Chapter Text
Buck has a problem. He’s never had a problem like this, not in his hundred and fifty years of life– the problem, of course, being twenty-six year old single father, Eddie Diaz. To make a very, very long story short, Buck has never given into temptation like this.
He’s been interested in humans in this similar context before, evidently never this strongly, but he’s managed to keep himself in line. He still has needs, of course he does, outside of the most notable need for blood— Buck used to say ‘I’m only a man’ to jest at his high libido, but well… that hasn’t been true for quite some time now.
It surprised him at first, when he had made the change from human to em>not, that the overeager sexdrive he’d had at the time of his turning was now frozen in time. It’s not how they as a species reproduce— that’s a more complicated process, creating more of their kind, multiple steps over stretches of time— but it’s still this animalistic instinct in him that hasn’t gone away no matter how long his life goes on for.
Other vampires do have that drive still, as far as Buck can tell, so he’s been able to curb his desire by indulging in it with his own kind. But never with a human, not since he stopped being one himself. He’s made it a rule for himself, and he sticks to it.
It’s too dangerous. He had already had to be careful at times when he was human, his size and stature sometimes intimidating to his less-bulky partners despite the capabilities it had given him. He’s not small, in terms of height or width, so he can only imagine how the added strength and agility would fare against a human now.
He fears that he might be on the path to find out, because not for any lack of trying, Buck cannot seem to get a grip on this infatuation that he has with Eddie Diaz.
Eddie came into Buck’s life a few weeks ago, and he seems to have stayed in it by sheer force of will. Him and his son walked into Buck’s bookstore, the two of them being new to the neighborhood and wanting to make their rounds getting acquainted with the local businesses and institutions.
The bookstore had recently been declared by City Hall to hold historic standing within the town, which had mainly just made Buck feel old as hell since he was the one who built the damn place, but his perception of time started getting sticky around year one hundred so he took it in stride. It did, at least, bring a lot more business to him than he had been getting ever since the rise of technology had rendered his physical bookstore somewhat obsolete.
Eddie’s son, Chris, is a riot. He’s loud and goofy and seems to be used to being the natural center of attention, not that Buck can say he’s shocked about that. The kid clacks around the bookstore, moving faster than Buck thought possible with his restricted gait, asking either Buck or his dad to reach the higher-up books for him.
On their first visit, Eddie had told Chris he could pick out one book before they left, and the kid had taken that decision very seriously. After forty minutes of agonizing back-and-forth between two books, Chris had brought a book about birds up to the counter, and he handed Buck a book about insects for him to put back. Buck had quietly rung them up, wrapping up the bird book in paper and slipping it into the little carry-out bag. Then he wordlessly wrapped up the insect book, writing a little ‘on the house :)’ on the brown paper, slipping it into the bag as well. He handed it to them with a smile, sending them a farewell and a welcome to town.
Eddie and Chris had come back the next day, the father with a hand on his son’s shoulder as he steered him straight towards where Buck was reorganizing the romance fantasy shelves.
“What do you say to Mr. Buckley?” Eddie had prompted, looking down at his son with an intense warmth that Buck could swear he could feel himself.
“Thank you for the book, Mr. Buckley! We read both of them yesterday, one when we got home and one during bedtime!” Chris’ squinty smile tilted up at him, a missing tooth giving his voice the smallest of lisps.
“You’re very welcome,” Buck smiled down at him before turning his head back up to look at Eddie with a nod. “And Mr. Buckley was my father. I go by Buck.”
“Well, thank you, Buck,” Eddie smiled at him now, one of his canine teeth poking out from his top lip. “It was a nice welcome to the neighborhood.”
“Don’t mention it, come back any time.”
And that they do. It becomes a bit of a routine. The two of them come in and buy whichever book strikes Chris’ interest– Buck always finds himself trying to give them the book for free, but Eddie insists on supporting Buck’s business by paying. After the third time they came in, Buck told them about the local ice cream shop just around the corner, so now the two of them walk over after they buy their book, get themselves each an ice cream cone with sprinkles, and swing by on their way back to the car with some type of sweet for Buck. Buck never eats it of course, his kind don’t partake in human food, but it’s the thought behind the gesture that keeps him from speaking up. He gives his Diaz treat of the day to whichever employee is there helping him out that day.
Chris is in second grade, which means that they rarely come by during the school's operating hours. It also means that Buck finds himself watching the clock every Monday through Friday. He gets fidgety and twitchy in a way that he hasn’t since he was a human. It’s a welcome sensation, the phantom thump of a bloodstream that doesn’t exist within him, almost like his body remembers what it was like to get so wound up that he could hear his heartbeat in his ears.
On the days where Eddie and Chris don’t come in, Buck goes home feeling deflated in a way that only makes him nervous. He hasn’t felt this drawn to a human in a long time, let alone one that doesn’t know about Buck’s inhumanity. Buck doesn’t hide his identity exactly, not since vampirism was legalized some seventy-five years ago, but he doesn’t make a point to bring it up in his everyday conversations. He wonders if anyone has told Eddie about him yet, wonders if it might change their carefree dynamic when the man does find out. He likes to think that he can read people well, can tell if someone would have a problem with him before he even gets far enough to form any sort of bond with them. With Eddie, though, Buck had let his guard down.
He had forgotten to be skeptical, to take any sort of mental inventory about who was standing in front of him in favor of marveling at the man, and it now leaves him second-guessing himself. He hopes that Eddie isn’t the type to view him as dangerous, or worse, as lesser than. Eddie moved here from Texas, he’d found out one day as they talked in the historical fiction section as Chris went looking for the store cat, Stiltskin. Texas is less progressive in terms of accepting vampires, but if Eddie had moved away from that environment then Buck can only hope that means he doesn’t align with the views of his origin state. That was why Buck had moved out of Pennsylvania, after all, even before his existence had shifted from human to not.
No, surely Eddie isn’t the type to shun him– if he were, then he wouldn’t have moved to California, one of the leading advocate states for non-human rights. Buck lets that thought comfort him in his times of panic, when he gets himself worked up over the thought of the oddly addictive connection he has with Eddie coming to an end over something as trivial as his own existence.
Buck tries to keep it in check, the anticipatory jitters and the excitement when he finally gets to see them. There’s never anything salacious shared between him and Eddie, everything staying friendly and distinctly PG-13, but there are times when he thinks that Eddie is throwing hints at wanting to get to know each other better. He asks what Buck likes to do when he’s not running the shop as he hands Buck books from the restock cart, Buck standing halfway up the ladder. He offers to set up some less outdated smoke detectors in the shop for Buck, a twinkle in his eye as he explains that he’s thinking about training to become a firefighter. He tells Buck about the parents in Chris’ grade that keep hounding him about joining the PTA, laughing as he jokes that he barely has time for breakfast with his and Chris’ schedule, let alone an optional before-school parent meeting.
