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It starts, as so many things do, because Eddie is kind of hungry.
They just got off of a long call, the kind that leaves them soot-covered and sluggish, the kind that has the temerity to start right as they were about to sit down for dinner, meaning that Eddie knows that he's coming back to cold pasta. His turnouts are heavy, his boots (and socks) are soaked, and he's thinking about the aforementioned cold pasta, so Eddie would argue that he has every right to not be a ray of fucking sunshine in this moment.
Unlike, of course, his absolutely infuriating sunbeam of a best friend, who carried no less than five people out of smoldering cars and still somehow skips out of the engine like he just got back from rescuing a puppy. It pisses Eddie off, the same way that the smell of the engine and the dampness of his socks and the noise of the station and the world in general is pissing him off at the moment.
He grumbles as he sloughs into the showers, snaps at Ravi when he's a little too slow grabbing a towel, and stomps his way up the loft steps and onto the sofa. He can feel eyes on him, Hen and Chimney and Harry and Ravi all giving him a careful berth, and it pisses him off only slightly less than if they'd tried to strike up a conversation with him when he just wants to be left alone.
Which, of course, is why Buck walks out of the kitchen around that exact time, a bowl of steaming pasta in each hand.
He puts the plates on the dining table as he passes, grins at the others as they scramble for their seats, then catches Eddie's eye and raises an eyebrow. Eddie scowls.
"Eddie," he says.
"Buck."
Buck rolls his eyes, the nerve of him. "Come eat dinner," he tells him, pointing to the table like Eddie's having trouble locating it.
Eddie crosses his arms. "I don't wanna."
Buck snorts. "What are you, five?"
"Why can't you bring a plate to me?" Eddie is aware that he's maybe whining slightly, but Buck is being a dick right now, so he feels justified in his behavior.
"Because," Buck says patiently. "It's polite to eat at the dining table. Like people. You never let Chris eat dinner in front of the TV, either."
"Are you saying that I'm like my fifteen year old son?"
"I'm saying that you're behaving worse than your fifteen year old son right now."
Eddie's mouth forms a shape that, for anyone else, might constitute a pout. "But I'm tired."
"It's like, five steps to the table, max."
"Five whole steps."
Buck walks towards him, his own arms crossed and his face the mix of exasperated and reluctantly fond that Eddie's pretty sure only he and Chris gets. "Eddie, come on. The pasta's gonna get cold, and you hate cold pasta."
Eddie scrunches further into the sofa. "No," he says, simply.
Buck looks at him for a long moment, then heaves a sigh. "Remember that you gave me no other option," he says, and Eddie barely has time to yelp before a pair of thick arms are wrapping around his waist, Eddie's arms flailing as Buck heaves him over his shoulder, one arm over the backs of his thighs and the other adjusting his waist.
Eddie's fingers scrabble, grab onto the loops of Buck's belt. "BUCK."
Buck cheerfully ignores him and starts moving, and Eddie can feel the movement of his muscle under his fingers as he takes each step, the thick folds of his side muscles, the press of his biceps over Eddie's ass. Eddie's brain, already overloaded with hunger and anger signals, flashes about a dozen warning signals as Eddie splutters and kicks and feels his face flush with all the blood rushing to his head.
(Just to his head, he wills himself, invoking years of military training and emotional repression. Please, please, just to his head.)
He stares at Buck's ass as he walks, the thick trunks of his thighs covered by LA-regulated pants moving forwards one over another. He prays to every god and also Bobby for the strength not to just. Touch his thighs. Just a little.
His mouth waters slightly. Because of the hunger, obviously.
Eddie's so distracted by his internal monologue that it's a shock to him when his vision shifts, blurs, the world abruptly spinning as he is deposited into an empty chair at the table. He blinks for a few moments, hands pressing down on his thighs in an attempt to shift himself into something resembling normal. His body jolts slightly forward, and he feels a warm palm pat his shoulder once, twice, before the chair beside him rattles as Buck flings himself into it with smug satisfaction.
"Eat, Eddie," he says, pointing to the steaming plate in front of him.
Eddie wills his blood to start circulating normally, picks up his fork, avoids everybody's eyes.
Goddammit. The pasta is really fucking good.
The second time it happens, Eddie is, well--
He wouldn't say that he's prepared for it, or instigated it in any way. If anything, he would argue that he simply took advantage of the opportunity that was presented to him. Being industrious, like firefighters are trained to be.
