Word Count: 2,579
Warnings/Spoilers: None in particular for this chapter.


"Bedtime," Eddie announced once the movie was over and despite Christopher's tired protestations, Eddie swept Chris out of Buck's lap and into his arms to carry him to bed.

"I could've done that," he said but Eddie waved it away as he meandered down the hall, hand cradling Chris' head and murmuring to him in Spanish.

It left Buck with little to do except turn the movie off and fiddle with the remote as he searched for something else to put on, feeling far too alert to even consider going to bed and sleeping even though there was still an ache in his muscles from the call yesterday. The news had mentioned twenty-eight deaths in the landslide, including the bride and her father-in-law, and Buck had been left with a cold, sick churning for the rest of the evening. When he'd occasionally glanced at Eddie's face, he thought the paler cheeks on Eddie's face probably meant he felt the same.

It was odd, Buck mused, how often they faced death. Sometimes it was an attempt to spare someone else from losing their life but frequently they faced their own mortality. The truck crushing his leg could've been so much worse considering the bomb that had exploded. The embolism would've killed him if he'd been at his apartment. And the tsunami? Thousands had died that day and somehow Buck had made it out with a few scars and a lot of bruises, and enough nightmares between him and Christopher to keep psychiatrists busy for the next few years. And that said nothing of Eddie being shot. Twice.

He could face death, and he could accept its inevitably – and yet he couldn't face Eddie and talk about the thing he'd said that morning.

He wasn't sure he could call himself a coward, not when he spent his days running into collapsing buildings or leaping over the edge of a cliff to haul someone to safety, but he was…something.

His eyes unfocused as he stared at the television, time passing slowly before Eddie re-emerged and slumped onto the other end of the couch. He released a slow sigh, examining whatever was on the screen.

"What's on?"

Buck shrugged, extending the remote without daring to look at Eddie's eyes in case he unravelled completely. "No idea. You want to find something better?"

His hand hovered in mid-air for a moment longer than he expected and so, against his better judgement, he looked across at Eddie whose eyes were fixed on the screen. He waited, seeing the wheels turning behind Eddie's eyes and in the tense tic of his jaw every time he clenched his teeth.

"I-" Eddie's tongue darted across his lips, the light from the television revealing the bob of his Adam's apple when the shadow moved. "I don't want you to get the wrong idea."

Buck lowered the remote back to his lap, even as his heart zig-zagged a painful path to get stuck in his throat.

"This- I- What you said this morning-"

"I know. I'm sorry. If I could take it back-"

"Buck." Eddie shook his head, a deep frown setting in. "Evan. That's not-"

Eddie huffed, pressing his hands to his eyes and rubbing a few times, looking so increasingly unhinged that Buck thought whatever fragments of sanity he somehow still had left were slipping away as Eddie fumbled for words.

"I'm not gonna lie, it freaked me out," Eddie said after a pause that was so long, Buck thought he probably could've run barefoot around the world three times. "It's- My marriage with Shannon was- We know it was hardly a marriage but-"

"Eddie, you don't have to explain," he said gently, wondering if Eddie could hear the way his heart was cracking in his chest.

"No, but I do," Eddie said, looking at him with a fierce sort of determination that made Buck's breath catch. "I thought- I hadn't thought about…about marrying anyone again, because I never thought I'd…find someone that I even liked again. And then there's Christopher to consider and that… I don't want to put him through losing another parent, you know?"

Buck swallowed and pasted on the best smile he could when he felt for sure the acid in his stomach was responsible for all the pain he felt throughout his chest. "I get it." Unsure he could stand to hear any more, he discarded the remote to the coffee table and got to his feet. "I told you, you don't need to explain."

"Buck…"

It was his turn to shake his head, escaping the family room for the bedroom and wondering – for a moment that felt like his chest was being crushed under a fire truck – if he could grab some clothes and stay at Maddie's place tonight. It wasn't like he'd ever truly dreamed about getting married, not like he knew Maddie had when they were growing up, and it wasn't like he'd ever truly entertained the thought of marrying Eddie after everything the other man had been through with Shannon. But maybe there'd been a time, a fleeting few seconds, a half-formed idea after Chris' suggestion-

He reached for a second shirt from the drawer, casting his eyes around for a backpack.

"What are you doing?"

