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Buck looks absolutely miserable, really, turning his head back when Eddie walks in through the front door. Sunken into the couch cushions, a pitiful knit to his eyebrows, shoulders hunched and lips— they’d be pouting if Buck could do anything with his mouth at all right now. Eddie, hit with a blinding wave of affection, can’t help snickering before he can even say hello.
“Laughing at my suffering now, I see,” Buck says. It comes out strained, because he’s stubborn and would rather pull at the blistering skin of his jaw than not talk.
Eddie throws his keys into the bowl by the door, toes his shoes off. “I’ve laughed at your suffering before.”
“I know.” A scowl that only really works to make the little animal inside Eddie’s chest swell. “This is serious.”
The blinds are drawn, but it’s mid-morning and the sun fights its way through gaps in the fabric like it’s trying to reach Buck, throwing shadows across his downturned face. It’s not really all that often that Eddie comes home to Buck waiting for him, with their shifts aligned and their hips joined, but it’s times like these where Eddie gets to savor the way the aches in his limbs fade when he sees Buck, the way he still gets a little surprised every time, like, oh, right, this is all he’s ever wanted.
“It’s what you get,” Eddie says, lifting up Buck’s legs and slipping to sit underneath them, “for always taking off your mask too early.” Buck’s thighs settle on his lap.
“The fire was out.”
“And yet.” With one palm resting on Buck’s hipbone, Eddie twists a little to the side to let his other hand slide up to the back of Buck’s head, until they’re touching everywhere; Eddie can feel the rise and fall of Buck’s chest against his, slow and steady. No place he’d rather be, really. He could fall asleep right now, easy, exhausted down to the bone, but— Buck’s awake, and he missed him at work so much he wants to keep this until he can’t fight off sleep any longer.
A little pressure at Buck’s neck, and he’s tilting his head up so Eddie can look at the damage around Buck’s chin and down the one side of his jaw, where the flare of residual heat had hit him. The singed skin is already healing but still irritated and red; his lips are chapped and blistering, glistening wet from the cooling gel Buck’s supposed to lather on every couple of hours. He’s letting the examination happen, a little resigned. Eddie squeezes his hip when he’s done. Buck looks like he’s about to tip forward for a kiss before huffing out a breath, slumping back into his pillow.
“This sucks,” Buck groans, “I’ve been eating soup through a straw for days and I can’t even kiss you.”
“You complaining about Mrs. Sarafyan’s soup?” Eddie leans back a smidge, mock-offended on behalf of their neighbor.
“No.” A huff. “It’s delicious.”
“I’ll let her know,” Eddie says, and they’re still so, so close. He’s considering moving his legs up, settling in up against Buck’s side on this couch that’s probably too small and maybe taking a nap after all; nothing but the scent of Buck’s shampoo in his nose and the steady beat of his heart against his chest; and he’s leaning in already, about to bury his nose in Buck’s curls, when—
“You know, if you really loved me, you’d kiss me even with—” and Buck waves his hands in the general direction of his mouth, “—all this.”
And because Eddie really is disgustingly in love with him, he actually, for about a second, considers it. Just a faint brush of their lips, or the corner of Buck’s mouth, maybe; Eddie hasn’t been letting on too much just how on edge he is, but this is the longest they’ve gone without a kiss in— forever, probably. Ever since the first one. He shakes the thought away. But he’s already angling down, eyes set on Buck’s; except when he’s about half an inch away he diverts, dropping a quick kiss to the tip of Buck’s nose instead.
“Eddie,” Buck says, except it comes out as kind of an undignified whine, and Eddie grins at him just to see that frustrated little line appear between Buck’s eyebrows. “You’re killing me,” he goes on, and Eddie can’t hold in the laugh that bursts out of him. He muffles half of it in Buck’s shoulder, avoiding where his skin is tender, breathes him in. He smells like laundry detergent and aloe vera and something Eddie wants to keep forever.