Granted, most firefighters are perhaps not trained in the specific art of getting their best friend to do questionable things to them, but Eddie would like to think that he's simply extending the spirit of his training. Top marks, remember? He's being a good student, is all.
So what happens is this: they are at home (Buck's house), Christopher is playing video games on Buck's giant TV screen, and Eddie is lounging in the kitchen and watching Buck cook. He is, pointedly, not hangry.
(Not that he ever is, despite some people's cruel and spurious accusations.)
Buck's new kitchen is bigger than the kitchen at the loft, which is presumably part of the reason that he chose this place. It is also notably larger than the kitchen at Eddie's place, which Eddie had felt some kind of way about before forcing himself to no longer feel any kind of way about it. It's a nice kitchen, the kind of kitchen Buck deserves. The kind of kitchen where, presumably, two grown men could co-exist in without bumping into each other every few seconds.
Unless.
"Eddie, can you--" Eddie shifts to the side slightly as Buck's hand reaches over him to open a cupboard, grabbing a little jar from within. He closes the cupboard, and Eddie shifts back into place.
A moment passes as Buck sprinkles the jar into the pan, the spice hitting hot oil and immediately smelling amazing. Buck turns back to him, gives Eddie a look.
"Eddie," he says, waving his hand slightly. "C'mon, man, I have to put this back."
Eddie heaves a put-upon sigh, and takes a few steps to the side. Buck puts the little jar back, closes the door, then turns to the pan. His side brushes Eddie, and he glances sidelong at Eddie with a little frown on his face.
"Why are you standing so close to the pan?" he asks.
"You didn't want me in front of that cupboard?" Eddie answers, a little confused.
"Well, now I can't move the pan without elbowing you."
Eddie looks at his elbow, then looks at the pan. "So you want me to go back to the cupboard?"
"What? No, why would I want you to stand in front of the cupboard?"
"Where else would I go?"
Buck furrows his brows at Eddie, like he's also trying to figure out the answer to that. They both stare at each other for a few seconds, the pan sizzling behind them.
"I don't want the food to burn..." Buck bites his lip, his expression that of someone attempting to solve one of Christopher's AP calculus equations. "Can you just, like, go to my other side?"
Eddie supposes he could, but something locks his feet in place. "Why can't I stand here?"
"I told you, I don't want to elbow you."
"You can be careful."
"That's not--" Buck heaves out an irritated sigh. "Eddie. Come on."
Eddie lowers his head a little, in a way that maybe just so happens to make his eyes look bigger than usual. "Are you saying that I should leave?" he asks carefully.
Buck groans loudly, shifting the pan off the fire (his elbow carefully not touching Eddie, see?) before spinning to face Eddie. Eddie, expecting another round of bickering (his mental feet clicking together gleefully), makes an unintentionally high squeaking noise as broad palms press against his sides, lifting him off the floor.
Eddie's limbs move instinctively, his palms grabbing Buck's (huge) shoulders as his legs cross at the small of his back. Buck doesn't miss a beat, hands shifting so that they're supporting Eddie's ass as he turns and moves through the kitchen, lowering him on a clear length of counter by the doorway.
"I don't want you to leave," Buck says as he sets Eddie down, their faces terribly close together. His breath is warm on Eddie's lips, his eyes impossibly blue from this distance. His nose nudges against Eddie's, a gesture so casually sweet that that, of all things, makes Eddie's face feel rosy and flushed. "I just want you to not get hurt, okay, Eddie?"
Eddie nods, his voice stuck somewhere in his stomach, where a thousand tiny Eddies were screaming at the top of their lungs. Buck beams at him, and Eddie is glad he's sitting, because the force of that smile at this proximity makes his knees feel immediately like jelly.
Buck begins to back away, and Eddie's legs tighten around his waist for just a second, instinctive, before he forces himself to loosen them, let them fall to Buck's sides. Buck's eyes flash to his for a moment, something like a question flitting through them.
But he doesn't ask, just coughs, cheeks going pink like it just occurred to him what happened, and walks maybe slightly too quickly back to his unattended pan.
Eddie watches him cook, feeling something sprouting in the back of his mind.
