Really, send me soft prompts! Find the rest of the fills on ao3
Buck isn’t sure why he woke up until the sound of water hitting the roof filters past the clinging fog of sleep. Raining, again. It’s May now, the weather steadily warming every week, and he’d gotten out of the habit of checking the upcoming forecast obsessively. He didn’t think he was worried about it anymore, didn’t think he had to worry about it anymore. But here he is, laying awake listening to the sky dump buckets on the earth below. Buck breathes out. Eddie’s hand is curled warm against his side, their only point of contact. Buck squints over at him in the dark, just able to make out his calmly sleeping face. He’s drooling, just a little. Buck stays there awhile, breathing with him, then sighs and gets up, padding quietly out to the kitchen.
The sound is different out here. Not quieter exactly, just the sharp ping of rain off the window rather than the dull roar of it on the roof tiles. Buck puts fresh water in the electric kettle that now lives next to the Hildy, and then leans on the table and looks out into the backyard and keeps breathing. It’s been California’s wettest year on record since the 80s, which Buck thinks is a mean little joke of the universe.
“Again?”
Buck turns towards Eddie, who’s standing in the doorway and rubbing sleep from his eyes with one hand and gesturing, annoyed, out at the weather with the other. Buck hums. “Apparently.”
The kettle is whistling faster, near boiling. Eddie rummages in the cabinet and brings down the big mug with scooby doo on it and the mint tea. He puts the bag in the mug, along with a generous heap of sugar, and pours in the water, stirring a little half heartedly. He brings the mug over and sets it on the table behind Buck, steam gently warming his back, and then wraps his arms around him. Buck drops his head and smiles into his shoulder.
“You okay?”
“Yeah,” Buck sighs. He drapes his arms around Eddie. “I’m not… I keep thinking about it, and I’m not really afraid. I guess sort of... nervous? But even that’s not it.” He leans back enough to look at Eddie, furrowing his brow and trying to stick his thoughts together. “It’s like… I keep wondering if I’m scared, but there’s just a little blank space in there where I think the fear would be, and I keep moving around the edge and poking it. I’m not afraid but I keep thinking about it and it’s distracting, I guess, so maybe the effect is the same.”
Eddie gives him a contemplative sort of kiss. “Don’t tell Bobby you’re incapable of feeling fear, he’s never gonna let you on a ladder truck again.”
Buck laughs a little, and holds Eddie closer. The noise outside gets louder, and they both turn to watch it.
“It’s really coming down,” Eddie says in the soft and gently surprised tone of someone who’s lived in California through a drought.
“Yeah,” Buck agrees. He’ll have to check on the little vegetable garden in the morning. Chris had been so excited to make pasta sauce with things they grew themselves, it would be a shame if the freshly planted tomatoes and squash got flooded out.
Eddie looks at him again, sliding his hand up to rest his thumb at the pulse in Buck’s neck. “I’ll be afraid for you, if you don’t want to be.”
Buck bites the inside of his lip a little, watching Eddie’s face. He hadn’t turned any lights on, it’s just the streetlights and ambient brightness of the city at night coming through the window to paint him in shapes with soft edges. “You’re sweet.”
“For you,” Eddie smiles a little, and pulls Buck away from the table and starts swaying with him. Buck drops his hands to Eddie’s waist and dances with him like they’re at senior prom, a little too close, a little clumsy. They rest their heads together as they move in slow circles, and when Eddie hums tunelessly Buck feels it buzzing in his own skull.
The downpour becomes a little less torrential, eventually, and their tea is getting cold. Eddie takes a sip out of the mug, the biggest one they have, the one for sharing, and hands it to Buck.
“Dunno if I’ll sleep again,” Buck says, telling Eddie to go back to bed.
“Close enough to morning,” Eddie says, refusing to be told. “We can wait on the couch.
“Okay.” Buck kisses the word into Eddie’s mouth and follows Eddie to the living room, where they wait for the rain to end and the sun to rise.
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