Work Text:
The first time Lucas asks for a dog, he’s three and a half.
He’d met a German shepherd on a walk around the neighborhood with Buck, and he was smitten with it instantly. By the time they’d looped the block, he was talking of nothing else; the second they crossed the threshold into the house, he was running to tell Eddie about the dog he’d met, and within a matter of a minute he was turning his big blue eyes on them and pleading for a dog of his own.
This had gone on for over a year, off and on. He began to favor movies with dogs in them; at Christmas, he asked for a particular stuffed dog that was nearly as big as he was; and every time they encountered a dog of any shape, size, or color out in the world, he was enamored by it. These encounters almost always ended with the same question— Can we have a dog?
And so, by the time Lucas’s fifth birthday nears, the subject was probably inevitable.
At the end of May, it’s Buck— predictably— who poses the question. Lucas is asleep and tomorrow is an off-day and he and Eddie lean into each other on the couch in the drowsy soft light of the lamps by the door. Eddie’s leaned back into his chest looking half-asleep, his wrist cradled in Buck’s hand as he absently rubs circles into it. There had been rain this week, unseasonable and unexpected, and it had left the old fragmented injury there achy.
“What do you think about a dog?” Buck asks, breaking the sleepy quiet.
Eddie startles slightly and blinks into awareness. “A dog?” he repeats, confused.
“For Lucas,” Buck says, his voice hushed just in case, though they both know that their soon-to-be five-year-old is sound asleep in his bed at the end of the hall.
Eddie turns his head, tilting at an awkward angle to look up at Buck, his eyebrows raised. “You want to get him a dog,” he says— not quite a question. Buck looks back at him, a little bit of a sheepish expression on his face that Eddie can tell is going to fold into a pleading one and soon.
“Maybe,” he hedges.
“Buck,” Eddie laughs, and lifts himself up off of Buck’s chest.
Buck makes a soft, dissatisfied sound and Eddie rolls his eyes, but pats him warmly on the center of his chest anyway. “You did this to yourself,” he says, shaking his wrist out a little.
“I know,” Buck sighs mournfully, and then his face turns earnest and bright. “But since we're on the topic.”
Eddie smiles— can’t help it, sometimes. “Sure,” he says lightly. “Since we’re on the topic that you brought up on purpose.”
Buck flutters his eyelashes, all softness. “It could be good,” he says.
Eddie sighs, leaning back against the couch. They’re still close together, half-tangled, but now able to see each other. He’s not sure this is actually the best plan, because being able to see Buck’s face has historically also allowed his husband to ply him into things with ease. It does, on the other hand, often go both ways.
“He’s still little,” Eddie reasons.
They’d talked about it before, of course— in vague terms, in somedays and maybes with phrases like when he’s older.
“He’s starting school soon,” Buck points out.
This is something Eddie’s been trying hard not to think about. “I don’t know,” he sighs. “What about when we’re at work? That’s a lot of logistics.”
Something on Buck’s face catches his eye, then. A telltale sort of cagey look that flickers over his features, ones that Eddie knows often better than he knows his own.
“Buck,” he says evenly.
“Hm?” Buck asks, suddenly the picture of innocence.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing!” Buck says. And then— “Okay, nothing bad,” he amends. “But I did talk to Bobby and Maddie about it and they both said that they’d work it out.”
Eddie mulls this over. The plan, as it exists in vague concept so far, is that for Lucas’s stability once he starts school they’ll trade off: while Buck and Eddie are working, Lucas will be either with Maddie and his cousins; or Bobby will bring him here, to their house, depending on the day. There will undoubtedly be kinks to work out, but neither of them have worried much about it. It does, indeed, take a village— and theirs is kind of the best.
“Isn’t Athena allergic?” he asks.
Buck nods. “But Bobby said that since he’ll have Lucas here mostly it’ll be fine, and in the worst case scenario they have all that outdoor space. Actually—” Buck smiles, a touch smug. “He said he’d really like it. He’d have a dog of his own if he could and this would be two birds, one stone.”
Eddie shakes his head, but he can’t help smiling. “And what about when the dog wants to sleep in our bed?” he asks, tilting his head up to look at his husband. “Or chews on the furniture? Or eats your shoes? Or eats my shoes?”
“Ah!” Buck says. “You’re thinking of a puppy. I’m thinking of a dog.”
Eddie smiles again. “We can think about it,” he says.
This seems to be enough for Buck— for now— because he grins brightly, with his teeth showing, and then the next thing Eddie knows he’s being flattened against the couch by Buck’s weight, and they tumble back together as he half-groans around a laugh.
And then, Buck is over him smelling like coconut curl cream and laundry detergent. And then, Eddie is being kissed deeply by his husband: one of Buck’s hands tucked under him for balance and the other in his hair, their legs a tangle and the taste of the chocolate-chip cookies they’d eaten earlier for dessert lingering in the press of Buck’s mouth to his.