He saw the edge of a strap under the bed and pulled the backpack free, his hands trembling with how fast his heart was racing. Or maybe that was because his breathing was so shallow. Or because he knew he couldn't do this. He clearly couldn't be in relationships. Not now. Not ever. Not after Abby. Not-

"Evan." Eddie's hand grasped at his wrists, another hand at his neck lifting his head and Buck shut his eyes, because he was a child, because he was stupid, because he knew Eddie looking at him with the tears he could hear in his voice would destroy what little control he had left. "Please look at me?"

He couldn't, though. He couldn't. Because somehow, at some point, Chris had planted a seed in his mind and without him realising, it had taken root and blossomed and then he made some flippant remark and Eddie didn't want Chris losing another parent, which meant somewhere that Eddie truly saw him as a parent to Chris which he'd struggled to deal with ever since the casual remark at the recertification party but the way Eddie had talked meant they would never-

His brain stalled, an unbidden sob spilling past his lips when he felt Eddie's mouth press against his, when the hand at his jaw adjusted the angle and Buck was shaking so badly he pulled a hand away from Eddie's grip to grab at anything he could find, which turned out to be Eddie's arm that he clung to.

"Querido," Eddie whispered, letting go of Buck's hand so he could clasp the other side of Buck's head, fingers snagging at his hair. "Cariño. Mi amor. What are you doing?"

And Buck…he couldn't lie. He might feel paralysed by all the feelings that threatened to drown him – the fear, the shame, the guilt, the hurt, the love – but he couldn't lie.

"I'm sorry," he sniffed as Eddie kissed the tip of his nose, his forehead, the birthmark at his eyebrow. "I- I just- What I said this morning- I shouldn't have- I should have known-"

"Háblame," Eddie said, holding him so tightly that even if Buck had wanted to pull away and fold in on himself he never would have been able to. "Talk to me. Ev, please. I don't understand-"

"I should have known you wouldn't want to marry me!" he burst out, scrunching his eyes shut as a fresh wave of pain built up his throat. "And that…that's okay. I'm okay with that but I- You don't have to use Christopher as an excuse. Or Shannon. I- I know getting married is a big deal and you don't want to or have to do it again and I-"

"That's not-" Eddie's breath gusted over his cheeks as he sighed, thumb smoothing along Buck's cheekbone. "Evan, I love you. I told you that at the hospital. Have you forgotten? Have I not said it enough lately?"

Buck cracked half an eye open, finding the lost sort of look in Eddie's brown eyes difficult to look at for long. "That's different to…to marriage, though."

"Well, yes." Eddie tilted his head and kissed the creased spot between Buck's eyebrows. "That doesn't mean I don't love you enough to consider it possible with you, babe."

Buck's eyes both snapped open and he lost a bit of control over his jaw when he felt the way his mouth was gaping. Eddie's amused face did little to erase the sense of shock that sizzled all the way to the end of his fingers and toes. "But… But what you said…about Christopher…"

"Even if I didn't marry you, I'd be scared of Christopher losing you," Eddie said, a small smile playing on the edge of his lips. "I've never met someone more likely to trip down the stairs on the way to collect pizza."

"That was one time!"

Eddie snorted, brushing a hand through Buck's hair and simultaneously settling some of the frantic freaking out that Buck had been going through. "The point remains though, no?"

Buck wrinkled his nose and pouted, which just made Eddie kiss him. Which…wasn't really such a bad thing when Eddie's mouth was so soft and the scratch of his stubble was so familiar and he clung to Eddie a little tighter when he felt his breath hitch in his lungs.

"Te amo," Eddie murmured, kissing the edge of his lips and tracking a path to the curve of his jaw. "I love you, Evan. More than I know how to express."

Buck's eyes fluttered shut at the words that were said with such warmth directly against his ear that he thought they helped thaw the lump of ice that had settled in his stomach.

"Do you think about marrying me?" Eddie whispered and Buck reached out his other hand, tangling it into Eddie's shirt in case the world decided to crack apart and send them down a hill or try to separate them with some sort of bolt of lightning. With their luck regarding natural disasters, Buck wouldn't put it past Fate to take one last shot.