If asked, Eddie would argue that he is not somebody who causes trouble for his own gain. He has, in fact, been raised in direct opposition of that, the kind of guy who knows how to take responsibility and be the man of the house and who puts the oxygen masks on everyone else before himself.
That being said, there is another version of Eddie inside that Eddie. A version of Eddie who dances in his underwear, who eats entire trays of cookies, who giggles and pouts and grumbles until he gets the attention that he wants. And the attention that he wants, well--
Maybe sometimes it comes with a pair of hands on his waist, broad shoulders, and a few moments when Eddie quite literally no longer has to carry his own weight.
And, fine, maybe Eddie likes it, okay? Maybe keeping up the veneer of his heterosexuality is not as important to him as making sure Buck's hands are on him at all times. Maybe he's a six foot man in his thirties who likes it when his best friend - maybe the love of his life? Eddie's doing extensive studies and the results are coming out with heart eyes - manhandles him a little.
The question is now, of course, what Eddie is going to do about it.
Of course, he has the option of telling Buck. Not the feelings part, obviously-- the thought of having to put his emotions into words in front of Buck makes him sort of want to crawl into a small closet (not that kind of closet, except maybe it is) and die a little. The other part. The manhandling Eddie part. He's pretty sure that he and Buck have the kind of relationship (and, see, maybe this should've been an indication to him that their relationship was maybe not strictly speaking normal) where he could probably go up to him and say "hey, Buck, can you lift me up and deposit me somewhere like I'm a sack of flour?" and Buck would probably splutter just a little before going "Okay, sure, where to?" because he's a good friend like that.
But the issue with that, see, is that half the fun of the thing comes from baiting Buck into it.
So, clearly, the only solution is to do it on purpose.
"That's my yoga mat."
Eddie looks up innocently from where he's stretching in the station gym, legs crossed on a navy mat that could be anyone's.
"Don't see your name on it," he comments, tilting his head backwards to meet Buck's confused gaze.
Buck stares at him, ready for gym in his stupid little tee and the shorts that make his legs look a mile long. Eddie's eyes do not go to his crotch.
"Yeah, but I always use it," Buck points out, words coming out slowly. His eyes flicker over Eddie, and Eddie tries to stretch out a bit more, just for the exercise. "I've used it since I was a probie."
"Hasn't anyone taught you that sharing is caring?"
"Eddie, c'mon, man, you know I can't start my routine until I've gotten my stretches in."
Eddie is well aware.
"Don't know what you want me to do about it," Eddie says. He's really enjoying the little flush of irritation on Buck's cheeks, the way his brows furrow. His pecs pop a little as he crosses his arms, making them bulge, and, yeah, maybe Eddie's favorite part.
"Eddie," he huffs. "Dude. Move."
"Or what?"
He's expecting it this time, but the arms crossing under his knees and across the back of his shoulders still makes him huff out a sharp breath.
Princess carry, he thinks, only slightly hysterically.
"What the hell's gotten into you lately?" Buck mutters. Eddie doesn't quite have the wherewithal to answer, busy as he is with cataloguing the way his muscles shift under Eddie as he walks, not even out of breath.
Buck sets him down on the bench by the equipment, and Eddie immediately misses the warmth of Buck's body heat against his skin. Buck puts his hands on his hips as he looks down at Eddie, and Eddie very casually crosses his hands over his lap for no particular reason. Buck searches his face for a moment, then shakes his head and walks away.
"Well, that was weird," Harry says from beside him.
Ravi doesn't look up from the treadmill. "Don't think about it."
"What the hell are you doing?"
Eddie ignores Hen as he sits on the counter of the station kitchen, eating an apple. Hen frowns at him. He does not look at her. Hen sighs and walks away. Soon enough, Buck walks in.
He immediately sighs when he catches sight of Eddie. "Eddie."
"That's me."
"That's-- you-- you're doing this on purpose."
Eddie almost freezes, but that would be too telling. "Not sure what you're talking about, bud."
Buck waves in his general direction exasperatedly. "This! You-- you know that this is the cutting board side of the counter. I need this space!"
Eddie does know this. Eddie knows this, and is very thankful for whatever deity was in charge of Buck's thread of neuroticism, the exact trait that meant that--
"-- you know I can't cut anywhere else!"
Eddie feels his lips tug up at the corners. "Maybe you should try new things," he says, as sweet as he can. "Expand your horizons."
