Word Count: 4,904
Disclaimer: I am in no way associated with 911, Fox, or anything else related to that particular universe.

In the interests of ensuring Chris felt included in the developing relationship and Eddie learning to keep his hands to himself when Buck was around, they organised activities that involved the three of them as often as possible.

Chris had been shy around Buck at first, preferring to be carried against Eddie's hip as they wandered the zoo. His fingers had curled into Eddie's shirt, his cheek pressed to Eddie's chest, almost as soon as he'd been lifted out of the truck. Beside them, Buck carried a backpack of water and snacks over one shoulder with Chris' collapsed crutches still poking out the top of the zip. Every now and then, his fingers would brush against Eddie's elbow and Eddie had to keep biting down on his smile when a flurry of warmth entered his belly.

"The elephants are so big," Chris exclaimed as they sat and watched the training demonstration, hand twitching open and closed against Eddie's chest. Eddie tried to subtly stretch one leg and then the other, still easing out some of the kinks in his muscles from a long shift of running after suspects yesterday.

"Did you know the mama elephants have the longest pregnancy of any mammal?" Buck said, his arm looping through Eddie's as he passed bits of fruit salad to Chris. "Anywhere from a year and a half to two years because of their complex brain development."

Eddie stared at Buck with a raised eyebrow, wondering if any of it was true, but Chris wriggled in his lap to gaze at Buck with wide eyes.

"Really?"

"Yeah." Buck handed Chris a chunk of apple and reached for one of the water bottles. "They're super smart social animals, like monkeys and dolphins. They have really long pregnancies so that when they're born, they can almost immediately start understanding the social interactions of their herd."

Eddie took the bottle that Buck extended to him while Chris munched on the apple and watched the elephants with renewed interest, some of the tension in his little shoulders clearly receding.

"I didn't realise you were such a nerd," Eddie whispered to Buck once they'd left the elephant exhibit and found the gorillas. Chris was content to stand near the glass, giggling at the giant creature swatting lazily at a couple of smaller wrestling gorillas with a palm frond.

"Me? Nerd?" Buck chuckled, fingers weaving into Eddie's. "Just had to make sure I had a bunch of facts memorised in case your kid didn't like me to use as ice breakers."

Eddie wasn't sure whether to laugh or stare, which wasn't helped at all when Buck grinned and kissed his cheek.

"Hey Chris? D'you want to see the zebras?" Buck suggested and Chris' eyes had lost some of their wariness when he looked at them, almost certainly seeing their interlinked hands but not commenting on it. "Every pattern is unique."

"They are?"

Buck squeezed his hand before letting go, moving towards Chris with it outstretched. Chris' eyes flicked between it and Eddie. He gave an encouraging nod, his hopeful heart leaping into his throat as he watched his son's wavering hand press against Buck's palm. He was sure it wasn't his imagination that Buck's shoulders also lowered, as some of the pinched concern around his eyes faded.

"Yep. Every pattern of stripes is different, just like our fingerprints and tongues."

"Our tongues are different?" Chris said, his voice turning squeaky with surprise and Eddie ducked his head and looked towards the gorillas to try not to smile too wide at how it looked like his son had been won over by a whole lot of random animal facts that Buck had learned just for him, just for them.

How was it even possible to have someone so amazing?

After the trip to the zoo, they developed a routine of sorts where Buck would stop by between his shift at the gym and the bar at least twice a week. His visits turned into an opportunity to take part in a Taste-Testing Food Extravaganza, which had varying degrees of success. Chris had enjoyed Eddie's suggestion to have a homemade salsa taste-testing challenge, scraping two of the bowls of salsa clean with his chips and then pouting when Eddie had explained he didn't have the ingredients to make more. But there were other times they'd used different ingredients or followed new recipes, contributing to Buck having smears of flour on his nose or Chris laughing when Eddie wrinkled his nose at the horrible concoction they'd attempted to cook up before declaring that the Extravaganza was morphing into an Unexpected Take-Away Extravaganza.

There were rare nights when Buck didn't have a shift at the bar and could stay longer. On those nights, they made new desserts and ate them in the pillow fort that Chris would build in the living room. Chris snuggled into Eddie's lap as he ate his dessert and Eddie gazed at Buck, wondering if it was possible to trip head over heels this fast for someone that so easily accepted a relationship that came with the baggage of a dead ex-wife and his kid. And Eddie could tell, from the way Chris' eyes had started to light up when he heard Buck's car or bike in the driveway, that his son was wholly charmed by Buck too. Buck never seemed to get angry and was able to make Chris laugh at just about everything. There'd been a painful burst behind his heart when Eddie realised he hadn't seen Chris smile this much since well before Shannon had died, and he'd smiled into Buck's hand touching his arm like he knew.