He leans into the kiss, his lashes fluttering softly in a way that he doesn’t really feel or notice. At least, not anymore. In the early days of their relationship, Eddie had been aware of everything he did. It was all so new and different, like exploring an unseen world within himself. But now, several years on, this version of himself just feels like who he is; and sinking into Buck feels just like coming home, to a space where he’s comfortable.
Buck hums against his mouth, setting off fireworks that sparkle in Eddie’s throat as he laps at the sound, at Buck, who sinks down into him all over, covering his body as it heats up: a summer night in a person.
Suddenly, the dog doesn’t seem like such a pressing issue anymore.
In fact, Eddie forgets all about it for a few days. It’s only the following Saturday, the one just before Lucas’s birthday, that it enters his mind again at all.
While Buck is at home preparing for tomorrow’s backyard birthday party, Eddie is at the regular monthly meeting of the queer men’s group that he’d joined a few years back. It’s something that ebbs and flows, but he tries to make most meetings and some of the events, and over time he’s found real community in it. Now, it’s a place he’s comfortable in, even occasionally taking on some responsibility if he has the time. Memorably, there had been a little pride event at the firehouse last June that Eddie had helped organize, showing up on the day with a sparkly flag painted onto his cheek and Buck and Lucas in tow.
Today, they were originally supposed to be assisting in sprucing up a local park, but it’s been postponed due to the current heatwave and in its place they’re doing a casual meet-up instead— in a different corner of the same park, strategically near a little coffee cart that Eddie likes. They’re low in numbers today and probably won’t linger more than an hour, but it’s still nice. The day hasn’t gotten unbearably hot yet, and by the time it does Eddie will be back at home helping Buck wrap the last of Lucas’s birthday presents.
In the meantime, it’s hot enough for him to order his coffee iced and with cinnamon, and he’s in the process of accepting it gratefully when he hears his name from behind him and turns around.
“Michael,” Eddie says, smiling. “Hey.”
Michael is someone that Eddie had connected with early on— they’re close to the same age, and both have kids and Michael had done a stint in the Navy fresh out of high school— all of which had set a strong foundation for them to get along, and they do even outside the group: Lucas has played with his youngest daughter, Misa, a time or two.
Today, he approaches Eddie with a surprising addition.
At the end of a leather braided least that hangs lax at his side, there’s a bright-eyed, tail-wagging golden retriever. When Michael draws level with Eddie, the dog drops into a neat sitting position, the picture of politeness.
“I didn’t know you guys had a dog,” Eddie says, holding his hand out in the dog’s direction. She responds eagerly— not moving from her place at Michael’s side, but stretching out her cold nose to nudge it against Eddie’s fingers.
At this, Michael sighs.
“We don’t,” he says. Eddie raises his eyebrows. “Well, we do right now,” Michael amends with a little wince, looking down at the dog. “To be honest, I brought her here hoping someone would want her.”
Eddie looks down at the dog again, her fluffy golden tail swishing against the fresh grass as she tilts her head up and looks at him with bright, doleful brown eyes.
This, Eddie thinks, is not going to end well.
“What’s the story?” he asks.
Michael gestures to the shelter of picnic tables where a huddle of three of their group are deeply engrossed in another conversation, and they each take a seat. At Michael’s side, the dog settles with a sigh and lays her head neatly on her paws.
“We had an elderly neighbor,” Michael says. “He lived by himself, probably up in his eighties, but he stayed pretty active; hence the dog.” He shakes his head a little. “Had a massive stroke last week, really sudden.”
“Oh,” Eddie says, understanding where this is going. “He didn’t have family?”
Michael makes a face. “A daughter, as it turns out. We’d taken the dog the night of the stroke, when the paramedics came, you know, so she’d be fed and everything. Thought we’d just give her to his family when they came around the house, but—”
Eddie watches as he looks down at the dog, and follows his gaze with his own.
“They didn’t want her?” he asks.
“More like refused,” Michael says. “She made it pretty clear she didn’t have the time and that it was either leaving her with us or taking her to a shelter. So— obviously we kept her, but we don’t really have the space or the time.”
Eddie looks at the dog again.
“Do you know anything about her?” he asks, aiming for a casual tone as if he’s not already mentally trying to figure out how he’s going to ever live this down with Buck.
“We took her to the vet,” he says. “They think she’s about two. She’s not chipped yet, but they said that everything else seems good. We think he was just older and of the mindset that the chip wasn’t necessary, because she’s been taken care of otherwise. Not sure what vet she was going to before, so we don’t have records. Or her name.” He grins. “Misa has been calling her Barbie Doll, but I’m sure she’d adapt to something else.”
Eddie laughs at that, and then looks down at the dog again. She blinks up at him, and swishes her tail lazily back and forth. She’s a beautiful dog and seems really well-behaved.
“She’s house-trained and everything,” Michael offers. He’s looking at Eddie like he’s caught on to his target. “Really a good girl. Just not for us.”