Buck flails his hands a little, incredulous. He turns to the loft. "Chim!" he calls. "Eddie's being a dick!"
Chimney doesn't look up from his paperwork. "Not gonna get involved in whatever this is," he announces.
Buck stomps a little, reminding Eddie of nothing so much as Christopher a few weeks ago, when Eddie had told him that he wasn't allowed to go see the new NC-17 horror movie with his friends despite it being "totally not a big deal, dad."
He'd tried to get Buck's permission on the phone, after, and pouted for a full day when Buck hadn't given in either.
"Eddieeeee," he whines, dragging out Eddie's name. Eddie loves it when Buck says his name, he maybe kicks his feet a little in delight. "Come on, don't you want lunch? You're gonna get hangry if I don't cook."
"I don't get hangry."
A pointed silence. Buck stomps over to him, arms crossed again. Yay. Eddie rests an elbow on his knee and props his chin in his palm, grinning at Buck.
"Did I piss you off or something?" Buck pouts. "Did you not like the last batch of blondies I made? I can stop making them if you--"
"No." If Buck stops making those blondies, Eddie will throw a tantrum.
"Then what the hell is this?"
"I'm just sitting, Buck," Eddie says, in a specific tone of voice he knows irritates Buck. Buck, obligingly, goes a little redder with annoyance. Eddie adores him.
"Eddie. Get off the counter."
"Or what, you gonna make me?"
Buck's rougher this time, hauling Eddie into his arms and over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and storming into the loft. Eddie can smell his sweat and laundry detergent, and he tries very hard not to kick his feet or get more than half-hard about it.
As they pass the table, he briefly meets Hen's eyes. She gives him an unimpressed look. He tries to keep his expression still. She rolls her eyes and mimes a gag. He gives her the finger. Does Karen know that her wife was secretly homophobic?
Buck drops him onto the couch unceremoniously, slamming him with a little bounce and oomph as his entire body weight hits the cushions. It's probably supposed to deter him, but Eddie has never been more turned on in his life. He's grateful that he's still wearing his thick turnout pants, which can probably hide most of his hard-on.
"Stay here," Buck points at him, Eddie's neurotic little love of his life. Eddie's heart skips, flutters, bounces along a road where he's being tossed by Buck every single day.
"If you say so," he says, putting his hands behind his head. Buck looks to the heavens, probably to Bobby, if Eddie had to guess, before walking back to the kitchen a little more aggressively than usual. Eddie meets Hen's eyes again.
"Embarrassing," she mouths.
"Worth it," he mouths back.
It gets, Eddie will admit, a little out of hand when they're out on a call.
Not that Eddie would ever put anyone's life in danger for the sake of his horniness, obviously. He's a professional. He has a silver star! When Eddie jumps out of the back of the engine for a minor fender bender, he is totally and completely on task.
He waits until after everybody is cleared and the scene is clean to grab the jaws from Ravi.
"What the hell," Ravi says.
"It's for a good cause," Eddie explains.
"Is this for-- whatever weird bullshit you're doing to Buck?" Eddie doesn't answer, but whatever Ravi sees in his face makes him nod. "Yeah, okay, take it or whatever. I refuse to be here when he blows."
Eddie is, in fact, angling to be as close to the explosion as possible. Some people really didn't have any taste.
When Buck jogs lightly up to the engine, Eddie is leaning on its side, jaws in hand.
"Eddie?" Buck's eyes are guileless, presumably because he does not expect Eddie to pull anything on a scene. More fool him. "Where's Ravi?"
"He...had something to do."
Furrowed brows. "On a scene?"
"Uh, cap called him."
"I was just with Chim...?"
"Another cap."
Buck's stupid, constantly open turnouts swish slightly as he turns full-body from side to side, looking at the scene with zero other stations in sight. "Are you...feeling okay?" he asks, sounding concerned.
"I'm fine," Eddie insists. He shifts the jaws in his grasp. Buck's eyes flit down to them.
"Why aren't the jaws put away yet?"
"I was gonna do it."
"You're leaning on the door?"
"So?"
Buck stares at him. "How are you gonna put the equipment away if you can't open the door?"
Eddie shrugs. Buck makes a little noise of frustration. "Eddie. Chimney's not gonna let you stand here forever."
"You gonna do somethin' about it?"
