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The first time it happens they're at work, because of course it had to happen at work. Buck is in the kitchen, helping Bobby make chili for their dinner that night. Hen, Chimney, and Ravi have all decided the most entertaining thing for them to do between calls is commentate like they're on Master chef. He heads a familiar gait coming up the stairs, so he's already looking at Eddie when he reaches the top and calls out "Hey, babe?"
Before the words fully connect to his brain, he's thinking about how pretty the blush looks as it overtakes Eddie's cheeks. Then, it hits him. Eddie just called him babe, which is definitely not something that's been a part of their friendship. In his travels, he's encountered many kids of slang, so he knows that there are people in places like Britain who will call their friend's babe. Eddie is very much not British in anyway, and the only people he's ever heard the man speak to in such a way were past girlfriends.
Yet, here they are. Eddie just called him babe and it lights something on fire in his chest. He feels giddy, like a kid on Christmas when he was young enough that it wasn't just Maddie getting him gifts and trying to keep the magic alive.
He's almost distracted again from what is happening by Eddie's face getting even more flushed, but he tunes back in to Eddie saying "Babe and Buck just have the same amount of letters and syllables, you know?"
Which means he's absolutely been floundering while Buck felt fireworks going off inside of him. Buck takes a breath and finally, because he has to tease the man a little as is his best friend, says "Don't worry about it. What did you want to ask, babe?"
It felt nice to say, but the reaction to his word is even better. Eddie stammers for another beat, and then visible steels himself despite his cheeks somehow getting even more red. "Pepa would like to invite us and Christopher to dinner on Sunday. You're free, right?"
Buck beams back at him. No matter how often it happens these days, he'll never get over the rush of Eddie's loved ones bringing him in to their circle. "Absolutely. You think she'll let me bring desert?"
Eddie huffs an almost laugh out his nose. "I think she'll kill you at the door if you don't bring your tres leches." He can see those deep brown eyes dart to the rest of the people in the room, all looking back and forth between the pair of them. "I'll, uh, I'll let her how you're in." And he scampers down the stairs.
As soon as he's out of earshot, his four friends lock in on them. "What was that?" Asks Hen.
"What was what?" He says back, like an asshole as he goes back to chopping just to avoid their stares.
"Either you guys have some things to tell us, or you just called him babe for no reason." Says Chimney, trying to sneak a pepper slice off the edge of the chopping board but Buck smacks his hand away.
"He did it first."
"Which was also weird." Ravi says pointedly.
"We're not trying to but in on your personal lives," Bobby says, looking at their peanut gallery. But then he looks back at Buck and says "But that sure was a, uh, interesting moment for us all to bear witness to."
Buck doesn't look up at any of them, eyes focused down on his prep work. "It's no big deal. He had a slip of the tongue, and I both covered for and made fun of him for it. Like a good friend."
He doesn't answer further probing questions that day.
But the thing is that it sort of becomes a thing.
It starts later that night, when their shift is over. Christopher has eaten, and they're alone in their now shared kitchen. Eddie is wiping down the table while Buck loads the dishwasher. "Hey, uh, sorry about earlier. Calling you, you know, babe. In front of everyone. Really was an accident."
And because Buck is both a good friend, and someone with a history of punishing himself, he does it again. Teases Eddie "Don't worry about it, babe. Not a big deal."
Eddie pauses with his cloth still on the table, and looks at Buck appraisingly. It's a look he's not unfamiliar with, but it always makes him squirm a little as he wonders just what exactly he sees. Then, he looks back down at the table and goes back to work. "Alright, sweetheart."
So it becomes a thing, calling each other pet names and terms of endearment. Angel. Sweetcheeks. Lovebug. Their friends looked at them like they were insane, but it was so easy to laugh it off as a joke. Didn't stop the looks, but he could pretend.
He'd realized he was in love with Eddie a month before his return to Los Angeles. Too many things were lining up, he had to face the facts of his feelings. He was maybe a little bit built to love Eddie and Christopher.
