Chapter Text
The wedding goes exactly as Buck expected — which is to say, not according to plan at all.
A pipe bursts at the venue five days before thanks to an unseasonable cold snap that brings a thick layer of frost and icy roadways to Los Angeles for the first time in five years. This means that the team is also working double overtime on top of trying to arrange a short-notice move from the edgy indoor/outdoor restaurant, Le Mer, to the only halfway-landscaped yard of Bobby and Athena’s not-quite finished house.
Every minute not spent at the firehouse patching up motorists and responding to bizarre ice-related home emergencies sees Buck — clipboard in hand — making phone calls, threats, and bribes to what feels like every person in the southern California wedding industry.
There’s also a lot of ordering around of his uncharacteristically indulgent friends and colleagues.
“It’s really lucky when you think about it,” Bobby says as Buck stress eats his way through an entire roll of Thin Mints while on hold with the DJ. “If this happened a week later, we’d already have the furniture moved in. Now, we’ll have a nice open living room to set up all the tables!”
When Buck only glares at this forced optimism, cheeks puffed out like an angry squirrel storing for winter, Bobby just chuckles, pats his shoulder, and says, “It’ll be okay, kid.”
Then the florist’s truck careens across the highway thanks to bald tires and an inexperienced driver. Of course the 118 responds. Buck watches as the arrangements he and Eddie so carefully selected scatter across the 110 in a riot of color over gray pavement.
The photographer gets stuck in Burlington when she can’t catch a flight back to LA due the weather. Naturally, it’s blue skies and sunshine in Vermont (the third snowiest state in the nation — Buck looked it up), but the LA tarmac has to be thawed out every hour and the machines keep burning out.
This also means that his parents’ flight out of Harrisburg gets delayed. And they can’t be bothered to wait around on standby or take a flight with a layover, so it looks like the east coast Buckley contingent will be staying right where they belong — on the east coast. Buck takes all of thirty minutes to mourn the fact that his parents’ won’t be at his wedding. It’s the precipitating event that works him halfway into a panic attack until Eddie pulls Buck into Bobby and Athena’s new walk-in pantry, runs a warm hand up and down his spine, and reminds him that he didn’t want his parents to come anyway. He only invited them out of some bullshit (Eddie’s word — not Buck’s) sense of obligation and because Maddie made doe-eyes at him while holding his six-month old nephew. Their absence means there’s just one less thing he has to worry about.
The 118 rallies around them like it always does, putting the finishing touches on Bobby and Athena’s three-bedroom bungalow a whole two weeks ahead of schedule. Chimney hangs light fixtures, Hen paints, Maddie and Karen tile backsplash, Christopher screws in all the electrical plate covers. Athena supervises.
Buck’s pretty sure he sees Bobby slip the landscapers a thick wad of cash as Eddie is ushering him out the door Thursday night because when he returns to the house Friday morning after a mandated six-hour sleep — achieved by Eddie physically laying on top of him like a weighted blanket and refusing to move until Buck passed out — he finds a flourishing, and finished, garden that more than makes up for the floral arrangements lost to LA traffic.
The wedding arch is set against a backdrop of California hills and swaying palm trees. There are a few dozen chairs laid out in front of it (fortunately, they kept the guest list small). If Buck gets a little teary eyed at the sight of it — the physical manifestation of just how much his friends, his family, cares — no one mentions it.
In the end, it’s still the best day of his life.
The ceremony goes off without a hitch. Bobby officiates. Christopher stands with Eddie, Maddie with Buck. Buck cries. A lot. Surprisingly, Eddie does too.
It’s still too cold to linger outside after the ceremony, so they move into the house for the reception. Similar to the old house, the new place has big, high windows that offer a stunning view into the twilight garden. They have their first dance to “Ain’t it Enough” by Old Crow Medicine Show. As arranged, Christopher cuts in before the end. As not arranged, he offers Buck a piece of paper. Brow furrowed, Buck unfolds it to find an unsigned adoption certificate. Buck looks up to find Eddie watching him with shimmering eyes, Chris grinning wide and bright.
He knew, on some level, that this would probably happen. They discussed it. They just hadn’t made the arrangements. Or, at least, Buck hadn’t. But apparently Eddie’s been operating in the background.
“What do you say?” he asks, leaning in to ghost the words along the shell of Buck’s ear. “Make it official?”
Buck blinks rapidly, breath tight in his chest. “Chris?”