Buck just listens, growing more and more enamored by the day with Eddie, with his humor and softness and strength. Eddie tries harder to get to know Buck than anyone has in years, decades even, and as the weeks pass it gets harder and harder for Buck to pretend that this level of care is just friendly.
***
“How come I know almost nothing about you?” Eddie asks carefully as the two of them sit side by side on a park bench, his eyes staying trained on Chris running around with some other kids his age on the grass a few meters away. The two of them had convinced him to take a break from reorganizing the bookshelves, coaxing him out into the afternoon sun without much effort required at all. “I mean, outside of the bookstore, I don’t know much about your life.”
“What do you want to know?” Buck responds simply, letting the corners of his mouth turn down in a frown that’s not quite sad, more just pensive. He doesn’t say what he’s thinking, that his solitude is by design, that he’s learned that letting people know him is harder for everyone in the long run.
Eddie smiles, small and private, as he cocks his head to the side, putting on a playful show of thinking up his answer. “Well, I guess I’ll start from the beginning. Are you from here?”
Buck hums with a shake of his head. “I’m from a lot of places, I guess, but technically I’m from Pennsylvania. Left when I was twenty.”
“And how long have you lived here? How long have you owned the bookshop?”
Eddie’s face is so open, so eager to know more about him, and Buck doesn’t have the heart to shut it down completely. He can’t answer those questions without opening up the conversation to something he doesn’t think either of them are ready for, so he pivots instead. He keeps his voice light and lilting as he asks, “Why do you want to know about me?”
“I don’t know,” Eddie pauses before he continues, biting the skin at the inside corner of his mouth as his eyes flick over Buck’s face. “I guess I feel bad. I see you almost every day and I feel like all I ever do is talk at you.”
“Don’t feel bad, I like listening.” It’s as honest as he can be in his situation without showing his hand. Buck likes when Eddie follows him around the store, tracing the spines of the books with his finger as he goes on and on about the events of his life. He likes when Eddie seems to lose himself in what he’s talking about, getting animated and talking maybe a little too loudly for what’s socially acceptable in a quiet bookstore. He likes hearing Eddie’s heartbeat pick up, the rapid thump thump thump of the muscle pumping in his chest, the continuous jump of his carotid beneath the skin of his neck getting quicker and more pronounced. Buck likes to let himself pretend that the increase in rhythm has something to do with himself rather than with whatever topic Eddie is rambling about.
“But what about me?” Eddie insists, taking in the raise of Buck’s questioning eyebrow, grinning to himself as he elaborates. “Maybe I like listening too, ever think of that? You seem like a man who has a lot of life to share.”
Buck lets out a laugh against his will, the teasing catching him off guard just by the fact that Eddie is usually more earnest in his communication. “Yeah, you can say that.”
“So, come on!” Eddie’s grin has stretched from ear to ear now, the plush beneath his eyes pushed up by the apples of his cheeks. “Tell me anything about you. Give me something.”
“Okay…” Buck starts, his eyes slipping shut for a moment as he nods, unable to help the smile that graces his own face. “I moved around a lot after I left home. Never stayed in the same place for more than six months ‘til I got here. I’ve lived in, I think, seven states. Also Mexico and Peru.”
Eddie is looking at him with wide eyes now, nodding and taking in his words as if he’s committing them to memory. “Wow. Which place was your favorite? What made you decide to stay here?”
Buck lets out a breathy laugh, nothing more than a puff of air from his nose. He has to think for a moment, the memories a little fuzzy from so much time having passed since that time of his life. “Hm, I think Peru was probably my favorite, mainly just because of the people I was with. I can’t remember the last time I had friends that close.”
Buck takes another breath, turning over the second question in his head.
“And I don’t know what made me stay here. Maybe I just happened to be here when I decided I’d grown out of the nomad life. Or maybe part of me knew that there’s something special about this place. Either way, I’m glad I did. A place has never felt more like home.”
Eddie nods, humming in agreement. “I know what you mean. About this place. I mean, Texas was never really home to me so I don’t have much to compare it to. But it feels right being here.”
“Well, I’m glad you found that. And we’re glad to have you.”
The two of them smile, quietly shared between them, as Chris comes striding up to them, sweaty and pink the way little kids always are after running around in the sun. “Dad, can we go get our ice cream now? I’m hot.”
Eddie nods at his son, groaning as he gets up from where they’ve been sitting for almost an hour at this point. Buck can hear his knees click, can hear the groan of his muscles as they strain. He looks at Buck, raising his eyebrows in a hopeful looking tilt. “Join us, Buck?”
Buck just shakes his head, a half-smile scrunching onto his face that he hopes is placating and gets across the very real disappointment he feels at having to turn the invitation down. “No, I’ve got to get back to the shop. Make sure Theresa hasn’t let all her high school classmates throw a party in the aisles.”
Eddie chuckles at the joke, nodding in concession as Chris starts pulling him away towards the ice cream shop by the hand. “Alright, see you tomorrow, Buck.”
Twenty minutes later, there’s a cookie in a paper sleeve left silently on the checkout counter, a wonky little smiley face drawn on the corner in crayon. Buck just smiles and slides it to Theresa.
***
It escalates after that. Buck lets himself open up in a way that he hasn’t in a long, long time. Eddie starts coming by the shop even when Chris isn’t with him, just stopping in to say hello as he passes by on his way through town, or sometimes sticking around for an hour or two just to talk with Buck. It’s nice, the best part of Buck’s endless days even, and he shares things about himself and his life that he normally doesn’t just by rule of thumb.
He tells Eddie about his sister, Maddie, and her daughter Jee-Yun, and about how he doesn’t see them anymore and misses them fiercely, but still loves them just as much as he ever has. When Eddie asks why he doesn’t see them anymore, Buck doesn’t say that it’s because he’s outlived them, but he doesn’t outright lie about it either, just skates around it.
He tells Eddie about his travels, of a life before extreme strength and speed and senses when he was just a young man, a kid really. He tells him about his time as a cattle rancher, as a surf instructor, as a bartender, and so on and so forth. The characters he met, the short-lived loves and the loves that stuck with him for years. Eddie listens, enraptured, and asks question after question, and Buck finds that stopping is much harder than starting when it comes to opening up. If Eddie ever wonders how Buck has lived so much life in his presumed forty-something years, he doesn’t ask.
Then, there’s the physical contact between them. It starts simple, and mostly innocent if not for the fact that they’re both aware of the fact that it’s very much on purpose. It’s a bump of their shoulders as they stroll the town’s courtyard, a lingering brush of their fingers as Eddie hands him a book to put back onto the shelves– even once, when Eddie seemed to be feeling particularly bold, the swipe of a finger under Buck’s eye where a lash had fallen out, making Buck’s body go buzzy long after Eddie had left the shop.