Some of the nights that Buck didn't have a shift, he stayed over. It quickly became clear that Buck was not good at keeping quiet when Eddie had a sleeping kid down the hall, but then neither of them were good at keeping their hands to themselves once that kid wasn't around.

"Buck," he hissed, attempting to cover Buck's mouth after a particularly loud moan surely shattered the stillness of his home.

"S-Sorry, you just- Fuck, Eddie-" Buck gasped against his palm and though Eddie could hardly disagree when he was sitting on Buck's cock and trembling a little every time he rolled his hips, he really didn't want his bleary-eyed son to find him like this because there was absolutely no way he could explain it.

"Swear I'm going to gag you one of these days," he muttered, and then regretted it when Buck's hips jerked rougher beneath him and it was his turn to make some sort of obscenely loud noise.

There were other versions of 'dates' too, ones that didn't include Chris. Sometimes it was a quiet breakfast after Chris had been dropped at school, or finding a handful of hours in the early afternoon before Eddie had to pick him up to do something mundane, like run errands or go grocery shopping for the next taste-testing evening. What used to seem like a chore now seemed like a way to spend time with Buck wherever possible.

And then there were Buck's zanier ideas, like signing them up for a charity colour run through Los Angeles. Though neither of them found the running part difficult, he couldn't remember a time he'd been covered in so much coloured mess and laughing so hard at how ridiculous Buck looked. His white teeth were such an odd contrast with all the chalk and foam that was plastered to his face, threaded through his hair, smattered across his shoulders and down his torso.

"You weren't even this much of a mess at Pride," Eddie pointed out as Buck grinned and twirled and examined the patches of colour all over him. Eddie couldn't help wondering whether there was a sense of relief for Buck when the colours mostly concealed the pale pink Marks littering his skin, boosting his confidence to be seen in public without his shirt on.

"You saw me early in the day though, right?" Buck teased with a devilish glint, which immediately made jealousy flare hot and furious in Eddie's belly.

They'd taken Buck's bike so the colours didn't get smeared in their cars and Eddie wasn't surprised when they ended up at Buck's apartment. There were probably coloured smears left against the door and beside the wall to the bathroom because he was so overwhelmed with the urge to touch, so determined just to feel,that he'd been tugging the remaining scraps of Buck's shorts off his skin before the front door had even latched shut. He was fascinated by the opportunity to expose patches that weren't stained with colour, dragging Buck beneath the warm spray of the shower to clean the worst of it off before they inevitably ended up in bed.

"You look good covered in rainbows," Buck said with a grin, scraping shampoo into Eddie's hair in an attempt to help him be clean and colour-free again.

He pressed a kiss to the edge of Buck's lips, trailing his fingers over the slick grooves of Buck's torso. "I think I'd look even better covered in you."

Buck shuddered against him and by the time they were stumbling out of the shower in search of the stairs and trying desperately hard not to slip, Eddie wasn't even sure they'd spent more than thirty seconds dragging towels against their skin so that they didn't soak the bed.

"You do look good beneath me," Buck murmured as he kissed lines down Eddie's neck and across his shoulders, pushing him to the brink with a slow roll of his hips because they didn't have many opportunities like this to simply take their time when there was Chris' schedule to contend with, and alternating or opposing shifts across three jobs to deal with, and families to see because Buck saw Maddie for a dinner at least once a week and Eddie could hardly hide from his Abuela.

Eddie clung to the back of Buck's shoulders, breaths hitching in his lungs as Buck repositioned his legs, spreading him wider, finding new ways to torture him to the edge of unravelling. There was no rhyme or reason over who took and who gave, decisions generally made in the moment depending on how they felt on any given day, but Eddie would be lying if he didn't enjoy how Buck could pull him apart and put him back together again, how Buck knew exactly what to do even though sometimes that led to cursing Buck out. This time, Buck seemed intent on keeping it slow and purposeful, working to a steady crescendo that had Eddie making a muffled cry against Buck's lips as he came between them. There were a lot of mumbled, soothing words against his sweat-soaked skin as Buck followed a few rolls of his hips later.

When they were sated, when he was curled into Buck's chest and exchanging lazy kisses and feeling like he could hum with the same sort of contentment as a satisfied cat, Buck slowly grinned in a way that made Eddie arch his eyebrow.

"So, is this gonna happen every time there's a run? Because if so, I'll sign us up for one every week."

He laughed, pressing another kiss to Buck's lips and drowning in the warmth that enveloped them. "Don't push your luck."