But he couldn't have that. Not how he wanted. But he could have this. A little taste. Just enough that the fire inside of him was being fed, but didn't turn into an all out blaze. So he calls Eddie pookie. And he learns that his friend's Texas accent kicks in a little harder when his says "darling" and it sounds like 'darlin.' And it's enough. Even if he feels cold at night on the pullout in the Diaz living room, it's enough.
Buck has always liked to flirt. The art of making someone feel so good about themselves, they couldn't help but like him back just enough. It sent a zing up his spine, when Eddie still blushes so pretty every time. He notices that his partner, in some way enjoying the joke. Or at least, he hopes he is. He's sure that the guy is sometimes just humouring him. Still, he gets that cheeky smile and sometimes he saddles up right by Buck, bumping their shoulders or hips together before he hits him with a "What are you doing, sweet thing?" That makes everything inside of Buck's body tingle.
It was an indulgent habit, and he wasn't ready to give it up.
Which is why he should have been expecting his slip up. He's driving home with groceries. He's making sausage and tortellini soup for his boys that night, and had forgotten the white beans and spinach. When his phone starts ringing, he doesn't look at it to see who it it. Expects it to be his housemate asking him to grab something else or for his. He doesn't think before saying. "Hey honey! What's up?"
"Honey?" A higher pitched and more melodic voice answers him. "Who's honey?" His sister questions.
"N-no one. What, uh, what were you calling about?"
A saint, his sister lets him detour. Asks him to pick up the cake for his favourite niece's birthday party two weeks from now. He of course agrees, mentally shuffling his mental checklist for that day. He'd add it to the physical one later. The call ends there. He sighs in relief.
He's obviously too quick to relax. The Buckley-Han's host him for dinner the next week, and she pounces on him the second her husband goes to attend to his crying favourite nephew. "Chimney tells me you and Eddie have been giving each other new nicknames."
He swallows thickly under a very nicely seasoned meatball. "Yeah, friends give each other stupid nicknames all the time." He says in what he hopes is a casual tone. He adds a little cheek to say "We literally called Ravi oil boy for two weeks after the canola oil factory incident last month. These ones are barely even sticking."
That's a lie. Babe is a pretty consistent favourite. Eddie noticed that he got a little extra giddy over darling. And those tanned cheeks went a little more pink on sweetheart. Especially last Tuesday when Buck had come home from a long shift without his second favourite Diaz to find that in his absence had the man not only ordered his favourite dumplings, but he'd also done all the assigned tasks on Buck's third of the chore chart that he'd been dreading. He was so relieved. He'd put his hand on Eddie's bicep, squeezing a little because how could he not. "Thank you, sweetheart" He'd said, immense fondness and so much more pouring out. With Eddie's adorable reaction, he had to say it again to try to get the same effect.
Maddie gave him a pointed look as he sipped his pinot noir "That's a normal embarrassing nickname. You called him the apple of your eye at an accident site."
"It was when the apple truck tipped over! It was funny! And there was only bumps and bruises so it was fine to be joking."
Her look grows more intense as she twirls a bite of her spaghetti. "He called you 'hottie Lamottie with a swimmers body' at the firehouse."
He huffs. "Chim's a snitch." He goes back into his own pasta. Chim's sauce is second only to Bobby's. Buck's is in fourth behind Athena's. "He says it was, like, in Hannah Montana or something. His younger sisters made him watch it." He leans back in his chair. "It's all just a joke." His excuses sound weak, even to his own ears.
She raises an eyebrow at him, but it's her eyes that really melt him. They always have. And then she just says "Evan…"
He licks his lips and he sighs. "It is all just a joke, to him."
"And to you?" She asks.
He pokes his fork at his food. "Taking what I can get, while I can." The wrinkles his nose. "Which makes it sound creepier than it is."
Her face takes on an expression of sympathy. "I know you're not being a creep, Buck. I just wanna know what's going on in your head." She assures him.
"You were right." He starts, because it's somehow the easiest part of it to say out loud. "When you said it wasn't so crazy to think I was in love with him. I was. I am." He shrugs. "But there's not anything I can do about that. I mean, what I should be doing is trying to get over it. But, I mean, this is…" He peters out, hands falling to rest on the table as he's feeling embarrassed and more than a little pathetic.