The two of them take up an odd camaraderie, an easy companionship that somehow settles Buck and simultaneously drives him up a wall. Eddie just takes everything that Buck gives him, his time and stories and laughter, and he seems content to let everything hang between them.
Eddie, maybe three or four times throughout the weeks-turned-months of companionship, asks to see Buck outside of this safe little bubble they’ve created together. He ducks his head and says that they should go to dinner, he shuffles his feet and asks if Buck would like to come watch a movie with him and Chris at their house. Buck doesn’t do Eddie the disrespect of making clearly false excuses, he just gives a sympathetic, miserable smile and declines each offer. Eddie is more confused than he is hurt by each refusal, likely because they both know they’re not rejections– they’ll still see each other the following day, their regular routines comfortable and secure, and Buck will be happy to see him just as he always is.
Buck is attached. He knows that at this point, but there’s not much he can do about it. This isn’t something he does, is the thing– getting attached to someone who doesn’t know about the very fabric of his being– so he doesn’t know where to go from here. He knows well enough that Eddie doesn’t have a distaste for his kind, that’s obvious just by knowing Eddie as a person. But still, Buck fears that Eddie knowing will bring an end to their growing attachment to each other.
Buck doesn’t want to keep lying, it’s not something he’s ever enjoyed. He likes knowing and being known in turn, however few and far between the opportunity for it is for him these days. So now, it’s turned into an internal battle that festers day in and day out. Is it better to bare himself and potentially lose a connection he’s come to care and rely on so deeply, or to keep part of himself locked behind a wall of stone so that he can clutch onto what he has? And how can he claim to care for this man who gives him so much if he won’t do him the service of letting him choose for himself?
Buck knows the answer. What he does not know is whether, after all this time and all this life lived, he has the courage to do what he should.
***
Buck should have known he couldn’t keep this secret, this lie of omission for very long, with multiple people in the area being aware of the truth and the neighborhood gossips catching wind of the connection between himself and the new single father in town. It’s a Tuesday, one of the handful of rainy days that their California town is allotted in a year's time, and the book store is echoingly empty. Buck almost misses the days where he could sleep, because he would likely be nodding off in the quiet at a time like this. And if he were nodding off, he would surely be broken out of that calm by the sudden slam of the shop door hitting the wall as it swings open.
Buck hadn’t heard the person approaching as he normally could– the constant drum of rain drowning out any outlying noises– so Buck twists in surprise with his back ramrod straight, a lasting vigilance from a time when he and his very existence wasn’t so safe.
It’s Eddie standing in the open door’s frame, one foot in the shop and one foot out behind him. His hair drips down onto his face as strands hang limply over his forehead, tousled from the wind that comes with seaside storms like these. “I didn’t mean for the door to slam. My hand slipped… Uh, the rain.”
His voice is heavy as he sucks in a breath and lets it shudder out, seeming like he’d run here from wherever he’d come from. Maybe to escape the downpour, but from the way he’s loitering at the entrance in a way he never does, Buck assumes not.
“Just caught me by surprise, that’s all,” Buck replies, his eyebrows knitting together as he takes in Eddie’s hovering frame. “Are you going to come in?”
Eddie lets out a final exhale and nods, his back foot stepping across the threshold. He lets the door shut behind him as he shuffles inside, the shop going quiet again as the thick wood muffles the roar of weather.
“Coffee is on in the back, let me get you a cup,” Buck makes to get up from his seat at the counter, but Eddie cuts him off with an assenting hum and a shake of his head. Buck huffs, fixing him with a pointed look. “Eddie, you’re drenched. You must be cold.”
“It’s fine, I’m just…” Eddie trails off, his face looking equal parts stern and far out of his depth. Buck finishes the sentence in his head as he watches Eddie stand awkwardly by the front counter: twitchy, unmoored, unsettled. It’s an odd look on him, such a stark contrast from his usual easy nature when the two of them talk. “Hey, uh, I never asked. How old are you?”
“Fuck.” It leaves Buck’s mouth before he even realizes he’s saying it, the word muttered under his breath as he closes his eyes defeatedly. He sucks in a steadying inhale, bracing himself for the truth to out. He knew he couldn’t keep it hidden for long. He starts with the easy answer, technically not a lie. “I’m forty. Why do you ask?”
“No reason, just curious.” Eddie won’t quite meet his eye, pushing his hair up out of his face and scanning over the rows of bookshelves that he already knows like the back of his hand. “Just… you would tell me if there was something… something important that I didn’t know about you yet, right?”
“Just ask me what you want to ask me, Eddie.” If you ask him in an hour, Buck might feel bad about the tone he uses, but he struggles to tamp down the frustration he feels in the moment. He can smell the anxiety coming off of Eddie, mixing with the dank damp of wet clothes, and it settles heavy on the back of Buck’s tongue.
Eddie nods, like he was waiting for the invitation to really start the conversation. “Are you lying? Are you really forty?”
“Yes, I am really forty,” Buck says, a sigh pushing out of his chest as he shakes his head again. Eddie deserves a real answer, Buck knows that much at least. “But if you’re asking whether or not I’ll ever turn forty-one, that’s a different story.”
To his credit, Eddie does his best to keep his gasp inaudible. He would have succeeded if it were anybody else standing in front of him, but Buck hears it as clear as day. He hears Eddie’s heartbeat speed up, the smell of anxiety thicker as the admission hangs between them.
“Who told you?”
“Does it matter?” Eddie sounds disbelieving, hurt coming out in the harshness of his voice. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Buck debates with himself for a moment, considering if he should really just lay everything out for Eddie to sift through himself. His biggest admission is no longer held to his chest, so what else does he have to hide really? No going back now. “Honestly, I don’t know. I know I was scared, more than I’ve probably had any right to be considering I was the one lying. But I haven’t felt like this in a really long time, and I guess part of me just wanted it to stay… normal.”
Buck pauses, giving Eddie the space to respond, taking a deep breath to continue when he doesn’t.
“I wanted it to stay easy for as long as I could have it, because what I am tends to ruin things. And the possibility that I might lose you and Chris if I told you… I haven’t been close enough to someone to go through losing them in a really long time, Eddie. It was selfish.”
A sound from the back of Eddie’s throat squeezes out of him, his eyes wide and his eyebrows pulled tight together. His nose flares a few times, ragged breaths going in and out, and he shakes his head. “You thought I would care about- that I would change my mind about you just because of that. Do you really think that’s the kind of person I am?”
“I don’t know.” It comes out terse, more so than he intended, and Buck rushes to adjust his tone and explain as he watches the hurt flash over Eddie’s face. “I didn’t know. I’ve never been this close to someone who didn’t already know beforehand. I’ve never… Eddie, this is new to me. I’ve been coming out of closets my entire life, but it doesn’t get any easier when it’s someone you care about.”