Characteristically for the teenager he is fast becoming, Chris rolls his eyes. “Duh, Buck.”
Buck signs the papers through tears and a chorus of applause.
From there, they move onto the cake — the only element of the wedding planning that had not gone awry. If you ask Hen, that’s thanks to her and her super-secret baker extraordinaire. Their wedding cake doesn’t top the rebar-thorugh-the-skull in its outlandishness, but it's just as delicious as Chim’s head ever was.
They make it home around one in the morning. All three of them collapse into the big bed still in their wedding clothes. Christopher is out in an instant, snoring somewhat wetly between them. Buck blinks slowly across the distance at Eddie, who smiles back soft and warm. Buck can’t remember ever feeling this exhausted — except maybe after getting struck by lightning. It’s an apt comparison.
“Let’s never do that again?” Buck whispers.
“Agreed,” Eddie says vehemently and with meaning. He reaches over the top of Christopher’s head to run a hand through Buck’s curls. Buck can feel the wedding ring on his finger. He smiles and falls asleep between one blink and the next.
#
Eddie’s alarm starts blaring at 7:30 the next morning. Groaning, he slaps at his bedside table blindly until there's only silence ringing in his ears. Christopher is gone — left sometime in the night apparently, but Buck is still snoring long and deep. It’s why Eddie is put in charge of the alarm. Despite the hyper-vigilance they all have to adopt at the firehouse, when they’re at home, Buck has a tendency to need at least three alarms set at fifteen minute intervals before he’ll even think of rousing. Eddie, however, is a much more reliable resource for physically hauling Buck’s ass out of bed. Which he does. Vociferously.
Then he trades his dress slacks and shirt for jeans and a t-shirt and goes to make coffee.
When he comes back to the bedroom with two steaming mugs, he finds Buck dressed and finishing the last of the packing in a panic.
“Sex! Eddie — we forgot to have sex! On our wedding night!” Buck whisper-yells as he tosses their toiletries into the open suitcase on the bed. Down the hall, Christopher is packing his own bag for a week-long stay at the Wilsons'. He’s looking forward to it about as much as Eddie is to their all-inclusive Greek resort.
“Did we forget?” Eddie says, setting the coffees down on the dresser. “Or did we just delay until our kid wasn’t in the bed and we were actually, you know, awake?”
The undeniable truth in this statement seems to matter little to a Buck in a full on spiral. He reels Eddie in by the belt loops and plops down on the edge of the bed. He starts fumbling at Eddie’s buckle.
“What are you doing?”
“Gonna blow you real fast.”
“Tempting as that offer is, we’re already running late for the airport. And the door is open.”
Buck’s head snaps around Eddie’s hips to spot the irrefutable evidence. “I can’t leave you unconsummated!” he whines.
“What — are you afraid I’m going to ask for an annulment?” Buck goes pale — he’s clearly still keyed up from the five day run of pre-wedding chaos. Eddie sighs and cards his fingers through Buck’s hair. As anticipated, the action sends an immediate shudder through him and his shoulders relax. “Baby, we have all the time in the world. Married now, remember?” Buck lets out a breath, nodding as he presses face into Eddie’s stomach. “Besides…” Eddie lowers his hands to cup the back of Buck’s neck and presses a long, lingering kiss to the top of his head. “I wanna take my time with you. Remind you why you married me.”
“You got nothing to prove to me, Eds.” Buck tilts his head up, blue eyes going dark, chin pressed sharp against Eddie’s navel. It’s a tempting sight. One he might actually indulge in, airline schedules be damned—
“Are you guys being gross? We have to go!” Christopher shouts from the hall.
Eddie and Buck break apart with a laugh. But as Buck turns around to zip up the suitcase, Eddie takes the chance he’s presented and gives Buck’s ass a firm squeeze. Buck grins at him over a shoulder. “Don't start what you can’t finish, Diaz.”
It’s gonna be a long plane ride…
They shuffle out the door with bags, crutches, and kid, Christopher muttering, “You two make me sick, I swear.” It seems like an exaggeration until they make it to the Jeep, Eddie swings open the passenger door, and Chris vomits all over his shoes.
Norovirus is a hell of a thing. It sweeps through the Buckley-Diaz household in thirds. Chris is down and out for five days with vomiting, stomach cramps, and a low-grade fever. Eddie keeps a diligent watch over that last one. Buck goes back to work to try and make up for their still-impending honeymoon, leaving Eddie with most of the messy work of cleaning up after a sick teenager. Therefore it’s no surprise that just as Christopher starts rounding the corner, Eddie goes down.