"Buck," his sister reaches over to rest her petite hand on his forearm. "Is Eddie laughing like it's a joke?"
At this point, he's almost certain that Jee having a sleepover tonight was a part of a plan, along with Chimney leaving them alone for so long. He hasn't heard a cry from his nephew in minutes, the guy is for sure just standing in their waiting until he feels like an appropriate amount of time has passed. He couldn't be mad at either of them for trying to help him deal with his shit.
"Yeah." He says quickly. "I mean, sometimes. Yes. A lot of the things we call each other are funny. Of course we're laughing."
"And when the names aren't funny?"
He opens his mouth to answer, but shuts it when he finds he has nothing. Because yes, Eddie does giggle when he's called cutie pie. He doesn't laugh on babe. On Sweetheart. Isn't laughing when he calls Buck baby or darling. He blushes. Smiles. Stammers a little sometimes. Gives him a calculated look before his reply every now and again. But he's not laughing.
Buck knows Eddie well enough to be able to find discomfort on his face or in his posture. Doesn't find any in his memories as he reflects on Eddie's reactions to what boils down to Buck's blatant but excusable flirting. If he had, Buck would have stopped immediately. Apologized profusely. No, Eddie wasn't uncomfortable. He leaned into it. "He's not laughing, is he?"
"No. He-he's not. He's…" He can't say it. Not when he can't be wrong about it.
Just then, the door to the nursery opens and shuts softly before Chimney comes into view. "Sorry I was gone so long." The man is putting on the performance of his life. He says "he didn't want to settle" as if Buck doesn't know the guy was just staring at his sleeping baby until he felt like enough time had past for Buck to be over his crisis. "How are things going out here?"
Unfortunately, he wasn't close to done spiraling He's kept this box shut tight in the back of his brain for too long to open it up now. He can't let himself entertain the idea that his best friend likes him, let alone loves him back. It'll only be painful in the end.
Maddie sighs, but fixes Buck with a fond look. "We've accepted it's not a joke but not what it might mean."
"Ah," the shorter man says, tension dropping from his shoulders. "That is a tricky bump to get past." Buck nods in agreement as his brother-in-law retakes his seat. "You know he's enjoying it just as much as you are, right?" Buck shoots him an unimpressed look. "Wait, you seriously haven't noticed that part?"
"Noticed what? He's my friend. He's a normal friend amount of obsessed with me."
"No, Hen and I are above normal level of obsessed with each other as friends. You and Eddie are something totally different."
He wants to deny it again. It would be so much easier if he could just get away with denying it. That strategy hasn't worked at all thus far. So instead he says "Explain."
"Buck," There's a look Chimney gives him sometimes. It's almost identical to Maddie's 'I'm your older sibling so please listen to me' look. "We have been watching Eddie give himself an internal pep talk every time he's walked up and called you a pet name in the firehouse. I've seen him less nervous to walk into a five-alarm fire than he was yesterday when he called you angel."
Buck had been washing dishes after lunch, back turned to the loft when Eddie walked up behind him and put a hand on his lower back. He'd said "Thank you for lunch, angel. It was delicious."
Buck blushed and stammered a thanks. It wasn't anything special, just chicken salad. Eddie had looked quite pleased with himself, though Buck had assumed it was just for successful execution of the bit they're doing. Though, Eddie didn't remove his hand until the alarm went off a minute later. The impression it left on Buck's back was warm long after they finished dealing with the minor car accident."
"You are not the only one desperate to pass this off as just a joke." Chimney said, not unkindly but firmly.
He hadn't let himself think it these past weeks. If he really forced it, he could try to pass Eddie's nerves as reluctance to participate in the joke. Truth is, Eddie doesn't have a problem setting boundaries these days, especially such small ones like this and especially not with Buck. If this was something he didn't want to do, he never would have called him sweetheart in their kitchen that night. So if that's not it, it has to mean… "Oh." Buck felt himself blink hard a few times and rises to his feet. "I gotta go talk to him."