“I wish you would have told me.” His voice is small, his eyes casting down at the floor. Eddie takes a few steps towards him now, rounds the counter to the employee side, and perches against the edge of it a foot or two away from Buck. His arms cross in front of his chest, his fists tucking beneath each arm. “I shouldn’t have had to find out from Bertha at the deli counter.”
“Of course it was Bertha. Busybody if I’ve ever seen one.” Buck scoffs, a tad too blithe for the seriousness of the moment. Eddie frowns, clearly not taking the lighthearted bait, rather clinging onto the topic at hand with impressive grip strength.
“I’m serious. You should have told me.”
Buck bites back the smile he had been trying for, tugging the corner of his mouth to the center of his teeth as he nods. Maybe it’s the honesty that emboldens him, or maybe he’s just sick of pretending, but he reaches his hand out and settles it against Eddie hip where it leans against the counter’s edge. “I should have. I’m sorry.”
Even through the clothing, fabric still waterlogged, Buck can feel the fizzing heat of Eddie’s skin and blood against the palm of his hand. Eddie’s heart is beating so hard, Buck can almost see the pulsing heat radiating off of him with every thump of it.
Eddie’s breath hitches in his throat with every inhale, every exhale so hefty that Buck can feel the puff against his outstretched hand. Eddie reaches down, letting his own hand drop against Buck’s and squeezing just once like he’s making sure it’s really there. “I care about you too, you know.”
Buck does know, how could he not? Even if Eddie hadn’t been making it abundantly clear where his affection lies over the last few months, Buck could still sense it in the most literal meaning of the word. The flush of heat in Eddie’s face and down his chest, the swooping clench of muscles in his stomach whenever Buck laughs, the rise of hair on his arms and neck whenever Buck so much as brushes against him– sometimes it all comes together to be potent enough for Buck to taste in the air, enough to where Buck has to excuse himself to try and keep that carnal part of him in check so that he won’t do something he regrets.
“Mhm.” Buck’s hand digs into the flesh beneath it, making Eddie’s skin and muscle dip under the pads of his fingertips. If Eddie’s heart beats any faster, Buck might start to actually worry about his health. “I know you do.”
A shaky sigh leaves Eddie’s parted lips, his eyes slipping closed as Buck’s hand continues to press harshly into his hip. “So will you trust me enough to tell me the… the big stuff? To not lie to m- me anymore?”
“Yeah,” Buck is almost lost in it, the longest point of contact they’ve shared in the three months of knowing each other, and his eyes stay trained on the forceful rise and fall of Eddie’s chest, the bob of his throat as he swallows thickly. “Yes, I will, I promise.”
The hand that’s held atop Buck’s own shifts, sliding up his arm instead, and lands at the slope where collar bone meets shoulder. Eddie holds onto him there, a clench in his jaw that Buck can hear the click of as he hisses in a breath. Buck almost asks what he’s doing, why he seems to be focusing so deeply without saying anything, until he smells the sudden sharp tinge of pain in the air. Buck looks down at his own hand and gasps at the strength he’s using to grip onto Eddie’s hip. He pulls away like he’s been burned, no doubt leaving behind five bruises in his wake. “Sorry, I’m sorry. Oh god.”
Eddie looks dazed, like his entire head is filled with fog, only opening his eyes to break out of it when Buck pushes back in his chair and forces Eddie’s hand to fall from his shoulder. “Buck…”
Buck stands suddenly, retreating towards the back room. “I’m sorry, that was- You should go. You need to go, Eddie."
“Wait, wait,” Eddie stutters, shaking his head as if he’s trying to get his thoughts to organize in his head. “Buck-”
Eddie doesn’t finish his sentence before Buck closes the door between them, effectively shutting himself into the back room. He listens, waits for Eddie to move in one direction or the other. In the end, he hears Eddie let out a directionless humph, disappointed and confused, before shuffling out of the door and shutting it behind him once more.
Buck doesn’t move from where he’s leaned up against the door for an hour, his breath jagged and his mind whirring too fast to catch a single thought. When he finally gets himself to move, he locks up the shop doors and trudges uncharacteristically heavyfooted up the stairs to his lofted apartment. He doesn’t bother with turning lights on or settling his roiling stomach with a bloodbag from the fridge, he just throws himself onto his rigidly made bedsheets and stares up at his ceiling for hours.
***
He lets his few employees handle running the shop for the next six days, assuring them that he’s right upstairs if they need anything. Every day, he hears the familiar footfalls and clicking of Eddie and Chris outside the building, the two of them peeking in and leaving almost immediately when they see he isn’t there. “He’ll be back soon, bud. He wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye to his favorite second grader, you know that.”
Buck feels bad, listening to them come and go without so much as a hello, but he feels worse when he remembers what he did to get himself here in the first place. The whole reason he’s kept humans at a distance for so long, the reason he’s never let himself feel this deeply for someone: he lost focus, and his control slipped, and it was even easier than he anticipated it would be. So he lets himself sit in it, fester in a stifling combination of self hatred and regret and desire for something different.
***
On the seventh day, exactly one week since the last time he had seen Eddie, there’s a thundering knock at Buck’s apartment door. It catches him off guard, his focus having been directed intently at the 1960s movie playing on his television. He hones his ears to the other side of the door, finding the sound of panting and a pair of shoes shuffling from side to side.
It’s not the sounds that give it away though, it’s the scent— teakwood and coconut. He would recognize it anywhere. Buck swings his legs off the coffee table, standing and crossing his entire living room in a single agile stride. Swinging the door open, he starts, “Eddie-”
“You don’t get to do this,” Eddie cuts him off immediately, not even waiting until the door is fully open before he speaks. His finger is pointed directly at Buck’s face, waggling tensely as if he’s scolding him. “You don’t get to- to get spooked and disappear. We haven’t done anything to deserve that.”
“Eddie-” Buck tries again, still to no avail.
“No! You’re part of my life now, man, whether you like it or not. My kid loves you, he keeps asking when you’ll be back so he can show you this comic book he’s been drawing.” Eddie is gasping as the words flood out of him, like it’s second nature by this point for him to update Buck on all the goings-on of his and his son’s lives. “He misses you, okay? I miss you. I miss talking to you, and bringing you whatever stale dessert they have at the ice cream shop, and arguing with you when you try to give us our books for free. You don’t get to just disappear.”
“You know I don’t eat dessert, right?” Buck says before he can stop himself, almost laughing at the bewildered face Eddie makes at the question, jaw held open like he wants to respond but doesn’t know how. “Would you like to come in and not do this while balancing on the top of the stairs? I feel like you’re gonna forget and take a step back.”
Eddie huffs, stepping into the apartment with an angry pout on his face. Despite Eddie’s disgruntlement, Buck still watches as he scans the shadowy room with widening eyes. Buck crosses the room to flick the light on, landing back in the same spot across from Eddie in less than a second. Eddie’s eyes track him, intrigue taking over the stormy look that had just been donning his face.