His variation of the illness involves less vomit, and more headaches and running to the toilet. When he’s wracked with chills one night, Buck curls up around him like a limpet, despite Eddie’s protests. It soothes the cold and he wakes up the next day feeling like a new man. Unfortunately, so does Buck.
Buck’s got the vomiting and the fever and what seems like the highly-targeted punishment of muscle aches. When he’s not cramping over the toilet bowl, he’s clinging to his bad leg, nearly biting a hole through his lip as the heat radiates off him in waves.
All this to say, they still haven’t had sex.
Eddie chooses to blame that damn frost. Without it, he’s sure the disease wouldn’t have spread so hard and so fast to his son. Eddie wouldn’t have gotten sick taking care of him, Buck wouldn’t have been run ragged with stress and his immunities down, and they’d be on a beach in Greece, getting drunk on daiquiris and fondling each other through their swim shorts.
He’s got no hard evidence of this, of course. He just knows.
#
They have their first bit of luck since the arctic blast rolled into California and are able to postpone all their flights and reservations two weeks free of charge. Thank you, past-Buck, for purchasing travel insurance.
Buck’s still a little shaky as they drop Chris off at the Wilsons' with kisses and hugs and hurried “love yous.” Buck is supposedly past the infectious period, but they’re running late to the airport again, and the early morning wake up call hasn’t done him any favors. It’s so bad that he even lets Eddie drive.
He feels marginally more human by the time they make it through security and Eddie hands him a steaming venti Americano. They opted not to check a bag since Buck has every intention of spending the majority of his time in Greece either in swim trunks or completely naked. There’d been some debate when it came to whether or not they wanted to go through the public humiliation of offering the TSA agent multiple ziplock bags with 3.4 ounce bottles of lube until Eddie suggested the slightly more discrete option of packets. What really sealed the deal though was the unacceptable risk of losing his arnica gel and heating pad.
As he sinks into a stiff-backed chair at Gate B34, Buck is already fantasizing longingly about that very same heating pad, and hoping the plane has a plug he can use. He hasn’t been on a commercial airplane since the ladder truck (helicopters, yes — he can thank Tommy for that experience if little else), and he is not looking forward to finding out if the seats are really as cramped as he remembers.
Eddie catches Buck’s hand where it was rubbing unconsciously at his left hip. He presses a kiss to Buck’s knuckles. “Need some Tylenol?”
Buck shakes his head. “Think I might be at risk of a Tylenol OD.”
Eddie nods, brow furrowed. He hears what Buck isn’t saying — that while the Tylenol was fine for mitigating his fever over the last few days, it’s never been very effective for his pain management. And since all other NSAIDS are off the table thanks to Naproxen’s tendency to want to kill him, if he wants to avoid an opioid addiction, Buck’s left with topical treatments whenever his leg pain flares up. Hence, the carry-on.
Eddie glances at the clock over the airline desk. “Boarding in fifteen. Just hang on til then.”
“I'm fine, Eddie.”
“I was talking to me,” he says with a tight smile and another kiss to Buck’s knuckles. “I always wanted to join the mile high club.” He raises a single perfect eyebrow.
Buck looks up from underneath his lashes – What can he say? He’s a newlywed and he knows how to push Eddie’s buttons – and finds a pair of gray eyes staring at them.
They’re uncommonly chilly and belong to a guy who looks to be in his mid-thirties. He’s thin and wiry with slightly greasy black hair that brushes his shoulders. He’s got a kind of young Severus Snape look about him — wouldn’t be a bad looking guy if it weren’t for the cold stare.
Buck wonders if they’re about to have a viral homophobic airport moment and discreetly pulls his hand out of Eddie’s.
Eddie doesn’t seem to notice anything amiss and Buck’s not going to point it out. For all his years spent in his tomb of repression, Eddie is all too eager to jump to their defense at any whiff of discrimination now. And Buck’s really not interested in spending their honeymoon in airport jail.
“Gonna hit the head before we board,” Buck says, shaking out his leg as he stands. He throws out his and Eddie’s empty coffee cups on the way.
The bathroom is empty when he walks in. He lines up at a urinal on the far end, thinking absently of that call with the lady who was on the toilet when an octopus landed on her face. He’s so distracted remembering the way the tentacles had suctioned to her skin, that he doesn’t notice the newcomer until he’s standing at the urinal right next to Buck.