Buck's fingers dragged down Eddie's skin and he twitched at the pair of fingers which pushed into him. His eyes fluttered and a whimper slipped past his lips at the oversensitivity buzzing through him, even as his body reacted with a low thrum of need and want, to take advantage of every second that he had before he had to collect Chris from his grandmother.

"I must have a lot of luck already though when I can't get enough of you," Buck mumbled against him.

He shuddered, searching for Buck's mouth and catching it in a searing kiss that made his toes curl with the way Buck's tongue licked into his mouth and his teeth dragged at Eddie's bottom lip. It wasn't long before Buck had him as a writhing mess of pleas for a second round, shivering with oversensitivity and yet filled with waves of heat that he was only too willing to hold onto until he drowned.

"You're different," Walker commented almost idly while they pulled apart some of their gear to ensure it was thoroughly cleaned and still in workable order after a call.

Eddie studiously kept cleaning, pleased his hand barely faltered and he certainly didn't pause or look towards his second-in-command. It had been a long few weeks of barely being able to meet his team in the eye, alternating between furious and hurt at the decision that was made on the call with George and overwhelmingly elated at the relationship he was nurturing with Buck. He felt bad for not telling any of them, especially Walker, but everything with Buck still felt fragile and his emotions sometimes still felt fraught when he looked at Polson's mournful eyes across the room after he'd replaced her with Anders.

"Am I?"

Walker hummed as he loosened more sections of the sniper's rifle that Tandy was so fond of using. It didn't matter how fancy their tech became, they each had certain weapons and gear that was favoured more by others. "You know I've worked with you long enough to know that when you're coy or flippant with your responses that something else is going on, right?"

Eddie very deliberately counted to ten inside his head. Then he looked over the disassembled parts of various guns to meet Walker's curious stare with a grin, knowing it would be construed as sly because he was absolutely going to keep his private life private for right now. "Is it?"

Walker threw his cloth on the table and stared at Eddie, whose grin only widened because Walker was playing directly into his trap. "Diaz! Spill!"

Eddie quirked his brows and shook his head, picking up parts of the gun jigsaw puzzle to begin piecing it together again. "Why would I do something like that when you can just yell at me to give you the information for the rest of my life?"

Walker scowled. "Don't tempt me."

He knew the one-year anniversary would be tough for him, and for Chris, but he hadn't expected to draw the shift short-straw and end up working again.

"I need to be there for Chris," he insisted to Athena, who had looked apologetic but uncompromising when he held up the roster in utter dismay.

"It's only a half-shift. We need all hands that day because we're expecting a lot of folks at the various memorial services," she explained, pursing her lips together as he struggled to contain the irritation.

"A memorial service I should be taking my son to because he lost his mother," he snapped, lowering his hand and feeling the paper crumble when he curled his fingers into a furious fist. "I lost my wife, Athena."

"I know, Eddie," Athena said calmly, her pen still poised above whatever she'd been writing when Eddie had abruptly stormed into her office. "I know, and that's why you can still spend some of the day with him while the rest of your team are rostered on for a full shift."

It was impossible to make any sort of dent in her argument when she clearly knew he was going to have this sort of reaction and had rehearsed all her lines to be spoken calmly and without a hint of emotion. She wasn't dismissive, but she also wasn't going to bend the rules or change the shifts around so that he was available to be with Chris.

He scowled at her, storming from her office and pitying anyone that had to deal with him during the rest of the shift or the shift on the anniversary day.

i need to hit something

aren't u meant 2 draw when u feel like this?

hilarious

i try

we both know im not a good drawer

true
u could come by the gym tomorrow after your shift is over?
we can spar together?

might take u up on that

see u then
be safe

He still felt stormy and was nursing a sore shoulder from landing hard during a take-down when he entered Buck's gym, casting his eyes around the equipment and the small, empty boxing ring in the middle of the room. There were a couple of women on treadmills over by the far wall, talking as they walked at a leisurely pace. There was a man lifting weights, watching himself in the mirror as he curled the barbells towards his chest. Off to one side was a door leading to another room which had timber panels on the bottom half and glass on the top half, which Eddie guessed was where Buck taught some of his self-defence classes.

He wandered towards the room to see if Buck was inside, but there was a tug at his shoulder which made him turn. Buck was exiting from another door across the room, dressed in a navy tank top and black shorts. If Eddie hadn't felt so angry at the world, he probably would have gotten distracted at the swell of muscles that he loved so much and all the glistening Marks on display with the scant scraps of fabric of his shirt.. Buck met his eyes across the room and gave a little wave, which Eddie felt silly returning as he crossed in front of the boxing ring.