“You don’t eat?” Eddie asks after a few moments of silence, his eyes slanting over to the clearly unused kitchen on the other side of the loft. It looks even less functional than usual, a sheen of dust covering the tops of the counters from lack of cleaning during Buck’s week of wallowing. If Buck had a blood flow, he’s sure his cheeks would be heating up in embarrassment.
“No… sorry,” Buck ducks his head, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. “I didn’t mean to keep accepting the sweets, it was just such a nice gesture, I really did appreciate it. I didn’t know how to get you to stop without seeming like a dick.”
“What’d you do with them?”
“Gave them to whoever was working.” Buck looks back up from the floor, sending an apology in his gaze. “They didn’t go to waste, I promise.”
Eddie nods, looking disheartened in a way that makes Buck’s chest ache, knowing he’s the reason for the disappointment coloring his entire demeanor.
“I’m sorry,” Buck repeats, hoping the sincerity might be conveyed more clearly the more he says it. He takes a step towards Eddie, subconsciously holding out a hand as he does before dropping it heavily back to his side. “Um… Do you want to sit? I can’t really offer you anything to eat, but I have water if you’re thirsty.”
Buck is already in the kitchen by the time he’s finished talking, reaching for a water glass as he listens to Eddie shuffle across the rug a few times. Buck holds the glass under the kitchen faucet, the slow drip feeling especially sluggish as he hears the springs in the couch groan under Eddie’s weight. Eddie’s lungs hitch as he adjusts into the cushions, and when Buck turns back around he sees the same wincing concentration on Eddie’s face that had started the internal spiral of the entire previous week.
“Your hip still hurts.” Buck states it plainly, not a trace of questioning in his voice. The sudden desperation to check on Eddie is so consuming that he almost forgets he’s holding a glass of water, only remembering at the last second to not use his speed. He walks with a normal, human quickness to the other side of the couch, placing the water down onto the coffee table and forgetting it immediately.
Eddie shakes his head, tries to hum out a dissenting nuh-uh, but Buck settles down on the couch to his left and the sound cuts off in his chest before it reaches his throat.
“It does, you’re still hurt.” Buck’s hands fumble in his lap, every instinct in him telling him to reach out, to inspect any damage and soothe it however he can, but he doesn’t cross the invisible line dividing his and Eddie’s space. He’s the reason there’s something to inspect in the first place, so what right does he have to be the one to soothe it? “I’m so sorry, Eddie. I should’ve never… I have more control than that, I shouldn’t have let it slip like that.”
Eddie is watching Buck's hands where they fiddle among themselves, eyes transfixed on the movement of them. “Don’t apologize for that.”
Eddie’s hands dart forward to grab onto Buck’s, the movement quick despite the hesitation that graces his face and pulls his brows together. Buck is faster, balling his hands together and lacing the fingers snugly between themselves, effectively cutting off any opportunity for Eddie to slide their hands together. Eddie huffs, and this type of disappointment is at least more amusing to Buck, a petulance to it that’s similar to Chris when his father denies him the opportunity to charm himself into getting a free book.
Eddie’s focus pivots back to the conversation at hand, his head tilting back up to look Buck in the eyes again. “Have you just been up here the entire week? Did you go somewhere?”
“No, I’ve been up here,” Buck nods, looking around the disheveled apartment that he’s shut himself inside of for days. “I didn’t mean to disappear. I mean, I did, but I didn’t mean to make you and Chris worry. I’m sorry.”
“Why did you?”
Something about Eddie’s eyes have always felt like they could look into you, past skin and flesh and into the very core of what’s making you tick, and that feeling is more pronounced than ever in this moment with the way that he’s holding his gaze so securely on Buck’s face. It’s been scary, feeling so seen when he’s been so used to trying to hide, but it’s also freeing. Once Buck started being seen, it made it easier to just let it happen, to let himself share what normally he would keep so close to his chest that he couldn’t even see it himself anymore.
“Because I hurt you,” Buck says it slowly, careful as if he might spook Eddie away, though he knows Eddie isn’t the one of them that’s most likely to run. “And I got scared at how easy it was to forget myself, my strength. I can’t let that happen again.”
Eddie shakes his head, his eyes flicking back down to Buck’s hands as he pulls in a shaky breath before bringing their gazes back together. “You didn’t hurt me.”
“Don’t lie.” It’s the closest Buck has gotten to snapping at Eddie in the entire time they’ve known each other, his voice callous and sharp, and unlike in their conversation a week ago, Buck does nothing to soften his tone as he continues. “I know I did, I could smell it. The pain. I did that, Eddie, there’s no point in trying to pretend I didn’t.”
“You didn’t hurt me,” Eddie insists, his voice even and earnest like he really believes what he’s saying. “I mean… yeah, there was pain, but you didn’t hurt me.”
“How is that different?” Buck scoffs, sounding dismissive and a little demeaning even to his own ears. He can hear Eddie’s heartbeat picking up now, the same way it had a week ago when their conversation had really started to get somewhere.
Buck’s hands are still balled in his lap, held carefully in his own space, when Eddie reaches forward again. He doesn’t try to pry Buck’s hands apart, instead resting his left gently atop the joined fists, his right hovering in hesitation over Buck’s right knee before dropping that one there as well. Eddie’s breath is fast and shallow, like he’s worried any large huffing breaths might dislodge the moment. “Because, I… Nothing you do could ever hurt me. I couldn’t care less if you leave a hundred marks on me.”
Buck groans, finally unfurling the hold of his hands and running one of them along the scratchy, stubbled skin of his jaw. The reaction is partly from the image that Eddie’s words have provided, now swirling in his head against his will– a hazy film reel of himself leaving mark after mark upon flushed, tan skin– but also partly from the dreaded confirmation that he had, in fact, let his composure slip enough to have bruised Eddie’s skin. “I left a mark.”
Eddie’s breath shudders on the exhale, nodding his head as he reaches out and wraps a hand around Buck’s right wrist. Before saying anything in response, still nodding his head, he pulls Buck’s arm towards him until his hand presses against Eddie’s hip in a weighted moment of deja vu.
“Eddie…” Buck’s hand tenses, straining to not dig his fingers into the meat under Eddie’s skin like he had before.
“You left a mark,” Eddie’s voice comes out in a whisper, almost closer to a gasp than anything, as he keeps Buck’s hand in place through his hold around its wrist. “Every day for the past week, I’ve been h- hoping it wouldn’t go away. I look at it, I- I press my thumb into it. Just to feel it ache again, to remind myself it really happened.”
“Fuck.” Buck snaps his eyes shut, his head falling forward in another groan. Eddie doesn’t take mercy on him though, just keeps going as his words flood into the quiet between them.