“Headed to London?”
It’s Snape guy. His silver eyes are even more unnerving up close. And boy, are they close. The bathroom is still empty except for them. The line of ten urinals unoccupied and he chose the one directly next to Buck.
He’s seen this film before.
“Greece. Layover in London,” Buck says curtly, swiftly tucking himself back into his pants. He’s half tempted to flee before washing his hands — but he literally just got over Norovirus — so he stops at the sinks.
“Me too,” says the guy. “Here with your boyfriend?”
“Husband, actually.” Buck hasn’t staked that claim very often yet. And he’s certainly never done it with so much threat in his voice.
He moves to the hand dryer and the guy takes Buck’s place at the same sink. He makes a tsking noise. “The good ones are always taken.”
“Yeah, he’s pretty great.”
“I wasn’t talking about him.” The gray eyes make a quick but obvious perusal of Buck, landing somewhere around his crotch before flicking up again.
Buck freezes. His heart is beating rapid fire in his throat, the taste of panic bitter on the back of his tongue. He manages to unstick it and say, “Well, like I said – married.”
“Hm.” The guy dries his hands on his faded black jeans and heads for the door. As he brushes past Buck, he gives his bicep a firm squeeze. It leaves a damp handprint on his sleeve. “Name’s Petey. I’ll be in 27C – if you change your mind.” And then he’s gone.
Buck stands there a minute more, breathing hard. Then he unlocks all at once and lunges for the sink. He splashes some cold water on his face. The chilly shock of it is enough to bring him back to the moment. As he stares at his pale reflection, he lets out a short chuckle.
He’s being stupid. It was a come on. He’s been on the receiving end of hundreds of them, many worse than this one — and he’s been the one offering more than a few times. And he’s freaking out now? Why? Because he’s married? He knows Eddie would never blame him for this. In fact, he’d probably laugh about it. If Buck told him.
Buck doesn’t tell him.
It’s not on purpose or anything. There just isn’t really time between when he gets back to the waiting area and their boarding group gets called. He doesn’t spot Petey again and he doesn’t try to. He just grips Eddie’s hand tight, tells himself it's the lingering effects of his three-day fever making his pulse skitter, and boards the plane.
#
Buck is acting weird when he gets back from the bathroom. Eddie figures it's nerves about the flight and his leg. Last Christmas, they’d gone to El Paso to visit Eddie’s sisters (and parents — though that part had been more a tentative peace summit than joyful reunion) and Buck had been weirdly insistent about driving. Maybe it’s some kind of latent claustrophobia or need for control, Eddie’s not sure. He does make sure to slip out the heating pad as he’s storing their bag in the overhead compartment.
Eddie takes the middle seat so Buck can use the aisle to stretch out. There’s a young woman with curly brown hair at the window. She’s got AirPods in and a Kindle in her lap and offers Eddie a kind but distant smile. He returns it, glad he won’t have to be making awkward small talk for the entire ten hour flight.
Buck stares determinedly out the window instead of watching the dozens of people file in down the aisle. They’re in row 14 — extended leg room. Not that any amount of space could reasonably accommodate “giraffe boy,” as Chimney affectionately calls him. Eddie stares at those legs now, dutifully bent up against the seat in front of him, and wets his lips. Soon he’s going to have all that leg to himself, bare and beaming beneath a bright Grecian sun. It’s the first real vacation either of them has taken in a decade and Eddie plans to make the most of it.
He leans his shoulder into Buck’s. “Hey — we’re on our honeymoon. We’re going to Europe.” Something softens in Buck’s face. He cracks into a bright grin, all dimples, pink cheeks, and blue eyes. It leaves Eddie a little breathless – that smile. Might be one of his favorite sights in the world.
“Yeah,” Buck says. “We are.”
They sneak a quick kiss — their seat buddy kindly keeping her eyes fixed on her Kindle.
#
A shooting pain up his left leg has Buck gasping into consciousness a few hours later. Eddie lets out a grunt, jerking his head up off of Buck’s shoulder where he’d fallen asleep.
“Whazzit? Ya-okay?” Eddie wipes a hand over the bit of droll gathered at the corner of his mouth while he gives Buck a sleepy once over. Despite the pulsating sensation in his calf, Buck can’t help but be endeared by this public display of bedhead-Eddie.