Eddie sighs, tearing his eyes away from the dog and looking back at Michael. “Lucas has been begging,” he admits. “And Buck is starting to join in.”
“Maybe it’s a sign,” Michael says.
Eddie sighs. He looks back at the dog, holding his hand out to her. Immediately, she gets to her feet and shuffles over to him, tail wagging as she lowers her head and nudges it into the space beneath Eddie’s hand so that her soft crown is flush with his palm, her fur sunwarm and silky.
He looks back up at Michael. “Any chance you’re able to keep her one more night?”
He manages to hold off until Lucas is in bed.
By the time he’d gotten home, Lucas was already back from his breakfast outing with Maddie and his cousins, so Eddie had kept his mouth shut through their Saturday, all the way through the elaborate ritual of putting Lucas to bed the night before his birthday, fielding his dozens of questions about how many hours it would be until he’s five and whether he’s going to get taller overnight and if he’s allowed to get out of bed before the sun on his birthday or not.
After one final check finds him drifting off with Duckie tucked dutifully into his hand, Eddie gently pulls his bedroom door almost closed, and goes to join Buck in the kitchen. He’s already pulled out the cake layers he’d made this morning and there’s sugar in the air from the apple filling that he’s making.
This year, the cake flavor has been by request. Lucas has been crazy about apples recently for no real apparent reason, and while Eddie had been unsure how an apple cake was going to work, Buck had immediately risen to the occasion. Soft brown sugar cake layers with caramelized apple filling and a supple vanilla buttercream— according to Buck’s description.
Eddie’s place is still mostly just on the counter watching and taste-testing. He lifts himself up onto the counter and Buck grins up at him. With his apron tied around his waist and a spoon in his hand, he looks like a dream Eddie had woken up in one day and never left.
“He out?” Buck asks.
“Pretty much,” Eddie tells him.
Buck dips his spoon into the apple filling in front of him, fragrant with brown sugar and steaming as it simmers. He blows softly on the spoon, his other hand cradled beneath it, and offers it to Eddie with an eager look on his face.
Eddie softens all over, a matter very much against his will. Buck endears him only more and more as the years of their marriage pass, and this is among the biggest ways. He always wants Eddie to be closer— to be touching him or seeing what he’s seeing or tasting what he’s tasting. It comes, Eddie has realized, not so much from a place of needing Eddie’s approval as from his desire to share everything with him. To Buck, everything is better if it belongs to Eddie, too.
He smiles a little, leaning in and taking the spoon into his mouth. The flavors are all out of season, like October has found them in June, but the sugar and apple melt on his tongue and he smiles at the thought of it— of his husband, willing to change the seasons for their baby because little boys turning five have no concept of time anyway.
“How is it?” Buck asks, propping his hip against the counter.
“Perfect,” Eddie tells him, and now satisfied, Buck slides the pot off of the stove so that it can cool.
Recognizing this as his opening, Eddie crosses his ankles and nudges Buck lightly with one socked foot, getting his attention.
“What?” Buck asks, immediately catching on.
Eddie probably looks guilty.
“It’s about the dog,” he admits.
At this, Buck’s eyes light up. “What dog?” he asks.
Eddie reaches behind him, where his phone is charging on the counter. He unplugs it and taps through the lockscreen to get to his photo gallery, then turns it around for Buck to see the picture he’d taken before he and Michael went their separate ways this morning.
Buck gasps, visibly delighted, and reaches for the phone. “Who is this?” he coos, his eyes on the screen and his voice sugary as if the dog can hear him.
Eddie smiles. “She doesn’t really have a name,” he says.
Buck looks up at him then. “Where did this come from?” he asks. “Did you find Lucas a dog?”
Eddie sighs. “Only by accident,” he admits.
He lays it out for Buck then, retelling Michael’s story. Buck is— unsurprisingly— all in before Eddie even gets to the end.
“Tell me you said we’d take her,” he pleads, looking up at Eddie with pleading blue eyes.
“You’re going to have to stop with the puppy dog eyes,” Eddie tells him, taking his phone back to set it aside. “Lucas and the dog will be more than enough.”
Buck grins, stepping between Eddie’s legs and bracing his palms on his waist. At this angle, he has to tilt his head up to look Eddie in the eye and his broad frame fills the space in front of him; it’s all Eddie can do not to abandon this conversation and kiss the delight off of his face.
Instead, he smoothes back a stray curl around Buck’s temple and says, “You can gloat now. I’m meeting Michael to pick her up tomorrow so she can be his birthday present.”
Buck nudges himself impossibly closer, tugging Eddie slightly forward by his hips so that they’re pressed together, Eddie’s knees knocking against him.
“How could I gloat?” he murmurs, his voice a note lower. “This is the hottest thing you’ve ever done.”
“Ever?” Eddie laughs, winding his arms around Buck’s neck.
“Okay, maybe not the hottest ever,” Buck says, considering with a small tilt of his head. “You do a lot of hot things. But—” He leans in, kissing Eddie quickly and then smiling brighter and bigger, enough to show off his dimples. “It’s up there.”