"Hey." Buck wrapped him into a hug as soon as Eddie was close enough to fold into his outstretched arms. Buck kissed his cheek, almost certainly brushing a hand beneath the collar of his t-shirt to deliberately graze the Mark on the back of his shoulder. Some of his reddened vision faded slightly but it wasn't enough to erase it. Eddie wasn't sure if there was anything that could erase it.

He cuddled into Buck's arms, inhaling the familiar scent of his cologne that was laced with sweat across the breadth of his shoulders. "Hi…"

Buck nuzzled a kiss against his jaw, the shell of his ear, hand smoothing across Eddie's back. "Still want to fight?"

He nodded, his fingers twitching into Buck's tank top because he didn't know how else to get rid of the maelstrom inside him. "I don't want to see Chris like this. I don't want to tell him I won't be there for him on the anniversary of the tsunami feeling like this."

It had been a horribly long shift of trying to keep it together and he knew everyone was still walking on eggshells around him. Walker had tried to pull him aside a few times but he'd shaken his friend off, barely wasting any time to change out of his black fatigues and into something more civilian before showing up at the gym with twitching fingers and an ache behind his heart. He'd texted Carla to keep Chris a little longer and then tried to shut out all the noise in his head that made him feel guilty and like a terrible father because he couldn't be there for his son on one of the worst days of his life, again.

"Why not? Are you working?"

Eddie nodded again and Buck released a breath of understanding, rubbing a hand against his back.

"Alright. Let's get all this out of your system and then we'll figure out a way of talking to Chris."

And if Eddie hadn't still been feeling like he might just peel his skin off due to all the pent-up anger, he might have softened a little at Buck's casual use of the 'we' when it came to talking to his son.

Buck released him and moved towards the ring, throwing some tape towards Eddie for his hands. "Start with that."

Part of Eddie's attention stayed on Buck as he wandered the room, checking on the two women on the treadmill, trading jokes with them if their laughter was anything to go by, and then chatting with the man and adjusting his grip slightly and demonstrating how to try moving his arms in a different configuration to strengthen other muscles. It never ceased to amaze him how easily Buck could slip between different roles, chatting as easily with people in the gym as he did in the bar as if Eddie wasn't right there, humming with an inner rage.

Still, he was also focused on wrapping his hands and wrists thoroughly because if he injured himself while off the clock, Athena would probably kill him. He peeled his shirt over his head to add some tape to his shoulder and he knew Buck noticed when he sauntered towards him.

"What'd you do?" Buck asked as he traced over some of the tape and the faint outline of a bruise that would almost certainly be worse tomorrow.

"Got flung into a wall when the asshole tried to run."

Buck frowned, fingers trailing down his arm as he pressed a gentle kiss to the Mark on the back of Eddie's shoulder. It lessened the madness, but not enough. "You sure you want to do this?"

"The only thing that stopped me killing someone was knowing I'd come here," he said, pressing away from some of Buck's tenderness because his fingers still twitched and curled in readiness for the fight. "I don't need you to be gentle with me right now, okay?"

"Alright." Buck let him go, pulling himself past the ropes circling the ring and throwing the gloves towards Eddie climbing onto the mat. Velcro scratched as Buck pressed his hands into the pads and rolled his shoulders. "Bring it on, then."

He started gently, even though he didn't want to, because he needed to gauge what Buck knew or didn't know about fighting. He probably shouldn't have been surprised that Buck could keep up with him considering how Buck had flipped him over in bed that first time, but it always paid to be cautious.

By the time Buck started encouraging him to let go, he could feel some of the noise quietening as his instincts took over. The guilt gave way to anger, his blood heating as he thrashed against the pads covering Buck's hands and felt sweat trickle down his temples or arms or the curve of his spine. It wasn't fair that Chris was going to be alone, and it wasn't fair that he was working again, and it wasn't fair that Shannon had died, and it wasn't fair that Eddie hadn't been able to save her, and it wasn't fair that he still felt so furious that she'd been martyred in his son's eyes after abandoning them so many times.

He threw another punch towards Buck that soared wide and stumbled, something in his rage cracking and disintegrating into sorrow as he thought about how many times Shannon had left, how many times he'd tried to make it work, how many times he'd kept ignoring the black Mark telling him it was over because he wanted her to be involved in Chris' life. He choked on a sob, knees folding beneath him as hands caught beneath his arms and helped lower him to the mat.

"Hey, hey. I've got you," Buck murmured, peeling at the pads covering his hands until he could stroke damp strands of Eddie's hair off his face, until Eddie was half-sprawled into his lap and clinging to his shirt as he cried. "Let it out, Eds. It's okay."