"Chris mentioned it a while ago," Buck admitted, sucking his lower lip between his teeth when he heard Eddie's breathing shift. "And I- It's not about me, it's about you. And what you- what you're ready for, or not ready for, or what you do or don't want to happen again. If this is… If we don't- If our relationship stays like this, then that's okay too. I've still got you, and Christopher, and I'm okay with that."

"Dios míos, I don't deserve you," Eddie said, patting his hair and kissing a path back to his mouth and Buck felt slightly dazed at the sharply focused look in Eddie's eyes. "What did I do to have you in my life, Evan Buckley?"

He felt a small, cheeky grin flash across his face. "Started at the 118 without your shirt on, I think."

Eddie rolled his eyes and kissed the grin away, kissed him with a heat and a determination that had Buck trembling for an entirely different reason than the panic he'd felt escaping Eddie earlier. Eddie's hands slid from his neck to his shoulders to his chest, one palm settling over Buck's stuttering heart.

"No me da vergüenza querer que esto sea mío para siempre," Eddie said. Though Buck loved hearing Eddie talk in Spanish and occasions where he understood fragments of words, there were times like this that he hated it because he could tell from the mischievous glint in Eddie's eyes that he was declaring something important and Buck couldn't understand it.

"English," he insisted with another pout that made Eddie's playful smile almost certainly widen.

"I want this-" Eddie's index finger scratched a rough heart shape over Buck's left pectoral, "-to be mine forever one day."

Buck felt like time had stopped as he blinked, rapidly, at Eddie. "You…do?"

"Yes, idiota," Eddie said and Buck thought his heart might just leap out of his chest and present itself to Eddie to take now if that was what he really wanted. "I will sign the papers and say the words that will make you mine, and make you Christopher's second father. I'm not afraid of that. I wasn't this morning either, if you'd just let me tell you that on the couch earlier."

Buck felt like he couldn't get his mouth to work properly. He opened and closed it a few times before he finally managed, "Shouldn't you be on one knee for this?"

Eddie snorted, poking at Buck's chest. "Would it actually make you agree if I did?"

"No." Buck realised his mistake as soon as he saw Eddie's eyes widen. "I mean- I- I'd agree either way. You know. Even if you aren't on one knee."

Eddie blinked. "Yeah?" he said, a little breathlessly.

Buck nodded, tugging at Eddie's shirt and feeling just as dazed himself as he gazed into Eddie's eyes and realised there wasn't anyone he could imagine being happier with, and he couldn't imagine a world without him and Eddie and Christopher in it. He wanted Eddie to be his, and he wanted to be Eddie's, and it was as simple and as complicated and as utterly clichéd as that. "Does this mean you'll marry me, Eddie Diaz?"

Eddie huffed a small laugh, his eyes twinkling. "I think you stole my line."

"Say yes, asshole," Buck demanded and Eddie's laugh was probably almost loud enough to wake Christopher.

Eddie didn't exactly say yes but the kiss that he pressed to Buck's lips, the way he dragged Buck's shirt over his head and mouthed at his neck and drew him onto the bed… His actions spoke far louder than some three-letter word.

And that was enough for Buck.


It wasn't until late that night, after he'd settled his body among his blankets and pillows with Buck sprawled over his chest, that Eddie let himself think about the look of pure surprise and wonder and happiness and love that had filled Buck's face when he'd made some sort of proposal that wasn't exactly formalised, and wasn't how he'd imagined proposing and yet…worked for them. His words might've started in Spanish, offering him the chance to gather his confidence before he told Buck how he really felt, but Buck's reaction had been priceless. It reminded him of the look on Buck's face when he'd insisted he was forgiven almost a year ago after keeping Buck at a distance when he'd returned for the craziness of shifts at Halloween.

As he gazed at the way the light caught on Buck's skin now, and the way shadows decorated his face, he couldn't help but wonder how he'd ever gotten so lucky as to obtain Evan Buckley's love in his life when he could imagine so many would have given up on him.

He'd never felt as peaceful in his entire life as he did when he knew he had this man's care and compassion, and he would absolutely spend the rest of his life reminding Buck how incredible and loved he was until the look of awe was replaced with acceptance.

This beautiful man deserved nothing less.


~FIN~


THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING AND SUPPORTING THIS INCREDIBLY MAMMOTH STORY.

THANK YOU. THANK YOU. THANK YOU.

There were plans to write some follow-ups to this (...a marriage? mayhaps?) so stay tuned...