The couple gasps and grabs each other's hands. "Yes! Finally!" Maddie says, with almost as much excitement as when she was 15 and her parents got her tickets to see her favourite boyband.
"But first, you do have to sit down and finish your food and then you're going to brush your teeth before you leave." Chimney says. "You're gonna need the energy but this stuff is loaded with garlic."
With a laugh, he does sit back down to eat. The ten minutes it takes for him to finish his plate has a soundtrack of his sister and his brother-in-law regaling him with more incidences over the past year and a half that the two had thought would result in getting the two together. He should feel self conscious. He doesn't. If anything, his nerves are going down. So many things he'd dismissed as being too good to be true, that he was reading into things. It felt more and more like confirmation.
He brushes his teeth with the only spare in the house, a tiny pink brush with a tinier picture of sleeping beauty. Maddie jokes "It's fine for Howie and I to have garlic breath, since we're garlicky together. You've gotta be fresh."
"I'm gonna be honest, I did not think this would work this fast or I would have made something else." says Chimney.
When he gets into his car, he's a man on a mission. Chris has been on a rotation of sleepovers at his friend's houses since he'd got back from Texas, and tonight it was Andy's turn. It meant Eddie was at home, alone. Nothing to get in their way.
Which is why, when he pulls up, he's a bundle of nerves again. He's so tightly coiled that putting his key into the lock and turning is a feat. Just as expected, Eddie is on the couch when he walks in with an action movie on. He smiles warmly at Buck in a way that could send him into cardiac arrest. "Hey, you're home early. How was dinner?"
Buck smiles back. "Good, Chim made his spaghetti and meatballs."
"Oh nice, his is almost as good as yours."
Which, Buck doesn't really answer. Just does a little laugh. "There was, uh, there's actually something I wanted to talk to you about."
"Okay." Eddie pauses the TV and sets the remote back down on the coffee table.. "What's up?"
He'd had a fifteen minute car ride to figure out what he was going to say. He didn't. So he just says "You know how we've been calling each other some new nicknames recently?"
The taller man takes a few strides to sit on the couch beside his best friend. "Yeah." responds Eddie simply.
"Has that, you know, been okay for you?" Buck says, trying to keep his nerves out of his voice.
He must not fully succeed because Buck recognizes concern in his eyes as he turns to face the blond a little more. The movement means their knees brush and Buck's heart stutters. "Yeah, you know I'd tell you if I had a problem with it."
"Right. Good." He thinks for a moment to just leave it there. Continue on with a 'cool, I just wanted to make sure. Good talk!' But he can't. Not now. He can't now that he knows Eddie was just as nervous as he was. "The thing is, I like them. The nicknames. A lot. And not just because it's funny or it's nice."
He knows Eddie well after all these years of working as partners. Knows he can read the man better than anyone. So he knows he's not wrong in seeing a flash of hope in his eyes when he softly says "I like them, too."
And just like that, 90% of his anxiety floods out of his body. It's almost easy to say "I like them because it's you. Because I like you." He places a gentle hand low on Eddie's thigh. "I mean, well, I love you. I'm in love with you. And I was hoping you might feel the same."
Eddie's always been like the sun to him, but the smile sent his way in this moment is perhaps the brightest thing he's ever seen. "Buck, of course I love you too."
They've shared a lot of great experiences together over the years. Most of his favourite moments have included Eddie since he met the man. But kissing Eddie Diaz? That has to be a highlight. Nothing has ever made more sense.
Later that night, when they're cuddled close in Eddie's bed in t shirts and underwear because fuck the pull-out couch, Eddie (who has hardly stopped smiling for hours) asks him quietly "So do you think we should add 'boyfriend' to the thing we call each other."
"Yeah." Says Buck (whose face is sore from all his smiling.) "Boyfriend works for now."
Two weeks later, they walk into the firehouse holding hands declare their relationship officially. Bobby already has paperwork ready to go for them. Luckily for them and unluckily for their coworkers, nowhere in the list of inappropriate behaviour they are not to do in the workplace does it say anything to stop them calling each other 'babe' or 'darling' or 'my love' to their hearts content.