“She’s a pretty great dog,” Eddie says. “Michael says she’s good with his kids.”
Buck smiles. “Did you know I love you?” he asks.
At this, Eddie smiles, too. “I know,” he nods, and this time he doesn’t resist the urge to pull Buck in: he does it fluidly and with practice, and when they kiss, it tastes like apples.
On Sunday, Lucas is awake by the time the sun rises.
Predictably, he runs into his parents’ bedroom and throws himself with his usual abandon against the foot of their bed, hauling himself up and squishing himself in between them. He’s a tangle of sharp joints and his knee knocks into Eddie’s ribs with a sharp shock of pain, but he’s so excited that he’s giggling more than speaking and his eyes are so brightly lit up that it’s impossible to focus on anything else.
Buck scoops him up, tugging his wild limbs out of reach of Eddie, and grins brightly at him.
“Good morning, sunshine!” he says as Lucas squeals excitedly. “What day is it?”
“Lucas day!” Lucas shrieks, throwing his arms wide: this time, it’s Buck who catches a hand to his face and Eddie smiles lazily up at the two of them from his pillow, taking it in as Buck takes the hit in stride and catches Lucas’s wrist so that he can press a kiss to his little palm.
It’s hard to believe that this wiggly, headstrong, bright-eyed child had been entering the world around this time exactly five years ago. In some ways, it feels like just yesterday that Eddie was holding him for the first time, breathless with the awe of looking at his perfect little face after months of waiting. In others, each of these disappearing moments has been syrup-slow and frozen in time.
Raising children, Eddie has learned, is like that. It’s slow until it isn’t; and catches up to you in flurries of sunshine like the morning of your baby’s fifth birthday.
“Lucas day,” Eddie repeats, reaching for him. He goes willingly, tumbling from Buck’s arms and into Eddie’s, allowing him to wrap him up against his chest in a big hug tangled in the blankets. “What do you think, mi sol?” he asks, turning his head to kiss Lucas’s birthmark, the splash of red beneath his eye. “Did you grow?”
“Yes!” Lucas answers confidently. “I’m big now, Dad.”
Eddie’s heart squeezes in his chest. Lucas may not have grown inches overnight, but sometimes it does feel like it.
“You’re five now,” he says, instead of what he’s thinking, which is: please slow down.
Lucas holds up one whole hand, little fingers spread wide. “Five!” he repeats, grinning. “That’s big!”
“That’s big,” Buck agrees. Lucas won’t catch the wistful note in his voice, but Eddie does. With one free hand, he reaches out and squeezes Buck’s knee lightly. In return, he gets Buck’s hand over his, a soft familiar touch.
Lucas wiggles free— inevitable, always moving— and sits up on his knees between them. “Can we have toast?” he asks.
French toast, he means, though neither of them correct him.
“Toast for the birthday baby!” Buck cheers, getting out of bed and holding his arms out for Lucas.
“Yeah!” Lucas squeals, and throws his whole body into Buck’s arms, scrambling for purchase in his confetti-patterned pajamas, one of the legs riding all the way up to his knee and the hem of his shirt almost too short now. He clings to Buck’s chest and shoulders, his legs around his waist, and something deep in Eddie’s chest aches at the sight of them— Lucas’s boundless trust, and Buck’s strong arm holding him in place, and the matching smiles on their faces.
By the time he makes it out into the kitchen after his shower, Christopher is there, too— home from Stanford for the summer and more prone to early rising now that he’s no longer a teenager. Eddie leans over his chair as he walks into the room, kissing the top of his head as he moves on to the coffee maker.
“Good morning,” Chris says, smiling. There’s mischief in his voice. “I heard you have an errand to run.”
Eddie turns around, but Lucas is paying neither of them any mind at all— far too occupied with helping Buck slice bananas into little circles for the French toast with his wooden knife. Buck had insisted on getting this set of safe utensils for him a couple of years ago, and he’s really independent with them now.
“Mind your own business,” Eddie says, but he’s smiling.
“I’m just saying,” Chris shrugs. “We never—”
“Hey,” Eddie replies, pointing at him as he finishes with his coffee cup. “We tried once.”
“Tried what?” Lucas asks, looking at Eddie from his place at the counter. “What did you try?”
“Nothing, sweetheart,” Eddie says. “Show me your bananas! Did you cut these?”
Luckily, newly five-year-olds are easily distracted.
Once the day gets started, it proceeds in full-swing. Chris takes Lucas into his room to play games for a while, giving Buck and Eddie a chance to finish with the cake— an activity they always do together. It’s become something of a tradition itself, and there’s something particularly sweet about it.
This year, they’re decorating with bright red sprinkles— Lucas’s current favorite color, at least until the tide most likely shifts back to yellow— and “sparkle candles”, which Lucas had witnessed on May’s birthday cake in December and still remembered well enough to mention them when Buck had asked him what kind of cake he wanted. Being the experienced parents that they like to think they are, they have the foresight to go with one sparkler candle, and five regular ones with waxy spiraled stripes, so that Lucas will have some to blow out.