He’s relieved, actually, that Eddie managed to get any sleep at all. He doesn’t exactly have the best track record in flying objects and a small part of Buck was worried the long flight might put Eddie’s mind less on the white sandy beaches of Greece and more on the endless deserts of Afghanistan. But maybe they have something to thank the Norovirus for after all, if its lingering effects are allowing Eddie to let his guard down.
Buck lets out a tiny yelp and kicks his foot out into the aisle. Eddie drops a hand onto his right thigh, awareness seeping back into his eyes. “Think it might be time to try that Tylenol, cariño.”
Unfortunately, they’d discovered twenty minutes into cruising altitude that the heating pad, while permitted in their carry-on, wasn’t actually allowed to be used during the flight.
“I’m sorry, sir. I’m going to have to ask you to put that away,” the flight attendant said with a pinched expression on her face – no doubt preparing for an adult-sized tantrum. Her nametag read “Rachel Juarez.” She wore a perfectly pressed uniform and her black hair was nestled into a neat bun at the back of her neck. The smile on her face was perfectly pleasant, but Buck had a feeling she was more than capable of putting him in his place if he tried to argue with her.
“Oh – my bad,” Buck said. “I figured since we got it through security, we’d be good to go.”
“Unfortunately, we can’t have anything that can generate heat operating during the flight.”
Buck flushed. It seemed obvious when she put it like that. “Right. Makes sense.”
He started to unbuckle to put it back in the overhead, but she stopped him with a proffered hand. “Let me do that for you. And please let me know if I can help in some other way.”
Buck felt his cheeks flame again. He supposed it was obvious he was struggling with something. Normal people probably didn’t need to bring heating pads in their carry-ons just to make it through a flight. Buck bit his lip. It was more a preventative measure anyway. As long as he didn’t sit in one place for too long, he’d hopefully be able to manage it.
He fell into a fitful doze after that and, apparently, a very still one. Because he woke to his foot cramped and throbbing.
“I don’t think I packed any Tylenol,” Buck confesses to Eddie with a wince. His husband’s – heh, husband – answering glare is predictable.
“Why wouldn’t you pack it? Even just in case your fever spiked again.”
Buck shrugs. “I was trying to manifest the future I desired, Eddie. I read all about it. It’s a real thing.”
“So are pain meds.” Eddie lets out a short sigh and reaches up to press the call button. “I’m sure the flight attendants will have something.”
Buck chews his lip and tries to wait patiently for Flight Attendant Rachel to reappear and make good on her promise to help. He glances down the aisle towards the cockpit and feels his gut squirm.
Petey is standing maybe ten rows ahead of them, talking to a bald guy with a truly glorious red beard seated on the aisle. The bald guy nods and Petey opens the overhead compartment to rummage for something in a black duffle bag. Whatever he’s searching for, he finds it and pockets it quickly, the front of his gray hoodie bulging slightly. He slams the overhead compartment door and starts back up the aisle.
He hesitates when he catches Buck’s stare, tosses him a wink, then continues on toward the back of the plane. The muscles around Buck’s spine tighten immeasurably.
“Where is that flight attendant?” Eddie mutters next to him, leaning into Buck’s seat to try to look down the aisle. “Any sign of her?”
“I think she’s getting the beverage cart ready.”
“Let me out. I’ll go ask her.”
“Really, Eds, it’s fine. I can wait–”
“Buck.” Eddie’s tone brokers no argument.
Buck swallows his protest and obediently unbuckles. He has to stand to let Eddie out. It’s a herculean task and he finds himself once again unspeakably grateful to his husband. There’s no way Buck could have hobbled the fourteen rows to the front under his own power without some serious public humiliation.
As soon as Eddie is past him, he collapses back into his seat. “Thanks,” Buck says. Eddie gives his shoulder a short squeeze and starts toward the front.
Petey is hot on Eddie’s heels. Without knowing why, Buck almost lurches after him, bad leg be damned. But as Eddie continues toward the cockpit, Petey stops to visit his bald friend once again. Buck thinks he sees Petey pass something off to Baldy, but looks away before he can figure out what it is. The last thing he wants is to get caught staring. He doesn’t want to give Petey the wrong idea.
He feels Petey brush past him again on his way back up the aisle, but keeps his eyes closed, pretending to be asleep. Soon enough, he finds he’s not pretending at all. He’s almost dozed off again, a vague buzzing in the back of his mind, wondering what’s taking Eddie so long, when –
CRACK.
The all too familiar sound of a gunshot tears through the air, and everyone starts screaming.