“I would have told you to stop if I’d wanted you to,” Eddie’s grip around his wrist tightens, pressing the palm of Buck’s hand harder against his hip. The thumping pump of blood through his veins has Buck biting into his own lip, fighting to hang onto his ever-waning reserve of control. “You could have kept going. I wanted you to keep going.”
Bucks fingers curl against his will, his lungs trembling as he sucks in breaths that do nothing to steady him. The pad of his middle finger slips over the waist of Eddie’s jeans, finding bare skin that burns hot to the touch, and it causes a shiver to wrack through him. “Eddie. This can’t happen.”
The words fall flat, neither of them doing anything to pull away.
“I want you to keep going.” The dam breaks, and Buck loses grip on his composure with a whooshing roar in his ears.
He slides his hand up from Eddie’s hip, pressing intently as his palm drags against the skin below the fabric of his shirt, gripping tight as his thumb squishes between the gaps of his ribs. Eddie’s left hand, no longer circled around Buck’s wrist, runs up his arm and across his shoulders, his forearm coming to settle on the space below Buck’s neck.
Buck’s other hand finds the other side of Eddie’s waist, caging him within his grip, and Buck can hear the stretch of muscle and ligament beneath Eddie’s skin as he digs his hands in just a little too harshly. He’s about to pull back, to soften his hold, but the noise Eddie makes turns his brain into nothing more than a buzzing jumble of thoughtless want. It’s a whine, almost sounding pained, but the gravel behind it points to something derived more from pleasure.
Buck bears down even more severely, testing the theory, and sure enough the scratchy, breathless sound makes its way out of Eddie’s mouth again. The smell of pain is in the air again, but Buck doesn’t falter this time, and it soon mingles with the sweeter smell of arousal. Eddie's hand shifts against Buck’s shoulders, scrabbling for something to hold onto, and it finds a home in Buck’s hair. It fists into a section of Buck’s salt-and-pepper curls, tugging steadily, and Buck can’t help the rumbling groan that lets out from deep in his chest.
He lifts Eddie up by the grip on his waist, the weight of him feeling like nothing to Buck as he grapples him into facing the opposite direction, before pulling him back and dropping him down so that he’s sat sideways across Buck’s lap. Eddie just holds onto Buck’s shoulders as he’s deposited where Buck wants him. Once he’s settled, he reaches his hand up to palm at the side of Buck’s face, his fingers flexing around the curve of jawbone.
Buck’s hands are so far up Eddie’s sides now, practically reaching his armpits as their upward slide continues, that Eddie’s shirt is rucked up almost past halfway. Eddie’s free hand, the one not gripping Buck’s jaw, grabs blindly at the fabric, pulling and shoving it sloppily like he’s trying to rid it from his skin completely. Before Buck can even realize he’s doing it, one of his hands twists in the thin fabric and pulls, the very composition of the shirt stretching and ripping apart beneath the strength of his fist.
Eddie gasps as it slips off his shoulders and falls away from him, the chilled air hitting his fever-hot skin, the knuckles of Buck’s hand still furled desperately against his sternum where he had ripped the material.
Buck can feel the heat radiating off of Eddie’s skin, now lacking any barrier, and it makes his head spin. He leans forward, crowding Eddie’s body against him further with the arm still wrapped around his waist, and presses his nose against the skin just below Eddie’s jaw. He can feel the thrum of blood pumping, the rhythmic pulse of it, and he can’t help but press his tongue flat against the erratic throb of Eddie’s carotid artery, the fronts of his top teeth skimming the line of his jaw. Eddie’s skin tastes like salt, the earthy type that carries along the breeze of the ocean, and Buck hears himself let out a desperate sounding groan.
Eddie makes a matching sound a moment later, though Buck isn’t hearing much of anything over the thump thump thump of blood pooling low in Eddie’s gut. He keeps mouthing at the skin of Eddie’s throat, teeth grazing as he goes. Eddie is writhing in Buck’s lap now, breaths puffing out heavily against the side of Buck’s face. Buck’s hands claw at Eddie’s torso, one at his ribs and one at the center of his chest. He might be leaving scratches, but he can’t get himself to pull away from Eddie’s neck far or long enough to check.
Buck’s mouth finds the base of Eddie’s throat, stopping and latching onto his left collarbone, and before he can stop himself he’s biting down. His tongue laves at the skin between his teeth, and he clenches his jaw tightly. Above him, Eddie lets out a jagged moan, his head thrown back as he pushes his chest forward even harder against Buck’s teeth. The smell of arousal comes to a crescendoing, stuttering peak in the air around him, the switch from subtle sweetness to heady bitterness cloying on the back of his tongue. Buck’s teeth dig in too far, too cruelly as he’s overcome with it, and the taste of blood fills his mouth as he breaks skin.
Buck unclenches his jaw, eyes wide and petrified as he pulls back from Eddie’s throat. Eddie looks dismantled, pulled apart by the minutes of overwhelming rawness. Every inch of his skin is glowing pink, the shimmer of sweat over his brow indicating the exertion he expended. His chest heaves, the shakiness of his lungs still rattling out of him as he catches his breath. And there, right where Buck had been latched to him, the angry red arches of a bloody bite mark mar Eddie’s smooth skin. “Fuck. Fuck, I didn’t-”
He’s cut off by Eddie’s mouth as the man in his lap tips forward and presses it to Buck’s. Eddie’s left hand is grasped in the front of Buck’s t-shirt, and he takes Buck’s moment of shocked indolence to slide his tongue eagerly between their parted lips. Eddie shifts himself in Buck’s laps to be pressed even closer, his right hand hooking around the back of Buck’s neck and slipping under the collar of his shirt.
Buck is kissing him back, and he would blame the too-easy distraction on muscle memory if he had ever kissed Eddie before, but it takes a moment for him to shake out of the haze of their tongues tangling together. He pauses and pulls back, just far enough to get his words out. “Eddie, wait, you’re bleeding.”
Eddie just pushes back in, bridging the gap of space that Buck had put between them, a moan vibrating through Buck’s teeth as it makes its way out of Eddie’s mouth and into his own. Buck presses a hand to the center of Eddie’s chest, pushing against it until the two of them part fully, far enough apart for Buck to get a good look at him. The bite mark is still bleeding, and there’s now a sheen of red coloring Eddie’s lips from where the blood had transferred from Buck’s own mouth.
“We have to clean this,” Buck says, running a careful fingertip along the edge of the swelling wound. “I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry.”
“Does it seem like I’m complaining?” Eddie tries for sarcasm, but the edge of it doesn’t land when he still looks so blurry-headed.
Buck’s eyes trace the rest of Eddie’s body, catching on scratches and reddened pressure marks from his nails and hands. The fabric of Eddie’s jeans are sodden, enough to have soaked through the front in a painted damp patch around his zipper, and Buck almost lets out a dazed laugh. “You really do like this, don’t you?”