When the cake is finished, Buck tackles the dishes and Eddie steps out into the backyard to get a headstart on the box of birthday decorations. Some of this stuff is still leftover from the birthdays of Christopher’s childhood, while other things have been added since Lucas was born. He’s still stringing up a happy birthday banner against the side of the house when Buck comes out to join him and they make quick work of most of the decorations.
Lucas, a naturally curious kid and made even more rambunctious by the magical anticipation of his birthday, is not satisfied by playing games for long. He stays underfoot most of the day, asking endless questions—If I’m five, can I go on roller coasters? and How many days until I’m six? and Daddy, how many years old are you? Seventy-three?
At this one, Eddie grins and scoops him up onto his hip. “Yes,” he says, glancing at Buck. “Daddy is seventy-three. That’s so old.”
“Hey,” Buck laughs, halfway through unfolding a table that will, later in the day, hold Lucas’s presents.
“How old do you think I am?” Eddie asks, turning to Lucas.
He seems to consider this and then says, very confidently, “Twenty-seven.”
Eddie laughs as Buck shakes his head, still bent over the table. “We’ll talk about numbers another day,” he says, kissing his son’s cheek and then setting him down onto his feet again. “Go bother your brother.”
“Okay!” Lucas says, and then he’s off again.
Technically, Christopher had been wrong when he said that Eddie had an errand to run. The plan for bringing Lucas’s new pet home consists of two parts. Early in the afternoon, Maddie brings the kids over to help with everything that still needs to be done and with another adult in the house, Eddie gives Buck a quick kiss and sets off on part one: the pet store.
He wanders the aisles, picking out essentials based on a quick list he and Buck had put together last night. Michael is giving them the rest of the food he and his husband have been feeding her, so Eddie picks up a second bag of the same one. Then he goes for a set of bowls for food and water and a mat to go underneath; a similar one that’s a travel set instead so that it’ll be easy to bring her back and forth with Lucas; a pack of treats that claim to be good for teeth; and a brush that has a picture of a golden retriever on it, which Eddie hopes will mean it’s good for her fur. He also chooses a bed for her, a big soft mat with non-slip pads on one side and a soft brown color on the other. He’s sure that there will be a lot more that they need over time, but this much will get them through the first couple of days as a dog household.
Lastly, before he leaves, he pauses in the dog toy aisle as something bright yellow catches his eye. There, nestled in amongst the frayed ropes and chewable rubber, there’s a floppy stuffed duck. Grinning, Eddie reaches for it and tosses it into his basket.
The dog stuff stays in Eddie’s truck as he heads back inside, where Lucas throws himself at his legs immediately, hanging all his weight off of Eddie’s arm. “Dad!” he says. “Where were you?”
Eddie grins, lifting him up as he shrieks excitedly.
“It’s a surprise,” he says, watching Lucas’s face light up.
“A birthday surprise!” he gasps.
“Maybe,” Eddie says, grabbing him around the waist in one quick motion and putting him on his hip instead, where Lucas wraps his fingers in Eddie’s shirt out of mostly habit. “What did I miss? Are you guys almost ready for the party?”
“Uncle Eddie!” Jee-Yun says, sliding precariously up to him in her socks with her little brother trailing after her. “We’re almost ready!”
At eleven, she looks more and more like Maddie lately, but there’s something about her smile that’s all Chim, mischievous and quick.
“You are?” Eddie asks.
“Yeah!” Lucas says, wiggling in Eddie’s arms to be put down. Eddie obliges, and all three kids are off again.
In their absence, Buck fills the kitchen doorway and smiles at his husband. “I’m not sure feeding them sugar is going to help anything,” he says.
“Well,” Eddie replies, pausing and patting his chest lightly, then lowering his voice to a whisper. “Good thing ours is going to have something else besides us to run around with tonight.”
Buck grins, kisses Eddie on his cheek, and leads them both back into the kitchen— from there the party falls together quickly, and before long their house is full of their family. Everyone moves in and out freely through the backdoor, the two spaces an extension of one another. It’s busy but in a good way: all of them move around each other with ease, laughing and talking over each other and sharing food and drinks.
And mostly, of course, fawning over Lucas.
With him starting school in the fall, there’s a good chance that by next summer his birthday parties may start to look different. That he’ll make friends that he’ll want to invite; that in the next year he’ll grow out of what’s left of his early childhood and into a new phase of it. It’s bittersweet, but for the moment mostly sweet. Having their family here celebrating him; watching him run around the backyard with his cousins and make regular trips back to where Chris is sitting on the steps to show him things he’s found or lean over his legs and chatter to him; periodically scooping him up for kisses and answering his questions.