He curled into Buck's arms as best as he could, painful sobs sticking in his throat as tears continued to spill down his cheeks. He didn't want to cry. He wanted to keep being angry. He wanted to keep hitting things. He wanted to keep hating Shannon for leaving him and Chris.

But Buck was so caring, soothing away the anger with gentle touches and reassuring words, and eventually all that was left was an echoing fury and a bone-deep pain. He was fairly certain that some of the control he usually held onto so fiercely was unravelling like spiralling ribbons, because it had nowhere to go in the face of all his attempts to contain it and Buck gently pulling apart the broken pieces.

Once he'd cried everything out of his system, he felt exhausted. It could also have had something to do with coming off a twenty-four-hour shift with only a handful of brief naps scattered throughout, followed by smacking gloves into pads for God only knew how long, but…he was exhausted.

Buck's fingers picked at the straps of the gloves, tugging them off and then folding his fingers into the gaps of Eddie's. He applied a slow squeeze of pressure every time he inhaled, and then gradually released it every time he exhaled. It gave him something to focus on, something to calm his frayed nerves as he sought to find a regular pattern of breathing again. "I'm here."

He nodded, dragging a thumb against Buck's and sinking into being held because the thought of pulling away was too much right now. Even if he was on a raised platform in the middle of the room. Who else was in the gym and had witnessed him go to pieces? God, that would be embarrassing.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Not really." He shifted slowly in Buck's lap, unfurling himself until he could sit up even though he still held onto one of Buck's hands and wasn't sure how he was ever meant to let him go "I know I'll be okay but I… I should clean up so I can collect Chris."

Buck squeezed his hand, climbing to his feet, and then hauled Eddie up until he was wrapping arms around Buck's torso and pressing into his shoulder. When Eddie glanced around the gym, he noticed that it seemed to be empty but he wasn't sure when or where or how that had happened.

"You know, I could spend some of the anniversary with Chris," Buck said somewhat casually, drawing away to touch a hand to Eddie's cheek. "I could take him to one of the services."

Eddie blinked in surprise because Buck and Chris got on well, but he wouldn't have imagined asking such a massive favour. "You… You'd do that?"

Buck swallowed, gaze flicking away. There was something in the edge of his eyes that Eddie recognised because he'd seen it in Chris' when he'd woken him from the nightmares in the months after the water had tried to take him away.

"You were there," he said, realising he'd misunderstood some of the look in Buck's eyes that first time they were truly talking, half-dressed and distracted by the Marks. He hadn't pushed at the time, and they'd rarely talked about Shannon or the tsunami since, but even so…

"I was," Buck confirmed, his prior confidence fading when his voice came out strangled. "So I have my own reasons for going to the memorial services and if Chris wants to go, then I- I can take him." His throat bobbed. "If he doesn't want to go, I can see him after and we can hang out. And when you get off your shift, we can all hang out."

His body was tired but he cradled Buck's cheek, pressing a small kiss to the edge of his lips. A gesture of thanks, and appreciation. "I'll talk to him."

Buck nodded and pressed a matching kiss to his lips, then hummed and wrinkled his nose. "You were right. You do need to clean up. You stink."

Eddie huffed a laugh and shoved Buck away from him, following Buck past the ropes until his feet hit the floor of the gym. "Which way are the showers?"

Buck grasped his hand and led him through the door he'd appeared out of before. It was a smallish office that led to a private bathroom at the back with a toilet and shower. "I have to stay outside in case someone comes in," Buck said when he caught the way Eddie eyed the space and then eyed Buck, with his interest in the shower apparently too obvious.

"You sure you can't join me for five minutes?" he suggested hopefully and Buck chuckled and kissed him, crowding Eddie against the wall. Eddie's hands weren't sure whether they wanted to tug at the tank top or the elastic of Buck's shorts but he could feel the lean lines of Buck against him, the feel of his hot breath fanning across his skin.

"I'm pretty sure you're too tired anyway," Buck mused, nipping playfully at his bottom lip, and Eddie could begrudgingly admit Buck was probably right. "Maybe if you get some sleep this afternoon and can't sleep tonight once you've put Chris down, I'll stop by."

Eddie's heart almost certainly skipped a beat at the look in Buck's eyes. "You don't have work at the bar?"

Buck shook his head, fingers light against the grooves of Eddie's torso, pressing at the hem of his pants. "Not tonight. You want me to come over?"

His only response was a bruising kiss that led to another laugh bubbling from Buck's lips and a disappointed whine from Eddie when Buck pulled away and left him to shower alone.

~TBC~