Eddie nods, trying to veer forward into Buck’s space again, but the hand still held at his chest stops him before he gets far. Buck tuts, shaking his head with an admonishing hum at the attempt. He lifts Eddie off of his lap just as easily as he had placed him there, settling him against the couch cushions again before speeding back to the bathroom. He yanks the medicine cabinet open, grabbing gauze and antiseptic, before flicking back into the living room.
Buck hesitates for a moment, unsure of whether to let Eddie take care of it himself, but he loses the internal battle with himself and kneels in front of the couch, his torso bracketed between Eddie’s knees. Maybe it is his responsibility after all, to inspect, if he’s the one who created the ache in the first place– to soothe what he himself inflicted. Eddie leans forward just slightly, giving easier access to the wound as Buck douses a piece of gauze in antiseptic.
“It’s going to sting,” Buck says, giving Eddie a moment to prepare for the sensation before gently and carefully dabbing against the collection of small lacerations. Eddie winces, hissing air through gritted teeth, and darts his right hand out to clench onto Buck’s left shoulder. “You’re okay, okay, I’m sorry.”
Buck cleans the wound, more thoroughly than is probably needed, dropping the red and pink gauze against the coffee table as he uses them. Eddie keeps his hand on Buck’s shoulder, even after the initial sting passes and he stops needing to squeeze it.
“Okay, should be good,” Buck mutters as he tapes up the last piece of gauze, making sure it’ll hold in place against the open wound. His eyes cast down now that his focus isn’t being taken up by blood and flesh, taking in the dark patch at the front of Eddie’s jeans that’s likely drying sticky and uncomfortable. “The, uh… The bathroom is back there if you want to go clean up. And I can get you some clothes to wear on your way home.”
“On my way home.” Eddie repeats it, a click in his jaw as he flexes it and an edge to his voice that makes Buck’s eyes flick up in confusion. Eddie is squinting his eyes, his eyebrows pulled together as he looks at Buck. His nostrils flare, a mean sounding scoff catching at the back of his tongue. “So that’s it, huh? Nothing else to talk about, just clean up and go home.”
Buck blinks in surprise, his own eyebrows drawing together to mirror Eddie’s. He does his best to make his voice soft, tries not to make it seem like he’s being cruel when he replies with, “What do you want me to say, Eddie? I mean, I’m sorry, but it’s not like this can happen again.”
Eddie doesn’t seem disappointed, doesn’t seem to be dissatisfied or sad. Instead, he seems angry— Buck can feel the heat of it building across from him, a different kind of fizzling, boiling blood than what he’s grown to expect during his time spent with Eddie. “Is that not my decision to make too? What happened to trusting me with the big stuff, huh?”
“That was before.” Buck shifts, standing up from where he had still been knelt between Eddie’s knees and taking a step back, giving himself a wide berth. He runs a hand up the back of his neck, letting it rake messily through his hair, tugging at the roots at the crown. “Obviously, I can’t seem to keep myself in check. I’m not going to risk hurting you again.”
“So, what? We just go on with our lives, living in the same tiny town and act like it never even happened?”
“We go back to being friends.” Buck sighs as he says it. He doesn’t even sound convincing to himself, but there’s not much he can do about that now.
“Oh, is that what we were?” It doesn’t sound like a question that actually expects an answer, all rhetorical snark and frustration. Eddie scoffs again, standing up himself. Part of Buck— a bigger part than he wants to admit— wishes that Eddie would take a step towards him, try to close the distance between them. Eddie doesn’t, he just stands stagnant, his hands flexing into balled up fists at his sides. “Can I get a shirt, please?”
Buck drops his hand from where it had been resting on the top of his head, scratching his nails against his stubble as he winces slightly. “Eddie, can we ju-”
“You wanted me to go, so I’m going. Can I get a shirt, or are you going to make me walk out of here without one?” Eddie gestures to the ground next to the couch where his old shirt lays, ripped so thoroughly that it’s practically in two pieces.
Buck’s shoulders fall, his sigh of defeat hanging in the air, and he nods. He walks back into his bedroom, his footsteps slow even by human standards, and grabs the first t-shirt he sees. It’s a dark blue one that he wore less than a week ago, he can’t remember if he washed it or not. When he walks back out to the living room, Eddie has already moved towards the door, anger still sloughing off his shoulders like smoke.
Eddie snatches the t-shirt from Buck’s outheld hand, pulling it on and hiding a grimace as the motion jostles the gauze taped to his shoulder. Eddie swims in it, the fabric hanging from his shoulders loosely and falling down almost past the curve of his ass. Throwing it out like it’s an insult, Eddie says, “Thanks, friend.”
And with that, he turns and opens the door to the stairwell, and he’s past the threshold before Buck can come up with a single thing to say in response. Eddie lets it slam behind him.
***
The weeks following are unbearable. Buck doesn’t see Eddie, not even once, not even by happenstance, for two full weeks. Buck isn’t the one hiding this time, it’s Eddie that avoids him at all costs. Chris still comes into the bookstore after school, just as he always had– after all, Eddie would never deprive his son of seeing someone he’s grown attached to. Chris comes in and shows Buck his latest drawings for his comic book and gives Stiltskin treats from behind the counter, sometimes finding a book he likes and fishing out a ten dollar bill from his pocket that was obviously given to him by Eddie.
Buck can hear Eddie standing just outside every time, never far lest his son need him for something dire, but he doesn’t come into the store anymore. And Buck hears the two of them pass by again on their way back from the ice cream shop, but he no longer finds any hand-delivered sweets on the front counter.
He wants to chase after them, to poke his head out of the door and just ask Eddie to come in and talk to him, but he doesn’t. He gives Eddie space and time, because that’s clearly what he needs after being tugged this way and that by Buck’s incautious hand. Buck wonders if the anger Eddie had felt when he left his apartment that day was still bubbling under the surface, or if maybe the distance has calmed him and left him uninterested in interacting with Buck anymore at all.
As the two weeks pass, Buck feels like he’s losing his mind with the wondering. He’s stuck in a neverending playback loop of everything he did, of everything he could have done differently, of where they could be now if he had just let things settle for a moment. He shouldn’t have kicked Eddie out, even if it was Eddie who left of his own temper and will in the end. Buck doesn’t know if he would change his mind about what he had said, that they can’t repeat whatever it is that had transpired between them on his couch, but he does know that he should have asked Eddie to stay and talk about things properly. He deserved that, at least.
The absence of Eddie in his life becomes a problem, one that he brings upon himself by following his own reckless impulses. On the first night of week three of having zero contact with Eddie, Buck follows him home. It’s invasive and a new level of fucked up, but Buck has had what essentially amounts to the human-to-vampire ratio of four alcoholic beverages, and it’s been a very long time since he’s been even remotely under the influence, so Buck is really only directed by his base instincts at the moment.