Bobby had brought some of the food and Buck had made the rest, so everyone snacks off and on as the kids play. Eventually, Lucas climbs up into the Adirondack chair that Buck and Eddie are crammed into together and begs for cake, claiming to be hungry.
Soon after that, he’s sitting in Eddie’s lap with a party hat jammed over his curls, wiggling delightedly as Buck carries the cake out. It’s all the wonderment and joy you could expect from a five-year-old’s birthday party, as Lucas’s eyes go wide and bright at the sight of the sparkling candle and everyone joins a slightly off-key chorus of happy birthday.
“Make your wish, baby,” Buck says, on one knee in front of Eddie with the cake plate in his hands. Off to the side, someone is taking a picture, but both Buck and Eddie have their eyes on Lucas, who puffs out his cheeks and blows on the candles. Over his shoulder, Eddie blows softly, and the flames all disappear as everyone cheers.
“I did it!” Lucas beams, and Eddie squeezes him tightly as he turns his head, looking for Chris who’s leaning on his crutches close by. “Chris, I did it!” he repeats as his brother laughs.
“You did it,” he says.
Eddie smiles and kisses Lucas’s cheek. “Happy Birthday, honey,” he says.
Buck swipes his finger through the frosting on the side of the cake and taps a little bit of it onto Lucas’s nose. “Happy Birthday, sunshine,” he says as Lucas giggles uncontrollably.
“What did you wish for, Lucas?” Chris asks as they take their seats to wait for Buck to serve them slices of cake.
“A dog!” Lucas says happily.
Chris catches Eddie’s gaze over his brother’s head, grinning, and Eddie can’t help but smile back.
A moment later, it’s all forgotten as Lucas digs into his slice of cake with total abandon, his eyes lighting up when he realizes that it’s apple flavored. With the excitement that only a five-year-old can manage, he turns to Eddie and says, “Dad! What would make this cake the best cake ever?”
“I don’t know,” Eddie admits. “What?”
“Apple juice,” Lucas says seriously.
This request is taken just as seriously, and when Buck returns with an apple juice box a moment later, it’s clear that nothing else could have made Lucas quite as ecstatic.
After cake, Lucas burns off some energy with a quick game of tag with Jee and Jae, and then it’s time for presents. He sits at the center of the backyard on the grass and tears into them one by one with Buck’s help reading the tags and the cards. Soon, the grass is littered with ribbons and paper and Lucas is smiling with his baby teeth up at everyone, giving sweet thank you’s between unwrapping toy dinosaurs and sets of books and a particular crowd pleaser in the bubble machine that had been from Chim and Maddie.
After Buck has picked up all the wrapping paper and crammed it into a garbage bag, Lucas begs for help setting up the bubbles and Eddie takes this busy moment to slip away, right on time.
Lucas will be distracted and some of the guests are already starting to head home, which they’d been counting on in the hopes of not overwhelming their new arrival too much. Though, Eddie isn’t too concerned about it after seeing how docile and friendly she’d been in a group setting at the park yesterday.
The handoff happens halfway between Michael’s house and their own, a convenient few minutes away, and then before he knows it Eddie is in the possession of one very large, very compliant golden retriever. She jumps up into the backseat of his truck like she’s been doing it forever, sitting nicely in one of the seats and looking at Eddie almost expectantly.
“Okay,” Eddie says to her as he puts the truck back in gear to drive back to the house. “There’s a little boy who’s going to be really excited to meet you, so I need you to be really good, okay?”
She looks at him softly, blinking her dark eyes.
“I’ll take that as an agreement,” Eddie says as he checks that he’s clear and turns at the stoplight. “Which is binding, by the way.”
The dog doesn’t answer, but Eddie thinks he probably got through to her.
Buck is waiting for him in front of the house when he pulls back in, and the dog perks up at the sight of him. Eddie grabs her leash and lets her out of the car, where she jumps down on the driveway and walks right up to Buck, who’s kneeling on the concrete, so that he can pet her.
“Oh, my god,” he coos. “Hi, girl. You’re so pretty. Yes, you are.”
Eddie smiles down at him, charmed.
“You make it really hard not to want a dog,” he says.
Buck looks up, smiling boyishly with their new dog’s head cradled in his hand, her tail wagging. “Just wait until you see her with Lucas.”
The truth is, Eddie had been gone at just the thought of it. As it turns out, though, the real thing does surpass his imagination.
Buck goes out to the backyard first, and Eddie peeks out the window to watch as he holds the dog’s leash in the kitchen. Now, just Chris and the Hans are out in the backyard, with Jee sitting next to Maddie and Jae on Chim’s lap. Bubbles are still floating aimlessly through the air, their iridescent sheen catching the light of the sun.
Eddie watches as Buck crouches down next to their son, catching his attention. Through the open window, he can hear everything that’s going on.
“Hey, bud,” Buck says. “Guess what?”
“What?” Lucas asks, tilting his head and looking remarkably puppy-like himself.
Buck smiles. “We have one more present for you.”
“You do?” Lucas asks. “Really?”