Eddie almost stays right there, where he can nuzzle into him so perfectly, when Buck’s hand comes up to Eddie’s head and he sinks his fingers into his hair. The scratch of his nails against his scalp has Eddie more awake than he’s been in hours, and suddenly he wants. He pushes up, just a bit; Buck’s hand stays, settles strong and heavy at the nape of his neck, and when Eddie looks him in the eyes he sees them blown wide and dark. He squeezes Buck’s hip again, revels in the way the muscle there gives in to his touch.
“I can kiss you in other places,” Eddie murmurs, because apparently he enjoys torturing Buck. Himself, too— with his eyes fluttering closed Eddie nearly forgets, drawn to the familiar shape of Buck’s lips, the lingering memory of the taste of him, the weight of his tongue inside his mouth. He feels Buck shiver from the way his breath must whisper across his cheek; he feels it, too, that familiar itch under his skin that’s making heat begin to creep up his spine. The one inch of space between his lips and Buck’s feels too vast and barely-there all at once.
“Like,” Eddie goes on, letting his nose brush along Buck’s cheekbone, “here,” lips ghosting just a scant bit away from the unblemished side of Buck’s jaw before pressing down into the stubble there, almost chaste. Buck gasps anyway. His fingertips dig near-painfully into Eddie’s nape, and it makes a groan come out from somewhere deep in his lungs, so Eddie opens his mouth and pushes his tongue against the spot where his lips just were, lapping wet and slick at Buck’s pulsepoint. He feels it, his pulse speeding up against his tongue, the way his breath catches on a swallowed moan.
“Or,” Eddie says, wrenching himself away from Buck with all his might, because he was trying something; lets the tip of his tongue trail up Buck’s jaw to his ear. “Here,” he says, catching Buck’s earlobe between his teeth and closing his lips around it.
“Fuck,” Buck grits through his teeth, shifting in Eddie’s grip like he doesn’t know which way to go. A soothing kiss against that little spot below Buck’s ear; a tremble that works its way through them both where they’re joined, like a jolt of power, and that has Eddie giving up trying to speak. Instead he just presses kiss after kiss in a line down Buck’s unmarred neck, in a haste to get to the muscle at Buck’s neck, the joint of his shoulder, the jut of his collarbone, littering the soft skin there with nibbles and bites and sucks and soothing them with the flat of his tongue. All the while Buck’s push-pulling him closer by his hair, like he’s trying to attach Eddie’s lips to himself forever, panting against his cheek.
It’s at that point that Eddie notices that he’s so worked up that not even the smell of antiseptic cream can turn him off. There’s only the bulk of Buck nestled against his chest and the marks of Eddie’s teeth blooming pink and bright under the neckline of Buck’s shirt, clear in the sunlight breaking in; he looks a little mauled, red all over, burnt on one side and kissed to pieces on the other.
It’s kind of insane, in a way that has Eddie nearly keeling over with it every single time, how fast this happens. How all Buck really has to do is just lie there and it’s enough; just the love of Eddie’s life panting his name and looking up at him like he trusts him and suddenly Eddie feels like he has blinders on, like Buck is all there is, Buck writhing and begging for it on this couch.
“You’re killing me,” Eddie says. It comes out rough, and Buck’s squirming a bit more now, hips rolling in tight little circles like he’s trying to be good and failing, so Eddie lets his hand drag away from Buck’s hip, down his thigh, squeezing; thumb brushing along the inseam of his sweatpants, inching up, up, until Buck’s mouth opens around a gasp, and just as Eddie finds him— yeah, hard and aching, he thinks about how, once Buck’s all the way healed, he wants to ruin him all over again, sink his teeth into his bottom lip and tug, mark him up all flushed and pink with the burn of his stubble instead. Make up for all the lost time.
He sucks in a breath, a deep inhale to calm his nerves. Except all it really does is make him breathe in Buck, both of them panting into each other’s mouth. Eddie wants to kiss him so badly he’s about to crawl out of his skin. Instead he swallows around the spit that’s already pooling in his mouth, lets one corner of his lips pull into a grin, and finds his way back to himself. “Or,” he picks his game and the words back up again, and his fingers are creeping up to the waistband of Buck’s pants, now, pulling it down as slowly as he can make himself, “here,” and then Buck’s saying, sobbing, “God, Eddie,” and, settling between Buck’s legs, Eddie ends up forgetting about words completely.