He’s drinking alone in the office of the bookshop, once again tying himself up in circles about how things ended between himself and Eddie, when he hears a familiar footfall pass by his shop door. He knows who it is intrinsically, his brain flashing him the image of warm brown eyes and pink cheeks, and soon enough the smell of teakwood and coconut fills Buck’s nose. His feet are carrying him out of his office before his brain even registers the decision to move.
Eddie is just rounding the street corner when Buck steps out onto the sidewalk, a white plastic bag from Eddie’s favorite Italian restaurant swinging carefully from one of his hands as he walks. Buck takes a step, then another and another, until the fact that he is following the man is irrefutable. Eddie doesn’t look back, not even an inkling towards the fact that he has a bulky, inhuman shadow, and Buck is struck with the thought that Eddie would be such easy prey if he were doing this with malicious intent.
Buck’s not sure of his intent, what the goal of this one sided game of cat and mouse is, but he knows it’s not malicious. He just misses Eddie, he thinks that’s the main driving force behind it, and this is the first glimpse he’s had at the man in weeks.
Buck follows him all the way to his house, which he realizes suddenly that he’s never actually been to before. Eddie had explained to him where their house was, the cross streets and who his neighbors were, which was more than enough information in this small of a town for Buck to know where it was. But now, looking at the house with his own eyes as Eddie fumbles to unlock the front door one-handed so he can hang onto his takeout, Buck wishes he could go in behind him and take a look around.
The house is dark, empty up until the moment that Eddie walks inside, and then the front room is filled with warm light. Eddie doesn’t bother going all the way to the kitchen, it seems, because Buck watches through the front window as Eddie places his food onto his coffee table and sits down to eat on his couch. He flicks the television on with the remote before picking up his takeout container of the pasta he orders every time he eats there, then folds his legs into a pretzel as he eats and stares at whatever is playing on the screen.
Buck stands across the street in the dark of night, in plain view if Eddie were to turn his head, and watches. It takes him until Eddie is folding the lid of the empty takeout container and leaning forward to place it onto the coffee table, finished with his meal, to snap out of his concentrated daze. Buck shakes his head, as if the motion could shake loose the logic that has somehow completely escaped his brain, and takes a stumbling step backwards.
He goes home quickly, moving with as much speed as his alcohol-heavy feet will allow, and shuts himself back into his office. He has two more drinks before he retires to his apartment upstairs, feeling a nauseating mix of guilt and thrill, and wondering how the fuck he got here.
***
It becomes a terrible habit over the next week, Buck somehow finding himself standing outside Eddie’s window each night and watching the life he leads inside his home. He’s more discreet about it after that first night, ducking behind bushes or retreating in a blur if Eddie looks too closely in his general direction. The hiding makes him feel worse about doing it— the secrecy is a sort of admission in a way, he thinks, because it means he knows that what he’s doing is wrong.
He waits for the sky to turn the deepest shade of blue possible, the sun having long set, before he takes his nightly post. This means that Chris is usually in bed by the time he gets there, and Eddie just putters around, cleaning up the chaos of the day and sitting on the couch while he folds a neverending stream of laundry.
Buck has stuck around longer than usual tonight, watching through the panes of the wide front window as he leans against the tree in Eddie’s neighbor’s front yard. He’s gotten too comfortable, too brazen, it’s an anomaly that Eddie hasn’t spotted him even once in his lurking. He can’t seem to stop himself though, craving any connection he can get with the man who seems to want nothing to do with him anymore.
Chris has been asleep for hours at this point, Buck can hear the evenly slowed rhythm of the little boy’s heartbeat, sounding safe and calm. Eddie is sitting on the couch, as he so often does into the night, flipping through channels on the television in front of him and huffing when nothing interests him enough to land on. The movement of light on Eddie’s face flicks to darkness as he presses the remote one final time, turning the television off completely.
Eddie lets the remote fall to the cushion beside him, leaning his head back to rest against the back of the couch as he takes a few moments of silence. He shifts his hips a few times, his legs kicked out in front of him and his feet resting haphazardly underneath the coffee table. Buck focuses his senses onto Eddie, hearing the thump of his heart pick up slightly. His breath is shallow, quicker than it should be based on the fact that he’s been sitting still for an hour.
It takes Buck a moment to put the pieces together, but his knees almost give out as the distinct sweet smell hits his nose and he realizes what he’s stumbled upon a front row seat to. Eddie shifts his weight again, one hand raising to press against the collar of his shirt, the other making a slow trail down his stomach and onto his lap. He pushes his hips up, the palm of his hand pushing down as he does.
Buck shouldn’t be watching this. He should go, should leave Eddie to his privacy, but his feet might as well be cemented to the ground beneath him.
Eddie is palming himself quicker through his sweats now, desperate and uncoordinated, his throat bobbing as his head stays tilted back. He keeps letting out shaky noises through his parted lips, so quiet that even Buck almost can’t hear them, his brows pinching and his eyes slipping closed.
He lifts the hand from his lap, and Buck’s eyes catch on the darkened grey of a wet spot at the very front seam of Eddie’s sweats. Eddie’s hand slips under his waistband, not bothering to free himself and instead letting the elastic stretch to accommodate the width of his forearm. Buck can feel the spike of senses as Eddie wraps a hand around himself— the salty musk scent of sweat, the pooling pressure of blood in Eddie’s pelvis as he swells fully, the work of muscles in his shoulder and the creak of tendons in his hand as he slides up and down slowly.
Buck’s tongue feels too big for his mouth, his jaw falling open now in his own silent gasps as he watches the flex of Eddie’s muscles through rippled glass. Buck can hear the dragging sound of nails scratching roughly against skin, and his eyes are drawn to Eddie’s other hand as it claws at the edge of his shirt collar, leaving pink marks behind. A second later, the crackling smell of pain fills Buck’s nose.
Eddie is huffing out breaths now, each one catching on a moan, and the joint of his wrist clicks as he twists the grasp on his cock in a particularly exaggerated tug. He’s getting desperate, Buck can hear it in the way his heartbeat stutters with every stroke. Eddie squeezes his eyes together harshly, just for a few seconds, before opening them again. Then, for the first time in a week, Eddie turns his head to cast his eyes out the window.
Buck is caught, panting and dizzy, as Eddie’s eyes meet his. Before he can flee or hide, his brain moving at a snail's pace and keeping him in place, Eddie lets out a choked groan. His hips buck up, fucking into his own fist, and Buck smells the intoxicating, bitter release as it spills against Eddie’s hand.
Eddie’s eyebrows pull together, searching Buck’s frame as his breaths even out, and Buck leaves. He should explain himself, apologize, but he darts away into the night instead.
He strips himself bare for two hours when he gets back to his apartment, shame crawling up his throat the whole time.
He doesn’t go back the next night.