“Really,” Buck says. Lucas might not be able to, but Eddie can hear his excitement, barely contained. “It’s a very big present.”
“Big?” Lucas repeats, his eyes widening. “How big?”
“Very big,” Buck laughs. “And it means we have to be calm, okay? Do you think you can do that for me?”
Lucas nods quickly. “I can do it, I can do it,” he says.
“Okay,” Buck chuckles. “Are you ready?”
“Yes!” Lucas says, wiggling in place but not moving— clearly, doing his best to show how calm he can be.
“Alright. Dad’s gonna bring it out,” Buck says.
Eddie glances down at the dog, who looks back up at him, and then he opens the back door.
It’s a moment that he’ll remember much later— much, much later, when he’s so much older and Lucas is all grown up. One of those moments that you carry with you, because it holds so much value in the joy of it all. A scrapbook moment, in a way.
The dog perks up instantly, like she already knows the little boy in front of her. Lucas gasps dramatically, reaching for Buck out of sheer feeling and dropping to his knees like an instinct. He’s been taught to be careful and cautious, to ask before petting— but in a fit of overwhelmed excitement, it seems to be all going out the window. Eddie holds onto the leash, but it’s unnecessary, really. The dog trots right over to Lucas, noses gently at his cheek, and lets him wrap his arms around her without a shred of caution or hesitation.
“A dog!” Lucas cries, the picture of childhood excitement. “A dog! A real dog!”
“A real dog,” Eddie chuckles, getting down on one knee to join them.
The dog licks Lucas’s cheek and he shrieks— she remains unfazed as Lucas pets her head and tilts his gaze to look into her eyes.
“A dog for me?” he asks, glancing at Buck and Eddie with wide blue eyes.
“Yep,” Buck affirms. “She’s all yours, buddy.”
“My dog!” Lucas says, and throws himself into a hug around her again. “What’s her name?”
Buck and Eddie look at each other. “Well,” Eddie says. “She’s your dog, so you get to name her.”
“Oh,” Lucas says, sounding amazed. They all watch as he takes the dog's head into his little hands, looking at her face for a long moment. And then he looks back up at them and says, very firmly, “I want to name her Apple.”
And so Apple becomes the newest member of the Diaz household. Eddie lets her off the leash, still watching closely, but she takes to Lucas like a fish to water and happily lets the Han kids pet her, too. They turn the bubble machine on again and Apple perks up, sending Lucas into peals of giggles as she races around the yard with him, nipping gently at the bubbles as they float up into the air.
Soon, the Hans pry their kids away from the festivities. Normally, Lucas would be attaching himself to Jee-Yun, who he’s obsessed with, begging for more time to play together. Today, he’s quick to hug them and let them go so that he can get back to chasing Apple in circles around the yard.
He’s plied into a quick dinner made up of party leftovers by the promise of more cake, but even as he’s eating his eyes are on Apple where she sits at his side, drinking from a water bowl that Eddie had brought outside for her.
As Lucas eats his cake, he looks up at his parents.
“Can Apple have birthday cake?” he asks.
“No, sweetheart,” Eddie tells him with a brush through of his curls with his fingers. “Most foods that people eat are not for dogs.”
“Well,” Lucas says. “What about apples? Apples are healthy!”
Buck grins at this. “Actually,” he says. “Apples are one thing that it’s okay for a dog to have sometimes. We could see if she likes them, what do you think?”
Lucas is so excited by this prospect that he abandons the rest of his cake in favor of following Buck into the kitchen to get an apple. Eddie reaches for it, well accustomed to finishing food off of his children’s plates.
Next to him, Chris shakes his head.
“You guys are in so much trouble,” he says, though his voice is fond.
Eddie grins at him. “Hey,” he says. “For the next couple of months, so are you.”
But the truth is, Eddie reflects as Lucas and Buck re-emerge with slices of a cored Gala leftover from Buck’s cake-making endeavors, he doesn’t think Apple is going to be much trouble at all.
Lucas gets on his knees in front of her and carefully offers her a slice of apple in his palm.
“No seeds,” he says to her, conversationally. “Daddy says the seeds are tonic.”
“Toxic,” Buck chuckles softly.
“Toxic,” Lucas repeats. “Here, Apple. This is apple. Like you!”
She noses against his palm, sniffling softly, and then— to Lucas’s delight— takes the apple into her mouth with a crunch.
“She likes it!” Lucas giggles.
“How about you share it with her?” Buck asks. “Some slices for you and some for Apple.”
“Okay,” Lucas agrees. He sits on the grass with her and she lays patiently next to him, looking up with big trusting brown eyes and waiting for her next slice until the whole thing is gone.
They coax Lucas into his bath, which is difficult to do when all he wants is to run around with Apple in the backyard. Eddie plies him with the promise of a small surprise for him and Apple afterward, and he agrees. While Buck is helping Lucas with his bath, his teeth, and his pajamas, Eddie lets Apple have free roam of the house. She sniffs around a bit, but then she just lays at his feet as if she knows exactly where she belongs.