Buck's brows furrow, and Eddie watches his AP-calc expression again, feeling something between trepidation and anticipation. Finally, Buck frowns at him. "You're being really fucking weird, Eddie."
"You're weird," Eddie retorts, which isn't his best work.
"Man, I don't have time for this, just--" Eddie feels a surge of giddiness as Buck's hands reach out, his body already anticipating warmth, lightness--
"Buckley! Diaz! Get your stuff put away and get in the engine!"
Eddie shifts instinctively, Buck's hands fall. They both look towards the front of the truck for a moment, then to the cleared door. Buck opens it, and takes the jaws out of Eddie's hands, putting it back. Eddie feels his shoulders slump a little, his heart sinking.
When he looks back up, Buck is staring at him, something flickering in his eyes. He's not lifting Eddie, but Eddie flushes a little anyways. Buck opens his mouth--
"Buckley! Diaz!"
Buck gives him a Look that tells Eddie that he's gonna corner him sooner than later, then runs back to the front of the engine. Eddie braces a hand on the side of the vehicle briefly, catching his breath, and tries to decide what he feels.
He thinks about the look in Buck's eyes, the brief clench of his fingers as he turned away, and decides that anticipation might be the right word for it.
Buck doesn't say anything about it for the rest of the shift.
Eddie isn't sure if it's because he's decided that it's not a good idea to talk about it in front of their colleagues, or if it's just revenge for all of Eddie's antics, but it leaves Eddie with a buzzing, unspent energy under his skin for the rest of the day. He sits on the couch (he remembers, with a little buzz, the tenor of Buck's voice as he told him to stay), watching Buck chat with Hen over a cup of coffee like nothing's wrong. Buck's always been weirdly good at tucking away things that he didn't feel like talking about, when he puts his mind to it.
Still, he's not perfect. Sometimes his eyes flicker over to Eddie, pale lashes over dark blue, assessing, before flickering back to whatever he was doing. It makes every nerve in Eddie's body light up at the same time, a jubilant choir of look at me, look at me, look at me. It makes him want to scream. It makes him want to do something stupid.
It makes him sit in front of Buck's locker as Buck comes back from his shower, shorts slung low on his waist and completely shirtless.
"Seriously, Eddie?"
Eddie shifts slightly in his seat, feeling the soft cotton of a men's XL tee hidden beneath his legs. "Hey, Buck," he says, as normally as he can.
Buck's eyes flicker around the empty locker room, the dim lights of the station, everyone else is taking a nap, Eddie knows. It doesn't make this any less stupid.
"You are being a menace today, you know that?"
Eddie bites down on a smile, looks up in a way that someone (not him!) might describe as coy. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Either give me my shirt back or let me get to my locker, Eddie."
Eddie tilts his head, pretending to think. "Hm...maybe later."
"Maybe--" Buck splutters a little, and Eddie watches with something sparkling and just a little trembling in his chest as his eyes darken. "Eddie."
His voice comes out a little throatier than before. "That's me."
Buck slowly approaches until he's standing right in front of Eddie, pink and shower-warm, curls a damp halo around his head. His birthmark is darker than usual, and his tattoos-- yeah, Eddie really likes his tattoos after he's just showered.
Slowly, Buck shifts forward, one knee coming up to brace at Eddie's side as he leans down. Without thinking, Eddie's hand grasps his thigh, feeling the fuzz of his leg hair, the edge of a gnarled scar, the tight wind of muscle shifting beneath his fingers. He's so warm, and Eddie's eyes flutter a little without his knowledge, his heart kicking into high gear.
Buck's face comes down until it's a breath from Eddie's, pupils dilated and lips pink. Eddie wants, he wants, he wants. He twitches forward when he feels Buck's breath on his lips, but he feels Buck's warm, damp fingers on his chin, pressing him back.
"This isn't the time, Eddie," Buck says, something just to the right of familiar in his voice, soft and steady and implacable but with an undertone that makes Eddie's fingers clench on his thigh. "We'll talk when we're not at work, okay? I know you want something from me, and I'll give you anything, you know that. But I can't go the rest of my shift shirtless."
And that's bad because...? Eddie almost says, but Buck's still watching him, and so what slips out instead is: "Get it yourself, then."
