping his confession through in that perfect, quiet moment before they transitioned to wild sex. Now Eddie has to wait, torn between wanting to come immediately so he can whisper the weight of his feeling in Buck’s ear as they cool down, and craving hours and hours of unmitigated fucking. He wants to try every position and touch and trick he’s had in mind for months, always with Buck front-of-mind.
It was never just porn; Eddie’s a filthy liar, especially to himself. He remains really, truly, not into corrupting innocent Mormons or sucking and fucking stepsiblings, but is absolutely very much, one hundred percent gay and in love with Buck. He just needed to play this insane game of gay chicken to finally admit it.
Fuck it, Eddie thinks. He’s not waiting any longer.
“Come here,” he says, yanking Buck by the arms so he’s bracing around Eddie’s shoulders rather than against his abdominals. It brings him down chest-to-chest, enables Eddie to capture his mouth and grab his hips to slow him into a shallow, dirty grind.
“I love you,” Eddie husks, sucking Buck’s lower lip, nipping at it with his teeth. Then he pumps his hips, testing out angles until Buck gasps, shuddering on top of him.
Now Eddie’s declaration of feeling and massaging Buck’s prostate with his dick would be forever linked. As God intended. It stokes a possessive satisfaction that spreads through Eddie’s bloodstream like warm honey.
“Eddie,” Buck whines against his lips. “Fuck.”
Eddie kisses him slow and filthy, rocking into him and knowing the angle is hitting his prostate more often than not.
“Can you come like this? Or do we need to remove the ring?”
“Off,” is all Buck can manage, arching up to aid with access to his straining cock.
He hisses as Eddie brushes fingers against the silicone ring, keens when he works a finger under the plastic and carefully works it off. Eddie gives him a few second’s reprieve before planting his feet firmly on the mattress and jackhammering his hips.
Buck flops forward with a cry, hooks his arms around Eddie. The fingers that claw his back are sure to leave scratches, bruises. Good. Eddie wants to carry this like a tattoo.
Eddie’s embarrassingly close, the searing clutch of Buck’s body too good. The first partnered sex he’s had in a long time novel and overwhelming. He works a hand between their bodies, jacking Buck’s cock roughly, inelegantly, but who fucking cares when they’re this far gone, sweaty and stupid in love.
Buck is so gorgeous and responsive under his hand, over his cock. Eddie drinks it in, savors every breathy moan, the violent jerk of Buck’s body as he comes. The stuttered choke of his own name from Buck’s mouth is what pushes him over.
They sprawl across Buck’s bed, a tangle of limbs, chests heaving. Once Eddie’s vision’s no longer whited out, he catches Buck on his damn phone.
“Are you texting your Grindr date to not bother?” Eddie sasses, desert dry.
“I’m checking to see how much the camera caught. It really is high quality. Good job, man.” Buck drags his index finger across the screen, then frowns. “As I thought. Cut off before you fucked me stupid. You know what this means, right?”
Eddie has an idea. Still, he indulges his boyfriend.
“Enlighten me.”
“We’ll have to do it again, utilize the full hour of recording.”
“You really are an exhibitionist, huh?”
Buck rolls over, splaying over Eddie’s chest. Blinks prettily up at him, dopey-ass grin half-wicked. “And you’re a voyeur.” He flutters his lashes coquettishly. “I think that means we’re made for each other.”
Eddie hums agreement under his breath, tugging Buck up by the biceps to draw him into a lazy kiss.
“We have work tomorrow.” Eddie pecks at the corner of Buck’s mouth. “It’s late.”
“Then we’ll have morning sex. Crack of dawn morning sex.”
“We’ll see, cowboy. Now let’s clean up and go to sleep.”
The next morning, as rosy pre-dawn light spills through Buck’s loft windows, their phones buzz with a notification on the bedside table.
Motion Detected.