Eddie reaches down to pet her behind her soft ears and smiles a little.
“Good girl,” he says softly, and she nudges his hand like she understands him.
At the sound of the bathroom door, she perks up, and when Lucas— freshly bathed, smelling like berry shampoo with his curls damp— comes into the room, she gets up with her tail wagging.
Buck smiles, looking over at Eddie.
“Did my bath!” Lucas announces, standing expectantly in front of Eddie.
“Okay,” Eddie laughs. “Here. This is a present for you a little bit, but it’s mostly a present for Apple.”
He reaches down into the bag that’s at his feet from the pet store, and pulls out the duck toy he’d grabbed at the last minute.
Lucas lights up at the sight of it, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “A duckie!” he exclaims. “Just like mine!”
Buck, who has never quite gotten over Duckie’s not entirely anatomically correct structure, scoffs.
“Not exactly,” he says quietly as Eddie laughs, but Lucas is far too preoccupied with holding the toy out to Apple to even notice anything his parents are saying.
Apple bites down on the toy gently and gives it a little shake, which makes Lucas laugh, and then they’re off again in a world of their own. It’s sort of incredible how quickly it happens, how much love there can be between them when they’ve only known each other for a matter of hours.
But then again, Eddie thinks as he leans into Buck on the couch— that’s how it had been for them when they met Lucas, too. Love at first sight. So he can’t exactly fault Apple for that.
They let the evening stretch as long as they can, but soon it’s Lucas’s bedtime. He protests, but they divide and conquer— Buck brings Apple to the back door to let her out briefly while Eddie picks Lucas up and carries him first to Chris’s room to say goodnight and then to bed. By this time, the back door has closed again and they go to Lucas’s room with Apple trailing along behind them. They run through the usual nighttime routine involving a bedtime book and an elaborate tucking-in that Eddie will gladly do for as long as Lucas lets them.
“Did you have a good birthday?” Eddie asks him afterward as he sits on the edge of Lucas’s bed, stroking his curls off of his forehead.
Lucas nods. Duckie is tucked into his arms now, and he’s snuggled in beneath his blankets, and it’s hard to believe that he’s officially five years old.
“I love being five,” he yawns, his face scrunching adorably.
“I’m so glad to hear that, baby,” Eddie laughs lightly. “Time to sleep now, okay?”
“Okay,” Lucas says. He turns his head toward Buck as Buck leans in and kisses his temple, and then he looks between them again. “Can Apple sleep with me, too?”
They all turn to look. Apple is sitting in Lucas’s bedroom doorway, almost as if she’s been waiting to be invited in.
“Well,” Buck says, “we don’t know where Apple likes to sleep yet, ‘cause we just got her. But we’ll leave your door open so she can come in if she wants to or go out to get water. It’s important when we have a pet not to try to make them do something like that, okay?”
“Why?” Lucas asks curiously.
“Because we want Apple to be comfy,” Eddie explains. “It’s her house, too, so she gets to choose some things. Just like you get to choose some things but other things grown-ups have to decide.”
“Okay,” Lucas agrees.
But in the end, it seems like it was all for nothing anyway. As soon as Eddie stands up from the bed, Apple comes over and leaps up onto it, turning in a circle and then settling herself at Lucas’s feet. She drops her head down onto her paws with a small huff, clearly intent on staying a while.
Lucas beams up at them. “She loves me!” he says.
Buck smiles, all tenderness. “Of course she does,” he says softly, leaning in and kissing Lucas again. “And so do we.”
Eddie leans in, too, dropping a kiss of his own to their baby’s head. “Goodnight, baby. We love you so much,” he says, an echo of Buck’s words.
Lucas, looking warm and drowsy and just a little younger than five, buries his head into the pillow.
“I love you,” he mumbles, and just like that he’s mostly asleep.
Buck and Eddie ease gently out of the room, standing in the dark hallway and looking in at the scene— Lucas slipping into sleep after a long day of turning five, and Apple dutifully curled up with him.
Buck winds an arm around Eddie’s waist and Eddie leans into the solid warmth of him, turning his head and dropping a kiss to his shoulder.
“You can say it,” Buck whispers.
Eddie huffs. “You were right, Buck.”
Buck nods smugly, but his body tells another story: he softens all over, tugging Eddie impossibly closer and kissing his cheek.
“You did good picking the dog, though,” he says.
Eddie looks back at Apple and Lucas and shakes his head.
“I think she picked us,” he admits.
Buck gasps softly. “Eddie Diaz,” he whispers. “Are you admitting that there’s a higher power?”
“No,” Eddie huffs.
“A divine force?” Buck tries again, backing down the hallway and coaxing Eddie with him.
Eddie rolls his eyes. “Take the win, bud.”
Buck grins, and then leans in and presses a kiss against Eddie’s mouth. “Always do,” he mumbles.
These days, Eddie does, too.