Buck's eyes flicker down to Eddie's lap, and he knows there's a visible tent in the front of his pants. His lips twitch, just a little, and Eddie can feel a tug from beneath him, trying to get the shirt out. He resists, just a little, but another hand moves from his jaw to wind into his hair, pulls just sharp enough to get a soft, high breath out of him, and his body goes a little too liquid. When he can get his eyes open again, Buck has his shirt in his hand, a spark of victory in his eyes. His lips are smiling in that smug tilt that Eddie finds equal parts endearing and infuriating. Eddie wants to kiss him so, so bad.
Before he can push forward, coworkers and shift be damned, Buck bounces away, bright-eyed and gleeful and holding the shirt over his head like a trophy. Eddie glares at him, he smirks back.
"Asshole," Eddie says.
Buck dimples at him. "Takes one to know one."
Eddie has his seat belt off and is out of the car almost before Buck has it fully parked in the driveway of their (other) house on South Bedford street. He hears Buck's little yelp of warning as he shifts gears, but Eddie is focused. He has his eyes on the prize.
He stalks up their driveway, to their door, and turns around to lean on it, watching as Buck gets out of the car, his eyes catching on Eddie. Eddie grins at the beaming, beautiful laugh that comes out of Buck when he sees him, head tilted back and sunset painting gold and crimson over his skin. Buck lopes up to him, looking like nothing more than a predator stalking its prey. Eddie tilts his head, warm and bubbling over with something frighteningly like joy.
"You want something, Eddie?" he asks, tilting his head, tongue peeking out from between his teeth.
Eddie leans harder on the door. "I don't know what you're talking about," he says.
"Are you gonna let me open the door, then?"
He can feel a smile pulling at his lips, irrepressible. "Nope."
Another laugh, and Buck braces an arm over Eddie's head, another palm hot over his hip, and slots himself between Eddie's open legs. Eddie grins under Buck's shadow, fingers coming to grasp at either side of his waist. "If you want something, Eddie, you can just tell me."
Eddie gives his shirt a little tug, and Buck, as always, goes where Eddie needs him, nudges their noses together.
"What's the fun of that?" he asks, feeling Buck's plush bottom lip brush against his with every word. He wants to suck it between his teeth, work it until it's rosy and bruised and the same shade of pink as Buck's birthmark, until Buck's fingers go tight around him in a bruise Eddie can keep for the rest of his life. Keep Buck for the rest of their lives.
"Well," Buck says, every sound a tease, a barely-there kiss. "There's this."
And Eddie laughs and laughs and laughs, as Buck's hand shifts on his hip to fold across his thighs, tugging him up with one arm. His legs go around Buck's waist, easily now, natural. He wonders, for a moment, if he should be embarrassed about whatever the neighbors are seeing.
Nah. They're just jealous that they don't have a six foot two best friend who can haul them up one-handed.
Buck's other hand shifts behind them, and Eddie can hear the click of a lock, the creak of unoiled hinges, as he almost falls backwards through the suddenly-open door. Buck has him, though. He always does, pressing a hand between his shoulders and pushing Eddie in, towards him, their lips finally, finally meeting as he kicks open the door and walks in with Eddie in his arms.
Eddie gets to taste the puffy swell of Buck's lips, gets to feel the blunt edges of his teeth with his tongue as his legs go tight around him. Buck kisses like he does everything else, with enthusiasm and intent and the easy confidence of someone who knows that they're good at what they do. He can feel the two of them walking through the house, the dim hallways and familiar furnishings. He doesn't try to work out where they're going. Buck's got him.
He yelps a little as gravity suddenly hits him, his back falling on something soft and giving. He laughs as Buck crawls over him, hands splayed on either side of him, sinking into the duvet.
"The bedroom?" he laughs, breath hitching as Buck kisses his way across his jaw, down his throat. "Kind of presumptuous of you, don't you think?"
A nip to his jugular that Eddie moans into, then Buck's face above his, kiss-bitten, rosy-cheeked, brighter than the sun. "What," Buck says, a teasing lilt to his voice. "Do you want me to toss you somewhere else?"
And it's easy, so easy, for Eddie to wind his legs over Buck's thighs, pull him down and cup his face in his hands, kiss him, kiss him, kiss him, until they're both panting and glossy-eyed.
"Yes, always," Eddie says, voice hoarse, grinning at he dazed, awed expression on Buck's face. "But later. Right now, I'm exactly where I want to be."